930 réponses à ce sujet

[Battlebloodmage]

No, they should create characters that fit the story and make it interesting instead of intentionally add certain quota to make it equal. Almost all the important roles are filled by females in DAI because the story called for it since it seems like a matriarchy society with Andraste being female, Flemeth being an ancient one, Celene being the Empress, Anora as potential queen. Mass Effect shouldn't add females in high roles for the sake of being females. This is not affirmative action. I say this as someone who often play female characters if given the option. 

[Killroy]

Is there any reason to assume this will be the same a thousand years in the future in another galaxy?

Is there any reason to assume it wouldn't be? And is there any reason to assume Andromeda is set 1,000 years from now?
 

I don't think that conscientiously crafting a setting and treating diversity a priority is quite the same thing as filling a "quota" - and it's certainly not done out of pity.

Making diversity a priority is an artificial obstruction to the creative process. When you set out to make high-ranking female characters instead of just characters you've compromised the creative process.

[CuriousArtemis]

Yep I know this is the origin of the problem. I just hope BW would cut somewhere else, making 6 or more alien races where we see no females although we know they exist and only 3 races where we do see females is just too much.

 

I'm expecting to see female Turians, Drells, Krogans, Humans and female whatever aliens BW brings to Andromeda and if I don't I'll call them out of it. Since that isn't okay. I can get two races as exception, but not 6 like its' something completely normal.

 

Oh I agree 100% and it's something that has long been very glaring to me when I played the trilogy. I actually thought turian society was sexist and kept women out of the military until I played ME1 (or is it ME2) when Garrus had his story about the female soldier he wrestled with and later had sex with (of course...).

 

And all those flashbacks Thane has, and not a single one of his wife.

 

I do headcanon that elcor gender is difficult for humans to tell. Perhaps all elcor have very deep voices.

 

Another thing I noticed: there are no gay or bi men or male aliens in the entire trilogy, other than possibly Shepard, Kaidan, and Steve. Period.

 

However, one thing I do appreciate is the variety of skin tones and facial features on humans. So there, ya done good BW. 

[Panda]

And again, to repeat and to add onto this - they're the second race that went galactic in this cycle after the asari. They've had hundreds and hundreds of years to proliferate. They don't have any sort of hackneyed lore justification keeping women on their homeworld. And yet, we don't see a single one on the citadel, the hub of galactic civilization? Or anywhere else, including their homeworld?

 

Most of what he lists in the post you quote are just grandstanding hyperboles at odds with his inscrutable notions about game design. A coherent setting though? Pretty goddamn necessary.

 

I agree that it's most baffling with Turians, like there isn't any lore explanation for it either. I'd get it if krogan and Salarian didn't have females in the games, though Krogan do, but there is just too many races for it not to be Bioware thinking it's normal to cut female gender out of completely when you have to do models of aliens. I'd rather them just cut out entire alien races than keep doing that.

 

Though if I'm thinking positively.. I hope there is going to be badass female Turian squadmate in ME:A ^^

[Panda]

Oh I agree 100% and it's something that has long been very glaring to me when I played the trilogy. I actually thought turian society was sexist and kept women out of the military until I played ME1 (or is it ME2) when Garrus had his story about the female soldier he wrestled with and later had sex with (of course...).

 

And all those flashbacks Thane has, and not a single one of his wife.

 

I do headcanon that elcor gender is difficult for humans to tell. Perhaps all elcor have very deep voices.

 

Another thing I noticed: there are no gay or bi men or male aliens in the entire trilogy, other than possibly Shepard, Kaidan, and Steven. Period.

 

However, one thing I do appreciate is the variety of skin tones and facial features on humans. So there, ya done good BW. 

 

Well in terms of diversity DA team has always done better, they are like pioneers when ME lags behind them after DA has made sure what roads are safe to take ^^; 

Though on ME's defense they do have tons of alien races compared to DA. Not necessarily good thing if it results of cutting female aliens of the game.. and gay aliens (I think lorewise there must be gay aliens around.. well Asari seem all to be bisexuals, but others as well.. I guess they just got left home worlds alongside with women).

[CuriousArtemis]

Making diversity a priority is an artificial obstruction to the creative process. When you set out to make high-ranking female characters instead of just characters you've compromised the creative process.

 

Absolutely, and I've experienced it myself as a poor struggling writer But it's something an author has to do regardless. Most authors don't want their own prejudices informing their stories; I think most want to create vibrant worlds and characters that all readers will enjoy. But if, for example, you're a white person like me, you may finish the first draft of your story and realize there are no people of color in the story AT ALL.

 

For me, that's a problem. Yes, I rethought the world I had created. Can people of color exist in this world? If not, I want to make it so they can and that it makes sense. Can any of my main characters be people of color? Let's see how I can work that in as naturally as possible. It also forced me to self-examine why I had created a world full of white people in the first place. Clearly, on a subconscious level, white is default for me. 

 

Writing constantly shifts between the creative and the critical. Otherwise, authors would simply spew out "spur of the moment" nonsensical bursts of creativity. The critic has to push the artist aside and examine the work with narrowed eyes, not just for content, but grammar, structure, pacing, etc. It should SEEM easy and effortless to the reader, but for the writer, it never is (unless you're a genius!)

[Battlebloodmage]

There are a lot of female leaders in ME, I don't see why they have to be humans. They should create characters that fit the story and make it interesting instead of intentionally add certain quota to make it equal. Almost all the important roles are filled by females in DAI because the story called for it since it seems like a matriarchy society with Andraste being female, Flemeth being an ancient one, Celene being the Empress, Anora as potential queen. Mass Effect shouldn't add females in high roles for the sake of being females. This is not affirmative action. I say this as someone who often play female characters if given the option. A lot of the members on the councils are females. They are led by females, Earth just happens to have a male representative but he turns out to be the bad guy anyway. If the story called for it, have a female leader, if not, don't add in female leaders because you have to have female leaders. While there is a problem with female representative, I find minority representative is even worse, so if anything, they should add minority in leaders or even just more presence in general, especially Asians. Hell, you can't even make an proper Asian face. Is an Asian preset that hard to make that neither DA or ME bother to include?

[Panda]

Actually a little less than half worldwide since it is a popular trend in heavily populated countries (China and India) to abort female fetuses. This trend will probably continue until females become an even smaller precentage (maybe 40% of the population in 200 years).

 

Well approximately half, but yep China and some others too skew balances.. Though these countries now have huge social problems, because of these practices though so maybe it'll change somewhere in the future when they realize that country can't function when there is no women around...

[United Servo Academy Choir]

Is there any reason to assume it wouldn't be? And is there any reason to assume Andromeda is set 1,000 years from now?
 

Making diversity a priority is an artificial obstruction to the creative process. When you set out to make high-ranking female characters instead of just characters you've compromised the creative process.

 

No. It might be five hundred years or two thousand years. Regardless, that doesn't matter in the slightest.

 

If they do set out to create a bunch of high ranking characters who just so happen to be female, they're immediately accused of filling quotas and tokenism, so I don't see the point in treating it as such. And I can't for the life of me understand why some people are so resentful of it.

 

In any event, Bioware's work has very deliberately tended towards inclusive content and diverse characters, and it's never seemed forced overall. It's also elevated the medium. I'm not excessively worried.

[Quarian Master Race]

Actually a little less than half worldwide since it is a popular trend in heavily populated countries (China and India) to abort female fetuses. This trend will probably continue until females become an even smaller precentage (maybe 40% of the population in 200 years).

You have to factor in though that men are more often killed in instances of violence (wars, crime etc.) or because of lifestyle choices (alcoholism, smoking etc). CIA world factbook estimates that for the total world population the ratio is nearly even at 101:100 M/F. Industrialized/western countries tend to have more women (former Soviet or Communist countries in particular), whereas many cultures in LDCs still practice female infanticide in large numbers, of which you mentioned the two grossest offenders. And yes, assuming the Indian/Chinese populations continue to grow and sexist cultural practices continue, the proportion of females will get smaller, but that is perhaps a big assumption as liberalization tends to (but does not always) accompany economic development.

https://www.cia.gov/...ok/geos/xx.html

[Wulfram]

There are a lot of female leaders in ME, I don't see why they have to be humans.

 

They have to be human if they're to speak as to the nature of human society in the setting.  The alien leaders should reflect alien societies, many of which have different attitudes to gender, or for whom the issue doesn't apply.

 

I certainly agree that we could also do with more asian characters.  In fact I'd argue they should outnumber the white characters.  But that isn't what this thread is about.

[Cyonan]

It actually does rather matter. I would like to see things staying realistic within their own context and rules of lore. 

 

It bothers me that BW actually doesn't contribute to their internal consistency for games, just as it bothers me that someone, like you, thinks that it's ok because "it's not hard sci-fi, and it's space magic."

 

That is just a terrible justification for things in the story. I wish to see the story take a more internally consistent approach, not have things or events happen arbitrarily because the writers need them to happen.

 

What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter for the purposes of this thread which is that there should be more high ranking women. There should be internal consistency, but the fact that there isn't doesn't somehow negate Ashley's promotion to Lieutenant Commander.

 

The "it's not hard sci-fi" is in reference to your point that realism is a big deal for Mass Effect because it's really not. If it were, they would need to rework a lot of things. It's explains things more than Star Wars does, but 90% of our tech in Mass Effect works because we have a magical element that can reduce or increase the mass of virtually anything.

 

But this is just window dressing. When Kaidan and Ashley say that Shepard is their commander in ME3, it's not that important whether they mean in an official sense of formal command relationship, or whether they mean it in a reference to Shepard's rank and grade instead. The sense that matters is the metaphorical sense: Shepard is the person in charge.

 

Well to be fair, by the time Mass Effect 3 rolls around the only person who really gets to give Shep orders anymore is Admiral Hackett regardless of what anybody's rank actually is. Most everything else is you doing what people want because they're going to be dicks about providing you help in beating the great space cuttlefish from wiping out all advanced life in the galaxy until you yell at them in either red or blue to make it all better.

[SpaceLobster]

Another thing I noticed: there are no gay or bi men or male aliens in the entire trilogy, other than possibly Shepard, Kaidan, and Steve. Period.

You assume they are not bisexual or gay, whereas we simply cannot know these things. We occaisionally see that two people are married, but outside of that we nothing of their sexual preferences. I'd rather keep it that way. Even if a human male and female are married this says very little, it could be a marriage with two bisexuals, or one straight person and a bisexual person. It could even be an arranged marriage of two gay people of opposing gender.

[God]

Oh I agree 100% and it's something that has long been very glaring to me when I played the trilogy. I actually thought turian society was sexist and kept women out of the military until I played ME1 (or is it ME2) when Garrus had his story about the female soldier he wrestled with and later had sex with (of course...).

 

So they're sexist. That's there society.

 

Man, these posts...

[Quarian Master Race]

So they're sexist. That's there society.

 

Man, these posts...

Like your avi. Perhaps you should make a request to the effect of asking all women to be dressed in white like all the other domestic appliances  .

[God]

Like your avi. Perhaps you should make a request to the effect of asking all women to be dressed in white like all the other domestic appliances  .

 

Don't tempt me. I have a reputation here for being heteronormative, even though I really am not.

 

I just don't see why so much stock is put into SJW values here. Who cares if they're white or black or male or female? If they can prove themselves up to the job, it's theirs. 

 

I don't believe in inclusivity for its own sake. I believe in having people with skill.

[Quarian Master Race]

I just don't see why so much stock is put into SJW values here. Who cares if they're white or black or male or female? If they can prove themselves up to the job, it's theirs. 

 

I don't believe in inclusivity for its own sake. I believe in having people with skill.

Likewise, to me sex/gender quota is a low priority as long as those people are competent. In this respect it isn't even that difficult to explain. Only 14.5% of the US military is female even though they are eligible for about 80% of all jobs, and it is similar across most western armies (10-15%). It's a field where less women tend to join, so the pool of candidates for high ranking positions is naturally much smaller. ME human culture seems to be broadly similar to modern Western culture. 

We don't actually see many Alliance brass at all over the course of the series (Hackett, Anderson, Kahoku and Mikhaliovich are the only ones I can name OTOH), so it isn't unfeasible that none happen to be women. We know that spacer Shep's mother Hannah is offered a promotion to Admiral, for example, so presumably the glass ceiling isn't a massive hinderance or anything.

[Feybrad]

I don't believe in inclusivity for its own sake. I believe in having people with skill.

 

Now, don't get this wrong, but...

 

This is a Game. No Character has Skill in anything until the Writers give them some. And why would it hurt the Story or it's Presentation if everything was perfectly balanced between the Genders or Ethnicities?

 

Now, it wouldn't hurt the Story either, if they would all be white Men for all I care, but if someone cares about it, why lambast them because they ask for that? It's not like the Story changes in any significant Way if, for Example, Anderson, Udina or Hackett were female.

[PlatonicWaffles]

It's the future, so yes please, as long as the game doesn't treat it as though it's anything out of the ordinary.

[wright1978]

No I don't them to think they have to meet a certain quota of high ranking human females.
Me trilogy had a number of human females in high ranking roles.(Kathleen sanders, Shep's mum, spectre Ashley, 2nd in command Miranda) off the top of my head. They should create interesting characters first, and I'm sure there will be females in high ranking roles, whether human, Turian, Asari, Krogan etc.

[Kierro Ren]

There was N7 Capt. Lee Reily, during the reactor side quest in Mass Effect 3. Nothing to great but still.

[General TSAR]

Now, don't get this wrong, but...

 

This is a Game. No Character has Skill in anything until the Writers give them some. And why would it hurt the Story or it's Presentation if everything was perfectly balanced between the Genders or Ethnicities?

"Perfectly balanced" representation is utter nonsense.