New Rust Update Assigns Players Permanent, Random Gender

[B5Alpha]

Couldn't you just switch your Steam ID between lives if you really wanted a different character that badly?

 

[Imp_Emissary]

But what about their artistic vision? ;p

OT: Eh, I can understand wanting to customize your character. It's a fun part of games that include it.
That said, Rust isn't exactly a pretty game, and as far as I know they didn't add in race or gender before making it random (Rust players, please let me know if they in fact did do that). So, saying they "Took it away" isn't quite right.

Plus, there haven been some neat stuff to come out of this game in terms of seeing how people react (<.< in admittedly kind of scary ways).
First, how people react to the basic gameplay stuff (they mostly turn into tribal monsters ;p), and then they see how they react to being assigned a random identity (which as the Extra Credits video mentioned has had some more positive/interesting results).

The hole game seems like it was always a bit of an experiment, so I see no reason to stop it now. Let them do it and see what happens.
What's it going to do? Make the Rust community even more crazy?

 

[Lightknight]

This is epic trolling.

Create a zombie survival game and wait for it to become popular -- then remove the zombies.
Wait for the player base to stop crying, then finally add other races -- and force people into a random race.
Wait until the crying about the races die down, then repeat with gender.

Well played, Gary. Well played indeed.

I would love to see their sales cycles around these announcements. I wonder what kind of correlation we see.

If we see an uptick in sales then sadly this means we're seeing developers encouraged to piss on their fans later in the product life.

 

[Coruptin]

OT: Eh, I can understand wanting to customize your character. It's a fun part of games that include it.
That said, Rust isn't exactly a pretty game, and as far as I know they didn't add in race or gender before making it random (Rust players, please let me know if they in fact did do that). So, saying they "Took it away" isn't quite right.

The thought of being randomly assigned a body type gave me an image of that ant movie where the ants where assigned as worker or soldier at birth. Then that made me think of Disney movies about finding your place in life like Mulan or Hercules.
So I guess I want to play a Disney princess in Rust now.

 

[Ticklefist]

Nevermind. Not letting one ignorant person drag me into this old discussion.

 

[ccggenius12]

The thought of being randomly assigned a body type gave me an image of that ant movie where the ants where assigned as worker or soldier at birth. Then that made me think of Disney movies about finding your place in life like Mulan or Hercules.
So I guess I want to play a Disney princess in Rust now.

Yeah, but unlike in Mulan, Rust has a 50% chance of ACTUALLY making a man out of you.
OT: I see a few people saying that they were fine with Rust, until THIS change, because god forbid gender should also not be a choice. Race was fine, but heaven help the person who gets to decide whether or not you have outdoor plumbing? That seems like an incredibly arbitrary line to draw.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

OT: Eh, I can understand wanting to customize your character. It's a fun part of games that include it.
That said, Rust isn't exactly a pretty game, and as far as I know they didn't add in race or gender before making it random (Rust players, please let me know if they in fact did do that). So, saying they "Took it away" isn't quite right.

The thought of being randomly assigned a body type gave me an image of that ant movie where the ants where assigned as worker or soldier at birth. Then that made me think of Disney movies about finding your place in life like Mulan or Hercules.
So I guess I want to play a Disney princess in Rust now.

;D Well I'm in love with that idea. Pitch it to the right people and you'll make a mint of cash.

Also, the name of that movie was Antz.
(with a Z!)

I wonder how Dreamworks would feel about making you think of Disney. xD

To be fair Antz was their version of "A Bug's Life". Can't really remember who was first, but the movies are pretty different enough for that to not matter.

 

[maninahat]

Someone brought up people telling people to deal with the fact that GTA V had only male protagonists and to stop whining and compared that to this. I don't think that works

I actually agree with the GTA V thing, because those were set characters and their gender really does play a part in all of their characters, their interactions, and how the player perceives the characters. The fact of the matter is that until gender doesn't matter it does matter and GTA V recognized this, playing with how we expect relationships between men and specific stereotypes of men to work. GTA V is one game where simply substituting a woman for any one of the main three would not work, and the characters were in no way supposed to represent the player. Demanding a female protagonist in that story is pointless and stupid, clear cut evidence that at least some people have fully embraced the idea of diversity via quota and check boxes.

I think you've misunderstood the criticism there. Putting a woman in GTA doesn't mean just changing the character model and keeping the exact same character/story/themes. There was nothing stopping Rockstar from having a female character in the first place, with her own story arc, relationships with the other characters, and role in the fictional world. Yes, the character's gender affects the story...but that can't stop you having a female character who's gender affects the story in their own way.

Rust, on the other hand, generates the most pointless and throw away type of character imaginable. An avatar that is ostensibly supposed to represent you, but they have guaranteed that it in no way actually will. A throw away character without any of the attachment from actually creating it. It is the worst of both worlds, arbitrarily restricting the player without any purpose at all. The idea that it provides some sort of window to experience transgenderism or will give insight into the experiences of some other minority group is laughable.

Presumably you don't take issue with it when a game allocates you a player protagonist who's race/gender is none variable (i.e Mario or Lara Croft)? How is it any different if you are allocated with a player protagonist who's race/gender is randomly determined? You didn't get a choice in how the character looks in either case, so you shouldn't find it a problem.

 

[the December King]

One of my favourite things to do in a sandbox meat grinder is to model myself as close as possible to my real appearance in the character creator and then fling myself off of a tall building or into brutal traffic, to watch me ragdoll and shriek and die. Always was good for a laugh in Saint's Row 2.

This doesn't seem to be the game for me, based on that alone. On the other hand, I one: have other options, so there's no need to ban it or anything, and two, it does set it apart from other sandbox survival games, at least because of this, so I guess that's a good thing- I dunno.

The notion that you can't control that aspect of the game is interesting, in that it appears to have been considered and implemented consciously, but personally I like being in control of my character's look in a game like this.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

This take on the play-the-hand-you've-been-dealt concept is apparently extremely unpopular, judging by the posts in this thread so far, but I must say I find it to have a great deal of appeal.

Honestly, I'd totally buy into the concept if it actually was "play the hand you're dealt"; you are totally randomly generated, from physical appearance to starting gear and skills. That would be a great twist on the post-apocalypse survival genre. As it is, all it does is hand you an appearance, something that is simultaneously very important to the person playing the character and has absolutely zero importance on the rest of the game.

Couldn't you just switch your Steam ID between lives if you really wanted a different character that badly?

Your ID is tied to your account. As far as I know, the only way to get a new ID would be to make a new account and buy the game again. (Then again, it's been a while since I tried, so maybe they added that feature in).

I dress for other people mate.

I'm a one-wo/man performance.

But you can't really choose your appearance beyond what randomly generated scraps of clothes you loot. Granted, Rust has a reasonable variety of clothes/armour in theory, but in the game you're lucky to get something that keeps you warm at night.

I can appreciate dressing for other people, Rust just doesn't really seem to support that idea.

 

[Sarge034]

What aesthetics? The game is all first-person, so at best you'll be able to see that your arms are permanently either male or female. It's not like you get a ton of customization options in game: You're dropped off in the middle of nowhere in your underpants, like 90% of survival games, and you wear whatever you can find.

That right there is where you lose your credibility. You obviously don't know what you're talking about because you start 100% naked now, have for a while. But on top of that, maybe that poster was talking about RP. Anyway, I think it's a cool idea but it should re-roll you every life. Did the owner of that building, your friend in game, die and get a rez or is that the bugler? Shoot first or try to figure it out? Might have to start playing again just to see how much has changed for myself...

 

[Ukomba]

Wow, so edgy. *Yawn* When given a choice I tend to play as a female character anyways. For that matter, I prefer the non-human characters too. When will you be adding non-humans to the mix Gary Newman?

 

[Xan Krieger]

Is he trying to add controversy to the game? I mean this whole decision seems like a really pointless way to rile up your customers for no reason at all.

My thoughts exactly! Games are a way of escapism, hence the name for this website for example.
Imagine being really bummed out about your biological gender not being the same as your psychological one.
Now there's this game forcing you (a 50% chance?) to live that again, but now in a world of makebelieve for no good reason at all!

People nowadays actually have the choice to change their gender, which is great. And here comes gamedev guy from the 1950's... bloody asshole!!! Gonna drop this as soon as all the hype you get from it dies down, huh? So you can get *another* piece of news coverage out of it. You marketing shits!!!

Isn't it set in like a post apocalypse world where the focus is on surviving? To play devil's advocate I imagine developing the technology and skills to change someone's sex would be rather low on the list behind power generation, water filtration, farming, weapons, treating diseases and injuries, it'd be pretty far down the list. Even in real life plastic surgery didn't reach a good level of development till WW1.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

I'm not keen on the idea of assigning race and gender to your Steam ID. RNG character generation is fine as long as you get different characters per save or whatever. Being forced to play the same character in a sandbox would get pretty stale pretty quick for me.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

Wow, so edgy. *Yawn* When given a choice I tend to play as a female character anyways. For that matter, I prefer the non-human characters too. When will you be adding non-humans to the mix Gary Newman?

I want to play as a shed. Where's that, hmmmm?

 

[Ukomba]

Wow, so edgy. *Yawn* When given a choice I tend to play as a female character anyways. For that matter, I prefer the non-human characters too. When will you be adding non-humans to the mix Gary Newman?

I want to play as a shed. Where's that, hmmmm?

I was hoping for a warm summer breeze character. I could equip the sent of cut grass and wield my cotton wood pollen.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

Wow, so edgy. *Yawn* When given a choice I tend to play as a female character anyways. For that matter, I prefer the non-human characters too. When will you be adding non-humans to the mix Gary Newman?

I want to play as a shed. Where's that, hmmmm?

I was hoping for a warm summer breeze character. I could equip the sent of cut grass and wield my cotton wood pollen.

I'd prefer more of a brisk autumn chill. Equips tend to be stronger since noses aren't blocked up by allergies.

 

[Jarek Mace]

A fine mixture of Gary's pretentious yet undeserved arse-holery, Tumblr'ing, 'artistic vision', lazy development, and attention whoring.

Essence of Rust
By Newman

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I know this is really eating at a lot of other people, but I actually think this is an interesting idea. I'm curious if the response would be so strong against it if you only had a white male character with a randomized appearance. Probably less strong because people wouldn't get angry about the perceived agenda.

I like customizing my characters, but from what I can see about Rust, customizing your character really doesn't add much to the experience. Plus, if I want to play a survival game with character customization options I have plenty others I can choose. It's certainly not something that would make me buy the game on its own, but it's nice to see them trying something different

 

[gandhi the peacemake]

Nevermind. Not letting one ignorant person drag me into this old discussion.

Sorry to see you backing out of the discussion, but going by what you originally wrote (I received a notice in my inbox), I'm not sure if you disagree with my opinion in general (that is to say, that non-white, non-male people face this lack of choice [my word: dilemma] all the time) or just my word choice (that is to say, the word "dilemma").

If the former, I'm more than willing to debate. If the latter, I'm more than willing to substitute a more fitting word. I used the word "dilemma" because I don't see cosmetic character traits as being intrinsic to one's enjoyment of a game, but that it plays a more subtle role in the development of the larger community. It's a "dilemma" insofar as addressing it is a good thing for society writ large, but it doesn't necessarily provide immediate and/or direct personal benefits.

Either way, hope to run into you again in a more receptive mood.