Brothels

That's the ironic part, vampires gross me out. I have a pretty pronounced blood phobia so vampire is about the most unappealing "race" out there for me, lol. The paleness looks good on Astarion but everything but his looks was a disaster. From what I've heard about his romance it could be my thing after all though. I love his character arc. Really well written character.

The Gale bug happened to a lot of people in the beginning. The game basically locked you into his romance early on even if you tried to deflect his advances. My character cut the magic lesson short. Yet she dreamed of him at the party. Everyone was still flirting like crazy but it went nowhere because now I was with Gale. I got as far as the big sex scene despite never even having kissed him once. It was very frustrating because Gale is not my type at all. And that's not even factoring in being hung up on a literal goddess...

I hate the Fenris romance with a passion, lol. Playing a mage felt like being in an abusive relationship with a very angry man. Ironically I romanced him twice! Wanted to compare how it goes if you are a mage hater yourself. Somehow didn't really make it any better. His anger was still very annoying. Understandable and all, sure, but he annoyed the crap out of me and I would mever put up with it in RL.

But yeah technically the only romance that ticked all my boxes was Kaidan, my first ever BioWare game in 2007. Long time ago! I also liked Alistair a lot but that was it where male romance options are concerned.

I DO like romance in games in theory because they add to a character's personality and arc but I always thought BioWare did friendships a lot better. Dorian/female inky was amazing and I almost cried at the end being his best friend.
So if they did away with romances it wouldn't be the end of the world but then they'd lose the majority of their fans because let's face it, BioWare games are dating sims with a story, lol.

Gosh, Leliana couldn't have been more different from me. I could not stand her. As if the religious zealot part wasn't unappealing enough, she had to start talking about shoe shopping... *insert Al Bundy GIF*

I would say that BioWare games sort of became more and more like dating sims over time and this attracted a specific crowd. My guess is that many old school fans who liked the grim dark vibe didn't really care all that much about the romances so BioWare lost them with DAI. They moved on and the fanbase has changed since. That's just my impression. Obviously there are still plenty of DA fans left who enjoyed all 3 games, myself included. But DAI already had me worried about where all this diversity and inclusion would lead when they try to cater to everyone, especially with the romances. It just becomes this huge annoying time sink thing when you want to do right by everyone. Which is why Obsidian doesn't do romances. It's just a huge mess in this day and age trying to offer everyone proper representation. Which BioWare probably realized and went for pansexual. Just too much work otherwise taking away from other areas of the game that should be more important.

This might sound sexist but it seems like BioWare became more and more popular among female gamers especially because of the romances. Women overall like different games and things in games than men is my impression. When I look at my game library and compare it to those of my male friends it just vastly different. Even when they're also huge RPG fans. So I would throw out this highly speculative opinion that BioWare caters mostly to women and gay people now. Which is fine. They can do whatever they want. That audience gets to enjoy romances that many other games don't offer. But it's a different audience form the one that liked DAO and has grown largely alienated since. And that's why there is so much negativity and contempt for DAV from certain DAO fans. They want old BioWare back. So do I for that matter but I still liked DAI a lot. I have long since accepted that old BioWare is dead and that New BioWare is going in a different direction. One that I am extremely wary of but I'll give DAV a chance at least. If only to confirm my worst fears. I just gotta know.

The impermanence of all things, etc. Someone who wants old Bioware or something would be better served by BG3 or upcoming games like Avowed and Exodus. A lot (most?) of the people who made DA:O and the Mass Effect trilogy aren't even around anymore.

Funny you should say that. Back in 2014 a male friend of mine (not gay) said Dorian was written for straight women more than gay men. Which is so odd considering who wrote him!
But I totally agree that he is very much a female fantasy. (Also funny how almost all Astarion romance videos YT sends me are with a female PC!) My friend said most of the DAI companions were really written for women and I can't really disagree. Cass has always been super popular with female players, I believe, myself included. I love her.

I totally get how the whole flirty gay friend thing is very cliche. Dorian is the whole "if only he could be into me" daydream that Larian let women fullfil with Astarion at last. It's a real thing.

So I honestly have no clue either why a gay man would write Dorian like that. Ask him, lol.

As a huge fan of old Bioware (think KOTOR, ME trilogy, DAO) I have found myself better served with BG3 and CDPR (Cyberpunk and Witcher) than with DA2/DAI/MEA. Larian and CDPR feel more like OG Bioware, the kind of games they might have made today.

DA2 is my favorite in the series in retrospect but otherwise I agree. My journey as somebody who loves good stories and companions more than anything has been from BioWare as my fav dev studio to CDPR to CDPR and Larian with BG3 feeling the most like old school BioWare.

The difference between all those extremely angry haters and me is that I have accepted that those days aren't coming back and there's no point crying about it too much and being toxic. My anticipation is more morbid curiosity and right now I'm riding the nostalgia wave of how much I used to love BioWare games and reliving the good old days in my memory. So I enjoy chatting about DA right now like back in the day. I feel like DAV is the last time that might happen.

I'm surprised even a man who isn't gay can clearly see that the main audience for Dorian wasn't the gay male players. I'd say that yes, it's a very common complaint amongst gay men as well, that Dorian was not really written with gay dudes in mind. Dorian plays up to the fantasy of having a subservient gay male '' boyfriend '' whose greatest joy in the world is tending to his female best friend, who he totally would've fallen in love with romantically immediately hadn't he been gay. Inquisitor who befriends Dorian gets all the positives of that relationship, while the romance path actually reveals Dorian to be a petulant egoistical diva with commitment issues. And while I don't mind that, it is rather frustrating that the romance couldn't really give you anything more than what the friendship route does. And I can't find any other reason why this happens other than Dorian being needed to be made palatable for the straight (female) audiences. 

I like Dorian, I really respect Gaider, and Dorian was great in terms of breaking some barriers during the time the game was released. Ultimately, one sole gay character cannot do everything or please everybody, which is a shame that DAV decided to forgo gay characters entirely. Part of my frustration, really. And beyond that, trying to perfectly appeal to a certain demographic isn't possibly the best way to create characters or romances! But because gay characters and romances aren't dime a dozen even in 2024, I'd like a little bit more effort into thinking what appeals to gay men or lesbian women, instead of what is the most palatable version of these LGB characters in the eyes of heterosexual majority. 

My friend has been around women all his life, he's a writer and can write women better than men. Apparently he also writes lesbian romances really well because he knows many.

Anyway, I had no idea Dorian's romance was like that. I only ever experienced Solas. DAI is sadly a game I could only get through once. Dorian being like this in a relationship kinda sucks. What a different experience that must have been from the friendship path with female inky. Wow. That would piss me off too.

In the west we live in a weird time where everything caters to (straight) women now to make up for all the oppression, I guess. Going from one extreme to the other. Everything has to appeal to women now. Even as a woman I find that very annoying. Just write good stories and good characters, I'll prefer one written for straight men if it's better written than whatever strong female narrative Hollywood wants to cram down everyone's throat at all times now.

VERY curious what kind of clusterfuck Veilguard will turn out to be.

Oh that's a horrible bug! And yeah, I find it terrible that anyone who does want to pursue Gale has to remember that they're essentially competing against a literal Goddess.

When it comes to Astarion, yes, his arc is extremely well written (as was Shadowheart's and Lae'zel's; and I don't necessarily mean from a romance standpoint). For me though, it's how vampires are overrated. Just a personal opinion, but the design for him is very well done. Neil did an amazing job voice acting him, which I felt also helped sell the character (everyone did great, don't get me wrong; but there's a reason why he won for his performance).


Ha ha! Either that or a shoe fetish...given her love of shoes.

I will say I have good romance vibes from the Veilguard companion details so far just because they don't seem to be catering to anyone specifically (and I hope the writing stays true to that). I'm not even interested in romancing the guys first (I always get around to it because I'm a completionist) but the "sexy broody" one is (hopefully actually) "short" and has a mullet, which I know has caused some hurt feelings already. I won't get into people's issues with Davrin but he's objectively the most handsome dude I've seen in one of these games but still doesn't cater to the Alistair/Cullen etc crowd. Emmrich is there for the old man enjoyers, but certainly not the general cishet woman audience (which as a lesbian I appreciate).

I know I'm going with Neve first because she has a Renee Montoya energy I like, which is SUCH a specific thing to me that I'm simply thankful lmao. I much prefer when characters are written for themselves first and romantic appeal second and based on what we've seen so far I kinda have that feeling with this roster.

I saw someone say somewhere above that the romance writing for Fenris was great because it could be gender-specific (and in his case I agree it was genuinely well done if you romance him as a man) so I ride the fence on whether I want there to be reactive romance dialogue based on Rook's gender. I don't super trust f/f writing in gaming and tend to prefer to be surprised by it. Frex - you could romance Randvi either way in AC Valhalla and the dialogue was the same but it hit much more deeply with female Eivor. Entirely by accident.

All this to say - trying to bring a little positivity to the romance outlook for this game. I mean the writers could still entirely let us down but I do think I'll end up more frustrated with game mechanics than the narrative depth on this one.