Same gender relationships clarifications?

[Baptes]

I'm inclined to agree with Slaign. While I am angry about the total stonewalling silence, I do think that it is still possible that they are still working on same sex. Bioware has story guys on the payroll, and the patches have barely included any story stuff for a year now. What have they been working on? Surely there must be something on the way. I just don't understand why they try to completely silence the issue.

I don't think many of us would still be here if we didn't think SGRAs would be in at some point. I also don't think the majority of us are even asking for them in as of yesterday.

 

What I believe most want is a dialogue with the devs as to how things will work for SGRAs, and the deafening silence for so long breeds animosity and ill will that could be (for the most part) annulled by simply talking about it like rational adults. Just like they do on the other topics. That they won't even go that far is perplexing and breeds even more ill will that they seriously don't need at this point.

 

And they have brought it all on themselves by their complete failure to simply talk about it.

[natashina]

Okay, this is truly my last post for at least awhile. I'm getting so flustered that I need to back off again.

 

This is my updated email list. I've been accused of having "spam tactics for my pet agenda," but I won't apologize for pushing for equal rights among the LGBT gamer community. I find it incredible that BioWare, one of the leading providers of LGBT content, is treating us like this.

 

Here we go with the list:

 

 

• 1up.com
  
• Kotaku.com
  
• forbes.com
  
• Dan Savage
  
• Huffington Post
  
• The Gawker
  
• The Consumerist
  
• Destructoid.com
  
• Gaygamer.net
  
• GLAAD
  
• The Advocate
  
• The PA Report
  
• Massively, maybe they'll see that it isn't just some conspiracy theory if enough of us write in.

 

 

That's a helluva list. Anymore ideas?

 

Love you guys and I'll be around. Keep pushing with those emails. Ignore the trolls, flag as needed and don't be afraid to edit posts if you feel you are feeding them.

 

Remember:

 

Enough is Enough.

 

We Have Nothing Left to Lose.

 

And EAware has something to lose here. Their precious rep.

 

See you guys in a few days.

 

Edited to add Massively to my list.

Edited December 4, 2012 by natashina

[stuffystuffs]

I think this is an interesting part. For me the thing also is that, okay I expect that they're not rewriting the existing companions, but I've no way to be sure of that either. And really, is it so much to ask to get a normal play through like everyone else? If we have to reroll a class just to have the SGR, all the other story is basically spoiled. And that comes down to "finishing stories to which I already know the ending". Or you sit your toon down in a rest area and do nothing.

 

Besides, people who want to do OGRA typically know beforehand who's available for their gender so...yeah don't see why SGRA's would have to be handled in such a way as to avoid these 'awful spoilers'.

[Palar]

Still, I think when so many people want a simple answer, it's a shame that he didn't at least include the question. Whether or not the development time on the content itself is reasonable, I don't find the absolute silence on the issue reasonable. It's a simple matter to just give a no nonsense confirmation that SGRAs are in development.

 

Given that he brushed it off with "BioWare does not confront issues which have been addressed multiple times", even though Blind Freddy knows they've never addressed it, I get the impression he simply doesn't care.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Palar

[Slaign]

Given that he brushed it off with "BioWare does not confront issues which have been addressed multiple times", even though Blind Freddy knows they've never addressed it, I get the impression he simply doesn't care.

 

Perhaps he's not passionate about it, but I don't think that view is entirely without merit either. They have certainly not "never" addressed it. They have indeed promised that it is coming, they re-upped that promise in the guild summit, and from a purely logical point of view, every time they repost that promise or say "No new info," it's an acknowledgement of that promise's continued validity.

 

Still, even while logic might indicate that past promises still stand, people are not logical creatures by nature. Emotions run hot, and anger, fear, and worry gnaws at even the most convicted. With that understood, it's logical to ease those emotions with an easy to make, clear, concise statement that SGRAs are still in the pipeline.

 

In summary, it's not incorrect to say that BioWare has taken a position of addressing the issue, but it is incorrect to say there is no need to have that position clearly reiterated.

[Palar]

Depends on what you see as the issue - this being the clarification thread, I'd say the issue is "we've still absolutely no idea if we need to abandon our alts or if we'll see a work-around for 50s - 15 months on, letting us know how to wait is too much effort"

 

A rapidly revoked Tweet, an uncertain comment about office water-cooler gossip (dude also thought Makeb would be the next update back then, so he's not exactly in the loop) and one post of "nothing's changed from that pre-launch post" three months ago... no. I don't care how lax a standard one applies, that's not addressing anything.

 

Oh, and Erickson's Guild Summit "we're wary about answering every time... not that we actually have!" fob-off answer from 9 months ago. Even the optimists know "this year" isn't going to happen. Addressing that hasn't happened either.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Palar

[Slaign]

Depends on what you see as the issue - this being the clarification thread, I'd say the issue is "we've still absolutely no idea if we need to abandon our alts or if we'll see a work-around for 50s - 15 months on, letting us know how to wait is too much effort"

 

A rapidly revoked Tweet, an uncertain comment about office water-cooler gossip (dude also thought Makeb would be the next update back then, so he's not exactly in the loop) and one post of "nothing's changed from that pre-launch post" three months ago... no. I don't care how lax a standard one applies, that's not addressing anything.

 

Oh, and Erickson's Guild Summit "we're wary about answering every time... not that we actually have!" fob-off answer from 9 months ago. Even the optimists know "this year" isn't going to happen. Addressing that hasn't happened either.

 

Oh I agree with all of that. I'm just saying, he wasn't speaking in relation to the SGRA clarifications thread, he was speaking about SGRAs in general and his interview specifically. His point was that they said they are coming, and that he wouldn't get any more info even if he asks. I'm just saying that's not without merit.

 

I still wish he would have asked anyway, I don't see what it could have hurt. I get the feeling he didn't think about it, and he's just making excuses.

[Palar]

I still wish he would have asked anyway, I don't see what it could have hurt. I get the feeling he didn't think about it, and he's just making excuses.

 

Or he knew not to waste his time asking... so tired of this whole debacle.

[Tatile]

Hall Hood ‏@hallhood

 

I'd answer every question people ask me about #SWTOR if I could, but it's not always my right to do so. Hope people can understand that.

 

Hall Hood ‏@hallhood

 

@SamyMerchi The official SWTOR forums will always be the best place to get answers from those who can give them.

 

I'd say the first one is likely in response to me, but without acknowledging my tweet so as to prevent a hubbub.

 

Still, Hall Hood is obviously labouring under a false impression of what the SWTOR forums are like.

[Kioma]

I'd say the first one is likely in response to me, but without acknowledging my tweet so as to prevent a hubbub.

 

Still, Hall Hood is obviously labouring under a false impression of what the SWTOR forums are like.

 

Or he isn't under any such false impression, and the forums really ARE the best place to get answers 'from those who can give them' (which appears, on this matter at least, to be nobody). He might be entirely, acutely and painfully aware of the issue, and we can't fairly intuit his attitude toward this matter because the forums may ACTUALLY be the best place. Sad state of affairs? Yes. But he may very well be aware of that, too.

[Tatile]

Or he isn't under any such false impression, and the forums really ARE the best place to get answers 'from those who can give them' (which appears, on this matter at least, to be nobody). He might be entirely, acutely and painfully aware of the issue, and we can't fairly intuit his attitude toward this matter because the forums may ACTUALLY be the best place. Sad state of affairs? Yes. But he may very well be aware of that, too.

 

You have a point, he does seem a little pleading in the first tweet. Still, I disagree with his assessment that the forums are the best place to get answers when they're clearly not read or, of course, when Bioware chooses to only answer the most frivolous of questions.

 

Either way it's good to see you back here, Kioma. I'll try to keep my insanity under wraps.

 

Also, I'm not amazing: http://tatiletotesamaze.tumblr.com/ - when I can figure out the rest of Tumblr (ugh) I'll see about getting that onto http://lgbtlaughs.tumblr.com/

[Kioma]

You have a point, he does seem a little pleading in the first tweet. Still, I disagree with his assessment that the forums are the best place to get answers when they're clearly not read or, of course, when Bioware chooses to only answer the most frivolous of questions.

 

Bear in mind 'the best' doesn't necessarily mean 'good'. It could easily mean 'not quite as bad as the other options'.

 

Either way it's good to see you back here, Kioma. I'll try to keep my insanity under wraps.

 

Nice to be back. It's just a shame that SGRAs haven't been implemented as yet.

[Eleuril]

I get the feeling from Hall Hood's tweet that he would love to be able to give us information but isn't allowed to.

 

Edit: I mean this one:

 

Hall Hood ‏@hallhood

 

I'd answer every question people ask me about #SWTOR if I could, but it's not always my right to do so. Hope people can understand that.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Eleuril

[Kioma]

I get the feeling from Hall Hood's tweet that he would love to be able to give us information but isn't allowed to.

 

Edit: I mean this one:

 

That's the feeling I get too - of a man backed into a corner by someone else's rules and not wanting to be there.

[Doomsdaycomes]

^_^ Hey all.

 

I know I'm a little late to this discusion, and I confess I've not the entire thing, but maybe even one more post in favor can keep this (extremely long) thread current and help show some support.

 

I realize adding new content takes developer time, and there are several other issues that many will deem "more important" but I personally think it's a shame we're almost to 2013, and companies still shy away from same-gender romance options. (Was anyone else kinda pissed you couldn't romance Jack as FemsShep, even though she was clearly a bisexual character?)

 

I play female characters (=P so I can dress them up and stomp people) and I -hate- most of the guy companions you can romance:

 

 

Vector: Blegh... Bug guy. Not a bad person, but I would have prefered Temple or >.< whatever her name is.

Jorgan: Yuck. That's all I can say.

Reval: Sith Inquisitor character... Or you get Talos... also yuck.

Quinn: Uptight *****.

 

Etc...

 

 

 

^_^ I prefer women myself, and so either romancing a male or being forced to play a male to romance my chosen gender is... well a disconnect. Most of my characters remain single.

 

I would think the Star Wars universe has no galactic lore specific reason for there to be a romance "norm" and would love to see the Dev's branch out into something that should be more and more common.

 

(On a side note, I was always so distressed in Kotor 2 that I had to play a guy to even get Handmaiden. :-( I always did, because life without her (even without the option to romance her) wasn't worth playing. I would love a Handmaiden companion please!)

[BumBoi]

i also agree this needs to be added soon i only recently started playing again and i was kinda surprised they still are yet to add this to it. i would obv like to play a male character based on myself and romace a guy it seems unfair we have had to wait so long

[Jedikuonji]

Well, I'm out of characters to play until SGRs are put in (or we're told they aren't coming). Was contemplating playing another character anyway, then my server crashed. Maybe it's a sign.

[fabiyun]

I posted in Darth Hater's Open Forum, figured it couldn't hurt. And the respondent who's not unsympathetic to the cause, but not particularly in favour either, does seem to share my thoughts about the time table and the way they might go about this.

 

#13 fabiyun Posted 4 days ago

The one thing that's really been bugging since before launch is the way they've dealt with SGR content. From the community discussing its implementation before launch, to a dev laughing it off with "there are no gays in star wars" to a short statement of oops it's coming. And since then there has only been silence. It doesn't matter how often and how many of us ask at every opportunity we get, it doesn't matter that we have a 3000+ topic going on, they refuse to address us.

 

Do you think Darth Hater could ask the dev team when you have a call conference with them again?

#26 iceberg265 Posted 2 days ago

Seriously what do you want them to say? They've said "it is still coming, no ETA" plenty of times, would it really make you feel any better to have them say it again?

#28 fabiyun Posted 2 days ago

Actually they haven't. The last anyone said was "this year", 9 months ago, which clearly isn't happening. If they can address random game requests on a regular basis, they can this as well.

I also want to know how they're going to implement it. They've not spoken a single word about what it's going to be like. Are they rewriting existing companions? Does that mean we shouldn't talk to our companions or be forced to roll a new toon. Or are new companions coming? Can we expect companions for every class and for every gender? There's really a lot of us want to know about this content. And BW Austin has said nothing. Meanwhile many have subs but are not playing because they fear it will be for nothing, they don't want their stories spoiled, they just want a play through like everyone else. Or like me, personally I don't want to be reminded all the time with the many flirt options that I cannot flirt with whomever I might possibly be interested in.

#34 iceberg265 Posted 1 day ago

Well they did answer at least one of those questions. You can go ahead and play your characters. The existing companions are not going to suddenly realize they are gay/bi after being straight for over a year.

 

I am about 80% sure that I heard that there will be gay/bi NPCs in Makeb, but I have not heard anything about new companions. I would expect that there would be new companions at some point, possibly in an expansion, and those would have it enabled.

¹

 

Of course this is just another player posting their views. But one who's got distance from the topic, and doesn't have hopes for it going either way. The possibility of NPCs in Makeb was also discussed here for a while right? But gone down perhaps in the hope of something more. And the poster also thinks current companions aren't likely to change. This of course means little, it's not BW Austin's words, it's just another user, but I do value a viewpoint from someone who's not got an interest in this matter.

 

¹ http://www.darthhater.com/articles/feature/22525-open-forum-one-more-thing?page=2

Edited December 4, 2012 by fabiyun

[stuffystuffs]

There's been no mention of SGRA's with NPCs in Makeb.

 

The last thing we got was this:

 

When we do this, we wanna do it right, we wanna do it with the characters that make sense, that we always knew that we wanted to do it for those, so you guys know and we've talked about it before, it ended up being a budget and scheduling issue. There are romance arcs that we wanted to do that didn't make it in the game, we knew which characters (I'm not gonna tell you)... [some audience joking about characters] So the short answer is, it's never changed, it's still coming, it's coming when full story comes, and when is full story coming? This year. So we are still on track.

 

From Erickson, which seems to imply that some existing companions would have the SGRA romances that were intended before launch (but didn't make it). I'd argue that the characters aren't being re-written in this scenario nor suddenly realizing that they are gay.

[Kioma]

I'd argue that the characters aren't being re-written in this scenario nor suddenly realizing that they are gay.

 

I'd argue that it's a long overdue bug-fix.

[fabiyun]

There's been no mention of SGRA's with NPCs in Makeb.

 

The last thing we got was this:

When we do this, we wanna do it right, we wanna do it with the characters that make sense, that we always knew that we wanted to do it for those, so you guys know and we've talked about it before, it ended up being a budget and scheduling issue. There are romance arcs that we wanted to do that didn't make it in the game, we knew which characters (I'm not gonna tell you)... [some audience joking about characters] So the short answer is, it's never changed, it's still coming, it's coming when full story comes, and when is full story coming? This year. So we are still on track.

 

From Erickson, which seems to imply that some existing companions would have the SGRA romances that were intended before launch (but didn't make it). I'd argue that the characters aren't being re-written in this scenario nor suddenly realizing that they are gay.

 

I don't understand what Erickson is talking about. If we are to make implications then we should do it for the entire text. Full story? Did we get half story? What is full story? Budget and scheduling issues. I don't see if they know for what characters, because they've got the story, how this has anything to do with the budget. The budget was so tight they couldn't spare some minutes in voice recording? Peculiar. Scheduling might be an issue. So we're still on track means they decided to put it on a long term schedule. But did it get off the long term schedule onto a short term schedule or is it still on the long term schedule?

 

It does sound like there was a bugfix coming. But I didn't see it yet.

 

The problem is though, that with the history this has, I just can't honestly say that I believe them. I wouldn't call them liars, but I have strong doubts. How am I to put this in relation to "no gays in Star Wars"? How is it that story got chopped on scheduling boards. Am I to feel better about that? That romances got split in OGR and SGR and that we got pushed onto a long term schedule. I don't. I feel insulted. That moment you wipe the spit off your face. When you're told to wait for your own bus, because the back is dealing with scheduling issues and budget problems.

Edited December 4, 2012 by fabiyun

[Balgue]

This thread is so long.

[Tatile]

Per Mr. Hood's advice I sent the letter from a few pages back to the official support form people

 

I don't think he knows what I'm talking about. Or maybe he does.

 

Maybe this is his way of showing...

 

he knows...

 

Dun dun dun!

[Cassia]

I don't understand what Erickson is talking about. If we are to make implications then we should do it for the entire text. Full story? Did we get half story? What is full story? Budget and scheduling issues. I don't see if they know for what characters, because they've got the story, how this has anything to do with the budget. The budget was so tight they couldn't spare some minutes in voice recording? Peculiar. Scheduling might be an issue. So we're still on track means they decided to put it on a long term schedule. But did it get off the long term schedule onto a short term schedule or is it still on the long term schedule?

 

It does sound like there was a bugfix coming. But I didn't see it yet.

 

The problem is though, that with the history this has, I just can't honestly say that I believe them. I wouldn't call them liars, but I have strong doubts. How am I to put this in relation to "no gays in Star Wars"? How is it that story got chopped on scheduling boards. Am I to feel better about that? That romances got split in OGR and SGR and that we got pushed onto a long term schedule. I don't. I feel insulted. That moment you wipe the spit off your face. When you're told to wait for your own bus, because the back is dealing with scheduling issues and budget problems.

 

I did not get that from reading what Erickson said. To me it sounded more like SGRAs will be in the next major story update. I am thinking something on the lines of another whole full act here, and with the lead time for writers here it will be at the year's mark before they will start talking about what is to come. But when said story update is released and they happen to deliver SGRAs the sith storm shall renew again.

 

I concur with you sentiments in regards of Bioware's handling of this topic it has been something of a PR disaster from the get go, and if they fail to deliver...*shakes head* I can always spend my money elsewhere.

[ElyonRand]

This thread is so long.

 

Whenever I come onto the forums, this thread has always been posted on last. Come on, BW said they're doing it so everyone chill! This thread has gone on for a very long time, and nothing you say here will make it come faster! Same-sex relationships are coming- the end.