Dragon Age 2 Lead Writer Blasts Homophobic Fan

[GloatingSwine]

I wouldn't say that it's "lazy writing", but it's certainly bad writing. Sexuality should be a part of the character, not an optional bolt on. If the character as designed is straight, then that's their character.

How is a character "designed" to be straight, though?
I never got the feeling during the course of Dragon Age 2 that these characters had sexual orientations forced upon them as something external to their being. I saw four very three-dimensional characters.

The same way they're "designed" to have brown hair, or a certain opinion about cheese. Characters in a fictional work are designed, everything about them is designed. Given that sexuality is quite a fundamental component of identity, designing a character with a strong identity requires that the designer decides what their sexual preference is and how that affects their personality and interactions, especially in an RPG which is designed, supposedly, around personal interactions with these characters.

 

[Lesd3vil]

How arrogant to think that he speaks for all 'straight white males'; not only that, to make up a bunch of completely incorrect statistics to back up his argument :|

A game like DA2 is, on every level, all about the story. He should be glad he had the choice to be able to knock Anders back... He sounds like the kind of guy who wouldn't read a book, regardless of how good it was, if the main character was homosexual :/ if the developers wanted to make a homosexual relationship an integral part of the story, what would he do then? Throw his controller down in disgust and write more petty forum posts?

Personally, I would love to see Bioware tackle an issue this deep in one of their games. The writing is always quality and strives to make us think about things, if they were to take out the 'choice' and make a story that wasn't hindered by letting gamers 'project' themselves onto the character; then made the main character someone struggling with issues of their own sexuality, I think they could come up with something interesting and special

... Or would that be too deep for the 'Straight White Male Demographic'?

 

[theguiltyone]

I jumped back a bit when Anders was like "Yeah it was so lonely and cold in the circle so me and Karl just fucked like rabbits".

Not that i was expecting any different, and not that i mind, but i have never met a gay person in real life that within two minutes of meeting me tells me about the time he made sweet love with "Jerry in broom closet". REALISM!

I've never met a gay person with a spirit of Justice halfway possessing them, either. lol

I think it's supposed to be obvious that Anders is not quite right in the head. If you went so far out of your way to help him, maybe he just needed to vent about the whole having to kill his first boyfriend thing? I don't know, it didn't seem THAT far from realistic considering how messed up he is.

Especially concerning the other, far less-realistic portions of the game.

Maybe it's because of Justice!

I'm sure he liked the months he spent actually having a dick in Awakenings, and decided to double-time it to make up for an eternity as a eunuch!

My God you might be onto something!

...except that Justice is all "NO ITS A DISTRACTION GET IT AWAY" when Anders shows interest in you. But this theory still makes me chuckle.

 

[Ewyx]

However, it would be nice if the characters in the game were either bi straight or gay. Everyone being bisexual is just lazy writing more than anything else.

Surely if Hawke has romance plots with every character regardless of gender that's MORE writing.

You're joking right? I didn't say more/less writing, I said LAZY writing. It's easy to write a romance into every character, it's much more difficult to create a companion that has his/her own preferences. A character that slowly grows on you, a character that depending on your choices can be either a good friend or a lover. Love is not as simple as BioWare would like to portray it, hell, I'd rather see only one plausible romantic interest but that one made extremely well.

Also, on the other hand, if you write a romance that works on every sex, you only have to write the same amount of lines, whether if it's a heterosexual character, you have to make different dialogues for different sexes.

But whatever, I'm done with this shit. Apparently if you don't want to accept that everyone should be bisexual, you're being weird

 

[CleverCover]

Honestly, I'm damn glad both dudes are bi in this one. It means I don't have to romance the chicks on a dude!Hawke save.

Isabela seems like a girl!Zevran and Merrill seems impossible to please unless you say blood magic is a ok, even though I spend the entire game trying to kill blood mages.

Although Anders could lay off the "Mages Rule! Templars Suck!" thing constantly and Fenris is kind of emo, although its understandable.

Is it weird that I felt like it was more of my Hawke hitting on everyone instead of the other way around?

I want my Warden and her Alistair back! T^T

 

[Jazzyjazz2323]

Am I the only one as a male gamer who found Isabella really annoying and that the character amounted to little more than trash?Honestly idc about the rest of the cast but the one I absolutely hated was ISabella...I GET YOU'RE A SLUT FUCK OFF.

 

[D Moness]

You know what the real question is.

Why the heck can't i sex up Varric, I mean that chesthair is so damn sex.

 

[norwegian-guy]

Do I have a problem with the fact that is is possible for homosexual romance in DA2. Absolutley not. My problem with it is that they made it much better in Origins. In Origins there were 2 bisexual romanceoptions (Leliana & Zevran) and it was really fleshed out. It didn't feel like bioware just added girl-on-girl or man-on-man action. Bisexuality was part of their nature, they were also from far more openminded cultures (orlesian and antivan) where sex wasn't just accepted but common. It added more character.
So in the end it seems more that my problem lies in the fact that the DA2-companions are just a weaker cast than found in origin.

 

[LiquidGrape]

Given that sexuality is quite a fundamental component of identity, designing a character with a strong identity requires that the designer decides what their sexual preference is and how that affects their personality and interactions, especially in an RPG which is designed, supposedly, around personal interactions with these characters.

And Dragon Age 2 failed on this point how?
When it mattered, I thought it was conveyed rather well that the four characters available for romance were attracted to both sexes. And that this fact didn't define them, but had caused them both joys and heartbreaks in the past.
I'm just curious; is your issue that you thought the characterisation was poor, or that all the love interests were bisexual?
I've heard a lot of people claim that the latter "cheapens" the romance, whatever that might mean.

 

[Techno Destructo]

Enchantment?

 

[Hachura]

This guy is so far back in the closet he can see Narnia. Don't remember who said that about something once, Yahtzee?

 

[Royta]

I like how they discover another bug in that conversation. They're so rare in that game (sarcasme).

 

[Sjakie]

insecure adolescent homofoob!

o well, we cant all be grown ups about it....

....and dragon age 2 is shit!

 

[Molverine]

I jumped back a bit when Anders was like "Yeah it was so lonely and cold in the circle so me and Karl just fucked like rabbits".

Not that i was expecting any different, and not that i mind, but i have never met a gay person in real life that within two minutes of meeting me tells me about the time he made sweet love with "Jerry in broom closet". REALISM!

Also laughed when the male prostitute in the blooming rose complained the templer didn't wanna sleep with him either. Funny bit is if you have Aveline in your party and you take his offer to have sex she gets a bit pissed.

Dude, she gets pissed if you even walk by that place.

"We should get moving, i wouldn't want to be caught DEAD here" (or whatever she says)

 

[Antari]

I guess its a good thing I'll never have to worry about any of this as I won't be picking up DA 2 anytime soon. Even if steam decides to throw it on sale.

 

[Craorach]

Like other people have said, the two characters in place for straight males to have as a love interest were silly beyond belief... while I love Merill to bits, I can understand why people don't, and the other option is an overthetop, promiscuous, pirate wench who is seen in one scene asking the main healer for a cure for STDs. Add to this that the homosexual male love interests not only hit on the main character incredibly badly but take a massive reputation hit if you turn them down and I can definately see where some players are coming from.

The fact is that the romance options in DA2 were poorly done compared to any other Bioware game. The more reasonable, fleshed out, characters were out of bounds and the player is left with people who either try to jump their bones the moment they meet, or are terryfing for one reason or another.

 

[antipunt]

You know it's kind of weird, but when I got hit on by Anders (that whole 'forced' to love him or break his heart moment), I would've preferred for him to be canonically gay.

And I'm straight. what I mean is, I'd rather have him be consistently homosexual, rather than falling in love with -ANY- Hawke he runs into. Can't really elucidate why, it just feels more appropriate that way.

 

[lockeslylcrit]

As a straight, male gamer, I can safely say that I'm comfortable enough with my sexuality to feel proud that male characters flirt with my own. My dude's got so much game, guys cant help but on hit on him too.