The Mass Effect 3/BioWare Thread

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I don't know if it's sizable, but people caring about romances in popular culture is nothing new. TV Series, no matter what genre and subject matter, have fans who are invested enough in characters to want to see them hook up. Top of my head: Ross and Rachel; Jack or Sawyer and Kate in Lost; Annie or Britta and Jeff in Community; The Doctor and Rose (altough that kind of backfired); Mulder and Scully; and so on... Pretty sure it happens in literature and film, too. Since Bioware romances actually give the player a choice on who to fuck, it gives these kinds of people and extra edge, since in a way they're creating a romance of their own.

Also there is a subforum dedicated to character appreciation (I think even minor ones) in the ME e DA sections of BSN, and some are fucking huge. So even if it's not a huge section of the fanbase, it's a pretty crazy rabid invested one.

 

GIS first result for i hate bioware

yup.

 

Neither did I, but I, like you, said they made up a 'sizeable chunk', and this is the issue since if the chunk is not sizeable then Bioware are tailoring their games to a minority of their buyers which does not fit to their blatant disregard and seeming disrespect to their dedicated fanbase. The Doctor's have said all their games since Baldur's Gate are made in accordance to the four pillars of something or other, the romance rubbish is really just one of the four mandatory things that the Doctor's believe a good game is supposed to have, and I believe the Felicia Day DLC had nothing to do with the romance-obsessed niche in their fanbase but rather with the seeming nerd-appeal of Felicia Day.

Rather a babble without a point, but I simply do not quite understand the point of brining up the existence of this romantic fanbase, since it seems we both believe them to be niche in comparison with the sales.

But unlike these things Bioware gets actual praise and at times pride themselves on writing these character and including homosexual/bisexual themes. Really though I am just bitter that they are praised by any person for their limited, and thus incomplete and thus false, display of non-straight romantic themes.

Yes, but surely it is evil and must be purged.

 

It's a industry that unfortunaly found how to make money before findidng out how to make art...

 

That's true for almost every form of art out there.

 

Hardly, the art of writing, singing, music, painting and so on, were not subject to it, dating back as far as they do. Films and consequently television definitely were, but not nearly to the extent of videogames as film and television did not come up in the age of public relations and advanced greed, like videogames did.

 

Indeed, anyone who's hung around BSN long enough will notice this one element of the fanbase that view BW's games as a venue to fulfill their gay fantasies and aren't really interested in the games themselves. You'll see them spend 99% of their time either in the homo thread or discussing it on other romance related threads.

If BW got rid of the romances you'd see the majority of this particular fanbase completely abandon it(yayoi fetishists and lesbians in particular).

 

What I keep on wondering is how any of that matters at all.

 

That's the point, BioWare IS good taste by the medium standards.

 

It's kind of hard to even define what that distinction means for the oldest forms of art. However, in writing, for instance, novel as a literary form was only recognized as capable of having artistic merit in the 18th century. In the 70s, academic critics would still scoff at the notion of film as a form of art, and this was 30 years after Citizen Kane.

My point being, from what we have accurate accounts of, new forms of artistic expression generally start in the gutter. Novels spent over 200 years as mostly commercialized crap for the less-refined reader. It certainly doesn't seem possible for a videogame (we probably need a better word for this anyway) to have major artistic merit. Whether it's likely for one to emerge, I don't know.

 

To use the for instances; even if the novel was only recognized as having artistic merit in the 18th century, that did not stop Don Quixote from being written, or from Chaucer or Shakespeare from writing; even if Citizen Kane was only recognized as having merit decades after its release, it was still made.

My point is, that videogames exist because of investors and commercial potential, whilst the novel, poem, painting, music or film, doesn't necessarily do so at all. Sure many artists did what they did for money as a lesser or higher motivating factor, but I don't think anyone them had their origin, continuation and success dependent on investors and money-making industry quite so directly as videogames did and yet do.

What some of these words mean, as you remarked, I agree is iffy and this whole debate I believe is liable for confusion, but I don't think any commercial art form was under the exact same stresses of money-men and that, surely, videogames are the first whose existence and rise exists because of it.

 

You can make a painting in a day and a book in 6 months, and while you can work longer you can always tie off work pretty quickly and call it a day. You can't expect to even learn all the shit you need to know to make a game without spending years, let alone be able to finish it and just because it gets done doesn't mean it will be any good.

 

I don't know if games will ever be considered art but what I do know is that it won't be because of BW's crappy writing and tacked on fanservice minigames.

 

This was a good thread and it has gone to shit and this upsets me.

 

Does anyone have that pic that shows the horrible reviews for the "book" from one of Bioware's writers that mention characters stopping in the middle of the action to have an orgy?

 

I can still fix it!

But first, let me ask you a question.

What scenario (in Mass Effect 3) would make your cry?

 

Japanese porn never ceases to impress disgust me. Sauce?

 

Excellent work Crustybot. You're doing god's work here.

 

I wonder how one comes to the assumption it's from porn.