Dragon Age Writer: Same-Sex Romance is Here to Stay

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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Dragon Age Writer: Same-Sex Romance is Here to Stay


Dragon Age [http://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Age-Origins-Xbox-360/dp/B001IK1BJ0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293137629&sr=8-1] lead writer David Gaider says people who complain about same-sex relationships in the game "don't have a leg to stand on" as long as romances are optional and need to be actively pursued by the player.

I was a little surprised when Zevran of the Antivan Crows invited me into his tent one night during a break from battling the Darkspawn onslaught. But then I thought, hey, he's an elf, I'm an elf and whatshername is all the way over there on the other side of the field. So I took him up on it. And you know what? It was kind of weird. Luckily, he seemed to take it pretty well when I gave him the "just friends" speech the next morning, although it's always hard to tell with that guy.

There are those, however, who aren't quite as laid back about same-sex relationships as the elven assassin; not characters in the game but people who play it and apparently find their presence inappropriate. But that's just too bad, says Gaider, who wrote on the Dragon Age 2 forum [http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/5531798/6#5534694] that same-sex relationships in the game aren't going away.

"So long as romances of any kind are optional and need to be actively pursued by the player in order to be experienced, [complainers] simply don't have a leg to stand on," he wrote. "Advocating that nobody should be able to have content you don't intend to personally use is largely pointless - outside of a vague notion that such efforts should go towards other things, instead."

"The resources we can devote to a minority of players isn't great, but I imagine to those players it's quite worth it," he continued. "And I would hope that some folks could be sensitive enough to be happy for those players, at the very least out of the selfish notion that they may one day end up in the minority of some content issue and receive the same consideration if nothing else."

All of which sounds pretty reasonable to me. The late, great Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau once said, "There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation," and I think that applies equally well to videogames. If you're that worried about what a player does with his pretend free time in a videogame, maybe you should start thinking about better ways to occupy your own free time in the real world.

Dragon Age 2 comes out on March 8 for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

via: Joystiq [http://www.joystiq.com/2010/12/23/bioware-responds-to-same-sex-romance-complaints-about-dragon-age/]


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PedroSteckecilo

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Feb 7, 2008
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And here I was worried that Bioware was caving under the pressure of being part of a big studio who might want to avoid "real controversy" in their best selling games. I'm glad that Bioware has proven me wrong on that count, very glad indeed.

Keep on with the Socially Progressive Gaming guys!
 

Flauros

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Mar 2, 2010
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I do not own this game, but i am against anyone playing it hypothetically in a way i would not, EVER.
(jk)
 

RatRace123

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Dec 1, 2009
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Is it wrong and sexist that the first thing that popped into my head was "Yay more lesbian relationships!"?
Though in truth, all of DA:O's relationships were well written and well done, the sex scenes... weren't, but that's besides the point. I found Zevran's in particular to be pretty gripping simply because it reveals a lot more depth than he's initially believed to have.
Also, because he's awesome!
 

ExaltedK9

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Apr 23, 2009
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Glad to see Bioware is sticking to their guns. I don't see why some people are so bothered by it, when its an optional thing.
 

JemothSkarii

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Nov 9, 2010
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Only Bioware games I've really played are Neverwinter Nights 2 and DA:O. For defending something like this, I applaud them; there needs to be more acceptance of LGBT in the world and this may be a very small thing that helps.
 

Muta Ro

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So why oh why cant Bioware do this in Mass Effect. Fantasy setting sure you can have same sex relationships but you SciFi setting game, no you can have it D: Why bioware, why doesn't Mass Effect get no same sex love but you can throw aliens at us to love?
 

voetballeeuw

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Bueno, although I hope they add a character better than Zevran. Did not like him very much, must have been the accent.
 

TragicHero84

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Muta Ro said:
So why oh why cant Bioware do this in Mass Effect. Fantasy setting sure you can have same sex relationships but you SciFi setting game, no you can have it D: Why bioware, why doesn't Mass Effect get no same sex love but you can throw aliens at us to love?
seriously. i was all ready to sex up Kaidan Alenko, and was really bummed out when I realized I couldn't. ahh, kaidan...
 

jamesworkshop

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Muta Ro said:
So why oh why cant Bioware do this in Mass Effect. Fantasy setting sure you can have same sex relationships but you SciFi setting game, no you can have it D: Why bioware, why doesn't Mass Effect get no same sex love but you can throw aliens at us to love?
No one is forcing them not to they just decided not to do so, besides nothing stops you from roleplay a Homosexual character their simply wasn't any other charactyers for them to sleep with notice how in DA:O the only two party members were bi-sexual none were exclusivly same sex orientated, so for ME series they have not had any characters to make swing both ways.
 

Gahars

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Good to know that Bioware hasn't given up on them.

Hopefully, with the massive success of Dragon Age 1 and 2 (presumably) and Mass Effect 1 and 2, Bioware will have enough clout to prevent EA from removing the same sex relationships, if any are planned, in Mass Effect 3.
 

Therumancer

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Nov 28, 2007
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Seems to me that Bioware is being evasive after the fact that they omitted same-sex relationships from both Mass Effect 2 and apparently from the upcoming "Old Republic" game. The point here seems to be saying "look, we still have them in Dragon Age". However that's just the cynic in me.

Without getting into my own thoughts on the actual subject (I've covered that numerous times in other threads), what complaints I've seen about this are mostly based around being propositioned, or dealing with the come-on lines. The homosexual romances are not something that you have to pursue in most cases, but are generally offered. If you say use Zevran in your party or build him up because you like his skill set, it's inevitable he's going to come on to you. That's the issue, especially seeing as there really isn't much you can do about it.

It's worse in other games like "Fable II & III" where you are going to have homosexuals in mad lust following you around everywhere without having had to do anything. Despite my general sentiments about gay-men, I'm not "homophobic" where any mention of guy on guy stuff drives me into a frezy of hate, or I can't deal with it being mentioned somewhere. I wound up re-rolling as a girl simply so I didn't have to deal with 4 dudes asking me to gay marry them every time I wanted to buy something or do building maitnence. No offense but that's obnoxious.

My opinion for a while has been that a player should be able to enter something for their sexual orientation into a game, that will determine the content availible. Basically if you don't want to have people of your own gender making romantic overtures at you, I think it's not unreasonable for the player (the customer is always right) to be able to avoid that. If it's an "M" rated game with sex in it, a guy might want say allow hetero and lesbian stuff, but omit the guy on guy stuff. A girl might want hetero and guy on guy. Some people might pure hetero, or simply no adult elements and the abillity to turn things off.

I think anyone who thinks such content should be forced down people's throats is dead wrong. I also think it's a relatively simple matter to include an option that just doesn't let certain romantic flags be tripped, or would say influance the sexual orientation of the NPCs who spawn in Fable (which really takes it to a whole new obnoxious level).
 

whaleswiththumbs

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I love how he handled this. It is extremely professional and makes soo much sense. I would have said something that would be taken as an attack on homophobes and there would have been retaliations to it. So I'm glad that he is in charge of that not me. This actually makes me want to check out this game. Because i know it is handled by a mature group
 

Muta Ro

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Oct 4, 2010
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jamesworkshop said:
Muta Ro said:
So why oh why cant Bioware do this in Mass Effect. Fantasy setting sure you can have same sex relationships but you SciFi setting game, no you can have it D: Why bioware, why doesn't Mass Effect get no same sex love but you can throw aliens at us to love?
No one is forcing them not to they just decided not to do so, besides nothing stops you from roleplay a Homosexual character their simply wasn't any other charactyers for them to sleep with notice how in DA:O the only two party members were bi-sexual none were exclusivly same sex orientated, so for ME series they have not had any characters to make swing both ways.
Both Kaidan and Ashley were going to be options for same sex relationships but Bioware pulled the plug on it all. The conversations still exist within the game, you just cant do them without a save editor on the PC version.
 

jamesworkshop

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Gahars said:
Good to know that Bioware hasn't given up on them.

Hopefully, with the massive success of Dragon Age 1 and 2 (presumably) and Mass Effect 1 and 2, Bioware will have enough clout to prevent EA from removing the same sex relationships, if any are planned, in Mass Effect 3.
And you have proof of EA's involvment in that despite letting free-for-all foursomes in DA:O to be published by EA.

Plus without any marriage.....

ME3 is unlikly just due to Bioware didn't feel that the Shepard character they wrote was Gay nor any crew members be narrativly bi-sexual to accomodate it (the gay option isn't just related to shepards character)
Plus after two games of hetro-hero, shepard is unlikly going gay in the last game.
 

RatRace123

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Dec 1, 2009
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Muta Ro said:
jamesworkshop said:
Muta Ro said:
So why oh why cant Bioware do this in Mass Effect. Fantasy setting sure you can have same sex relationships but you SciFi setting game, no you can have it D: Why bioware, why doesn't Mass Effect get no same sex love but you can throw aliens at us to love?
No one is forcing them not to they just decided not to do so, besides nothing stops you from roleplay a Homosexual character their simply wasn't any other charactyers for them to sleep with notice how in DA:O the only two party members were bi-sexual none were exclusivly same sex orientated, so for ME series they have not had any characters to make swing both ways.
Both Kaidan and Ashley were going to be options for same sex relationships but Bioware pulled the plug on it all. The conversations still exist within the game, you just cant do them without a save editor on the PC version.
I think the reason they cut it was because they were using the same script, meaning that if a male Shepard wanted to pursue Kaiden he came off as being too girly. They didn't really seem to have the reverse of that problem when Fem Shep romanced Liara, but I kinda see why they did that, if that's why they did that.
 

thepyrethatburns

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Therumancer said:
Seems to me that Bioware is being evasive after the fact that they omitted same-sex relationships from both Mass Effect 2 and apparently from the upcoming "Old Republic" game. The point here seems to be saying "look, we still have them in Dragon Age". However that's just the cynic in me.
In fairness, I suspect that, even if they did want to do so in TOR, Lucasarts wouldn't let them. So you can't pin that one on Bioware.