Mass Effect

[2Bad]

I don't even want to be the JRPG guy because I don't play those but the difference in conversational tone is quite staggering when talking about pandering conducted by a WRPG dev and their non-W cousins and it's always fun to point out, for friends.

I've no problem shittalking JRPG pandering whatsoever.

[SeiKeo]

I don't even want to be the JRPG guy because I don't play those but the difference in conversational tone is quite staggering when talking about pandering conducted by a WRPG dev and their non-W cousins and it's always fun to point out, for friends.

fuck bioware i loved xiii just give me more of that shit

[Ace]

I mean it completely unironically when I say same

[SeiKeo]

like TO BE FRANK the problem is all the good bioware waifus are men and I'm feeling attacked right now as a hetboi

[2Bad]

The solution is to femme it up and take it up

[Ace]

i have the exact opposite problem with the bioware waifus

[Mcjon01]

My Bioware waifu problem is that I like Tali but I hate everyone who likes Tali, up to and including myself.

[SeiKeo]

i have the exact opposite problem with the bioware waifus

make everyone conditionally bi because there's usually one good romance per game on average and you gotta be able to get on that

[Five_X]

From what I gather (intense hearsay, so grab your bags of salt) the reasoning behind a lot of problems with MEA is due to design team shuffling. Which, consequently, seems to have led to a near-reversal of a lot of art direction:

https://my.mixtape.moe/yugchn.mp4

(ignore the actual graphical issues, that's obv just shitty PC problems)

[Historia]

Final build - 2017 (on the lowest graphic settings)

[ILurkNoMoar]

From what I gather (intense hearsay, so grab your bags of salt) the reasoning behind a lot of problems with MEA is due to design team shuffling. Which, consequently, seems to have led to a near-reversal of a lot of art direction:
https://my.mixtape.moe/yugchn.mp4
(ignore the actual graphical issues, that's obv just shitty PC problems)

That's pretty sad, whenever I see examples from the pre-release builds I can't help but think that they looks way better then the final version.

I mean come on, the Krogan with the gas grenade thing looks like a fucking clown in the final version.

[Five_X]

Tbh I'm not so much disappointed as I am baffled as to how things came to this point. I'm hoping the full story comes to light at some point after release.

[Seika]

I should rephrase, ignore the "Depth" bit. It is strange, to me, if one is attempting to write a character as opposed to say, checking a box for marketing (and considering the utter brain drawn Bioware has gone through it is a struggle to give them credit for creative juices), to place something so core a person's identity in the hands of the PC when the character isn't the PC themselves. Does that make sense? Writing it in that fashion makes it harder for me to read your character as a distinct result of your creative process rather than something you've created for, yes, pandering to focus groups and whatnot.

But the thing is that BioWare have specifically set up their core franchises - and, I expect, any future ones - so that sexuality isn't a key and defining characteristic (outside, to a limited extent, Thedosian nobility), in exactly the same way they've made skin colour a non-factor (contingent on species difference, granted). We consider sexuality a key identity component because the vast majority of human cultures since the dawn of time have made an issue of it in one way or another. We consider skin colour relevant because it's been a trigger for the xenophobia inherent to the human condition, and because of the specific legacies of European colonialism and slave-trading. These cultural factors either just don't exist in the BioWare verses, or they're relics of the past which are given no thought whatsoever. People may be gay or straight or whatever, but these are persistently treated as both personal quirks and complete non-issues. No-one is a black rights activist or a gay rights activist in their worlds, because there is no apparent need for such things.

I wasn't just being glib when I mentioned the uber-progressive settings: it flies under the radar, but it's an integral part of why BioWare can do what they do with the array of sexualities they include in each game, and why they could flip everyone to apparent pansexuality in DAII and not change the world a jot. (And, thank goodness, why they don't have to repeat a gay realisation/coming-out/struggle story every single time they make a non-straight character). There are still hooks in place to address these issues - Dorian being the obvious extant example, and one might well imagine the societal issues a gay krogan might face - but they're positioned as rare exceptions to the rule not just of 'tolerance' but of 'total obliviousness', and remain remarkable for how seldom they're used.

BioWare have systematically externalised these issues into fantasy metaphors of magic, space-magic, and species, while wiping the internal slate clean. You're searching for real-world elements which have been deliberately washed away. Now, you might well think that's all too pat and non-confrontational and affected, which is a fair position. I mentioned in my first post about this that I'd not kick up a fuss if someone else queer felt the DAII system was a representation cop-out. But, in the context of their world-building, your fundamental premise that sexuality need be a deeply embedded part of BioWare characters has no foundation.

[2Bad]

But the thing is that BioWare have specifically set up their core franchises - and, I expect, any future ones - so that sexuality isn't a key and defining characteristic (outside, to a limited extent, Thedosian nobility), in exactly the same way they've made skin colour a non-factor (contingent on species difference, granted). We consider sexuality a key identity component because the vast majority of human cultures since the dawn of time have made an issue of it in one way or another. We consider skin colour relevant because it's been a trigger for the xenophobia inherent to the human condition, and because of the specific legacies of European colonialism and slave-trading. These cultural factors either just don't exist in the BioWare verses, or they're relics of the past which are given no thought whatsoever. People may be gay or straight or whatever, but these are persistently treated as both personal quirks and complete non-issues. No-one is a black rights activist or a gay rights activist in their worlds, because there is no apparent need for such things.

I wasn't just being glib when I mentioned the uber-progressive settings: it flies under the radar, but it's an integral part of why BioWare can do what they do with the array of sexualities they include in each game, and why they could flip everyone to apparent pansexuality in DAII and not change the world a jot. (And, thank goodness, why they don't have to repeat a gay realisation/coming-out/struggle story every single time they make a non-straight character). There are still hooks in place to address these issues - Dorian being the obvious extant example, and one might well imagine the societal issues a gay krogan might face - but they're positioned as rare exceptions to the rule not just of 'tolerance' but of 'total obliviousness', and remain remarkable for how seldom they're used.

BioWare have systematically externalised these issues into fantasy metaphors of magic, space-magic, and species, while wiping the internal slate clean. You're searching for real-world elements which have been deliberately washed away. Now, you might well think that's all too pat and non-confrontational and affected, which is a fair position. I mentioned in my first post about this that I'd not kick up a fuss if someone else queer felt the DAII system was a representation cop-out. But, in the context of their world-building, your fundamental premise that sexuality need be a deeply embedded part of BioWare characters has no foundation.

I mean do not mistake my complaints as a demand for every LGBT+ character to have a coming out story because that's an unholy nightmare we're finally escaping from. I do, however, think that, for something that takes itself as seriously as Mass Effect (I am just not even going to get started on Dragon Age because I hate DA for a whole host of reasons unrelated to any of this) to just try to sweep such business under the rug and have everything be a-okay rings a bit hollow, especially since what was originally a Star Trek RPG effectively about facing and just running from direct engagement with socio-political commentary is just another step back from the promise of ME1. You could of course argue that their creation of such a setting speaks for itself, and to a degree it does, but when their efforts are highlighted by such stellar examples as this latest T fiasco it is very hard to take them as genuine.

[Prix with a Silent X]

Leo thought it would be cool if I posted in this thread because I'm playing ME1 and have gotten further than I have before. I know the basic major spoilers and stuff but haven't taken the journey before. He said something like that this thread hadn't seen a new person opinion in a while, so. Here I am?

I'm being femShep, earthborn, adept first.

[Strife ❤️]

[asterism42]

It occurs to me that racism isn't a thing in either 'verse because speciesism is much more interesting. To slightly paraphrase Terry Pratchett, black and white work harmoniously together to gang up against green.

[Marmadillo]

Considering that pretty much all species except maybe hanar are just a type of human, it's not necessary to differentiate speciesm from ordinary racism.

[Snow]

Not saying how they did it isn't dumb af but bw characters have a long history of telling you their life story in the first 5 min of knowing you.

[eddyak]

Not saying how they did it isn't dumb af but bw characters have a long history of telling you their life story in the first 5 min of knowing you.

Hey, at least ME2 had you go on at least one mission with them before they'd write you the biography.