Same Sex Relationships (Finally) Coming to The Old Republic
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
You're right.Toilet said:Only difference is that they don't pay through the nose like the rest of us.FelixG said:Gay dudes need love too, but they gotta pay!Brad Shepard said:
They gotta pay out the ass.
/Hey, someone was going to say it...
OT:
MEH!
I wish this game had been released as a stand-alone game, instead of an MMO.
THEN I would have cared.
:/
Also:
InB4 Crazy Ass Religious/Right-Wingers Using This As An Example of the 'War On Traditional Family Values' bullcrap.
:|
To be honest I consider this to be a non-issue at the moment. Whatever your opinion the subject matter this seems like a last ditch effort to draw in players with LGBT options due to the failing player base. Love the idea or hate it, it would have meant more if this was actually done before the game was pretty much on it's deaths bed. As someone who was there in the beginning I will say that as much as I'm a perv who could have appreciated some hawt girl on girl action my other sentiments aside (lol), they never actually promised anything a year ago. EA pretty much pulled an "Obama/Clinton" and went around and promised both sides what they wanted to hear. There were some well publicized statements saying that they were going to do this (or more often that it was a "strong possibility" though they did outright confirm it at least once) while other members of the team said exactly the opposite to those who didn't want it. In the end I imagine they would have continued playing "carrot on the stick" with such a divisive issue if they weren't desperate to get and maintain any players at all.
In the final equasion ToR suffers from bad design, a lack of content, and not delivering on far more important things that were promised, or at least implied. Many of these things were not entirely clear those who sung the game's praises (like me), as even beta testers (like me) were told late in the process that there were going to be a lot of extreme changes and additions to the game pretty quickly after launch.
To put things into perspective, if you ask your typical player what's more important, LGBT romance options or say them building a full space game option, obviously the latter would be the big choice. This whole 'tunnel shooter' thing was supposed to be a short term placeholder for a more robust space option.
At the end of the day what people were expecting was for a game that would combine the best aspects of both pre-and post NGE "Star Wars Galaxies", with Bioware's talent for storytelling and cinematics, leading to a hugely epic "main story thread" combined with the rest of an open world. We didn't exactly get that, a year later we can't even decorate the inside of our ships. As someone who was there the day SWG went down (for real) and came over to ToR with a highly stoked guild of Star Wars fanatics who followed this game in exactly detail of every bit of it's development, to say it was a failure would be an understatement, and I noticed that it started shedding SWG fans, along with everyone else, within the first few months when it became clear that Bioware/EA didn't develop the product they had been hyping.
Of course there are always debates on what exactly a game company promises, and their obligation to keep those promise. Look at say "Mass Effect 3" (which people have drawn parallels to) where they made specific statements about the ending of the game, and what the final chapter of the triology would involve, then they did the obvious, with later press releases kind of reinforcing that they were "being honest" combined with of course that infamous "behind the scenes app" which showed developers lying publically about what they had apparently decided to do behind the scenes. It can be hard to prove who said what at various times, but the major fans who followed statements made at cons, minor press releases, etc... wound up with an entirely differant picture of the game and plans for it than that EA actally delivered. It's made worse when you consider that when fans ask for clarification on contritdictions the response is usually double speak that imply both statements are true, or simply "we didn't lie in earlier releases" which are taken as reassurance that the initial promises are being kept.
The overall point here is that I do not think ToR can be saved. With ME3 they could re-do the ending of the game entirely (as opposed to simply "clarifing" it) and thus win back their fans. With ToR your basically looking at a situation where they would effectively have to double or triple the amount of content in the game now in order to meet their promises, before even considering making a profit, and that generally isn't going to happen. Right now I suspect ToR is one of those games that might actually come close to it's original promises 4-5 years into it's lifecycle if it survives that long, and honestly I have my doubts that it will.
At this point I wouldn't be cheering them on for their whole LGBT annoucement, or get upset by it if your on the opposite side of things. It's an act of utter desperation, rather than any kind of political statement, or genuine support for the position. ToR does not currently deserve the attention.
To be honest I think the Star Wars community should consider pressuring Sony to re-release Star Wars Galaxies. Much earlier in SoE's MMO career they re-did the entire graphics/models system for Everquest (giving you a choice to use old or new ones). That's a major undertaking, but if they could patch up SWG, update the graphics, and combine features people liked from both sides of the NGE (like some emulators are trying to do) I think they could create the game
people actually expected ToR to be.
While I'm all for graphic sex and violence in games, I believe you need a good game first, and really "Star Wars: Hallway runner" is not it. One of the things that got me to leave was the process of doing quests where I might have to backtrack to earlier worlds... run through a spaceport, hangard bay, my ship, dock with an orbital station, run through that, enter the starport, run through that, arrive at destination, run to NPC, talk to NPC, and then go through the entire process in reverse to actually progress my quest 1 step... all this just running through empty rooms/hallways with nothing going on for 45 minutes. I don't care if you offer me a fully interactive harem of my favorite porn stars, that plain out sucks....
In the final equasion ToR suffers from bad design, a lack of content, and not delivering on far more important things that were promised, or at least implied. Many of these things were not entirely clear those who sung the game's praises (like me), as even beta testers (like me) were told late in the process that there were going to be a lot of extreme changes and additions to the game pretty quickly after launch.
To put things into perspective, if you ask your typical player what's more important, LGBT romance options or say them building a full space game option, obviously the latter would be the big choice. This whole 'tunnel shooter' thing was supposed to be a short term placeholder for a more robust space option.
At the end of the day what people were expecting was for a game that would combine the best aspects of both pre-and post NGE "Star Wars Galaxies", with Bioware's talent for storytelling and cinematics, leading to a hugely epic "main story thread" combined with the rest of an open world. We didn't exactly get that, a year later we can't even decorate the inside of our ships. As someone who was there the day SWG went down (for real) and came over to ToR with a highly stoked guild of Star Wars fanatics who followed this game in exactly detail of every bit of it's development, to say it was a failure would be an understatement, and I noticed that it started shedding SWG fans, along with everyone else, within the first few months when it became clear that Bioware/EA didn't develop the product they had been hyping.
Of course there are always debates on what exactly a game company promises, and their obligation to keep those promise. Look at say "Mass Effect 3" (which people have drawn parallels to) where they made specific statements about the ending of the game, and what the final chapter of the triology would involve, then they did the obvious, with later press releases kind of reinforcing that they were "being honest" combined with of course that infamous "behind the scenes app" which showed developers lying publically about what they had apparently decided to do behind the scenes. It can be hard to prove who said what at various times, but the major fans who followed statements made at cons, minor press releases, etc... wound up with an entirely differant picture of the game and plans for it than that EA actally delivered. It's made worse when you consider that when fans ask for clarification on contritdictions the response is usually double speak that imply both statements are true, or simply "we didn't lie in earlier releases" which are taken as reassurance that the initial promises are being kept.
The overall point here is that I do not think ToR can be saved. With ME3 they could re-do the ending of the game entirely (as opposed to simply "clarifing" it) and thus win back their fans. With ToR your basically looking at a situation where they would effectively have to double or triple the amount of content in the game now in order to meet their promises, before even considering making a profit, and that generally isn't going to happen. Right now I suspect ToR is one of those games that might actually come close to it's original promises 4-5 years into it's lifecycle if it survives that long, and honestly I have my doubts that it will.
At this point I wouldn't be cheering them on for their whole LGBT annoucement, or get upset by it if your on the opposite side of things. It's an act of utter desperation, rather than any kind of political statement, or genuine support for the position. ToR does not currently deserve the attention.
To be honest I think the Star Wars community should consider pressuring Sony to re-release Star Wars Galaxies. Much earlier in SoE's MMO career they re-did the entire graphics/models system for Everquest (giving you a choice to use old or new ones). That's a major undertaking, but if they could patch up SWG, update the graphics, and combine features people liked from both sides of the NGE (like some emulators are trying to do) I think they could create the game
people actually expected ToR to be.
While I'm all for graphic sex and violence in games, I believe you need a good game first, and really "Star Wars: Hallway runner" is not it. One of the things that got me to leave was the process of doing quests where I might have to backtrack to earlier worlds... run through a spaceport, hangard bay, my ship, dock with an orbital station, run through that, enter the starport, run through that, arrive at destination, run to NPC, talk to NPC, and then go through the entire process in reverse to actually progress my quest 1 step... all this just running through empty rooms/hallways with nothing going on for 45 minutes. I don't care if you offer me a fully interactive harem of my favorite porn stars, that plain out sucks....
I thought it being hard was the point.hazabaza1 said:
But in case nobody has realised what this actually is - marketing and advertisement. It's a F2P game that people left because it was unpolished, buggy, system demanding and the content could be completed too easily by "serious" raiders.
The controversy was over a quip from one of the dev team on how the idea of being gay doesn't exist in the SW universe because everyone pretty much fucks anything with a pulse.Xan Krieger said:
OT: Too little too late? I mean the game was okay despite being a decent single player experience wrapped in a half-baked MMO, but is this their best saving throw after their draconian F2P scheme has sealed the game's ultimate fate?
I applaud that they're putting in same sex relationships, but they really need to work on the relationships with companions and how companions work in general. Some genders and classes only have 1 romance option, and for some alignments that means that the player has to go against what they want their characters to be in order to pursue that romance option.
That, and companions in general don't really do much, and you can't affect them much if at all. They may get positive or negative affection based on what you do and say, but they only say anything during the main questline and even then they rarely do say anything. If companions actually praised and condemned your actions and even made suggestions of their own, it would make going through sidequests again in each character feel much more worthwhile. You also have NO effect whatsoever on companion's attitudes or behavior, with the exception of maybe Jaesa. If I talk with my apprentice about the galaxy, their training, and so on, I'd expect to at least have a small effect on their behavior and attitudes toward me and my actions and maybe even effect what it is they approve and disprove of.
That, and companions in general don't really do much, and you can't affect them much if at all. They may get positive or negative affection based on what you do and say, but they only say anything during the main questline and even then they rarely do say anything. If companions actually praised and condemned your actions and even made suggestions of their own, it would make going through sidequests again in each character feel much more worthwhile. You also have NO effect whatsoever on companion's attitudes or behavior, with the exception of maybe Jaesa. If I talk with my apprentice about the galaxy, their training, and so on, I'd expect to at least have a small effect on their behavior and attitudes toward me and my actions and maybe even effect what it is they approve and disprove of.
what about the animation and voice work that would go into that?dharmaBum0 said:
I assume when you take your partner youd want them to say or do something instead of a message pop up. "Steve is with steve" followed by nothing.lol
From the position of a programmer id have to disagree? Thats technically speaking "More work,More code" So how would it be easier?lechat said:
edit:"At any rate, I don't see how the inclusion of same-sex marriage in a video game furthers the cause of actual same-sex marriage. The fact that it's still news-worthy for them to include it shows just how unequal society still is. I'll celebrate the day when developers include it without waiting for a pat on the back from their fans."
agreed sir agreed.
That was my first thought as well. Why is this praise worthy? It's like when Ubisoft removes some invasive piece of DRM....it shouldn't have been there in the first place, so removing it doesn't earn them anything in my eyes. This just screams "publicity stunt" from a dying game.lechat said:
At any rate, I don't see how the inclusion of same-sex marriage in a video game furthers the cause of actual same-sex marriage. The fact that it's still news-worthy for them to include it shows just how unequal society still is. I'll celebrate the day when developers include it without waiting for a pat on the back from their fans.
This doesn't affect anything. I can't see it bringing new people into the game, or for that matter, retaining those still playing. I quit after 2 months, wanted to quit after 1, but stuck with it in the hopes that things would be fixed.
I have never played a blander MMO. The entire thing felt so devoid of love and passion in game design, it's a good portrayal of modern EA as a whole.
I have never played a blander MMO. The entire thing felt so devoid of love and passion in game design, it's a good portrayal of modern EA as a whole.
how do you assume more code?rbstewart7263 said:
::refuse gay marriage
marriage()
{
if
bob = male and john = male
or
john = female and bob = female
"you can't get married cause we dont like gays"
return
else
marry bob and john;
}
::allow gay marriage
marriage()
{
marry bob and john
}
apologies for syntax and simplified code obviously but you can easily see you need to add extra checks to exclude certain combinations of characters
i don't know enough about the game to say but you can just imagine the changes to a real life weddingdharmaBum0 said:
you may now kiss the bride
ability to wear wedding dress
bride walking down the aisle
i now pronounce you man and wife
"facepalm!" Your right Im an idiot! lollechat said:
I thought you said games in general. I looked back you clearly meant games that already include said options and for the most part I can agree with that.
With the generalization I read we may as well indict braid for being homophobic. lol
In marriage features like Skyrim sure... All that game cares about is whether the NPC is marriageable and whether you carry a special amulet. Programming in genders would indeed be more work. With a few minor changes you could use the current system to marry that cow in Whiterun, I'm pretty sure the system doesn't differentiate on whether the participants are humanoid either. If you figure out how to give a bucket dialogue you could even marry that!lechat said:
If you want marriage in a game to have some actual context and meaning though then you don't want to program one generic marriage, you'll want to program a different and specific marriage for each option available. Programming in a new pairing with it's own unique dialog from every NPC who'd respond on marriage would be more work. If a game has a limited number of marriages available it's entirely conceivable they'll spend their time on pairings that the majority of their player-base identifies with. Granted, most of the work is for the voice actors, you don't want bisexual options to refer to both player genders the same. But there's still some additional work for the programmers.
To critique TOR on not having them considering the huge number of potential marriages available as well as the various statements they've made on the subject is fine. To critique each and every single game with a heterosexual marriage but no homosexual one is kinda dumb.