Is there any way at all we can make a third, gender neutral option in the character creation menu? basically like, a third gender class that uses neutral (they/them/theirs) pronouns and language? Gendered pronouns and language isn't used too often, which I appreciate, but its a little disheartening to hear when i'm doing heart events and I get things said like "a woman after my own heart" etc... im no stranger to not having my non-binary identity represented in any sort of media anywhere, but once I heard of how this game has a lot of mods I thought maybe it would be possible to mod this sort of thing in. I've been going through the dialogue and event files with a fine tooth comb for awhile now, but im not a coder, I only have experience with editing graphics. I cant seem to find anything about the character creation menu, and certain things like what is said at the wedding ("I now pronounce you...") and the dialogue about adopting kids/getting pregnant I cant find either. I think ive figured out that the "^" symbol before a line a dialogue is what causes the female-gendered dialogue to be said but I don't really know for sure. im also aware that theres some sort of locker room thing too but I found a thread that had a mod that allowed you to enter either so thats fixed. As for the letters from mom/dad, maybe you could get letters that are signed mom AND dad at the bottom? I guess I could just go and edit all of the dialogue I can find referencing either the male or female farmer to make it neutral, but what I would really like is a whole other third option from the character creation menu. so, experienced modders: is this even feasible or should I just settle for my androgynous looking binary-gendered character? (I have a feeling I already know the answer haha)
A large part of it is hardcoded and spread out, meaning it would be really tough to even catch all the instances of it happening. Additionally to find out which gender the game should use it uses a true-false check on the player, which would mean extensive workarounds would be required to add in a third gender. Is it possible? Well, like much else, theoretically yes, but the amount of effort required to even begin to initialize it is very high and would require extensive testing to make sure it works in every instance. Frankly, the best recourse would be to petition CA to rewrite parts of his code to accomodate, but even then it would still be a sizeable amount of work to do.
Maybe make a mod that will check all text strings, analyse them and change texts? Doesn't seem too complicated. Or we can find a texts of all man's gender responses and change them. I will look into the code.
Found the gay one: if (this.isGaySpouse()) { this.setTilePosition(farmHouse.getKitchenStandingSpot()); if (!this.spouseObstacleCheck("I wonder how much the new baby will change things?$s", farmHouse, false)) { this.setNewDialogue((random.NextDouble() < 0.5) ? (this.getSpouse().name + ", I hope our adoption request gets approved. I want a baby.$l") : (this.getTermOfSpousalEndearment(true) + ", I filed our adoption papers. Now all we can do is cross our fingers and wait.$l"), random.NextDouble() < 0.5, false); return; } }
Or maybe there just hasn't been enough time, experience and consideration to make such a mod? They didn't come to the forums for modding support only to have their identity questioned and invalidated by random trolls, you know. Anyway, I don't see there being a 3rd option coded in to the game any time soon. I'd like to see a drop down selection for preferred pronouns separated from body type/shape myself, but we can barely even add in new objects yet at this point, haha. I could be completely wrong, though; my coding skills leave much to be desired (I'm more of a pixel artist than anything). It'll probably just come down to going through and editing the text dialogue of every villager in the game when they're referring to you, like you have said. A bit of a pain, but hopefully satisfying enough.
No need to be rude to people for no reason (or any reason, for that matter) Try to be nicer in the future.
I was relieved that the NPCs weren't referring a lot to my character's gender and simply brush off the few instances as people not knowing better. Maaaaaybe... we could ask CA? I don't understand a thing about coding, so I have no idea how difficult that would be. But essentially he would have to create a third gender in the program, right? Seems difficult.
If you had access to rewrite the code as CA does it isn't as much difficult as just meaning lots and lots of writing. You'd have to change the variable type (right now it is true/false, so for that there is no third option), then you'd have to change all the times the computer handles the question to instead of expecting a true/false statement to expect the new type of variable (most likely a number) and then last write new scenarios and make sure they are handled correctly. Additionally it would have to be thoroughly checked that every time the question has been asked has been changed, or game-crashing bugs may appear. And this is if you are able to change the hard code. Without that for every time you ask that question you need to pre-emptively catch it, redirect it and change it, while the rest of the code is unchanged. As CA is a lone developer and given the popularity of the game and the pressure of addition of new content, I think the likelihood of him sitting down and doing that is sadly very, very slim.
It would be much easier If all dialoges were stored in xnb files. Currently making a neutral gender is as hard as making a game translation. If any translation will be ready someone will surely make a neutral gender translation.
If a mod isn't possible, there are two ways to look at this: Option A - Your character doesn't have to be you. Role play a bit. Be the pretty young lady who moved in to revive her grandfather's farm or maybe the man who just can't handle his city job anymore. Mix it up. Option B - Even if you identify as another gender (I personally believe there are only two, but I also fully believe that the need for imaginary created ones that have exploded is because of gender views and stereotypes) you're still more than likely going to have male parts or female parts, right? People are just referring to you by your physical sex. That's all.
Thanks for the nice responses guys! I was nervous to post this because I thought I was mostly going to be met with hate. I now see why a third option cant really be added because of the true/false thing... I guess my only option would to replace all the text for either the male or female and replace their gender symbol with a neutral one on the character creation menu, but then that would totally get rid of the option to be one of the other genders which isn't exactly what I wanted, cause I didn't want this mod to just be for me I wanted to give everyone another option. Ooooh such a character creator would be basically my ideal! especially since the male and female farmer sprites look so similar, it would basically be a matter of choosing whether I want big feet or little feet lol...
Yeaaaahhh I pretty much do the roleplay thing in every game I play, I just saw that this game had a modding community so I thought that maybe I wouldn't have to for a change. : ' ) This might be hard for you to understand, but I probably hate that website just as much as you do buddy.
Dude, don't listen to these people who say petty shit like that. Obviously those people have not taken a history class on gender, race and ethnicities, sociology or gender studies course because... why would they? I don't personally know anyone who identifies as non-binary. But my best friend is a transgender man. He's great and knew him before his transition. And I can understand these people not getting it, it took me a while for me to call him by the name he wanted and legally changed it to. But I had a hard time in the beginning and I'll admit that, only because it's not weird... just abnormal --different.
Since I've already given a public warning to someone in this thread I'll make it a general warning: There's no need to be rude and hostile to another member just because you disagree with their views. The next person to do so will get a warning point for hostility/aggression.
For whether it's possible, I'd say: Not yet. At least not fully. SMAPI doesn't currently have the featured required to make the changes, and Storm is a bit too unstable. Both tools have only been around for a couple of weeks so give it a while and something good will come eventually for people to work with. A modder may be able to get some of the way by editing dialog using XNB files though. That might resolve some of the pronoun bits.
lets be fair right. Some people are saying change the XNB files. But those are spread across hunderds of XNB files and you are probably not even gonna be able to find most of them... This would take such a massive amount of time for such a little thing to be changed. I don't see anybody doing this soon or ever untill we get a stable modding tool. And when we do get a stable modding tool i think the focus will be on a whole lot of diffrent things than a change of gender.