Brink : No Girls Allowed

[Farseer Lolotea]

Said it before, will say it again.

Don't give two shits.

Then why even post?

 

[dancinginfernal]

Said it before, will say it again.

Don't give two shits.

Then why even post?

I threw in my two cents on the discussion. I in no way mind the lack of female likenesses in Brink.

 

[Free Thinker]

Probably been said before, but you can at least make your character look like a prison inmate who is either a serial killer, rapist...who also may be a transvestite. Pre-op.

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

I threw in my two cents on the discussion. I in no way mind the lack of female likenesses in Brink.

More than once, it would seem. For someone who allegedly "doesn't give two shits," you seem fairly invested.

 

[dancinginfernal]

More than once, it would seem. For someone who allegedly "doesn't give two shits," you seem fairly invested.

You misunderstand me. I apologize for not being clear enough.

I don't give two shits that female characters are not playable, not about the issue itself.

 

[mirasiel]

The issue here I see, is the game touts extensive customisation as a selling point, that you can make the character you want. Well guess what, not representing half the population of planet earth isn't off to a great start. They said adding female characters would mean less customisation in other areas. So? Limited customisation with female models is far better than none at all, since female models are pretty distinct from males for bloody obvious reasons. The trend here is ignoring female players, as if women aren't important enough to cater for in the most basic way. For the male players, they make sure you have that hairstyle just right or some wrist band, which is much more important than giving anything to the female populace apparently.

^This poster critical hits the nail on the fucking head.

Im slightly stunned at the number of people who dont see the issue of "Ultra customisable game, the player can be/look like anything they want....uh except a woman because um...."

At best its false advertising, at worst its just fucking insulting to about %50 of your potentiol customer base.

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

You misunderstand me. I apologize for not being clear enough.

I don't give two shits that female characters are not playable, not about the issue itself.

Which still begs the question of if why you feel the need to advertise how much you supposedly don't care. The effect is less that you really don't care, and more that you're trying to shout down people who disagree.

^This poster critical hits the nail on the fucking head.

Im slightly stunned at the number of people who dont see the issue of "Ultra customisable game, the player can be/look like anything they want....uh except a woman because um...."

At best its false advertising, at worst its just fucking insulting to about %50 of your potentiol customer base.

Not quite 50%, but it's getting up there.

 

[loodmoney]

[... I]f the Resistance is the people rising against the Police, would they REALLY send out their Women? Really?

Yeah, I mean, surely if you are fighting for survival you want to be sending in as few soldiers as possible into each battle, right? Because we all know it's easier to win wars if you have as few guns on your side as possible...right?

Having two genders would halve the optimization possibilities that having one gender grants. I'm not much on an FPS player, but I don't remember TF2 having female models, nor CoDs, or MWs, or Battlefields, bad companies, wolfensteins.... etc
Star Wars Battlefront 2 did though.

If the argument here is "other games don't have female models, so this one shouldn't have female models", that is a bad argument. It is bad because it will apply to every new game that comes out, the upshot of this being that no game gets made that has female models. The fact that other games exclude a gender means that those games aren't as good as they could have been, not that this game is off the hook.

his argument is that NOBODY questioned the lack of females in countless other games, it seems a little harsh for the whole internet to pour all their hate on this one title. (despite the fact bf3 rage and mw3 probably wont have them either)

But people do question the lack of females in other games. When we are talking about under-representation of females in games, we are talking about (inter alia) how these AAA titles are major sausage-fests. Brink is pulling this heat because it is a particularly egregious example of the trend; as people have mentioned above, to promote how much customisation there is yet exclude women is to value a variety of shirt lengths over an entire gender.

 

[Gromril]

Did Halo have female charecters in IT'S multiplayer? What about Section 8? I don't know why Brink is the upset. Of course, it is a little more jaring since there isn't power armor for everyone. Despite Spartans in Multiplayer looking male, it doesn't take much to imigine one as a girl.

Er......reach did......

And I'm jumping in here to say that I don't get why this is such a big deal, and neither does my Girlfriend who rarely plays as a women character anyway, even when the option is their to go for a woman character. A lack of lady avatar models shouldn't affect the gameplay one bit, and im told that's what we are all paying for ultimately.

Seriously, character customisation is about making something unique, who cares about the gender unless they are trying to make a clone of themselves? Or, you know, are one of those guys who have to play as some sexed up girl over the internets.

Also, female avatar dlc anyone?

 

[Paragon Fury]

Why?

Because with as much customization as they're allowing for men, allowing even a near similar amount for women is good way to get your game rated straight up to an "M" or "AO" rating. Not to mention modeling issues (face it ladies, you simply do not move the same way men do), extra VOs (imagine near the double amount of lines as well because of simple gender differences), and all the other possible BS that could go along with it, its just not worth the time.

Not to mention the obvious "morality" issues rating boards would have with women in a combat-heavy game like Brink. Ever notice how few women ever actually appear in violent games? There are two reasons for that: developers have hang-ups about it, and raters have serious hang-ups about it.


So stop whining. The god damn gameplay is more important anyway. Does your gender really matter when there are people to be shot in the face?

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

And I'm jumping in here to say that I don't get why this is such a big deal, and neither does my Girlfriend who rarely plays as a women character anyway, even when the option is their to go for a woman character. A lack of lady avatar models shouldn't affect the gameplay one bit, and im told that's what we are all paying for ultimately.

It's a matter of principle. They pretty much outright stated that the ability to make a female character was less important than lots and lots of customization options for male characters, and it should really come as no surprise that that attitude is viewed as sexist.

Seriously, character customisation is about making something unique, who cares about the gender unless they are trying to make a clone of themselves? Or, you know, are one of those guys who have to play as some sexed up girl over the internets.

And much as I don't like the latter category (it's a separate can of worms all on its own), "making something unique" should allow for at least the former. Again, matter of principle.

Also, female avatar dlc anyone?

On the one hand, it'd show that they were trying to make up for their initial blooper.

On the other? It doesn't change the fact that it was a blooper to begin with.

 

[Giantpanda602]

The company made a choice. They didn't want to say "pretty good customization" they wanted to say "DAMN AWESOME CUSTOMIZATION".

Deal with it.

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

The company made a choice. They didn't want to say "pretty good customization" they wanted to say "DAMN AWESOME CUSTOMIZATION".

And ironically enough, because of the choice they made, they still can't claim the latter.

Deal with it.

But we are dealing with it. And in exactly the way that it should be dealt with, no less.

 

[Giantpanda602]

But we are dealing with it. And in exactly the way that it should be dealt with, no less.

No, you're complaining on an internet forum over a choice a company made a long time ago and will most likely never change. By "Deal with it," I meant stop talking about it and move on.

Also, I'm curious. Where did you get the "Farseer" part of your username from?

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

No, you're complaining on an internet forum over a choice a company made a long time ago and will most likely never change. By "Deal with it," I meant stop talking about it and move on.

So...in other words, you're trying to shout people down for criticizing a poor decision on the part of a game company. (And yes, that is how poor decisions on the part of game companies are properly dealt with.)

Sorry, but that ain't gonna work. And if you keep it up, it won't reflect any too well on you, either.

Also, I'm curious. Where did you get the "Farseer" part of your username from?

I used to play a shaman.

 

[Giantpanda602]

So...in other words, you're trying to shout people down for criticizing a poor decision on the part of a game company. Ain't gonna work.

It wasn't really a poor decision. I'm proud of my ability to always look at multiple perspectives. Their choice will benefit the company in more ways than it will hurt them.

 

[PiggyGamer]

I'm a male, but I do believe that women are just as good as (if not better than) men in most aspects of everything. If this were like most other cases, I would be very against the exclusion of female options. However, trying to look at this from an objective point-of-view, I can't really get too mad about it.

I think the people who are up in arms over this are expecting too much from the developers.
Granted, I don't know as much about this game as I probably should to be able to argue one way or the other, but... from what I've seen, what's being touted is the "revolutionary" movement system and extensive customization options.

Now let's compare this game to somewhat similar products on the market:
Team Fortress 2: created by Valve, a company who is recognized for creating "strong" female characters in their games. Alyx Vance and Chell (though I wouldn't exactly say the latter is well-developed) are just two examples of interesting and nonstereotyped female characters they've created.
But still, for their immensely successful multiplayer sequel Team Fortress 2, they decided to go with an all-male cast (though Pyro's status is questionable?). I think the reason for this could be, like for most things Valve does: IT WORKS BETTER. The classes are charismatic and easy to recognize on the field precisely because there is just one gender for each. And that gender happens to be male because, well, I dunno. Audience? Silhouette recognition? Easier to render?
Enough about that game. I've hardly played it, anyways. Keep in mind that Valve's other popular shooter, Left 4 Dead, does feature female characters. Zoey in the first, Rochelle in the sequel. Are they included in the quartets for the sole purpose of not offending those who would be angry if they were absent? Possibly, but they are at least as well-developed as the other Survivors, so no use complaining there.

How about Monday Night Combat?: Feminists may argue that the Pit Girl characters in MNC are demeaning, sexualized idols, but there is one playable class, the Assassin, who is female-only (as the other classes are male-only). Whether this was again a decision made so Uber would be able to say "look, we aren't sexist!", or because it worked better from a visual or technical standpoint, I can't say. But they had a female in there, so whatever, right?


I feel like I'm babbling too much about things that hardly pertain to the topic, but I'm getting back to my main point, so bear with me:
Both Valve and Uber have, some time after release, implemented customization options to their respective games. TF2 has hats up the wazoo, and MNC has a few hats and outfits as well.
But the customization options of both games pale in comparison to the arguably unprecedented (in an FPS, at least, I think) amount of options available in Brink.
Also, while I'm not ragging on the quality of the animation or characterization in either aforementioned game, neither could claim to offer as much unique manipulation of the human male skeleton as Brink does.
So basically, Brink is already doing more than a lot of the competition. Why are there people getting angry at Brink, but not the above games?


IN CONCRUSIONS: If Brink ends up being great in the gameplay department, then the ancillary details should be weighed less heavily. And those details seem to be great anyways, even without vaginas. The game could've offered jack poop as far as customization goes, and if the gameplay was good, everyone would(should) be satisfied. But the developers went beyond the call of duty (no pun intended), offering a new movement system that is rather unlike anything done before in a game like this. So even though they've done all that, there seem to be quite a few people who are saying "That's not enough! nO tits, no PURSHAASE!"
Those people should lighten up, and not expect this one humble game to end thousands of years of inequality. Appreciate what the developers are already doing, and don't expect them to champion your cause when they've already got their hands full with what they're trying to accomplish. Labeling them sexist bastards and refusing to purchase what may (or may not) be a great game is your prerogative, but condemning them for trying to innovate (just not quite as much as you'd have liked) seems foolish at best.


Oh my gosh, that post got needlessly long and repetitive.

 

[Gromril]

But we are dealing with it. And in exactly the way that it should be dealt with, no less.

No, you're complaining on an internet forum over a choice a company made a long time ago and will most likely never change. By "Deal with it," I meant stop talking about it and move on.

No harm in just talking if you ask me, what are you bethesdas mum? They're a big company, they can look after themselves.

Back to the point my argument is more geared toward "Why does it matter" as opposed to "Why didn't they" (which is obvious, half the workload is a simple enough motive, albiet less interesting than "I'm an evil internet/gaming sexist! Mwahahahahaglasscielingmwhahaha").

As far as I'm concerned, they could excuse guys from the next big customisation heavy shooter, so long as the game plays good, though I doubt it would sell too well, and that silly money is such a heavy motive these day.

 

[Giantpanda602]

Its not even that they have to do less work. Its because they can do the same amount of work, but more focused and well planned. They wouldn't have been able to design as many different customization options if they had to rework all of them onto a female model too. In the end, it would have been more common to see two males or two females that look exactly like each other. If the world worked perfectly, their decision would make it so you would very rarely see two males that looked similar. Unfortunately, many people are dull.

 

[RanD00M]

I don't give a shit and I don't really see the point in whining about it.
Customization in games is a privilege not a right, and you should be happy with any amount of customization.