Legalize Gay Modding!

[byTheBreezeRafa]

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.

Exactly, it took this long and only existed as an issue because the issue was an after thought. So unless people make it known and complain (as was done) it would have gone unaddressed for who knows how long.

 

[Zeirii]

I'm very glad this will be fixed for modders, it shows once again that the company has modders' back, but for me this doesn't solve the LGBTQ issue. I think this would have been a great opportunity to add this in the base game and the fact that it isn't is a missed opportunity.

 

[halkszavu]

I'm very glad this will be fixed for modders, it shows once again that the company has modders' back, but for me this doesn't solve the LGBTQ issue. I think this would have been a great opportunity to add this in the base game and the fact that it isn't is a missed opportunity.

While I see where you coming from, I'm not sure it would be a beneficial addition to the base game.
It would drain design time for a feature, that won't be used by many. (Most people don't bother to change the default settings in many applications, and this includes CK3 as well, where in default you have a slight minority of non-straight characters.) The problem comes with inheritance, which is very common in this game. If a gay couple has a child whose dynasty should said child have, which claims should they inherit? Unlike in most design choices you don't really have any historic guides to go by.
Another question is how to aquire the child in the first place? Adoption, concubinage, kidnap are available solutions, but they all have problems.
I would rather see dozens of unofficial mods coming up with different solutions, than an official one. It's also better for modders, who came up with some unique idea to compete with one another instead of competing with PDX's solution.

 

[klopkr]

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!

Thanks for saying this.

I really wish the myth of 'devs losing time every time they implement any suggestion' would go away. I trust you guys are more than capable of allocating your time appropriately.

Please keep on supporting us modders and the little important tweaks we need even when they're not the sexiest most marketable design choice. It's always really appreciated.

 

[druez]

Thanks for saying this.

I really wish the myth of 'devs losing time every time they implement any suggestion' would go away. I trust you guys are more than capable of allocating your time appropriately.

Please keep on supporting us modders and the little important tweaks we need even when they're not the sexiest most marketable design choice. It's always really appreciated.

Oh, that is simply not true. I've been in development for 20 years. Any new feature or change, is going to take time away from something else. Something else isn't going to be worked on, or more time will be needed. The only way a certain request that might not be mainstream won't effect the timeline or resources, if this feature/request was part of the roadmap or the code being written is actually part of another feature and it will slot in there.

Now the feature/request might be so minor that it won't marginally effect the timeline and that is how I took their post. But, basic logic says that yes any new request/feature will take away from either the other planned features or requests, or it will push timelines or require someone to work more hours. That is logic.

 

[jumbi]

Now the feature/request might be so minor that it won't marginally effect the timeline and that is how I took their post. But, basic logic says that yes any new request/feature will take away from either the other planned features or requests, or it will push timelines or require someone to work more hours. That is logic.

It's not that new features don't take time, it's that the fact that features take time alone is sometimes used to shoot down suggestions. "This, like any feature, would take time therefore it is not worth including" is stated rather than asking "is this worth the time it would take to include?" very selectively at times. There are legitimate concerns to be had about feature creep and taking on projects that one does not have capacity for but this is rather about preventing dialogue about whether new additions qualify as being either of those. Using only the logic of the first statement alone, no feature is worth adding to the game, and applying it only selectively does not make for good-faith discussion

 

[pengoyo]

Oh, that is simply not true. I've been in development for 20 years. Any new feature or change, is going to take time away from something else. Something else isn't going to be worked on, or more time will be needed. The only way a certain request that might not be mainstream won't effect the timeline or resources, if this feature/request was part of the roadmap or the code being written is actually part of another feature and it will slot in there.

Now the feature/request might be so minor that it won't marginally effect the timeline and that is how I took their post. But, basic logic says that yes any new request/feature will take away from either the other planned features or requests, or it will push timelines or require someone to work more hours. That is logic.

While I don't think your interpretation is necessarily incorrect, especially given the dev diary today, that's not the only way for development time of side projects to not affect the timeline of the main roadmap.

In a big company like Paradox you can also end up with dead time for people who currently can't work towards the current road map as they are waiting on people in another step to finish up (possible due to them finishing their step ahead of schedule or the previous step ran into a problem and so is behind schedule). Thus time that would otherwise go to waste can then be put to work on side options without affecting the timeline of any main features.

Also the devs at Paradox do have some time allotted for side projects (in part to allow people some creative freedom to help keep them motivated and thus more productive). And it's possible that this was done as part of someone's side project. Thus again it would be coming from a pool of time that would not beeen available for main features.

Edit: Plus it could be the always planned to spend X amount of time on mod support this month and thus same-sex concubinage would have just been done as part of that. So again no affect on the roadmap as it was time already planned for other purposes.

 

[Lineana]

Crusader Kings III - Paradox Interactive

Paradox Interactive is a world leading PC games publisher known for games such as Cities: Skylines, Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings.

www.crusaderkings.com

Devs you are the best, thank you.

 

[Zeirii]

While I see where you coming from, I'm not sure it would be a beneficial addition to the base game.
It would drain design time for a feature, that won't be used by many. (Most people don't bother to change the default settings in many applications, and this includes CK3 as well, where in default you have a slight minority of non-straight characters.) The problem comes with inheritance, which is very common in this game. If a gay couple has a child whose dynasty should said child have, which claims should they inherit? Unlike in most design choices you don't really have any historic guides to go by.
Another question is how to aquire the child in the first place? Adoption, concubinage, kidnap are available solutions, but they all have problems.
I would rather see dozens of unofficial mods coming up with different solutions, than an official one. It's also better for modders, who came up with some unique idea to compete with one another instead of competing with PDX's solution.

The inheritance question is a good and valid point, but as you said it is indeed very common in this game and as such doesn't pertain only to LGBTQ couples. Many factors can put a dynasty in a bind without any heir and end a game way too soon. Thus, I do believe that solutions like adoption would be in fact beneficial to the base game as it would provide greater playability and roleplay flexibility.

For the question of time, let's put it this way, this is something that is invaluable even if for only a minority of people. Furthermore, who does it isn't important, PDX could for example partner up with modders to deliver this. What is important is that PDX continue its support of LGBTQ officially in the base game.

 

[klopkr]

Oh, that is simply not true. I've been in development for 20 years. Any new feature or change, is going to take time away from something else. Something else isn't going to be worked on, or more time will be needed. The only way a certain request that might not be mainstream won't effect the timeline or resources, if this feature/request was part of the roadmap or the code being written is actually part of another feature and it will slot in there.

Now the feature/request might be so minor that it won't marginally effect the timeline and that is how I took their post. But, basic logic says that yes any new request/feature will take away from either the other planned features or requests, or it will push timelines or require someone to work more hours. That is logic.

My point is that what everyone's contention here is 'your desires are a waste of time, mine are not'.

I always hate when that's brought up. No dev time is wasted. It's just used on things any particular person may not care about.

Modding is just as fundamental to this game as anything else. And any suggestion will impact the game. I think that's inherently worthwhile so long as it isn't making the game explicitly worse.

The only thing I'll agree needs a priority over any suggestion is bug fixing but since that's just an inherent part of programming I think that's just a given.

I trust that so long as the devs are working on features that doing so is worthwhile.

I just don't think they're wasting time making worthless code. Maybe some stuff I don't know has been scrapped and was a waste of effort but I'm sure the devs want to avoid that just as much as we do.

 

[Splorghley]

I kinda wish those people who keep saying that same-sex modding will take away dev time from other features took their own advice, and had a think about what else they could be doing with their time rather than incessantly replying to threads on this topic.

I mean, the people who read and post on this thread are people who self-select by virtue of being interested in queer content. Many of us are queer. What, you think you'll convince us our needs and interests are less important than yours? You think I enjoy coming to this thread and reading "Yeh yoo gays might want love but race cars are really cool zoom ZOOM so they should be in CK3 and there's more of me than there are of you so my wants come first"?

You think we haven't been dealing with being sidelined in favour of a majority all our lives?

 

[Deeps93]

Firstly I wanna say I am excited for the announcement of this change coming in the upcoming patches. It sucked that this possibility was not part of the base game, that's for sure. But I can see how, after the game being developed without officially recognized same-sex relationships in mind, adding support for it to be moddable could be an extremely difficult task as most of the game interactions are based on different relationships between NPCs. Seeing this be something devs are interested in adding support for and having it officially announced is great.

Now to the people coming to this thread with the "argument" that these changes are going to take time away from something else. THAT IS NOT AN ARGUMENT. Each change takes time and it's up to the devs to see what is the player base interested in and what is the state of the game and prioritize.
If there are other features you are interested in, voice your support for them in their thread, appropriate place, but don't spam this one, please.
Running around the forum and spamming feature request and other threads being like "ohhh, noo that is a bad feature cause there could maybe be others instead" really adds nothing to the discussion here.

 

[halkszavu]

The inheritance question is a good and valid point, but as you said it is indeed very common in this game and as such doesn't pertain only to LGBTQ couples. Many factors can put a dynasty in a bind without any heir and end a game way too soon. Thus, I do believe that solutions like adoption would be in fact beneficial to the base game as it would provide greater playability and roleplay flexibility.

Throwing in adoption to the base game without much thought about it would kill the game. If one can adopt at any point without restrictions, then what purpose a dynasty/family has? "I don't like my heir. Let's adopt sb better."

You could restrict adoption, but there is a lot of things to consider. The player shouldn't be able to abuse the AI, their choices should be meaningful and have consequences; at the same time the requirements should not be a burden, or overtly complicated. This is why I say it would take development time. After you know how things should work, it's relatively fast and easy to put together.

Another thing to consider is how it would impact new gamers. If one fires up CK3, sets the hypothetical same-sex marriage gamerule to allow it, they should be able to figure out inheritance, and what a dynasty means. They shouldn't get the impression that adoption is the solution to inheritance (it should be a solution not the solution).

 

[sreckom92]

I'm glad we're getting this back. It's always nice to have more modding abilities.
Heck, I'd love to see things like gay marriage in the game, not just as a modding option.
If I am able to reform religions and create them from scratch, I should be able to have gay marriage.
If anything, there could be a game rule to change these settings.

I agree that removing this modability abruptly was a bad move. Especially considering there was not much communication from Paradox regarding the causes for their action.
But I have to say:
Geez the people overreacted...
Again, I fully support all of this. Give me an option that turns every character in the game gay and allows marriage for them and I would love it. But come on...bashing the entire company, calling them homophobic, creating incredible drama and putting up bad reviews for the game over this is a ludicrous overreaction.
I don't understand the excuses, sorry.

 

[Lord Fullmetal]

Im with the team "more modding options".

What is really interesting about this thread (mostly the first page, I did not bother to read the entire 27 pages) is how the posts focusing on the argument of the ability to mod anything in the game are the ones people agree the most, while people using the "as a gaymer" argument were much more controversial. I think it shows how most of the playerbase thinks that it is mostly an in-game issue, about freedom to change things the way you want them to be, rather than something that should be even remotely political or social.

 

[pengoyo]

Another thing to consider is how it would impact new gamers. If one fires up CK3, sets the hypothetical same-sex marriage gamerule to allow it, they should be able to figure out inheritance, and what a dynasty means. They shouldn't get the impression that adoption is the solution to inheritance (it should be a solution not the solution).

While I generally agree with you on adoption in the base game. I find this a very weird argument. Because one, most new gamers don't play around with game rules. And two, there are plenty of game rules that change how parts of the game works (that's kinda the point of them). For example a new gamer could disable faith hostility and not realize holy wars are a potential way to expand your realm or are something they generally need to watchout for (assuming they ever decide to play with the default game rules, because who knows, maybe they don't want to).

Teaching new gamers is the job of the tutorial (and easing them in the job of the suggestion tab and tool tips).

 

[halkszavu]

While I generally agree with you on adoption in the base game. I find this a very weird argument. Because one, most new gamers don't play around with game rules. And two, there are plenty of game rules that change how parts of the game works (that's kinda the point of them). For example a new gamer could disable faith hostility and not realize holy wars are a potential way to expand your realm or are something they generally need to watchout for (assuming they ever decide to play with the default game rules, because who knows, maybe they don't want to).

Teaching new gamers is the job of the tutorial (and easing them in the job of the suggestion tab and tool tips).

The reason I included is because some players (mainly LGBT players) will like to enable same-sex marriage as soon as possible. Even more so, if they bought the game knowing that it is an option.

What I am talking about, is the fact that same-sex marriage should be coupled with adoption somehow in a clear and understandable way. I just realized, that you can make a gamerule for "same-sex marriage & adoption", which would resolve the hidden information issue, but create a new one: why can't a player turn on adoption alone. But if those are separate gamerules, then you can run into the situation where one starts a game with same-sex marriage on, adoption off, and now they are stuck with a very annoying problem.

 

[newtlord]

What I am talking about, is the fact that same-sex marriage should be coupled with adoption somehow in a clear and understandable way. I just realized, that you can make a gamerule for "same-sex marriage & adoption", which would resolve the hidden information issue, but create a new one: why can't a player turn on adoption alone. But if those are separate gamerules, then you can run into the situation where one starts a game with same-sex marriage on, adoption off, and now they are stuck with a very annoying problem.

It would be simple enough to have "Allow same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples" as one game rule and "allow adoption by all parties" as a second.

 

[pengoyo]

The reason I included is because some players (mainly LGBT players) will like to enable same-sex marriage as soon as possible. Even more so, if they bought the game knowing that it is an option.

What I am talking about, is the fact that same-sex marriage should be coupled with adoption somehow in a clear and understandable way. I just realized, that you can make a gamerule for "same-sex marriage & adoption", which would resolve the hidden information issue, but create a new one: why can't a player turn on adoption alone. But if those are separate gamerules, then you can run into the situation where one starts a game with same-sex marriage on, adoption off, and now they are stuck with a very annoying problem.

To be fair if someone bought the game and immediately turns it on. They probably are planning to play with that game rule on most, if not all, of the time. So why do they need to know about how inheritance works normally?

And if they do want to play with the default rules, that's still what the tutorial teaches. And anything outside of that is what can be resolved by the wiki or asking questions on the forum/reddit.

Given the amount of confusion new players already have about the game. I don't think this is going to be high on that list. And it will only be encountered by players actively seeking it out, and so probably already came across a post mentioning some of the changes that come along with it.

If this ends up being a problem, then Paradox has multiple ways to resolve it (like just having the tenent/doctrine that enables same-sex marriage to also mention it enables adoption, assuming the two are to be tied together). But currently it just seems like worrying about a hypothetical that seems unlikely to even be an issue.

Plus I can't see adoption being added to the game and only being possible for same-sex couples as the feature is wanted more broadly than that by the community (and is used historically more broadly too). So if Paradox decides to add adoption to the game there will probably be some way for opposite couples to also be able to use it (maybe it requires it's own doctrine). In which case you just make that clear in the game rules.

 

[Dhekelian]

If this proposal does not affect the base game and has to be turned on as an option I see no problem why it cannot be implemented in some way. Many people who play CK2/3 are into factual historical gaming so I hope this will not be affected but for those who want a fantasy type game I see no problem.