As it's Valentione's Day, I ask do we even need in-game marriage; period!

[Trypich]

They stated it themselves during Beta.

So 1.0 never happened?

Look at the Valentine's event, especially considering this is a Japanese developed game - It's heavily traditional which is Woman/Man or Man/Woman (Valentines/White Day), so as you said, made by real people which happen to be Japanese developers and tend to pull from their own regional influences and culture.

That's an absolutely fair argument for Japan, but this is a global game, not a Japanese game. Of the 10 country flags that SE places on Final Fantasy XIV's home page, only three countries have yet to legalize same-sex marriage: Australia, Finland, and Japan. So if XIV were to go ahead and create in-game marriage without a same-sex component, their act would run counter to the society many of their current gamers live in.

That and you just cannot develop a global game behind a closed wall, paying no attention to the other cultures you sell your product to. You realize that XIV is "localized" and not "translated", yes? That means that their are teams of people re-interpreting scenarios written by Japanese people so that they are more relatable to Germans, French, and English speakers. So your argument that they only pull from their "own region influences" is flawed because they are aware of this and make an effort to correct for it.

That's wrong to exclude! Yet they can never explain why, even in all of Valentine's tradition in the west,

The history of LGBT persecution, discrimination, and exclusion is vast and lengthy, stretching back well before this millennium. All of these exclusionary acts against LGBT people go unmerited because they are based on fear and hatred. That is the answer to your question. There is no reason why LGBT people should be excluded.

I only meant to respond to the initial comment about SE's commitment to their Lore (which is quite good, if I may say so.) I am happy to discuss LGBT inclusiveness, but I didn't sign on to this discussion with you to do so. I have stated my case.

[Alaray]

But don't you see that because of all of the well-known controversy about it since it was originally mentioned, that "But is it inclusive?" will be the first question anybody asks? It's not like people will just go "Oh, cool!" and be pleasantly surprised if they happen to try it and it works. Even if SE doesn't announce it themselves, the first people to find out it does work (within about 5 minutes after it's live) will slather the information all over the place ASAP, causing people who don't like it to try to arrange boycotts and possibly blocking their launch in some countries (if it is gender-blind).

This is why I think we won't get this feature for a couple of years yet, unless people shut up about it. It's too controversial for them to take a gamble on.

I've never seen MMO players who were upset that the game catered to other people, you know not only them, actually band together and boycott the game over a fluff piece. Or any game. Of course, I've heard of organizations officially recognized as hate groups who are full of extremely bigoted people do this (One Million Moms, a sub-organization to the American Family Association, attempting to boycott JC Penny over Ellen Degeneres being in their ads, for example). Yet, those were ineffective. If this was true of MMO players, then every major patch for anything would herald a random exodus of the five or ten players who get their underwear in a bunch over the simplest things and complained endlessly about it on the forums.

If people at large would be as frothing at the mouth as this, then RIFT would have actually had a lot of negative press surrounding it's marriage system if it does, in fact, allow same-sex couples in it (because... people still play it actively, and it had a larger population at the time that system was introduced... and if a marriage world record from that game gets reported on, surely anyone who held extreme positions about how gay/bi people don't deserve game fluff marriage would have commented, posted their own articles on it, and go on idiotic rants about how they're offended other people get to partake in a fantasy system).

And yeah, people should shut up about it. Namely the people who get upset other people want to enjoy a game system from a game they pay monthly for, just like anybody else. Surely if they shut up and realized that their argument is, more often than not, thinly veiled bigotry (I don't like your kind/think your kind is wrong/don't care about the issues of your kind I am more important and deserve more privileges), there wouldn't be any controversy in the first place.

If Enix decides they don't want to cater to gay/bi people as well as straight people, then I agree that they should simply forgo the entire system together. Much better than implementing it and saying "only for straight couples" granted, straight people don't need more things exclusive to them: it just boosts their entitlement and spoils them more.

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

But don't you see that because of all of the well-known controversy about it since it was originally mentioned, that "But is it inclusive?" will be the first question anybody asks? It's not like people will just go "Oh, cool!" and be pleasantly surprised if they happen to try it and it works. Even if SE doesn't announce it themselves, the first people to find out it does work (within about 5 minutes after it's live) will slather the information all over the place ASAP, causing people who don't like it to try to arrange boycotts and possibly blocking their launch in some countries (if it is gender-blind).

This is why I think we won't get this feature for a couple of years yet, unless people shut up about it. It's too controversial for them to take a gamble on.

I actually haven't heard a single thing about this forum's apparent problem with LGBT-related issues, so I highly doubt the rest of the world outside of these toxic forums even knows how much of a fit people throw here about it. So no, I doubt the first question asked would be "are same-sex marriages available too?"

Any actual noteworthy gaming site or interviewer worth their salt will be interested in how the system WORKS, how marriage is actually done (where to go, what you need, if there are bonuses to being married, etc), not "but can da gaes murry 2?" I literally have never seen a single thing mentioned on reputable gaming sites or discussion boards about the "LGBT problem" in FFXIV's forums, because no one actually cares outside of these forums about the issue. Either they just don't care if it's an issue at all, they don't care if SE implements more LGBT-friendly stuff, or they don't even know about the "issues" in the official forums at all.

So no, my point still stands. SE can easily explain and hype the marriage system to gaming sites without actually mentioning it's inclusive to same-sex couples.

[Calyanare]

Of the 10 country flags that SE places on Final Fantasy XIV's home page, only three countries have yet to legalize same-sex marriage: Australia, Finland, and Japan.

Four. It's still illegal in most of the US as well. Sure, you can go to a state where it's legal and get married, but as of yet, the "full faith and credit" thing hasn't really been tested with regard to same sex marriage. There are one or two states that explicitly say in their law that they will recognize same sex marriages contracted in other states, but most states are silent on this fact, and a good number of states have constitutional amendments specifically prohibiting same sex marriage (Nope, still not doing research for a forum post. The exact information is out there).

BUT it isn't persecution to not be allowed to be married inside a video game. Not by a longshot. On the other side, it's also not persecution if there are no restrictions on marriage inside a video game, either. Personally, it doesn't matter to me how they implement marriage, whether or not they call it "marriage", or even IF they implement it at all. It's a video game, and I'll continue playing it as long as it's fun for me to do so. If something about the marriage implementation (when they actually implement it, which I don't think will happen for quite a long time now, due to the controversy) makes the game not fun for you anymore, nobody will blame you for unsubbing. That goes for both sides.

[ReplicaX]

With all these threads that get created and locked because ppl can't follow rules, don't even bother with marriage. The community will never be satisfied as a whole.

On the other hand, this world was created by the Developer. I feel they have the creative right to move in the direction they want and shouldn't be labeled a bigot as its a fictional world.

All the talk of Entitlement, Equality, and pushing political views of the real world into a fantasy world rather defeats the point of fiction and the creative freedom with it.

This topic has been hammered to death and I'm walking away for it for good.

[Yshnal]

I know I said that I wouldn't post anymore because I had already stated my opinion and I had nothing else to add, but I want to add a couple of lines to the discussion that -hopefuly- might give some people another point of view over the issue. Something about another hot topic in RL that is not reflected in the game/forums the same way as this one:

Guy 1: I'm an atheist and FFXIV:ARR discriminates me because it forces me to choose a god during character creation! What if I want my character to be an atheist? The Church has persecuted that kind of people for centuries, burning, torturing, and killing them! SE, you're bad! Give me the choice to be able to have no god! I hate to look at my character's sheet and see that god there!

Guy 2: I'm [insert religion] and SE forces my character to believe in those Twelve gods. I feel discriminated because I'm a monotheist and the game's parthenon offends me and my beliefs! SE, implement a one true god in FFXIV:ARR for those of us like myself! It costs you nothing to give us choices!

Do you notice something wrong there? Yes, no one has complained over that, because the game's world is not ours and it comes as it comes.

Moral of the story: You are not your character (note that I said character, not avatar), so it doesn't really matter what specific customization options the game's world gives you directly (for example, the atheist guy can simply ignore his god choice and RP that his character doesn't believe in the Twelve). Prosecuting the devs (because it's not feedback, it has an "I want this or you'll be discriminating me, period" feel over it) over this will give you/us nothing, besides making SE think twice about implementing anything :/

And now I think that I'm really done :P

[Tupsi]

So 1.0 never happened?.

1.0 happened, except they stated the model changes from 1.0 to ARR was for easier development and more 'universal' design so they can easily include the Male Miqote and Female Roegadyns, less resources = easier to implement more races/genders.

That's an absolutely fair argument for Japan, but this is a global game, not a Japanese game.

XIV is developed by Square Enix of Japan, unless it was outsourced. Last I checked, Square Enix is a Japanese company with western branches - it's a Japanese game. Just like WoW is a western game, unless of course, WoW was developed in China and simply localized to North America and Europe.

That and you just cannot develop a global game behind a closed wall, paying no attention to the other cultures you sell your product to.

The solution to this is what they did with China - Split the servers off if it's that big of a deal, because to do business in china they have quite a lot of criteria to be met and restrictions added which aren't usually found in Korean/Japanese and western MMOs. Otherwise, when you log into a Japanese MMORPG, you expect to play a game influenced by Japanese culture in some fashion. They're not 'behind a closed wall', the developers develop simply how they've always had, which is true for any developer as of today.

What localization does is switch cultural references mainly.

There is no reason why LGBT people should be excluded

They're not being excluded, especially not on purpose, it's just designed in the traditional manner which is perfectly fine and no one cared about even a few years ago in terms of MMORPGs. It wasn't until this whole 'equality' push did video games start having to adhere to real world politics. I mean, nowadays you can't have nice things without people screaming "inequality!" or 'Unfair treatment!' so of course they probably want to just avoid the whole situation and not include it. I'm all for 'equality' but pushing it in video games..starts to take the enjoyment out of it because then developers have to be extremely cautious on what they do and who they support when they could just do whatever even a couple years ago with no issue.

The rating may say "online interaction not rated by ESRB" but the game content is fairly low (T), but you know there will be a huge problem if they do allow same-sex marriages on either end of the globe because ARR is currently the hot topic of MMORPGs and out west, 'equality' is the hot topic politically..so you can see how there would be some kind of storm brewed.

[Scarletyoshi]

Reasons why we should have marriage at all:

-Although it does not involve killing things, it is still a feature that many people enjoy. This does not make it less important than killing things as the the benefit of any in game feature is entirely subjective.
-It's a relatively simple thing to implement that with a lot of RP potentials.

Reasons why we shouldn't have marriage at all.

-Some people don't want it so no one should have it.
-SE should focus exclusively on things that interest me personally.

Reasons why we should have marriage for all:

-It's the right thing to do (not opinion, fact).
-No one is worth less because of their race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation and should not be treated as such. (not opinion, fact.)

Reasons why we should not have marriage for all:

-Some people would be displeased if other people they don't approve of are married in a video game. These are opinions that should be taken into consideration for some reason.

[Seig345]

I'm all for having marriage "for all" in a video game, and this is coming from a contentedly single gamer. But if there's even a risk that the game would become unavailable in certain countries over it, I don't see the point. Marriage in real life actually has meaning behind it (well, in many cases, I guess sadly not to everyone). Marriage in a video game is little more than a sticker that says 'I'm married'.

Is 'for all' the right thing to do? Yeah.
Is it worth risking the access of those who live in certain countries that might ban the game over it? Personally, no.

I understand that the bottomline with that scenario is that it's on that country's government, not SE or the LGBT community, but the right to play a video game isn't likely to be firm ground to stand on when rising up against your government's stance on LGBT, and again, we're talking about a sticker that can easily just be roleplayed into existence for the exact same outcome. On top of that, a hetero-only system wouldn't actually be entirely restrictive on RL homosexual couples. If there are RL heterosexual couples where one is playing the opposite gender from themselves, there's just as likely to be homosexual couples where one is doing the same thing, meaning their characters could still get married.

[Naunet]

so you can see how there would be some kind of storm brewed.

Ya'll keep saying things like this, and yet I have seen not a single instance of any kind of "storm" brewing for any MMO with regards to things like this, except when the "storm" is in response to exclusion (i.e. SE considering not allowing same-sex marriage in their system).

Stop making stuff up. Seriously.