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Same gender relationships clarifications?


elexier

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I'm pretty sure they're already calling back the original voice talent, to do this expansion (if they arent it sure isnt much of an expansion, haha), so while they're there having them record the romance lines wouldn't take much time at all. Also, you're assuming the lines arent already recorded and simply were never used, they may be already recorded and ready to put in the game once the green light is given.

 

The voice over work needed is supposed to be why the SGRAs were said to be coming with other story content, since BioWare didn't feel as inclined to call back the voice actors for a free add-on as they did with Mass Effect 3.

 

And, yes, they've said the "expansion" is going to be fully voiced, so the assumption is that if SGRAs are still going to be implemented at all, the voice work will be (or has been) recorded at the same time for Makeb and SGRAs.

 

It's just sad that a community manager, writer, or anyone else actually related to the story side of the game can't even answer "yes" or "no" on whether the content is going to be in the expansion.

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Its a common myth, but a myth nonetheless, that somehow its easier to make whole new characters than simply disable the gender check for the existing ones. Its vastly, VASTLY easier to do the latter, as a quote mentioned not that far back in this thread from David Gaider stated. He was just stating the obvious, if folks actually thought about it they'd figure it out for themselves, David just made it easier for everybody to understand :) .

 

I'm not sure why people believe this myself. I think it comes down to people not wanting to share "their toys" so they try to come up with odd ways to justify it (ex: "Character X doesn't seem bisexual and their character will be ruined if they are suddenly bisexual." "New characters would be easier/cheaper.").

 

New characters require a lot of work starting from scratch. Not only would romance dialog need to be designed and implemented, but also all non-romance dialog (and comments that go along with missions/planets). Not only that, but their character itself needs designed and implemented (appearance, background story, etc.).

 

With existing characters, most of that work is done. They just need to add different romance dialog to work with the other gender (I'm sure some dialog can be re-used from the OGRA).

Edited by stuffystuffs
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Not to agree with them, but overlaying new dialogue (retrofitting) is always challenging. It calls for a new layer of programming (that could 'break' existing dialogue) Frankly, it is easier from a development standpoint add new, independent companions that are SGRA driven. Story is not hard, computer scripting is challenging and nitpicky.

 

I am not certain that the idea that old companions are going to be retrofitted was ever in the works. That means Theran, Corso, Kaliyo and others that just beg to be SGRA oriented likely will not be.

 

I could be wrong though.

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Multiple character attitudes and with them entirely new dialogue trees already exist in the game; the most prominent example springing to mind being Dark Side / Light Side Jaesa. It could very well be necessary to reset people's "progress" with their companions (the cutscenes, not the points) in order to allow them to activate these new alternate paths, but other than that I don't see how it would be much different.

BioWare has also shown that this can be implemented retroactively in various DLC for its Dragon Age and Mass Effect IPs, where a download would change the dialogue of some character in the main game. Different games, yes, but it goes to show that the studio has experience with such subsequent alterations.

 

The reset itself would be more tricky. The developers likely would not wish to reset every single player's progress with each and every single companion, so it would require a case-by-case solution. Ideally, it could be some sort of mail-distributed ingame item that triggers it, or perhaps it could be an NPC like the one that resets people's skill points? Hell, I'd even buy it off the Cartel Store. :p

 

With existing characters, most of that work is done. They just need to add different romance dialog to work with the other gender (I'm sure some dialog can be re-used from the OGRA).
Also important: by now a lot of us have gotten very used to the companions we have. I could be wrong, but as far as I'm concerned, for now I do not think any new NPC could compete with "Psycho Jaesa" who I've come to think of as the ideal partner for my Sith, regardless of how much my own creativity needs to fill in the blanks left by the game's lack of support.

 

And I think we all have our favorites already, right? How sad would it be if, some day far in the future, we actually do get new companions romanceable by the same gender, only to discover that they cannot compete with someone already in our crew? New companions will actually have to be entirely new, after all, thus very likely not sharing certain qualities (class, voice, personality, ...) we grew to like in the existing ones.

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Not to agree with them, but overlaying new dialogue (retrofitting) is always challenging. It calls for a new layer of programming (that could 'break' existing dialogue) Frankly, it is easier from a development standpoint add new, independent companions that are SGRA driven. Story is not hard, computer scripting is challenging and nitpicky.

 

I am not certain that the idea that old companions are going to be retrofitted was ever in the works. That means Theran, Corso, Kaliyo and others that just beg to be SGRA oriented likely will not be.

 

I could be wrong though.

 

I mean, I suppose no amount of experience in other games adds up to knowledge about how this one works, but I don't think you're correct about the difficulty of adding new dialogue to existing characters.

 

Modern developers generally don't really do the kind of programming that exists in the games structure and foundation. They aren't writing C++ code to implement dialogue. Somebody has already done that for them. The game is built upon an engine, developed out of house, that handles the base functions of the game. They just make tweaks, adjust variables, and use the tools provided with the engine to make it work as a foundation for their game.

 

Upon that, they build the specific features of their game. The programmers developing the actual structure of the game then develop a set of "Dev Tools" which are programs with visual interfaces, scripts, menus, and functions to allow the world builders to more intuitively effect changes to the game. If you've ever used the modification tools for a Bethesda game, those tools are what the use in house as well.

 

Simple additions like new dialogue options likely don't even require anything beyond some very light scripting, if that. They very likely just open up that section of the Dev Tools, find the character they want to modify, and see the dialogue trees represented visually. Then they add and fill out the dialogue options, link in the audio files, and reference the animations.

 

Certainly the actual process is not a short one, with having to write, record, and animate everything. But I personally doubt that modifying existing companions is harder than adding new ones. In my estimation, adding new companions presents far more additional challenge. Especially because existing companions have lines already recorded that can be used.

 

In modifying games like Skyrim, I've generally found it easier to add a dialogue option to an existing character than to create a new character all together.

 

Of course, this is all predicated on my experience with the dev tools for other games, and none of us likely know exactly what the tools the SWTOR devs use look like.

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And I think we all have our favorites already, right? How sad would it be if, some day far in the future, we actually do get new companions romanceable by the same gender, only to discover that they cannot compete with someone already in our crew?

 

Indeed....that's very likely.

 

 

Not to agree with them, but overlaying new dialogue (retrofitting) is always challenging. It calls for a new layer of programming (that could 'break' existing dialogue) Frankly, it is easier from a development standpoint add new, independent companions that are SGRA driven. Story is not hard, computer scripting is challenging and nitpicky.

 

New companions would also require the scripting...more of it actually.

 

I won't say that altering dialog for existing companions is super easy, but I can't see how it's more work/difficulty than creating brand new companions from scratch.

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I'm with Slaign here. Modern game development isn't like the days of the original Fallout or Baldur's Gate, so it's a whole lot harder to mess things up when adding extra dialogue and such.

 

But even if it were easy to screw things up, it would still be tons more work to create a brand new character.

Edited by JediMB
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I'm with Slaign here. Modern game development isn't like the days of the original Fallout or Baldur's Gate, so it's a whole lot harder to mess things up when adding extra dialogue and such.

 

But even if it were easy to screw things up, it would still be tons more work to create a brand new character.

 

Even if it's not easy to screw things up, I'm sure Bioware could find a way.

 

Cheap, I know, but I couldn't help myself.

 

Also, to Joshigun, have you read the recent stuff about Return of the Jedi? Female erasure.

 

Extend logic of "there's no gays in Star Wars" to "there are no female combatants in Star Wars" therefore there should be no female playable characters in SWTOR, as all player characters are combatants. Leia and Padme are the exceptions which prove the rule.

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Also, to Joshigun, have you read the recent stuff about Return of the Jedi? Female erasure.

 

Extend logic of "there's no gays in Star Wars" to "there are no female combatants in Star Wars" therefore there should be no female playable characters in SWTOR, as all player characters are combatants. Leia and Padme are the exceptions which prove the rule.

 

I hadn't read those. Thank you for passing them along. I mean, if you think about it, how many women in all six films can you actually name? Heck, just to show how memorable she is, I completely forgot about Shimi Skywalker lol.

 

Mon Mothma? She's there for exposition. Aunt Beru? She's there long enough to end up a smoldering corpse...oh and in the prequels she has a few lines.

 

Yeah, it comes down to just Amadala and Leia, and at that point, we women are pretty poorly represented in the movies.

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Yeah, it comes down to just Amadala and Leia, and at that point, we women are pretty poorly represented in the movies.

 

Don't forget that all Star Wars humans are white and cis - and to add to your point, I have no idea who the two women you just mentioned are. I know of Darth Talon (red twi'lek woman), but largely I know of her clothing (gee), fanatical devotion and the highly sexualised media surrounding her.

 

Gosh, I wonder why :rolleyes:

 

Sometimes it feels like the only reasons the rabid id- fans don't rail against the inclusion of people of colour and women into this game is because a) racism is no longer as socially acceptable and b) breasts.

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Don't forget that all Star Wars humans are white and cis - and to add to your point, I have no idea who the two women you just mentioned are. I know of Darth Talon (red twi'lek woman), but largely I know of her clothing (gee), fanatical devotion and the highly sexualised media surrounding her.

 

Gosh, I wonder why :rolleyes:

 

Sometimes it feels like the only reasons the rabid id- fans don't rail against the inclusion of people of colour and women into this game is because a) racism is no longer as socially acceptable and b) breasts.

 

I see the thread has gotten WAY off topic.

 

You are wrong, however: Lando Calrissian (sp?) is not white. Making up "facts" to support your argument fail to do so.

 

As far as some offense taken to my earlier posts, "waste" was a poor choice of words when describing my view of prioritising. I had simply meant that if resources are as short as they feel like they are now, since the layoffs earlier this year, I feel that more can be done for the overall story side of the game rather than just the romance portion, SGR or OGR. Only my opinion, of course, and not denegrating the opinions of those who feel otherwise. In truth, if it were a specific portion of content that I desperately wanted to see, I would fight for it just as strongly.

 

Again, gl in getting a definitive update, if nothing else.

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I guess it's no coincidence that most SWTOR companions are male...except when there needs to be "the romanceable female".

 

Really? Be honest, an exact 50/50 split would not be realistic, either. You are looking to hard to find discrimination, even where it is not.

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I guess it's no coincidence that most SWTOR companions are male...except when there needs to be "the romanceable female".

 

I believe one of the comments on Joshigun's article about gender representation covered just that. Having read a recent opinion column about a woman enjoying Bioware's inclusive stance and representation of women in their games (specifically the Mass Effect series and Commander Shepard), it truly does make me wonder how the studio which wrote, created and maintains this game can dare to use the 'Bioware' name, when they clearly do not adhere to even its basic principles.

 

Women is for sex. Man is for fight. Hodor is for carry.

 

 

I see the thread has gotten WAY off topic.

 

You are wrong, however: Lando Calrissian (sp?) is not white. Making up "facts" to support your argument fail to do so.

 

Like Padme and Leia, Lando is an exception.

 

 

Really? Be honest, an exact 50/50 split would not be realistic, either. You are looking to hard to find discrimination, even where it is not.

 

Why would it not be realistic?

Edited by Tatile
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Don't forget that all Star Wars humans are white and cis - and to add to your point, I have no idea who the two women you just mentioned are. I know of Darth Talon (red twi'lek woman), but largely I know of her clothing (gee), fanatical devotion and the highly sexualised media surrounding her.

 

Gosh, I wonder why :rolleyes:

 

Sometimes it feels like the only reasons the rabid id- fans don't rail against the inclusion of people of colour and women into this game is because a) racism is no longer as socially acceptable and b) breasts.

 

Amadala was the Queen and then Senator of Naboo. She was the wife of Anakin Skywalker. She is also the mother of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa.

 

Leia was the adopted daughter of Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan, and the biological daughter of Padme Amadala and Anakin Skywalker, aka Darth Vader.

 

Mon Mathma was a Senator to the Galactic Republic and one of the founders of the Rebellion. She is seen in Return of the Jedi explaining how the Bothan spies died to get the plans to the second Death Star.

 

Aunt Beru was the foster mother and step-aunt of Luke Skywalker, She married the step-brother of Anakin Skywalker.

 

Shimi Skywalker is the only biological parent of Anakin Skywalker, and grandmother of Luke and Leia.

 

Those, literally, are the only women to have any kind of major speaking part in the six movies.

 

What's bad is that I think Lando Calarissian and Mace Windu are the only Blacks in the six movies and Bail Organa is the only Latino.

Edited by Joushigun
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Samuel L. Jackson is amazing, and you'd hope he was hired because he's awesome, and not because the Council was 'too white'. Because of the era, I can't help but feel that Lando was a bit more of a token rather than a genuine attempt at representation.
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Samuel L. Jackson is amazing, and you'd hope he was hired because he's awesome, and not because the Council was 'too white'. Because of the era, I can't help but feel that Lando was a bit more of a token rather than a genuine attempt at representation.

 

Jackson was hired mostly because he harassed Lucas, and even offered to just be a stormtrooper.

 

But, yeah, the Star Wars movies are not overly diverse.

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One thing that worries me about new characters is that they might be placed at the end of the story altogether. Which would make any romance from said companion to be rushed and inauthentic. + It means that SGR's would always be at the back of the game while regular romance is available earlier on.
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Hey all! First post in the forums, but I just wanted to lend my support for SGRs in SWTOR. As a bisexual man, I fully support greater diversity within such a rich story that the SW universe provides and moving beyond just the confines of straight, cisgender, white, masculine, etc.

 

Also, great work from you all trying to keep Bioware/EA accountable and I hope to get more involved in the conversation!

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One thing that worries me about new characters is that they might be placed at the end of the story altogether. Which would make any romance from said companion to be rushed and inauthentic. + It means that SGR's would always be at the back of the game while regular romance is available earlier on.

 

I agree completely with that. The absurdity of this whole issue is truly astounding, for a number of reasons. I imagine most, if not all, folks here know about Skyrim, and how not only can you romance anybody you like, you can marry anybody you like. This was a major, and obviously very positive, departure from all the other games in the series, which to the best of my knowledge didn't have any LIs at all, they were just traditional 'story and combat' games. When the head of the game was asked about the issue, he was asked why he wasn't making a big deal out of the fact that you can romance, and marry, anyone, and his answer was simple. They weren't making a big deal out of it because it isn't a big deal. That's exactly right, as it should be. Of course in all likelihood, the main reason they did things the way they did them wasn't for any other reason than maximizing fun while minimizing work. Its literally easier to make the romances available to everyone than to say 'this romance is for player A, this one for player B, this one for player A, this one for player B' etc. Thats why its so insane that SWTOR has done things the way they've done them, they've literally worked harder to keep us from enjoying the romances than they would have if they'd simply let us enjoy them all along.

 

Thats why I don't tend to say things like 'give us SGRs' or anything like that, I say things like 'stop disabling the romances', because we're not asking for anything special, we're not asking for them to go out of their way and create special all new characters, or separate romance paths, or anything like that (of course we'd enjoy new characters to romance 'in addition to' the existing ones, we just dont want them 'instead of' the existing ones), we simply want them to stop actively preventing us from enjoying the romances that are already in the game. As I mentioned before, when they added the 'legacy' system they could've actively prevented two characters of the same gender from being regarded as a 'spouse', but they didnt, because to do that would've been insane, it would've meant more work for the team creating it, and less fun options for the players. Its the same deal with the romances, it took more work to keep us from playing them than it would have to allow us to play all of them. Its just crazy stuff, its why almost nobody does that sort of thing anymore. The key for me is, we were never asking them to do 'more', we were actually asking them to do 'less' (although you could say that at this point we're asking them to do a little bit more, just enough to undo what they did in keeping us from playing the romances in the first place) . I do predict, based on the legacy system, that any characters they add in the future that are LIs will be made available for all, whether they'll be doing it as a response to our asking or simply because they have fewer workers now and can less afford to waste time keeping us from playing the romances is anybody's guess, But this whole issue, at its core, is one of their own making, not because they 'didnt have enough time to implement it', but because they took MORE time to prevent it than they would have taken to allow it. Hopefully they, as other gaming companies already have, learned now that wasting time and energy preventing us from enjoying the various romances is just a really REALLY dumb idea, it doesn't really make anybody happy and it makes quite a lot of folks unhappy, and shouldn't be done anymore.

 

On a much more positive note, Merry Christmas everybody!

Edited by SirGladiator
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I believe one of the comments on Joshigun's article about gender representation covered just that. Having read a recent opinion column about a woman enjoying Bioware's inclusive stance and representation of women in their games (specifically the Mass Effect series and Commander Shepard), it truly does make me wonder how the studio which wrote, created and maintains this game can dare to use the 'Bioware' name, when they clearly do not adhere to even its basic principles.

 

SWTOR is actually significantly better than Mass Effect on the gender front. ME1 was pretty good if you ignore Liara (Ash and Kaidan are all kinds of stereotype-defying) but ME2 got fratboy on us and ME3 was even worse. Imagine if you couldn't tell Doc or Theran to shut up and stop being skeezy, because the game itself was quite convinced that they were hilarious and awesome and not, you know, frakking skeezy and so didn't even think to give you the option.

 

SWTOR has a real numbers disparity, and the whole "every female companion is a love interest" thing is certainly problematic. (And let's not even start on the clothing issue; where's my slave outfit for Corso, BioWare?) But the most bad@ss character in the entire setting is Satele Shan, who is allowed to be more dangerous than Malgus and smoother than the male Smuggler. Class storylines have the PCs answerable to people like Garza and Zash, solid characters treated with complete respect by the narrative with no reliance on Girl Character cliches (Garza in particular is incredible - she's hypercompetent with incredible authority including over the PC, she's complex and possessed of her own motives and priorities, and she's old and fat. That she is allowed to be any of these things as a woman is already huge. That she can be all of them at once is beyond amazing). This is female-friendly writing on a level Mass Effect can't even dream of anymore. (Although on the whole I still think the Dragon Age franchise is doing better as of DA2; they have the writing and the numbers, and a more equal-opportunity art team.)

 

Which honestly just makes it all the sadder that they're being so backwards on the queer front. If you're going to be a dudebro game for a dudebro audience fine, go ahead and go all the way. Nobody's seriously going "why are women treated so badly in the Witcher" because it's the Witcher, what do you expect? But the SWTOR guys, with their writing that treats women like actual human beings most of the time, appear to be aiming at a different audience. Well, here we are, so where's the rest of the not-for-dudebro-jack@sses package?

Edited by Quething
Wow, they censor "bad@ss" here. That's pretty *********** sad.
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(Garza in particular is incredible - she's hypercompetent with incredible authority including over the PC, she's complex and possessed of her own motives and priorities, and she's old and fat. That she is allowed to be any of these things as a woman is already huge. That she can be all of them at once is beyond amazing).

 

Garza is obviously a Body Type 4, and that is far from being fat. 3 would have been appropriate as well. 2 is a bit on the thin side, especially for a soldier, and a 1 is positively anorexic and unhealthy-looking. I think Garza was given the most appropriate type available, all things considered, though that's a body shape most gals can only dream of having at that age. YMMV.

 

Back on topic...I am no programmer, but wouldn't it be fairly simple to have some sort of toggle switch at character creation (or in-game), allowing you to choose which dialogues you can access? 1=OGRA, 2=SGRA, 3=Both.

 

I am of the opinion that many of the minor bumps in the dialogue would be acceptable were this option available - it would certainly be one of the least expensive options, again, in my opinion.

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SWTOR is actually significantly better than Mass Effect on the gender front. ME1 was pretty good if you ignore Liara (Ash and Kaidan are all kinds of stereotype-defying) but ME2 got fratboy on us and ME3 was even worse. Imagine if you couldn't tell Doc or Theran to shut up and stop being skeezy, because the game itself was quite convinced that they were hilarious and awesome and not, you know, frakking skeezy and so didn't even think to give you the option.

 

SWTOR has a real numbers disparity, and the whole "every female companion is a love interest" thing is certainly problematic. (And let's not even start on the clothing issue; where's my slave outfit for Corso, BioWare?) But the most bad@ss character in the entire setting is Satele Shan, who is allowed to be more dangerous than Malgus and smoother than the male Smuggler. Class storylines have the PCs answerable to people like Garza and Zash, solid characters treated with complete respect by the narrative with no reliance on Girl Character cliches (Garza in particular is incredible - she's hypercompetent with incredible authority including over the PC, she's complex and possessed of her own motives and priorities, and she's old and fat. That she is allowed to be any of these things as a woman is already huge. That she can be all of them at once is beyond amazing). This is female-friendly writing on a level Mass Effect can't even dream of anymore. (Although on the whole I still think the Dragon Age franchise is doing better as of DA2; they have the writing and the numbers, and a more equal-opportunity art team.)

 

Which honestly just makes it all the sadder that they're being so backwards on the queer front. If you're going to be a dudebro game for a dudebro audience fine, go ahead and go all the way. Nobody's seriously going "why are women treated so badly in the Witcher" because it's the Witcher, what do you expect? But the SWTOR guys, with their writing that treats women like actual human beings most of the time, appear to be aiming at a different audience. Well, here we are, so where's the rest of the not-for-dudebro-jack@sses package?

 

I'll bow to your knowledge - I've not actually played Mass Effect, so that was an interesting read.

 

I was writing that post a little late last night, so it's now obvious I forgot the sexism thread that's already floating around in Story and Lore. I've encountered very few... problematic representations of women in this game, though that's probably because almost all of my characters are female. Like you said, this stance of treating women like real people only makes the denial and erasure of queer people even more stark.

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**pops in**

 

Merry Christmas!!

 

I'll talk to you guys in the next day or so. I

Stay warm my northern hemisphere friends. It's 4(F)-16©/ degrees out here with snow on the ground.

 

Got the DA Ultimate Edition pack (Orgin, Awakening and all 9 of the DLC packs for Christmas. I'm having too much fun. :D

 

And for my buddies in Oz., keep cool and not too hot. Stay hydrated, not thirsty my friends. ;)

Edited by natashina
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