When you say "she has been excluded" it feels like
A) Ami only consists of her sexuality, there is nothing more to her The game is only about sexuality
Neither of these things are true, but the reason it's important - now more than ever - is because when BG first came out, you sort of had to give it a pass simply because heteronormative values were written in stone at the time; game developers literally couldn't do anything about it.
But it's 2012, and Beamdog took a bold step in saying this 15-year-old game could use a bit of a tweak in that particular area, and good for them. (Seriously, imagine a version of Mass Effect where you could only play a white male Shepard. That was the norm not too long ago.)
That said, one bisexual character out of twenty-eight - while still being one more than we originally had - is still slightly problematic, because having made the statement that inclusion is as important to Beamdog as it is to BioWare, there's suddenly an imbalance that didn't really need to be there (because how hard would it have been to make Neera available to female players too? What difference would it have made to anyone other than people like ami who were hoping for that possibility?)
Of course I don't think it's deliberate... but it's still there. And I don't think you can quantify to what extent players like ami are excluded, because while sexuality may not be the whole of a person's identity, it's clearly important enough that you'd want to see it reflected in the game world. When straight players engage in heterosexual romances, they're affirming not just a part of themselves but a part of themselves they wanted their characters to have as well. Gay players will now be able to do this with Rasaad (or Dorn? I don't think they've even announced who the bisexual character even is yet)... but lesbian players will not.
I get the impression that some people may put too much weight on this. Don't get me wrong; there is very much to this, but not to the point that I see my entire existence questioned because a video game does not feature my sexual orientation.
I don't presume to know ami's intentions or feelings, but I think the reason this is such a weighty issue has less to do with BG:EE itself and more to do with the trend to which BG:EE is unintentionally contributing - there's a list of games a mile long that excluded gays and lesbians altogether, and now that the tide is turning, oversights of this sort are even more egregious (especially since, as I said, Beamdog already took that first step anyway, not incidentally showing a fairer hand towards women than BioWare did at the time: female PCs now have three very different love interests instead of just Anomen).
I do not think that too much of an "emotional stance" is good for a discussion. In this case, the developers have postponed the lesbian options.
We do not know for whatsoever reason the developers had to postpone one of their characters. We could inquire and ask them politely how this came to happen, instead of assume why they did that, and only come up with negative reasons.
Well, in the interests of fairness, let's be accurate here: the developers have never outright confirmed that this is the case. Dave Gross' exact words at the time were "I think this addition is likely to occur sooner rather than later" - that's speculation, not a guarantee.
In point of fact, I don't believe the developers have ever made any concrete statements at all concerning this issue, so your speculation on positive reasons isn't inherently more likely or more possible than the negative assumptions ami made.
What is the point of endlessly debating about the developers' reasons for postponing the lesbian romance? Should we not (politely) inquire first?
You're missing the point - it's not about whether the developers may or may not have had legitimate reasons to postpone a possible lesbian romance that may or may not have already been planned; the debate centers around the fact that when BG:EE ships, it will have a male romance option for male players and no female romance options for female players. That's what we know to be true based on current information.
In short: Ami could have politely inquired before drawing conclusions too fast. Then she would have known that it was not cancelled but postponed only. And then she could have politely asked for the reasons of postponing it.
Do you have irrefutable evidence that this is the case? Because otherwise you'd be asking ami to accept your interpretation of events before composing her argument, when the information available to her at the time would have led her to a different conclusion.
I do not see this actual debate only about a lesbian option to be included. It is also about how we address the developers in general.
As I've said before, the developers are free to do (or not do) whatever they want with their product; the counterbalance to this is that ami is free to address her concerns to them in whatever manner she chooses.
@Shandyr: I understand you perfectly well, I just don't agree with you. ami didn't break any forum rules, she was simply speaking in a way that you found too forceful. What "consequences" should she face for that?
As for kamuizin, I think once you start complaining that minority representation is killing diversity, you lose whatever shred of credibility you might retain, so I'm not really concerned about that.
Screaming to get something usually doesn't get you anywhere. That's why parents teach their children manners to politely ask for something. Basic rules of life. I think this ami person is old enough to realise that, so there's no excuse for her manner of talking, in my opinion.
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud: I've been going over ami's posts, and I honestly don't see what you mean - she isn't screaming, she isn't demanding anything, she's simply stating that she feels like a second-class player (and for a specific reason). As I've said, I give Beamdog a bit more leeway since having a bisexual male character is, at the very least, a step in the right direction... but I do feel like this forum may be acting a bit too defensively towards someone who criticized the developers. And here's the thing: she isn't wrong. Unless @Jalily knows something I don't, Dave Gross didn't make any concrete promises that this is an issue Beamdog intends to address; if they do, more power to them, but no one's said anything to that effect yet.
@shawne: Well, the developers said there might be a lesbian romance, yes? At least they're considering it. The way ami made her point could've been better, as she, to me, appeared as if she was taking conclusions way too fast. Plus, I think the devs have bigger worries going on right now than a couple of romances. Let them focus on the bigger picture first instead of flooding them with request for minor additions. Mind you, yes, I consider romances minor addditions, as I believe good discussions and banters between characters can achieve just as well a deep bond of friendship, albeit not on the romantic level.
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud: I understand what you're saying, but I don't think that's a useful approach - any discussion of contentious issues could be tabled by saying the developers have "more important things" to worry about.
Personally, I don't think there's any contradiction between having good banter between non-romantic characters and having good banter with romance options; ideally, a game that relies on characterization should have both. It's also worth noting that while you may consider romance to be a minor aspect of the game, this may not be the universal view on the subject: some fans may feel much more strongly about that particular game mechanism, and while you don't have to agree with their concerns, I think you have to at least acknowledge them.
@shawne: Have I ever said I do not acknowledge these people and their wishes? Everyone has their own preference when it comes to games. Yet I think one should also be able to look past the particular subject of romances and look at the game as a whole. BG 1 didn't even have any romances, yet most people think it is more compelling and memorable than BG 2, which did have romances. With all respect to those who like romances, I think romances in games nowadays have become overrated and almost obligatory in order to get to know a character fully, like Bioware's doing right now with all of their recent games. In saying this, I do not mean to sweep the wishes of the LGBT community under the table, I'm only trying to point out that romances are and will always stay optional (yet, nowadays they tend to get a heavier focus) and that they thus appropriately get treated as additional content. It's bonus content and will thus be made/considered in due time.
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud: The question of whether romance contributes to or deters RPGs has nothing to do with the issue at hand, though. Whatever your feelings may be about that, the fact is that there already are romances in BG:EE - it's even part of the marketing material for Neera. That's not bonus content, it's something the devs chose to put into the game. ami's whole point was that, having made that decision, the outcome is a bit slanted.
And the thing is... she's not wrong in pointing out that this goes back a long way, to the original BG2 where male PCs could choose Aerie, Jaheira or Viconia, but for female PCs it was Anomen or bust. That was another situation - which, again, I'm charitably writing off as unintentional - where the "importance" of romance in the game was secondary to the fact that there was a major disparity there that had no real justification.
All ami did was point out a blind spot that I'm sure Beamdog wasn't even aware of; and as I've said, if they intend to do something about it, fantastic. But it was still an oversight.
In a similar vein, I really enjoyed Cowboys and Aliens, and even objectively it was a solid film (no plot holes, strong characters, and a believable story despite crossing genres like a pony and a crocodile mating), and I will always defend it as being better-than-you-think-it-is. But just like the A-Team, it has a problem in that almost all of the characters in the film are male--which means that if you're a girl, there's no one on the screen to represent you except:
A) the alien chick (i.e. fan service); and all the women who get enslaved (i.e. subjugation)
The one female character in the film is great, and portrayed well, and well-written. But if you're a girl, she's the only character you can identify with, and she's not even human.
Does it make the movie not a good movie? No, of course not. I think it's brilliant. But it does represent a symptom of a broader problem, and that's something that people shouldn't ignore.
On a related note, if we are going to have sexual orientation be something that the game recognizes, it might make sense to also include evil/religious factions that don't like people of certain sexual orientations. There are plenty of characters throughout the game that don't like drow, for instance, and as Nalia pointed out the High Order of the Radiant Heart will only accept humans and discriminates against everyone else.
I think it would be an interesting plot development if there was a group of religious extremists (possibly mentally akin to the Cult of the Unseeing Eye) that didn't like homosexual characters that the party would end up interacting with if they had homosexual characters in their party. This would seem realistic for a medieval society such as exists in the Baldur's Gate universe.
Similarly, there could also be some other faction that didn't like straight people. I imagine that there could be some group similar to the Cult of the Unseeing Eye that thinks having babies is evil or something.
@ARKdeEREH Actually, I asked Ed Greenwood about that on the Candlekeep "Ask Ed" forums. My reply is pending, although to hear him tell it, in the Realms, nobody seems to view homosexuality as anything out of the ordinary. They don't go "Ew!" and make the "Avert Evil" hand signs. It's as non-remarked on as straight sexuality is here, apparently, according to Ed. I asked if there was any kind of organized opposition to homosexuality, and The Hooded One (a longtime player in Ed's Campaign) promised to ask him about it. She did say that there are festhalls (basically houses of prostitution or places where couples or groups can go to 'Play', advertize in different ways for different clienteles while some masquerade as non-festhalls (supper clubs, playhouses and the like) and others have different entrances for clients who want different things, or hang different colored lights somewhere to let people know what that particular festhall caters to.
@shawne: *sigh* Okay, so ami's made her point. Maybe we can now get over it and move on while hoping the Beamdog team does something about it. If they do, great. If they don't, well, move on then. As @Shandyr pointed out, we can't FORCE game developers to put romances in their games. Chris Avellone, one of the people behind Project Eternity, even refuses to include any traditional romances in his games. Is that good? That's up to subjective opinion. For me personally, it didn't matter, just like I didn't make a big deal out of not being able to romance anyone else besides Anomen in BG 2. On the contrary, it encouraged me to play as a male character for once and thus far it was one of the best characters I played. (although, ironically, Jaheira's romance froze up because I spent too long in the Underdark XD). All in all I still enjoyed BG 2 for its magnificent story and great portrayal of Irenicus. He was a realistic villain which, from a roleplaying point of view, gave you a good motivation for killing him. Unless Sarevok, who was more like a villain 'behind the curtain', a villain serving solely as an end-game boss. Fortunately his story got fleshed out better in BG 2, where he turned out to be family of the Bhaalspawn. But I'm going off-topic, sorry.
@ARKdeEREH: I see what you mean, but... to be honest, I think that might hit a little too close to home for a lot of people. If one objective of fantasy is escapism, I presume that gay and lesbian players would prefer to have their character engage in a positive romantic relationship without various organizations being "against" them. One could opine they get enough of that in their day-to-day life.
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud: I don't particularly disagree with your views on the games, though I did have the opposite experience of playing a fantastic Neutral Evil female who literally couldn't romance Anomen (in terms of RP, it just didn't make any sense). And one of the reasons I plan to pick up the EE is precisely because Dorn sounds like he'd be a perfect match for her.
As for romances... you know, "Planescape: Torment" is one of the best video game RPGs in the history of the genre, and there were no conventional romantic subplots there. Romance isn't (and shouldn't be) mandatory, but once you make the decision to include that mechanism in your game, you need to be considerate of people who might want to make different choices. That's why I thought the approach used by "Dragon Age II" was brilliant: no matter how you RPed your Hawke, you always had the option of romancing a party member you find appealing or compatible with your character.
@ARKdeEREH: I see what you mean, but... to be honest, I think that might hit a little too close to home for a lot of people. If one objective of fantasy is escapism, I presume that gay and lesbian players would prefer to have their character engage in a positive romantic relationship without various organizations being "against" them. One could opine they get enough of that in their day-to-day life.
Yeah, I thought of that. I'm not sure how people would react, I just thought of the idea and thought I would put it out there to see if anyone liked it.
Of course, in real life they couldn't respond by killing the offending faction, at least not without severe repercussions. I've set so many racist people on fire in BG2 I've lost count. Of course, I would never consider doing so in real life...
@shawne: I agree that the original BG 2 catered too much towards (male) players playing a male character. The choice for female CHARNAMES was very poor indeed. It would be nice if they'd add some more romancable male characters in BG 2:EE. But you have to keep in mind that times were different back then. Most developers thought of men playing games as their audience and thus developed their games with such an audience in mind. Nowadays the game demographic has changed, the audience has become more diverse and varied and developers will eventually, and by their own choice, change their views. This is a slow process, however, it needs time and patience. Just like how black people were slowly accepted after the Apartheid in South-Africa, people will need time to accept the LGBT community. The thing is, and I say this with no offense to anyone in particular, that some people might not recognise homosexuality as 'normal', as 'natural', which is understandable, as the human body is actually made with a focus on the opposite sex. I mean, even gay couples still have to resort to alternative methods when sleeping with each other, as they can't do it the 'natural' way with each other. And of course, having an adopted child is, however you may argue, still not the same as a child conceived by both partners together. Again, no offense to anyone, just trying to point out something that might contribute to people having an issue with homosexuality.
@shawne: I agree that the original BG 2 catered too much towards (male) players playing a male character. The choice for female CHARNAMES was very poor indeed. It would be nice if they'd add some more romancable male characters in BG 2:EE. But you have to keep in mind that times were different back then. Most developers thought of men playing games as their audience and thus developed their games with such an audience in mind. Nowadays the game demographic has changed, the audience has become more diverse and varied and developers will eventually, and by their own choice, change their views. This is a slow process, however, it needs time and patience. Just like how black people were slowly accepted after the Apartheid in South-Africa, people will need time to accept the LGBT community. The thing is, and I say this with no offense to anyone in particular, that some people might not recognise homosexuality as 'normal', as 'natural', which is understandable, as the human body is actually made with a focus on the opposite sex. I mean, even gay couples still have to resort to alternative methods when sleeping with each other, as they can't do it the 'natural' way with each other. And of course, having an adopted child is, however you may argue, still not the same as a child conceived by both partners together. Again, no offense to anyone, just trying to point out something that might contribute to people having an issue with homosexuality.
But you have to keep in mind that times were different back then. Most developers thought of men playing games as their audience and thus developed their games with such an audience in mind. Nowadays the game demographic has changed, the audience has become more diverse and varied and developers will eventually, and by their own choice, change their views. This is a slow process, however, it needs time and patience. Just like how black people were slowly accepted after the Apartheid in South-Africa, people will need time to accept the LGBT community.
Acceptance wasn't gained just by waiting for it to happen. Look at the American civil rights movement - you had the Million Man March, and Martin Luther King, and all the grassroots groups that pushed for inclusion, for equality. These were not people who were willing to sit quietly until the majority magnanimously decided to throw them a bone. And every time some idiot put a racist stereotype on TV because they just didn't know any better, it contributed to the problem.
The thing is, and I say this with no offense to anyone in particular, that some people might not recognise homosexuality as 'normal', as 'natural', which is understandable, as the human body is actually made with a focus on the opposite sex. I mean, even gay couples still have to resort to alternative methods when sleeping with each other, as they can't do it the 'natural' way with each other.
To take @Shandyr's comments a step further, this is both a dangerous and rather unenlightened view - without being too explicit, let's just say men and women can have exactly the same kind of intercourse two men can have, and "alternative" doesn't mean "inferior". As for "the natural way", we as human beings don't live natural lives. If you've ever taken Advil for a headache, if you've ever driven a car instead of walked, if you've ever used a microwave to heat your food, you're not doing what "nature" would expect you to do. So that argument is meaningless.
And of course, having an adopted child is, however you may argue, still not the same as a child conceived by both partners together. Again, no offense to anyone, just trying to point out something that might contribute to people having an issue with homosexuality.
Quite frankly, if these are the reasons people are having issues with homosexuality, it speaks more to their ignorance and foolishness than anything else. Consider: are all heterosexual couples required to have children? Do some heterosexuals raise children alone, or adopt? Do some heterosexuals choose not to have children at all? And on a broader level, who cares? It's not like all straight families are identical: you have single parents, step-parents, foster parents, etc. It's hypocritical to suggest that "family" is a source of "issues" towards homosexuality as if there's some ideal True Family Setup that every other family in the world subscribes to.
I haven't kept up with this thread, but I see my name tagged a few times, so I'll clear up the one point I can:
Our creative schedule has changed a few times for reasons wholly unrelated to the sexuality of the characters we're developing. Thus, certain gay, lesbian, or other non-straight characters might appear later (or, in some cases, possibly earlier) than I'd expected when I dropped that tease a while back.
A good lesson to me in not foreshadowing content that isn't imminent.
@Dave: Thanks for the clarification. If I might ask for just a bit more specificity regarding these characters that are being developed - when you refer to them appearing later or earlier, do you mean that they're meant for the Enhanced Edition of BG1 or BG2?
@shawne For now, I'm keeping my mouth shut to avoid inciting any further confusing speculation, but I'll be glad to discuss more when we're close to revealing the characters in question. Don't expect that to be very soon.
@Shandyr: You're rather missing the forest for the trees here. Of course there's more to any given character to their sexuality. However, in a discussion about whether gay and/or lesbian NPCs can/should/will exist in the game, obviously the sexuality of any new characters is going to be the main topic of interest. If this were a discussion about subraces, we'd be talking about whether New Character 4 is a drow or an aasimar, not whether he or she has a good storyline/cool powers/new class.
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But it's 2012, and Beamdog took a bold step in saying this 15-year-old game could use a bit of a tweak in that particular area, and good for them. (Seriously, imagine a version of Mass Effect where you could only play a white male Shepard. That was the norm not too long ago.)
That said, one bisexual character out of twenty-eight - while still being one more than we originally had - is still slightly problematic, because having made the statement that inclusion is as important to Beamdog as it is to BioWare, there's suddenly an imbalance that didn't really need to be there (because how hard would it have been to make Neera available to female players too? What difference would it have made to anyone other than people like ami who were hoping for that possibility?)
Of course I don't think it's deliberate... but it's still there. And I don't think you can quantify to what extent players like ami are excluded, because while sexuality may not be the whole of a person's identity, it's clearly important enough that you'd want to see it reflected in the game world. When straight players engage in heterosexual romances, they're affirming not just a part of themselves but a part of themselves they wanted their characters to have as well. Gay players will now be able to do this with Rasaad (or Dorn? I don't think they've even announced who the bisexual character even is yet)... but lesbian players will not. I don't blame her for taking an emotional stance - it's an emotional issue. I don't presume to know ami's intentions or feelings, but I think the reason this is such a weighty issue has less to do with BG:EE itself and more to do with the trend to which BG:EE is unintentionally contributing - there's a list of games a mile long that excluded gays and lesbians altogether, and now that the tide is turning, oversights of this sort are even more egregious (especially since, as I said, Beamdog already took that first step anyway, not incidentally showing a fairer hand towards women than BioWare did at the time: female PCs now have three very different love interests instead of just Anomen).
In point of fact, I don't believe the developers have ever made any concrete statements at all concerning this issue, so your speculation on positive reasons isn't inherently more likely or more possible than the negative assumptions ami made. You're missing the point - it's not about whether the developers may or may not have had legitimate reasons to postpone a possible lesbian romance that may or may not have already been planned; the debate centers around the fact that when BG:EE ships, it will have a male romance option for male players and no female romance options for female players. That's what we know to be true based on current information. Do you have irrefutable evidence that this is the case? Because otherwise you'd be asking ami to accept your interpretation of events before composing her argument, when the information available to her at the time would have led her to a different conclusion. As I've said before, the developers are free to do (or not do) whatever they want with their product; the counterbalance to this is that ami is free to address her concerns to them in whatever manner she chooses.
Never discuss with an imbecile, he will drag you to his level and will win you with his extensive experience.
I shoud have followed my own advice early to avoid lose my patience as i did before
As for kamuizin, I think once you start complaining that minority representation is killing diversity, you lose whatever shred of credibility you might retain, so I'm not really concerned about that.
And that's me dropping the mic, as it were.
Personally, I don't think there's any contradiction between having good banter between non-romantic characters and having good banter with romance options; ideally, a game that relies on characterization should have both. It's also worth noting that while you may consider romance to be a minor aspect of the game, this may not be the universal view on the subject: some fans may feel much more strongly about that particular game mechanism, and while you don't have to agree with their concerns, I think you have to at least acknowledge them.
And the thing is... she's not wrong in pointing out that this goes back a long way, to the original BG2 where male PCs could choose Aerie, Jaheira or Viconia, but for female PCs it was Anomen or bust. That was another situation - which, again, I'm charitably writing off as unintentional - where the "importance" of romance in the game was secondary to the fact that there was a major disparity there that had no real justification.
All ami did was point out a blind spot that I'm sure Beamdog wasn't even aware of; and as I've said, if they intend to do something about it, fantastic. But it was still an oversight.
A) the alien chick (i.e. fan service); and
The one female character in the film is great, and portrayed well, and well-written. But if you're a girl, she's the only character you can identify with, and she's not even human.
Does it make the movie not a good movie? No, of course not. I think it's brilliant. But it does represent a symptom of a broader problem, and that's something that people shouldn't ignore.
I think it would be an interesting plot development if there was a group of religious extremists (possibly mentally akin to the Cult of the Unseeing Eye) that didn't like homosexual characters that the party would end up interacting with if they had homosexual characters in their party. This would seem realistic for a medieval society such as exists in the Baldur's Gate universe.
Similarly, there could also be some other faction that didn't like straight people. I imagine that there could be some group similar to the Cult of the Unseeing Eye that thinks having babies is evil or something.
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud: I don't particularly disagree with your views on the games, though I did have the opposite experience of playing a fantastic Neutral Evil female who literally couldn't romance Anomen (in terms of RP, it just didn't make any sense). And one of the reasons I plan to pick up the EE is precisely because Dorn sounds like he'd be a perfect match for her.
As for romances... you know, "Planescape: Torment" is one of the best video game RPGs in the history of the genre, and there were no conventional romantic subplots there. Romance isn't (and shouldn't be) mandatory, but once you make the decision to include that mechanism in your game, you need to be considerate of people who might want to make different choices. That's why I thought the approach used by "Dragon Age II" was brilliant: no matter how you RPed your Hawke, you always had the option of romancing a party member you find appealing or compatible with your character.
Of course, in real life they couldn't respond by killing the offending faction, at least not without severe repercussions. I've set so many racist people on fire in BG2 I've lost count. Of course, I would never consider doing so in real life...
Our creative schedule has changed a few times for reasons wholly unrelated to the sexuality of the characters we're developing. Thus, certain gay, lesbian, or other non-straight characters might appear later (or, in some cases, possibly earlier) than I'd expected when I dropped that tease a while back.
A good lesson to me in not foreshadowing content that isn't imminent.
As some people stated a time ago in this very thread, or you support my idea or you're against it and thus, you're my enemy.