Sad thing is, that's exactly where we are - the optimistic option is to assume they'd have trouble lacing their own shoes in the morning, rather than think they're willfully stringing people along to milk the subs.

Hate to say it, but that is exactly what they've been doing the last 12 months. Add on another 6 or so months for the "post launch" comment from beta. They could have made all completely new companions 2 for each class and it wouldn't have taken 18 months to develop this content. The only goal I can see from the little they did say was to keep people playing (and paying) as long as possible.

"or just taken a huge risk and simply defied that directive"

 

You are seriously saying that the community team should have directly defied what is potentially a corportate / strategic decision, made at board / seniour management level....just to placate you personally?

No.

I suggest that it is possible that they could. Rather than taking your stance that obedience to the rules is the only applical guide to ethics, I follow a school of thought which observes that rules and laws can in some cases be wrong and that, in such circumstances, an individual must be governed by personal conscience. This can hold true even within the limited sphere of professional responsibilities, if one is given a directive at variance with one's overall duty.

I cannot and do not say what other people ought to discover when consulting their own conscience. I cannot even say that this is such a situation, because we have been told nothing about it. But I do say that if it is such a circumstance, and if conscienteous reflection results in finding that a directive is harmful to the interests of the game and its community, that one should do what one believes to be right, regardless of penalty.

Further, I would posit that if one's livelihood is at risk from doing what one believes to be right, then one does not yet have one's right livelihood. To summarize then, I don't think they should do this to placate me or anyone else. I suggest that they should do it if, in their understanding of the situation, it is the right thing to do.

Is that serious enough for you, or do I need to cite sources and footnotes from the five thousand years human minds have been weighing the idea of ethical conduct?

Also, why are you still here trolling this thread?

I think the best way to deal with any controversy arising from this issue is to simply have the option to disable all flirt/romance options for character interaction for each individual character. If the flirt/romance option is disabled, then such options would simply not appear when your chatacter is interacting with companions or NPC's. That would please those who want a strictly "family friendly" or "PG-rated" gaming experiance, and would also please those who want a different type of gaming experience. The option to disable or enable flirt/romance options should be available to the character all the time, in case a player changes his mind during the game. The option could be automatically enabled as a default, and those who don't want it can simply go into the appropriate menu and disable it.

As for me, I'm rather enjoying playing my Jedi as strictly following the Jedi code, so I just simply ignore flirt;/romance options when they appear in character interactions with companions or NPC's.

Been watching this thread for the better part of forever (at least it feels that way sometimes) and I just wanted to drop by and say I'm also interested in seeing some kind of update. I really like this game, but this is the one feature holding me back from long term commitment to the game. I feel limited as to what classes I can play because I'm still waiting to see if SGR content will come out.

Anyway, I paid for another month so I guess I better get in there and play.

I think the best way to deal with any controversy arising from this issue is to simply have the option to disable all flirt/romance options for character interaction for each individual character. If the flirt/romance option is disabled, then such options would simply not appear when your character is interacting with companions or NPC's. That would please those who want a strictly "family friendly" or "PG-rated" gaming experience, and would also please those who want a different type of gaming experience. The option to disable or enable flirt/romance options should be available to the character all the time, in case a player changes his mind during the game. The option could be automatically enabled as a default, and those who don't want it can simply go into the appropriate menu and disable it.

 

As for me, I'm rather enjoying playing my Jedi as strictly following the Jedi code, so I just simply ignore flirt;/romance options when they appear in character interactions with companions or NPC's.

ImperialSun has been trolling the thread for about a week now. Best to ignore them.

First, as far as "family friendly," this game has the equivalent of a PG-13 rating. The "family friendly" crowd seems to forget this. This is not a game for kids, and I would assume that most teens know about the LGBT community by now. With the torture, violence and outright cruelty available to the player character, this is no family friendly game, even though apparently violence is easier to explain. So they'll have to deal with the content as it goes and it will not get a higher rating than "T"/"PEGI 16+.

As far as any toggle/opt out goes, this is from the SGRA FAQ:

1) Why do you have the quote from the moderators on page 1?(aka the T-word)

The thread is not a place for the discussion of whether SGRAs should be added to the game (again, Bioware has already committed to them), or of a SGRA “toggle” or other method of turning off this content. The OP poll is outdated and no longer relevant to this thread. On March 13, the following statement was released by the mods:

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.

The forum rules regarding these sorts of toggles came about after several months of discussion. Over time, the general consensus was that it wasn't needed, and it was agreed upon that it was discriminatory. The best filter a player can have is their own judgement. If a player doesn't wish to return a [Flirt], they can always pick a different option.

The following quote is by David Gaider, one of the former lead writers of Bioware, and he worked on the Dragon Age series. He also wrote HK-47, Jolee Bindo and Carth Onasi for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

The "rights" of anyone with regards to a game are murky at best, but anyone who takes that stance must apply it equally to both the minority as well as the majority. The majority has no inherent "right" to get more options than anyone else.

So there's that. Those that want a safe family game free of awkward talks might want to rethink having their kids play ToR, same gender romances or no.

I think I overall said it best in another post, so I'm going to copy pasta an edited version here.

Other things I wanted to add:

Some of the stories, such as the SI, give the player many many chances to randomly shock people that irritate them. Seriously, some of them are basically, "What, you have shinier shoes than I?" [shock]. 50 DS pts. And that is just a very mild example of the random pointless cruelty that can happen in the game.

There's been two of the OGR romances I have done, and one I stopped.

Now, remember I mentioned aborting a romance arc. It was my first toon, my female SW.

I'll avoid character bashing here, which is better than I used to be. Anyhow, I had starting flirting with Quinn, but it didn't take long before the character kind of bored me. He didn't ask to flirt too much, in game he seemed too much of a brown-noser and was overly shy about returning my SW's advances. I frankly didn't think too much of it and I knew I could end the romance at any point as long as I wasn't silly enough to choose any sort of marriage proposal.

After that part of the story happens, I ended the romance. That didn't stop the flirts for about 2 more conversations though. I find it a little annoying, since I had already broken things off. However, I exercised the freedom the developers gave me.

I ignored him.

I really still don't like the character, I am still kinda ticked he's the only full romance option for females, and I was annoyed that it took a bit for the flirts to stop. Don't get me wrong, I would like more options for the lady SW (and other classes.) Pierce..isn't fair, and I would like to see Jaesa without rerolling.

PS: I've been playing a very LS Jedi (LS IV, 50 DS pts total, lvl 35) and she ended up doing a FTB with Cedrax. It was a calculated move. She knew Cedrax wouldn't commit and wanted to lose her virginity. When it ended, she just shrugged and went back to her current traditional Jedi ways.

I believe Eldartank (the husband has many of these and is enjoying the new rules for flying tanks and such!) was attempting to say that all romance should be under the same toggle: on or off. Meaning that straight [Flirts] would be unavailable as well as gay [Flirts] - at least, that's what I assume he meant.

Of course, if people are given the option to turn off everything they find problematic with the storyline, it becomes very boring and very plain very quickly. No moral dilemmas (should I risk this guy getting killed to save one family, or should I doom the first family and save the second?), no shudder inducing moments that remind us we live in a horrible world, no quirky characters (I imagine some people would find their quirks "problematic").

And if people are SO CONCERNED with protecting their children from the "big, scary gays", they should remember this: kids don't care.

As with the link I posted above, kids don't care if you're marrying a woman or a man, just so long as they get cake.

I know I have bright this up before, but I think this has more to do with how it is being developed, that they are not talking.

They need to find a way to make SGRA's unique, and not just pronoun swapped. this is actually harder than it sounds, so they may need to have more time working on it.

 

And if people are SO CONCERNED with protecting their children from the "big, scary gays", they should remember this: kids don't care.

 

As with the link I posted above, kids don't care if you're marrying a woman or a man, just so long as they get cake.

Ah, yes very true, but you and i know both know that most people don't believe that.

And you can't convince people of such an idea so easily, it takes years to introduce a new idea into society.

BioWare is doing what all smart companies do, ignoring the problem.

It's obvious BioWare does not believe the risk is worth the reward, so it's much easier to say nothing and retain subscribers hoping they will implent this.

Of course you can only ignore people for so long before you have to bait them again, something BioWare doesn't seem to comprehend.

There is really nothing more to be said, the only thing we can do now is restate what has been said and hope for the best.

I just logged into my Jedi Knight thinking I'd play her for a little while before dinner... Then I spotted Kira standing on the bridge of the ship, with her "talk to me" sign over her head. I sighed and then logged out.

I have a few characters in the same situation at the moment. I wish they'd hurry up and tell us how SGRA are going to work for older characters.

I just find it ignorant to assume the only logical explanation for why we don't have this content and/or an explanation/confirmation is that BioWare is somehow terrible, one way or another. Either BioWare is stupid or BioWare is anti-gay, or someone in the corporate structure has laid down a gag order.... It can't possibly just be the realities of game development and the over all policies of the community team.

We're talking about, once again, some of what could potentially be the largest expansion to the game's content to date. We're talking about this in a game that has drastically failed to meet expectations. We're thus talking about a game that spent it's first few months scrambling to address player concerns about core content, the next few months trying to solve server issues, and recent months converting to an entirely new business model.

I honestly think these types of attitudes are a byproduct of the ever so lovely Age of Entitlement we live in. It's the same thought process that leads to people demanding that DLC be free, or that it should have already been in the game. It's the world where when gamers are disappointed in a game's ending, they rally together to try and force the developer to change it. It's the idea that having to pay a minor fee for convenience features in a F2P game is outlandish, and a multimillion dollar game should be completely and conveniently playable without dropping a single dime.

And you wonder why BioWare can't talk to us? You. You're the reason. The people in this thread talking about suing BioWare for false advertisement. The people lodging discrimination complaints against CMs. The people who want to march on a headquarters or boycott a brand every time a game developer says they'd like to do something and it doesn't pan out.

You created the atmosphere of silence where they're afraid to talk about anything not set in stone, and now you blame them for it.

It's okay to be disappointed about this. I sure am. And don't dare judge my enthusiasm for this content by the measuring stick of my outrage at BioWare, or lack thereof. I'm very passionate about my desire for this content, and it is very important to my full enjoyment of this game.

But there is a proper way to deal with disappointment. This is not an us vs them issue. You don't have to go looking for a villain every time you feel disappointment. Sometimes one isn't there. Sometimes, that's just part of reality. I'm sorry you grew up being told you can be anything you want, and that you're special, and the world is made out of flowers and candy canes, but disappointment is a part of life.

It's 100% acceptable to be disappointed and express that. It's a good thing to keep the pressure on and let BioWare know how much we want this. But when you start leveling very serious accusations like discrimination, and discussing threatening livelihoods with civil action, you are a part of the problem.

If half of you honestly believe the accusations you've been leveling at the parties involved here, you have no business supporting them. If you truly believe these companies are taking discriminatory action, you shouldn't be subscribed, you shouldn't be buying their products, and you shouldn't be patronizing their forums. Not that I encourage you to be that kind of unreasonable, but seriously, crap or get off the pot.

I'm not sorry if this offends you. I'm not trying to offend you, I'm trying to beat the ignorance monkey off your back; but if you take a few lumps in the process, so be it.

And once again, remember, what I'm saying here is only directed at the people leveling unfair and baseless accusations or otherwise turning this into some sort of social warfare. Don't be offended just because you're upset this content isn't available yet and you somehow think I'm saying you shouldn't be, that isn't the case.

If BioWare releases a content expansion that subscribers have to pay for, and this issue still hasn't been addressed, it may well be time then to more aggressively pursue answers. Until then, either make your passion and desire for this content clear in a patient and reasonable manner, or just leave if you don't have the patience for that anymore. We don't need people making our group out even more as some sort of hostile entity for BioWare to handle with care.

I found this on another site, and I thought it worked here nicely. Kudos to the writer!

*=small edits

I commend the CM's for trying to answer questions, but the reality is, you for the most part, do not have the answers to give the public when they ask for them or at least that's what it looks like from this side.

The result is, when changes are made, or upcoming features are announced, the public gives feedback, whether it is good or bad, and then asks the CM's questions about it. But from what I can see, you (*the CRS and mods*)do not have the answers because you are not a developer. The result is huge lag time between us asking, and you getting answers, if there is one that can be given OR the public thinks the points they are trying to make get lost/ignored somewhere between the CM's and the Developers.

And to make the matters worse, I think that when a feature is implemented and people really seems to dislike(*or like,*) there are so few cases for its reversal that people just believe you do not listen. I mean it is completely understandable from a players stand point because the telephone system is for the most part a 1-way street where the things we say will not be answered (I'm not saying they all should because that's too much for anyone to handle).

But when case after case, feature after feature and miscommunication after miscommunication occurs time and time again, it REALLY gets annoying on our end.

I know it's not easy on your end, but when a lot of people start asking questions, I think its only far that answers be given. Silence only creates turmoil and breeds anger because people have time invested in this game too.

In the end, I think when a change that effects mass groups of people, whether it is a unlocking event like dailies, *SGRS*, or a class mechanic, or an obvious problem with some classes/specs being OP, then more effort needs to be put in to help people understand. Because from where I sit, it is lacking pretty badly these days.

And please, do not quote twitter as being a source to communicate with the developers because we all know you can't truly answer the really tough problems of this game in just a few words.*

*The SGR thread learned that one the hard way.*

The thing is, Natashina, our community peeps talk to designers, writers and developers every day. The Dev Tracker has not been as busy lately, but most weeks there are at least a few posts from Allison Berryman relaying what she has heard from Developer Y or Designer X. The community team does have access to that information, and the writers, devs et al do have it.

Fourteen months ago, then Community Manager Stephen Reid said that the situation of this particular content made it something worth mentioning well in advance. Eight months ago, when Daniel Erickson spoke about this content, he did so in terms implying that they had been addressing it often, which they hadn't, and complained that they couldn't address it as often as it came up. Since they had addressed it exactly ONCE previously, this seems rather disingenuous, a way of mis-stating the circumstance rather than squarely facing the issue.

Since then, of course, we have heard nothing. And so far as these forums go – I am talking about the post-Launch forums, the beta forums being unaccessible – this topic has been addressed by the Community Team just once, in Joveth's post to this thread. Seeing as other topics have gotten multiple "we don't have anything to tell you" updates over a much shorter span, and some have received much more substantial status updates over less time, I don't think I will give the Community Team a pass on this one.

Nor do I feel any need to keep my mouth shut just because I am out of patience, and because my manners are shot. Using good manners, being helpful and counselling patience got me jack all. This content is being handled differently for the convenience of the community team, not for us. It has been routinely and uniformly passed over for comment whenever the community has been invited to ask questions of the development team, in spite of consistently being asked after by many forum members.

That is dismissive, it is rude, it is insulting. And by refusing to say anything, the Community Team is complicit with the trolls and naysayers who thus feel free to crap all over the idea. "Ooh! This is a hot-button issue!" The hell it is. EA and BioWare have been including it as a matter of course for years now. "Oh, I don't want my kids to see it!" Don't let them play the game. "Oh, I don't want to see it!" Then don't play the game.

If BioWare has decided to include this content, it should be on them, not on us, to defend its implementation. They won't. Nor will they tell us what they can. Neither of those leave me well-disposed to the company. Can anyone tell me why I should be?

I really shouldn't have checked the DA:I forums to see what the latest word was... seeing the likes of Gaider and Sheryl Chee actually giving answers (even to the stupid threads) and even making jokes even though there's a long time before release and things can change... and then there's this.

"Will we have to abandon alts/companion dialgoues at certain levels if we want to see SGR? We can wait, just let us know how to wait."

"We've no new information, on any aspect of SGR, yet."

"So... it's November - if you still don't know, does that mean it's not happening this year?"

"Just go with what we said back in March - that way, it's Erickson's fault."

Not only is it a depressing contrast, but it also kills the argument that "BioWare don't talk about things before they're done."

Not only is it a depressing contrast, but it also kills the argument that "BioWare don't talk about things before they're done."

Yes, but as many people have pointed out, Bioware and Bioware: Austin are two completely different companies which happen to have very similar names.

Or something.

They're totally not related at all and don't have the same production manifesto. Apparently.

Yes, but as many people have pointed out, Bioware and Bioware: Austin are two completely different companies which happen to have very similar names.

 

Or something.

 

They're totally not related at all and don't have the same production manifesto. Apparently.

EA only care about spoilers for certain subdivisions - clear as mud... like everything else pertaining to this thread.

EA only care about spoilers for certain subdivisions - clear as mud... like everything else pertaining to this thread.

Ah yes, but unlike all the information Bioware has provided in this thread, mud is actually useful.

I just logged into my Jedi Knight thinking I'd play her for a little while before dinner... Then I spotted Kira standing on the bridge of the ship, with her "talk to me" sign over her head. I sighed and then logged out.

 

I have a few characters in the same situation at the moment. I wish they'd hurry up and tell us how SGRA are going to work for older characters.

Same here. I have a level 50 female sorc and haven't had any talks with Ashara yet. Waiting in hopes for SGRA here.

And my female warrior is in wait to talk to Jaesa.

Since I have a sub again for a brief time (I decided to get the launch cartel coins, in case they become not-useless in the future), I thought I'd chime in on this thread and say I'm out of here again as soon as the sub runs out.

My f Smuggler -- I didn't like either Risha or Akaavi so I went ahead and capped

My f Jedi Knight -- stuck after Coruscant because I don't want to miss Kira romance dialogue

My f Sith Warrior -- stuck after Korriban because I don't want to miss Vette romance dialogue

My f Bounty Hunter -- stuck after Hutta because I don't want to miss Mako romance dialogue

My f Imperial Agent -- stuck after Hutta because I don't want to miss Kaliyo romance dialogue

There's a whole lot of nothing to play. I'm still pacing my f Consular and f Inquisitor slowly through the levels and trying to delay until they hit their stuck points too, but it's only a matter of time until I can't progress them either anymore.

I'd really like to hear whether I can move on with my JK, my SW, my BH and my IA or not.

Same here. I have a level 50 female sorc and haven't had any talks with Ashara yet. Waiting in hopes for SGRA here.

And my female warrior is in wait to talk to Jaesa.

It will be terrible if Bioware say you can only SGRA Lightside Jaesa.

Same here. I have a level 50 female sorc and haven't had any talks with Ashara yet. Waiting in hopes for SGRA here.

And my female warrior is in wait to talk to Jaesa.

I talked to LS Jaesa because I knew that she was un-romancable by either gender, so I wasn't too worried about missing out on anything (as there was nothing to miss out on). Of course, that will probably come back to bite me on the behind once SGRAs go on. Sadly, Myren (my SW) fell hard for LS Jaesa, which means she's not all that interested in Vette (who came across too much like a little sister, but despite that I did still pause my interactions with her shortly after Korriban).

I am seriously not interested in DS Jaesa, and I can't quite understand why anyone would want to romance her (lets face it, she's a few cans short of a six pack). She's got a knife, and she's going to kill you with it one day, but you'll never know where or when, just that it's coming.

I can't quite understand why anyone would want to romance her (lets face it, she's a few cans short of a six pack).

I talked to LS Jaesa because I knew that she was un-romancable by either gender, so I wasn't too worried about missing out on anything (as there was nothing to miss out on). Of course, that will probably come back to bite me on the behind once SGRAs go on.

I was wondering about this.

It's possible they'd add a romance path to LS Jaesa (people have asked for it at least) and again I wonder if it will occur after her current dialogs as an add on or if people would have to re-roll to do it (which, I'm sure, most asking for this have already gone through and leveled to 50 and done the companion quests).

I'm just hoping for some accommodation for those who've been playing the game for any kind of companion quest add-on (romance or not).

As for female SW romance, LS Jaesa would be the only one that interests me personally. I'm hoping if they would make DS Jaesa open for SGRA that they'd also do the same for LS Jaesa (both SGRA and OGRA) just so LS SW's aren't locked out.

The one character I am most definitely not interested in having an SGRA (or a opposite-gender, for that matter), is my inquisitor. You get either Andronikus Revel or Ashara Zavros, and that is it, and I simply cannot stand either of them. Their personalities are like sandpaper on an open wound. My opinion is that it might have been deliberate on BW's part, so you could safely level at least one character without same-gender romance being an issue. And wow, is it ever not an issue in this case.

That aside, the more time passes, the more inclined I am to just proceed with other toons, regardless of gender - it is looking like same-gender romance is wishful thinking, something else that's going to sit on the back burner until it boils away completely.