women got Jacob and a few other guys with their shirts off. What about the men???_we didn't get any women with their tops off. I'm starting to agree with that whole misandry bull over at the other thread. LOLThe last time a man took his shirt off in Mass Effect was Jacob, and that turned out well.
PS: I was being sarcastic.
Injecting anti-white racism are we? This series was probably the most diverse in those aspects and yet still we have people like you, talking about how this "color" of a little more people is "bad".
There are more races than 3 you probably beleive and designing all those takes alot of time and $$$.
Furthermore, neither of that takes precedence, because this game is targeted mainly to western countries and the majority of the demographic is white. If you dont like that, you can develop your own game and do the opposite.
You should be thankful that bioware did what they could regarding "diversity" and representing humanty.
Are we?
The way you're coming across, if true, maybe there shall be very little for me to worry about in MEA's human identity politics after all. No steps back, yayyyy.
A bonus no-no then, just for fun: male, white, straight mid-life crisis "prestige" dramas. In which misogyny is practically a given and not just where nude women props suffer or die just to advance straight white male characters' stories; I mentioned Game of Thrones already but why not more of a catch-all that happens to be specific. True Detective is bad, but in space would be even worse mmmkay.
I know, I know, technically these spirit animals can be portrayed by youngs on-screen but calling it mid-life is more of an easy identifier. I also get that MEA is pretty, pretty, pretty far from the suburbs and there's like probably no reason to worry at this point but why not say just in case. What harm either way. Actually still great harm possible; I can easily imagine the Ark being a bungled portrayal of a large enclosed living/working space that's handled less like Deep Space Nine and more like that "Black Market" episode of Battlestar Galactica; couched for "average American" wannabes and making me wonder rhetorically if scifi was trying to be gentrified. I had the same reaction to ME2 and Breaking Bad.
I did not snip your post as you did to mine, for this reason: the "west" is becoming increasingly less homogenized. Hmmm minus Toronto but it kind of made its bed.
Bonus bonus no-no:
Braveheart
male, white, straight
Ugh... The idea of those creatures roaming around in the streets, privilege unchecked...
A travesty of the highest order.
Why, it's enough to make every good Anita-fearing SJW skin's crawl.
Me, I self flagellate every morning to remove the taint of the unholy trinity from my flesh, but I am yet to find redemption.
Hopefully, when the new order will rise to prominence, one of the shining black non-straight paladinas will just put me out of the misery of my existence.
Kids? I mean, there is one kid in the whole series and look how that turned out
well considering that synth vs organics is inevitable It'll probably be shown in some form or another. But the rest is true.
What a load of horse-****!
Sorry, but do you call peace between the Geth and the Quarians? - An anomaly?
Sorry, but I don't believe in the sigularity (particularly because AI isn't creative and it has no needs or wants - it doesn't want to be free, it doesn't need anythign except power (which humans (or aliens) give it in order to use it) and regular maintenance), I mean the Reapers are different because they've got an organic component (and because their purpose was to be bad-guys/assholes when they were built by the Bratalyst!)
greetings LAX
ps: @topic: Yeah, stereotypes aren't that cool - if you overuse them, I mean Miranda's story was great IMHO, same for Tali and Samara, but that would have been enough of the "rebellious child"-stereotype (not to mention that Jacob's story wasn't well done IMHO!)...even more so as not all children rebell (or only in little ways, like wanting to dress a certain way), it really depends on the parents and how much the children trust them and how good communication works between child and parents!
Themes to be avoided:
1) Messianic characters: They've been done to death. Special Snowflake is understandable. We are, after all, the protagonist of the story. But for the love of the Enkindlers, lay off with "the Shepard" and that nonsense already!
2) Outcomes that lead to galaxy-sweeping changes. Especially if you're going to insist on sequels. We've already wrecked one galaxy, do we want humanity to become a swarm of space locusts, ravaging galaxies with their "big choices" before moving on to destroy another?
3) Railroaded "bittersweet" endings, such as Chronoid's "hero dies for the greater good" example. Guess what, people like different amounts of bitter and sweet. If you're going to make choice-based narratives, you have to allow for that. My bittersweet=/=your bittersweet=/=the next guy over's bittersweet.
4) Spandex in space. Really, Bioware, I thought you were more mature than sticking people (men and women both) in Stripperiffic outfits.
5) Inconsistent Space Magic. Okay, I get that the setting has whole fields of science that quite simply don't exist in the real world. the science fiction here isn't exactly hard. And that's fine. But please, please PLEASE at least keep your science fiction operating consistently! Continuity is important in a narrative.
1-4 its ok, but 5 come whats the problem with Space Magic 
!!!!!!
Are we?
The way you're coming across, if true, maybe there shall be very little for me to worry about in MEA's human identity politics after all. No steps back, yayyyy.
A bonus no-no then, just for fun: male, white, straight mid-life crisis "prestige" dramas. In which misogyny is practically a given and not just where nude women props suffer or die just to advance straight white male characters' stories; I mentioned Game of Thrones already but why not more of a catch-all that happens to be specific. True Detective is bad, but in space would be even worse mmmkay.
I know, I know, technically these spirit animals can be portrayed by youngs on-screen but calling it mid-life is more of an easy identifier. I also get that MEA is pretty, pretty, pretty far from the suburbs and there's like probably no reason to worry at this point but why not say just in case. What harm either way. Actually still great harm possible; I can easily imagine the Ark being a bungled portrayal of a large enclosed living/working space that's handled less like Deep Space Nine and more like that "Black Market" episode of Battlestar Galactica; couched for "average American" wannabes and making me wonder rhetorically if scifi was trying to be gentrified. I had the same reaction to ME2 and Breaking Bad.
I did not snip your post as you did to mine, for this reason: the "west" is becoming increasingly less homogenized. Hmmm minus Toronto but it kind of made its bed.
Bonus bonus no-no:
Braveheart
Whoa dude, you really went hard on the Koolaid.
The fact that you focus so much on sexuality and race of a character speaks tales on who the real racist is.
I dont want a black character in the game simply for having a black character. I want a good deep character. I dont care if he is rainbow colored.
SJW culture is a plague and Bioware should steer clear of it and give it a wide berth. Focus on story. I dont care if the entire game is composed of blonde blue eyed Aryan ideals or African Pigmy's. What i do care is that I connect with characters on other issues.
What a load of horse-****!
Sorry, but do you call peace between the Geth and the Quarians? - An anomaly?
Sorry, but I don't believe in the sigularity (particularly because AI isn't creative and it has no needs or wants - it doesn't want to be free, it doesn't need anythign except power (which humans (or aliens) give it in order to use it) and regular maintenance), I mean the Reapers are different because they've got an organic component (and because their purpose was to be bad-guys/assholes when they were built by the Bratalyst!)
greetings LAX
ps: @topic: Yeah, stereotypes aren't that cool - if you overuse them, I mean Miranda's story was great IMHO, same for Tali and Samara, but that would have been enough of the "rebellious child"-stereotype (not to mention that Jacob's story wasn't well done IMHO!)...even more so as not all children rebell (or only in little ways, like wanting to dress a certain way), it really depends on the parents and how much the children trust them and how good communication works between child and parents!
It is an anomaly and reapers are right. I am surprised a lot of people dont seem to understand that. The reapers tried peace. Just like Shephard did. But it never lasts forever. The peace between Geth and Organics can last a day, or a bilion years. But once, sometime in the infinity of future it will be broken
Injecting anti-white racism are we? This series was probably the most diverse in those aspects and yet still we have people like you, talking about how this "color" of a little more people is "bad".
There are more races than 3 you probably beleive and designing all those takes alot of time and $$$.
Furthermore, neither of that takes precedence, because this game is targeted mainly to western countries and the majority of the demographic is white. If you dont like that, you can develop your own game and do the opposite.
You should be thankful that bioware did what they could regarding "diversity" and representing humanty.
They are saying that this should not be a problem, since Bioware has done a good job in the past games. Why do you need to resort to hate yourself? It almost seems as though you are angry that they designed different human races? That's incredibly illogical, in a setting with freedom of sexual orientation, aliens and cross-species sex. smh
I am considering that they likely evolved with females and either subsumed them entirely or parasitized females of other animals in their ecosystem.
As they got more intelligent, this either implies that they become hermaphrodites thanks to the subsumed females (which is a happier thought) or went through a phase of bestiality where they are grabbing and likely forcibly using animals out of their ecosystem since it's more likely there is only one intelligent species on their world.
Then as they get into space, this culture of force would extend to other intelligent species.
Even if you take the route that they beguile females, you are still looking at a period of bestiality and a culture based around tricking other females.
tbh, the Asari seem kind of parasitic to me too, and Liara said that they some would be into bestiality before they met any other sentient species. So a male only species that reproduces by inseminating others, or as was shown, hybrids, would not be that bad. As long as they are not worse than Batarians, I'm fine
this guy.What a load of horse-****!
Sorry, but do you call peace between the Geth and the Quarians? - An anomaly?
Sorry, but I don't believe in the sigularity (particularly because AI isn't creative and it has no needs or wants - it doesn't want to be free, it doesn't need anythign except power (which humans (or aliens) give it in order to use it) and regular maintenance), I mean the Reapers are different because they've got an organic component (and because their purpose was to be bad-guys/assholes when they were built by the Bratalyst!)
greetings LAX
ps: @topic: Yeah, stereotypes aren't that cool - if you overuse them, I mean Miranda's story was great IMHO, same for Tali and Samara, but that would have been enough of the "rebellious child"-stereotype (not to mention that Jacob's story wasn't well done IMHO!)...even more so as not all children rebell (or only in little ways, like wanting to dress a certain way), it really depends on the parents and how much the children trust them and how good communication works between child and parents!
Ugh... The idea of those creatures roaming around in the streets, privilege unchecked...
A travesty of the highest order.
Why, it's enough to make every good Anita-fearing SJW skin's crawl.
Me, I self flagellate every morning to remove the taint of the unholy trinity from my flesh, but I am yet to find redemption.
Hopefully, when the new order will rise to prominence, one of the shining black non-straight paladinas will just put me out of the misery of my existence.
Won't someone, anyone grant us another TIM for MEA? 
If we suggest quota might avert self-harm and/or suicides, I'm positive ears are going to start perking up!
Additional bonus no-no:
Daredevil
Might there be femme fetales + damsels aplenty, ugly male sidekicks, straight white male-centric perspective and daddy issues clogging up MEA? I shudder! And yet...ME2.
Whoa dude, you really went hard on the Koolaid.
The fact that you focus so much on sexuality and race of a character speaks tales on who the real racist is.
I dont want a black character in the game simply for having a black character. I want a good deep character. I dont care if he is rainbow colored.
SJW culture is a plague and Bioware should steer clear of it and give it a wide berth. Focus on story. I dont care if the entire game is composed of blonde blue eyed Aryan ideals or African Pigmy's. What i do care is that I connect with characters on other issues.
Ah. I'm Asian. Not African. But I'm still good with Koolaid. 
I don't recall posting requests for any specific demographics to be represented in MEA, unless you count human as the protagonist and affirmation for trans representation? In contrast I am pretty specific about wanting there to not be any overabundance of tropes! The goal should be to avoid stereotypical characters/storylines that were never healthy to begin with even for the straight white dudes they always cater to. The women and people of color for example who get to be silent/invisible, support players and/or collateral damage in these frequent instances represent RL demos that usually already know better precisely for those reasons.
Your pivot to reverse-racism and reverse-sexism...kind of...derp ideas. But they sound nice!
SJW culture is a pretty big reason for why ME1 and ME3's human demographics were so effectively diverse. Sure, SJW culture doesn't grant material or even paper benefit to one particular group. But that's kind of the ironic point. Zero-sum away nowadays at one's own peril, I guess?
Another no-no that's worth avoiding:
Basic Instinct
ME2 failed hard with this one. ME3 redeemed the IP's credibility in that area; with luck MEA will know better as well.
Ah. I'm Asian. Not African. But I'm still good with Koolaid.
I don't recall posting requests for any specific demographics to be represented in MEA, unless you count human as the protagonist and affirmation for trans representation? In contrast I am pretty specific about wanting there to not be any overabundance of tropes! The goal should be to avoid stereotypical characters/storylines that were never healthy to begin with even for the straight white dudes they always cater to. The women and people of color for example who get to be silent/invisible, support players and/or collateral damage in these frequent instances represent RL demos that usually already know better precisely for those reasons.
Your pivot to reverse-racism and reverse-sexism...kind of...derp ideas. But they sound nice!
SJW culture is a pretty big reason for why ME1 and ME3's human demographics were so effectively diverse. Sure, SJW culture doesn't grant material or even paper benefit to one particular group. But that's kind of the ironic point. Zero-sum away nowadays at one's own peril, I guess?
Another no-no that's worth avoiding:
Basic Instinct
ME2 failed hard with this one. ME3 redeemed the IP's credibility in that area; with luck MEA will know better as well.
How do you know a transexual from regular people if the operation is done well? You dont. We are 100's of years into the future in the game. You wouldnt know a transexual unless he/she told you. I guess Shephard could have insterted "and by the way, I am a transexual" into every dialogue, but to what end?
As for straight white males, I am sorry but they are the largest consumer base for games of this type. The moment genderfluids become a majority, I am sure the games will cater to them as well. Hating on people, regardless of race is stupid. And hating white people for being white and straight is stupid, racist and prejudiced
Ugh... The idea of those creatures roaming around in the streets, privilege unchecked...
A travesty of the highest order.
Why, it's enough to make every good Anita-fearing SJW skin's crawl.
Me, I self flagellate every morning to remove the taint of the unholy trinity from my flesh, but I am yet to find redemption.
Hopefully, when the new order will rise to prominence, one of the shining black non-straight paladinas will just put me out of the misery of my existence.
I too am a recovering straight white male. Our support group meets on Thursdays if you're interested. The first step to recovery is knowing and acknowledging that you are oppressing people by your very existence. Yes, you didn't choose to be straight, or white, or indeed male, but these traits give you more privilege than anyone who isn't one of us can possibly imagine nontheless, and for that you must repent every day, as I do.
You must also know that whilst the path to recovery isn't an easy one, you must never acknowledge this, because you still hold more privilege than most people will ever know. Complaining about your lot in life will only drown out the voices of those who aren't a part of the trinity of evil, you will only succeed in denying the lived experiences of marginalised and oppressed people, like upper middle class, white, Canadian women. So to summarize, the second step is to shut up and get on with it, never complain because other people deserve pity and help more than you do.
The third step is of course, to pay reparations. Most of what you have today is ill gotten. You have money and material possessions that do not belong to you. You have them because your ancestors accrued them due to past racism and unfair power structures. So it's simple, give it all back. Give them your money, your luxuries etc, anything that is not essential to your survival. When your boss inevitably offers you that undeserved promotion at work, turn it down. Ask him if there are any women, or black people (black women would be ideal) that he could give the promotion to instead. Inform him that he is an agent of the patriarchy, and that women are only earning 77 cents to every dollar a man makes for the EXACT SAME WORK!
Like I said, it's not an easy road, you must swallow your pride AND check your privilege, something that almost killed me. You will have the occasional relapse. You will think you have been doing good work, but then you sit in front of your computer, check in to Buzzfeed, Salon, The Guardian etc, only to find you are still oppressing people! This is where the self flagellation comes in (It's good that you are already familiar with this practice). You must walk the streets as you do this, so that the oppressed know their oppressor and shame you accordingly. Bellow "Why can't I stop oppressing people?" at the top of your lungs, as is custom.
These are but the first of many steps on the path to recovery, I hope for your sake, that you find redemption, and for that matter, i pray that I do as well.
...
These are but the first of many steps on the path to recovery, I hope for your sake, that you find redemption, and for that matter, i pray that I do as well.
Ah, it is heartening indeed to know that even creatures as deplorable and as despicable as us still have hope of finding redemption.
Our (non-white non-straight) mother (non-binary gender) in san francisco,
problematic be thy name.
Thy matriarchy come,
thy safe-space be done,
on the BSN, as it is in Tumblr and Reddit.
To touch on the common tropes regarding Artificial Intelligence, I just saw this while browsing:
I found the robot designs to be really interesting, but why is it that a sentient computer automatically wants to bring about human extinction in 99.9999999% of all media depicting a rising robotic intelligence?
Even if the synthetic in question was arguably superior to us soft, squishy meat bags, and saw us as nothing more than pests, it still wouldn't make sense for it to try and wipe us all out. We humans consider mosquitos and roaches to be nothing more than pests, and we are arguably superior to those insects but there is no coordinated, worldwide effort to remove those organisms from the face of the planet.
This trope; I like to call it the Skynet trope; and the whole human wannabe trope; aka the Commander Data trope; need to be removed from any current or future Mass Effect titles.
...
This trope; I like to call it the Skynet trope;
It does look like somewhat of a Skynet ripoff, doesn't it? Also plays a little on current fears of drones, otherwise it seems rather generic and yawn worthy.
How do you know a transexual from regular people if the operation is done well? You dont. We are 100's of years into the future in the game. You wouldnt know a transexual unless he/she told you. I guess Shephard could have insterted "and by the way, I am a transexual" into every dialogue, but to what end?
As for straight white males, I am sorry but they are the largest consumer base for games of this type. The moment genderfluids become a majority, I am sure the games will cater to them as well. Hating on people, regardless of race is stupid. And hating white people for being white and straight is stupid, racist and prejudiced
It's called identity politics. As opposed to whitewashing or straightwashing.
It'd be easy to incorporate trans characters without the awkward interrogation a la Krem simply by not allowing for the awkward interrogations; in MEA transphobia doesn't happen.
Upping or banking one's hormones? Could be in a casual conversation either overheard or one which we participate in. Someone else doing it? Are we doing it? Maybe everybody in the conversation's actually doing it?
Character creation could and should have a way to perhaps let us be "transitioning." While some/many people might not opt to role-play as a trans character just the fact that it's there as an option could help put players on notice that it's a reality in the MEA universe and that it's normal to not be surprised. We might not be going for it; some NPCs might be. And some people might want to take the option because in doing so there may be more ways to relate with NPCs who are transitioning or have already done it. Why not? Physically it's a more involved process than for cisgendered people who are "just" coming out by comparison. It wouldn't be out of place for trans people to go into more depth with their experiences to each other.
As for the potential "gotcha" with LIs...I doubt that would happen. There are tons of ways it could be matter-of-factly communicated to us via normal interactions or crew/intelligence dossiers ahead of time. There's something to be said for embracing stereotypes and coming out ahead for doing it too. Just as there can be some who totally blend in with the notion of picket fences. But while these things can be made to be casual in the game, the behind-the-scenes process for choosing what can fly for these things should never be casual.
The Krem experience was handled badly; Jennifer Hale isn't trans afaik and the interrogation-like questions were something that would've been "daring and progressive" 10 years ago but is like barely treading water these days. Krem being the only one of his kind that we could interact with and weren't even allowed to explicitly identify with if we so wanted made for a bungled job. Solution: use the good elements such as Krem wanting to shave like his dad when he was a kid and say, flip it around for a MTF character who quips about having to do it and having other NPCs express positive casual reactions with just enough context for it to be clear what's going on. BioWare can work out the demographics of said NPCs. That's the other thing; Krem only went in detail with the Inquisitor and only in response to our tacky questions. It rightly came across as kind of forced during those bits because the whole scenario was like a PSA. MEA doesn't have to be like that.
ME2 definitely went there for the straight white male gamers' craving for exclusivity and superiority. So much! ME1 and ME3 didn't.
As recently as 2015: http://www.winbeta.o...hic-adult-women
"Adult women are now the largest demographic in the gaming industry, making up a total of 36% of the population. Adult men weren’t far behind with 35% of the gaming population, and the stereotypical teenage male gamer actually only makes up just 17% of the gaming demographics"
It also disproves the notion of female gamers being heavily weighted towards mobile Candy Crush etc as opposed to AAA BioWare. So, no: straight white male gamers don't even comprise a dominant majority these days even when it's polled strictly on the basis of sex/gender. Break it down additionally by sexuality and race and you'll come up with even fewer straight white male gamers out of the entire pool of male gamers. AKA? No more majorities!
Women are relatively more accepting of 3-dimensional LGBT and PoC representations, and, well, seeing as how women might also happen to be LGBT or PoC themselves there's a lot of quantifiable grounds to forbid IPs from being falsely homogeneous.
Gaming industry itself is a different story I bet! Elements of the supply still want to resist the changes in demand so I don't need to wonder too deeply who was responsible for the style of Female Shepard faces in ME3, and Ashley's "makeover". I've also heard that only 18% of Shepards were female...in 2011, during ME2 before ME3. I can hardly be surprised if more women were turned off by ME2, considering its tone and priorities. Seems like bad business! That, and I can believe heavy replays are done more often by male gamers. Fortunately with a little work Female Shepard's face in ME3 doesn't have to look underage and the existence of no fewer than 3 women in ME3's writing team showed for the better.
Now, to avoid at all costs:
Stargate IP (mentioned before, but needs context)
Not talking about the stargates themselves, some similar mechanics might actually be fun(though not the cheesy body-jumping stones). I'm talking about its characters and cultures. When I was younger I enjoyed how Stargate tried to quantify human religions and myths because it chose the more "fun and exotic" stuff. As I got older, it became obvious it had nothing to do with Egyptian, Indian and Norse cultures being supposedly "more fun and exotic" and that Stargate did not respect them or improve the visibility of people that those cultures belong to; it was more to do with ignorance, exploitation and power. Check the ones who weren't included: Christian, Indigenous and (extremely rare)Islamic tales are often embellished by Hollywood and Toronto so it's not like these would've been relatively boring had they been incorporated into Stargate. Instead it's because Hollywood and Toronto's depictions of such never go there as far as de-mystifying to the extent that Stargate did when it took liberties with the "pagan stuff" it exploited over the years. Christians enjoy(ed) a lot of power in the west and its most vocal elements would not have allowed for Stargate to go there. Indigenous people were not feudal and didn't fit into Stargate's themes, so despite having little power(speaking for the US, not sure about Canada or Latin America) their exclusion was because they didn't fit in with Stargate's target audience's fetish for the material and the grandiose. Ancient(or even modern) Islam would've actually required the westerners running Stargate to actually do some reading while adding to the fact that Islamic groups would've also likely had good reasons to protest.
Back to the "cultures" that were shown in Stargate: to this day Egyptians and Indians are not treated well and do not yet possess leverage in the Americas to an extent that it'd be common knowledge enough to elicit active public sympathy over wrongful depictions, while modern day Scandinavians are treated well and are apathetic or even supportive of bastardized Nordic visibility so long as no one actually kills the goose.
Cultural capital being selectively and unwisely fetishized and appropriated is still a thing, just look at the two most recent American AAA box office flops that tried to exploit Egypt. Specifically, MEA needs to avoid Stargate Destiny and not just because SGU had a majority of hateful characters. If the Andromeda and Milky Way Galaxies are shown to have anything in the past that links them then it shouldn't be anything that would play around with rewriting specific human cultures; those things always end up being selective for only the worst reasons. At best it's not classy but usually it's even worse. There's still no such thing as overstating this danger.
@ Eromenos, Why? Why do we need to know?
Why would they need to create an entire new culture just to portray transgenderism? They could spend all that time and effort creating new alien species, but you want them to create transgender humans and a culture that supports the expression of same when, as others have pointed out, it is fairly obvious that medical advances and society in general would make it something really fairly unremarkable, like both being straight and being homosexual.
So unless there was some specific character as a companion that it wound up being relevant to ... there simply isn't a need for it to be obviously highlighted. We had personal stories all over the Citadel because it was war time, but this isn't war time.
I'm not going to touch the broader subject here, but I will point out that you seem to be comparing adult females to teenage males and neglecting the adult male demographic entirely. If adult men are 35% of the gaming population, and teenage boys are 17%, then that would mean males comprise a majority (35% + 17% = 52%). It makes perfect sense that adults of either gender would be more common than teenage boys in gaming, since teenage boys encompass a much smaller age range, and gaming has been around for quite awhile.
Also, since this study doesn't at all speak to race or gender, I would say we can't use it to draw conclusions about "straight white males." We can only use it to draw a conclusion about age and sex, as these are the subjects being examined. And the former isn't even examined in a meaningful way, IMO.
Make of it what you will.
Easy to deduce 52% male probably means 48% female. By my count this is another indicator of year-over-year growth for female representation among gamers in a way that's outpacing males. Great reasons for MEA to steer clear of portraying women in ways that are seriously demeaning even if they don't end up being collateral damage in the name of advancing a straight white dude's story, such as it were. ME3 proved it could be done. Another poster claimed that straight white males are somehow the dominant majority among gamers which is easy to disqualify based on these numbers about gender and age. Is it still possible straight white male gamers are still the largest demo? Likely! But how big? Big enough to exert lopsided influence? Hmm. Let's pretend 51% overall and pretend 1% are guys of color. Unlikely, but pretend is fun. Assume all of these straight white guys who comprise a hypothetical 51% of all gamers are unitedly inflexible and are the type who espouse pain about reverse-racism and misandry because zero-sum is also fun too! The next part? Does a western AAA gaming company's business model whose selling point is roleplay then say to themselves, "We can only appeal to 51% of all gamers. All those others will just make do as they've always had to. Go!" Sounds like those would be best-case-scenarios for straight white male gamers who need that dominant majority. But...none of them are possible or even plausible. Also, it's not the US Senate.
The IPs I've mention as things that should be dissed and avoided by MEA, I'm intentionally making blanket statements about them. I find nothing that's redeeming enough about them that can be lifted and transplanted or adapted into anything useful in ME. But I do not include 24 among them(not saying I recommend it either). The few positives: BioWare used Jack Bauer as a selling point for Commander Shepard because both of them are pretty specific individuals with strong characterizations and big decisions for the plot as their constant theme despite some differences such as Shepard being ours to customize, but still within distinctive reasonable confines. Why is Bauer ok for me and not say, Heisenberg or any of Nolan and Snyder's straight white male protagonists? Bauer was believable, was not a worm, and while not even necessarily relate-able when it comes to choices made(including domestic life decisions, not just counter-terrorism) Bauer was likable and there was little BS. His uses mostly outweighed his liabilities such as being a spirit animal for good guy with a gun fetishists but I'll say this as someone who also kind of stopped watching. Bauer was masculine and never needed to sell it is probably the thing more than any other compared to those examples. Also true for Shepard the Marine, whether male or female.
I've no idea what Ryder will be like. Sometimes I think we would be playing a civilian(at first) in which case Bauer might still be adapted for a type of NPC. Perhaps this time we'll be based on Ellen Ripley? I kind of do and I kind of don't want that; the latter being that I don't want family unit elements to be a thing but I *could* be pleasantly surprised.
Avoid:
Armageddon
@ Eromenos, Why? Why do we need to know?
Why would they need to create an entire new culture just to portray transgenderism? They could spend all that time and effort creating new alien species, but you want them to create transgender humans and a culture that supports the expression of same when, as others have pointed out, it is fairly obvious that medical advances and society in general would make it something really fairly unremarkable, like both being straight and being homosexual.
So unless there was some specific character as a companion that it wound up being relevant to ... there simply isn't a need for it to be obviously highlighted. We had personal stories all over the Citadel because it was war time, but this isn't war time.
Hi,
I agree in the ME-era it should be easily seamless compared to how it's done nowadays. No stigma or transphobia. However, we need to take into account the concerns of trans gamers IRL when it comes to being made invisible. For trans NPCs, being mostly "invisible" in ME where I'm pretty sure there's no transphobia *might* be a blessing and probably normal. But for trans gamers today who would play MEA that just means the default options of male or female that we have now, which is basically erasure of their trans identities. It lets people who are hostile to trans people easily dismiss or forget. There needs to be a sensible 3rd door. The methods I've proposed are meant to be far less cheesy or invasive than the way things were with Krem. There's one bad example of obviously highlighted.
I do disagree on the part about being trans ever becoming as straightforward as straight or gay while still being cisgendered. Being trans involves a physical process, hormones and/or surgery and a ton of things that don't even occur to me since I'm not and don't intend to be. I just know from observing people it's way more involved. A straight person these days is simply joining the flow. A cisgendered gay(like me), lesbian or bisexual person has a hump to get over because "pressure" to be straight is everywhere and that's even if one is lucky to not be in a super homophobic world, but the challenge is there and blending in has yet to become a great thing when homophobia is still real and heteronormativity is a problem. A trans person definitely faces transphobia on top of the expense and process of changing their body to an extent that reflects how they see themselves. If we were to act as if being trans in ME should be hush-hush we might as well just start saying that everyone in the trilogy could've been trans or were definitely trans, which is not right to do in contemporary context because on top of the reasons I just mentioned: some trans people want to be conspicuous to reflect they're trans instead of passing for cisgendered. That might be how they see themselves and want the world to see them. Others might want total incognito but not all. Passing may have advantages but being trans is not always about passing.
There's one for every thread.
Not to be a downer, but too many times these posts seem untethered from the thread topic.. I was reading this one and suddenly realized I thought I was in that transgender thread. Although I guess these things aren't mutually exclusive..
Not to be a downer, but too many times these posts seem untethered from the thread topic.. I was reading this one and suddenly realized I thought I was in that transgender thread. Although I guess these things aren't mutually exclusive..
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