Another suggestion...

[buggerdejacks]

Dragon/sslik gender options?

You have no idea how hard it is to play a dragon or a sslik and have someone mistake your gender.... I play a sslik as often as I can, and I always get called a guy! Same with dragons, it's so hard to tell males and females apart! Why not have slender-bodied female dragons and more heavily-musceled, bulkier males? As for the sslik, have them pretty much the same, but with the gender options as well?

[Solitaire]

Sslik do not have a gender and that has never been at question.

Originally dragons were the same but nobody would accept it so gender crept in and it is now generally accepted that they do. Physically changing the models to reflect that will cause a tremendous argument. While you think that females should be slender and male bulkier there are others out there with the exact opposite view. And that is backed up biologically with some species in the world. Should we limit females to drab colors as it is generally done in the bird world? I sure ain't gonna try it. I value my skin too much.

It is far too late to be making changes of that nature.

[velveeta]

plus, there will always be bulky females and slender males....

if it helps, i always thought of sslik as being the drak from 'enemy mine'....no gender and giving birth without the need for an opposite sex.

i see dragons as def having gender, as they have always needed an opposite sex to reproduce. again, just like in real life, just because you can't guess which one it is, doesn't mean there is no gender.....

if it helps, a gender specific name is always handy.....my bro's sslik is named snake eyes (which always struck me as a masculine name, simply because every character named snake eyes is male) and my dragon is mourningwood.....

[AguaRush]

i understand that sslik have no gender and i dont care really so much bout body shape how bout just and option that gives at lease player search male or female that the character creation window offers.

name specifics dont always work.. Agua is commenly mistaken as a male :P

[Dhalin]

I know that Sslik in-game lore are supposed to be genderless, but that probably wouldn't stop me from trying to slap a gender on the character anyways, lol.

But either way, in the reptilian world, males and females are indeed quite difficult to tell just by looking at the body shape. They don't produce milk, thus do not have enlarged mammaries as some mammals do, nor do they have external reproductive organs as mammals tend to either.

In some reptiles (and especially other works of dragon-related fiction), females tend to be slightly larger, as they need to carry eggs once they have mated (and would certainly swell up while carrying said eggs), but otherwise, I can't really think of any bodily features that would be easily/readily seen.

I support the suggestion of simply adding a male/female box even if the character models are exactly the same. Or, they could make female dragons 10% larger than male dragons easily by using setscale in-game, as an option or something.

[awdz]

Even as a gnome I have had folks get my gender mixed up. It's not just the races without mammaries that are confusing when you are roleplaying in chats instead of in person. It just takes some indicator to let others know what gender you prefer to be addressed as.

I like the game lore of sslik being genderless, though it can be hard to roleplay well.

[Dracaena]

That is part of the mystic of dragons. If the dragon wants to let you know it's gender it will inform you. Otherwise it's none of your business.

There has never been any question of gender on Ssliks. All you need to do is read the background lore and why would you worry about it?

About the only thing that sometimes bugs me is on the guild managers. You cannot indicate your dragon's gender _If_ you wish it to be known. Though I have solved that problem by simply going back to running solo. Guild life just didn't suit in the long run.

I would definitely be opposed to outward changes to dragons in regards to gender. Leave the blue for boys and pink for girls stuff out of this.


Dracaena

[AguaRush]

That is part of the mystic of dragons. If the dragon wants to let you know it's gender it will inform you. Otherwise it's none of your business.


Dracaena

never thought of it that way xD like it

[Guaran]

I think both Dragons and Sslisk should be able to define their gender during character creation. Even tho they will use the same model, it could then be used as some kind of signifier, optional title, something. And show up in a column on say player searches.

I wouldn't make any model changes to either tho.

[Takora Drakan]

Sslik are not neuters; they are a single-gender species. Every Sslik is capable of both producing eggs and fertilizing the eggs of another.

From: http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=17499

Go read it if anyone still thinks that Ssliks should be male/female. They are not.

About dragons:

Just ask the dragon if you want to know the gender, it is not like you want to know their telephone number or postal code. If they don't want to answear, refer to them as "they" ,"them" or "their", that is still polite while leaving the gender out.

[Dhalin]

Sslik are not neuters; they are a single-gender species. Every Sslik is capable of both producing eggs and fertilizing the eggs of another.

Small nitpick, but that's a scientific/biological impossibility to be honest. No creature I know of IRL can reproduce by itself, except for the very most basic life-forms (amoeba, some small worms, etc), and certainly not something complex enough to be sentient.

Now, I could understand it, if they did the whole "since Sslik are reptiles and reptiles' reproductive organs are internal, they tend to not care who are female and who are male, nor can any non-Sslik tell which are which" as an explanation behind why Sslik have no gender.

That's my take on it, anyways. *shrugs*

[Thicklesip]

Small nitpick, but that's a scientific/biological impossibility to be honest. No creature I know of IRL can reproduce by itself, except for the very most basic life-forms (amoeba, some small worms, etc), and certainly not something complex enough to be sentient.

You've never heard of stick insects? Parthenogenic lizards? The lizards are a big one. They're technically not neuter, they're just all female. The stick insects are probably a better example; I believe some species with both genders represented can still opt to asexually clone themselves. (Actually, thinking back to some of my leisure reading, there are a LOT of invertebrates who can function with or without gender, depending on the environment.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis for the basics of critters that clone themselves.

[Dhalin]

You've never heard of stick insects? Parthenogenic lizards? The lizards are a big one. They're technically not neuter, they're just all female. The stick insects are probably a better example; I believe some species with both genders represented can still opt to asexually clone themselves. (Actually, thinking back to some of my leisure reading, there are a LOT of invertebrates who can function with or without gender, depending on the environment.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis for the basics of critters that clone themselves.

With the exception of a few of those small lizard species, this article talks mostly about insects, snails, worms, and oddly sharks and other fish.

I suppose, the lizard examples... meh.

Still though, we're talking little geckos and such... and some of these appear to be oddities and unexplained occurrences.

Not saying that it doesn't exist, but still, to have a sentient species doing this still seems a bit hard to swallow. But I suppose, whatever the devs want to do in the lore.. *shrug*

We still got the subject of dragons, though...

[Steelclaw]

We still got the subject of dragons, though...

With nothing to distinguish between the sexes other than a single word, I don't think there will be any development time spent on this front given the complexities of establishing gender within a neuter race. (Yes, visual attributes can be created, but let's be realistic -- there is a finite amount of dev time and there are other projects with a bigger "payoff".)

Like families, in-character friends, 'pets' and other meta-attributes, dragon sex is best left to role-play.

[AmonGwareth]

Not saying that it doesn't exist, but still, to have a sentient species doing this still seems a bit hard to swallow. But I suppose, whatever the devs want to do in the lore.. *shrug*

Heh... I got a good chuckle from this. An asexual one-gender only species is hard to swallow? But a world populated with DRAGONS, Elves, Dwarves, Cats, People who are blue with tails and horns, walking undead, beetles the size of cars, magic and immortality isn't?

[lightning claw]

beetles the size of cars,

What would an ancient Dragon compare to ?


i would half to say before the EXTREME nerf of our ancient air sprint ability (still up set about that one ) the Aircraft Sr71 Black bird comes to mind

but i am interested as to what you would compare an ancient to Amon

[Sleel]

With nothing to distinguish between the sexes other than a single word, I don't think there will be any development time spent on this front given the complexities of establishing gender within a neuter race. (Yes, visual attributes can be created, but let's be realistic -- there is a finite amount of dev time and there are other projects with a bigger "payoff".)

Like families, in-character friends, 'pets' and other meta-attributes, dragon sex is best left to role-play.

Borrow a word from a series of books, The Fifth Foreign Legion, Sci-Fi series I read when a teen. Blanking on name of the creatures that were genderless/hermaphroditic, but instead of him/her they used 'kys'. Gives you a pronoun to use without refering to everyone as 'it'.


Sleel

[Shinkuu]

It would be nice to place the title for Dragons if you wish but changing their appearance is really not needed. They would not by necessity look that different. You can play them out the way you want and that can make the difference rather quickly IMO.

For Sslik they are both genders already from what I gather NOT genderless as everyone wants to say. Saying they are genderless is like saying they are completely asexual which is not actually the case.

However, as they are both genders labeling them as either male or female would be a mistake and honestly they may swing in personality between those two personality traits a bit depending on how much testosterone or estrogen is currently in their system which may vary depending on any given individual and the time of year.

I think the fun of the Sslik would actually BE to try to play a character who IS both genders and try to sort out how they would really behave. No need to try to force them to be one gender or the other.

[Ashuran]

I think for dragons a simple flag would do, so that our default emotes, spellcasts etc. would show 'he' or 'she' rather than 'it'.

[Thicklesip]

I think for dragons a simple flag would do, so that our default emotes, spellcasts etc. would show 'he' or 'she' rather than 'it'.

But then what about the weirdoes like me who LIKE being an it? I've been roleplaying my hatchling as "ungendered until adulthood"; then again, I'm so used to the system as it has been for years that "adding" genders to dragons seems silly to me. Not like "it" ever actively counters a specific gender... and it reinforces the "if my gender isn't OBVIOUS, you're not worthy to know it" view.