Has Bioware’s Story Driven Design Caused You To Change What Sex Toon You Will Have In SWTOR?
I had what I thought was an interesting thought the other day. I had a topic cross my mind and thought it would make an interesting discussion topic.
What sex characters do you normally play in your MMO’s, male or female?
I am a male gamer in real life, married, 3 kids. I have played both sexes in MMO’s quite frequently. On a game that lets me create on an average of 10 characters per server, my male to female ratio of characters is usually 50-50 male to female. I have also noticed a trend in them as well over the years. My male characters seem to usually be the melee brutes that smash face and my females always tend to be my ranged and rogue, usually also doubling as my crafter mains.
Why do I do this?
Heck I really don’t know. Probably because I want to break out of the norm of what I usually play, and partly because if I am going to have to stare at my characters back side for most of my MMO journey at least it can have some curves and be attractive to look at right? Yeah I know, w/e.
Have you given thought to Biowares story driven experience and romance arcs and how it might affect you as far as what sex character you decide to play in SWTOR?
The other day I was listening to a old episode of ToroCast, and Samm Money was saying that as a man in real life, he doesn’t want to play a female character because of the possibility that “there might be romantic encounters in your story as a female, and that would be too weird”.
I laughed my ass off when I heard that, but the more I thought about it I realized he was totally right. Why expect anything different actually, I mean just look at the romantic story options in Dragon Age or the Mass Effect series, Neverwinter Nights, etc… it is standard Bioware operating procedure, plus we have been told romance arcs will be in the game.
I want to be able to get into the story as my characters and I don’t think I could do that as a female character being romantic with a dood. So this fact has made me come to the conclusion that more than likely all my characters in SWTOR will be male.
This has made me change from my normal likes, to something that seems less interesting to look at and possibly not as fun for me.
I was just curious to see if anyone else had given this consideration or if this realization made them decide to change their style of play as well?
Thanks for reading! 🙂
26 Responses to “Has Bioware’s Story Driven Design Caused You To Change What Sex Toon You Will Have In SWTOR?”
I had a similar problem with Dragon age 2, I just could not roleplay as a lady Hawke getting hit on by male characters, nor could I stand Anders advances when playing the male Hawke. Men are extremely creepy when we fancy someone. Glad I don’t have to deal with that.
So yea, playing a female for swtor is out of the question for me. And I feel kindda horrible, that I am not able to get past that, tbh
thanks for reading and commenting dwism
as a side note i just wanted to make the statement that i am not meaning for this article to turn into a flame war, bashing one life choice against another. I am just asking if it has made you change your mind from what you normally would do in game. Please keep it civil.
exactly my situation .. just that i have only 2 kids 🙂 .. anyhow I will keep my habit of playing a female as main since I do not plan to romance .. and a lonely sith fits me ..
I am usually playing male characters in MMOs just because somehow I can’t “teamspeak” in a female-mode. It’s odd hearing a ~30year old guy talking in teamspeak, but running around as a female. (you get used to it, but yeah…)
Maybe I am just a bit shy, but maybe SWTOR will change that. If there’s a lot of different story-content for both gender, I will check it out.
Different class storylines for male/female would be awesome – for sure!
(or answers to choose while questing, different companion gender etc.)
Here is a funny thougt, how come it is easier for most people to play taurun, elf, Hobits or Twileks. Than it is for em to play a different gender? It is all fantasy isn’t it?
fantasy?! damn, you kicked me back to reality!
I AM the Hobbit rogue, I don’t just play him 😉
I was originally planning on playing a female Sage, but after I found out that Romance Arcs were in the game I’m gonna change her to a guy. I just don’t like the idea that one of my companionss is gonna be stickin’ it to my toon. Simple as that. However if Same Gender Romance Arcs had been in the game (which sadly they aren’t) then I would still have played a female, cuz I love me some girl on girl action 😛
What?? Too frank??
I usually play a female toon named after my wife (for my main). It makes it fun to game while hanging out together. She does not play, but doesn’t mind if I take over the TV at times and while she is relaxing with a book. So as I get cool items, get my arse kicked, etc we can have a god laugh.
The romantic arcs will be a hilarious …..
Its a shame about not having Same Gender Romance arcs, if is a matter of coding or worry about getting some protesters at their door?
Remember people – these are ROMANCE Arcs, NOT Sex Arcs. No one is “sticking it” to anyone”.
Now…on to the topic at hand: I have given it a little thought, but that was when I had hoped that SGRAs would be in the game. Now…I will have to think on it a little more. Generally, I like to play two of each available Race – one Male and one Female. I also plan to play one of each Advanced Class…so this matches up just fine. But now I will have to think on it a bit more.
I *do* like to see the different stories, and how they play out. But they will be up on YouTube at some point, I would imagine. I guess I have more thinking to do…especially depending on what The Legacy System is and the fact that new Species may be released in the future. The final number of Character Slots will also be a major factor in my decision. *sigh* So much yet to plan….
I play both genders and also different species in MMOs, whenever possible. I like diversity, and I like to try stuff out, even odd combinations (sometimes ESPECIALLY those).
It was stated clearly by the SWTOR-devs that Romance arcs will be:
1) OPTIONAL
2) Hard to maintain, requiring some decent time- and resources- investment.
3) NOT able to affect the main story.
Acording to this, only those people actually and actively interested in romance arcs will be pursuing them, whatever gender they play.
My choices will not be influenced by romance arcs.
I MAY pursue story arcs later, depending on the legacy system used, likely not on the first 2-3 characters rolled, or re-rolled. Also not really worried about same-gender or opposite-gender arcs, or even female-romance-arcs. For me, it will be just some interesting knack of the game.
I did make a point of playing KOTOR 2 several times for the class-and-prestige combinations, as well as the supposed romances for both male and female.
I kind of think the Romance Arcs should have been available regardless of the player character’s gender. BUT: Bioware not wanting to kick that hornet’s nest of SGRAs I can totally understand. I won’t go into the canonical impact of same gender relationships in Star Wars, or the potential political fallout IRL if they made SGRAs part of the game, I’ll just say it makes sense from a lot of angles why they did it this way.
It could have been interesting though. For one thing it would’ve been less work to write and program CCs to not be picky, and also it would have shown that a heroic, charismatic character is attractive to a large variety of people (CCs). That said, I haven’t yet seen a very large variety of CCs! How many male human CCs are there? Anyone seen one mentioned anywhere yet? How about a male Twi’lek or other humanoid (meaning non-bestials like Trandoshans or Wooks) race? There’s MAYBE that Nautolan from the JC class video, but he could be a quest character and not a CC (and could be argued to be a fish, and so not very romantic to most sensibilities). But my point is this: If you do roll a female PC, what romance arcs will be available if there aren’t many “attractive” male CCs? Are female SIs gonna be getting advances from Khem Val? Ick.
So with too little information to make a fully comprehensive analysis I’ll just say that from what we’ve seen I don’t think that the female PCs are going to have that many romantic options, unless there are some male CCs we’ve just not yet seen that are devastatingly handsome. Either way I (male, married with two little girls who I want to have positive strong female role-models) will be playing a female JC for my main at launch. And I will be completely shutting down any Trandoshan serenades or other NPC advances that might be coming my way.
thank you all for your comments on this subject, it has been interesting to see the responses to this question. Much food for thought.
Well that’s not a problem, I will play as a lesbian 🙂
Have bioware said that they arn’t doing same gender romance arcs, I haven’t seen it mentioned but may have missed it. I’m surprised if they are not as they have in the past like in dragon age origins. I must admit I prefer to look at a cute female butt for hours on end and not a males hairy one when playing :p
@toejamicus yes they have said that they are not planning to do same sex romance arcs at this time is the last word on the subject we have from them.
i have always played male toons, for some reason i avoid looking at my character, after seeing it for the first few minutes, my focus is on the environment,mobs,etc. i guess id feel like a perv/wierdo if i were looking at a female butt running around instead of focusing on the world around me and the potential pvp targets that may be trying to gank me. i also always put myself into/as the toon, more role playing i guess. when i do rarely make a female toon, i usually name it a pornstar name or something along that line for lols from other players.
ps: i have no idea what game you are talking about, i usually stick no NCsoft games…but in some games like Fallout 2 for instance, certain perks give you speech advantages to the opposite sex, so i could see reason for that. as for romantic arcs,,,i dont have an opinion on that,i guess i’d have to try the game or at least study the game first to see if i’d have a reason to roll female.
we are talking about star wars the old republic the mmo, awesome game for sure. 🙂
I have always played both male and female toons. My wife and I always roll a set where she is the male and I’m the female just for fun!
I can’t say I’ll spend much time with the optional Romance arcs in the game but I will eventually and yeah I’ll be playing both genders a female toon really is no stranger than a talking, walking, and utterless cow. Yeah for the record I had both a male and female 🙂
In MMO’s I have always played male characters (even all my alts). But in all BioWare games going all the way back to KOTOR, my first run-though has nearly always been male, followed by a run-through with a female to explore the different reactions from NPCs and romance options (and of course the opposite good/evil options too).
So yes, the BioWare story will definitely alter the sexes of my characters. My main will still be male, but I’ll be throwing in some female alts for sure.
I have played both male and female toons in Bioware games before and not had too much of a problem with romance arcs.
A bigger factor for me when deciding the gender of my toon will be the voice. I play fem Shepard in ME because the male voice isn’t as nice to listen to.
Which leads me to a thought. Will we be able to sample the character’s voice during character creation? Or will we need to finish creating them and log in for the first time before being able to judge the voice?
@Flamegear, hmmm that is an interesting point you bring up indeed. I am of the mindset to believe that we wont see multiple voices to choose from with each character, due to the immense amount of work the VO requires I just don’t seem them feasibly being able to do that. That is a feature I first encountered in Balders Gate and I loved it for sure.
Now whether we will be able to sample the voice before we finalize the character I am not sure about that don’t recall ever hearing anything about it. Character creation is still one of those mechanics shrouded in mystery.
@Flamegear @Swtorcrafter If we see multiple voices for characters I will be shocked, it seems to me like that’s something they would have revealed at ComicCon when they had voices actors on the pannel. I suppose I have not seen anything that specifically denies it, but I doubt it is in play.
Because of this I can see the possiblity of not hearing a voice sample during character creation, under the logic that you can’t change it even if you don’t like it. I do hope there is a small sample, but I have a hard time we will get anything substantial.
But on a game of this scale I doubt we will get anything but the best voice acting possible for the characters we will play as, regardless of gender. It is too much of a selling point for the game developers to drop the ball on it, and we all know that there are few things worse in a game than bad voice acting.
Having been a player of MMOs for a long time, though never a Bioware game or any other game with story-driven romance arcs, SWTOR will be an entirely new experience for me.
A female in real life, I tend to gravitate toward male characters when playing MMOs. Giving it some thought, however, I would prefer if my male in-game character could have a Same-Gender Romance Arc.
Or, actually, I’d prefer if I could avoid the Romance Arcs altogether.
I wonder how many options these Arcs will have.
@Bale, I am so excited to hear the females perspective on this, thank you for commenting. It has been far too long that males have dominated the game voice space and I enjoy hearing the other sex opinion.
Not sure about the options as I never got to experience one yet.
@Bale
That depends on what you mean by options. If you mean “How many romance partners will you be able to chose from?” The answer is one, or one per gender really. Each class has one romance option per character, and they will always be opposite sex relationships. At this point there is no option for a same sex romance in TOR, and to be honest I doubt we will see many alien romance options as well. My guess is that romance options will be limited to mostly humans, maybe Twi’leks as well. Keep in mind that is only my personal guess though, Bioware has not really clarified anything on that subject.
If, on the other hand, by options you mean “how many different choices will we be able to take within the romance itself?” then it’s slightly harder to make an educated guess. In past Bioware games the romance arcs generally consisted of “make all the right dialogue choices and they will fall in love with you,” but I could see this game doing something different simply because of the sheer scale of it. What those differences could be I would not hazard a guess at the moment, but I’m hoping for something a little deeper than their usual fare.