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BioWare Launches "Gay Planet" For the Old Republic
DavidGilbert99 writes "Labelled as an 'oddly regressive move,' developers of Star Wars: the Old Republic have decided that all gay characters will be stuck on a single planet called Makeb. The move comes with the release of the Rise of the Hutt Cartel pack and the Makeb planet will be the only place in the game where players can select 'flirtatious' dialogue options with characters of the same gender. From the article: 'BioWare executive producer Jeff Hickman apologised for same sex relationships taking so long to be added to the game, referring to the company's most famous title Mass Effect, where homosexual relationships are available by default:
"First of all, I want to apologize that this is taking so long to get in the game," wrote Hickman in a blog post. "I realise that we promised SGR (same gender relationships) to you guys and that many of you believed that this would be with a companion character. Unfortunately, this will take a lot more work than we realised at the time and it (like some other pieces of content we talked about earlier in the year) has been delayed as we focused on the changes required to take the game Free-to-Play. '"
*Checks calendar to make sure it's not April 1st*
Well that takes care of 10% of their players. Now what about the robot female planet so the remaining 90% can feel accepted by their "I was born that way" mate preferences, too?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
sounds like the digital version of don't ask, don't tell.
...don't make RTFA, but where's Disney in all of this?
yellow stars, blue moons and now pink triangles!
I thought attachment was forbidden for a Jedi. It leads to jealousy, and last I heard the shadow of greed, that is.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
... a heavily pixellated Geroge Wallace must be smiling in his recycle bin...
Expanding sexual diversity in new content is not regressive. They've made it clear that they want to make it a full option throughout the game, but you can't just snap your fingers and make that happen. Same-gender romance is "restricted" to one planet because only one planet is being added in the expansion.
I'm not sure what the agenda is of the submitter/poster/etc., but it certainly isn't equality if they're whining about a step towards that. Also, this is a video game for crying out loud. Chill the fuck out.
How about, instead of banning flirtatious dialog to a single planet, they remove it altogether if they intent to coddle their user base? If you're going to censor your players either go all or nothing. If you intend to take a stand at ignorant and bigoted viewpoints, then open it up game-wide and don't try to hide possibly objectionable content in the closet so to speak and, instead, put it out in the open. It's 2013 ffs and if people can't deal with other people being different, well, they can go fuck themselves.
Now, if this is because they don't want people harassing others with same-sex comments without actually being gay and are trying to limit that to a single planet then they should remove all suggestive comments entirely. If you're worried that a gay male character is going to offend a straight male character by telling him he looks sexy then don't have the comment available. The same can be said for a straight male making suggestive comments to a straight female; it can still be inappropriate and they don't have to be gay. If that's their issue; remove it entirely. (Well, I'd rather them ban players who can't behave like adults but that's another discussion I think.)
-SaNo
I presume it's dialogue with your companion NPC. In hetero-SWTOR (as I suppose we must now call it) you can end up flirting with your companion NPC, provided they're of the opposite gender.
And in response, the Westboro Baptist Church has announced that all 12 of their members will take to the streets of Makeb to protest.
sudo make me a sandwich
What actually happened:
New content will include will include same-sex options. It just happens that the new content only includes one planet. Future new content will also include same-sex options.
I don't understand why the submitter is taking such an offensive stance with their post. There is no conspiracy against gays, especially when it comes to Bioware who are one of the pioneers of same-sex relationships in their games (dating back to Baldur's Gate).
What would you prefer, that this content wasn't added at all? No let me guess, you'd prefer they revamp the whole game. Nevermind that their team has been cut down to a fraction of their original size due to the commercial unsuccessfulness of the game. Instead lets invent a big issue out of their good-faith attempt to add same-sex content even with their dwindling resources that would arguably better be spent on content like warzones, flashpoints, and operations.
Queen of Makeb.
The G
Same gender relationships are new content to TOR. New content goes in new places. Trying to back add it into existing content would be a nightmare. It's not that Markab is the 'gay'planet, it's that it's the first planet going forward that supports what they are calling SGR. And all future planets likely will as well.
There are two basic problems with trying to add SGR into existing content
First: Cost. TOR has been an epic financial failure. Trying to rehire a bunch of voice actors, add in appropriate points for them to have SGR dialogue etc. is a lot of work, and importantly:
Second: What do you do for characters that have already done the content you're changing? For good or ill, your character has made a series of choices throughout the game that set the state of that characters relationships (notably with companions). Building huge content branches where you can either change after the fact, or only effect new characters is certainly possible, but it's a lot of work for content a lot of players aren't going to see.
Besides that, as was said, BioWare didn't really understand just what it was getting itself into with an MMO, and discovering after the fact that this is going to take a lot longer than they thought necessarily means making some compromises. And the longer it goes on without SGR the harder it becomes to fix because there will be more players who've gone through the existing content because they've given up waiting on the developers.
I'm biased against EA, Bioware, and SWTOR. KotOR 2 is my favorite game ever (especially with TSLRCM), and I think SWTOR ruined the franchise beyond repair, like George did with the new trilogy. There's no going back, they already retconned like half the stuff form KotOR 2 and just labelled Kreia (a fantastic character with a lot of depth) a "crazy old woman." I doubt we'll ever get another KotOR game; this is probably the end, and for what? Yet another MMO moneygrab, and a buggy one at that. I think what EA did with this is absolutely shameful and I refuse to buy EA products now because of it.
That said, this summary is absolutely ridiculous. How is adding content that people requested (if only in a small chunk at first) "anti-gay?" The summary makes it sound like anyone who ever wanted same-sex options are forced to stay on one planet, which isn't the case at all; the content just hasn't been added to the other places yet. I don't know who wrote this summary, but they ought to be ashamed, too. There are plenty of bad things to say about SWTOR, EA, and Bioware that are actually true that nobody should need to make shit up.
Uranus
Okay... I'm sorry. Don't be mad. I cringed too when it crossed my mind.
Let's face it, most of us are scoffers. But moments before zero hour, it does not pay to take chances.
all those guys playing female Jedi can chase Kira and have her talk dirty to them....
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Who is forcing non heterosexuals into one area? Nobody. This article is EXTREMELY biased and is completely misrepresenting the truth. Nobody is being forced anywhere, they are simply developing same-sex dialog stories into the new planet that they are releasing. They didnt have same sex storylines on previous planets, but from this point on they are adding it to all new planets, starting with this first one. Why is this so hard for people to understand?
At least half the general chat messages I saw in WoW were people calling each other fags, so it stands to reason half of all MMO players are gay. Bioware is just trying to capture this market.
This is a bit long, but I don't see anyone else saying it, so I will. I power-played this game from launch to max level, and then for a few months after, until it was obvious my friends weren't going to keep at it- the TLDR version is that this isn't about shitting on gays at all, but instead money. Ok here's why:
If you play the main plot of TOR, you quickly find out that each of the four "base classes" on each "empire" or "republic" side (so eight base classes total) has their own plotline. Each plotline takes you through the same planets in the same order as the other base classes in your faction, with the exception that each faction has two starting planets- one for the Jedi/Sith, and the other for the tech heroes.
For instance: if you are a smuggler, you begin by pulling into the same planet that the Troopers start on, and your ship gets stolen. You then fall in with a kind of small time crime boss, and when he is assassinated his right-hand man becomes yours.
The smuggler can become a "scoundrel" or a "gunslinger"- the two "advanced classes". The "scoundrel" has a shotgun that has close ranged positional attacks, and a stealth belt, as well as some brawler type moves. You also gain some heals. The "gunslinger" has a belt that creates a portable force-field cover that can knock people back, and they use two weapons. The "scoundrel" is essentially a rogue with a healing spec, and the "gunslinger" is kind of a ranger or archer role. Which you pick has NO RELEVANCE on your plot, even though they play differently.
The "trooper" can become two types of thing as well (a character with a shield generator and the best armor who can tank or deal damage, or a character with a super advanced huge gun who can deal damage or use the gun to heal), as can the "Jedi Knight" (dual wield damage guy or single wield guy who can tank) and the "Jedi Consular" (force caster/healer or a stealthy two-bladed light saber guy). Both of these start on the planet with the Jedi Academy.
Meanwhile, on the Sith side, all of these choices are mirrored- the Imperial Agent can become an "Operative", who has the exact same powers as the "Scoundrel", or a "Sniper", who has the same powers as the "Gunslinger". But all the "Imperial" side plots are TOTALLY DIFFERENT than the Republic ones- there are EIGHT total paths you can follow in this game, based on all eight character types you can start the game with (Sith Inquisitor, Jedi Consular, Sith Warrior, Jedi Knight, Imperial Operative, Smuggler, Bounty Hunter, Trooper). As you play through, you get "companion characters"- you get one very early, and then others as you play through your plotline. You can have one with your character at most times, but you can't hang out with all of them at once unless you are on your ship. Each has a series of mini plotlines that you can play through.
Importantly, THESE ARE THE CHARACTERS YOU CAN BE ROMANTIC WITH. In your plotline, you meet some NPCs that are just mentioned once or twice, and that will attempt to seduce you, or you can attempt to seduce them. That's not what anyone who wanted same-sex relations in this game was hoping for, and that's what this planet seems to be offering. The companion characters are all individually voice acted by professional actors and have a ludicrous number of things they can say, ways they can respond, etc. It is seriously high production value.
As an example: My smuggler is female. The first guy you meet, Corso Riggs, is a possible "romantic companion" for a female smuggler. Your wookie companion is not, and neither are the female companions or the fish-head alien. If you accept Corso's advances, he will prove to you that he's both desired by others and totally into just you, a reasonably common romance novel thing, and you can even marry him. A male character has similar options with his two female companions- for instance, Akavi Spaar, a rough and tumble alien warrioress, can fall for your advances, as can Risha, a human woman.
So everyone was expecti
Would have been much easier to allow everywhere and let the individual players block incomming "flirtatious" dialogue for their own character(s). That way you could block or allow all such dialogue if you wanted, or just for your specific "female protocol droid" preference.
...turn on the gaydar jammer, would you?
--- Void where prohibited. Your mileage may vary. ---
The complete and total failure of SWTOR will continue to be ignored by an industry that is stuck on the PC, hates PC gamers but can't optimize their games to run on decade old hardware. MMORPG's of old were MASSIVE games designed to make games from the Elder Scroll series seem claustrophobic. And, if you want to be nasty, just as empty and pointless. Star Wars Galaxies had HUGE planets with some sparse content strewn around (it actually had quest chains (outside the themeparks) but most were very obscure and rarely done, talked to lots of players that didn't even know about them).
Recently MMO's have changed such as that every meter of terrain will have been trodden on by everyone else on your server. In older games, you might actually find spots nobody had ever visited. of course that was partly because it had far fewer gamers but still. MMORPG's have tried to appeal to the Xbox crowd and failed to satisfy either their old core audience OR the new xbox kiddies.
SWTOR is a prime example of this and BIG piece of proof of this is that they did NOT include same gender romance options from the start. Everyone who talks about how costly or hard it is to fit it afterwards forgets that it would have cost NOTHING more to add it right form the start. Voice artists and writers are payed by the line so instead of a same-gender neutral line, they would have been payed for a same-gender flirt line. Neither is this complex writing this is flirting with QUEST GIVERS, NOT party members/companions.
The game instead gave an extremely bland experience, in gaming and story, geared towards young kids in the hope of not upsetting anyone and getting massive sales. It failed. In trying to appease everyone, it managed to please nobody. Oh the game has heavy loads on its servers, both of them. Mostly free players finishing their personal stories while all the time Bioware keeps tweaking the F2P exprience to try to squeeze the last dollars out of the game. Only 1 quickbar, 2 quickbars, now 4 quickbars. 2 playable characters, all existing characters playable (max 2 creatable over all servers) and now only 6 out of 8 per server playeble/creatable for preferred status players. GIVE IT UP ALREADY!
The game was simply for 6 years of development piss poor in every way.
In SWTOR you are a hero, liberation/occupying a planet. Except NOTHING CHANGES. Ever. This is something most MMORPG's have to deal with, that the army you defeated as you hand in your quest is still standing there respawning often in sight. SWTOR however does it worse then most, the place is incredibly crowded AND you are supposed to be Jedi. At one point when you would make Vader your whipping boy, you are fighting union workers. COME ON!
Lotro already went nuts with high level bunnies kicking your ass when you have defeated Nazgul and Elder Dragons as a full elf (read the book, a full elf is NOT a whimpy sickly character but can take on SEVERAL nazgu
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Named Makeb, the planet will be launched as part of the new Rise of the Hutt Cartel pack and will be the only place in the game where players can select "flirtatious" dialogue options with characters of the same gender.
Go to Makeb, bekaM gay.*
*There's a campaign slogan for Makeb tourist board in there somewhere.
Maybe a transparent postcard with Makeb printed on one side, read as bekaM from the other...
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens