Minor correction: Halo 2 didn't have them in multiplayer
Female soldiers will not be playable in Battlefield 4's multiplayer or singleplayer
- Thread starter SolidSnakex
- Start date
Minor correction: Halo 2 didn't have them in multiplayer
XANDER CAGE
Member
A female taking female inclusion in games personally? You may be onto something here.
HolyBaikal
Banned
I don't mind all male casts.
They're great in "otome game" dating sims.
Shooters need more female representation, though. Also, people can make what they want to, and I don't have to support it.
Charoncaori
Member
How is wanting to play as a girl in multiplayer videogames taking this to an extreme personal level?
Enough beating around the bush, tell us what you think would happen, because we've had other shooters with female characters in multiplayer that were the top game at release time.
Says the guy whose solution to immature, piggish behavior by a few scumbags is to take everyone and everything which might make them act up out of the equation.
Literally, 100% exactly the reasoning for veils.
Meh, I just wish people would stop giving these companies money for MMS's... Would solve the problem, because I dont see this issue with other FPS's. For whatever reason the MMS now is modern in aesthetics alone anymore, so I'm not really sure why it is so popular or why they want it to "look" so genuine.
Dont get me wrong, I wouldnt mind female game models(I would play one, the smaller hit boxes were great in Tribes 2) but until they stop caring about giving us the "True Story:MMS" I think this isnt going to change, at least until female frontline/spec ops become the norm. Until then, I see the only option is to not buy the sub-genere(would do the genre a lot of good too if MMS's died).
TUROK
Member
Neither did Gears 2. And Halo 3 only had a voice change.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I do think it's important to consider the production logistics (models, rigging, textures, animation, programming, audio production, testing, etc) of doubling an entire selection of character models which I'm guessing will already be around twelve. Going from twelve to twenty four isn't a weekend job, assuming you want to do it right. It's a lot of work, more manpower, and therefore more money.
I don't necessarily believe it is impossible or beyond the production scope for a game like this. And to be honest, I'm a bit disappointed female variations won't be in. But I also don't think it's as easy as just...you know, making the models. It's a production cost that needs to be factored in, for a game that I'm going to guess has an extremely tight production deadline.
The alternative would be to not have gender alternate models, but instead just split the class selection on each side down the middle in gender.
I don't necessarily believe it is impossible or beyond the production scope for a game like this. And to be honest, I'm a bit disappointed female variations won't be in. But I also don't think it's as easy as just...you know, making the models. It's a production cost that needs to be factored in, for a game that I'm going to guess has an extremely tight production deadline.
The alternative would be to not have gender alternate models, but instead just split the class selection on each side down the middle in gender.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
This sounds like Ueda's excuse for why the protagonist in The Last Guardian couldn't be female.
"Too hard."
"Too hard."
XANDER CAGE
Member
If your beef is with the genre of game then I'm not really sure why you care. Besides, Battlefield's multiplayer is much more valuable than its silly campaign. We're arguing about an open-ended multiplayer team game, not a crappy story mode.
All of those games take place in fantasy worlds, and none are trying to be accurate depictions of modern military.
The Faceless Master
Member
i have to agree and disagree. it is cowardly and i blame them.
SolidSnakex
Member
So your solution to this is to pander toward those sexist pigs and continue to exclude female characters?
Ya, I dont see it as bad as others...maybe it is because I regularly play with a handful of female gamers, but anymore it isnt so bad. Maybe it is because they are always playing with friends, but even the other team normally doesn't do any horrible shit talking any worse then what they say to guys, outside of trying to impress the unicorn.
The only time it gets excessive is normally from teenagers or younger. Besides that, rarely are we having to mute people. The idea that companies are designing around this idea, to me, is ridicules.
ElfArmy177
Member
You just seem so angry about it. Id understand if they had female characters in prior BF games, but they never have. They never said they were going to have them and getting so upset about it is silly. Besides, you dont even get to see your character so what does it matter?
As I already said, risk is multi-faceted. I'm talking about risk from a production standpoint, not social risk. When you have a huge, high-budget, flagship game like Battlefield, you need to minimize production risk and get out a product that can offer as much value for as little risk as possible.
Female multiplayer assets are pretty good example of risk here. Let's go with Bioware's 18% FemShep numbers for Battlefield 4. In all likelihood, the actual number of female avatar users will be less (assumption based on target demographic and lower impact). Now lets assume 3 sides (USA, China, Russia) with 4 playable classes. That's 12 separate models so far. Let's assume DICE isn't taking it any further than that--one model/skin per class. If we have female models, we immediately multiply that by 2. How do you justify this from a production standpoint? This is what production risk is--the player value offered here is low. Those resources (people, money, time) can be devoted to something much more useful.
Now let's talk about the future. Based on historical precedent, they might release special skins as DLC. Again, this increases risk--multiply everything by two here. Model, skin, animation, voicework. What about additional classes in expansion packs? Risk increased again.
If you take this purely from a "I'm a player, this is what I want!" viewpoint, sure. Blue sky, give me ALL the things! Developers don't do that. They triage value vs. risk. Development 101.
XANDER CAGE
Member
I don't think anyone thinks that adding female characters wouldn't be any work at all. Some of us are just disappointed that this isn't work that was done for this game. Keep in mind that a lot of other shooters have gender options - and that to some extent, a good deal of the work has (presumably) been started with Hanna.
Escape Goat
Member
female soldiers can save the galaxy from the reapers but not save the US from the communists.
is retarded.
Adding female PCs isn't as simple as many are assuming, but that's still not a valid excuse for excluding 50% of the population, particularly when indie games like Blacklight do offer the feature.
I strongly suspect Battlefield will get playable female characters shortly after COD does.
SolidSnakex
Member
BF4 clearly has at least one female soldier (that we've seen) in the single player mode. So they can fight on the battlefield through the story, but not in mutliplayer?
Because the genre is what you are complaining about? The open-ended multiplayer no females, comes with the mindset for MMS's, I'm not sure how you don't see the issue completely related. You are saying who cares if it is a MMS and they are trying to be aesthetically accurate, do it anyways... and I'm saying the best way to fix it is to not give them money for the perception/reality of purposeful exclusion.
I haven't seen the trailer yet but is that lady american and what unit is she in.
I wouldn't be surprised if they pulled a homeland of some sort and made her CIA(Non frontlines). It is a constant rational with MMS, so to assume they are not taking it into account on all accounts, I would say, would be quite presumptuous.
childplease
Banned
It doesn't matter even a small difference is enough to be game breaking.
What do you guys and gals want a balanced game or females in mp.
XANDER CAGE
Member
My bad, I got Halo 2/3 mixed up - thought the voice switch thing was 2. Likewise with Gears. However...
...This is a game where you lean out of a moving truck to shoot a grenade at a helicopter while listening to Total Eclipse of the Heart in slow motion. I'm sure that adding females to the multiplayer wouldn't break the "realism."
Charoncaori
Member
I'm not upset at DICE's specific exclusion of female characters in this particular game at all. It's understandable. Their excuse is pretty fucking weak, though, and the practice of excluding an entire gender from having representation in a multiplayer video game mode really needs to stop. It adds to the whole "boys' club" mentality.
I'm upset at some of the ridiculous arguments in here. I like playing as a girl in non-story driven games. I'm sure plenty of guys like playing as men. I think that devs shouldn't be asking why they need to include female characters, but why not.
Even the conduit 2 had them. Hilarious.
MoonLightWave
Member
Does the female setting really do anything different, can't remember?
I think that would work, having them just be part of the roster. Hell, maybe just tweaking the appearance of the stock soldiers slightly, adding a couple of feminine face models, and dubbing a female voice would suffice. Not like you need a separate meticulous female figure when she's in heavy body armor.
I think it's far more likely that they thought something like: "We only have time for inlcuding naval combat and dual sights or female models for all classes and factions. Let's go with the ships."
Women shooting guns, even in a military setting, is not new ground even in videogames.
Black Republican
Member
2013 and still excuses excuses
SolidSnakex
Member
I don't think that we really know her exact role. She just says "You'll back me up, right" before walking off. But you can see that she's carrying a rifle.
MoonLightWave
Member
Before reach then?
XANDER CAGE
Member
Before Reach it was actually just a voice switch, as someone pointed out. Nonetheless, the post I was responding to was arguing about females changing the fabric of the social aspect of a shooter, not modeling/all that jazz.
ScepticMatt
Member
I wonder how much it would cost to add female versions, but looking at the skullgirls cost breakdown I think we're talking millions of dollars.
You're assuming two models for each class and faction. I don't think very many people would object to a game where a couple of these, maybe not even one per faction, were female--just like I'm sure one or two of them are black or hispanic without needing separate textures for each one.
Or this. In a world where every guy is 5'11 and wrapped in full battle loadout to the point where their bodies are barely distinct, a female head and voice aren't a huge realism stretch.
In 3 it changed their voice, regardless of being human or Elite.
Reach and 4 have actual female models.
Reach also has full female voice acting for the character in campaign and 4 different female voices to use in Firefight.
In short, other developers have been able to support it with less manpower. They've clearly already have the animation framework functioning if they have a female character in campaign.
edit: Also, as you can see in that pic, you can have thousands of combinations of armor for your character as well.
Ya, that is actually quite true. With full gear on, with a helmet with a visor, unless you are staring at their mouth it is near impossible to tell the difference from a distance. However, the only aspect in which MMS's anymore are "realistic" is in the aesthetics, outside of that they are about as "realistic" as ME3 or PlanetSide. Why they do this? Probably because it is a yearly high quality shovel-ware, that gets updates with vary minor tweeks, so that extra time would mean not making it a stereotypical "realistic", not realistic at all, shooter.
I'm going to offer the opinion here that this wouldn't work. It's a hacky solution, and DICE/EA are trying to prove a point with Battlefield 4. They're trying to be first on the market, showing off the really impressive Frostbite 2 stuff, etc. I'd image they're going all-out when it comes to quality, and as I mentioned in my previous reply (and as EatChildren also alludes to), there is considerable risk in the feature if they want to do it right. It's easy to think when you list on paper what's needed, but when you're crunching on a game and single week of downtime can create ripples throughout your entire product, you think twice about feature creep. Female models in particular aren't even something you advertise on the back of the box--they're niceties you can mention in an interview, that will make a very small subset of players happy.
Let's be honest here. If the reveal was that there were playable females, and that the only differences were a face texture and voice swap, then we'd have a thread about how lazy this implementation was
firehawk12
Subete no aware
GRAW had them too, and that was basically a 360 launch game.
XANDER CAGE
Member
Yeah. There's also the Rainbow Six Vegas games.
Due to the class based nature of Battlefield MP, this is what I assumed they were going to do. For example Chinese Recon class might be female, while the American is male.
In a military shooter with a realistic aesthetic, where everyone is wearing helmets and body armor, there's no need for there to be any difference.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Oh right. I can't remember if Vegas 1 had them, but Vegas 2 let you choose your gender in the single player campaign as well.
(I remember it making the ending much more... interesting. lol)
True, I agree with that, I definitely know asset development doesn't come out of thin air. However, they don't even have to do this right away (although I know some people want it yesterday), it could be an update with a new map pack/features. Pretty sure MGS4 Online did it that way and like you said, it's a nicety that sweetens the deal, especially as an extra with new maps later on.