188 réponses à ce sujet

[Ordo_Wells]

Before I begin, the disclaimer (the fact I have to post the disclaimer ought to signal that  something's out of whack)
I am not mean or disrespectful and hateful towards women.  Far far far from it.  So, don't go screaming sexism. 

Ok, Dragon Age may mark the point in RPG history when developers go that wee bit too far in putting women into the combat/adventurer role. 

In my party, I currently have an old lady mage, a young lady mage, and a young lady...warrior?  Cmon. 
Then, I have two guys and a dog, and an effiminate, sleezy, pretty boy elf (this elf is about as masculine as that dude who hosts "queer eye for the straight guy"...wait a minute....they look a lot alike too...)

I thought this RPG was supposed to bring realism and grit to the fantasy genre.   

Why is my party balanced for the sexes?  it's ridiculous.  Women simply do not have the same kind of physiology as men, and are not made to fight and push inflict physical damage on enemies who are potentially larger and stronger.  Do I really have to explain this, though? 

I feel like the fantasy is no longer "AN ancient army of Evil origins rises up to destroy mankind, and an order of knights must organize a resistance and fight them back".
Instead, it's "An ancient army of evil origins rises up--but it's not problem; they're such wusses we can send four of our women to take them down."  

I really don't get it.  I mean, do guys really like playing these games as females?  Don't get me wrong, I'm all for that exception to the rule, that one, maybe two, wild card chick who can bring the pain (our aforementioned young lady mage).  BUt this is....preposterous, and a real game-killer for me.  Really, I have to call it bad writing, or a commercially motivated sell-out.

I like Alistair, he's alright.  I like Sten alright too.  but where's the deadly, gravel voiced rogue who hides his face behind a cowl?  Where's the Merlin-esque mage?  Where's Canderous?!  

I could say where I think this is coming from, but I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, or go too far into criticism of my favorite--for now--game developer.  

I just have to ask, does anyone else share in this sentiment?  Am I alone?  Or, are there more of you out there who  think this game lacks masculine......character.

Sorry Bioware, but ya'll seem reeeeaaallly mixed up.....

PS, also, girls do not respect you more and more when you give them more and more gifts.  Seriously.  Do not mimic this game in that regard.   

[Ordo_Wells]

I should say, I've been seeing this developing for a while. Even in mass effect, I was annoyed by the obviously forced balance of the sexes. And I loved playing with Talia. She was my favorite, next to Wrex; but this trend is getting tiresome, and really kills my interest in the characters, and my respect for the dangers of the game-world.

[Fragglespank]

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Gears_of_War

[Sunaya]

First of all, it's not like the gifting system was made only for female party members. It's for ALL of the party members, men and canine included. And even so, you can get your party members to like you lots, even the girls, just by talking to them, being nice to them, and making decisions they approve of.

Second of all, your "females dont have the right physique, I thought this game was supposed to be realistic" complaint doesn't hold a lot of water either. You did notice that two of your female party members are MAGES right? As in...they don't use their physical body to attack? And the third female is designed as an archer, a class which also does not use one's physical body aside from some arm strength. So in contrast to your complaint, the game is actually designed the way you say you want it.

Yes, there is the PC, which can be made into a female warrior, but I fail to see why a woman couldn't physically do any of the things the characters do in the game. Yes, the dual wielding warrior and sword and shield warrior classes are pushing it, but I can't see why a woman couldn't physically wield two shortswords, or be a rogue or a mage.

If you want a male character to fit the characterization you seem to want, then make your PC fit that role. Choose the dialogue options that fit that sort of personality, make him look like a badass or whatever, and enjoy the fun of it.


ETA: You also did not take into account the lore of the game. Leliana tells a story of an Orlesian lady who disguied herself as a man in order to compete in the Tournaments. She won, but was discovered shortly after, and executed for her deception. But the crowd that day was inspired by her actions, and it eventually led to the liberation of women in the game, opening up the path to them being warriors if they desire to.

Modifié par Sunaya, 24 novembre 2009 - 03:39 .

[AlphaMagnum]

Well, it's not like Wynne is a superstrong fighter or anything, she's a respected elder mage, which either gender can do equally well, I'd wager.

As for being bow-(man or woman), which Leliana does well, I imagine "true realism" would have forced us to eliminate her because most "historically accurate" bows have too big a draw weight for anyone without serious muscle.

Then again, though women have more difficulty building upper body strength than men, it's not like they can't do it, so there is that.

Morrigan you've already "accepted," so that's cool too.

Now, note I said "historically accurate" because even fantasy rpgs have lots of tough female characters who use their dexterity to outfight slower men. I'd even figure that women are very well-suited to the Rogue role, since men tend to underestimate their combat potency, helping the whole "dirty fighting" style.

(Also, because your manly-man types generally sacrifice speed to favor strength, the women have them beat there too. Finesse can take on brute strength on even ground in some situations.)

Also.......have you never played with Oghren? Seriously. He's a monster of a man if I ever saw one, albeit short, but whatever! Talks about drinking and ****** all the time, so there you go.

Finally......a good reason to have lots of strong female characters, apart from wanting to encourage another portion of the playerbase (girls can game hard too, go figure):

Lacking female characters in the way you want would attract hundreds or thousands of people with angry ranting using words like "misogyny" and "chauvinism." Hell, it may make the news, in this day and age.

Modifié par AlphaMagnum, 24 novembre 2009 - 03:36 .

[aerathnor]

Eh, too many RPG's follow those exact conventions and many of those characters leave no room for development beyond "I'm a rogue with a troubled past" or "we must defeat the (insert evil hoard here)" If you want a Merlin-esque mage, make one.



Same with a grizzled rogue, the city elf origin on my rogue I thought was perfect, hates humans, tells a king to F off and that he just killed one of his noblity. I found it refreshing to not be surrounded by walking cliche's for once (even if a few of them did fit that bill). As far as Canderous? I believe thats Sten, both from warrior cultures that often hire themselves out as mercenaries, he didn't talk quite as much as Canderous but if you play through with him in your party, you'll get Deja Vu

[Little Paw]

I never gave it much thought until your post.

I guess it's "FANTASY!" There are plenty of females in fantasy novels too. Read Goodkind's Sword of Truth series; the Mord Sith are all female, and pretty harsh. Not going to name all the examples, but outside of Conan books, which were severely misogynistic, there are plenty.

All in all DA:O is a bit more Disney than grit...there is a lot of cute, where The Witcher gets the grit right. I thought DA:O was going to be far more adult. It;s actually pretty tame.

I love the game, don't get me wrong, but you have some good points, and I do not think you are being chauvinistic; just stating how you feel in a pretty intelligent way.

I do like playing games as females though, but more to see what the plot lines will be. I actually enjoyed Mass Effect as a female character more than a male character...but mainly because Jennifer Hale is an incredible voice over actor.

[Kilsot]

You forgot the female golem. Obviously Shale should stay being a statue to appease the pigeon gods right?

You should ignore mages for the sake of this argument due to the fact that mages require no sort of physical strength to be devastating.

Leliana is a rogue not a warrior. She is meant to be aglie, as women tend to have more dexterity as opposed to the more bulky and stronger males.

My concern would be that 3 out of the 5 males in the party are warriors, one is a rogue, and the other is a dog. None of them can cast a single spell.

And now I will sum up all the party members.

Females:
Morrigan - mage
Wynne - mage
Leliana - rogue
Shale - Golem

Males:
Alistiar - warrior
Sten - warrior
Oghren - warrior
Zevran - rogue
Dog - Dog (I assume it is a he based on how the other party members reacte to it)

The sexes are horrible type casted into the more physical males and the more mental females, what are you complaining about? /sarcasm

[aerathnor]

Kilsot wrote...

My concern would be that 3 out of the 5 males in the party are warriors, one is a rogue, and the other is a dog.

I'm not sure, you can get a collar for the dog known as the "Pure **** Collar" or something like that. I always thought of it as a male up till that point, but didn't really care either way. I've personally prefered owning female dogs anyway

Edit: Hint, the collars name rhymes with "Witch"

Modifié par aerathnor, 24 novembre 2009 - 03:50 .

[Dennis Carpenter]

Obviously our thread creator is looking for an all male party and is disappointed he cant have one but if he really wants one he could just go alistair sten ohgren/dog and himself as either the mage or rogue........limits his spellcasting and healing but thats about the only way to do it. Personally I have preferred having girls around since I was about 12 and see no reason to not continue having them in my games. Besides the eye candy and the voice sets are great............BTW who do you think has the best rack.................?

[Wyllith]

I love how you make fun of Zevran in the same post that you complain there aren't enough men to go around. <3:whistle:

[Sunaya]

Dennis Carpenter wrote...
BTW who do you think has the best rack.................?

Even as a straight female, I couldn't stop staring at Morrigan's. Was it envy, fascination, or that...unique...outfit of hers?

[aerathnor]

Dennis Carpenter wrote...

Obviously our thread creator is looking for an all male party and is disappointed he cant have one but if he really wants one he could just go alistair sten ohgren/dog and himself as either the mage or rogue........limits his spellcasting and healing but thats about the only way to do it. Personally I have preferred having girls around since I was about 12 and see no reason to not continue having them in my games. Besides the eye candy and the voice sets are great............BTW who do you think has the best rack.................?

Wynn, hands down.

On another note, both Leliana and Morrigan have awesome voice acting, doesn't help that I'm a horrible sucker for accents, making me choose between them was torture

[Durkk]

This is a video game. People shoot fire from their hands and call down blizzards. Dragons fly and demons infest dreamers.

Sacrificing diversity on the altar of "realism" is unreasonable. The writers and developers define the limits themselves. In the end, this is a game that mocks a world much like ours, but also much unlike ours. In this world, women and men are the same for each race, except for their naughty bits.

Modifié par Durkk, 24 novembre 2009 - 03:58 .

[SnakeStrike8]

Yeah, your argument doesn't hold much water, Ordo_Wells. I mean, there are no female warriors in your party, so...?

[Solwen_Polyhymnia]

Also you do realize that it is physically impossible for a creature the size to fly so dragon in dragon age don't have the right physique to fly either. And why are all those short dwarf allow to use large two handed weapon to the same effect as big giant Sten. I mean physically the much taller and thus longer arm Sten should be able to wield longer weapon which should give you more fulcrum force which should give you more damage. And than there is that whole bothersome issue of how armor that fit me also seem to fit BOTH Sten and the Oghren, that seem so unrealistic. And than there is healing potion. I challenge you to find something that you can brew from some plant in the wild that can make you recover from an arrow wound with one swallow or in some case 3rd degree burn. I mean in real life it takes a well conditioned athlete weeks to recover from bad sprain yet in this game we recover within seconds after a battle after we have a very large sword wield by some undead monstrosity cleaving us in two.



For the record though, there are 4 male companion you can pick up before are halfway done with the adventure. Of those 4, 3 of them are of the warrior class. You can pick up 3 female companions with possibility of 4 of you have the Stone Prisoner addition. Of the 4, 1 is a rogue, 2 are mages and only 1 is a warrior. The sole warrior has a definite nontraditional female physiology. Now I like hear an explanation on why female cannot be rogue or how "female have the wrong physique" to practice magic. What is the "right physique" to practice magic anyway?

[Inarai]

As far as the physique bit goes, well...



I'd actually chalk the stats on women's physiques versus men's to the fact that society has a different idea of what they're supposed to look like. If a woman wants to be a kickass soldier/warrior/etc, she certainly can. Due to the whole hormone effect, men tend to have a leg up on raw strength, but you're deluded if you think that's enough to make for your conclusion.



Also, women tend to have better fine muscle control, making them better shots on average than men because they can aim better.

[amrose2]

Little Paw wrote...

All in all DA:O is a bit more Disney than grit...there is a lot of cute, where The Witcher gets the grit right. I thought DA:O was going to be far more adult. It;s actually pretty tame.

Agreed. For being hailed as a 'dark' fantasy in some ways it just feels like "Witcher Lite". Witcher remains the only game I have ever played in which I actually saw children able to be killed (In the swamps, a kid was skipping along a trail and some lizard creature ran up and 1 shot him). Much more adult tones too. Even the fatalities were more graphic in Witcher.

The only place I feel like DA:O has surpassed Witcher in 'dark' or more mature story is how it introduces and deals with rape. The City elf Origin was very realistic to me. It's still strange to me though how you can have a story similar to the beginnng of 'Braveheart' but oh.. can't show any skin or even say anything worse than 'ass' in dialogue.


Anyway, this doesn't have much to do with OP's comment, just something that was brought up I thought I'd comment on

[aerathnor]

I say we petition for a DLC with a Shale romance option

[jeffindenver]

Ordo_Wells wrote...

So, don't go screaming sexism. 

...

I stopped reading after three paragraphs, which is about the point you confirmed yourself as sexist.

[Colloquiallism]

Sunaya wrote...

Dennis Carpenter wrote...
BTW who do you think has the best rack.................?

Even as a straight female, I couldn't stop staring at Morrigan's. Was it envy, fascination, or that...unique...outfit of hers?

Heh, agreed, albeit probably for different reasons. I thought Maxim's article on the girls of Dragon Age were hilarious. I had forgotten that Morrigan and Leliana were actually based on real life people.

[whoosi]

Ordo_Wells wrote... Before I begin, the disclaimer (the fact I have to post the disclaimer ought to signal that  something's out of whack) I am not mean or disrespectful and hateful towards women.  Far far far from it.  So, don't go screaming sexism.  Ok, Dragon Age may mark the point in RPG history when developers go that wee bit too far in putting women into the combat/adventurer role.  In my party, I currently have an old lady mage, a young lady mage, and a young lady...warrior?  Cmon.  Then, I have two guys and a dog, and an effiminate, sleezy, pretty boy elf (this elf is about as masculine as that dude who hosts "queer eye for the straight guy"...wait a minute....they look a lot alike too...) I thought this RPG was supposed to bring realism and grit to the fantasy genre.    Why is my party balanced for the sexes?  it's ridiculous.  Women simply do not have the same kind of physiology as men, and are not made to fight and push inflict physical damage on enemies who are potentially larger and stronger.  Do I really have to explain this, though?  I feel like the fantasy is no longer "AN ancient army of Evil origins rises up to destroy mankind, and an order of knights must organize a resistance and fight them back". Instead, it's "An ancient army of evil origins rises up--but it's not problem; they're such wusses we can send four of our women to take them down."   I really don't get it.  I mean, do guys really like playing these games as females?  Don't get me wrong, I'm all for that exception to the rule, that one, maybe two, wild card chick who can bring the pain (our aforementioned young lady mage).  BUt this is....preposterous, and a real game-killer for me.  Really, I have to call it bad writing, or a commercially motivated sell-out. I like Alistair, he's alright.  I like Sten alright too.  but where's the deadly, gravel voiced rogue who hides his face behind a cowl?  Where's the Merlin-esque mage?  Where's Canderous?!   I could say where I think this is coming from, but I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, or go too far into criticism of my favorite--for now--game developer.   I just have to ask, does anyone else share in this sentiment?  Am I alone?  Or, are there more of you out there who  think this game lacks masculine......character. Sorry Bioware, but ya'll seem reeeeaaallly mixed up..... PS, also, girls do not respect you more and more when you give them more and more gifts.  Seriously.  Do not mimic this game in that regard.   

First off I find your statement to be a bit on the racial...Seems like you saying women have no buissness swinging swords or handling a shield. In nature yes women are naturally weaker then men but not to the level there you sinking them too. I feel sorry for you if this is you look at women....cause its sad to a awful degree.

 

[WobblySpacePirate]

Ordo_Wells wrote...

Before I begin, the disclaimer (the fact I have to post the disclaimer ought to signal that  something's out of whack)
I am not mean or disrespectful and hateful towards women.  Far far far from it.  So, don't go screaming sexism. 

I can't believe some of you folks actually discussing this guys' points. I would like to mildly point out that you are actually sexist. Being hateful and mean isn't the entire basis for being sexist, assuming blanket superiority over women is.

The entire commentary on how women could never possibly fill combat roles due to generalised physique limitations is so abysmally narrow-minded as to constitute an example of of mental disability.

[hexaligned]

Inarai wrote...

As far as the physique bit goes, well...

I'd actually chalk the stats on women's physiques versus men's to the fact that society has a different idea of what they're supposed to look like. If a woman wants to be a kickass soldier/warrior/etc, she certainly can. Due to the whole hormone effect, men tend to have a leg up on raw strength, but you're deluded if you think that's enough to make for your conclusion.

Also, women tend to have better fine muscle control, making them better shots on average than men because they can aim better.

Being a woman and having been in the military I can say that this is plain false.  I'm sure from a politicaly correct point of view there are a lot of people who WANT it to be true, but PCness starts to fail when you start blindly believing what you want to in it's name, and ignore reality.  On averave men have much better ability to both build and maintain musculature, they also have much better hand eye coordination, their brains are built around manipulating spatial relationships.  Like I said though, thats on average, thats not saying if you pick a random woman and a random man out of a crowd, the woman won't be better at those things.

I'm sure if you don't have much contact with "MEN" and instead are mostly familiar with pasty PC gamers, you might have trouble buying into that.  If both sexes are from good genetic stock, and build their bodies and minds to be the best warrior they can, the man will always comeout on top in matters of physical combat, despite what your anime might tell you. 

[Inarai]

WobblySpacePirate wrote...

Ordo_Wells wrote...

Before I begin, the disclaimer (the fact I have to post the disclaimer ought to signal that  something's out of whack)
I am not mean or disrespectful and hateful towards women.  Far far far from it.  So, don't go screaming sexism. 

I can't believe some of you folks actually discussing this guys' points. I would like to mildly point out that you are actually sexist. Being hateful and mean isn't the entire basis for being sexist, assuming blanket superiority over women is.

The entire commentary on how women could never possibly fill combat roles due to generalised physique limitations is so abysmally narrow-minded as to constitute an example of of mental disability.

You know, I can't disagre with that on any particular point...  I think this might be a case of...  What was it...  "Quoted for truth"?