Assassins creed unity- another diversity post

[Sutter Cane]

but it's four versions of the same dude running around in the same world. That concept inheently does not make sense in any way shape or form unless they're going to add the concept of cloning to their french revolution based game. I know that other games have done it, but it didn't make a damn bit of logical sense there either, and this game is selling itself specifically based on its co-op.

Every player is playing as Arno, but the other players appear as generic assassin guys.

Player 1 is Arno, and to him players 2, 3, and 4 are generic assassins... but in player 2's game, he is Arno, and players 1 is a generic assassin instead.

So in game it doesn't look like 4 of the same guy running around.

Which would still beg the question of why they all are nearly identical white dudes. Not saying it's utlra sexist or worth condemning the entire game over or anything, it's just kind of lazy.

 

[Something Amyss]

I assumed you meant that no one cares about the facts.

To the extent that the facts are irrelevant to what people want, I suppose that's technically true. It actually doesn't matter whether they want women in games and it's "too much work" vs them wanting women in games and "we hate women."

This isn't so much "fuck the facts" as it is "well, that's nice, but it doesn't change anything." Hearing it's "too much work" or "this is how co-op works" isn't going to make people want women in the game any less. Or more female protags as a whole any less. In fact, to the latter I'd argue it doesn't help at all. You can rationalise small steps to a larger, irrational picture. That's not only where the concept of a slippery slope (a legit one) comes from, not to mention all sorts of sophist word and logic games.

Except of course if they don't care about the realities of the particular subject at hand, and just want to vent about sexist pig devs.

Only in the sense that, of course, a lot of men only want to vent about straw feminists rather than addressing real claims in an honest fashion.

Again, it seems you're using the same tactics you dislike to protest said tactics. It's sort of like calling anyone who believes in insulting others and asshole. It's counterproductive and it undermines any argument. Unless your sole purpose is to vent about teh evul feminists. In which case, fine. Just understand you're using the same pretext you despise.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Just because Ubisoft had some variety in the past, it doesn't excuse the present. They don't get a free pass to say "Awww, close but no cigar! No gender select for you, after all!"
Seriously, being progressive, to me, is like drinking from a straw. When you stop, when you quit trying, the drink in the straw doesn't just stay where it is, it goes back down. Ubisoft's dropping the ball, here.

Just because Ubisoft had some variety in the past also does not mean that they are obligated to provide it to you now.

And when they don't provide variety, I'm in no way obligated to shutup, and take it. If I don't like what they're doing, I'm going to be vocal about it.

I thought they all saw themselves as their Arno, hence all the character customization that Ubisoft was whining over adding for women among other things?
Heck, if you end up seeing pre-set characters as co-op characters, then, IMO, Ubisoft has even less excuse to exclude them as we can just pick a female preset as a preference, and just go.
Thing is, though, in single player you HAVE to be a guy. From my understanding, you could've been a woman, but nope! Ubisoft had to be lazy. Or just scared. They said they're dodging any lead that isn't straight, too. On an off note, that makes me feel a bit like a 3rd class citizen to them.
You wanna talk immersion? Being blank slate dude breaks my immersion. The game had better be something fantastic for me to take my mind off that. Assassin's Creed isn't that amazing, frankly. It doesn't help Ubisoft went from being a new favorite company of mine to near full repulsive in just a few months.

That's a very fair point, however it still doesn't address having to remodel the body and animations itself and how dynamic the clothes would act on said body. If you watch AC multiplayer the animations of the bodies and clothing are quite average, nothing that special. They could be better with more work done but this is a yearly franchise (for better or worse) and thus once they get a certain distance into making the game they will have to drop some ideas.
To address the lead character always being male, yeah they don't have to be, and yeah it'd be nice for some people to have a female protagonist, no arguments there. As for their sexuality though...they are ancestors of people, which means they kinda have to be straight, otherwise they wont have descendants...

The franchise itself isn't amazing, I agree, but it's still pretty interesting. Also, how do you know the protagonist of this game is going to be a blank slate? It's had 1 teaser trailer and one game play segment that was used more to show off the new features.

The fact that there were women doing fighting, and what not is the perfect excuse to allow gender select. Just because they were the minority shouldn't mean anything. If it did mean something, then women will NEVER see much representation because they're locked in a never ending game of catch up since they'll never likely be the majority of combatants.
This is why I really like Koei. They give a crap enough about representation to take some liberties with history while at least trying to remain somewhat true to the flow of historical events.

Considering Arno is going to be customizable, IIRC, odds are you CAN have a black Arno, or prolly any other ethnicity.

Just because Ubisoft had some variety in the past, it doesn't excuse the present. They don't get a free pass to say "Awww, close but no cigar! No gender select for you, after all!"
Seriously, being progressive, to me, is like drinking from a straw. When you stop, when you quit trying, the drink in the straw doesn't just stay where it is, it goes back down. Ubisoft's dropping the ball, here.

I agreed with you that women fought in the French Revolution, what I said though was that it doesn't mean a small band of Assassin's made up of all men is wrong or misrepresenting in any way. As for Arno being black...WHAT!? When was that stated? As far as I'm aware their idea of customization is different costumes and pallet swaps. No AC game has ever had a character whose race/gender was changeable, so it seems unfair of you to make that claim (unless of course they specifically said that his skin tone could be changed, then colour me wrong).

But there's always a third option with the straw. If you stop sucking but keep your mouth enclosed around the top of the straw/put your finger on top the drink will stay put. Ubisoft's Assassin's dev team have done a great job at being pretty diverse with their characters and I find it unfair to jump on them right now. How many games before hand had you playing as an Arab? Or a Native American? Or an African? In my eyes they've done quite a fair bit to deserve some leeway right now.

Ubisoft is a gigantic company, and doesn't seem to be answering to anyone. The fact they gave up says plenty about them.
They could have made the time, or resources. They didn't, and I don't respect that decision. Considering how often this topic comes up, they should've known this would happen, too, unless they're wholly ignorant of the gaming community.

As for the whole descendant issue, there's Bi-sexuality so a character doesn't have to be straight. It worked in Mass Effect,and Dragon age, didn't it? If it weren't for genetic coding being key, I'd suggest adoption, maybe.

On one hand, a small band of guys being playable isn't wrong. The decision that lead to it? Arguable, IMO.
They decided to cut women out of the game entirely as far as playable characters go, and they're, frankly, idiots for thinking they could just get away with it in today's climate where such decisions will get them ripped apart. It shouldn't be any secret that there's vocal people in the gaming community that aren't going to like it. Maybe they do know, and don't care, however? If that's the case, then I hope they can take what they've earned.

You have a fair point in that I don't know how deep the character customization goes. It could just be clothes, and perks.
The customization might go into other levels though. It's not entirely out of the question, IMO. The deeper the customization, the more the appearance of the character is a blank slate.
Near as I can tell, AC never really had deep character customization on a cosmetic level, so how far they'll go is pretty unknown to me.

I've already extended "leeway" so far. I haven't forgotten Liberation, and Child of Light, but I know that allowance of female protagonists (Playable characters are largely all I really care about, honestly) can dry up in an instant. Since there's 3 games (Watch_dogs, ACU, and FC4)that don't let you be women they've released in such a brief amount of time, I'm wondering if their allowance of female protagonists/playable characters has come to an end.
I don't see them as keeping their lips on the straw, considering what I've seen from their recent decisions.
They offered something nice in one hand, then turned around and slapped the taste out of my mouth with the other.

Lemme ask, how many games started off as intending you to play as an Arab, native american, or Mulatto (Avelline is mixed. Connor is, too, I think.), then the company says "oop, nope, you're playing as a white man, now!"

 

[Gankytim]

No. For the millionth time...Can people just not read here? I'll say it again in a different way. It's not about it being a plot hole and thus there needs to be a female chracter. It's that because it is a plot hole people using the plot as their reasoning for why there couldn't have been a female chracter is stupid.

Yeah well a sex change during the fucking loading screen is even stupider. If you're going to start arguing stupidity make sure your ass is covered in the intelligence department.

Also, I said shit about Ubisoft needing to make me feel comfortable about anything. Either you quote where I said something to that effect or you don't put words in my mouth and actually argue against what I said. You have yet to address why anyone shouldn't be able to express disappointment at the loss of potential for a female character. And that is all anyone upset about the "it was too much work" news is doing.

That's what it is though. You wouldn't be complaining about shit if you were comfortable.

Pointless tangent, might aswell ignore it like you ignored my point about ubisoft havving more important things to do with their money that they don't already do.

 

[the December King]

I assumed you meant that no one cares about the facts.

To the extent that the facts are irrelevant to what people want, I suppose that's technically true. It actually doesn't matter whether they want women in games and it's "too much work" vs them wanting women in games and "we hate women."

This isn't so much "fuck the facts" as it is "well, that's nice, but it doesn't change anything." Hearing it's "too much work" or "this is how co-op works" isn't going to make people want women in the game any less. Or more female protags as a whole any less. In fact, to the latter I'd argue it doesn't help at all. You can rationalise small steps to a larger, irrational picture. That's not only where the concept of a slippery slope (a legit one) comes from, not to mention all sorts of sophist word and logic games.

Except of course if they don't care about the realities of the particular subject at hand, and just want to vent about sexist pig devs.

Only in the sense that, of course, a lot of men only want to vent about straw feminists rather than addressing real claims in an honest fashion.

Again, it seems you're using the same tactics you dislike to protest said tactics. It's sort of like calling anyone who believes in insulting others and asshole. It's counterproductive and it undermines any argument. Unless your sole purpose is to vent about teh evul feminists. In which case, fine. Just understand you're using the same pretext you despise.

I don't really have alot to add to this, I guess. I got angry at some of the talk in another thread, the more aggressive one, and felt it was unnecessary and a very extreme reaction. I didn't mean to make you a target of said bile, or even this thread.

And no, I'm not venting about the evil feminists (I see what you did there, fire with fire and all). But I am saddened that no reason at this point will please people unless games are all 'inclusive', all the time.

I got into a discussion about this with a colleague just this evening, where he argued that ALL games should now have customizable avatars, which I found to be a horrid idea. His counter-argument was something along the lines of "When you read a book about James Bond, outside of the briefist of physical descriptions, your internal image of Bond won't necessarily be mine, or anyone elses. So why not integrate a customization option for a playable game?" A fair point, but sometimes Link is Link, and Lara is Lara, you know? Sometimes the creators concepts should be the visuals you run with.

 

[mecegirl]

No. For the millionth time...Can people just not read here? I'll say it again in a different way. It's not about it being a plot hole and thus there needs to be a female chracter. It's that because it is a plot hole people using the plot as their reasoning for why there couldn't have been a female chracter is stupid.

Yeah well a sex change during the fucking loading screen is even stupider. If you're going to start arguing stupidity make sure your ass is covered in the intelligence department.

It's no more stupid than anything else. People are arguing against the idea of a female chracter as if their life depended on it. But why? It doesn't make any more or less sense than anything else about the multi player mode. So why are people protesting so much? Why are people acting like the mere suggestion of a female chracter is the end of the world?

Also, I said shit about Ubisoft needing to make me feel comfortable about anything. Either you quote where I said something to that effect or you don't put words in my mouth and actually argue against what I said. You have yet to address why anyone shouldn't be able to express disappointment at the loss of potential for a female character. And that is all anyone upset about the "it was too much work" news is doing.

That's what it is though. You wouldn't be complaining about shit if you were comfortable.

Where did I complain though? My response to you was to explain others points of view because you seemed to dense to understand the basics.

 

[Gankytim]

No. For the millionth time...Can people just not read here? I'll say it again in a different way. It's not about it being a plot hole and thus there needs to be a female chracter. It's that because it is a plot hole people using the plot as their reasoning for why there couldn't have been a female chracter is stupid.

Yeah well a sex change during the fucking loading screen is even stupider. If you're going to start arguing stupidity make sure your ass is covered in the intelligence department.

It's no more stupid than anything else. People are arguing against the idea of a female chracter as if their life depended on it. But why? It doesn't make any more or less sense than anything else about the multi player mode. So why are people protesting so much? Why are people acting like the mere suggestion of a female chracter is the end of the world?

Also, I said shit about Ubisoft needing to make me feel comfortable about anything. Either you quote where I said something to that effect or you don't put words in my mouth and actually argue against what I said. You have yet to address why anyone shouldn't be able to express disappointment at the loss of potential for a female character. And that is all anyone upset about the "it was too much work" news is doing.

That's what it is though. You wouldn't be complaining about shit if you were comfortable.

Where did I complain though? My response to you was to explain others points of view because you seemed to dense to understand the basics.

In spite of all this you're [b/]still[/b] not adressing the argument.

Let me spell it out for you.

Ubisoft delivers BROKEN GLITCHY CONTENT that REFUSES TO OPERATE ON PC. [b/]>>THIS IS THE ARGUMENT I WANT YOU TO ADRESS>>[/b] Why should Ubisoft catch flak for being "lazy" about this issue when they don't catch flak for delivering non-functioning games?

I honestly don't care about the female/male avatar dichotomy, what the fuck ever. They should not have had to defend themselves for non-canon side bonuses.

 

[mecegirl]

In spite of all this you're [b/]still[/b] not adressing the argument.

Let me spell it out for you.

Ubisoft delivers BROKEN GLITCHY CONTENT that REFUSES TO OPERATE ON PC. [b/]>>THIS IS THE ARGUMENT I WANT YOU TO ADRESS>>[/b] Why should Ubisoft catch flak for being "lazy" about this issue when they don't catch flak for delivering non-functioning games?

I honestly don't care about the female/male avatar dichotomy, what the fuck ever. They should not have had to defend themselves for non-canon side bonuses.

I am not obligated to address that. And I honestly don't see why they wouldn't catch flack for both, especially since I've seen others criticize them for such things. You say that they haven't been catching flack for it like they have never caught flack for it. Ubisoft's nickname isn't Ubishit for nothing. But this thread isn't about the glitchy content, this thread is about their multiplayer mode. Which is why everyone here is talking about things concerning their multiplayer mode. Also, the creation of a female chracter isn't just an issue to people because of the multiplayer mode. And I honestly doubt that they were asked about the creation of a female character just because of the multiplayer mode.

So leave the thread if you don't want to talk about it.

 

[Darkmantle]

Every player is playing as Arno, but the other players appear as generic assassin guys.

Player 1 is Arno, and to him players 2, 3, and 4 are generic assassins... but in player 2's game, he is Arno, and players 1 is a generic assassin instead.

So in game it doesn't look like 4 of the same guy running around.

Actually depending on how you customize Arno that is exactly what could happen. If you were just assigned the look of some random Assassin mook there would be no excuse to not have a female character, but as it stands right now, everyone looks exactly like their version of Arno. They just happen to not be Arno in their friends copy of the game, where they are just some other assassin. But they still look like Arno.

Even if, every now and then, a random female assassin model was slotted to your character, how would you know? you still look like Arno on your own screen.

 

[Maeshone]

Even if, every now and then, a random female assassin model was slotted to your character, how would you know? you still look like Arno on your own screen.

I wouldn't know. That still wouldn't make it ok for me. If I get to design my own character, I want that character to look the way I intended for other people as well. It's what made me so happy when they finally added transmogrification to World of Warcraft for example. I could finally look the way I wanted, rather than only using the same gear everyone else was wearing. It also made Halo Reach a favourite for me, because I got to design my own Spartan, and I didn't get randomly transformed into Master Chief while playing coop or multiplayer, I was still my version of Noble 6. In short, it's more important to me that my character always looks the way I intended, and doesn't randomly get replaced by a generic mook, even if that mook happens to be female. The best solution would have been to have full customization where you could make Arno female as well, but that is not in the game.

 

[squat.ape]

Have you tried that game with the Asian lady with the eye tattoo who runs around in a white city? Or that other Assassins Creed game with the black women in New Orleans?

I said this in my post on the subject buT:
One single SIDE game with virtually no presence in the series and certainly no established presence in the plot with a female lead doesn't constitute equal representation. Pointing to a single woman in a room of 50 men and saying "but it's totally fine!" doesn't make for an argument in the least.

Never said that. Was just recommending them if she hadn't played them yet.

I don't want to play games just because there are women in them. But if there are going to be four characters to play, I just want to know why one can't be representative of someone else. And my question was answered, apparently they're all the same character so everyones story can advance- which I'm totally happy with. If there's a good reason (or even a mediocre one)- it's all cool. Problem solved.

Or even if there's no reason it's all cool, attempts to suggest or enforce quotas of gender, sexuality or another other personal characteristic in art are wrong, intolerant and repressive.

"Why isn't X in the game?"

"Because the people who made it didn't want to"

"Fine"

I agree that a company wanting to tell their story with a male protagonist is okay. I was just wondering why in a 4 player co-op there couldn't be a female character. And my question was answered. Because all 4 characters are supposedly Arno. Cool. Not a problem. I'm not asking for a gender quota, just an answer. Chill my friend.