Jump to content

Agents in geneforge. And classes


Recommended Posts

The series doesn't have a great track record with this. There are some unfortunate attempts at addressing Guardian gender, the worst in G2, IIRC.

 

They managed relativelly successfully to adress it in g5 i think. The guardian under rawal tries to explain it. I also have no idea what iirc means.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I remember correctly. Which I didn't; it's the G5 guardian that's the worst, with her infelicitously phrased implications. Manola.

Yep. She did make shapers seem mysoginistic a bit. But and this might just be more of my flawed memory i thought she said there is no rule against it. But i guess that is really about as friendly as don't ask don't tell. It is weird though since people in terrestria overall seem to respect women a great deal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, on the whole SW games do pretty well with women.

 

Early SW games went out of their way to include & acknowledge minorities in general; the Exile Trilogy stated that human skin "comes in a variety of hues" and its recurring characters included people from a variety of cultures, a woman who exiled herself to avoid an arranged marriage, and several gay characters who were navigating how to identify themselves to others, including a lesbian couple. Erika, arguably the central character of the trilogy (and maybe the best-loved SW character, period) was a woman, and it ended with an Empress, too. And of course, you were never asked to even pick a gender for your characters. The PC icons did include a woman in a bikini -- but they also included a man wearing less.

 

The more recent games are still pretty good by industry standards, but the enthusiasm of the early games has disappeared. A4 in particular included vanilla versions of many of the above mentioned characters, with their above circumstances consistently omitted. And in A5 and A6, all of the power players in those games are men (Dorikas, Redmark, Starrus, Gladwell, Melanchion). G5 offers two female sect leaders who compromise and three male sect leaders more interested in war and destruction -- and there is Manola; we're told at the end of the series, for some reason, that only men can be Guardians and only women can be Agents. Avadon 1, unfortunately, repeated this theme. It had some technical restrictions that resulted in each class only having one gender. That might have been more understandable if it weren't for the resulting fact that all the women were magic-users and all the men were fighters. Avadon 2, meanwhile, improved that situation only to demand for the first time that the PC pick a gender, and to offer a romantic option whose gender changed based on the PC, to ensure only heterosexual matches.

 

Again, all that is still pretty good by the industry's standards, it's just funny to see this sort of seeming regression compared to the earlier games.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, on the whole SW games do pretty well with women.

 

Early SW games went out of their way to include & acknowledge minorities in general; the Exile Trilogy stated that human skin "comes in a variety of hues" and its recurring characters included people from a variety of cultures, a woman who exiled herself to avoid an arranged marriage, and several gay characters who were navigating how to identify themselves to others, including a lesbian couple. Erika, arguably the central character of the trilogy (and maybe the best-loved SW character, period) was a woman, and it ended with an Empress, too. And of course, you were never asked to even pick a gender for your characters. The PC icons did include a woman in a bikini -- but they also included a man wearing less.

 

The more recent games are still pretty good by industry standards, but the enthusiasm of the early games has disappeared. A4 in particular included vanilla versions of many of the above mentioned characters, with their above circumstances consistently omitted. And in A5 and A6, all of the power players in those games are men (Dorikas, Redmark, Starrus, Gladwell, Melanchion). G5 offers two female sect leaders who compromise and three male sect leaders more interested in war and destruction -- and there is Manola; we're told at the end of the series, for some reason, that only men can be Guardians and only women can be Agents. Avadon 1, unfortunately, repeated this theme. It had some technical restrictions that resulted in each class only having one gender. That might have been more understandable if it weren't for the resulting fact that all the women were magic-users and all the men were fighters. Avadon 2, meanwhile, improved that situation only to demand for the first time that the PC pick a gender, and to offer a romantic option whose gender changed based on the PC, to ensure only heterosexual matches.

 

Again, all that is still pretty good by the industry's standards, it's just funny to see this sort of seeming regression compared to the earlier games.

I couldn't agree more. Whats even better is how even the vahnathai(with the most powerfull living magician until end of a4 being a woman) and sliths were all for gender equality. (Nephils at least tribal nephils werent very featured and were mostly men)

I liked exile games better than geneforge games in that aspect. The world seemed full and vibrant and the smallest details were just amazing.

But i would go to say that geneforge series seem to have while not a sexist culture in terrestria gender roles seem to exist. I guess exile and avernum had less of that because its an everything goes survival of the fittest hard survival mode going on in the cave. But then it seems the empire also didn't have much of a diference from avernum society. So justifying is pointless. I was particularly disapointed with dorikas being a guy. Even more so with the lack of the 5 dragons most of whom were women completelly disapearing and being replaced with one reather obnoxious teen dragon. To be honest i think he just got lazy with the writing. You can see it even by the lack of jokes in the later games(although avernum series still has some).

Avadon 2 was good in terms of diversity I think, gender distribution from good folks to bad folks seems even. Even if the head figures of the two main factions are male. I really wish to see the next games with the old quirky glow. As a mixed raced bi guy that was raised by two women. Diversity makes me happier. Seems to add more life to things. But i honestly have great expectations for avadon 3 in those terms.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Agreed on all counts.

 

 

Interestingly, this was not usually the case -- their genders have been different almost every game:

 

https://encyclopedia.ermarian.net/wiki/Talk:Dragons#Gender_table

I knew i remembered pyrog being male! But i guess... Cheers for genderfluid(or is it trans?) dragons. Actually would be one interesting twist

EDIT:Dragons don't need labels they much prefer going by pronouns like "your majesty" or "your ferocity" :p

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Avadon 2, meanwhile, improved that situation only to demand for the first time that the PC pick a gender, and to offer a romantic option whose gender changed based on the PC, to ensure only heterosexual matches.

 

Again, all that is still pretty good by the industry's standards, it's just funny to see this sort of seeming regression compared to the earlier games.

 

There is at least a way around the heterosexuality thing. Pity it's hidden behind a cheat code that's only mentioned in the back of the manual and nowhere in-game.

 

And honestly, considering that Bioware exists, I don't think we can even call that state of affairs "good by industry standards" any more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

There is at least a way around the heterosexuality thing. Pity it's hidden behind a cheat code that's only mentioned in the back of the manual and nowhere in-game.

 

And honestly, considering that Bioware exists, I don't think we can even call that state of affairs "good by industry standards" any more.

 

I thought you could mess with the scripts. The cheat could give an easy way out.

 

To be honest, bioware exists for relativelly sometime making some of better rated/aclaimed rpgs around with a huge fan base. And even so, i remember some writers recieving death threats over Anders( honestly i would too just because he was given an awfull/terrible personality, the one in awakening was much better although granted not very original). So I *could* understand where he's coming from if he's actually worried about backlash and such. But from what i've seen so far its all good and dandy with his fanbase so it brings me back to; lazy writing.

 

Also on a sidenote bioware is way ahead of all developers in that aspect but i think spiderweb still offers more diversity than a lot of developers. Although that is becoming less true each passing year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...