Since a couple of people have asked, who is interested in a How That Bad Paraphrase Happened story? https://twitter.com/PatrickWeekes/status/1263922592835985408">https://twitter.com/PatrickWe...
Late 2009. I& #39;m on Mass Effect 2. Given that we& #39;re only a few months from ship, Mass Effect 2 is also on me.

I& #39;m one of a few writers left on the project, tackling bugs.
A bug comes in saying that there& #39;s a lack of clarity around the opt-in to Thane& #39;s romance -- you only get one chance to choose to romance him, and they& #39;re missing it, and therefore missing a bunch of content. And some folks are opting in by accident, too.
Thane& #39;s writer has left the team, so I look at the conversation. It& #39;s a great conversation!

But I can also see how you could look at the dialogue options and not realize that one of them is you saying, "Let& #39;s start a relationship."

So, yes, needs to be fixed.
2020 Brain: Wouldn& #39;t the big heart icon make that clear?

Aha, but this is 2009. ME2 (and even ME3) didn& #39;t use icons to indicate that you were entering a relationship. No hover text on big choices, either! (See also, "How people accidentally ended up showering with Traynor.")
2020 Brain: Okay, so let& #39;s rewrite the end of the scene, touching the original writer& #39;s lines as lightly as possible, to add a clean chance to opt into a romance with Thane.

Aha, but this is LATE 2009. This scene is LOCKED. No dialogue changes possible. Game DONE, yo.
Thane is talking about how his wife died. He& #39;s never told anyone. A Shepard who wants to romance Thane tells him she& #39;s there for Thane to lean on, whatever he needs.

Original paraphase was something like, "I& #39;m here for you."

The writer (Chris L& #39;Etoile) did an amazing job.
But players who wanted to romance Thane didn& #39;t understand that this dialogue choice was their one and only chance to get onto a romance path with him.

And players who DIDN& #39;T want to romance Thane didn& #39;t like stumbling onto it by accident.
2009 Me: So I have no heart icon, I can& #39;t change the dialogue at all. Literally I can do is change the paraphrase, and I have to change it so nobody has any doubt about what this line indicates.

2009 Me: Nailed it.
Did 2009 Me think this was a good paraphrase? WOW NO!

Was it the best 2009 Me could come up with to be 100% clear, with no other changes available and paraphrases limited to 30 characters?

APPARENTLY YES!
Every time I see this play on Twitch, the player makes fun of the paraphrase. "Subtle, Shepard!" And they are totally right! I wish we& #39;d caught this earlier, so I could& #39;ve changed the lines or done SOMETHING less clunky than this.

But this is what last-minute fixes look like.
Again, no great moral here, except that I& #39;m glad we have better tools now -- icons to indicate you& #39;re flirting, hover text to make it clear that you& #39;re entering a relationship, that kind of thing.

And also that changing context by only changing paraphrases is real clunky.
PS: @MitchyD asked a great question: Using only 2009 Tech, what would 2020 Patrick do now to do it better?

"You matter to me, Thane." < 30 characters, about as clear, and much cleaner as a topic transition. (To be fair, 2009 me erred on clarity because it was filed as a bug.)
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