Game News Dragon Age concept art wallpaper

[DemonKing]

Thank God you could actually get Bastila something decent to wear.

Or alternatively you could have her run around the galaxy in nothing but her Jedi undies...

The layout looks a lot like the art you see in D&D books these days, but otherwise it's just another stereotypical fantasy, chainmail-bikini slut, to my eyes.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

Since DGaider reads this thread, I may as well post here. I have a major problem with the barely-clothed females in fantasy games, and Bioware are the prime perputrator of this, I guess the word for it is, stereotype. Despite a lot of dungeons and dragons fantasy coming from Tolkien, I'm pretty certain thong clad ho's are from somewhere else. I find it cheapens the genre incredibly to have this kind of imagery representing the game. Though, given the mainstream, lowest-common-denominator standard of Bioware's games, perhaps it is reflective.
I just don't find it justifiable for RPGs that are supposed to be intelligent, in depth and adult (in the mature sense of the word). Bioware, grow up, you should be embarassed.

I understand what you're saying (we argue about this topic, ourselves), but I also think we're far from the "prime perpetrators" of this sort of thing. We've done a lot, I think, to make our games female-friendly... but I agree that we and the industry as a whole should start thinking seriously about what all the titillative stuff says about our products.

It's good that you admit it. Bioware have a lot of status at the moment; surely you're in the position to take a bit of a risk in this area and make a stand? It's not just females who might find this offensive - I'm male and I find it kind of sad. When the first major piece of art for your new game comes out portraying someone who looks like she should be in a fetish strip club, is that really the impression you want to give of your new game?

--
My website - http://www.teatime.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

 

[MrBrown]

The layout looks a lot like the art you see in D&D books these days, but otherwise it's just another stereotypical fantasy, chainmail-bikini slut, to my eyes.

It's a platemail-bikini slut. There's a worlds difference. She has more AC.

 

[DemonKing]

It's a platemail-bikini slut. There's a worlds difference. She has more AC.

LOL - True. Bioware innovates again!

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

I watched a gaming program that focused on this very subject once. There was a girl talking about the unrealistic standards of the women in quake 3, that they look totally over the top, apart from the one fat one but she looked too mean.

So what she wanted was a heavily overweight, like herself, character that runs incredibly fast carrying dozens of guns and tons of ammo, has a heart attack and dies 7 minutes into any game.


I do agree that you should make the female and male characters a little more realistic but you can't pack a big fat ass into power armour. I'm sure vic had to grease himself up in fallout 2...

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Well, the only thing that really offends me about the half naked females in fantasy genre games is the lack of bumpmapped nipples. Come on, BioWare, show me some headlights!

 

[Volourn]

The only thing that offends me is that people cna be offended by boobies in games where you kill living creatures by the dozens. LMAO

 

[DamnElfGirl]

Speaking as a RL female, I have not been terribly impressed by the attitude I've gotten from some Bioware developers towards female gamers. In particular, some Bioware devs behaved horribly during the discussion of the lopsided romance ratio in BG2. I heard them recycle the old "girls don't play RPGs" line to justify both the lack of female romance options and the tendency towards gratuitious boobies.

I do appreciate that there are powerful female NPCs in all the Bioware games I've played. I also appreciate the diversity of looks and dress possibilities for the female PCs. I don't have a problem with some slutty girls running around a game, as long as there are a lot of other types of women, too. That's just like the real world.

What really bugs many of us female gamers is when there's a scantily-clad woman chosen as the iconic figure for a game. That's such a transparent and cheesy marketing ploy that even the 14-year-old kiddies recognise it as such. It also bugs me when designers don't seem to have checked with a single woman when writing things like romance scripts. The romance scripts in BG2 were sooooo painfully adolescent male-fantasyesque.

Oh, and Bioware really needs to find some female GAMERS to do their female voice acting. Most of the female voices in Bioware games are screechy and squealy or horribly (Conana the barbarian) overdone, done by women who don't seem to have any idea what kind of project they're working on. For examples of great female voice acting, check out Primal and Beyond Good and Evil. Find some voice actresses like that. Or hire me. I could do it. :D

 

[Jed]

Jade from BG&E is one of the best female leads I've ever seen in a game. Much more appealing to me than gigantic b00bies and thongs.

 

[Transcendent One]

At least Bio hasn't degraded down to putting boobies on box art

Now I wonder how her boobies would flip-flop when she runs...

 

[Volourn]

Speaking as an Unknown Being On The Internet, here's mys emi serious take on this DRAMA,

Some people who were in the process of making a great point screw it up by not knowing certain thinks they they think do. ie. Dark Alliance is not a Bio game.

I do agree that gratious boobies isn't really needed. At least not for me (shocking I know :D ); but it surely doesn't ruin it either. As long as the character in question has an interesting backstory and personality; their looks such as they are really don't worry me. Heck, Jaheira isn;t the best looking pixel around yet she';s one of my favorite female characters. WOWSERS!

The 'exuse' ofr lack of female roamnce options may seem unfair but from a development prospective it makes sense. Which BIO devs have a 'horrible attitude' towards female gamners? Last ic hecked, they get along fine with female gamers. In fact they've banned and punished certain males when their sexism got out of hand.

Also, you should talke for 'many of us female gamers'. There are many females who just don't care about it. There are more important things to worry about. Ask the ladies who complained about no choice of PC sex in PST, or the 'sexist' take on statistics in Arcanum. It's true though and I agree that the chocie for the iconic figures is cheesy; but so what. Perhaps, you should stop being sexist and worry more aboiut the wanton violence in Bioware games. Afterall, you kill 100s of beings in their games. WOWSERS! It's funny you complain about the rom,ance scripts in BG2 yet when a woman gamer tends enjoy most out of BG2 9at least the vocal ones since I won't speak for most since no one can) they tend to say they enjoyed the romances the most. In fact, as we all know, the streotypical males "hate" the mushy stuff. LOL As for female voice overs in BIO games being screechy. Sure, there are some of those. Hate to break it to you but screechy women exist in RL 9and screechy men too heh!). Let's take NWN though. Outside of Aribeth, I don't think there being too many screechy women. In fact, the minority of female characters in BIO games can be descibed as being sceechy. Heck, i think more male chaarcetrs are screechy in BIO games. Minsc and Xan anyone? LOL

Haven't played Primal and Good & Evil; and it's gonan take more than good voice acting to get me to play them too. Sorry.

In conclusion, while it would be nice if BIo (and other dev companies) were to have more "realistic" women (haha! realism in fantasy games lol); the fact they have women with big boobs means nothing as long as those women with big boobs have ana ctual personalty and good backstory. As for being scantily clad, most real women do go running around scantily clad. Beaches anyone?

I just don't think this is such a big deal that it should be made a Federal case.

 

[DamnElfGirl]

Fixed the Dark Alliance booboo. I paid so little attention to that game (DamnElfHusband and I just bought it from the bargain bin for the multiplayer) that I just assumed Interplay had shoved Bio into making a bigger hack game than normal.

I find it fascinating that as soon as a woman speaks up about her opinion on female game characters, it's suddenly a DRAMA. I thought my opinion was measured and reasonable. I told Bioware what I liked and didn't like about the way women were portrayed in the games I've played by them. I didn't yell OMG BIO HATEZ GRRLS KILL THEM NOW!!!!!

As for my comments specific to the BG2 romances, I speak as a poster on the Bioware boards at the time. A bunch of women complained about having only one crappy romance option for the female character, whereas the men got to pick from three flavours, one for every general alignment. Instead of engaging the women in reasonable conversation and listening to what they had to say, a couple of Bioware devs (I don't remember which ones, because it was several years ago) got all huffy and defensive. They started talking about how women just don't play games, and generally treated the (mostly polite) posters with disrespect. I found their attitude to be shamefully unprofessional. You can disagree with me, but I think I have a good reason for my comments.

And yes, I do talk for many female gamers. Not all, some women don't care and some disagree with me. But having been around the gaming community for quite some time, I know that many women share my opinion that women tend to be overlooked and oversexualized in games. It matters to us because we care about role-playing. We want to be able to feel immersed in the game just like men do, and it's hard to be immrersed in a game when you aren't given a choice of anything to wear but a chainmail bikini.

And don't you dare call me sexist for speaking about how I feel as a woman. I don't care what your gender is, that's one thing that will set me off in any conversation. Did I bash men or make sweeping generalizations about all men or all women in my post? No. If you think I did, read it again. For the record, I fully support men who complain about not having a choice to play anything but over-muscled barbarians in some games. I support people who note that it'd be awfully nice to have more racial diversity in games when appropriate. The more that RPGs concentrate on making a believable fantasy world, a world with a wide diversity of people, some good lookin', some bad lookin', the happier I'll be.

And as for disliking the anorexic chainmail bikini iconic women, I'm sticking with that one. I love looking at beautiful women, but those chicks usually look like 2-bit strippers, and they're dressed completely inappropriately for what they're supposed to be doing. Like a lot of people of various genders said earlier, give me box art with beautiful women who look like adventureres. Then we'll all be happy.

 

[Vault Dweller]

And don't you dare call me sexist for speaking about how I feel as a woman.

Can we call you sexy then? Seriously though, come on, it's Volourn the fembot we are talking about here, its sole purpose is to argue. You post something, it disagreed because that's what it does. I agree with you, btw.

 

[Volourn]

DamElfHusband? LOL I like that. :D No biggy here. Sometimes it's not easy to remember who made what.

And, no , I didn't call it a drama because you as a woman spoke out. I've been basically calling it a drama since the silly pic was released and have been taunting both men and women when they complain about it. True, for the most aprt, your thoughts are pretty reasonable which is why i took the time to write a semi reasoanble (I can never be fully reasonable, it's illegal, sorry :wink: ). I never said you wer eevn yelling so why elude to something I never said. Hmm..

You speak as a poster from the BIo baords at the time. And? Not really impressive. I still seriously doubt they showed disrecpect to the polite posters. To the unpolite ones, sure, lots of disrespect there; but deservedly too. Still like to know which devs it was 'cause usually (there are always exemptions; no one's perfect), Bio devs 9for that matter, every single dev house I have ever sen post on the net) tend to take a lot of flack from posters and still be as civil as possible (reactions to Visc notwithstanding, lol). I disagree with you on this because I have seen no evidence that they would do it. I do agree they probably did say that most gamers are males, and they have to look at pleasing most gamers before pleasing the minority. That just makes sense in business.

Actually, it's not just women who share that opinion. Many men do to. Me, being neither also agrees. Women do tend to get overlooked. Not really fair; but udnerstanable. As for being oversexualized; male characters tend to have the same thing happen to them.

There are many ugly people in BIO games. And, no, they're not all ogres either. I accused you of being sexist, because you have an attitude BIo does this because theya re full of men and seem to hire women to do voice overs in a stereotypical manner. That seems at least borderline secist. I bet anything, all the BIo devs who were rude to women on the baords happen to be all male; and they were never "rude" to the male posters, right?

"It also bugs me when designers don't seem to have checked with a single woman when writing things like romance scripts."

Comments like the above seem to clearly imply that you think if Bio had any women working for them or advice from a woman they would never do some fo the stuff they do. Seems kinda sexist to me.

"Like a lot of people of various genders said earlier, give me box art with beautiful women who look like adventurers. Then we'll all be happy."

I'd be happy with characters whoa re either beautiful or ugly as long as they are interesting and worth interacting with. btw, That woman in the screenshot, does look like an adventurer. thiguh; i'm still trying to figure out how one determines that..

And, oh, contrary to what VD thinks, I don't argue just toa rgue. I "argue" when I disagree". Like I said, I DO agree with some of your points. Pople just focus on the negative stuff instead of the stuff Ia gree with them on. Not surprising though.


Enjoy. :D

 

[Vault Dweller]

Wow, Volourn made two very detailed and thoughtful posts in a row. What's going on here?

 

[Vault Dweller]

And, oh, contrary to what VD thinks, I don't argue just toa rgue. I "argue" when I disagree". Like I said, I DO agree with some of your points. Pople just focus on the negative stuff instead of the stuff Ia gree with them on. Not surprising though.

Ok, now I feel bad! I'm sorry that I misjudged you. I didn't realize that while we all focused on the negative stuff like some jerks, you focused on the positive stuff being an example to us all. So, help me learn, what was so positive about that picture?

 

[mr. lamat]

my first character through any game is female 90% of the time. there are reams of weak-ass game thrown at my pc. this is why dev's and scriptwriters don't get laid.

i understand the need to appeal to the twelve year-old boys to make the bottom line and bring in profit, but they're just as fascinated by +20 swords of screaming, blisterous death as they are by cgi boobs. something really needs to change.

 

[taks]

The only thing that offends me is that people cna be offended by boobies in games where you kill living creatures by the dozens. LMAO

i'm not offended by them at all... they're just plain ridiculous and out of touch with the purpose of the game. we're trying to suspend our disbelief as it is, and now we're expected to believe that some hot chick in a bikini is going to march through a dank, dark dungeon whacking undead and orcs with a mace while worrying about her nail polish and makeup? ridiculous, and wallpapers such as these, admittedly not even related to the game, perpetuate this absolute lunacy.

taks

 

[Dgaider]

Speaking as a RL female, I have not been terribly impressed by the attitude I've gotten from some Bioware developers towards female gamers. In particular, some Bioware devs behaved horribly during the discussion of the lopsided romance ratio in BG2. I heard them recycle the old "girls don't play RPGs" line to justify both the lack of female romance options and the tendency towards gratuitious boobies.

I don't remember us saying anything like "girls don't play RPGs". I DO remember saying that about 5% of our player base was female, and that made the claim that some posters were making that we weren't being "fair" a bit unreasonable... "fair" has nothing to do with it. "Fair" would have seen us doing a female-oriented romance after first doing about twenty geared to males.

We actually had planned two female-oriented romances, and the second had to be cut because they were all taking too long (and it just happened to be the last one worked on). We had five romance NPC's laid out and we did four of them... there was no thought at the time of "oh, we have to make sure we do the same number for women as for men." Maybe we should have, but remember that at the time of BG2 we had never done that kind of romance stuff at all. It was pretty experimental.

I think if anything many female players were upset because Anomen was the only option. If you liked Anomen, great. If you didn't, you felt left out. And seeing as Anomen wasn't created initially to be a romance character (after writing him as a prat he got handed to me later and was told "let's make him a romance"... yay) it was hard for lots of these girls to like him.

So, yeah... lots of stumbling on our first outing. But I would suggest that we've gotten a lot better on that point since then. I know I, myself, have taken a lot of feedback from female players to heart and even gone directly to them (ask at the Ladies of Neverwinter site if you don't believe me: www.ladiesofneverwinter.com ) to try and improve the romances on subsequent outings, and I think it's largely been a success (if the reaction to the KotoR and HotU romances is any indication).

But that's something that I as a designer can pretty much control. Sticking scantily-clad women on the box cover not so much. But it is something we're become more aware of. When Aribeth and her "I'm wearing full plate but, gee, I guess I don't need to have any protection over my FREAKING HEART" goodness was revealed, we made fun of it ourselves. But there is definitely a sense in the entire industry that sex sells (never mind the other perception, which I hate, which is that half-naked women are also a fantasy staple... blame Luis Rojo for that, I guess) and that's a hard one to battle even from the inside. Customers complaining about it is the only way that's going to change, so I say complain away. I think sex appeal has a place in games (I'm not advocating putting all characters in turtleneck sweaters) but I also think there is a fine line between sex appeal and exploitation and I agree that's what needs to stop.

As for voice-over... ehhhh, I'm not sure that having female gamers do VO would make it that much better. Maybe. It seems hard to get good VO, period. Sometimes you'll get a decent actress whose voice is just annoying or you'll get an actress with a decent voice who just can't act. Give me a VO actress who knows RPG's AND can act AND has a voice that nobody finds fault in... that would be great, but I bet you she rides in on a unicorn.

 

[DamnElfGirl]

Hey, no problem. I'm just feeling a bit like Ranty McRantypants today, and throwing around the word sexist tends to make me wear my Rantyhat.

To completely clear the air, I try not to assume computer game companies are all male. There are more women joining the industry every year, which I think is great. I made my "assumptions" about Bio's BG2 writers being male because I've seen the dev team picture, and lo, it was full of dudes. Maybe I just have overly-high expectations of my fellow women, but when I read the romance scripts, I thought, "Hoo, boy, real women don't say shit like that, how come some female QA person didn't clue them in on it?"

And my dislike of Bioware's female voiceovers isn't really about sexism in my book, it's about style. I blame the female voice actresses as much as I blame the folks that allowed their sub-par performances to make it into the game. I will also grant that Neverwinter Nights' female NPC voice acting was much better. The female PC sound set in the original NWN was almost spectacularly bad, however. There was only one choice that wasn't ugly or grating, while there were a number of decent male sound sets. I doubt that's due to sexism, it's more likely due to bad luck and bad voice actresses.

On an entirely-not-serious note, has anybody else ever felt bad for some of those female voice actresses? When I hear the orgasmic moans they think pass for being hit in battle, I can't help but wonder about their sex lives. Why are they so good at faking it? Do they need either some real good lovin' or a real 3rd-degree burn so they know the difference?

 

[DamnElfGirl]

I think if anything many female players were upset because Anomen was the only option. If you liked Anomen, great. If you didn't, you felt left out. And seeing as Anomen wasn't created initially to be a romance character (after writing him as a prat he got handed to me later and was told "let's make him a romance"... yay) it was hard for lots of these girls to like him.

That's exactly why I was upset. I hated that whiney little bastard. He got thrown out of my party about 10 minutes into the game. I wanted to romance Virconia, to tell you the truth, but she only wanted to be friends with my female bard. So sad.

I pick on Bioware because I do think y'all are trying, and I figure you'll actually listen. I don't bother to pick on GoD or whoever, because I know they're being jerks and they're happy about it. So feel complemented by my critiques.

As for the voice acting, maybe you really should hire me. I'm only being half-serious, but I actually do have all those qualities. Oh, except for being qualified to ride a unicorn.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

We actually had planned two female-oriented romances, and the second had to be cut because they were all taking too long (and it just happened to be the last one worked on).

Haer-Dalis, right? Wasn't there supposed to be an Aerie-Dalis-PC triangle? The line he spouts at some point in the game suggests so.

Customers complaining about it is the only way that's going to change, so I say complain away.

I tried complaining but you locked the thread, meanie!

 

[DamnElfGirl]

Can we call you sexy then?

Sure, anytime.

 

[Dgaider]

That's exactly why I was upset. I hated that whiney little bastard. He got thrown out of my party about 10 minutes into the game.

If it's any consolation, most of the girls who put up with his initial attitude did like the romance once it got going because he does actually change. That initial attitude isn't much of an incentive, though. Sigh.

I pick on Bioware because I do think y'all are trying, and I figure you'll actually listen. I don't bother to pick on GoD or whoever, because I know they're being jerks and they're happy about it. So feel complemented by my critiques.

I do. I thought your post was quite reasonable, which is why I responded like I did.

As for the voice acting, maybe you really should hire me. I'm only being half-serious, but I actually do have all those qualities. Oh, except for being qualified to ride a unicorn.

I suspect that 50% of the gaming world would still tear apart your voice for one reason or another. Gamers are a critical lot.

That said, we rarely do the VO ourselves. I think HotU was the first time that it hasn't been up to our publisher to contract all the VO work, which causes all sorts of problems (like having to deal with SAG, for instance). I hope we end up doing more of our own in the future... HotU was a pretty good experience (I only hated about 20% of the voices in that once which is pretty good... as a writer who always has a pre-conceived notion of what the character voices are supposed to sound like, I tend to hate mostly everything VO sends us).

 

[Dgaider]

Haer-Dalis, right? Wasn't there supposed to be an Aerie-Dalis-PC triangle? The line he spouts at some point in the game suggests so.

Yes, actually. I actually wanted to do him first... at least he was nice to you, if a bit fru-fru.

I tried complaining but you locked the thread, meanie!

Well, I only lock threads that get too long. It doesn't mean the original posts don't register, because they often do.