let´s make a moded npc and call it "gayromance" with a special attack like arguing-to-death spell. And he will probably not be romaceable because he´s the villain vs gameplay fun;)
I just cannot think of any possible solution to please everyone concerning romances. Which is why I think this topic can go on forever.
Now you sound like Belgar. The reason any discussion re homosexuality goes on forever is the unwillingness of heteros to compromise. They think it's perfectly fine for gays and bis to be excluded from things, and asking for a middle ground is "too much hassle" so gays should really just go back in the corner and STFU already.
This whole thread is about gays wanting EVEN ONE romance (let alone more), and heteros going on and on... and ON about why they shouldn't have one. Half a dozen romances for them is fine, but adding one for gays/bis will be pandering, or silly, or unrealistic, or only result in poorly written romances, or bland romances, or sex crazed romances so we really shouldn't even bother. That's a whole lot of rationalization about why other people shouldn't have the very thing they're asking for. "Yeah, I know you're fainting from starvation and really want something to eat but this meal is a touch overcooked... well, it might be, so I'm not gonna give it to you."
As I said before, society shouldn't pander to the biases and prejudices of some, and businesses make money by appealing to larger audiences, not smaller ones. There will always be people who have issues with homosexuality and there really can't be any compromise with them. They of course think that WE'RE the problem by not accepting an invisible role... just look at Baba Yaga's post. If people think this conversation is too long, they can always stop selfishly arguing about why others should be denied what they themselves already have in spades. And if they can't stop... maybe they should look in the mirror to see where the problem lies.
The main problem for me is this worry about equalism, the romances doesn't need to be equalised, we don't need a romance for each race, neither the exactly sum of male and female romances or straight or bi romances.
Have you enjoyed the romances in the game Kamu? Don't other gamers deserve to be able to also? You may not feel you're missing out, but others do. If you think the romances are fine as they are, why complain that others want gay romances, or gnome romances, or whatever? Why is your game dollar more important than anybody else's? Why are you spending so much time arguing against the fun and enjoyment of other gamers? If you don't want to romance the gay halfling or the bland, sex-starved gnome, then don't! Wasn't that easy?
@Lord_Gay, well, I certainly admire your fortitude and courage for standing up for and fighting for people like us. I came of age in the 1990's, during the decade of gay pride and "out and proud". I've seen a lot of changes in attitudes in my lifetime, but also a lot of "the more things change, the more they stay the same."
And reading all the back-and-forth in this thread hasn't really helped me reduce my cynicism about the capacity of people in general for understanding and kindness toward those who are different from them.
However, you are a bright knight-in-shining-armor for the rest of us. I'm old and tired, and I've had enough of fighting for my lifetime. I just want peace.
I still look up to people like you who keep fighting for what's right, though. Maybe you will change some minds.
It's a shame @Lord_Gay, i was taking many of your points serious before, you raised some very coherent statements on your first posts, but now what i see is an repressed behavior and a reactionary motivation.
So lemme explain to others, cos you already have your own opinion from my posts as i see, and whom am i to explain my own posts when you can understand them so much better, no?
I don't care to equalism, only to quality.
Now at the moment we have 1 gay romance in BG and 2 straight romance, i would like Neera to be a gay romanceable character, but if not it's fine with me. In BG II there are 4 straight romances and no gay romance at the moment, probally they gonna make another gay romance or maybe 2, but isn't quantity that matter, quality will win the day.
So, we don't need a sexist war here, to divide romances in 2 groups, gays and straights.
Today i would play through any straight romance or female gay romance, i'm not too much inclined to play a male gay romance, but if i see good reviews of the writing, i have no problem in play them, cos this is a game, a place to roleplay. If you don't play straight romances just because you're gay, sorry to say but you're just being short minded.
If you like so much surface hypocrite politic, go for Dragon Age 2 and be happy with the walking inflatable doll, cos besides Isabela, the NPCs romances there serve for only one purpose, to be fucked in ACT 3.
Edit: Again the "don't want don't _____" excuse, dude how i despise this lack of intelectual capacity of an excuse. I don't even care if the only halfling romance in the game is only gay, as long it's coherent with the character personality, if a new halfling in BG II has an extreme gay behavior, or declare himself clearly gay, what i wouldn't want would be a straight romance avaliabe for him, but if he's clearly straight then i woudn't want a gay romance for him, and that's all.
Ps: Just to ppl know, you can have sex with all the five NPCs in a single game play in DA2, what show how well developed the walking sex meats are there in romance matter.
I don't care to equalism, only to quality. [...] If you don't play straight romances just because you're gay, sorry to say but you're just being short minded. [...] Edit: Again the "don't want don't _____" excuse, dude how i despise this lack of intelectual capacity of an excuse. I don't even care if the only halfling romance in the game is only gay, as long it's coherent with the character personality, if a new halfling in BG II has an extreme gay behavior, or declare himself clearly gay, what i wouldn't want would be a straight romance avaliabe for him, but if he's clearly straight then i woudn't want a gay romance for him, and that's all.
We all want quality writing Kamu, that's a given. The difference is that you can afford to be picky, we can't.
You have the option of countless hetero experiences in games, innumerable, so given such an immense diet of hetero relationships, it's quite natural to only want quality ones. Once you've eaten at fine restaurants, why would you want fast food? Gays however don't have this. We don't have this at all.
You suggest I haven't played hetero relationships? Dude, that's ALL I've played ALL my life! Because that's all I COULD play. Can you even imagine what it would be like to ONLY have gay male relationships to choose? Can you imagine what it's like to play countless games where your goal is rescue the prince, or you have to fight the dragon to get the prince, or to continue the main story you HAVE to rescue a hot man who will flirt with you the whole time and will stay with you the whole game? Where men are always dressed in skimpy clothing with enlarged genitalia and are always hitting on you? Where these images are plastered all over the game box and advertising and in-game content? Where you NEVER get to play a relationship that you want? _Ever_?
You're saying you want quality and it will only be acceptable if it's high quality. What if it's not? You'll still have plenty of hetero options to choose from. I just want SOMETHING! Anything. Do I want quality writing? Sure. Will I be disappointed if it sucks? Sure. But, even a cup of dirty water is delicious to a person dying of thirst. You don't seem to grasp how completely barren the gaming world is for gays, nor how the world in general is devoid of things for gays.
Lastly, you say that you want characters to be true to how they're written. It's easy to say that when 100% of NPCs in game worlds are hetero. It's easy to say that when you have never had to go without hetero options. It's easy to say that when you have never had to imagine gay people as straight, because that was the ONLY way you would ever see a relationship that made you happy. That's what gays have been having to do all our lives.
I am TIRED of playing hetero relationships. I am TIRED of games forcing hetero PCs on me, forced to chase after opposite sexed people as if I care about them, and forced to be with them and supposed to be happy about it. I'm not talking optional romance content, I'm talking unavoidable main story. I am TIRED of having to constantly rewrite characters and relationships and interpersonal dynamics in my head just so I can have SOME kind of gay interaction.
Your argument about quality is missing the big picture Kamu.
I will not be naive and say that i fully understand you dude, cos i don't. Can i evaluate a minority situation? yes, i can, but i don't live this, so i will always miss something.
However that doesn't meant a free excuse to justify anything. What i miss is the small picture, the details and personal meanings of prejudice, the big picture here in this matter, is an conflict of interest, what to do to please the clients in general.
Yes, i want quality and i have quantity at the moment, but your solution is to give you quantity by diminish the quality of every romanceable character, so now i ask, doesn't i have the right of argue to keep the quality of the actual romances?
If we have more straight romances than gay, sorry to say this but that's just a consequence of my position about straight be natural and gay unnatural. Even in mods we see this being repeated, what just reinforce my argument (we have more straight mods romance than gay, and mods don't follow any society control or marketing pratice).
I don't know what to expect from the future romances, if you ask me what i want i will obvious say more straight romance and lesbian romances maybe, but if they come to be male gay well wrote romances... well i will probally complain about content that i like but ok, i will live with that. You can't expect me to fight for a kind of content that isn't in my interet list and will probally replace a content that i would like more (straight and lesbian).
Sorry @Lord_gay, but isn't a question of a big picture here, we do not share a common goal to be a question of big picture, it's a matter of conflict of interests. Isn't up to me to decide what will come in next, it's up to the devs, i can understand your request for more gay romance but i'm not gonna to support it, and i will surely contest when you ask to diminish the actual quality control in benefit of gay quantity by making every single new NPC bi. It didn't work well in Dragon Age 2 and i will not risk to stain Baldur's Gate name with it.
Ps: i would even lend support in the future a gay male romance (not bi, just gay for example) well wrote that synchronizes with the NPC personality as long i get other new straight romances well wroten also (as long i'm satisfied with the kind of content i like). I'm not against gay romances today, but i will not fight for them at the risk of harm other contents that i would like more.
Ps2: Bi content normally is bad wrote by nature, exactly because of engine limitations, a bissexual inside a game will always be showed as an weak minded character that would accept any main char flirts. Straight or gay only characters pass a stronger personality and that interest me more in NPCs, and i risk to say that this in fact interest more everyone.
@Shandyr in fact i don't dislike bissexual NPCs, it's just a lot more harder to make a well wrote bissexual than a straight or gay NPC.
The only well wrote bissexual NPC that i know is Zevran from Dragon Age: Origins, and by the way it's funny to see that the most quoted NPC for gay arguments is the only one that main char has an option to kill when we capture him, Bioware pleased the haters there also, they didn't missed a single client in Dragon Ages series after all !
I think the main problem lies with the limitations of games and writing capabilities. There indeed will always be something gamers will complain about, as each person has their own vision on how a relationship would look like, the appearance/personality/etc from the romancable characters, and so on. Some people want straight romances, as they themselves are straight, others want gay/lesbian ones and yet others want bissexual ones. For game developers, it must be extremely difficult to find a general compromise, a consensus out of such a wide variety in personal tastes. And so they focus on the majority, the 'stereotypical' straight male gamer, as these people make out to be the broadest audience. You simply CAN'T cater to every minority and every personal wish of your audience as a game developer, or else it would create chaos in your game and you wouldn't see the single trees over the entire wood anymore. It would be too much. That's why I am defending the romancing options in DA:O so much, because they were diverse and each NPC had their own unique backstory and personality to go with it. Looking from a purely majority-minority kind of view, DA:O was perfectly balanced. Looking from each group's perspective, it wasn't, as straight gamers got more options than gay/lesbian/bissexual people. Personally I wouldn't have minded if there had been another gay character in DA:O. It would have only been fair towards these minority groups who want an extra option. Yet DA 2 rubbed me the wrong way as a straight gamer, because romances felt superficial now that I knew it didn't matter which gender I could pick. The characters didn't feel 'unique' anymor, because as I pointed out before, there wasn't this connection between personality and sexuality anymore. Sexuality got shoved to the foreground and personality to the background. It just felt flat to me.
I think the main problem lies with the limitations of games and writing capabilities. There indeed will always be something gamers will complain about, as each person has their own vision on how a relationship would look like, the appearance/personality/etc from the romancable characters, and so on. Some people want straight romances, as they themselves are straight, others want gay/lesbian ones and yet others want bissexual ones. For game developers, it must be extremely difficult to find a general compromise, a consensus out of such a wide variety in personal tastes. And so they focus on the majority, the 'stereotypical' straight male gamer, as these people make out to be the broadest audience. You simply CAN'T cater to every minority and every personal wish of your audience as a game developer, or else it would create chaos in your game and you wouldn't see the single trees over the entire wood anymore. It would be too much. That's why I am defending the romancing options in DA:O so much, because they were diverse and each NPC had their own unique backstory and personality to go with it. Looking from a purely majority-minority kind of view, DA:O was perfectly balanced. Looking from each group's perspective, it wasn't, as straight gamers got more options than gay/lesbian/bissexual people. Personally I wouldn't have minded if there had been another gay character in DA:O. It would have only been fair towards these minority groups who want an extra option. Yet DA 2 rubbed me the wrong way as a straight gamer, because romances felt superficial now that I knew it didn't matter which gender I could pick. The characters didn't feel 'unique' anymor, because as I pointed out before, there wasn't this connection between personality and sexuality anymore. Sexuality got shoved to the foreground and personality to the background. It just felt flat to me.
@Shandyr: Oh, I'm sorry. It is my phone's problem, you see. It actually isn't fully well adapted to internet browsing. Stoopid phone. And yeah, you're right. I missed the characterization which was present in DA:O. Such a shame. I had such high hopes for DA 2...
@Shandyr: I don't think the solution to a contentious problem is to erase the subject of contention, because you'd still be defaulting in favor of heteronormative values. "No romances for anyone" doesn't solve the problem, it avoids it.
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud: The thing about DA2, though, is that you - the player - have no way of knowing how other romances are structured while you're playing the game. Say you chose to romance Fenris as a man, and that works out for you. The only way you'd know Fenris is also available to female characters is if you go online and read/watch another player do that. What does that have to do with your own RP? DA2 doesn't let you romance multiple characters - you pick someone, that someone is compatible with you, and that's it. The whole "everyone is bisexual" complaint is utter fabrication; for every playthrough, you can only ever romance one character, and the orientations of the other possible love interests just aren't up for discussion (which makes sense, because if you're not romancing a specific character why would you care about that?).
Lol, you can get in bed with the 5 romanceable NPCs in DA2 inside a single gameplay, that besides the fact of little to near none differences between the straight banters and gay banters. Well, for each one their own i guess...
But it's purely nosense say that they're not bissexual because your character is male or female, this is just an selective way of look a situation to evaluate the issue only with your selectable arguments, you know, Catholic church made the same thing with the canonical writings, banishing the apocryphal with a stupid excuse to use only the writes that better shape their institution.
@shawne: True. Yet the fact is still there that every character's being hard-coded as bisexual. From the point of the characters, and especially the writing of those characters, I find it hard to accept omnipresent bissexuality. It makes sexuality a game mechanic and no longer a part of the personality of the character. There's still the knowledge that all characters are bissexual just for catering to the audience. The argument sounds old, I know, but it just isn't realistic to me. It breaks immersion, as no universe is completely filled to the brim with only bissexual characters. Personally, when I came to know of Bioware's choice in sexual orientation, it kind of alienated me more from DA 2, for the reason that sexuality was treated as part of the game and no longer as part of the specific character. It put me off, as I knew and liked them mostly because of their uniquely written characters and romances. You might still not agree with me, and I respect that, but it's just the way I see it.
@Shandyr: The solution is simple - inclusion. It's exactly what BioWare, Beamdog and their contemporaries are doing. That it causes flamewars spurred by small-minded bigots is perhaps unfortunate, but I don't see why that should matter. Fifty years ago we'd be having the same discussion on black characters and interracial romance, that doesn't mean people opposed to it had a leg to stand on.
@shawne: True. Yet the fact is still there that every character's being hard-coded as bisexual.
Again, that's simply not true. To activate a romance at all, you have to trigger it by clicking on dialogue options with the heart symbol - and once you do that, you're locked in with a specific character. To keep with the previous example, if you romance Fenris as a man, he's into guys. But that's it. You have no way of knowing, in-game, how Anders, Merrill or Isabela would have responded in the same situation unless you create a new character and pursue one of them instead - but if you do that, Fenris doesn't express any attraction to you at all, no matter your gender.
The romance structure isn't about bisexuality, it's about the specific character you like (because why else would you romance them?) being available to you regardless of the gender you've chosen for your character (because, unless you're metagaming, it's not like you would have known in advance which party member you'd be interested in - gender is an aesthetic and personal choice when creating a PC in RPGs). Every Hawke gets to have a - emphasis on a - romance, and that's all.
i support all of the LGBT romances as is. even if they are bisexual by default or change their sexuality depending on players gender. period. no "only if something else is done first" or "somewhere in the future" bullshit, because that way it can be postponed indefinitely. either you support it or not, and good writing has nothing to do with sexuality. it simply has to be demanded also.
people also seem all too happy to point to da2 to show why bisexual romances are a bad idea. why? because if they were straight or gay the romances would be great? no! they suck because the writing was not good in the first place!
lackluster solutions or half-done job is what ruins the experience or quality, not inclusion of more content.
@Lord_Gay, and @everyone in the thread. I deeply regret my words of exasperation where I expressed that I was tired of fighting, and I wished people would just stop arguing about this issue in gaming forums, because now the anti-gay people are starting to quote me. I guess I'm the "good" kind of gay who has been emotionally beaten into submission, and I "keep my place", and "don't rub their faces in it", so they like me better, because I stare at the floor and behave, and I'm non-threatening, because I don't talk back or try to call them out on all their condescending statements.
I admire people who keep fighting for the rights of oppressed groups like gay people, and who never give up in the battle to sway the hearts and minds of the majority, so that maybe young gay people in the future won't have to deal with all the crap growing up that I and others did.
So, maybe having just a few gay relationships published in games is more important than I had thought. Again, I deeply apologize to my fellow gays, and to those others who support us, for my defeatist statements. Several of you are putting me to shame by your refusal to give up the battle. And I guess it does still have to be a battle.
@Shawne That is not true regarding DA2. Anders and Isabela are always bisexual and will bring this up in conversations even if you do not romance them. Anders is less open about it if you play a female Hawke but even then he will drop hints. Merril and Fenris don´t bring up their sexuality much if you don´t flirt with them, though usually Fenris will hook up with Isabella, and Merrill is sweet on Carver. Other characters like Sebastian, Varcic are straight.
I can´t understand why people would assume that being open for both genders would make a character more shallow. Surely the only problem here is how well the characters are written and if there is enough non romantic dialog available. Personally I liked the romances and characters in DA2 better than those in DA:O especially since in DA2 it was not necessary to always agree with them to get all the dialog or advance the (platonic) relationship. For me the worst job regarding romance Bioware ever did was ME2. All six romances stopped talking to you if you did/could not peruse their romance. So that you really missed out on character development if you were not into bald chicks, or frogs.
very narrow minded to think that everyone who is against gay romances for BG is a small-minded bigot. You´re not better then the one you try to insult @shawne. You can fight your private war against other oppinions until you die but you are not (god bless) in charge to force homosexuality upon the straight people. It slowly pisses me of how you dudes see yourself in the good spot and the rest of us in the bad, homophobe and and and spot. And i regret trying to understand you because it´s nothing more then a private thing and you cant accept anything else!
No offense taken @Shandyr, i just put myself above this sexual faction war and i think that others should do the same. people in the last posts are trying to make a revolution in an issue which acceptance is just a matter of time, the further time pass today the further gay content, behavior and material will more be introduced in society. It's a stupid fight cos it isn't needed, in my view it's just minority reaction.
But i will try to judge less (judge the radical action as necessary/unnecessary, everyone here is probally already tired of hear my opinion about natural/unnatural), cos as i told before i can understand a bit how a person can feel inside a minority (i have other opinions and situations where i am minority for example) but without living this issue i can't fully completly understand this specific issue.
I try to observe this issue and give my opinion (for both sides), i already replied posts made by haters (the ones with stupid justifies for example) as i did the same with other pro-gay radicals. I have my own opinion in this matter, and somehow it's funny cos i'm the true minority here (alone with my own opinion ^^) but of course i don't suffer the society consequences cos it's just an intelectual minority here.
So what i mean is: While i can observe this discussion and give freely my opinion, i will do it, i'm not gay and i have nothing against or in favor of a gay, but if people make this black and white and ask me to take a position, as it's happening lately, i have 2 options: retreat myself from the discussion and let people enrage in their radical behavior, or position against new gay content, not because i don't like it, but because i like more straight content of course and if i have to choose, i will choose what please me.
For radical actions, this thread lost objective, will be better to make a new pool with 2 votes options "more gay romance content" and "More straight romance content", it's just a risk of be outnumbered there (even with some support from people that mistake "what they want" with "lend support"). In the end straight is majority, and the quantity of content for straight is just an reflex of that.
I really, really, really do not get the "bisexual NPCs are so unrealistic it takes away from the game" argument. It is curious that with DA2, everybody is obsessed with the NPCs changing their orientations based on the players gender, but no one mentions that your sibling also changes gender AND profession based on the players choices. It is a role-playing game, a LOT changes based on your choices. Maybe in your game a lot of NPCs are dead, in my game they are alive, and someone else died. Your main character was a serious rightous hero, mine was an absent minded childish jackass. In your game a certain NPC was straight - in mine that NPC was gay. Yet only the last one of those differences ever comes up as "unrealistic" and "shallow". Why is that?
I really, really, really do not get the "bisexual NPCs are so unrealistic it takes away from the game" argument. It is curious that with DA2, everybody is obsessed with the NPCs changing their orientations based on the players gender, but no one mentions that your sibling also changes gender AND profession based on the players choices. It is a role-playing game, a LOT changes based on your choices. Maybe in your game a lot of NPCs are dead, in my game they are alive, and someone else died. Your main character was a serious rightous hero, mine was an absent minded childish jackass. In your game a certain NPC was straight - in mine that NPC was gay. Yet only the last one of those differences ever comes up as "unrealistic" and "shallow". Why is that?
I agree. I'd much rather have the main romances be romancable by either gender than get stuck with maybe one thrown in gay party member if that's the choice I have to make. Of course I'd rather well thought out gay characters made to be gay but aside from (crap can't remember his name) that guy in ME3 you never get that. I'm perfectly happy with the "every romanceable character is 'bisexual'" thing.
Comments
This whole thread is about gays wanting EVEN ONE romance (let alone more), and heteros going on and on... and ON about why they shouldn't have one. Half a dozen romances for them is fine, but adding one for gays/bis will be pandering, or silly, or unrealistic, or only result in poorly written romances, or bland romances, or sex crazed romances so we really shouldn't even bother. That's a whole lot of rationalization about why other people shouldn't have the very thing they're asking for. "Yeah, I know you're fainting from starvation and really want something to eat but this meal is a touch overcooked... well, it might be, so I'm not gonna give it to you."
As I said before, society shouldn't pander to the biases and prejudices of some, and businesses make money by appealing to larger audiences, not smaller ones. There will always be people who have issues with homosexuality and there really can't be any compromise with them. They of course think that WE'RE the problem by not accepting an invisible role... just look at Baba Yaga's post. If people think this conversation is too long, they can always stop selfishly arguing about why others should be denied what they themselves already have in spades. And if they can't stop... maybe they should look in the mirror to see where the problem lies. Have you enjoyed the romances in the game Kamu? Don't other gamers deserve to be able to also? You may not feel you're missing out, but others do. If you think the romances are fine as they are, why complain that others want gay romances, or gnome romances, or whatever? Why is your game dollar more important than anybody else's? Why are you spending so much time arguing against the fun and enjoyment of other gamers? If you don't want to romance the gay halfling or the bland, sex-starved gnome, then don't! Wasn't that easy?
And reading all the back-and-forth in this thread hasn't really helped me reduce my cynicism about the capacity of people in general for understanding and kindness toward those who are different from them.
However, you are a bright knight-in-shining-armor for the rest of us. I'm old and tired, and I've had enough of fighting for my lifetime. I just want peace.
I still look up to people like you who keep fighting for what's right, though. Maybe you will change some minds.
So lemme explain to others, cos you already have your own opinion from my posts as i see, and whom am i to explain my own posts when you can understand them so much better, no?
I don't care to equalism, only to quality.
Now at the moment we have 1 gay romance in BG and 2 straight romance, i would like Neera to be a gay romanceable character, but if not it's fine with me. In BG II there are 4 straight romances and no gay romance at the moment, probally they gonna make another gay romance or maybe 2, but isn't quantity that matter, quality will win the day.
So, we don't need a sexist war here, to divide romances in 2 groups, gays and straights.
Today i would play through any straight romance or female gay romance, i'm not too much inclined to play a male gay romance, but if i see good reviews of the writing, i have no problem in play them, cos this is a game, a place to roleplay. If you don't play straight romances just because you're gay, sorry to say but you're just being short minded.
If you like so much surface hypocrite politic, go for Dragon Age 2 and be happy with the walking inflatable doll, cos besides Isabela, the NPCs romances there serve for only one purpose, to be fucked in ACT 3.
Edit: Again the "don't want don't _____" excuse, dude how i despise this lack of intelectual capacity of an excuse. I don't even care if the only halfling romance in the game is only gay, as long it's coherent with the character personality, if a new halfling in BG II has an extreme gay behavior, or declare himself clearly gay, what i wouldn't want would be a straight romance avaliabe for him, but if he's clearly straight then i woudn't want a gay romance for him, and that's all.
Ps: Just to ppl know, you can have sex with all the five NPCs in a single game play in DA2, what show how well developed the walking sex meats are there in romance matter.
You have the option of countless hetero experiences in games, innumerable, so given such an immense diet of hetero relationships, it's quite natural to only want quality ones. Once you've eaten at fine restaurants, why would you want fast food? Gays however don't have this. We don't have this at all.
You suggest I haven't played hetero relationships? Dude, that's ALL I've played ALL my life! Because that's all I COULD play. Can you even imagine what it would be like to ONLY have gay male relationships to choose? Can you imagine what it's like to play countless games where your goal is rescue the prince, or you have to fight the dragon to get the prince, or to continue the main story you HAVE to rescue a hot man who will flirt with you the whole time and will stay with you the whole game? Where men are always dressed in skimpy clothing with enlarged genitalia and are always hitting on you? Where these images are plastered all over the game box and advertising and in-game content? Where you NEVER get to play a relationship that you want? _Ever_?
You're saying you want quality and it will only be acceptable if it's high quality. What if it's not? You'll still have plenty of hetero options to choose from. I just want SOMETHING! Anything. Do I want quality writing? Sure. Will I be disappointed if it sucks? Sure. But, even a cup of dirty water is delicious to a person dying of thirst. You don't seem to grasp how completely barren the gaming world is for gays, nor how the world in general is devoid of things for gays.
Lastly, you say that you want characters to be true to how they're written. It's easy to say that when 100% of NPCs in game worlds are hetero. It's easy to say that when you have never had to go without hetero options. It's easy to say that when you have never had to imagine gay people as straight, because that was the ONLY way you would ever see a relationship that made you happy. That's what gays have been having to do all our lives.
I am TIRED of playing hetero relationships. I am TIRED of games forcing hetero PCs on me, forced to chase after opposite sexed people as if I care about them, and forced to be with them and supposed to be happy about it. I'm not talking optional romance content, I'm talking unavoidable main story. I am TIRED of having to constantly rewrite characters and relationships and interpersonal dynamics in my head just so I can have SOME kind of gay interaction.
Your argument about quality is missing the big picture Kamu.
However that doesn't meant a free excuse to justify anything. What i miss is the small picture, the details and personal meanings of prejudice, the big picture here in this matter, is an conflict of interest, what to do to please the clients in general.
Yes, i want quality and i have quantity at the moment, but your solution is to give you quantity by diminish the quality of every romanceable character, so now i ask, doesn't i have the right of argue to keep the quality of the actual romances?
If we have more straight romances than gay, sorry to say this but that's just a consequence of my position about straight be natural and gay unnatural. Even in mods we see this being repeated, what just reinforce my argument (we have more straight mods romance than gay, and mods don't follow any society control or marketing pratice).
I don't know what to expect from the future romances, if you ask me what i want i will obvious say more straight romance and lesbian romances maybe, but if they come to be male gay well wrote romances... well i will probally complain about content that i like but ok, i will live with that. You can't expect me to fight for a kind of content that isn't in my interet list and will probally replace a content that i would like more (straight and lesbian).
Sorry @Lord_gay, but isn't a question of a big picture here, we do not share a common goal to be a question of big picture, it's a matter of conflict of interests. Isn't up to me to decide what will come in next, it's up to the devs, i can understand your request for more gay romance but i'm not gonna to support it, and i will surely contest when you ask to diminish the actual quality control in benefit of gay quantity by making every single new NPC bi. It didn't work well in Dragon Age 2 and i will not risk to stain Baldur's Gate name with it.
Ps: i would even lend support in the future a gay male romance (not bi, just gay for example) well wrote that synchronizes with the NPC personality as long i get other new straight romances well wroten also (as long i'm satisfied with the kind of content i like). I'm not against gay romances today, but i will not fight for them at the risk of harm other contents that i would like more.
Ps2: Bi content normally is bad wrote by nature, exactly because of engine limitations, a bissexual inside a game will always be showed as an weak minded character that would accept any main char flirts. Straight or gay only characters pass a stronger personality and that interest me more in NPCs, and i risk to say that this in fact interest more everyone.
The only well wrote bissexual NPC that i know is Zevran from Dragon Age: Origins, and by the way it's funny to see that the most quoted NPC for gay arguments is the only one that main char has an option to kill when we capture him, Bioware pleased the haters there also, they didn't missed a single client in Dragon Ages series after all
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud: The thing about DA2, though, is that you - the player - have no way of knowing how other romances are structured while you're playing the game. Say you chose to romance Fenris as a man, and that works out for you. The only way you'd know Fenris is also available to female characters is if you go online and read/watch another player do that. What does that have to do with your own RP? DA2 doesn't let you romance multiple characters - you pick someone, that someone is compatible with you, and that's it. The whole "everyone is bisexual" complaint is utter fabrication; for every playthrough, you can only ever romance one character, and the orientations of the other possible love interests just aren't up for discussion (which makes sense, because if you're not romancing a specific character why would you care about that?).
And @Lord_Gay: Well said. All of it.
But it's purely nosense say that they're not bissexual because your character is male or female, this is just an selective way of look a situation to evaluate the issue only with your selectable arguments, you know, Catholic church made the same thing with the canonical writings, banishing the apocryphal with a stupid excuse to use only the writes that better shape their institution.
The romance structure isn't about bisexuality, it's about the specific character you like (because why else would you romance them?) being available to you regardless of the gender you've chosen for your character (because, unless you're metagaming, it's not like you would have known in advance which party member you'd be interested in - gender is an aesthetic and personal choice when creating a PC in RPGs). Every Hawke gets to have a - emphasis on a - romance, and that's all.
people also seem all too happy to point to da2 to show why bisexual romances are a bad idea. why? because if they were straight or gay the romances would be great? no! they suck because the writing was not good in the first place!
lackluster solutions or half-done job is what ruins the experience or quality, not inclusion of more content.
I admire people who keep fighting for the rights of oppressed groups like gay people, and who never give up in the battle to sway the hearts and minds of the majority, so that maybe young gay people in the future won't have to deal with all the crap growing up that I and others did.
So, maybe having just a few gay relationships published in games is more important than I had thought. Again, I deeply apologize to my fellow gays, and to those others who support us, for my defeatist statements. Several of you are putting me to shame by your refusal to give up the battle. And I guess it does still have to be a battle.
That is not true regarding DA2.
Anders and Isabela are always bisexual and will bring this up in conversations even if you do not romance them. Anders is less open about it if you play a female Hawke but even then he will drop hints.
Merril and Fenris don´t bring up their sexuality much if you don´t flirt with them, though usually Fenris will hook up with Isabella, and Merrill is sweet on Carver. Other characters like Sebastian, Varcic are straight.
I can´t understand why people would assume that being open for both genders would make a character more shallow. Surely the only problem here is how well the characters are written and if there is enough non romantic dialog available. Personally I liked the romances and characters in DA2 better than those in DA:O especially since in DA2 it was not necessary to always agree with them to get all the dialog or advance the (platonic) relationship.
For me the worst job regarding romance Bioware ever did was ME2. All six romances stopped talking to you if you did/could not peruse their romance. So that you really missed out on character development if you were not into bald chicks, or frogs.
It slowly pisses me of how you dudes see yourself in the good spot and the rest of us in the bad, homophobe and and and spot. And i regret trying to understand you because it´s nothing more then a private thing and you cant accept anything else!
But i will try to judge less (judge the radical action as necessary/unnecessary, everyone here is probally already tired of hear my opinion about natural/unnatural), cos as i told before i can understand a bit how a person can feel inside a minority (i have other opinions and situations where i am minority for example) but without living this issue i can't fully completly understand this specific issue.
I try to observe this issue and give my opinion (for both sides), i already replied posts made by haters (the ones with stupid justifies for example) as i did the same with other pro-gay radicals. I have my own opinion in this matter, and somehow it's funny cos i'm the true minority here (alone with my own opinion ^^) but of course i don't suffer the society consequences cos it's just an intelectual minority here.
So what i mean is: While i can observe this discussion and give freely my opinion, i will do it, i'm not gay and i have nothing against or in favor of a gay, but if people make this black and white and ask me to take a position, as it's happening lately, i have 2 options: retreat myself from the discussion and let people enrage in their radical behavior, or position against new gay content, not because i don't like it, but because i like more straight content of course and if i have to choose, i will choose what please me.
For radical actions, this thread lost objective, will be better to make a new pool with 2 votes options "more gay romance content" and "More straight romance content", it's just a risk of be outnumbered there (even with some support from people that mistake "what they want" with "lend support"). In the end straight is majority, and the quantity of content for straight is just an reflex of that.
It is curious that with DA2, everybody is obsessed with the NPCs changing their orientations based on the players gender, but no one mentions that your sibling also changes gender AND profession based on the players choices.
It is a role-playing game, a LOT changes based on your choices. Maybe in your game a lot of NPCs are dead, in my game they are alive, and someone else died. Your main character was a serious rightous hero, mine was an absent minded childish jackass. In your game a certain NPC was straight - in mine that NPC was gay.
Yet only the last one of those differences ever comes up as "unrealistic" and "shallow".
Why is that?