Play as a Female Warrior in War of the Vikings

[DEAD34345]

"Vikings traditionally made no distinction between men and women warriors, training whoever had an aptitude for warfare no matter their gender."

Really? Is there a source for this, because I don't think that's actually true at all. Vikings are generally thought to have had very separate roles for men and women. As far as I'm aware, female Viking warriors only really appear in folklore and legends.

Don't get me wrong here, I have nothing against a game throwing historical accuracy out the window in the name of diversity or whatever else, but you don't get to have your cake and eat it too. Blatantly throwing misinformation out there to trick people into thinking a game is historical is a kind of shitty thing to do in my opinion. (Assuming it is misinformation of course, I'm fully prepared to take that back if it turns out to be true, but I don't think it is)

 

[Ariseishirou]

"Vikings traditionally made no distinction between men and women warriors, training whoever had an aptitude for warfare no matter their gender."

Really? Is there a source for this, because I don't think that's actually true at all. Vikings are generally thought to have had very separate roles for men and women. As far as I'm aware, female Viking warriors only really appear in folklore and legends.

Don't get me wrong here, I have nothing against a game throwing historical accuracy out the window in the name of diversity or whatever else, but you don't get to have your cake and eat it too. Blatantly throwing misinformation out there to trick people into thinking a game is historical is a kind of shitty thing to do in my opinion. (Assuming it is misinformation of course, I'm fully prepared to take that back if it turns out to be true, but I don't think it is)

It isn't. There's about as much as truth in it as in the Russian modern legend of... "female snipers" in general

Uh... What.

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

Female Russian snipers were a "legend"? News to military historians!

 

[Ariseishirou]

Well, this makes me about 1000 times more interested in the game. Treating them the same as the men is undoubtedly an exaggeration but there is historical evidence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shieldmaiden#cite_note-Harrison-2) of Viking women involved in battles. Good to see this.

 

[Ariseishirou]

"Vikings traditionally made no distinction between men and women warriors, training whoever had an aptitude for warfare no matter their gender."

Really? Is there a source for this, because I don't think that's actually true at all. Vikings are generally thought to have had very separate roles for men and women. As far as I'm aware, female Viking warriors only really appear in folklore and legends.

Don't get me wrong here, I have nothing against a game throwing historical accuracy out the window in the name of diversity or whatever else, but you don't get to have your cake and eat it too. Blatantly throwing misinformation out there to trick people into thinking a game is historical is a kind of shitty thing to do in my opinion. (Assuming it is misinformation of course, I'm fully prepared to take that back if it turns out to be true, but I don't think it is)

It isn't. There's about as much as truth in it as in the Russian modern legend of... "female snipers" in general

Uh... What.

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

Female Russian snipers were a "legend"? News to military historians!

Largely a Soviet propaganda myth

No, no they weren't. http://www.snipercentral.com/snipers.htm

althrough the Soviets admittedly had several thousand women in various combat roles

But you know that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II

 

[Ariseishirou]

"Vikings traditionally made no distinction between men and women warriors, training whoever had an aptitude for warfare no matter their gender."

Really? Is there a source for this, because I don't think that's actually true at all. Vikings are generally thought to have had very separate roles for men and women. As far as I'm aware, female Viking warriors only really appear in folklore and legends.

Don't get me wrong here, I have nothing against a game throwing historical accuracy out the window in the name of diversity or whatever else, but you don't get to have your cake and eat it too. Blatantly throwing misinformation out there to trick people into thinking a game is historical is a kind of shitty thing to do in my opinion. (Assuming it is misinformation of course, I'm fully prepared to take that back if it turns out to be true, but I don't think it is)

It isn't. There's about as much as truth in it as in the Russian modern legend of... "female snipers" in general

Uh... What.

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

Female Russian snipers were a "legend"? News to military historians!

Largely a Soviet propaganda myth

No, no they weren't. http://www.snipercentral.com/snipers.htm

althrough the Soviets admittedly had several thousand women in various combat roles

But you know that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II

Believe me or not, I know a thing or two about military history of WWII, and Soviet propaganda.

Sure, random stranger on the internet, you probably know more than military historians on this subject.

 

[Single Shot]

Alright, so they're adding this because of historical accuracy? Not because they can get a massive PR boost from lazy games journalists who want to jump on the next "Look, Equality!" Karma train and don't bother to ask questions?

That'd be good if Vikings treated women as equals, but they didn't. In Viking society a woman's place was at home keeping the fires lit, the farm active, and the children alive. The closest women ever got to Viking battle was as they were raped and killed. Which would certainly make for an interesting MP experience, but I can't imagine that being the intended gameplay.
I should point out that there are a few sketchy reports of female Vikings taking up arms to defend their homes after other defences had fallen, but they are never recorded as being on front lines.

And the Saxons? They went out of their way to order their society so that men did all the heavy lifting jobs like Ox herding/construction/war while women did the other things like midwife/entertainers(singing, acting, barmaid)/Baker. So why would they let women onto the field of battle when they didn't let women carry heavy stuff?
Again, it's noted that some Saxon women were buried with weapons, but the meaning of that ritual is still unknown. As the type of weapon you wielded was matched by your class it could be totally unrelated to actual war fighting.

[quote\] "We based the look of the Saxon females on characters like Arya from Game of Thrones," Van Dyke said. [/quote]

Huh, I think that pretty much proves this move is as historically accurate as Blackadder.

Seriously, this is the kind of shit that needs to end. It's fine that they want to put female fighters in the game, but if they were really trying to make it historically accurate said fighters should attempt to save themselves only after all other defences are gone... And should end the match being sold into slavery, raped to death, or burned alive.To do anything else will lead to people believing this shit and general knowledge will stray further from the truth. (Or they could admit this is all just fantasy in the name of 'equality' and save the time.)

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well they were only really involved when all other options went our the window, so they would be in the same war gear and you wouldn't know the difference.
Bottom line it doesn't matter either way, apart from appeasing political rights groups and getting into news articles for free publicity.

Now if they could just include some the choice of race and perhaps sexual orientation...

 

[HannesPascal]

And no, the valkyries were not real.

So who brought the vikings that died in battle to Valhalla?

From the article: "As for the female character models, I was excited to see that their armor didn't have nipples."
If there's one thing Batman&Robin thought us it's that men can have nipples on their armor as well.


On-topic: Sure why not use female models as well. I agree with BigTuk and think it's kind of sad that this is not a standard.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Meh, geee we have female models in our game...


When did that actually becomea selling point... no seriously Unreal 1 had female models in it and more that any player could mod in.. Heck Duke3d Had them...

Are games really that easy to impress these days. I mean even the games that didn't come with a female model usually had one spring up with in a month tops on the community forums. Honestly have gamer standards fallen so low that it's become *that* easy to appeal to?

I mean come on. I'd have been more impressed if they actually had the balls to include differing play mechanics but this is nothing worth even a news article.

You are totally right, having female character models in a multiplayer game should not be something worth an article. It should be the standard,something that about every game has, given that it makes a big difference for some but costs very little. We should not have to applaud games like this one, or Call of Duty, or Planetside 2 for that.

However, it is unfortunately not the norm, and in order to encourage change, it's probably good not only to condemn games that fail to deliver here, we should also applaud those who do. Even though it should be expected.

 

[CloudAtlas]

.... and it only took only five posts for some guy to claim that the possibility to play as your own gender is irrelevant, and I'm sure it won't be long before the next guy to complain that it is not historically accurate and therefore supposedly bad even though the game most certainly is not 100% historically accurate in many other ways as well.

What, not 100% (0%) accurate? Didn't you see how they're "basing the look on historical notions. Vikings traditionally made no distinction between men and women warriors, training whoever had an aptitude for warfare no matter their gender."

So? Do you just have a problem with the devs claiming something that you think is not true?
Or do you have a problem with the female character models being in the game itself as well?