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Howdy everyone, and thanks for your patience. The Easter weekend is a long one here in Sweden, so as our Mod posted, we’ve all been out, but we’re back now, caught up on the thread, so here’s where we’re at.

Our commitment to providing more in-game options for same-sex relationships hasn’t changed since we first commented on this last month. We said we were looking into it, and we did, so good news there: same-sex concubines should be moddable in the game in an upcoming patch prior to 1.4, and we should have same-sex marriage moddable by 1.4 if everything goes as planned.

As for the removal of the “unofficial patch” around this change, any mod that directly modifies ck3.exe is strictly against our rules, and the ToS says as much. We simply cannot allow exe files to be distributed on our forum or any of our other community channels for a number of reasons, but primarily because they can’t be verified for security. There are bad actors out there and an unverified exe could have malware, datamining, keyloggers, or any number of ugly surprises, so regardless of what the content may actually be, they’re banned on sight. This has absolutely nothing to do with how any of us at Paradox feel about what a modder may have created or whether we agree with their intentions. No exe mods, period.

We wanted to give you this update on what we intend around this content. Hope to have more details soon!
Delightful! I have to ask though, if you don't mind sharing, what issues came up that caused you to disable same-sex concubines in the first place?

Regardless, this is great news, thanks for finally getting back to us with a dev comment!
 
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This is probably the best news I have heard in a long time. It is like discovering that your partner hasn't cheated on you and still loves you. I shall change my review on steam back to positive forthwith. :D
 
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Hey, that's really cool news, and thanks for letting us know how things stand. I think it's really awful that people harassed blackninja (or anyone from PDX) for their posts, I am quite certain that they did not deserve that treatment. And I say that as a person who was dubious that it was good or necessary to add that block of hardcoding in 1.3.

I've never felt that PDX was anti-LGBTQ and I think it's ludicrous to suggest they are. From the start I've always believed that this was likely an unrelated thing that happened to slip in when tidying up the concubine-related code due to the new concubine interaction in 1.3. I am quite happy to hear that this is an issue that will hopefully be addressed in the near future, however.
 
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I've never felt that PDX was anti-LGBTQ and I think it's ludicrous to suggest they are. From the start I've always believed that this was likely an unrelated thing that happened to slip in when tidying up the concubine-related code due to the new concubine interaction in 1.3. I am quite happy to hear that this is an issue that will hopefully be addressed in the near future, however.
I don't think anyone thought that they actively hated LGBTQ people. The issue was that the persistent failure to address the concerns of the game's LGBTQ community and the way that the thread was being handled both suggested a pervasive failure to take us seriously, which is also a form of homophobia. Of course, harassing blackninja was totally unwarranted.

This is excellent news, though, and I'm glad this is finally sorted out. I wish all that unpleasantness could have been avoided.
 
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Oh hell yeah the thread is unlocked and we're getting our moddable gay marriage!!

Thanks devs.

Now there isn't much to desire other than maybe a game rule to let us have gay marriages in the base game. No rush though. It would just work well with the sexuality rule already there.

I'm excited for some mods to take on some extremely historical representations by having well designed adelphopoiesis.
 
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The issue was that the persistent failure to address the concerns of the game's LGBTQ community and the way that the thread was being handled both suggested a pervasive failure to take us seriously, which is also a form of homophobia.
Maximum entitlement!!!! Hehe! Well I knew you were joking anyway. :)

Thanks for listening PI!

FTR - I think the way PI and their awesome mods interact with the members of this amazing community are some of the best examples of how to positively interact with all members of any community.

Respect!

*simper simper!*
 
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Before engaging with the response, I wanted to mention a policy clarification I received from the moderators that might help avoid future messiness: apparently, discussing moderator actions is against the ToS. The proper action in such case is to contact the moderator who did it via PM, or, if you can't figure that out (since moderators here do not generally announce or give attribution of their actions), any moderator currently online (visible in the sidebar). I will not be posting any opinions about this policy publicly, though I do intend to raise a few matters privately with the moderators after this.

Now, as to the actual content of the response: this is certainly good news, though there's a part of me that feels like it's 'too little, too late.' I can't help but wonder if this would have happened at all, much less this soon, without the massive blow-up on this thread, or if the developers would have continued neglecting and deferring on the matter without comment as they did for the entire first six months of this thread's existence, considering it not a high priority and not worth attention over other things. A lot of this could have been averted, or at least made milder, if the devs had engaged with the thread earlier and more often, with more transparency. I'd still like to know, for instance, what the issues were that made it so urgent to break the existing same-sex concubinage mods with 1.3 -- we've had guesses, but nothing more. And if before the launch of 1.3, if a dev had popped in here to say, 'hey, just a heads-up, we're going to be making some changes to concubinage with the next patch and that's going to break your mods, but we hope to be able to fix that up by the next major patch or even sooner,' there'd be a lot more goodwill going around. Even putting it in the patch notes would have been something.

Going forward: if same-sex marriage modding is enabled by 1.4, as has been suggested, and if the moderators have, in the interim, at least tried to address some of the concerns I'm bringing up to them, I'll feel comfortable going back to supporting Paradox products again (likely starting with Stellaris: Nemesis). However, I'm afraid that won't be enough to bring me back to CK3 specifically. As I've said before, after the burning of significant goodwill this whole matter represented, going back to the status quo, or even slightly better than the status quo, isn't enough for me any more. I will return to playing and supporting CK3 if and when same-sex marriage is officially added to the game without the need for mods, whether it be by a game rule, a religious doctrine, a decision, or something else entirely, and whether it's included as a part of a patch or a DLC. Anything less than that just isn't good enough for me any more, I'm afraid. I recognize that I'm just one customer, and the devs have their own priorities, and I can respect that. But I have my own priorities, too, and if they can't mesh with the devs', then I'm better suited spending my time elsewhere.

In any case, I want to thank @PDX_Pariah for finally getting an official statement out on the matter. It may not have been everything I hoped for, but it's better than silence, and indicates some progress is being made.

Edited for clarification of the ToS - Had a dad
 
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Well done, Paradox. Very happy to see the studio listen to the community on this. Looking forward to spinning up a game of CK3 soon, for the first time in months.

I very much hope that the implemented change reflects WaffleIroner's suggestions in the OP, including facilitating adoption mods.

I also honestly think the blow ups of the past two weeks, including the media coverage, could have been completely avoided if Paradox had been more proactive in responding to these concerns, including giving us some idea of a rough timeline for the fixes, and perhaps explaining what some of the difficulties were. It's one thing to talk the talk on being inclusive, it's another to walk the walk.
 
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Something else on a separate but related note to this topic (honestly I should probably start a separate thread) that might be interesting is generally looser gender rules. From the Femminiello of southern Italy, to the Mukhannathun of Arabia, to the Hijra of India, there are several examples of people in the time period not conforming to the gender binary, and I think it might be interesting to implement or at least provide the tools to do so more easily.
 
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Some people are thanking the devs for finally committing to adding gay marriage but I want to thank the people pushing for it in this thread. I don't think it would have happened without you. So thanks.

I once tried modding the game to have female characters use male models as a way to get "gay" marriage in game (definitely not the ideal way to do it, but I was trying anything to get same-sex marriage to work). But I couldn't get it to work at all. I mainly do script and some basic event modding (though I've been working on improving my skill in the later lately). Reworking the 3D graphics is currently outside my skill set. So unfortunately I don't think I can help.
Given the news, this probably doesn't matter anymore but if you are curious this is more tedious than difficult to accomplish and can be done purely through text files. You basically have to change every single entry in the asset and gene files for one gender to point to the entries or definitions for the other. For instance, changing "pdxmesh = 'female_head_mesh'" to "pdxmesh = 'male_head_mesh'" in male_head.asset or "female = { 2 = female_clothes_secular_western_nobility_01_common}" to "female = male" in 05_genes_special_accessories_clothes.txt.

And then you'd have to edit the culture and localization files so you are referred to as the preferred gender and characters get names appropriate for the gender.

But if you are willing to do all that, it is possible or at least it was when I used a script to make everyone have a female appearance in an older version.
 
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It took 7 months and 26 pages for Paradox to finally commit to fixing this issue, not in some unknown future, but in the upcoming 1.4 patch. It's not because of some technical issue that this gets ignored for that long. It's because a decision was made by the company to not prioritise this issue.

Well done to everyone here who finally made it into a priority for Paradox.
 
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Delightful! I have to ask though, if you don't mind sharing, what issues came up that caused you to disable same-sex concubines in the first place?

Regardless, this is great news, thanks for finally getting back to us with a dev comment!
It was never our intention or direct goal to disable the feature. It was just a code by-product of a technical and unrelated issue that needed correcting. It has certainly caused some concern, but we are getting there!

Before engaging with the response, I wanted to mention a policy clarification I received from the moderators that might help avoid future messiness: apparently, discussing moderator actions is against the ToS. The proper action in such case is to contact the moderator who did it via PM, or, if you can't figure that out (since moderators here do not generally announce or give attribution of their actions), any moderator currently online (visible in the sidebar). I will not be posting any opinions about this policy publicly, though I do intend to raise a few matters privately with the moderators after this.

"..."

In any case, I want to thank @PDX_Pariah for finally getting an official statement out on the matter. It may not have been everything I hoped for, but it's better than silence, and indicates some progress is being made.

Edited for clarification of the ToS - Had a dad
Correct. Discussion of any ToS violations or Mod conversation is against the rules to help protect EVERYONE'S privacy. It may seem harsh or strict but it is definitely in place for a good and helpful reason.

You are quite welcome and hopefully we can mutually reach a point where we are all happy and satisfied, posthaste! :)

Something else on a separate but related note to this topic (honestly I should probably start a separate thread) that might be interesting is generally looser gender rules. From the Femminiello of southern Italy, to the Mukhannathun of Arabia, to the Hijra of India, there are several examples of people in the time period not conforming to the gender binary, and I think it might be interesting to implement or at least provide the tools to do so more easily.
Very interesting for sure, but for better visibility, posting elsewhere will get more attention and better results!

Technically more than 26 pages, since I think at least three to four pages of posts were deleted.
That is what happens when people cannot be civil and follow the rules.

I am just glad we are all back on the same topic and discussing openly without hostility again!
 
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Paradox:

Just focus on making a great game and not all of this noise. Sorry people from your company were treated poorly, just isn't cool. Hopefully this doesn't change the timelines of any of the DLC or patches coming down the pike, they should be the main priority.
 
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That is what happens when people cannot be civil and follow the rules.
I'd call that at best a mischaracterization of most of the deleted posts, but since getting into a discussion about it would violate the rules, I'll leave it at that. I am, however, bringing up some concerns I have with the moderators and admins in PMs.
 
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Thanks for giving an official update to this thread (it being good news is also very much appreciated). I'm curious to see how it will actually be implemented. But I'm guessing that will have to wait until closer to the release of the patch, which is fine.

To add to what other have said I think harassing any Paradox employees is never appropriate. I want to thank the employees who took the time to enage with us and/or otherwise help with this issue, both in pubic and behind the scenes. But also I think the communication around this issue, which is rightfully a very sensitive topic for many, could have been handled better by Paradox, as a company. And I hope the company takes this as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Given the news, this probably doesn't matter anymore but if you are curious this is more tedious than difficult to accomplish and can be done purely through text files. You basically have to change every single entry in the asset and gene files for one gender to point to the entries or definitions for the other. For instance, changing "pdxmesh = 'female_head_mesh'" to "pdxmesh = 'male_head_mesh'" in male_head.asset or "female = { 2 = female_clothes_secular_western_nobility_01_common}" to "female = male" in 05_genes_special_accessories_clothes.txt.

And then you'd have to edit the culture and localization files so you are referred to as the preferred gender and characters get names appropriate for the gender.

But if you are willing to do all that, it is possible or at least it was when I used a script to make everyone have a female appearance in an older version.
Thanks for sharing. I figured there was probably a way, but that it wasn't worth my time to figure it out. But it is always neat to learn what the answer actually is (looks like my mistake was coming at it from the other end and changing the file is was looking at rather than changing which files it looked at).
 
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Thanks for committing to changes for 1.4.

I knew this thread was out here from the beginning, and started watching because I was getting genuinely concerned after the 1.3 changes and subsequent events. This is good though. I really appreciate you putting a timeline to it, that specifically was what I was really hoping you all would do.
 
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Paradox:

Just focus on making a great game and not all of this noise. Sorry people from your company were treated poorly, just isn't cool. Hopefully this doesn't change the timelines of any of the DLC or patches coming down the pike, they should be the main priority.
The timeline has not changed in any way and certainly not because of this. We are still committed to bringing you the best and most inclusive content that we can at all time! :D

I'd call that at best a mischaracterization of most of the deleted posts, but since getting into a discussion about it would violate the rules, I'll leave it at that. I am, however, bringing up some concerns I have with the moderators and admins in PMs.
Certainly not ALL the posts were from people being uncivil, but a majority of them were.

Sadly, some good points were also lost due to the general clean-up of the thread, but that is part of the process. Don't worry... I can still see ALL of your comments... <.<
 
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