415 réponses à ce sujet

[Pasquale1234]

. Well unless they have multiple animations for each character that maybe you choose at char gen(which I support) someone is getting forced to watch animations they don't like or would prefer to be different.

I'm not sure forcing non-girly is better than forcing girly. Though dragon age seemed to really take the run animation to an extreme.

 

Therein lies the problem - what we've seen thus far is genderized animations taken to extremes.  I would find it much more palatable if they were toned down and looked more... average, for want of a better explanation.

 

I would also welcome a choice, instead of automatic association of female == hyperfeminine and male == hypermasculine (though I'd prefer the hyper part went away altogether).  I'm not too keen to play a character that is hyper anything, which is why I've always advocated gender neutral animations.  Easier and cheaper all the way around.
 

[SmilesJA]

Between their cultural preference for mating with other species and their omnipresence as strippers/dancers, they were really set up as sex vendors to the galaxy - which can lead some observers to conclude that their primary source of power and influence is sex appeal. There were plenty of codex entries mentioning a strong economy, arts and culture, political prowess, and combat success - but all of that was later called into question by the revelation of the Prothean beacon and direct influence in their development.

I really don't understand what Bioware was trying to do with their portrayal - it is a mixed bag at best.

 

Just because they were influenced by the Protheans doesn't mean that they were degraded in any way. Besides the reason why some Asari become strippers in the first place is because they're young and they usually grow out of it.

[CuriousArtemis]

Just because they were influenced by the Protheans doesn't mean that they were degraded in any way. Besides the reason why some Asari become strippers in the first place is because they're young and they usually grow out of it.

 

Yeah and Liara's dad seemed to imply that some become strippers while others join merc groups, so it's not like a universal thing. It's just that when they're young they do crazy things because, well, they're young.

[SmilesJA]

I mean come on! We've all done some crazy things when we were young! Right??!?!!?!

[Ahglock]

Well "non-girly" just means "natural" without any outside influence. The way the body moves naturally. You can train yourself to move in a more masculine or feminine way (according to social convention). But I'd prefer to see a natural body movement for both male and female player characters - the movement, for the most part, shouldn't be too different, but BioWare likes to create hypermasculne and hyperfeminine movements for their characters for some reason. My inquisitor, for example, walks like he has the biggest pair of *ahem* between his legs; it's so ridiculous.

I'm not sure there is a natural movement we can define. Bodies are different and will move differently. At the hyper trained level they do start to blend but I'm not sure deforming your body with advanced muscle training in specific areas is natural movement for either gender. I think dragon age took it way too far but I also suspect natural movement of women would include what many of these boards would call girly. But skeletal and muscular differences will change your natural movement. I have not studied it but I'd guess mainly around how the hips move and not the weird arm thing in dragon age. Outside of some depiction of Victorian age women of southern belles from the 1800s I have never seen someone run like that. So maybe natural is feminine just not to the extreme dragon age went.

No matter what they do people will find issues with it. Multiple movements that you can choose like stances will probably be the least bothersome but it will cost resources that might be used better elsewhere.

I never played femshep so I don't really have a stake in this fight and from various look how awesome I am YouTube videos I never noticed femshep having a awkward movement. So sticking with the current movements works for me if I decide to play femshep in ME:A.

[Ahglock]

Therein lies the problem - what we've seen thus far is genderized animations taken to extremes. I would find it much more palatable if they were toned down and looked more... average, for want of a better explanation.

I would also welcome a choice, instead of automatic association of female == hyperfeminine and male == hypermasculine (though I'd prefer the hyper part went away altogether). I'm not too keen to play a character that is hyper anything, which is why I've always advocated gender neutral animations. Easier and cheaper all the way around.

That would be my personal preference as well if they aren't doing multiple animations for each gender but I doubt I'm in the majority. And I fully get the issue people have if the character is too or not enough masculine/feminine for their taste. Once you start noticing it you can't unsee it.

[Vanilka]

I don't know, OP. I, for one, really loved how femShep was handled and that the animations were pretty much unisex most of the time. I like it a lot. The single place it seemed a bit funny to me was during Kasumi's mission where she had to wear a dress and, yeah, that was awkward, I admit. But the thing is that it looks pretty natural when she wears amour. And the game is about her kicking ass, not about her wearing pretty dresses. As for pictures that show femShep in that dress sitting around the Normandy with her legs spread, it rather makes me wonder why the ship's commander would even wear such a thing, especially on duty.

 

I'm not against more feminine animations, let me say that. I'm not at all against very feminine characters in video games, either. Especially if done well. The opposite, I welcome it. Even if I'd rather not play one in games like Mass Effect, which is purely a personal preference. I also don't think that soldiers can't be feminine, especially off duty. There's no reason that should be mutually exclusive. But we are still dealing with a highly trained combatant that wears tons of guns and tons of armour and that spends the game kicking ass. If she spends most of her time on the battlefield or commanding her ship, she should act the part. If she has to wear a dress for some reason, all right, I get it. (I'd rather the animations and outfits weren't exaggerated, though.) If she wants to wear loose hair while off duty, cool.

 

The problem is, I think, that feminine is subjective and it probably means something else to each person. What I'm afraid of when people start about making the protagonist more feminine is that the company will mistake it with, I don't know, "sexier" or getting more compliments from NPCs about her looks or whatever. Nothing wrong with that, either, but I can easily see that going wrong. And there's always the danger of defining our character a little too much for us when many people actually want more control over their own character.

 

So, yeah, I don't know. I don't think wanting a more feminine protagonist is a bad thing, definitely. But as far as I'm concerned, I really like what we've got. I'd prefer them to keep it more neutral with tweaks where needed and for the protagonists to be treated more or less the same by other NPCs with tweaks where needed. I'm rather happy with femShep. It may be a personal thing, I admit, but to me she's more relatable that way.

[SolNebula]

This issue would be solved if the cheap guys at BW started to motion-capture the animations from real life people. Why are we still stuck with those cheap animations? At least for the basic movements. The running animation in ME3 is atrocious.

[Felya87]

I was more than happy with the unisex walking animation in ME. Not that great, ok, but is for both sexes, not only FemShep. I hate with a passion the walking-on-12 cm-heels-even-if-I'm-not-wearing-shoes-at-all of DAI.

My problem was that FemShep was way too thin. No muscle mass present. And way too much on MaleShep.

 

I'd love the chance to choose a body model in Andromeda. I would love to play a more muscular female soldiar (maybe flat chested too) and a thin male biotic.

And a skin jacket for the female character. My FemShep was definitely jelous of my MaleShep's N7 skin jacket.

[Mdizzletr0n]

I don't know, OP. I, for one, really loved how femShep was handled and that the animations were pretty much unisex most of the time. I like it a lot. The single place it seemed a bit funny to me was during Kasumi's mission where she had to wear a dress and, yeah, that was awkward, I admit. But the thing is that it looks pretty natural when she wears amour. And the game is about her kicking ass, not about her wearing pretty dresses. As for pictures that show femShep in that dress sitting around the Normandy with her legs spread, it rather makes me wonder why the ship's commander would even wear such a thing, especially on duty.

I'm not against more feminine animations, let me say that. I'm not at all against very feminine characters in video games, either. Especially if done well. The opposite, I welcome it. Even if I'd rather not play one in games like Mass Effect, which is purely a personal preference. I also don't think that soldiers can't be feminine, especially off duty. There's no reason that should be mutually exclusive. But we are still dealing with a highly trained combatant that wears tons of guns and tons of armour and that spends the game kicking ass. If she spends most of her time on the battlefield or commanding her ship, she should act the part. If she has to wear a dress for some reason, all right, I get it. (I'd rather the animations and outfits weren't exaggerated, though.) If she wants to wear loose hair while off duty, cool.

The problem is, I think, that feminine is subjective and it probably means something else to each person. What I'm afraid of when people start about making the protagonist more feminine is that the company will mistake it with, I don't know, "sexier" or getting more compliments from NPCs about her looks or whatever. Nothing wrong with that, either, but I can easily see that going wrong. And there's always the danger of defining our character a little too much for us when many people actually want more control over their own character.

So, yeah, I don't know. I don't think wanting a more feminine protagonist is a bad thing, definitely. But as far as I'm concerned, I really like what we've got. I'd prefer them to keep it more neutral with tweaks where needed and for the protagonists to be treated more or less the same by other NPCs with tweaks where needed. I'm rather happy with femShep. It may be a personal thing, I admit, but to me she's more relatable that way.

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Well, when you think about it, Shep was off duty for the entirety of ME2 and s/he should've been casual that entire game. Lol

[Vanilka]

.

Well, when you think about it, Shep was off duty for the entirety of ME2 and s/he should've been casual that entire game. Lol

 

You've got a point, perhaps, but that depends on how you look at it. Whether you call it "on duty" or "at work", she was still doing her thing - commanding the ship, etc. Moreover, I don't know whether I'd call that dress "casual".

[BabyPuncher]

 ...but all of that was later called into question by the revelation of the Prothean beacon and direct influence in their development...

 

I really have a hard time understanding the reasoning behind this. How does this even matter?

 

All societies are in the places they are today because of the actions of people who lived many hundreds of thousands of years ago. Because of the actions of ancestors none or us knew of had any control over.

 

So the Protheans gave them math or whatever...So what? I'm not seeing any meaningful difference between Protheans doing it and an asari figuring it out themselves. You think because an asari did something however many thousands of years ago it gives current asari personal honor today?

 

It doesn't do a damn thing to change what people are doing today, here and now. If they're smarter here and now today, they're smarter here and now today, and that's just the end of it. And of course this applies to real life societies as much as it does to the asari and protheans.

[BabyPuncher]

The problem is, I think, that feminine is subjective and it probably means something else to each person. What I'm afraid of when people start about making the protagonist more feminine is that the company will mistake it with, I don't know, "sexier" or getting more compliments from NPCs about her looks or whatever. Nothing wrong with that, either, but I can easily see that going wrong. And there's always the danger of defining our character a little too much for us when many people actually want more control over their own character.

 

Okay, no offense, but falling back on 'everything is subjective' to justify inaction is very weak reasoning. Yes, there is 'subjectivity,' but it should be overwhelmingly clear to any rational person that irrefutable trends arise. And they have. Not just with gender but pretty much every facet of life. Should BioWare just not tell stories because pretty much everything they talk about is 'subjective'?

[Vanilka]

Okay, no offense, but falling back on 'everything is subjective' to justify inaction is very weak reasoning. Yes, there is 'subjectivity,' but it should be overwhelmingly clear to any rational person that irrefutable trends arise. And they have. Not just with gender but pretty much every facet of life. Should BioWare just not tell stories because pretty much everything they talk about is 'subjective'?

 

Maybe if you paid attention to the rest of the paragraph, you'd understand what I'm getting at. Taking stuff out of context when somebody writes a whole paragraph to explain themselves is generally not a good idea. I see no reason why I shouldn't express a worry about how something that is subjective might be handled. I never tried to "justify inaction". What I said was that what's feminine is subjective and that I worry that it might easily go wrong. Never have I said that it shouldn't be done or that it shouldn't be done because of that reason.

[BabyPuncher]

Is this a worry you express for every other facet of the game that is 'subjective'? Because just about every other facet is. Every moral, every choice, every character, every line of dialogue. These are all things that can and often do go wrong, likely at least in part because someone makes a 'subjective' call that doesn't go over well.

[themikefest]

The way femshep ran in ME3, she would qualify as a fullback on a football team

[Vanilka]

Is this a worry you express for every other facet of the game that is 'subjective'? Because just about every other facet is. Every moral, every choice, every character, every line of dialogue. These are all things that can and often do wrong, likely at least in part because someone makes a 'subjective' call that doesn't go over well.

 

Is there any actual point to this question? I was pretty sure this thread was about MEA being more feminine. Not about me and what I'm interested in.

[SlottsMachine]

I think this is more the point OP was making:

 

LOL. But it seems some people liked that, so maybe it should stay. Give the people what they want!

[BabyPuncher]

Is there any actual point to this question? I was pretty sure this thread was about MEA being more feminine. Not about me and what I'm interested in.

 

Just that 'subjectivity' is a line of reasoning I hear way too often. I'd prefer to see less of it.

[Vanilka]

Just that 'subjectivity' is a line of reasoning I hear way too often. I'd prefer to see less of it.

 

Fair enough. But I don't think that means I can't wonder about something that will affect my experience on a rather deep level since I already know I want to play the female protagonist at least once. She's going to be there with me the whole game, so naturally I care about how she'll be handled, as I care about many other aspects of the game that, however, have nothing to do with this particular topic. Since this thread is what it is, I am of course thinking about what feminine exactly even means to me, whether I personally want it in this particular game, what it might be to BioWare, and I am also hoping that if it is done, then it'll be done well - especially with something ambiguous like this. Since expressing thoughts and personal opinions is all we can do at this point, that's what I'm doing.

[Killdren88]

The Shepard trilogy mainly showed Shepard when she was fighting or commanding, naturally. There must be hours of "gameplay" in between scenes that are never showed. I always had a headcanon that my Shepard loved tea, cooking and watering flowers in her off-time.

My suggestion? Just use your imagination. I don't think the script is so over-empowering that it's impossible to imagine she has her fragile moments.

I do that all the time. My colonist sole survivor Shep is a suicidal alcoholic and constantly fears letting other people die. She gets over it through the bonds and conncedtions she makes through all three games and has new purpose in life.to the point where Liara, Garrus and such has more value to her than her own personal well being.

[StarcloudSWG]

I'd very much rather that the animations for the male and female skeletal rigs be *different*. Because just having those differences in the ilium (the hipbone) makes a very noticeable difference in the connections of the muscles, the build, and any movement that involves the hips, from running to swimming to acrobatic tumbling to walking to jogging to just standing.

 

Strain relief is a big reason why people don't just stand stiffly all the time, and men and women have different skeleto-muscular strains. The differences in build are also big reasons why some movements are much easier for women than for men, and why some stances are more common for one sex than the other.

[ExoGeniVI]

LOL. But it seems some people liked that, so maybe it should stay. Give the people what they want!

That pic is disgusting! She looks like she's drunk and a ****** lol

[Malthier]

Female characters get more feminine more breast they have?

 

 

So feminine!

 

Edited

[Mdizzletr0n]

You've got a point, perhaps, but that depends on how you look at it. Whether you call it "on duty" or "at work", she was still doing her thing - commanding the ship, etc. Moreover, I don't know whether I'd call that dress "casual".

Yea... You just aren't hanging out with the right people! Lol