Non-binary option for characters, please?

[kamenkuro]

snip

No, the reason I used time and gravity is because they are not so cut and dry. Time is constantly being studied and theories are constantly being put forth. The thing that we call time is simply a stop gap made so that we would have any easier understanding of our world. Many scientists are trying to better clarify what time actually is. Time is simply the name we give to this feeling of constant change. Some say we can measure it, others say it is immeasurable. Even gravity upon the conception of it's name was not what it is today. The major thing is that these changes and challenges are made with the mind to better understand the names that we have given to those things that we want to understand. This idea that people want to erase the definition of gender is harmful as it is not an attempt to better understand it, it is an attempt to destroy for their sake and theirs alone.
Also, your attempt to dissect my analogy is poorly constructed. Pointing out that 2 people might not see the same color is a poor rebuttal as we already know that color reception and color wavelengths are well documented.
That insistance to latch onto the language aspect does not do anything to prove a point either. It simply shows you have no argument that can challenge the content. Regarding a cultures practices on snow categorizing does not make it any less true. You cannot argue that a word in the language that you are conversing in does not suddenly mean what you want it to mean. You cannot change the rules of a language on your own.

[Sieben79]

All summoners are lefties!

(But yeah, the option would have been nice. No doubt would have meant sacrificing something else though. I'd take the ability to flip hairstyles over body animations, given a choice of one extra thing.)

Wouldn't a left handed Summoner hold the book in the right hand? Because ingame, the Summoner write with the feather right handed and use also the right hand for the spells, I think. Mhh, should check it out next time I log in....

[kikix12]

While we are at it, I fraintly remember reading some letters in german that had some fancy endings like "Student/-innen", mind explaining what that is all about? Is that an attempt to address both students male and female? Might be atleast tangentially related to this thread.

I cannot say about German specifically, but I can tell you about Polish. And I believe it IS the same as both languages have the same origin and pretty much the same construction.

Using the /- at the end of the word basically means exchanging the endings. In German and Polish, the endings define both genders and numbers (singular or plural) relevant to word (in addition to time and all that jazz).

Let's take this phrase: "Imię studenta/-tki." which means "(male) students/(female) students name.". In that word, its basic form is "student", with the core being "studen-" followed by a proper ending to show number and gender (and the rest...). It would look like this.

Singular            Plural
Me: Student         We: Studenci
You: Studencie      You: Studenci
He: Student         They (male): Studenci
She: Studentka      They (mixed): Studenci
                    They (female): Studentki

This of course changes depending on all sorts of things, like time and what not (for example "We/you are students" will be "Jesteśmy/-cie studentami" not "Jesteśmy/-ście studenci"), but that's irrelevant here as you are interested in that /- construction.

And here I used it again. Basically, you cut out the ending and offer a different one. You can achieve the same thing by "student/studentka" where you write the whole words out fully or "student lub studenka" (lub = or). But /- is just faster. You can use it multiple times of course "student/-tka/-ci/-tami", in all cases you just remove the defining ending from the first words used "student -> studen-" and replace it with whatever is after the slash "studen- + tka/ci/tami = studenka/studenci/studentami".

Yeah...Sorry for making this post a long one...but I am quite poor at keeping it simple...

[Vaelin]

I realise people have strong opinions, but it still boggles me how spiteful some of these posts are.

Even if you disagree with the idea of it yourself, you can still respect that the other person truly thinks of themself as the gender they claim to be, and address them in the way they ask to be addressed.

I also find it very hard to believe that people would "choose" to identify in a way that opens them up to such abuse, if they didn't really believe it to be true.

There's a lot more I could write. Anecdotes. People I know. A history of how I've felt about the issue.

But the core is: I know some of these people, and they're just people. They're not something 'other' that's less deserving of respect.

I don't know what to say, but I don't want to say nothing.

It makes me feel awful to see people talk like they do in this thread.

Thank you for this, it’s honestly helped a lot. I realise I came off as *way* too defensive and pretty haughty, and that’s obviously a poor choice to make when talking about pretty divisive issues like this. But honestly, I’m just a pretty damn insecure and very depressed person and that probably shows. I know there will still be those who doubt me and claim I’m “trolling” or “baiting” but I just made the naive decision to bring up a discussion on this, not in the best way I know, so I take responsability for that at least.

It’s just reassuring to see at least one understanding comment. I’m only human and this thread has really took a toll on my health, so that’s why I’ve gone silent. Thank you for your compassion, it’s really, really helped remind me there’s still good in people, even if it easier to first see me as the aggressor, when really I’m just crying out.

[Bright-Flower]

I certainly wouldn't mind if SE added an option to have characters address you with pronouns independant of your character's sex, but I really don't see SE going through the trouble to do it given all the little limitations in the game as is. Never say never and all that but I'd be surprised, almost shocked if they actually added it. I mean this is a game where you cant' teleport out of your inn room, au ra horns are tied to face options, you have to entirely back out of crafting if a buff falls off between sessions of synthesis to use another item, etc.

[Lastelli]

Sadly that boils down to politics more than anything. Just look at this thread and the backlash over something that ultimately doesn't affect 90%+ of the people who replied in this thread. The words and terms won't hold so long as people reject them for no reason other than xenophobia and bigotry. "leave real life out of our games!" so it's ok to play a dragon waifu but gender ambiguity is too much. Ok.

That's not how it works. What the OP wants would pose two additional constraints on the dev team: a financial one, in case they have to go through all the text already in the game and modify it to make sure it's consistent with the the idea of gender neutrality, and one that has to do with creative freedom, since any choice going forward should also accomodate for the chance of having to deal with a third, neutral gender.

I don't want the dev team to waste time and financial resources on something that is relevant for <1% of the player base.

[Legion88]

Ohh, thanks for clearing that up! It has been some time since I looked into my German textbooks. Interesting to know! While we are at it, I fraintly remember reading some letters in german that had some fancy endings like "Student/-innen", mind explaining what that is all about? Is that an attempt to address both students male and female? Might be atleast tangentially related to this thread.

Most titles/grades/ranks in german are historically male.
With time there come female people into the same positions as males so the titles just get the extension "-in" to show that it is the female version.
"-innen" is the plural extension for female.
The military ranks get the addition "weiblich" (female) to indicate that it is a female soldier but this is only for correspondence and their papers for the daily use the addition wont be used.
Some even older or significant titles just have a male form but have their genders with Mr. or Mrs. before the title to indicate the gender.

[Fynlar]

Lot of people in this thread don't understand the difference between sex and gender. Which is totally understandable

I went for the longest time thinking they were the same thing, and it doesn't help when surveys, registration forms, even the very video games that we're commenting about, will regularly use the two terms interchangeably. For some other countries, particularly a number of European ones from the looks of it, everything is so ridiculously and inappropriately "gendered" in their languages that I'm sure that also has to be an overall impediment to understanding what gender actually is, too.

While errors do still happen, and while it may be that the language behind the two terms was different in the past, the terms aren't wholly interchangeable anymore.

I don't want the dev team to waste time and financial resources on something that is relevant for <1% of the player base.

I'm going to assume by this logic, you're also against them working on the higher tier savage/ultimate fights to the game, too.

[Vidu]

Ohh, thanks for clearing that up! It has been some time since I looked into my German textbooks. Interesting to know! While we are at it, I fraintly remember reading some letters in german that had some fancy endings like "Student/-innen", mind explaining what that is all about? Is that an attempt to address both students male and female? Might be atleast tangentially related to this thread.

You are correct in your assumption!

-in is a suffix you can end to a lot of male nouns - often job-"descriptions" like Lehrer (techer), Artz (medical doctor) etc. - to make them female.
-innen is basically the plural form for that.

So "Student" is a male university student; "Studentin" is a female university student; "Studenten" are several male university students and "Studentinnen" are several female ones.
So in this context its used to adress everyone studying at the university.

M university recently cahnged a lot of letterheads to "Studierende" ("people who study", basically) though - which actually fits this discussion, because its supposed to include everyone, regardless of whatever gender they identify with.
...I heard quite a few profs and specially the people who have to take care of sending out letters to students and the like being rather unhappy about this, because it meant a massive extra workload for them to change everything for something that many dont see any real gain in. And we are only talking about one language here and only letterheads at one university - and it was already a massive extra effort. Doesnt even compare to the massive amount of text and the 4 languages this game supports.

[kamenkuro]

I'm going to assume by this logic, you're also against them working on the higher tier savage/ultimate fights to the game, too.

I can assure you. The hardcore crowd actually has a basis. They pay for the game for the fights. This is not in the same vein as the absurdly small amount of people that want the millions of words of text changed so that they feel better and already pay. I promise you. As small as the hardcore group is, this group you're defending is even smaller.