To be honest the male walking animation in all dragon age games has always been a bit orangutan-like (if my eyes don't fail me, all 3 games have the same male walking). I don't know why they make them so extreme. Why don't they just take a look at regular human beings. Do the developers involved live in a nuclear vault?
Actually I think she look a bit comical already when she walks in the cutscene. Like she's really trying to come of as a [insert male stereotype here]. They could have gone with a more gender-neutral walk, in cutscenes at least. Personally I prefer the feminine ones.
I don't recall a lot of complaints about Shep's animations in ME1.
I'm talking about the Warden's animations......
If my male inquisitor walks like a woman that would be a deal breaker.
For a massive chunk of the customer base too.
I'm talking about the Warden's animations......
For a massive chunk of the customer base too.
The warden's animations were badly done yeah but it was less because of masculinity and more because he/she looked like a lumbering oaf in combat. It looked stupid regardless of gender.
I'm not seeing the problem here.
One is in armor, one is not.
I actually think these animations insult both genders. I've never seen anyone walking like this IRL. Ever. This sh*t is immersion breaking, really.
It's annoying though when the default animation are the male one. Sure, I'm used to it, most devs do it like this and I know of none that does the opposite.
I agree with you its not right and its annoying. Basically by doing this (whether they admit it or not) what they are saying is its MORE important to get the "male animation" correct and impose it on women because of two reasons from their perspective. 1.) Its more important to keep the male audience happy than the female audience and 2.) It perfectly fine to impose "maleness" onto women but imposing "femaleness" onto men is inherently wrong.
It's the same thing with 90+% of the armour design. they make it to look good on a male model then for the women we just widen the hips and bust line. I have yet to see any amour yet (for the Fem Inquisitor) that looks like it was actually designed for a woman's body and not just the male converted armour.
It's just a inherent bit of sexism in the industry that they "excuse away" by claiming cost issues where in reality they don't view the female player or PC as important as the male version.
that they know which animations are which (because you know, no such thing as preconceptions and biases and subjectivity).
I'm not seeing the problem here.
One is in armor, one is not.
I'm sure a mage inquisitor with pants ( lol )would walk the same way in this cutscene.
I agree with you its not right and its annoying. Basically by doing this (whether they admit it or not) what they are saying is its MORE important to get the "male animation" correct and impose it on women because of two reasons from their perspective. 1.) Its more important to keep the male audience happy than the female audience and 2.) It perfectly fine to impose "maleness" onto women but imposing "femaleness" onto men is inherently wrong.
It's the same thing with 90+% of the armour design. they make it to look good on a male model then for the women we just widen the hips and bust line. I have yet to see any amour yet (for the Fem Inquisitor) that looks like it was actually designed for a woman's body and not just the male converted armour.
It's just a inherent bit of sexism in the industry that they "excuse away" by claiming cost issues where in reality they don't view the female player or PC as important as the male version.
While you're right that there are serious problems with 'male as the default' standard that floats around (esp. in gaming), there are problems with the reverse approach that too strongly emphasizes gender differences, esp. stereotypical ones (so giving the femquisitor the default animations for women, which themselves are caricatures).
And the bar for what breaks immersion goes down another notch.
I should have compiled a list of these. It would be quite hilarious by now.
oh get off it, if it were the male inq swaying his hips like a stripper youd be bitching about it too. We see it all through this thread guys moaning about it being a deal breaker, and it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out there would be an uproar from the male player base if the situation was reversed. And for whoever said something about us being more perceptive,lol you dont need to be "perceptive" to notice the ridiculous disparity, Your fem inq stands around like a fairy and sways her hips in normal gameplay, and then all of a sudden she starts swaggering like shes performing for a rap music video. This is especially jarring when shes walking next to Cassandra sashaying her way across the room, which when i first saw i kept thinking about how shes the masuline hard butch one, if anything she should have that walk. It would be noticable to everyone even if the difference wasnt so big in the cutscenes. We as humans, all know what a feminine and masculine walk looks like, theres tons of research to support that, and it has nothing to do with biowares player base being "picky" or extra "perceptive".
oh get off it, if it were the male inq swaying his hips like a stripper youd be bitching about it too. We see it all through this thread guys moaning about it being a deal breaker, and it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out there would be an uproar from the male player base if the situation was reversed. And for whoever said something about us being more perceptive,lol you dont need to be "perceptive" to notice the ridiculous disparity, Your fem inq stands around like a fairy and sways her hips in normal gameplay, and then all of a sudden she starts swaggering like shes performing for a rap music video. This is especially jarring when shes walking next to Cassandra sashaying her way across the room, which when i first saw i kept thinking about how shes the masuline hard butch one, if anything she should have that walk. It would be noticable to everyone even if the difference wasnt so big in the cutscenes. We as humans, all know what a feminine and masculine walk looks like, theres tons of research to support that, and it has nothing to do with biowares player base being "picky" or extra "perceptive".
Do you have something in front of you? Grab it. I just grabbed my coffee... My arm raised, hand opened and then pulled it back in.
Chances are when you grabbed something, you didn't flip your hair, raise your elbow above your hand or stick out your pinky when you grabbed whatever. We did it the same way.
I don't think men and women move that differently. Especially when they're totally confined in armor, or sports bra. Different people move differently though, its not like all women have some feminine saunter and all men march. In DA2, Aveline walked "like a man" and Isabela has a feminine walk animation, even though they were both women.
Apart from that, you got to think about what one of the first posters said: They have 8 races and two genders of each race. Probably a 100 cut scenes or so. They aren't going to sit and animate each one all over again to make sure that they remind you that your dwarf didn't just have its beard fall off.
You know you made a female character at the start. The difference even after being redone would be barely noticeable and not even applicable in many circumstances... So, is this really worth any criticism?
You've articulated my biggest problem with exaggerated "female" animations.
I dunno.... I find what some people here call a "gorilla walk" or whatever to be pretty accurate and masculine. Actually I find It hot. Subjective I guess?To be honest the male walking animation in all dragon age games has always been a bit orangutan-like (if my eyes don't fail me, all 3 games have the same male walking). I don't know why they make them so extreme. Why don't they just take a look at regular human beings. Do the developers involved live in a nuclear vault?
Here's a thing to play with.
I dunno.... I find what some people here call a "gorilla walk" or whatever to be pretty accurate and masculine. Actually I find It hot. Subjective I guess?
I mean...I love the male walks in ME and DA, and I liked the female Shepard animations as well.
On the other hand, I found the female neutral walk in DAO to be too robotic. I hope that's not what people are asking for.
Honestly though, both walks are a bit too exaggerated. (Though DA2's male walks weren't awful). The swagger of the male, and the sashay of the female really need to meet each other, and produce a love child. Because the half-way point would be perfect for both genders.
Males sway their hips while walking. Females do not dislocate their pelvis to put it out a ridiculous amount while walking. Honestly, a unisex walk would be for the best because it's neutral, and allows us to make characters, both male and female, that deter from a swaggering male or sashaying female without pretending we aren't seeing what the screen is telling us.
And while I find a bit of swagger sexy too, I shouldn't be locked into having it on all my male characters.
Honestly though, both walks are a bit too exaggerated. (Though DA2's male walks weren't awful). The swagger of the male, and the sashay of the female really need to meet each other, and produce a love child. Because the half-way point would be perfect for both genders.
Males sway their hips while walking. Females do not dislocate their pelvis to put it out a ridiculous amount while walking. Honestly, a unisex walk would be for the best because it's neutral, and allows us to make characters, both male and female, that deter from a swaggering male or sashaying female without pretending we aren't seeing what the screen is telling us.
And while I find a bit of swagger sexy too, I shouldn't be locked into having it on all my male characters.
Choice of character animations is a reasonable request.
It probably is just a low priority feature.
That's why I'm saying go neutral. At least it's better than fixed character walks.
Don't the devs have girlfriends/wives/sisters/mothers? Do they walk the stripper walk they give the female toons? No. So why do they insist on making toons walk like that?
Don't the devs have girlfriends/wives/sisters/mothers? Do they walk the stripper walk they give the female toons? No. So why do they insist on making toons walk like that?
Subconscious sexification. 
I don't see it as a particular big issue. And as noted earlier, to fix this would require a consequent cost that can be allotted somewhere else. I can still understand it being somewhat annoying but we're far from immersion breaking per say. I would be more concerned if it was the other way around (manly walk when in control). But as it is, I can live with it.
That's why I'm saying go neutral. At least it's better than fixed character walks.
But men don't walk or run like women in general. There's a necessary segregation when it comes to physical aspects. It's just how it is.
Female Shepard essentially uses the average male "style" of walking, so you could technically just translate this into DA and just name it a "gender-neutral" animation.
However, this is much harder to do that it sounds as the different races have different skeletal structures and therefore require different animations. (In Mass Effect, all humanoids followed the "male" human animations with the Asari being a notable exception with their female Hawke-like struts)
As you can see from that "female elf walking next to Cassandra", giving the elf the "gender-neutral"/male walk made her look a little weird, while I'm sure the bulkier humans and tall Qunari would actually look relatively OK in comparison.
This means that you'd have to tweak each set of animations for each race, and then make sure that every cinematic in the game complies.
This is a whole lot of extra work that I'm not sure they had enough time for. If you add all the other "small changes" that people are asking for in this forum, you'd require at least a few more months in development.
Perhaps in the next DA game, they'll have more time for such relatively low-priority intricacies. After all, they will most likely have less work on engine upgrading and more time on actual game content development.
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