I just managed it on a Marauder with my best healer companion. I got her through the Jensyn fight at the end. Totally cool and shocking.

It's new. We spent over the holidays raking them over the coals for not communicating/reiterating their promise to add the arcs....I am certain that after the community managers and folks in charge read e-mail/post after email/post emphasizing their terrible communication skills, they took the road they should have ages ago and formally confirm their intent. ~J

That is your opinion, and you are entitled to it. But..yes it is on BW and EA. Based on their history with same gender relationships in game content, many of us who have been long time fans of BW and loyal customers anticipated SGR content. What we did not anticipate was it turning into a public relations three-ring circus. Happy Holidays.

Not to agree with them, but overlaying new dialogue (retrofitting) is always challenging. It calls for a new layer of programming (that could 'break' existing dialogue) Frankly, it is easier from a development standpoint add new, independent companions that are SGRA driven. Story is not hard, computer scripting is challenging and nitpicky. I am not certain that the idea that old companions are going to be retrofitted was ever in the works. That means Theran, Corso, Kaliyo and others that just beg to be SGRA oriented likely will not be. I could be wrong though.

It is not too late when they promised the content. No change in affection is required for current relationships...and frankly, the old "majority rules" argument is problematic. To be charitable, I will not go into great detail as to how much the "straight, white, male" crowd is unthinkingly given preference (privilege) in every facet of modern life. Delivering on your product promises is beneficial in the fact that you keep players that you would have lost who will , in turn, happily tell friends who left, who will likely come back. It is better than where they are at right now. This is turning into a public relations nightmare for them, if they don't deliver they lose more numbers and get no opportunity to rehabilitate a sullied reputation. The calculus is simple to make. Do the right thing, keep and add people. Don't do the right thing, lose people and reputation. ~J

I was referring to PM's...

They are contractually barred from discussing specifics about the amount of time they worked and fiduciary renumeration they received, they are also contractually barred from discussing the details of what voice work they were contracted to complete. This is standard operating procedure for SAG-AFTRA voice acting contracts. Since EA/BioWare is signatory to SAG-AFTRA union agreements, they are prohibited from hiring non-union talent. We could get a fair idea of need from internal announcements regarding auditions...but that would not yield specifics. ~J

I never heard from at all...so this is different how?

I have no beef with Allison, but I am so tired of seeing the community treated distantly. Oh...how about those SGRA's you guys promised? Any progress on that? ~JC

Many people asking about SGRA's in that thread. I will add my voice shortly, but I had to scream about Hickman and the Life Day speeder. Utterly amateurish crap. ~J

...and with good reason, the speeder looks like a futuristic lawnmower with "Life Day" (Christmas) lights. I know a fair number of Full Sail graduates who would be embarassed to put such a crappy piece of animation into the game, much less monetize it. I swear, you could put "Toro" on the grill and no one would be surprised. Allison, I love you, but it appears you and your bosses seem to think we are cattle with wallets. It's all good when a "secret" leads to hot new content, but when the "secret" makes a wet, disgusting sound when it hits the sidewalk, that qualifies as both a PR and developmental failure. Not spending a dime until we get some specifics. ~JC

I am well into the process of certifying natashina for sainthood. The amount of sheer dedication she has put into this process has gone far above and beyond ordinary effort. A rousing "thank you" is in order for her. As all my Faire friends say, "Hip, hip....HUZZAH!" ~JC

Terrific work, natashina. ~J p.s. good luck on the tooth extraction.

What happened with SWTOR? Overpromised game with underpromised results. It was released too soon (rushed) with class A and B bugs in the "finished" product. Not that EA/BW is any more or less guilty of that than other game publishers. The result is what you see....a game with about 10 US servers (superservers?) and 6-8 RoTW servers. At publication, there were around 120+ servers. Customer service is downright lousy, community managers do their jobs unevenly....a recipe that lead to early FTP and a mad scramble to stabilize revenue in order to keep the game viable. EA went from a high of $61.52 per share after the BW acquisition to around $15.00 per share USD. ...ah, but don't you worry, all is well...there is nothing wrong with the game...the Emperor is wearing a lovely set of ermine robes and a silk ensemble that would make any royal envious....

Excellent column, badlydrawnroy. I hope it adds to our discussion of SGRA's here.

While this statement is a good sign, it does not suffice a dev actually making an official statement on the public record, preferably HallHood or other senior developer. The cat is very much out of the bag now. Keep the pressure up. ~JC

*carefully worded* What happened while I was at dinner? ~JC

Thank you, Dark Trooper. I appreciate any of our allies who go into the breach with us. To share your story with GLAAD...if you will pardon the pun, gladdens my heart. I will be very sorry to see Uluain (sp?) go, he is our heart and spirit, may he finds happiness in the Shire or wherever he hangs his virtual hat. Might I recommend he go see a friend of mine about a kinship? I am the former Guildmaster of Knights of the White Lady on Landroval server, and the founding GM took over after I retired. He goes by the handle of Calafalas. h/t to everyone. ~JC

Brief update, Hall Hood either is not allowed to or has chosen not to receive PMs. I sent the CC to JovethGonzalez. Happy to see GLAAD reaching out to EA/BioWare! Keep those e-mails and letters going! ~JC

This is a copy of a snail mail letter to GLAAD sent on behalf of myself and signed by other academics at my home university. Names have been redacted. A courtesy copy will be sent to Hal Hood via PM. (Salutation) My name is REDACTED, I am an academic and Historian of Sexuality at the University of REDACTED. I am also an openly gay man who plays computer games, specifically Massively Multiplayer Role-playing Games. I am a member of the forum community as well. The publisher of Star Wars the Old Republic, BioWare in the past has had an admirable record about LGBT content and favorable portrayals of LGBT characters. I regret to say that their excellent history (under the guidance of Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk who were co-founders of BioWare) has taken a turn for the worse. Muzyka and Zeschuk have retired to private life and BioWare Austin, who leads the development of SWTOR after making a promise of inclusion of Same Gender Romance Arcs in the game have gone unresponsive and silent to requests for information about the promised development of these Arcs. There is only one tightly moderated thread in an odd location for the discussion of these arcs. I have taken the liberty of sending private messages to community moderators and the current Community Moderator Joveth Gonzalez suggesting that it might be beneficial if BioWare addressed these matters openly sooner, rather than later. It has been over one week and I have received no reply. Others have also reached out to moderators and have been ignored. We have been mostly polite and respectful in requesting information of any sort from BioWare. We have asked questions in anticipation of LiveStream events (upwards of 25% of the thread was taken up with requests for information from the developers) and these questions were not addressed at all. This lack of communication has dragged on for close to 9 months now and this was content promised by the design team lead last year, Stephen Reid. We feel isolated and unappreciated, most of us have been subscribers to the game for over a year now and also participated in beta tests for the game. I can safely say that I believe that this lack of communication has grown problematic. Being isolated and restricted to one thread feels discrimatory, getting no response feels like punishment, and all of this could have been avoided by better communication by BioWare. You may feel free to contact me directly via e-mail or mobile phone. Best regards, Keep it going guys. ~JC

I won't hear anything until probably Monday or Tuesday. That is way of things I suppose. You know I am GLAD someone shot BW the middle finger. The more I deal with this issue, the more I begin to believe that punishing BW monetarily and in the public eye will be the only logical course of action. Corporations seem to only respond to stuff that hurts their public image and bottom line. I hope so as well. It would be nice if someone was human enough to actually respond to our concerns. ~JC

I have taken the next step and communicated with the community manager Joveth Gonzalez, it remains to be seen if he will reply to my PM. Keep those e-mails and letters going to GLAAD, folks. All we want is an honest answer...instead of the great wall of mod and dev silence. ~JC

No one got banned. My "polite but firm" advice was simply advice. It seems BW wants to do this the hard way. I think it is time that BW get some bad pub on this. GLAAD is an excellent start, I will talk to a couple of my colleagues at my university who actually know some folks in the organization and get back to you all within a few days. ~JC

Perhaps, but I would advise you not to hold your breath, I won't believe it until a dev announces that SGRA's are coming with a definite date and update number. ~JC Cynic

I have added my question(s) to the Live Stream 2 topic in General. My questions are on page 10 and I quote fabiyun's specific question about SGR's. I recommend we all add a question to it by quoting each other so they cannot say it was an isolated question. ~JC