Muchi Muchi Pink
Member
Huh? There are many other games out there with female soldiers. What happened?
Female soldiers will not be playable in Battlefield 4's multiplayer or singleplayer
- Thread starter SolidSnakex
- Start date
XANDER CAGE
Member
There's one right there. Why not put the money used to animate her (presuming she shows up in gameplay running around and doing stuff) to extra use and let people choose female characters?
Give me one good reason why female soldiers shouldn't be playable. Not "mostly boys play the game," not "it'd be weird hearing them swear." Give me an actual good reason why a Battlefield game - or any multiplayer shooter - should not have female playable characters.
HolyBaikal
Banned
I'm so glad that I've never been attached to first and third person shooters.
I'd be eternally disappointed by the gender representation.
It doesn't sound like most companies want to give anything but the manliest of men a go.
But hey, maybe more companies will be more brave and make more games like Portal and Mirror's Edge. I can always hold illogical hopes.
Charoncaori
Member
So it's fine as long as she can sit there and be eye-candy, instead of cursing up a storm in battle armor.
I get your point, but the reason people are annoyed here is that the default stance should be "why not?" include a girl instead of "why?" It's silly. It'd be like the devs saying they won't have any black dudes in-game because they spent a ton of effort on one good (white) voice actor.
SolidSnakex
Member
It hasn't stopped other developers from including female characters in their multiplayer games. From Quake, to Metal Gear Online to Gears. They all have female characters in their mulitplayer modes.
Yeah none that are modern military shooters that represent real life with these sort of graphics. You can't be that naive toward the situation.
Imagine the amount of stuff that would affect real life females in such roles. It would go beyond just playful banter to behavior more serious and disgusting.
XANDER CAGE
Member
Multiplayer shooters that feature female characters:
Halo 2
Halo 3
Halo Reach
Halo 4
Planetside 2
Blacklight Retribution
Uncharted 2
Uncharted 3
Tomb Raider
Gears of War 2
Gears of War 3
Call of Duty (in Zombies)
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2
Mass Effect 3
I'm sure I'm missing a whole bunch, but that's a pretty decent list of franchises that haven't had their worlds flipped, turned upside down by the presence of female characters. If these games can do it, so can Battlefield and its ilk.
Halo 2
Halo 3
Halo Reach
Halo 4
Planetside 2
Blacklight Retribution
Uncharted 2
Uncharted 3
Tomb Raider
Gears of War 2
Gears of War 3
Call of Duty (in Zombies)
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2
Mass Effect 3
I'm sure I'm missing a whole bunch, but that's a pretty decent list of franchises that haven't had their worlds flipped, turned upside down by the presence of female characters. If these games can do it, so can Battlefield and its ilk.
grimshawish
Banned
Quite.
It's not like female avatars in MP games (even FPS) are something unprecedented. It wasn't a problem in any of them.
Battlefield3 is (sadly) not even modding friendly. What horrible things could the evil gaming community even do in a game where all the interaction is shooting each other.
Has there been a MMS with females in frontline combat?
HolyBaikal
Banned
Charoncaori
Member
Well guess what, women are allowed on the front lines in the US now.
XANDER CAGE
Member
Battlefield 4, apparently. You just can't play as one.
"Men can be terrible! So we have to protect women from how terrible men can be by changing what women do rather than what a small minority of men do" is also the same logic that gave us the burqa. Real classy there.
It would be cool and progressive of them to include female soldiers, but honestly, how many people are actually going to play the female soldiers? Look at the femshep numbers for Mass Effect 3.
EA is thinking that most gamers don't care, and they would be right in that belief. It really makes them look behind the times though.
EA is thinking that most gamers don't care, and they would be right in that belief. It really makes them look behind the times though.
MoonLightWave
Member
Since they are going for realism. Females in mp would destroy the male/female quota.
For females to be implemented there need to be a restriction per team.
For females to be implemented there need to be a restriction per team.
maverick40
Junior Member
Who cares? You can't even see your character anyways.
Exactly. Imagine soldiers in real life playing this game giving shit to their female counterparts. Using their APC to disrespect. It happens in real life and it will happen in game. Look at how much shit female gamers get when playing COD or other military shooters.
All the games people are quoting are Fiction. Believe it or not people don't think outside the box, and think everything would be fine and dandy when in reality it's not.
/shrug
To me the problem is MMS's...they need to die off for a few years, would probably fix the "no women in front-lines" stuff. That sub genre is horrible to me though(that well is fucking dry to me) so I might not be completely objective about this. That said, I dont find this to be anything in particular to be surprised about, for whatever reason when it comes to MMS's it is very important to treat it like the real world military in all aspects, outside of gameplay. I think most FPS's have females in them anymore, I'm pretty sure the MMS is the only real constant where you see this problem.
"We are afraid of the possibility that teams will tend toward one avatar gender! So instead we're making 100% sure that they're one avatar gender."
Edit: The peril of being sarcastic in threads like this is that it's pretty hard to obviously outdumb the people you're mocking. ;P
XANDER CAGE
Member
Why bend to the whim of a minority of idiots and their ugly behaviour? If players act like jerks they get reported and banned. The idea that we need to "protect" players who would prefer to choose female characters by not providing them at all is silly.
Jesus mate, the burqa. Way to go off topic and totally disrespect my view.
sakipon
Member
You said it yourself. Including variety and choice for characters brings devs good will and word of mouth. It's sad if equality is missing from games only because 'they'd not be popular enough, not enough of a cash cow, who cares'.
I believe women currently do not serve in infantry or special ops in the US. Only a handful of western countries allow women to serve in combat roles.
So I don't see the faux outrage. Maybe write your congressman a letter as to why women cannot currently serve in infantry or combat roles no?
Heck I think until recently, women couldn't even serve on submarines in the US.
EDIT: My mistake. It seems a month or two ago, Leon Panetta got rid of the 1994 policy and now women can serve in combat roles. I don't think any have passed infantry training in the usmc or army yet. I know a few had attempted but we're forced to withdraw. Going to be a while before we see women in special forces roles though, especially black ops.
ElfArmy177
Member
There's one right there. Why not put the money used to animate her (presuming she shows up in gameplay running around and doing stuff) to extra use and let people choose female characters?
Give me one good reason why female soldiers shouldn't be playable. Not "mostly boys play the game," not "it'd be weird hearing them swear." Give me an actual good reason why a Battlefield game - or any multiplayer shooter - should not have female playable characters.
Trust me you are making very valid points, but to what extent has that character been animated to be used as a multiplayer character? It could just be a cut scene, but as for animations there are running/walking/different guns/prone/crawling/couched/crouch walking/jumping ect. It doesnt seem like alot Ill agree, but its still extra stuff that they may not want to spend the money on.
Im not saying they shouldnt be playable, Im saying they wont be and I bet the points I made are the majority. Remember that its the vocal minority that is heard most often.
Charoncaori
Member
I'm missing your point. So you think girls should just not play these games at all so men won't have the chance to trash-talk them? Or do you think the girls who play should just keep their heads down and play as a guy so they can blend in?
If a guy is being a sexist pig, you don't go after the girl for tempting him, that's ridiculous.
Women can be as all as men. Other games just make them the same height.
Women serve in combat in the US military, they're just not 'officially' in combat roles.
XANDER CAGE
Member
The U.S. military will formally end its ban on women serving in front-line combat roles
I understand this, but given that she's supposedly a major character (as far as we know right now, anyway) I wager there's a good chance of a lot of that work being done, if she's a character you have to run around after and fight with.
XANDER CAGE
Member
Woops, double.
The point is guys (not all) are sexist pigs when it comes to video games. Clear enough?
If ladies speak into the mic have you not heard what other guys say to them. You must be sheltered.
If you read more into it, the ban has been lifted, but the programs still are not in place. Based on friends who I have talked to in the military(both men and women) say that the chagne is going to take quite awhile and will be in small doses, because they have to make sure they are put in situations where the standard does not change from gender to gender.
ScepticMatt
Member
EA are one of the least discriminating game developers, especially when it comes to LGBT rights. They won LGBT equality arwards (link), and had a pro-LGBT meeting recently (March 7)
They are also one of the few publishers who have LGBT featured in their games. Thus I'm pretty sure the reason isn't Sexism
To reiterate I think the main reasons are development costs and current-gen limitations. That was the reason we only saw one gender in some ME3 aliens or DA2 nonhumans, at least at first.
ElfArmy177
Member
You very well could be right, but this is EA were talking about. This is the same company that would sell alzheimer medicaion to their grandmother as DLC even though its in her medicine cabinet.
XANDER CAGE
Member
And Battlefield needs to reflect these "small doses" for what reason, exactly? It's a multiplayer shooter, for goodness sakes. Just let people pick their character model and run around blowing up dirt bikes with C4 already, it's not a special ops mission. There are no standards that need to be adhered to.
Low player value vs. risk. Risk being multi-faceted here, not just "sexists might complain."
No one asked for it prior to the rumors popping up, no one expected it, and the gains are very limited. Now that there's some (deflated) hype around it, they might be able to justify some good will here, but I doubt it. Games like this have a planned feature set, and if they never planned to have female soldiers, I doubt they'd add it to the budget. I'm sure they have deadlines to hit and all their resources are probably all already allocated.
Your view is shit and it deserves to be mocked until you realize what's wrong with it. If pointing out that other people have the same shitty view with the same shitty justification makes you feel bad, then maybe you should take a good long look at whether it's a good idea to agree with them.
Charoncaori
Member
I'm a girl, and well-aware of the kinds of shit people have said to me online. I believe a more widespread acceptance of female videogamers can be had through stuff like adding more female characters to games instead of sweeping us under the fucking carpet.
XANDER CAGE
Member
How risky a move was it for these games?
By the way, people have been asking DICE for female soldiers for a while, not just because of the rumors. I believe the designers even acknowledged it was something they hear a lot and would like to do, eventually. The disappointing part is that "eventually" apparently wasn't BF4.
Huh? Your a class act.
So my view is women shouldn't be playable in multiplayer, and thats classified by you as "shit" view. Good on ya.
BobbyRobby
Member
mandoric said:
if you cared about changing people's minds, you'd be civil.
in my perfect world people would create art uninhibited. some games would have all male casts. some would have all female casts. some would have mixed casts. no one would get upset over the gender of characters in video games.
your perfect world sounds homogenized and boring.
SolidSnakex
Member
What risks? Aren't female characters already playable in many very popular shooters? Were they affected negatively by it? No.
Why should people even need to ask for something like this?
ElfArmy177
Member
I think your taking this to an extreme personal level.