Pronouns?

[Tuska]

This again, it always turns into a crap show.

Like you said OP, it's a fantasy game and people have characters that's not the same sex as them so why go through all this hassle? No one online knows what gender you are nor do they truly care. I'm a girl and I get called a dude often because everyone online is a dude /s I haven't died yet, I don't have depression and I don't want to off myself. Why can't video games just be video games? Why do video games have to reflect you and real life?

People say they come here to escape and then bring all this nonsense to the game.

[TheMightyMollusk]

From a viewpoint of simple practicality, it's implausible at this point. Even assuming just a neutral they/them option, it would still require a ton of voicework to be redone, and another set of options adding to the work load going forward.

Not to mention, ARR English dialogue was done by another studio, so there would be a rather jarring disconnect there with one set of pronouns sounding entirely different (mind you, ARR in general could really use better voicework, but that's outside the topic at hand).

[Iscah]

That aside I'm pretty confident it wouldn't take much work to separate pronouns from your character's model, the game already has 2 scripts for Male and Female characters. It's probably just a binary toggle, which they could just open up to players' choice during character creation

What makes you confident?

That "binary toggle" for setting male or female pronouns is the same one for setting whether the character is male or female. There isn't a separate record of what pronouns to use - and if you "open it up to players' choice" (or even add a single third option) then it stops being a binary toggle and becomes something that needs to hold more data than the simple binary on/off.

It's also just not how the script works.

It doesn't store "he/she" in some separate place and drop them into the script as required; pronouns are built into every single piece of script individually. It might be he/she, him/her, sir/madam, Master/Mistress [Forename] or it might be an entire sentence or paragraph that needs to change for a particular situation. It would be a huge undertaking to alter every single line of text to include a third option, and open choice wouldn't even be feasible.

[BokoToloko]

If they don't bother putting my pronouns (Boss/Chief) they'd better not bother at all.

[Yandere-chan]

I'm confused by this. If this was a trans thing, why wouldn't you just play as the sex you want to transition to? The whole dilemma of transsexuals is they desperately want to be the other sex to feel right with who they are internally. Wanting to purposely be non-binary when you have the option of being either sex feels like something outside being trans. If it isn't a trans issue, then there isn't an element of gender dysphoria plaguing the individual. The idea that someone would face anything remotely similar to that for not being seen as neither male or female and addressed as such sounds suspicious at best.

With that said, I don't think Square has any plans to implement a system that replaces pronouns in the dialogue to custom pronouns. It would actually be very resource intensive due to needing to implement an entirely new dialogue function if not system and apply it to a MASSIVE amount of text already in the game. I think 99.99%+ of the playerbase would see little to no benefit in such a feature too. Square has SO many other things that players genuinely want that even other niche things would sooner be implemented than this. I would go forward with the expectation that this will never be a thing in this MMO.

The most you could do is ask friends to use specific pronouns, but I'm not sure if everyone will be willing to do that. I'd be cautious about asking strangers to do that for you. Many may take the request negatively and it may not be worth the potential social conflicts. Ultimately though, do whatever you think is best. You are your own person at the end of the day. ♥️

[Ammokkx]

I'm confused by this. If this was a trans thing, why wouldn't you just play as the sex you want to transition to? The whole dilemma of transsexuals is they desperately want to be the other sex to feel right with who they are internally. Wanting to purposely be non-binary when you have the option of being either sex feels like something outside being trans. If it isn't a trans issue, then there isn't an element of gender dysphoria plaguing the individual. The idea that someone would face anything remotely similar to that for not being seen as neither male or female and addressed as such sounds suspicious at best.

With that said, I don't think Square has any plans to implement a system that replaces pronouns in the dialogue to custom pronouns. It would actually be very resource intensive due to needing to implement an entirely new dialogue function if not system and apply it to a MASSIVE amount of text already in the game. I think 99.99%+ of the playerbase would see little to no benefit in such a feature too. Square has SO many other things that players genuinely want that even other niche things would sooner be implemented than this. I would go forward with the expectation that this will never be a thing in this MMO.

The most you could do is ask friends to use specific pronouns, but I'm not sure if everyone will be willing to do that. I'd be cautious about asking strangers to do that for you. Many may take the request negatively and it may not be worth the potential social conflicts. Ultimately though, do whatever you think is best. You are your own person at the end of the day. ♥️

this is a good post

[wereotter]

I'd rather see resources allocated elsewhere.

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.

[Lauront]

Cool story.

I was asking if it was a thing, or if other people wanted to see something minor like that.

If you're asking me: No.

[Iscah]

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.

There is no flag.

Or rather, there is a flag and it is the same flag that sets your character's physical gender.

And it's not as simple as just adding a separate flag because - aside of the fact that it's like adding stuff to the character creator, which never happens - there would still be complications with dialogue where it wouldn't make sense for someone to address you by a pronoun that doesn't match your physical character. Whether it's someone you've just met or someone who regards you a certain way because of your appearance - Thancred addresses you differently for one, and there are some noticeable differences in some of the scenes with Magnai and Daidukul that absolutely aren't going to change just because you think you're X when you're physically Y.

[Iscah]

I'm confused by this. If this was a trans thing, why wouldn't you just play as the sex you want to transition to? The whole dilemma of transsexuals is they desperately want to be the other sex to feel right with who they are internally. Wanting to purposely be non-binary when you have the option of being either sex feels like something outside being trans. If it isn't a trans issue, then there isn't an element of gender dysphoria plaguing the individual. The idea that someone would face anything remotely similar to that for not being seen as neither male or female and addressed as such sounds suspicious at best.

If you're not part of a group or culture and you think they would have a particular opinion, but someone from that group expresses an opinion that doesn't match your understanding... why would you assume they are the one who is mistaken about what they want? It's not like they're going to ask for the thing if they don't actually want it. Where's the ulterior motive?

Re-evaluate your own understanding if it doesn't match.

It's not my culture either but I can see pretty easily that it's a big multidirectional spectrum with people identify as, or are attracted to, both or neither or the same or the other or any gender. People who are physically one specific gender and identify as the other specific gender are one part of that spectrum.

Clearly people fall in the middle and don't want to identify as one or the other, or why would they want to be addressed by a neutral pronoun?