Jimquisition: Diversity? LIEversity!

[Something Amyss]

Okay, you didn't like Desmond's design. Then what if I changed "The art team needs to design an interesting character" to "The art team needs to design a character" because that work still needs to be done.

Of course it does. So what?

And Jim referenced an artist tweeting "The character would take a few days to animate" then construed that to mean it would be a few days to just make a character.

You're putting words in Jim's mouth now.

Jim references ease of inclusion in both this and the earlier episode. When Jim talks about scalability, that's also relevant here. What he doesn't do is say construe the "the character would take a few days to animate" as anything: in fact, it plays over a completely different statement. One where he says gamers have addressed a desire for playable female characters. I just rewatched the episode to verify this.

Claiming otherwise is just dishonest.

And yes, they've been able to create female characters before because they had time. This is simply an unfortunate case where they're too close to the deadline and had too many resources working on getting the new co-op system to work properly in time that they ran out of time to implement an feature in the icebox.

And I still consider this absurd, given the reuse of assets within gaming, given the time they've probably spent on NPCs, and given the limited resources required for what is effectively a MP-only character.

I also don't buy that Co-op took more time and effort than the prior multiplayer.

As for the bit about them losing their bonuses and whatnot, well, yes. I agree it's a shitty system beholden to a need for annual releases and high metacritic scores. But if, and let's just assume it could happen for the sake of argument, if the game does significantly worse now, how do you suppose that's going to affect them?

That's a huge problem with the flowchart approach to game production. Pass/fail systems are great on some level, but not always.

I grant you, this probably never occurred as a possibility to anyone at Ubisoft. But that's not anything positive, either.

 

[Nion]

Stopped watching after 1:30 because Jim thinks that there are multiple co-op protagonists.

 

[Something Amyss]

well... thats like... your opinion man

Whose opinion would it be other than mine?

for me "not to offend" and "to appeal" seem interchangeable 90% of the time, maybe because people defending these kind of movements often act extremely offended

Considering how much time you spend knocking down straw men, posting false or misattributed statements, lying about Anita Sarkeesian and so on, pardon me if I don't actually agree.

for me, an uninteresting black character is no different from an uninteresting white character, i dont want uninteresting characters, and i feel inclusion for the sake of inclusion can give birth to some very uninteresting characters

And yet you only seem to show up to gripe in topics about minorities and take jabs at "feminism."

Like the absence of women in games, it's more the overall pattern than any given statement.

Sorry, it's just you were like the 5th or 6th person to point out how mistaken I was.

Yeah, I only saw one or two before I hit send. My intention wasn't so much to kick you when you were down as it was to use it as a jumping off point because these are issues being brought up in general. Like I said, no offense, and sorry if it came off that way.

What? Being given care as a reward for the fact that one risks their life, their mental health and everything else isn't good enough to deserve a little something in return? What sort of insane reasoning is -that-? And how is the right to vote being protected even a point of discussion? It should go without saying in a modern western country that the right to vote is a given...

I don't know how it got to this, considering US soldiers used to be the only group that were considered completely sacrosanct, but now we've got politicians lumping them in with the other "takers."

I'm not even pro-military or pro-war, but it seems reasonable to me that if you're going to put someone in harm's way, the least you can do is cover the damage done. Especially if you guarantee it before hand. But lying to our troops is something the government's been very good at for a long time.

And as for voting, it's only certain types we don't want voting. Some places have made it so difficult to vote Arthur Dent's local planning office called for tips.

Where you up in arms about the last 6 or so Assassin's Creed games too because there are female assassins throughout the time periods where those games took place in?

Honestly? I doubt people cared that much before Ubisoft said something stupid. Or before people started making false claims about the historicity of female assassins. Not to mention every game since Brotherhood has had multiplayer with female avatars, which is all most people are looking for in this game. So really, there was no "need" for those previous games. If you're looking for a double standard, this ain't it.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Sorry, it's just you were like the 5th or 6th person to point out how mistaken I was.

Yeah, I only saw one or two before I hit send. My intention wasn't so much to kick you when you were down as it was to use it as a jumping off point because these are issues being brought up in general. Like I said, no offense, and sorry if it came off that way.

No no, of course not. Like I said, it wasn't you. You were just like the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.

 

[I.Muir]

I just don't want to play the same bloody American from every other game in every game.

 

[Fireaxe]

Let's ask the question: is having female protagonists bad for sales?

Lets ask the more commercially significant question: does having a female protagonist (instead of OR in addition to a male protagonist) increase sales by a significant enough number that the extra time modelling and animating the character can be considered well spent.

 

[CloudAtlas]

snip

How is Ubisoft going to prove this? Release detailed information showing how much it cost each department to make the make protagonist? Given the difficult in collecting this data it's entirely reasonable of Ubisoft not comply with your unseasonable request.

You honestly think they can't do an estimate of how much hours it costs to animate a character? how many hours of work it takes to record more lines for voice actors? It's their JOB to know. they keep records of these things, it's how you keep your finances in order.
Besides, according to them they DO know how expensive it is because they claim to know it costs too much.
How is it unreasonable for me to ask them to explain an answer that cites a reason that a lot of their customers and pretty much all gaming press have called unacceptable?

Kind of weird seeing people jump so readily to the defense of UbiSoft while at the same time believing UbiSoft to be so utterly incompetently managed that they wouldn't even be able to give an estimate on the cost of one of their core activities.

And yea as you said that's even disregarding that in order for UbiSoft to know that implementing female characters is too expensive they need to have an idea in the first place how expensive it would be...

 

[Iceklimber]

Instantly remembered the World of Darkness excuse from TheGuardian Interview: "?He had members of our storyline team ? a group responsible for writing in-game content and fiction ? put it together?

Probably something similar happened when the two Ubisoft games had their press statements excuses for no females assembled.

I totally get it when developers want to focus on male protagonists if that is what they are used to, and sometimes female characters feel awkward and forced such as the new WoW Expansion which explores the Stories of Warcraft 1-2 (1993-1995) where no female Characters existed yet desperately wants to add some *important* female Princess or something to the game.

But not including females while simultaneously patting themselves Shoulder for how much you *want* female Characters is evil hypocricy.

 

[croc3629]

Really though, its the excuse that's unfortunate more than anything.

Its one thing to have just not thought about putting playable female characters in your game, and leaving them out by design, but to say that they were deemed too expensive to put in, but that they would have if it weren't for the untenable costs, that is a bit irksome.

Either way, I hope it at least lets the developers consider their next project plan carefully, or at least just be honest and tell us that they just didn't design it that way and you can take it or leave it.

Its not like I was expecting the protagonist of Unity to be anything but male anyway, and the franchise is free to do whatever it wants, but please have better reasons to give us. Or stay quiet, you don't have to answer us if you can't think of anything good to say.

 

[grumpymooselion]

I think there should be more playable female characters in games, but, really, most games I come across have characters so, "eh" that their gender and racial characteristics barely matter. In this light, I'd prefer customizable characters I can make to the gender and race that I prefer. Still there are examples of cases where a gender locked character is exactly what should happen.

Ubisoft's excuses are, well, terrible. They don't make sense. Here is something that does make sense. The game is set during the French revolution. I'd like to see a Female main character out of Assassin's Creed with a female character. There are tons of time frames they could set AC during that a female character makes all the sense in the world. I want to see those. Still, despite the time period of Unity, I still think they could have managed a female, and playable, character if they just stood back for a second and thought it out. It just would have been a very different story. Maybe even its own game aside from this. I'd have loved to see that.

I don't believe AC has a diversity problem as a whole though. AC1 brought us a middle eastern Assassin. AC2 (and its spin offs) an Italian assassin. AC3 brought us a Native American Assassin. Liberation brought us a black female assassin and Freedom Cry brought us a black male assassin. The first white male Assassin we ever had, that I can think of, is from Black Flag. Unity bringing us three copies of one French Assassin doesn't bother me that much in that light, but I do still think a female Assassin during the same period as Unity could work, especially if it was made its own fully fleshed out story.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Just look at Laura Croft; having her be the stalwart heroine of the game wasn't good enough. She had to be God, unblemished and unbreakable because having her seem vulnerable or human was considered a slur against all women.

Remember the time Marcus Fenix was borderline gangraped in that one Gears of War cutscene?

Yeah. Me neither.

A strong character can go through turmoil, a strong character can be human; resorting to the "woman is beaten and abused" trope was cowardly and attention-grabbing. If you think men are being written well (which they aren't because writing in games is awful on almost every conceivable level but let's run with it) then women need to be written the same. There shouldn't have to be any more concessions in making Lara Croft a "human" than Master Chief or Duke Nukem.

 

[DTWolfwood]

So why is anyone excited for this game? the hand to hand combat still looks boring as hell. It looks like the same invincible parry system they've had since forever?

At the least 4 had the naval stuff, whats Unity got? besides the lack of female assassins?

Well, the co-op game play i think would be the biggest draw? In a perfect world i would hope for some kind of Monaco style infiltration missions, where you need to coordinate with your companions to be successful.

Guess it'll appeal to the very few that actually have friends to play with. If its random matchmaking, the result will most likely be too many trolls and most will just play single player. So... i don't consider co-op to be much of a draw if the base gameplay is still the worn out "parry and win" formula.

I do see your point. i personally don't play AssCreed online, thus this new game does not appeal to me.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

well... thats like... your opinion man

Whose opinion would it be other than mine?

for me "not to offend" and "to appeal" seem interchangeable 90% of the time, maybe because people defending these kind of movements often act extremely offended

Considering how much time you spend knocking down straw men, posting false or misattributed statements, lying about Anita Sarkeesian and so on, pardon me if I don't actually agree.

for me, an uninteresting black character is no different from an uninteresting white character, i dont want uninteresting characters, and i feel inclusion for the sake of inclusion can give birth to some very uninteresting characters

And yet you only seem to show up to gripe in topics about minorities and take jabs at "feminism."

Like the absence of women in games, it's more the overall pattern than any given statement.

are you taking this personal? now you are starting to sound offended, see what i mean?

what lies have i said about anita? that she isnt a gamer? well thats her own words

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw

i have posted around a thousand times in the escapist forums, if i only wandered around in feminism and racial threads i definitively wouldnt have this many posts

is a real shame you seem to be harboring a real hate for me, simply because of my opinion that a game's quality shouldnt be compromised over a political agenda

 

[JimB]

Give me a strong female protagonist, character or sidekick that'll interest me, but don't throw in token women for the hell of it.

Why not?

Apart from the obvious fact that it'd be done only to shut up people across the web and media, which would be a disservice to all?

I don't think it's an obvious fact at all--sometimes people with good intentions make boring characters because they're bad writers, you know? Not everything ever done is cynical and manipulative--but yes, apart from that.

Because it should be done right or not at all, which should go for all characters of all races and genders. You might ask yourself if that's my criteria and that it's rarely being fulfilled anyway, then why not have these token characters?

Actually, no, I'm asking myself why you singled out bad female characters as being unacceptable but did not, at least in a post I noticed, decry bad male characters until now. Are bad male characters somehow acceptable under your paradigm, and if so, why the gender divide? And don't you think that arguing for perfection straight out of the gate is arguing against the necessary process of making mistakes to learn from until you get it right, thus incentivizing companies to just keep producing the same white dude characters over and over because they can meet the unspecified burden set for them with that kind of character?

 

[altdoom]

Explains why Beyond Good & Evil 2 isn't happening yet herp derp.