I just finished listening to the latest TORWars podcast and I came away more than a little disappointed. There were two pieces of information that really put a dampener on my enthusiasm for the Makeb expansion: no more class story, and how SGRAs were implemented.

I really want to rage and flip tables about the first one, but my current mental health state just allows me to be *meh* about it. Story, especially the inidividual class stories were the reason I subscribed to the game. Stories were the thing this game offered me, that other games didn’t. Now Bioware wants to castrate this feature that set their game apart from all the other MMOs out there? Why? To me, this makes absolutely no sense.
This isn’t even an economically sound decision. It might please the short term bean-counters, but on the long run, giving up on individual story content erodes the game’s distinctiveness. Why should I play SWTOR when I can have the same old dungeon/raid/pvp dance (for which I couldn’t care less, to be honest) in so many other games? Individual class stories made for great replayability. If you take that away the game loses much of its appeal to me and I lose a kickass argument for recruiting other people into the game.
I’ll reserve my final judgement over this until I have played through Makeb with all my characters — but what I took away from the podcast was that the storylines didn’t offer much differentiation for classes. You get two distinctive stories — one for each side — and that’s it. From what I heard, the stories are both very well done, though.

The other thing are SGRs. Looks like there will be two “big” SGR choices on Makeb a female/female one for the Republic side, and a male/male one for Empire. Digging around on the forums made me stumble over some mumblings that there are other one-off flirts, too.
I am torn about this. On the one hand: FUCK YEAH FINALLY! On the other hand: REALLY?! That’s the best you could come up with? Both reactions are currently duking it out in my head. I think the more optimistic one is currently winning because I still hope that this is only just the beginning and that we will see more SGRA content added to the game which will balance out everything nicely. I definitely do not agree with people saying “That’s as good as it gets!” and I will vehemently fight for improvement in this area of the game. And I am not alone.

Am I looking forward to RotHC? Yes, I do. The little bits and pieces that I allowed myself to see — I am horribly afraid of spoilers, you see — made me eager to get my hands on the new content. This eagerness was slapped down pretty hard by today’s news, though. Still looking forward, but much less enthusiastic. HELP, I think I turn into a jaded old MMO coot.

So, readers, can I have some of your opinions here?

P.S: And now I am off to level my only male Imp, Hadúr the Imperial Agent. On The Progenitor. Feel free to say hello!

You want to make a comment on my site? You have to play a little game. Easy as that. Go on, try it out!

EDIT: How you can get cool spam protection, too:

Go to this website: http://areyouahuman.com/ and register for an account. The basic functionality is free. If your blog runs on WordPress or Drupal you can download a plug-in that does the heavy lifting for you. Also, their instructions are easy to follow.
There are also plug-ins for phpBB message boards, Invision Power boards, and vbulletin.

No, Agent. I don’t mind being a stay at home father.

See, that’s what happens to your characters when you neglect them for an extended amount of time. They go and start a family. Ha, not really but it would be kind of awesome, yes? Even though trying to figure out how that, you know, happened might be a bit on the disturbing side.

Now they only have to come up with a name for the little darling. Any suggestions?

I am so very sorry for the icicles on your te.… youknowwhatImean.

Okay,  not really. But but seeing you under that mountain of blankets, clasping a mug of lava-hot chocolate in your shivering claws… I thought you might want to hear some kind words.

Hope you’ll acclimate soon, I heard a snowstorm is comming.

Sincerely, Cleeyah

Sooooo, with that out of the way, let me just say YAY! Finally! We have word from Jeff Hickman himself about Same Gender Romances in his latest State of the Game post:

First of all, I want to apologize that this is taking so long to get in the game. I realize that we promised SGR 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 realized 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. As we have said in the past, allowing same gender romance is something we are very supportive of.

Secondly, I want to reveal today that we are adding SGR with some NPCs on Makeb and do intend on pursuing more SGR options in the future. More details to come!

I am very happy and excited that we now have official proof that this content is comming. Nevertheless, the statement itself is wide open for speculation. What, for instance does “many of you believed that this would be with a companion character” mean exactly? That we will not get romances with companion characters at all, or just not for the next updates? And will adding the same gender flirts in Makeb be all that is given to us? Won’t that make the game pay2gay?

My personal interpretation of Mr Hickman’s words is that SGRs that go beyond simple one-off flirts will be made, but they won’t be in publishable shape within the foreseeable future. To appease us they throw us a few bones with same gender flirts in Makeb. Now, this might just be another attempt of stringing us along for another year. Or it might not. Only time will tell. Right now I am cautiously optimistic.

As you see, the answer has produced more questions. Let’s hope we won’t have to wait that long for answers again. Or we’ll have to involve GLAAD again. Because, let’s be honest here, I highly doubt we would have gotten a peep if we hadn’t involved GLAAD and several other gaming outlets. You see, Bioware, we are still able and willing to break out the thumbscrews if necessary. *evil grin*

P.S: I currently take bets on the probability of a SGR teaser scene being included into any trailer they might produce about the expansion. It would make my day, but I somewhat doubt it.

Despite my last post I have to say that I am still very fond of the game. It is not perfect, but also not as godawful as a lot of haters want to make people believe.

The good stuff:

• Solo playability. While this gets criticised a lot, it is actually a big plus for shy-to-sociophobic little old me. Some days I don’t feel like being social, and the game does not punish me for it.
• Character stories. I love them, and I hope we will see continuations of them in the future. Character stories are the big thing besides roleplaying that currently keep me in the game.
• It is the first MMO I encountered where leveling a healer isn’t an exercise in masochism. I actually feel pretty powerful being able to solo heroic quests.
• Companions. Not only are they entertaining, they also teach you how to play your role (to a degree) from pretty early on.
• The roleplay. I have found a lot of good roleplay ranging form cantina roleplay to very elaborate stories involving several guilds working together.
• The customisable UI, and that you can share your personal UI with other players.
• Duh, it’s Star Wars!

The not-so-good stuff:

• Still no chatbubbles. I have learned to adapt to their lack, but I still really miss them.
• I still cannot sit in the chairs! *grumbles*
• No paid server transfers. My lonely Sith Warrior on The Ebon Hawk would like to join her collegues on The Progenitors very much, Bioware…

The Really Bad Stuff:

• No Same Gender Romances, despite Biowares promise to include them, and Biowares suspicious lack of communication with the fans who want them included.
• The official game forum. Do not go there if you don’t have to. I always thought WoW’s forums were bad, but they sadly are nothing compared to the troll-pit of SWTOR’s forum.
• The memory-leak bug that makes the game crash to desktop after approximately one hour of playing. I hope this one gets fixed soon. I think I have died to this bug more often than to actual mobs.

Considering all of the above, I think SWTOR is still worth my monthly subscription. I am not really bothered by the games supposed lack of endgame content, as I am not likely to take part in that anyway. If you want to know if this aspect of the game is really as bad as some people noisily claim, you’ll have to ask someone else who is more knowledgable about it.
Right now I think I get my money’s worth of entertainment out of the game. Yes, I do have my Very Big Pet Peeve, but I am not letting that one blind me to all the other good stuff.

I hope the next year will be better for SWTOR than its rocky first one, and that the game will eventuall find its feet again. I am not very fond of the Cartel Shop, but if it helps the game grow, who am I to complain? Right now I am cautiously optimistic. That’s good, right?

Same gender romances were promised to the playerbase before gamelaunch and a lot of people are still waiting for their implementation. Some more, and some less patient. And no, not all of them are lesbians. Or gays. Or Bisexuals. Or any other Other that still gets marginalized too much. A lot of people waiting for same gender romances are straight — like me.

Over the year we got fed a few scraps of information, but overall our interest was met with an almost deafening silence. There is one lonely thread on the Story and Lore forum that has gone through several reincarnations during the whole year and it took a ridiculous amount of work to get even a very sparse answer out of the community managers. Which basically boiled down to “We cannto tell you anything.” Any other thread was either deleted or got redirected to that lonely ghetto thread. Only recently another thread on the general forum was allowed to persist. Unsurprisingly the theory of a gag-order from some higher ups has cropped up. Some days I believe in it , too.

At the same time Bioware enjoys being lauded for their LGBT inclusiveness. And while this is justified for the Mass Effect and Dragon Age games, it unfortunately isn’t for SWTOR, even though the demand is very, very clearly there. The cognitive dissonance is quite jarring. I can only imagine how insulting this must feel for LGBT players.

Right about now a simple announcement that, yes, this content is still comming would appease a lot of the people who are losing their patience with Bioware. A new expansion has been announced recently. This would have been the perfect opportunity for such a statement. But we got nothing. Unsurprisingly this did not go down very well, and a letter writing campaign has been kicked off. GLAAD has been contacted and they will contact Bioware about this. TORWARS had a discussion about this in their latest podcast, blog articles (like this one) have been written. Other gaming-news sites have shown interest as well. If Bioware doesn’t act now, they have only themselves to blame if this boils over.

And to make this very, very clear: this is not a few entitled players whining on the forum. This is a sizable chunk of the playerbase being at their wit’s end. So we have turned to poking the zombie with a stick to get a reaction. Any reaction. Even if the answer is no, this content has been shelved. At least that would finally be an answer, and we could move on.

At the moment I am very reluctant to give Bioware my money. I will keep up my subscription, but won’t make any Cartel Shop purchases, or buy the expansion unless we get an answer. One way or the other.

Further Reading:

SGRA Thread FAQ

SGR Timeline

Both by Natashina

I agree that games are not a platform for dealing with social issues. For a developer, they are not and really cannot be the primary consideration. But they are not something to be discarded as irrelevant. We have influence— on what is considered “normal” and “acceptable” as much as anything else. Even when we intentionally are not saying something, we are still saying something even by its omission— and that means we have a responsibility to think about what that is.

David Gaider: The Impact of Games, Bioware Edmonton

Comments to this post will be moderated and might not show up immediatley. If your post doesn’t show up AT ALL you might have pissed off the blogmistress.

Last weekend a new face in my little posse of WoW roleplaying buddies whispered me: “You know, Cleeyah should really be a troll. Everything about her screams troll.”

I think I sat there for at least a minute and was dumbfounded. Because he was absolutely right. I created Cleeyah shortly after Cataclysm came out, and somehow felt compelled to roll a goblin. Even though I really don’t like goblins that much. They are quirky and funny as NPCs, and I really enjoy the goblin characters a few of my rp buddies created. But I am not a fan.

I really should have figured that one out on my own. *sigh*

So, to make things short: Goodbye, Cleeyah Goldeneyes. Welcome, Cleeyah of the Darkspear. You have no idea how good it feels when all of a sudden everything that irked you about a character falls into place.

Which would make me insanely happy, because then I could finally start levelling Tarvek, my Imperial Agent character that I had created ages ago with the SGR in mind for him. I am extremely happy that Bioware seems to go through with this and keeps their promise, despite the noise several hategroups and bigots were making.

I remember reading that the SGRs would not happen with the companions we already have, so this MIGHT also mean we get new companions. SGRs plus new comapion plus new planet seems like a really big story-update. *woot*

Anybody else going to roll a new character to experience the Same Gender Romances?

• Free character transfer is now closed
• Characters will be moved automatically, regardless of the players subscription status. No character will be deleted.
• If your characters have been moved to new servers, you can find where they are now by clicking on the column of the server select screen handily named “characters.” This sorts the server list so that servers on which you have one or more characters will be listed on top.
• The character limit per sever will be raised to twelve *yay*
• Again, none of our currently existing characters will be deleted. If you want to create a new character on a server where you already have exceeded the character limit, though, you have to clear one character slot. Which basically boils down to delete enough characters until you have only eleven left. THEN you can create a new one.
• Legacy names are NOT unique anymore — and everyone will have the opportunity to rename her legacy once for free. I craftily deduce from this that Legacy-renaming will be one of the features we will be able to buy with Cartel Coins.
• You might have to rename your transferred characters.  *puts on earmuffs*
• Guilds with names that already exist on destination servers will be renamed to something like: old-guildname@old-servername. *shudder* No, honestly, I’d rather have to rename my guild than run around with that kind of monstrosity over my character’s head. How good that a  renaming button will be available through the guild management window. Let’s all look forward to incredibly unimaginative guildnames spelled out with the most ridiculous  combination of alt-codes…
• Legacies of different servers will be combined. You will not lose any earned legacy traits or perks.

This final move will basically be of interest to those only who stayed on the now locked origin servers. Every one who already went through the character transfer process with all of her characters will have to make some room for the newcomers, bake some welcome cookies, and put on their best pair of undies. That’s it.

After having a look at the server consolidatin matrix (which is linked-to on this page) I see that Bioware is consolidating the servers even further. The Fatman, for instance, has been a destination server during the free-character transfer process, and will now be folded into Prophecy of the Five. So, if you were unlucky the first time around and had to rename your character, you might have to rename it AGAIN. Ouch.

I am curious. If you leave me alone in a room with a button in front of me, the door hasn’t finished closing before I pushed that button. So, I hopped onto that server. The first thing that greets you is a pop-up, which is obviously meant for those folks who’s characters will be automatically transferred to destination servers, once the now locked origin servers are closed down. It basically tells them not to freak out and that they might have to rename their characters. I foresee a lot of whining.

But that isn’t why I write this post. I write this post because there was one other thing that caught my eye:

I don’t know if this applies only to the test server, or if this means that once the consolidation process is completed, the character limit per server will be raised to twelve. I hope for the latter.

There is also good news for all people who fear they are going to lose characters to the consolidation process:

None of your characters will be deleted. You will be able to use all of them when we merge characters from origin servers onto current destination servers (with new high population tech). However, in order to create a new character, you will have to free up one of your character slots.  (Joveth Gonzalez)