Null the Gull Option: Set Gender for Badge Titles

[SilentSpy]

There's a few badge titles that are gender exclusive such as the current Valentine's Day ones of "Handsome" for male or huge body type characters or "Beautiful" for female body type characters. Currently, if your gender/form changes between costumes, the badge title changes with it.

 

It'd be neat for Null the Gull to have an option for you to set your character's gender as a fixed option, so you can display your badge title as you wish—be a "Handsome" woman or a "Beautiful" man for instance—and something as easily changeable and opt-in as alignment shifts.

 

(I don't recall the game referring to us with pronouns, but I may be wrong, but that could be addressed here as well!)

Edited February 13 by SilentSpy

[Laucianna]

Such an amazing idea and super inclusive in the modern age ❤️❤️ 

 

 - Lauci x

[Mariel Martog]

Showing support for our Non-Binary Pals. 

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, SilentSpy said:

(I don't recall the game referring to us with pronouns, but I may be wrong, but that could be addressed here as well!)

The game does actually refer to a player's character by pronouns. Quite often actually. Which has brought up a few complaints on the Bug Reports forum for the pronoun referring to the wrong gender. (Some contacts and enemies, mostly enemies, have their original line of text where gendered pronouns weren't incorporated, so everyone is "he" in those lines.)

[Mayaedits]

Love this ❤️

[Aoife.Danu]

Brilliant idea

[Greycat]

13 hours ago, SilentSpy said:

(I don't recall the game referring to us with pronouns, but I may be wrong, but that could be addressed here as well!)

 

It's done that for some time - run Dean... whatsisface's arc in Sharkshead and you'll even get some different dialog, I believe. Plus if you make AE stuff, you can have dialog refer to the player as him/her (as well as other variables - name, archetype I believe, etc.)

 

So it's sprinkled through the game here and there.

[StrawberryWitch]

Yes please! 💜

[Super Atom]

I love this idea, 10/10.

[arcane]

Respectfully no thank you

[Rudra]

I do have a question. A couple actually. I know a few trans individuals and their ultimate goal is to be able to afford the operation to transition to their identified gender. So why not just have the character start as their identified gender and so avoid having to worry about Null altering your listed gender identity? Also, for people that don't identify as either gender, they refer to themselves as they, which isn't even a listed gender in the game. So I can see that being added for a gender identity, but how would that interact with the badge titles? There is The Once and Future King. There is The Once and Future Queen. What would be the correct badge title for neither?

[Super Atom]

16 minutes ago, Rudra said:

I do have a question. A couple actually. I know a few trans individuals and their ultimate goal is to be able to afford the operation to transition to their identified gender. So why not just have the character start as their identified gender and so avoid having to worry about Null altering your listed gender identity? Also, for people that don't identify as either gender, they refer to themselves as they, which isn't even a listed gender in the game. So I can see that being added for a gender identity, but how would that interact with the badge titles? There is The Once and Future King. There is The Once and Future Queen. What would be the correct badge title for neither?

 

It's not uncommon to see female characters who have "Is male" in their description, while this wouldn't directly solve all modern issues related to gender identity, it's a fairly simple fix for basic ones like my example. The broader issue of people who identify as non-binary would be a larger undertaking and one i can only assume people who do identify that way, accept and understand the situation homecoming is in development time wise.

 

While it would be great to be inclusive all the way through and through, we have to work with whats realistic for the games limited development.

Edited February 13 by Super Atom
took out the goal thing

[Crimsanotic]

This would also be nice for female characters who use a male or huge costume as some sort of transformation, like a mech suit.

 

Similarly, I'd also like if a Hero could use Villain badges, and vice versa.

[Rudra]

7 minutes ago, Super Atom said:

 

It's not uncommon to see female characters who have "Is male" in their description, while this wouldn't directly solve all modern issues related to gender identity, it's a fairly simple fix for basic ones like my example. The broader issue of people who identify as non-binary would be a larger undertaking and one i can only assume people who do identify that way, accept and understand the situation homecoming is in development time wise.

 

While it would be great to be inclusive all the way through and through, we have to work with whats realistic for the games limited development.

But that doesn't answer my 1st question. Like I said, the trans people I know have the ultimate goal of undergoing the surgery to physically change their biological gender to their identified gender. So I don't understand the point of making a male character with the tag "Is female" or a female character with the tag "Is male". If the character identifies as a specific gender, then why not have the character complete their transition to the other gender? Non-gendered individuals I understand using those tags, such as a male or female character with the tag "Is They" or something. Why make a character that identifies as a gender and not let that character actually get to be the gender they identify as? There is no expensive surgery to have to wait to be able to afford, they can just walk up to any tailor nurse and have their gender changed to match.

 

1 minute ago, Crimsanotic said:

This would also be nice for female characters who use a male or huge costume as some sort of transformation, like a mech suit.

 

Similarly, I'd also like if a Hero could use Villain badges, and vice versa.

Okay, this part I get.

[Super Atom]

13 minutes ago, Rudra said:

But that doesn't answer my 1st question. Like I said, the trans people I know have the ultimate goal of undergoing the surgery to physically change their biological gender to their identified gender. So I don't understand the point of making a male character with the tag "Is female" or a female character with the tag "Is male". If the character identifies as a specific gender, then why not have the character complete their transition to the other gender? Non-gendered individuals I understand using those tags, such as a male or female character with the tag "Is They" or something. Why make a character that identifies as a gender and not let that character actually get to be the gender they identify as? There is no expensive surgery to have to wait to be able to afford, they can just walk up to any tailor nurse and have their gender changed to match.

 

It's not the goal of every trans person to get gender-reaffirming surgery. Gender identity and expression is a larger than just fully becoming the opposite sex through surgery and explaining that for someone who might not have all that info would probably be fairly off-topic for the suggestion. but for the sake of keeping it in scope of your direct question of how this would apply to CoH as is, it would help Female based characters who identify as male a lot more than the opposite way. Just having the option available for both ways however would allow someone that choice if they wanted it. Who's to say a male who identifies as male wouldn't like to use a princess title? Or a female who wants to use male titles because why not?

 

On that note, IT would be cool to be able to use male/female badge titles without changing pronouns used in text as well

 

Edited February 13 by Super Atom

[lemming]

Right now it's keyed on whichever body type, though probably the best way would be to add another variable to the body screen with the choices of preferred pronouns.  I don't know how easy that would be to implement.

And then going thru all the various places where they would be used to key off the new variable instead of the body type.

[Oubliette_Red]

59 minutes ago, lemming said:

Right now it's keyed on whichever body type, though probably the best way would be to add another variable to the body screen with the choices of preferred pronouns.  I don't know how easy that would be to implement.

And then going thru all the various places where they would be used to key off the new variable instead of the body type.

 

I was going to bring up the same thing. Perhaps as a dropdown selection on the final CC screen (ID) before entering the game, which is also available from the Menu within the game.

[Greycat]

5 hours ago, Rudra said:

I do have a question. A couple actually. I know a few trans individuals and their ultimate goal is to be able to afford the operation to transition to their identified gender. So why not just have the character start as their identified gender and so avoid having to worry about Null altering your listed gender identity?

 

*Maybe* an edge case, but I know of one character who... for whatever reason (something in the body type or costume parts, I really don't remember) has a ... I think it's male character, but uses the female body type. I don't know how common that is though, they're the only one I can think of... and I tend to stay on the RP server!

[Force Redux]

Seen a couple folks that everlasting who are playing as very feminine men and they do use the female body setting and this is noted in their bio.

 

One of my characters is a female Mech operator and yes one of the costumes is huge only to represent the Mech, so sometimes concept is working around the existing technology.

Edited February 14 by Force Redux

[lemming]

4 hours ago, Oubliette_Red said:

I was going to bring up the same thing. Perhaps as a dropdown selection on the final CC screen (ID) before entering the game, which is also available from the Menu within the game.

I'd put it in the body selection screen.   (And for optimal results, we just have body scales on one model, but that would take a heck of a lot more resources to do)

[Parabola]

I have a couple of alien type characters whose costumes only looked right with the female body but they aren't supposed to be female (or any gender for one of them). I'm all for unhooking the 'gender setting' from the body plan in the costume creator. I can't see any possible downside to this.

[MonteCarla]

I love this idea!

[twozerofoxtrot]

I'm always for more options.

 

Consider the following character flavor this change would enable:

 

• A mech with male features and the badge title of "Handsome" but a Huge body type that is operated by a petite young lady who uses the mech's gender as a smokescreen for her secret identity.
• A suave playboy hero (or villain?) who is known to charm his female opponents into defeat and wears the "Woman's Best Friend" badge title.
• A time-travelling drag queen who wears the badge title "Once and Future Queen." 

All of these character concepts could exist (and some already do in certain ways) without the badge title gender being selectable. This would be a nice feature to build on character customization.

[arcane]

5 hours ago, Parabola said:

I can't see any possible downside to this.

No one is going to state the downside because they would be bullied in a heartbeat.

[Super Atom]

1 hour ago, arcane said:

No one is going to state the downside because they would be bullied in a heartbeat.

 

2 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

• A suave playboy hero (or villain?) who is known to charm his female opponents into defeat and wears the "Woman's Best Friend" badge title.