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Post by zeowik on Mar 23, 2017 6:57:38 GMT
Just an update: people on Twitter are using #MakeJaalBi to voice their dissatisfaction on the m/m romance. You are welcome to do the same. Found it (I HAVE LEARNED HOW TO TWIT THE TWEETER). With any luck, someone will listen. It's not even about Jaal tbh. It's the disparity. It's not even only the disparity for me. It's the fact that how the m/m stuff is presented looks as if it was kept away to the side to not freak out straight male gamers that may take issue with it. I'm not saying they did it that way, but boy does it look bad. And there's the lack of option to flirt and be turned down after being promised that's how the game works? And there's the curious data mining being mostly accurate except for Jaal, as if if you could flirt he wouldn't shoot Scott down? It's like they botched this PR in every single way possible other than just not including m/m at all. I can't believe how badly they teased about Jaal too. At first I thought it was just me being drama, but I'm seeing people mention the teasing all over the place so it really must have looked that way. And for the #MakeJaalBi tag at first I was very uncomfortable, until remembering all the signs pointing to him being bi to begin with. Is that all just incorrect guesswork, and if not when did they change course? When I searched for the tag I thought I only saw a few tweets then realized I was only seeing the top tweets. I wonder how much activity that's getting from beyond these message boards. Of course this brings that stupid pendulum of hope back, which I thought would be long gone by now with everything set in stone.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 23, 2017 3:29:33 GMT
On the topic of the romance data mining, was it correct for everything except Jaal or did it miss other stuff?
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Post by zeowik on Mar 23, 2017 3:16:49 GMT
What is this chatter about a patch 2? Or was that nothing confirmed and just general chatter about the future? I heard this, also. I remember the quote being specifically, "we have many different pronouns", and then he offers to send the list. It's after the Asari tells him they identify as male, female or neutral and he's sympathetic to have possibly messing up her pronoun. There just is no way in HELL Jaal didn't get changed from bi to straight. Goddamn. Oh man... I repeat myself a ton I know but hearing about that Twitter tag and reading things like this, argh. I also keep on saying I can't believe the mood pendulum is still swinging but boy it sure is. Well, my Ryder looks like a douchebag~ time to romance Reyes....-sigh Why tf do all skin for the male options look so old? I'm glad it's not just me about the age thing. All I wanted to do was give the default Scott a shave. Call it petty but I'm not a fan of facial hair (especially on myself if considering Scott an avatar). I reloaded the game a couple times thinking I had zero opacity scars turned on or something. It didn't bother me a ton but it surprised me there was no wrinkle slider or something.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 23:04:53 GMT
The more I hear about Jaal, the more I dislike him. It is like the polar opposite for me thus far, sadly. Darn the teasing.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 22:56:09 GMT
I'm not even sure where to keep track of dev chatter on the topic.
As far as Tumblr goes bar none it has the worst catastrophe of a UI that I have ever had the displeasure of using on the Internet. Seriously who in their right mind thinks not showing post dates by default is a smart idea? Then there's the mangling of images by chopping them to cookie cutter sizes and the unfortunate situation of people using it to store their images rather than far superior image gallery options.
Unless there's something I don't understand about it, its social UI when it comes to posts seems so incredibly messy I don't understand how conversations even happen.
There I'm done ranting about Tumblr now. I don't think I've stepped into it enough to witness the hive mind mentality some have told me is a problem for various groups there.
Hmm I remember them saying friendships would be as developed as romances. Is that true?
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 22:47:23 GMT
Yeah, the game had Schlerf who wrote the crit-path back in 2014 and finished his last iterations sometime before summer 2016 when he left, then Mac can be quoted for saying "I'm the lead writer" in the first interviews since then, and then it became Cathleen Rosaert (writer for Kaidan's normandy/citadel dialogues in ME3) and along the way more movies came out (the whole studio saw Interstellar together) and then Guardians of the Galaxy became popular, John "Marvel fanboy" Dombrow joined in 2015, and yadayada. I think they couldn't keep track of their influences and Mac did not help keeping anything consistent - they also had cut story beats as always I guess, and voila. An inconsistent scrambled-together plot with no throughline. They outright lampshade the language thing very early in the game. Perhaps it's easy to miss, but they do talk about it very briefly. I figured it's just implied that once the language is analyzed Star Trek style magical translators take care of the rest. They did not explain it at first. It was technically not even part of the fiction. However, in Andromeda they open with Kett that clearly speak in foreign tongue and Angara do too, until they just switch around with no explanation. It's not smooth at all. Near the end of the intro mission I could swear they talk about analyzing it. Also the Nexus would have had that information too.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 16:12:30 GMT
Edit: I quoted a quote by mistake but most of my post was general commentary anyway. Just making sure it's clear it's not exclusively directed at these comments. All of that aside, I think that the single gender orientations should be, more or less, designed for players of that type. If I, as a straight woman, like a particular m/m romance, that's nice and all, but I do think they should be designed for gay male players. The same is true for the lesbian romances. Of course, that's not to say that a m/m romance designed for the gay male player can't have its share of sap and sweetness; to deny that some men enjoy that would be a disservice to them. Yeah, I agree with all of that ! Designed for players of that type? Not everyone likes the same thing. This kind of reasoning is why characters like Jaal seem to always be straight (I still can't believe they had the audacity to tease him so badly). I mean no offense but it reminds me of thier "it has to make sense" comment. It is part of what I am upset about. They already do this, sometimes uncomfortably connecting the dots with stereotypes. That said I acknowledge you said single gender not bi, but it is part of the mentality that suggests orientation should be some core trait rather than something that happens to be part of the characters. Stereotypes and that kind of design are fine sometimes of course, but thier "It has to make sense." thing annoys me on a level that "Oh hi by the way I'm transgender." does. I'm not transgender so I can't speak for people like that but even as an outsider that annoys me terribly.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 12:15:28 GMT
I think Sara/Jaal fits as well as Scott/Cora. Because Sara is relatively more emotional and casual, relatively more embracing of discovery. Scott relatively more professional and logical*, relatively more embracing of exploration. *ahhh don't hate meee. I think they're CLOSE. Jaal seems to fit the more GENERAL setup of Sara more. Still want m/m Jaal. Isn't the professionalism determined by your cumulative choices or something?
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 6:09:16 GMT
I admit I didn't intend to keep coming to this topic to whine, but misery loves company and it was heartening to see I wasn't alone (and some took it worse even). So curiosity led to visiting and then replying to others. I forgot the other topic existed even. I should have spent more time actually playing the game. I didn't even use up all my early access hours because I spent all Monday night going ballistic. Edit: Wait letter? I'll have to read up on what you're talking about later.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 6:06:30 GMT
It doesn't hurt that I happen to know that Ian is a registered poster and lurks on this site. He's the real deal too, and he does post occasionally. Anyone that shows up claiming to be a BW dev goes through a bit of a confirmation process. Sofa and Cyonan take care of it. It's why I always encourage civility towards the devs, no matter the level of frustration any of us are going through. We have some that lurk here, even though most rarely ever post. I can't help but think they had to have known this would not go so well on this front. Perhaps not how strongly. It's just puzzling he even participated in the baiting hyping up Jaal so much when it would have been trivial to just shut down the false hope. My pendulum of hope/bitterness on the hope side of things wonders if they knew they screwed up a couple months ago and planned to say/do something after the explosion at release. Then again they did seem to think the "has to make sense" thing with sexual orientation for some reason having to be central to a character that isn't straight might show they just had no clue. Either way I'm glad they acknowledged it. Now it only remains to be seen what they do, if anything.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 5:59:55 GMT
They outright lampshade the language thing very early in the game. Perhaps it's easy to miss, but they do talk about it very briefly. I figured it's just implied that once the language is analyzed Star Trek style magical translators take care of the rest.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 3:55:24 GMT
I wish I was like you, because my bitterness is not healthy tbh, I'm not that rancorous in real life issues but this subject has destroyed me as consumer literally. About what they'll do I have zero faith in them in fixing this mess, just a few words and call it a day. I'm still in awe of how badly Bioware handled this entire thing from start to finish. Every time I thought it couldn't possibly get worse, it did! I've never personally witnessed anything like this while watching a game release before lol It's kind of astounding that the worst case scenario other than no m/m at all came true. Though your post has me wondering how it may actually still get worse somehow. I suppose "There two for the achievement all better!" is all that they could make worse at this point. Actually scratch that. Saying "sorry we talked about it a lot now" then doing nothing is the worst possibility.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 3:12:38 GMT
I don't know if this has been mentioned anywhere, but they give you a second chance to get no homo'd by Liam if you don't take the first one, and it has completely different dialogue. How considerate of them. Great use of resources. (Oh well, Liam kind of sucks so far anyway.) Bioware: We're completely progressive and put sooo much work into the gay content. It hurts our feelings that you wouldn't even give Gil a chance. Also Bioware: Here's multiple opportunities to get no homo'd. Also, we're gonna put more effort into animating those scenes than the actual gay romance scenes. Don't forget stringing people along for months and then outright not even having a "no homo'd" moment for Jaal. I keep saying it over and over, but if that's not a bug it's directly responsible for how long the false hopes held out. I'm just a *little* annoyed by that one.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 2:57:54 GMT
I'd judge what they do before making a declaration like that. If they really are listening I think that should matter. That said I didn't refund though.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 2:36:19 GMT
Maybe it's pie in the sky dreaming, but if the reception was negative enough and EA itself took notice and felt it was worth salvaging PR, EA is a very very rich publisher. It can't afford to waste money true, but the company absolutely could choose to spend money to fix up this game. I suppose animation fixes are a bit more than the "relaunch" of that Batman game and such though, and while FFXIV was a catastrophe at launch and they fixed it big time that's an MMORPG and those are expected to bring long term income.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 2:30:54 GMT
At that very least with Jaal they need to let you flirt and get rejected. They pretty much lied on that one unless he's bugged. People keep talking about the achievement but that tweet people keep linking made it sound like their meeting was about the overall situation not just the achievement, I'd hope. It's no achievement sure but it's also no sex scene, no squad made, the whole strung along for months thing, etc. I'm happy most other demographics on this front got treated a little better than that, but when even straight gamers act perplexed at the imbalance I know I'm not wrong to be annoyed. I'm torn on the Jaal thing. They teased him for months but I feel bad for wishing for a bi Jaal. I don't mind that there are mods to turn Dorian bi though and such though, so at the least it's not a double standard on my part, but changing a character's orientation is a bit uncomfortable though. Now if I want to be a brat about it, they didn't bother letting him even turn us down so unless he mentions it nothing specifically says it yet. It's telling so many reviewers assumed he was bi. I seriously cannot believe they don't even let you get shot down by him. It's just so wrong. I really hope the topic of the files showing a check for Scott comes up at some point. I hope something comes of this, in some way or another at the least. I know they have tons of other complaints be it game play or animation to address too. The fact they actually are speaking of this rather than only focusing on all the other problems is at least something. On the topic of a character wanting a baby, honestly I don't think that's a problem. Characters want different things. Sometimes it might not work out if your character doesn't want those same things. I find the lack of options more a problem than the fact they wrong a story about that.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 0:52:30 GMT
I'm super duper jealous I admit but I am happy people that are able to do Jaal's romance love it so much.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 0:41:40 GMT
Eh, I think society as a whole needs to get more chill regarding sexualisation. I sexualise other men, why shouldn't straight/bi men get to sexualise women and straight/bi women also get to sexualise men and, by extension, gay men (and so on and so forth)? I cannot even tell you how much entertainment women sexualising gay men have brought me in the form of slash fan fiction and fan art. When most gay erotica is written by women for women, and absolutely no one raises a stink about it, there's a problem. Especially since the lesbian porn industry is always criticized for being marketed towards men. But it goes beyond that, for instance, Dorian being treated as nothing but a sassy gay bff who the fem!Inquis can talk about how hawt Cullen is. If this doesn't bother you, great, it bothers me though. I see straight guys say they like Dorian too though. I do not think straight people finding same sex pairings of the opposite gender arousing is intrinsically bad. Having fun with the idea is not the same thing as disrespect. The problem is when that is clearly the main focus on content trying to be inclusive to as many as possible. I guess I will have to agree to disagree. I don't think we need a world forced devoid of stereotypes just for the sake of avoiding them because someone may be offended. If they exclusively implement stereotypes that is another matter entirely. Also for animé and Japanese games character archetypes where you know exactly how they will act or even look is a big problem that is not linked just to slash/fan fiction. It is refreshing when those archetypes are broken or given nuance but even then I don't think they should tiptoe around trying to avoid them always either.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 0:26:20 GMT
certainly odd that they finally put in a decent number of LGBT background/incidental NPCs, which people had been advocating for a long time going back to ye olde bioboards, only to shortchange LGBT content among main characters Other than the blatant straight guy design bias acting like being LGBT has to be some central character element bothers me most. I think characters like Dumbledore or Judy's neighbors in Zootopia are just fine too, and lampshading that it is gay or bi is not some necessity like they seem to think for it to "make sense."
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 0:23:19 GMT
Why? Things like that are not intrinsically bad. Sometimes stereotypes have true examples. Shunning those examples isn't the answer.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 0:20:49 GMT
I'm a gay guy and all my friends are straight guys. Same. In my experience those "activist circles" are certainly not representative of the homo/bi sexual population at large, they're just monopolitical freak shows, loud ones. Funny enough I went to a presentation about LGBT rights in college and being closeted felt ashamed how I was surprised how normal most were. I expected stereotypes and weird introverts like myself. In other words my experience was the polar opposite of what you describe.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 0:16:17 GMT
hey........ let me know if i'm out of line as a straight woman who is probs not immune to this thing IRL or in talking about fiction but..... it seems kinda weird that straight ladies romancing Jaal are saying that at least mlm have Gil, who is wonderful enough to be their (ladies') Gay Best Friend(TM) like???????????? i noticed it a LOT with Dorian and it's just disappointing that once again the one gay dude is being reduced down to that by fandom. (not @ anyone i've seen in this forum (yet) just... in general) One thing I noticed a lot with Dorian is that people gush about how he's such a great friend for f!inquisitor but never mention how great a friend he is to a m!inquisitor who didn't romance him even though the friendship is identical? Like, Dorian+f!inquisitor friendship feels put on a pedestal. Yes they do. I've seen it several times from straight guys the last couple days surprised and sympathetic about the situation; how much they liked Dorian that is.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 22, 2017 0:08:45 GMT
Sigh and now seeing pictures of that Jaal scene I'm jealous? Why did they have to hype him so much giving false hopes? Why???
I hope someone has asked them about both the "can't flirt so can't be turned down" and strange files that look like they imply bi Jaal.
I never expected the mood pendulum to keep on swinging post-release. That meeting is giving me yet more false hope.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 16:30:22 GMT
So either it's bugged or they lied about being able to be turned down quick? It's not technically lying. He can't turn you down because he doesn't know you're interested. Apparently you don't, either. How great is that lmao An anonymous dev was confused Jaal didn't outright turn down one of the reviewers outright. What a mess.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 16:25:19 GMT
I'm supposed to be calming down not having festering anxiety/irritation at work. I don't want this to cloud my enjoyment of the game but after months of teasing how can it not? I hate considering whether mods will pop up, but that still wouldn't fix the sheer checklist of "this is made to appeal to straight males and not gross them out." I mean a couple things sure but the more I think of it could they really hit every single checkmark accidentally, short of not including m/m at all? Everything from nudity exclusively where it may also be for straight males to male nudity only for laughs if not in a straight love scene? I'm still in awe. They hit every single "for the straight guys" mocked design pattern. Every. One. How could they not realize this? "It has to make sense." is looking uglier every time I ponder it. A character can just BE bi or even gay without it defining who they are. I get almost angry if it's also about "to straight to be bi" stereotypes. Have they said anything on this issue? Does Jaal seriously not make it clear Scott has no chance?I don't see how he would make it clear, considering Scott doesn't even get any flirt options with Jaal... So either it's bugged or they lied about being able to be turned down quick?
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