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Sinners Sandwich
Jan 4, 2012

Give me your friend's BURGERS and SANDWICHES, I'll put out the fire.

My favorite thing about Dragon Age Inquisition was finding a book that just spelled out how each regions fews on same sex relationships and pretty much everyone was complety okay with it except for the Tevintars, because gently caress the Tevintars

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RottenK
Feb 17, 2011

Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE
good

RottenK
Feb 17, 2011

Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE
i can't wait to preorder Mass Effect: Andromeda, the new hit game from Bioware

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009
my issue with bioware gay stuff is that it's all pretty much written like an afterschool special about how gay people are cool and normal, and not actually written with gay people in mind

Phi230
Feb 2, 2016

by Fluffdaddy
I hope ME goes back to its roots of being a sci fi exploration game that focuses on the world around you and not a handful of mary sues but what do I know

stev
Jan 22, 2013

Please be excited.



Phi230 posted:

I hope ME goes back to its roots of being a sci fi exploration game that focuses on the world around you and not a handful of mary sues but what do I know

Not a lot if you still use terms like Mary Sue.

a.lo
Sep 12, 2009

Jeff Gerstmann tells me to never preorder your games.

Phi230
Feb 2, 2016

by Fluffdaddy

Steve2911 posted:

Not a lot if you still use terms like Mary Sue.


There are many characters in ME2 and beyond that are such obvious self inserts of the fanfiction writers on bioware's staff

and let me remind you that there are literal fanfiction writers leading the writing on p. much every bioware game since shortly after the EA acquisition.

Sinners Sandwich
Jan 4, 2012

Give me your friend's BURGERS and SANDWICHES, I'll put out the fire.

Like?

Phi230
Feb 2, 2016

by Fluffdaddy

hamburger helper and those like 3 dudes they hired onto DA2 as well

jack is such a cliche and mary sue character. She may have been ripped out of a YA novel. Miranda also sucks because she exists for no other reason than to be a pair of tits and rear end which is insulting for obvious reasons. Jacob sucks too.

They ruined ashley by making her more of a sex object progressively throughout the series, even making her boobs bigger and letting her hair down etc...

the only good characters are shep (femshep especially) garrus, legion, and wrex. All others have been corrupted by terrible writing or were just bad to start with

Phi230 fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jun 12, 2016

RottenK
Feb 17, 2011

Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE

Endorph posted:

my issue with bioware gay stuff is that it's all pretty much written like an afterschool special about how gay people are cool and normal, and not actually written with gay people in mind

well you can't deny that that's a good fit for the maturity level of the target audience

also for what it's worth i am gay and i often read discussions in glbt online communities that are related to videogames and bioware characters are usually well recieved

meanwhile the people who complain that those characters are poorly written pandering have a ~40-50% chance to then try to tell me about ethics in bideogam jurnalisms

Sakurazuka
Jan 24, 2004

NANI?

Unironic use of hamburger helper nice

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009
i mean, define 'literal fanfiction writers' because if you wrote fanfiction when you were a teenager i dont think that really reflects on you as an adult anymore than my decade old myspace page about how good yellowcard is reflects on me

RottenK posted:

well you can't deny that that's a good fit for the maturity level of the target audience

also for what it's worth i am gay and i often read discussions in glbt online communities that are related to videogames and bioware characters are usually well recieved

meanwhile the people who complain that those characters are poorly written pandering have a ~40-50% chance to then try to tell me about ethics in bideogam jurnalisms
im a gay too, dude, and in the online community that exists inside my head bioware is pretty garbage

I think a lot of the good reception is just how hard up people, especially people who only play AAA western games, are for any sort of representation.

RottenK
Feb 17, 2011

Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE
man i love that word filter

Andrast
Apr 21, 2010


I'd bet a large portion of writers of anything were fanfiction writers at some point.

RottenK
Feb 17, 2011

Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE

Sakurazuka posted:

Unironic use of hamburger helper nice

HMS Boromir
Jul 16, 2011

by Lowtax
Mass Effect is Star Control fanfiction

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

Andrast posted:

I'd bet a large portion of writers of anything were fanfiction writers at some point.
yeah ive never even understood that burn since people were writing fanfiction from the dawn of man. Mythology is just a collection of poorly edited fanfiction. there were even arguments about who should be loving who.

Dred Cosmonaut
Jan 6, 2010

There once was a tiger-striped cat.
holy poo poo you guys its e3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fysno8xdJWo

Dred Cosmonaut
Jan 6, 2010

There once was a tiger-striped cat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFtb3EtjEic

Phi230
Feb 2, 2016

by Fluffdaddy

RottenK posted:

well you can't deny that that's a good fit for the maturity level of the target audience

also for what it's worth i am gay and i often read discussions in glbt online communities that are related to videogames and bioware characters are usually well recieved

meanwhile the people who complain that those characters are poorly written pandering have a ~40-50% chance to then try to tell me about ethics in bideogam jurnalisms

bioware minority characters are mainly insulting because they're clearly tokens. And tokenism is bad because it basically feeds into "oh x character is a gay but he's one of the good ones" kind of poo poo

tokenism is also bad because it doesn't make the distinction that minorities are normal people

Phi230 fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Jun 12, 2016

fivegears4reverse
Apr 4, 2007

by R. Guyovich

Phi230 posted:

There are many characters in ME2 and beyond that are such obvious self inserts of the fanfiction writers on bioware's staff

and let me remind you that there are literal fanfiction writers leading the writing on p. much every bioware game since shortly after the EA acquisition.

A writer's got to start somewhere. Fanfiction or original fiction posted on a blog or whatever, writing is writing.

The number of people who write "professionally" and are successful novelists is extremely low. Hell, most people who write a novel and manage to get it published are lucky if they get picked up to write a second or third book before their career is effectively dead in the water. It's actually rather cool that there's more games out there that are taking their writing into greater consideration, since it's another way for amateurs to get into a job doing what they love for a living. It doesn't always end up "good" by someone's personal standards, but it's good enough for someone else.

RottenK
Feb 17, 2011

Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE

Endorph posted:

i mean, define 'literal fanfiction writers' because if you wrote fanfiction when you were a teenager i dont think that really reflects on you as an adult anymore than my decade old myspace page about how good yellowcard is reflects on me

im a gay too, dude, and in the online community that exists inside my head bioware is pretty garbage

I think a lot of the good reception is just how hard up people, especially people who only play AAA western games, are for any sort of representation.

oh yeah that's very true

i like Dorian from Inquisition, for example, but i still groaned when he was revealed, though i'm sure that bioware meant well

RottenK
Feb 17, 2011

Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE

Phi230 posted:

bioware minority characters are mainly insulting because they're clearly tokens. And tokenism is bad because it basically feeds into "oh x character is a gay but he's one of the good ones" kind of poo poo

tokenism is also bad because it doesn't make the distinction that minorities are normal people

how are they tokens

Bass Bottles
Jan 14, 2006

BOSS BATTLES DID NOTHING WRONG

Phi230 posted:

bioware minority characters are mainly insulting because they're clearly tokens. And tokenism is bad because it basically feeds into "oh x character is a gay but he's one of the good ones" kind of poo poo

tokenism is also bad because it doesn't make the distinction that minorities are normal people

What's the difference between a "token" and a regular gay character?

Edit: not trying to shut you down, just trying to understand

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

Phi230 posted:

bioware minority characters are mainly insulting because they're clearly tokens. And tokenism is bad because it basically feeds into "oh x character is a gay but he's one of the good ones" kind of poo poo

tokenism is also bad because it doesn't make the distinction that minorities are normal people
The thing about tokenism is that the solution isn't really 'don't put these characters into your games,' it's 'put in more.' You have a space opera with like, 150 characters with at least a few dialogue trees, you can have more than 3 gay dudes and a lesbian. Even if a character's not that well written they don't really feel like a token attempt to appear progressive if there's seven other gay dudes in the same game.

Orv
May 4, 2011

Sometimes I miss G4. Not often, but enough to make me wonder what's wrong with me.

RottenK
Feb 17, 2011

Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE

Endorph posted:

The thing about tokenism is that the solution isn't really 'don't put these characters into your games,' it's 'put in more.' You have a space opera with like, 150 characters with at least a few dialogue trees, you can have more than 3 gay dudes and a lesbian. Even if a character's not that well written they don't really feel like a token attempt to appear progressive if there's seven other gay dudes in the same game.

actually if you make a game with 150 characters and make 8 of them glbt idiots will cry at you about cultural marxism and give your game bad reviews on steam and metacritic

Phi230
Feb 2, 2016

by Fluffdaddy

Bass Bottles posted:

What's the difference between a "token" and a regular gay character?

Edit: not trying to shut you down, jut trying to understand

The purpose in which they are portrayed. A token gay character is expressly a minority so you have like one gay dude represented at all. The purpose of representing them at all being to appear progressive and inclusive rather than any other reason. Also included to be a "gay character" rather than a character who is gay, which is the biggest and most important distinction. Whatever character's gayness is the point of the character whereas a good character being gay would be something that gives that character more depth as apart of several other character traits.

Minorities are normal people and are not defined by their status as a minority. To make a character "oh that's the gay one" does nothing but to separate gay from normal.

Phi230
Feb 2, 2016

by Fluffdaddy

Endorph posted:

The thing about tokenism is that the solution isn't really 'don't put these characters into your games,' it's 'put in more.' You have a space opera with like, 150 characters with at least a few dialogue trees, you can have more than 3 gay dudes and a lesbian. Even if a character's not that well written they don't really feel like a token attempt to appear progressive if there's seven other gay dudes in the same game.

Yes put in more. The reason why Bioware games have tokens is because they have a handful of minorities of every variety as if they are checking off a list of minorities to include

on that note i hope a game coming out or at least revealed at E3 has a gay or minority main character. Every game yet still has "stubbled straight white man" as a protagonist

RottenK
Feb 17, 2011

Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE
i hate it when token hetero characters bring up their sexuality without any narrative reason for it

drat sjws

Phi230
Feb 2, 2016

by Fluffdaddy

RottenK posted:

i hate it when token hetero characters bring up their sexuality without any narrative reason for it

drat sjws

sex scenes and hetero sexualization are also bad don't be immature

sex scenes in games at least exist for no reason solely for nerds to jerk off. Bioware is soooo guilty of this. The only game that has ever come close to a tasteful sex scene has been witcher 3 and that is still laughably far away from a sex scene with actual artistic and narrative merit and still is fanservice.

Its like early game of thrones with the sexposition stuff

stev
Jan 22, 2013

Please be excited.



Phi230 posted:

The purpose in which they are portrayed. A token gay character is expressly a minority so you have like one gay dude represented at all. The purpose of representing them at all being to appear progressive and inclusive rather than any other reason. Also included to be a "gay character" rather than a character who is gay, which is the biggest and most important distinction. Whatever character's gayness is the point of the character whereas a good character being gay would be something that gives that character more depth as apart of several other character traits.

Minorities are normal people and are not defined by their status as a minority. To make a character "oh that's the gay one" does nothing but to separate gay from normal.

Yes but it's incredibly easy to point at any non-white-cis-male character and claim that they're a token and use that as another means to stigmatise them. Shouting at Bioware for their (admittedly clumsy) diversity isn't going to encourage them to be better.

A relative was trying to convince me today that Hermione's casting in the Harry Potter play was tokenism today (and he opened his statement with 'this might sound racist but...'). Saying 'they shouldn't have been *insert trait* because it's tokenism' just makes the problem worse. If he's said 'ok they've made Hermione black now how about further diversifying the cast' then that'd be great.

stev fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Jun 12, 2016

Andrast
Apr 21, 2010


It feels weird to single Bioware out for tokenism regarding lbgt representation when they are still better than the vast majority of other games which have gently caress all

Dred Cosmonaut
Jan 6, 2010

There once was a tiger-striped cat.

Orv posted:

Sometimes I miss G4. Not often, but enough to make me wonder what's wrong with me.

G4 was dope back in the mid 2000s dude.

I give this network a 4... out of 5

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

RottenK posted:

actually if you make a game with 150 characters and make 8 of them glbt idiots will cry at you about cultural marxism and give your game bad reviews on steam and metacritic
then do it anyway bioware is one of the biggest companies in the world they can handle reddit getting mad

Sakurazuka
Jan 24, 2004

NANI?

Gay characters are only good if they never mention being gay or any gay stuff.

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

Sakurazuka posted:

Gay characters are only good if they never mention being gay or any gay stuff.
honestly idk about these other dudes who im not even sure if they agree with me or not but my argument is that there should be way more gay stuff and it should be way more in your face. like that ff15 quote about explosions, only with girls making out.

Orv
May 4, 2011

Dred Cosmonaut posted:

G4 was dope back in the mid 2000s dude.

I give this network a 4... out of 5

They had their moments. I remember when they did a whole two hour thing for an in-studio UT2k4 tournament. What a weird age.

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Sakurazuka
Jan 24, 2004

NANI?

Endorph posted:

honestly idk about these other dudes who im not even sure if they agree with me or not but my argument is that there should be way more gay stuff and it should be way more in your face. like that ff15 quote about explosions, only with girls making out.

That's my argument now too

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