E3 2018

[Deleted member 116369]

I kinda hate how alot of people would praise the new Wolfenstein just for the story while ignoring how it plays more like a cover shooter and has a shit ton of cutscenes.
It's like people care more about seeing a blockbuster movie in a game rather than actually playing it.

 

[Risewild]

I kinda hate how alot of people would praise the new Wolfenstein just for the story while ignoring how it plays more like a cover shooter and has a shit ton of cutscenes.
It's like people care more about seeing a blockbuster movie in a game rather than actually playing it.

These days, people do care more about watching a game than playing it. How else do you explain that Youtubers and Twitchers that do "Let's Play" of games, are so popular, influencial and get tons and tons of views?

We reached an age where watching someone play games, or "watching" the game cinematics is more interesting for a number of "gamer" people than actually play the games.

 

[MPPlantOfficial]

....

I remember back in 09-10ish I used the first no-commentary let's plays for games I wanted to play but my PC (at the time) couldn't handle. Now I still use let's plays for segments I don't know how to progress in.
For example I used Nerd Commando's strategy (Great channel) for my 2nd playthrough of Nevada. 1st one was an unarmed that hit a dead end at Reno upon realizing Speech isn't as good as it was in Vanilla.

Though there are some franchises I'm interested in the story like Mortal Kombat for example but I'm disinterested in memorizing frame data and "gitting Ghudd" at that game so I use these:
Bare minimum fighting sequences and straight up cutscenes.

 

[Crni Vuk]

In general the number of female combatants in history has always disproportional to male combatants because society assigned different roles to women. (practical reasons or misogynistic reasons). From what I recall even the Amazons - an in general all female tribe with many of them being warriors is pure mythology or ancient Greek fan fiction.

When you look at it, it does make sense to put creatures at the front line that are bathing in testosterone since their puperty, which is actually THE reason for increased muscle growth, bone density and size. You just have to look at male and female weight lifters where the males almost always outperform the females. It looks particularly dire when you take team sports and let female and male teams play against each other, the male teams usually wipe the floor with female teams.

So I am not sure where this idea of 'Women can do it all!' is coming from. Nature simply say no here. Research shows, that there is literaly no difference in cognitive abilities, in other words males and females share the same intellect, but when it comes to anything that has to do with strength and size, it becomes a much different story. Of course, that has nothing to do with games. I am just saying when it comes to real live, like combat or sport males have often the advantage.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

So I am not sure where this idea of 'Women can do it all!' is coming from.

It is something I have seen popping up more and more, on television, in comics, video games. I think it has something to do with the "Gender is a social construct thing."

Personally I have never seen women as "inferior", just different with their own strengths and qualities.
Some professions or skills are better suited to men and others are better suited to women.
There are sometimes some viewpoint differences that can lead to arguments but in a healthy society there is room for both without one being raised over the other.

Before I go off subject with this, those differences you also mentioned is what I mean game design could play on to give players a completely different experience to when one plays a male character, especially when one takes historical context into account.
Female characters do not have to be made inferior, they just play different. Perhaps more subtlety is required or other capabilities a woman has that a man doesn't in a game like this. (and no I am not talking about sex)

A male Spartan character could be well respected by his peers because of his reputation but a female priestess character could perhaps be somewhat feared by the Spartans. They being very careful not to upset her or do anything that could be taken as an insult through which they fall out of favor with the gods.
Roleplaying possibilities.

Edit: alternatively treat a female character as harmless as they can not consider a woman to be a potential enemy until it is to late.

 

[Crni Vuk]

It is something I have seen popping up more and more, on television, in comics, video games. I think it has something to do with the "Gender is a social construct thing."

Personally I have never seen women as "inferior", just different with their own strengths and qualities.
Some professions or skills are better suited to men and others are better suited to women.
There are sometimes some viewpoint differences that can lead to arguments but in a healthy society there is room for both without one being raised over the other.

Absolutely, there are some really tough and great women out there. But when you look at averages and top players for example ... what I don't like is this toxicity coming from some females and males, on both sides of the argument really. For one side everything is sexist and discriminatory and the other ones is mysognist and throwing some real shit around. Kinda kills any reasonable discussion.

I also feel like there is this intention of just making girls in to males or lets say, 'behave' them like males. Star Wars is a recent example that comes to my mind, but you could also take the last Ghost Busters. I feel like I am not watching strong women, but actually women acting like males, if you know what I mean. I really love movies like Alien, Aliens, Matrix, and many more that have strong female leads and I like them beacuse of their well written characters. Particuliarly Aliens has even two really strong female roles, with Vasquez and Ripley but both for different reasons. But when I compare that with The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, all those females kinda feel stereotypical and totally cliche - not that the males are better written to be honest. To get back to the games, yeah they could have spend a bit more creativity just as you say, giving the characters some different back story that fits the historical context of the game.

 

[CT Phipps]

I have a very specific idea about the "females can do it all" argument. Basically, the problem is that its applied selectively. No one is complaining about the fact Bayek is a Mejay a thousand years after they stopped being a thing. No one is complaining about the fact Assassins Creed includes ancient alien humans who secretly ruled over us 13000 years ago. No one is complaining about the fact you can leap off tall buildings and land in hay with no injury.

No, it's the fact women warriors are ahistorical.

Why does this bother people?

No one can give me a straight answer because the answer basically is, "They don't like women warriors."

Mind you, I'm worried about Odyssey as a game because it seems like you side with the Spartans in that war. The original Nazis. Fuck that game if I'm going to want to serve a slavery-fueled society of eugenics and ritualized murder.

I'm excited about this game, personally, because it looks even more Twin Peaks than LIFE IS STRANGE.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Probably for the same reason that it doesn't bother us, that Game of Thrones has Dragons and Undead Ice Zombies, but it would bother us if their medieval fantasy world was showing the same gender equality like our societies.

Look no one here has a problem with women in power, beeing bad ass, heroes, warriors you name it. Some of my favourite stories and movies contain female leads, like Red Sonja, Alien and many more.

But I think games, movies and the like are often a representation of our world, in some abstract sense. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Game of Thrones for example isn't just a good book/show because there is a lot of viollence and sex. It's simply a lot of good drama that's for the most part believable, outside of that fantastical stuff with dragons and monsters. And this drama is inspired in many ways from the real world, namely history, G.R.R Martin for example took a lot of inspirations from the English Civil War and even more from the Wars of the Roses with all the backstabbing, the lords and human conflicts, if I remember correctly. No one here is expecting a 100% realistic historical setting, we know that Assasins Creed is fiction. But that shouldn't stop developers from spending a bit more creativity on the subject. Take Fallout 1 or 2 for example, where you can create female characters and that's absolutely perfect, but you can give them your own back story, personality, skills and traits. In Assasins Creed I think all they did was create a game with a male character and then simply swaped the model with a female one and called it a day. That's an missed oportunity in my opinion.

 

[Hassknecht]

I have a very specific idea about the "females can do it all" argument. Basically, the problem is that its applied selectively. No one is complaining about the fact Bayek is a Mejay a thousand years after they stopped being a thing. No one is complaining about the fact Assassins Creed includes ancient alien humans who secretly ruled over us 13000 years ago. No one is complaining about the fact you can leap off tall buildings and land in hay with no injury.

No, it's the fact women warriors are ahistorical.

Why does this bother people?

No one can give me a straight answer because the answer basically is, "They don't like women warriors."

Mind you, I'm worried about Odyssey as a game because it seems like you side with the Spartans in that war. The original Nazis. Fuck that game if I'm going to want to serve a slavery-fueled society of eugenics and ritualized murder.

I'm excited about this game, personally, because it looks even more Twin Peaks than LIFE IS STRANGE.

I don't think it's "women warriors" directly, it's that they are a perceived symptom of growing political correctness in video games and media in general. "Women warriors" were never really met with much negativity in the past, but there's a growing divide in the gaming community, between gamers and journalists, gamers and developers, and gamers and other gamers. Damn gamers, they ruined video gaming!
Seriously though, I think a lot of people just object to revisionist history for the sake of political correctness. Like, in a fantasy game like Assassins Creed nobody gives a shit because it's all wonky anyways. But Battlefield V tried to paint itself as somewhat historically accurate; and amputee celtic warrior women with sniper rifles and tactical cricket bats and Brits with katanas on their backs were not happening.
To many diversity feels forced now.

 

[CT Phipps]

I don't think it's "women warriors" directly, it's that they are a perceived symptom of growing political correctness in video games and media in general. "Women warriors" were never really met with much negativity in the past, but there's a growing divide in the gaming community, between gamers and journalists, gamers and developers, and gamers and other gamers. Damn gamers, they ruined video gaming!
Seriously though, I think a lot of people just object to revisionist history for the sake of political correctness. Like, in a fantasy game like Assassins Creed nobody gives a shit because it's all wonky anyways. But Battlefield V tried to paint itself as somewhat historically accurate; and amputee celtic warrior women with sniper rifles and tactical cricket bats and Brits with katanas on their backs were not happening.
To many diversity feels forced now.

I've gotten a number of bad reviews for "agenda", "social justice warrior" and "forcing diversity." The thing is, I think it's always been a much more diverse world than people gave history credit for. For most of Hollywood's history, the Wild West was portrayed as lily white with the occasional Native American. When Denzel Washington was researching the Magnificent Seven remake, he was stunned to find out 1 in 4 cowboys were black.

And yes, there's a certain element of fantasy in Assassins Creed that a Spartan woman would run around killing people but I think the flexibility of history is a lot larger than people think.

But that's just me.

 

[Deleted member 93956]

It always puzzles me how people draw the line on characters having dicks or not and not, say, on the mythological creatures and proto super advanced civilizations.

 

[Hassknecht]

I've gotten a number of bad reviews for "agenda", "social justice warrior" and "forcing diversity." The thing is, I think it's always been a much more diverse world than people gave history credit for. For most of Hollywood's history, the Wild West was portrayed as lily white with the occasional Native American. When Denzel Washington was researching the Magnificent Seven remake, he was stunned to find out 1 in 4 cowboys were black.

And yes, there's a certain element of fantasy in Assassins Creed that a Spartan woman would run around killing people but I think the flexibility of history is a lot larger than people think.

But that's just me.

I don't think anyone would deny that classic Westerns are not representative of actual history, having their apex in the 60s and 70s. Nobody would complain about black cowboys anymore.
That's not the issue here. What people object to is seemingly forced diversity and "blackwashing" which tends to feel a bit out of place, especially if the casting isn't strong enough. In video games you usually get a little more leeway since badass female characters have never been much of a problem in their own franchises (Lara Croft, the delightfully trashy Heavy Metal FAKK², and so on), and are generally not unbelievable in their own right. It only becomes a problem for some when the "diversity" is "forced" into a historical setting that tries to play it straight. Amputee picts with tactical cricket bats would be awesome and totally fine in an alt-history game, but Battlefield tries to play it straight. Same with Battlefield 1, which for some reason had a black german soldier on the cover. Not saying that those didn't exist, but given their rarity it's just tokenism to put him on the cover. In the general climate of today this just annoys people.
You might not feel spoken to when the thousandth article about white male gamers are the root cause of everything and how they need to be weeded out as a target demographic, but quite a few do, and they see it as a sign that they're losing one of their last hobbies. Look at /r/KotakuInAction and understand what their filter bubble shows them. All of their interests are under attack, and they read all the time that they're not welcome in their fields of interest anymore, that's what they feel like. So yeah, they will react to "diversity" in an increasingly hostile manner, because it's a symptom to them.
It's not just a slightly ahistorical element that could be ignored or something. It's the general climate now. Problem is that every "Fuck that shit" reaction is reason for the other side to double down and force even more diversity in regardless of quality.