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

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**Chongara**

None that can't be more broadly generalized into issues with games characters as a whole. For the most part male characters get a wide variety of interesting character designs, narrative and mechanical roles, they're freely slotted into just about any archetype. On the whole I'd say the state of "Men" in gaming is about as good as any class of persons gets in gaming.

**Chongara**

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.

**Chongara**

I think both custom and and pre-built characters are equally valid game elements, no matter if what you are/aren't getting customization with is appearance or something else.

However, I can certainly appreciate a frustration with the large stable of games using rather "Stock" characters. Particularly when so many of those games are trying to make "You" the player character in question, with the stock option being so unlike you only for the sake of safe marketability.

That said I'm not sure those are valid criticisms of set characters or even the stock characters like Grizzled McWhiteDude in and of themselves. Rather the problem is with how just how prolific and flimsily justified the uses of these elements are.

**Chongara**

Melissia wrote:
Ashiraya wrote:
Melissia wrote:
Lynata wrote:
... or maybe we've just gotten old and we have all those precious memories of how "magical" everything was back then
Nah, Total Annihilation was better.

I've tried Total Annihilation and I was not impressed. What was supposed to be good with it?

If you excuse the little trail off topic.
For one, it was the first RTS game that tracked actual movement of projectiles over a 3d terrain; it had a much vaster scale than any non-space RTS up to that point; was even easier than starcraft to modify and totally convert in to new games; it had air units that were more than just blimps hovering in the sky (a rarity even to this day; starcraft 2 still hasn't managed it); it had a classic and epic sci-fi backstory; It had true line of sight, with 3d calculations on what provided sight to what; it had deeply customizable AI for individual or groups of units (something which wasn't abnormal back then, but which the 'craft series always lacked); its "flow" economy made the game make much more sense than the standard economies of RTS games, its expansion was perfect and expanded the story and gameplay dramatically; it was the first RTS which had purely water maps, etc etc etc.

I could rant for a while about it, but it's easier to say what it lacks, rather than what was good about it-- and that would be that it lacks defined characters and it lacks an attack-move option. And that was about it really, compared to other games of its time period.

This all sounds rather neat from a technical perspective and like it could do a far bit for immersion and depth with good execution. On the other hand it sounds like a total nightmare when it comes to accessibility, consistency and clear mechanics.

Like opaque calculations for TloS are certainly cool, but they'd be a bear for anyone looking to master a system or follow the actions of a game in progress. The Starcraft games execute on those points very successfully (as do things like MOBAs), which I think really accounts for both their broad audience and acceptance as spectator sports of sorts.

**Chongara**

You can criticize, but saying Blizzard is bad because blizzard is bad. Does not mean I will agree with you. When they have many memorable characters, and very well written plots.

I like Blizzard products for the most part, hell I've probably put more hours into their games than any other one company. Still of all the merits you could give their games "Well written" is not one of them. As writing goes they're somewhere above Tommy Wisseau, but somewhere below your average Arnie movie. Probably somewhere around how to kill a mockingbird level.

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