Suggestion: Dragon Gender.

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

*Is secure in his characters lack of gender not to give a *********

This argument is silly.[:S]

Taking the time to reorganize the internal definition, animation, and model structure of the game just so a made-up race can have a internally-defined gender. Seriously, this is the most trivial thing I've seen people complain about. Even with gendered races there's no way to tell the gender of a random player unless you seem them in person. Most introductions in-game take place through comm channels or /tells anyway.

I'm for some sort of emblem or name tag that states a dragon's gender, but anything is just a blatent misuse of development time better spent on something less asinine. "dragon_u" is so embedded in the game's code and definition system that splitting everything to "dragon_m" and "dragon_f" would take weeks of effort with a net result of pleasing the small % of the playerbase that doesn't feel like saying "Hey, I'm a dude-dragon, raar." etc.

[Pharcellus]

I most wholeheartedly and vehently disagree.

It is no less assinine than adding a useless PvP arena to a PvE game, useless dyes and dye kits, different appearances to weapons, etc.

It's not important to you. Fine. It IS important to others.

There's no evidence that it would require any significant time investment to incorporate into the game, unlike the items mentioned above. There's already evidence that they HAVE invested some time to accomplish it.

Last I checked, this IS the SUGGESTIONS forum, so unless you want people to come in every time you have a SUGGESTION and downplay it with BULLshit, I'd suggest taking your dissent against it to another forum, k?

[Jayne]

Phar, are you saying it is important? I agree, it would be nice. And I support the fact that there are those which would like to see something done about it.

But I expect those same people to agree that the PvP arena ia a good idea in that post, otherwise they can keep there two cents out of that post.

Positiveness goes across the board.

Jayne

[Tribunal]

The PvP, was a good thing.

Talk with a dev about it, it was meant to get accurate information on how to make creatures combat in raids, and improve A.I.

Useful.

I'm not against adding emblems, so be it.

I'm just stating how useless it would be. It would make you happy, then it served its purpose within 2 seconds, would that be worth it?

[Pharcellus]

I said it was important to some people, yes. As for me, it would be nice to see my emotes stop saying "itself" "themself(ick)". I'd like it as much, if not more than a weapon dye kit form.

I don't see any PvP arena suggestion threads where anyone has come in and downplayed it. That doesn't mean it hasn't happened (even by me in the past), but I haven't seen one in a while. Most of those threads are elsewhere, and in a discussion, it is valid to downplay it as part of an opinion expressed in said discussion.

[Pharcellus]

The PvP, was a good thing.

Talk with a dev about it, it was meant to get accurate information on how to make creatures combat in raids, and improve A.I.

Useful.

We had the discussion in the Focus Group about it. It is of little value for the purposes of mob balance and proper mob effects because no one can play a mob in the arena. How can you tell if Seeping Blight X works as intended if no one in the Arena has that ability? Mob AI cannot be tested OR evaluated in a PvP Arena because, um, you aren't fighting mobs. The only things that can be quantified from the PvP arena are player character skills and abilities VERSUS OTHER PLAYER CHARACTERS. Mobs have completely different stats, skills, and abilities, and what works well against a PC may not work at all, or may work too well against any particular mob.

So, no, outside of player affirmation of PC abilities, and some "fun", it is useless.

I'm just stating how useless it would be. It would make you happy, then it served its purpose within 2 seconds, would that be worth it?

If the litmus is making the game more enjoyable for some players, the requisite effort to implement doesn't far outstrip the reward, and doesn't impede the flow of more important items on the agenda, then, yes, I would say it is worth it.

[Astrianna]

My Dragon is white and light blue (like snow and ice) and Female[H]

[Jayne]

PvP arena is no less as important to some then dye kits or gender.

And I didn't think you were suppoed to identify yourself as being in the focus group?

Jayne

[LaughingOtter]

Like everything else, it is important to some and trivial to others. I think Hal's point about the issues around the dragon model is probably the clincher on the technical side of the issue. Giving dragons gender would require putting two new races into the game and then providing a mechanism for dragons to choose which race they want to change too.

I'm guessing that's a fair amount of work.

I'm in favor of dragons getting gender.However, there is currently a work-around in the form of dragons self-identifying. Not having gender was a bad decision in the first place, but I don't think fixing it rises to the level of an immediate need based solely on the amount of work adding two races to everything would be.

[Jayne]

Yea its something that is now and has been identified, but I am sure will be placed in that filing cabinet in the back corner of the office. There is just so much more to do right now.

But yes I agree it should get done.

Jayne

[Goriax]

Well, when I wrote the suggestion itself.. I was referring more to Player Searches and Emotes... I mean.. being called an "it".... gets 'bleh' after awhile.... as far as visuals... those were just an add-on suggestion....

The main core behind my suggestion was to improve Player Searches (have us listed as Male/Female instead of Neuter) and have him/her he/she in the emotes/battle text.

That way, when you talk to someone, you have an idea if they are male or female (I've seen a few names I honestly thought were female, then after a few min, I realize 'hey, this is a male...') ... I think Nalii was one of them... that... to me sounds female. But yet, I think that they are a male instead....

--Dhalin

I have to agree with you. I absololutely HATE being referred to as "it" or listed as neuter. A table is an "it." A sentient being is either a "he" or a "she". Heh, even my dogsare "he" and "she" and they've been fixed.

Gender doesn't have to be visible. Without looking underneath mypoodle you can't tell it's gender and if that region were blurred out like it is on models in the game you'd never be able to tell. The collie you can tell only if you happen to know the secondary sexual characteristics of collies (that big furry ruff you see around their neck, such as what Lassie has, is only on the males -- Lassie is a cross dresser[:)] ).

Even without any changes to the model it still looks like a fair amount of work -- changes to character creation, modifying existing chracters and NPCs, modifying the creation screen, and probably a few other things. TG knows better then anyone here what would be involved.

As I've said before, I'd love to see dragons get gender but I'm not going to hold my breath.

[Pharcellus]

That is incorrect, Otter.

If that were true, then they would have to have separate "races" for male/female of every race. Gender is not tied to race, but it is tied to separate models for each race. Like I said above, copy the existing models into the appropriate directory, name the files accordingly, then give the existing Dragon players some way to select their gender once, change the emotes to reflect it, add a gender option to the character creation screen for Dragons, and most of the people who have been asking for Dragon gender will be happy, as most of the complaints about it stem from the animated emotes. Oh while they are at it, change the emote text for /shake to something like "%firstname% shakes the dust from %gender_possessivecaseplural% scales."

(Discount my previous assertion about the file names.. they mean something else, as I have since discovered).

[LaughingOtter]

"Race" may not be the correct term. It may be more correct to say "one new race with two genders". It may not. I'll leave that concern to whoever has to do the implementation.

That semantic distinctionin no way alters the amount of work this task would entail.

[Pharcellus]

That semantic distinctionin no way alters the amount of work this task would entail.

Which is not accurately quantifiable by anyone here, despite all the "it would be an enormous multi-year project" and "it would take 10 seconds" comments.

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

I want to say that I think giving dragons a name suffix or a special emblem is a wonderful solution to all this. However, I still don't feel all the internal changes required to make the game understand a dragon as a he or she is in any way poignant.

Last I checked, this IS the SUGGESTIONS forum, so unless you want people to come in every time you have a SUGGESTION and downplay it with BULL[Censored], I'd suggest taking your dissent against it to another forum, k?

First off, personal attacks are not a part of this discussion. If you want to yell and swear at me PM's are unmoderated.

This being a forum and not a E-Mail form to Tulga such suggestions are open to discussion. In my opinion implimenting this would be a frivolous waste of time due to the amount of effort required and how little difference it makes to the average player. Now, I pay my subscription fees and I am entitled to express my opinion in here. I feel the following points are valid as to why an emblem or name suffix (independent from the emblem) is a better solution than overhauling the entire game to give dragons a gender option on the same level as the other gendered races.

Point 1: Amount of work required

There are 156 definition files alone that reference "dragon_u." All together there are 581 game files that reference dragon_u. If the time was spent to make dragons sexually dimorphous there would also be the effort of adjusting the many body/head meshes for all three dragon model sizes (4 if you count khutit) to give either masculine or feminine properties (whatever the heck those would be for a dragon). At the momment, artist time is the most valuable asset Tulga has, and giving gals bigger butts or whatever is trying to suck more water from an almost empty well.

Point 2: Lack of gender integration in the actual play experience

Throughout my experience with the game I've seen my character's gender (or lack thereof) referenced from 4 places only. They are the character creation gender radio button, emotes, the guild roster, and physical appearance.

Now, emotes issues are mostly due to poor writing. Pronouns can be eliminated so no longer must everyone wince as the word "their" is used instead of "his" or "hers." I've never seen an NPC reference me by gender, which leads me to doubt they even can. As for physical appearance, there's obviously not much that can be done in terms of clothing or hair style for dragons, but see point #1 for more on what I think about that.

With those two points made, I reiterate that an easy solution would just be some sort of emblem or name suffix as a best possible suggestion unless some magical means could be stumbled upon to just set the characters gender flag to whatever they want and avoid the overhaul needed to give dragon's gender in the terms of the other gendered races. Of all the insecurities people have with their fictional characters, to me this has to be the least impacting on the overall game experience for the average player. (Except making dead mice stack, that was awesome)

[Pharcellus]

First off, I didn't attack you personally, I attacked your argument.

In my opinion, it would be a fairly easy thing to implement, as I have outlined several times now. Considering that neither of us have intimate knowledge with the inner workings of the game, I don't believe either viewpoint is any more valid than the other.

The models/meshes do NOT need to be changed. At best, they have to be copied to follow the naming convention used by the other races. As such, your "waste of artist time" is a mute point. No artist time is required to copy files.

The references in the definition files are linkages that can be easily altered, given that we already have 7 other dimorphous biped racial resources as a template to alter them by.

Predefined animated "neuter" emotes are the primary complaint Dragon players have. Some of the emotes would be hard to write without use of pronouns, making them sound even more strained and silly. Since we also already have examples for the gendered biped races, changing the emotes to correspond shouldn't be that big a deal.

That only leaves giving the player some way to select their gender. For existing players a one-use command can be used. For new characters, adding the normal gender selection control to the character creation screen would do it.

It doesn't take a rewrite of the entire game engine/database/client/server/whatever, nor does it require a tremendous amount of precious artist (or whoever) time. I daresay that the effort required would be less than that to implement the PvP arena, which used up no "on the clock" developer time.

No one has ever said that it was a big deal to do, or that it should have priority over more important things; least of all myself. Still, it is a good suggestion, and if it truly won't significantly impact the development of other parts of the game (just like PvP Arenas has not), then I see no reason not to provide it.

[Casyle]

I agree, I'd love to finally have a gender! It's insulting to be called an "IT" by the game. *Grumbles* I'll it you...

[Tribunal]

I can't believe this thread is still going on... oh wait *looks at others* yeah I can.

[Illi]

I can't either Tribunal. We don't need gender.....if it's too hard to state which gender you are....roll a race that has it.....

[Arekaine]

If you remeber in New Trismus there are two dragon trainers in the cave. One tells you to go see the other. He actully says " Hurry up or she will have my scales."
So I figure Dragons do have gender. People just can't tell the diffrence nad the dragon has to state whether it is male or female