7455 réponses à ce sujet

[didymos1120]

OK....

Argument the first:

1. Parthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction. 
2. It is typically defined as development of an egg/ovum without fertilization. 
3. Females have eggs/ova.  Males fertilize.
 
Therefore, the Asari are asexual females.  They are girls. Q.E.D.

Argument the second:

1. Liara is an Asari.
2. Thus, Liara is, by definition, a girl.
3. Femshep is also, by definition, a girl. 

Therefore, Liara on Femshep = Girl on girl. Q.E.D.

To claim otherwise is simply wrong, even if you happen to be Casey Hudson. 

[cutthecameras]

Sabul wrote...

No one is saying Bioware hates anyone. Comparing a sexual orientation to nudism is rather silly. As well as transexuality and so on. These are not the same thing and far more difficult to have in a game. Not to mention have nothing to do with romance options.

I'm gonna go off-topic here briefly to illustrate my point.

I actually think transsexuality can be easily included in the game. One line of dialogue that can turn into an entire conversation if you were to befriend the character: "Shepard look, I was not born the person I now am. I had to fight to be recognized as a [insert man or woman here] but I'd rather not get into it okay?". And then when you get to know them better they elaborate. Hey, it might be interesting to see how something like transsexuality can evolve with humanity in the galactic stage.

The problem is it hasn't been done before and you can easily mess up and offend a lot of trans people. Transsexuality is very complex and hard to portray whereas Bioware have already proved themselves extremely capable in handling same-sex relationships.

[mothbanquet]

Hey everyone, glad to see the thread is still going strong and people are playing nice.  Keep up the support!

Modifié par mothbanquet, 27 février 2010 - 09:48 .

[danman2424]

Wittand25 wrote...

 You have nine (3*3)  possible backstories, which beats the eight of DA or the single one of JE. And as I and many others have already said ther is no reason for the limitation in the male Shepards romance options.
If there was just the male Shepard, (with the backstory of beeing straight like Gerald in the witcher) or if there was just one unavoidable romance per gender nearly noone would ask for the incluesion of same-sex romances.

Are you serious? That backstories mean absolutely nothing in Mass Effect. Literally zilch aside from one or two lines from random characters in the original. Even less in the sequel.

Modifié par danman2424, 27 février 2010 - 10:06 .

[Sabul]

Space Shot: I get the feeling she is talking about the m/m (Kaiden/Male Shepard) romance options as well as the Ashley/Female Shepard romances. The fully voiced and in some cases fully animated romances options from the first Mass Effect. They were disabled shortly before release but developed. Voices were recorded and scenes are coming out from ME2 as well.



Honestly I do not see where you are getting the desire for sex scenes from. Less that is just you trying to attack an argument by painting everyone with the same brush. That is a different topic and group of supporters.

[tyddrwsau]

Space Shot wrote...
They did no such thing. You can still maintain a homosexual relationship with Liara. You can flirt same sex crew members. Same sex relationships are freely passed in conversation and potentially to further "exploits" for the next game. There is even a mission where you purposefully advance a same sex relationship, which you can, as I understand it, advance to it's "unfortunate" end. The only difference between ME1 and ME2 is that there is no glorified sex scene between two members of the same sex, (which what I suspect is what you are really after given how little the subject is actually shied away from in the rest of the game.)

Nope, not after a sex scene here. If you read the thread, you'd see that many of us here have said as much, that we've had discussions about how silly it is that the Mass Effect romances are "all about the sex scene" (build up to it, then you're done!) and we're in favor of deeper character relationships in the games in general. This is not the "sex and nudity" thread, it's about same-sex romance and we'd like to have same-sex romantic narrative included.

As far as the "predetermined character" stuff goes, we keep on debunking that point. Most of that is summed up in our FAQ at the start of this thread, although we can rephrase it ad nauseam for anyone's benefit. "Predetermined character" is not a viable argument against same-sex romances. Much of Shepard's character is predefined, you're right! Other elements are not. Among those elements that are left to the players to determine are the gender and romantic interests of Commander Shepard. There's several choices on the menu. Just no male/male option.

We think it should be otherwise, and we all agree that it makes sense that any romance should be implemented in such a way that players don't find themselves wooing a character by accident. (Although Liara's creepy obsessive-crush has significant relevance to certain plot developments, Shepard need not reciprocate. These events are more easily explained when all players have witnessed the crush first hand.)

[Arik7]

mothbanquet wrote...

Hey everyone, glad to see the thread is still going strong and people are playing nice.  Keep up the support!

Hear hear! 

[Sabul]

cutthecameras wrote...

I'm gonna go off-topic here briefly to illustrate my point.

I actually think transsexuality can be easily included in the game. One line of dialogue that can turn into an entire conversation if you were to befriend the character: "Shepard look, I was not born the person I now am. I had to fight to be recognized as a [insert man or woman here] but I'd rather not get into it okay?". And then when you get to know them better they elaborate. Hey, it might be interesting to see how something like transsexuality can evolve with humanity in the galactic stage.

The problem is it hasn't been done before and you can easily mess up and offend a lot of trans people. Transsexuality is very complex and hard to portray whereas Bioware have already proved themselves extremely capable in handling same-sex relationships.

Eh, I just do not really see the point. Do not transsexual players usually play the gender they identify themselves as rather than their physical gender? If this is the case making a Shepard who is unhappy over his or her gender seems pointless and excessive as the character can be either gender to begin with. A gay male has no desire to be a female so it does not really work for both groups.

[Lightice_av]

Do not transsexual players usually play the gender they identify themselves as rather than their physical gender?

Indeed. Transsexuals typically see their condition as middle ground that's in process of being fixed into their true identity, rather than an identity in its own right. If they want to identify with a game avatar, they pick one of the gender they perceive themselves as.

[didymos1120]

Sabul wrote...

cutthecameras wrote...

I'm gonna go off-topic here briefly to illustrate my point.

I actually think transsexuality can be easily included in the game. One line of dialogue that can turn into an entire conversation if you were to befriend the character: "Shepard look, I was not born the person I now am. I had to fight to be recognized as a [insert man or woman here] but I'd rather not get into it okay?". And then when you get to know them better they elaborate. Hey, it might be interesting to see how something like transsexuality can evolve with humanity in the galactic stage.

The problem is it hasn't been done before and you can easily mess up and offend a lot of trans people. Transsexuality is very complex and hard to portray whereas Bioware have already proved themselves extremely capable in handling same-sex relationships.

Eh, I just do not really see the point. Do not transsexual players usually play the gender they identify themselves as rather than their physical gender? If this is the case making a Shepard who is unhappy over his or her gender seems pointless and excessive as the character can be either gender to begin with. A gay male has no desire to be a female so it does not really work for both groups.

Umm, reread the hypothetical dialogue:  it's about a transsexual NPC, not a TransShep.

[danman2424]

Sabul wrote...

danman2424 wrote...

Yet your choices are still limited. The choice to be a nudist Shepard is not in the game. Is it because Bioware hates nudists? Probably not. Why is there no option to play a transsexual or hermaphrodite Shepard? Surely Bioware had plenty of time to offer the player unlimited choices in shaping their Shepard, right? Wrong. In the end, not only would the options have taken too much time to appease a small subset of the audience, but they would've likely been entirely inappropriate in the context of the game.

I don't know why it's so hard to understand that Shepard's choices are certainly not unlimited nor is Shepard a completely blank slate. Believe it or not, most of the game is completely out of the player's  control.

The problem with the argument of it taking too much time or resources to develop this content is they did anyways. In Mass Effect the m/m option and both f/f options were all but finished and disabled shortly before release. Dialog recorded, scenes animated, implemented into the game. These things can still be found on the game disks and reactivated by modderes. It was even found that the voices were recorded for m/m and f/f options in ME2 once again to be disable.

No one is saying Bioware hates anyone. Comparing a sexual orientation to nudism is rather silly. As well as transexuality and so on. These are not the same thing and far more difficult to have in a game. Not to mention have nothing to do with romance options.

I have not seen much evidence that gay romances were completely finished for the game. Even if they were, as I said above, that wouldn't mean that they come off as appropriate.

I don't think comparing nudism to homosexuality is anymore silly than comparing homosexuality to race, which many often try to pass as direct equivalents. in fact I think nudists are far better comparisons because like homosexuality, a member of any race can be one, but a nudist/homosexual cannot be a member of any race.

I'd also argue that nudism and "transsexuality" would be far easier to implement than entire plot about homosexual romance. Since that nudism would simply require a re-skinning of the character and whether or not a character is transsexual probably wouldn't require much work other than a check off option in character creator screen. Of course, neither would likely be very appropriate in the context of the game, and would likely undermine the credibility of it.

Modifié par danman2424, 27 février 2010 - 10:10 .

[Sabul]

didymos1120 wrote...
Umm, reread the hypothetical dialogue:  it's about a transsexual NPC, not a TransShep.

Terribly sorry. I have been up for 30 hours and my eyes are playing tricks on me. I suppose that would be fine then. If they should desire to do so.

Modifié par Sabul, 27 février 2010 - 10:11 .

[Sabul]

ffff double post.

Modifié par Sabul, 27 février 2010 - 10:11 .

[Lightice_av]

I have not seen much evidence that gay romances were completely finished for the game.

They were for ME1. Hacks have uncovered everything from start to finish. Only parts exist for ME2.

Even if they were, as I said above, that wouldn't mean that they come off as appropriate.

I've seen them. They're quite appropriate, and not a least bit campy, comical, or unsuitable in the spirit of the game.

Seriously, you're still repeating the same mantra?

[tyddrwsau]

[quote]danman2424 wrote...
 You have nine (3*3)  possible backstories, which beats the eight of DA or the single one of JE. And as I and many others have already said ther is no reason for the limitation in the male Shepards romance options.
If there was just the male Shepard, (with the backstory of beeing straight like Gerald in the witcher) or if there was just one unavoidable romance per gender nearly noone would ask for the incluesion of same-sex romances.[/quote]Are you serious? That backstories mean absolutely nothing in Mass Effect. Literally zilch aside from one or two lines from random characters in the original. Even less in the sequel.
[/quote]

You are right: the character backgrounds are, for the most part, cosmetic flourishes. They do, however, give us more information about who any given Shepard is as we imagine his or her character. (I imagine that my different Shepards are different people, with different motivations.)

You're also right that "there is no reason for the limitation in the male Shepard's romance options." Shepard does not behave differently, except within the context of the in-game romances, based on the character(s) he or she loves. There is no narrative reason why Shepard cannot be gay or bi. It's a design choice.

You've offered a number of arguments for why you think BioWare isn't likely to listen to our request for this content. Some of them are plausible. I don't understand why you seem to think we should not ask. We're fans of the Mass Effect franchise (hence why we're here), many of us are fans of BioWare's in general. Why shouldn't we ask?

Personally, I play BioWare games for their writing of characters and to a lesser extent the stories. ("Save the world or galaxy" is a rather tired theme, I'm afraid.) Mass Effect is the only shooter I've played for more than a couple minutes. That part of the game design is not why I'm here. As a developer given to writing games with beautiful detail given to characters, environments, history and one that provides romantic narratives as a staple of their game design, this is one of the best places I can think of to make this request. And why not?

[danman2424]

tyddrwsau wrote...

You are right: the character backgrounds are, for the most part, cosmetic flourishes. They do, however, give us more information about who any given Shepard is as we imagine his or her character. (I imagine that my different Shepards are different people, with different motivations.)

You're also right that "there is no reason for the limitation in the male Shepard's romance options." Shepard does not behave differently, except within the context of the in-game romances, based on the character(s) he or she loves. There is no narrative reason why Shepard cannot be gay or bi. It's a design choice.

You've offered a number of arguments for why you think BioWare isn't likely to listen to our request for this content. Some of them are plausible. I don't understand why you seem to think we should not ask. We're fans of the Mass Effect franchise (hence why we're here), many of us are fans of BioWare's in general. Why shouldn't we ask?

Personally, I play BioWare games for their writing of characters and to a lesser extent the stories. ("Save the world or galaxy" is a rather tired theme, I'm afraid.) Mass Effect is the only shooter I've played for more than a couple minutes. That part of the game design is not why I'm here. As a developer given to writing games with beautiful detail given to characters, environments, history and one that provides romantic narratives as a staple of their game design, this is one of the best places I can think of to make this request. And why not?

I never said you can't ask. You're giving your opinion on why they should be implemented, and I'm giving my opinion on why they should not.

Modifié par danman2424, 27 février 2010 - 10:35 .

[Sabul]

danman2424 wrote...
I have not seen much evidence that gay romances were completely finished for the game. Even if they were, as I said above, that wouldn't mean that they come off as appropriate.

I don't think comparing nudism to homosexuality is anymore silly than comparing homosexuality to race, which many often try to pass as direct equivalents. in fact I think nudists are far better comparisons because like homosexuality, a member of any race can be one, but a nudist/homosexual cannot be a member of any race.

I'd also argue that nudism and "transsexuality" would be far easier to implement than entire plot about homosexual romance. Since that nudism would simply require a re-skinning of the character and whether or not a character is transsexual probably wouldn't require much work other than a check off option in character creator screen. Of course, neither would likely be very appropriate in the context of the game, and would likely undermine the credibility of it.

You could always check the first page for some evidence. Will video do? They were even left on the game disks and only disabled for final release. They were very well done and appropriate.

We could argue sexuality being controlled by genetics just as my skin colour is. A natural population control that evolved with us. While nudism is a preference for being naked and serves no purpose. Really this does not matter though.

Not really. They would run the risk of offending people. Bioware has included homosexual romance options in the past and done so quite well and been praised for doing so. Including a transsexual character would be entirely new ground and rather difficult.

Modifié par Sabul, 27 février 2010 - 10:21 .

[danman2424]

Lightice_av wrote...

Do not transsexual players usually play the gender they identify themselves as rather than their physical gender?

Indeed. Transsexuals typically see their condition as middle ground that's in process of being fixed into their true identity, rather than an identity in its own right. If they want to identify with a game avatar, they pick one of the gender they perceive themselves as.

Tell that to those in the many transsexual chatrooms and forums out there filled with transsexuals that prefer to be around fellow transsexuals and like-minded people. Some countries have even created a "third sex" for those that identify as transsexuals to be included as such on their ID and official records.

I've spoken with and listened to quite a few transsexuals, and most of them don't look down on the title. They fully realize it and are truthful with any potential partners about exactly what they are.

Besides, it would be a very simple thing to implement to allow the characters to play as the Shepard "they want", right? they are transsexual so perhaps they want to play as a transsexual Shepard. Not very difficult at all to implement.

Except you and I both know adding options for choices like that is a bit on the ridiculous side.

[Lightice_av]

Tell that to those in the many transsexual chatrooms and forums out there filled with transsexuals that prefer to be around fellow transsexuals and like-minded people. Some countries have even created a "third sex" for those that identify as transsexuals to be included as such on their ID and official records.

I have a transsexual sibling. I am well aware of various forms the phenomenon takes. The people you speak of are a minority inside minority. Transsexual refers to a person who is in midway of the process of gender-correction. Some prefer to remain in that stage for some reason or another, but most seek to fully become the gender they identify with. After the process is complete, the term "transsexual" is no longer appropriate.

But this thread isn't about them. They haven't started threads requesting recognition. They are welcome to do so if they wish.

[danman2424]

Sabul wrote...

danman2424 wrote...
I have not seen much evidence that gay romances were completely finished for the game. Even if they were, as I said above, that wouldn't mean that they come off as appropriate.

I don't think comparing nudism to homosexuality is anymore silly than comparing homosexuality to race, which many often try to pass as direct equivalents. in fact I think nudists are far better comparisons because like homosexuality, a member of any race can be one, but a nudist/homosexual cannot be a member of any race.

I'd also argue that nudism and "transsexuality" would be far easier to implement than entire plot about homosexual romance. Since that nudism would simply require a re-skinning of the character and whether or not a character is transsexual probably wouldn't require much work other than a check off option in character creator screen. Of course, neither would likely be very appropriate in the context of the game, and would likely undermine the credibility of it.

You could always check the first page for some evidence. Will video do? They were even left on the game disks and only disabled for final release. They were very well done and appropriate.

We could argue sexuality being controlled by genetics just as my skin colour is. A natural population control that evolved with us. While nudism is a preference for being naked and serves no purpose. Really this does not matter though.

Not really. They would run the risk of offending people. Bioware has included homosexual romance options in the past and done so quite well and been praised for doing so. Including a transsexual character would be entirely new ground and rather difficult.

I've seen a couple of mods with Shepard touching nipples with Jacob and holding onto Garrus with his head against his chest. None of them seem very appropriate at all. They look ridiculous.


Obviously the response will be "well, that's your opinion", and while you're right I can assure you that posting those pictures on any gaming site would get you a lot of funny responses. Sorry I can't provide you with some stat sheet that polls all of the people of the world but if you really think such images are as acceptable to most people as they are to you, then you've been spending way too much time on this forum, and this thread in particular.

[Grizzly46]

Wittand25 wrote...

danman2424 wrote...

 Wrong. In the end, not only would the options have taken too much time to appease a small subset of the audience, but they would've likely been entirely inappropriate in the context of the game.

I don't know why it's so hard to understand that Shepard's choices are certainly not unlimited nor is Shepard a completely blank slate. Believe it or not, most of the game is completely out of the player's  control.

Why can you not understand that I and most other supporters of a m/m romance would be perfectly satisfied if there was a story reason for it not to be there. Nobody complained about Gerald in the Witcher, nobody complained about Scarlet in Venetica because those characters were predefined including sex and love interest. People are wondering about the absence of the option for Shepard to be gay because ther is no storyrelated reason for him not to be.
Once more for clarity if Bioware gave a reason why Shepard can not be gay, we would accept it but they did not and I dont see how they would be able to do it.
About the size of those that want it. Sure there are less than those wanting f/m but romances are a dimishing return anyway. How many people do you know that will play throug the game several three times just to see all three straight romances ? I am willing to bet quite some money that more people would appriciate a gay option for male Shepard more than a fourth straight one.

I'm sorry, but I think I have to agree with the others here - yes, even if it is possible to enter a (heterosexual/lesbian*) relationship with someone in ME, that is not the point of the game - You are in your full right to turn all romantic invites down, and for a very good reason: They don't matter. You are there to kill a rogue spectre or stop the kidnappings of human colonists, nothing else.

I'm saying this since the entire romance concept seems to have been slapped on as an afterthought - and in my absolutely first playthrough of ME1 I (heterosexual man with a a soft spot for blue women) I turned down all invites, including Liara's since I thought it would be unprofessional for a commander to bed his subordinates. The same goes for ME2, and the only reason I pursued any romantic interests was to see what everybody was talking about. My canonical approach is however still that it would be unprofessional.

You are putting too much emphasis on something that is simply not important.

*Someone mentioned Liara cannot be a lesbian/bisexual since she is from a species that probably had no words for gender to begin with, but a female from another species (like human) would be a lesbian if she was attracted to Liara. Fully correct. However, just as everybody else, these characters also have the option to turn any romantic invites down.

Addendum: I would here like to say that I do support gay rights, but this is a game, not a real world.

[Sabul]

danman2424 wrote...

I've seen a couple of mods with Shepard touching nipples with Jacob and holding onto Garrus with his head against his chest. None of them seem very appropriate at all. They look ridiculous.


Obviously the response will be "well, that's your opinion", and while you're right I can assure you that posting those pictures on any gaming site would get you a lot of funny responses. Sorry I can't provide you with some stat sheet that polls all of the people of the world but if you really think such images are as acceptable to most people as they are to you, then you've been spending way too much time on this forum, and this thread in particular.

What is so ridiculous about two males showing romantic affection for each other? Is it the idea of two men being romantic?

Really this argument is rather silly. Bioware is known for pushing the envelope. They have long included this content despite what you think the majority of the worlds feelings would be on it. Add to that the amount of people who even bought Mass Effect is such a small group when compared the feelings of the world do not really matter. Their previous games sold well enough and in the case of Dragon Age's Xbox 360 sales outsold the first Mass Effect.

Modifié par Sabul, 27 février 2010 - 10:55 .

[Lightice_av]

You are putting too much emphasis on something that is simply not important.

People have different senses of priority. Personally I find the romance subplot to give Shepard some depth of character that s/he is otherwise sorely lacking, something to humanize him/her beyond the simple heroic image.

[danman2424]

Lightice_av wrote...

Tell that to those in the many transsexual chatrooms and forums out there filled with transsexuals that prefer to be around fellow transsexuals and like-minded people. Some countries have even created a "third sex" for those that identify as transsexuals to be included as such on their ID and official records.

I have a transsexual sibling. I am well aware of various forms the phenomenon takes. The people you speak of are a minority inside minority. Transsexual refers to a person who is in midway of the process of gender-correction. Some prefer to remain in that stage for some reason or another, but most seek to fully become the gender they identify with. After the process is complete, the term "transsexual" is no longer appropriate.
But this thread isn't about them. They haven't started threads requesting recognition. They are welcome to do so if they wish.

Transsexual - a person who has undergone hormone treatment and surgery to attain the physical characteristics of the opposite sex.

[danman2424]

Sabul wrote...

danman2424 wrote...

I've seen a couple of mods with Shepard touching nipples with Jacob and holding onto Garrus with his head against his chest. None of them seem very appropriate at all. They look ridiculous.


Obviously the response will be "well, that's your opinion", and while you're right I can assure you that posting those pictures on any gaming site would get you a lot of funny responses. Sorry I can't provide you with some stat sheet that polls all of the people of the world but if you really think such images are as acceptable to most people as they are to you, then you've been spending way too much time on this forum, and this thread in particular.

What is so ridiculous about two males showing romantic affection for each other? Is it the idea of two men being romantic?

Really this argument is rather silly. Bioware is known for pushing the envelope. They have long included this content despite what you think the majority of the worlds feelings would be on it. Add to that the amount of people who even bought Mass Effect is such a small group when compared the feelings of the world do not really matter. Their previous games sold well enough and in the case of Dragon Age's Xbox 360 sales outsold the first Mass Effect.

I don't think their aim is to just "sell well enough".

Modifié par danman2424, 27 février 2010 - 11:06 .