446 réponses à ce sujet

[Hanako Ikezawa]

In order to swing this back on topic

 

 

We know that Orlesian chevaliars have a particularly nasty reputation, Loghain mentions seeing them beating farmers to death, there's the story of Aveline, and iirc there is a man in Denerim's market that mentions that a chevaliar raped his sister and so they left, or something along those lines.

 

 

Given this, and given DA's involvement of women in the military, is this something that should be examined in Inquisition? I'd also be interested if there are female chevaliars

Actually, the woman was going to be raped but her brother saved her and he was killed for it, so she fled to Ferelden for protection. 

[n7stormrunner]

As far as I recall Dragon Age 2 had quite a lot generic female NPCs. About every buch of thugs I slaughtered had some gals in it and there were many female city guards as well. Only thing that bugged me was the lack of ladies within the ranks of the Tal Vashoth and the Carta but I blame that on female dwarven and qunari models not existing in the whole game.

 

 

there very good reason why there are no female tal vashoth. all the qunari in kirkwall were from the army and as sten may have told you women are not warriors, as far as the qun goes anyway.

[Fredward]

DA2 had female city guards and female criminals. Not tal-vasoth or dwarves because there weren't any models for 'em. I think I may have seen a female templar once or twice too but don't quote me on that. The wiki does mention that the majority of templars are men. And also isn't that quote from the CC specifically speaking about Fereldan? Orlais' Chevaliers are mostly male. I don't think there's ever been a female Archon. The Qun does not allow usually allow women to fight. Equal representation does not necessarily mean equal distribution.

 

As for concept art and the first Inquisitor reveal... I was kinda disappointed that it was a guy. Again. But I think it's just one of those things, yah know? You have a tendency to think of the group you represent first. This is working off of the assumption that the majority of the artists are male ofc. See there I'm doing it, shameful. But as long as it remains confined to the concept art and the game itself continues to represent everyone fairly (if not necessarily equally) I'll be happy. I expect it also may have something to do with marketing, people like seeing the familiar.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

DA2 had female city guards and female criminals. Not tal-vasoth or dwarves because there weren't any models for 'em. I think I may have seen a female templar once or twice too but don't quote me on that. The wiki does mention that the majority of templars are men. And also isn't that quote from the CC specifically speaking about Fereldan? Orlais' Chevaliers are mostly male. I don't think there's ever been a female Archon. The Qun does not allow usually allow women to fight. Equal representation does not necessarily mean equal distribution.

 

As for concept art and the first Inquisitor reveal... I was kinda disappointed that it was a guy. Again. But I think it's just one of those things, yah know? You have a tendency to think of the group you represent first. This is working off of the assumption that the majority of the artists are male ofc. See there I'm doing it, shameful. But as long as it remains confined to the concept art and the game itself continues to represent everyone fairly (if not necessarily equally) I'll be happy. I expect it also may have something to do with marketing, people like seeing the familiar.

There was.

[Han Yolo]

there very good reason why there are no female tal vashoth. all the qunari in kirkwall were from the army and as sten may have told you women are not warriors, as far as the qun goes anyway.

 

Well silly me, it never occured to me that the Tal Vashoth around Kirkwall were originally with the Arishok. That makes sense, thanks.

 

Alright, now it's just the Carta I'm unhappy about.

[Ryzaki]

Yeah one of the templars from the Enemies Among Us quest was female.

[Jynxed_]

How well do you know what happened in these "medieval" times, anyway.

Again though - video games and "perceived" real history? Don't necessarily need to have common ground.

Thedas is really nothing like Medieval Europe. Especially when it comes to attitudes to women. (And thank goodness for that.)

It's classified as "fantasy" with parallels to medieval Europe. In a world with magic, enchanted armor, runes, dragons, people that never have to eat or go to the bathroom, etc...I think we've diverged from actual history quite a bit.

Aaaaand that's why I said IMO. I never said there shouldn't be women soldiers, I meant I could really care less if there was or not. Just giving my opinion. Dragon age feels like a medieval game to me. I'm not comparing it to irl medieval. It's like game of thrones. It's got a medieval feel along with fantasy, but game of thrones isn't like real history medieval. So to say "what do you know about medieval history" is rude IN MY OPINION. Key word, OPINION. I, in fact, know very little about real medieval history. Again, I was just giving my views on the topic, so you don't need to shoot it down like that. If I shot down every post I disagreed with I would have a million posts...mostly ones disagreeing with people who hate Cullen... :3

[n7stormrunner]

Well silly me, it never occured to me that the Tal Vashoth around Kirkwall were originally with the Arishok. That makes sense, thanks.

 

Alright, now it's just the Carta I'm unhappy about.

 

yeah, and there is side quest with the brothers in the deep roads with the elf woman instead. it rather annoying but I assume she's there becuse they needed a charater and the deadline was getting closer. luckily that shouldn't be a problem in da: I

[Allan Schumacher]

Making their biggest market second fiddle, good idea :-/

 

Given that the biggest market typically states that for them it doesn't matter how many women are in the game as long as the game is good, I'd love to do it just to see if that statement turns out to be true.

 

The only trepidation I'd have is that it'd be a huge risk if the statements weren't true, and I'd be disinclined to sacrifice the employment of a lot of people for an experiment.  I need more alternative universes.

[Cainhurst Crow]

It'd be like playing a dead or alive game or harem game if it were like that, imo. XD But I'd still give it a shot, it worked for skullgirls after all.

[Grieving Natashina]

Reading this, I can't help but wonder why more presentation of women as just even NPCs is making anyone "second fiddle."  Why do folks go from "a person asking for more inclusion"  and twist it to the point of " oh no, this person is asking for inclusion.  That means something I like must be excluded." ?

 

I don't get it, I just cannot wrap my head around it.  Since when is more choices in a RPG that is more inclusive to more potential gamers a bad thing?  Something simple like some extra NPCs or even (gasp!) having a lady Inquisitor as one of the potential stars of a trailer goes a long way to making others feel accepted.

 

When folks start asking for more inclusion, a few very vocal folks start assuming (wrongly) that they want to take away something.  They don't.  They'd just like to join the party too.  BioWare is the best company out there when it comes to its presentation of women, yet they have said repeatedly that they are always looking for improvement.  I've also seen the term "you're just whining at BioWare" coming up, when truthfully those that stayed on topic where polite and respectful.  This thread is a request to see more ladies as NPC soliders, not a "whining demand" for BioWare to change it.

 

Allen, I sincerely thank you for taking the time and coming to talk to us about this.  Reading your responses has been very heartening, and I've seen much of my own thoughts echoed in your posts.

[Cainhurst Crow]

^^^

Making a majority of npcs female is positive inclusion?

-snip-
Next game make most of the characters female. That way males can play second fiddle for a change.

Making their biggest market second fiddle, good idea :-/

The only one who brought up the second fiddle thing was in response to someone calling for a majority of npcs being female.

[Allan Schumacher]

It'd be like playing a dead or alive game or harem game if it were like that, imo. XD But I'd still give it a shot, it worked for skullgirls after all.

 

Well, Dead or Alive is still pretty hypersexualized... I'm not sure if it'd really be considering the male demographic second fiddle, with content like that.

 

 

I don't get it, I just cannot wrap my head around it.  Since when is more choices in a RPG that is more inclusive to more potential gamers a bad thing?  Something simple like some extra NPCs or even (gasp!) having a lady Inquisitor as one of the potential stars of a trailer goes a long way to making others feel accepted.

 

Speaking in my own experience, I found it was because as something I didn't give much thought to, having it be brought to my attention made it noteworthy, and since it was something that I didn't think was an actual problem, it was easier for me to notice when the topic came up.  I think this biased me to overestimating how often it was actually discussed.

 

While I'm actually much more in favour of inclusion, I do find it interesting to see that the same positions I defended 14 years ago with Baldur's Gate still exist.  I was that guy saying "let the writer's do what they want to do" and "of course there's more romances for men... men are the primary market!"  I think those were mostly on the old interplay boards so I don't think I can dig them up, but they were definitely there!  I didn't really understand why those perspectives had issues of self-fulfilling prophecies.

 

As for "the cost," well again speaking from my own experience, it's mostly the "I don't have a problem with this, and I have enough understanding about economics and opportunity costs that any time spent on This Thing That I Don't Think is an Issue™ is time not spent on something that I would like to see more of."

 

Allen, I sincerely thank you for taking the time and coming to talk to us about this.  Reading your responses has been very heartening, and I've seen much of my own thoughts echoed in your posts.

 

Well thank you.

 

I'd blame my friend Rob, as well as a few others (but mostly Rob), since he was the friend that often brought up some stuff like this from time to time, and he'll vouch that I often asked him "well are you just making this a big deal because you're expecting this to be a big deal?" and other things like that.  But by virtue of being my friend, I engaged in the conversations a bit more and from time to time things would happen and I'd start to notice when I wasn't around.

 

Working on DA2 was interesting too.  When I first learned about the romances, I wasn't keen on it because I felt it took away from the characterization.  But that, and talking with a lot of people whether here or in other places, and I think just that our games (and other games) start to have more content like this, it increasingly came away as "not that big of a deal after all" coupled with the realization that other people have different life experiences and that I have to be careful to not assume that what I being discussed is being brought up as though it is someone with my own world view.  As such, the nature of their feature requests will have a different background of experiences leading up to them, and it's probably reasonable that I don't entirely relate to those perspectives since they aren't the ones I have had throughout my life.  Which doesn't invalidate them.

 

 

I still make mistakes though, and I still get defensive when called out on it.

[Grieving Natashina]

Don't we all?  

 

Thanks for that explanation.  It gives me a little better idea on how that mentality happens.  I did want to ask: What is the reason some folks assume that a group looking for inclusion (in this case, women requesting more lady NPC models on the battlefield) is asking for exclusion of another? (you just want an all-girl army.)

[Allan Schumacher]

There seems to be a misunderstanding here.  Jen is referring to the post in his quote, where someone suggested that in response to the "resources" excuse, most people be female instead of male.

Read this response here, including the quoted text.

 

That's the context where Jen is making his statement from, not the OP (which happens, it's a 17 page thread and discussions evolve).

 

 

I think by having the quote after his text may have made you overlook the quote, since it seemed pretty clear to me.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 04 avril 2014 - 09:13 .
Removed quote as it's been hidden.

[Mes]

^^ Oh, right. I was getting a little confused as well but thanks for the clarification.

 

I suppose one issue is that we don't really have any data that can tell us conclusively what percentage of Bioware customers are male versus female... Do we? We have anecdotal evidence that suggests PAX attendees are mostly women, but that's about it as far as I'm currently aware of.

 

So can anyone really make an argument that Bioware shouldn't do this or that to alienate their primary market if we don't know WHAT that market actually is?

[Grieving Natashina]

 

There seems to be a misunderstanding here.  Jen is referring to the post in his quote, where someone suggested that in response to the "resources" excuse, most people be female instead of male.

Read this response here, including the quoted text.

 

That's the context where Jen is making his statement from, not the OP (which happens, it's a 17 page thread and discussions evolve).

 

 

I think by having the quote after his text may have made you overlook the quote, since it seemed pretty clear to me.

Then I apologize Jen and I'll hide my post.  Edit: It just looked like he made a separate statement before he edited his post, then put the quote under as if agreeing with it.   That's where the confusion came here.

[Darth Krytie]

-snip-

 

Well thank you.

 

I'd blame my friend Rob, as well as a few others (but mostly Rob), since he was the friend that often brought up some stuff like this from time to time, and he'll vouch that I often asked him "well are you just making this a big deal because you're expecting this to be a big deal?" and other things like that.  But by virtue of being my friend, I engaged in the conversations a bit more and from time to time things would happen and I'd start to notice when I wasn't around.

 

Working on DA2 was interesting too.  When I first learned about the romances, I wasn't keen on it because I felt it took away from the characterization.  But that, and talking with a lot of people whether here or in other places, and I think just that our games (and other games) start to have more content like this, it increasingly came away as "not that big of a deal after all" coupled with the realization that other people have different life experiences and that I have to be careful to not assume that what I being discussed is being brought up as though it is someone with my own world view.  As such, the nature of their feature requests will have a different background of experiences leading up to them, and it's probably reasonable that I don't entirely relate to those perspectives since they aren't the ones I have had throughout my life.  Which doesn't invalidate them.

 

 

I still make mistakes though, and I still get defensive when called out on it.

 

That it's even a more open discussion now is progress. That people feel like they can speak up at all is progress. (Though I think that it's better than before isn't a reason to stop because out of sight/out of mind for people that aren't affected by this stuff.)

 

But it is heartening to know that people are willing to listen and change, even if there are bumps along the road.

 

I'm--pretty obviously--very opinionated on the subject and I still make mistakes on it. (And sometimes get defensive about it. If you think being called out on say...sexism against women makes you defensive, imagine being a woman and hearing the same thing!)

 

I think one of the reasons I liked DA2 despite its flaws is because it made me feel the most welcome. There was relatively little sexism, the armors weren't like the ones in Origins, I found a lot of Isabela's dialogue refreshing, and the growth between her and Aveline wonderful, and I liked the accessibility of the romances...and how the player character's family's race changed based on your character's race. It was really good on those fronts. (Always, could improve in some areas...but still remarkable in and of itself)

[Cainhurst Crow]

Then I apologize Jen and I'll hide my post.  Edit: It just looked like he made a separate statement before he edited his post, then put the quote under as if agreeing with it.   That's where the confusion came here.

It's alright, we all make mistakes from time to time.

It's no biggie. I'll edit my post to make it clearer.

[Grieving Natashina]

Sounds good.

[Cainhurst Crow]

 
So can anyone really make an argument that Bioware shouldn't do this or that to alienate their primary market if we don't know WHAT that market actually is?

I'd alienate people for different reasons imo. Characters like Rhys or Gaspard might have to be replaced with female roles, raising questions of "what happened to these guys? I thought they were the ones in charge." and then you have organizations like the chivaliers who are pretty well known to be men and women and so having them suddenly all women raises a lot of uncomfortable questions, like the rape allegations of chivaliers against normal folk. Which, imo, I dont even want to think about. Outside of thst weirdness, and the possibility that folks would accuse bipolar of promoting violence against women through having the majority of killed or harmed characters and npc's be women, it'd be plain strange given the usual in games.

It'd be novel, imo, but a mild distraction at best.

[Allan Schumacher]

^^ Oh, right. I was getting a little confused as well but thanks for the clarification.

 

I suppose one issue is that we don't really have any data that can tell us conclusively what percentage of Bioware customers are male versus female... Do we? We have anecdotal evidence that suggests PAX attendees are mostly women, but that's about it as far as I'm currently aware of.

 

So can anyone really make an argument that Bioware shouldn't do this or that to alienate their primary market if we don't know WHAT that market actually is?

 

Hah, well I provided that anecdote.  But it's hardly experimental and it could simply be that I noticed more women because I wasn't expecting them.  Or because many of them were dressed up and as such brought attention to themselves via their costumes.  It also excludes those that are fans but simply didn't swing by the BioWare base for very long.

 

I don't know the breakdown of the players, though telemetry for Mass Effect 3 showed that more games were created with a Male Shepard than a Female Shepard, by a nontrivial amount (3 to 1 or 4 to 1 I think).  But it's hard to definitively isolate the size of each demographic from that information since people may replay the game.  There's also biases that exist in that the default is male (this also may cause bias in terms of who picks up the game in the first place).  That said, I certainly wouldn't say that the female demographic is insignificant by any means.  It's also just looking at characters created, and there's nothing stopping a man from making a FemShep, or a woman from making a MaleShep.  Marketing and other people may have better assessment of this than I do though.

 

I know I grew up in a time where gaming was definitely marketed as "toys for boys" and I'm not far removed from my 20s, so there's still going to be some legacy there.

[Mes]

I'd alienate people for different reasons imo. Characters like Rhys or Gaspard might have to be replaced with female roles, raising questions of "what happened to these guys? I thought they were the ones in charge." and then you have organizations like the chivaliers who are pretty well known to be men and women and so having them suddenly all women raises a lot of uncomfortable questions, like the rape allegations of chivaliers against normal folk. Which, imo, I dont even want to think about. Outside of thst weirdness, and the possibility that folks would accuse bipolar of promoting violence against women through having the majority of killed or harmed characters and npc's be women, it'd be plain strange given the usual in games.

It'd be novel, imo, but a mild distraction at best.

 

Yeah I see your point, though I definitely wouldn't try to advocate gender-swapping already established characters. That'd be a little twilight zone-ie, wouldn't it!

 

Don't get me started on the rape thing - there are crappy people like that from both genders.

 

I'm just saying that a Bioware game doesn't really have a reason to stick to the default male gender for marketing purposes, particularly as there's really no conclusive data about said market. It's all just assumptions as far as I can tell. 

[n7stormrunner]

Don't get me started on the rape thing - there are crappy people like that from both genders.

 

 

this is probably a strange thing to say but thank you.

[fdgvdddvdfdfbdfb]

I'd alienate people for different reasons imo. Characters like Rhys or Gaspard might have to be replaced with female roles, raising questions of "what happened to these guys? I thought they were the ones in charge." and then you have organizations like the chivaliers who are pretty well known to be men and women and so having them suddenly all women raises a lot of uncomfortable questions, like the rape allegations of chivaliers against normal folk. Which, imo, I dont even want to think about. Outside of thst weirdness, and the possibility that folks would accuse bipolar of promoting violence against women through having the majority of killed or harmed characters and npc's be women, it'd be plain strange given the usual in games.

It'd be novel, imo, but a mild distraction at best.

is that a skull in your smoothie?