Sylocat said:
Now, this raises another question: Given that this video referred to FPSs in general, and not just modern military FPSs, why are you so defensive over this one subset of the genre? Or do you have some grander reason for not wanting women in FPSs at all?
No grander reason then why many veterans are annoyed when they meet COD kiddies trying to explain military operations and protocol to 3 tour veterans, or ARMA-II fans trying to build "Armies" online and somehow believe that makes them experts on warfighting. In the same vain it's as annoying as airsofters going to malls in uniforms *I* wouldn't be allowed to wear in a mall. Perhaps many of you (and I'm not speaking at anyone in particular, rather the culture itself) did not consider this but behaviors and actions like these are probably more offensive to us than the subject at hand of not having women as playable characters.
It break down like this; you wouldn't, if you actually knew the subject and source material, be offended to *not* see a female Space Marine. Game's Workshop has been pretty clear on the subject and even has, sort of, provided a "version" of them, but a true, Gene-Seed female Space Marine just is never going to be in the picture, the source material just won't allow it. As such screaming out "NO GILES, you can't BE a space marine" probably won't annoy all that much as it would be a rather pointless thing to chime on. In the same vain, it's like a woman holding over a man's head that he can't grow a child inside him. Nice point but it was never on the table in the first place. Pouting over things that just are is futile and waste of energy and, usually, tends to be uncommon.
This however, is not the situation here. Things like what I mentioned *are* offensive to many vets. And it ties into this MUCH grander, and seemingly growing, grotesque misunderstanding any military, especially NATO ones and starting to morph them into these pseudo sci-fi, fantasy organizations that are in reality so detached from the real organizations that they might as well be carrying blasters. The problem is these organizations are real, and exist right now, and it's this... cavalier attitude towards realism that's starting to breed genuine misunderstandings of militaries in general.
An example, imagine if every developer, on their own, but simultaneously, decided to depict in any modern setting FPS that all Middle Easterners (from North Africa to Pakistan) were ruled by communist governments. Did so in every release for years. Now at face value, being said on it's own merits, being a communist government is not a *slight* and doesn't somehow mean you or your government is bad. But, in the same vain, I imagine that would get rather annoying fast from both the blatant misrepresentation and the simple fact that too many people are starting to get facts from video games as if they were textbooks.
The same holds true for military terminology and concepts. Females in a modern setting FPS would be just one more annoying, and a rather blatantly wrong one. As, at least in some cases, many of the misrepresentations of military personnel, behaviors and concepts have SOME grounding in reality, usually of a antithetical military organization from another country, say for example, officers in Special Operations serving as field personnel (almost never happens in NATO counties however is done in numerous Far-East countries). Women in a Special Operations troop has absolutely no grounding in reality whatsoever. I cannot stress this enough, this has never happened. G.I. Jane is as fictitious as Star Wars. It has never happened. And, in all likelihood, won't for many, many decades. Cornucopia technology will likely exist before the technology to allow women to preform on a level necessary for such inclusion exists. So seeing them in an FPS set in modern day would breed just that much more misunderstandings for the source material.
And I'm not against Female player characters in FPS's. In some they actually make more sense than a male. Bioshock comes to mind. Personally, I feel if you switched the genders and kept basically everything else, it makes the moral choices, and thus the overall plot and concepts, that much more profound. Likewise with the main Halo trilogy. Given the MC's behavior, views on humanity and duty thereof, him being a she actually makes more sense. However, if you were to say, switch Soap for a female character, the CoD's would not make much sense. Really switching any player character in any modern warfare CoD's wouldn't make sense and really detract from the story.
And yes you can pick and choose which things are okay. If we didn't, we as a society would have no art, no mediums, and definitely no video games. You have to separate good ideas from bad ideas. There will never be a time where video games don't have to make certain realistic sacrifices in order to remain entertaining. A game that would be 100% realistic would not be entertaining, as that's called reality, and if were playing a game, i.e. an escapist form of entertainment... well you see where I'm going with this. Even if say, virtual reality exists, you'd still have to "cheat" and allow the player say more endurance then they possess in reality. That's a big one in FPS's of all shapes and sizes.
Perhaps most people aren't readily aware, but military equipment, is heavy. And running really sucks in it. And is more or less impossible to do for any great lengths (say, 100 yards or more). Or even better than that, this one makes even SFO's laugh, and that's running a 100 yards in full combat load, and then hitting a bull's eye at 30 yards. That's impossible. SFO's literally spend 1/3 of their time training to do just that and most can't. I know, I trained with them at Quanico. Even a world class runner is going to be breathing hard after sprinting (and you're always sprinting in combat) and you can't be breathing hard if you expect to shoot anything. Or at least hit anything you intended to shoot.
But that doesn't stop people who have never even held a real gun, much less been downrange from telling me how my job works. Nor does it stop you from telling me how organizations work that I was part of for almost 10 years and went to, essentially, the finest school for them in the world.
Hugga_Bear said:
A woman trained in the use of a rifle and holding a rifle is no more or less dangerous than a man trained in the use of a rifle and holding a rifle. They're extremely similar in the "shit just got dangerous" category. Why on earth would it be okay to shoot one but not the other?
Actually statistically they're not. At least in any Branch of the U.S. Military. Exceptions do, and will exist, but they would be the statistical anomaly, not the norm. Women score across the board worse on standard marksmanship qualification then male counterparts.