New Rust Update Assigns Players Permanent, Random Gender

[Something Amyss]

I had no interest in this game before, so this can't impact my interest. But wow.

It's an added layer of realism.

How do you know your sex persists across all your incarnations?

Which is instantly destroyed when the permanently assigned sex doesn't match the sex of the player or the sex with which the player would prefer to play.

I don't know, that's a very real world thing some of us deal with routinely. Only it doesn't go away when we turn off the game.

Seems like a stupid gimmick to me, but then again, trying weird stupid gimmicks is often how progress is made, because every so often they turn out to be decent ideas.

While that's true, I kind of doubt this is what's going to progress games.

 

[Something Amyss]

I do not get the constant bemoaning people give the random character generator the game is using. Well, I probably shouldn't say that, I do get some of it. I get that some people like customization and I get that some people see this as one of them horrible diversity things that ruins their whole world. And, quite honestly, if you're angry and pissed off by this rather than just disappointed or disinterested, we all know exactly which reason applies to you.

It's sort of funny seeing who's responding to this. Mostly because I remember more than a few people complaining telling people to "deal with" the lack of a female protagonist in GTA V.

And now the possibility--just the possibility--that this might happen to them is horrible.

the only benefit i can see here is raising awareness of transgenderism. now everyone can experience the horror of being trapped in a body misaligned with their mind. and it's the sex of the character that's being predetermined here. the gender is still going to be in the players mind, as it's always has been.

I somehow doubt it'll do that.

 

[Scrythe]

So what exactly is Rust supposed to be? Based on all of these articles, I'm assuming it's some kind of Vault-Tec influenced social experiment.

 

[josemlopes]

So yeah, guys get to have the chance to be forced to play as a girl even if they dont want and girls have the chance to be force to play as a guy even if they dont want, how is this a good idea?

 

[Aerosteam]

For fuck's sake, if people want randomized gender and race for their character just INPUT A RANDOMIZE BUTTON.

 

[Thyunda]

I have no issue with this whatsoever. It'd force me to go with a different aesthetic style than I usually do. Mix it up a bit.

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.

And it may or may not force you to do anything: it will randomly decide, once and forever, whether you are using a "different aesthetic style" than you usually do. So the mixing it up is entirely by happenstance, with good odds that you won't be any different than normal.

I dress for other people mate.

I'm a one-wo/man performance.

 

[gandhi the peacemake]

30 responses in and no one has mentioned this?


EDIT:

To say more on the subject, I think it's great. The fact that people have such strong opinions about it should (but won't) make them more aware that non-white, non-male people have to deal with this dilemma all the time.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Pfff.... I think the concept is interesting on some level, I just don't feel this game seems like the right fit for the concept.
Just... Seems... Well, like it just doesn't mesh very well with what the actual game is.

Then again, I have no idea where this idea would work... That's the trouble with an idea like this. Interesting in principle, but very messy in practice.

Real life is one of the most frustrating 'games' ever. Copying it seems like a bad idea on some level. XD

 

[The Lunatic]

Gary Newman: How to dress the fact you're too lazy to make a character creation screen as a deep message.

Yeah, dumb idea, It's a looty-shooty-crafty game, not really a game where I'm looking for an exploration of the human condition.

Added to that, having a persistent character be a certain way is pretty dumb and if they're going to do this, the "Best" way would be having it random every time you respawn.

 

[Somebloke]

Heh, not familiar with the game, but I've heard the title once or twice, and halfway picked up it's a post-civilization survival thing of sorts(?); and for the first time my ears perk up a bit about it.

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.

Are these properties random ones, stored under your Steam ID in a database, or the infinitely more compelling using the IDs themselves as seeds for procedural generation?

EDIT: Thumbs up to the Extra Credits video "gandhi the peacemaker" embedded above!

 

[Coruptin]

Gender Change DLC when?
Premium Character Creation DLC when?

 

[Aetrion]

Now people can murder each other for shits and giggles while learning about what it's like to play with a female avatar.

I learned what it's like to be a woman when Tomb Raider didn't give me a choice to be a man.

 

[DrOswald]

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.

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.

To clarify, I am not mad they are doing this. In the same way I am not mad when someone makes cut scenes unskippable or makes excessive and poorly implemented QTEs in some game I don't care about. It is their game, they can ruin it however they want. In any case, I really hope this is them playing the news outlets for free publicity. I can respect that on some level. But if they think this is actually making some sort of deep artistic statement I am going to have to laugh in their face at how complete their failure is.

 

[Level 7 Dragon]

So what exactly is Rust supposed to be? Based on all of these articles, I'm assuming it's some kind of Vault-Tec influenced social experiment.

Basically, it is. One of the reasons why Garry refuses to deal with things such as raiders is because he wants players to assemble in to tribes and defend/raid villages. From what I can gather, Newman doesn't want to create a survival game as he wants to study virtual societies.

Personally, as a sociology nut, I'm quite interested in getting the game. Providing that I will be able to get in to a decent clan and not get instantly killed by overleveled players.

 

[kenu12345]

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.

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.

To clarify, I am not mad they are doing this. In the same way I am not mad when someone makes cut scenes unskippable or makes excessive and poorly implemented QTEs in some game I don't care about. It is their game, they can ruin it however they want. In any case, I really hope this is them playing the news outlets for free publicity. I can respect that on some level. But if they think this is actually making some sort of deep artistic statement I am going to have to laugh in their face at how complete their failure is.

Apologies if this seems a bit short, I am not the best versed of course, but I feel that this isn't directly suppose to represent you since I noticed that Rust seems to have more a multiplayer community. I feel that having the character is just a means to an end and don't really matter in the end since there is no vast means of changing it up either way in these games. Thus I am less inclined not to fault this, but to find it interesting. I don't see myself in multiplayer games like cod or such, why would I care here, so such a mechanic would at the very least seem interesting to me and make the characters have more different looks.

 

[erbkaiser]

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.

 

[loa]

Isn't it really really boring to only be able to play as one and only one specific character and doesn't that defeat the purpose of adding an elaborate character creation system?

 

[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.