Reconsider Female Characters!

(Mustang) #181

Rofl, source?

(signofzeta) #182

[QUOTE=Senyin;205242][I]Case in point? Me using a female avatar in Playstation Home. I also have another avatar that looks like my real life self, and I use that more often anyway, but either avatar, if I feel like being a girl or feel like messing with people, I use the female avatar.

If I feel like being my normal self, I use the avatar that looks like my real life self.[/I]

So would you say you use the ‘real life self’ avatar 90% of the time?

Also people aren’t born gay.
Eh…you are kidding right?

Also HORSE has a good point.[/QUOTE]

Back to the born gay thing, the statement I made is actually still a mystery. It is kind of both. Yes some people are born gay, but that isn’t enough to convince SD to make female avatars. As for Playstation home, I have a choice on who to use, and the avatars there are fully customizable. In Brink, I can’t even make my guy look like my real life self, it just isn’t done. So why is it any different to have female avatars? Maybe you should start a petition if you want it so badly. Then I can know how many signatures are out there, which translates to around $60 each when they buy a copy of the game, and compare it to how much SD would lose in terms of doing a gender reassignment with the skinny male model, or how much more money they would waste making a female set of characters and animations.

If you want it so badly, go mod it yourself. If you can’t, then too bad, no one is making you play this.

Also if you are too attached to who you are in the game, then maybe just take a deep breath and just go back into reality. I play these games as a hobby, and it isn’t something to just totally immerse myself into. If you can do what I do, then you wouldn’t care if the character you play as is a short obese guy who runs around eating stuff, and um eating stuff. You immerse yourself as the character, and not the other way around.

As I said back before ETQW launch, to tell splash damage to make female characters for their next game, and that would be brink, immediately after the game is announced. And since this thread started in december of 2009, it shows that you are a little too late. SD saw no reason to make female characters because there wasn’t a thread there to talk about it. If there was, then show me. But as of now there is wasn’t a thread. Now that they made all male models, then I’m afraid you missed the boat.

(signofzeta) #183

Television.

(jRAD) #184

[QUOTE=signofzeta;205259]

As I said back before ETQW launch, to tell splash damage to make female characters for their next game, and that would be brink, immediately after the game is announced. And since this thread started in december of 2009, it shows that you are a little too late. SD saw no reason to make female characters because there wasn’t a thread there to talk about it…[/QUOTE]

http://splashdamage.com/forums/showpost.php?p=203448&postcount=6

(alias) #185

no i dont see this as an must…not at this time anyway… maybe for part 2,
when the fanbase is big and diverse.

(H0RSE) #186

I think that’s the point…a reason why they can’t use bigger weapons.

I’m sure you’ll be able to have your character at least resemble yourself in Brink. With the way the artstyle is, it would look like a caricature of yourself.

Well good for you…everybody isn’t you.

(Senyin) #187

[QUOTE=signofzeta;205259] Maybe you should start a petition if you want it so badly.
If you want it so badly, go mod it yourself.
[/QUOTE]

I already explained that it’s not a matter of wanting it badly.
I dont want it badly :rolleyes:

[QUOTE=signofzeta;205259]
Also if you are too attached to who you are in the game, then maybe just take a deep breath and just go back into reality.
I play these games as a hobby, and it isn’t something to just totally immerse myself into.
If you can do what I do, then you wouldn’t care if the
character you play as is a short obese guy who runs around eating stuff,
and um eating stuff. You immerse yourself as the character, and not
the other way around.[/QUOTE]

So you would not care if all Brink models were skinny men in tights.
You would not care if all the soldiers in COD were barbiedolls in pink camouflage.
You would not care if all GDF models were naked leprecons.
Would all be fine with you because you would immerse in these characters
and it would certainly not break your immersion of the game itself.
That’s what I’m getting from this piece of quote.

Also there is a difference between Single player and Multiplayer IMHO.
In single player, I indeed immerse myself as the character, like you said.

In multiplayer, you don’t play a role. You’re not Gordon Freeman,
Lara Croft or Sgt. Gary “Roach” Sanderson.
You come as “you”. Customization even brings that a step further.
And it’s usually nice if you can find or make
a model that represents you a little, just like you did with your ‘real life me’ avatar
in that playstation thingy.

(Profane) #188

[QUOTE=signofzeta;205218]sorry, but you are wrong. The male and female brains are different and the gender identity has been established since birth, unless that person would grow up to be a homosexual.

If you have this proteus effect, or something like that, then you are playing too much. When I play, I pick female and male avatars equally, provided what their stats really are. If you heard of the game You Don’t Know Jack 5th dementia, you get to choose between 2 male faces or 2 female faces as icons. For me, I choose the one depending on which of the 4 has the funniest blurb that is underneath it, nothing to do with the fact that I’m a male.

Ok, if you can name any female who from birth started playing video games, especially FPS games, without any prior exposure to video games, that is no cousins or brothers, and only hung out with girls when she was a kid, then I’m wrong and you are right. As of now, if any female does not hang out with males or her family isn’t exposed to video games in general, then there is absolutely no way that she would even play video games in the first place. Males are more likely to play video games on their own and females are more likely to play because someone else likes that hobby, or they are surrounded by video games.[/QUOTE]

The Proteus Effect isn’t about ‘playing too much’ (an attempt at slyly insulting me fails when I spend more time reading books than playing). You don’t suddenly begin thinking “I’m Lara Croft.” It’s a subconscious association. Your avatar’s physical appearance alters your behavior. And Horse had a better way of putting than I: immersion.

You and I are disagreeing on biology (in which a significant portion of the population can be deemed male or female on the basis of genetic anomalies and hormones - the SA runner’s performance was thought to’ve been better because of higher than usual testosterone production, giving her a mannish appearance) and cultural imprinting (you seriously have no clue). But the more basic thing we disagree on is you generalize and I recognize that humanity’s biologies and behavior covers a spectrum that can’t be summed up neatly on a forum by saying…“Male. Female.” We are shaped by our genetics, our environment, our culture and our experiences.

And my existence pretty much ruins your argument about girls and video games. I saw the Nintendo being played when I was about 4 or so and wanted one. (And yes, for anyone, male or female, to desire to play a video game, they would first have to see it being played. So let’s not even trip down that illogical path, k?) I was the only one in the family to play video games for years, and I had no male relatives to bogart the system from me.

To suggest female gamers only like video games because some dude liked it first is verging on sexism and crosses well over the line into silly.

There would be some overlap between what males and females would become after birth, but there is no such male who acts like a female from birth and will never do what extreme females do, and vice versa.

Yeah, you hold onto that thought real hard. You’ve clearly never been around kids if you think male and female kids have such drastically different behavior.

Stereotypes about gender are why girls currently seem to prefer dolls to video games. You should maybe study history. Learn all about those ‘feminine’ men who pranced around during the Renaissance. Maybe Europeans were all just gay, eh?

And as for leaving half of the gaming population out, which in fact is a quarter or probably a fifth since half of the gamers aren’t female, and let’s make that one twentieth females who play FPS games, and let’s make that one hundredths who actually give a damn about female avatars.

facepalms on your behalf 50% (more like 51%) of the human population. Not the current gamer population. And since one day we’ll all age and die, game companies will always be on the look-out for new customers. Currently the female market is very underserved, which is at least partly due to a lack of marketing. Ergo, if game companies want more customers, and simply not the same customers they already have, they have to branch out.

Another thing is, what would you “I want female avatar” gamers want? A female avatar, or kids harassing gamers who use female avatars? Huh? It is normal to think just because anyone uses a female avatar, whether they be a guy or a girl, that the gamer behind the female avatar is a girl. Also, don’t you think that when you don’t talk during a session, and that there aren’t kids harassing you is because you are using a male avatar? Would you want any kids harassing you when they see a female avatar? I think not.

Um, so let me get this right…sexual harassment in online gaming is the result of a feminine appearance? It’s not a self-replicating attitude created by a sense that video games are an arena for males? And it’s not helped along by a lack of female avatars in most other games, creating a sense that female avatars are a deviation from the norm and, by extension, female gamers? I had no idea that I’m the cause of my own harassment! gasp It’s certainly not a bunch of immature jerks and the silent male majority who refuse to call them out on their idiocy. Tsk.

The only way for human males and females is sociologically, and NOT anatomically and psychologically. Well if you are in the supposed grey area, I’m afraid to say, no offense to homosexuals, that you are gay, well at least from what I have heard, males who act like female tend to be gay anyway and vice versa. If I’m wrong about the whole gay thing, tell me, because I have never seen an extreme hardcore male who is actually gay. Also people aren’t born gay. So that takes out the anatomical and psychological aspects. Without sociological aspects, and environmental influence, that supposed “grey” area does not exist.

You’ve clearly never heard of matriarchal societies. There are gender differences…but they’re given stark associations by culture, not biology. Which is why we notice deviations. Not because they’re unnatural, but because our culture deems some things to be male and some things to be female. It’s the old black-and-white standard applied to a grey world.

Don’t even start on the homosexuality thing. Aside from flame wars over born/made, everything you just said is just…glaringly wrong on every level. There are gay men everywhere rolling in their graves.

And yes, I’ve studied genetics, psychology, sociology and plenty of other things. You’re making guesses at your information, without having studied it. When was the last time you read a case study on any of this? Was it a requirement for a class? I can play the “my education is better than yours” game, too. I just didn’t see the point since if pressed, I can provide links to everything I’ve spoken about. When you’re sure of your evidence, you don’t see much point to questioning someone’s education.

Anyway, still going way off-topic. I’m not buying Brink, not out of some “omg, there aren’t female avatars!” but because it’s more of an industry standard to not include female avatars than to include them. So I’m putting my foot down and will encourage all the chicks I know to do the same. There used to be this thing called a boycott, you see, where consumers used their money to demand a (usually) moral change. So, instead of whining that I merely want female avatars and actually expecting a company to listen (oh, how naive the thought), I’ll be using my money instead. Now, I’m only a $60 sale. Get enough female gamers (and maybe their boyfriends and buddies, eh?) to demand it and it might matter.

I doubt that’ll ever happen, but it’s better than just accepting things the way they are.

(Nail) #189

here’s some fps games with female characters for you:

http://sfront.ijji.com/

http://blackshot.outspark.com/

http://combatarms.nexon.net/

(signofzeta) #190

If you want female characters, then I demand dwarves, obese people, giants, asians, blacks, first nations people, elves, guys in wheelchairs, and strogg in the game.

So in an effort to prove females are different from males, and that this thread here proves it, is that, you complain alot about not having female characters in the game, but I haven’t seen a single thread about a male of an ethnic descent complaining about how his people isn’t part of the game. Wow… just wow. You probably can change clothes on your character and not facial features, and you only have a default set to pick from. So can you make a guy look like a first nations person? Or an asian guy? I don’t think so, unless Splash Damage proves me wrong.

And just go think about those other people who never get what they want, I mean need. Think of those who work to get what they want and need. Splash Damage works for it, and you didn’t. You don’t have to pay for the game, Splash Damage won’t miss a couple hundred of dollars, when they know that implementing female characters could cost more than that.

So in case you haven’t noticed, Splash Damage said explicitly not to include females in the game is not to piss you off, it is because it is to add more customization with the already existing male counterpart, rather than add a completely new female model. They chose that path, and it is their decision to make. If it is a bad one, then whatever. There are a lot of games out there, and for goodness sakes, why do you have to explicitly bug splash damage? Why not bug infinity ward or something.

So far, adding an asian male is easier than adding a female. I don’t think splash Damage has added asians in the game yet, and if asians never made it to the game, I don’t see one single thread here stating that there aren’t asians in the game. I never even started such a thread knowing that I’m of Asian descent. Now I’ve been playing a lot of games, and I have no problem being whatever the game gives me. If I were a male wearing a pink tutu, then so be it, I’d probably laugh, but if the game is good, then I’d go for it.

Now even if Asians were in the game, how about other minorities? First Nations people. How about disabled people? Huh? How about them? I don’t see any wheelchair bound models in the game kind of like Ironside.

Hey, to all gamers out there, has there ever been a first person shooter where the character is in a wheelchair? Huh? Anybody?

If you are going to make a fuss about this game not having female characters, then you should re-evaluate yourselves, because I know some females who make a fuss about more important things, like getting a job or being able to do things they weren’t allowed to do, and they stood up for that. It does not matter if I’m wrong about the psych stuff. At least I have a cool head when I don’t get what I want. Even if I don’t get it, at least I have the patience to get what I want another time.

Also boycott all you want, you and your friends still don’t make a significant portion of gamers who are dominated by males, and females who don’t give a rats ass about not being to play as a female character because they are too patient and cool headed, and know that there are other games out there that do have female characters. If you can gather about 80% of the female population that really cares for this game, to tell Splash Damage to implement female characters, they might listen. But to them, having a few people is like having this one minority trying to convince the government to do such and such a thing, at least convincing the government is more important that convincing game developers. So having female characters in the game isn’t standard to FPS yet, but a little patience, and maybe in the future, this may happen.

So to do you all a favor, I ask Splash Damage this. For your next game after Brink or for Brink’s expansion or whatever, please implement female characters. I don’t care for excuses, just find a way to implement them. Oh yeah, implement wheelchair bound crimefighters, and Asians too.

(Reanimator) #191

You can make your character (almost) any ethnicity you want, wheelchair-bound people would not be practical nor make any sense in the story-line. Zeta it will do no good to speculate on how character customization will be implemented until we get some kind of press release, you are drawing random conclusions from a lack of sources.

(Pegazus) #192

Saying that you won’t buy Brink, not because of the Females avatars missing part, but then completely reversing your answer to the conclusion that you wont buy Brink because it does not have Female avatars in it.
Make up your mind already.
Also don’t come talking about The Developers not listening to our wishes. Plenty of that was going on with Quake Wars.

Not buying Brink because it is missing Females is strange if not mind blowing. I myself would like to have them too in the game, but there won’t be, tough luck? I don’t think so because we get a lot more customizes for our Male characters.

(darthmob) #193

Profane, maybe you should convince everyone to buy Brink so that the game will be a success and there may be female avatars in the second installment. :slight_smile:

(DarkangelUK) #194

Of reasons not to buy a game, that has to be the stupidest yet. I can see the point if it was a gameplay affecting component that was being left out such as jumping or the ability to move forward… but because there’s no female models? I think it’s gonna be your loss more than SD’s on this one…

(signofzeta) #195

I just had to say this, although mean sounding, but I think Profane is a nun, and her convent was attacked by vikings, or something like that. To save herself, and her followers, she had to take a knife and cut off her nose just so the vikings find her unattractive, so the vikings won’t violate the nuns’ virginity. After that, the vikings burned Profane’s convent to the ground because of the disfigurement. And now, there is an idiom based on that story. Her survival was a miracle, and I’m shocked to see she never learned her lesson on never cutting own nose to spite face.

Just pretend that the safety of the convent is the implementation of female characters in the game.
The nose is the purchase of the game.
The nuns are Profane’s boycott buddies.
Splash Damage is the Vikings.

the story was that that the nuns thought the vikings would leave them alone because they were ugly. But because of their ugliness, they burned the convent to the ground, with the nuns still inside.

Now about Profane’s boycott, and how it will affect Splash Damage’s decision to implement female characters into their game and future games? I don’t know, you decide. I think this answer is a tough one.

If she does not end up buying the game, and Splash Damage does not gain any loss, or does not make female characters for their next game, because not enough females are buying their games anyway, I’m going to have to force myself to call Profane “Mother Superior”.

(Reanimator) #196

[QUOTE=signofzeta;205426]
If she does not end up buying the game, and Splash Damage does not gain any loss, or does not make female characters for their next game, because not enough females are buying their games anyway, I’m going to have to force myself to call Profane “Mother Superior”.[/QUOTE]

You actually made a valid point, which I agree with, although it was presented in an unorthodox fashion.

(tokamak) #197

Yeah, I bet there would be less extreme analogies than to posit SD as a viking raping one of their forum members in nun clothing to get the point across.

(Reanimator) #198

That analogy did seem a bit off

(signofzeta) #199

That’s because that’s the story where the idiom “don’t cut off the nose to spite the face” comes from. Well that is one of the reason’s for the idiom’s existence.

(Senyin) #200

Boycotting Brink because there are no female models?
NO WAY!! =D

If that is ones choice I understand. I can go along with many points
that Profane has made and respect her point of view.
But I will buy this game the day of release, no doubt.

No female models, Yes, it irks me.
It irked me before ETQW’s release too …but once the game is
installed and I fire it up I forget all about it to be honest.
After all, gameplay and fun is priority nr.1, at least to me.

Still I think SD is missing the opportunity to attract more female gamers
because costumization is usually a chickmagnet :smiley: :wink: