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| Thread: Do Developers Make Creature Gender Decisions or Publishers? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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JeremiahEmo
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
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posted July 09, 2014 03:14 PM |
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^ not at all. I was just saying that a woman can be hired even though she isn't the most qualified person for the job.
Hey, not hating, just pointing out the irony in your post. I really do believe that many of the Heroes 6 female creatures were only there because they are women, and not because they fit the theme best. This is gaming-style affirmative action.
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Simpelicity
Promising
Famous Hero
Video maker
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posted July 09, 2014 03:31 PM |
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You know, if you want to have the slightest chance of even being taken seriously, you need to actually make an argument, instead of throwing around random crap.
You say units are out of place but needed to be in for female presence? Name them and explain why they're out of place. Otherwise, entertaining as you might be, you're just wind.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted July 10, 2014 02:19 PM |
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That is kind of obvious to be honest  If ubi suddenly gender-bends a number of traditionally male units(for like 4-5 games in a row), it stands to reason that they want more female units. Whether the change makes sense or not is debatable but in the end it's an aesthetic choice that either works for you or it doesn't. You either care or you don't
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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Steyn
Supreme Hero
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posted July 10, 2014 02:27 PM |
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Edited by Steyn at 15:32, 10 Jul 2014.
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I thought we had only two Ubi versions up till now?
I would also like to know which units it are that pose the problem. The only gender-bender unit that comes to mind is the centaur, but that one is quite logical: centaur with bow reminds of horse archer, which reminds of Amazons, which were woman. I also did not see the need for the change, but I can see the logic behind it (and they don't look that female).
Hey, they even gender-bended the other way: those definitely female naga (queen) became male kenshi's (and inspired male rakshasa's?).
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted July 10, 2014 03:06 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 15:07, 10 Jul 2014.
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Amagad! So ubi is not as misandric as they make them out to be? 
I prefered the naga queens though the kensei was an interesting unit in their own right. And besides, it didn't try to usurp their place - That would be the rakshasa. Which I incidentally consider an appropriate substitute, similar and yet it stood out by itself.
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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JeremiahEmo
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
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posted July 10, 2014 04:46 PM |
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Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm basing this in the order of how they showed up in the ubi website but basically, every elite creature in the Haven army are female. We have Sun Riders, the champion but we don't even know if it's a male or female. Sentinels too, we are not sure since it's covered in full armor. Still, nonetheless, every elite creature is female which implies that women are better than men. And basically, the only male creature that we're sure is male in the Haven faction is the Marksman and he's second weakest creature in Haven.
Also, the 3 strongest creature in Necropolis are female.
Inferno's only female creature is 2nd strongest.
Only 1/3 of the elite creatures in Sanctuary is male
Only the Orcs has both female creatures in the Core. But wait, none of them are weakest too.
Again, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm basing this on the order they showed up in the ubi website. I'm assuming the first 3 creatures from the left is core, the next 3 is elite and the last is champion.
There are already a lot of games that tried this. Civilization 5 comes into mind. I don't think it worked. It's the genres that attract people, not representation.
Add more men in a My Little Pony and I will still not play My Little Pony. Unless of course, My Little Pony suddenly turns into a menacing, sinister pony that wants world domination and the game is all about amassing a huge army of ponies to conquer the world. But aside from that, the genre just doesn't interest me, you know what I mean?
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Steyn
Supreme Hero
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posted July 10, 2014 05:20 PM |
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Edited by Steyn at 17:27, 10 Jul 2014.
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You did not have to ask for corrections, I would have given them anyway  But it would've helped if you had actually played the game instead of being all judgemental based on some concept art and second-hand opinions.
Haven: As far as I know these fantasy games put ridiculous armor on females. Judging from that base, sentinel and sun riders are definitely male. That leaves one female core (sisters) and one female elite (glory).
Necro: Female creatures are ghosts (core) and namtaru's (champion). The latter is not surprising for a faction worshipping the spider goddess. Maybe you count the lamasu also as female, then they have also a female elite.
Inferno: Succubi (core) and breeders (elite) are female. Those are both not the 2nd powerful unit of inferno.
Sactuary: Here you are actually correct. However, both are magic creatures, so the muscle argument doesn't hold. Besides, for core the ratio is reversed.
Orcs: Harpies are core en centaurs are elite.
Simpelicity said:
You say units are out of place but needed to be in for female presence? Name them and explain why they're out of place.
Edit:
I'll add dungeon to make the list complete.
Dungeon: 1 female core, rest is male or genderless (although I don't know concerning the black dragons)
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Simpelicity
Promising
Famous Hero
Video maker
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posted July 10, 2014 08:52 PM |
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Heh, I thought he meant some units should not be in the game but were because those units are female... kinda like everyone thought glories were a stupid idea back then, and that that unit should have been something else. Thought he meant it like that, that for him glories (or some other unit) should've been another unit, but were put in to add a female. I wasn't thinking of just the gender choices...
To add to Steyn's list, I think seraphs are female, but honestly I can't really tell...
Lamasus are definitely not female, at least I never saw them as such.
Breeders are female in the way of an insect, I doubt that counts...
The snow and water elementals were established as female by 3DO actually, in H3, so... nothing new there.
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JeremiahEmo
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
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posted July 11, 2014 04:52 AM |
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Thank you for correcting me.
Dungeon creatures has more than one male? I think Assassins are the only male in that faction. It's 1 male, 1 female. The rest are genderless.
Also, the reason why it's out of place is because it's a war game. This game has too many women in a war. I understand that it's fantasy but even fantasy has to be believable right? Hey, I'm not hating but if we actually have a significant amount of female soldiers in the real battlefield, then Heroes 6's setup would have been fine. Right now, a Succubi, a Pixie and Coral Priestesses would have been enough to represent women in a war game.
Geesh, this is not supposed to be representation. It's supposed to be about a quality game.
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 11, 2014 05:20 AM |
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ever played "mrs. pacman"? what'd you think? i think it's an equality thing. if a guy can eat a bunch of balls, so should a woman be able to. 
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Gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted July 11, 2014 08:12 AM |
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JeremiahEmo said:
Geesh, this is not supposed to be representation. It's supposed to be about a quality game.
The quality of the H6 "game" and the gender of the creatures shown are, to put it delicately, completely and absolutely unrelated. The game itself had many, many flaws, from massive bugs to multiple balancing and gameplay issues, and a craptastic story line to go along with it, H6 really was not a good game. Its representation of "proper" war time ratios doesn't really do anything to break immersion for me, since it is a fantasy game and heroes have both been Male and Female in pretty much equal ratios since H3 for every faction. The glories and Spring Sisters were really rather borked, and there was no reason to give them a gender beyond giving them a gender... personally, I think the two would have worked better as 1) A blob of light that is in a vaguely-humanoid shape, glowing so bright that the actual body features cannot be seen and 2) ... A different creature. Because snow those watery sons of...
But aesthetically, it seems like you are trying to argue that graphical accuracy to medieval times (in the form of character models) is the only qualifier that one needs for a quality game, and that if it lacks this that the game is disqualified from being quality. Hello, Age of Wonders 1-3, Heroes 2 and Disciples 2 all would like to voice their disagreement with you. And that is a very, very small selection of games that would do so... (*Cough*Baldurs Gate 1, 2 and ToB, best RPG for almost a decade straight, best game-characters personality and optimization/ power wise are females IMO*Cough*) The "fluff" of the game is if a creature or character is male or female, which has no impact on the "crunch", or game mechanics, which is what most people use to objectively judge if a game is quality or not.
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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Steyn
Supreme Hero
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posted July 11, 2014 08:13 AM |
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I would say minotaurs are also male, as they don't have any breasts or udders.
And heroes is not a war game, it is a fantasy TBS, meaning it doesn't have to abide to the rules of reality.
Let me guess, you also don't like chess because the strongest piece on the board is the Queen?
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Simpelicity
Promising
Famous Hero
Video maker
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posted July 11, 2014 08:18 AM |
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I think he's counting the faceless. They're the shadow equivalent of angels, so... you could think of them as having a gender, even though that's really not obvious. And if you do consider them having a gender, then yeah, don't let the butterfly wings fool you, I think those would definitely be male.
Your conception of a battlefield dates back to the world wars I see. You know, guns are as deadly no matter who wields them. And with today using more and more sophisticated technology, gender difference is made just that much more irrelevant.
Besides, H6 female units are cast in a very traditional way. All of them, without any exception, have a role that caters to support or ranged damage. The only unit that has a claim to any kind of beefiness (y'know, man's traditionnal "role") would be mizu-kami, they are quite resilient. They're at their most useful when sharing that resilience though. That actually fits exactly what you're complaining it should be, unless you mean to take it further and say all the respective armies should bring less support and be more manly about war, or something silly like that?
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Gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted July 11, 2014 08:38 AM |
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Silly Simplicity, obviously armies didn't have +30% of their mass made up of camp followers that supported and traveled with the soldiers to support them, and participated in combat if necessary. Silly Simplicity.
Oh wait. Yes they did. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm...
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted July 11, 2014 12:54 PM |
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Steyn said:
Let me guess, you also don't like chess because the strongest piece on the board is the Queen?
That'd be hilarious 
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JeremiahEmo
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
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posted July 11, 2014 01:46 PM |
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Well, to be honest, I really don't know how that piece became the Queen. I bet that was a Prince but feminists way back changed it to a Queen just for the sake of political correctness. Hey, not hating, just stating a theory.
And yeah, I'm sorry, I forgot the Minotaur. It's actually one of my favorite Dungeon creature.
Also, I'm not saying aesthetics is the only thing we base quality on, I'm saying it's one of the things we base quality on. And yeah I know, it doesn't have to be realistic, but it has to be believable. You know the feeling of 2 year old babies outmuscling full grown adults? That's what H6 feels like. It's not believable. That's why its quality is reduced.
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Steyn
Supreme Hero
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posted July 11, 2014 02:18 PM |
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Perhaps you should read the Wikipedia articles, it is quite interesting:
History of chess
Queen of chess
The queen started out as vizier or prime minister, but was quite a lousy piece back then. Upon the arrival of chess in Europe the vizier was renamed to queen. Even later she obtained her improved move set. This might have had something to do with the great political power of Queen Isabella I of Castille, so the powerful queen chess piece would be based on a real powerful queen.
Also note this: The new rules faced a misogynistic backlash in some quarters, ranging from anxiety over a powerful female warrior figure to frank abuse against women in general.
Maybe you were born in the wrong age?
Concerning your baby's, I would find it completely normal if a two year old baby dragon could beat a full grown man. So please explain why would a female (shaped) light/water elemental or a female elf/naga have to be weaker than a full grown man.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted July 11, 2014 03:12 PM |
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Lies, all lies Steyn!
It's an obvious conspiracy to put women over men for no reason!
How could you be so blind to not see it 
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Gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted July 11, 2014 03:39 PM |
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JeremiahEmo said:
Also, I'm not saying aesthetics is the only thing we base subjective quality on, I'm saying it's one of the things we base pb]subjective] quality on.
Fixed.
JeremiahEmo said:
And yeah I know, it doesn't have to be realistic, but it has to be believable. You know the feeling of 2 year old babies outmuscling full grown adults? That's what H6 feels like. It's not believable. That's why its quality is reduced.
First off, realistic and believable are synonyms.
Secondly, if the 2 year old and the adult are a non-human that develops quickly (like say, a cat, dog, insect of any kind, etc), then it is actually expected of them to be physically stronger, faster and better than their adult counterparts... however, this debate was not about babies (which, by the way, refer to Age of Wonders 3 to see an example of baby creatures in battle... those serpent babies and draconian hatchlings are nasty little buggers). This debate is about fully grown adults and fully grown adults.
Thirdly, none of the female units are physically stronger than their male counterparts... except maybe the Minotaur, but Minotaurs are given a bit of slack on this because of their mythological background. All of the female creature use magic, fire from range or use ranged magical/ precision weapons, and they are exceedingly fragile in melee. Does this sound like a female "out manning" a man? No... not really. Realistically, they should just be shooting crossbows or something and magic should not be in the game, but instead they choose bo be "reasonable" as far as a fantasy setting is concerned. (Keeping up the traditions of females being practitioners of sorcery, vestles for holy and unholy magics in supporting/ cursing manner. Which is prevalent throughout all mythos and all fantasy and all religions and all...) It's silly ad actually a little insulting to say that females have no place in magical fantastic video games when they are already part of magical fantastic myths and, you know, the real world. Ignoring these things is a personal taste, and not one that anyone else here shares.
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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JeremiahEmo
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
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posted July 11, 2014 03:59 PM |
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ok fine I agree. You win. I lose this debate.
Just one question though. Just to make things clear, this is not a hate post, it's just a mere observation.
You really can't ignore the possibility that the reason why Heroes 6 suddenly has a lot of female creatures, compared to the previous Heroes games at least is because they don't want to be labeled misogynistic.
Like say.. feminists complaining of the lack of female representation in the new Assassin's Creed game or I think it was Star Trek that they also complained about? (correct me if I'm wrong. Too lazy to research).
Now I'm not saying it's the only possibility, I'm saying there is a possibility that Ubi is avoiding feminist criticism for Heroes 6.
What do you think? What are your opinions on this?
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