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[Cptn Kaladin Anrizlokum]

You, as a male (and there's nothing inherently wrong with that,) aren't really capable of understanding what is going to alienate or make women gamers feel unwelcome.

Actually, it is possible. Not simple or easy, but also not impossible.
(Also, that post was very good. Much less hostility and more helpful.)

Also, I'm pretty sure Wartune is a free game. At least, I think it is?

[smeeprocket]

Hunh?  Those dont operate on the Facebook game principle?

Free to P(l)ay?

Free to Play games can't run without money. Really, it's probably pay for perks, I used to be an admin for a mud like that, and people would drop upwards of $10k over a few years to get an edge on other people. It's addictive.

[XXXXYYYY]

For a few examples of the shit I was referencing before, view into the spoiler.

Spoiler: Remember these? (NSFW because BS marketing) (will remove if against forum guidelines) (click to show/hide)

I always did wonder which shitty marketing firm advises that this is a good ad. Like, who is that actually going to get to buy their thing.

I'm pretty sure it's Free-to-play, so the ads are in effect clickbait. It's bullshit, but if the forum has 300,000 posts, someone is playing it.

EDIT:

Hunh?  Those dont operate on the Facebook game principle?

Free to P(l)ay?

Free to Play games can't run without money. Really, it's probably pay for perks, I used to be an admin for a mud like that, and people would drop upwards of $10k over a few years to get an edge on other people. It's addictive.

Geez that must have been depressing.

[Graknorke]

For a few examples of the shit I was referencing before, view into the spoiler.

Spoiler: Remember these? (NSFW because BS marketing) (will remove if against forum guidelines) (click to show/hide)

I always did wonder which shitty marketing firm advises that this is a good ad. Like, who is that actually going to get to buy their thing.

they were up for awhile and may still be up, so someone is buying into it.

The only way it could really work would be if it's a kind of "hasn't killed you yet" reasoning. Kind of like:
"Are you still in business?"
"Yeah..."
"Well then the ads must be working, keep it up."

EDIT: Yeah I know it's F2P. That doesn't mean it's not trying to sell you anything.


ANYWAY, TANGENT.

[smeeprocket]

I think we overestimate a decent sized portion of the gaming populace (male or female)

Even FTP that isn't pay for perks will work like EQ, where you lose enough stuff doing FTP that plenty of people will shell out money to get full play rights or things like pets, etc.

[smeeprocket]

For a few examples of the shit I was referencing before, view into the spoiler.

Spoiler: Remember these? (NSFW because BS marketing) (will remove if against forum guidelines) (click to show/hide)

I always did wonder which shitty marketing firm advises that this is a good ad. Like, who is that actually going to get to buy their thing.

I'm pretty sure it's Free-to-play, so the ads are in effect clickbait. It's bullshit, but if the forum has 300,000 posts, someone is playing it.

EDIT:

Hunh?  Those dont operate on the Facebook game principle?

Free to P(l)ay?

Free to Play games can't run without money. Really, it's probably pay for perks, I used to be an admin for a mud like that, and people would drop upwards of $10k over a few years to get an edge on other people. It's addictive.

Geez that must have been depressing.

A lot of the PVPrs were military, and those were the people that would want the perks, since the big thing in the game was pvp. SO they had a lot of disposable income and a lot of time in between the bad shit that happens over in iraq and afghanistan

tbh I spent multiple thousands of dollars myself, so I was not immune to it. Then I let them shit all over me for three years while I did work for them for free

[MDFification]

This thread has reached peak derail.

Requesting a lock as people can't seem to realize they aren't posting in General Discussion.

[Meph]

This thread has reached peak derail.

Requesting a lock as people can't seem to realize they aren't posting in General Discussion.

I'd like to second this. I've read the entire thread, and there has been nothing that could be called  "df suggestion" for the last 10 pages or so.

Best would be to make a nice write-up of the initial post, e.g. explain and present the suggestion of a procedual gender system, post it, then lock it. There is no reason to jump at each others throat all the time, with both parties making mistakes.

[Urist Tilaturist]

My positions on this now can be summarised as such:
I would be happy to accept transgender and intersex dwarves in the game.
Dwarves should remain without gender roles - that is an important aspect of their culture.
Elves can be matriarchal, or stay so if they are already.
Wartune sucks, F2P or not. Their marketing is even more stupid. I don't play it.

Contentious points:
Mundane animal species should have sexual dimorphism based on their biology, with predictable consequences.
WoW is stupid and should put its female warriors into actual armour. I don't actually play it. However, portraying a world of sexual exploitation and prejudice does not automatically endorse it.
I do not know exactly what puts off female gamers, but I do not think they all react in the same way, and women do not know exactly what puts off male gamers either.
TV Tropes is mildly annoying and its jargon should not invade Bay12games. I have no right to censor anyone, but I would prefer it if people just said that Lara Croft's mentor was "killed".

A lock on the thread would be fine for me. I do not really agree with the OP in having procedural gender roles for dwarves, since they should have no gender roles whatsoever.

[Reelya]

Stuffed in the fridge? In some kind of Jeffrey Dahmer type incident, or for cryogenesis?

Again, haven't played the game...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Refrigerators

And if you had the game the other way around: male PC being guided by a female NPC who is later killed off for the plot, you'd have people saying the female NPC was only there to serve the male player's needs, she's only a "helpful damsel" in distress who aids the player, not a character with her own free will or agency (she only ever thinks about what the male PC needs or should be doing, and relies 100% on him taking actions), and finally she's killed off to act as "character development" for the male PC (Anita Sarkeesian makes a specific point of this as Violence Against Women used as a plot point for male PC character development) . So it's all sexist against the female NPC. It's a very touchy issue, if you flip the genders you reverse all the arguments, and a female PC 'blindly" following after a male PC is clearly sexist against the PC not the NPC, if the male NPC gives directions on how to succeed, this is no longer subservient "helpful" behavior: it's dictatorial order-giving. If he needs her to do stuff for him or rescue him, he's a lazy asshole who can't help himself dictating that she get back in the kitchen and do the chores, etc etc.

If you're playing a woman with a male to rescue the argument goes "so she's doing it all for a man, how sexist, they're saying she has no 'self' and will do everything for a man" and the reverse (male rescuing a female) is "so it's about a guy doing it all for a woman, what is this? They're saying women can't help themselves and need a man to do it?" If two identical situations get interpreted by the same person so differently when the genders are reversed, there's no "they're saying", it's "you're saying" because those are your personal interpretations right there, not anyone else's.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Violence against EVERYBODY is common in games (except children for some reason, apparently reaching majority makes somebody a more acceptable target for murder or something wacky like that) and I would say the male body count is far, far higher given games like COD. These characters are also flat and basically just there to be killed. This does not matter a bit, because it is just a game.

Most AAA games treat all NPCs like dirt, male or female. Say a few lines of dialogue, get killed, maybe respawn. I remember hearing that children had an unexplained immortality spell on them in Skyrim and finding friends a mod to fix this oversight, for which they were very grateful, but the unmodded game largely seemed to consist of mass murder rampages anyway and it seemed stupid not to include everyone in these. (Again, another game which I never actually played myself. I watched friends play it a few times, but was never really awed by it in any way to the point of buying it because of its undue focus on slaughter and general shallowness, even in the combat it was centred around. Punching somebody in armour with bare fists and only he gets damaged...no.) The only difference is the unnecessary sexualisation of female PCs and NPCs alike, especially in games like WoW. I agree that this needs to be toned down a bit, having seen the alleged female "armour" in some games.

[Meph]

Unrealistic body proportions and armor is not only for females. The average male doesnt look like Kratos or He-Man either, running around bare-chested with a loincloth.

[smeeprocket]

Stuffed in the fridge? In some kind of Jeffrey Dahmer type incident, or for cryogenesis?

Again, haven't played the game...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Refrigerators

And if you had the game the other way around: male PC being guided by a female NPC who is later killed off for the plot, you'd have people saying the female NPC was only there to serve the male player's needs, she's only a "helpful damsel" in distress who aids the player, not a character with her own free will or agency (she only ever thinks about what the male PC needs or should be doing, and relies 100% on him taking actions), and finally she's killed off to act as "character development" for the male PC (Anita Sarkeesian makes a specific point of this as Violence Against Women used as a plot point for male PC character development) . So it's all sexist against the female NPC. It's a very touchy issue, if you flip the genders you reverse all the arguments, and a female PC 'blindly" following after a male PC is clearly sexist against the PC not the NPC, if the male NPC gives directions on how to succeed, this is no longer subservient "helpful" behavior: it's dictatorial order-giving. If he needs her to do stuff for him or rescue him, he's a lazy asshole who can't help himself dictating that she get back in the kitchen and do the chores, etc etc.

If you're playing a woman with a male to rescue the argument goes "so she's doing it all for a man, how sexist, they're saying she has no 'self' and will do everything for a man" and the reverse (male rescuing a female) is "so it's about a guy doing it all for a woman, what is this? They're saying women can't help themselves and need a man to do it?" If two identical situations get interpreted by the same person so differently when the genders are reversed, there's no "they're saying", it's "you're saying" because those are your personal interpretations right there, not anyone else's.

I think a lot of this is assumption and I wouldn't agree with it at all.

However, havning 2 dimensional characters to prop up the plot, who seem to many times be women, is a problem.

[Reelya]

I think a lot of this is assumption and I wouldn't agree with it at all.

That's not quite clear whether you're saying it's all assumption on my part or assumption on the part of the people I'm citing? Because most of what I wrote was just relaying what established writers are saying. Since you say you don't agree with anything I said, I interpret that as you're saying I'm only assuming that people say all these things. That's not correct though since most of this is directly citing what established writers on the topic like Feminist Frequency say, and comparing it with what other people are saying about gender-flipped analogous situations in Metroid and Tomb Raider.

However, havning 2 dimensional characters to prop up the
plot, who seem to many times be women, is a problem.

Game characters are mostly 2 dimensional, that's a problem by itself but not one that's quickly fixed by engineering inclusivity. Games tend to be 100% from the perspective of a single character, so it's just not a simple task of emulating "how movies do it" or "how books do it", since the design differences are non-trivial. Side characters can't have a lot of agency, because either you end up railroading the PC with dialogue that's not interactive (info dumps of character background), or that NPC more or less takes over the plot for a while (you need a lot of plot railroading to keep the high-agency NPC in the picture), or the NPC is off doing their own thing and not interacting with the PC (and therefore not really part of the game).

Anyway, the general thing is that they complain that only 15% of game characters are female, now you're saying too many side characters are female too? It doesn't sound like there's a "win" condition here.

[Urist Tilaturist]

What if...there isn't one plot, but many, as in DF? Life is like that, as are many stories - there is not 1 storyline that everything is in service of, so why should that be the case for games? Side characters are main characters to them, and the PC is a side character.

Bare chested loincloth men are not sensible either, but their armour, while still often hilariously stupid, does not show off quite as much skin.

The number of female characters in itself does not denote sexism either. No one would expect any female characters on board a Cold War US Navy submarine, for example.