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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 16:23:34 GMT
The game getting poor reviews is only a good thing in this instance if those reviews are the direct result of the skewed romance options. Otherwise it means nothing. And while I understand being upset about Jaal, wanting the entire game (and potentially, the entire franchise) to crash and burn based on one characters sexuality is remarkably petty and narrow-minded. I know that you would be singing the games praises and forgiving all of it's flaws if Jaal was bi, and you know it too. To praise the fact that we may never see any sequels or romance options from the Mass Effect universe ever again is incredibly short sighted. It is not only about Jaal though them cruelly stringing people along about him was outright cruel. It is the fact the game is a laundry list of design patterns to appeal to straight guys without weirding them out. I can't imagine how it is to be a lesbian when it strongly looks like your options are only better because some guys find it hot.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 16:20:16 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?
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 5:29:41 GMT
Lmao wait, been trying to catch up - what's this "Angara have a unique and different concept of gender" thing? Bioware you've got to be fucking shitting me I'm getting angry again lol The real cynical side of me is like "wait so was this going to be 'the reason' for bi Jaal but they walked it back?" I'm not saying he was going to be bi, that's just the bitterness talking.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 5:00:18 GMT
Morning, people! (or evening? depending on where you live I guess) Any answers from BW? Developers or a developer anonymously told a couple reviewers Jaal is straight, and the Prima guide says so too. The kicker? Said developer in one of those anonymous exchanges seemed baffled Jaal didn't turn Scott down and allowed continued flirting. This means either people are mistaking lots of other dialog for flirting or Jaal is outright bugged and not turning Scott down. I'm not sure which is worse, personally since it's supposed to be crystal clear if you have no chances and the mass confusion with the reviewers show it has been anything but.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 4:56:14 GMT
Well on the Neogaf topic that I'm more than an hour late on I'm sure but I said my piece there now. I know it's extremely easy to get banned there so hopefully my post was on point and not superfluous, but I felt strongly enough I wanted to give my perspective on the situation. I guess I should get an hour or two of the actual game in now. Looks like I wasted a good 40 min or so typing that post out.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 3:59:11 GMT
There's no reason to feel bad for buying the game. I'm absolutely disgusted but I'm still going to play the game. I'm just really, really, really disappointed in them for stringing us along and not even having the decency to shoot things down when the data mining proved wrong. I can vouch for this. The guy said flat out, "Yeah, you can fuck Jaal." Then after contacting a dev, quickly deleted it. Been a weird day. He claimed to have fucked Jaal twice even. What a day. If I recall he said he played the game all the way through twice. It's possible he said both but I don't think so? He did emphasize the, uh, intimacy though before conceding he only flirted (without being shut down, which is bizarre).
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 3:55:41 GMT
I have a funny feeling Jaal is still bi and that the prima guide is wrong. The embargo probably prohibited any mention of Jaal's real sexuality until it was completely public. The whole "He was straight then they just patched him to be bi" is another topic altogether though. I'm ecstatic about Vetra and wouldn't mind at all even if she was originally straight but was just patched to bi. But I guess to each their own. *Hides Nexus Mod library of same sex romance mods*. A developer told a reviewer that asked that Jaal is supposed to shoot down Scott, which apparently he did not do.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 3:54:29 GMT
The whole last twenty-four feel like a hallucination TBH. I still remember coming into the thread at 5 AM in the morning in a sleepy haze reading about Jaal's apparent Angaran harem. Boy, what a night. I wasn't tired at all due to the stress over it. Then after my three hours of sleep a couple times I lost focus at work. Nothing to the point that I wasted lots of time or made big mistakes or anything, but going to pull a file and then having to go back and re-check the name kind of thing. The only comfort there is one of the files I had to pull belonged to two married guys. That's like the ultimate confirmation somehow same sex marriage has actually, thanks to the courts. And even if this has been handled absolutely horribly, this wouldn't have ever happened in the 80s/90s when theocracy was a real looming threat and Nintendo insisted all religious references be stripped from games and all pubs be turned to cafés, etc...
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 3:43:22 GMT
OMG is that as bad as it sounds in context? That sounds 100x worse than the "oh by the way I'm transgender" fiasco. No. The people that whined about it were babies and idiots. It's just an expansion pack where if you're Imperial you can flirt with a dude or if you're republic a lady. I was imagining Planet of the Gays or something ridiculous.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 3:37:39 GMT
Agreed. This isn't the sort of thing you simply patch away. They have said that they're not sure whether more squad mates (for example the one that was cut) would be brought out as dlc down the line. That would be our only hope now, but even then I really do doubt that squad mate would be a bi/gay male romance option, simply because of the furor that would erupt amongst the loudest shitlords, who would proclaim "SJW BIOWARE ARE SPENDING ALL THEIR TIME ON GAY DLC WHAT ABOUT US SJWS RUINED BIOWARE." Just remember all the backlash (from everyone) to the "gay planet" expansion for SWTOR. OMG is that as bad as it sounds in context? That sounds 100x worse than the "oh by the way I'm transgender" fiasco.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 3:33:11 GMT
I can't see a patch to change Jaal, ever. For one, it would run counter to the idea that "this is the way we intended the character from the start" reason that is very common among the devs. I have a hard time picturing them going, "Oopsie" about this. Secondly, I have a bad feeling that a "gay patch" would go so poorly with some fans that ME:A team would be afraid to touch it. Finally, it can lead to a very weird precedent that I'm sure they want to avoid. It could technically count as a romance DLC, which is a Pandora's Box of bullshit that they don't want to open. It's part of the reason why I'm so frustrated. If he's really bugged and not shooting down Scott like he's supposed to they are going to have to address it one way or another, even if it's to make him reject Scott. They promised characters wouldn't string you along. (Oh irony considering how they hyped Jaal and strung people along.)
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 3:21:40 GMT
Let's be real here it's very unlikely the game will outright flop. Most of the reviews don't say it's unredeemable; they say it has serious issues.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 3:16:27 GMT
Guys I have a question. Specifically to those who were around ME3's release, due to the ending controversy. The only reason the Extended Cut came to be was because of fan criticism, complaints, and demand, correct? And I'm guessing many fans did not like what happened. Well, maybe I'm misinterpreting things, but perhaps the same situation is happening here? Since many forums are creating threads with the same response. What are the chances of sort of weird patch, mini expansion, or downloadable content for this situation? No go at all? A possibility? LGBT people are a very small minority, even if vocal here. It's not comparable at all, unless they want to be super charitable.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 3:13:41 GMT
On the subject of there being half the content. Are you sure it's specifically just romance content? or total character content in general? In relation to all the little things adding up part of the outrage is being amplified by how the prerelease period was handled. Developers, both male and female went on and on about how awesome Jaal is (yes even at least one male dev saying "I think I fell in love" or some such). When asked if Scott could romance him they said they can't tell, yet time after time more and more stuff teasing straight romances came out. At the same time they released more and more information hyping up his actual personality which for some reason was just fine to spoil. This hyping and teasing went on for weeks/months, then the data mining Thursday showed flags in his conversation files showing "can romance" checks relating to Scott, something the other files with these flags matched up with the known information. So for Thur-Sat it was assumed by many that he was bi. They said you should be able to tell very quickly if you have no chance, but outright most reviewers asked had no clue or felt they had no option to flirt. Then a few of them said it seemed like he was bi (no idea where they got that from at this point, maybe confusing friendship options). It took someone that tweeted that his character slept with Jaal and promised he was bi conceding he only flirted, and he had the connections to outright ask an anonymous developer who finally told them "he should have turned Scott down" or something like that. So what we have is being strung along for a long time without the mercy of being told "no sorry," and then a potential bug making it so Jaal in fact doesn't make it clear he's not interested as easily as that's supposed to happen. Adding that to the list of all the other concerns that many told to you (male nudity played for laughs and female nudity featured in a sexual context with fade to black for male/male), and all the other lists of things all add up together as one big mess. Taken individually almost none of them would cause this outrage. It's more that it's a bullet point list making it look like they either decided or were told to keep male/male romances as far from the spotlight as possible. I'm not saying they did that, but when you add up everything from the sex scenes (or lack thereof) to the character creator NPCs to the fact lesbians seem more acceptable (again maybe not intentionally but it looks bad), all of that adds up to a lot of hurt and anger with the weeks of Jaal teasing turning it into a meltdown for some of us. Edit: Okay everyone I mistyped Jaal as "love" in this post at first. I think I'm officially losing it.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 2:32:53 GMT
Anyone else feel a little bad preemptively for DA4? Like, they're gonna get scrutinized to hell and back for this fiasco. You get a male dwarf! You get a male werewolf! Everyone gets male dwarves and werewolves! (Etc. etc. etc.) Disclaimer: I haven't played Dragon Age despite owning the trilogy, but I've seen people bring up dwarfs and werewolves so the Oprah meme seemed appropriate. Sorry if that fell flat.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 2:27:20 GMT
Well my early access time isn't even up yet so I should play it rather than stress over this. I'm happy the truth is now known even if it's painfully mean the way it's been handled. I just hope they say something heartfelt. They at least should do that much after all the teasing and stringing along. Also sorry if copying the "†" is obnoxious but it's the ultimate fun sarcastic thing to do at this point. For those that are unaware, and I assume this is why others did it, IGN posted a romance guide with only half a clue of what they were even doing. The "†" was put by names where they weren't 100% sure about the romance possibilities yet. The post was edited several times within a span of like ten minutes and for a good while LIAM of all people had "†," which is hilarious since he's one of the first people confirmed straight. That said, if I recall the editor of that post was very responsive and said she'd try to find the truth about Jaal asap while it was going down, and it was in the middle of the night. Be nice. BioFan doesn't mean any harm here. He is one of the biggest fans you'll ever meet, and he's not saying, "suck up and deal." He's saying, "I had fun, I hope you will too." He's also empathizing with us here. Sorry, not trying to whiteknight you BioFan , but I don't want anyone to get snarked at for no good reason. TY I'm also limited by a pretty gray embargo, so sticking on the safe side of things. Good gravy you're still limited by that? Yeesh the modern world of games. Thanks for popping in though regardless. Nope, they still has to release Sara trailer... Like I said, about over. If they release the Sara trailer before 11pm East Coast, I will be surprised. If they release it at all. Edit: The cynical side of me is all "maybe they aren't doing it since they are keeping Sara and teh gayz out of sight to not scare off their straight dude bro demographic. That wasn't a mockery of straight fans or potential players, but what I'm caricaturizing marketing as thinking of them, if marketing is at fault for this nonsense.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 2:19:35 GMT
SPOILER THAT MISSION Yes, we must save the angara, and not to destroy the facility. Just - Jaal's reaction to this choice. Oh, anything for you, love Sadly the name of ONE achievement on that topic likely spoiled not only that this was the breaking point for Jaal but also likely spoiled a core plot spoiler too. It's my own fault for sticking around, but I might not have run into it if not for all this drama.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 2:16:41 GMT
What upsets me is that Jaal is basically turning into Garrus 2.0 He's this fairly interesting, awesome, infiltrator-esque character who has a close friendship with the male PC and a romance with the female PC and there's no real good reason why he couldn't be for both except that the devs said so. I was already annoyed/upset/miffed over Garrus and now they're repeating it. Again. Clearly that would be "gamey wish fulfillment." It just doesn't "make sense" for that kind of character to be anything but straight. And yes, I am paraphrasing actual tweets, albeit mashing them together out of context.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 2:08:14 GMT
Either he made a huge mistake or there is a bug in the game that makes Jaal not shut down Scott. And honestly if he exposed the bug to a dev that's something at least. You know what it's kind of mean but I hope there was a bug because that's more likely to make them talk about this rather than keep outright ignoring it. It's just so cruel. I go from sympathetic to getting irritated over and over, because they knew this but they kept incessantly teasing how awesome Jaal is. ARGH! This Starkles guy doesn't deserve hate though. It was careless of him to lie and say his character had sex with Jaal though.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 2:02:00 GMT
So, I was told there is a gay male turian who can be flirted with on the Nexus. It's likely not a true romance but it is a thing? Oh man the stupid pendulum returns even after the Doomsday has come for Jaal hopes. :D8:
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 1:42:51 GMT
I've been mentioning Zootopia a lot, but frankly this whole situation reminds of how great that creative team must have been to avoid the kinds of nonsense here, notably the inclusion of a gay married couple that somehow dodged controversy when they had the same last name in the credits and yet again somehow dodged an uproar months later when it was outright confirmed on Twitter.
No lampshading in the movie. No big "oh hi we're married." Nothing like that. No, characters being bi or gay absolutely does not need to be a part of their character or their plot. People are people first, and so much more defines them than that. Am I making this up? Do I remember a developer claiming it had to be some part of who they are? Was that part of the "has to make sense" nonsense or am I merging all kinds of unrelated things?
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 1:16:33 GMT
And now Mr. Starkles is saying "Jaal isn't officially bi, but he's receptive to Ryder flirts for a majority of the game." So they made a male version of Cassandra?? I mean if it's a bug, fine. I'll be be mad, but a programming error isn't queerbaiting. But if they really just made a male alien version of Cassandra I'm going to be pissed all over again. They outright promised they wouldn't do this. Edit: I know you probably know that but they HAVE to say something heartfelt about this, because this whole thing has been just plain mean.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 1:10:11 GMT
So was the drama over romance ever this bad in the past games, or is this a special kind of terrible due to the planets aligning? The planets being the months of teasing without shutting anything down, the laundry list of 'don't gross out the straight guys' design trends (unintentional or not), and now potentially even a bug giving people even more false hope?
I'm seriously curious if past drama had anything on this, or was worse?
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 1:06:23 GMT
I can't see it. A dev confirmed straigh Jaal? By proxy yes. A Gamespot reviewer thought you could romance Jaal as a dude, I called his out on it, he contacted one of the devs since he's chummy with them, said nameless dev finally said Jaal is straight. Even better is apparently the angara has a "unique interpretation" or some such shit about gender, but bi Jaal didn't happen. Holy fuck the level of bullshit is reaching critical mass. It's like Jack being bi but not being a bi romance option all the fuck over again. I'm honestly just fucking entertained at this point by the dev team's complete and total ineptitude. I can't imagine how it would feel if they made a mistake and he was supposed to turn people down but instead strung them along, unintentionally making their cruel months long teasing even worse. But even if this was a mistake, they absolutely teased and raved about him for months without shutting down the hope. That's just mean.
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Post by zeowik on Mar 21, 2017 1:01:28 GMT
How hard would it be to just patch Jaal in as bi like he clearly originally was supposed to be? The code is there. I avoided saying this. If the data is there how hard would it be? It may not exist in any meaningful form, without any audio or scenes though. The question is why was it there? When did they decide to make him straight, or is the code a huge red herring and he was never bi? I'm swinging back to the "they made him straight to not weird out the straight bro dudes" line of thought again, which isn't right since I can't make such an accusation. It LOOKS bad though.
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