266 réponses à ce sujet

[Baris]

I'm a femShep player, none of my Sheps are male. This is partially due to voice acting which I couldn't stand in ME1 (although in ME2 he sounds much much better - I might give it a try) and partially because as a female gamer, I'm given the chance to play a female character so I will.

That said, I say no to a canon Shepard - be it male or female. We have the option to play either one we choose, why take that pleasure away by canonising one of them? I hated when it happened with KotOR, I'd definitely hate it if it happened with ME universe - even this time to my "advantage". If I say I should be able to enjoy my characters without Bioware telling me they do not exist at all, maleShep players deserve the same.

Sheploo is not canon, he's just a poster boy - even though his face is getting scarily close to a canon Shepard as some gamers out there incorrectly like to believe. All in all though, I'd very much appreciate if femShep got more acknowledgement in promos/ads/covers etc. It's only fair.

[The Uncanny]

Baris wrote...

Sheploo is not canon, he's just a poster boy.

And yet I'll bet you that should a Mass Effect movie actually go ahead it ends up starring some shaven headed pretty boy.

[Chaos-fusion]

Baris wrote...

Sheploo is not canon, he's just a poster boy

they may as well make him it. I love playing femshep, and my various, non-Vanderloo male Sheperds, but I doubt ME3 will be the last ME game ever, so they're going to need a canon backstory, and guess what they're going to use. <_<

At this point, Bio have (from how i see it) all but said "Yes, you can play as a woman, or as a different male, but that's not how you're meant to play". Or, maybe I'm just being too cynical.

Modifié par Chaos-fusion, 18 mars 2010 - 03:22 .

[Baris]

The Uncanny wrote...

Baris wrote...

Sheploo is not canon, he's just a poster boy.

And yet I'll bet you that should a Mass Effect movie actually go ahead it ends up starring some shaven headed pretty boy.

At this point, I have no doubt it would. Just another reason why a ME movie is not good idea at all.

Chaos-fusion, I hope Bioware will manage to finish Shepard's story without falling into these traps that would make many fans angry who are already irritated by Sheploo's appareance everywhere. To be honest, I don't think that's their intention - I hope they don't prove me wrong.

Modifié par Baris, 18 mars 2010 - 03:39 .

[ModerateOsprey]

I have played both and like them both for entirely different reasons. I do agree that many of the archetype characters from past computer games are macho male types and female protaganists are rare. This was probably due to most computer games being played and written by mainly males.



When given the option to play both sexes in a game, I always take it. I am a bloke and created a female character for Rainbow 6 Vegas - now, she did rock and roll



I think Bioware/EA should have released the game with different covers like some magazines or CDs do or even show both Male and Female Shep on the cover with strapline about choosing or playing both.

[The Governator]

XxXgunziXxX wrote...

sometimes whycant womenbe happy with what theyhave u now get to vote and work in factorys whatelse do u want ? if i was the law i would make it thatwomanare no diffrent tomen so the man could slapthe girl and vise versa ..-. fricking goverment

You need to stop posting.  This has nothing to do with battering women. 

I am a man.  I am attracted to benevolent alpha females who do not have superiority complexes.  Femshep is perfect if played Paragon.

[Goodwood]

Yeah, my FemSheps tend to be Paragon, but also able to be tough when need be (for example, renegade is the way to go while on Tuchanka, even for a paragon, because that's what the krogan respect, and you need them on your side).

In any case, there is an example of "canon" turning out to utterly defy the marketing department. Anyone remember the Jedi Exile from KotOR II? The protagonist from that game was hyped up as being this "badass" renegade male Jedi Knight, and then Lucasfilm Licensing went and canonized the Exile as being female, and light-sided at that.

This fact gives me hope...

Modifié par Goodwood, 18 mars 2010 - 04:11 .

[The Governator]

Goodwood wrote...

Yeah, my FemSheps tend to be Paragon, but also able to be tough when need be (for example, renegade is the way to go while on Tuchanka, even for a paragon, because that's what the krogan respect, and you need them on your side).

In any case, there is an example of "canon" turning out to utterly defy the marketing department. Anyone remember the Jedi Exile from KotOR II? The protagonist from that game was hyped up as being this "badass" renegade male Jedi Knight, and then Lucasfilm Licensing went and canonized the Exile as being female, and light-sided at that.

This fact gives me hope...

I might have to play KoTORII again for that.  I love canon female heroes.  I hope and wish that Bioware would do that for Mass Effect.  

[geekeffect]

Ok, so I'm a guy and my main playthrough was a male Paragon soldier. Which I now find a very boring setup. I'm now going for the Female Vanguard. She's mainly Paragon but I decided to go for the colonist setup. I kind of imagine this future... these humans from the colonies are probably seen as second grade citizens... and then there's this young female hero with biotic powers that looses her family, joins the Alliance and becomes the greatest hero of the galaxy and a real role-model for mankind. And I'm loving this setup very much, much better than my first soldier dude I have to say.

So yeah, female Shepards rule!

[Goodwood]

I should probably reiterate that, in my original post, the Meer vs. Hale thing is just my own opinion, as is the "male heroes are boring and staid". Hell, all of it is just my opinion, and while I wouldn't be bothered by the lack of a canon Shepard, I would be highly miffed if Sheploo was indeed made canon.



Anyway, throwing in my support for Jane Shepard art for ME3 here.

[Bachuck]

LOL @ the complete absurdity of this topic and its posters.

Have any of you realized that EA/Bioware's marketing department works in conjunction with the developers to promote the game? Have you really deluded yourself into believing that Bioware's developers want Shepard portrayed one way but their own marketing department has taken a different route entirely? Are you people serious?

Using IGN as a reference, it was on October 4, 2005, at the X05 event that Bioware announced Mass Effect. On that day they released five pictures to the gaming world and 4 out of the 5 showcased a male Shepard. I'm providing a link to them.

media.xbox360.ign.com/media/718/718963/imgs_14.html

What's interesting is how at that point, Bioware wasn't using Mark Vanderloo as the in game model, but that Shepard still held the same visual similarities as the later model would. So the notion that Vanderloo is simply a placeholder for marketing is utterly moronic. Bioware clearly had a sense of how they wanted their Shepard to appear and while they've tweaked the model, the design of the character - white male soldier with a specific haircut - has not changed since 2005.

Moving on to this femshep nonsense (and by nonsense I mean the idea that she's somehow the more "real" Shepard), from what I can tell on IGN (I didn't go back and reread every article), the first report of playing as a femshep appeared on August 28, 2007.

xbox360.ign.com/articles/816/816533p1.html

If this holds up, that means Bioware used maleshep as a way to promote the game for two years. Two years and you think he's not the canon shep? They could've used any model for the character if they wanted. Hell, they could've kept switching between male and female shep as an especially ingenious promotional tool, but they didn't. They kept showcasing male Shep.

Just because Bioware gave us the OPTION to play as a female Shepard doesn't mean they owe players of femsheps anything. They have REPEATEDLY used the same image for Shepard since the games inception. It's your own fault for thinking the character you refer to as Sheploo is not the official canon version.

The scary thing about this thread is the nasty sense of entitlement and resentment many of you are directing towards Bioware for, what is essentially, sticking with their original vision. Many of you are acting like Male Shepard is some sort of recent development. You seem to believe that when you purchased ME1, the box showed only a human figure in silouhette or something. That is not the case:



That look like a visual blank slate to anyone?

From what I've found, that cover art was revealed on January 23, 2007, which is damn near ten months before the game hit the streets in November. You see anything on there that remotely suggests Shepard is as much female as he is a male?

If Shep had always been promoted as being a faceless nothing (ala the main character in DA:O), then I could understand where everyone in this thread is coming from, but that's not the case at all. Shep has been this way for four years running (going on FIVE) and it's really time you people accepted that fact.

Yes, you love your femsheps dearly (you should). Yes, you've grown attached to them (I think we've all grown attached to our respective Sheps). Yes, can't fathom anyone else's Shep as the real Shep (this is to be expected), but to be resentful at Bioware for not catering to your feelings regarding a character they created and have every right to take in any creative direction they choose, is flat-out stupid and immature. You should show gratitude to a development team who care enough about their fans to have given us a choice in the first place. Only an immature fool would repay them with scorn and resentment.

I'm grateful for the sandbox Bioware have allowed me to play in, but I'm also aware that ultimately, Shepard is their toy I'm playing with and he is, for all intents and purposes, on loan. At some point, a profitable movie deal will present itself and when that happens, they're going take their toy back and showcase him in whatever manner they choose.

I'm okay with that and if you truly love Mass Effect as you say, you should be too.

Modifié par Bachuck, 19 mars 2010 - 12:09 .

[Goodwood]

Thanks for the support, Rynluna.



To be fair, I did kind of imply that I wanted FemShep to be canon, but have since accepted that there won't/shouldn't be one. Bachuck isn't completely wrong in assuming that, I at least, didn't have some small sense of entitlement. But hey, that's all water under the bridge -- teh Internets is srs biznz, after all.

[WilliamShatner]

Female Shepard is probably the best, most realised character BioWare has ever created. Male Shepard is not. It shows how important an actor can be to a role and they can affect the overall character. I got chills when Hale delivered her speech to the crew in Mass Effect. She is wonderful.

[Olyvar Targaryen]

My main character is a standard paragon male shepard, because all the trailers suggested me, to use him. But I have 2 femsheps. One is a real paragon and the other one is a real badass.

Both of them have great voice acting, but maleshepard the better LIs.

I never finished Kotor with a male char and always played as a woman.

BTW: I´m a 20 year old guy

[Unata]

I've tried 4 times to run a manshep and just can't finish them, their lost in space, the voice just doesn't do anything to make me want to continue them, I have 14 assorted femsheps most have been run all the way through, others are at various spots trying things out. can't seem to get envolved in the manshep.

[Llandaryn]

Goodwood wrote...

FemSheps United


To sum it all up, male protagonists are boring and staid. It's time to change things up by showing that women are just as capable of saving civilization as men are, without suffering any of the stereotypes so commonly (and unfortunately) applied to women today.

What, exactly, are you united for/against?

Femshep is already a viable alternative to Maleshep, and she saves the galaxy just fine. Nobody's pushing Maleshep down anyone's throat. I don't understand the need for uniting in the name of a cause that already exists.

[Goodwood]

Llandaryn wrote...

Goodwood wrote...

FemSheps United


To sum it all up, male protagonists are boring and staid. It's time to change things up by showing that women are just as capable of saving civilization as men are, without suffering any of the stereotypes so commonly (and unfortunately) applied to women today.

What, exactly, are you united for/against?

Femshep is already a viable alternative to Maleshep, and she saves the galaxy just fine. Nobody's pushing Maleshep down anyone's throat. I don't understand the need for uniting in the name of a cause that already exists.

First of all, the discourse throughout this thread has taught me a bit about how others feel about the gender choice in the Mass Effect games. That said, you could say that I, at least, am only hoping to unite those of us who prefer FemSheps to MaleSheps, and want some recognition of that from the marketing department. Not against MaleSheps, though I can understand how someone could have that impression.

It's just that the constant hyping of Sheploo is a bit boring. IMHO, of course.

[Zandilar]

@AngryFrozenWater and @Llandaryn

Did you see the trailers for Mass Effect 2? Jane Shepard was no where to be seen. It was typical "Hide Your Women" fare, because not even the female NPCs made appearances.

Now I'm sure you'll point out that each squadmate got their own movie, but those aren't trailers aimed at pulling in a new audience. Those were to hype existing players.

@Baris

The argument we're trying to make here is that by having Sheploo be the face of Mass Effect 2, Bioware, despite what they've said, has effectively made him the "canon" Shepard. Since most people will refer to Shepard as "he" by default now. He might not actually be canon, but he may as well be.

Bioware, if you really want to be true to your "no canon Shepard", please include Jane Shepard in promotions for ME3.

@Badchuck

I have never, at any point, said that JaneShep is any more or less the real Shepard than JohnShep.

My complaint about the absence of JaneShep is an old one, and in fact does go back to ME1. (Just to emphasise the point, here.) Which is why in the above paragraph I referd to him (male Shepard) as JohnShep, and will continue to do so for complete clarity.

Our claim that JohnShep is not the canon Shepard comes because Bioware have said that he's not the canon Shepard, and that there is no canon Shepard.

Also, showing gratitude for crumbs and not asking for more, is a lesson in how to starve. If a variety of minority groups had sat back and thanked society for the few things they got that were good and never demanded a better, more equal deal, they would still be second class citizens. Yes, this is a game. Yes, that is a little over the top as an analogy, but it is similar, but on a smaller scale. If we just thank Bioware, nothing will change in their next or future games. We'll end up with the same deal over and over again. This is why we're making our opinions known here.

Oh, and regarding Redemption? They haven't mentioned Shepard's gender once in three comics so far. I see no reason why they'll mention it in the fourth one. Here's the proof there's no Canon Shepard: Who is Canon Shepard? - you should be looking for a Bioware tagged post five posts down from the top. (Now everyone, watch it get dismissed as semantics!)

[9to82td]

I'll add to the fun with this pic below:

Modifié par 9to82td, 18 mars 2010 - 10:58 .