Non-binary option for characters, please?

[Fynlar]

For the record, as a spouse of someone that's at least partially off the binary + personally part of an oft misunderstood minority myself (asexuality), I totally get genderless/nonbinary being a legitimate thing.



All I'm saying is that it's still not the job of this game or pretty much any other game to cater to those minorities. Trans/NB/etc stuff may simply not be a thing in the world of this game, and nor does it have to be, particularly when it doesn't fit any particular critical narrative of the story. It's sort of how I will never expect, nor do I feel there should be, any openly asexual-presenting character in the game. There just isn't any reason for there to be one, and I'd rather they not just shoehorn one in there for the sake of "diversity!" like some other games, TV shows, movies, etc. have taken to doing lately (sometimes, it feels like, at the cost of actual storytelling ability)

[van_arn]

you know i saw this thread and after reading this, i have to say i feel kind of bad for the Forum Mods who watch these threads, if one of you guys are here, do you guys just blank it out or get popcorn and read the comments,

to go slightly back on topic,

if this isn't a bait topic: the language used is for quick and easy contextual referencing to your character based on the sex chosen, which is translated from japanese and into two other languages, while 'they' could be used in a singular sense, ironically if you wanted a gender neutral term based on the time era of the words chosen (since they use alarum, goal and larboard which are archaic wordings ), you would be called "He" the "generic He" is a older gender neutral team, since He refers to the proper connotation of the word "man" which means "human" so if you wanted a gender neutral term ironically play as a male character then "he" would be gender neutral for the time period o3o
other examples of "generic he" can also be seen in referring to humanity as 'Mankind' or saying something is a massive step for the age of 'man' neither are masculine and are neutral to refer to the whole of humanity.

if this is a bait topic: why?

Rumor has it that @ff14forums_txt is run by a mod. I can't remember where I read that, though.

[KisaiTenshi]

I can already anticipate how “controversial” and “SJW” this post will be received by some as (God, when society in about 100 years from now looks back on this and how the word “SJW” is used as a slur for people who ask for more options of self expression, they’ll facepalm so hard.), but as a non-binary tax and sub-paying adult human, would there be any way you could (Square, that is) implement a gender neutral option, maybe if not on the character creation screen, then tucked away in the settings somewhere? (To avoid offending many of those who cry at the sight of *gasp* more than 2 genders!)

I look forward to the original remarks about Attack Helicopters and god knows what else being used as an argument against more options, but to the MANY gender-nonconforming players of this game (I’m sure you’ve all seen how many LGBT* FC’s there are), even just having one catch-all option outside of the gender binary would be so wonderful. I spend an ungodly amount of money on Fantasia due to being pretty fed up of being referred to as male or female constantly in basically every cutscene. (I probably shouldn’t have said that, you’re making a killing off me Square, I’ve probably funded all the expantions at this rate) What do you all think? Dangerous question to ask online, especially here, but I’ll risk it.

Gamers are sociopaths when it comes to treating people with respect, so just remember that any perceived slight at this suggestion is because they have a closed or empty mind.

While this is a nice ideal, the pragmatic limitations are on the technical side - and are probably the biggest reason your request is unlikely to see fruition. From a technical standpoint, options are anything but free. Particularly when it wasn't in the original design spec. (Perhaps in the next FF MMO?)

This is probably not too trivial to implement, it just would just make things hugely confusing for the non-English locales since English doesn't have gendered language where as French is rather heavily gendered. If we were able to create a truely "gender neutral" character at creation, ie, women characters with no chest/butt, allow facial hair options, men characters with ... you know what they're probably close to neutral enough without adding a bust and butt slider. That's still a trivial tunable, rather than creating entirely separate gender-specific gear models.

The reason people ask for such things is because they want a character that represents themselves as they are rather than playing a game with a fixed set of options. It's only been relatively recently that any MMO even allows for gay marriage, so games are just a decade behind where society finds things acceptable.

The trouble really is that NB, TG, and various other agender terms is that there is zero agreement on anything but singular "they" for language. If you don't know what someone is, you dehumanize them by calling them "it", and insult them by using any gender-determinate language, especially after they tell you what they want to be called. Voice chat adds an entire additional layer of sociopathy, and it ultimately makes any MMO far more toxic for it. If it were possible for the game to do voice analysis and then turn that into it's own character-specific speech synthesis, I think that would be removed as a toxicicity barrier.

Anyway I don't see any changes in this regard happening to FFXIV, not because of lack of interest, or developer inertia, but that there just isn't really any need for it, since the underlying motive (people identifying as agender, non-binary, transgender, etc) for it hasn't reached a similar level of acceptance in conventional media.

https://hornet.com/stories/ap-non-bi...nder-pronouns/

But now, the AP Style Guide is permitting the use of singular “they” for people of non-binary gender.

The style guide now reads:

In stories about people who identify as neither male nor female or ask not to be referred to as he/she/him/her: Use the person’s name in place of a pronoun, or otherwise reword the sentence, whenever possible. If they/them/their use is essential, explain in the text that the person prefers a gender-neutral pronoun. Be sure that the phrasing does not imply more than one person.

So the easiest way for the game to adapt, is to really just do what it's been doing all along and either referring to the WoL as WoL or the player's name, depending if it's a voiced or unvoiced scene, and use the players name instead of a pronoun even when they're being referred to in third person or not-present.

Retrofitting the existing Engish dialog is probably not that trivial, but there's probably a lot of flavor text that goes (player's pronoun) where it can be replaced with (player's name) except where someone has specific kind of 'tic that was phonetically localized. I'm not sure if there are any, but I know that some text in the game is presented different depending on your race, gender or GC.

[Sigma-Astra]

Gamers are sociopaths when it comes to treating people with respect, so just remember that any perceived slight at this suggestion is because they have a closed or empty mind.

Do you not realize that you just not only insulted a large and generalized group of individuals with little to no substantial evidence to back up your ridiculous notion and claims, but yourself as well in the same time and manner?

It's rather uncalled for....and a whole lot of other things that I can't express on the OF unfortunately.

Furthermore....because I missed this little gem...

That’s good for you. If only life was that simple for everyone we’d live in a world where we were all cut out clones of each other and despised anything out of the box.

More options > always good. How does being restrictive help anyone? It doesn’t, it only excludes.

Not sure how non-binary terms not being used inside of a video game is exactly restricting you in real life. If you lose sleep over this, I think you might need some assistance on the matter.

[Dreamsoap]

[Laughs in smug]

"Internet historians will look back upon my self righteous post on an anime game and totally agree with me."

There's a point in one's life where your degree of separation from reality makes you say stupid shit you'll regret in only 10 years.

[DamianFatale]

I can already anticipate how “controversial” and “SJW” this post will be received by some as (God, when society in about 100 years from now looks back on this and how the word “SJW” is used as a slur for people who ask for more options of self expression, they’ll facepalm so hard.), but as a non-binary tax and sub-paying adult human, would there be any way you could (Square, that is) implement a gender neutral option, maybe if not on the character creation screen, then tucked away in the settings somewhere? (To avoid offending many of those who cry at the sight of *gasp* more than 2 genders!)

I look forward to the original remarks about Attack Helicopters and god knows what else being used as an argument against more options, but to the MANY gender-nonconforming players of this game (I’m sure you’ve all seen how many LGBT* FC’s there are), even just having one catch-all option outside of the gender binary would be so wonderful. I spend an ungodly amount of money on Fantasia due to being pretty fed up of being referred to as male or female constantly in basically every cutscene. (I probably shouldn’t have said that, you’re making a killing off me Square, I’ve probably funded all the expantions at this rate) What do you all think? Dangerous question to ask online, especially here, but I’ll risk it.

Play a Lalafell. They’re the easiest gender neutral race to play as. Aside from voice, I have a hard time distinguishing male and female lalafells some of the time.

[HakaseNyan]

Madness, our old friend!

[Sigma-Astra]

Madness, our old friend!

I've come to talk with you again.

[NanaWiloh]

It's true. In 100 years from now, they will see you as the couragious warrior who fought for more gender neutral terms and applaud you for such bravery among a crowd who mostly doesn't give a shit.

Their going to remember this as the Gender generation were everyone was concerned about their privates or someone elses. Get enough of this Gender BS in the news I really wish people would let it go..

[NanaWiloh]

I've come to talk with you again.

Cause a vision softly creeping.