[Gareth]

Calling her "Hamburger Hepler" is mean-spirited, but good grief, read that last paragraph :



So much facepalm.

[EleventhHour]

Quality fantasy literature has a patriarchal bias.

[EmptyWallet]

This was really funny. Thanks Gareth. Brightened my evening.

On a more serious note, the woman is a fucking idiot and a good indicator that I should keep avoiding all future Bioware games.

[MidnightSun]

While I don't hate her for not liking games (meh, to each his own, you don't enjoy it, no problem) I feel like she's interjecting some kind of (gay) agenda in someplace it does not belong to.

Having said that, I will leave you with Jim Jefferies' joke on lesbians.

3:30 - 4:05 http://youtu.be/_sQW7-Hyhbk

[Darkthia]

 

Don't get me started on hepler.

[Villfarelse]

While I don't hate her for not liking games (meh, to each his own, you don't enjoy it, no problem) I feel like she's interjecting some kind of (gay) agenda in someplace it does not belong to.

She's just a person who finds homosexuality exciting and wants to write about it, it's not a conspiracy.

Besides, why wouldn't gay people or homosexuality belong in computer games?

[Darkthia]

Discussing homosexuality in any medium in completely acceptable, for me, the line is crossed when your options are
1) Gay is good
2) Why dont you think gay is good? See #1

Its more of an issue about the point for me and less about the actual topic.

[Argence]

Wow. Her forum post above the author statement is just rediculous. She's not too subtle about forcing the issue is she?

I don't care for romantic side crap in my games, but I ignore it as it is skippable. She whines all over the place about how she doesn't like combat and how major gameplay elements should be skippable because not everyone is into that. Then she says outright, if you don't play gay, we'll make you accidentally observe an "intimate encounter" among your crew.

[Vince]

She's just a person who finds homosexuality exciting and wants to write about it, it's not a conspiracy.

First, nobody's stopping her from writing about homosexuality, but are fantasy games an appropriate media for exploring this exciting subject?

Second, if she's fucking dying to insert a gay character in the game, she should do it, but making everyone bisexual to "bridge demographics" is a bit too much, don't you think? I can only hope that gay people are offended that their sexuality was turned into a cheap gimmick.

Third, her reasons are wrong and plain fucking stupid. She does it not because she's convinced that a gay character will add something to the game, but because she thinks it will sell more copies. Her comment about boring fantasy written by old WHITE guys is beyond idiotic (if true).

Besides, why wouldn't gay people or homosexuality belong in computer games?

Because it's not what computer games are about? RPGs are about adventuring (in most cases looting and killing). At what point should one of the characters bring up the fact that he/she is gay and how would it be relevant to the story/events/gameplay? If one of the characters is a mage or an elf, it matters. If he/she's gay, it doesn't.

Does Shepard have personalities (for different possible characters)? No, he doesn't. Did Mass Effect have depth and maturity? Nope. But I'm so happy that ME3 will include an entire chapter dedicated to coming out and people reacting to it. I'm glad they have their priorities straight.

[MaximillionMiles]

I don't have a problem with homosexuals or bisexuals in fantasy or sci-fi.

I don't have a problem with her fetishizing male homosexuality. To each their own. (although make no mistake, she fetishizes gay sex. She's not interested by it or wants to open people up to it... No. Her interest is masturbatory only, and her idea of gay sex has as much to do with real gay sex as lesbian porn has to do with real lesbian relationships) But, as I said. Not a problem. Her tastes. Whatever.

What I DO have a problem, frankly, is with poor writing.

Because poor writers handle delicate material in a clumsy way.
Because poor writers tend to go for easy shock value and controversial stuff, instead of actually saying something.
Because poor writers don't see writing as a way to say something you find important or interesting. They see it as a way to fulfill their fantasies and indulge in their desires, which is the reason most fanfics suck.

You can write interesting homosexual characters in fantasy, it's not impossible. But first you need to be a good writer first.

[Gregorus Prime]

Calling her "Hamburger Helper" is mean-spirited, but good grief, read that last paragraph :

It's nothing she doesn't bring on herself. If she was a decent writer then she'd have respect. Instead she writes shit and allowed herself to be thrust into the limelight. She's become sort of the de facto representative of the current Bioware, which pays increasingly inordinate amounts of attention to what should be a fringe feature, and beating the same old dead horse with a stallion-shaped dildo while whispering things so horribly cheesy they would make Bella Swan cringe. David Gaider's probably more directly to blame but the fact of the matter is when Brent Knowles left the company a few years ago the last vestiges of the "old" Bioware, the one that made interesting games and had writing that was quite good (if a little cliche sometimes), left with him. Now we get the cast of Jersey Shore in ME3 and contrived "kill one of your friends even though there's no reason they can't both live" plot decisions leaking out of the script.

What I DO have a problem, frankly, is with poor writting.

I'm sorry to do this but let me just bask in the irony of this sentence a bit. It's... it's just great.  

EDIT: Sorry, I just found this and had to share it:

[attachment deleted by admin]

[thomasc]

It's nothing she doesn't bring on herself. If she was a decent writer then she'd have respect. Instead she writes shit and allowed herself to be thrust into the limelight.

You can make all the excuses you want, but its still an undeserving personal attack.

[Gareth]

It's nothing she doesn't bring on herself. If she was a decent writer then she'd have respect. Instead she writes shit and allowed herself to be thrust into the limelight.

Which justifies criticizing her writing, not her weight. That kind of attack just destroys the credibility of the attacker, not their target.

Back to the topic on hand, I don't have a problem with relationships/homosexuality in RPGs or gaming in general. But I do have a problem with bad writing. And as Vince said, making half the characters bisexual to fill some quota is silly.

What I have a bigger problem with, and this comes back to being a poor writer, is that this "confront characters about homosexuality" thing (if true) seems rather anachronistic. Will we also be emancipating the slaves and fighting for women to receive equal pay?

It's hundreds of years in the future, in a setting with interspecies relationships and strip joints. But the thing NPCs chide you on is the human male-on-male relationship? Not shacking up with a blue starfish woman or Garrus?

Come on. It's the wrong time period for that to be a big taboo unless you write good justification into the background lore. It'd be like a plotline where you have to deal with crew members not wanting to share living quarters with people of a different skin colour.

Think it through, writers.

[Villfarelse]

First, nobody's stopping her from writing about homosexuality, but are fantasy games an appropriate media for exploring this exciting subject?

Why wouldn't they be? Do homosexuality belong in some sort of special media?

Second, if she's fucking dying to insert a gay character in the game, she should do it, but making everyone bisexual to "bridge demographics" is a bit too much, don't you think? I can only hope that gay people are offended that their sexuality was turned into a cheap gimmick.

I never said it wasn't, or that I liked her writing. I was responding to MidnightSun's statement of "homosexuality not belonging" in RPG's or videogames or whatever.

Third, her reasons are wrong and plain fucking stupid. She does it not because she's convinced that a gay character will add something to the game, but because she thinks it will sell more copies. Her comment about boring fantasy written by old WHITE guys is beyond idiotic (if true).

Again, unrelated to my point. I don't dispute that.

Besides, why wouldn't gay people or homosexuality belong in computer games?

Because it's not what computer games are about? RPGs are about adventuring (in most cases looting and killing). At what point should one of the characters bring up the fact that he/she is gay and how would it be relevant to the story/events/gameplay? If one of the characters is a mage or an elf, it matters. If he/she's gay, it doesn't.

Does it matter whether a character is black or white, or how his appearance is like at all? No? Then why do so many games offer such intricate appearance modifiers at character creation? For the same reason, people want to play different characters, even if most of their characterization is in their own heads. That's why people don't want to be forced to play heterosexual characters.

And yeah, if a game has romances, the sexuality of the character obviously would be relevant, regardless of whether the romances are well or poorly written.

And seriously, why does it even have to be "relevant" for it to be passable to you? Why does homosexuality need a reason, while heterosexuality doesn't?

[Oscar]

Does Shepard have personalities (for different possible characters)? No, he doesn't. Did Mass Effect have depth and maturity? Nope. But I'm so happy that ME3 will include an entire chapter dedicated to coming out and people reacting to it. I'm glad they have their priorities straight.

Well, they don't have their priorities straight, they have them gay