I read the topic and made a little thinking of my own, and I would like to offer my conclusions to you. Not really a full-thought project, just a draft, but still... (NB : English is not my first language, so please be kind toward any mistake or unclarity I shall commit... ) As Losdia said in the OP, most roles are already covered. Except for maybe unarmed and non-lightsaber melee (some said Teras Kasi, others think of Echani or Mandalorians...) ; some kind of creature/droid handler (but which would need a specific companion-system different from other classes) ; and a primary buff/debuff role - that's the last which inspired my musing. Yes, it's a more group-oriented gameplay ; but, not necessarily more than a full healer, and since there are companions to accompany the player, that's not completely solo-unfriendly. Moreover, I think adding more classes would target essentially old players, maybe even require some kind of unlock (legacy, or cartel market) ; then classes demanding more skill are not out of the question. Now, for the mechanic of the class, some people (JacksonMo in this precise topic) stressed the issue of the four primary stat. Well, creating a fifth seems unlikely, but that does not mean we have to choose one of the four existent to our new class. Let's imagine : at first, since this class would be the most fragile solo-wise, levelling would concentrate mainly on rising endurance. Then, at specialisation, each AC tree's special powers will benefit from a secondary stat, gained from stuff. As for Advanced Class, I think this could be a class without DPS spec : all classic classes have a DPS spec, and as I said before, this class target more advanced gameplays. So I will be seeing, for instance : as the common tree, passive abilities benefiting self-preservation : personnal shield, evasion tactics, aggro removers, etc. Then, each advanced class would have its own buff/debuff spec tree - one more "buff", the other more "debuff". Finally, one of the spec would have a tank/debuff tree, the other, a heal/buff tree. To continue with my idea of primary stat adapted to specialisation, let's say the tank tree would benefit from strength, the heal tree from willpower , the debuff tree from aim, and the buff tree from cunning. Now, for the aspect and lore of the class, I think cannot avoid doing, some day or another, the very famous Imperial Guard. The buff/debuff mechanic could be defended story-wise by a strong "band of brother" spirit among the Imperial Guards, and that's a way to differentiate the class from the Republic Soldier. As for the republic side, I rather agree with Galandro that the Leia/Padme archetype is not really represented by the IA, and a senate/political class would be interessant. The buff/debuff mechanic would be justified by their charismatic point of view, based on democratic principles. I would call thme "nobles" though, as TOR classes all have a the name of a profession ; senate councillor, or some senator's aid, would be better - which does not forbid to mad the story-class rooted in a noble background, just in the same fashion as Lastly, this doesn't necessary need new beginning planets : for instance, they could just add a zone to capital planets (Coruscant and Dromund Kaas), in the same fashion the added a HL zone to Corellia, and this would be fine story-wise for the classes I depicted...

Although I'm pretty sure this thread is not really a dialog, I can't stop hoping some people actually try to think, so, let's repeat, again : * a game character, be it playable or not, is not representative at all of the opinion or values of the people and company who designed it. That's common sense, since any game include both "heroes" and "villains". RPGs in particular have always tend to reject any manicheism and offer a whole continuum of characters which are not totally heroic or evil. As a consequence : Bioware including the dimension of sexual orientation into the panel of (already multiple) characterization tools says nothing of any kind of "agenda". Character creation is pure scenaristic and dramatic technicality, not promoting a "real life" social role model. It's as silly as claiming Shakespeare is "promoting" regicide in Hamlet. And what about TV serial producers that decided to produce Dexter ? * scripted character design is one thing, playable character design can be seen as another. When you play most video games, from Mario Bros to Resident Evil, the character you play is a "hero" in every definitions of the word : not only the main protagonist, but also a "good" person - not necessary a perfect saint, but a "prodigal son" who will make the right choice in the end. Ultimately, someone the player can genuinely identify to. That is not the case of RPG. RPG lets you play any kind of character, good or evil, selfish or altruist, brave or cowardish, loyal or opportunist... anything. Granted, some players may want to create a character that would represent their ideal fantasized self - but that cannot be held at the norm. Hence, any kind of argument in this particular thread that implies that gay characters are played by gay players, or any other assumption linking a RP experience to any real-life characteristic of gamers makes no sense. So long for trying to determine which proportion of the gaming community might or not be interested in such a feature... * As confusing as could be the term "role-playing game" to non-initiated people, this is nothing like theater and does NOT mean "acting a fictitious character according to some script given to us by the author". This is, actually, the definition of ANY computer game BUT role-palying games : think of Mario Bros. What is an RPG then ? Well, to go on with my comparison to theater, it is more like commedia dell'arte : improvising a completely new character from a script that is partial, stereotypical, and gives to the player a wide, almost infinite, freedom of interpretation. Now we are not playing a pen & paper RPG, nor a LARP, but a computer game, which limits a lot this freedom : whatever situation our character may be facing in a dialog, he would always get no more and no less than three choices. We players have to satisfy us with that. And it's not a problem, because in most choices, three is enough : when it's a moral dilemma, we can take lightside, darkside, or a more neutral stance ; when it's a question of flaunting one's loyalty, we can say only our faction matters, we can say we care only for ourselves, or we can appeal to more moral values ("I will do this quest because it's the right thing to do"). Now what about flirt options ? I'll have two examples here (they relate mostly to the Imperial Agent class, and I believe I phrased them vaguely enough to prevent spoiling anyone) ; firstly, let's begin with what I'd call "honest" flirts, i.e, flirts that do reflect my character's orientation. Let's say my class quest leads me to work temporarily with some NPC on one given planet. This NPC happen to be of the same gender of my character. As I follow the scenario, I accomplish one objective, then get said NPC an the holocom, exchange a few words, then turn off the holocom, and have my companion comment about the way my character was or wasn't getting along with that NPC. In this conversation, my companion happen to banter about said NPC being cute, to which I can answer... well, three different ways of asserting my character is not interested in same-gender relationship. See how frustrating that can be ? Now for the second example : "dishonest" flirt. Most quests in the game consist of getting an order from someone, eliminating a bunch of NPCs, then reporting to the quest giver. Sometimes however, it is possible to alter this through dialog : convince the quest giver to do something more subtle, convince your target to trade money for their life, etc., etc. It's called corruption. Some of this alternative ways of completing a quest use flirt dialogue as a manipulative weapon. Why would gender matter, my character isn't doing this for pleasure, he's doing it because it's the most easy way to achieve his mission ! * Last point is, actually, a little off topic since it concerned mostly companions' romances, but still : what people sometimes don't get is how Bioware and other companies have decided, roughly since the development of Kotor, and, especially, Kotor 2 even if it's not Bioware work, that a true hero shall be charismatic enough to influence people that would pledge allegiance to him. The player will not only decide what his main character will be and do, he will then be empowered with the ability to twist companion characters to the likeness of their main characters. After all, in solo-RPG that got a (little) strategy dimension like the Kotor and Dragon Age series, the player actually controls the whole of his party outside dialog, and can switch from one to another during combat, exploration, and leveling - hence the idea that a player is not role-playing a character, but that he is in fact roleplaying a whole team. This stance is highly debatable and debated among role-players, anyway, it's the way TOR works. You can change what your companions look like, you can change some companion's lightside/darkside alinement, and yes, why not, you make them fall in love with the main character; whatever is gender is. It's what some people call "hero-sexualism", and it's not strictly speaking bisexualism : in DA2, one can still doubt Fenris might fall for any other man than the hero of Kirkwall - actually if you romanced him while in full Rivalry, you can see how much he's trying (pointlessly) to fight his feelings. To conclude this looooong post : the inclusion of same-gender flirt options shall be seen as what is : a more balanced role-play "flirt" mechanism. It has NOTHING to do with Bioware's opinion on real-life same-gender relationship, NOTHING to do with gamers' opinions on real-life same-gender relationship, NOTHING to do on general with any kind of moral judgement upon same-gender romance and sexuality. A game mechanism is something that let you choose how your character behave, and calculate coldly and non-judgementaly whatever consequences you will face (both in your head and in the NPCs eventual reactions). (Actually, more generally, a game don't even care if you lose or win, right ? "You want to jump from this high mountain ? Fine, I'll give you 30000 damage points. What next ?")

One issue is if there's a toggle, why not more ? What possibly offensive dialog options (because in terms of game mechanics, all this refers to dialog lines) deserve or not to be "toggle-able" ? As an imperial character, I have seen many NPC, either Sith Pureblood or Human, openly voicing their racism toward other species. This IS offensive. Don't you think people who experience racism in real life would like to benefit from a relief while gaming ? That life be unfair doesn't mean games have to be, it's the opposite actually, because games are supposed to be entertaining, and yes, some people like to play fairy tales. This was just one example. As soon as one option becomes "toggle-able", there is no justification Bioware could deny other options to be toggle-able - and they just can't implement toggles on every possible way a character could be offensive to certain people.

This feature is indeed needed. And not only on the "romantic" point of view ! Some characters may flirt for their own epicurean pleasure (which typically fits a good portion of the smuggler class), but others only use it as a manipulative tool and thus don't even need to enjoy it (doesn't the standard imperial agents' training include "geisha arts" mastery ?).

You would probably have preferred Fenris's rivalry romance then, way better than whining Anders which I personally stopped following in act 2 as soon as I felt it would go such a boring way. Even if all romances in DA2, as you said, built up way too fast - which seems not to be the case in TOR, fortunately, in what I have seen so far.

Ah ? Honestly, I don't remember those, but maybe I was too much aware before playing of what will be the romanceable options to notice those. My mistake then. Anyway, this was a yes/no switch : Aveline would never yield however much you tried, while Anders would fall for you immediately and inconditionnally, barely knowing you and having a "mind guest" which should have divert him from any romance. An other aspect of the "harem" impression on DA2 came from the lack of confrontation : whenever you completed a romance, the game automatically reset all other companions to "non romanced", and everybody among your companion just seemed to be OK with your choice. Without any altercation scene as in DAO or ME (or like in what Kotor 2 should have been if truly completed before release, and yeah I know they weren't Bioware, but they were working on the same state of mind as Bioware), where potential lovers actually fought for your love ! What is the point of wooing someone who already adore you ? Choosing to romance a companion shouldn't be "just" a personalization of your side story, we are PLAYING and want challenge in every aspect of the game ! Enough of DA2 complaints however, romances are better written in TOR ; yet again, companion interaction are no challenge in TOR : why is it that in side quests (aka every quest except class quests or companion quests), they only lose -1 when disagreeing, whereas never gaining less than 15 when agreeing ? 'Probably being too demanding for a mmo though, comparing with solo-CRPG is not really fair. Which is why I'll probably be content with any implementation of s/s, as soon as it IS implemented...

Kaliyo is not only flirty to anyone, she also assumes anyone is bi - that's pretty blatant the way she and the PC (of whatever gender) banter about NPCs, take Sujan Pyne. Anyway, I must admit I can't really answer the second poll of the thread, I'm still not sure what feels best for gaming experience : * every romance-able companion / flirtable NPC optionally available to all players (i'm not saying "bi" anymore, I understood what some of you said about seeing it just as a way of personalization, just as the appearance is, or the lightside/darkside alinement) : I actually HAD this "harem impression" mentionned before in DA2. I know I could have just ignored the flirty options, but I wanted my Hawke to be the always-joking epicurian type, and, well, it always got serious too soon. * each companion / flirtable NPC has his own orientation (gay/bi/straight), written in stone, which would only be cool if there is at least one companion available for each sexual orientation and each gender of PC. And which would be way cooler (for realism's sake) if you could actually flirt with anybody, and get refusals when inappropriate. As for "aggressive" companions, well, the PC would also have the possibility to refuse with a clear answer, not just ignoring the tease long enough for the companion to abandon romance options. Upon reflexion, I think what bothers me about the first option, based on my DA2 experience, is that a flirting PC always succeed. Wooing is not easy, it shouldn't be just a railtrack of flirty lines. In previous Bioware games, back to Kotor when the lines weren't even marked as "flirty", there was actually several way to upset the companion and fail the romance, and not just after "getting the prize" (which was just a kiss in Kotor). I know it was a solo game, which meant you could always load a previous savegame, which is not possible on a MMO. But just as there are presently in the game more than enough different occasions to flirt (well, I never flirted with Kaliyo, I even told her on one of our ship conversations I saw her just as a friend, and I still have flirty lines possibility, which means I probably could change my mind and woo her successfully if I wanted to), so one mistake, one step back, wouldn't necessarily ruin the romance, and there would always be possibilities to make amend... Make romances harder ("harder" from the gameplay point of view of course), more progressive, and then, even if companions do try and flirt with you, it would be so subtle at first that no one would feel "aggressed", I'm pretty sure of it.

Of course that is not what I meant. A sensible point of view would be to say that each couple is different ; noneless, there are some archetypes, the reason why most people can rely (to a certain extent) to a sentimental comedy-type movie, or to a fairy tale. BUT the dynamics described by such archetypes are not *exactly* the same in a couple formed by two men, than in a couple formed by two women, or a couple formed by a man and a woman. Only a straight one could imagine that family roles of each in a same gender couple are inspired by the cultural model of the average straight married couple, and that one of the two "plays the male" and the other "plays the female". What I mean is, gender and sexual/romantic orientation both have consequences on someone's personnality and behaviour, and thus, whatever orientation is concerned, you don't flirt with a man *exactly* the way you flirt with a woman. [Of course gender and orientation are only a part of the numerous elements that define a personnality, and you can't simplify things saying all men (resp. women) likes to be courted the same way - that does not make my precedent comment less relevant]. The reason I stressed that is, some people on this thread considered it would be OK to use whatever dialog lines already exist, and simply make them available to the other gender ; well no, that would not necessary work. I don't mean either that will never work, of course, but some adjustements are necessary in the way companions address the player when it comes to expressing feelings : we all know guys are less explicit that girls on this matter, less talkative ; aware of this, a boy might force himself to tell his girlfriend phrases she feels in right to hear from him, but would rather keep in an implicit complicity with his boyfriend. And to take a more blatant exemple, well, most sexual innuendos in a conversation are absolutly gender-oriented. I'm pretty sure (not certain though) Anders and Fenris in DA 2 don't tell the same things to a fem Hawke that they tell a male one, and that companions' banter (which is not relevant in TOR since we only have one at a time) vary as well. These high hopes need applause, and of course that is what shall be - but in a realistic way, meaning, straight Bastila having a slightly different dialog tree that lesbian Bastila - same for Juhani, Atton, etc. Take Atton: there is a conversation between him and Bao-Dur regarding his feeling with the female Exile. Would this conversation have happen identically about a male Exile ? Would it even have taken place, considering Atton might want to ask for someone else's opinion than Bao Dur's on such a subject ? I mean, yeah - gay romance and "bromance" are absolutely not the same, and yet, boys will be boys !

That is right, to a certain extent. But what bothers people opposed to the "every romancable available to both gender" principle is that, given a companion named X, the relationship involving "straight X" will be exactly the mirror of a relationship involving "gay X". Well, it may suffice to some, but truth is a gay relationship is not born and does not develop the same way a straight one does. Changing the pronouns in the flirty dialog lines is not enough, because there are things one guy would naturally say to a woman, but wouldn't even think of telling a man, be he straight/gay/whatever. Presently, existing romancable companions are built to be straight - their behaviour, their attitude, is in tune with it. Not all of them would be credible as bi, and even given to option to flirt with them being from the same gender, it just wouldn't feel realistic. Of course, option 3 stays the most easy and quick way to allow SGRo, even more since depending of the class you have, you might have only one companion of a given gender potentially romancable. And I suppose anyone would be satisfied just with it, it's still better than nothing. But that it still would feel like a "repairing" of the original release, and somehow break the precise characterisation (core work of the scenarists of the game) of each companion...

Thanks Bioware for reposting this statement, some users on this forum might have been ignorant of it ; anyway, this topic itself wasn't ignorant of it. Back to original post : game is on since a little more than a month, we ARE post launch. The whole reason of this topic is to discuss how long it will take to implement, and since the time involved depends on the complexity of the implementation itself, to discuss also how it should be implemented. We are not just asking hungrily, nor whining, Bioware ; we try to think alongside you, in order to ease your devs work !

Not feeding the troll, just saying : TOR claims to be a "roleplaying" game, which is different to games having a defined character has a hero (like any other scenarised game, and also like pretty much any other storytelling medium : book, film, comic, etc.) : the purpose of roleplaying is that the character impersonated by the player is not determined by the scenario, but only by the gamer ; he shall be virtually able to be anyone and do anything - good or bad, moral or immoral, selfish or altruist, etc. - anything. As for players complaining about seeing ssr options pop into their conversation, well, a toggling box option in the game preferences would be in my opinion a rather lame option ; on the contrary, we should have flirty dialog option on anyone, companions and NPC (well almost anyone, I understand droids and non-humanoid species would be difficult and awkward to seduce), and not only those who actually are romancables ! Let me explain : as for now, and it's the case in any Bioware game, dialogue lines with the the [flirt] option only appear when speaking to someone that is romancable. That is highly unrealistic, people never know in advance if their flirt will be successful, not until they tried ! Pragmatically, I know very well it would be a huge work to implement this on NPCs (although it would be cool, for some classes as IA, bounty hunter, smuggler for instance, to use seduction in a secondary quest, even if it don't change the task nor the gain of the quest, just the dialog). But it will be much easier to do for companions : we just need to add a "refusal" voiced line to most companions. I think that would even make a situation where "every romancables are bi" less artificial (even if I for one would prefer each companion to have his/her specific orientation). Hope I explained what I meant clearly - please forgive me if it's not the case, English is not my mothertongue...