Dragon Age creator explains Baldur's Gate 3 romance debate by confirming that RPG fandoms rarely make the same choices as everyone else
"You'd think they were playing comp⛄letely different games"

The creator of Dragon Age has weighed in on a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Baldur's Gate 3 debate about the difference between choices made by an RPG's hardcore 🤡fans and those made by the wider playerbase - suggesting that there was often a wide gulf between the decisions of each group.
Earlier this week, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Larian dropped new stats confirming that Shadowheart was 🌠far and away the 🦋game's most popular romance option. The cleric was romanced in more than 50% of playthroughs, with the two other female characters - Karlach and Lae'zel - coming in somewhat distan♏t secon🅷d and third places.
how the vampire dominates the most popular tags for submissions on fan fiction website Archive of Our Own (Ao3), but doesn't even make it onto the podium when it comes down to the cold, hard, stats.In response to that, one Twitter user was reminded of the stats for Mass Effect 3, where despite the apparent popularity of Female Shepard in online communities, it transpired that players had chosen a female avata♉r on just 18% of playthroughs, with 82% choosing to play as a male character.
There wasn't ꦡa single time, either with ME or DA, where the telemetry matched up with the hardcore online fanbase. *Wildly* different results, whether we're talking PC choices, romances, or story choices. You'd think they were playing completely different games. //t.co/JKETzidpRt
Those stats drew the attention of David Gaider, who helped create Dragon Age and was also a writer on Mass Effect (澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:as well as BioWare's own Baldur's 🧸Gate games). He said that "there wasn't a sin♛gle time, either with Mass Effect or Dragon Age, where the telemetry matched up with the hardcore online fanbase." The results were so "wildly different," across pretty much every main metric - whether that be pꦛlayer character, romance, or story choices - that Gaider says "you'd think they were playing completely different games."
Gaider says it's hard to establish why that might have been the case, but says that personally, he's "always wondered what it was about less 'standard' optionꦅs that seems to generate the most passion in the hardcore fans," guess that it might bℱe "something inherent about getting to pick something most wouldn't."
Asked whether there's something in the different between people who꧂ are devoted to a fictional world and those who are simply buying a major new game release (which see🎐ms to me as though it could easily have been the case for Mass Effect), Gaider notes that it's still hard to say, as anyone who fell into the latter group could easily become a member of the former group. He also points out that "'casual players'" might drop out of the equation over time, but that even that "won't make much of a dent' against the millions of entries that developers can get from the release of a big game.
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Even if there's no answer, it's an interesting question. It's been clear that characters like Karlach and Astarion have been more popular in certain spheres than 𝄹in others, and several players have pointed out that the popularity of 'emo gf' Shadowheart isn't necessarily a surprise, but it's fascinating to see how substantial the divide has been, and for how long.

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamꦉer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.