Female Gamers

[True_Avery]

While I agree with you all on Bastila's romance being exceedingly silly (I don't look like a kinrath pup! Sulk! Cry! Oh shaddup and snog me nao.); other female romances irked me. One example would be Jade Empire-- while I liked Sky and all, the romance felt rather rushed. NWN2 OC also sticks out like a sore thumb in my memory because of Casavir, who could have been developed much more as a character but was left talking about Old Owl Well until right up till the final boss -.-''' Not to mention that Bishop wasn't a romance option. Cry!

Yep, I've heard the same thing about both games. Disappointing, but at least romance is a small part of a game's story usually.

 

Girls play for fun while guys play for competition.

I'd agree with that observation.

 

The rest were women who wanted your character if you just dropped the right line, no matter who you were (barring nosferatu). So those human NPC's weren't having a new vampiric life with inhuman motivations. So every single person that happens to be interested in your character isn't gay, isnt' straight, but bi. In an overwhelming majority of cases? Like I say. Didn't bother me, because I did enjoy the game, but I could see how that would limit their market of people that would get it.

I agree, it was overdone. I thought it was fun, but overdone.

 

I'll agree with that assessment of Bastilla's personality and romance as opposed to Carths, as well as that Carth's was deeper, and what actually developed in the game was more akin to love instead of puppy love. But her arc did give you more story options as far as how the story turns out overall.

Yeah, I agree with you on that. The Bastila romance may have been annoying, but it was longer and at least a little more detailed than the Carth.

 

I've tried to get the Juhani dialogue 20 - 30 times too, but never managed to trigger that, so I can only assume there aren't many options for it either.

Juhani is a lesbian, thus you can only unlock that dialog by playing a female character. You must save her, get to know her, ask her questions, and then do her side quest and complete it fully. After that, try and talk to her as often as possible and chances are you will unlock it along the way and at the very end at the Star Forge.

 

But, there is a catch. Juhani had a fully detailed romance with female Revan at one point in production of Kotor, but Bioware cut nearly all of it. Belaya was going to be her "lover" on Dantooine, and there was going to be dialog on losing her after the Sith Fleet destroyed the enclave. There were also going to be a few more side quests for Juhani as well. I find it disappointing that they cut the bulk of her romance, seeing as she is the first official lesbian character to be in Star Wars.

 

And in response to chainmail bikinis, I personally find an attractively done set of full-body armor much better than a loincloth.

Seconded.

 

I could respond to Corinthian's post, but there is so much I find wrong with it that I wont bother.

 

What I find interesting about this thread is that it is indeed showing different interests and desires from a game between the genders.

[Corinthian]

I'm sorry to derail this thread but I'd like to know what the plot holes in Romeo and Juliet are.

 

To be honest, if the developers aren't going to do the romance in a realistic way then they may as well just leave it out and divert the energy into something more useful -- like an ending, for example.

I said POTholes, not PLOT holes. And what I meant was, the ground tread by Romeo and Juliet has been stomped on so much over the past couple hundred years so much that they're no longer footsteps, they're enormous holes in the road.

 

That's what I love about you, Avery. You go to the effort of saying I'm wrong, but are just too cool to say why.

[Bee Hoon]

All of the NWN2 romances are like that, I'm afraid. They just come out of no where. For Elanee to sleep with my character, all she needed was a wall, the moon, and impending doom. Seeing as how I'd basically ignored her since Shandra came into my party I was more than a little confused...

 

I'm not sure which is worse, Obsidian's creepy stalker doesn't-go-anywhere unrequited love (as seen in KotOR II and MotB) or the painful courting rituals that the BioDevs seem to be obsessed with.

 

I'd probably go with the latter but then I'm an English student and if romance doesn't end with people throwing themselves on spears then it's just not interesting to me .

Evil! But I admit that tragic stories have more oomph:P The romance with Gann was ok relatively, considering that they get a reasonably happy ending together and Gann managed to make the alleged straight Dev Dev swoon :3

 

 

At the start of the endgame sequence in the NWN2 OC, Casavir had a hissy fit at my character when she said that she wasn't sure that Bishop had turned. He went all "Journeying with you has been an ordeal! Dowan to see you any more! Can't wait till this is over!" despite that the fact that one module ago, he wanted to sleep with my character... :/

 

 

Jade empire's romances were ridiculous. I romanced all 3 of them in the same game, and none of them really cared until I enslaved the zombie/warrior spirit. Then later the only one to decide that the kingdom was worth keeping together was the princess when I decided to put blood in the fountain, and we slaughtered our lovers and rest of the party together before going on to rule the kingdom with an iron fist. In all this, the silk fox never really questioned my main character's sincerity when I played him as such utter scum like that?

Because your PC is teh smexy and they cannot resist him?

 

Yep, I've heard the same thing about both games. Disappointing, but at least romance is a small part of a game's story usually.

But...but...I like well-written and well-voiced over romances!

 

Edit:

...but its nice to have clothing sets that look like they could protect you from the elements if not a sword strike.

QFT!

 

Depending on the game we're playing, a REAL romance is unrealistic. You can't up and go adventuring for a week or suddenly decide to get beat up by vampires and expect to have any sort of stable romance. Now, if you're partner can adventure with you, you run all sorts of risks of them dying, so lets be logical: you're not going to have a stable romance if you leave them at home, and you're not going to keep your partner around if they're just some random person not made for adventuring.

On the other hand, you'd be sure to bond with a person you pretty much spend 24/7 with, plus traumatic experiences can bring people closer blah blah

[Jae Onasi]

I can see that to a point. I enjoyed it as it was, but it's not vampires that were indifferent to your gender, but the humans that the vampire main character was seducing for their blood. The only exceptions to people that care about your gender to be seduced, are the malkavian Jenette who only seduced men & male vampires, that guy with the broken down car in santa monica, and later Romeo, who only could be seduced by female vampires.

Actually, I just seduced Jeannette a few days ago on a playthrough as a female Malkavian. I wasn't actually trying to, because I wanted the 'two sisters' to make up, and usually seducing Jeannette prevents that. I had a seduction of 5 and picked the "I'm really sorry, but I can't give you the locket, please understand" kinds of responses and all of the sudden the screen blacked out and many moans were heard. That may have come about because I'm using both the official 1.2 patch and the unofficial 4.9 patch by Wesp.

 

I would have appreciated a male blood doll or two, too. So the guys get some girls to mooch off of, and I don't get a hunky guy to do the same? Well, maybe Romero....

 

On the armor vs. chainmail bikinis--I definitely prefer the full-body armor. Chainmail bikinis look ridiculous. And having seen real women wearing chainmail bikinis, I can tell you they can be darned uncomfortable (hair gets tangled in the rings. I'll leave the rest to your imaginations), and they provide absolutely no protection, not even from the sun. Multi-ringlet sunburns ftl.

 

If Carth's romance arc had involved a little more completion in its unmodded state (at least a hug, for goodness' sake!) and perhaps a little more dialog (especially about how he deals with finding out she's Revan--that had to about kill him), it would have been hands down the best.

 

I'd love to see games marketed more to both women and men. What I do NOT want to see is devs thinking all women like sappy simple games and marketing those exclusively to us. I'd like to see the devs and producers ask those of us gals who game what it is we want to see done, and work those into current WIPs, and then market the games to both genders. There are increasing numbers of female gamers and older/more mature gamers. The savvy producers/devs hopefully will figure that out soon and create games that can appeal not only to guys but also gals, and that will help improve their bottom line, too.

 

The new editor for PCGamer magazine is female--I wonder what/if that will have an impact on the gaming culture and game development.

[Web Rider]

On the other hand, you'd be sure to bond with a person you pretty much spend 24/7 with, plus traumatic experiences can bring people closer blah blah

 

I'm sure you could make some great friends, and possibly some love interests for AFTER the storyline is done, but a lot of those "close calls" can also give people "live fast" perspectives on life, leaning them more towards one-night-stands than lasting romance/

[Jae Onasi]

You'd be surprised at what a crisis will do to 2 people. I can easily see 2 people falling for each other, with it being real and not a one-night-stand kind of thing.

[Bee Hoon]

I'm sure you could make some great friends, and possibly some love interests for AFTER the storyline is done, but a lot of those "close calls" can also give people "live fast" perspectives on life, leaning them more towards one-night-stands than lasting romance.

True, but depends on more of how you play the character:) Your character might not want to die before expressing her/his feelings. It would be pretty awesome if they gave the gamer the choice to choose what kind of romance it is though, i.e. true love or a brief fling

[Web Rider]

True, but depends on more of how you play the character:) Your character might not want to die before expressing her/his feelings. It would be pretty awesome if they gave the gamer the choice to choose what kind of romance it is though, i.e. true love or a brief fling

 

true, that'd be a pretty cool option. Eventually they'll integrate dictionaries into games and characters will have an AI capable of processing user-made statements(if at first they still have to be typed), and then we'll REALLY get to romance characters as we want.

[PoiuyWired]

OMG B0oBz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -- Have to say that, its the standard line you use in a female gamer related thread.

 

Well, to be fair I do think that there is a reasonable number of female gamers out there that are nto casual gamers who are only into games like DDR and bust-a-move.

 

That having said, there seems to be a lack of guts for devs to produce any complex games gearing towards females, for obvious reasons... it has never been done before.

 

And quite frankly, you would probably sell moar copies if you spend some considerably less time gearing towards the guys that yell "hmmm... nice bewbz" since females are usually not too keen on simple things like "hmmm... package" while a bunch of juggling females can make decent sales for some reasons. But yeah, there are games that includes annoying and stinkin effort to hog the female population into playing. Obvious ones would be the newer FF series with those spineless semi-girly male characters that is geared/fashioned to attract asian chicks. On the side note, some anime do use the same tactic to hog female audience.

 

I guess the functional female gamers would focus more on games that they would like to play rather than those so-called hot guys in games, which is actually of little difference from the regular "omg bewbz" chipmonk cries. I mean, the guys can still be hot and the girls can still jiggle in the games (for those who prefers it that way) but it seems that there is the trend of using massive multimedia art to sugarcoat the lack of content in a game. Hack, some new games(esp rpg) are better off as a story/anime/etc basically a series of cutscenes and a complex storyline with the "side quest" of running around finding things and move yoru character for a few minutes to activate the next story sequence. Well yes, for some reason this does sttract some newer female gamers, but I would think that its just a bunch of anime fans would don't mind touching the control pad once in a while at best, and little difference from those who would play cooking mama all day, if not worse.

 

As for games geared towards mature audiences, yes it exists, and is growing as it seems. However, there are those stupid stkinin braindead so-called moral crusade pieces of sheet who would try to pull a "games are evil" approach towards games of a mature audience, probably the same stupid crowd(or spawnlings thereof) that suggests DnD players would summon devils and sacrifice neighbour's cats to their cheetos. Look at how them jerks complain about the whole "sexbox/mass effect" drama? To put it simply, non gamers, are not mature enough to accept mature gamers still, for some stupid reasons. I guess its could be worse since there are no inbred rednecks protesting on a gamer's funeral ... yet.

[Aash Li]

sacrifice cats to cheetos... lol

[Bee Hoon]

true, that'd be a pretty cool option. Eventually they'll integrate dictionaries into games and characters will have an AI capable of processing user-made statements(if at first they still have to be typed), and then we'll REALLY get to romance characters as we want.

At which point we should back away slowly from the computer and spend more time interacting with real-life people;p I, for one, would find that somewhat unnerving!

 

And quite frankly, you would probably sell moar copies if you spend some considerably less time gearing towards the guys that yell "hmmm... nice bewbz" since females are usually not too keen on simple things like "hmmm... package" while a bunch of juggling females can make decent sales for some reasons.

I do not understand. Clarification would be healthy here.

 

Obvious ones would be the newer FF series with those spineless semi-girly male characters that is geared/fashioned to attract asian chicks.

As an Asian chick, I take offense from that statement.

 

Hack, some new games(esp rpg) are better off as a story/anime/etc basically a series of cutscenes and a complex storyline with the "side quest" of running around finding things and move yoru character for a few minutes to activate the next story sequence. Well yes, for some reason this does sttract some newer female gamers, but I would think that its just a bunch of anime fans would don't mind touching the control pad once in a while at best, and little difference from those who would play cooking mama all day, if not worse.

Fyi, you probably mean "heck", which an unreliable acquaintance told me was a portmanteau of hell and f***.

 

I would also like to point out that a goodly number of people here (this is the KotOR forums, after all) enjoy games with powerful stories which do not require continuous button mashing. As a fan of such games, I do not also engage in "cooking mama", whatever *that* is supposed to be.

[Serpentine Cougar]

Storyline is almost the only reason I play video games - I would imagine there's plenty of guys who are more interested in stories than shooting, blood, and action, but the majority of course do.

 

About writing characters from the opposite gender, I think it's easier for women to write believably from a male perspective than for men to write from a female one. This is just my experience, though.

 

Regarding female characters "getting the shaft," it's not just in games, I think. They're hard to find in other entertainment, too, whether it be books, movies, TV shows, etc. In the Wheel of Time books, for example, almost all the female characters seem to have the same personality: fiery, irascible, and perpetually annoyed at men. Female characters that actually have strength of character, and not just tough-as-nails men with boobs, are to find anywhere, in my opinion. Women don't have to kick butt to be strong characters. Then, men don't really either, but not too many people seem to realize that.

 

I've only ever met two girls (one of which is my sister, whom I have indoctinated into nerd-dom) who don't think video games are stupid. So my experience doesn't allude to any shift in the gender difference of the gaming population, but if you all say so....

 

There's a site I found with some interesting thoughts and observations regarding female characters, role-players and gamers, but it seems to be offline at the moment. You can still see it with Google's cache though: this site.

[Aash Li]

As a fan of such games, I do not also engage in "cooking mama", whatever *that* is supposed to be.

 

I think this was Wireds lame attempt at mocking people who like to role play in MMOs... or maybe role playing in general. But since the majority of his post was disjointed its hard to tell really.

[Jvstice]

People wouldn't know that until they've already bought and played the game though, so I don't think it would limit the customer base that much. Especially in a game with such a setting and story where there is so much else that could potentially turn away customers.

 

I remember that I was very skeptical of the game initially before I had tried it. The setting and story didn't sound very appealing from what I had read. Still, I got the game as shipping filler along with another game I wanted, and once I actually played it I never regretted getting it.

 

Sure, there's plenty of the "adolescent adult" material in the game, but that didn't bother me or make the game less worth playing.

 

I guess that's true. If that would get to someone, there would be so many things that would bother them enough to hate the game before they reached that point.

 

 

Yep, I've heard the same thing about both games. Juhani is a lesbian, thus you can only unlock that dialog by playing a female character. You must save her, get to know her, ask her questions, and then do her side quest and complete it fully. After that, try and talk to her as often as possible and chances are you will unlock it along the way and at the very end at the Star Forge.

 

But, there is a catch. Juhani had a fully detailed romance with female Revan at one point in production of Kotor, but Bioware cut nearly all of it. Belaya was going to be her "lover" on Dantooine, and there was going to be dialog on losing her after the Sith Fleet destroyed the enclave. There were also going to be a few more side quests for Juhani as well. I find it disappointing that they cut the bulk of her romance, seeing as she is the first official lesbian character to be in Star Wars.

 

 

I have tried this in all my attempts to play through it different ways. About the only thing I haven't ever tried is killing her off at the first meeting. I'll have to give it another attempt again one day soon. It has been a while since i've played k1. Of course, I have to get a way to get k1 to work with vista, or get an xbox copy.

Actually, I just seduced Jeannette a few days ago on a playthrough as a female Malkavian. I wasn't actually trying to, because I wanted the 'two sisters' to make up, and usually seducing Jeannette prevents that. I had a seduction of 5 and picked the "I'm really sorry, but I can't give you the locket, please understand" kinds of responses and all of the sudden the screen blacked out and many moans were heard. That may have come about because I'm using both the official 1.2 patch and the unofficial 4.9 patch by Wesp.

 

I would have appreciated a male blood doll or two, too. So the guys get some girls to mooch off of, and I don't get a hunky guy to do the same? Well, maybe Romero....

 

On the armor vs. chainmail bikinis--I definitely prefer the full-body armor. Chainmail bikinis look ridiculous. And having seen real women wearing chainmail bikinis, I can tell you they can be darned uncomfortable (hair gets tangled in the rings. I'll leave the rest to your imaginations), and they provide absolutely no protection, not even from the sun. Multi-ringlet sunburns ftl.

 

If Carth's romance arc had involved a little more completion in its unmodded state (at least a hug, for goodness' sake!) and perhaps a little more dialog (especially about how he deals with finding out she's Revan--that had to about kill him), it would have been hands down the best.

 

I'd love to see games marketed more to both women and men. What I do NOT want to see is devs thinking all women like sappy simple games and marketing those exclusively to us. I'd like to see the devs and producers ask those of us gals who game what it is we want to see done, and work those into current WIPs, and then market the games to both genders. There are increasing numbers of female gamers and older/more mature gamers. The savvy producers/devs hopefully will figure that out soon and create games that can appeal not only to guys but also gals, and that will help improve their bottom line, too.

 

The new editor for PCGamer magazine is female--I wonder what/if that will have an impact on the gaming culture and game development.

 

Regarding vampire lolz. That has to be because of the mods. I usually play unmodded because it willl let me get higher stats so that I can finish with everything maxed out. It's been over 2 years since I've had any mods installed for my vtm:b playthroughs.

 

I can see how the changes you suggest would go a long way towards improving the story telling. And you're right as far as that goes. I dont' want them to stop keeping males in minds as part of their audience & making rpgs that ignore male preferences any more than they do females now, but taking a little more time to give it a broader appeal is a good thing.

[Web Rider]

At which point we should back away slowly from the computer and spend more time interacting with real-life people;p I, for one, would find that somewhat unnerving!

 

I imagine at some point EHarmony and WoW will integrate and then you can get all your fantasy role-playing needs and gamer-nerd guys can meet gamer-nerd girls....not that players need an ACTUAL reason for saying "ASL" anymore.

 

And quite frankly, you would probably sell moar copies if you spend some considerably less time gearing towards the guys that yell "hmmm... nice bewbz" since females are usually not too keen on simple things like "hmmm... package" while a bunch of juggling females can make decent sales for some reasons. But yeah, there are games that includes annoying and stinkin effort to hog the female population into playing. Obvious ones would be the newer FF series with those spineless semi-girly male characters that is geared/fashioned to attract asian chicks. On the side note, some anime do use the same tactic to hog female audience.

Actually, there's just as many white girls who dig those "bishonen" guys. Visit an art site sometime. The pretty-boy look is rather typical of male, non-adult characters in just about everything that comes out of Japan in terms of anime and games. Oh, and remember, Japan=/=Asia.

[Aash Li]

Eharmony and WoW... that would be hilarious... entire profiles written by leet kiddies in net-speak. lol

 

Or something like:

 

Level 70 warlock in search of pretty level 70 warrioress for fun and adventure in the Outlands.

 

xD

[Inyri]

Warrioress....

 

eHarmony's such a joke, though.

 

....almost as much a joke as WoW! *runs away before she's stoned for blasphemy*

[Web Rider]

Warrioress....

 

eHarmony's such a joke, though.

 

....almost as much a joke as WoW! *runs away before she's stoned for blasphemy*

 

but it's true because it's funny!...or...wait, is it the other way around?

[PoiuyWired]

I think this was Wireds lame attempt at mocking people who like to role play in MMOs... or maybe role playing in general. But since the majority of his post was disjointed its hard to tell really.

 

Well definitely not! And I roleplay quite a bit too, in mmo or tabletop with cheetos. Storyline is good, and roleplaying is definitely good. But when a game is basically nothing other than a series of movies and cutscenes with little playability features, then it is NOT> And that is what seems to be happening, especially when it comes to some once-wonderful rpg series. I mean, the "playing" part between the storylines should be taken care of also, not just a railroad along the story with some pitstops for smelling the flowers.

 

What I am saying is that the current game dev seems to deal with female gamers in the following ways:

 

1) simple games gearing towards casual/female gamers. (which can be both a good and bad thing, since some of them can be fun)

 

2) Artwork, and cute girly-guys (female version of chicks with bewbs)

 

And yet you see no real devement to the core of the matter: namely gamelpay.

 

Actually, there's just as many white girls who dig those "bishonen" guys. Visit an art site sometime. The pretty-boy look is rather typical of male, non-adult characters in just about everything that comes out of Japan in terms of anime and games. Oh, and remember, Japan=/=Asia.

 

Well yes, they seem to be more and more popular, just like those Yaoi doujin comics for girls...

 

But yes, remember that japanese seems to create most of the asia style games that are popular in asia, same goes for most popular asian anime/cartoons/comics. So basically their style do seem to have leading influence and impact of the gaming trend. This, and the fact that japanese dev tend to (mostly) develop games for japanese style and populance, means that the current japanese trend tend to spread around asia quite a bit.

 

On the other hand, other asian game dev would quite commonly have similar style to the popular trend, which is started by the japanese games/anime/etc, and thus, their production bears similarities to the japanese products of the time, since thats what is/was trendy afterall.

 

Its like, normal asian males would usually be able to at least name some of the gundams and respective storyline of their generation, in whatever translatied version they used to.

 

On the side note. I am asian, and currently in asia, so sometimes all I need to reassure my information is to pick up a few mags down in 7-11 and/or look at what the kids are playing next to me in the train/MickeyD/etc.

[Jae Onasi]

I should clarify what I meant by mature--I meant 'not immature', rather than "mature" rating on games. I'd rather _not_ see naked people humping each other all night in glorious pixelated detail. I'd like to have some games with a little thought put into character development and richness of gameplay--good graphics are nice, too, but if I had to sacrifice something in a game, I'd sacrifice stunning graphics for a great story any day.

[RedHawke]

see naked people humping each other all night in glorious pixelated detail.

Now hold on Jae! You might be on to something here!!

 

I sense this idea is pure genious!!!

 

*Flees thread*

[PoiuyWired]

^^

It has been done, animated hentai. Not something that I would likie to see in a game usually.

 

But yeah, I would rather have better gameplay than the shiney blings. Obviously there has to be a reasonable balance of everything. I mean, even I would be annoyed if someone comes up with atari style graphics, where I would have to guess what everything is.

[Rogue Nine]

Pfah! If I wanted a good story, I'd read a book! Give me shinies and bling bling any day!

[Inyri]

You obviously have a greater attention spam than your male compatriots.

 

Hang on, did I say "attention spam"? Hmm... I'm sure that must have been unintentional! I wouldn't dare be suggesting something about male gamers...

[Rogue Nine]

That we like spam? ¯\O_o/¯

 

But seriously, bling bling is where it's at. Oh, and good playability is key as well. If it's got a crap control system, then it's probably not worth playing, no matter how pretty it is or how good of a story it's got.

 

*steals Inyri's root beer lollys and fleeeeeeeeeeeeeeees*