[Same gender relationships clarifications?]

Late to the party, as ever, but hopping on with sparklecat's "Ten NPCs I'd like to see as SGRs" list from earlier, because I like lists! (Mine's a bit Empire-skewed, but it's what I know!)

 

*snip*

 

2. Juda, Juda, Juda! (Nem'ro the Hutt's paymaster)

 

Juda needs to be flirtable PERIOD. No love for my Guy Bounty Hunter either.

[Same gender relationships clarifications?]

When they were talking about which companions will be romancable and the decision making process on which companions would have romance options, the developer at the podium said something along the lines of "Not every companion we wanted to be romancable was" and a developer at the table said "...Blizz..."

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Aren't we owed now a Picture of Blizz with Kittens and Puppies? I really want to see this.

 

Did you catch the Blizz joke when they were making the announcement?

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Yay they answered. "This Year!" Hooray. I did ask. It sounds like a lot of people did. Hooray. Now to get a transcript.

[Same-Gender [Flirt] Prompts]

Since my phrase statistically insignificant has been used to make so much hay, please take a moment at WHAT population I was applying that term to.

 

It was applied to users that prefer same sex romance exclusively and wish to use a "no straights filter" in their game play. I have read thousands of posts on the topic of same sex romance and the various reactions to it, and those wanting a "no straights filter" in the absence of same sex romance is so small I don't remember a single instance, but I allow that there may have been a player that did wish this and I simply forgot, or the signal got lost in the noise, but my memory is pretty good and I have read said thousands of posts in a very short amount of time and so I infer that THIS type of player at least represented on the forums is statistically insignificant (estimate 1 or 2 posts out of over 4,000) at least as it seems to me.

 

To me statistically insignificant means a statistic that can be safely rounded to zero. Which from my reading of this topic and related ones is the percentage of players who want a "no straights filter" and only a "no straights filter".

 

I think that the percentage of players (no matter how small) that want same sex flirting and romance in Star Wars The Old Republic cannot be safely rounded to zero.

 

Anyway we are not asking for equality because our numbers demand it, but because its the right thing to do.

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What you want in the game right now may not be what they want to put in the game right now.

 

This thread is not about getting Same Gender Romance Arcs in the game right now, its about a desire for some communication and clarification sooner than 6 months after it was announced.

[Same-Gender [Flirt] Prompts]

Eh, if Bioware goes down the path of same sex companion affection bonus options I will delete the game from comp and always know that George Lucas would have supported my decision. Look at any of the movies and tell me one time homosexuality was ever implemented.

 

 

I suppose we can also point to the movies and see all the times Luke and Han used a datacron to become more powerful.

 

Boy I just love that scene on Balmorra in the original trilogy.

 

Man I just can't get enough of those games of Sabaac and Pazaak Han and Lando used to play.

 

I love the detail in the movies about how Jedi were divided into Guardian, Sentinel and Consular roles.

 

Its a good thing that games NEVER add anything to what existed on the screen.

[Same gender relationships clarifications?]

I really don't have anything substantial to add that I have not already said before. I really really want to see this content in the game and I strongly desire just the teeniest tiniest hint from Bioware that we have not fallen off their radar.

 

 

I wonder if all the canceled subscriptions are making an impact. I will for now keep my subscription as some of what is keeping me in game is the social element of playing with my friends and guildies, and I like Star Wars. But while I do keep my subscription I will continue to ask Bioware for communication about the inclusion of this content.

 

 

And now I can give my refresh button a rest as I will be subscribed.

[Same-Gender [Flirt] Prompts]

I broke his heart...

 

 

...WITH A BLASTER BOLT! MWAAAhahahahahhaa and so forth.

 

Well my Bounty Hunter is turning out to be a much nicer guy than I originally envisioned since every time I choose a light side decision I gain affection with Mako. But That Sith Lord? Yeah I got some DS points trying to make HER happy.

[Same-Gender [Flirt] Prompts]

Today on my Bounty Hunter I finished up the main chains on Balmorra and I was surprised to get a lot of flirt prompts with a certain Sith Lord. My character is male, and the Sith Lord Female, but it occurs to me that it would have been very believable if there were same sex flirting between her and a female player. It would make perfect sense, and there is no reason why it should not be in there.

 

Still I am up to level 22 on that guy, and none of the male NPCs really do it for me. But then again out of all the NPCs that I have come across I only wanted to flirt with 3 (Counting Mako) and one was Juda on Hutta who is awfully flirty but you don't get any [Flirt] prompts no matter what your gender.

 

I take that back. The Playboy in the Cantina in Balmorra is kind of cute, but I would not really want to pursue anything with him, just break his heart so he knows how it feels...

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Again, without being on the BW dev team, all of this is speculation anyhow.

 

That reminds me, think they are hiring?

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Ah yes, another QFT.

 

I was just riffing on back of the envelope for that scenario. I am a programmer by trade, with 34 years experience (Its a bit of a cheat I wrote my first computer program when I was 6 years old) But you would be surprised at just how difficult what someone would think is an easy task is. Then there is the old trap of any good programmer of giving a customer exactly what they asked for instead of what they really wanted.

[Same gender relationships clarifications?]

I don't think that implementing some means of gender preference would be hard at all. The game already does that based on the opposite gender of the player's character. So instead of automatically assigning your romance options based on your gender, it would instead ask you. I'm not a developer, but if they were working on implementing this new content, it doesn't seem like it would delay the release of that to allow a player choice.

 

Well you admit you are not a developer. What we have now is a gender awareness in NPCs which allow for any personal pronouns to be correct as well conversation trees on who can [Flirt] with who. From a developer's point of view the conversation trees are probably gender blind beyond the first branch where you can take a flirty response.

 

So what you propose is not as simple as flipping a switch somewhere in the computer bank. Each character's attributes are stored in some sort of database. Each of these takes a finite amount of space to store. If we were to tack on an orientation field in this database (which in some peoples preferences has 3 possible settings, some 4 but I imagine it can get even more complicated if we added things like "you like Twi'Leks but not Zabraks" but I digress at the least 3 different settings) So we have to have these definitions stored somewhere and then for each and every character and a field holding this value. Now I don't know how they have the character database on the backend optimized but the addition of an attribute may be handled elegantly on one case, on the other end of the spectrum, it could lead to all sorts of balancing issues and latency (doubtful, but worst case scenario) With the number of players times the number of characters this is no small amount of data to be added.

 

Then you have to add an orientation awareness into all NPCs (a software GAYDAR not even the Force could be so accurate) This would not be a substitute for gender awareness which is already there, but a whole other set of conditional statements to govern the availability of certain conversation trees. When nesting conditionals it does not become twice as complicated per nest it becomes exponentially more complicated per nest. This would likely introduce any number of bugs which all the people who come in this thread and complain that there are more important things to work on will come back to topics in the Story and Lore subboard where we are discussing romance and blame the whole new set of bugs on us.

 

Now I hope you see why it would be much simpler for NPCs to be orientation-blind and just flirt with anyone.

[Same gender relationships clarifications?]

It occurs to me that this would be less of an issue if there was a mechanism for player character courtship and partnering. I remember in Star Wars Galaxies you were able to do so by exchanging rings (For Rebel players the ring to use was the Rebel Signet Ring which had nice buffs and if you used it to marry someone it never took damage) (come to think of it I think you could actually marry two people if you wore a ring on each hand).

 

But the roleplay in this game is not really geared for player to player. They have these (very engaging!) story lines but we are a bit on the rails.

 

This game feels like a multiclass KOTOR 3 where someone can swoop in and kill your objective before you get there. Ofcourse KOTOR 3 would not have a subscription fee.

 

I have paid my sixty dollars entry fee and my continued subscription for the privilege of posting in these forums. But why was I given half a game?

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Say what time of day does the Q&A Blog get posted? I might want to set an alarm so I don't miss a moment of being disappointed for another week.

[Same gender relationships clarifications?]

Hey, since you're so good at seeing into the future, can you tell me my local lottery numbers?

 

No, but I can tell you which ones WON'T be picked. Just tell me the numbers you are playing this week.

 

 

The lottery is a tax on people who can't do math.

[Same gender relationships clarifications?]

If there is a sparklecat fan club, where do I sign up? If there isn't one which forum do we start one in?

 

Come to think of it, where are the Bantha smilies?

[Same gender relationships clarifications?]

I have to wonder what it is that make people think a compromise of any kind is needed.

 

Romance is part of the game. No part of the storyline based aspects of the game is opt-out, the storylines have many branches some of which you will never see, but it all boils down to choice.

 

Now if romance was to be part of the game, it makes no sane sense in 2012 to put out an interactive medium with a "Gays need not apply" sign in the window. But that is the situation that we have, one that we have been assured will be remedied "post launch".

 

I have oft seen the argument of how SGRAs are only wanted by a "small minority" but they never seem to see that those in favor of the "no gays filter" is even smaller...

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Who wants to start a pool as to when this thread will be closed and the 4th version started? Maybe someone with better oddsmaking facilities can put a weight for before or after tomorrow's Q&A Blog.

[Same gender relationships clarifications?]

One of the problems with mixing game features with social issues is this, what if I wanted the addition of responding violently to a specific type gender flirt from an NPC? That is certainly realistic and might actually add to the story, especially if an NPC is programmed to respond that way, but would it be acceptable to those that are espousing freedom of choice? Such violence is distasteful, but the poignancy and learning experience from a story perspective certainly exists.

 

I must say that some of the Darkside choices are distasteful, but a response of inflicting violence for a pass is really beyond the pale. I am all for living out your fantasies of Galactic Domination or what have you but to turn a flirt into an excuse for violence hits a little too close to home for someone living in Matthew Sheppard's hometown.

[Same gender relationships clarifications?]

well if we are talking about strictly roleplaying a character you should have a good idea of their orientation already... However not everyone playing the game is a strict roleplayer so you do have a valid point (just posting this before the obligatory "zomg orientation isn't a choice" people get to it).

 

The great thing about fiction is that we can do a 180 at anytime if we want just for dramatic purposes.

 

Anyway I do not believe orientation is a choice but because of cultural pressures somethings may be repressed in one's personality for a long time. Now its clear to me looking back that I was always bisexual, but it was not until late in life that I acted upon it. Some of this was cultural conditioning, some of it was lack of opportunity. And then there was the time I was insisting I was straight because I had mistaken orientation for DEEDS not DESIRE.

 

So while one's orientation is innate, one's path towards accepting it can be one of self-discovery. If it was true for me in real life, why couldn't a similar situation be played out in the fiction of this role playing game? By "locking" the choices at character creation, you are cheating yourself out of potential storytelling material.

[Same gender relationships clarifications?]

I think 'very bad idea', especially in capitals, is a bit harsh. I think it's a very interesting idea but I feel that implementation issues would make it a little too complex to instigate.

 

Don't read too much into my caps I OVERUSE them for EMPHASIS when I SHOULD NOT. It comes from decades of habit of communicating on fora where there is no text formatting beyond CAPS or *asterisks* or _underline_ . I will try to do better.

 

Why I thought such a sliding system was a very bad idea beyond the game mechanics I pointed out, as a programmer, I can do a back of an envelope calculation on how complex such a system would have to be for what is little pay off that can just as easily be accomplished by giving everyone the same 3 prompts with the flirt in there and leave the choice up to the player.

 

[*snip*]

 

 

However, like I said, the implementation issues would make this a nightmare given how many different areas and how many different NPCs there are. You'd find your 'flirtation reputation' would reset all the time because you were travelling to different planets, to start with.

 

Of course the other point is that there just aren't that many incoming flirts in the game. Most NPCs can be flirted with but rarely initiate flirtation (unless you're a Smuggler).

 

 

I see we are on the same page on this just the cost to develop such a system (not just money but time, and resources) for what it would do just does not balance. Preference algorithms are very tricky things and places like TiVO and Netflix pay bounties on algorithms that can just make better movie recommendations by just a few percentage points of accuracy. To have a romantic interest recommendation algorithm seems to me to be a bit overkill as opposed to just giving us the choice to flirt regardless and letting us choose.

[Same gender relationships clarifications?]

I much rather not have a flag that must be set at character creation, but if that is the only way Bioware is going to give us this then so be it.

 

I seriously doubt there will be any such thing when SGRA is introduced. The no-gays filter and all the variations of it is just one of those tenacious bad ideas that will not go away until a word -- any word -- comes from Bioware to say otherwise.

 

 

My preference is that the game initially offers both same and opposite flirt options but gradually reduces the frequency of offering those options that are not use. Flirt with guys and guys will start (or keep) flirting back. Flirt with girls and the same happens. Flirt with both and, well, you can probably guess that you wilil be popular at parties and get a lot of invitations.

And if you consistently ignore the flirt options then the NPCs will eventually think you a grouch and stop flirting with you entirely.

 

This is also a VERY BAD IDEA. Let me explain why, say I get a variety of flirts from guys I just don't find appealing. This is not an indication that I don't like men, just that I do not like THOSE men. There may be some charming gentleman I would not mind fading to black with around level 34 but if it is keeping a counter of the flirts I did not pursue and gets the (mistaken) idea that I am just not into dudes then it is by a mechanism taking out my choice from the game. I don't want to be categorized as straight or gay if being bi simply means I can't be picky.

[Same gender relationships clarifications?]

I fully understand that most of you folks in this thread that support homosexual relations in the game are looking at this as a social issue. I won't comment on that. What I will say is that exactly as I can choose whether or not I want flashes on my screen when skills go off cool down, I should also have the option whether or not I want to see homosexual and or heterosexual flirt choices. Have fun and bye bye.

 

Those are two different beasts. A cool down graphic is a pure UI issue. Dialog choices is a content issue. Same Gender Romance Arcs are not a mere cosmetic change, it speaks to the content of the narrative and it means something.

 

Bioware has time and time again stated how storytelling is a pillar of this game. In that pillar is the possibility for romance. However Bioware has also put out a "Gays need not apply" sign on the romance arc.

 

Now each of us is free to shape our own story by the choices our characters make. What the introduction of SGRA will do is offer ALL players more choice.

[Same gender relationships clarifications?]

I'd want to see sexual orientation as a choice at character creation as well. That way I can choose how I will RP.

 

Not setting a bitflag in the software as to how you are oriented has no impact on your choices as you RP. What I don't get is how does NOT setting an orientation limit your RP in ANY WAY?