For anyone interested in the female on female flirt options on the Republic, I have uploaded the entire Makeb story cutscene if you want to watch. (obvious spoilers). Flirt occurs near end of Part 2 and escalates at end of Part 8.

 

 

Wait - so no female/female flirt options for us on empire side? speaking as a lesbian who has been waiting for same gender romance options (and is already really bummed I can't have a relationship with my companions) I'm really ticked. ALL my active characters are empire side and to now be told I either have to level up a republic character or continue to not be able to have any romance options for my characters is unacceptable to me.

1- SGRA with companions will be added after launch

2- Oh, sorry, did we say you would be able to romance your companion? Eh, that was too hard so we'll add a planet where you can flirt with some NPCs of the same gender, that should make you happy

3 - Oh, did you think we would add that option equally to both factions? Nah, that's somehow too much work, so we split it by faction - but in the future we'll try to be more equal; you're mad we told you this two weeks before the expansion?

4 - you should be happy we've given you ANYTHING, we don't owe you anything, it's not like we misled you by telling you we'd give you anything (see 1-3)

Now, I'm NOT saying anyone is bigoted or any of that nonsense. I'm saying I'm sick of being lied to about this. I've spent the last several double xp weekends leveling up empire side characters to be ready for the expansion and now ALL that time is practically wasted since apparently I should have leveled up republic characters if I want to have ANY freaking flirt options. At the VERY least they should have been upfront with us about this llimitation when they TOLD us we were finally getting the SGR flirt options.

Wait - so no female/female flirt options for us on empire side? speaking as a lesbian who has been waiting for same gender romance options (and is already really bummed I can't have a relationship with my companions) I'm really ticked. ALL my active characters are empire side and to now be told I either have to level up a republic character or continue to not be able to have any romance options for my characters is unacceptable to me.

 

1- SGRA with companions will be added after launch

2- Oh, sorry, did we say you would be able to romance your companion? Eh, that was too hard so we'll add a planet where you can flirt with some NPCs of the same gender, that should make you happy

3 - Oh, did you think we would add that option equally to both factions? Nah, that's somehow too much work, so we split it by faction - but in the future we'll try to be more equal; you're mad we told you this two weeks before the expansion?

4 - you should be happy we've given you ANYTHING, we don't owe you anything, it's not like we misled you by telling you we'd give you anything (see 1-3)

 

Now, I'm NOT saying anyone is bigoted or any of that nonsense. I'm saying I'm sick of being lied to about this. I've spent the last several double xp weekends leveling up empire side characters to be ready for the expansion and now ALL that time is practically wasted since apparently I should have leveled up republic characters if I want to have ANY freaking flirt options. At the VERY least they should have been upfront with us about this llimitation when they TOLD us we were finally getting the SGR flirt options.

I know how you feel, but my Agent girl is bi so she can flirt with guys and get away with it. I am actually not romancing anyone on her for reasons of she hates emotional commitment. I even have her head canon as she has smexy times with Kaliyo but without the emotions (they want physical act but no emotions, hence no flirt with her) or drunkenly trying to kiss her at times.

Wait - so no female/female flirt options for us on empire side? speaking as a lesbian who has been waiting for same gender romance options (and is already really bummed I can't have a relationship with my companions) I'm really ticked. ALL my active characters are empire side and to now be told I either have to level up a republic character or continue to not be able to have any romance options for my characters is unacceptable to me.

According to Larry on p60 there are some f/f flirts empire-side, though it remains to be seen how much there is to them.

Personally I'm disappointed there's still nothing with existing companions, but I do have one character who might make use of what's in RotHC so hopefully it's good. I had unsubbed over this a few months ago but having found nothing better to play I came back a couple of weeks ago; hope I don't end up doing that again.

Yeah, from my understanding, there are f/f flirts on both sides.

However, only the Republic Makeb storyline features a female NPC (who seems to be important to the story) where you can have a 'mini' romance story.

Yeah, from my understanding, there are f/f flirts on both sides.

 

However, only the Republic Makeb storyline features a female NPC (who seems to be important to the story) where you can have a 'mini' romance story.

I like mini romance stories. Good for head-canon.

They need to make it make sense. Throwing a character's personality to the wind would be bad.

 

That said however, I agree with you on the Mako thing. IF they can make it fit her character, I would like to see her open for SGR. But only if it doesn't change who Mako is.

My opinion on this matter is kind of this. If the character personality is open to SGR, then yeah. If not, then having the option available kind of breaks the immersion of the character. I'm sorry, but I'm going to drag RL into this (seems the argument for including SGR stems mostly from it being in RL). Not everyone is gay/bi/whatever. Just because someone is open to flirting with one person or type of person doesn't mean they are open to all. There should be some characters that will be OGR only, some that are SGR only, and some that are both. On that note though, they should have them equally dispersed over both factions and genders.

I like mini romance stories. Good for head-canon.

I do agree and it's more than what I expected for Makeb, to be honest.

I believe the game has a few like these for some classes.

My opinion on this matter is kind of this. If the character personality is open to SGR, then yeah. If not, then having the option available kind of breaks the immersion of the character. I'm sorry, but I'm going to drag RL into this (seems the argument for including SGR stems mostly from it being in RL). Not everyone is gay/bi/whatever. Just because someone is open to flirting with one person or type of person doesn't mean they are open to all. There should be some characters that will be OGR only, some that are SGR only, and some that are both. On that note though, they should have them equally dispersed over both factions and genders.

Like in RL?

I understand some people are deeply disappointed about faction limitation. I know I would have loved to have a good romance option for my female bounty hunter (not that I know if the Makeb ones are really good or not yet), since I found Torian to be sadly vapid. Also I have no higher level female pub toons. I guess it'll motivate me to finally level my Sentinel.

I think this is still a good step in the right direction. There is no longer any reason to doubt SGR's presence in the game, and there will almost definitely be more added in the future.

I'm pretty sure the writers would have gladly written dialogue for male and female romances on each faction, but hiring 2 more voice actors and having to QA two more romance quest arcs probably would have pushed the time and budget out too far. I remember someone asked Hall Hood about SGRs in Makeb several months back and he was like "I don't know anything about it yet, but I'd sure enjoy writing them! (this was before the infamous tweets that were removed). It wasn't THAT long ago, so it seems like the SGRs got tacked on pretty late in production.

I'm very interested in seeing how the SGR romances are written (particularly the male/male); will they be easy to get into, will they be full of stereotypes etc... Also, I know we brought up flirts in groups and how they usually didn't work in groups in the past, but it could be different this time around since I get the impression they want the new story content to be more group friendly.

I guess I'll cool down a little knowing that...still gonna spend next two weekends leveling up a pub scoundrel though since the longer arc sounds more interesting. Thanks for the replies!

Now see, they're probably doing you a favor! Sounds like the only thing that would have gotten you to roll a Smuggler is this!

Is it EPIC HERO TIME? No. But it has been enjoyable!

My opinion on this matter is kind of this. If the character personality is open to SGR, then yeah. If not, then having the option available kind of breaks the immersion of the character. I'm sorry, but I'm going to drag RL into this (seems the argument for including SGR stems mostly from it being in RL). Not everyone is gay/bi/whatever. Just because someone is open to flirting with one person or type of person doesn't mean they are open to all. There should be some characters that will be OGR only, some that are SGR only, and some that are both. On that note though, they should have them equally dispersed over both factions and genders.

That's a fair point, and one that's been voiced many times, but the tricky thing is: who says what personalities 'fit' a given sexuality? People aren't neat and regular. They don't fit into universal patterns. My oldest brother is gay but most people would never pick it (unless they saw him with his partner). I'm bi but most people don't pick that. What is a 'gay personality'? The thing is, you see, the only reason people connect specific sexuality with overall personality is because in most places of the world non-heterosexuals are seen as being 'different' and are whitewashed with templates for what their 'acceptable' behaviour is.

I don't see why Doc can't be bi, Kira can't be a lesbian, Mako can't be a transgendered female heterosexual. Why not? It could easily be made to fit all their stories.

That's a fair point, and one that's been voiced many times, but the tricky thing is: who says what personalities 'fit' a given sexuality? People aren't neat and regular. They don't fit into universal patterns. My oldest brother is gay but most people would never pick it (unless they saw him with his partner). I'm bi but most people don't pick that. What is a 'gay personality'? The thing is, you see, the only reason people connect specific sexuality with overall personality is because in most places of the world non-heterosexuals are seen as being 'different' and are whitewashed with templates for what their 'acceptable' behaviour is.

 

I don't see why Doc can't be bi, Kira can't be a lesbian, Mako can't be a transgendered female heterosexual. Why not? It could easily be made to fit all their stories.

1) Hollywood.

2) People in RL who just live the stereotype.

3) Same reason some think Corso could be gay. It's how each person see's the characters. Problem is, while there may be more than one way to see a character, there is very likely to be the one way MOST PEOPLE see the character.

Ha Ha Ha Ha. Oh BioWare...

I'm not even mad anymore. Between this and the APAC servers closing down, I've entered a blissful peace where all I can do is laugh at the incompetence of the world around me.

1) Hollywood.

Just because Hollywood says something, doesn't mean it's true.

2) People in RL who just live the stereotype.

No one is a stereotype. Even those who might seem to fit into a stereotype won't fit it perfectly.

Remember also that there are other tropes than Camp Gay and Straight Straight. We also have Straight Gay and Camp Straight. These tropes exist because they are quite commonly represented in the media too, as well as in RL.

3) Same reason some think Corso could be gay. It's how each person see's the characters. Problem is, while there may be more than one way to see a character, there is very likely to be the one way MOST PEOPLE see the character.

This might go on a bit of a tangent, but...

We humans love our pigeon-holes, we love taking something that might be a little bit round (but is, actually, more square than round) and then hammering it into the round (mostly, but is really more like a triangle) hole. We don't really like complexity, and so we try to make everything far simpler than it really is. For example - either you're straight or your gay, and people don't seem to (want to) comprehend there's an entire spectrum of sexualities (differing degrees of straightness and gayness in a person) in between - that idea is far too complicated for most people's brains. Taking Corso as an example here - he's only ever been involved with women in his past, he treats women a certain way, we don't know anything about his feelings towards men either now or in the past, so therefore he must be straight, since straight is the default. And what is straight? Not-even-a-little-bit-gay!

Humanity is far more complex than we're really all that comfortable with. The problem with that, however, is that a game like SWTOR can't really embrace and express that complexity all that well (limited computing power and resources available to run the game). So we're left with stereotypes and tropes. In order to include everyone, we sometimes need to make compromises. One of those compromises is the concept of Herosexuality - where characters slated for romances in a game don't have sexualities of their own, but rather sexualities that are defined by PC's interactions with them (which is, of course, controlled by the player).

Maybe one day we'll have computers capable of replicating the complexities of life for a game, but that day is not today.

Just because Hollywood says something, doesn't mean it's true.

Of course.

No one is a stereotype. Even those who might seem to fit into a stereotype won't fit it perfectly.

Stereotypes have wiggle room.

Remember also that there are other tropes than Camp Gay and Straight Straight. We also have Straight Gay and Camp Straight. These tropes exist because they are quite commonly represented in the media too, as well as in RL.

 

 

 

This might go on a bit of a tangent, but...

 

We humans love our pigeon-holes, we love taking something that might be a little bit round (but is, actually, more square than round) and then hammering it into the round (mostly, but is really more like a triangle) hole. We don't really like complexity, and so we try to make everything far simpler than it really is. For example - either you're straight or your gay, and people don't seem to (want to) comprehend there's an entire spectrum of sexualities (differing degrees of straightness and gayness in a person) in between - that idea is far too complicated for most people's brains. Taking Corso as an example here - he's only ever been involved with women in his past, he treats women a certain way, we don't know anything about his feelings towards men either now or in the past, so therefore he must be straight, since straight is the default. And what is straight? Not-even-a-little-bit-gay!

 

Humanity is far more complex than we're really all that comfortable with. The problem with that, however, is that a game like SWTOR can't really embrace and express that complexity all that well (limited computing power and resources available to run the game). So we're left with stereotypes and tropes. In order to include everyone, we sometimes need to make compromises. One of those compromises is the concept of Herosexuality - where characters slated for romances in a game don't have sexualities of their own, but rather sexualities that are defined by PC's interactions with them (which is, of course, controlled by the player).

 

Maybe one day we'll have computers capable of replicating the complexities of life for a game, but that day is not today.

True. But at the same time, there are those who are circle pegs that fit into circle holes. Could Corso be gay? Of course. Does that mean he is? No.

Personally, I prefere the idea of the writers actually fleshing out the character instead of the idea of herosexuality, as it makes for a better story. I'd rather my BH pine for Mako who just so happens to be straight (if the writers wrote her to be so...not saying she is or isnt here...it's an example), than Mako becomes whatever I want, just because I'm the PC. It's better immersion.

Now that said, I'd love for the devs to go back and look at the companions and go "Yes, this is how they were envisioned." Of course, in doing so they could just say "Sorry to those who wanted them to be SGR, but we just didn't envision them that way." (Kalyio stands out as one who does seem to be written for SGR tho...just making an example here), but I'm sure if they did that, even in 100% honesty, it would just leave many in this thread in a rage.

Ha Ha Ha Ha. Oh BioWare...

 

I'm not even mad anymore. Between this and the APAC servers closing down, I've entered a blissful peace where all I can do is laugh at the incompetence of the world around me.

What exactly where you expecting? They added SGR flirts for both genders on both fractions. Then they put in a romance storyline with the planet quest giver. Did you think they'd make this SGR NPC show up as a different gender depending on your character?

Or where you expecting a SGR companion, which we already knew wasn't happening?

What exactly where you expecting? They added SGR flirts for both genders on both fractions. Then they put in a romance storyline with the planet quest giver. Did you think they'd make this SGR NPC show up as a different gender depending on your character?

 

Or where you expecting a SGR companion, which we already knew wasn't happening?

Perhaps they expected some actual effort to have be put into the results of 18 months of stalling.

You have to make compromises for gameplay. You have to make compromises for enjoyment. We decide what rules from the real world to apply to our fantasies in order to make them workable and enjoyable. It's entirely narrow minded to say that representing things in a way other than how it works in reality is poor story telling.

If we didn't make concessions for story and gameplay, we wouldn't have lightsabers or the force. The entire story of this game would be a whole lot darker than it is. When our characters die, they wouldn't come back. No one would be at the center of a galactic story like the ones that exist for our characters, and most of us would be farmers or working on an assembly line.

Good story telling isn't about being accurate to reality, and neither is good gameplay. It's about creating something enjoyable and compelling. You can make the claim that herosexuality isn't compelling, but I disagree. The only way that holds up is if you think about it in a meta-game way. These aren't characters that can flip a switch and be straight or gay, these are characters that are adaptive to the story you are personally experiencing. Just because Mako COULD be straight doesn't have any impact on the validity of the character of Mako as a gay woman in my personal experience.

Herosexuality makes the most sense for this game. We have 20 or so primary romance options, and only 1 or 2 for each character. This game doesn't allow for the consolation that if the person you are interested in isn't compatible with your sexuality, you can probably find someone else who is. I can't walk away from being turned down by Mako with the possibility I might find someone else with the same qualities I find attractive, who is also attracted to me.

So you make a concession. Just like my Mako can be various races depending on how I personally want to customize my gameplay, she should be able to be gay or straight depending on my preference. Otherwise, you end up excluding people because you've drawn the arbitrary line that sexuality is where we stop making concessions to good gameplay.

The very core concept of BioWare games is that it's a single story that can unfold in a thousand different ways, customized to the preferences of the player. To draw the line that making a characters' sexuality adaptive to the preference of the player is "bad story telling" feels like an ignorant excuse to me.

The main idea behind "Herosexuality is bad story telling," seems to be that people think that being gay would be a fundamental change to a character's core personality. To indicate that any companion couldn't be exactly who they are, and be gay at the same time, is downright offensive. Sexual orientation, like race and gender, does not define a person's personality. It may inform their experiences, and those experiences may color their beliefs, but being gay, black, or a woman (for common examples) doesn't necessitate any personality trait be present or absent.

The only thing that would conflict with a character being gay would be if they constantly talk abut how much they love sex with the other gender. I'm pretty sure even Corso doesn't do that, but even if he did, such lines could easily be modified to a gender neutral "I love sex in general!" attitude. That wouldn't be a core change in personality either, just in preference.

Look, as far as the campaign for inclusiveness goes, I'd be happy with an equal amount, but separate set of SGR companions. But inclusiveness, while incredibly important, isn't the only issue here. This is a game, and fun and enjoyment are not unimportant considerations. I don't want to be locked out of the content I want to see just because of the gender I prefer to play as, and I don't give a lick about realism in my Star Wars RPG.

Until you can explain to me how it's okay for our player characters to be male or female, of any race of any species, with relatively little change... How we can change the race and appearance of our companions to no effect on their personalities... Yet somehow sexuality is the one thing that needs to remain absolute or risk breaking the characters....

Until you can explain that to my satisfaction, I'll never accept the argument that herosexuality is lazy design.

You have to make compromises for gameplay. You have to make compromises for enjoyment. We decide what rules from the real world to apply to our fantasies in order to make them workable and enjoyable. It's entirely narrow minded to say that representing things in a way other than how it works in reality is poor story telling.

 

If we didn't make concessions for story and gameplay, we wouldn't have lightsabers or the force. The entire story of this game would be a whole lot darker than it is. When our characters die, they wouldn't come back. No one would be at the center of a galactic story like the ones that exist for our characters, and most of us would be farmers or working on an assembly line.

 

Good story telling isn't about being accurate to reality, and neither is good gameplay. It's about creating something enjoyable and compelling. You can make the claim that herosexuality isn't compelling, but I disagree. The only way that holds up is if you think about it in a meta-game way. These aren't characters that can flip a switch and be straight or gay, these are characters that are adaptive to the story you are personally experiencing. Just because Mako COULD be straight doesn't have any impact on the validity of the character of Mako as a gay woman in my personal experience.

 

Herosexuality makes the most sense for this game. We have 20 or so primary romance options, and only 1 or 2 for each character. This game doesn't allow for the consolation that if the person you are interested in isn't compatible with your sexuality, you can probably find someone else who is. I can't walk away from being turned down by Mako with the possibility I might find someone else with the same qualities I find attractive, who is also attracted to me.

 

So you make a concession. Just like my Mako can be various races depending on how I personally want to customize my gameplay, she should be able to be gay or straight depending on my preference. Otherwise, you end up excluding people because you've drawn the arbitrary line that sexuality is where we stop making concessions to good gameplay.

 

The very core concept of BioWare games is that it's a single story that can unfold in a thousand different ways, customized to the preferences of the player. To draw the line that making a characters' sexuality adaptive to the preference of the player is "bad story telling" feels like an ignorant excuse to me.

 

The main idea behind "Herosexuality is bad story telling," seems to be that people think that being gay would be a fundamental change to a character's core personality. To indicate that any companion couldn't be exactly who they are, and be gay at the same time, is downright offensive. Sexual orientation, like race and gender, does not define a person's personality. It may inform their experiences, and those experiences may color their beliefs, but being gay, black, or a woman (for common examples) doesn't necessitate any personality trait be present or absent.

 

The only thing that would conflict with a character being gay would be if they constantly talk abut how much they love sex with the other gender. I'm pretty sure even Corso doesn't do that, but even if he did, such lines could easily be modified to a gender neutral "I love sex in general!" attitude. That wouldn't be a core change in personality either, just in preference.

 

Look, as far as the campaign for inclusiveness goes, I'd be happy with an equal amount, but separate set of SGR companions. But inclusiveness, while incredibly important, isn't the only issue here. This is a game, and fun and enjoyment are not unimportant considerations. I don't want to be locked out of the content I want to see just because of the gender I prefer to play as, and I don't give a lick about realism in my Star Wars RPG.

 

Until you can explain to me how it's okay for our player characters to be male or female, of any race of any species, with relatively little change... How we can change the race and appearance of our companions to no effect on their personalities... Yet somehow sexuality is the one thing that needs to remain absolute or risk breaking the characters....

 

Until you can explain that to my satisfaction, I'll never accept the argument that herosexuality is lazy design.

I've never seen the companions able to change race. Where exactly do you see the companions changing races? Vette's designs are all Twileks, I've never seen her have a human species. Where exactly do you see people changing the species of their character?

And this likely explains why I've never used the customization on any companion except for T7 (he's a droid), and keep the look with how they start in the story, and thusly keep with the story.

And of course, there has to be some leeway in MMOs with your character, MMOs wouldn't be worth it to most people, without some sort of customization for their characters.

It's lazy design to me, because I prefere to have MY character running around and interacting with the NPCs as they were envisioned. Not change the whole world to my liking.

If I could do that, why should I have to put up with other players in game I disagree with? It's my world obviously. I should beable to go "My character wouldn't lose to yours. Sorry." If I can just change the NPCs to however I want, maybe I should just have the option to kill the Dread Masters, because in my world, they're not nearly as strong as fiction dictates.

Now mind you, I wouldn't quit over the herosexual aspect (or be upset with it being implemented), my thought on it however is with all the talk of "realism" that gets brought up by many in this thread, herosexual goes the opposite of that.

But then, I'm also one of the players annoyed by all the slave companions running around. *Shrug* Yeah, the stories do seem centered around being based around 4 players and each being a different class, and really, doesn't seem centered around so many players playing together if you like to actually follow the storyline for which TOR is suppossed to be all about.

But I'm also the type of player who just rolls with it. There's what I like to see and there's what there is. I like the idea of a more set storyline with some wiggle room, so I don't go crafting (and I hate this term with a passion, but I'll use it to hopefully get my point of view across) what amounts to basically mary sue stories, where everything goes my characters way.

My BH gets the girl (Mako), kills the Dread Masters, doesn't get cheap shotted by some of the NPCs, ect, ect. If they set the NPCs to actually sticking to a personality, it makes me have to imagine my character how I see them, actually reacting to the enviorment around them, rather than altering the enviorment to make this perfect BH that everything goes right for.

Which is one of the reasons I want the ability to kill off companions. Let me live with the consequences! If I kill my healer, I have no one to blame but myself. If I make a character I envision as straight or gay, then let me live with the consequences (for this, it would be flirt options going nowhere or going somewhere...with NPCs being either receptive or non-receptive to it...but that idea was also shot down by posters )

I guess it comes down to each players own idea of what a fun game is. You have yours, I have mine. If given options or options taken away or options just not given, I roll with them. Not all others seem to beable to do that.

Perhaps they expected some actual effort to have be put into the results of 18 months of stalling.

What exactly is more effort? They went back and added SGR flirts to NPCs on other planets besides keeping them to just Makeb. Is it because they kept Makeb to their normal planet mission style (planet storyline with one shot quests)?

My guess is on the next planet, they'll likely now reverse the genders of the NPCs (Empire gets a Female NPC and Republic gets a Male NPC).

Or do you mean the lack of SGR companion NPCs? We've known for awhile that was going to be a huge undertaking. And if they go about the idea of herosexual with them, I hope it becomes more than a switch in them saying he/she in their dialogue, as there would be some lines that just leaves you going o.O if they did that. It may not be many, but they would be there.

I suspect we'll see Cartel Market companions before we see the current companion storylines changed to accomodate SGR romances with companions.

Personally, I prefere the idea of the writers actually fleshing out the character instead of the idea of herosexuality, as it makes for a better story.

No. It wouldn't make for a better story. It would make for an equally fleshed story told in a different way. Story quality is not the same as story form.

 

<snip>

Until you can explain that to my satisfaction, I'll never accept the argument that herosexuality is lazy design.

I agree with so much of this post, Slaign, that I can't even form a decent response to it. Kudos.