Love Disinterest
Feb. 17th, 2011 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thessalianI've been pretty quiet on LJ lately, I know. Busy. You know how it goes.
However, I am delurking for the following Public Service Announcement:
You know how female gamers tend to want to be taken seriously? How there's a certain amount of piss-off about how it seems like only the male MC option in any game gets any press at all? How everything's marketed to teenaged boys and no one believes that girls like anything but fashion games and the shit on Facebook? Well. I've thought of a solution:
Get your brains out of your gods-damned knickers for five minutes on the fan forums, for a start!!!
Yes, I am talking about Dragon Age. Dragon Age 2 comes out in less than a month. The demo comes out on Tuesday. I am excited for this. But I am also pissed off because all anyone can talk about are the love interest options. If it's not "WOE WE CAN'T ROMANCE THE DWARF!" it's "WHY CAN'T WE HAVE HOT GIRL-ON-GIRL SEX WITH AVELINE?!?", or "WHO'S GONNA TURN OUT TO BE BI???" or "OOOH, LOOKIT WHO I CAN HAVE COYLY HINTED AT CYBERSEX WITH; UNF!!!"
Oh, dear gods, shut up!
I get it's part of the game. I like that it's part of the game. In Origins, you're with your party for a year, nearly dying almost every damn day. You're going to bond. You're going to want that life-affirming connection after a Broodmother nearly eats your face. You're going to fall in love. It's going to happen. I like that it's there. I'm not some curmudgeon who believes that it shouldn't be there. Dragon Age 2? You're with your group for the best part of ten years. It's also going to happen. I like that there's that roleplay option there.
I do not, however, feel the need to talk about it every five seconds. Why can't you romance the dwarf? Because the dwarf is not real. Your character cannot romance the dwarf because it is not an option. I don't know exactly why, but it might have something to do with said dwarf growing up with a caste system that really doesn't like the idea of dwarves breeding with other races, as you get your societal place from your same-sex parent and it's a whole grey-area thing and you're dooming your kid to be worse than casteless if they turn out to be born the same gender as their human parent. Your character can't shag Aveline because her last relationship was a marriage to a fucking Templar Knight. And sometimes? The person you want to have your same-sex relationship is not going to be interested in having sex with members of their own gender. It's a fact of life.
More to the point ... that's not the main theme of the game. If you want that kind of shit? Go buy a Japanese dating-sim. Some of us are in the romance angle of the whole thing as a bit of colour while they're trying to advance plot. And maybe turn some darkspawn into mince. No wonder they market it for guys if all the girls seem to be most vocal about is who can hop into whose bed after a stilted sort of cutscene. If you want to explore the romance options further than the game will let you go? That's what fanfic is for. Stop fucking complaining about it already.
Jesus fucking Christ, why can't I find a fandom discussion of how bad the fighting animations for warriors seem to suck, how whoever was playing in the demo vid couldn't play worth shit and what the hell they're doing for navigation if they're trying to walk south to get to the Free Marches in the north? Or at least, one that doesn't immediately degenerate into "[Character] was awesome; why can't we romance them again? WOOOOOOOE!!!"?
I don't mean to be nasty. Really. Honestly. I know that people are excited, and to each his own. I'm just tired of being in places where that's seen as the only reason to be interested in the game. I'm looking forward to it for plot and better graphics and a longer timeline and some of the changes made to old familiar faces. I want to play the game, not get through the fighting bits in order to get my 'ship fodder. I know it's uncharitable, I really do ... but I tend to think that anyone who gets that het up over pixellated romance really needs to get themselves real-life laid.
However, I am delurking for the following Public Service Announcement:
You know how female gamers tend to want to be taken seriously? How there's a certain amount of piss-off about how it seems like only the male MC option in any game gets any press at all? How everything's marketed to teenaged boys and no one believes that girls like anything but fashion games and the shit on Facebook? Well. I've thought of a solution:
Get your brains out of your gods-damned knickers for five minutes on the fan forums, for a start!!!
Yes, I am talking about Dragon Age. Dragon Age 2 comes out in less than a month. The demo comes out on Tuesday. I am excited for this. But I am also pissed off because all anyone can talk about are the love interest options. If it's not "WOE WE CAN'T ROMANCE THE DWARF!" it's "WHY CAN'T WE HAVE HOT GIRL-ON-GIRL SEX WITH AVELINE?!?", or "WHO'S GONNA TURN OUT TO BE BI???" or "OOOH, LOOKIT WHO I CAN HAVE COYLY HINTED AT CYBERSEX WITH; UNF!!!"
Oh, dear gods, shut up!
I get it's part of the game. I like that it's part of the game. In Origins, you're with your party for a year, nearly dying almost every damn day. You're going to bond. You're going to want that life-affirming connection after a Broodmother nearly eats your face. You're going to fall in love. It's going to happen. I like that it's there. I'm not some curmudgeon who believes that it shouldn't be there. Dragon Age 2? You're with your group for the best part of ten years. It's also going to happen. I like that there's that roleplay option there.
I do not, however, feel the need to talk about it every five seconds. Why can't you romance the dwarf? Because the dwarf is not real. Your character cannot romance the dwarf because it is not an option. I don't know exactly why, but it might have something to do with said dwarf growing up with a caste system that really doesn't like the idea of dwarves breeding with other races, as you get your societal place from your same-sex parent and it's a whole grey-area thing and you're dooming your kid to be worse than casteless if they turn out to be born the same gender as their human parent. Your character can't shag Aveline because her last relationship was a marriage to a fucking Templar Knight. And sometimes? The person you want to have your same-sex relationship is not going to be interested in having sex with members of their own gender. It's a fact of life.
More to the point ... that's not the main theme of the game. If you want that kind of shit? Go buy a Japanese dating-sim. Some of us are in the romance angle of the whole thing as a bit of colour while they're trying to advance plot. And maybe turn some darkspawn into mince. No wonder they market it for guys if all the girls seem to be most vocal about is who can hop into whose bed after a stilted sort of cutscene. If you want to explore the romance options further than the game will let you go? That's what fanfic is for. Stop fucking complaining about it already.
Jesus fucking Christ, why can't I find a fandom discussion of how bad the fighting animations for warriors seem to suck, how whoever was playing in the demo vid couldn't play worth shit and what the hell they're doing for navigation if they're trying to walk south to get to the Free Marches in the north? Or at least, one that doesn't immediately degenerate into "[Character] was awesome; why can't we romance them again? WOOOOOOOE!!!"?
I don't mean to be nasty. Really. Honestly. I know that people are excited, and to each his own. I'm just tired of being in places where that's seen as the only reason to be interested in the game. I'm looking forward to it for plot and better graphics and a longer timeline and some of the changes made to old familiar faces. I want to play the game, not get through the fighting bits in order to get my 'ship fodder. I know it's uncharitable, I really do ... but I tend to think that anyone who gets that het up over pixellated romance really needs to get themselves real-life laid.
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 03:39 am (UTC)(Yes, I know there already was a sequel to Romancing the Stone.)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 04:42 am (UTC)I was starting to worry I was the only girl out there who thought this. I mean, I'm really excited when they announced that Anders is a romance option, but I wouldn't have freaked out if they said he wasn't. Seriously, in my subsequent playthroughs of Origins, I've only done romances for the achievements. Get over it people.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 06:06 am (UTC)Seriously, I don't mean this to apply to everyone? But I do mean it to apply to everyone who seems to think that the romance is the be-all and end-all ... particularly if they're the ones who also lament the lack of Fem!Hawke in the trailers and so forth.
(I grant, I am also interested in Anders as a romance option. At least in part because of the whole ... y'know, other thing. And seeing Isabela back fills me with squee for dialogue options alone. She had a great line in double-entendre snark.)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 08:43 pm (UTC)Admittedly, romance is a big sell for RPGs (adds depth to any set of characters or story), but it's not the proverbial "what women want." I'm more likely to play something showcasing gratuitous violence *without* even NPC friendship options than I am the contrary (I frequently murdered my wives in Fable...you got less evil points that way).
no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 08:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 10:02 pm (UTC)