Dragon Age will change the way BioWare writes party members!

[baronjohn]

I am delighted that I'm not alone in reading <s>Bioware's</s> women that way.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Ah, now we have the material we need to create new names for the Bioware characters!

Anocahain, Storgarous Wrexwind...

 

[Applegate's Breasts]

Either that, or they're man hating psycho bitches

 

[goatvomit]

Either that, or they're man hating psycho bitches

I believe the term you were looking for was "emancipated".

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Men are always supposed to play the dumbasses, brutes and rapists, while woman are always right, smarter and have bodies of a godess. And on top of that, they can fight like tough soldiers despite having skinny arms and wearing braless dresses. Only Bioware can make them to pull that off.

 

[Lim-Lim]

Sten is a warrior of the Qunari race and has been trained as a soldier since birth (the Qunari are always at war). He's a very stoic and disciplined man with a strong code of honor, so how he treats others depends on whether or not they have his respect, which he doesn't give easily.

I hate these types of characters more than anything.
Why do they always have to make a race that's modeled after Sparta?
That just sucks.

(No this is sparta comments here please)

 

[goatvomit]

I hate these types of characters more than anything.
Why do they always have to make a race that's modeled after Sparta?
That just sucks.

(No this is sparta comments here please)

Well spartans / samurai / autistic klingons take your pick.

 

[santino27]

Oh no! A list of very brief descriptions of characters which in some way resemble archetypes which Bioware may have used in other games! Clearly, there is no originality at all here! Damn you Bioware for raping my childhood!!!!!!

But wait... the OP is clearly just mimicking previous rants of this nature against Bioware, and pasting in the new information of character sketches. Damn it... why does everyone copy and paste information and pretend they are 'new' rants?!?!?!?!

(See what I did there?)

If anything, I'd say Bioware is more guilty of copying game mechanics, (particularly since KotOR 1), than anything. THAT is what I am concerned about with Dragon Age, particularly since I think a lot of those consistently reused mechanics are annoying as hell.

As far as NPCs are concerned, any time there is a reasonably large selection of NPCs, there will be the possibility of some sort of crossover in personality type. But the information we have so far on these NPCs is hardly sufficient to merit the silly rant that started this thread.

 

[Lesifoere]

You go on deluding yourself. Sorry, Bioware's track record has proven that they copy-paste characters wholesale, recycling them from game to game. Until they have diverged from that track, their writers should be regarded exactly as the fanfic-level hacks that they are.

 

[Applegate's Breasts]

But how u now that until u play game? U did not play game yet.

 

[Darth Roxor]

But how u now that until u play game? U did not play game yet.

ye, and if u dont like it dont play it in the first place

 

[Gragt]

I am delighted that I'm not alone in reading Bioware's women that way.

You may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one.

 

[Lesifoere]

But how u now that until u play game? U did not play game yet.

ye, and if u dont like it dont play it in the first place

I love you people.

Gragt: given that so many female Biotard drones think those characters are the height of Strong Female Characters done right, I was beginning to lose hope.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Long time no see, Aerie.

Nah...the Aerie character is one that has no emotional stability despite packing a significant "magical" punch. She might be able to stare down a dragon or a Geth armature like nothing, but as soon as the player character or other NPCs interact with her, she starts whining, crying, and whimpering about how hard things are for her, the lack of confidence she has, and her past issues. See also; Linu from Neverwinter Nights and Liara from Mass Effect.

Come to think of it, as much as I hate feminazis, I wouldn't be against them railing Bioware like there's no tomorrow for how badly they portray women like this. I mean, for fucks sake, Linu, a supposedly strong and wise cleric, when talking about a past incident where she made a fool of herself through being clumsy in a town talks about how she ran away crying when made fun of. The fuck? This shit ain't real.

Oh no! A list of very brief descriptions of characters which in some way resemble archetypes which Bioware may have used in other games! Clearly, there is no originality at all here! Damn you Bioware for raping my childhood!!!!!!

Thing is, there's a difference between using archetypes and blatant recycling. The "rogue vigilante" is most certainly an archetype by now. Though if you look at different characters using it, they're very different. Charles Bronson's character in Death Wish is different from Batman who in turn is different from the Equalizer. Same archetype, vastly different motivation, operation, personality, and characterization. The problem with Bioware is, they keep using the same archetypes, but don't really differentiate them.

Take their "Warrior Man" archetype, which includes Korgan, Canderous, and Wrex. All of them have pretty much the same motivation for being tough guys; they were born that way. All of them solve things with gruff attitudes and violence first. Their personalities are roughly the same, and so is the way they interact with the world. Now while they aren't identical, they are similar enough that you can't help but notice.

But the information we have so far on these NPCs is hardly sufficient to merit the silly rant that started this thread.

Somewhat true; it isn't enough on it's own, but you are neglecting the fact that Bioware has previously rehashed characters and plotlines like nobodies' business, leading people to view them with suspicion.

 

[Gragt]

Lesifoere: I'm not sure they've seen better though it's a bit hard to believe as there are quite a few Strong Female Characters done right in books, movies and even other games. So I guess they are stolid barbarians who think that a Strong Female Character done right is one that needs to be protected and have her childish incertitudes quelled.

 

[Darth Roxor]

One of the better characters made by Bioware was T3-M4, because you couldn't understand shit from what he said.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Lesifoere: I'm not sure they've seen better though it's a bit hard to believe as there are quite a few Strong Female Characters done right in books, movies and even other games. So I guess they are stolid barbarians who think that a Strong Female Character done right is one that needs to be protected and have her childish incertitudes quelled.

Come to think of it, you're absolutely right. Off the hook, I can't say any but Ellen Ripley and Wonder Woman in Kingdom Come.

 

[oscar]

Are your party members even able to die in this?

 

[Lesifoere]

Lesifoere: I'm not sure they've seen better though it's a bit hard to believe as there are quite a few Strong Female Characters done right in books, movies and even other games. So I guess they are stolid barbarians who think that a Strong Female Character done right is one that needs to be protected and have her childish incertitudes quelled.

Yeah, that's probably part of it, but another part is that they're usually the mainstream of the mainstream, as far as target audience goes. Mainstream STRONG RAAR FEMALE RAWR is a woman who can hold her own in combat and that's all you need, superficial "strength" expressible in tangible terms. Emotional strength is optional. Ability to think for herself is optional. And so on--they probably wouldn't even recognize, say, Shani from Witcher as one (because Shani can't fight or cast fireballs, y'know). Or even, I don't know, Chani from Dune or Sansa in later ASoIaF books?

 

[zenslinger]

More complex characters? More talking.

Do gamers want to read all that text? (Oh, no, it's like PS:T, if I wanted to read a book, I'd read a book!) Or listen to all that spoken dialog? (it's expensive to record! it takes a lot of space on the hard drive! it's slower than reading...a lot slower!)

The following are perfectly good arguments against the cynicism of the original post: we haven't played the game yet, the assumption that so-and-so is a clone of such-and-such a character is just that, and characters are based on archetypes anyway. But if you want to put these arguements aside, fine -- it may be that Bioware's not being as creative as they could be. But it is a game. It isn't fucking Proust. It doesn't have that kind of space for characterization.

I think the way of drawing a character in a game must be completely different from fiction, but not just for reasons of space. The relationships have to be sketched because so much of the action is day-to-day, non-cutscene...y'know, combat. Take the farewells at the end of PS:T. Most of the journey has been this kind of generic action that can only indirectly imply that the characters have been thinking, growing, and changing while slaughtering enemies. The goodbyes drew emotion from the assumption that it's been a long, difficult trip, and the characters have to be sketched around that.

I suppose my main point is: what do you expect?

First, think of a character you liked from a book who was deeper and more complex than Bioware's horrible repetitive paragons of generic hack bullshit. Then ask yourself if it would be possible to present all these character's aspects in a game without edging into novel-as-game territory and boring the crap out of half the gamers?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Another good example of a strong female character would be the Alan Moore two-parter in Vigilante, which also has a different thing in portraying the pedophile criminal in a sympathetic fashion at one point.

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

Sansa in later ASoIaF books?

Sansa mention! RARE AND UNCANNY! /highfive! Fucking talk about character development. I went from hating her guts to really admiring her. Daenerys is more standard when you think about it, as is Arya (though I love her to death) but goddamn does Sansa impress me later on.

ANYHOW. I know it's hard not to go to those stereotypes because they're touchstones many players can relate to (like classes in a party dynamic - people know what to do with them because they've worked with them before), and often when you go contrary to them people are either like WTF or call them out for being deliberate 180's from what's expected.

BUT. That's no excuse for shitty writing and sloppy characterization, and goddamn if I can't stand "wooo I'm a girl so I'm a HEEEEEALER or a MAAAAGE" bullshit. And also them being in their mid-20's and stupid hot. /facepalm. Props to Chrono Trigger back in the day for having brutish badass cavewoman who can't use magic but can fuck people up proper.

 

[WanderingThrough2]

I'm not sure I totally buy the criticism, in part because I just haven't played enough Bioware games to really be able to see the comparisons (KOTOR and BG2, the two I played, seemed to have strikingly different characters). It also seems like the same criticisms can be lobbied against the PS:T vs. NWN2 and FO:1 vs. FO:2.

For Black Isle/Obsidian, for example, we could list:
The hardbitten female tiefling thief with a tumultous past relationship.
The wise but inscrutable gith spell-caster with an uneasy bond with the protagonist.
The beautiful, winged "dark angel" cleric, emotionally scarred, surprisingly naive, and often tender.
The scarred outlaw with a dark and secret past for which he's trying to atone.

To the extent Obsidian characters don't repeat prior instances, they're often stock characters like the noble, surly animal god, the angry dwarf, the arrogant and bookish wizard, and so on.

I don't need to do the same analysis for Fallout, I assume, because everyone's familiar enough with the tropes.

To be honest, what I find more annoying is not the use of well-established general tropes but the need to give each of them a "humanizing twist." The desire to have it both ways (for example in the NWN2 OC) is often especially excruciating, as we're expected to assume that a single childhood trauma of some sort gives "depth" to a cookie cutter character. Frankly, I think I might actually enjoy playing a game that had the Evil Wizard, Noble Warrior, Vulnerable Princess and so on if they were just straight-up executions of the archetypes (a la Conan).

--EDIT--

I'm also fairly sympathetic to the idea that at least some games should be designed as wish-fulfillment vehicles, and most gamers have as their highest wish to be the heroes of bad, cliche fantasy stories. Sad statement about the world, but there it is. A relatively small number, I would think, what to play psychiatrist to a lunatic ward of alien creatures or the mediator in the midst of uncomfortable social drama.

--EDIT 2--

I also think that it's not unreasonable to have most of your fighter-heroes be men, rather than women, when you're relying upon a historical milieu in which women wouldn't plausibly be able to do the kind of fighting that's taking place. Now, maybe the answer is that if men can carry 15' swords and wear preposterous shoulder armor, women should be allowed to fight as if they had adequate upper body strength, but the fact is that the idea of a "woman warrior" has been freakish historically (like the Amazons or Fa Mu Lan) not mainstream. I don't think every fantasy story calls for such exceptionalism.

So if you've got a game that's mostly about killing things in a medieval setting, having the women do their killing with magic rather than melee weapons isn't, in my opinion, sexist or close-minded.

 

[Volourn]

MORE WHINING!?!

 

[KurtH]

HERE
WE
GOOOOOOO