BioWare Exec "Blown Away" By Support for Mass Effect's FemShep

[wwmcfar]

FemShep can pilot my ship through the omega 4 relay any time.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Although glasses I kind of get - we already have laser correction, why should the future have anything less that 20/20?

Same reason Picard is bald?

Can't be bald in ME either.

 

[frobisher]

"Given that staunch support for femShep existed way back before Mass Effect 1 was even a month old."

They knew then that femShep was popular.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-20-bioware-18-percent-play-mass-effect-as-femshep


18% is suddenly a "Staunch Support" and popular? Am I the only one seeing marketing spin and rationalising decisions with random interpretation of random data, when real reasons behind particular moves are pretty much... unknown? Ha, I'd rather have them unknown, at least, compared to that 18% farse, it is not looking like someone from that company treats readers as "special".

(yeah random, because 18% that "play" doesn't tell a thing about rather important details - for example: "for how long")

 

[JediMB]

]
That only has a chance of working when the character is sexualized, unfortunately.

That'd be why the Tomb Raider franchise has been more successful (and is more well-known) than the Metroid franchise. The former's protagonist is usually seen in a tank top and short-shots, while the latter's is only seen on the covers and ads in full-body armor.

femShep's leather(ish) "dress" [whether or not they intended it to be leather I can't say, only what it appears to look due to the rendering of the engine] in the Kasumi DLC is somewhat sexualising. As a side note, Miranda's clothing (except the DLC addon) and Samara's are another two examples of needless sexualisation.

Given Metroid and Tomb Raider, the clothing is more or less justified by their settings.

See, there's a difference between "potentially sexy" and "sexualized". Lara has always been prancing around in skin-tight tank tops and short-shorts, with her trademark Huge Boobs, and marketed in sexy poses.

Meanwhile, Shepard is a respectable soldier regardless of sex. S-/he wears a practical (and rather ugly) uniform on the Normandy, and full-body armor on missions. This is not a character you can sexualize for marketing without pulling some completely ridiculous stunt like dressing her/him up in beach wear on the cover, or using clips of more explicit sex scenes in the advertising.

Miranda and Samara are highly sexualized, yes. But they're not Shepard, and their outfits were frankly terrible design choices, much like most of the other companion uniforms in ME2. Strutting around and flashing skin on the Quarian flotilla is hardly a good idea, and having nothing but an oxygen mask to protect you on an alien warship... no...

 

[JediMB]

It'd be nice if either Shep had certain choices available. Like white hair, glasses, piercings...you know...normal ideas like that.

Or reasonably long hair. I still don't understand why my Shepard's hair couldn't be as long as mine :/

Supposedly it's due to limitations in Unreal Engine 3.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

18% is suddenly a "Staunch Support" and popular? Am I the only one seeing marketing spin and rationalising decisions with random interpretation of random data, when real reasons behind particular moves are pretty much... unknown? Ha, I'd rather have them unknown, at least, compared to that 18% farse, it is not looking like someone from that company treats readers as "special".

(yeah random, because 18% that "play" doesn't tell a thing about rather important details - for example: "for how long")

Read the Mass Effect forums, that's where the support is.

Most of the players are male soldiers, which is the default. That remaining 82%, I would wager that the majority of them couldn't be bothered going through the whole character creation process. So that whole percentile isn't an accurate reflection of the player-base.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

See, there's a difference between "potentially sexy" and "sexualized". Lara has always been prancing around in skin-tight tank tops and short-shorts, with her trademark Huge Boobs, and marketed in sexy poses.

Meanwhile, Shepard is a respectable soldier regardless of sex. S-/he wears a practical (and rather ugly) uniform on the Normandy, and full-body armor on missions. This is not a character you can sexualize for marketing without pulling some completely ridiculous stunt like dressing her/him up in beach wear on the cover, or using clips of more explicit sex scenes in the advertising.

Miranda and Samara are highly sexualized, yes. But they're not Shepard, and their outfits were frankly terrible design choices, much like most of the other companion uniforms in ME2. Strutting around and flashing skin on the Quarian flotilla is hardly a good idea, and having nothing but an oxygen mask to protect you on an alien warship... no...

As an adventuring archaeologist, you don't want to go traipsing around the tropical jungles in black leather.

All good points about sexualisation there. Still, you can't see the design of the leather dress as something other than a somewhat obvious attempt.

 

[frobisher]

snip

Read the Mass Effect forums, that's where the support is.

Most of the players are male soldiers, which is the default. That remaining 82%, I would wager that the majority of them couldn't be bothered going through the whole character creation process. So that whole percentile isn't an accurate reflection of the player-base.

Well, then consistent response would be to remove character creation process entirely and give us femSheep

If that percentile is not a reflection of player base, then those posting on their forums are not reflection of it either. And Bioware people probably know this. Not to mention that when you cut out everly sweet, overly sour and troll threads there is not much to go on, the amount of people contributing to reasonable discussion is pretty low, nothing new in gaming department anyway.


From what I've seen so far, it looks like another attempt to "expand playerbase" with some ideology slapped on, but thankfully there was one sober worker responsible for marketing who told them not to call it like that, because there is a "slight" taint on such formula recently, second only to Awesome-class taint. That is why we get fairy tale about "staunch support" which could make it look like something different - but since we have numbers...

 

[JediMB]

As an adventuring archaeologist, you don't want to go traipsing around the tropical jungles in black leather.

All good points about sexualisation there. Still, you can't see the design of the leather dress as something other than a somewhat obvious attempt.

Of course not in black leather. You probably don't want anything skin-tight at all, since you'll want some air flowing through your clothes to keep you from getting soaked in sweat. You might also want some sort of protection against the wildlife, like parasitic insects, snakes and spiders. And you don't wear fucking short-shorts on a snow-covered mountain. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-wBkuIAw5o]

The leather dress is more of a consequence of two factors:
1) Women are expected to wear dresses as formal wear, while men wear tuxedos or similar costumes.
2) The game engine doesn't handle thin, soft fabrics well, so anything besides leather would look unnatural.

 

[JediMB]

Well, then consistent response would be to remove character creation process entirely and give us femSheep

Actually, an overwhelming majority of all characters created use custom faces.

Following the numbers, and not taking into account that a great deal of the Male/Soldier players never finish the game, it would make more sense to remove all the other character classes (Engineer, Vanguard, etc.) than to remove the character creator.

 

[frobisher]

Actually, an overwhelming majority of all characters created use custom faces.

Following the numbers, and not taking into account that a great deal of the Male/Soldier players never finish the game, it would make more sense to remove all the other character classes (Engineer, Vanguard, etc.) than to remove the character creator.

I'll stop here, I think we gave them too many ideas already

 

[Danceofmasks]

Bayonetta did well because it's a top notch game.
I think it got a perfect score in Famitsu or something, which is extremely rare.

As for mass effect, how would anyone know it "would have sold just as" well, unless they have both sets of data to compare?
You don't do science without a control group.
Claiming results based on hot air is something religions do.

Based off the sales and support for Mass Effect 1.

from my post you yourself quoted...

"Given that staunch support for femShep existed way back before Mass Effect 1 was even a month old."

They knew then that femShep was popular.

Ok look, I'm going to assume you're just clueless so I'll give you a logic lesson.

Pizza is popular
Ice cream is popular

You: Pizza is as popular as ice cream

Me: -_-

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

The leather dress is more of a consequence of two factors:
1) Women are expected to wear dresses as formal wear, while men wear tuxedos or similar costumes.
2) The game engine doesn't handle thin, soft fabrics well, so anything besides leather would look unnatural.

Given the party you attend in the Kasumi DLC, Shepard's attire is way out of place considering the formal wear the NPCs are wearing.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Ok look, I'm going to assume you're just clueless so I'll give you a logic lesson.

Pizza is popular
Ice cream is popular

You: Pizza is as popular as ice cream

Me: -_-

This feels like a trolling response on your behalf.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Well, then consistent response would be to remove character creation process entirely and give us femSheep

If that percentile is not a reflection of player base, then those posting on their forums are not reflection of it either. And Bioware people probably know this. Not to mention that when you cut out everly sweet, overly sour and troll threads there is not much to go on, the amount of people contributing to reasonable discussion is pretty low, nothing new in gaming department anyway.


From what I've seen so far, it looks like another attempt to "expand playerbase" with some ideology slapped on, but thankfully there was one sober worker responsible for marketing who told them not to call it like that, because there is a "slight" taint on such formula recently, second only to Awesome-class taint. That is why we get fairy tale about "staunch support" which could make it look like something different - but since we have numbers...

You can make up any statistics you want to support anything you want, 14% of people know this.

As for removing the whole character creation process, maybe that's a good idea. Mass Effect certainly isn't an RPG, not by any stretch of the imagination. Having a character creation seems "tacked on".

I will concede that the 84%(?) is an accurate representation, if the numbers adding up to that 84% were active members of the Mass Effect community. But by looking at the boards, there's maybe only a few thousand posters. The support femShep thread there is several hundred pages in length, with just as many posters.

 

[JediMB]

The leather dress is more of a consequence of two factors:
1) Women are expected to wear dresses as formal wear, while men wear tuxedos or similar costumes.
2) The game engine doesn't handle thin, soft fabrics well, so anything besides leather would look unnatural.

Given the party you attend in the Kasumi DLC, Shepard's attire is way out of place considering the formal wear the NPCs are wearing.

So does male Shepard's, for the record.

NPCs are basically just wearing the ugly default attires, re-skinned at best. The females' attires don't really work for characters that have to walk around, so Shepard's needed to show some legs for her walking animations to work. (That said, Shepard's dress still looks terrible for some scenes on the Normandy, since FemShep is just using MaleSheps'... sometimes inappropriate... animations.)

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

So does male Shepard's, for the record.

NPCs are basically just wearing the ugly default attires, re-skinned at best. The females' attires don't really work for characters that have to walk around, so Shepard's needed to show some legs for her walking animations to work. (That said, Shepard's dress still looks terrible for some scenes on the Normandy, since FemShep is just using MaleSheps'... sometimes inappropriate... animations.)

I blame Bioware's animators being lazy and/or trying to save money by giving a woman male animations. That or femShep is hiding something. Like many, I have seen The Crying Game.

They could have given here some nice pants.

The Dead or Alive series spoiled me for animation. No, not for the obvious, their clothing moved and deformed around the bodies of the girls. They didn't use the cheap method of rigging half the dress to one leg and the other half to the other (looking at you Mass Effect). I bet if they put just a teensy bit more work in to it, they could have had the same deformable meshes.

 

[pandorum]

In reality femshep sounded better in ME1 but manshep sounds a hole lot better in ME2 femshep sounded monotonous throughout ME2 till the speech at the end of arrival dlc at the reaper leader in my opinion jen has a fanbase so loyal that even though she did a bland performance they will defend it with there life.

jen's best work by far was in Metal Gear Solid on the playstation one in my opinion.