Oh, absolutely. I'm not happy SGR for companions is not in, but neither am I going to cry foul because they "didn't flip the switch" and "it's so easy to do." I'm realistic that this is a ton of work and the more I think about it, the more complicated it gets! As you mention, conflict dialogues could take not only new VA work from the PCs and SGR companions, but also possibly from non-SGR companions! So when they say "this will take a lot more work than we realized at the time," I absolutely believe them. That's not even taking into account how much coding may (or may not) be required. Especially with the Hero Engine, which is apparently a gigantic coding pain. Yep, it really isn't. It's still a big thing though. As you point out, their handling so far has been terrible, so to have ANYTHING is a big change and opens up possibilities for more in the future. I see this as more an announcement that "there will be stuff coming" than "here is your SGR stuff!" That's what it seems like to me. "Here is what we can do now, but there will be more in the future. It just takes a lot of work." As for this part being in a paid expansion, that doesn't bother me. It's fine. It makes sense. It's far easier to put SGR into new stuff that they can build from the ground up. Retrofitting it into old content takes more work. So it's reasonable that they'd start with something easier (Makeb) before moving onto something harder (current companions). There's not much option for giving it for free either. You can't exactly make the SGR NPCs on Makeb free if you can't get to Makeb without paying. It's a stepping stone. They start with this, get SGR into the game, break the glass wall of silence and anything could happen next. Could be more, could be nothing. But this is a start and it's far better than a week ago.

That sound you hear is my exasperated sigh. There's no way it's as simple as you suggest. There's far more to it than just removing gender checks. For just a moment, let's pretend like some of the lines in Romance dialogues would be confusing, if not downright insulting, in an SGR romance. Let's also forget that even in non-romance dialogues and cutscenes there are several uses of simple words like "she, he, him, her" that require a gender check. Ignore that male and female models are different and won't match up during cutscenes because two male or two female models aren't coded to kiss. No, we don't even have to consider all of that because there is one huge element that you obviously haven't even considered: Romance conversations take two people. Even though your companion will have something to say, your character will be MUTE. There are no voices recorded for SGR interactions for current companions! If you just get rid of gender checks (which is probably far more coding than you imagine), then through all those scenes you won't say ANYTHING. So even if all the tech was already in place, even if the companion vocals were fine for both genders, Bioware still needs to get 16 VAs back to record all new vocals for two genders for every class. That's not a small task especially with everything else they have been working on with FTP and Makeb. Yeesh.

It's important to note that the idea that "all it will take for SGR companions" is to "throw the gender switch" is ridiculous. Yes, each character does have a flag on them that says if they are male or female, but it's likely far more complicated than whether companions will offer you romance conversations or not. That switch likely governs everything related to gender choice. For example, on my BH I just had a cutscene where I walked into a room and a soldier said "there sir, that's her." If Bioware "just flips the switch" that scene would likely say "there sir, that's him." That one flag governs all cutscenes you get. The companion romances are flagged as "male" or "female" and so are many other cutscenes. If you flip the switch so a female character gets the male companion conversations, then that character will probably also get ALL male conversations and cutscenes! It could easily go more in-depth than that. Character appearance may be based on that same flag. While your character is flagged to have body type 1, face 7, hair style 6, skin color 13 and so on, the game translates those numbers based on your gender flag. If Bioware "flips that switch" then all of a sudden your character could completely flip gender. They'll still have body 1, but it'll be male now and not female. I don't know if that's how the game works, but it's entirely possible. Every single element in the game that is determined by gender may be based on a single flag on your character. If so, flipping that flag will completely change your character in every respect. Just because you WANT it to be easy to change the game doesn't mean it IS. It could take quite a lot of programming, from the ground up, to make the game capable of SGR companion relationships. That's no simple task. It's totally worth asking for and I'm on board with that, but it's silly to assume that it's an easy thing.

has me a bit worried that they won't be implementing SGRA with companions. Also a bit concerned that any same gender flirts are only going to take play with new content, which would mean 50 levels of nothing. I think that's overreacting based on only a part of the quote. Everyone really needs to read the full thing: "I realize that we promised SGR to you guys and that many of you believed that this would be with a companion character." - This part is simply a statement of our expectation. That's all. "Unfortunately, this [companion SGR] will take a lot more work than we realized at the time and it [companion SGR] has been DELAYED as we focused on the changes required to take the game Free-to-Play." - This part simply says that companion SGR is delayed due to FTP and taking more work than expected. They did not say canceled, just delayed. I think fears that companion SGR is totally off the table based on this quote are unfounded. Actually, they are more likely today than at any point in SWTORs history! (Ok, except maybe really early production.) This is the first, and only, official statement posted to the official website saying that "yes, SGR will be in the game." That is a HUGE step forward and opens a door that was previously, locked, barred and sealed. No, this announcement is NOT everything I would have wanted, but it is still a hugely favorable development and one we should be glad to see.

I'm having an extremely frustrating time finding new names for my four characters that needed renaming. It's even more frustrating that these are characters I'd already renamed once when I voluntarily server-moved. Though I do understand that the players that get to keep "my" names must have more time invested in those characters, it seems like those of us that chose to move should get some consideration of the fact! (Besides the pet and gear...that I don't care for or need.) Especially if some of my names are stuck on inactive, canceled accounts. Shouldn't I, who is paying, get some sort of "first pick"? Urg. I might just go with the silly ASCII characters. I've tried several replacement names and over and over they are taken. Arrrrgghhh! I'm mostly just venting. -_-

Yeah, but it's still kinda disturbing that "shock her AGAIN" is so exciting to some people. Anyway, romance Light Side Jaesa? Yes! Sounds awesome.

The "Sith Titles" lore codex entry (found on Korriban) has this to say on the topic: " An acolyte who completes the trials and is accepted as the apprentice of a Sith Lord is considered Sith–no more, no less. Any non-Sith, however, is expected to refer to a Sith as “my lord” out of respect. "

Human works really well for Sith Warrior, in my opinion. Especially with some of the "red marks" tattoos. Though if you want a Pureblood Sith, this is probably the best class for it.

I like the female consular voice, but the male is just "eh." I LOVE the male Warrior voice though! It's one of my favorites!

Huh. I'm very different there. I can't play a male Bounty Hunter because I don't like the voice. For the male Agent, the voice is fine, but the female voice is SO much better that my Agent has to be female. Same for the Consular. My Sage is female because I like the voice and the character that voice brings better than the male. If the voice doesn't matter enough to you, you might want to look at the companions and see if the romance options interest you at all.

Like Raltar mentioned, once you finish Dromund Kaas you get to choose which planet you go to next. If you want, go to Balmorra. Otherwise, go to Nar Shaddaa. If you want to progress past that in the story, you need to do both anyway. If you're not worried about the story, you can head to any planet right now! You don't need a story quest to get there.

Aaah, that makes some sense. Thank you.

I've got to ask because I haven't been able to figure it out. What's the A stand for in SGRA? The Same-Gender Relationship part is obvious, but I can not come up with an A. Free me from my confusion!

For someone that's upset with this change, my question is: What was the alternative? If the two options are a) Go F2P, gain additional revenue for the game to drive further development, support the servers and staff and just keep the game alive b) Stick with Subscription model and let the game die a slow death; shut down all servers within another year Which would you prefer? For me, I'd like Bioware to try the F2P model and see if it works. It's better than shutting the game down. Then again, I've never played a F2P game. For myself, I only plan to finish leveling my characters to 50 anyway. I have no interest in Flashpoints, Operations or Warzones. So we'll see.

It's been a long time since we've had an update on the Same Gender Relationship (SGR) progress. We would greatly appreciate any information you can give us. Are SGRs still planned? Can you give us any hint about which companions would be available? While we'd all like a specific date, anything, even a "soon" would be REALLY nice right now. Thank you for all the hard work you do on SWTOR!