I've nothing against female models/skins in the game, but the ones in the picture at the top just don't fit the fifties-cold-war style at all.
Poll: Team Fortress 2: Why you no have Females?
- Thread starter Zeema
- Start date
Ninja'd. Lol I was going to say that.Pinkamena said:
OT: Well, we could have this discussion all day.
Ultimately it boils down to this: Would girls who enjoy the fps genre appreciate female characters?
If not, then it's unnecessary, but it doesn't mean it shouldn't go in. Hell, TF2, artistically speaking would probably be the best game of its kind to have a female character.
In short, are they needed? No. Would it be a bad idea to add them? No.
Short answer: No.
Valve as a company always has a strong emphasis on their game being heavily character-focused with rock-solid character development. Giving players customization options beyond filling in blanks with their fantasy (which - as you might have noticed - several players are already doing in this thread in regards to the pyro) ruins the focus of a game.
When you start giving players customization options, and allow those customization options to co-exist within the same dimension (as opposed to, say, a game like Mass Effect where it's totally fine to have both a male and female Shephard, since those two different versions can't be in the same playthrough/universe at the same time), then a game starts to lose focus and character development falls flat.
And while on the subject of "focus", Team Fortress 2 is a game that from a design standpoint is heavily loaded with testosterone (the soundtrack/sound design, setting and especially the character design is heavily influenced by this). Skinny girls do not fit into that mix. I guess you could perhaps put in huge hormone pumped body-builder girls with manly voices and at the very least get away with it in regards to the visual aesthetics of the game, but i doubt these are the kind if girls you were thinking off
And it still wouldn't fix the problem mentioned in the first two paragraphs of my post.
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Edit: I just saw the female Engineer on DeviantArt that someone linked. I have to agree that in regards to character design, i think that is absolutely terrific work from the artist, and it fits with the strong body-builder female i mentioned above (without the hormones perhaps). She is masculine, but at the same time feminine, and the "spirit" is very much in line with the male character design.
I still don't think it fits in the game, but it's still a prime example of how character design is supposed to be done, so wanted to give some applause here.
Valve as a company always has a strong emphasis on their game being heavily character-focused with rock-solid character development. Giving players customization options beyond filling in blanks with their fantasy (which - as you might have noticed - several players are already doing in this thread in regards to the pyro) ruins the focus of a game.
When you start giving players customization options, and allow those customization options to co-exist within the same dimension (as opposed to, say, a game like Mass Effect where it's totally fine to have both a male and female Shephard, since those two different versions can't be in the same playthrough/universe at the same time), then a game starts to lose focus and character development falls flat.
And while on the subject of "focus", Team Fortress 2 is a game that from a design standpoint is heavily loaded with testosterone (the soundtrack/sound design, setting and especially the character design is heavily influenced by this). Skinny girls do not fit into that mix. I guess you could perhaps put in huge hormone pumped body-builder girls with manly voices and at the very least get away with it in regards to the visual aesthetics of the game, but i doubt these are the kind if girls you were thinking off
And it still wouldn't fix the problem mentioned in the first two paragraphs of my post.-
Edit: I just saw the female Engineer on DeviantArt that someone linked. I have to agree that in regards to character design, i think that is absolutely terrific work from the artist, and it fits with the strong body-builder female i mentioned above (without the hormones perhaps). She is masculine, but at the same time feminine, and the "spirit" is very much in line with the male character design.
I still don't think it fits in the game, but it's still a prime example of how character design is supposed to be done, so wanted to give some applause here.
As a female who plays TF2, I'll tell you I really don't mind at all that all of the characters are male. What matters to me is that they are good characters. They're well characterized, well written, and wildly entertaining. They are exactly who they try to be. Nothing more, nothing less.Trezu said:
Could Valve had made entertaining characters of the opposite sex? I have no doubt, it is Valve we're talking about after all. But the world of TF2 is a essentially simplified satire of the real world. Throwing a female into the battlefield would have to lead to one of three things:
-They handle the problems of possible love interests and relationships in a serious and politically correct way. This would really bog down the mood of the game and distract from the lighthearted parody of life it's supposed to be.
-They handle the problems in a satirical way, most likely doing this by juxtaposing hyper-masculine characters to feminine or even hyper-feminine ones and playing off of the friction they cause. This could easily become offensive and off-putting, especially when it comes to the domination taunts.
-They completely ignore the fact that some teammates and enemies are of the opposite sex. This one would probably work the best all things considered, but it still wouldn't be true to the nature of TF2 and the characters. The Spy doesn't hesitate to call the Demoman a "black scottish psychlops," so why would any of them hesitate to point out that one is a woman? The characters aren't stupid, and neither is the audience. To not address the issue in SOME way would only serve to insult the intelligence of both parties.
So keeping females in the lore and backstory (Miss Pauling and the Administrator) really simplified that issue. And I don't mind that at all. What Valve made is good. It's a fun game with fun characters. I couldn't ask for any more than that. Whether or not they did or could have put female characters in doesn't matter to me, and I think to "fix" that problem now would only serve to spoil the wonderful array of characters they've made.
Consider this, if you make a female version of all the classes, you have double the characters to work on. That means voice acting, animations, the whole deal. That's a lot of work for relatively little payoff.
Because then, players would by nessecity end up shooting women, which is a very deeply-ingrained taboo. Video games have enough stigma charging at them and we don't need more. I don't agree with it, but if anyone's going to do it they need to have heaps of experience with both making games and justifying them to the public. It's not good, I wish it were different, but it is what it is and it's going to be a while before we can challenge that.
You raise a good point, that players need to recognize quickly what other classes there are, but I doubt that is as big an obstacle as you suggest. The classes are easily distinguishable today because their body types are so distinct. Players don't need to study the finer details of each model to identify the class because they can distinguish the classes from their broad silhouette.Snotnarok said:
You might object that the different silhouettes of men and women present exactly the problem we want to avoid, but you'd be forgetting how much variety you can see within either men or women. I expect a good designer would be able to find a female body type for each class that would remind you immediately of the male type. For some classes, as this link awesomely demonstrates, that has already been done.
meh, maybe.
Probably the reason why there isn't any in-game is because the average soldier (or mercenary in this case) is male, so including females would feel inaccurate to the stereotypes of the characters.
Probably the reason why there isn't any in-game is because the average soldier (or mercenary in this case) is male, so including females would feel inaccurate to the stereotypes of the characters.
To everyone saying they should just add female variants of each class, you don't understand what you're talking about. That would require a ton of work, not only just in making new models but also recording new voices. That's a lot of time and effort to put into something that has no benefit. Besides, these female models would look almost identical to their male counterparts anyways as hitboxes wouldn't be changed.
There's not a single good reason to put in female characters. Also you have to remember that every TF2 character is based on a sterotypes. If they were women the sterotype wouldn't work as well.
There's not a single good reason to put in female characters. Also you have to remember that every TF2 character is based on a sterotypes. If they were women the sterotype wouldn't work as well.
Those girls look like they belong in The World Ends With You.Trezu said:
i have only had TF2 for a brief period 2 months at the most and im a Free to player. but i thought that having Female's would have been a really good idea to have in a game and would have personally been on my list of things to Add to TF2.
if they did add Girls then there are more characters instead of the same people running around with a Top hat and stuff. they wouldn't even need to change any hats. even if you type Girl's in TF2 lots of photos and drawing of it pop up.
So alot of people are after it, but i want the Escapist's opinion here. Do we need girls in TF2?
please Explain your answer
OT: I think having girls in TF2 would be cooler because, being a guy, seeing women in games reminds me that I'm straight.
What, seriously? This will not be a problem. Do you know how long its been since Unreal Tournament came out? UT came out in 1999 and was the first deathmatch title (that I remember) to provide both genders. There was no big controversy for that game about this "taboo". Sure, the game attracted negative media attention, as a lot of deathmatch games have done -- for depicting hundreds of murders per hour, not for providing women targets. A true taboo target for games is children - i.e. why there are no school buses in all of Liberty City.SuperDitz said:
