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Post by Sir Drell on Dec 30, 2017 20:27:46 GMT
I'm surprised to see the voice actors say that, although I guess I could quip that voice actors are paid to say whatever you tell them to say!  The "behind the scenes" thing is right up there with the sort of excuse I'd come out with for not doing my homework 35 years ago, though. "Sorry, miss, I did actually do my homework but there's a behind the scenes reason I couldn't bring it with me." Yeah it sounds sketchy to me. Of course, they couldn't actually say that the ME team were/still are cowards because they'd get in trouble.  |
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rondeeno
Dashing Rogue
Posts: 34
Likes: 193
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Post by rondeeno on Dec 31, 2017 6:51:52 GMT
rondeeno you are doing a great work! thank you! Are these mods to be released on Nexus? Thanks! Yes, they'll be released on Nexus, but I'm not sure when. I tested the ME2 mod a bit more, and it might actually be ready for release sometime soon. There are just a few more things I have to edit before then. All of the initial work for the ME3 mod is also finished, but testing it is going to take a while, and I also have to worry about things like compatibility with other mods. I'm not planning to play the series anytime soon, but is there a "ME mods for dummies" post or tutorial I can read somewhere? There's this post on reddit which might be a good place to start. Now, that said, we know dialogue was recorded fully for BroShep with Kaidan and FemShep with Ashley. This supposedly had nothing to do with BioWare intending to have same sex romances available but instead for some "behind the scenes" stuff. Unclear how, but that's the claim, including by the voice actors. According to Patrick Weekes: "Both Shepard voice actors recorded both sides of the romance. The romance dialog was included in the main follower conversation file, and ultimately, it was considered faster just to have the actor do a take on every dialog line, regardless of whether it was one that would ever fire in game, than to spend part of the VO session trying to figure out whether a given line was on the romance track or not.
Once the lines were recorded, there was a brief high-level discussion about whether we should make Kaiden and Ashley bisexual, since the lines were already there. The leads decided not to do it. The lines work on a technical level, but they didn't do justice to the characters and sounded very strange sometimes. Beyond that, there were questions about having to do a different cutscene for different genders."So for whatever reason, they decided against using the dialogue even though it left gay male players with no romances at all. Thank you for doing this, I cant wait to try both romances in the future  it amazes me in a really bad and angry way that there's even gay content for Thane in ME3, seriously BW needs to stop cutting up gay content, it's just ugly and disrespectful... It's weird, true, but even rondeeno says the dialogue was unfinished. It sounds like they wanted it but couldn't for various reasons: backlash from precious snowflake straight boys, time constraints, money constraints. Why they would follow up in ME3 is truly mind boggling since the ME2 stuff was incomplete. Perhaps the same reasons behind the same male and female dialogue with Kaidan and Ashley. Truly strange was not taking the obvious route with Jack and FemShep. She would have made way more sense than Tali. Thane, Tali, Miranda, Jack, and Jacob actually all have some amount of same-sex romance content in ME2. Thane's m/m romance seems to have made it furthest into development before being dropped, since MaleShep has dialogue for Thane's jealousy conversation and Thane never mentions any specific love interest (unlike the jealousy conversations with other LIs). For Jacob, there's only a few early flirts that MaleShep has audio for, so nothing substantial. FemShep's romance audio for Miranda, Jack, and Tali only exists up to the point where the romance is initiated (so no jealousy, lock-in, or romance scenes), but she does have dialogue with Mordin and Liara in LOTSB talking about the romances, while there's no audio for MaleShep/Thane in those scenes. I don't know anything about game development, but it's possible that they decided against including the same-sex romances in ME2 because they would've had to make different animations for them, or maybe they felt that it didn't 'fit the characters' again. They were able to include six full/squad romance options, but having even one of them be available as a same-sex romance was apparently too much to ask for.  |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2017 7:21:45 GMT
Thanks for the link. According to Patrick Weekes: "Both Shepard voice actors recorded both sides of the romance. The romance dialog was included in the main follower conversation file, and ultimately, it was considered faster just to have the actor do a take on every dialog line, regardless of whether it was one that would ever fire in game, than to spend part of the VO session trying to figure out whether a given line was on the romance track or not.
Once the lines were recorded, there was a brief high-level discussion about whether we should make Kaiden and Ashley bisexual, since the lines were already there. The leads decided not to do it. The lines work on a technical level, but they didn't do justice to the characters and sounded very strange sometimes. Beyond that, there were questions about having to do a different cutscene for different genders."So for whatever reason, they decided against using the dialogue even though it left gay male players with no romances at all. I think it's important to highlight these behind-the-scenes things. So often, people just assume and think they know what goes on, but they don't. As Weekes says, the leads made the final call there, but they never intended* Kaidan to be bi when recording the initial lines, and then just arbitrarily decided not to have the same-sex romance, as so many assume when they find hidden dialogue in game files, rather they recorded them and decided later on. Regardless, though, the "for whatever reason" isn't hard to guess >.>. I find this bit odd: "The lines work on a technical level, but they didn't do justice to the characters and sounded very strange sometimes." If the romances ultimately hadn't been decided yet, and the VO was not up to par, why didn't they just redo it, or work to get it right at the time? I suppose I'm having a mental block at the fact that it seems like he's giving part of the blame to the VO, when that could have been avoided. * Here I'm referring to the common player refrain of how whatever character was "supposed to be bi, but then it got cut," not Kaidan's actual sexuality. This shows that way of thinking is erroneous. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2017 7:55:05 GMT
I find this bit odd: "The lines work on a technical level, but they didn't do justice to the characters and sounded very strange sometimes." If the romances ultimately hadn't been decided yet, and the VO was not up to par, why didn't they just redo it, or work to get it right at the time? I suppose I'm having a mental block at the fact that it seems like he's giving part of the blame to the VO, when that could have been avoided. Honestly, I don't even understand what PW could have meant by it sounding strange. I've heard the dialogue. Doesn't sound strange to me at all. I mean, if you couldn't guess from me being a die hard mShenko guy. |
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Post by dgcatanisiri on Dec 31, 2017 9:40:49 GMT
That's the thing. Yeah, there are some minor differences in how men and women interact period, as a result of socialization. Gender is a social construct, and all that sociology talk (my sociology minor ought to be good for something, right?). So hearing lines written for a female character initially will sound odd when coming from a female character, especially when you're looking at it from the cishet mindset.
BUT... Honestly, these aren't strange comments coming from a male character. Like, ask any player who has played the MShep/Kaidan romance for ME1, the dialogue doesn't sound strange to US. But it's not what we expect from a male character, a male protagonist like Shepard. We're still dealing with all the bull of male protagonists being gritty 'grr argh manly man.' The soft male protagonist is not common - compare TOS!Captain Kirk with AOS!Kirk (and, by extension, the common public misconception of Captain Kirk). Yeah, the gritty action hero might struggle talking about his feelings, but that doesn't mean that he CAN'T or SHOULDN'T. Just that media has shown this particular characterization, and we can now choose something entirely different.
Hey, role playing a character in a role playing game. What a concept.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2017 10:26:12 GMT
It's just one line by Patrick Weekes. We can't know what he meant by it without further context, so I don't think it's quite fair to extrapolate that he's referring to the gendered difference between male and female romance lines.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2017 10:46:37 GMT
I'm afraid I don't really buy into the "gender is a social construct" thing: if it was, my life would've been a lot easier...
Edit: by which I don't mean that it isn't a factor at all, just that it's not the whole story.
Another edit: I guess maybe the difference in perception is one of gender roles and gender identity, which are closely related but not necessarily the same thing. I hasten to add that I'm no sore of expert in any of this other than knowing how it affected me personally; and being someone who is not especially adventurous and averse to unpleasantness, my tendency is to take the path of least resistance, so I figure if this was that path, it shows that the other one was really bad...
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Post by Sir Drell on Dec 31, 2017 11:46:41 GMT
Now, that said, we know dialogue was recorded fully for BroShep with Kaidan and FemShep with Ashley. This supposedly had nothing to do with BioWare intending to have same sex romances available but instead for some "behind the scenes" stuff. Unclear how, but that's the claim, including by the voice actors. According to Patrick Weekes: "Both Shepard voice actors recorded both sides of the romance. The romance dialog was included in the main follower conversation file, and ultimately, it was considered faster just to have the actor do a take on every dialog line, regardless of whether it was one that would ever fire in game, than to spend part of the VO session trying to figure out whether a given line was on the romance track or not.
Once the lines were recorded, there was a brief high-level discussion about whether we should make Kaiden and Ashley bisexual, since the lines were already there. The leads decided not to do it. The lines work on a technical level, but they didn't do justice to the characters and sounded very strange sometimes. Beyond that, there were questions about having to do a different cutscene for different genders."So for whatever reason, they decided against using the dialogue even though it left gay male players with no romances at all. It's weird, true, but even rondeeno says the dialogue was unfinished. It sounds like they wanted it but couldn't for various reasons: backlash from precious snowflake straight boys, time constraints, money constraints. Why they would follow up in ME3 is truly mind boggling since the ME2 stuff was incomplete. Perhaps the same reasons behind the same male and female dialogue with Kaidan and Ashley. Truly strange was not taking the obvious route with Jack and FemShep. She would have made way more sense than Tali. Thane, Tali, Miranda, Jack, and Jacob actually all have some amount of same-sex romance content in ME2. Thane's m/m romance seems to have made it furthest into development before being dropped, since MaleShep has dialogue for Thane's jealousy conversation and Thane never mentions any specific love interest (unlike the jealousy conversations with other LIs). For Jacob, there's only a few early flirts that MaleShep has audio for, so nothing substantial. FemShep's romance audio for Miranda, Jack, and Tali only exists up to the point where the romance is initiated (so no jealousy, lock-in, or romance scenes), but she does have dialogue with Mordin and Liara in LOTSB talking about the romances, while there's no audio for MaleShep/Thane in those scenes. I don't know anything about game development, but it's possible that they decided against including the same-sex romances in ME2 because they would've had to make different animations for them, or maybe they felt that it didn't 'fit the characters' again. They were able to include six full/squad romance options, but having even one of them be available as a same-sex romance was apparently too much to ask for. Whoever was responsible, whoever contributed, whoever stood by and could've done something, fuuuuuuuuuuuck yoooooooooooooou.  |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2018 4:39:52 GMT
I was just rereading what Weekes said about the romance dialogue sounding strange when Ash's dialogue is used by Kaidan and vice versa. He's wrong. It doesn't sound weird at all. He should skip trying to figure out social dynamics and just put in dialogue that makes more fans happy. rondeeno: I'm experiencing a lot of crashes. None of it is related to romancing Thane but nevertheless I've never had anything like this happen before. Any ideas? |
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Post by dgcatanisiri on Jan 17, 2018 6:47:35 GMT
I was just rereading what Weekes said about the romance dialogue sounding strange when Ash's dialogue is used by Kaidan and vice versa. He's wrong. It doesn't sound weird at all. He should skip trying to figure out social dynamics and just put in dialogue that makes more fans happy. rondeeno: I'm experiencing a lot of crashes. None of it is related to romancing Thane but nevertheless I've never had anything like this happen before. Any ideas? It’s also pretty rich when you consider that Kaidan’s dialogue in ME3 is indistinguishable for a new FemShep romance and male Shepard’s romance. Not a word of difference other than... Wait, does Kaidan even ACKNOWLEDGE Shepard’s gender in ME3? *sigh* This is just so exhausting... |
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rondeeno
Dashing Rogue
Posts: 34
Likes: 193
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Post by rondeeno on Jan 17, 2018 14:59:31 GMT
rondeeno : I'm experiencing a lot of crashes. None of it is related to romancing Thane but nevertheless I've never had anything like this happen before. Any ideas? Hmm, the only thing I can think of is there might be some sort of conflict. Which DLCs and other mods (if any) do you have installed? Also, did you install the ME2 DLL Patcher? |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2018 18:16:19 GMT
rondeeno : I'm experiencing a lot of crashes. None of it is related to romancing Thane but nevertheless I've never had anything like this happen before. Any ideas? Hmm, the only thing I can think of is there might be some sort of conflict. Which DLCs and other mods (if any) do you have installed? Also, did you install the ME2 DLL Patcher? I did put in the patcher but am not using any other mods. Let me just try to move through the game quickly. Then I can try a different Shepard and see if I get different results. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2018 6:22:22 GMT
rondeeno: Game was extremely buggy and I never even got the option to flirt with Thane, much less Jacob. I'm going to try to run Origin's fix, reinstall the mod and see if that improves anything.
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rondeeno
Dashing Rogue
Posts: 34
Likes: 193
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Post by rondeeno on Jan 19, 2018 18:11:37 GMT
rondeeno: Game was extremely buggy and I never even got the option to flirt with Thane, much less Jacob. I'm going to try to run Origin's fix, reinstall the mod and see if that improves anything. I really have no idea what could've caused those issues. I looked through all of the ME2 DLCs and checked their mount priorities, TLK string IDs, and TLK file integers, and the mod doesn't conflict with any of them, so I'm at a loss. Sorry for all the inconvenience.  |
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rondeeno
Dashing Rogue
Posts: 34
Likes: 193
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Post by rondeeno on Feb 8, 2018 5:56:13 GMT
Here's some more updates: I fixed some issues with Thane's dialogue that I missed at first, so now he'll call MaleShep "siha" in his general Normandy dialogue and in some of his Suicide Mission banter, and I also found a way to allow his repeatable romance conversation for MaleShep after the romance is locked-in. It's short, but at least it's more dialogue that shows that the romance is active. Aria's dialogue when she tells Shepard to loosen up and find a girl/man has also been edited to check Shepard's romance status/history in order to properly recognize their sexuality, instead of always assuming they're straight. With this update, the content for the ME2 mod is now finished.
I also finished working on a small update for the ME1 mod that adds more dialogue options to MaleShep's post-Eden Prime conversation with Kaidan and edits Liara's dialogue so the "I'm only interested in men" line is always available if Shepard is romancing Kaidan (in the vanilla game and current version of the mod, it only appears under more specific conditions which leads to most players missing it). It'll be uploaded once the ME2 mod is released, after I figure out the cause of the ME2 mod's issues (which will probably take a while).
As for the ME3 mod, I was finally able to test the Extended Cut romance goodbye for FemShep/Ashley and FemShep/Tali, and I've made sure that it works properly, complete with voiced dialogue! Those were the final scenes that needed to be tested, so now that they have, I think I can safely say that all of the ME3 mod's content (for Ashley, Kaidan, Tali, and Thane) is also finished, at least for a version 1.0 release.
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Post by Davrin's boobs on Feb 8, 2018 7:27:04 GMT
Here's some more updates: I fixed some issues with Thane's dialogue that I missed at first, so now he'll call MaleShep "siha" in his general Normandy dialogue and in some of his Suicide Mission banter, and I also found a way to allow his repeatable romance conversation for MaleShep after the romance is locked-in. It's short, but at least it's more dialogue that shows that the romance is active. Aria's dialogue when she tells Shepard to loosen up and find a girl/man has also been edited to check Shepard's romance status/history in order to properly recognize their sexuality, instead of always assuming they're straight. With this update, the content for the ME2 mod is now finished. I also finished working on a small update for the ME1 mod that adds more dialogue options to MaleShep's post-Eden Prime conversation with Kaidan and edits Liara's dialogue so the "I'm only interested in men" line is always available if Shepard is romancing Kaidan (in the vanilla game and current version of the mod, it only appears under more specific conditions which leads to most players missing it). It'll be uploaded once the ME2 mod is released, after I figure out the cause of the ME2 mod's issues (which will probably take a while). As for the ME3 mod, I was finally able to test the Extended Cut romance goodbye for FemShep/Ashley and FemShep/Tali, and I've made sure that it works properly, complete with voiced dialogue! Those were the final scenes that needed to be tested, so now that they have, I think I can safely say that all of the ME3 mod's content (for Ashley, Kaidan, Tali, and Thane) is also finished, at least for a version 1.0 release. Thank you sooo much for all your work, you are indeed a hero  I cant wait to try Thane romance in the future and romance Kaidan with proper full content again  |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2018 8:23:46 GMT
I also finished working on a small update for the ME1 mod that adds more dialogue options to MaleShep's post-Eden Prime conversation with Kaidan and edits Liara's dialogue so the "I'm only interested in men" line is always available if Shepard is romancing Kaidan (in the vanilla game and current version of the mod, it only appears under more specific conditions which leads to most players missing it). It'll be uploaded once the ME2 mod is released, after I figure out the cause of the ME2 mod's issues (which will probably take a while). This reminds me. When I have the "same sex beacon" mod installed, it causes the game to crash. If I remove it, it'll still have the same gender squadmate go to the beacon but NOT crash. Experienced this on two occasions. Never was able to have Conrad Verner flirt with my male Shep. Now, being that my primary interest is in having Kaidan be there when I wake up after the beacon explodes (plus, flirt with me through the entire game), I'm mostly okay here. |
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rondeeno
Dashing Rogue
Posts: 34
Likes: 193
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Post by rondeeno on Feb 10, 2018 6:10:00 GMT
Thank you sooo much for all your work, you are indeed a hero I cant wait to try Thane romance in the future and romance Kaidan with proper full content again Wow, thank you, it really means a lot! I hope you enjoy the romances once the mods are released. This reminds me. When I have the "same sex beacon" mod installed, it causes the game to crash. If I remove it, it'll still have the same gender squadmate go to the beacon but NOT crash. Experienced this on two occasions. Never was able to have Conrad Verner flirt with my male Shep. Now, being that my primary interest is in having Kaidan be there when I wake up after the beacon explodes (plus, flirt with me through the entire game), I'm mostly okay here. I thought I fixed the crash in version 3.1. Did you download the latest version of the mod? Conrad's flirts also depend on specific Paragon options being chosen, so they're actually really easy to miss. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2018 7:04:16 GMT
Maybe I don't have 3.1. I'll go look for it and try it out.
EDIT: NexusMods says I last downloaded that mod on December 3 while the latest version was released December 6. That would explain things.
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nanarini
Dashing Rogue
Posts: 3
Likes: 21
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Post by nanarini on Feb 12, 2018 23:20:00 GMT
Here's some more updates: I fixed some issues with Thane's dialogue that I missed at first, so now he'll call MaleShep "siha" in his general Normandy dialogue and in some of his Suicide Mission banter, and I also found a way to allow his repeatable romance conversation for MaleShep after the romance is locked-in. It's short, but at least it's more dialogue that shows that the romance is active. Aria's dialogue when she tells Shepard to loosen up and find a girl/man has also been edited to check Shepard's romance status/history in order to properly recognize their sexuality, instead of always assuming they're straight. With this update, the content for the ME2 mod is now finished. I also finished working on a small update for the ME1 mod that adds more dialogue options to MaleShep's post-Eden Prime conversation with Kaidan and edits Liara's dialogue so the "I'm only interested in men" line is always available if Shepard is romancing Kaidan (in the vanilla game and current version of the mod, it only appears under more specific conditions which leads to most players missing it). It'll be uploaded once the ME2 mod is released, after I figure out the cause of the ME2 mod's issues (which will probably take a while). As for the ME3 mod, I was finally able to test the Extended Cut romance goodbye for FemShep/Ashley and FemShep/Tali, and I've made sure that it works properly, complete with voiced dialogue! Those were the final scenes that needed to be tested, so now that they have, I think I can safely say that all of the ME3 mod's content (for Ashley, Kaidan, Tali, and Thane) is also finished, at least for a version 1.0 release. i found this thread and registered just because i wanted to say THANK YOU so much for the amazing work you are doing!! you are a blessing to everyone who is frustrated with the cuttings of same gender romance options! ill be waiting for the release! |
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The "behind the scenes" thing is right up there with the sort of excuse I'd come out with for not doing my homework 35 years ago, though. "Sorry, miss, I did actually do my homework but there's a behind the scenes reason I couldn't bring it with me."
it amazes me in a really bad and angry way that there's even gay content for Thane in ME3, seriously BW needs to stop cutting up gay content, it's just ugly and disrespectful...
I cant wait to try Thane romance in the future and romance Kaidan with proper full content again 
Much love right back at ya!
