Female character implemented?

[TECHNOmancer]

I was looking at the latest screen shots -- so fantasic! -- and wondering if you, the developers, might post one with a female character. Then I realized that the hero in the picture is wearing about 30 pounds of gear and could be either a man or a woman. Are you pulling a Metroid moment on me, i.e the GD equivalent of Samus Aran?? ;)

TECHNOmancer

[ASYLUM101]

It's definitely a guy lol. But I'm also interested in seeing a female PC, however I don't think they've advanced the game far enough for that. If I were working on a game, the various PC's would be one of the last things I'd put in, the first being of course the engine and important details, the map, then the rest of the stuff.

[sevrun]

yeah, spankin material comes last... you've got the whole internet for that anyway lmao.

[Malpheas]

Yeah, while you're at it, why not make a special cellophane armour set for women only...

On a more serious note, I would be interested to see if there are to be certain female only or male only sets. That might be interesting, or if model is just graphics and not a tangible choice otherwise.

[myrmidon]

this is my opinion i would not like to have female and male sets in the game. en less it was like contest of numen where you go to the shop to get it changed to male but ited have to be cheap. because i wouldn't want to be farming and i find this realy cool shirt for female and im male

[Malpheas]

Which is no different from being a necromancer in diablo 2 and finding this part for druid that could be useful for a necro; downside it's on a druid only character.

[medea fleecestealer]

Have to admit some of the guys do look a bit weird running around in TQ in some of the armor pieces, but then so do the women. If there are specific sets for male and female, perhaps they can give slightly different bonuses depending on the gender. A little extra strength for the females, a little more intelligence for the men (you know you need it).;)

And if we're thinking of cellophane female armor Malpheas, let's not forget that we women like a bit of eye candy, too. Male cellophane armor, anyone?:D

[Malpheas]

You know, I was going to suggest that, how about skin-tight rubber and an anatomically correct cod-piece to hang a medicine back off of? Utility!

Along the lines of sets, I'm not talking about making a male and a female version of each set, just different sets... end of story.

Good grief, the veil looked dumber n' @#$% on a guy.

[medea fleecestealer]

Can't really say I'm a fan of rubber; think I'd prefer the cellophane myself.

Sorry, I didn't mean completely different gender sets either, although maybe there could be one or two gender specific, but they'd need to be really rare and have fab specs & bonuses. No, I was thinking same sets, just a slightly different bonus depending on which you're playing. Could be part of the additional bonus you get when having a complete set as in TQ.

And I totally agree - a guy in that veil! I think I did try it on one of my male casters, but it didn't really go with the rest of his outfit. Changed it as soon as I could. Pity really as it's got quite good specs.

[Malpheas]

Aight, well, we're at two votes for Cellophane armour set for male & female characters.

Maybe we should make a poll.

[Kardiophylax]

Aight, well, we're at two votes for Cellophane armour set for male & female characters.

Maybe we should make a poll.

Alright, so this topic is not exactly what I expected when I stumbled into it...

[medierra]

To answer the original, legitimate question, we do have a first-pass female model roughed out but it isn't game-ready yet and we probably won't have time to actually get it in-game for a few more months. As Asylum101 speculated, this will probably be one of the later things that we implement since it is mainly just an aesthetic difference and not needed for development or testing.

[Malpheas]

Alright, that's one of the things I was wondering about: gender for aesthetics. So we shouldn't expect the differences to go beyond that?

Is it an opportunity for further content? Different quests for women and men (optional and minute, only)? Female only items and male only items would be nice. That would be better than just an contemplation of looks.

Cheers,

Malph

[medierra]

I think it is pretty questionable whether the majority of players would even favor more than an aesthetic difference between genders. Some people prefer to play characters of their own gender and I don't think they should be forced into making a gameplay choice in order to do this.

[Scryer]

That's right Medierra, I wouldn't want to be forced into a game-play decision, no matter how minute, just to play as my preferred gender. I could understand NPC's treating each gender slightly differently, to add some kind of personality to them or maybe a slightly different story line. That's as far as I would ever want to see any game go in terms of gender.

Having to sit down and decide which is the better gender, it's not something that I could say I'd be pleased to do.

[TECHNOmancer]

I think it is pretty questionable whether the majority of players would even favor more than an aesthetic difference between genders.

Agreed.

TECHNOmancer

[Renevent]

I think there should be differences when choosing gender...just like other RPG's when you choose race.

Female Stats
-10% Str
-10% End
+20% Dex
+10% Int

Innate Ability
Agonizing Nag - If enemy is engaged in combat with player for longer than 30 seconds, enemy will simply drop dead from being nagged to death

Male Stats
+20% Str
+10% End
-10% Int
-10% Dex

Innate Ability
No Map Required - Male characters do not require maps, therefore mini-map is hidden from player though they receive 10% bonus to running speed. Male characters can ask female characters for directions in MP games if they so choose.

[ASYLUM101]

lol Renevent. I can see it now...

"Ughhh! Why won't you die!? We've been fighting for so long now and you just don't give up! C'mon, why are you doing this? You're being just like... oh you're dead. Yay!"
lolol naggy

I don't see any problems with female/male only armor personaly, but they should be equal in stats, just different in looks. Iron skirt for women, Iron pants for men.

[TECHNOmancer]

Innate Ability
No Map Required - Male characters do not require maps, therefore mini-map is hidden from player though they receive 10% bonus to running speed. Male characters can ask female characters for directions in MP games if they so choose.

HAHAHA!! Thanks for the laughs, Renevent!

TECHNOmancer

[Malpheas]

My point was to bring light to why do we need different character genders in the first place?

Aesthetics? But if there isn't, guaranteed someone will ask "why didn't we have character genders in the first place?"

So really, the point is to please a greater audience breadth?

[medierra]

My point was to bring light to why do we need different genders in the first place?

If you're talking about the game - we have a male and female gender because the human species has a male and female gender, of which a player may be or desire to play a character of either gender.

If you're talking about life, not sure - something to do with the evolutionary advantage of promoting genetic diversity? Or was it something about god not wanting man to be lonely? Can't remember and not really important...

Suffice to say, it is what it is. ;)

[Malpheas]

Nah, I was talking about characters in game.

So basically, just aesthetics, then, right? Which, in my opinion, is unnecessary as the suggestions that I made as a result of that opinion. Which, actually, started off as a joke, but could probably have been left unsaid; now that I think of it.

[Pvt_Ryan]

If you're talking about the game - we have a male and female gender because the human species has a male and female gender, of which a player may be or desire to play a character of either gender.

If you're talking about life, not sure - something to do with the evolutionary advantage of promoting genetic diversity? Or was it something about god not wanting man to be lonely? Can't remember and not really important...

Suffice to say, it is what it is. ;)

It was so that Zeus had something to tap, i think you'll find.. :D

I quite like Renevent's stat idea (obv the innate ability part is ott), I did play an RPG once years ago, before the PC crowd and women's rights used the innate NAG ability, where there were stat differences between genders.

I also like the idea of NPCs reacting differently to different genders, perhaps some males scoffing at women, while others try and impress, and vice versa.

It adds a nice bit of diversity.

On a personal note, could you add something like GTAs Hot Coffee into the underlying code? :P

[Steerpike]

"I did play an RPG once years ago, before the PC crowd and women's rights used the innate NAG ability, where there were stat differences between genders".

Most RPGs did have gender differences before political correctness kicked in full swing. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st edition allowed men to be stronger than women (18/00 Str for men, 18/75 for women). They changed that with second edition, which did away with the percentiles, I think, and other gender biases.

More-recent computer games have had some imbalance. Arcane: of Steamworks and Magicka Obscura (or whatever it was), gave men a bonus to strength and women a bonus to constitution, for example. Mind you, that more recent example is about ten years old now...

[officerdonnz]

If I recall correctly in Dragon Age there are slight differences between male and female starting stats but they aren't huge and depending which class your were (warrior, mage, rogue) also affected your stats slightly as well but by the end of the game when your char is between level 22 to 25 it means sod all.

[myrmidon]

I think there stats should be equal.

[Edge]

I personally like being able to chose different genders. I like making multiple characters and to me it gets boring just having a human male to use.

[medea fleecestealer]

Oblivion is the same with slightly different stats depending on gender and race. Don't know how it affected the gameplay as I could never get to grips with it.

I think it's nice to have a choice of gender and possibly race, too. Two Worlds is a little bit boring for me because there's only the one character to work with. Yes, you can change hair colour/styles, eye colour (if you can even see the difference in the character setup screen), shape of body, etc., but I'd much rather have the simple male/female choice in TQ and not be able to change anything else. Once they disappear behind armour/clothing you're not going to see much hair/eye details anyway. My characters in TQ are pretty well equally divided between the gender choice. Sometimes I think a male character would be more fun for a particular mastery combo and at other times a female. God (or who/whatever) gave us a great diversity of life so why shouldn't the gaming world reflect that?

[Mindrivet]

I have done some oblivion modding and have seen underlying stats for both male and female, its very small difference. I think females have a higher personality for one of the races, but either way, it didn't matter much. The male-to-female interactions in the game were pretty acceptable (courtship sometimes and just talking like friends). I mean of course if you got a mod they would have sex or something but you have to have a pretty small view of the world to do that.

I personally think you might as well give them equal stats because in oblivion it made no noticible difference, unless you did a direct comparison with equal character advancement and masteries etc.

I do however point out, in any rpg, you must have both genders otherwise things are kinda bland looking.

[Void(null)]

I mean of course if you got a mod they would have sex or something but you have to have a pretty small view of the world to do that.

In my world, no one is interested in or has sexual intercourse, we instead all come from the purity of thought.

We will it, so it is so.

[Pelvis]

Hey i always play as a female character in games and im not the only one so,but it would be nice if the female character had some more sexy outfits then the male ...just a thought

[Roros]

I don't really play rpg's according to the stereotypical idea that you "are" your character. I "play" my character in the same way that I follow a character in a movie or control my units in an RTS. That's why I tend to pick female if they look better or more interesting (which, surprisingly, with me being a guy, that is usually the case) but I'm not too fussed either way. I'd much rather have an awesome looking male char than the option to pick between an average or awkward male or female.

I get a lot of flak for liking cool female designs that aren't necessarily attractive, and it's not rare that I'm all over a design that's purposely unattractive. I sometimes get the impression that there aren't many who share the same view, since most seem to just scratch their heads or think I have some kind of fetish when I note that a female orc barbarian or 10 foot tall geneboosted space marine lady looks awesome.

[Pelvis]

I prefer having to look at a female character all game long then to look at a guys ass all game long..but thats just my humble opinion lol :p