So pubs can be lesbians but imps not?

I'm talking with reference to the game as a whole, when we take into consideration a number of factors. In vacuum, each and every incident might be explainable, but taken as a whole, we get an interesting trend. That's not to say that the decisions behind these incidents were necessarily conscious, nor that there is some nefarious, moustache twirling, monocled mastermind, but that doesn't mean we can't at least look at the differences. If I had the time (and the willing participation of Bioware, of course) it's something I'd like to examine in more depth, as the representation and use of women and femininity in games is interesting to me and, while under almost constant attack and query, nothing much seems to be changing (if it is, it is being done extremely slowly. Likewise with race.)

We have discussed it much in the SGRA thread, where such things are allowed, because of blindness

Why is it only homosexuals (well the majority are homosexual) care about ANY aspect of the in game romance options? Generally you ask any straight person what they think about the romances in SWTOR and you'll usually get the same answer...

"IDGAF about the romance in SWTOR. It's a joke anyway."

Your romance with companions/npcs does NOTHING for you in the game. It is fluff, filler, content to make you think the game has substance in that particular area of the story but it doesn't yet same gender oriented players care about it so much. Why?

Because they don't have it? Because not having it in the game is just another way - in the multitudes and multitudes of ways - of saying "you don't belong"? Because this is a Bioware game and they're supposedly progressive? Because it's not fair?

And you don't need to be a lesbian to be interested in the companion romances, nor do you have to be gay to be interested in the class stories. I'm neither, and yet...

Not to mention you are out-of-hand dismissing a person's concerns about their game play, because it's not something you're interested in. Big freaking deal, you don't care? Wow, amazing! I don't care about PvP, but I don't hang around on the PvP boards telling them to get over their lack of World Arena Zones, or whatever it is they like.

What else can be a baby factory other than a woman? Do you understand how ludicrous your statement sounds? Paraphrased it sounds like this...

"Why do women always get portrayed as baby factories? We're not baby factories!"

Uh yes you are. You can make a baby hence you are a baby factory. If I made Popsicle stick houses with my bare hands (well with Popsicle sticks and glue) I'd be a Popsicle stick house factory.

The level of your ignorance astounds me. What I am objecting to, is the objectification of women and our reduction to little more than our supposed reproductive functions. I cannot even begin to argue this with you, your misogyny is so apparent.

And you could make that point were we to ignore most every Bioware release in rec ent history (KOTOR, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 1, and 3, and even Rise of the Hutt Cartel.) I assume you think gays should have equal rights, which is all well, and good, I agree, however, not including gay characters in a game is not discrimination, and it seems fairly clear, as evidenced by the games above, that Bioware is not anti gay. You don't get to go around, demanding they include SGRA, or what else they are bigoted, esp. after they actually include it. They don't have to include anything. The anti Bioware slander in many of the threads like this are frankly nerve grating.

There are a lot of things game companies don't "have" to do, from a legal sense, or even from the multitude of relative moral stances (morality is, after all, entirely relative), but there's a growing school of thought that inclusion and diversity are just better suited for the positions that the current zeitgeist would wish we find ourselves in. Yes, Bioware is "better" at this than many other games companies of their ilk (as I mentioned "supposedly progressive"), they are by no means perfect, but if Bioware considered any of my observations particularly libellous, I'm sure they would have done something about it.

They are very hetero-centric a lot of the time, I should say, and while that's not quite the same as being homophobic, one tends to end up with similar results. If you find me grating, pop me on your ignore list, I don't mind.

LOL because we get shafted when it comes to choice? oh wait... I forgot, we didn't even get 1 SGR option given to us when the game launched by a company that is known to provide them in their other RPG games. We had to wait until Makeb to get a sub-par, temporary one.

I'm pretty damn sure if they decided to make this game with 100% SGR only options the majority would moan like buggery about not being able to pick anything else.

OH WAIT.

When Makeb launched and you could only romance a male NPC with a male imp, look how many people complained!

You are trivializing the issue by targeting it as something that 'shouldn't be considered important to the overall gameplay'. That completely sidesteps what the problem is.

We don't give a damn that it's about the romance options, we are making a fuss about it because of the way they have handled a whole demographic of players and what they expected to be able to choose.

How ridiculous would it be if they decided from launch that players who pick body type 4, every female character or heaven forbid, a darker skin colour would be locked out of Warzones completely. How much of an uproar would there be by angry, confused players who just couldn't see WHY they did that?

Factories are about mass production, like sperm, for instance... Do you see what I did there?

http://i.qkme.me/3tjhhk.jpg

Hi. A straight person here, and I love the romances in SWTOR. If I had to choose between a new, romancable companion and a new operation, it would be the companion. You may not think it's real content, but there are people (like me) who think it IS real content. They add a little drama to the stories and make them more interesting. Of course, a deep friendship with a npc would probably do the same thing, but I haven't yet found a npc I could develop such a friendship with (outclueding companions, of course). So it's either a professional relationship or romance, and I have to say, romance is way more interesting.

Also I have to admit, I love to watch/read when two characters I like are in love with each other (Or even being sweet to each other), no matter if it's in a movie, a book or a game. And since I more or less like all my characters, all I need for my special "awwww, they are so cute!"-moments is another cute character.

Nice one, Aelix ! !