>I went and looked for that gender neutral dwarf. It's actually LOTRO.<
Sorry but not exactly (while waiting for Pantheon I have wasted excessive amounts of time with LOTRO).
Dwarves playable by players are male - for somewhat illogical reasons pertaining to the way Tolkien described dwarves in the books they do not allow female dwarves to be a playable gender. I think they are entirely wrong based on my own reading of Tolkien but that is what they have said for 11 years.
I note that there are female dwarves portrayed as NPCs at least in the most recent areas (Erebor specifically in case anyone cares, which I doubt).
zewtastic said:Are there going to be surnames ( I assume so).
Are pairing, marriages going to be allowed, ie. where two characters have the same surname. (I know this existed in EQ1 and Vanguard)
Genders, how about gender-neutral? Or just male, female still? Is VR going try and be more LGBT friendly than every other MMO in existence? :)
And how about Race based PVP servers? I know EQ1 had those in the past. I think it was humans, halflings, erudites vs. ogre, orc, DE, vs. gnomes, dwarves, etc.
Hey Kilsin it wasnt me that brought up this topic.
Before i begin... I hope this doesnt get deleted..
I am just going to point out some of the things which could make the game more enjoyable for us lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer peoples.
* instead of using male and female symbols to pick body types use a different button or method which is not gendered. Just because you are born with certain 'hookups' does not mean you fit into a one-size fits all mold. Feminine and masculine are for anyone.
*do not choose a players pronouns for them. Let us decide if we want our character to be called he/him/his or she/her/hers. The safe option is always they/them/theirs or using their name first and last. (did you know not all languages use gendered pronouns? The language of nature is not english.)
*Avoid gendered lock content. An example is having a marriage system which disallowes same sex or gender queer marriages. (also think about progeny. Same sex couples usually dont have biologiclal children. Whichever language is used for progeny should be inclusive to adoption or even a teacher student relationship)
* Representation.... All you need to do is look around at LGBTQ representation in videogames. Do a google search for that for ideas, its there in plain view for all to see.
And in closing, these conversations are not to be avoided at all. We are people not drama.
-Todd
I think this issue will be satisfied to the player on character creation, for they can choose what avatar matches their own gender preference or identity and that avatar will live as their preffered gender identity.
As I see it, as far as sexual orientation, the player can play the avatar as they would.
And like in the real world, be shut down or encouraged if they choose wrongly. Or unlike the real world- be shut down or encouraged by whomever they accost if the accosted wants to be play along or just play-along.
Oddly, that scenario has me thinking of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Miss Lonelyhearts" and "The day of the Locust"
dorotea said:>I went and looked for that gender neutral dwarf. It's actually LOTRO.<
Sorry but not exactly (while waiting for Pantheon I have wasted excessive amounts of time with LOTRO).
Dwarves playable by players are male - for somewhat illogical reasons pertaining to the way Tolkien described dwarves in the books they do not allow female dwarves to be a playable gender. I think they are entirely wrong based on my own reading of Tolkien but that is what they have said for 11 years.
I note that there are female dwarves portrayed as NPCs at least in the most recent areas (Erebor specifically in case anyone cares, which I doubt).
When you create a dwarf, it doesn't show the male or female choice button. You'd think it would just show "male" pre-selected. I could have sworn there used to be a tooptip or bit of text somewhere that said something that boiled down to "only dwarves can tell there males and females apart and they both adventure". I'm be confusing it with another game, I guess.
Either way hehe it's hardly a startling unusual concept for RPG fans.
Whether or not it's perceived as SJW LGBTQ+ political agenda conspiracy shenanigans (some people see any progress or change in this area that way no matter what, it seems), I think it would be refreshing to see a game that finally disregarded male/female as any kind of polarisation or restriction. Let me rephrase: As any kind of 'strict' restriction for player characters. Having lore that has patriarchal, matriarchal, or whatever societies is, of course, all part of the rich tapestry.
As I type that, I do realise that if you allow lore that is gender restrictive then, of course, your gender choice perhaps should have natural repercussions, but imagine the situation where you pick a dwarf female (if there is such a thing! Lol) and dwarf society is a fantasy trope patriarchy. Your character chooses blacksmith as profession and then finds the master smith won't train her, because dwarf-women shouldn't do that?... Yikes.
I don't really think we lose much scope for having a rich and full fantasy game if we relax about gender.
We're going to have plenty of reassuring racism to fill the gap ;)
I most definitely agree that there shouldn't be gender restrictions - either limitations on what class the character can be or plusses or minuses to attributes.
If a character can pick a spouse or parents gender shouldn't be a factor there either.
When I play a MMO and see male or female as a choice I think of it as not meaning how you act or how you see yourself but rather were you born with a certain organ or were you not. An objective fact.
I suppose there is no real need to have the character sheet *say* male or female.
Alternative one - if there are 10 traditional male hairstyles and 10 traditional female ones let every character get to scroll through all 20 not limit 10 to "male" and 10 to "female". And the same for other customization options. May result in some very ...different .... looking avatars. Note that the word "different" does not imply good or bad.
Alternative two. Have the first choice be of basic body structure just as the traditional first choice today is male or female. But don't use the m word or the f word. And ideally have a minimum of three basic designs, one of which is relatively neutral.
Disposalist you are correct that the dwarf page doesn't say male in LOTRO but it is fairly universally understood, and Turbine and now SSG have said many times that playable dwarves are male.
the easiest solution seems to be to just divorce the character visual creation system from the gender selection.
VR neednt make any political statement, unless the minor statement of allowing a neutral gender, and players can make the characters they wish.
alephen said:the easiest solution seems to be to just divorce the character visual creation system from the gender selection.
VR neednt make any political statement, unless the minor statement of allowing a neutral gender, and players can make the characters they wish.
If they have a male, female and gender neutral option on character selection they would then be forced to make not only male/ female armor style for each and every piece of armor but also a 3rd gender neutral style for each and every piece of armor in the game.
I say that would be adding a huge amount of work just to appease a small minority, so It would Indeed be VR making a statement about the topic. Not to mention that even if they did go down that rabbit hole It can be pretty much be guaranteed that they would never be able to make everyone happy, as some who wanted to be gender neutral would be mad that they where too neutral or too male or too female or not pretty enough or too pretty or no telling what. So please for the love of (pick word) Don't waste time /money and brain power just to shoot yourself in the foot in the long run.
A wise dwarf once said....."Keep it simple stupid".
Just my 2 cent's
Tal
Were not seriously discussing this are we, this is just a troll(ish) post with a few meme replies right? because Pantheon should have none of that political correctness delusional gender neutral gibberish, it's an online fantasy game, there's male and female characters, you pick what you like everything else falls under the RP side of things and is decided by the player in their Bio not a system or tag included in the game.......
Talonguard said:If they have a male, female and gender neutral option on character selection they would then be forced to make not only male/ female armor style for each and every piece of armor but also a 3rd gender neutral style for each and every piece of armor in the game.
Nah they wouldn't. As long as the woman chest and hip size sliders aren't a minimum of huge like some roleplaying games and the males don't all look like Conan, then picking a 'male' or 'female' base body type should satisfy anyone feeling 'neutral'.
P.S. Can we please keep the pseudo-political paranoid conspiracy viewpoints out of the discussion?
jpedrote said:Were not seriously discussing this are we, this is just a troll(ish) post with a few meme replies right? because Pantheon should have none of that political correctness delusional gender neutral gibberish, it's an online fantasy game, there's male and female characters, you pick what you like everything else falls under the RP side of things and is decided by the player in their Bio not a system or tag included in the game.......
If we're talking about gender and sex, I think it would be a good idea to differentiate between the two. There certainly are only two sexes, with varying nuanced biological disorders in chromosones, such as XXY or XYY. The reality is that there is a blur between the lines of sex, as shown by intersex people who share both female and male physiological traits to varying degrees - however that's a developing embryo that got confused during embryogensis. It is an epigentic problem, and not an evolution strategy in our species.
But gender is more complex, as it refers to the relationship between ones reproductive organs and their brains. What I mean is, while a person could have the physical and biological traits of a male, they could have the brain of a female, and that's when issues arise. Transgenderism is absolutely a real thing, as is gender dysphoria. The problem is when people confuse gender with identity, and use it as a new social division system. The one that feels one way this day, and another that day, and creating fashionable labels without realizing they're trivializing those who do actually suffer from gender dysphoria.
It's those who do, in fact, suffer from gender dysphoria that I think it would be nice to at least recognize in the name of inclusion. It doesn't hurt anyone to do so. It doesn't take away from your or my experience to give proper representation to those who, insofar in the video game world, have not been given that inclusion. And it doesn't take much. There's nothing wrong with giving the biological options of male or female, as long as the creation of those avatars includes options that might blur the lines, aesthetically speaking, for those who fall under the gender neutral or "dysphoric" (not even sure that's a word, but I just made it one) spectrum.
Recognizing scientifically verified variances within our species doesn't make it a question of "political correctness", it just makes it inclusion. VR and the video game world may not be ready for that yet - I think that much is obvious by reading some of the replies here - but that doesn't mean it can't be talked about in a way that's not dismissive. So far, I think this discussion has been fairly courteous. No reason we can't keep it that way. If nothing else, I find it interesting, and hope the conversation can continue without a bunch of angst coming out and getting the thread locked.
disposalist said:Talonguard said:If they have a male, female and gender neutral option on character selection they would then be forced to make not only male/ female armor style for each and every piece of armor but also a 3rd gender neutral style for each and every piece of armor in the game.Nah they wouldn't. As long as the woman chest and hip size sliders aren't a minimum of huge like some roleplaying games and the males don't all look like Conan, then picking a 'male' or 'female' base body type should satisfy anyone feeling 'neutral'.
P.S. Can we please keep the pseudo-political paranoid conspiracy viewpoints out of the discussion?
I agree with most everything you said except for the "Nah they wouldn't" at the beginning of your post. If you read what you quoted me saying.....I said if they made a 3rd gender neutral option on the character selection screen other than male/ female, then they would be forced to make a sperate skin style for each and every piece of armor in the game for that 3rd option, and they would.
However, I don't see much of a problem with the rest of your statement about sliders and what not as long as they didn't let any of that interfere with their artistic idea of what some race /sex combos should look like in their High fantasy game.
It is their game and I hope to see the pure vision they have in mind, without some political activists pushing them into changing things just to score political points outside the game.
Tal
Iksar said:I just don't see how including things like that in character creation is important. You are picking the biological sex of a character, either A or B, everything else is psychological and has no visual or stat based representation in character creation. I think Philo is right here in that it's an arguement of gender/identity politics and a hot button issue for some in the real world.
Hyperium said: Real life, not a game. A game, is not real life. Leave RL out of the game. If you can't do this, then leave gaming out of your RL.
While I can understand your point, I think you're missing some perspective. Binary gender is assumed. In some cases, it doesn't fit. To keep things simple, imagine you're an intersex person - meaning, your body expresses certain male and female sexual characteristics. Every day of your life you're asked to conform to one of two strict categories that you don't feel quite apply to you. And along comes a game where, besides the two categories everyone assumes will be there, you get a third one, or several. I'm not an intersex person and I do identify with one of the normative genders, but I can only imagine the joy of someone who could find just a little bit of understanding of their identity in a game. And it really doesn't take that much, nor does it have to matter much in the end - stated gender at character creation doesn't have to be expressly stated anywhere else in the game. You might be able to create a male/female/non-binary character using male/female presets interchangeably.
Also, I do think this is a valid issue to discuss and that the development forums are precisely the right place to do it, since if this isn't addressed during development it probably never will be. I would be proud if Pantheon were considered a particularly welcoming game, in this or other areas (hint: hope the devs take care with their design assumptions that may clash with issues like colour blindness, deafness, etc).
Talonguard said:alephen said:the easiest solution seems to be to just divorce the character visual creation system from the gender selection.
VR neednt make any political statement, unless the minor statement of allowing a neutral gender, and players can make the characters they wish.
If they have a male, female and gender neutral option on character selection they would then be forced to make not only male/ female armor style for each and every piece of armor but also a 3rd gender neutral style for each and every piece of armor in the game.
I say that would be adding a huge amount of work just to appease a small minority, so It would Indeed be VR making a statement about the topic. Not to mention that even if they did go down that rabbit hole It can be pretty much be guaranteed that they would never be able to make everyone happy, as some who wanted to be gender neutral would be mad that they where too neutral or too male or too female or not pretty enough or too pretty or no telling what. So please for the love of (pick word) Don't waste time /money and brain power just to shoot yourself in the foot in the long run.
A wise dwarf once said....."Keep it simple stupid".
Just my 2 cent's
Tal
no, you would only have to make armor that would contor. if you loot a leather cuirass, it is a leather cuirass regardless of the toons gender. a bulletproof vest doesnt become a bulletproof bikini because a female police officer puts it on.
traditionally armor would have to be adjustable for female characters with large or small breasts and male characters for thinner/more muscular builds. (as well as taller/shorter, etc) there is no reason they couldnt adjust one piece of armor in both directions.
so it actually becomes simpler: one armor style for one piece of armor, as it should be for realism. no gender restrictions on anything, one less thing to worry about and gender ONLY affects whether people call you sir, ma'am, or mx.
oh good grief, its a game. worry about your gender in RL. Sorry if that offends. Just being real. I don't care what's between your legs, or your religion, your race, or anything else about you. ITS A GAME.
if it's SO important, in a game, that you want people to know you are gender neutral, make a guild called Gender Neutral, that way everyone knows that you don't identify with your character.
All i want to know about you is if you are Tank or off tank and who is pulling. outside of that. keep it to yourself.
alephen said:Talonguard said:alephen said:the easiest solution seems to be to just divorce the character visual creation system from the gender selection.
VR neednt make any political statement, unless the minor statement of allowing a neutral gender, and players can make the characters they wish.
If they have a male, female and gender neutral option on character selection they would then be forced to make not only male/ female armor style for each and every piece of armor but also a 3rd gender neutral style for each and every piece of armor in the game.
I say that would be adding a huge amount of work just to appease a small minority, so It would Indeed be VR making a statement about the topic. Not to mention that even if they did go down that rabbit hole It can be pretty much be guaranteed that they would never be able to make everyone happy, as some who wanted to be gender neutral would be mad that they where too neutral or too male or too female or not pretty enough or too pretty or no telling what. So please for the love of (pick word) Don't waste time /money and brain power just to shoot yourself in the foot in the long run.
A wise dwarf once said....."Keep it simple stupid".
Just my 2 cent's
Tal
no, you would only have to make armor that would contor. if you loot a leather cuirass, it is a leather cuirass regardless of the toons gender. a bulletproof vest doesnt become a bulletproof bikini because a female police officer puts it on.
traditionally armor would have to be adjustable for female characters with large or small breasts and male characters for thinner/more muscular builds. (as well as taller/shorter, etc) there is no reason they couldnt adjust one piece of armor in both directions.
so it actually becomes simpler: one armor style for one piece of armor, as it should be for realism. no gender restrictions on anything, one less thing to worry about and gender ONLY affects whether people call you sir, ma'am, or mx.
High Fantasy game. That's what we are talking about here It's not supposed to be going for Realism so making 1 armor style for both male and female is going to severely limit what players have come to expect their characters can look like in a High Fantasy game, In every MMO I have played over that past 20 odd years, the guys and gals look quite different from one another and that's a good thing, adds variety to the game. I think the idea of one armor skin for all would probably piss off at least half the potential client base... and angry potential players don't buy the game, and if they do by mistake they don't stay for the long haul.
Sorry but I have to disagree with your 1 armor style for all idea.
This whole thread is just a bad idea and with no real rhyme or reason. Unless I'm completely misunderstanding the gender identity issue, the whole reason that gender identity is an issue in RL is because you don't get to pick your biological sex when you're born, this is a game, and unless I'm wrong you won't be assigned a random biological sex when you go to make your character. So you get to pick your in-game biological sex so there should be no problem. If your a guy who identifies as a girl, play a girl. If your a girl who identifies as a boy, play as a boy. Do what makes you happy.
We are in essence discussing a Non-issue. Let's stop wasting our time.
Tal
Regardless of anything about or however you feel about gender, the mere suggestion or even asking the devs to contemplate additional gender(s) is so far out of the realm of reality that you cannot be serious. This is not against RL gender anything.
Allow me to explain. Considering the fact that it is hard enough (EQ1 and EQ2 didn't know how to do it) to separate just male and female, how are 3 (or 30+) genders going to work out. Easy answer: they are not.
It irks me everytime I see something like "Peter lifts their head high and sighs" instead of "Peter lifts his head high and sighs." Seems like easy to program right? If that's the case, then why isn't it done? Laziness? Too much development time? Could be anything...
now add one more (and as soon as you add one, you should add all) and you're asking the devs to spend time so a miniscule percentage of a miniscule subgroup of a RL population might like it? Hey... if that's going to happen, I am in a small subgroup of the population so should I ask for stuff that only appeals to me and no one else (including most of my subgroup).
Nah. Let the devs create their fantasy world according to their vision. This is indeed a game for crying out loud.
I don't want to cause any arguments, but I find this subject interesting, so I'm going to discuss - it's what we're here for (?)
I'm by no means a champion of these issues, I just like to try and understand and expand my mind.
I would ask some to consider that entertainment materials of all kinds many years ago had very few black people in them. Even in fantasy where characters were often completely imaginary races or at least humans from invented lands.
I distinctly remember the Erudites (a race that looks distinctly afro-caribbean) in Everquest causing quite a 'stir' with some.
In Battlefield 1 just a couple of years ago there was quite some 'stir' caused by the poster boy being a black soldier from the Harlem Hellfighters. I dread to think what the reaction to EQ Erudites would have been if social media had been as widespread in 1999.
Some people cry "liberal political agenda" when anything the least bit non-mainstream comes up these days, but people know that there are serious race issues still to be tackled in world today.
I make these comments because there is a parallel, obvious to me, with this gender issue.
Compared to minority race issues, society is only just starting to even notice non-polar gender issues, never mind get their minds around them or accomodate them. Some may freak out about it now, but in one or two generations perhaps people may wonder why anyone *wouldn't* be accomodating of these issues.
In role-playing games choosing gender (or not choosing one) will perhaps be no more unusual than seeing dark brown on the skin colour slider.
I'm reading a sci-fi book at the moment that is set in a future universe where humans are not the majority or most powerful in the galaxy. Other galactic species are often very different in many ways including physical form, thought processes, societal norms and, yes, with gender and sex.
Given the many different ways the animals and plants on our own tiny planet do it, you'd think this concept would be far from 'alien' to us (pardon the pun), but still some seem to handle the concept badly.
More directly to the matter at hand: -
Most armour styles in EQ didn't change between character gender, but some really did. I recently bought some chainmail pieces for a new paladin and ended up looking like I was wearing a one-piece bathing suit with a shimmering neglige over the top... I had to chuckle, but when I pointed it out to a friend's wife, she did not. She frowned and asked "why the F does heavy armour look like *that* on your warrior? It's like really bad soft-core porn".
As has been noted by others, a chainmail vest shouldn't suddenly change into a chainmail swim suit just because a female puts it on. I vaguely remember the devs being on-board with that concept and that armour styles will not be gender specific, they will simply fit the character model. I believe they said they won't be race specific either, though there may be racial armor, it will look similar on all races (if other races can wear it?) Anyway...
If that is the case, then this already *is* going a long way to being one of a very few games accomodating gender neutrality these days (and doing it by making *less* development effort). I know there is development effort to make armor stretch over different body shapes, but surely not as much as making male and female versions for everything. Also, if you can stretch something over a halfling and an ogre, then stretching it over breasts or a broad muscular chest is hardly demanding.
As has been suggested, if Pantheon has sliders in character creation that enables men to be less-than herculean and women to be less-than, well, Pamela Anderson, then that will be enough to accomodate gender neutrality without effecting normal armor graphics at all. There doesn't need to be a gender neutral model for anything, because it already is. Armour is for adventurers. Male or female is immaterial.
As for the gender-based pronoun being used in game, yeah, actually that might be a real mess if true gender-neutral were introduced. I can see that being really quite problematic.
In that sci-fi book I mentioned, when species don't have gender or are changing gender, the pronoun is "xe" instead of he/she and "xyr" instead of his/her, etc. This might well be simply too jarringly new for Pantheon to adopt. It's all very well being accomodating, but adding their own pronoun, whilst admirably progressive and interesting might seriously detract from the kind of publicity that would be healthy for the game. It's perhaps a limitation of my thinking still, but I would see that fitting in a sci-fi game more than a fantasy one, but perhaps that is only because fantasy tends to be backward looking (historically) for it's setting inspiration?
Personally, thinking it through, I don't see a true gender neutral choice as being viable without significant development, design and marketing effort.
What I think should be done is: -
Character creation male/female choice
This is a big one and I see 'neutral' as a choice being problematic. Unless VR could see a good way around the pronoun thing it's tricky to accomodate and would feel very strange and be encountered almost constantly.
I'm thinking you would probably have to pick one you most want your character to identify with (By they way, for those telling people to stop bringing their RL sexuality into this, who says they are? This is the gender of the in-game characters we are talking about. A lot of people play opposing genders and it's *nothing* to do with RL gender issues. If I want to play a warrior, but don't want Conan or Red Sonja, but something in-between that isn't so ridiculously gender-typed, that doesn't make me an hermaphrodite in RL).
Character creation 'sliders'
Allow for females that look somewhat masculine and males to look somewhat feminine. I don't think that's a big or unusual ask at all, even not thinking about gender issues. I'd like to be able to be fat or short or whatever. Having a flat chested woman or a curvy-hipped man would hardly be tricky.
Armor models
Shouldn't magically become 'blokey' or 'girly' when worn. This will be less development effort and more sensible. This does not mean individual items can't look feminine or masculine though, it just means that genders aren't locked to their type. When a woman puts on The Shoulderguards of Spikey Doom they will be just as aggressive, nasty and imposing as they would on a man. When a man puts on a Robe of Silky Smoothness it will look just as flowing and glittery as it would on a woman.
Gender significance
This I do see as a little thorny, but only a little. I'd be quite happy for quests, factions, races, whatever to not put any importance on the gender of the adventurer at all, but I suppose it might well be missing opportunities for some interesting role-playing. Lore-wise, a particular faction or race in game could of course have some gender specific feelings that have implications. If they perceive your character as one or the other, even though you don't, that's on them and not wholly unexpected. I guess you wouldn't expect a race or faction that has gender prejudices to take much care determining your preferred gender identity before they decide whether or not to treat you well/badly/whatever.
I think most games steer away from these things and for good reason, though. It shouldn't be hard to basically make the gender of your character irrelevant in game.
I'm playing Pillars of Eternity at the moment. There are prostitutes. You can indulge. It doesn't get more sexual, but it's not detailed and your gender is irrelevant to the encounters.
I am really surprised everyone is even debating this. Regardless of what you may feel about this issue, it's not in VR's interests to do any of this. All other arguements aside, they know that there are very few players who would refuse to play the game if they didn't have a gender neutral, yet there are many who would refuse to play if they did. So even if every single person at VR was in support of gender neutral people, none of them (if they were thinking clearly) would ever choose to put that into the game. As Kilsin said, they want to include everyone in the game, and choosing to put anything into the game that would cause a large chunk of players to boycot the game is not gonna happen no matter how many LGBT people petition for it.
If you really want a game to do something like this, you'd have better luck with a game that is so mass market that they could afford to lose some players. Pantheon is such a niche market, they can't afford to do something so politially charged.
Ok. so like, as someone under the gender variant umbrella (wow, I hate starting with that but it seems valid in this case), I consider it a non-issue.
Even if I made a 'male' designated character, the instant I talk on comms the natural reaction will immediately be for players to use "She" and "Her". If I don't like that I may request something else of them. Done.
If I were to want a character less gender dimorphic, I could play an Ogre female or something.
If I don't like the pronouns in the quest text... well this shouldn't be enough of a theme park game for that to make much difference either way. If you're roleplaying someone gender-neutral, a couple of lines of fetch quest aren't going to make or break that for you, and if it does then the problem isn't really with the game.
I don't think this request is irrelevant to all video games. But I do believe it is completely irrelevant to this one. The whole, entire point of MMORPGs is to make it the game you want to play with by choosing your community.
I don't have an opinion on the gender issue, but a possible solution (way too late to implement though, I think) would be to have all characters be gender-neutral and allow body customizations to suit the individual player.
As for in-game marriages and shared surnames, I really hope this is allowed. Traditionally I play one race. I will use EQ1 as an example: I played two DE females, a Rogue and a Necro. They were "sisters" and therefore had the same last name. Prior to realizing I had some darkness inside me (ha!), I played a Human Paladin who wed in-game, and shared a surname with her mate.
What I'd really like to see possible is the inclusion of certain special characters (apostrophe and accent) in surnames (NOT first names), since these typically are not used in the tell system. I quite like the unique first-name position for this very reason. I'm not sure how a tell system would work well (and easily) otherwise.
One of the great things about games like this is you get to choose male or female.. so if IRL you were born male but identify as female, you can choose female in game.
Are you guys saying you want a gender neutral option for the people who identify as alien who reproduce some other way?.. Sure... add it to the lore for some races, but it doesnt make sense for most races ie Humans. Humans only have two physiological genders: male and female. Even the rare cases human have 'parts' of both genders or underdeveloped single gender, one will be more pronounced and therefore how the character will physiological identify in game- male or female. Physiological identity and psychological identity are not related. If the two were related then we wouldnt have identity questions and everyone would have the identity they appear to be anatomically.
Once you choose physical attribute as male or female, its up to the person/player to choose the personality for that character.. choose female gender and be a masculine personality- thats awesome, be you! You can also modify chest/hip/face etc to mold that gender to a more neutral look.. great.
It just doesnt make sense to make the gender choices more diverse than male and female for most races.
Defector said:Are you guys saying you want a gender neutral option for the people who identify as alien who reproduce some other way?.. Sure... add it to the lore for some races, but it doesnt make sense for most races ie Humans. Humans only have two physiological genders: male and female.
Sexes not genders and we should be selecting sex at character selection anyway, not gender. No idea why this discussion is a thing.