I don't post much on these forums, mostly because I'm much better at lurking than commenting. Don't take my lack of activity elsewhere as anything other than I haven't found many other threads worth commenting on. Let me also state that I belong to one of the player archetypes mentioned earlier, and I'd like to see this feature implemented.

 

I like to type a lot, so TL;DR, I support your cause on this, but I hope you are taking the software developers' perspective into account on this issue. Not everything is as easy as you might think it is.

Thanks for the insight, and welcome to the thread. While I understand your points, I also hope the devs can see this from our perspective. It's frustrating to hear about a feature being implemented in the future and then hear nothing more. As I've said before, I believe that BioWare has their reasons for not giving us any more information, but any kind of update would be nice.

Lastly just to clarify, all they have said is "we're aware of it", they've never actually stated they are or intended to "work on it".

That is incorrect. BioWare has said that SGRs will be in the game, which is significantly different from just saying "we're aware of it". We also have the statements from CS that told us the devs were in fact working on SGRs. You've made statements like this before. Please stop spreading misinformation.

Late to the party, but I fully support this.

Where's the poll the OP talks about ?

I also would like to know an ETA on this, and some notion on how this will be implemented.

For me, the perfect approach will be to remove the gender check from romances alltogether. I love the Dragon Age 2 romances. You like X character and you want to romance her/him, you don't have to play a specific gender to do so. That's really good. More choices for everybody. Right now, I have an awesome female Juggernaugt that I'm not playing b/c of this. ATM, it's either Quinn or loneliness. So she's resting at D. Kaas' cantina...

Late to the party, but I fully support this.

That's okay, you're fashionably late.

For me, the perfect approach will be to remove the gender check from romances alltogether. I love the Dragon Age 2 romances. You like X character and you want to romance her/him, you don't have to play a specific gender to do so. That's really good. More choices for everybody. Right now, I have an awesome female Juggernaugt that I'm not playing b/c of this. ATM, it's either Quinn or loneliness. So she's resting at D. Kaas' cantina...

Yeah, it's been phrased 'hero-sexuality' - they can become attracted to your hero irrespective of gender. Seems a good enough term to me.

I agree, this is the way to go. It surely must be the easiest way of dealing with the matter from a coding perspective, especially as most (though admittedly not all) romance lines I've seen are pretty gender-neutral.

My JK is Kira-less, too. She's at 50, though - I found the story too compelling to stop playing. Who knows? Maybe they'll put in do-over options or extra companion stories that'll let us 50s try again without recreating our characters.

I personally think SGR's just need a rough ETA, and skimming over the hundreds of questions weekly on the Q&A's is disrespectful to their loyal customer base.

Those who agree may hit the like button here:

http://www.facebook.com/SameGenderSWTOR

You know, I'm fine with all my friends and family knowing I'm a lesbian, but having them learn I play a Star Wars MMO might just be too much for them to forgive

Is it something they can sit back and hammer out in a day? No of course not, but this isn't something I could envision taking months and months of man hours to accomplish, more like weeks if time is dedicated to it. Or they just have the worst dev tools ever created for a video game, in which case the game is doomed anyway.

 

Using man hours or some unit of effort as an excuse why this isn't in the game doesn't fly with me considering the amount of time that has elapsed. Even if they didn't start working on this till post-launch they should still be nearing or have completed this.

Way I figure it, if I, as one person with almost no relevant abilties, could turn all the Baldur's Gate II romances gender-neutral in about 4 hours with fan-created tools, I'm pretty sure it's not gonna take them months to do something similar here with an entire team, even with >4 romanceable companions and a little re-voicing added in.

Good news: pro-toggle thread has been locked.

Bad news: they've been told to bring it over here.

Good news: pro-toggle thread has been locked.

Bad news: they've been told to bring it over here.

Wasn't that thread in the Suggestion Box? o_O

Good news: pro-toggle thread has been locked.

Bad news: they've been told to bring it over here.

That's... Odd. I'd have thought having their own thread should be fair enough. Ah well, if the mods wish it so...

http://kotaku.com/5888909/why-a-video-game-blockbuster-will-finally-allow-you-to-be-a-gay-man

Sooo, maybe the Doctors forgot to send the memo to Bioware Austin

As positive as I try to stay (the medication helps sometimes, honest), articles like this really makes me wonder if Bioware Canada even know what's happening over in Austin, or rather what's NOT happening.

The founders openly support Mass Effect and Dragon age, but not a word about SWTOR?

Makes no sense

Good news: pro-toggle thread has been locked.

Bad news: they've been told to bring it over here.

Uh. That seems like not the best idea ever if we're trying to avoid conflict. In fact, it seems an awesome way to ensure it occurs, and this thread eventually "has to be closed" because it's gotten too volatile.

http://kotaku.com/5888909/why-a-video-game-blockbuster-will-finally-allow-you-to-be-a-gay-man

 

Sooo, maybe the Doctors forgot to send the memo to Bioware Austin

 

As positive as I try to stay (the medication helps sometimes, honest), articles like this really makes me wonder if Bioware Canada even know what's happening over in Austin, or rather what's NOT happening.

 

The founders openly support Mass Effect and Dragon age, but not a word about SWTOR?

 

Makes no sense

Wow. Just...

"It's surprising that people think it's that big a deal," Zeschuk said. "If you're creating this kind of content, it's very natural to provide all the options. So that's always kind of funny."

(Emphasis mine)

Stuff like this just makes me wonder what is going on here with SWTOR?

Wow. Just...

 

 

(Emphasis mine)

 

Stuff like this just makes me wonder what is going on here with SWTOR?

I realised a long while back that Edmonton and Austin are two completely different companies.

Wow. Just...

 

 

(Emphasis mine)

 

Stuff like this just makes me wonder what is going on here with SWTOR?

A very good question... I'm starting to wonder if Rayla's right and they're really just two different companies but EA decided to slap the name "Bioware" on BW:Austin to make it sound better.

A very good question... I'm starting to wonder if Rayla's right and they're really just two different companies but EA decided to slap the name "Bioware" on BW:Austin to make it sound better.

Bioware Edmonton is run by Bioware, Bioware Austin is blatantly run by Electronic Arts.

A very good question... I'm starting to wonder if Rayla's right and they're really just two different companies but EA decided to slap the name "Bioware" on BW:Austin to make it sound better.

Well, at least the writing team has some significant overlap. Both Jenifer Hepler and Mary Kirby have written for SWTOR and you might recognize them as prominent writers in the Dragon Age series. I don't know how different the companies are on a managerial level, but they do share resources, especially writing staff. Drew Karpyshyn, who was one of the main writers of Mass Effect also wrote a lot for SWTOR. As much as it sometimes looks like it, these are not different companies, not when it comes to the people who make up the stories and that's our main focus here - the coders and software engineers they hired to keep up with an MMO are, in my opinion, the bulk of entirely new staff.

Well... Edmonton and Austin are certainly two different and separate studios, but they both fall under the Doctors' Bioware umbrella. The Docs were certainly heard at launch, promoting this big new thing of theirs.

SWTOR has a strong Bioware pedigree: the name on the label, obviously; its place as a successor to KotOR; and its implementation of interactive, voiced dialog a la the Mass Effect games and Dragon Age 2. Edit: and as mentioned above, a shared pool of writing and possibly other talent with previous Bioware games. With this interview fresh in my mind, it feels more than ever that whatever blocked SGRAs in the first place was related to LucasArts (or some other outside agency, but who else has more stake in it?), or (and I like the implications of this even less) the idea that an MMO, with a broader audience than BW's recent titles, was not a good place to implement them.

Possibilities we've been over before in these threads, of course, but sometimes it just bears repeating for incredulity's sake.

A very good question... I'm starting to wonder if Rayla's right and they're really just two different companies but EA decided to slap the name "Bioware" on BW:Austin to make it sound better.

I'm beginning to think the same thing.

/sigh, time to apply the compartmentalisation attitude to this as I do with most other things, and try to remember Austin is not the Bioware I know and love, although honestly, when I see things like this: http://www.swtor.com/blog/ray-and-greg-thank-you-playing it's kind of difficult.

The longer we're left in the dark and the more I see and hear Bioware Canada espousing their inclusiveness, the more I thing we've some-how slipped into some strange, unpleasant alternate-universe.

Oh well, back to my ME2 playthrough.

The longer we're left in the dark and the more I see and hear Bioware Canada espousing their inclusiveness, the more I thing we've some-how slipped into some strange, unpleasant alternate-universe.

 

Oh well, back to my ME2 playthrough.

Maybe the studios are competing. Who knows? That's the biggest problem - not the differences, not the discrepancies, but the silence. Until we get some feedback we just won't know why things are the way they are with TOR. It's all speculation.

Until we get some feedback we just won't know why things are the way they are with TOR. It's all speculation.

I suspect that even if all our implementation dreams come true (holding out hope!), we'll never know the full story behind the non-implementation. Just gotta hope that whoever was responsible learned something from it. :|

I suspect that even if all our implementation dreams come true (holding out hope!), we'll never know the full story behind the non-implementation. Just gotta hope that whoever was responsible learned something from it. :|

I'd settle for that, yeah. A little bit of mystery is no major drama.

Bioware? You out there?

Can same gender love be soon? Please?

This game is amazing, and it just need that addition, to become perfection.

Tuesday Q&A Update - remember this is your last day to post in the Community Q&A Thread for this week. So if you have not and wish too, now is the time.

Our presence late in the thread has been minimal, and numbers have slid, but we are still within 4/10ths of a percent of our showing last week, at 9.4% of all posts addressing same-gender content.

A word here, because I think there has been some misunderstanding about why I want as many to add their voices there as possible:

No matter what percentage we command, BioWare will still pick the questions it wishes to answer for whatever reason. If they aren't ready to talk about same-gender content, we won't have an answer. We can always hope they'll be ready, but our questions aren't a mandate.

What's the point of asking, then? Well, look at it this way: This thread is way back here under "Story and Lore" in the Outer Rim of the SWTOR Community Forums. It is possible that adventurous game developers may poke around out here to see what is on people's minds, but I wouldn't wager a racing pod on it.

The Q&A Thread, by contrast, is on General Discussion, the Coruscant of Community Forums. More, it is specifically where the Development Team is looking, and where the community has been invited to address their issues to be heard. So we're taking it to the Senate Tower if you will.

We see (and will see) a lot of snark directed back this way about "spamming" the Q&A Thread, but I'll remind you that even after we'd made a strong showing for the first few weeks, I was still specifically encouraged to continue to address my concerns to the Q&A thread. Here's the relevant excerpt from the email I received from CS:

"We encourage you to continue post in the Q&A thread, however, as the Community team may be able to provide you with further information from the developers on the subject. Although not all questions will be answered directly in the Q&A blog, hot issues such as these are still at the attention of developers."

Note my italics. The Dev team might miss our discussion here, even with Community Reps who keep them apprised of active issues. The cannot miss seeing our interest, however, if we post the the Q&A thread.

Also, the curious phrase "answered directly" suggests to me that I may be on the right track in feeling that some additional information is being allowed to leak indirectly, for example through emails from Customer Service to players who have writtent to the Feedback addy (swtorfeedback@swtor.com) and elsewhere on this issue.

So keep it positive, and if you haven't posted to the Q&A, please do.