Sneak Preview #18 – Spies Like Us

[jack1974]

I'll leave Fen to reply appropriately, since he's the writer after all, but personally I know some people in real life that discovered/changed their sexual orientation, and ALSO because they spoke with gay people. I mean it's not much about seducing, but they simply could start as friend, good friend, and then realize that they love each other (like often happens even with straight people, they start as friend and become something more).
No matter what Fen decides I think he has the skills to pull it off in the best way possible

[Anima_]

I agree with ChaosMorning, the latent Bi entries made me worry as well. There is a ton of trainwreck potential in that setup.
The political correctness discussion takes the cake though. That buzzword has no place in a serious discussion. Issues like national stereotypes or tokenism are important if you want to do more then a thin vernier of pluralism. Washing them aside with pc is not okay. Avoiding tokenism and stereotypes usually also lets people focus on the characters as agents in the story, instead of on their ambassador functions if they are the singular character of their group. Or to say it different, if you only have one character of a group he becomes a stand in for the whole, pars per toto.
It'd be quite reassuring if instead of simply proclaiming that all characters are only standing for themselves Fen would think about how to enable people to see them as that.

[Sylrissa]

I think using Pansexual would suit these characters better if you are going under the assumption that the character getting to know the player well, and falling in love, regardless if they are male or female.

As Pansexual people are attracted to people regardless of their gender, but rather they love someone regardless of their gender or sexual identity.

There is 3 woman and 2 man for Anna and 3 man and 2 woman for Arthur

Looking at Fen's updated list, there is 3 male and 3 female romance options.

[jack1974]

Yes now is completely balanced, before wasn't

[Sylrissa]

Yes now is completely balanced, before wasn't

Yes I see that now, I wasn't expecting Yu Mei Ling to be the woman that is now the straight option.

I'm really interested to learn more about all the characters and their personalities, and Fen seems to be a skilled writer who will craft a wonderfully engaging world and characters for this game.

I'm Welsh!!! You see English and Irish and Scots characters in games, but hardly EVER see Welsh characters! Thank you!!!!

YAY!!!! for Svetlana and Roger himself being Bi!

I am gonna **LOVE*** this game!

Steampunk and gay romance all in one game... *swoons!*

I'm Australian myself, you see Australia especially done well, even less often, so I know how you feel.

And yes this game is really looking incredible, I look forward to each update.

[Franka]

It's refreshing to have a direct line to the author, but it's also a little worrisome. I hope the creative process does not get hampered by stuff like political correctness or pandering to peoples' pet peeves. Because all in all, I think the tidbits we're given are looking awesome!

[Maelora]

I'm Australian myself, you see Australia especially done well, even less often, so I know how you feel.

Agreed, most Aussies you see in games are kinda stereotypical.

Miranda and Henry Lawson in Mass Effect - while not very likeable - are well-played Aussie characters who aren't stereotyped.

[Maelora]

It's refreshing to have a direct line to the author, but it's also a little worrisome. I hope the creative process does not get hampered by stuff like political correctness or pandering to peoples' pet peeves. Because all in all, I think the tidbits we're given are looking awesome!

Agree with Franka. I have TONS of respect for Anima but I think letting Political Correctness hamper a writer really hurts the games.

Fen is correct in saying that he wants the characters to represent _themselves_, they are not avatars for their entire race or gender or sexuality.

I think that's one of the good things about Winter Wolves being a small game company - they can experiment more, do stuff that Bioware would be terrified to do.

I'm bisexual (I came out in 1988, when it certainly wasn't trendy to do so), and I most certainly don't need well-meaning straight people getting offended on my behalf. I don't see the 'latent' gay characters as being 'those evil gays are stealin' our wimmin!' but two characters making a connection that one wouldn't have initially expected. Fen said you had to be 'sincere' after all. For various reasons, some people don't acknowledge their own sexuality until they meet the right person - I was pretty lucky in that I always knew I was attracted to other girls as well as guys.

Yes, it _could_ be a train-wreck as Anima puts it, but I have faith that the WW will make it awesome. The games have touched on hot-button issues like slavery (Loren, Heileen) and they have been sensitively done. I really don't want the games made anodyne and lowest-common-denominator just because someone somewhere might be offended.

Taking PC to its logical degree, you'll have people saying 'oh, you can't have gay Kashmiri twins because Kashmir is mostly Muslim and that would never be allowed'. But that would deprive us of some great NPCs, because the gay Kashmiri twins sound _freaking awesome_!

I'm sure all WW fans are on the same side really. I'm just voting for a bold and refreshing treatment of the issues, rather than worrying about who 'might' get offended'.

[Maelora]

I'll leave Fen to reply appropriately, since he's the writer after all, but personally I know some people in real life that discovered/changed their sexual orientation, and ALSO because they spoke with gay people. I mean it's not much about seducing, but they simply could start as friend, good friend, and then realize that they love each other (like often happens even with straight people, they start as friend and become something more).
No matter what Fen decides I think he has the skills to pull it off in the best way possible

Absolutely.

We fall in love with _people_, not genders!

[Sylrissa]

Absolutely.

We fall in love with _people_, not genders!

Agreed 100%.