Quote: 
No offense taken. None at all.

To be honest, I am also quite passionate about gay rights. In fact, and maybe this is too much information, but my political candidate of preference for the 2008 US election is Mike Gravel.

I favor him for a great many reasons, but one in specific is that he is very much in favor of equality regardless of orientation. Gravel even went so far as to say that the whole "don't ask, don't tell" policy is 40 years outdated and seriously needs to go. I agree!

But more importantly for you, the gamer, BioWare is of the same position. As you referenced, BioWare's past games have never been shy to incorporate romances that some more conservative groups may feel are risquee. The idea of a male-male romance is not one that BioWare would actively avoid as a result of controversy or any other similar reasoning.

And that's something that has always made me proud of BioWare.

Of course... having said all that, BioWare's writers went into the story with goals in mind. That's how it works. And sometimes the way the overall story is written and the characters are developed, specific elements that we want to be in the story just don't make as much sense - not without making changes that affect everything else. You just don't want to force things.

Additionally, with this being our first game with a brand new engine, we really have to focus on keeping things as simple as possible. Create the core game play, make it as refined and fun as possible, and then slowly build up. You could liken it to building the foundation of a house (saying that makes me think of Sex Feet Under, haha). That's one of the reason we wanted to have three romance characters. Perhaps we could have made more, but the quality would have suffered and the characters would have become more thin. We also could have made less and made a very, very in-depth romance - but then you lose some of the options. :/

And if you think what I am saying sounds off, look to BioWare's past:

A good example of this is Neverwinter Nights. We were making a brand new game with brand new tools. Making things more difficult, we were shipping those tools to the public. On top of all that, we added a multi-player component and DM Tools.

Our scope had to be managed to make it all work. And, as you can see, that's what happened. Look at the difference between the current version of NWN and the original, shipped version; it took a lot of content/feature patches, as well as two expansion packs, to get the game where we wanted it to be. I think the current version is quite excellent and very worthy of a feeling of pride.

For the next ME development cycle (i.e. the sequel), there will be more time, more understanding of the engine, less restrictions in general, and so on. In other words, with the restrictions loosened, it's easier to imagine that we can write a more open story, that we can create more romance characters, and that we can spend more time fleshing out those stories.

But for this one? Well, I can't say with authority. I left the company in June and things could have theoretically changed. But I believe that a male-male romance wasn't intended as a part of the game. Again, that's not because of politics or external pressures but, as I have tried to explain, because of this specific story and because of our scope.

If this ends up being the case, then it is a little unfortunate. But a lot of great features and content were omitted from our goals so that we could make a game that could be shipped. Losing any of those features or content is unfortunate, but when you compare it against getting the game, I think you learn to forgive - especially when you consider that a lot of that content and those features will be looked at for incorporation in the sequels.

I hope this addresses your concerns. Feel free to write back if you'd like. You also mentioned that this question was raised on the forum. Feel free to share my answer on the board, if you feel it is appropriate.

_________________
"Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another." - Ambrose
Bierce, The Devil's Dictionarye

Quote: Posted 10/13/07 05:59 (GMT) by Giant Man Crabs

Hmm. So Kaiden isnt bisexual. Interesting.

Looks like its:

Males= Liara-Ashley- Tali(?)
Females=Kaiden-Liara-Garrus(?)

Edited By malakai_gray on 10/13/07 06:12

Quote: Posted 10/13/07 05:30 (GMT) by Joriarty

I don't understand why everyone is getting so worked up about this. If they put something like a romance plot in and you don't like it, don't play it.

If you wanted them to include a gay romance plot and they didn't, so what? It's not a game-breaker. It probably means a little bit more content in another area, such as an extra side quest or two instead.

Quote: Posted 10/13/07 06:04 (GMT) by malakai_gray

Quote: Posted 10/13/07 05:59 (GMT) by Giant Man Crabs

Hmm. So Kaiden isnt bisexual. Interesting.

Looks like its:

Males= Liara-Ashley- Tali(?)
Females=Kaiden-Liara-Garrus(?)

Actually, it looks like:

Males= Ashley
Females= Kaiden
Both= Liara

Only 3 romanceable NPCs

Quote: Posted 10/13/07 05:30 (GMT) by Joriarty
If you wanted them to include a gay romance plot and they didn't, so what? It's not a game-breaker. It probably means a little bit more content in another area, such as an extra side quest or two instead.

Quote: Posted 10/13/07 05:59 (GMT) by Giant Man Crabs

Hmm. So Kaiden isnt bisexual. Interesting.

Looks like its:

Males= Liara-Ashley- Tali(?)
Females=Kaiden-Liara-Garrus(?)

Edited By Maria Caliban on 10/13/07 06:21

Quote: Posted 10/13/07 06:07 (GMT) by Giant Man Crabs

Its not 'only' 3, 3 romances is a pretty good number. Garrus and Tali -may- be possible, or at least flirting, so it could be higher.

Quote: 
That's one of the reason we wanted to have three romance characters.

Edited By malakai_gray on 10/13/07 06:43