ToR's Expansion introduces Planet of the Gays

[Comocat]

Keep in mind a "planet" in TOR is more a less a long hallway that you can run across in a few minutes. A lot were fairly expansive, but some, I cant remember their names now, where absurdly tiny. Likely the entire planet is not gay, just bioware set it in the gay district.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

IT"S NOT SEGREGATION!

Ahem. Go read the article the OP linked to: Bioware intends to fully integrate the game, but they don't have the money or the resources to produce the many hours of voice-work necessary to do it right at this time, because (in case you didn't know) the game is not making money, and they're trying to keep it afloat by switching to Free to Play and pushing out other content to keep what few players they have.

You can argue that it's tasteless, but it's born of an attempt to give players who want gay characters the opportunity to be gay now, rather than waiting for a more comprehensive update that may never come.

But here's the thing, when you want to make the LGBT path not seem thrown in and contrived, this is the exact opposite of what you do. Honestly, I'd rather have no representation over this silliness.

I'll give Bioware credit, they mean well and they're one of the most progressive developers out there when it comes to alternative relationships, but this is just silly.

It is thrown in and contrived, though. Bioware made a game without gay relationships for some reason (possibly to save money, maybe to avoid controversy, or maybe some other reason). People got angry about this. Bioware tried to fix the problem, but at this point there is no satisfactory way of doing it: either a rushed, half-baked job now, or they keep listening to people complain for the next year or however long it takes to get a real update done, drawing negative criticism and turning away potential customers.

 

[Sixcess]

It's worth repeating:

This is NOT a gay planet, any more than Mass Effect 3 was the GAY sequel.

In other words it's merely an expansion to the existing game where some of the NPCs have same gender flirt/romance options. If you stick to entirely hetero conversation options it will play out no different from any other world.

Bioware baiting is fun and all, but let's try not to be as ill informed and knee jerk about this as Fox News, eh?

 

[tehroc]

I dont understand why the LGBT community gets all excited over this. It's not like the writing is any good. It'll be just as bad as the hetero relationships, 2-3 flirts and then black screen fucking. Boy is that some romance story.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Wait... what? A whole planet of gay people? I'm not even going to get into how that doesn't make any goddamn sense.

I'm kinda curious about how the planet is populated by so many gay people - is it cultural? Biological? A strange, strange after-effect from one of the dozens of super-weapons lying around the Star Wars universe? Or does it just have a really awesome gay night-club scene?

...or it could be a gay prison. Homosexuality could be severely outlawed and any gay people found are rounded up and dumped on this one planet.

 

[NemotheElvenPanda]

Tacked on, gimmicky as hell, and we have to pay more for it.


Well done Bioware. Stereotypical gay options in DA, three game waiting period for ME, and now this. I understand that these guys have good intentions, but this is ridiculous.

 

[Mekado]

It's worth repeating:

This is NOT a gay planet, any more than Mass Effect 3 was the GAY sequel.

In other words it's merely an expansion to the existing game where some of the NPCs have same gender flirt/romance options. If you stick to entirely hetero conversation options it will play out no different from any other world.

Bioware baiting is fun and all, but let's try not to be as ill informed and knee jerk about this as Fox News, eh?

Why would you try to be reasonable?

It's much more fun ignoring the 4th or 5th time this has been said in this very thread and continue raging on

To the torches and pitchforks!

Edit: I have to admit the title does an excellent job at flamebaiting

 

[tangoprime]

...seriously... why can't more games just pull it off like the recent Fallout games. Bioware has been all about it lately, and it just feels shoehorned in and they make a point of putting it in your face just in case you missed it. I LOVED they way they handled it in New Vegas, where Arcade and Veronica were great characters, who just had a different preference. FAR more than I can say for how bioware handled the matter in ME3.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

This is NOT a gay planet, any more than Mass Effect 3 was the GAY sequel.

You mean the game where an effete sounding ghost with a Justin Bieber haircut ends the universe in a tri-color rainbow explosion?

Anyhow, I agree. I doubt this is as sinister as initial allegations would lead one to believe. It's just a funny PR boner, is all. The guys in marketing should have seen these accusations coming a mile away.

 

[RyQ_TMC]

Which you think Bioware of all people would know how to do well, since that was how Cortez was portrayed.

I'd say he was halfway there, but not quite. He wasn't flamboyant or anything, he was a decent character, but he was still "shackled" to his sexuality, so to speak. Not by promiscuity or commenting on guys' asses, but his character arc was about letting go of his husband. Which would be fine by itself, but he was the only gay character.

Of all the straight characters in the series, the only one which was so heavily defined by a relationship was Kasumi. And it worked fine, because there were other straight characters, with different character arcs. In ME3, there is one prominent gay character, and he's defined by a homosexual relationship.

It reeks of tokenism is what I'm saying. If there were three prominent gay characters (MaleShep and Kaidan don't count, because they were retconned), and Cortez was one of them, it'd be cool. So BioWare was bold enough to introduce a non-stereotypical gay character, but not quite bold enough to not make his sexuality a big part of his arc. There's still an undercurrent of "did we mention he's gay today? We're BioWare, look how cool we are!"

OT: I guess it depends on how it's described. Sure, the "gay planet" might sound like some sort of ghetto, but didn't we just have that conversation with GaymerCon? Makeb is a place where homosexual players can hang out without the fear of insult/alienation - and it's not just for LGBT! Straight people can visit too! It just seems like we have two similar instances and the reaction depends largely on who gets the first opinion out.

 

[Sixcess]

Why would you try to be reasonable?

I'm farming paragon lightside points.

This thread has broken my irony-meter. I can no longer tell who's just having fun with it and who's taking the topic title at face value.

 

[DaWaffledude]

... I think there's been some confusion here.

Makeb isn't a planet solely inhabited by gay people. It's the first planet to appear in the game to have SGR options.

Please give me a moment to laugh my fucking head off

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

They should take TOR out back and put a round in its bloated and over-budgeted head.

They are not going to make any money off it so why do they keep poring more resources into something that's doomed to die?

 

[Darks63]

I wonder if whatever is SW version of barrens chat is already filled with comments about blowing up said planet with the death star?

 

[Happiness Assassin]

Something tells me people are oversimplifying the subject, what with the fact that Bioware is pretty progressive when it comes to LGBT issues and the fact I still have not seen anything about this expansion beyond a small description and "gay planet." If someone could link me an interview with a dev or some gameplay footage I would appreciate it.

 

[Milanezi]

It makes all the gay look like "another race", which kinda kills the whole point for the gay community. Mass Effect allowed the character to be gay, by allowing a romance between same-sex HUMANS, yes, Asari didn't count (well, it did, maybe, in the female Sheperd's perspective, because it's maybe hard to ignore the fact that the Asari all look like women), but as far as I'm concerned, the Asari planets and colonies are NOT lesbian planets, why? They're another race entirely, a same-sex race.
There's also the matter of PROFIT. Gay community tend to move a lot of money, so there's this die of the coin. For instance, we have the Green Lantern from Earth 2 (New 52) and, in much more mercenary way, Batwoman, whose constant reminder of being a lesbian and not-very-rare erotic scenes between her and her cop girlfriend reveals much more of a marketing stunt as well as a call for geeks around the world to join in chorus with most men in a song of "women on women is very cool" (despite Batwoman being, imo, the BEST new 52 saga).
What I'm saying is: homosexuality in games, comics, and other "geek controlled media" is still something that is "inserted for profit", much more than "accepting modern society" or at the very least educating people to do so.

 

[ecoho]

That's... really stupid. Homosexual characters shouldn't be a novelty. They should be characters that just happen to be gay.

ok to clearify they are planing on makeing at least some of your companions duel romances unfortunately as they have stated on their dam website (and i think in an article here) theres a problem getting it all to work and its takeing them alot longer then they thought. In the mean time they have this new planet that was built most likely last year with the mechanic already in place(when i say built i mean written up and storyborded) so it was easy to throw in right after the conversion to F2P.

BTW the reason im quoteing you fappy is cause your cool, fun, and dont take quotes like this as a personal atack and well i thought youd like to be a little more informed.