That is a REALLY good question. And I have no idea about the answer. I suspect you'll just lose relationship progression. Which sucks more than a little but I can't see how they'd do it otherwise. If they brought in herosexuality, of course, it'd solve that issue but that's not going to happen, I'd say.

<shrugs> Representation based on population isn't my argument so I really couldn't comment on it. Were I developing I'd be including the content because I'd want it in, the numbers be damned. Heck, the majority of game developers I know are part of the LGBT community and those that aren't are certainly sympathetic allies. I have to assume that 'time and budget constraints' wasn't a lie because I can't see any other reason not to include the content other than 'we don't want to,' which leaves a very unpleasant taste in my mouth. It makes one wonder where people like that expect the 'life' to come from. I think you might be missing the point that some folks (generally the loud ones) don't want to matter, they want to matter the most. That generally means 'to exclusion of all other aspects'. I'm certain some would accuse the pro-SGRA crowd of being exactly the same but I don't know a single pro-SGRA player who wants SGRA content at the exclusion of any other content. We just happen to want it as well as the rest of the game.

I'm uncertain how accurate these figures are but I found this site: http://mmodata.blogspot.com/ According to it LotRO is on a little over 250,000 active accounts (seen here) while SWTOR is around 1.5 million subs (seen here). No information on whether the subscriptions are active or not, and that's 2012 information. So we're talking about six times the population on SWTOR. Way more room for certain personality types.

Not sure but I'm willing to bet SWTOR is way bigger. And yeah, I share that experience. That's what I mean about the fan population difference in the franchises - the wider and deeper the population the more mathematical likelihood of getting certain personality types therein.

I think in LotRO's case a large portion of it is due to that franchise. Most of the people who actually play LotRO seem to be at least nominally LotR fans (not just the movies, but the books as well). Many aren't role-players and want little to do with that side of things but nonetheless they still tend to be fans. The same is true here for Star Wars, of course, but I think that this franchise tends to have a far broader fan-base than non-movie LotR; a wider fan-base means, naturally, more room for a wider, shall we say, diversity of personality types. Though I'll add that the sheer weight of pleasant people on LotRO does sometimes actually encourage people to start being nice. Not all of them, mind you; I had someone tell me flat-out that 'defence' is never EVER spelled with a 'c' anywhere at all (despite it being spelled like that on the character sheet), and that he's English so he should know. I wonder if the people who made the UK government's Ministry of Defence site knew that enlightening information. That happens with every game when it goes F2P, definitely. The loud idiots tend to lose interest but, of course, with a franchise as culturally pervasive as Star Wars it's going to take longer for said attached idiots to get bored of it. And, of course, some might stop being idiots and remain on as more sensible players; good on them for that. I think this is a huge part of it. LotRO has 'monster play' in which a player can take the role of a servant of the Dark Lord (an orc, a spider, a warg) but the main portion of the game is completely made up of the Free People. Hell, monster play is level-restricted. You can't even access it until you've been in the game for... I'm not sure what ti is now but it used to be a Level 40 requirement, I think. And sure, there are arrogant Elves, brutish Humans, hostile Dwarves and mean-spirited Hobbits in Middle-earth. Nothing stops a player from role-playing as one of them. But nonetheless the PCs are all on the same side and are fighting the (literally) Good fight against the forces of darkness. SWTOR isn't like that. You can make a heartless torturing bringer of death who'd quite readily slaughter entire colonies just for a break from the monotony of following their superiors' orders. You can be as mean or as nice or as hostile or as friendly as you want. Which gives a lot more flexibility... but also gives more place to people that you might not normally get along with. Maybe it's a good thing, maybe it's bad. Maybe it's just a thing and part of playing SWTOR is recognising that sometimes you're going to meet people who act as if they're as bad-*** as their lightning-flinging Sith murderer. Learning to ignore or disregard them may just be a part of the game. That'd be interesting. I have to admit most of my characters would show up as Light Side. But then I don't keep General on, much less troll it.

Interestingly, I was there when LotRO went F2P. It went downhill very quickly for about two weeks, and then it got better. It's like the trolls and jerks just got so sick of everyone being nice that they went away. Mind you one of the WoW expansions came out shortly thereafter, I forget which one. Now LotRO has the best and most effective F2P system I've ever seen. I do the opposite for a variety of reasons, the first being I simply relate to and sympathise with female characters more (not sure why). In the case of Mass Effect a big part of why I played a female Shepard was because I don't like the male Shepard's voice. The female Shepard, by contrast, is much better cast. Unsurprisingly I like the female Trooper in SWTOR too. Oh, and female Hawke/female Agent. Whenever I write fiction most of my characters are female; I usually balance it out but it'd be about a 3:2 ratio a lot of the time. When people RP with me online they usually think I'm female. In fact most games that don't allow a variable character tend to turn me off playing them. I think I was going somewhere with this but I forget where it was.

LotRO is a very friendly MMO environment for the most part - at least, of all the MMOs I've ever played LotRO was always the one with the nicest people (and not by a small amount; it wins hands-down). There's jerks everywhere but there always seems to be fewer of them in LotRO. So it might actually be LotRO giving her a faintly rose-hued tinge to her sight, not the boyfriend thing so much. Certainly I've witnessed far nastier behaviour on WoW. I haven't on SWTOR but mainly because I shut off General as soon as I make a character (mostly due to experiences on WoW).

Ah, right. I have found that sort of thing as well, though I've met some considerable level of hostility when stating as much. Girls can be so damn mean to one another. Nonetheless, it still stands. The point you've made is salient, pertinent and really freakin' insidious. It's an attitude that I don't think the majority of games developers actually hold, but too often the products they create support that attitude without meaning to; that needs to change. On the same note I've met too many people who seem to assume that all gamer guys support that attitude, though (conversely I've never met a single person who's claimed all gamer girls think like that). I feel it worth mentioning now and then that not all guys support such a sexist viewpoint. Please don't think I'm attacking you or your point. I completely agree with you. My comment was simply an additional point. <fixes italics tags, reminds self this isn't RPoL>

As long as people don't think all guys think like this.

The composition of their target audience doesn't make it okay for them to neglect this, though. Zandilar's right, they're neglecting to put in a lesbian character. 'Oh, but the guys who won't get to flirt with her will have their feelings hurt' is a poor reason when, even if they did put a lesbian in, 99% of the game remains guy-accessible. Maybe. But as evidenced by Bioware: Edmonton (and more specifically David Gaider), a game company doesn't have to bend to that kind of selfish pressure. I don't know what a tweaker is and I have a feeling that, as a bisexual, I don't want to know. But what you're talking about is called bisexual erasure and yeah, it's a huge issue. Not just in media. I've had people tell me point blank that bisexuals simply aren't real. Actually I've heard it more from the LG community than the straight community. Not the BT community, obviously (bisexuals don't usually deny our own existence and transgendered people seem far more open to the idea than many others). Having said that, though, female bisexuality is heavily splashed about in games. SWTOR is in an excellent position to avoid falling into that trap but only if they commit to adding in more character types despite the flak they might get. I've noticed that trend but I can't say I've seen enough TV or movies to state ratios on the matter. Still, it's a shame.

Yes, it is. And that's another thing that needs fixing.

Yep. No doubt they'll continue to do so with no basis to their arguments. We also had people telling us it was 'fair' before there was any same-gender content at all. No doubt there's people vehemently against it but guess what? Minor same-gender content is in and the game hasn't collapsed under the weight of cancelled subscriptions. Who'd have thunk?

I can't speak for anyone else but I've barely begun the Makeb storyline. Spoiler tags would be awfy appreciated.

If they don't make Kira SGR compatible then my JK will probably be flying solo too.

Light Side/Dark Side, sure. That I agree with, and they've already started playing with that. I'd love to see more of it. But I never said a thing about someone's personality or their Force leanings. I was talking about physical aspects, which is a portion of what was being discussed above. And I do believe that IS complicating things needlessly because those are elements that the game will never take into account, both because there are too many variables and because basic things like species and ethnicity are literally cosmetic options in SWTOR. With nothing separating the species but a single social emote, a few outfit options and a 3D model there's no realistic point to taking those aspects into account. When I said that herosexuality and specific sexuality are two models diametrically opposed to each other (for the most part) I was referring specifically to (as I thought was obvious) gender preferences. In my opinion a DS/LS flag is separate to that because it will completely override a gender preference in any case. A sexuality flag and an alignment flag can work independently. In fact they should work independently because then the alignment flag can be used to affect conversation and interaction in all sorts of ways that have nothing to do with romance.

Okay, I'm not going to get into this argument other than to say that in the vast majority of cases 'herosexuality' relates, as a term, directly to the context of gender preferences. Making it about whether someone has large breasts or red hair or a certain skin tone is needlessly confusing the issue.

I couldn't say whether they will or not but if they're going to make M/M exclusive romances they definitely should make F/F exclusive romances. I'll be incredibly disappointed if they do one and not the other.

I don't have a problem with unknown territory, really. And while I do think this spells the death knell for herosexuality (which some people will be overjoyed by) I'm entirely happy to be wrong. No, that's cool. My short response certainly looked like I was misunderstanding, I realise that now. My bad.

I'm really not misunderstanding. I do get what he meant. I just didn't gel with the way he phrased it and had a moment of Bitterness.

Ye-es, but if the writer's written a specific orientation then he's been given leave to do so. Writers create characters for games under direction, not in a vacuum. Sure, things might change in the future but we can only use the information we have now and for the most part this is as good as a company policy statement as we're going to get (and a great deal better than we've had in the past).

Because if they're making characters that are exclusive to specific genders then they're not using the herosexual model. They're mutually exclusive for the most part, which is why herosexuality isn't the same as bisexuality.

It does. A definitive end.

See above.

If by 'in other games' you mean 'in Dragon Age 2', and if by 'bisexual' you mean 'arguably herosexual', sure. I know what he was saying but he could have chosen a more elegant way of saying it. Hell, he could have left off the 'instead of bi' altogether. It IS good that we're seeing more gay and lesbian characters; I just don't think there's any need to insert comments like 'instead of bi'. I think it'd be great to see all different kinds of (consensual, legal) sexuality. Yes, I fully accept I might be a little over-sensitive on this matter but I'm very wary (and weary, actually) of bisexual erasure. Even unintentional cases of it.

I know. I'm just being bitter.