Is the one where he linked to Gabe A's interview still up?

No, Mr. Amatengelo's interview seems to be something of a sore point for Bioware, but the video still exists.

This is my letter thus far:

Comments? Concerns?

As a person who both lurks and pops in every once in a while. I want you guys to know that I have your back on this. The silence from EA is deafening. I hope GLAAD can step in and do what you all have been trying to do for the past year. Natasha, Ulain, you guys are really troopers. I salute you. All of you. I'm going to leave this little saying here from one of my favorite movies (with some personal changes to some of the lines to suit this great cause *smiles*) :

"Good morning. In less than an hour, those for SGR's from here will join others from around the world, and you will be launching the largest civil battle in the history of mankind. Mankind, that word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences any more. We will be united in our common interest.

Perhaps it's fate that today is the One Year Anniversary of SWTOR, and you will once again be fighting for our rights to have SGR's in this game. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from being ignored and pushed aside. We're fighting for our right to live, to exist, and should we win the day, the One Year Anniversary of SWTOR will no longer be known as an in-game holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice, 'We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on, we're going to survive.' Today we celebrate our SGR Patch Day!"

D'aww, thanks DarkTrooper. You can always send GLAAD a message and help further the cause

Also, QwibQwib, that looks good ^.^ Any and all information (and personal experiences, as from a few pages back) we can send to GLAAD and have them read is helpful. I don't know if they're going to do anything, I don't know if they can even get Bioware to do anything, but it's something.

And hope is all we have.

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

GLAAD replied to my message on FaceBook

Hi!

 

Thanks for your message. We reached out again today to EA/BioWare for more information on this.

 

Thanks!

Once again, yay us!

Academia still holds some sway in parts of the world, JC, I hope your letter can open a few doors

On a related note I PM'd Uluain's parting message in Did I Hear This Right? to Ms. Berryman, with my own notes. I don't expect my message shall be read, replied to or even acknowledged before it is deleted, but I do like to remind the mods that I exist.

I did thank her for taking the time to talk to Mr. Schubert about chat bubbles though. As we all know they were promised during beta after a large public outcry following the denial of Bioware's history of including chat bubbles in its previous games...

Edit: Again? It seems not even GLAAD can get word from Bioware... they really DO hate us.

Edit: Again? It seems not even GLAAD can get word from Bioware... they really DO hate us.

Two points to make here.

Firstly, EA/Bioware were staunch and unflinching (from what I heard) when being outright attacked by 'family friendly' homophobic political hate groups. It stands to reason they may adopt the same philosophy in the face of a group that sounds a great deal more polite. For that reason alone GLAAD may have no more success than us.

Secondly, if EA/Bioware do intend to speak to GLAAD, what a company would say to a fanbase is generally very different to how they would respond to an organisation. It may simply be taking them some time to rally and plan what to say and what not to say.

I'm half expecting there to be droid NPCs named SG-RA in the Makeb expansion, and then they will say "See! We have SGRAs now!"

Well, Mr Hickman does like to mock his player base, so I wouldn't put it past him.

I'm half expecting there to be droid NPCs named SG-RA in the Makeb expansion, and then they will say "See! We have SGRAs now!"

Sure, that would be grossly offensive to me and everyone else who cares about this issue.... But I appreciate comedy, and that would be hilarious.

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

Two points to make here.

 

Firstly, EA/Bioware were staunch and unflinching (from what I heard) when being outright attacked by 'family friendly' homophobic political hate groups. It stands to reason they may adopt the same philosophy in the face of a group that sounds a great deal more polite. For that reason alone GLAAD may have no more success than us.

 

Secondly, if EA/Bioware do intend to speak to GLAAD, what a company would say to a fanbase is generally very different to how they would respond to an organisation. It may simply be taking them some time to rally and plan what to say and what not to say.

In the 'us' I was referring to those of us in the SGRA thread, rather than the LGBT community at large, but I do see your point. If EA/Bioware are preparing a statement, that implies that they don't believe that the copy-pasta they feed to their players is good enough for an organisation or that they might be unprepared for interest on this matter from an outside party, it might also be possible that they are going to try to up hold their false image of LGBT inclusivity without making any references to this particular case.

+5 points to me if the EA memo says they "do not discuss the particulars of individuals cases with individual games" or something to that affect, then follow it up with "we're proud to have LGBT positive content in all our games!"

+5 additional points for not having trans* people represented. +1 point for mentioning gender identity in the same breath as sexual preferences.

Taa daa. I can work in public relations, it just require copious amounts of bull sh*t! Easy.

Edit: @Slaign, if you don't appreciate the trivialisation of your concerns and the discrimination pitted against you and others like you in everyday life, you need to grow a thicker skin! People with privilege can do whatever the damn well please, they have privilege.

Here is a letter I just sent to GLAAD in support of your cause.

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

Uluain's contributions are going to be remembered. Like MusedMoose he did a lot for the profile and continuation of this topic and the subject it entails. Should we begin a new thread, as he suggested, perhaps we could find a quote of his to head it up?

God, this sounds almost like an obituary.

Edit: Oh goodie, 1.6 drops tomorrow. Six weeks on from then is January 17th, if Bioware put 1.7 up for testing on Monday and leave it for six week's testing time. More likely they'll put it up for testing on the 17th. So, 1.6, last patch of the year. Isn't it SO GOOD that Mr. Hickman said that everything said during the Guild Summit is false? Good for Mr. Hickman.

I mean, I think they usually say when it's a major patch launching, this could just be 1.5.3 or whatever they're up to.....waiting to hear any additional info, they will probably say by tomorrow.

Also, recall that they said it'll probably be 8-9 weeks until 1.7 because of the holidays :/ so next one may not be until February.

Blargh. Morning. Haven't had coffee yet.

I am going to take Uluain's advice and try to abandon the thread. I've just woke up (go nightshift,) so I'm not ready to yet.

I got this message on FB today:

GLAAD

Hi!

Thanks for your message. We reached out again today to EA/BioWare for more information on this.

Thanks!

So there's that. I wonder if EA/BW is dodging GLAAD.

**waves to Uluain** You take care hun, and try to watch the forums from a distance.

Some great letters guys! May I say that was record timing getting a troll reported and wiped this morning.. They quoted me too. I'm kinda flattered in a bizarre sort of way.

A parting word of advice: abandon this thread. Let Natashina, or whoever has an FAQ link in their signature, finish it off. Then post elsewhere. Anywhere else. Start a thread on General Discussion (or hijack "Did I hear this right?") and post there from now on. Staying in your cage isn't helping you at all. Don't behave. Don't play nice. The only way we have ever heard anything, ever, is by being too much trouble to ignore. Remember that, and may the Force be with you.

That's actually excellent advice. heading that way now.

Actually, he only said that, due to changes at the studion and in the direction of the game since then, some of what was promised at the Guild Summit no longer holds true... without clarifying which. Note that we have been wondering for months now whether, with changes in the direction of the game and at the studio, Daniel Erickson's statements still hold true, and have specifically requested clarification on that particular point for months now.

So now we have the official word: Yes, Daniel Erickson's statements regarding same-gender content may or may not hold true. That is where the information we're getting through the Community Team became the proverbial slap in the face. That's why I blew up. Can they possibly have been surprised?

Natashina, are you going to make a new thread or jump in Uluain's old one? Personally I think making a new one with all the stuff in the first post would be better because then everything would be organised and... yeah... new and shiny.

I need coffee.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure yet what course I'm taking. What's more, is that I need the help from you guys.

How should I start this thread and/or post? I've gotta be careful now that GLAAD is involved. You all know that we're gonna have the, "GLAAD is political, and this is your agenda. No one cares, reported." Thread wiped.

Can you tell I've gotten a lot of the latter phrase over the last few days.

Also, I was going to wait until we got some more concrete answers from GLAAD before starting a new thread. I was already planning on it, but I was waiting for GLAAD to confirm contact with EAware first. That's been my only holdup for now.

Once we get a little more concrete info, I was going to start a new thread. Maybe entitled, "GLAAD is stepping up for SGRs once again."

Thoughts?

Edit: I wasn't surprised at all. I predicted that very thing would happen literally the day before. I know EAware was probably shocked. BTW, that was epic! I loved your comment about Life Day.

**stumbles her tired arse into the kitchen**