Modding Help Non-binary farmer? is it possible?

A non-binary option would certainly be nice, but as others have already mentioned it would a bit of a modding nightmare to implement. I'd love for games to eventually move away from gender choices completely and simply offer a complete character customization system with sliders and/or options that covers everything. And then, much like we have a field for character name, we would have a field for pronoun input.

Ah, perhaps one day.

Additionally, to everyone saying there are only two genders: Perhaps take a course on non-binary genders from various cultures around the globe which colonization tried its damnedest to stamp out. The concept of the gender binary is a rather modern invention and people have been pushing against it for a very long time. It's only now we're actually being heard.

 

I'm not going to go into a long rant to defend my existence, as unfortunately I already have to do that in real life concerning my family, state legislators, and people who belong to hate groups aimed at harming myself and my loved ones. But I did want to say thank you to the mod team, particularly FlyingAnonymoose, for taking a clear stance on harassment against us. That means a lot.

Regarding the OP, I would be very excited for such a mod-- I was the OP from the thread regarding locker room access (thanks again to keyten for helping! you are awesome). I am not very familiar with C# myself but if there is anything I can do to help I am 100% on board! I'd imagine we would need to redraw the character creation screen to some degree, and though pixel art is not my forte I'd be willing to try.

In the meantime, for anyone who wanted to get rid of the gendered locker room access, here's a link to that thread. The mod is really easy to install and works great! http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/neutral-gender-protagonist.109288/

 

....would it be easier to just ctrl+f through all the dialogue and replace he/she with they?

should be easier than changing the code at least.
and we know that whoever is downloading it is already going to be interested in gender neutrality.

wont cover everything, but it should take a lot less time and can be a quick fix while the rest of the code is tweaked.

 

Ah, I apologize for misunderstanding the intentions of the OP.

I think it would be difficult to code such a feature. Changing the pronouns is certainly possible, but adding the option to select non-binary as your gender might be difficult. There's also the issue with the bathrooms. Maybe one of the 2 bathrooms could just be changed to gender neutral in the mod.

I like this idea, it's interesting and certainly needed.

 

Impossible? No. Difficult? Not that much. Problematic? Yup!

If we had a proper API this wouldn't be that difficult to do. You know, a character creation screen where you choose your gender and the pronouns.
The real problem is the number of files that need to be edited to achiev this. Mod compatibility would be a huge issue.
The more you change the game, higher are the chances of imcompatibility.

Maybe someday in the future someone could make a "universal" new character creation screen, like the RaceMenu in Skyrim. This way, the mod would be so huge, that it could work.

 

Hm, I was thinking about this as well, but it might be a little bit more difficult than just changing flat out. The way that they/them is used in a sentence is not wholly analogous to he/her, so some of the surrounding words would need to be changed as well. For example:

"He is a farmer" becomes "They are a farmer"

 

Ohhh, what I have found In the code.
First of all Gender is integer. 0 is male, 1 is female 2 is undefined.
Also here is some part of code:

Code:

            if ((a5 = array[4]) != null)
            {
                if (!(a5 == "female"))
                {
                    if (a5 == "undefined")
                    {
                        this.gender = 2;
                    }
                }
                else
                {
                    this.gender = 1;
                }
            }

It exists! Undefined gender! Now we just have to wait until the dev has time to write gender neutral dialogues.

 

my simple brain that doesnt know anything about coding doesnt understand fully but yay!! thank you for looking for this!

 

A neutral gender would be much appreciated!

 

You guys really should consider hiring professional help. A good freelance programmer could probably take care of this with ease.

 

I agree but It doesn't seems like any professional developers will spend their precious time on mods for games.
Does anyone know if the translation to any language is 100% ready? If only we could somehow catch string input...

 

They will, if not for pure boredom, at least for a price. If a lot of people really want this modded into the game in a satisfactory manner, hiring a professional would be the best way to go about it. The more people interested, the less money each one has to part with, too.

tl;dr crowdfund it

 

I have. I'm seeing an endocrinologist this week to start hormone replacement therapy.

I trust my doctor more than people on the internet I don't even know as far as my mental and physical health go.

Edit: Here's a video by Zinnia Jones that handles this more calmly than I can:

 

Issues with crowd funding the mod being:
One: People would be paying someone to make money off of someone else's product, essentially. Remember what happened with the Steam Mod Store? Do you really want a repeat, only one localized to SDV?
Two: Finding someone who would be willing to do the mod without
a. Being derogatory or hiding derogatory statements in the code
b. Set a fair price.
c. Not take the money and run, becàuse they would be unlikely to take payment as upon completion.
Three: Making any mod something that has to be purchased would set a very bad precedence for the fandom, as it very well could lead to other mod authors wanting pay- and then the people who wanted a neutral gender/non-binary Farmer mod would be blamed for 'starting' it. And yes, I am saying that from experience- I saw something like it happen on another game's forum, and that game hadn't even gotten out of Beta and had a community maybe a thousandth of the size of SDV's.

As a slightly less potentially inflammatory replacement to crowdfunding, perhaps waiting until a not male and not female gender can be set and added to dialogue flags, then having people volunteer to go through a section add the line of code that triggers the neutral pronoun. That and some people willing to look at the dialogue scripts for events and write out versions of the lines that would trigger when the third-gender flag was present.

It'd take time and at least few people with rudimentary knowledge of coding, but from what I remember o my C coding classes, it would basically be adding a "IF gender = NOT Male AND gender =NOT female THEN 'dialogue'." or something like "IF gender = NonBinary THEN 'dialogue'". Might not be exactly that cut and dry, but given that gender is a single value as opposed to being decided by the combination of several others, it also wouldn't be the worst system to add a third gender value to.

 

I think Anaxagoras wasn't saying that it had to be purchased once coded. Rather a few people pool money together and hire one guy for [x] hours to write a mod which is then released for free.

 

It would still be paying someone for CA's product, which if he's okay with that, then that part isn't an issue.

As to the Steam Mod shop comparison, it would still risk setting up expectation for modders getting paid for what they do, the same way it happened with Steam. Mods that take five minutes suddenly have the writer wanting x amount per month or total crowd funding before releasing it. Paywalls on mods that lock away either additional features or backers getting patches early with non backers being scheduled to get the same patch one or even two months later- if the modder decidesmto keep their word on that part instead of dangling it for another week or two. I've even seen modders set a goal for an amount of paid hours, only to suddenly increase the goal by as much as four times the starter goal, because they were adding additional features that weren't asked for, and won't release whatever they already had written at the time.

Maybe I've just seen some exceptionally assholish modder and coders, which has left me so wary about the idea.

It's a completely different story when it comes to donations- as long as they show they are actually working and are making progress and won't suddenly hold whatever they have done hostage, I'm more comfortable with the idea.

 

I meant a programmer, not a doctor, but thanks for the video.

@harmburger
That's precisely right.

@Ghostly Fox
True, volunteer work is certainly doable, but not many people were stepping forward. Hiring a professional is a surefire way. In regards to setting a standard, I honestly believe you're overthinking it. If enough people want something bad enough that they're willing to shell out money, naturally someone will be equally willing to take on the job for said money. No side is at fault for this. Even if other modders started showing up charging for their work, if people weren't willing to pay they'd die out shortly afterwards. That's the beauty of the market.

You raise a good point in regards to CA's opinion, though. I do believe this matter should be forwarded to him, asking whether he minds.

 

Its fine to pee on me, just don't tell me its raining.

I've seen people adjust the dialogue for the Wizard to be female, so if someone had some time they could probably go through and update all the files in the Dialogue folder for the different NPC's to non-gendered references. I might take a stab at it myself.

 

As a straight cis male: No. There are two sexes. Gender and sex are separate, gender is a social construct while sex is a biological fact.

EDIT: To fit with the discussion - I probably wouldn't use it myself, because of the above (me = straight cis male), but I fully approve the idea of such a mod being made, and if I had any coding ability whatsoever I'd maybe even start working on it myself.