"No Brothels to be in DA4" as per Mark Darrah Tweet.

I count the time he and his family arrived in Kirkwall in 9.30 Dragon. Plus events which happened that we didn't see, right up to the Chantry explosion in 9.37 Dragon. That is the official Bioware timeline FOR Dragon age 2. By the time Cass interrogates Varric, DA2 is over and Hawke is long gone. So it = it isn't part of the game.

Some of us taking virtual whoring seriously. I jest!

Existence or lack of brothels causes erratic time fluctuations. Don't you know?

The tweet, specifically references brothels, sparked a commentary on the Twitter thread about what the Lack of Brothels COULD MEAN. 

If you'd read other people comments, or hell, even the OP, you would have seen that. It's hardly irrelevant

You kinda accused me of keeping the Thread Title to get attention. But I'm a reader of "in between the lines" with a sensitivity for gas lighting. If what I took from your initial comment was incorrect, as you seem to be saying now, then I apologize. 

I don't think the lack of brothels is necessarily a sign that DA4 will be overly sanitized, nor do I think brothels are necessary to make a setting seem sufficiently dark and gritty. The Dishonored series is a really good example of this: both Dunwall and Karnaca, the cities in DH1 and DH2, respectively, were incredibly dark and sinister in tone. Poverty, the decadence of the wealthy, disease, corruption, and the mundane evil of men were running themes and they were incredibly effectively deployed through the design, the major and minor npcs, and the stories themselves. The first game had a brothel, the Golden Cat, and it was very well done IMO. You couldn't, ahem, partake of the services but it had a great mission set in it and it was well-integrated into the setting. If DA did bring back brothels, that's more what I'd like them to be, rather than just a mostly useless place the player can go to hear some bad jokes and get the all-important FtB. On the other hand, the second game didn't have a brothel, IIRC, but that didn't make the city itself feel any less decayed or dangerous, and I didn't even notice it's absence.

All that said, DAI did seem to be more sanitized than previous entries, for lack of a better word. Or at least, things were left much more to the imagination, IMO. I do hope they make a better attempt at making the world feel more alive, with the ugly parts as well as the good, instead of shuffling everything off into codex entries and player inference. But I don't think a brothel or whatever is necessary to achieve that, at least not from what I've seen. The great thing about Dishonored is that Dunwall in particular was almost it's own character, it had such a distinct presence, and I'd love for the team to be able to achieve even half that level of atmosphere with Minrathous, brothel or not. After Val Royeaux, however, I'm a little doubtful :/

If a person's only complaint is that female characters aren't pornstars, how big could their issues possibly be?

That was neither a complaint nor the only issue presented. It shows a lack of an ability to effectively debate an argument when you choose to focus on the one aspect you think you can score points on and dismiss the rest. But midnighttea has constantly proved he's a close minded bigot to things that don't fit his worldview.

The reason people focus on it is because it breaks all levels of stupid and shallow - nevermind that other arguments weren't any better or even accurate.

Plus - among your 'arguments' you've stated that the inclusion of 'fully gay/lesbian' and trans characters is a mark of creeping political correctness. So if you want to see a close-minded bigot hiding in this thread, go look in the mirror instead of psychologically projecting at others. You're not worth any more of my time.

Oh, but don't you know? There Are No Girls on the Internet

Either way, I can't say I care. Judging from opinions and attitude on display nobody will be losing much from me tuning out this person and not engaging in further exchange.

Seems like Bioware are playing things quite safe currently. Doesn't really worry me but that's what this "no brothel" announcement reinforces in my mind.

But there are much bigger issues for me to focus on, I very much hope they're stepping right back from open-world design for example.

Poor substitute, though