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Melissia wrote:None of this is a good reason to force sexism in to a game every single FETHING time you have a woman character.

That is correct, but I don't think anybody has been argueing this, nor would I agree that this is the case for every game with female characters.

 Melissia wrote:
It shouldn't be damn hard for people to admit that realism in videogames can and does also suck in many ways, too.

I agree with this, realism is a weird goal for a hobby that largely markets itself as escapism.

But I'll admit to being biased against realistic games.

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
It shouldn't be damn hard for people to admit that realism in videogames can and does also suck in many ways, too.

I agree with this, realism is a weird goal for a hobby that largely markets itself as escapism.

But I'll admit to being biased against realistic games.

If you are in game design schools. It is literally shoved down your throat to make better more graphically beautiful games.

 Lynata wrote:
That's kind of claiming a self-fulfilling prophecy, though. If you made Jensen customisable, you'd still get the same story with the same things happening, right up to the "push one of three buttons" ending. The only thing that makes characters like Jensen or Lara specific is designers taking choice away from you instead of leaving multiple options.

Customisable how? Change of hair? Clothing? What the hell difference would that make to the game?

And you're making it sound as if characters are arbitrary to the story, like the fact that it's a story about [specific character] rather than [blank slate #33459-A] somehow makes the game more limiting. That's baloney.

 Lynata wrote:

Melissia wrote:None of this is a good reason to force sexism in to a game every single FETHING time you have a woman character.

That is correct, but I don't think anybody has been argueing this

People have stated that the only reason you should ever include women is to have a game about "womens' issues". Which, in the end, has basically the same result.

 Asherian Command wrote:
If you are in game design schools. It is literally shoved down your throat to make better more graphically beautiful games.

That's not surprising, considering how much importance is placed on graphics by the press and a lot of consumers.

Like the backlash against the FF13 PC port.

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
If you are in game design schools. It is literally shoved down your throat to make better more graphically beautiful games.

That's not surprising, considering how much importance is placed on graphics by the press and a lot of consumers.

Like the backlash against the FF13 PC port.

Yeah they are trying to push us mostly to 'realistic' and the problem though is that we lose a lot of skills if we only go for realistic designs.

Where most people are drawing humans, but can't draw creatures. I am known for being able to make a creature, but I suck at human characters.

Lynata,

That is what keeps coming up: That adding a Minority or Female character has to be justified in a story, but a white male character does not.

Especially when it's fantasy. Which reminds me one of my picks for a problematic male character: Barrett from FFVII. Part of me is happy they tried to have a black character, but man, it was bad.

 AdeptSister wrote:
Lynata,

That is what keeps coming up: That adding a Minority or Female character has to be justified in a story, but a white male character does not.

Especially when it's fantasy. Which reminds me one of my picks for a problematic male character: Barrett from FFVII. Part of me is happy they tried to have a black character, but man, it was bad.

Wait what. If your using my idea from last thread. I think I have debated it is fine to add it. It just needs to make sense. You can't just plop a strong female character who is african american in a world where every's natural skin color is blue.

It would be awesome. But it wouldn't make a lick of sense.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Yeah they are trying to push us mostly to 'realistic' and the problem though is that we lose a lot of skills if we only go for realistic designs.

Where most people are drawing humans, but can't draw creatures. I am known for being able to make a creature, but I suck at human characters.

Can you make humans with creature features, like Zeno Clash?

THAT game certainly didn't aim for realism.

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
Yeah they are trying to push us mostly to 'realistic' and the problem though is that we lose a lot of skills if we only go for realistic designs.

Where most people are drawing humans, but can't draw creatures. I am known for being able to make a creature, but I suck at human characters.

Can you make humans with creature features, like Zeno Clash?

THAT game certainly didn't aim for realism.

I would love to.

I mean my art is mostly basically right now. But thats because I just started to draw. But I more about writing and leading groups of people.

The "making sense" is the point of contention. A lot of times, a different gender, sex, or race would not changed the narrative much. Like it was mentioned before, in CoD4 a protagonist was black. It did not effect the story and didn't need to.

 AdeptSister wrote:
The "making sense" is the point of contention. A lot of times, a different gender, sex, or race would not changed the narrative much. Like it was mentioned before, in CoD4 a protagonist was black. It did not effect the story and didn't need to.

And, unlike what people have asserted in both "what problems do gamers have..." threads, this doesn't mean that the guy shouldn't have been black.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Customisable how? Change of hair? Clothing? What the hell difference would that make to the game?
And you're making it sound as if characters are arbitrary to the story, like the fact that it's a story about [specific character] rather than [blank slate #33459-A] somehow makes the game more limiting. That's baloney.

I've already explained how it can make a difference: by allowing a player to avoid or at least lessen what they might consider bad taste (see the first couple pages of this thread), and by granting them the ability to insert more of whatever their personal preferences are at the time of gaming into the product. Of course a game feels limiting if it doesn't offer these options, and this has in the past influenced my purchase decision.

Maybe you simply happen to like any and all premade character you are presented with in the games you play. That's great - just don't assume that everyone had the same luck and shares your preferences.

Melissia wrote:People have stated that the only reason you should ever include women is to have a game about "womens' issues". Which, in the end, has basically the same result.

AdeptSister wrote:That is what keeps coming up: That adding a Minority or Female character has to be justified in a story, but a white male character does not.

What? If so, that is bollocks, of course.

But from how Ash's last comment sounds like, the "making sense" has more to do with setting limitations, rather than the goal of the narrative?

Which means that they can and have always justified excluding women because lazy gakky writers, therefor, feth that excuse.


Or, to be more blunt: "durr, writan wimmenz iz hurd, letz juts sai eetz heesturikul!"

 AdeptSister wrote:
The "making sense" is the point of contention. A lot of times, a different gender, sex, or race would not changed the narrative much. Like it was mentioned before, in CoD4 a protagonist was black. It did not effect the story and didn't need to.

I don't know, I think a female protagonist would have made Watch Dogs more interesting for one

What? If so, that is bollocks, of course.

But from how Ash's last comment sounds like, the "making sense" has more to do with setting limitations, rather than the goal of the narrative?

That is what I am saying, but more elegantly you have said it.

What problems do gamers have with how men are represented in games?

WTF does this even mean? Why would anyone have any problems how men/womyn/cats are represented?

Few years ago there was this resident evil game which was set in africa. It was received pretty poorly but not because it had bad gameplay or myriad of technical difficulties. It was poorly received because it had a white guy shooting black people.

Why should devs waste any effort on features that are as shallow as possbile and add nothing of value to their game? Wanting games to have options for the sake of options is a bad idea. Imagine if the time spent on character creator of skyrim were spent spent melee combat or quest design instead the game would be much better.

 illuknisaa wrote:


Why should devs waste any effort on features that are as shallow as possbile and add nothing of value to their game? Wanting games to have options for the sake of options is a bad idea. Imagine if the time spent on character creator of skyrim were spent spent melee combat or quest design instead the game would be much better.

I know this may come as a shock to anyone who hasn't like, looked at the credits in them but these games are made by a ton of people and those two things were probably done by entirely different teams on the project.

illuknisaa wrote:Why would anyone have any problems how men/womyn/cats are represented?

Are you for real?

illuknisaa wrote:Wanting games to have options for the sake of options is a bad idea.

It's nice if you don't mind playing characters you don't like, but I would not assume this to be a popular opinion. I don't think I would have purchased Skyrim if it had forced me into playing this dude and him alone.

Dismissing character customisation to be "options for the sake of options" is about the same as dismissing narratives as "story for the sake of story". Sure you'll have games where neither won't matter, but to just declare this the standard? I think gaming in general is better than that. We've come past the age of Tetris and Space Invaders.

Chongara wrote:I know this may come as a shock to anyone who hasn't like, looked at the credits in them but these games are made by a ton of people and those two things were probably done by entirely different teams on the project.

But ... but ... think of the budget!

#2hard2render

 Chongara wrote:

 illuknisaa wrote:


Why should devs waste any effort on features that are as shallow as possbile and add nothing of value to their game? Wanting games to have options for the sake of options is a bad idea. Imagine if the time spent on character creator of skyrim were spent spent melee combat or quest design instead the game would be much better.

I know this may come as a shock to anyone who hasn't like, looked at the credits in them but these games are made by a ton of people and those two things were probably done by entirely different teams on the project.

If you cut one thing you can focus money on the other thing and devs are already cutting corners so bad nowadays it looks like a circle instead of a square.

 Lynata wrote:

illuknisaa wrote:Wanting games to have options for the sake of options is a bad idea.

It's nice if you don't mind playing characters you don't like, but I would not assume this to be a popular opinion. I don't think I would have purchased Skyrim if it had forced me into playing this dude and him alone.

Dismissing character customisation to be "options for the sake of options" is about the same as dismissing narratives as "story for the sake of story". Sure you'll have games where neither won't matter, but to just declare this the standard? I think gaming in general is better than that. We've come past the age of Tetris and Space Invaders.

But you were forced to play that character?? The game assumed you were a generic nord dude #428 and it never even tried to try do something else. The race/gender selection in the begining only changes how you look in a first person game. And this was a major selling point for you. How shallow can you be?

If you stop paying people they will go work somewhere else, thus causing you to lose your talent.

 Melissia wrote:
If you stop paying people they will go work somewhere else, thus causing you to lose your talent.

What talent?

I was responding to Bishop.

illuknisaa wrote:How shallow can you be?

Yes, I'm shallow for having lost interest in the 5237642765th iteration of "buff brown-haired dude with stubbly beard".

The more extensive the character creation system, the less intrinsic your created character is to the plot. If you can live with that, then ok, but the idea that games would be better if they allowed more character choice is just flat out wrong.

H.B.M.C. wrote:The more extensive the character creation system, the less intrinsic your created character is to the plot.

That depends heavily on what plot you want to use.
Taking the aforementioned examples of Deus Ex HR or Tomb Raider, what exactly would have to change if Jensen was a Black woman or Lara an Asian man? Pray tell, what exactly was it that was so intrinsic to the plot here?

Simple appearances are only relevant for a plot is the plot is based on them. For the majority of games this is not remotely a factor.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The more extensive the character creation system, the less intrinsic your created character is to the plot. If you can live with that, then ok, but the idea that games would be better if they allowed more character choice is just flat out wrong.

I don't think that is the case. Saint row 2 has massive customization and they are still intrinsic to the plot. They even drive the plot more then most video game protagonist.

Melissia wrote:I was responding to Bishop.

So?

Lynata wrote:

illuknisaa wrote:How shallow can you be?

Yes, I'm shallow for having lost interest in the 5237642765th iteration of "buff brown-haired dude with stubbly beard".

It's like you refuse to look at a painting because you don't like the frames*

*TBH painting's frames are bigger deal than pc's hairstyle in a first person game.