Pronouns?

[tdb]

This would hardly be much in terms of resources. If its wanting to use a male character and use female pronouns or vice-versa, all the work has already been done as the dialogue from NPCs already exists. It would simply be allowing the player to change that flag between M or F. Adding in they/them would be more work, sure. But a simple swap should be pretty simple.

Separating the dialogue flag from the physical gender flag would probably be comparatively simple (but that does not necessarily make it simple in absolute terms, given the spaghetti code we know exists in some other parts of the game). But that flag affects more than just pronouns. If you just toggled that flag, various NPCs would be referring to your male-bodied character as "madam", "mistress", "lass", "girl", "woman" etc. This also applies to NPCs you've never met. How would they know your identified gender when you first talk to them? And like Iscah mentions it goes further than that. In some conversations it's not just single words that get changed but entire lines of dialogue are selected based on gender or other properties.

Also, I wonder how exactly the aetheryte transport system works? I have the impression that your physical body actually ceases to exist for a moment and you traverse the lifestream in aetherial form. Are there some constraints which require the physical body to be reconstituted in the exact same way, or would your physical appearance after such a trip rather match your mental self-image? If it's the latter then it would be pretty strange for the WoL to have gender dissonance and require pronouns not matching their physical body.