Brink : No Girls Allowed

[rsvp42]

Compared to the price of programming the actual game, designing a slightly different model for the character is pretty minuscule.

To do it right, they couldn't just blendshape the male bodies into females. It would require nearly twice as much design, modeling, texturing, rigging, and production time, not only for the characters themselves, but for the different gear and outfits, not to mention changing the animation to fit the female models. It really would constitute a significant development cost and for something that doesn't improve actual gameplay, it was probably deemed too unnecessarily expensive. who knows, maybe they'll add the ladies for Brink 2 if this does well.

Femshep uses basically the same animation set as maleshep, for instance. This stuff isn't as expensive to do as you seem to think it is.

Except that I'm well aware of the pipeline involved in creating and animating characters because I have a BFA in computer animation. If you look at the characters in Brink, you'll notice their designs are a lot more pushed than Shepard's are.They could just throw boobs on the existing models and call it a day, but that would be lazy and based on what I've seen of the game, they're not doing things in half measures. Doing it right would require significant modification to the base meshes and all possible variants with some more feminine variants added, a completely new set of facial features (and textures) comparable to the existing male options, extra voice work and facial animation for the story parts of the game, making sure that all the outfits are converted to the female models as well as designing new outfits that fit the females better. There's plenty of quality control involved in all that as well. Regardless, some Production Manager still has to find time and money for everything.

I'm not saying they couldn't or shouldn't do it, but I am saying that it's not just an afternoon's work to get it all up to the same standard. Artists aren't cheap and when someone suggested adding females (as I'm sure they did at some point in production) it was determined that the time and cost of adding anywhere from 75-100% more work to the whole character creation process wasn't worth it.

Ideally it would be there, but it works without it. As I mentioned, it's the sort of thing that would be easier to implement in a sequel if/when the franchise has proven itself. Breaking the bank on a new IP is not the smartest move.

 

[Snotnarok]

The publishers don't care, manly men running around shooting things sells, a lot of people from what I gather don't want to play as a 'weak girl' and want to play as a serious dood shooting shit up. A lot of people put down Heavenly Sword for having a woman as the hero, despite her kicking a lot of ass. ...Armies of asses were kicked.

I'm not arguing, I really think it would have been great to have both genders playable, I'm just telling you what probably happened. Even Fable had women in the works I think before they dropped them and decided to put them in 2. It's extra work that...well really adds nothing to the game technically. Would have been really good though

That's the sad truth haha - remember the sh*tstorm when that one woman from Gears of War was slated to get more screen time?

"Wh- A girl in MY SHOOTER!? Is Cliffy B gay!? You can't have GURLZ in MAH SHOOTERS! FFFUUUUUU"

Yeah I think that up there sums up the general reaction that I heard. Hell 2 of my friends were spitting blood when they saw a girl in the CoG uniform (a car cut up to be worn by a person).

 

[Magnesium360]

This thread has been done before and I'll agree with what was said before.

I'd prefer to see one full assed customization as compared to two half assed ones.

But what if the quality had remained consistant? Two full asses are better than one.

 

[Ladette]

I can kind of understand why people would be angry with this issue in general, but I don't understand why they chose Brink as the focus of all that anger. It's roughly the billionth shooter to not allow you to play as a female. Are people just really slow in regards to taking a stand, or what?

The reason people are annoyed is because Brink is selling itself on customization a lot more than any prior shooter. Every time one of the devs opens their mouths they make sure to talk about customization.

Nobody cares about the lack of females in Call of Duty Black Ops for example because there is no customization what so ever.

It's just crappy that they're selling their game on customizability, yet you can only play as a male.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

Don't mean to be sexist, but it's hard to run around in a parkour-FPS hybrid when you've got this bouncing around (for both parties now that I think about it).

Never heard of Mirror's Edge have you?

In all fairness, her figure wasn't the equivalent of two cantaloupes ducktaped to a playboy model cardboard cut-out. Even if it was, you'd still have to use a copious amount of body tape to keep those puppies down.

 

[Vykrel]

Any game that offers even the most basic of character customization options, but does not include the option to select your gender, is immediately ignored by me. That's why I have not and will not play the Gothic series.

sorry, but that seems like kind of a bad reason to completely skip out on what might be a great game.

also, the game is largely class-based. one of the classes is a large tank-like character. i can only imagine how many 12-year-old boys would be running around as big, burly amazon women just because they think its funny. and theyll through in that triple-mohawk haircut just for added lulz

its probably better this way

 

[Eri]

I don't see why this matters. If all I could choose was female characters, I wouldn't care. If all male characters, still don't care. If you absolutely CANNOT play a certain gender, you have problems imo.

 

[NightlyNews]

No offense, but I thought this game was supposed to be rebels versus an army.

There are women in both rebellions and armies, but they are without a doubt a minority. If your in the halo universe or something where there are many female Spartans then being all male would be out of place.

But given that it's:
A. the army so primarily male
B. a fps and people don't like shooting women

I have no real problem with it being male customization only.

 

[CapnDork1337]

I can kind of understand why people would be angry with this issue in general, but I don't understand why they chose Brink as the focus of all that anger. It's roughly the billionth shooter to not allow you to play as a female. Are people just really slow in regards to taking a stand, or what?

No and I'm gonna do something here that might earn me a lot of flame, but I'm going to bring up yahtzee. Please, bear with me.

He was talking about how we can be given freedom and choice and you can talk it up all you want but it will always be in some constraint. (it was one of the fable reviews)

And this is why, to me at least (and I know lots of other peopl) the fable games were a let down, because the more you went on about freedom the easier the walls were to see.

So apply this idea to brink and it's customization, the more you give us, the more glaringly obvious it will become that we're missing something. So to promise all this customization then drop the ball in a big way like this, it just makes people upsept.

 

[Keith Reedy]

Does Halo have female charecters in ITS multiplayer? What about Section 8? I don't know why Brink is the upset. Of course, it is a little more jaring since there isn't power armor for everyone. Despite Spartans in Multiplayer looking male, it doesn't take much to imigine one as a girl.

Brink is the upset because, aside from forcing your character to be male, it has a very robust character customization aspect. The fact that it put so much focus into character customization, yet forced your character to be a guy, makes the issue (which is still present in other shooters mind you) more obvious.

Imagine if Bioware came out with a new RPG with their standard level of customization, but decided that your character had to be a girl, how do you think people would react? It's the same issue here.

That doesn't bother me at all a game is about an experience not just what gender u are if it fits the story thats fine. As for brink I'll get it hopefully like it and since its an fps I can't say I care a whole lot about how I look since I won't see it most of the time. Now how my guns look I care about cause I gotta look at the thing all game long. This is why I hated the PTRS in world at war looked really weird.

 

[LuckyClover95]

I can't imagine it would take so much TIME and HARD WORK to add a female character. Yeah, more guys than girls game but so? More girls than guys.... I dunno, wear make up but that doesn't mean it's not available to you.
I can't believe games would be this far behind
Also, I think women game a lot more than you think, they apparently make up for roughly a third of all gamers, maybe we just don't notice because for whatever reason there are less girls like myself who go on gaming websites and forums to discuss stuff? I'm not sure though.

I like to think that you don't notice all the woman playing cause they're always the players that don't have mics. I mean it makes sense, that way they don't have to deal with the bullshit that is male gamers

Well I'm female, what would happen if I got a mic?

 

[MercurySteam]

This thread has been done before. I think the work on the males models is great and I wouldn't have any quarrels if they put the same effort into female models and released them later as DLC.

 

[CapnDork1337]

Ahahahah! I just realized, the halo universe is the first game i can think of that puts females on equal grounds as males. Female spartans are just as deadly as male, and hell they even had female soldiers and odsts in single player, even in the first one I can remember female soldiers. Halo people. Come on that`s gotta be at least a little bit ironic. And a whole lotta hilarious.

 

[Ladette]

I can kind of understand why people would be angry with this issue in general, but I don't understand why they chose Brink as the focus of all that anger. It's roughly the billionth shooter to not allow you to play as a female. Are people just really slow in regards to taking a stand, or what?

The reason people are annoyed is because Brink is selling itself on customization a lot more than any prior shooter. Every time one of the devs opens their mouths they make sure to talk about customization.

Nobody cares about the lack of females in Call of Duty Black Ops for example because there is no customization what so ever.

It's just crappy that they're selling their game on customizability, yet you can only play as a male.

Yeah, and the only reason we get that much customization is because they chose to go with the male models only. It was either have a ton of customization that way or half that customization and have their modeling department spend that time on redoing all of that gear to fit female models as well.

Maybe people don't realize this, but Splash Damage is not a huge AAA developer. They don't have infinite time or infinite resources. Brink is actually their first stand-alone project ever. The other two games they've done were sequels/spin-offs. Quake Wars and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. So give 'em a break, yea?

I've already posted my feelings. I'd rather have female models than a few more male options. They made the decision to go with just male characters.

I won't "give them a break" because I do not approve of their decision. I wasn't going to buy the game because it doesn't look appealing to me, if i'd been on the bubble this would have pushed me to not buy it.

 

[Aris Khandr]

Any game that offers even the most basic of character customization options, but does not include the option to select your gender, is immediately ignored by me. That's why I have not and will not play the Gothic series.

sorry, but that seems like kind of a bad reason to completely skip out on what might be a great game.

First, when a friend was trying to talk me up on Gothic, she hammered the point home about the lack of gender options, but made it seem like you could customize everything else. Knowing differently, I may check it out in the future.

I am not against the idea of playing a male character if that's the only character in the game. But once you start letting people customize, there is simply no good reason not to allow me to play my own gender. And yes, I will boycott games that violate that principle, because that's the only way that game makers will see that there are girls who play, and we do not appreciate being an afterthought when it comes to character customization.

 

[CapnDork1337]

Well I'm female, what would happen if I got a mic?

Then I`d say do you want to lead or cover my back.

 

[Ladette]

Once again.

Female Models > A few hundred male clothing options.

I cared at one point when I first saw the trailer. The lack of female models annoyed me though, so I examined the game a lot more closely than I would have otherwise. I may have been willing to overlook the issues I have with it had there actually been the customizability they claimed there was, but not now.

 

[CaptainCash]

I apologize if this had been done before, I did take a look at the forums to see but I might not have looked back far enough.

The upcoming title Brink is based largely upon customization. You can be just about any race, with any style of clothing, hair, the works. But you cannot be female.

Now I?m sure we?ll see a lot of retaliation against what I?m about to say, such as adding in females would have taken time the devs didn?t have. Such as more males game then females. As true as they may be however they do not make the fact that a game, largely based on customization, is excluding half of the human race.

It?s true, we have seen this before in many games. But even shooters such as Halo and Gears of War have stepped up to include female avatars or multiplayer options. Those games don?t have customization passed some colour and load outs.

I am personally very, very disappointed that you cannot play a female in a game based on customizing your character to represent what you want.

Discuss your thoughts on the topic.

You probably didn't see this on the forums probably cause its buried under a rubble of the all other posts but a game dev did reply and they very much acknowledge this. They said that they originally wanted to place females in the game but unfortunately they ran out of room for it in the game unfortunately so they had two decisions: 1. Take away quite some of the customisation and create females with their own unique stuff OR 2. Keep the males and keep the fucking huge list of customisation. They obliviously went with number 2 whether or not they made the right decision is really up to you, I personally wouldn't of mind either way although It still disappoints me that there aren't any females.

 

[NathLines]

I don't really mind, but it would be really nice to be able to play as a female character. I think it's really important to have both genders in a game which emphasizes customization.

I'm waiting for the day a really, really good RPG comes out in which you can only play as a female. Then I will sit back and whatch the crowds rage.

 

[WanderingFool]

Well I'm female, what would happen if I got a mic?

Depends... Do you want to be the meat shield or the one behind the meat shield?

Then I`d say do you want to lead or cover my back.

I think was actually ninja'd...

*Edit*

Females are inferior, it's too unbelievable to see women doing things other than cooking.

The studio knows this and so should you.

HAHAHAHAHAHA...

*rofl*

HAHAHAhaha...


You're being sarcastic, right?