Yes, Tatile, they don't just throw the SGR right in your face, you have to actually initiate the interest in the NPC on a personal level before the option shows up. And a major point in favor, one of the Pub-side SGRs not on Makeb involved a woman with an obvious disability and it didn't feel like someone going down a checklist to see what groups of folks to give a nod to. It flowed naturally in my opinion and didn't feel forced or tacked on.

I personally did not get any OGR options on either gender on either side in the new content. I'm not saying they don't exist, but I didn't see any. I also wasn't looking for them specifically. I'm sorry I wasn't clear.

Hi, Slaign. When I played the new content in beta, the primary Pub-side romance was for a female SGR. I didn't get flirt options when I played through some of the same content as a male character, with the Imp-side being primarily geared for a male SGR. Again, as Larry from Massively has stated, there are other SGR options (both on and off Makeb), but these are secondary to the main Makeb planetary quest line. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

I was in closed beta, and my female JK was out and out married to Doc. I got the [Flirt] option all the time from the lady I rescued on Makeb. So, no, it ignores your companion affection/story. Also, just as an interesting sidebar... there's a F/F SGR on Coruscant with an NPC affiliated with the Seeker Droid quests. So, not allllllll on Makeb.

People will complain, regardless. Not exactly news here. Please provide a proof of your statistics, else they can easily be mistaken as having been randomly rolled on a D100. 'Useless'. Must be some new definition of the word. And exactly how long should they wait for this content that was already promised almost a year ago? And please do not speak for me when you say 'EVERYBODY'. I am not gay, have no plans to play SGR content, and yet I also don't play FPs, WZs, and Raids. Every other single update to the game since launch has BEEN FPs, WZs, and Raids. Why the hell should /this/ content which appeals to /this/ group have to wait even longer than the folks who only play FPs, WZs, and Raids. EVERYONE gets a turn, not just certain people. It just so happens that it's FINALLY the SGRA turn. Deal with it. You'll still get the content you want anyway, so what's the big problem? You /don't/ respect the community if you believe that these folks should have to /continue/ to wait after everyone else gets their preferred content updated MULTIPLE times. It's not fair, and it's about time it was addressed.

Well, the last solid info on when we'd see Makeb was a quote from Jeff Hickman at the New Orleans Cantina Tour where he stated that the Ilum revamp would be launching with Makeb, the first public inklings that an expansion was on the horizon, I believe. Previously, Ilum had been mentioned as going to be relaunched around 'February/March'. March is /almost/ 'spring', the current term being bandied about. I imagine that now that most everyone's back from the holidays, we'll probably see a firmed up launch date announced soon or some variant of 'soon' that resembles something like the two dates bandied about. I'm just gonna reiterate a few things here from my original post back in the day, just to kind of bring some of the details back into the forefront as something to consider, if you'd like, as to why it may have taken forever and a day to get to this point: 1) Election season. It was a big deal, and very heated, as we all remember (and I loathed). There were ads against gays in my area, so it was a very sensitive time to be announcing something that would rile up the naysayers even worse than usual. That's done for the most part, yay! 2) If you can marry an OGR companion, you should be allowed to marry an SGR one. That's also a huge deal in today's social environment and probably one of the more sensitive topics to have to work with. Personally, I think it should be equal, no questions, no hesitations, no 'only some folks get this, and some don't'. I haven't really seen that as being a big factor in commentary here, but it's probably a part of external dialogue due to the vociferous nature of the anti-SGR crowd. I'm gonna grin like a fool as soon as more folks realize this and such a change goes live on-game. I want this to happen because it's the RIGHT thing to do. As in, y'know, EQUAL RIGHTS. 3) The simple logistics of making a fully SGRA-loaded game after the fact. As much as it would have been the sweetest thing to have had SGR content from day -100 until the present, it didn't happen. And none of us would (or should!) be happy with a cack-handed sloppy 'flip a toggle' sort of switching around. I'd be offended on your behalf. Hell, I'd be embarrassed on BioWare's behalf if they had done this. Writing new dialogue that /works/, writing all-new romance paths that feel genuine and sincere and respectful and on a par with the OGR stuff already in-game? No mean feat, that. Then adding having to have it recorded, assuming all the VAs are still on the case and willing (no reason necessarily to think otherwise). Then making up the art assets to make it look good. All the programming to make the wheel work and the code to make it all happen? --- all this on top of having to suddenly turn the entire studio upside down to accommodate F2P when it's obvious to me that everything else got backburnered... I'm honestly surprised they're keeping to the 'with Makeb' promise from back in the day, but not so much surprised that it's going to be a gradual process rather than an retcon of the entire game. This journey has to start somewhere, and this is a good first step. There's some wobbly, but I look forward to the second step and the third and and and...

As an ally (I've no particular interest in playing SGRA content but believe it should be there on equal footing with OGR content), I am very happy that there is an announcement and a step taken forward. I suspect the technical/logistical reasons I cited back in November are more the cause of any delay far more than any perception that BW was ignoring or shunning anyone. I have long preferred the notion of taking one's time and getting it right than releasing shoddy work, and I hope that the content meets this quality standard because you folks deserve it. Cheers!

Slaign, I totally get what you're saying, and you're very articulate with why you want what you want and how it hampers your full enjoyment of games. I feel a lot of the same thing when I play other games that /never/ let me play what I want, and I always, /always/ have to choose a second-best game-path and either get bored and play something else, or sort of shrug and learn to like what I do have. I too have held off on playing certain things in other games, waiting for the promised additional content that would make me a happier camper. Other than writing a game myself (hah!), there's never going to be a game that I'm perfectly happy with in terms of story, with all respect for the folks here at Bioware raising the bar for what I will and will not 'settle for'. And you're right, you shouldn't have to settle. It's been a year, and I've been waiting for other things in the game that aren't even as visible or most likely on the devs' radar as this must surely be (300+ pages of commentary?). It really has turned into a 'take a dump or get off the pot' sort of situation at this point. I really do hope that we all hear something soon after F2P. I'll give 'em a little extra grace period due to that circumstance, but after that... not so much. Fingers and toesies crossed!

I believe we will get this content. Simple as that. However, I also want this content to be /awesome/. As I said in my big blogpost, it's not even content I'm interested in playing, but I believe it's only right and fair that it's there... but YOU FOLKS deserve the best effort Bioware can put into the crafting of the end result, not a shoddy thing slapped in there just to shut people up. That would be far more insulting than the silence we have now. All I can suggest is remembering that the silence isn't some evil person wanting to torment you, it's not malicious in intent. I hope they say something soon.

It's not as clear as you might think. We, on the outside, don't know all the whyfors of the situation. We don't know the reasons why they haven't said diddly squat (and I agree, it /is/ diddly squat). I also firmly, politely, and unequivocally disagree with anyone who believes that Bioware doesn't care. I've had the good fortune to meet some of the folks on the team at the last two PAX Easts, and I cannot honestly believe that they don't care. They're good people, and they don't deserve to obliquely be called cowards. Just because you're not getting what you want right this second doesn't mean you won't get it at some point. Again, they haven't said 'sorry, we changed our mind'. Hold onto that VERY firmly. However, I also know there's a time and a place for such frustration, and the eve of the biggest change to the game since launch is not it. The delays have not been awesome on Bioware's part, the info isn't there that you want now now now, and it sucks knowing that SGRAs aren't the company's #1 priority with this game. Buuuuuuut, I'd rather there be a game left for there to be SGR content added to than selfishly fuss over the one section of content one is myopically fixated on. Is it important content? Sure, of course it is. But there's a bigger picture that we should also keep in mind. I'm personally going to wait until after F2P settles down, give it a couple of weeks, see what breaks, see if the Makeb theory is honored... and then start asking more questions. Maybe I'm just too old and mellow, I dunno.

As I theorized in my big long blogpost linked a few pages back, Bioware would have told us years ago if they weren't doing SGR content at all. The theory still holds, in my mind at least, that given we know they're aware of this thread and how frustrated folks are, that if they'd changed their minds and decided not to include it, they wouldn't string everyone along for months (approaching a year now) after saying 'sure, we're gonna do this!' They would have made an announcement shortly after such a decision was made, take the heat from the subsequent explosion, and then move on. One thing I think is important to remember is that Bioware isn't out to piss us all off. Sure, they're a company, and I personally have less trust in the EA situation than I trust Bioware directly. But in general, the people who work there aren't out to make us all upset. I don't personally believe that they're out to shun or ignore or shut out folks who are in favor of SGRAs. I actually feel really bad for them when they can't tell us about all the cool stuff coming down the pike at some point. However, I tend to agree that the gag orders seem very strict and the paucity of information doesn't help them. I'm hopeful that recent statements from Joveth that they're going to try and be more communicative will pan out. Of course, they could tell us everything and there'd still be some people grousing about it. I have a suspicion that if F2P launching now wasn't part of their original gameplan, the SGR situation would have stayed on the original 'by the time the year is up' hints. But crap happened, and thus the gameplan had to change. However, I do not believe they have forgotten us or changed their minds. I have faith they would have (regretfully) told us so if they had decided to scrap it. Patience.

I had some thoughts on this very sensitive matter, the delays, and my opinions on what it would take to actually implement them, and then they kinda turned into something that has since been termed an 'essay'. I've seen commentary on the subject range from polite requests for information, deep frustration at the delay, to demands and diatribes, and I would like to share my opinions on this topic with the community. I hope it may be of some use to my fellow players. However, due to the fact the resulting piece turned into a 6-page document in Word, I'll spare everyone and simply link the post I made in my own blog. http://druidsfire.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/same-gender-romance-in-tor/ Thank you for reading, and I hope you all have a good day.