Same gender relationships clarifications?

[Artanisia]

Recent Tweet from Hall Hood:

 

Hello to all my new followers! My interview on Massively has understandably sparked lots of questions about future #SWTOR content. I'm excited to answer these questions, but please understand there's only so much I'm permitted to reveal right now. Stay tuned.

 

Combine that with the other quote from the Massively interview. I know, I should be a jaded cynic by now, but dammit I want to believe that it means what I am reading into it.

Edited November 29, 2012 by Artanisia

[Infir]

I might be too much of an optimist, but I'm still pretty hopeful for Makeb. While the confirmations were hushed up, the statement was never retracted, either.

[Rayla_Felana]

The Livestream was funny, they went on about every feature they talked about at the Guild Summit, but not SGRAs, Makeb was talked about as well, and they claimed it isn't immediate but not far off.

[MoogleNut]

The Livestream was funny, they went on about every feature they talked about at the Guild Summit, but not SGRAs, Makeb was talked about as well, and they claimed it isn't immediate but not far off.

 

Yeah, it was pretty much as expected - although it was nice to see Ms Berryman banning and deleting anti-sgra comments so that was a bright spot at least

[Slaign]

Q: What is the status of Makeb and when can we expect it? Schubert: We just did a playthrough of the Imperial story this week...

 

Emphasis mine. Looks like Makeb won't be true class stories, but rather a global storyline. Not sure what that indicates, if anything, about SGRAs. I'm wondering if Makeb might be closer to the scale of Section X than the true story expansion we've been hoping for.

[Raynezazki]

Probably more flirts/one night stands for heterosexual male PCs b/c the game is sorely lacking in that area.

XD

This made my day thank you lol

[fabiyun]

Yea, that was the LiveStream.

 

Some thoughts. Makeb is coming, but is still in the works. They're rather unclear about it, but I guess we can say that it's either the last patch of this year or the first next year. I think what's also become apparent is that Makeb won't be having any class story content. I also see no indication that Makeb will include new companions.

 

They're going to introduce some new game mechanics that could be seen as mini games or at least something new to do.

 

The Cathar are pretty sure to come this year. They'll be on the Cartel Market, and if it does well sales wise there'll be other races on the horizon.

 

Guild Summit lists are on the back burner. Not even on the list at this point. That should start a good flame about chat bubbles.

 

Holiday events. I expected news on that front. Holiday Cartel Items. And I do expect to hear about other events soon.

 

And then there were my questions. They've clearly read them well, they even went to wonder what's in my underpants (a great compliment, the attempt at not gendering me went well till it hit my bottoms). They chose to ignore them for the most part and took the opportunity to say something about F2P doing well. That is great news nonetheless. I can't say I didn't start that post without some politics. I hoped they'd pick up on the opportunity to say F2P is doing well, and then at least take notice of the rest, with of course the hope for an answer. But alas, the hope was in vane. They didn't answer it. Yet, they've done their piece of coming across as assuring. I do however think that SGRs are not going to happen anytime soon, definitely not this year, and I don't even expect it next year.

 

I'm not sure what to do with SWTOR. A good media explosion would make it a priority, but would we be happy with the results of a quick change or addition. I'm also really displeased with the silencing of this issue. Pretty much every thing on these forums gets addressed. But not SGRs, they're ignored, completely. And we're put in a box. I don't feel good about that. And I don't feel good reading and posting on these forums (hence my long disappearance and lurking since the closure of the old forums). It's disheartening.

[Slaign]

Q: How is the 6-8 week timeframe for new content going? Hickman: It's difficult, but it's going well. We'll probably have a 9 week period between the next update and the one after that just so our team can enjoy the holidays a bit. They were all in the office last year during the holidays for the launch, so we want to give them some time off this year. But after that, we should be going back to the 6-8 week turnaround time.

 

Estimated 9 weeks between the release of 1.6 and the next update puts us around February for when to expect it going live. That means we might see the next update on the PTR mid to late January. I wouldn't expect any new information until then at minimum.

[chuixupu]

Emphasis mine. Looks like Makeb won't be true class stories, but rather a global storyline. Not sure what that indicates, if anything, about SGRAs. I'm wondering if Makeb might be closer to the scale of Section X than the true story expansion we've been hoping for.

 

It was already said by Daniel Erickson back in July that Makeb would not contain class stories. But he also said it was going to be a very significant chunk of story. Nothing I've read indicates it's going to be as simple as seciton X. You can also take the mysterious comments about SGR's possibly being in Makeb to be a good indication even if that turns out to not be true, I don't think a developer would even THINK something that major would be in the patch if it was just a daily area.

 

However it does seem to me that they are in fact working on a major content expansion that Isn't Makeb, and that's reassuring.

[Slaign]

Yea, that was the LiveStream.

 

Some thoughts. Makeb is coming, but is still in the works. They're rather unclear about it, but I guess we can say that it's either the last patch of this year or the first next year. I think what's also become apparent is that Makeb won't be having any class story content. I also see no indication that Makeb will include new companions.

 

They're going to introduce some new game mechanics that could be seen as mini games or at least something new to do.

 

The Cathar are pretty sure to come this year. They'll be on the Cartel Market, and if it does well sales wise there'll be other races on the horizon.

 

Guild Summit lists are on the back burner. Not even on the list at this point. That should start a good flame about chat bubbles.

 

Holiday events. I expected news on that front. Holiday Cartel Items. And I do expect to hear about other events soon.

 

And then there were my questions. They've clearly read them well, they even went to wonder what's in my underpants (a great compliment, the attempt at not gendering me went well till it hit my bottoms). They chose to ignore them for the most part and took the opportunity to say something about F2P doing well. That is great news nonetheless. I can't say I didn't start that post without some politics. I hoped they'd pick up on the opportunity to say F2P is doing well, and then at least take notice of the rest, with of course the hope for an answer. But alas, the hope was in vane. They didn't answer it. Yet, they've done their piece of coming across as assuring. I do however think that SGRs are not going to happen anytime soon, definitely not this year, and I don't even expect it next year.

 

I'm not sure what to do with SWTOR. A good media explosion would make it a priority, but would we be happy with the results of a quick change or addition. I'm also really displeased with the silencing of this issue. Pretty much every thing on these forums gets addressed. But not SGRs, they're ignored, completely. And we're put in a box. I don't feel good about that. And I don't feel good reading and posting on these forums (hence my long disappearance and lurking since the closure of the old forums). It's disheartening.

 

I didn't see the live stream, I read the transcript on Darth Hater, but from what I can see that's a pretty accurate summation, but I think I saw a couple things differently.

 

I don't expect Cathar this year, for example, because of this quote:

 

Schubert: The timeframe for Cathar is in months, not years.

 

The timeframe to make it this year would have to be weeks. Months puts it more likely around the next update which they said will be around 9 weeks after 1.6

 

I was happy they at least read your question. When I saw that, I had hoped that they were going to address all of it, unfortunately they did not.

 

I think I agree with you on the pessimism towards SGRAs being a part of Makeb. The more I hear about it, the smaller it sounds. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to see a new planet, but the way they talk about it makes it sound as if it doesn't have individual class stories.

 

Still, it's possible that SGRAs aren't a part of Makeb, but are planned as part of the Makeb patch. I hope so.

 

Guess it's back to waiting to see.

[Baptes]

"Good god, the gays! Quick! Get the grey paint and the vacuums! There's glitter everywhere! Oh no here comes the fabulous steamroller!"

You know before I clicked the link, the very first image that came to mind...

 

 

I love that movie. When I heard they were planning a remake, I prayed that they would get Henry Rollins to play Willy Wonka.

 

Alas, Johnny Depp.

[Nozybidaj]

Assuming for the moment I'm wrong and SGRA's are in fact on a to-do list somewhere looks like you are looking at best at months more of waiting if not longer. This would actually be a pretty hilarious scene of ineptitude of it wasn't wrapped up in a blanket of discrimination and exclusion.

[rahadnak]

I really don't know what to think. i'm getting tired of waiting and i'm beginning to see no point on keeping my subscription. If SGRs don't come with Makeb, i'm afraid i will unsub untill they're added. I think we've been patient enough, and more than polite and understanding about the absence of something that should have been part of the game since launch.

[fabiyun]

It was already said by Daniel Erickson back in July that Makeb would not contain class stories. But he also said it was going to be a very significant chunk of story. Nothing I've read indicates it's going to be as simple as seciton X. You can also take the mysterious comments about SGR's possibly being in Makeb to be a good indication even if that turns out to not be true, I don't think a developer would even THINK something that major would be in the patch if it was just a daily area.

 

However it does seem to me that they are in fact working on a major content expansion that Isn't Makeb, and that's reassuring.

 

Considering that so far we got FPs, Warzones, Operations and other dailies. A planet with real quests is major story content in comparison. So yes, it's more than a daily area. But I don't expect it to be much more than half a planet, and one with no class story but instead faction story.

 

I didn't see the live stream, I read the transcript on Darth Hater, but from what I can see that's a pretty accurate summation, but I think I saw a couple things differently.

 

I don't expect Cathar this year, for example, because of this quote:

 

Schubert: The timeframe for Cathar is in months, not years.

 

The timeframe to make it this year would have to be weeks. Months puts it more likely around the next update which they said will be around 9 weeks after 1.6

 

There's a bunch of homophones in there. I didn't read the transcription. I heard "in a month's, *mubles something* year. As soon as feasible."

I guess I didn't hear that right. But I do think they have this ready. The way they were both trying to keep each other in check was interesting. It looked like they were talking about pretty much if not done content, that they simple preferred not to speak of yet.

 

Assuming for the moment I'm wrong and SGRA's are in fact on a to-do list somewhere looks like you are looking at best at months more of waiting if not longer. This would actually be a pretty hilarious scene of ineptitude of it wasn't wrapped up in a blanket of discrimination and exclusion.

 

Agreed. It's become silly. They're clearly so uncomfortable to even talk about this issue. As if speaking about it would get them the gay [disease]. And then during that LiveStream were some awkward moments. There was something on that tablet a couple of times that put the interviewer off. It just makes one wonder.

Of course, I do take this seriously. It's just plain insulting. And they've brought it all upon themselves. Someone made a decision somewhere to be exclusive, I honestly don't think that nobody in that BW office ever thought of SGRs and developing them. And that puts all of us in a strange place. We didn't get the content that we talked about since the start on that old forum, we hardly got a peep out of BW, and now they isolate us for their mistakes, and I still have not heard any kind of apology or time frame for this big mess. Silence. That's all there is.

 

It's a strange thing. BW treats us differently. Then of course on public interwebs forums people tend to misbehave. They then isolate us, "to protect us", because they messed up. And as a result we're marginalised further. It's all a big nasty BW Austin mess. It's a double penalty we receive for their mistake. That's sour.

[natashina]

I'm not trying to stir any thing up here, but I wanted to ask some of the newer posters this.

 

How would you guys go about trying to get information?

 

And please don't say, "Sit back and be patient." I think a lot of us are getting sore backs from doing just that.

 

There has been statements that we aren't communicating correctly and we need to be polite and firm. Since my post on the subject was wiped (I had responded to a wiped post,) I'm rewording some and trying this again.

 

We've tried that. For months, we wrote anyone that would be in a position we thought could talk to the customers. Countless PMs, "Ask the Devs" and other Q&A sessions, (where we frequently have ~33% of posters of those threads asking about SGRs for months,) Emails, the petition on All Out, Facebook messages and even Twitter and snail mail were sent politely asking for small bits of information.

 

For example, most of Uluain's PMs and emails were very polite (at times curt, but never rude,) extremely firm and well written. If anyone has the time/patience to read back through this incarnation of the SGR thread, I would encourage them to do so.

 

It'll show what we had been doing and why some of us have given up asking.

 

As a whole, many of the posters here wanted to know if they should keep leveling their characters or stop. That's one of the biggies and makes a huge difference in such a story based game. Companions such as Kira play a very integral role in the story and certain parts of it really are impacted by the romance options.

 

Now when Daniel Erickson left, I decided that we needed to know officially if what was said at the Guild Summit is true.

 

I can honestly say that most of us (if not all of us,) got a fire under our butt. We realized that they only people that had actually come out and officially said anything have all left the company.

 

At that point, from my end, I just wanted to have a developer or other representative of the company to come out publicly and say, "Yes, the statements from the Guild Summit are still official and confirmed. SGRs are on the way, so hang tight!"

 

Then came the whole PvP dev video and the deleted Tweet, which has been talked about at length here. There was also the article we had to write in and correct from gameindustrybiz.com. It was allowed to go to print (so to speak,) with a very clear picture of ToR.

 

The caption read, "Same Gender Romances are a staple of BioWare's games, such as Star Wars: The Old Republic."

 

After literally months of being polite, civil and respectful, this was a real slap in the face. Uluain, Tatile, myself and others quickly wrote to the editor letting them know that the caption was untrue. They did quickly get that changed. We also told them that there hasn't been a word from any current representative officially from the company.

 

Someone in BW-Austin's management made this call to handle the whole matter this way.

 

Many of the old regular posters start to feel burned out and quit posting or leave the game entirely. Some left the game, came back, but only come in here to peek. Nothing has changed really since late spring.

 

We've really tried adhering to all the proper ways to contact someone as an upset (but not belligerent) customer. I know that I have felt like I've been screaming into the wind for months. Over time some posters become bitter, angry, and fed up. Being polite has gotten this thread nowhere at this point in time.

 

I feel like I have said pretty much all I can say without completely losing my temper for now. That isn't towards any posters, even the ones that I know hate me. I'd just rather not blow sky high on the forums and wait for a ban. Sadly, I've seen a couple of posters recently do this.

 

Too many months of no answers/copy pasta answers, too many months of watching EA espouse about LGBT rights without even telling us that the information given last spring was still too true.

 

Too many months of the same idiot trolls that won't take 2 minutes to do any research. I'm specifically referring to the ones that go, "Gays r baddies" "Omg, Disney and Lucas hates da gays! F2P means it failed, they dun have the money. Give up trolololol."

 

It's a bit draining on the psyche.

 

I really don't envy the mods their job, and I get mad when I see people trying to shoot the messenger. This has got to be as frustrating for them as it is for us. I'm also betting that they might know about as much as we do at this point, and have nothing else to tell us because they don't know anything themselves.

 

For those that still have the fortitude to get proactive, please go for it! We've talked about writing news sites, which a few of us did, but nothing much came out of it. We could bring that oddly abandoned petition back to light.

 

I know there is some good ideas about how to get organized, but I was wondering if there could be any unifying gamer site to state our voice? Like some sort of collective mission statement. I just wouldn't know where or who to start with for now.

 

If anyone else has some ideas, please feel free to put them down.

Edited November 30, 2012 by natashina

[fabiyun]

In Europe my hands are tied. Only EA in North America can put any pressure on BW Austin.

 

What community media can be written? I can send GLAAD another letter. They took it serious a year ago. Stonewall UK replied me by saying they understand the problem but they cannot do anything with EA as it's a US company.

 

Can Ellen be written or motivated to give this some attention?

What other options are there in the US?

From what I gather of LOGO, is that it's just MTV marketed at LGBTQ people, with no real opinion on anything. But I don't live in the US, I can only get some of what happens across the big pond.

 

The only action I can think of for Europe is being visible at Celebration Europe II next Summer in Germany. Essen is only a couple of hours from where I live.

And of course there could be a way to cause attention at Disneyland Paris. Disney now owns Star Wars and this kind of bad press is not what Europe's largest tourist attraction wants.

 

And yes, I've suggested before, in game kiss ins or other actions. If someone can record it, we can then also put it on youtube and send it around, see however will post it.

[Nozybidaj]

Agreed. It's become silly.

 

Seems to be a trend with this BW team. Like the hood toggle issue that's been dragging on for the last 11 months. Its hard to fathom that all those folks at BW are so inept that they don't even realize all they need to do is add a single Custom Jedi Robe with the hood down to a commendation vendor somewhere and all the sudden everyone is happy again. I mean seriously, this isn't rocket science here. Things like this make me just shake my head and wonder what exactly it is they are doing up there.

 

Of course our issue is very different in that it isn't an implementation issue but an ideological one. But all the same there are lots of things I see after coming back that just make me wonder if any of these folks have a clue what is going on.

[Forgon]

Its hard to fathom that all those folks at BW are so inept that they don't even realize all they need to do is add a single Custom Jedi Robe with the hood down to a commendation vendor somewhere and all the sudden everyone is happy again.

 

Just to be fair, that is like telling you guys here in this thread, "Why actually add the SGR conversations for companions? Just rp it!" It's not the same thing.

 

I don't want a version of my outfit (SI) with my hood down. I want a hood toggle. I want a hood toggle to put it up and down whenever I want for rp purposes or just because.

 

Also, yay for hopefully soon SGR in-game. I will take Torian over Mako any day (or even Skadge).

[Nozybidaj]

Just to be fair, that is like telling you guys here in this thread, "Why actually add the SGR conversations for companions? Just rp it!" It's not the same thing.

 

Well not really, but I see what you are trying to say. Still the vast majority of folks asking for this are Rep side since Emp side you actually can find non-hoodie outfits to wear. If 11 months ago they had taken the five minutes to add the Jedi robe all the Jedi NPC's use to a vendor somewhere people would have been a lot happier while waiting.

Edited November 30, 2012 by Nozybidaj

[natashina]

Thanks for pointing out that Glaad has taken interest in LGBT gamer content. It would be a new direction for the thread to take. Forgive me for feeling lazy tonight, but would you be willing to put up the email and/or snail mail address up? I've got an infected tooth and a major dentist trip coming up. Once the meds wear off I'll be too sore to do much else, so I'll try to be productive that way.

 

Wish me luck. It's gonna be a loong winter.

 

Off topic: I'm all about hood toggled robes. Seem like a wasted to put that hood there laying there all forlorn with no head to call home.

Edited November 30, 2012 by natashina

[JCisneros]

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

[natashina]

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

 

I wasn't trying to give you a hard time, I promise.

 

I'm not sure if Uluain was yet. He did say that he was trying to this more noticed and that if he starts to go completely quiet, then he might have gotten a ban. He also said that he doesn't care if he gets banned anymore. Thankfully, his posts have just been infrequent, but he's still around.

 

No one has been banned yet as far as I know. This is true. However, there are a few posters that just don't care if they do anymore.

 

Thanks for doing this! It means a ton and I think this will work where the more polite avenues have failed.

 

Edited it to fully address his point.

Edited November 30, 2012 by natashina

[Nozybidaj]

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

 

That's certainly the kind of exposure this issue has needed since it was first discovered back in beta that SGRA's were excluded from the game. Thumbs up to you sir for the effort.

[Slaign]

I know no one wants to hear to be patient, but I honestly do think that's the course of action that makes the most sense.

 

I think if you look at the HK-51 content, that content was planned for and in the pipeline before SGRAs. We saw HK-51 in data mined companion lists back in beta. Since we just now got HK-51, we can look to that timeline for comparison. Since I don't think I'm alone in hoping very strongly that SGRAs are much bigger in scope than HK-51, I don't think it's unfair to give BioWare some more time to deliver.

 

I really think the implications are that we will get this content. I think it's possible they are avoiding discussing this content because of the powder keg it represents, which I find sad and distressing. I don't feel that they are deliberately holding the content back or refusing to talk about it because it's not in development.

 

Even if the statements were retracted, I don't think a developer would be under the impression that SGRAs were going to be ready for Makeb if they weren't being worked on actively at the studio. I would like to think that developers are aware of what's going on at their work place, at least peripherally.

 

So before doing anything rash, I'd like to give them every fair chance to what's right on their own. I think their time is rapidly running out, but I don't think it has yet.

[Zandilar]

Just to be fair, that is like telling you guys here in this thread, "Why actually add the SGR conversations for companions? Just rp it!" It's not the same thing.

 

I don't want a version of my outfit (SI) with my hood down. I want a hood toggle. I want a hood toggle to put it up and down whenever I want for rp purposes or just because.

 

Just FYI, there are some head slot items in the game that make hoods (on robes/chest slot items) disappear - my partner's Jedi Guardian and my Sage both use one. Sadly it's light armour, so not the best solution for heavy robe wearers. I know it's not the same as an actual hood toggle (which is also something I've been hanging out for - I would much rather see my character's head and face than that stupid brown hood!), but it's as close as we've got at the moment.