Sure will, get back to me when you can prove that bioware made shepard straight because dur Halo fans hate homo's dude.JediMB said:
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It's a forum not an instant messenging service
Dragon Age Writer: Same-Sex Romance is Here to Stay
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
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It's a forum not an instant messenging service
Here's an idea Bioware. Take all those fucking stupid romance subplots out of your games and stick them where the sun don't shine. Seriously, just stop trying. You haven't done a romance I could actually tolerate since KOTOR, you need to just quit.
Next you'll ask me to prove that grass is green.jamesworkshop said:
Claim: MaleShep can't be gay because Shepard is always heterosexual. (Also, some nonsense about Mass Effect's narrative style.)
Counter: FemShep can display attraction towards female characters, which makes the claim untrue.
Observation: BioWare has toned down RPG elements and increased focus on shooter elements for the sequel game, despite that their target audience has traditionally been closer to the AD&D crowd.
Observation: Complaints against male homosexual relationship options have been voiced in regards to other BioWare titles.
Observation: A common complaint regarding the multiplayer modes of shooter games on Xbox Live is excessive homophobic slurs. Stereotypes exist.
Conclusion: No alternative to the debunked claim has been supplied. Correlation between focus on shooter audience and exclusion of male homosexual content, but inclusion of female homosexual content, seems likely.
Argh, now I'm reading my own posts in Mordin's voice. Screw this.
Look at the codes some hackers have unearthed for both Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2, which has dialogue and romance scenes between, for instance, Male Shepard and Kaiden, Female Shephard and Jack, Female Shepard and Ashley etc. etc., along with most of the Romance scenes being trimmed down considerably in Mass Effect 2.jamesworkshop said:
While they've been pretty mum on it, it's blatantly obvious that there was some meddling involved to clean up the content.
The Dragon Age stuff (I haven't played it, but did look up a few of the scenes) seemed much tamer than what Mass Effect contained, so who knows...
As for your "Shepard is Straight" theory, Liara and the Consort in ME1, and Liara in ME2, put a pretty big hole in it. And as others point out, the games are all about choice. It would be very weird of them to offer so many options except for sexuality.
Homophobic slurs in not the issue you are claiming that Bioware was influenced by this factor as a logical reason for why shepard is not gay, an assurtion that you cannot prove by the way.JediMB said:
I don't think you realise exactly how much your comments reflect on bioware and what you are accussing them of.
1. Bioware does not behave like that, see previous gay option friendly bioware games (hint almost all of them)
2. ME reasonable sales - see point 3
3. ME2 updated the shooting mechanics after falling to capture more shooter fans, not making Shepard wear backwards baseball caps, brofist everything, teabag defeat enemies.
4. no sales data proves that gay character reduces the money making abilities of an IP, Did Halo make a load of money because it was not gay besides the lack of sexual desire in in Master Chief anyway, Perhaps Asexuality should be a back of the boxes selling point
No sign of making Shepard Straighter in sequel, consistant with previously written narrative
so why then not make shepard gay option friendly in the next game, why deny it, homophobes are not going to be offended if Bioware told them they wanted their money by responding pre-emptivly since no one has ever directly said that gay men = no sale in numbers worth mentioning.
Biowares most successful game release many months before ME2 had about the most comprehensive take on the possibilities and variations of sexuality it is possible to have and more than I have even seen a game even try to attempt.
Shepard is straight because bioware stated that he is Male/Fem shep are not the same characters.Gahars said:
They would ignore it if it was mum but they defended their authorial control strongly.
DA:O showed way more skin than ME 1+2 did.
Bioware made choices, why does Shepard have to be human, why can't I roleplay as a intergalatic space nudist sod these alliance uniforms who cares if the narrative thinks this is a military organisation, thats no justification for leaving out the anti-clothes brigade option, think of all that texture data they could save in the framebuffer and Artists time not making material in photoshop.
Thinking about it, it was perfectly posible to play the entirety of DA:O wearing only your pants
Indeed, its great to see games catching-up with (and possibly furthering!) social movements.PedroSteckecilo said:
We need to see more of this progression. <3's out to Bioware-
But what's up with the difference between Dragon Age and Mass Effect? Why weren't there a(ny) same-sex relationship(s) in ME2 when there was (albeit only one) in ME1?
In the article posted here (on the Escapist) BioWare Explains Why There's No Homosexuality in Mass Effect 2 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99710-BioWare-Explains-Why-Theres-No-Homosexuality-in-Mass-Effect-2], Ray Muzyka and Casey Hudson of Bioware commented on why this had been removed. Hudson explained, "We still view [Mass Effect] as... if you're picturing a PG-13 action movie," he said. "That's how we're trying to design it. So that's why the love interest is relatively light." However, this strikes me as odd. Was this the original vision for the Mass Effect series or was it shaped by its popularity, especially after the fiasco in which one branch of Fox News slandered it as a "porn simulator".
Muzyka further identified this action as a way of designing the story, explaining, "Sometimes, in some of our games, we are going to have a defined character with a more defined view. Almost like a third-person narrative -- where Mass Effect is more in that vein, Dragon Age isn't in that vein ... For some other franchises we've had more defined characters and sort of approaches to things, and they've had a more defined personality and a more defined approach to the way they've proceed through the game and the world."
The way Muzyka talks about who defines the character, it appears that, at least for Mass Effect, Bioware does not want Shepard as a homosexual character while in Dragon Age, a homosexual character may result via the choice of the player, not Bioware.
It seems that with Mass Effect, Bioware put too many eggs in one basket. When they came under fire for the (brief) sexual content in ME1, they may have brought too much negative attention onto the series, and feared to face a second controversy that might use the first controversy as a quasi-precedent for the pressuring of Bioware.
While I'm happy to see Bioware keep Dragon Age as a socially liberal series, I'm curious about how they will handle matters of homosexual protagonists under pressure on their current and future games. Luckily, outright journalistic and activist antagonism against homosexuality is regarded as an extremist act in the United States (i.e. The Westboro Baptist Church), so they have only to fear a focused, but small protest.
However, (and I realize while this may nullify my concerns, it is still important that the matter be discussed!) as the crew from the Extra Credits weekly show has discussed, not all games need to explore issues of homosexuality or other social matters. But it still concerns me that Mass Effect took effort to change its image, possibly out of fear.
Maybe Mass Effect is telling of enough social issues already, however. The matters of xenophobia versus compassion across species despite past conflict does make an important analogy to present (and tightly-knit) issues of racism and xenophobia. Maybe homosexuality would be better served in another game where it could receive its own attention and discussion.
(In an uncertain world, let a strong thesis be your guide.)
Wow! Im impressed! I have to admit that this guy and all of Bioware are pretty freaking awesome!
Go bioware!
I personally have no problem with a minority as long as they don't flaunt it around like a weapon. I feel that while bioware could have done a little better writing with it, it turned out very, very well for a bisexual person in a game considering other failed attempts time after time again in the past gaming history.
That's the thing about Bioware... I don't want a game flaunting around the sexual preference/racial/political/religious/etc. minority card, but I want them to express these things in a professional, or casual manner that is respectable to the community in which few people would see a serious problem with it. That way, extremests, and those opposed to it can build a bridge, or at least a stable tolerance for the subject instead of going off about it. Bioware usually (key words usually) pulls this off in a professional or (in Zevrans case) casual manner that allows the player to see the subject from a different angle. One that is NOT full of stereotypes at every turn.
I personally have no problem with a minority as long as they don't flaunt it around like a weapon. I feel that while bioware could have done a little better writing with it, it turned out very, very well for a bisexual person in a game considering other failed attempts time after time again in the past gaming history.
That's the thing about Bioware... I don't want a game flaunting around the sexual preference/racial/political/religious/etc. minority card, but I want them to express these things in a professional, or casual manner that is respectable to the community in which few people would see a serious problem with it. That way, extremests, and those opposed to it can build a bridge, or at least a stable tolerance for the subject instead of going off about it. Bioware usually (key words usually) pulls this off in a professional or (in Zevrans case) casual manner that allows the player to see the subject from a different angle. One that is NOT full of stereotypes at every turn.
