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[anaron]

This is the kind of shit I live for

Go developers for calling out their crap

 

[Ntsouls]

So...there are no female NPCs to build from?

 

[Crossing Eden]

So explain to me how 4 Arnos is accurate then, please.

The most likely story is that at that point in time Arno and three other assassins attacked someone.
-Someone already explained it using Watch Dogs as an example. In YOUR game during Online race you can as Aiden vs 7 other fixers. Same for someone else's game. Same logic applies here.
They didn't say "oh that's factually four Arnos doing this." Please stop misinterpreting the logic and interviews. I legitimately have a headache explaining these things.

 

[figadapaura]

There isn't 4 Arnos, because it doesn't show 3 other Arnos running around all together.

You're Arno on your screen, they're Arno on their screen.

They appear as one of the other 3 guys, you appear as one of the other 3 guys.

Same thing in Watch Dogs with an invader seeing himself as Aiden and you as an NPC, and you seeing yourself as Aiden and the invader as an NPC.

Exactly, so why can't any of them be female?

The most likely story is that at that point in time Arno and three other assassins attacked someone.
-Someone already explained it using Watch Dogs as an example. In YOUR game during Online race you can as Aiden vs 7 other fixers. Same for someone else's game. Same logic applies here.
They didn't say "oh that's factually four Arnos doing this." Please stop misinterpreting the logic and interviews. I legitimately have a headache explaining these things.

Same question for you. Since in Watch_Dogs you can appear as female.

 

[Azih]

But what exactly makes you percieve this as an attack?

It's a criticism isn't it? That's an attack. And yes if a dev gets criticized for DRM, microtransactions, buggy launches, whatever, then they are being attacked.

 

[Blackthorn]

The most likely story is that at that point in time Arno and three other assassins attacked someone.
-Someone already explained it using Watch Dogs as an example. In YOUR game during Online race you can as Aiden vs 7 other fixers. Same for someone else's game. Same logic applies here.
They didn't say "oh that's factually four Arnos doing this." Please stop misinterpreting the logic and interviews. I legitimately have a headache explaining these things.

The difference being that in Watch_Dogs other players can appear as female.

Having four male assassins running around is plain weird. It's weird in a universe that has shown extensive female assassins in the past and it's weird in a world where half the population is female.

 

[Galactic Fork]

Exactly, so why can't any of them be female?

Because ubisoft said it cost too much and didn't want to be bothered, so they cut that feature even though really really wanted to keep it.

 

[Azih]

Exactly, so why can't any of them be female?

According to them a lot of work to model something that won't be reflected on the screen of the person actually playing the game because they'll remain Arno in their game.

 

[Ascenion]

Exactly, so why can't any of them be female?

Because it would either be halfassed as in a skin or require too much work for something the player would never see.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Exactly, so why can't any of them be female?

Because the animations would be bad and the outfits aren't made for females and neither are ANY of the animations. How hard is it to understand? Seriously, i've stated this multiple times to you specifically and yet you can't seem to grasp this simple fact,

 

[Bucca]

Exactly, so why can't any of them be female?

Because of all the things said before about new animation, mocap sessions, new outfit designs, outfit animations, etc. etc.

On top of that, what the fuck is the point if you can't even see your female co-op character?

 

[APF]

Wait, so it was possible in WD but not here? Even with the enormous budget and attention to detail that AC games have?

 

[MadAboutEwe]

Games are art. Art doesn't have to be justified, it doesn't have to be equal, it doesn't have to tick a box. It's art.

It's like the racism crap with the Far Cry 4 cover all over again. It's art!!!

We wouldn't be having this conversation about a movie franchise

 

[Galactic Fork]

On top of that, what the fuck is the point if you can't even see your female co-op character?

So are you over on the Watch dogs thread complaining that the Co-op is stupid because your character can appear as a woman during multiplayer?

 

[Crossing Eden]

The difference being that in Watch_Dogs other players can appear as female.

Yea, and I don't know about you, but I find that it's quite immersion breaking to see a chubby woman doing the same moves as Aiden. And the difference is also that the animation quality in this game surpasses watch dogs.

 

[Kinyou]

I'd like to seen more minority representation as well. When was the last time an East Asian, male or female, was the lead character in a game? Sleeping Dogs is the only one that comes to mind.

Main guy in far cry 4 is Asian. (Though some people here already complained that he doesn't "look Asian enough")

 

[RockTurtle]

Exactly, so why can't any of them be female?

.

Because a narrative was set before production and it's a subjective issue at that?

 

[Blackthorn]

Because the animations would be bad and the outfits aren't made for females and neither are ANY of the animations. How hard is it to understand? Seriously, i've stated this multiple times to you specifically and yet you can't seem to grasp this simple fact,

In AC: Brotherhood and Revelations you could recruit female assassins who had their own armour (with multiple options) and voices. It wasn't too much work back then.

 

[Crossing Eden]

In AC: Brotherhood and Revelations and III you could recruit female assassins who had their own armour (with multiple options) and voices. It wasn't too much work back then.

Not during seamless MP and their animations and rigs were much simpler than this, not only that. But they also displayed on screen as a female. That's not the case here, so it's an invalid argument. This game is NOT ACB or ACR. This is AC:Unity. The development is not the same. The games are not the same. In fact, i'll list the difference so that people can stop trying to use ACB and ACR as a valid argument.
-This game is built from the ground up. Those games reused more than 90% of the assets from AC2.
-Those games had MP that wasn't seamless, where you chose a preset character that was slightly customizable, this game has seamless MP where you play as the main character who has many more tons more animations and outfits specifically tailored to his body shape.
-In those games when you selected a female character you played as a female with her own animations/outfits/weapons, in this game all of the animations/outfits/weapons were built for Arno, so naturally they would look awkward on someone with a different body shape.
There. Now we can stop with that.

 

[Bucca]

So are you over on the Watchdog thread complaining that the Co-op is stupid because your character can appear as a woman during multiplayer?

What are you even talking about? I like the co-op in Watch Dogs and the fact that you appear as some generic NPC to the other player's Aiden.

But the fact of the matter is, the animations in AC:U are on a whole 'nother level compared to those in Watch Dogs.

In Watch Dogs you're meant to appear as some generic civilian NPC, so seeing some fat guy/girl having the same movement set as Aiden is really weird and offputting.

You're putting words into my mouth with that statement.

 

[JDSN]

Look, you can badgers devs all day for not making games the way you want them to be, as others pointed out, gamers do it all time time across a whole host of different issues.

The difference with something like representivity in games is that it is also a social and political issue, and sites like Kotaku use it create negative and potentially damaging publicity for people who make these games.

That's clearly a bit different to whining about not having more multiplayer maps or whatever, and its a bit disingenuous of people to claim they are somehow the same thing.

I dislike the idea of hurling damaging accusations at people simply because they made the game they decided it was best to make. I see this has now hit the LA Times as well. Do people really feel happy about creating all this trouble for the people who made this game because of a lack of female co-op skins? It must be really frustrating to try and create in an environment like this.

And why do you care so much that Kotaku uses this to get a couple of clicks? They also capitalize on other techincal controveries and the world is still spinning and capcom is still making shit ports.

Issues in certain games get certain amount of attention in the media, some more then the other because they gotta take advantage of the controversy, some of the accusations made are irrational and some are well-thought reports. Again, some of us see this as a legitimate issues and just because you dont doesnt mean that the discussion must be stunted, I dont care about talking about voice acting in Zelda, and yet you dont see me in threads spitting the usual "vote with your wallet" rhetoric.

It's a criticism isn't it? That's an attack. And yes if a dev gets criticized for DRM, microtransactions, buggy launches, whatever, then they are being attacked.

Its never an attack, its potential costumers wanting more. They are making a product that at some level is failing to please certain parts of their fanbase, they are free to fix it just as the fanbase is free to ignore it if it fails to meet their standards.

 

[Ascenion]

In AC: Brotherhood and Revelations you could recruit female assassins who had their own armour (with multiple options) and voices. It wasn't too much work back then.

That's AI versus an actual player with a ton of possible weapon combinations and skills doing actions outside the scope of the AI. Plus its a new engine.

 

[figadapaura]

I'm actually expecting for there to be at least one female assassin in the game, so I'm not gonna take 'animation was too hard' as a good response.

Because a narrative was set before production and it's a subjective issue at that?

What narrative is preventing female assassins in co-op?

 

[besada]

Games are art. Art doesn't have to be justified, it doesn't have to be equal, it doesn't have to tick a box. It's art.

It's like the racism crap with the Far Cry 4 cover all over again. It's art!!!

We wouldn't be having this conversation about a movie franchise

People complain about representation in art across all mediums, including movies.

This is actually an indication that video games are being treated as a serious medium for the first time. Serious mediums get critiqued for all sorts of reasons, including gender representation.

 

[ChipotIe]

Games are art. Art doesn't have to be justified, it doesn't have to be equal, it doesn't have to tick a box. It's art.

The problem is they did justify it and the manner in which they did was insulting to everyone because it was pure bullshit and now we're clambering to know what the real reason actually is since they still didn't give it to us.

 

[Bucca]

What narrative is preventing female assassins in co-op?

Because for all we know, those 3 characters could be tied to Arno's story.

 

[APF]

People arguing "authorial intent" seem to be missing the critical point that their alleged intent was to include the option.

 

[Blackthorn]

People complain about representation in art across all mediums, including movies.

This is actually an indication that video games are being treated as a serious medium for the first time. Serious mediums get critiqued for all sorts of reasons, including gender representation.

I always wonder how much people here would flip their shit if they saw what literature critics say about their favourite books.

The debates around gaming are incredibly basic in comparison, because unfortunately the issues being tackled are incredibly basic.

 

[Galactic Fork]

What are you even talking about? I like the co-op in Watch Dogs and the fact that you appear as some generic NPC to the other player's Aiden.

But the fact of the matter is, the animations in AC:U are on a whole 'nother level compared to those in Watch Dogs.

In Watch Dogs you're meant to appear as some generic civilian NPC, so seeing some fat guy/girl having the same movement set as Aiden is really weird and offputting.

You're putting words into my mouth with that statement.

I'm not putting words in your mouth. Your other points are just Ubisoft's points. They had planned to devote time and effort to all those things you mentioned... But decided it didn't matter to them.

Then you also add the argument that it doesn't matter because you can't see yourself as the woman, so it's pointless.
It stands to reason that same feature would be pointless in another game as well.

 

[figadapaura]

Because for all we know, those 3 characters could be tied to Arno's story.

Oh right, well then that explains why none of them could have possibly been female.

 

[Bucca]

Oh right, well then that explains why none of them could have possibly been female.

I'm not saying that they were right in doing that, just that that was the way whoever wrote it wanted it to be (if this even turns out to be the case).

It stands to reason that same feature would be pointless in another game as well.

It pretty much is pointless, essentially, because you can't see who you are.

I threw that in there just as a talking point. I mentioned in another post that perhaps the 3 characters were written as male and tied to Arno's story so that's why you can't customize your co-op character to be female.

I'm not defending that they are write for not making any of the 3 co-op characters female. But what I'm saying is with the way co-op is implemented, you would never see your own "customized" character anyway, so it is in essence pointless.

 

[APF]

I'm not saying that they were right in doing that, just that that was the way whoever wrote it wanted it to be (if this even turns out to be the case).

As I said, that's literally the opposite of what they claim. They claim what they wanted to do didn't match with their resource allocation.

 

[Crossing Eden]

I'm actually expecting for there to be at least one female assassin in the game, so I'm not gonna take 'animation was too hard' as a good response.
What narrative is preventing female assassins in co-op?

No narrative is preventing it. The GAMEPLAY is preventing it. We already explained this to you. Multiple people have explained this to you. There will most likely be a female assassin protagonist during the actual story. There always has been. Once again, Ubisoft never stated otherwise.

 

[figadapaura]

I'm not saying that they were right in doing that, just that that was the way whoever wrote it wanted it to be (if this even turns out to be the case).

If that is the reason, Ubisoft should have just come out and said it instead of hiding behind bs excuses. They would be getting far less flak now if they did.

No narrative is preventing it. The GAMEPLAY is preventing it. We already explained this to you. Multiple people have explained this to you. There will most likely be a female assassin protagonist during the actual story. There always has been. Once again, Ubisoft never stated otherwise.

Then they've already done animations for a female assassin? How is gameplay preventing it then?

 

[Bucca]

If that is the reason, Ubisoft should have just come out and said it instead of hiding behind bs excuses. They would be getting far less flak now if they did.

I agree though. The explanation they gave for not having a female character was poor and could have without a doubt been stated better.

 

[Ascenion]

If that is the reason, Ubisoft should have just come out and said it instead of hiding behind bs excuses. They would be getting far less flak now if they did.

That isn't the reason. They gave us the reason, which while valid they did a poor job on communicating.

Edit: iirc the reason was it would've taken too long with the resources they allocated to the game to do it correctly so they cut it, rather than halfass it. Keep in mind AC: Comet is also supposed to release this year, Ubi is busy.

 

[Platy]

Games are art. Art doesn't have to be justified, it doesn't have to be equal, it doesn't have to tick a box. It's art.

It's like the racism crap with the Far Cry 4 cover all over again. It's art!!!

We wouldn't be having this conversation about a movie franchise

WHAT ?

Did you missed all the compalins about how the new X-Men had much less women, specialy considering the original comic is ABOUT KITTY PRIDE ?

 

[Sianos]

I'm not saying that they were right in doing that, just that that was the way whoever wrote it wanted it to be (if this even turns out to be the case).

It pretty much is pointless, essentially, because you can't see who you are.

I threw that in there just as a talking point. I mentioned in another post that perhaps the 3 characters were written as male and tied to Arno's story so that's why you can't customize your co-op character to be female.

I'm not defending that they are write for not making any of the 3 co-op characters female. But what I'm saying is with the way co-op is implemented, you would never see your own "customized" character anyway, so it is in essence pointless.

The Pokemon series, bastion of progressiveness, had since the GBA games a way of projecting an avatar in secret bases that was more customizable than the basic main character to diversify the multiplayer features and make it less confusing than having four of the same dude or lady making gelatin together (and other fun multiplayer activities). So yes, avatar projection is valid and not essentially pointless (this also applies to all first person games with multiplayer).

The stated reason wasn't "women didn't fit our narrative", it was "we wanted to include women, but didn't have the resources to allocate to them".

 

[Zoe]

Then they've already done animations for a female assassin? How is gameplay preventing it then?

That doesn't mean they've replicated Arno's entire move set for any NPC females.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Then they've already done animations for a female assassin? How is gameplay preventing it then?

1.That female assassin who may or may not be in the game most likely isn't as complex a character from a technical perspective compared to Arno.
2.Because you.always.play.as.ARNO.<---Please read this over and over until you understand it.
3.Do you not realize that other series see the outfit that you chose to wear in your game? Do you not understand that those outfits were made for a male character?

 

[Crossing Eden]

That doesn't mean they've replicated Arno's entire move set for any NPC females.

Thank you!

 

[captainnapalm]

And why do you care so much that Kotaku uses this to get a couple of clicks?

I guess I care because I really like the AC franchise and therefore the people who make it, and I'm very excited about the new game, which I think looks fantastic. I'm on their side. And I accept their explanation for not having female co-op skins as being due to time and budgetary constraints.

 

[Sianos]

1.That female assassin who may or may not be in the game most likely isn't as complex a character from a technical perspective compared to Arno.
2.Because you.always.play.as.ARNO.<---Please read this over and over until you understand it.
3.Do you not realize that other series see the outfit that you chose to wear in your game? Do you not understand that those outfits were made for a male character?

1. It would at least serve as a baseline and make the work much less difficult if there already was a female assassin "template" being used in the game: rigging just animations for finished models is much less work than creating the character from scratch and devalues their excuse.

2. Watch_Dogs had similar avatar projection that was able to feature female characters. I don't see why this cannot be done for Assassin's Creed as well.

3. If female assassins are present in the game, they logically have outfits to wear (this isn't Senran Kagura here) and those same outfits could be worn by the re-rigged female assassin avatar projection.

 

[Carcetti]

So a series whose premise is based on the fact that people are reliving past lives through a machine that relies upon genetic memory (which doesn't exist in real life) isn't too big of a leap, but "magic gender swapping" is?

Exactly. The 'history has no female assassins' argument is hilarious.

I mean we're only couple of steps away from a historically accurate Assassin's Creed. We only have to remove

Parkour
Wrist Blades
Animus
Assassins and Templars as actual conspiracies
Assassin uniforms which feature easily recognizable emblems and hoods
Racial memory
Ancient Astronaut alien things
Magic machines

 

[blackadde]

Games are art. Art doesn't have to be justified, it doesn't have to be equal, it doesn't have to tick a box. It's art.

It's like the racism crap with the Far Cry 4 cover all over again. It's art!!!

We wouldn't be having this conversation about a movie franchise

art is open to criticism, there is nothing sacred about a [game / image / film / song].

art is also not created in a vacuum; it exists within a particular cultural framework that it can either choose to reinforce, or push against, criticize, etc.

 

[APF]

Or they could have started from a point where they could share animations between two skins, right from the beginning, vs starting from a point where they wanted to have different characters but had to drop one due to resource management issues.

 

[Azih]

Its never an attack

This is a pointless semantic argument. If for you criticisms don't equate to attacks then we have a basic disagreement on language which we can talk about over PM or a grammar/english thread.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Exactly. The 'history has no female assassins' argument is hilarious.

No one ever said that history has no female assassins. We just aren't playing as one of them.

 

[Ascenion]

Exactly. The 'history has no female assassins' argument is hilarious.

I mean we're only couple of steps away from a historically accurate Assassin's Creed. We only have to remove

Parkour
Wrist Blades
Animus
Assassins and Templars as actual conspiracies
Assassin uniforms which feature easily recognizable emblems and hoods
Racial memory
Ancient Astronaut alien things
Magic machines

So....the History Channel presents: The Assassin's Creed: political assassinations through time?

 

[Riposte]

So when you do co-op, the main character(Arno, a male) for that respective player enters your game (perhaps more seamless than that)? Seems pretty open and shut for this game, having time to work on female models wouldn't fix that. Ideally they will develop co-op features in the future to give each player more customization and individual personality, especially if you are going back and doing the missions out of the plot's context.

EDIT: Man... why isn't there a History Channel tie-in for these games? You messing up Ubisoft.