Merry Christmas to you as well, and I do feel sorry for leaving, but I think I've put in a whole five hours of play in the last three months

Well, I just canceled my subscription, and I'm not sure I'm coming back. Unless there's word of SGRA's coming in the next three months, I just don't find myself wanting to play any more. I think I'll just go play GW2 and STO for now.

That's part of the problem, really. I think that they have a certain expectation regarding the game and just won't think in terms of other ways to handle it. It doesn't even have to be heavy in terms of cut scenes, but we are honestly hitting a point where almost every game is identical or, conversely, they're badly engineered so that you can't really play them. For instance, I signed up to do the Beta for Elder Scrolls Online, got in, and logged right out since it's the same horrific set up that they have for the Skyrim game and I can't play it without getting sick (I complained to them about it, in fact). I've been enjoying GW2 because it seems to have a decent balance between running around slaughtering things and having a story that you can enjoy.

Part of what gets me about the gaming companies is the fact that they do a lot of getting locked into a single mindset so they think that it is the only way things are going to work when, in reality, as long as they make the game engaging and fun, they can do a lot with story lines. I'm honestly not overly impressed with the Smuggler, Agent, Inquisitor or Councilor's stories because they really aren't what plays to the strengths of what those classes should be like. The Councilor should be focused on diplomacy and dispute settling with violence being the weapon of last resort. The Inquisitor should be more of an archaeologist-type hunting for lost relics and raiding tombs. The Smuggler should be someone who smooth talks their way in and out of situations with the blaster being their weapon of last resort. The Agent should be someone who looks for secrets, seducing their way in and out of situations, and using violence only when necessary. Those show up a bit here and there, but never full force. The only four that should be about brute force are the Knight, the Warrior, the Hunter and the Trooper.

Part of what tends to get me about a lot of the stories and cultures in Star Wars is that there seems to be a lot of 'Dark Jedi showed up and. . .' I think it would behoove the lore and story a lot more to come up with different cultural traditions regarding the Force and different cultural means by which it was used or even abused.

As I said, I'm not always seeing things the way everyone else does so no worries. I have refused, so far, to see Pocahontas, but that's also because I know the real story behind that myth. I also hated their version of Mulan. Maxine Hong Kingston has a great version of the legend of Fa Mu Lan, which is fascinating. Anthropologically speaking, there's certain basic forms that cultures take, and if you start there, you can build up and create fascinating cultures. Oh, I also recently found out that 'Sith' is an alternative spelling/pronunciation for the Shee or Sidhe of the Celts. As always, the Celts are evil . . .in such adaptations.

It is endemic of just about every sci-fi and fantasy that there is cultural appropriation involved. It is unfortunate, but I think it has to do with the fact that much of modern European culture has a great deal of shame built into it about its own cultural heritage. I mean, we aren't Roman or Greek, and yet, we appropriated much of their culture because it was "superior" to the Germanic culture, and we even created myths about how we got things like democracy from the Greeks despite the fact that the Anglos, Saxons, Celts and Vikings all had a form of democracy long before and after Athens had their little experiment with democracy. J.R.R. Tolkien stole a lot from non-English cultures, in fact. As a writer, I've found the best way is to treat such appropriation with caution, do it lightly, and with as much respect as possible. Unfortunately, Lucas has been ham-fisted with it. Then again, he's been ham-fisted with a lot of things. Like I honestly do not understand why Naboo was so Oriental in feel. In fact, it seemed to be contradictory to their planetary structure. The other thing is a lot of writers just lift from other cultures and don't have a strong background in anthropology or archaeology and do a horrible job of adapting and creating cultures based upon the environments that they have created. And I've read at least one of those analyses on Tumblr. I disagreed with it only slightly in that I believe that the problem is not so much a limitation of one particular cultural background's imagination, but the limitation of the imagination of humanity as a whole. After all, there is a lot of appropriation of Baroque and 16th/17th Century European cultural forms in Japanese fantasy and sci-fi even as there is a lot based on their own cultural heritage. Eek. I didn't mean to go on one of my little cultural lectures there And as usual, this is just stuff I've noticed and thought about for some time, but I also have a very weird perspective when it comes to the world, and sometimes don't see what I'm saying in terms of offending someone because I approach cultures in terms of respect and when writing I start with the most basic forms and build using examples without lifting whole sale.

I based that off of a couple of cultures from the edges of China and Africa. Another one would be to base a culture around the Iroquois where women wielded all of the political power while men were resigned to hunting and warfare alone. My preference is based off of the Celtic where women and men were largely even and there exists some indications- Greek records and a few written records- that same-sex marriage was condoned along with multiple partner marriages. Of course, I'd be more than willing to write up and create an entire world where the intelligent species is hermaphroditic and finds the male form to be ugly because it looks absolutely wrong.

The easiest way to handle this is to create a society that is on the edge of known space- say within the area that houses either Illum or Tattooine. The species there is near-human or human (preferably near-human and indigenous). This species is matriarchal because the females of the species are larger and stronger than the males- which happens in several species on Earth including hyena. Males are considered inferior because they are smaller and weaker. Rather than males being enslaved, this species expects males to be obedient towards the women in the culture, and I'm going for a literal reverse here, in fact. Same-sex attraction among males on this world is largely ignored while it is looked down upon for women to be attracted to other women. Men are expected to get married and sire children. They are also expected to raise these children, and are not expected to be highly educated. They are expected to put on displays of beauty for their female mates including make up. Believe it or not, I'm actually basing this on a couple of cultures on Earth which were highly matriarchal.

WHAT?! Alright, I won't relocate to Austin, but so long as they don't mind doing this by, say, Skype, then can call me up and hire me to write for them. I mean, two writers? No wonder they're having problems. And I honestly believe that one of our biggest problems is the perception that people will leave in boatloads if they give us more diversity in the storyline. I doubt that since The Sims seems to do very well despite having same-sex marriage and since that is a family focused game. . .

Definitely. I think it would be fun, and I honestly don't think that they'd lose players over it.

I was thinking that I could expand on that While not class-specific, neutral quest lines divided into the four core classes and their strengths.

Star Trek: The Next Generation "Angel". But I love the idea of a matriarchal planet where the quest lines aren't about conquest and slaughter, but diplomacy. The choices you make in your interactions could have severe implications for your character, but for male characters, it is much more difficult to get through the questlines as you aren't trusted as readily as a woman would be; however, for a DS female character, it would be very easy to take advantage/manipulate the diplomatic threads so that things would turn out darker and more to the advantage of the player.

Well, I tried the beta, gave it one last shot live, and got so bored I didn't last a whole match. When can we please have SGRA's and some more single person story lines?

Yea, somehow it makes banter and euphemisms difficult