What I find interesting is that with such an attempt to discover whether the relationship's real, he may well end up destroying it. Someone does something like that after you've established some degree of mutual trust and understanding, supported and relied upon one another in a variety of situations, even had them say they love you, and you'd have to come out wondering if any of it was real at all, or if it was a ploy all along to get closer to you and make the eventual betrayal easier. I don't believe that's the case - the Jedi Yonlach on Tatooine picks up on the fact that Quinn genuinely cares for you, for one - but I love it as a story element, for how it affects my character. Yeah. My thoughts upon getting that letter were "...you're awfully quick to reassure me that this couldn't possibly come between us/make you doubt me/whatever, for something I wasn't even aware of before you brought it up." And while he says that the whole dying young thing isn't something he's concerned with, he doesn't mention the bit about increased chance of adultery at all; think it's pretty clear that Quinn doesn't feel secure in the relationship, or believe that the warrior is anywhere near as committed as he is. And for my warrior, at least, she recognized this and even used it from time to time to keep him eager to please and dependent on her. I can well believe that Baras would've done his best to reinforce Quinn's beliefs that he wasn't worthy of the warrior, that they could never truly respect him as a non-Sith and saw him simply as a tool to be discarded when he was no longer useful. Unfortunately, my Warrior isn't quite as insightful regarding what might have been motivating Quinn as people analyzing from outside the game can be She's not very good at empathy, except to the extent that it helps her manipulate people and get at their darker impulses. The idea that Quinn's dissatisfaction with the inequality in their relationship might push him to action, or that she might bear any responsibility in such a case, isn't something that would occur to her because she sees that inequality as the natural order of things, and thinks he does too. It makes sense to me for her to originally keep Quinn alive so she can shove it in Baras' face that she won the fight for him (to her mind, this is where Baras made it personal and got her genuinely angry), and by the end, Quinn had proven his sincerity regarding future loyalties in enough situations where he could have really made things difficult for her (getting Vowrawn to safety, remaining loyal in the final fight) that she was willing to keep him around. However, she values personal loyalty extremely highly, if it's not in a context where betrayal is expected. Quinn's actions effectively killed off most, if not all, of the positive feelings and respect she'd developed for him, and I'm not sure if she'll ever regain that.

If two force-sensitive parents can produce a non-force sensitive child, what that tells us is that it's not a recessive trait, requiring both chromosones present to manifest; if it's dominant, which is the only thing I think works at all, two force sensitive parents who each have one of the necessary chromosones and one not would still have 25% chance of producing a non-force sensitive child. Which is precisely why you'd not want to risk introducing non-force sensitives into the line. Of course, this is all assuming a) human biology, b) only one gene responsible for force sensitivity, and c) that what I remember of genetics is actually accurate Apparently Anakin was a terrible example to look at, huh? If we're going with the one gene, dominant trait assumption, there's absolutely no value in introducing any non-force sensitive at all. I would actually venture a guess that you could get a lot more possibilities if there're multiple genes involved, but unfortunately my knowledge of the topic is basically exhausted. For my SW (I can't believe I'm telling anyone else my dorky backstory), family's a big deal to her, especially since she's the last proper (i.e., non-slave non-Jedi) force sensitive of her generation in the family. My SI is slightly insane, a Twilek, and in love with Lord Zash, though, so nothing good's going to come of that.

Way I figure it, if I, as one person with almost no relevant abilties, could turn all the Baldur's Gate II romances gender-neutral in about 4 hours with fan-created tools, I'm pretty sure it's not gonna take them months to do something similar here with an entire team, even with >4 romanceable companions and a little re-voicing added in.

You know, I'm fine with all my friends and family knowing I'm a lesbian, but having them learn I play a Star Wars MMO might just be too much for them to forgive

Presumably the reason Quinn did it there, on that ship, was because it had cameras and such to transmit directly to Baras what happened. Yeah, I think you can say after the fight that if that was the best he could do, you're better off without him anyway, and he agrees. Though now I'm wondering... where'd the droids come from, anyway? Quinn's been right with you all this time, he certainly wasn't off buying them, even if he wrote the programming. Baras must've made them available there and had whatever Quinn wrote installed on them. How did they arrange all this, sneaky calls through the holoterminal while your warrior and everyone else was asleep?

Which would suggest it's definitely a dominant trait, but were either of Anakin's parents force-sensitive? IMO, the way it's handled for the male LS Warrior makes the most sense; if this is an issue for our character, let us make it clear as Sith to our romance options that while we're perfectly willing to spend our lives with them, and take them on as... oh, consorts or some such, we're still going to be having children with a force-sensitive, since it's our duty. My warrior's already gone far enough outside her cultural upbringing simply in having an actual relationship that includes things like forgiveness and honesty, with an Imperial no less; forcing marriage and the possibility of introducing impurities into her family line, or having that relationship be over, is taking it too far.

Yeah Still, DA2 was awesome.

Two problems, second in response to the post following yours: 1. Only way that works is if his position under Baras is still beneficial; that could have been done if you'd had a way to make him a double agent or some such after leaving him for dead, but that wasn't an option. As it is, the only way having Baras look kindly upon him is useful is if you lose, so Baras takes him back, and while he could probably excuse away all the grovelling, swearing loyalty to, and serving your Warrior, that really just makes him out to be a self-serving coward who doesn't care who wins, and worse, suggests he actually expected that pathetic attempt to work. My preference would've been that Baras had some other type of hold over him, such that appearing to betray you and subsequently being killed by you would be sufficient to keep him from using whatever it was (kidnapped family members, say). Because really, it makes little sense for him to go into that *not* expecting to die. 2. Nobody who put the slightest bit of stock in their word and doing their duty (i.e., someone like Quinn) could possibly think that such a poor attempt actually counted as such. If that was his motivation, and he wasn't actually trying... doesn't work, IMO. This really was just a contradictory mess, I have to say. Quinn knows your capabilities and isn't incompetent in general; he can't have expected that to work. He gains nothing from the appearance of betraying you without the actual success. Baras has no way to force him into this other than an appeal to duty/debts owed, but that as a motivation contradicts the first point. If he truly believed this was the right thing to do, he'd a) have done a better job, and b) have stuck by his convictions after losing, not instantly jumped to "I'm so sorry, you were right all along and I'm a terrible person for betraying you!" I've only had two ideas that might work; one, he's just really really conflicted about his relationship with you (which, given that my Sith is straight-up abusive at times and it can be a very one-sided relationship, I could buy), and is basically just committing suicide at that point, until your not killing him makes him think that his feelings might be at least somewhat reciprocated. Given that just before the betrayal, I got the "My Lord, I love you and I think you feel the same way!"/"If you're very lucky, you might hear me say those words someday" conversation, this fits pretty well as an explanation for my case. But that only works for darkside Sith women romancing him (well, I guess it could work in general for darksiders if it's about wanting to be valued/respected by the Sith he serves, which I will say that Baras was pretty good at communicating to his subordinates). Two, he strongly buys into the whole Sith philosophy; at the end of the class quest, the Council basically decides that whichever of you and Baras wins in a fight is the one who's speaking the truth. So when you prove your strength, he acknowledges your superiority and the rightness of your cause, a la Lord Rathari. But that still has the problem that the droids were terrible and all you really proved was that you'd figured out moving and the basic attack button.

The idea that the force-sensitive gene is especially strong; if someone's force sensitive with two of the appropriate chromosones, it's a dominant trait, and they have a child with someone who isn't, sure, that child will be force sensitive. But after that, you're just looking at a 50% chance of force sensitivity by the next generation on, as well as for every time a non-force sensitive is mated with on down the line. Those aren't exactly the greatest odds if you really value your bloodline; you can maybe get away with it once, or take a chance on having a child with someone of impure background, but if force sensitivity is a big deal to you, a 25-50% chance your grandchild won't be one would certainly be enough to stop me from having a child with anyone other than a Sith from a long line of other Sith. And introducing even a single person who's lacking one of the chromosones runs the risk of keeping that in the line for generations to come, making any other non-force sensitive partner especially dangerous. Of course, if it's recessive, which arguably fits better with the Sith Inquisitor storyline at least, you wouldn't ever have a child with a non-force sensitive at all. (This is actually a pretty interesting topic to me because I'm trying to figure out what does and doesn't make sense in terms of character relationships for when Legacy is in, and what actual "facts" we have on the matter. And the idea that my Warrior would be having children with Quinn if she cared at all about the bloodline and maintaining force sensitivity just doesn't compute for me, if you're going to be assuming human biology. I'm curious as to what other alternatives there might be, having little training in biology myself; something that *could* result in some kinda "extra-strong" gene, that makes interspecies breeding easier to account for those bloody Twileks, and that isn't going to come down to "Sith purebloods and anyone even slightly descended from them are magical!")

Apart from all that, which, yes, I agree with (cancelled my sub, but it's paid up for another 5 months, which I would absolutely change if I could), you also do what you can to highlight the fact that the customer service is poor to others (e.g., by making it really obvious to everyone that they're ignoring the issue by continuing to post in the Q&A threads and clarifying what you're asking for if people misunderstand), and also to convince the company to act better in future, if you feel some personal loyalty to them and want to be able to return. If a restaurant I'd been going to for >10 years, loved the food, loved their treatment of me as a customer, saw them getting better and better over time, suddenly opened up a new branch that seemed to be the exact opposite of everything they were before that made me love them, I wouldn't just quietly leave and find another restaurant after my first few complaints were ignored. I'd be doing exactly what I am here - trying to figure out what's going on, suggesting ways to fix the problems, and wondering if there's any chance I can continue on with this restaurant I've loved for so long. Because the food really is the best on the market. I do expect an answer, and a big part of that is because I know Bioware's track record; for all my pessimism and frustration from time to time, I trust that they're not responding for a reason, which isn't going to turn out to be "we hate gay people", or whatever. My intent is to assist in applying enough pressure that it outweighs whatever that reason may be, and lets them know that this is not a good way to handle matters for future games.

Yeah, this. I'm perfectly cool with not being able to romance the droids.

Yeah, most of my characters seem to turn out attracted to women, even if they're in a relationship with/attracted to a man as well, suprisingly enough Like you said, I think novelty is actually a large part of the draw here; LGBT entertainment is still underrepresented in other popular media, which leads to a bit of a feeling of "well, maybe I can't watch/read the stories with a gay protagonist (especially a female one) and same-sex relationships I want to, but when it's my own characters, I'd better be able to play them". This as a medium is significantly more interactive than others, obviously, which means that being unable to identify with the characters is a bigger deal than it is if one random tv show has decided that gay people don't exist in their universe -- not that that isn't a problem too, but that's a whole nother kettle of fish.

Yeah, I've got one smuggler who's going to be celibate and metaphorically run screaming in the other direction if someone starts coming onto him, and another who's going to be your stereotypical flirty, condescending-call-everyone-sweetheart type, only female. I think I tend to end up going against traditional gender roles more often than anything. What I find I'm most interested in, in terms of romances for my characters, are ones which mesh with their personalities; so in the case of my arrogant Sith, I want the submissive type, yes. My no-nonsense, duty-driven Trooper got along with Jorgan great, my Jedi Knight's backstory + Kira worked out fine. They all tend to start out at least theoretically bi, and then who they meet determines who they're attracted to. Problem comes in when the perfect companion shows up for one of them and... they're the wrong gender. Sure, I can re-roll as the opposite gender with the same basic personality, but doing that 20, 30, 40 levels in is not just annoying in terms of getting back up to that point, but also because by that point I have an already defined character, and I effectively just changing their gender would be... wrong. This is why I'm really strongly in favour of making current companions open for SGRAs; even if they did add a new gay option to go along with each straight one, there's no guarantee that they'll be the sort my character would be interested in. Much better to make all companions, new and old, potential romances for everyone, and give us all more scope to express who our characters are. Ultimately, restricting romances by orientation deprives everyone of choice; someone playing a straight character who wants to romance the gay-only NPC is going to be just as unhappy as I was when my male Warrior encountered Quinn, and got all that flirty, suggestive dialogue he couldn't respond to.

Oh, I agree, but "catering to the gays" is how the detractors often see it, I think. But we've certainly had plenty of straight people come in and say that they'd play same-gender romance content; character orientation and player orientation definitely don't have to coincide. I'm gay myself, and play a couple of straight characters; I'll also play bi characters, and gay characters not of my gender when I can. I'm actually pretty curious how many people play characters who romance a gender they're not personally attracted to; you've got the stereotypical straight guys playing lesbians, of course, but how many of them will play gay men, or straight women, for instance?

You implied that we "[hadn't] had problems relating to bias that has nothing to do with a video game and its development timeline/customer service handling". Obviously we can't really go into detail here in the thread about how or if treatment of this topic relative to the game parallels treatment of gay people in society, but saying that we shouldn't use metaphors which should be the sole province of oppressed groups strikes me as invalid.

Yes. Which is a problem with something they've acknowledged to be a "hot topic", and one which is getting many questions on the Q&A, many of which are from people who don't actively post in this thread. I have no idea what percentage of the game reads/posts on the forums, or how representative the ~10% of the questions is of the people interested in this issue, but I think it's definitely at least at the point where they need to be answering questions both consistently, and constructively. Emphasis on 'answering'. What they're doing right now is increasing frustration and bad feelings amongst customers, which is a bad idea when it comes to any issue, much more so with such an emotionally charged one. Not so much hiding away opinions as the fact that they plan to cater to gay customers. Which is rather surprising, coming from Bioware, and rather pointless, given that they've already said the content is going to be in. If it really is currently in development, they need to say so to everyone, not just people who email in.

Oh, I'm sure they choose which questions they answer in the Q&A based upon what they want to answer already. Thing is, some people have received emails in response to concerns they've raised with customer service which suggest this content is currently in development; it's absolutely ludicrous if that's the case and they're simply not responding publicly in order to avoid controversy. Beyond the impression someone mentioned earlier that they do see us as something to be ashamed of/keep hidden away, it is absolutely not something that should be our job as customers, to each enquire one at a time and be updated by email if we want first-hand information.

My point is, it's poor customer service to leave us this long without a substantive update on when and what we might expect, in relation to something that was promised months ago and then had every question regarding it ignored by the developers. And sure, they don't have to answer us. But they're answering other questions. They're putting in content that wasn't promised pre-launch. Is it really any surprise that I'm not exactly thrilled with their handling of the matter? This is not the optimal way to encourage repeat business.

Pretty sure a customer who bought a product on the understanding that there would be something they required added later on has a perfect right to enquire as to timescales. And what, precisely, that something was likely to be, if that knowledge affects their current use of the product. We were told "post-launch". It's post-launch. Time for another update.

How is that supposed to work?

Nope. I want to experience the agent storyline for the first time on my one, specific agent, because to me, it's her story. Seeing it again on someone else after that point, trying out other possibilities and looking at them as sort of hypotheticals, "I wonder how things would've been different if she'd been a male Sith-hater", that'll be fine, but she's the agent.

Posted my question; while on the one hand, I'm pretty upset about still being ignored (thought those emails a couple people got might be a sign they'd decided to end the silence), on the other... I cancelled my sub already, I'm enjoying my current characters, there's really nowhere to go but up. I'm just going to continue playing until I'm no longer able to enjoy it. Which, y'know, is the sort of positive attitude that I expect will be gone within the next day or so, but it's all sunny and warm and nice today

When and how do you currently expect same gender romances and flirts to be added to the game? Are you still including to intend this content at all?

Yeah, I wanna see our romanced companions get kidnapped, and we have to approach and work with someone on the other side to get them back. Put our personal feelings in conflict with our loyalty to our faction. And our desire for our own safety, for those who don't have much of the former.

I actually really liked the story; all the classes drag in spots, and have planets where it basically comes down to 'grab this one thing for your class quest, but mostly just do the sidequests', but I found the Sith Warrior engaging. What I'd like in the future is a bit more in the way of a personal conflict/questioning for my Warrior about where her duty lies; I went through the entire storyline feeling like I was clearly on the right side in everything, fighting for the good of the Empire and serving the Emperor's will in everything I did. But what I'd like... Well. So I guess I want the storyline to do more to reveal just what kind of Sith our Warriors are, and what it is they're fighting for. But it has to be something huge, something significant; random Imperial grunt #237 dying if I obey this stupid order from the Council/Emperor won't really do it, while, say, Dromund Kaas being destroyed might. Also I want to kill more Jedi! Give us a special Empire-instance of Tython, like you get for Balmorra/Taris/etc., and let me slaughter my way through the Temple or something.