Same gender relationships clarifications?

[Banesrage]

I'm actually finding myself not playing my alts until the S/S is here. The only exception is my Agent, because I don't really feel like I'd romance Vector, if he were yo be a S/S option :|

 

I guess I can keep playing my Agent.

 

Forever.

 

My male agent has 2 wives. Had the possibility for a third had I played cards right before chpt 3.

[Eanelinea]

If they DID decide to incorporate same sex in our current companions, they have to look at these companions and determine 'okay, would Corso be het, bi or gay?'

 

They can't just say 'okay everyone's bi and there ya go'

 

You wouldn't flip a switch on a real human and say 'okay every human in existence is bisexual so everyone has the opportunity to get their man/woman.'

 

From my understanding, they were thinking of making the NEWER companions we get later on having the same sex options.

 

I can't quite picture certain companions being gay, lesbian or bisexual.

 

Though I CAN see Quinn being bi.

[Crezelle]

i just hope the new set of companions aren't steryotypicaly homosexual.

" why heloooooooo~ i'm happy to be welcomed aboard! Oh my the decor on this ship is sooooo DREARY! this won't do at all, tsk tsk"

[Zandilar]

If they DID decide to incorporate same sex in our current companions, they have to look at these companions and determine 'okay, would Corso be het, bi or gay?'

 

They can't just say 'okay everyone's bi and there ya go'

 

You wouldn't flip a switch on a real human and say 'okay every human in existence is bisexual so everyone has the opportunity to get their man/woman.'

 

From my understanding, they were thinking of making the NEWER companions we get later on having the same sex options.

 

I can't quite picture certain companions being gay, lesbian or bisexual.

 

Though I CAN see Quinn being bi.

 

A couple of observations...

 

1) Sexuality isn't a three way switch, it's a spectrum, and people can sit anywhere on that spectrum. There really are some people out there who just haven't met the right man/woman, while there are some people who are at one extreme or the other.

 

You'll never know someone's sexuality unless they blatantly tell you, and even then you can't be 100% sure because people do lie to themselves, or are unaware of their own sexuality. (I'd put it into context with my own experiences of my own sexuality but it's too complex to outline here, plus it's way off topic.)

 

Sexuality is far more complicated than most people think.

 

2) If you never flirt with X companion, you'll never know if they'd be into you. Therefore you're free to think of them as straight/gay/bisexual/whatever. Think of those flirt options as "What if" moments, and if you select them you get transported into an alternate universe where X companion is Y sexuality.

Edited March 18, 2012 by Zandilar

[amnie]

If they DID decide to incorporate same sex in our current companions, they have to look at these companions and determine 'okay, would Corso be het, bi or gay?'

 

They can't just say 'okay everyone's bi and there ya go'

 

You wouldn't flip a switch on a real human and say 'okay every human in existence is bisexual so everyone has the opportunity to get their man/woman.'

 

From my understanding, they were thinking of making the NEWER companions we get later on having the same sex options.

 

I can't quite picture certain companions being gay, lesbian or bisexual.

 

Though I CAN see Quinn being bi.

 

considering that Croso is the stereotype of a the 'all-american' farm boy from Texas (yeeha? seriously, bioware?)... they obiviously do have quite the humour. and now I'll tell you something: just because someone was raised to treat a lady nicely doesn't mean that he's not more interested in courting a man aswell. I mean, he's a companion for the smuggler, after all. I don't know about .your. smuggler (if you play one) but .mine. is most certainly not a 'lady' and taught Corso not to go all mushy on her. (granted he still wrote her that weird mail after he proposed to her but we're working on it)

 

you know what's funny about sexuality? it's not something you can see. in the past Bioware has managed to create quite stereotypical people and such who are just the way they are. y'know, kinda.. like in real life (which is funny since it's all obviously not real)

 

 

oh yeah, I just remembered...

 

y'know, as a LS sith warrior you .can. [flirt] with Jaesa, however, being the goody good jedi she is, she says 'let's be friends, this is not the way to go' (derp).... you know what a friend of mine thought when that happened? well he thought 'ok I guess Vette is the heterosexual option and Jaesa is the homosexual option'... I had to tell him that is not the case as it's actually not in game. he was rather disappointed about that, too (I really do hope he's not into Quinn )

Edited March 18, 2012 by amnie

[Suaine]

If they DID decide to incorporate same sex in our current companions, they have to look at these companions and determine 'okay, would Corso be het, bi or gay?'

 

They can't just say 'okay everyone's bi and there ya go'

 

You wouldn't flip a switch on a real human and say 'okay every human in existence is bisexual so everyone has the opportunity to get their man/woman.'

 

From my understanding, they were thinking of making the NEWER companions we get later on having the same sex options.

 

I can't quite picture certain companions being gay, lesbian or bisexual.

 

Though I CAN see Quinn being bi.

 

They already said they knew which characters would be what sexuality. They don't have to determine anything, because they've done that long ago.

 

However, I would like to point out that there is nothing inherently wrong with characters being hero-sexual (aka being whatever orientation that matches the player character for each specific player). These characters are not people. We've discussed this before, but it appears worth mentioning again. They have a fairly narrow purpose in the narrative and are already quite customizable, from skin and hair color to cases where you can change their alignment with the force.

 

For any given player, there is a sort of pocket universe in which only one Corso and one Smuggler exists. Depending on the gender of the Smuggler, Corso could easily be thought of as completely gay or completely straight, just like he's white for some and black for others. They apparently have tastes that range from skinny Zabrak to bulky Sith purebloods to AI holograms.

 

Sexuality is a pretty wide spectrum in the general population anyway and these labels we like to throw around have no meaning outside of what a person identifies themselves as. In that sense, the companions probably aren't gay, straight or bisexual, because these particular terms aren't used in the Star Wars universe. But whether or not any companion might be interested in people of their own or opposite gender is not something you can just judge based on stereotypes or this limited picture we have of their personality.

 

We'll see what the writers come up with, but I would be careful ruling out any of the current companions based on what we can imagine, particularly if we look at them with certain stereotypes as our only guidance. A gay character can be any personality, with any upbringing, the same as a straight character. These things are correlated only in how much pressure each can put on the other (say, a pureblood Sith feeling like they have to find an opposite-gender partner for the purpose of an heir despite their own feelings on the matter) but they are never in a causal relationship.

[sparklecat]

Yeah, I think it's kinda amusing how many people have no problem with the idea that an NPC is interested in any character, any look, and personality type you can possibly create, so long as they're the right gender, but as soon as you change the latter, cries of "but it's not realistic!" pop up.

[Captain_Zone]

They already said they knew which characters would be what sexuality. They don't have to determine anything, because they've done that long ago.

 

However, I would like to point out that there is nothing inherently wrong with characters being hero-sexual (aka being whatever orientation that matches the player character for each specific player). These characters are not people. We've discussed this before, but it appears worth mentioning again. They have a fairly narrow purpose in the narrative and are already quite customizable, from skin and hair color to cases where you can change their alignment with the force.

 

For any given player, there is a sort of pocket universe in which only one Corso and one Smuggler exists. Depending on the gender of the Smuggler, Corso could easily be thought of as completely gay or completely straight, just like he's white for some and black for others. They apparently have tastes that range from skinny Zabrak to bulky Sith purebloods to AI holograms.

 

Sexuality is a pretty wide spectrum in the general population anyway and these labels we like to throw around have no meaning outside of what a person identifies themselves as. In that sense, the companions probably aren't gay, straight or bisexual, because these particular terms aren't used in the Star Wars universe. But whether or not any companion might be interested in people of their own or opposite gender is not something you can just judge based on stereotypes or this limited picture we have of their personality.

 

We'll see what the writers come up with, but I would be careful ruling out any of the current companions based on what we can imagine, particularly if we look at them with certain stereotypes as our only guidance. A gay character can be any personality, with any upbringing, the same as a straight character. These things are correlated only in how much pressure each can put on the other (say, a pureblood Sith feeling like they have to find an opposite-gender partner for the purpose of an heir despite their own feelings on the matter) but they are never in a causal relationship.

 

A lot to think about. Btw, I have another character for you to add to your sig. Yes, I LOVE Ivanova on B-5!

Anyhow, Inara on Firefly/Serenity is also bisexual. Love her too. <3

[amnie]

Yeah, I think it's kinda amusing how many people have no problem with the idea that an NPC is interested in any character, any look, and personality type you can possibly create, so long as they're the right gender, but as soon as you change the latter, cries of "but it's not realistic!" pop up.

 

you know, I was actually thinking about this the other day... the whole costumization of the companions. I did feel bad giving Corso another look. He was actually the only one where I did that. I kept the original one with all my other companions. but I certainly won't be bothered by him being 'straight' for my female smuggler and possibly gay for my male smuggler. (and maybe I'll keep his original looks for that aswell, though I'm kinda used to the costumization now. ha)

[MusedMoose]

you know, I was actually thinking about this the other day... the whole costumization of the companions. I did feel bad giving Corso another look. He was actually the only one where I did that. I kept the original one with all my other companions. but I certainly won't be bothered by him being 'straight' for my female smuggler and possibly gay for my male smuggler. (and maybe I'll keep his original looks for that aswell, though I'm kinda used to the costumization now. ha)

I don't usually do customizations for my companions either; I tend to get used to their appearances early on and changing them seems strange. (I also just plain don't understand why people change Mako away from her uber-cute original appearance.) There are a few exceptions, though. I had to go with the red-and-grey Khem Val, because it just looks so darn evil. And I had T7 go blue, but I figured just putting some different color panels on a droid is no big deal, they probably do it themselves from time to time. And I went with darker skin and black hair for Elara just... because.

 

But you got me thinking with what you said about Corso being gay for one of your Smugglers and straight for another. It's an unusual thing BioWare's doing here, with the possibility (I'm hoping) of companions being romance options for both PC genders. On my Smuggler, I plan to have him pursue both Risha and Akaavi, mostly because I've heard they'll eventually fight over the Smuggler and make him choose, which sounds hilarious and is something I have to do. I plan to have my Smuggler choose Akaavi, but I can see it being an odd experience when I finally get around to playing a female Smuggler and go for Risha if she's an option. From what BW said at the guild summit, it seems that the SGR dialogue stuff will be different than the OGR, so it'll be interesting to see how that goes.

 

Ideally I'll end up playing every class as both genders eventually, but that's a lot of game time.

[Suaine]

I don't usually do customizations for my companions either; I tend to get used to their appearances early on and changing them seems strange. (I also just plain don't understand why people change Mako away from her uber-cute original appearance.) There are a few exceptions, though. I had to go with the red-and-grey Khem Val, because it just looks so darn evil. And I had T7 go blue, but I figured just putting some different color panels on a droid is no big deal, they probably do it themselves from time to time. And I went with darker skin and black hair for Elara just... because.

 

I've found that I am more likely to customize when it seems like something that could happen in reality - changing the paint job/casing on a droid, giving Bowdaar a vest to wear, even different hair colors and face paint.

 

However, that doesn't take away from the simple fact that we can change hair texture, skin color and facial features, especially for the romanceable companions. It's nice having the option to romance someone who looks attractive to you, to have some choice in the matter. In that vein, sexuality as just another level of customization for a companion is not a gamebreaking issue. It would just be nice.

 

But you got me thinking with what you said about Corso being gay for one of your Smugglers and straight for another. It's an unusual thing BioWare's doing here, with the possibility (I'm hoping) of companions being romance options for both PC genders. On my Smuggler, I plan to have him pursue both Risha and Akaavi, mostly because I've heard they'll eventually fight over the Smuggler and make him choose, which sounds hilarious and is something I have to do. I plan to have my Smuggler choose Akaavi, but I can see it being an odd experience when I finally get around to playing a female Smuggler and go for Risha if she's an option. From what BW said at the guild summit, it seems that the SGR dialogue stuff will be different than the OGR, so it'll be interesting to see how that goes.

 

Ideally I'll end up playing every class as both genders eventually, but that's a lot of game time.

 

I don't think many of my characters would make use of the jealousy feature, but it would be awesome to see Akaavi and Corso fight over a Smuggler (of either gender), it really would.

[amnie]

agreed, that could be something extremely interesting, not to say hilarious

[MusedMoose]

I don't think many of my characters would make use of the jealousy feature, but it would be awesome to see Akaavi and Corso fight over a Smuggler (of either gender), it really would.

...and now you've got me thinking. With SGRs in place, every single class has the potential to have their companions fighting over the PC. Some classes could have three companions fighting over them. This is kind of hilarious and awesome and I can't stop grinning at the thought.

 

I can just imagine how the various companions would handle this, among those I know well enough to say. Aric and Elara would have some serious problems, what with being part of the same squad and chain of command and all that. I'm pretty sure BioWare said that they didn't want there to be ways for companions to leave the PC permanently, but I can definitely see one of them considering leaving Havoc Squad because of this.

 

I know that Akaavi is willing to fight Risha over the Smuggler, so likely she'd say the same to Corso, or to both of them if necessary. I don't really see Corso wanting to share, and I have no idea if Risha would. Wouldn't surprise me too much, but still.

 

As for the Sith Warrior... well, that'd just be one giant ship filled with awkward, that's all I can say about that.

 

And for some reason I picture Kaliyo being very possessive once she has what she wants and being utterly unwilling to share. Hrm.

[amnie]

oh yeah Corso would definitely be all 'no way!' haha.

 

but the thought of the sith warrior ship full of awkward makes me giggle madly

 

 

 

 

btw.. I wonder if we ever see any 'companion romance', I mean that two companions actually realise they like each other. I mean, they are on the ship all day, hanging out together, they obviously either start disliking or liking each other (as an example it's pretty obvious that Quinn and Pierce kinda don't like each other at all, buuut that might also be because Quinn secretly has the hots for all manly-man pierce. lol... ok ok my phantasies are going crazy)

Edited March 19, 2012 by amnie

[Captain_Zone]

And for some reason I picture Kaliyo being very possessive once she has what she wants and being utterly unwilling to share. Hrm.

 

That brings up a very valid point. Kaliyo DOES get possessive. I noticed early on that every time I flirted with Watcher 2, I lost affection points with Kaliyo. Yet every time I flirted with some other woman, I GAINED affection points with Kaliyo. If Kaliyo sees the woman as "one-nighter" material, she's cool with it. But if she sees the woman as "relationship" material, out come the claws. lol

 

After the IA sleeps with Kaliyo the first time, her mood on that changes and you lose affection with her EVERY time you flirt with another woman. lol

[Jenovan]

btw.. I wonder if we ever see any 'companion romance', I mean that two companions actually realise they like each other. I mean, they are on the ship all day, hanging out together, they obviously either start disliking or liking each other (as an example it's pretty obvious that Quinn and Pierce kinda don't like each other at all, buuut that might also be because Quinn secretly has the hots for all manly-man pierce. lol... ok ok my phantasies are going crazy)

 

This actually does happen for one class in particular -- the Bounty Hunter.

 

 

Depending on your comparative affection levels with both of them, and whether or not you've started flirting with whichever one of them is eligible, Mako and Torian can have a brief relationship, if you encourage them to do so. (You can actively discourage them, too They ask you about it first.) It's only temporary, though, and you can romance them after it ends.

 

Edited March 19, 2012 by Jenovan

[amnie]

ohhhh neat

[LyriaFrost]

I don't usually do customizations for my companions either; I tend to get used to their appearances early on and changing them seems strange. (I also just plain don't understand why people change Mako away from her uber-cute original appearance.)

 

I hate Mako's default hairstyle. It just looks so ugly. I gave her the "wedge" hairstyle (it's like female hairstyle #3 or #4), and I think she looks really cute with it. I think it's customization #8 or something. One of the first ones you're given.

[hephaestuss]

I would love to have my female bh hoke up w/mako.

[EraniBW]

I would love to have my female bh hoke up w/mako.

 

I'd love that too! I have a female chiss BH and think they'd make a really cute couple.

[MusedMoose]

I would love to have my female bh hoke up w/mako.

Seconded. ...okay, I'm hardly just the second to say that in these threads, but you get the idea. This is the entire reason why my BH is just chilling on Dromund Kaas with Mako, waiting until that romance is possible so that she doesn't miss a thing.

 

In somewhat related news, we got some interesting news about the upcoming Legacy system today. You can set two of your own characters of the same gender as a married couple:

http://mmo-mechanics.com/news.php?article=1-2-legacy-system-preview

Whether it actually confers any benefits, I don't know, but I think it's awesome that BioWare didn't restrict this. The rest of the article has a bunch of interesting stuff, but it's not relevant to this thread.

[Dariog]

hello everyone after reading through dozens of pages on this thread I would like to know whats the current state with the issue?

 

Can we expect same sex romance to be implemented soon? Is there anything official on it?

 

My main concern is I dont want to go too far into the game and miss out this having to replay the whole story with same class and just change sex.

 

Thanks in advance!

[emusan]

hello everyone after reading through dozens of pages on this thread I would like to know whats the current state with the issue?

 

Can we expect same sex romance to be implemented soon? Is there anything official on it?

 

My main concern is I dont want to go too far into the game and miss out this having to replay the whole story with same class and just change sex.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

The only estimate we have is from the guild summit and is "before the end of the year," along with other story content...

[BuckyCameron]

I have no problem with it. As long as it doesn't take out any actual chat options, im completley fine. Sure, a UI option would be nice to hide it, but I'm fine with it.

[MusedMoose]

I have no problem with it. As long as it doesn't take out any actual chat options, im completley fine. Sure, a UI option would be nice to hide it, but I'm fine with it.

 

Welcome to the thread, good to see you have no problem with it. Just so you know, BioWare's position on any option to hide the SGR dialogue options is as follows:

Discussion of the implementation of toggles to filter same gender romance options is considered discriminatory language and is neither appropriate nor allowed on the forums. Posts along this vein of discussion will be removed.

Please see Moitteva's post on page 79 of this thread for the whole thing, though I've posted the relevant part. Just wanted to make sure you're aware, as this is a topic we've discussed extensively before and it's no longer allowed.

Edited March 20, 2012 by MusedMoose