International Women's Day

[Blondbraid]

You are Swedish, Blondbraid ?

I am, but I don't see what that's got to do with anything here. Why do you ask?

[Crimson Wizard]

Is "pussel" english or swedish word, or it came into english from swedish?

At first I thought it's related to cats

[Blondbraid]

Is "pussel" english or swedish word, or it came into english from swedish?

At first I thought it's related to cats

Is "pussel" english or swedish word, or it came into english from swedish?

At first I thought it's related to cats

Ah, I see. It's the Swedish word for puzzle, I missed that typo! 

[milkanannan]

Can I just say that I love IKEA food. Thanks for that.

[WHAM]

Ahh, Sweden. It's like Finland but not quite as good, and a bit to the west. 
(The meatballs are nice, though.)

[Blondbraid]

Well, Finland may have many lakes and Angry Birds, but Sweden has Dice, Starbreeze, Macinegames, King and Minecraft. 

[Crimson Wizard]

Well, Finland may have many lakes and Angry Birds, but Sweden has Dice, Starbreeze, Macinegames, King and Minecraft. 

And Paradox Interactive

Spoiler

[close]

[Snarky]

"The year is 1820 AD. All of Africa is occupied by the Swedes. All? Not quite! One small village of indomitable Nigerians still holds out against the invaders..."

[WHAM]

"The year is 1820 AD. All of Africa is occupied by the Swedes. All? Not quite! One small village of indomitable Nigerians still holds out against the invaders..."

I wonder if they have a magic potion or something... And a really fat man lobbing rocks at people.

[Mandle]

Can I just say that I love IKEA food. Thanks for that.

OMG the meatballs, mashed potato, gravy, and weird fruit sauce kit is heavenly!!!

[Blondbraid]

Can I just say that I love IKEA food. Thanks for that.

OMG the meatballs, mashed potato, gravy, and weird fruit sauce kit is heavenly!!!

Weird fruit sauce kit? It was ages since I ate at an IKEA, so I don't remember any fruit sauce. Typically, the traditional side to meatballs (and most other meat-based dishes) in Sweden is lingonberry jam.

Anyways, I found an interesting article by adventure game writer Jane Jensen on her approach to writing video game protagonists.

[WHAM]

I actually quite like the thinking of that article.

A ton of men play female characters because they enjoy their games more that way (the most common claim I've seen is "I prefer watching a female character, so I play one", so make of that what you will), so it makes perfect sense for women to enjoy playing around with male characters in a similar way. Whether it be for the looks and titillation (ooh, mancandy!), to experience a different kind of persona and toy around with investing yourself in a character that is different in background, personality and physique to yourself (see also, fat people playing as athletic people or simpletons like myself enjoying Sherlock Holmes games to feel smart) or to just have the change to experience the reverse side of some narrative tropes, it still makes a ton of sense. Games, like movies and books, tend to be a lot about experiencing something you can't experience otherwise.

In my eyes, the whole "protagonists in games need to accurately represent group X so player group X can identify with them" doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The whole point of that argument is that players lack imaginations and cannot enjoy an entertainment product unless the protagonist is similar to themselves, and yet we've not had this issue with, say, movies. Or have you ever heard anyone complain that they couldn't enjoy the Silence of the Lambs because Clarice Starling was female? Or are women unable to read the Lord of the Rings because there were no women in the Fellowship of the Ring?

[Blondbraid]

I actually quite like the thinking of that article.

A ton of men play female characters because they enjoy their games more that way (the most common claim I've seen is "I prefer watching a female character, so I play one", so make of that what you will), so it makes perfect sense for women to enjoy playing around with male characters in a similar way. Whether it be for the looks and titillation (ooh, mancandy!), to experience a different kind of persona and toy around with investing yourself in a character that is different in background, personality and physique to yourself (see also, fat people playing as athletic people or simpletons like myself enjoying Sherlock Holmes games to feel smart) or to just have the change to experience the reverse side of some narrative tropes, it still makes a ton of sense. Games, like movies and books, tend to be a lot about experiencing something you can't experience otherwise.

Yeah, I really hate it when people design and write a character just for fanservice, but I've no problem with attractive characters when they are also well written and make sense in context. For example, at the start of the longest Journey, we play as April Ryan in her underwear, but it makes perfect sense in context (she was transported to a dreamworld whilst she was sleeping, and in the dream she's still wearing what she slept in) and she's still a relateable character with a fleshed out backstory, and similarly, Jane Jensen's male characters also feels like realistic people even if they were made for her preferences.

In my eyes, the whole "protagonists in games need to accurately represent group X so player group X can identify with them" doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The whole point of that argument is that players lack imaginations and cannot enjoy an entertainment product unless the protagonist is similar to themselves, and yet we've not had this issue with, say, movies. Or have you ever heard anyone complain that they couldn't enjoy the Silence of the Lambs because Clarice Starling was female? Or are women unable to read the Lord of the Rings because there were no women in the Fellowship of the Ring?

Well, I personally see it as a bit more complicated. Ideally, all writers should write whatever characters will make good and interesting characters, but the problem is when nearly everyone decides to make a 30 something white guy with short brown hair, stubble, jeans, american accent and an "everyman" personality, not because they have some original artistic vision with that, but just because it's seen as the default for the people writing them. It's not just about representation, but also because this character type feels stale and overused similar to authors writing protagonists who are themselves struggling authors.

Also, a big difference between games and movies is that a movie you just watch for around two hours whereas in many games, there isn't much story and you spend a lot of time controlling a character on the screen, and so the player often feels closer to a game avatar than a movie character (not to mention most movies have a big cast with many characters taking up a lot of screentime whilst most games are hugely centered on the player character), and so many players want characters they can either relate to or alternatively, find compelling enough to want to spend a lot of time with, and that's hard if a character is created to be a blank slate to project themselves on yet look vastly different from them.

To put it this way, I can relate to Lee Everett from the Walking Dead despite him looking different from me because he's a fleshed out character with thoughts and emotions I can relate to, but if just presented with a blank slate of a male and a female game avatar with no personality beyond generic protagonist traits, I will find it much harder to relate to the former than the latter since there is no personality to relate to, just looks.

[WHAM]

Good point. I don't really tend to think of the blank slate characters are proper "characters", so my previous comment didn't take those cases into account.

For the record: The Myst games did the best job at making a blank slate protagonist. No name, no face, no physical attributes of any kind. You are you, a stranger in a strange place, and your actions define you.

Another interesting take on the blank slate character was what Rust (an otherwise horrible game I wouldn't recommend to anyone) did: Your character is generated upon game start. Build, skin colour etc are all random and you cannot affect them or change them, ever. The character you get is bound to your account and the only way to try to get a different one is to create a new account and buy the game again. An interesting take on the whole "you can't choose who you are in the real world, either" -thing I'd like to see experimented with more in better games. In a game like Rust it apparently devolved to "let's kill all the black characters lul" in an instant, because Rust is that kind of game.

[Blondbraid]

Yeah, I've heard pretty horrible things about Rust, similar to Day Z, an online game where new player start unarmed and players kan restrain, steal from and kill other players without consequences,
and that quickly led to some players doing truly horrific things to other players (and players lose a lot of progress if they die, so you can't easily just fight back or log out). One of the less disturbing examples
were a group of players cornering and handcuffing a new player, strip him of all his clothes and equipment and then un-cuffing him and telling him to run only to shoot him in the back. The fact that anyone thought
an online game where players could attack and kill unarmed new players, or restrain them and force them to helplessly watch their tormentors humiliate their avatar is insane, because nearly online every game
I've read about that have such mechanics and no one enforcing rules nearly always end up with a few horrible, horrible people turn the game into their personal war-criminal simulator and use it to sadistically
bully and harass all other players out of the game.

Nearly all big MMO games has a big starting area where killing other players is forbidden and newbies can level up in peace and nearly all online shooters/fighting games make sure all players are
evenly matched in power and experience before being allowed to fight each other for a damned good reason.

It's a real shame about Rust though, since it did sound like a genuinely cool concept to experiment with, and I wish more games would try doing something with it.

[WHAM]

Rust was intended to showcase a post-apocalyptic hellscape of a world where people are more like animals, doing anything to survive and thrive, so I think it does its job well enough. It's fair in exactly the same way life is fair (the strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must), and cruel only in the way the people playing it are cruel. If a server were populated by kind-hearted people willing to sacrifice their own progress to help others and to build a community, there is nothing in the game stopping that from happening. That just isn't the way we human beings are by nature. Thus it's not really the game's fault.

It's just not a game for the faint of heart, or those easily frustrated.

[Blondbraid]

Rust was intended to showcase a post-apocalyptic hellscape of a world where people are more like animals, doing anything to survive and thrive, so I think it does its job well enough. It's fair in exactly the same way life is fair (the strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must), and cruel only in the way the people playing it are cruel. If a server were populated by kind-hearted people willing to sacrifice their own progress to help others and to build a community, there is nothing in the game stopping that from happening. That just isn't the way we human beings are by nature. Thus it's not really the game's fault.

It's just not a game for the faint of heart, or those easily frustrated.

That's where we disagree, because if someone creates a single player game with evil npc's trying to kill the player, or the player can kill npc's, that's one thing, but the think I dislike with games like Rust is that players are allowed to do this to characters controlled by real, living and feeling people. Even if they aren't physically hurting anyone, they are still bullying and harassing real people, and the majority of the bullies almost never confine their actions to just the game, but also keep harassing people in other games and forums that never even joined in the game in the first place.

[WHAM]

If someone buys a game about harsh survival in an unforgiving world of limited resources, with no limits on what is allowed, do they still have the right to complain when someone smashes their head with a rock and blows up their home to steal their pile of shiny rocks? I'd say "no". In a game like Rust or DayZ, a lot of things that would count as harassment in other games can and should be considered just another part of the experience, which I think is why there is fairly limited popularity for such games in the long run.

[Blondbraid]

If someone buys a game about harsh survival in an unforgiving world of limited resources, with no limits on what is allowed, do they still have the right to complain when someone smashes their head with a rock and blows up their home to steal their pile of shiny rocks? I'd say "no". In a game like Rust or DayZ, a lot of things that would count as harassment in other games can and should be considered just another part of the experience, which I think is why there is fairly limited popularity for such games in the long run.

Like I said, just because someone agreed to play a harsh survival game where other players might kill them as part of mutual competition, it doesn't automatically mean that they also signed up for racist and sexist insults or players explicitly ganging up on them just for being black or female, or in case of DayZ restrained and forced to watch the other players playing out their sadistic fantasies on their avatars, and I don't think that type of personal harassment is comparable to just killing a player for their loot. And also to repeat what I said before, the kinds of people who do that kind of bullying and harassment don't stop doing that outside the game, the game becomes a place for them to find like-minded and goad each other on, and bullying is bullying even if it's done online.

Geez, just when I thought we were past all this in this thread, do you have to keep defending online harassment?

[Blondbraid]

To get back to the topic of fun games with female heroines, I thought I might share a hilarious game I randomly found by chance that features all three Star Wars leading ladies,
it's called Darth Vader Hair salon and it's just as weird and funny as it sounds, probably the funniest fanmade star wars project I've seen since the Death Star Cantina sketch filmed with Lego figures.