453 réponses à ce sujet

[ThatGamerWithSouvlaki285]

tetrisblock4x1 wrote...

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

Playing as Lara Croft never hindered my enjoyment Tomb Raider. Those saying they wouldn't have played Mass Effect because there is no female character is the most shallow way to judge a video game.

You'd probably feel differently if the ratio of women:men starring in games (and movies) like Mass Effect were reversed. Saying that there is one strong female protagonist out of ten is probably an overstatement in gaming. The list of strong females protagonists that I know of is as follows:

Kerrigan (starcraft)
Shodan (robot)
Glados (robot)
Chell (she's a Gordan Freeman type of character)
Revan
The Bhaalspawn from Baldurs Gate
Alyx Vance (halflife)
Faith (mirrors edge)
April Ryan (Longest Journey)
Zoe (Dreamfall)
That main character from Gray Matter... name escapes me for the moment
Laura

annnnnd.... it's getting really tough for me to think of any other good examples.

So this is 12 examples from 13 years of gaming... yeah, it's not a lot.

There is also:
Nariko from heavenly sword
And perhaps the most famous:
Lara Croft aka Tomb Raider

As for Femshep, the whole idea about Mass Effect, well  same can be said about RPGs in general, is that its player defined story which includes Shepard's character and apperance so the ability to pick the gender of Shepard is crucial as well as the differences in interactions that come with it. Also, you cant have a voiced male Shepard and then have a silent female shepard can you? (though i know for some men, not me , a silent women would be a good thing). I wil admit that personaly prefer femshep over maleshep, Hale does a fantastic job at emoting shepard and adding character to her.

[didymos1120]

tetrisblock4x1 wrote...

Samus can't make the list because Square gave her the George Lucas treatment.

It wasn't Square.  And it wasn't Team Ninja either.  They didn't write the story for Other M.  That was Yoshio Sakamoto, who works for Nintendo and has overseen the series since Super Metroid.

[chengthao]

[Violation of Rule #2 removed]

Modifié par Stanley Woo, 06 février 2012 - 04:51 .

[Nu-Nu]

Well fans of female Shepard probaly cover the cost of making female Shepard available.

Let’s just say this -

1 million copies of Me1 sold in the first week
2 million copies of ME2 sold in the first week.

20% (fans of female Shepard) of 3 million = 600,000 copies

600,000 x £40 (retail price) = £24,000,000 (Just from fans of female Shepard)

I don’t know what Bioware cut of that would be after splitting it up with retailers and publisher EA/Microsoft, but it’s still a heck lot, considering this is only based on copies sold during launch week and I have not taken account of copies sold after launch week.

Fans of female Shepard have practically paid for her and then some, so yeah it probaly was worth it.

Modifié par Nu-Nu, 06 février 2012 - 01:37 .

[Poison_Berrie]

scyphozoa wrote...

I have no gender issues with male/female, I play both and enjoy them. But I do think Hale is a better actor than Meer.

While I can appreciate that Bioware wants all players to be able to customize their character, this is an old design, dating back to silent protagonists. In this generation of 7gb disc limitations and full voiced protagonists, I think Bioware should consider designing a game with a defined protagonist, to avoid having to spend the resources on redundant voice acting.

Again, not a gender thing, male or female, I think the design choice to focus on one protagonist would be worth Bioware doing at least once.

I don't think creating your own character takes that much more space on the disc. 
And I find it an odd statement to say that customizing your character is some sort of outdated and acient game-design, especially since the predefined protagonist is just as old. 

[Poison_Berrie]

Do keep in mind that playing femshep, would not exclude these people from buying the game if she wasn't there.
That said I think the cost of adding female Shepard is small, compared to the profit, which means that 20% of those playing making a female Shepard is worth it from their point of view.
It's also important to keep in mind that after the first game, there was no way of going back to just a male Shepard, because that would have indeed cost them customers.

[chengthao]

scyphozoa wrote...

While I can appreciate that Bioware wants all players to be able to customize their character, this is an old design, dating back to silent protagonists. In this generation of 7gb disc limitations and full voiced protagonists, I think Bioware should consider designing a game with a defined protagonist, to avoid having to spend the resources on redundant voice acting.

Again, not a gender thing, male or female, I think the design choice to focus on one protagonist would be worth Bioware doing at least once.

the next gen is running on bluray so they'll have more than 7gb

also i'm pretty sure the money they make from these games is more than enough to cover the costs of two VA

[Zkyire]

tetrisblock4x1 wrote...

Well it's expensive writing the extra romances and I'm sure that Jen can set the price as high as she likes considering the resume.

The statistics Bioware released a couple of years ago say that 80% played mark meer shep...

So this might be due to advertising or something, but they've had the whole trilogy to make it generally known tht there is a femshep so I don't know why they'd go 2 whole games without trying to sell it until the very late last minute attempt at a trailer for femshep that still hasn't been shown yet.

http://www.thesixtha...-top-7-million/

If those numbers are to be believed (for ME1 and ME2 combined) then that means that of those 7 million copies sold, 1.4 million were femshep players.

That's 1,400,000. While still the minority, that is a playerbase worth advertising to.

[Poison_Berrie]

scyphozoa wrote...

I didn't use the word ancient, but that is good embellishing. I do think it is outdated because as of 2007, Bioware has made a paradigm shift to voiced protagonists and that suggests every future bioware game will have redundant voice acting. No matter how much compression technology improves, Bioware is always going to have to pay the recording costs for redundant voice acting. Resources that could probably go into levels, quests, items, or even other characters and companions. Silent protagonists allowed for gender customization with very little redundancy, voiced protagonists require almost entire redundancy. I think if this is the future for Bioware games, Bioware should consider alternatives. 

Why have classes other than the Soldier. You have to create several Main Character unique powers and pour resources into creating these classes, balancing them. 

If everything was as clear cut a cost-benefits analysis as you make it out to be, innovation hardly seems worth.

Fact is that a game is designed with certain things because that's how they envision the game. Whether or not a game has redundant protagonist has nothing to do with oudated concepts, but rather with design goals.

[Annihilator27]

andy69156915 wrote...

tetrisblock4x1 wrote...
Kerrigan (starcraft)
Shodan (robot)
Glados (robot)
Chell (she's a Gordan Freeman type of character)
Revan
The Bhaalspawn from Baldurs Gate
Alyx Vance (halflife)
Faith (mirrors edge)
April Ryan (Longest Journey)
Zoe (Dreamfall)
That main character from Gray Matter... name escapes me for the moment
Laura

annnnnd.... it's getting really tough for me to think of any other good examples.

So this is 12 examples from 13 years of gaming... yeah, it's not a lot.

You did not... DID NOT just fail to mention Samus Aran on that list!? Hello, she was the first female playable protaginist in a video game ever! Not mentioning Samus on that list is just... A crime.

On that note, my first female Shepard (who was my first Shepard altogether actually) was named Samus Shepard, and Samus Aran was the inspiration.

I agree!!! Samus should be on that list always....Nintendo didnt celebrate Metroid's anniversary!!!

[Nu-Nu]

scyphozoa wrote...

Poison_Berrie wrote...
I don't think creating your own character takes that much more space on the disc. 
And I find it an odd statement to say that customizing your character is some sort of outdated and acient game-design, especially since the predefined protagonist is just as old. 

It takes whatever amount of megabytes of space to hold the redundant voice/audio files. More importantly, it costs ~twice as much to have two voice actors come in and voice redundant characters.

I didn't use the word ancient, but that is good embellishing. I do think it is outdated because as of 2007, Bioware has made a paradigm shift to voiced protagonists and that suggests every future bioware game will have redundant voice acting. No matter how much compression technology improves, Bioware is always going to have to pay the recording costs for redundant voice acting. Resources that could probably go into levels, quests, items, or even other characters and companions. Silent protagonists allowed for gender customization with very little redundancy, voiced protagonists require almost entire redundancy. I think if this is the future for Bioware games, Bioware should consider alternatives. 

It's not redundant if the fans of the alternative gender/character has practically covered the cost and then some. The only problem bioware has with customization is if they rush the game out again, eg DA2. DA2 didn't even have as many options as DA1 so technically the freed up resources (no longer being able to make an elf/dwarf or have different origin story) should have made the game better but it didn't, DA2 was even more rushed and lacked a strong story.

Having less character doesn't mean they will end up spending longer on the game or adding extra stuff, it means they can sell it sooner and push the release date closer.

[GnusmasTHX]

It becomes worth it as soon as someone makes an awesome face and sends me the face code.

Also Revan was canonically male, and the Exile was female.

Modifié par GnusmasTHX, 06 février 2012 - 02:31 .

[WizenSlinky0]

scyphozoa wrote...

I have no gender issues with male/female, I play both and enjoy them. But I do think Hale is a better actor than Meer.

While I can appreciate that Bioware wants all players to be able to customize their character, this is an old design, dating back to silent protagonists. In this generation of 7gb disc limitations and full voiced protagonists, I think Bioware should consider designing a game with a defined protagonist, to avoid having to spend the resources on redundant voice acting.

Again, not a gender thing, male or female, I think the design choice to focus on one protagonist would be worth Bioware doing at least once.

That's easy to say, but hard to sell. Simply put Bioware has carved a certain niche market for themselves. There are certain expectations much of their fanbase currently have about what a Bioware game entails, simply because they have been (fairly) consistant as of late. So long as they continue to sell themselves as story-based RPG's it will be difficult to prove to their fanbase their games are worth it if they go too far outside the mold fans have come to expect. If they cease making those kinds of games, they risk never drawing in a large enough base to make the change worth it.

In fact, I'd say as game budgets increase and technical limitations dwindle (and become cheaper) it's actually moving forward when we *advance* the old designs rather than keeping to them. That design existed, and still exists, because it offers a balance between character development and role-playing. If you define a character too much the current level of Bioware writing, while emotional and strong, will not be effective. A lot of the extra umph comes from our own investment in the character which is partially drawn from the vast amount of choice and customization we get.

I think Bioware could do it but I don't believe it would live up to the standards of their typical games. But that's just me. I'd certainly give the game a shot.

[BiggBno]

scyphozoa wrote...

Poison_Berrie wrote...
Fact is that a game is designed with certain things because that's how they envision the game.

Yup, and I am asking and suggesting Bioware to envision a different game. Obviously Bioware has made the delibiterate choice to have voiced protagonists of both genders and I think Bioware games can benefit from reconsidering that choice, or trying alternatives. I hope thats clear.

If BioWare follow your advise they are removing one of the main appeal of the characterdriven game as a Genre.
The possibility to choose to play as a Female or Male is one of the things that sets the game apart from Movies and Books where your stuck with what the makers decides. And thats a big NONO in my opinion.

Also, regarding te statistics that some are so fond of stating, wasn't there a rather large number who didnt complete the game?

[tetrisblock4x1]

GnusmasTHX wrote...

It becomes worth it as soon as someone makes an awesome face and sends me the face code.

Also Revan was canonically male, and the Exile was female.

Canonically they're awful characters but they can be good game protagonists.

[Segameister]

I've never played with fem Shep. BUT, I can tell you I have several female co-workers who probably wouldn't have picked up ME2 if they had to play as Male Shep. It was worth it for that I think. It also definitely adds replayability.

I think NOT advertising the Fem Shep side of the game sooner was a mistake, it should have been a part of the promotions for ME2. I'm sure this will become more commonplace as more women game.

[SykoWolf]

This isn't a troll thread because everything regarding paragon/renegade,cerberus,classes,male vs female shep,which weapons are better,which voice actor is better and basically everything where you can have an opinion is labelled a TROLL thread.......so for f*ck sake people, GET OVER IT!!! (Sorry if I seem too psychotic here, its just that nearly every thread I've seen is labelled troll)

[Segameister]

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

Playing as Lara Croft never hindered my enjoyment Tomb Raider. Those saying they wouldn't have played Mass Effect because there is no female character is the most shallow way to judge a video game.

That's a narrow minded response.  Do yo honestly believe that people aren't shallow?  I think it's safe to say that everyone is shallow about something in their lives.  If voicing a female Shepard improved sales, then good for Bioware and the industry in General.  My lady friends loved being able to play a female character.  Using the argument of 'Oh, don't be so shallow' to encourage ladies to play only as male characters is pretty pathetic and sexist.

[Abraham_uk]

tetrisblock4x1 wrote...

Well it's expensive writing the extra romances and I'm sure that Jen can set the price as high as she likes considering the resume.

The statistics Bioware released a couple of years ago say that 80% played mark meer shep...

So this might be due to advertising or something, but they've had the whole trilogy to make it generally known tht there is a femshep so I don't know why they'd go 2 whole games without trying to sell it until the very late last minute attempt at a trailer for femshep that still hasn't been shown yet.

You have a point. Having said that, Mass Effect thrives on choice. SPOILERS AHEAD


SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD



(I think these were the popular choices so correct me if I'm wrong)

So do we eliminate the choice to kill the Rachni Queen because most players chose to spare her life?

Do we eliminate the choice to destroy the corrupted geth?

Do we eliminate the choice to kill Wrex?

Do we eliminate the choice to save Kaidan?

Do we eliminate the choice to choose Uldina?

Do we eliminate the choice to not save the factory workers and kill Vido?

Do we eliminate the choice to sacrifice the council?

Do we eliminate the choice to not punch the journalist?




Why eliminate the choice to play as a woman just because the majority didn't? It makes sense to me.

[AlanC9]

BiggBno wrote...

scyphozoa wrote...

Poison_Berrie wrote...
Fact is that a game is designed with certain things because that's how they envision the game.

Yup, and I am asking and suggesting Bioware to envision a different game. Obviously Bioware has made the delibiterate choice to have voiced protagonists of both genders and I think Bioware games can benefit from reconsidering that choice, or trying alternatives. I hope thats clear.

If BioWare follow your advise they are removing one of the main appeal of the characterdriven game as a Genre.
The possibility to choose to play as a Female or Male is one of the things that sets the game apart from Movies and Books where your stuck with what the makers decides. And thats a big NONO in my opinion.

I thought scyphozoa was asking to have the PC voice removed, not the female option.

Neither's going to happen, of course.

[eqzitara]

Tetris is to ridiculous....

Is shepard overpowered?
Shouldnt shepard only be male?
Why play any class other the soldier?

Modifié par eqzitara, 06 février 2012 - 03:31 .

[Arkitekt]

Abraham_uk wrote...

(I think these were the popular choices so correct me if I'm wrong)

So do we eliminate the choice to kill the Rachni Queen because most players chose to spare her life?

Do we eliminate the choice to destroy the corrupted geth?

Do we eliminate the choice to kill Wrex?

Do we eliminate the choice to save Kaidan?

Do we eliminate the choice to choose Uldina?

Do we eliminate the choice to not save the factory workers and kill Vido?

Do we eliminate the choice to sacrifice the council?

Do we eliminate the choice to not punch the journalist?




Why eliminate the choice to play as a woman just because the majority didn't? It makes sense to me.

Choices are overrated anyway. Let's turn Mass Effect into a generalized Halo-type sci fi shooter with predetermined conversations and choices. It will be much cheaper, therefore it will be much much better!!

[mjh417]

I don t know where that 80% stat comes from because often I feel Im one of the only people out there playing not playing as FemShep. I agree that Bioware didnt try to sell her at all on the first two games which was wasteful.