BioWare Writers Talk Same-Sex Love In Mass Effect 3

[Toilet]

Protip: when you write people in stories you do it by writing the character as a person, then as their gender and then as their sexuality. Most writers fall into the pitfall of writing their gender first, the sexuality second and then the person risking making the character a stereotype.

Also having a few conversations about somebodies dead husband does not make a good gay character. Cortez is simply written as the openly gay dude who is sad about his dead husband and after three conversation events Cortez is down to fuck before the final assault.

Either you have some tact with these events and write the characters as people first or you make the character romances easter eggs and much much harder to achieve. Nobody in the real world reminds people of their sexuality with every conversation (unless they are tumblr users) and with that Traynor is written much better with her only hinting at her sexuality when she likes EDIs voice.

 

[Cat of Doom]

Eh, they were shoehorned in.

Traynor was cheesy and Cortez was lame. Both of them had to make themselves oblivious to the fact that they are homosexual. The first thing out of Traynor's mouth was "I am a lesbian" and Cortez was like *sniff* "I'm...Gay..Shepard" *breaksdown*.

My reaction to this? I GET IT!

You wan't to see Shoehorned See: Diane Allers (Jessica Chobot)

 

[WanderingFool]

Okay, I found out Cortez was gay when I heard the message while customizing my armor in my male shepard playthrough. That surpirsed me (I thought it was James...)

I DID NOT know Traynor was gay. Hmm... guess thats why she shot down my male shepard...

 

[Dags90]

Personally, I want to hear Bioware talk Same-Sex Love in SW:TOR. I'm not demanding buttsecks this instant, but a progress report would be a good start.

 

[antipunt]

Eh, they were shoehorned in.

Traynor was cheesy and Cortez was lame. Both of them had to make themselves oblivious to the fact that they are homosexual. The first thing out of Traynor's mouth was "I am a lesbian" and Cortez was like *sniff* "I'm...Gay..Shepard" *breaksdown*.

My reaction to this? I GET IT!

You wan't to see Shoehorned See: Diane Allers (Jessica Chobot)

Was I the only one who was like "No. Get the hell off my ship"

 

[Soviet Heavy]

At least they weren't written like Hepler's fapfiction version of Anders in Dragon Age 2. Massive improvement.

 

[Saulkar]

Still does not fix that fact that I did not get my gay Garrus.

 

[mgirl]

I thought Cortez was an interesting character, and I liked talking to him to hear his story. Traynor though? She was a pretty boring character, never really said or did much at all. Plus, I didn't realise she was supposed to be gay, since for some reason the romance dialogue didn't come up at all in my playthrough.

 

[DustyDrB]

I didn't even know Traynor was a lesbian. And I talked to her a lot, to the point where I out dialogue with her. I didn't flirt with her though, so maybe that's why that conversation never came up.

So I guess she was handled well. I thought Steve was handled well too. If it weren't for him, I probably wouldn't like James. Their banter was great. And his story was very human. It fit the theme of the game well.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Thats nice. No one cares. You botched the ending you chumps.

 

[Abedeus]

STEEEEEEEEEVE

I'm fine.

ARE YOU SURE?!

That's how I feel about those two. Oh, and the lesbian went from "Hi, I like women" to "LET'S FUCK UNDER THE SHOWER NOW" in a matter of hours.

 

[BlindChance]

Kinda stunned how many people didn't know Traynor was a lesbian; I'll have to pay attention to it on my next play through, but it was clear enough to me. I concur with the dominant opinion that Cortez was the better character though.

 

[fozzy360]

I actually ended liking Cortez. He's a much more interesting character than you might think, and his banter with Vega, while a bit forced, happened to be humorous at times. Traynor was pretty cool, though I think she could have used a bit more work. If there was anything really wrong with the characters, it certainly didn't have anything to do with their sexuality.

Kaidan, on the other hand, ended up a trainwreck of a character. Now that was some awful writing.

 

[Valdus]

Hmmm, WAS anybody besides One Million Moms (and the other hate groups) upset about the homosexual relationships?

I was. Nothing against homosexuals, it's more about Bioware. I don't care what they say, I know they only do it because lesbian-sex-scenes sell.

I've played quite a few bioware games (Dragon Age 1 + 2, Mass Effect, Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate 1 + 2) and well...the romances never really did anything for me. The only time I actually felt a romance actually had any weight was in Baldur's gate 2, where a relationship with Aerie could cause another NPC (can't remember his name) to argue with the main character...to the point that it could result in violence and one or more members leaving the party.

That felt like a realistic romance...characters could get upset when they think the relationship is something they didn't want, other character's act jealous etc. The relationships in DA was horrendous...I can be a ***** to Morrigan all I want, but throw a book her way and suddenly her tent is a little "too cold". In Mass Effect I could have a relationship with a member of a genderless race whose collected income comes mostly from prostitution...oh, and despite being genderless they all look female...yeah...

Somehow I don't think Mass Effect have gay characters because they add more depth to their personality or whatever bullcrap they're saying...they do it because it's provocative and sells.

I feel sorry for every gay man/women who doesn't want homosexuality to constantly be associated with promiscurity and gratitous sex scenes, because Bioware games aren't going to help them.

 

[tmande2nd]

I ...did not really like them.

They just felt like they were tossed in for the LGBT vote as it was.
Thane, Jacob, and Jack get like nothing and suddenly they add three new LI to romance?

I am sorry but its just offensive that they created new characters and tossed older characters under the bus.
I dont see why they have to make the game "accessible" to people who come in late? Read the wiki or play the past games or something.

They were okay characters but they came at the cost to older characters. That is something I did not like.

 

[getoffmycloud]

Hmmm, WAS anybody besides One Million Moms (and the other hate groups) upset about the homosexual relationships?

I was. Nothing against homosexuals, it's more about Bioware. I don't care what they say, I know they only do it because lesbian-sex-scenes sell.

I've played quite a few bioware games (Dragon Age 1 + 2, Mass Effect, Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate 1 + 2) and well...the romances never really did anything for me. The only time I actually felt a romance actually had any weight was in Baldur's gate 2, where a relationship with Aerie could cause another NPC (can't remember his name) to argue with the main character...to the point that it could result in violence and one or more members leaving the party.

That felt like a realistic romance...characters could get upset when they think the relationship is something they didn't want, other character's act jealous etc. The relationships in DA was horrendous...I can be a ***** to Morrigan all I want, but throw a book her way and suddenly her tent is a little "too cold". In Mass Effect I could have a relationship with a member of a genderless race whose collected income comes mostly from prostitution...oh, and despite being genderless they all look female...yeah...

Somehow I don't think Mass Effect have gay characters because they add more depth to their personality or whatever bullcrap they're saying...they do it because it's provocative and sells.

I feel sorry for every gay man/women who doesn't want homosexuality to constantly be associated with promiscurity and gratitous sex scenes, because Bioware games aren't going to help them.

Ok I have to ask did you even read the article because the guy who wrote Traynor said that he didn't want to write a character that was just there for other men to have a lesbian scene with and I would say he succeeded.

 

[Drop_D-Bombshell]

I believed they handled Traynor brilliantly, i never suspected she was for girls until she straight up told me, Cortez as well but i rarely went to see him because i would just go straight to the map or Joker.

They really handled this well, they did a good job on it.

 

[4173]

I thought they were both done well, but I don't know much.