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Possibility of choosing Pronouns

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6/3/2021 23:20:13   
Biokirkby
Member

It's Pride month! Besides the occaisional implications and snugglefest quests, AQ has very little focus on romance, particularly for the Chosen- and I have no intent on changing that.

That said, I'd like to discuss the possibility for more gender-related options. Faces come with a pre-set gender, which comes with their own pronouns. This comes with limitations- especially the inability to be non-binary. I don't expect every previous quest to be re-written with They/Them pronouns considered, but I would love to see the option to choose masculine, feminine or non-binary pronouns going forward.

There's also the matter of faces tied to bodies- I'm not sure how that's programmed, and I don't expect armours with gender differences to have a third form based on non-binary options, least of all because that doesn't relate to any specific body type. But it does bring up the possibility of choosing gendered appearance seperate to faces- I'm not sure what interest people would have in this.... but, it would save me from the occaisional female face that's set as male by default...
DF AQW  Post #: 1
6/4/2021 0:04:40   
Aura Knight
Member

When you consider many players likely skip through dialogues, details such as genders of characters is often ignored or even not relevant to whatever story is being told with some exceptions but even then the simplicity of only mentioning two is, well simple to follow. I don't think there's any benefit for the game to implement such a thing as what you are suggesting. It'll just be more forced effort to pander to possibly a small group of very vocal individuals. We've seen what happened with the change to that mother's staff weapon being altered a bit because of some "questionable" feminine features and I don't want to see the game go in this direction where it tries to be politically correct. Fiction and reality don't need to mix and often times they are better off separate.
AQ DF AQW  Post #: 2
6/4/2021 0:18:41   
Biokirkby
Member

Well, I'm not advocating for any kind of censorship. I'd only like people like me to be included, and even then if it's not too much effort. I can't imagine anyone else's experience would be impacted.

With all due respect, while non-binaries are not a large portion of people, our inclusion is more than "pandering" or "political correctness."

And since it's pride month, I'll treat myself to ignoring some "There are only two genders."

< Message edited by Biokirkby -- 6/4/2021 0:25:41 >
DF AQW  Post #: 3
6/4/2021 0:26:18   
Aura Knight
Member

I'm sure you'll survive without a near 2 decade old game making mention of gender which represents what is the norm of reality today.
AQ DF AQW  Post #: 4
6/4/2021 0:29:11   
Biokirkby
Member

Oh, I will. But I don't see any loss in considering the possibility.
DF AQW  Post #: 5
6/4/2021 0:30:27   
Aura Knight
Member

Not much to gain either. Fictional world doesn't have to follow real world laws.
AQ DF AQW  Post #: 6
6/4/2021 0:36:33   
Biokirkby
Member

The gains are more obvious if you happen to be non-binary yourself, I suppose.

The argument that the fictional world doesn't have to follow real world laws is a strange one, though. By that same merit, characters can exist without any gendered body type- like elementals or spirits. Not to mention our ability to change gender whenever we want via Warlic's mirror, which i appreciate.
DF AQW  Post #: 7
6/4/2021 0:43:52   
Aura Knight
Member

Fantasy world plays by its own rules independent of what we experience in the real world but there are simple views to keep things easier to follow. The lack of relevance to gender typically shows there's something more important to focus on. A story for example. It wouldn't matter what the gender of a character in the story is when the focal point happens to be the heroic action or sometimes villainous action taken by said character. When you ask for more focus on gender mentions you undermine the point of a story and add nothing to what would otherwise be a decent narrative. Having such a thing may make you happy but that sounds a bit selfish.

A question I'd ask is why now? What makes this year the time for you to request this thing be considered as opposed to any other time?

< Message edited by Aura Knight -- 6/4/2021 0:46:30 >
AQ DF AQW  Post #: 8
6/4/2021 0:46:11   
Biokirkby
Member

Selfish? I'm not asking for more focus. Everyone has a gender, and people being referred to as "He" or "She" doesn't take any more focus than being called "They."
DF AQW  Post #: 9
6/4/2021 1:22:23   
GwenMay
Member

I definitely support the idea going forward, although AQ has way too much content to make this backwards compatible.

Maybe an option in the face customization screen to choose pronouns/gender, to separate gender from faces and include the possibility of they/them non-binary pronouns? No idea how much work that would be, but probably the best solution.

On a slightly related note, I do want to applaud AQ for having some LGBT inclusion with the 66% cutscene of the Wabio side of Wabio vs. Sham. I think it was the first time I've seen anything of the sort in AQ? Would definitely love to see more of that, like how Dragonfable includes LGBT characters pretty regularly.

EDIT: After thinking about it more, I think it would actually be very problematic to include a non binary option, practically speaking. Armors and quest dialogue that depend on player gender would need some input about what to pick, so you'd end up with Nonbinary (Male presenting) or Nonbinary (Female presenting) which sort of goes against the idea, and would probably be difficult to implement just to include a new pronoun option going forward. I do think allowing players to choose gender separate from faces would be nice though, and you could get a nonbinary "vibe" or sorts by making a heavily bearded face use female pronouns, or a very feminine face use male pronouns.

< Message edited by GwenMay -- 6/4/2021 1:37:56 >
AQ DF AQW Epic  Post #: 10
6/4/2021 1:36:18   
Biokirkby
Member

I agree completely- both that it's quite an effort to make it backwards compatible, and that it could be done from the face customisation.

And also that the 66% percent scene was delightful (In a yearning sort of sense), I had to do a double take when I first saw it
DF AQW  Post #: 11
6/4/2021 1:40:51   
GwenMay
Member

@Biokirkby

Oof you commented while I was making my edit and after I checked for new comments. But the point of my above commend edit was basically to point out that backwards compatibility would probably be a huge pain considering some armor and quest dialogue require male/female input.

Might be easier for AQ to just include some nonbinary/trans representation in a subtle fashion, like the 66% war cutscene.
AQ DF AQW Epic  Post #: 12
6/4/2021 2:05:08   
Biokirkby
Member

All good- I don't really expect any non-binary appearing armor, all things considered. I don't even know what that would look like.

Although that kind of subtle representation isn't a bad idea, either.
DF AQW  Post #: 13
6/4/2021 12:42:04   
  Ianthe
 formerly In Media Res

 

 *adds it to her list of things that would be nice if we had the resources*

Like GwenMay said, making it backwards-compatible would be a headache. Most gender-specific code is really simple -- like 
if (gender == 2) //female stuff
else //male stuff
So adding a third option would make everything default to male behaviour. This sounds like something we could just implement for new armours/quests going forward, and then update old stuff as we can.
AQ  Post #: 14
6/4/2021 12:43:26   
  Lorekeeper
And Pun-isher

 

 This isn't an unreasonable request, and I would appreciate it if no further bad faith reinterpretations of the original poster's point were made. There may be some complications with old code or old faces, and there is some inevitable UI work involved in the theoretical implementation of segregating both features, but an identifier pulling a variable isn't exactly rocket surgery. Now, Kam and IMR have a particularly intense backlog, and I'm only the writer, so I can make no guarantees -- But I'll add this to the feedback on how to improve the early game experience and character creation.
Post #: 15
6/4/2021 14:08:22   
Tacos
Member

I vote 'no'. Language doesn't need to be changed . The amount of times where I've seen some variation of "They" (singular) and "They" (Plural) in the SAME SENTENCE still brings me to a halt and having me rereading the sentence a couple of times to make sure I'm reading it correctly. I've always seen 'They' as plural (English is not my native language, and my native language is French), and I seen a lot of media where villains purposely dehumanize a person as 'it' and people get mad and demand a change, which defeats the purpose of what the villain is purposely doing. Besides, I pay more attention to the story/game itself than someone's gender. Nobody's gender was ever a focus in the life of this game.
Adding pronouns would make me confused, adding pronouns would everyone confused , adding pronouns will add extra baggage to things that will definitely explode in the future. And a bunch of people just doesn't care about gender, they care about the characters and their personalities themselves.
Also, I want to question the staff why make changes despite there's a fair amount of people gong against a change. Like the Mother Day's staff, there's a fair amount of people against the change but it went ahead anyway.


I also want to explain more to this but I don't know how to correctly write it without accidentally angering somebody so I'll do a short summary: Real life politically-charged stuff doesn't need to be in fictional games, unless it makes sense in the game's universe. Like lets say a god descends upon the town, and everyone calls it 'it' because said god has no gender and doesn't know what else to call it. It's not dehumanising, and the god doesn't care about mortal affairs. To put politically-charged stuff just because is a sure-fire way to kill off your game, and there is a lot of (dead) games that did just that prove it.

< Message edited by Tacos -- 6/4/2021 14:36:50 >
AQ AQW  Post #: 16
6/4/2021 20:36:33   
Biokirkby
Member

Thank you very much much, IMR and Cray. The acknowledgement of it being reasonable means a lot as it is- and honestly, getting this at some point for releases going forwards is more than I could hope for. After all, if I wasn't accepting of how things where already, I wouldn't be here now.

@Tacos: Again, pronouns already exist in-game. Presumably, the singular they wouldn't show up unless a person chooses it for themselves... unless you're suggesting no characters going forward ever use non-binary pronouns.

Giving you the best-faith reading I can, I still have to insist that I don't consider who I am to be "political." People often try to politicise who I am, but I would just like to exist- ideally, with representation within games. I don't think that's necessarily "political" and it's not me doing something for "wokeness points..." if that was a concern.
DF AQW  Post #: 17
6/4/2021 20:38:46   
RobynJoanne
Member
 

 @Tacos
I'd argue that the use of the same pronouns for different people is less of an issue with pronouns themselves and more an issue with the writer's use of language. I've had it drilled in me that I should never use pronouns that could refer to different people in the same context, as it is confusing for the reader regardless of the reader's native language. There are linguistic reasons for the use of the singular they, and while I do think a new pronoun should be used for non-binary individuals to keep confusion down since people are prone to misusing pronouns, it is not my place as not one of them to tell them what to refer to themselves. If pronouns are used properly, there should be no confusion with regards to whom they are referring.

The matter is that the Chosen is the avatar of the players, and while the Chosen has certain given characteristics, AQ has a renewed interest in allowing customization for characteristics within certain boundaries, given the narrative note by Cray on the return of the Alignment Compass. Should a relatively minor linguistic change be okayed if players believe it will help represent the Chosen represent themselves better? I believe it should.

I understand I was one of those with the incredibly unpopular opinion that the Ancient Mother Staff should have gotten a change. My reasoning was that it was a fairly strange visual choice given the context of the game, and while not everything in AQ has context within the game itself (indeed, many LTS items do not), it was a potentially, however rare that may be, controversial choice for the future. Non-binary pronouns absolutely can be justified within the context of AQ. The Chosen and others are human, and they are supposed to be similar to IRL humans in terms of personalities. Part of that is gender identity. It would be absurd for gender identity to be strictly binary for humans without some strong justifications for why there would be such a drastic difference between the humans on LORE and IRL humans. It is not as if our very different experiences in life would change that, considering gender identity is something that is to some extents innate.
Post #: 18
6/4/2021 20:50:24   
J9408
Member

quote:

Presumably, the singular they wouldn't show up unless a person chooses it for themselves


A toggle maybe? If you toggle it, it would cause the dialogue to include the pronouns. Of course this would require some more work for the staff, but this is a just a suggestion.

I think this option will make sure there is no unwanted change to the story or dialogue for those who don't want it.

< Message edited by J9408 -- 6/4/2021 21:01:16 >
Post #: 19
6/4/2021 21:57:55   
Biokirkby
Member

Given the confusion, I'm wondering if I made my original post too confusing?

Men and women should absolutely get to keep their own masculine and feminine pronouns, of course. There are times when the Chosen is referred to as "he' or "she" or "sister" or "brother"- for example, Warlic might say "Where is the chosen? I need to speak to him/her/them," and based on your choice of gender already, it'll be him or her. My suggestion involves adding a third option, presumably connected to the mirror of faces.
DF AQW  Post #: 20
6/4/2021 21:58:32   
s_venom
Member

RobynJoanne: I would have to strongly disagree you.
Your assertion regarding the nature of gender it something that in today's climate is an extremely volatile subject, with very strong connection to the political life today.
Regardless of that, going by the logic you have presented we can also argue for religion to represented properly or that we should also remove all skin colors (and hair) that don't match the real world. As you can see it's a nonsensical argument.

It should be pointed that push back is against the inclusion of gender-related options. Rather the argument is that the game existed with certain rules up until this point and changing them isn't something you should do just to match current preferences. Art (games included) should be able to exist as it is without the need to appease every single social preference and we should be able to respect and accept it.

An additional point is that the push for this type of requests come from a very small minority of people contrary to the desires of the majority. Take for example the changes made to the Mother's staff weapon. As you yourself pointed out, you held the unpopular opinion that it should been changed, I.E the popular opinion was for it to stay the same. Despite that, the change was still made.

And before being told this is an argument in bad faith, there are plenty of example of companies changing the core of their art to appease small vocal minorities while ignoring the majority of their own player base (providing said examples would be easy enough if requested). The fear is that this might happen with AQ as well. For all trust and respect we have for the staff, this is a genuine concern that people have, especially given what happened with the recent art change to the mother staff.

Hopefully the staff would also take this point of view into consideration.
AQ DF  Post #: 21
6/4/2021 23:02:36   
Aura Knight
Member

The concern of this leading to the downfall of a once beloved game is a valid one as it has happened in other media. A loud minority demanding a change, the change happens, the fans don't care for it and leave and the ones who asked for it are also gone to go complain about something else which will eventually be ruined. I realize this is an extreme situation and won't happen here but if the seeds are planted eventually we will see a growth that could possibly lead to a great division. Why must one view be considered at a higher standard than any other. The game doesn't need to respect real world situations because it's a fantasy focused one. Details such as gender and what pronouns are used to refer to characters isn't something that is important enough to a story and for that reason there is no need to add anything like this.

Can we have future characters made to add a bit more inclusivity? Sure why not? Won't matter in the end but if you mean to tell me you'd like any existing characters to change to make you feel better? Absolutely not. I think AQ can do it right and not make an overwhelmingly bad decision with this but resources are best put towards other projects. You played the game for years without caring about this so you can wait longer. The respected norms of the game's core should not be impacted by a real world issues. People use games to escape reality anyway and yet a lot of you seem to be in support of something which is a topic of debate with the disagreeing side often labeled as the wrong party. Not everyone has to conform to the ideals of the vocal minority.
AQ DF AQW  Post #: 22
6/4/2021 23:23:13   
Biokirkby
Member

If I might ask, considering the hypothetical of a non-binary chosen, what effect would it have on players who do choose a binary gender? I hope it's clear that I have no desire to affect the gameplay or story of anyone who doesn't wish for it to be impacted. If I were to be granted my pronouns, I fail to see a reason that fans who don't care for it would leave- they should be unaffected.
DF AQW  Post #: 23
6/4/2021 23:32:32   
  Lorekeeper
And Pun-isher

 

 The experience of characters with male faces isn't affected by others being set to female faces and vice-versa. There is no loud minority, alteration of respected norms, or break from escapism involved, and there is certainly no parallel to draw to any cases of alterations of established character. Were such a change to happen, it would only affect the experiences of players who choose to play with it. Any given character would be no more affected than current Guardians are by the cape color choices of others.

There is genuinely no need to misrepresent someone else's point or seek to cast them in a bad light in order to express disagreement. Please refrain from arguing in bad faith from this point.
Post #: 24
6/4/2021 23:41:35   
SilverSoul
Member

Some of these replies are sorta funny considering if this topic was never publicly brought up and was just something that was just stealthily inserted in future quest releases, no one would bat an eye. So it is hard to view some of the replies in this thread as not being posted in bad faith, especially considering I've seen similar arguments from some less than friendly people in other gaming communities.

This isn't really a noticeable change like the future EO/PR nerf or the sweep from back in the late 00s, of which the latter received a lot of backlash from players back in the day. It just changes how npcs address the player, which can probably help with immersion a bit. I'm fine with the staff adding this in the game as it can be a nice gesture to some people, along with the previously mentioned immersion, but I also don't really care too much if it doesn't make it in, since this game has existed nearly two decades without the option.

It probably won't be added since Cray did mention Kam and IMR have a huge backlog to go through, but I do appreciate the staff members in this thread for being supportive of the topic, even if it might not come to fruition.
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 25
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