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Same gender relationships clarifications?


elexier

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We have been led to expect same-sex romance with companions we already know. And sc****** up CC to unlock it, when those could be invested elsewhere, IS Pay-to-Gay, because no one had to do anything like that for OGR. It was just there, part of the content with the companions one met along the way. I want the same thing for SGR. Anything less and I will turn around and walk away rather than accept more of a second-class experience than we have already been subjected to.

 

I've not interpreted the BW scriptures this way. They've wanted to do SGRs justice by not flipping a toggle and making them player sexual. Rewriting existing non romance able companions would seem like a big task not really leading to additional content. Heterosexual players could also have SGR companions and not romance them and experience a new companion with their own character and opinions. I don't see why they would rewrite existing companions. If the content had already been written, then why would they have adjusted it to the current companions and then later rewrite those to be inclusive? They've never said literally that the existing companions would be SGR capable and I very much doubt that they're going to do that, it just doesn't make sense. Adding new companions with a story update makes much more sense.

 

As for the Cartel Market, not all things are paid for by subs, isn't HK51 also free for subs? I'm not lvl 50 yet so I don't have it yet.

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I guess, maybe, the reason Makeb is being delayed is so they can wait and see how the transition to F2P affects their finances. That way they can determine whether or not they'd have to charge money from subscribers in order for new story content to continue to be viable.

 

That said, I would hope that the SGR content would be freely available to all regardless of if they buy the expansion or not, even if they do come in the same update.

 

EDIT: And HK-51 is free of subscribers, yes. The idea is basically that F2P players have to pay to unlock anything that isn't the basic story/path to level 50.

 

You know, that is exactly what I was talking about. We may disagree on the subject, but we do so without calling each other names or scream and yell at another.

 

And on the Internet too. Isn't it zany? :rak_03:

 

On public boards when I mentioned I was okay with the endings and didn't really miss anything, there were people telling me I could never ever be a "true" Mass Effect fan then. They did not allow any disconsent. That I found quite presumptuous.

 

In my own experience, the reversed was much more common from day one. Anyone daring to support the idea that BioWare "owed" the fans more than what was there was called childish, bratty, immature, etc..

 

I have no doubt that it's highly dependent on the demographic of specific public boards, but it just seemed worse in this direction. Above mentioned insults were usually the catch-all response to any and all legitimate and detailed criticism covering everything from the emotional impact of the lack of denouement to deconstructions of the plot or inconsistent game design.

 

I read just last night (I didn't even know), that Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk left Bioware to retire. I have no idea whether there's any connection here, but one saying he lost passion for creating video games, after all this ruckus with the new DLC was over .... I find this timing rather odd. But maybe that's just me.

 

I'm under the impression that Muzyka and Zeschuk have been planning to retire ever since they decided to sell BioWare to EA. They probably just stayed on to oversee the transition and, perhaps, the wrap-up of the Mass Effect franchise. No disrespect intended toward them, but once EA "assumed direct control" of BioWare... the founders were more or less rendered redundant, and that's just the nature of the business.

 

Everyone should do what they want to get the content they want. That's more than fine with me. But don't claim I'm not a real fan if I disagree with you on some things and behave yourself in a way that makes it possible for other people to interact with you, be it other fellow gamers or writers, producers, and so on. I guess that's all I'm saying. And by "you" of course I did not mean you you... in case that was unclear. ;)

 

Crystal clear and agreed on. :)

 

No one has the right to try to dictate whether or not another is a "true"/"real" fan. Just like with that idiotic "fake geek girl" thing, if I'm allowed to go on this very brief tangent. One's internal dedication and enthusiasm isn't for anyone else to judge.

Edited by JediMB
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No one has the right to try to dictate whether or not another is a "true"/"real" fan. Just like with that idiotic "fake geek girl" thing, if I'm allowed to go on this very brief tangent. One's internal dedication and enthusiasm isn't for anyone else to judge.

AMEN! :D

 

I feel the same way about this content.

 

I want SGRAs because I like to play them, but also because everybody deserves them, it's awkward and non-2012-ish without them and Bioware is so freakin' good at them. :cool:

 

Win-win situation for everyone, now we just need to make clear to the BW folks that sooner is better than later. :p

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f the content had already been written, then why would they have adjusted it to the current companions and then later rewrite those to be inclusive? They've never said literally that the existing companions would be SGR capable and I very much doubt that they're going to do that, it just doesn't make sense. Adding new companions with a story update makes much more sense.

 

That's just another thing we can't get an answer on - they say they've "known from Day One" who it would be, provided "it makes sense" which may mean some Classes get new ones as the SGR option.

 

However, "we want to do it right"... plowing through to 50, then meeting some brand-new sidekick and racing through their story arc on just one planet (assuming it's in the Makeb patch)... I don't know, that doesn't seem like it'll be up to par with the existing standard.

 

"Everything's still on track, this year" - in the absence of any follow-up info, that's feeling more and more like "What we told you was true.. from a certain point of view." will be the gist of a Yellow post come February.

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That's just another thing we can't get an answer on - they say they've "known from Day One" who it would be, provided "it makes sense" which may mean some Classes get new ones as the SGR option.

 

However, "we want to do it right"... plowing through to 50, then meeting some brand-new sidekick and racing through their story arc on just one planet (assuming it's in the Makeb patch)... I don't know, that doesn't seem like it'll be up to par with the existing standard.

 

"Everything's still on track, this year" - in the absence of any follow-up info, that's feeling more and more like "What we told you was true.. from a certain point of view." will be the gist of a Yellow post come February.

 

Hence my earlier comment that I personally think that by this point in time they've been postponed indefinitely. I do believe what the dev said last year that they had written lots of content, that might even have included SGRs, but I'm not sure that we're ever going to see it, certainly not in the way it was written (now that F2P has come along, and the move from class story to the nice and vague avenger story) and also not without a riot from our part.

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I'd like to think they would have been honest about it and said something, were that the case.... Damned if I know.

 

Yeah, we do not know, but whenever Makeb comes they will have to say something about story content, since, if I remember correctly, they always said Makeb would come with story content. And of course SGRA are story content.

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Here's the thing about the anger at BioWare's silence: Everyone seems to be clear about SGRAs being classified as story content. Yet, people are comparing the information we get to things like hood toggles, which are decidedly NOT story content.

 

Many of you seem so sure that BioWare is holding back on giving us information because of the homosexual angle, but I'm not so sure that's true. People in this thread are claiming discrimination based on the thin evidence of we haven't gotten the information we are looking for, and we also happen to be talking about homosexual content.

 

But let's be honest here, has BioWare EVER shown a history of being forthcoming about this type of content? How much more than "No new information" did people asking about HK-51 ever get prior to his imminent release? How much info would you expect to get out of them if you were asking about Makeb, unrelated to SGRAs? After the announcement of Cathar, how freely has BioWare discussed that? Aside from vague hints at it's existence, what kind of details have we gotten on improved space gameplay?

 

As far as I'm concerned, BioWare has followed a very consistent pattern of announce content, give no new information, talk about it once it's on the PTR. The only thing out of the ordinary here is the length of time we've been waiting, and as I pointed out, if the content is of the quality we all hope it is, that isn't so bizarre.

 

I think you guys need to be extremely careful about these very serious allegations of discriminatory behavior. I don't see any evidence to support such allegations, and the history of all the players involved indicates the opposite of discriminatory attitudes.

 

I'm very frustrated about the silence of BioWare on this issue, and the length of time we've gone without adequate communication. However, I see it as a whole issue of poor community service. I think the community team should be much more open with us in general, I don't think it's something special about our pet issue.

 

Being angry and disappointed the content we care so deeply about is taking so long to arrive with no end in sight is reasonable. Continuing to make apparent our level of desire for said content is appropriate. However, letting the dissatisfaction turn into hate, and lobbing unjust accusations is irresponsible.

 

You may force a reply from BioWare when you go and level an accusation of discrimination, but not only is that unfair, it's counter productive. Do you honestly want to leave these developers and anyone else looking on with the impression that dealing with our community will be met with such hostility if we're unsatisfied? Accusations of discrimination are an extremely serious thing. It's not unfathomable that the developers would start out doing something because they believe in it, but then stop because even the people they were trying to support made it too volatile.

 

Someone earlier pointed out that BioWare is one of the few game companies consistently generating this kind of content, and urged you all to remember who your friends are. That couldn't be more true.

Edited by Slaign
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I think the problem is that they do not know how to develop them the way they want them to be.

 

Merrill's in DA2 was a step in the right direction, with a whole separate conversation line with a female Hawke at the start of a romance.

 

They want a complete different dialogue for S/S romance than the O/S romances, so it will be harder for them.

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I'm very frustrated about the silence of BioWare on this issue, and the length of time we've gone without adequate communication. However, I see it as a whole issue of poor community service. I think the community team should be much more open with us in general, I don't think it's something special about our pet issue.

 

I agree. I was reading another thread in this part of the forum (and realized I mostly just come to this thread to read and maybe shouldn't be so exclusive) where people complained about the lack of info on additional chapters to come, or more class story content.

 

It's not just us, though of course it doesn't make it that much easier to wait. :rolleyes:

 

Someone earlier pointed out that BioWare is one of the few game companies consistently generating this kind of content, and urged you all to remember who your friends are. That couldn't be more true.

Yeah, that still is my biggest hope, and one major reason why I consider myself loyal to Bioware and prefer them over other game companies AND am willing to give them the benefit of doubt at this point.

 

But patience is a fickle thing and and since Bioware (unlike other companies - Bethesda, I'm looking at you) is so good at creating romance content that's engaging, embedded into the story and not just thrown to the sidelines, be it OGR or SGR, I do find it hard waiting. Really, really, increasingly so ....

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But let's be honest here, has BioWare EVER shown a history of being forthcoming about this type of content? How much more than "No new information" did people asking about HK-51 ever get prior to his imminent release? How much info would you expect to get out of them if you were asking about Makeb, unrelated to SGRAs? After the announcement of Cathar, how freely has BioWare discussed that? Aside from vague hints at it's existence, what kind of details have we gotten on improved space gameplay?

 

There's not a lot to say or ask about those things, though, and they aren't effected by other factors. "What kind of single-biome planet is Makeb?", "Will Cathar have mane customisation?" and "Will Hood-Toggling mess up my character's hair?"

 

Being cagey about giving a schedule is one thing, completely ignoring side-issues like "do we need to stop levelling and/or talking to companions, if we want to actually see the SGRA?" is another. If they're as far along on the content as they're implying by mutely pointing to Erickson's quote from March, there is no way they don't know the answers. If they don't know by now, it's not happening before June and they should admit that.

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It happens to the best of us. ;)

 

And I do believe that SGRs are still coming... eventually. But if they last we heard is "this year" and that is no longer the case, then they really should tell us that. But with how they have handled this discussion, for me personally, at this point anything now is going to be too late. Implementing Makeb tomorrow with all the SGRs in would not fix this for me, because they've had all the time in the world to assess our questions here – which have to do with knowing how best to approach existing content as we wait – and they haven't.

 

I do believe there is a draconian corporate gag-rule on this. I don't think that pardons the silence. Either the Community Team ought to have gone toe-to-toe with corporate to get cleared to talk about this, or they could have found a loophole to speak through, or just taken a huge risk and simply defied that directive in the interest of promoting the game to its community. They haven't. So I conclude that in this case "can't tell you" really does mean "choose not to tell you". Well, that's their choice to make. Mine is where to spend my money. It won't be here.

 

"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?

 

What world do you actually live in? Would you have offered your thanks when they faced disciplinary action for acting in direct contravention of what senior management had told them to do/say? In my company that sort of deliberate action would certainly land an individual with a misconduct action on their HR record.

 

But thats ok, as long as you get your way...

 

The fact that you EVEN suggested they do that shows the level of self importance with which you view yourself :)

 

Driz

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The fact that you EVEN suggested they do that shows the level of self importance with which you view yourself :)

Driz

I do not think it's your business to judge or even try to judge how other people view themselves. Also, it's not the topic of this conversation. Let's stick to content..

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Here's the way I look at this... and I'm probably repeating myself at this point, but...

 

Okay, SGR is story content. Okay, extra chapters are story content. We're not asking for spoilers. All we're asking is "When?", you don't need to drop any information in regards to the way the content works to say... "Hey guys, SGRs are coming and you can expect them by the end of January, early February at the latest. That is all." Heck, even a simple... "Yes, SGRs are still coming." would work to alleviate some of the annoyance.

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If there's a gag order, there's a gag order. I don't lay blame at the feet of the community team.

 

Saying the community team should leak info, assuming they even have anything new to share, is tantamount to demanding these people put their jobs, or at the very least their reputations with upper management, in peril. We really are talking about people's livelihoods here.

 

That's what it means to go up against corporate. You don't do it if you want to protect your job.

Edited by WickedDjinn
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If there's a gag order, there's a gag order. I don't lay blame at the feet of the community team.

That's what it means to go up against corporate. You don't do it if you want to protect your job.

 

Thing is, it's an assumption there might be a gag order. We don't know if it's truly the case. A gag order may also play out as "Yes we know things, guys, but we can't talk about it". Let's not overdramatize, if we don't know what's really going on behind the scenes.

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Thing is, it's an assumption there might be a gag order.

 

Exactly. We've only assumed there's a gag order as it's the only "reasonable" explanation as to why the Community Team cannot say "Yes, Mr. Erickson's comment still stands" or "No, it's delayed".

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Then there is BioWare, the company that wrote and developed the homosexual content in the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series. While it's clear that BioWare is somehow responsible for the fact that this content isn't in, claiming it is because they are afraid of the anti-gay backlash has no basis in evidence. BioWare has no history of shying away from this type of content, and is in fact a leader in progressive inclusion.

 

Except this isn't that Bioware. You are talking about Bioware-Edmonton. TOR is made by Bioware-Austin. This is a completely different division and group of people and from what they have shown us so far they have completely different principles and vision in regards to this content and this section of their playerbase.

 

One thing most people forget is BW-A's first response to the fact that SGRA's were missing from the game. "There are no gays in Star Wars" Was in fact their first response, and yes that is a direct quote. Obviously that caused a huge blowup on the old beta forums and caused them to come out with the "Blah blah blah time and money blah blah blah post launch" statement. We've heard excuses ranging from they just didn't think about it at all to they actually did think about it but just didn't have time. The few statements they have made over the 2 or so years this has been issue tend to contradict whatever previous statement they had made. Now they just go for silence.

 

I haven't seen anything that makes me think they have changed their original stance of "there are no gays in Star Wars". Regardless of all evidence to the contrary. I suppose what they really meant was "there are no gays in SW:TOR" which so far they have done a pretty good job of sticking to their original vision.

 

I've seen nothing that leads me to believe they ever had any actual intent of including this content when they made the "blah blah blah post launch" statement. That and the guild summit comments were likely just a sad attempt to maintain as many subscriptions as they could. So far all indications point to them sticking to their original response. At this point I don't think we'll ever actually see this content. BW-Austin simply doesn't care about the GLBT playerbase that the Edmonton group has done such a great job of building trust with over the years.

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Ah back and yeah while I wouldn't want the devs to risk their jobs on giving us info I highly highly doubt saying "it's still on the table." would have them lose their jobs. That tells us nothing about said content except...it's still coming. How spoilery!

 

As for the Cartel Market idea...as long as I don't have to pay a million credits to unlock them PER CHARACTER I'm okay with it.

Edited by Raynezazki
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Exactly. We've only assumed there's a gag order as it's the only "reasonable" explanation as to why the Community Team cannot say "Yes, Mr. Erickson's comment still stands" or "No, it's delayed".

 

If there's a gag order, the chances are they can't even tell us that there is a gag order.

 

So, the old saw goes - don't presume malice where stupidity (or bureaucracy) would suffice.

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If there's a gag order, the chances are they can't even tell us that there is a gag order.

 

So, the old saw goes - don't presume malice where stupidity (or bureaucracy) would suffice.

 

Yes, I've been trying to assume stupidity, but at this point* Bioware would have entered some sort of low-IQ induced coma and that's simply disturbing.

 

Really, the level of stupid detachment at this point would be reading Uluain's list of Things We Want To Know and saying "I don't know what they want!"

 

Also, the gag order would be like a mini version of the super injunctions we (used to?) have: not allowed to talk about the existence of the super injunction because that's also illegal.

 

 

*Not only talking about SGRA's here, take a look at the rest of the issues with the game.

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Yes, I've been trying to assume stupidity, but at this point* Bioware would have entered some sort of low-IQ induced coma and that's simply disturbing.

 

Really, the level of stupid detachment at this point would be reading Uluain's list of Things We Want To Know and saying "I don't know what they want!"

 

Also, the gag order would be like a mini version of the super injunctions we (used to?) have: not allowed to talk about the existence of the super injunction because that's also illegal.

 

 

*Not only talking about SGRA's here, take a look at the rest of the issues with the game.

 

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 wilfully stringing people along to milk the subs.

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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 wilfully stringing people along to milk the subs.

 

I hate to think it's optimistic to assume that Bioware is being run by five year olds XD

 

(Link goes to the four year old who should be running Bioware :p)

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