Bioware needs to revert years of work

[Duster]

How many games have you played that reference a character's mother and father, girlfriend or boyfriend, husband or wife, son or daughter, or even something along the lines of commenting on how handsome/beautiful another character is? They dont have to be fucking or expressing clear sexual interest for it to be heterosexual.

Well the only way you could possibly care about inane things like that is if the rest of the game is failing to engage you, whether it be your distaste in the game or the game having been tied together poorly.

It's not about depending on anything, we simply want to be fucking INCLUDED in a way that treats us mostly the same as heterosexuals.

And that's very easy to do when the game doesn't have romance or sexuality at all.

Romance options don't hurt the Bioware games on any front. There's still plenty of great story to go around without even touching the romance options.

I disagree, but i've no conventional argument. As stated earlier I will remake the thread with an op stating an actual argument and more solid points.

How would marketers capitalize on trends years before the games even come out?

I'd assume it's rare for rpg's to write the story for their game when under a year is left in development.

 

[lowtech redneck]

Personally, I'd prefer characters that are explicitly gay or straight or whatever else.

Yeah, the whole 'everyone is bi' deal is basically synonymous with 'shallow romance minigame', like Skyrim's (which then added insult to injury by pointlessly limiting the number of shallow romance options).

I can't speak for any Dragon Age except for Origins, but I subjectively found sexuality of the bisexual characters to 'make sense' in the context of their personalities and interactions, not really something that seemed awkwardly forced onto the characters strictly for demographic appeal or to make a statement (unlike, say, the initial transformation of Willow in Buffy into a gay character.....but that's a whole 'nother can of worms).

From what I understand, Dragon Age: Inquisition has two gay characters and two bisexual characters (probably one of each gender), and while that's a higher proportion than probable for the number of companions (assuming its similar to the original), its not absurdly so-I consider objections about 'pandering' on that front to be as ridiculous as protesting about 'exclusion' because a game with a similar number of companions lacks gay characters/romance options.

 

[Therumancer]

I really dislike the direction that bioware is going in.

When I was newer to rpgs I thought that companions where awesome and that rpgs should be all about them, but I really take that back. Most of companions should be made by modders who have no professional obligations/need to politically correct.

Yeah the movement towards companions began long ago and some games, such as kotor 2 and BG2 have companions and are classics, but I feel when you make a game from the ground up around companions it doesn't work well, and that seems to be the approach these days.

Well, arguably I think Bioware needs to go back to what it was before it got purchased by EA, I think when those bean counters got involved is when it all started to go wrong. I don't think companions have been a big problem in of themselves to be honest, and truthfully I think it only felt really political in "Inquisition", I think their storytelling and writing have suffered, along with their game play and every other aspect of their creations to be honest, since EA started having a say.

To be honest I prefer old school RPGs of the sort you generally don't see any more where you can create your own party to the companion system, and this is coming from a huge Ultima fan which was the series that arguably started the whole trend. That said companions can be used quite well in terms of storytelling when they are done correctly.

I suspect a big part of the problem is Bioware can't really do what it wants anymore. I think when it started with the romances and such they were there because they were what the developers wanted to do, even throwing in gay options and everything else. The thing is that it turned into a sort of entitlement, and due to complaints by SJWs and the left wing media over things like "Old Republic Online' and it's controversies, EA pretty much gave them a quota. You've said in this thread your gay, so I'm kind of wondering what your thoughts on Dorian and Iron Bull are? Those claiming to be gay in various MMOs and such that I've talked to have expressed very negative opinions. I honestly suspect that one of the reasons why Dorian's storyline comes across like a forced political statement is because that's what it is, and the gay characters and the "message" came out like they did because the developers were following a formula given them from their bosses as opposed to being characters they wanted to make and define that way, compared to say Zevran who was
more of a labor of love.

I have no idea what the truth is though, that said while it's holding on longer than most other companies EA has gotten it's hooks into, I expect it to die off soon, being left as a dessicated husk. Bioware can't seem to put out a game nowadays without starting some kind of controversy, and one of their biggest franchises was ended on a truly terrible note largely so they could create a blank slate in order to turn an intended trilogy into a franchise (I'm talking about Mass Effect of course).

 

[daibakuha]

It's really funny that people point out that Bioware is pandering when David Gaider is gay. So I don't think it's pandering at all when your trying to include more options for people.

 

[Bergthor86]

I honestly suspect that one of the reasons why Dorian's storyline comes across like a forced political statement is because that's what it is, and the gay characters and the "message" came out like they did because the developers were following a formula given them from their bosses as opposed to being characters they wanted to make and define that way, compared to say Zevran who was more of a labor of love.

Actually, Dorian was written by David Gaider, who is himself a gay man, and according to what he has said on the subject matter it's the most personal thing he has ever written, and when I look at Dorian's storyline in the game, I can totally see that being true. So no, these characters are not there because evil EA forces BioWare to put them in. They are there because the people working at BioWare have a very inclusive mindset.

Might one or two characters have been made gay or bisexual when they were not originally intended to be so? Totally possible. Was it done because EA told them to do it? Probably not. Probably it was the writers/directors/producers who made a decision to be more representative in their game because that is something that is important to many people working there, including the lead writer.

 

[KingDragonlord]

What bothers me more with companions these days is that the interaction with them... even the romantic relationships... are written like a bloody questline with a start, middle and finisher. And after that theres nothing to it anymore.

Once you bedded your companion thats it... no more meaningfull romantic or otherwise interaction between your the two characters. THAT is much worse then anything else discussed in this thread in my eyes.

Not only is this very poor gameplay and storytelling it is also boring an childish. YAY achievement! I bedded Morrigan! So lets never talk to her again and dont take her into the party cause wynne is a much better healer anyways! See you later morrigan when the plot says we prolly should make a baby!

The same for mass effect or DA2... once you "finished" the questline... there was nothing more to it... congratufuckinglations... you wont die a virgin... achievement unlocked!

Its funny you mentioned Morrigan as your example. Did you not even try to interact with her after the sex scene? Sex is the beginning of that arc, not the end. She's one of the few exceptions to what you're complaining about.

 

[KingDragonlord]

Whats eyerolling to me is that in a series where sexuality and gender have never been big issues (women are not barred from any career field and excel in all of them, even the ones where you'd expect upper body strength to be a factor, and people sleep with whoever they want and its not a big deal) suddenly Bioware manages a few asspulls so that they can have their very important storylines about things.

Like suddenly its revealed "Oh sure COMMON people can have sex with whoever they want, but NOBLES hate dem gays so now we get to have a story about the oppressions gay people face." And you get some real "you go girl" moments in this series like Cassandra saying "Imagine, the Inquisitor, a woman." When the Chantry never bars women from any role and actually bars men from everything aside from being cannon fodder (seriously, in Thedas, you shouldn't be seeing women with chips on their shoulder about gender oppression, it seems like most of the legends of morally righteous outstanding warriors and heroes are women). And suddenly transgender is an issue, to the point where the player has no choice but to react to it as if its weird. Um what?

Yeah, and Inquisition looks like a game that went out of its way to hit checkmarks just to make sure. Nevermind if it had anything to do with the story, you'd suddenly get a side story about it.

Then there's the strange asspull about Qunari apparently just declare women as men when they want to be warriors. Iron Bull acts like its no big deal where Sten couldn't even begin to reconcile the concept of a female warrior in his head.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

I think it says more about the person when they assume a gay character was forced in against the writers' will based on no evidence than it does about the game.

I mean why do you assume it was forced? Are you searching for a reason to complaining about gay characters?

A single guy doesn't write the story. I'd assume you get your devs and marketers together to see what recent trends the company has the best ability to capitalize on, then they tell the writers to make a story about it.

Okay, I got your allegations wrong. Point still stands that there's no evidence to your allegations. When you have no evidence of their motivation then making accusations about their motivation only reflects on you

 

[KingDragonlord]

I think it says more about the person when they assume a gay character was forced in against the writers' will based on no evidence than it does about the game.

I mean why do you assume it was forced? Are you searching for a reason to complaining about gay characters?

A single guy doesn't write the story. I'd assume you get your devs and marketers together to see what recent trends the company has the best ability to capitalize on, then they tell the writers to make a story about it.

Okay, I got your allegations wrong. Point still stands that there's no evidence to your allegations. When you have no evidence of their motivation then making accusations about their motivation only reflects on you

I certainly don't think the writers are forcing in gay characters in general* nor do I think thats the problem. I think the problem is they're trying their darnedest to make sure every sensitivity was addressed.

Take Dragon Age Inquisition. You have 8 options in this game, 3 female, 5 male. That could be 5 options for gay men and straight women and 3 options for straight men and gay women (8 options for bisexuals). But if you did that, fans on the bioware forums would rage that the game had been robbed of its gay characters. But what difference would it make. Dorian's homosexuality is the only one that's actually a story point and its an asspull as I said in my previous post (I can't think of anything that strictly contradicts the contention, but its very convenient).

RPGs really should just make all romanceables bi in any game where you can pick your gender unless its a specific story point.

*I know, you weren't aiming at me.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

I think it says more about the person when they assume a gay character was forced in against the writers' will based on no evidence than it does about the game.

I mean why do you assume it was forced? Are you searching for a reason to complaining about gay characters?

A single guy doesn't write the story. I'd assume you get your devs and marketers together to see what recent trends the company has the best ability to capitalize on, then they tell the writers to make a story about it.

Okay, I got your allegations wrong. Point still stands that there's no evidence to your allegations. When you have no evidence of their motivation then making accusations about their motivation only reflects on you

I certainly don't think the writers are forcing in gay characters in general* nor do I think thats the problem. I think the problem is they're trying their darnedest to make sure every sensitivity was addressed.

Take Dragon Age Inquisition. You have 8 options in this game, 3 female, 5 male. That could be 5 options for gay men and straight women and 3 options for straight men and gay women (8 options for bisexuals). But if you did that, fans on the bioware forums would rage that the game had been robbed of its gay characters. But what difference would it make. Dorian's homosexuality is the only one that's actually a story point and its an asspull as I said in my previous post (I can't think of anything that strictly contradicts the contention, but its very convenient).

*I know, you weren't aiming at me.

How do you know they did from fear of a complaint of the game being robbed of gay characters?

There were plenty of DA2 complaints about the amount of bisexuals that didn't come from people who wanted more gay characters.

That also kind of assumes "Every romanceable party member should be bisexual" as a default position. Don't see a reason to think they would think that by default.

 

[KingDragonlord]

I think it says more about the person when they assume a gay character was forced in against the writers' will based on no evidence than it does about the game.

I mean why do you assume it was forced? Are you searching for a reason to complaining about gay characters?

A single guy doesn't write the story. I'd assume you get your devs and marketers together to see what recent trends the company has the best ability to capitalize on, then they tell the writers to make a story about it.

Okay, I got your allegations wrong. Point still stands that there's no evidence to your allegations. When you have no evidence of their motivation then making accusations about their motivation only reflects on you

I certainly don't think the writers are forcing in gay characters in general* nor do I think thats the problem. I think the problem is they're trying their darnedest to make sure every sensitivity was addressed.

Take Dragon Age Inquisition. You have 8 options in this game, 3 female, 5 male. That could be 5 options for gay men and straight women and 3 options for straight men and gay women (8 options for bisexuals). But if you did that, fans on the bioware forums would rage that the game had been robbed of its gay characters. But what difference would it make. Dorian's homosexuality is the only one that's actually a story point and its an asspull as I said in my previous post (I can't think of anything that strictly contradicts the contention, but its very convenient).

*I know, you weren't aiming at me.

How do you know they did from fear of a complaint of the game being robbed of gay characters?

There were plenty of DA2 complaints about the amount of bisexuals that didn't come from people who wanted more gay characters.

That also kind of assumes "Every romanceable party member should be bisexual" as a default position. Don't see a reason to think they would think that by default.

Because making them all bi is an easier and more cost efficient way to include options in your game. They're clearly trying to hit a matrix of "bad boy, good boy" or "Betty and Veronica" but they're having to cover it with each gender and each sexuality. This either means you make all your romanceables bi or you have to make sure all your squad members are romanceable which in turn adds some restrictions on what they can be (Humanoid, dating age and make sure theres enough of each gender).

And I have some suspicion because the writers started threads about this stuff and continually edited the original post to compile all the suggestions/complaints/gripes (mostly voiced on the LGBT sympathetic side, when I offered a rebuttal to one point one guy had made, the creator deleted it and condemned me even though I was only pointing out that what they thought was a recurring trope was counterbalanced by a lot of other examples within Dragon Age). And since a couple of those romance options were added late, that kind of leans heavily towards suggesting that they were looking at that feedback.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I think Bioware's problem is they can't write relationships. They seem to think the end goal of any relationship is sex, and once you've gotten that, all sense of development stops.

 

[EternallyBored]

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Revenant is right that a lot of people complained about DA2's romance system where everyone was bisexual. While I don't agree with all the arguments against it, making everybody bisexual made the system feel less connected to the actual characters. The character's romance options felt less like part of their character in many cases and just a game mechanic there to facilitate the PC romancing whoever they want. There's ways to do it better than DA2 did, but without something different, it will just feel like the romance system exists as solely a game mechanic to serve the PCs rather than a part of the characters as it eliminates any points that would cement a character's sexuality as anything other than bisexual.

 

[TT Kairen]

Like suddenly its revealed "Oh sure COMMON people can have sex with whoever they want, but NOBLES hate dem gays so now we get to have a story about the oppressions gay people face."

Then there's the strange asspull about Qunari apparently just declare women as men when they want to be warriors. Iron Bull acts like its no big deal where Sten couldn't even begin to reconcile the concept of a female warrior in his head.

Actually it's pretty clearly stated, even in Origins, nobles are expected to take a hetero partner for largely political reasons, have hiers, and continue the family lineage. Sometimes the partners have an agreement (if applicable) that they can take homosexual partners on the side to have some sort of release and be able to live with themselves. The fact that it's more taboo (even then it's implied that the same arrangement as in Ferelden or Orlais is possible, Dorian just wants no part of it) in Tevinter isn't an ass-pull because we know very little about Tevinter in the first place. It's establishing that precedent, not changing it.

As for the Qunari thing, that isn't how it works at all. You don't get to "want" to be a Warrior. You're made a Warrior by your bosses. For women, it is not a possible job to be assigned. However, if you are transgendered, let's say FtM, then female jobs close off to you, while male ones open up. Sten wasn't able to work it out because you were a female character living as a female. He (correctly) treated you as your gender identity first. If you had been FtM transgendered, he'd simply have treated you as a man with no thought behind it, and thus had no question about your warrior-ness.

 

[EternallyBored]

I think Bioware's problem is they can't write relationships. They seem to think the end goal of any relationship is sex, and once you've gotten that, all sense of development stops.

The issue here is that the relationships are already kind of rushed, if they went any farther than the first couple dates and sex territory it would likely feel stupidly fast within a single game. DA has the issue of following a different protagonist after every game, so we never get the chance to see a relationship develop much past the first steps.

The ME trilogy was kind of a missed opportunity though, with its relationships always getting a giant reset button hit in between games, which honestly seems to be a symptom of them trying to make each game approachable for new players without getting too lost. This unfortunately leads to them not taking the relationships anywhere beyond the first few stages, probably because they don't want to potentially drop new players into an already developed relationship, lots of games do this like the Uncharted series, where Drake is always either starting or restarting his relationship with each new game.

 

[Therumancer]

I honestly suspect that one of the reasons why Dorian's storyline comes across like a forced political statement is because that's what it is, and the gay characters and the "message" came out like they did because the developers were following a formula given them from their bosses as opposed to being characters they wanted to make and define that way, compared to say Zevran who was more of a labor of love.

Actually, Dorian was written by David Gaider, who is himself a gay man, and according to what he has said on the subject matter it's the most personal thing he has ever written, and when I look at Dorian's storyline in the game, I can totally see that being true. So no, these characters are not there because evil EA forces BioWare to put them in. They are there because the people working at BioWare have a very inclusive mindset.

Might one or two characters have been made gay or bisexual when they were not originally intended to be so? Totally possible. Was it done because EA told them to do it? Probably not. Probably it was the writers/directors/producers who made a decision to be more representative in their game because that is something that is important to many people working there, including the lead writer.

I've heard similar things, but like other people I talked to I'm going to say that at least right now I think such claims are an effort in defensive spin, largely because it seems a lot of people in the gay community are actually not happy with this either. Basically when I see gay guys speaking up in game chats about these characters representing offensive stereotypes the gay movement wants to distance itself from, and being among those claiming this seems like a political hack job done by people who aren't gay but are trying to pretend they can think like them, I have to question a company coming out and saying "well gee this was done by a real gay guy, and it was all very personal".

That said Bioware is inclusive when they feel it fits their narrative and the characters they want to create which is why there were issues with say "Old Republic Online" where they did not want to create gay characters but such were demanded out of a sense of entitlement given that they had included them in other games previously. The backlash and entitlement is why I suspect DA:I has what few problems it does, namely that I suspect Bioware had some of this dictated which is why Dorian's personal quest comes across not a well developed character, but part of a SJW manifesto. I wouldn't put it past them producing employees to claim whatever they want, I mean they did run around trying to load their meta critic scores when "Dragon Age 2" came out. They also had people on hand to speak for the staff and say what was going on behind the scenes and such with "Mass Effect 3" and what to expect there, and look at how much corruption and EA influence we pretty much dug into there. I still remember when they released their "behind the scenes app" and the jihad it got going when it pretty much showed how much Bioware was lying through it's teeth and providing faces to try and justify what it did, there was even controversy over whether this app was real or not... and well, it turned out it was, so they were kind of caught with their pants down. Hence why I take anything they claim, especially when someone at Bioware claims anything is "deeply personal" with a grain of salt. You of course by disagreeing with me here will probably not agree with my attitudes here, but honestly I feel they deserve that kind of scorn at this point. Unless David Galder can somehow prove his claims it doesn't matter what he says at this point since Bioware's damage control techniques have made anything they, or any representative or affiliate, has to say by definition questionable... which is probably why nobody, straight or gay, has really given a crap about what he's claimed so far and the discussions have continued on and off. In a year or so we'll probably find out the truth is that EA forced the writing team to watch third world gay rape porn and re-runs of "Rupaul's Drag Race" or something similar. It's brutal to suggest things like that, but hey... it's EA/Bioware, your a fool to trust them or assign anything even remotely positive to the reason why they do anything unless presented with all kinds of proof other than statements by members of their team. They have earned that kind of reputation.

That said we could go back and forth about this, but in the end time will tell if it's going to matter, we won't know until we see Dragon Age 4 and what's said surrounding it's release. You can take their people's word for it, me, I think the reactions I've been seeing across the board sort of speak for themselves. I don't expect anyone to agree with me here either, it took years before anyone had the guts to say anything even remotely negative about the content in "Origins" for example. For a very long time it was defended to the moon, and people got in the face of those complaining about having unexpected Zevran sex for being "homophobes". The same is here, people will defend Dorian and the political statements for a long time at least in forums with a heavy left wing leaning, as will the gaming media which also leans that way. In a few years things will have died down and we'll be hearing "yeah, okay, this actually wasn't cool".

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

My only beef with the most recent Bioware games (DA:I, not included because I have not played it), is the increased emphasis on romance while decreasing emphasis on character customisation. I have found this increasingly common in their games over the years, although I think they had a nice balance in DA:O.

Having played every Bioware game since Origins, the amount of romance in each game hasn't gone up. Sure, they've gotten BETTER at it, and so it's become more of a selling point, but the actual amount of romance in all three Dragon Ages, and all three Mass Effects has remained pretty steady across the board.

(actually, Inquisition might have two extra romance options but that's only because they were given an extra year to work on the game so it worked out that way)

I agree with you that the quality of these scenes are much better, I am thinking of the ME2 and ME3 scenes here. And admittedly I do think that my criticism primarily comes from DA2.

Although customisation did decrease in the ME series as it went on.