shotgunbadger

I'm not being passive aggressive I'm making a joke about how they're sure to be sure cats and elves can get married but a dude and a dude is nuts. I'm not calling anyone out here, except Squeenix I guess?

Of course, if they discriminated against magic cat people it'd be terrible.

From what I understand they're still in clans in a large amount, but many also live in cities. There's no real uniform rule, and being in a clan doesn't ALWAYS mean you don't live in a city.

Who, who is being 'toxic' you spent a good page talking about 'power words' do you not understand how bad it is to call someone 'toxic' to a whole movement. If it's a blanket statement where are you seeing it happen?

I'm going to toss a fun comment in here to sort of try to release a little steam from all parties; Normal is so out-dated. That said, that depends, all of this? On the individual. I'm more tolerant than many, I admit that. I'm willing to put more hope into things, I admit that. I simply ask people if they're willing to do the same. If they are not, that's entirely fine. I am also strictly against volatile or otherwise toxic and abrasive... 'solutions'. I feel they offer nothing. This is part of my 'hyper feminist' thing earlier in the thread. This sect of feminists, not the group as a whole heavens no, are unfortunately some of the most vocal, and most toxic of the lot. This is the kind of thing we do -not- need in the LGBT community. Granted, again, I do not like the term feminist or 'masculinist'. I prefer humanist. I want equality in all manner, for all genders. But that's neither here nor there. Wow 'toxic' and 'abrasive'? Really? What solutions are 'toxic', did I miss someone saying they were gonna whiff a brick through Yoshi's car? Like, seriously can you not see how smug and patronizing this post is? Who the hell are you to tell us what we do and don't need, or pass judgement on any feminist who you feel is 'toxic'? You wanted empathy to be the word of the day but it's clear you don't feel it for me or anyone who disagrees that we should put blind faith in a corporation because they said the most wishy washy answer to our complaints.

Let's talk some empathy here, realtalk. You want to 'understand and share' my feelings regarding my sexuality in the media? Rock on, I welcome it. Ever feel like the absolute BEST case for most media is that they just ignore you, because the alternative is some really fucking disgusting stereotypes, so at least if they pretend you don't exist they can't actively insult you further? Ever silently thank god when a character representing your sexuality just acts like a normal human being, because that's such a rare treat? Is one of the reasons you love things like MMOs the fact that no matter what the devs put in, usually, you can just be a gay dude and since you're playing with other real humans instead of programs it doesn't matter the creator's views of gays because you can usually find a supportive environment? How many times has 'we'll wait and see' meant 'we're going to ignore you' for something as basic as just acknowledging that you exist? Do you often hear your sexuality tossed around as a casual insult, because that'd be a terrible thing to be after all, and at the very least in escapism you can just tune all that out? That's why this sucks so much. This is one of the few refuges many of us has, and it's once again invaded by that big neon "YOU ARE NOT NORMAL" sign that follows a lot of us all our life.

You don't know much about corporations, do you? That response they gave us? That's Corporatese for "We don't give a flying fuck about your desires, because a) you are too small a minority to negatively impact our profits and b) most of you will buy our product anyway." Corporatese is always polite, even when it's describing to you exactly how they are going to take their six-foot-long engorged penis and shove it directly up your virgin asshole. Because the bolded isn't ranting and raving. Surely not. I'm not saying being angry is wrong, I'm saying that it won't accomplish much. There's a mighty big difference between "GO AWAY!!!1" and, "Vote with your wallet." They have zero reason to care about you if you don't display that their decisions will negatively impact the sales figures for their game. Oh snap you found one person who in a thread said a thing, we're clearly all ranting raving shrieking babies! Good job! I'm really glad you just want us to go away and don't care about those of us who don't, you're a very supportive person.

All I can say to this, and this is unfortunate and sad. To me, personally. But, you're obviously allowed to have this stance. Also, really? The giant pink planet was kind of facepalm worthy to me from TOR. For someone who goes on about empathy you sure say a lot of patronizing shit. I don't care how 'unfortunate and sad' my views are to you, man, why would you even say that if only to try to look superior?

No one here is ranting and raving and crying, seriously stop this patronizing garbage. And what, your solution is 'hey if you don't like being ignored maybe you should all leave!'? How does that fix anything?

I'm sorry it's just, why should I trust Yoshida? I mean I love the games he makes, but literally all I know about his view of gay representation is his one 'eh we'll wait for feedback'. Someone brought up The Old Republic before, remember that when the devs outright said 'yea we'll have gay stuff for companions' and then didn't deliver until Planet of the Gays dropped and we had to spend money for a crappy expansion that had like, two dudes who said "BY THE BY I LIKEA THE DUDES" and that was a win somehow? I straight up don't trust people in media about homosexuality being portrayed in a good way until I actually see it, and I have no reason to think I should start it now.

So to be clear the off random chance that the gamy may get an unfairly higher rating because of bigots means we need to just chillax and hope maybe one day Square decides to acknowledge we exist, but also we can't be TOO forceful about it otherwise we're just bad bad uppity gays? So basically just 'hey trust the guys who said maybe someday'?

Really, you need to be civil, as other people are stating. This sort of hyperbole is what we're trying to prevent. Or, stereotyping is ludicrous and hypocritical at this juncture. Please. If one of the arguments is already basically a sterotype of 'well it's Japanese culture' then fine, let's apply that to everything instead of just us.

I am not straight and I advocate rationality. It's like when you have to deal with your in-laws. Kill them with calmness and kindness and you have a chance to get them to hate you less. If you scream and shout and sling curses at them, you come out validating their poor view of you. I think if we showed them how this could only better the community and were vigilant abut sending the message, making a large voice, we could get through. This screaming ,shouting, and insulting each other isn't going anywhere. My point is we already ARE being rational, we don't need to be told to be like we're a bunch of children. Just because you saw someone make more than one thread about something doesn't mean every gay in FFXIV is kicking and screaming. It's patronizing.

And all I'M saying is I'm sick to hell of any LGBT topic ever going: Most all LGBT people involved just go 'man this sucks' => One or two people takes things a bit further => Straight people come in all "WOAH HOMOS CALM THE HELL DOWN LET'S BE RATIONAL HERE DON'T YOU KNOW NO ONE GIVES A CRAP UNLESS YOU BEHAVE?"

Hey woah please respect Japan's culture and understand that transgendered people aren't exactly respected there, so any gender change options should be ignored. I'm sure that many people who have posted in this thread, or who are a part of this community, are more than capable of keeping their shit together, so to speak, but some people seem to think that just because a handful of people make some noise that it will create any sort of lasting impact. When the marriage system launches with hetero marriage only it'll create waves no matter what, but if people expect it (or even accept it, no matter how bad it is) that impact will cause less rage and more rational thought when the time for feedback is actually at hand. If the system launches and the collective LGBT community of FFXIV all rationally band together as best they can to create a singular front then you'll get something done, but if everyone expects things will change just because they want them to or because it makes them angry, then they have these unmerited expectations and a skewed perspective and when the system launches and it's not what they expected, and everyone goes ERMERGERD DEY TERK ER JERBS! and ten thousand threads appear on the lodestone about the same. damn. thing. SE is far less likely to give a rats ass. You know what this actually pisses me off more than SE's bull crap. Thank you sooooooooo much for telling me how to react to this, I absolutely couldn't handle my swirling homo emotions without you here to keep me in perspective. As we all know if a gay ever vents for just five damn minutes about how it sucks that even in fantasy escapism we can't even be equal we're basically stabbing the movement in the back. Please, please give us permission to have one damn place to go 'man this sucks' without some dude coming in and smugly explaining how if we were more rational everything would be ok.

Don't worry dude you don't have to keep arguing the opposite to 'keep our perspective' us gays know our place. This is far from the first time I've played a game where I can summon the gods themselves to fight for me but kissing a dude, yuck, that's crazy.

If we're 'respecting Japanese norms' I expect everyone with a female toon will stick to crafting jobs (preferably just cooking) or I GUESS magic as long as it's not too intense and manly too?

I think your assumption that Square-Enix will not change its plans no matter what people do is unfounded. if it's made clear that the backlash from releasing the system without same-sex marriage will be immense, I could definitely see them backpedaling. I could even see a partial solution where same-sex marriage is only available on NA and EU servers being implemented if their respective player-bases are particularly vocal. Frankly I don't see anything in their statement that gives me hope beyond a very generic 'eh let's see some feedback'. They clearly are going with hetero marriage as the norm and think if us gays want anything we have to prove we exist or whatever. They obviously expect us to protest or something to get anything but honestly most of the gays I know in this situation have way too many issues with actual real life problems to put tons of effort into a magic elf game's discrimination, so most likely Squeenix will have plenty of room to go 'eh not enough feedback'.

You know, the more I think about it the more it does actually bug me. I guess it's more a frustration of 'this is yet another time where I feel like some kind of outsider even in a game about magic elves and dragons and shit'. What really chaps my ass is that this is a pretty easy thing to 'fix' too. This isn't a country that has to change its laws and update its codes and all, this is just an issue of programming. The assets and such are coming either way, just set the system to be open to two players regardless of gender and it's done. No it's not a thing that'll make me quit, or anything like that, but it bothers me, especially the vague 'well we'll see if we get any feedback' answer we got. That's a non-answer at best, and a dodge at worst because it shifts the 'blame' over to us, like we need to campaign for marriage equality in elf games just like we do in real life. Screw that noise, this is a game about midgets summoning avatars of gods and cat people punching monsters in the mouth but apparently two dudes getting married needs to be focus grouped and carefully planned? It pisses me off to get brushed off with a 'well we'll see about you maybe' almost more than just outright saying no at this point.

As a gay man this obviously bothers me, but as said I can at least understand that a Japanese company is most likely not going to be the vanguard of social change for gays. I don't like it but to be honest the bar was pretty low for an Asian company in my mind so nothing's really damaged.

I ordered through the square site to get the CE digitally, and in my invoice I got it had the product code listed right under the FFXIV Collectors Edition enumeration.

So basically when beta opens up again there's no more wipes? Awesome. This'll be my first beta phase so I'm really eager to jump in.

Yea what about people like me who are starting new but used to play, and who read a lot on crafting and all, I can make a lot of gil pretty fast, if I go all obsessive I can have a hefty wallet in a day or so. If I rolled on Gilgamesh aren't I just as much a 'problem' as the dude who had it just lying around?

What happens when server transfers open up and the legacy people start to filter over, though? I hate to break it to you, but it is pretty much a new game. Cataclysm was an expansion, it simply added content and re-vamped some old geography. A Realm Reborn is an entire re-design of the game's interface, graphics engine, environment, questing, battle system, features, and endgame content. It may not be a BRAND new game. But it's as close as you can possibly get. And if I'm allowed to play on a server without any pre-leveled characters on it in this new world? I'm going to. Sure can. Scenario 1: Say a legacy player has an item and wants to sell it. Now this item isn't for sale and since he's a Legacy player, and he has plenty of cash left over from 1.0. He can now charge whatever he'd like for this item before an actual economy is re-established simply because there are no other ones for sale. Scenario 2: Now let's say a non-legacy player puts up some crafting materials for sale. A legacy player sees they are fairly cheap, because again, there is no real economy in place yet. So he buys all of them, which sure might give the new player some profit. But what can he do then? Re-sell them all for MUCH more. Thus causing a problem. This particular issue happens even late game, but the key difference is late game there is an economy in place, so it has marginal success due to market influx. By this logic we should just put a cap on gil because like you said this problem happens no matter what. There will always be newbies who undervalue things, that happened in FFXI a lot and nothing was destroyed.

I really have no idea how the legacy players can 'have us by the balls' though. Can you actually explain that and why it's a certainty?