I found it by chance on the internet a long time ago, later I discovered it was from a game, but I don't remember wich one. If you want I can send you the portrait, I have more than one version of it
Serious people, we don't need another gay morality/rights discussion here. This kind of discussion tend to screw with the original thread point. If we could keep it as a clean and direct discussion it would be awesome to work the subject, but experience in this forum tells that we never keep the discussion clean and direct. Example below.
For now yes, but in time, the result can be foreseen in the link i posted above. We need just one radical person to enter the discussion to set the the tread in flames.
For now yes, but in time, the result can be foreseen in the link i posted above. We need just one radical person to enter the discussion to set the the tread in flames.
...which is precisely the reason I would rather not have a new powderkeg in BG2EE; especially one where I have to agree with the "OMG ___ism" side.
There simply are no reasons why all gay options should be evil. Away from the implications, it also sucks for people who play a different alignment, yet want the romance option. Good parties would be screwed. Assumption 1: People who are interested in romance quests roleplay. Assumption 2: There are *very* limited roleplay angles that allow evil characters - especially Dorn's type - in a good party. I can see Viconia fit in good parties - she really just faces the prejudice against drow; Dorn is proud of all his evil deeds and not shy to brag with them. And he's the only m/m romance option, it's not like good parties can just take one of the many alternatives. For that reason alone I think that it would suck to make both options evil.
An on topic contribution, since someone asked for more reactions in Dorn's accusation dialogue:
I could not point fingers at Branwen for some reason, but I read she can usually be selected. Edwin says that yes, of course he was talking behind Dorn's back, since he talks trash about everyone in the party. (There is another conversation between Edwin and Dorn later, but I don't think it's in a romance talk. I can't tell what Dorn's romance talks are.) Xzar is very out of character; his reaction ends with "oh crap, I forgot the rest". That's not how Xzar talks.
>It's not 1998, but not 2030 either, so I'm not expecting a game to glorify non-straight orientations or anything; that would be (weird) scifi. What is so bad about allowing players to have the romance they want? It's only a game.
It diminishes the believably of the non playable characters.
For good RPGs to work, I have to believe that these characters are real, with real emotions, feelings, beliefs, peeves and quirks. All (or most) NPCs should have a "type" ranging from blurry vulgar dwarves to emo I-am-going-to-cry-on-your-shoulder-if-I-can-reach-it halflings that they will fall in love with. They should also have a "Ain't touching that with a rusty halberd" mentality as well.
You should have to work on a romantic relationship just like in RL. It shouldn't be the preteen "I like you, lets hold hands" "ok" mentality. It is where DA2 failed after giant strides with Origins.
let me romance pigs, ducks, ants and ....the 2 headed monkey.... oh wait....that was a very different game right but I want it BEAMDOG... I want to romance JOJO and the 2 headed monkey NOW!!!
Anyway... why dont people just imagine their romance with whoever they want and so the devs dont need to put in every possible way of cross romancing anything? I mean just use your imagination and dont stresstest in every romance debate the poor writers
Risking to be slapped on the fingers for off topic again:
That is also why the entire concept of romances seems so weird to me. How likely is it that out of all the people I meet, roughly 40 % will fall in love with me, but not a single one just wants to be friends? That isn't believable to me, just like it isn't believable that everyone you meet will not have a type at all. It's laziness to give NPCs no restrictions and whenever someone asks "what about romance options for X", point at that NPC and say "there you go". It's also not believable that every charname has exactly the taste that the ONE romance option offers, in this case, a rep-dropping evil mass murderer in a game that most people play as a good aligned character. It's basically Anomen all over again - a personality, no matter how good or bad you find the writing, that clashes with most players and how they imagine their charname, with no alternative if charname is female. I frankly don't think the demographic of "people who play evil and want a gay romance" is so vast that it was important to create an NPC for them alone. I guess what I'm saying is - Dorn is simply not suited to be the "one size fits all" solution, due to his alignment alone.
I agree that the whole concept of romancing everyone "interesting" or crucial to the mainplot is more killing the belivability of a game than adding any deepths to it. How deep is a game where everything is possible just to give players some illusion of freedom and simultaneously ignoring any logical behaviour?
I only mean the implications from an outside perspective. And you know people will draw conclusions based on the smallest things, regardless if there are good reasons for things being the way they are.
Misinterpretations are going to happen - to use the "OMG RACISM" example you brought up, it's a stretch at best. And it'll pop up on a forum like this one from time to time, because that happens when everyone has equal right to say their piece (as it should be). That doesn't mean you have to engage in the conversation if you don't want to. Just pick a different thread.
But there's a lot of conjecture here: firstly, you're assuming there will indeed be a F/F romance in BG2:EE (this has never been explicitly confirmed), you're assuming that romance will be assigned to the new Evil NPC (Neera could just as easily be tweaked to accommodate female PCs), and you're assuming some dire consequence if the two same-sex romance options happen to be evil.
In reality, anyone who seriously engages that line of thought will need to contend with the simple fact that, going into BG2:EE, the dev team knew they would only be adding one more new character. That character had several "gaps" to fill: she had to be Evil due to the severe imbalance in available party members; she had to be a Thief for largely the same reason; and if they're indeed going forward with a lesbian romance, she had to be available for female players simply because she was the only option. It's a design choice, not an expression of ideology.
As for why Dorn was chosen... I suspect it had more to do with the fact that if you read every single D&D-related work from the Gygax/Arneson days to today, you wouldn't find a bisexual half-orc blackguard NPC. Rasaad would have been a "safe" option (and really, you can just as easily make the argument that gay PCs would have been saddled with a largely-useless party member just to experience the romance storyline), Neera would have been predictable (bad enough that she's the fourth elf spellcaster love interest for the male PC), but Dorn? No one saw that coming.
Yeah, so why add more oil to the misinterpretation fire if you can as well avoid it?
I arrived at the conclusion that, if there'll be a f/f romance, it will be the new NPC, exactly the way you did: There will be only one new NPC, so who else could it be? If it is indeed Neera, I'm taking everything back - she's a perfect candidate. Neutral alignment makes her an easy addition for any type of party and her personality of "randomness" fits the non-existant preferences Dorn has much better. Dorn sounds like a rigid person who has a very narrow range of who he finds acceptable as a companion/friend; not someone who would "get to know you and then see where it goes". He pays attention to strength and ruthlessness, and I can't really see how that applies to a 9 strength good aligned gnome charname who actively tries to fight the bhaal essence. Neera seems to be more into personality and wit, so it's more believable she would not dismiss a weak/"wrong" race/whatever else charname.
I'm just thinking if she was really the one to be bi, she would already be in BG1. It's not that time consuming to switch out some pronouns in dialogues and at some point, it must have occured to someone that a f/f romance may be a bit more popular with a (presumably) mainly male, hetero target audience.
Just because something is predictable, it doesn't automatically make it a bad thing. No-one expected Fonzie to really jump over a shark, but it wasn't a good thing either. I also disagree about Rasaad being a "safe" option. He'd be just as bad as Dorn due to the alignment restriction. Though, no, not just as bad; if he'd give +2 rep when joining, it would come out as the same. In other words, if there is something that has no alternatives... make it available to everyone equally. If there was only one single +5 weapon, it should not be restricted to an alignment either.
I believe @kidcarnival that the actual intent of make a bissexual female evil thief (that we presume only) is more a question of pragmatism than an insinuation of homo romances being evil.
We need a pure thief option in BG2. We need an evil thief option in BG2. We need a female bissexual romance in BG2 (fuck year XD!). We will want a new NPC in BG2.
The most simple way to do all this, is to make an Female evil pure thief NPC with an male/female romance option. Everything solved into a single NPC. But this was never announced, we simple presume it.
The devs told about the possibility of an female bi romance in BG2 and nothing about an pure evil thief in BG2. All we have is our assumptions, which is funny, cos:
1° we rationalize the need of an pure evil thief in an old thread that spread in many threads. Devs said nothing about this yet.
2° we rationalize the need of a bissexual female option to balance with Dorn. Devs said only that "will exist/they intent to make" an bissexual female romance option.
3° We assumed the pragmatic choice, that everything would be mix togheter into a single new NPC.
4° We start to criticize our our assumption as an fact and not an presumption.
Obs: people complain about Baldur's Gate being against gay stuff on the past, but it was THE FIRST GAME OF HIS TIME TO ALLOW A CHARACTER TO CHANGE HIS SEX, you see the girdle of masculinity/feminility exist since 1998, a time saw by many as intolerant. The code of the item was yet in BG2, which make possible even in 2000 year to make gay romances by the use of the girdle.
Now you're going to say that "we shoudn't be satisfied with the crumbs fallen from the rich's table" (Oscar Wilde), in this case from the majority table, but you see, this is being fixed now and even in that time of prejudice, Baldur's Gate was at the vanguard of freedom of expression.
Dorn sounds like a rigid person who has a very narrow range of who he finds acceptable as a companion/friend; not someone who would "get to know you and then see where it goes". He pays attention to strength and ruthlessness, and I can't really see how that applies to a 9 strength good aligned gnome charname who actively tries to fight the bhaal essence.
Traditionally, romances in BG2 require that your character express certain beliefs and take very specific courses of action that correspond to the love interest's personality (ie: if you try the same approach with Viconia that you would with Aerie, you'll fail). I expect the same will be true of Dorn. If that results in an inconsistency with the RP, the fault lies with the player for forcing an incompatible romance in the first place, doesn't it?
I'm just thinking if she was really the one to be bi, she would already be in BG1. It's not that time consuming to switch out some pronouns in dialogues and at some point, it must have occured to someone that a f/f romance may be a bit more popular with a (presumably) mainly male, hetero target audience.
An opinion commonly expressed in the forums before the announcement was made was that making Neera the bisexual character (since it was known there would only be one, and maybe that more than anything else is the problem) would basically be a repetition of the Liara T'Soni Problem (ie: throw in a lesbian relationship as fanservice for the stereotypical male gamer).
That said, it's not like Neera's character is exhaustively explored in BG:EE - she could turn out to be an option for female PCs in BG2:EE, I don't think anyone would protest on grounds of character continuity...
Just because something is predictable, it doesn't automatically make it a bad thing. No-one expected Fonzie to really jump over a shark, but it wasn't a good thing either.
No, predictability isn't always bad... but you need to understand that there was a larger issue at work here. BioWare RPGs had a bit of a learning curve when it came to representing non-straight minorities; for Beamdog to go back to Baldur's Gate - Baldur's Gate - and have a major fantasy writer like Dave Gross make that story possible was a huge deal to some players. And I commend them for not taking the obvious route. If that causes some nutters to come out of the woodwork and declare that Beamdog thinks gays are evil... well, I'm sure reasonable people like you and I will be there to shut that down.
I also disagree about Rasaad being a "safe" option. He'd be just as bad as Dorn due to the alignment restriction. Though, no, not just as bad; if he'd give +2 rep when joining, it would come out as the same. In other words, if there is something that has no alternatives... make it available to everyone equally. If there was only one single +5 weapon, it should not be restricted to an alignment either.
The problem with the "make it available to everyone equally" approach is that every time you do that, you reduce replayability. Think about it: if you got the same rewards from the Firkraag quest no matter what you did, there'd be no reason to make different choices the second time around. As it stands, players who want to have a m/m romance will need to have Dorn and probably RP an evil party... why is that a bad thing? BG is a game that thrives on variety, on doing things differently with each playthrough.
@kamuizin - from the Twitter decoding, a female evil thief is the "semi-confirmed" part, the bi/lesbian option is mostly an assumption based on vague "hmm, we'd like to..." Not that it changes anything, neither part is official. The sex change girlde, yeah, it is a way to make a same sex romance (I guess?), but I have never seen it as more than a joke item. It's "oh lol this ogre is so obsessed with girdles, he even takes this OBVIOUSLY CURSED NO USEFUL MAGICAL EFFECT one in his collection". I don't see the "revolutionary symbol for freedom" in it, more an ingame lesson that not every magical item is useful. The other item you find (Gorion's belt) has an effect that makes a new player wonder "oh hey, this has a drawback, but also an advantage - it's probably still a good thing; Gorion was smart and all, I'll wear it". This belt is a warning - it's cursed and you can't remove it, but it will also not gimp you like later items (Iron Thorn, Jester's Folly,...). It just shows you consequences in a harmless, non-gamebreaking way. The belt neither changes your voiceset nor portrait (or of any NPC you put it on), so I frankly doubt it was meant to be what you say.
@shawne - To make a long story short: "I'm sure reasonable people like you and I will be there to shut that down. " I'm sure that will be the case, it's just exactly the thing I'm tired of. Hence the less occassions to have to shut down something arise the better.
(An absolutely revolutionary, unexpected twist would have been... to not make Neera a half elf. A female, romancable caster NPC who is NOT an elf in any way or percentage would have been more unexpected than a bisexual half orc. How was that chance missed...?)
I don't see how a romance (or any) quest being restricted to one alignment adds to the replayablility appeal. Granted, I don't see any appeal in romance quests in the first place; but from the polls and feedback here, it seems most people have a clear preference who they romance anyway. Technically, Jaheira fits in any alignment, but you don't need to have her in your party. If you want a different romance or team, that's perfectly possible; and vice versa, your alignment doesn't make you jump through hoops if you do want to romance her. Viconia in good parties, everyone else in evil parties leads to some sort of reputation management, and in some cases, party choices (Aerie and Korgan, Viconia and Keldorn). That's the only thing the case of Dorn adds - and rep management is more frustrating/annoying than appealing.
The belt neither changes your voiceset nor portrait (or of any NPC you put it on), so I frankly doubt it was meant to be what you say.
I wish every voice set, the PC ones and the NPC ones, had an alternate-gender version, specifically accessible through the girdle. It would be a hilarious way to add variety if you've played the game a few times too many.
(An absolutely revolutionary, unexpected twist would have been... to not make Neera a half elf. A female, romancable caster NPC who is NOT an elf in any way or percentage would have been more unexpected than a bisexual half orc. How was that chance missed...?)
Apparently all the heterosexual male BG devs want to get jiggy with an elf-girl.
I think that's a bit much work for a joke item. But it would be nice if putting the girdle on would bring up the page of character creation, so you can pick a new portrait and voiceset. People intentionally using the belt wouldn't have to shadowkeep that way. Shadowkeeping isn't really perfect anyway, for example, when Baeloth was new and I wanted to see if he had a quest or romance option, I shadowkept (lol?) my male cleric to female - he mentioned sorcerous women, after all. The spellcasting sound stayed male, only the regular voice changed to the female default one.
Rep management... It would be nice, but it wouldn't be an enhancement. Creating a better reputation system (or, even better, values/morality axis) would be a lot more than that.
You expect too much from 1998, the simple fact the girdle exist at that time was by itself an huge change of concepts.
Inside a game made with a lot of family restriction content to keep the morality of that time, the simple existance of the item, for the time he was implemented, was a huge step.
I don't really expect anything from it... As I said, I think it's a joke item like many others, light hearted without putting much thought into it's deeper meaning beyond the in game lesson. Maybe it's not me expecting too much from 1998, but you giving the devs too much credit for an openminded attitude.
The gender bender belt was an item from the Dungeon Master's Guide from the 1st edition AD&D I played growing up. The high school boys I played with thought the whole idea of it was hilarious. They did not read anything into it about social issues. I think the presence of the item is pretty clearly a joke, and nothing more.
Comments
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/4863/gay-romance/p1
There simply are no reasons why all gay options should be evil. Away from the implications, it also sucks for people who play a different alignment, yet want the romance option. Good parties would be screwed. Assumption 1: People who are interested in romance quests roleplay. Assumption 2: There are *very* limited roleplay angles that allow evil characters - especially Dorn's type - in a good party. I can see Viconia fit in good parties - she really just faces the prejudice against drow; Dorn is proud of all his evil deeds and not shy to brag with them. And he's the only m/m romance option, it's not like good parties can just take one of the many alternatives. For that reason alone I think that it would suck to make both options evil.
An on topic contribution, since someone asked for more reactions in Dorn's accusation dialogue:
I could not point fingers at Branwen for some reason, but I read she can usually be selected.
Edwin says that yes, of course he was talking behind Dorn's back, since he talks trash about everyone in the party. (There is another conversation between Edwin and Dorn later, but I don't think it's in a romance talk. I can't tell what Dorn's romance talks are.)
Xzar is very out of character; his reaction ends with "oh crap, I forgot the rest". That's not how Xzar talks.
For good RPGs to work, I have to believe that these characters are real, with real emotions, feelings, beliefs, peeves and quirks. All (or most) NPCs should have a "type" ranging from blurry vulgar dwarves to emo I-am-going-to-cry-on-your-shoulder-if-I-can-reach-it halflings that they will fall in love with. They should also have a "Ain't touching that with a rusty halberd" mentality as well.
You should have to work on a romantic relationship just like in RL. It shouldn't be the preteen "I like you, lets hold hands" "ok" mentality. It is where DA2 failed after giant strides with Origins.
Anyway... why dont people just imagine their romance with whoever they want and so the devs dont need to put in every possible way of cross romancing anything? I mean just use your imagination and dont stresstest in every romance debate the poor writers
That is also why the entire concept of romances seems so weird to me. How likely is it that out of all the people I meet, roughly 40 % will fall in love with me, but not a single one just wants to be friends? That isn't believable to me, just like it isn't believable that everyone you meet will not have a type at all. It's laziness to give NPCs no restrictions and whenever someone asks "what about romance options for X", point at that NPC and say "there you go".
It's also not believable that every charname has exactly the taste that the ONE romance option offers, in this case, a rep-dropping evil mass murderer in a game that most people play as a good aligned character. It's basically Anomen all over again - a personality, no matter how good or bad you find the writing, that clashes with most players and how they imagine their charname, with no alternative if charname is female.
I frankly don't think the demographic of "people who play evil and want a gay romance" is so vast that it was important to create an NPC for them alone. I guess what I'm saying is - Dorn is simply not suited to be the "one size fits all" solution, due to his alignment alone.
someone was clearly a Bruce fan.
Misinterpretations are going to happen - to use the "OMG RACISM" example you brought up, it's a stretch at best. And it'll pop up on a forum like this one from time to time, because that happens when everyone has equal right to say their piece (as it should be). That doesn't mean you have to engage in the conversation if you don't want to. Just pick a different thread.
But there's a lot of conjecture here: firstly, you're assuming there will indeed be a F/F romance in BG2:EE (this has never been explicitly confirmed), you're assuming that romance will be assigned to the new Evil NPC (Neera could just as easily be tweaked to accommodate female PCs), and you're assuming some dire consequence if the two same-sex romance options happen to be evil.
In reality, anyone who seriously engages that line of thought will need to contend with the simple fact that, going into BG2:EE, the dev team knew they would only be adding one more new character. That character had several "gaps" to fill: she had to be Evil due to the severe imbalance in available party members; she had to be a Thief for largely the same reason; and if they're indeed going forward with a lesbian romance, she had to be available for female players simply because she was the only option. It's a design choice, not an expression of ideology.
As for why Dorn was chosen... I suspect it had more to do with the fact that if you read every single D&D-related work from the Gygax/Arneson days to today, you wouldn't find a bisexual half-orc blackguard NPC. Rasaad would have been a "safe" option (and really, you can just as easily make the argument that gay PCs would have been saddled with a largely-useless party member just to experience the romance storyline), Neera would have been predictable (bad enough that she's the fourth elf spellcaster love interest for the male PC), but Dorn? No one saw that coming.
I arrived at the conclusion that, if there'll be a f/f romance, it will be the new NPC, exactly the way you did: There will be only one new NPC, so who else could it be? If it is indeed Neera, I'm taking everything back - she's a perfect candidate. Neutral alignment makes her an easy addition for any type of party and her personality of "randomness" fits the non-existant preferences Dorn has much better. Dorn sounds like a rigid person who has a very narrow range of who he finds acceptable as a companion/friend; not someone who would "get to know you and then see where it goes". He pays attention to strength and ruthlessness, and I can't really see how that applies to a 9 strength good aligned gnome charname who actively tries to fight the bhaal essence. Neera seems to be more into personality and wit, so it's more believable she would not dismiss a weak/"wrong" race/whatever else charname.
I'm just thinking if she was really the one to be bi, she would already be in BG1. It's not that time consuming to switch out some pronouns in dialogues and at some point, it must have occured to someone that a f/f romance may be a bit more popular with a (presumably) mainly male, hetero target audience.
Just because something is predictable, it doesn't automatically make it a bad thing. No-one expected Fonzie to really jump over a shark, but it wasn't a good thing either.
I also disagree about Rasaad being a "safe" option. He'd be just as bad as Dorn due to the alignment restriction. Though, no, not just as bad; if he'd give +2 rep when joining, it would come out as the same. In other words, if there is something that has no alternatives... make it available to everyone equally. If there was only one single +5 weapon, it should not be restricted to an alignment either.
We need a pure thief option in BG2. We need an evil thief option in BG2. We need a female bissexual romance in BG2 (fuck year XD!). We will want a new NPC in BG2.
The most simple way to do all this, is to make an Female evil pure thief NPC with an male/female romance option. Everything solved into a single NPC. But this was never announced, we simple presume it.
The devs told about the possibility of an female bi romance in BG2 and nothing about an pure evil thief in BG2. All we have is our assumptions, which is funny, cos:
1° we rationalize the need of an pure evil thief in an old thread that spread in many threads. Devs said nothing about this yet.
2° we rationalize the need of a bissexual female option to balance with Dorn. Devs said only that "will exist/they intent to make" an bissexual female romance option.
3° We assumed the pragmatic choice, that everything would be mix togheter into a single new NPC.
4° We start to criticize our our assumption as an fact and not an presumption.
Obs: people complain about Baldur's Gate being against gay stuff on the past, but it was THE FIRST GAME OF HIS TIME TO ALLOW A CHARACTER TO CHANGE HIS SEX, you see the girdle of masculinity/feminility exist since 1998, a time saw by many as intolerant. The code of the item was yet in BG2, which make possible even in 2000 year to make gay romances by the use of the girdle.
Now you're going to say that "we shoudn't be satisfied with the crumbs fallen from the rich's table" (Oscar Wilde), in this case from the majority table, but you see, this is being fixed now and even in that time of prejudice, Baldur's Gate was at the vanguard of freedom of expression.
That said, it's not like Neera's character is exhaustively explored in BG:EE - she could turn out to be an option for female PCs in BG2:EE, I don't think anyone would protest on grounds of character continuity... No, predictability isn't always bad... but you need to understand that there was a larger issue at work here. BioWare RPGs had a bit of a learning curve when it came to representing non-straight minorities; for Beamdog to go back to Baldur's Gate - Baldur's Gate - and have a major fantasy writer like Dave Gross make that story possible was a huge deal to some players. And I commend them for not taking the obvious route. If that causes some nutters to come out of the woodwork and declare that Beamdog thinks gays are evil... well, I'm sure reasonable people like you and I will be there to shut that down.
The sex change girlde, yeah, it is a way to make a same sex romance (I guess?), but I have never seen it as more than a joke item. It's "oh lol this ogre is so obsessed with girdles, he even takes this OBVIOUSLY CURSED NO USEFUL MAGICAL EFFECT one in his collection". I don't see the "revolutionary symbol for freedom" in it, more an ingame lesson that not every magical item is useful. The other item you find (Gorion's belt) has an effect that makes a new player wonder "oh hey, this has a drawback, but also an advantage - it's probably still a good thing; Gorion was smart and all, I'll wear it". This belt is a warning - it's cursed and you can't remove it, but it will also not gimp you like later items (Iron Thorn, Jester's Folly,...). It just shows you consequences in a harmless, non-gamebreaking way.
The belt neither changes your voiceset nor portrait (or of any NPC you put it on), so I frankly doubt it was meant to be what you say.
@shawne - To make a long story short: "I'm sure reasonable people like you and I will be there to shut that down.
(An absolutely revolutionary, unexpected twist would have been... to not make Neera a half elf. A female, romancable caster NPC who is NOT an elf in any way or percentage would have been more unexpected than a bisexual half orc. How was that chance missed...?)
I don't see how a romance (or any) quest being restricted to one alignment adds to the replayablility appeal. Granted, I don't see any appeal in romance quests in the first place; but from the polls and feedback here, it seems most people have a clear preference who they romance anyway. Technically, Jaheira fits in any alignment, but you don't need to have her in your party. If you want a different romance or team, that's perfectly possible; and vice versa, your alignment doesn't make you jump through hoops if you do want to romance her. Viconia in good parties, everyone else in evil parties leads to some sort of reputation management, and in some cases, party choices (Aerie and Korgan, Viconia and Keldorn). That's the only thing the case of Dorn adds - and rep management is more frustrating/annoying than appealing.
Rep management... It would be nice, but it wouldn't be an enhancement. Creating a better reputation system (or, even better, values/morality axis) would be a lot more than that.
Inside a game made with a lot of family restriction content to keep the morality of that time, the simple existance of the item, for the time he was implemented, was a huge step.