Pronouns???

[HollyJollyPaca]

So this was something I've been thinking about for a while but...how easy would it be to just be able to pick our pronouns at character creation? You could pick your sex to whatever and that'd be the physical aspect of it but pronoun choice would just differ the text.

The idea came to mind after a trans friend struggled to make a character they could be happy with. They went with a lady Lala but they didn't get past the cut scene before they were annoyed with being called a "lass".

I know it's not something people are asking for and I know there's going to be rude naysayers who will say it's not important, that you shouldn't let pronouns get in your way of gaming, but it seems like it'd be an easy thing to implement. A lot of games are going that way so why not???

[Keramory]

Please no.

Edit- To be a little less rude about it, please know that it would NOT be an easy thing to implement. The dev team would then have to go through 10+ years of dialogue in this game and either tie it to w.e pronoun you made on your character. And that would be after theres a clear consensus of how many genders there are and how to refer to them in every instance of that dialogue. Then of course there's those who are fluid or changing, so you'd have to have an option to change that pronoun and the game reflect that every switch. The easier answer would be just to make every instance of dialogue completely gender neutral... but then you'd still have to through 10+ years of dialogue to get that done.

I hope your friend understands that the dev team is already drowning with being overworked as it is. While it might be nice, such a system would be unreasonable to ask for at the moment.

[HollyJollyPaca]

Please no.

Any particular reason to appose it?

[SannaR]

I might be a clueless cis female, but isn't part of being transgendered is to be seen as the gender they transitioned to? At least that's what a lot of stories of transgendered people say. That they want to be seen as passing as much as possible of the gender they identify with. So, I'm a little confused. Also the majority of the time the WoL is either addressed by their first or last name. If not their race. It's very rare for them to use him/her unless the npc speaking isn't one to call you Warrior of Light/Darkness while also not being close enough to use part of the character's name.

[Krotoan]

This was already discussed: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...29600-Pronouns

interesting read.

Main point brought up more than once, it would require quite a bit of extra work to rewrite old interactions and possibly recode a fundamental system in multiple languages. It would not be a simple thing.

[Iscah]

It would need a complete restructuring of how the game inserts gendered pronouns and more complicated lines - all the different variables like lass/lad and even entire sentences at times. You can't just fill in a simple list of which words you need to be addressed by. The game doesn't store them separately and insert when needed, but codes each line of variable text to check your character's gender and display text accordingly.

I can't remember the exact formatting but roughly it's something like: Hello, [if character gender=F, print "lass", else print "lad"]

Whereas to get customisable pronouns you'd need something like: Hello, [pronoun5] and somewhere else in the system a list recording the pronouns to be inserted in different situations.

[squidmonarchy]

I can understand why adding additional pronouns would be possibly more difficult than it seems (though I think it would be worth doing in the end, as most efforts for inclusion are), but perhaps the programmers could allow for a toggle that adjusts which of the big two pronouns a character uses at any one time.

I feel like that shouldn't be quite as difficult, since it would just involve essentially a binary switch, and might help some trans/non-binary/genderfluid/GNC people be able to create a character that they feel more comfortable with.

[Artemiz]

Well this thread is sure to end in a reasonable and rational discussion where everyone ends up sitting around a campfire singing kumbaya while agreeing to a common consensus.

[HollyJollyPaca]

This was already discussed: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...29600-Pronouns

interesting read.

Main point brought up more than once, it would require quite a bit of extra work to rewrite old interactions and possibly recode a fundamental system in multiple languages. It would not be a simple thing.

Oh! I hadn't seen anybody else talk about this so this makes me happy to read! But hmmm I guess it would take work. I just assumed that the code for such things would be an easy thing to find/replace. I'm not a programmer so shows how well I know my coding haha. Maybe one day.

[squidmonarchy]

Well this thread is sure to end in a reasonable and rational discussion where everyone ends up sitting around a campfire singing kumbaya while agreeing to a common consensus.

You're not wrong, but it's still a discussion worth having.