Explain how it is selfish to not buy a product I don't like.




We are not asking that anything be removed from a game. We are asking that a thing be added to a game. We are not asking that game studios produce games with female-only protangonists. We are asking game studios to provide a choice. I don't see how any reasonable person could possibly object to that.




What you are describing, as SubRosa has already pointed out, is the template for an Elder Scrolls game.




That actually happened to me once. Years ago I played Unreal. I must have been at least a third of the way through the game when I began to notice that my character had kind of a high-pitched voice for a male. I looked up how to switch to 3rd person and, lo and behold, I had playing a female character all this time! I had jumped into the game not knowing what I was doing, assuming that this had a male hero like 99.9% of all the other 1st-person shooters I'd played. It took several hours to adjust. It was actually quite disorienting, for awhile.




No, it is not. It is akin to refusing to buy a shirt because it doesn't come in a color I like. I'm not going to refuse to buy a shirt because I don't like its model name. But I am going to refuse to buy a shirt if it doesn't offer a color that suits me, or if it is tailored in a way I dislike.




Asking for choice is not the same thing as demanding a product that is designed specifically for me.

They didn't. I was responding to a mistaken interpretation of something I had said regarding other posts.

Which is fine, as I already pointed out. What I don't think is fine is making games that are not Elder Scrolls into Elder Scrolls games, or more specifically, blank-slating games based around set characters.

Actually I find that Skyrim does the complete opposite of what you think it does. Maybe because you have only played males and so you have missed it? Women NPCs will flirt with your character no matter if they are male or female. And whether your character is male or female you get the same dialogue about keeping your hands off the serving girl and being interested in Saadia. But no male NPC that I have ever come across has ever flirted with my beautiful female Dragonborns. So the game assumes you are playing a straight male no matter what gender you choose and I really don't like it. It breaks immersion for me when playing female characters so I tend towards a male character just so the game makes a little more freakin' sense.

I've had plenty of males flirt with me whether I am playing a male or female.

Before you wear the Amulet of Mara? If so, then please tell me who. I want to find a man that will flirt with my Dragonborn before she wears a silly amulet.

ETA: All of the women NPCs I was talking about will flirt with the Dragonborn before he/she wears the Amulet of Mara. I haven't found any male NPCs that will do so yet, but like I said before if you have, please share.

You raised an interesting point. The game supposedly continues Geralt's story from the books - at least this is what's implied by the reactions of people you meet in the first chapter. For someone not familiar with the books, it doesn't mean a thing - just another amnesiac protagonist who appeared out of nowhere. But for Sapkowski's fans it's blatantly obvious why Zoltan thought Geralt was dead (not going to go into this because of the spoilers). We recognize people, places and events and they tell us this is the same Geralt we know from the books, the one who certainly is a man. There is only one White Wolf, and he's not a woman.

But then the feeling falls apart. I was looking forward to seeing how they handled the loose ends the last novel left us with. They didn't. Where's Yennefer? Why is there no mention of her through the whole game? Why is Triss thrown at us as a love interest? Where's Ciri? Where's everyone?
We might see Geralt, Dandelion, all the characters we know and love, but it isn't a continuation of their adventures. Not really. They ended with the Rivian Pogrom or, if you prefer, with Something ends, something begins. The game doesn't answer any questions we might have left and can't ever answer them, because it's not a part of the book series. It's beautifully rooted in it, but it's a separate entity.

Which is why I finally accepted that it would have been better if we played an anonymous protagonist and let Geralt rest in peace. Playing an already established character, I felt compelled to do what he would do, act as he would act. As a consequence, I didn't play my own character and didn't enjoy the game at all. It was only after I let go and forgot it was the Geralt I knew that I was able to fully experience my playthrough - but then it wasn't the real Geralt anyway, so it wouldn't change anything if he was a woman.

I'm just afraid than the Polish fans who bought the game when it first came out would have been extremely disappointed if "their" Geralt could potentially be a woman. I know I would have. If CDProjekt wanted to tell the story of the White Wolf specifically, optional gender wouldn't have worked.

Well, Rosveen's already pointed out what should at least make Geralt a different case from Shepard, (namely, Geralt comes with a heck of a lot of baggage, and any continuation of that baggage needs him to keep his dangly parts) but Shepard really only works as a protagonist with selectable gender because they're a new character in ME1, when you first make that choice of male or female. Questions of Shepard's sixuality, for example, haven't even been asked yet, and is instead defined through play by how, if at all, you respond to the xeno, mutant, and heretic on board your crew. Romancing the Xeno as femshep, or no one as femshep, can be the first hints that Shepard is gay, with them acting out their feelings by either avoiding romances with male crew members and sticking with liara or romancing Kelly Chambers or Specialist Traynor. An established character like Geralt has all the basic questions that come with gender answered, and changing the gender only has the effect of needlessly changing the dynamic of basically every romantic relationship Geralt has ever been in. There's nothing gained, the only real difference is that Geralt wouldn't be Geralt anymore.

To give another example, the boss in the Saint's row games started out as a male (silent) protagonist, but could be a lady in Saints Row 2. That only works because the protagonist never spoke a damn word in the first game. Being a silent protagonist at first, the Boss is very poorly established as a character by the time of Saints Row 2, and is really more of a vehicle for the player to imprint on then anything. Nothing is lost by changing his gender, because very little was there in the first place.

I have already said that I have spent 20 years being forced to play male characters, and that I am sick of it. How much longer to have to do something I know I do not like to know I do not like it? I have already found out. I did it 20 years ago. If you know you do not like eating oysters after spending 20 years eating them and being sick, do you continue to eat oysters every day becuase someone just came out with a new oyster, that is the best oyster every sold? Would that be an informed decision making process?


Please quote me where I said that game companies must create their games based on what I tell them to. I do not recall declaring myself to be the overseer of the industry, and that every game created required my approval before it could be made. I said I am not going to buy a game I do not like. How many games do you buy that you know you do not like beforehand? How many hours do you spend playing games you do not like? I would like an answer, because you keep demanding that I play games that I have spent 20 years finding out that I do not like, and declaring that if I do not continue to do so that I am short-sighted and selfish. Please demonstrate your far-sightedness and selflessness by describing all the games you continue to buy and play that you already know you do not enjoy.



Again, please quote me where I said that every game developer must consult with me before they create a game so that it is everything I want. Where did I say that every game had to be changed to suit my desires? I said that if a game does not give me what I want, I am not going to buy it, or waste my time on it. Again. please tell me how many games you buy that you do not want to play, and how long you play these games?

You continue putting words in my mouth, and trying to twist them into something else. Your points about my short-sightedness and selfishness have nothing to do with anything I have said, only what you have conjectured. Why is that? Why is it so difficult for you to grasp that I know what I like and do not like? Why must I defend myself for knowing what I prefer? Is it becuase it is not what you prefer? Is no one else allowed to like something you do not, or dislike anything you do not? You seem to be having a very hard time grasping the fact that people other then you have different likes and dislikes than you do. Guess what, we do, and we are not going to change our preferences to suit you.

I like to create and play a variety of characters, many of whom are female. I like to play real people in a magical world, so while my characters are definitely NOT me, my own experiences and preferences do inform my choices. Maybe it’s because I’m an old married lady, but to me a person’s gender is not their most defining characteristic. When I have trouble relating to someone (fictional or real), it’s not because of their gender.

I also have no problem suspending the rules that govern the real world. This is Tamriel to me, not ancient Rome, medieval Europe, or some other fictional environment. This means that my petite Imperial woman can wear heavy armor and wield two swords, because she has the Steed Stone, spells, potions, and enchantments that we do not. In the ES universe her appearance does not dictate her abilities.

I will admit to this bit of wish fulfillment: I like to give my female characters good hair.

That reminds me: I often find that the option of no hair at all is denied to female characters. Males can be totally bald/shaven, but females can't.

If you only choose one of the sentences I've said in this thread to get the actual meaning of, I recommend the one where I flatly stated I wasn't talking about you specifically.

Well done, you seem to have processed what was basically the only point I was making after all. If you're only willing to recognize it when you say it, you can have it.

Maybe because girls like to play girls.

I finally had the nerve to create a female character, I made her Evil for some reason, I was just going with the flow of things. A breton warlock that instead of uses destruction, takes on a bow, eventually the bound bow. What is odd though is, I am playing more in depth then the previous male characters I have created. As if I am more immersed in the game, when I came out of the cave in Helgen, I didn't follow Hadavar, but was glad I had escaped and survived and headed straight towards the wilderness near Falkreath. I can now accept playing female characters given the choice to do so.

The advantage of playing a character of a different gender, or a beast-race character, is that we're less inclined to play them as ourselves, and freer to enjoy the RP experience of doing what the character would do, not what we ourselves would.

The above poster is a perfect example: he made a character that was not only of the opposite gender, but used skills that he was less familiar with. The result is that the character can "live" as a seperate entity, distinct from him, where his previous characters were mainly "pseudo-self" figures.

For one of three reasons.

1) [And this is the main one] Because I have a female TES char already that I want to use.
2) For no real reason.
And rarely,
3) Because I don't want to stare at a dude's butt for 200 hours. I play in third person a lot.

#3 said, I do have several male chars throughout TES III, IV and V that I've put in a lot of time on. My traditional first char on a new TES game is a male argonian.

Because I love the ladies! And mine isn't dressed in skimpy gear but rather she's decked out in a full set of magical Daedra armour!

Valeria in the 1982 Conan movie was in the same time sixy and "badass" so I don't see why in Skyrim you can't build a female character that is in the sale time sixy and badass...
By the way I play male charater too but hey...I am a "macho"

I don't see why the setting should matter? I play male characters because I'm a guy. But were I to want to play a female character for whatever reason I don't think Skyrim's setting would make that difficult at all. I don't know if I understand the problem here.

I play a female in game becuase if I put on a dress and run around IRL, people tend to give me strange looks.

Because I'm a guy and I like girls? And because I take a lot of http://www.witchqueensia.com/gallery/v/deathknowz/Skyrim/, and I'd rather have an attractive woman as the subject of my images than some big hairy dude.

Most important difference between me and some of the other people in this thread is that I don't see the character I'm running through the game with as an extension of myself.

Same here on both counts.

I agree 100% with this.

Now this, this is me truly

In any RPG, usually my first playthrough is as a snarky male mage. My second is as a psycho lisbian. No exceptions.

I always start with a psycho lisbian, and my first male character is always a mage (usually snarky)