I'm LGBT and I don't think the vanlentines quest is offensive.

[IndigoHawk]

But what I really can't understand is the other thing that happens after someone says "this makes me feel unwelcome." You have a group of people that get sooo mad

There's a big party; everyone is invited. Someone starts a game to spread the spirit of love and cheer. The girls get one candy, the guys get another, they can trade, and turn them in for a prize.

Then someone stands up and says, "This makes me feel unwelcome." The party stops; the mood is killed.

Some people boycott the party, while others discuss gender neutral ways to distribute hearts and educate people about gender issues and the privilege of the event. Some people get defensive, some feel bad, and some just want to go home.

Sometimes it's better to keep things in perspective and overlook a minor issue that has an easy workaround, instead of being a buzzkill. If no issue is small enough to overlook, then even considerate people can get worn out from the high maintenance.

[Naunet]

If no issue is small enough to overlook, then even considerate people can get worn out from the high maintenance.

The LGBT and allied community has taken issue with two... two things in this game: Yoshi's position on the marriage system (which someone quoted earlier - still infuriates me) and the heteronormative nature of this event. You can't honestly claim that we're getting up in arms over every little thing when 1) we haven't been raging or "getting up in arms" at all, just pointing out that a certain aspect of the event makes some of us feel excluded and 2) we've only complained about two freaking things in the entire game. If that's too much for you... well, I honestly don't know what to say.

[Worm]

Then someone stands up and says, "This makes me feel unwelcome." The party stops; the mood is killed.

So remember kids don't speak up.

Honestly I don't get the constant need to reframe this, people are not very upset, people are not quitting the game, just some people voiced their opinion on the forum. This is literally in the dictionary definition of forum. No one is stopping the party, this is the party! This is what the forums are and if you dislike open discussion so much then you should go lecture children. You are massively missing the point of a forum and characterizing the people using it in the right way as people who need to just stop making threads even though the threads on this issue are massively outweighed by people complaining about being kicked or Pharos Sirius' ilvl requirement. I'll never understand posters who go on forums but yet seem to have such an issue with other's expression.

tl;dr: SE didn't make a real-life simulator, so it might be a good idea to invest less of your own identity into the game.

Again this is an argument that lets various MMOs be full of all kinds of way more offensive shit. I guess I understand where you're coming from but I don't know if you should defend this minor annoyance to homosexuals with an argument that covers some hypothetical MMO that's full of stereotypical crap.

edit: I think a good example was during the launch of WoW:MoP the Panderan newbie area had some tigers you'd kill for a quest. This tigers were specifically named after some nearly extinct breed of tiger and a few of us posted that they ought to rename them. I think in the end they did. I don't think that was a bad thing, and it certainly didn't give vegetarians and vegans some foothold to "ruin the game" or anything like that. Just because something doesn't leave a bad taste in your mouth specifically doesn't mean you need to support it. In the long run looking at these events they have a pretty good track record of making them not gender exclusive, so naturally people might take issue with it recently being this way, that's all. The same way in WoW they traditionally didn't name any of the 100s of animals you had to kill after near extinct real world animals.

[SummonerSenah]

tl;dr: SE didn't make a real-life simulator, so it might be a good idea to invest less of your own identity into the game.

As a woman who has to play male characters I can agree with this statement. But allow me to play Devil's Advocate. Would you give the same advice to someone upset that they didn't have a choice for skin color? Chances are, people are either going to say "It's just a game" or "That's a valid concern." And there's nothing wrong with either POV in my opinion. A lot of people legitimately don't care because it's a game. But that does not invalidate the feelings of the people it does matter to. And if no one speaks up, nothing will change.

Furthermore, the LGBT community is not asking for SE to make sexuality an option in character creation. The ones who have taken issue on the matter just want ONE sentence of dialogue changed to be neutral, so that straight people could read it that way and gay people could read it that way.

[Quenn]

So remember kids don't speak up.


edit: I think a good example was during the launch of WoW:MoP the Panderan newbie area had some tigers you'd kill for a quest. This tigers were specifically named after some nearly extinct breed of tiger and a few of us posted that they ought to rename them. I think in the end they did..

Do people complain about having to kill dinosaurs in WoW too? They're extinct you know :P

As for the Valentine quest, although it would be nice to be able to give a Valentine to a same sex partner, I don't mind as much. As for the marriage thing they're bringing into the game, I would be annoyed if they didn't bring gays into it. What Yoshi-P said about waiting for fan feedback is slightly offensive.

[Jynx]

I can't dance the politically correct dance in a game, just can't take it seriously.

The only time I can get behind something is if they are downright bashing someone or a group of people. SE hasn't gone out of it's way to insult the LGBT community and has infact allowed them to participate and not just locked them out of the event.

It's like the whole Girls against games thing, sometimes they are on point with something that is truely a issue in the market. Othertimes they are crying about a miniskirt. Any community does this I guess from Casual to Hardcore, I guess sometimes we need to be able to block out the "noise" and make sure we don't let the real issues slip by.

[Zaels]

Do people complain about having to kill dinosaurs in WoW too? They're extinct you know :P

As for the Valentine quest, although it would be nice to be able to give a Valentine to a same sex partner, I don't mind as much. As for the marriage thing they're bringing into the game, I would be annoyed if they didn't bring gays into it. What Yoshi-P said about waiting for fan feedback is slightly offensive.

He probably wants to hear from the Japanese community too. They most likelyd won't be as accepting about it as the US community though.

I also realized FFXIV lets us kill Dodos. Uh-oh!

[Quenn]

He probably wants to hear from the Japanese community too. They most likelyd won't be as accepting about it as the US community though.

I also realized FFXIV lets us kill Dodos. Uh-oh!

If they do have something it isnt going to be a Christian marriage or any other known marriage, it will just be some ritual that the game makes up so it should be open to all members.

[Phelios]

People don't play video games to worry about their problem in real life. A lot of gay people still suffer from people telling them "you are a guy so you have to get a wife like other guys" in real life.

When an NPC in a video game also "you are a guy so you have to get a wife like other guys" to you it's not really offensive or anything, it's just one of those things that really doesn't need to be there. So all you can do is let out a big sigh and hope they don't do something like that again.

They could have just left out that unnecessary line and kept the quest the same.

What about straight people like me that like the text and find it amusing because they are encouraging me to hook up with a lady?

[Alaray]

What about straight people like me that like the text and find it amusing because they are encouraging me to hook up with a lady?

tbh, while I'm not here to weigh in on the topic really (I didn't do the quest), doesn't just about every single piece of media do this for you already?