Updating inherent descriptions to be gender neutral please?

[Zappalina]

Hello,  I would like to suggest that the descriptions (only) for the inherent powers be gender neutral. (If possible without breaking them or the game?)

 

I haven't checked all builds but know Tanker, Brute and Defender so far have 'he' while blaster, scrapper, corrupter, dominator are all gender neutral or instead of saying 'he/him' say ie: The blaster, or The Corrupter

 

This is an example of Tanker inherent Gauntlet description

 Although many may try, few can withstand the irresistible force of the Tanker. Each time a Tanker attacks, he enrages the target, and those around him, enticing them to attack the Tanker. Each punch continues to provoke your enemies and allows the Tanker to do what he does best. In addition, the area of your AoE attacks will be buffed. Cones will become wider, spheres larger, and chains reach further away.

 

The Scrapper example for Critical Hit description

 The Scrapper is a fierce melee combatant. In hand to hand, no other hero can compare. All Scrapper melee attacks have a chance to land a Critical Hit for up to Double Damage. The higher the rank of the target, the greater the chance for a successful Critical Hit.

 

Thanks and Happy Spring! Love the updates keep doing a good job!

 

 

[PeregrineFalcon]

For 1,000 years he has been the default pronoun in the English language when the person is hypothetical or sex of the person being referred to is not known.

 

Combing through a ton of descriptions and changing them to a pronoun that is "more acceptable by today's standards" is an awful lot of work just to virtual signal to your friends on Twitter/Facebook.

 

Speech is not violence. And being accidentally referred to by the wrong pronoun isn't going to harm you in any way.

 

Just in case it isn't clear: I vote 'no'.

[Arbegla]

19 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

For 1,000 years he has been the default pronoun in the English language when the person is hypothetical or sex of the person being referred to is not known.

 

While I don't want to get into the weeds here, I thought 'they/them' was the default pronoun when a person is hypothetical or the sex of the person (or group of people) being referred to is not known.

 

Wikipedia seems to agree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_languages_with_gendered_third-person_pronouns#Standard_usage

 

If they other ATs already have gender neutral language, changing the AT descriptions to match seems like a great idea.

[krj12]

Agree with PeregrineFalcon.  I vote no.

 

[Cakes]

Yeah, no.

[GM Tempest]

Just a friendly reminder not to get too - as Arbegla put it - 'in the weeds' in this discussion.

For my part, this sounds like a nice little tweak. 'They/them' is generally considered the acceptable gender-neutral pronoun and would be more inclusive to our community! Not ever tanker is a dude, after all!

[Outrider_01]

And so the clouds parted, as the thunder rumbled across the heavens, and the Tempest calmed with a a booming voice which spoke out....

 

"Be civil, we don't need to cause an overwhelming problem that will create turbulence in the community." 

 

*the god wields Mjölnir Banhammer, with the weight of a GM behind it*

 

_{I am so bored right now 😐}

[GM Kal]

As always, developer time is at a premium!
There are so many things that we would like to do, fix, and update.

But it is a good suggestion that power descriptions be eventually standardized for who or whatever a player is playing.

[Greycat]

Yeah, I'm used to thinking of they/them as being a default "we don't know who this person will be" pronoun. I wouldn't argue with seeing it changed. But... yeah, kind of low priority overall. (Given the code, it might start making things explode.)

 

Honestly, if we had staff/time, I'd like to see all *sorts* of presuppositions fixed, like the Dark powersets' power coming from "the netherworld," other than the Epic ATs which are designed to be tied to a greater backstory.

[America's Angel]

I like this idea.

 

We should be pushing for more inclusivity, always. Especially in escapist online games like MMORPGs.

 

This isn't about being "woke" or self-congratulating ala Rian Johnson. It's about creating an environment where everyone feels like they belong, and no-one feels secondary.

 

 

[arcane]

15 hours ago, Arbegla said:

 

While I don't want to get into the weeds here, I thought 'they/them' was the default pronoun when a person is hypothetical or the sex of the person (or group of people) being referred to is not known.

 

Wikipedia seems to agree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_languages_with_gendered_third-person_pronouns#Standard_usage

 

If they other ATs already have gender neutral language, changing the AT descriptions to match seems like a great idea.

Not expressing an opinion one way or the other, but just FYI: it’s an objective fact that politically relevant portions of Wikipedia are absolutely loaded with opinions.

 

EDIT: I don’t oppose the suggestion as long as it doesn’t take significant amounts of developer time.

Edited April 29, 2021 by arcane

[Nemeroff]

"Nemeroff," on Live was male but on HC I switched to female; still DM/SR Brute. And about 20% of my characters are robots/cyborgs.

 

But overall, I'm not bothered by it.

[KelvinKole]

The weeds are attempting to pull me in...those plant Dom's are OP. 

 

I think it's a good idea. Regardless of where you stand on pronoun usage, I've seen a number of Tankers that were clearly female. 

[Steel Dancer]

I like this idea, it makes things more consistent and just that much more inclusive.

 

Yes.

[Steampunkette]

16 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

For 1,000 years he has been the default pronoun in the English language when the person is hypothetical or sex of the person being referred to is not known.

 

Combing through a ton of descriptions and changing them to a pronoun that is "more acceptable by today's standards" is an awful lot of work just to virtual signal to your friends on Twitter/Facebook.

 

Speech is not violence. And being accidentally referred to by the wrong pronoun isn't going to harm you in any way.

 

Just in case it isn't clear: I vote 'no'.

Etymology Time!

 

"They" comes from Old Norse. "Sa". "Sa" was gender neutral and referred to one or many people. It became "They" in Old English, that is to say: English old enough that Shakespeare would've been like "Thy speech is most strange 'pon mine ear. Whither came thy mother and father?"

 

Along with "They" came Their, Them, That, and The. That's right. THE came from Sa. Again, this is -OLD- English, which was really more German than English as you'd recognize it, today.

 

Remember that "Thy" from Shakespeare? They became super common in use because the nordic Thin (Pronounced Thine) meant "Yours". And that became "Thou" which eventually became "You". "They" as a pronoun is older than "You" as a pronoun. Ain't that somethin'?

 

Don't get me wrong. "He" has existed for almost as long as "They", in various forms. But the idea that it was the default "Person of Unknown Gender" for a thousand years ignores that They has been around just as long and is still in active use and has been THE ENTIRE TIME.

 

It would be linguistic revisionism to pretend that "He" is and has been the default.

[Night]

I thought pulling in political agendas was a no in the rules. Whatever then. From a non-native-english speaker view, the word 'they' is a confusing mess. The default reaction to hearing 'they' is 'how many?'. The language doesn't disambiguate between talking about a person or a buncha people, unlike some others. If anything, if you're begging for removing of 'he', then 'they' should also not exist in those descriptions. Make them passive, straightforward statements with no pronouns whatsoever.

[America's Angel]

MMORPG Players:  "Pronouns are confusing."

Also MMORPG Players:

Edited April 29, 2021 by America's Angel

[Arbegla]

8 minutes ago, America's Angel said:

MMORPG Players:  "Pronouns are confusing."

Also MMORPG Players:

 

Quit giving me WoW flashbacks. I'll get hives.

[Taboo]

16 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

For 1,000 years he has been the default pronoun in the English language when the person is hypothetical or sex of the person being referred to is not known.

 

Combing through a ton of descriptions and changing them to a pronoun that is "more acceptable by today's standards" is an awful lot of work just to virtual signal to your friends on Twitter/Facebook.

 

Speech is not violence. And being accidentally referred to by the wrong pronoun isn't going to harm you in any way.

 

Just in case it isn't clear: I vote 'no'.

 

While I don't disagree with your point, searching and replacing 'He' with 'They' is trivial.

With what we saw with the 'Shocking' power name, a change is likely, what would you like it to be?

I'm an asshole and even I know this isn't worth lacing up over.

 

Edited April 29, 2021 by Taboo

[arcane]

27 minutes ago, Night said:

I thought pulling in political agendas was a no in the rules. Whatever then. From a non-native-english speaker view, the word 'they' is a confusing mess. The default reaction to hearing 'they' is 'how many?'. The language doesn't disambiguate between talking about a person or a buncha people, unlike some others. If anything, if you're begging for removing of 'he', then 'they' should also not exist in those descriptions. Make them passive, straightforward statements with no pronouns whatsoever.

Amen and awomen

[TheZag]

If it aint broke, dont fix it.  I would hardly call the current political climate as adequate grounds for any game changes.

[Naraka]

17 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

For 1,000 years he has been the default pronoun in the English language when the person is hypothetical or sex of the person being referred to is not known.

 

Combing through a ton of descriptions and changing them to a pronoun that is "more acceptable by today's standards" is an awful lot of work just to virtual signal to your friends on Twitter/Facebook.

 

Speech is not violence. And being accidentally referred to by the wrong pronoun isn't going to harm you in any way.

 

Just in case it isn't clear: I vote 'no'.

No idea why you had to go so hard on this topic.

 

I tend to play devil's advocate but the OP didn't say anything about gender binary or have some sort of agenda to the suggestion. It's merely a grammatical suggestions since you, in fact, can make characters of any AT that are male, female, asexual (ex: robots) or some alien combination or absence of sex and gender. Nothing to do with controlling speech, just outlining an oversight of the character creator feature.

[Darmian]

Everything is political. Not all political action has a downside.  This one does not either. I'm voting yes, with the giant caveat that there are more immediate things to fix/update with COX than this.

[Alchemystic]

I vote no.

 

There's no patriarchal subtext, no misogynistic narrative, and no gender politics of any kind. The use of 'he' is used only to provide context that the descriptions are referring to an individual, whereas 'they' can have a far broader meaning, and can confuse the reader.

[Darmian]

10 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

There's no patriarchal subtext, no misogynistic narrative, and no gender politics of any kind. The use of 'he' is used only to provide context that the descriptions are referring to an individua

While still voting yes, I agree entirely with this statement. However, I also entirely disagree with this part:

11 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

'they' can have a far broader meaning, and can confuse the reader