Same Sex Romance Arcs in Bioware’s Star Wars MMO

     This is spaceships, monsters, ligtsabers and blasters. Its the return of the Sith and the Jedi masters; This is Star Wars.

More specifically, this is The Old Republic, the new Star Wars MMORPG in the works by Bioware. As many of you may or may not know, Bioware has always been known for their amazing storytelling ability in role-playing games. Games such as Dragon Age:Origins and Mass Effect have sold well in the past couple of years, and have won several awards.

However, while Bioware makes popular RPG’s with solid story-based impact, they have also included what are generally called “Romance Arcs” in several of their much beloved RPGs including: Mass Effect 1 & 2 (and Probably 3 upon release), Dragon Age: Origins, and one of my personal favorites–and the one most closely related to this topic–Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (The Technical Prequel to the MMO in question).

Keeping with their tradition, Bioware intended to include Romance Arcs into the game, as they provide a slightly more immersive and realistic feel, and as a result they have. It seems that the majority of players are fine with this addition; However, there are a lot of fans who have been discussing another possible addition: Same Gender (Same Sex) Romance Arcs.

With the Gay Rights Movement in full swing, and still a quantity ( I’m not truthfully sure how big this group is) of people not entirely accepting of homosexuality or the LGB community, we have ourselves a recipe for a forum war.

While to many players that are not accepting of SGRA (Same Gender Romance Arcs) it appears that Bioware should not add them for moral reasons (many of which cannot be discussed on the SWTOR Forums), many of these same players tend to forget–or in my case never KNEW–that several of Bioware’s previous games have contained SGRAs. SGRA’s–from the sources I have gathered–were featured in Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins.

While many in the LGB gaming community feel as though Bioware is taking a step back by keeping SGRA’s out of TOR, others feel that this is not so: many players simply believe that Bioware’s time could be spent working on more game mechanics and systems (primarily more fun things to do, such as Pod and Speeder Bike Racing, and Pazaak).

The biggest issue in this argument is that it seems to be held as a belief that TOR not featuring SGRA’s  is unfair to it’s LGB players. This is highly debatable, and is exactly what has been occurring on the SWTOR forums.

——Change of Gears——My Perspective———–

Now it’s time for my perspective. As a heterosexual gamer, whom has sympathy for the LGB community, I personally believe that there should be no SOCIAL reason that SGRA’s should not be present in TOR. That being said. If SGRA’s are currently not in the game and Bioware must choose between other game content, or SGRA, I would definitely say: “Go for the other game content”. I do believe however, that if Bioware already has SGRA’s created, and they are scoping for community reaction before the add them to the game, they should definitely include them. I am also unopposed to them releasing SGRA content in a later patch.

My ultimate belief is that Bioware is a good developer, and that the game WILL be immensely popular. It is also that Bioware should not consider SOCIAL issues in deciding how to proceed with the game. I believe SGRA’s would be good to include.

I also believe that people should not act as though this is a civil issue, it is only about the content of a video game.

For everyone one the SWTOR forums (or any forum for that matter): Post with respect, Kindness, and Open-mindedness, and also: May the force be with you.