I am not free of spelling errors myself, but something about nex' post makes my giggle like a little girl <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
I really hate to add to this - probably rather patronizing to where I'm going with it. Insane is quite right by saying that NEX's post was riddled with reductionism. I don't know if some of it was parodied; it's hard to tell without tone on the internet.
Most people are stepping in saying that it's pointless trying to appeal to females with NS because of tastes. They are probably right. NS cannot be won without violence. ALOT of posts here are assuming everyone is obsessed with raking in females. I suppose people are just trying to be right. And so am I for saying that. I'm a hypocrite.
It depends whether you want a more popular game. That's what some people want for NS. You can try luring the female fan base - you might succeed, but ultimately, it's still just NS. It will still be just as fun. But that's assuming you don't change anything game play wise. It seems that this thread's goal is to just change NS cosmetically.
I don't know - I can't put my finger on it. There just seems something neutral about this topic. Like it's pointless, but not because you can't get the female fan base over. The only thing you are doing is getting more players.
I would love to see females coming in. Sarisel mentioned that it was some ideology that males in NS have: that they will develop relationships with the opposite sex. We all have instincts to make us feel this way (now I feel reductionist).
Wow, I actually have just realized I've regurgitated a lot from this thread in this post. Urgh. Anyway...
I've spent many, many hours trying to devise game designs documents for multiplayer mods on Half-life 2 without violence. It's not just that violence adds a instinctual satisfaction - it actually adds very clever dynamics to a game. You get to "disable" the opposing player's ability to effect the game. Presumably, this means you can complete your own objective (or killing off the opposing team IS the objective). You also get a competitive factor (naturally). Which means people will keep coming back to win. Violence is such a versatile feature in games, it's depressing. Now, what I've just said seems really blatent and obvious... and... you're right... urgh.
Nevermind.
****...
Just as a side question: why do girls like pink and boys like blue?
<!--quoteo(post=1627677:date=May 19 2007, 01:06 AM:name=scaryface)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(scaryface @ May 19 2007, 01:06 AM) [snapback]1627677[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->i say we strike a compromise and make the models completely androgynous <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
On aliens yes, on marines <!--coloro:#CC0000--><span style="color:#CC0000"><!--/coloro-->no<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->.
Again I keep asking why not have customizable models and on marines allow for people to choose a male or female model, but I never get anything more than jeuvenille twisting of my topic into "I bet x5 has hidden motivations haha" Screw that, I have better things than to waste my time making a thread like that. If you know me at all you'd know that I'm quite litteral and business-like level of seriousness for 99% of the time I post on these forums. Sure I can act casually on these boards too at times, but the fact that the majority of my posts in these forum are in I&S or now the two new NS2 forums should be clear enough that I have interest in the game itself doing well. I want to learn from where it's been, fix what's currently wrong with it, and work on helping the future be creative and something enjoyable for all. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
NS2 is a professionally developed game which is going to be sold for money. Now I'm telling you my purpose in this thread is to make NS2 more marketable to the female gaming community. Stop talking BS Sarsiel and others about what my intent was. Capice? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":angry:" border="0" alt="mad-fix.gif" />
If you'd actually read my first post, you also see that I had suggested customizable models as a possible idea which had no definite contra's to it. This thread would be a bit hollow if I didn't at least attempt a suggestion for my own thread. And furthermore adding an image which symbolizes a point in the thread a a very effective way of grabbing reader's attention, a type of advertising a thread almost, and making your audience want to read through the idea rather than just taking a two-second skimming over of the presentation. Too many I&S ideas are a bunch or poorly written scattered textual information that you have to be good at reading through. No offense, but most people here don't take as much time as I do (because I'm highly interested in the future of NS) to read through the topic on this forum
<!--quoteo(post=1627712:date=May 19 2007, 04:49 AM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 04:49 AM) [snapback]1627712[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->While I'm pretty ungirly as far as hobbies and interests, I don't think having a 'female' gender option in games is really something we want (as a group) - customization would be cool but gender is irrelevant. In fact, I think I would prefer <i>not</i> to have the option even available; it's just one more thing I don't care about that doesn't add to the experience.
I played NS for various reasons, part of which was the social factor (and why I always orbited the same cluster of servers), and I like making friends online - and part of friendship is knowing who the person is, which includes gender; it's just part of the social dynamic. My female roommate took up NS because she liked the teamwork (all she did was gorge), but wasn't social in the game - and had absolutely no interest in having her gender known. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I thank you for replying. We need more women replying to this thread and less speculation by guys. I'd argue given that several of the other women who play NS that I've talked to were like "sure I'd like custom models" that is isn't "irrelvant" or not interesting to some. It depends on the individual it would seem -- just like it does with guys who play NS.
I've heard the social factor come up several time in this thread. Perhaps we should focus on that more? Any ideas anyone? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1627737:date=May 19 2007, 07:37 AM:name=cortex)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(cortex @ May 19 2007, 07:37 AM) [snapback]1627737[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->'long' periods of time in front of pc + steep learning curves + aliens + unfamiliar concepts + already very self-conscious girls = very, very, very limited female audience. off the top of my head, there really is no reasonable way to change ns in order for it to appeal to a large female demographic... <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not all women who play NS are that extremely self-concious and I think if anything aliens would be part of the appeal of NS to a female audience.
PS: before the forum trolls decide to visit let me remind you all: 1. to stay on topic 2. to discuss NS2 in the same level of respect demanded in a business environment 3. to avoid making stereotyping assumptions, even if in jest
<!--QuoteBegin-Freewave+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Freewave)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Just as a side question: why do girls like pink and boys like blue?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Read #3 above, Freewave, then remove please.
I know more women that prefer blue than pink actually. (mostly because several of them are UK fans) But to be fair there techinally supposed to be a difference between a boy or a girl versus a man or a woman -- one word implies more maturity and wisdom than the other.
You misinterpreted that last part. That's a genuine question - no stereotype. Just turn the TV on when kid shows are on. It's blatantly clear that the majority of child female aimed advertisements are themed in the color of pink. Even when children are born, they are wrapped in a blanket of blue or pink.
This brings me to another point - if it is all a stereotype (nothing different about color choice to boys), then girls don't care about what colors their toys are in. From day 1, they have no preference of colors. I'm not saying that women retain their past preferences into the future, but there is always an aspect of comfort.
If it's not inherited, then it's influenced. Advertisers, magazines, books, toys; pretty much everything a little girl owns influences her. I actually think, despite the "mind differences: to men, women have as much potential of finding activities satisfying, even violence.
To bring this back round, in case you are thinking this is going off topic, my point is that trying to make female themed attributes for NS2 is useless. If you put them in, you are only submitting to the current materialized fashions of society. Move on, change.
If it still makes you uncomfortable, I can remove that question from my post. I still think it's a legitimate question though.
Possibly a long post in the making, so I apologize. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> This is a subject relevant to my work, and I find it really interesting (and personally involving, as an NS fan).
As far as developing the social dynamic, I think NS already encourages it much more strongly than other games. Because it requires teamwork and communication, players are more likely to chat (both text and voice), and part of that inevitable game-relevant chatter is general socializing. It also means that players will find other players they get along with (and can depend upon in-game to play as a team) and will orbit the same servers, or start a social clan, or whatever. The learning curve also serves to weed out players that just can't hack it in the social teamwork atmosphere - I've heard many people say that NS tends to have a generally more mature playerbase and I'm inclined to agree. It also means less guys jumping all over the girls who are open about their gender; get a girl to join a CS server and see what happens.
Do you really want to market NS to the female gaming population? If so, which specific demographic? The social ones that would rather play slow games they can chat between? The very, very small pool of FPS gamers? The older, the younger? How will you appeal to them? In the end, I would venture that it's really not worth the bother - unless you intend to spend a significant amount of resources, not to mention inflict changes that could possibly alienate (har har) your main source of revenue, which is males - and hope that you manage to attract enough female gamers that it was worth the costs, or that you keep your original revenue source. Then there's the fact that once you've got those female players playing, the social dynamic in-game will change; there's no way around this.
My train of thought (which derails easily, so forgive me) may be this: background of game weeds out more immature (probably younger) players and encourages socializing; player audience is in general teens or older; females are drawn to game for various reasons, particularly socializing; socializing occurs; because of the age levels and socializing aspect, girls throw off the overall male group in various ways, and because it's a gender thing, crushes/romantic attachments/whatever gender-based chicanery occurs - and with that you really change the community within your game and how the players percieve it, due to their treatment within the game. This is assuming you had a large influx of females to your game. And I'm not saying this WOULD happen, it's just a possible train of thought.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->'long' periods of time in front of pc + steep learning curves + aliens + unfamiliar concepts + already very self-conscious girls = very, very, very limited female audience.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We already spend long periods of time at the pc (and that number is growing), learning curves aren't really an issue - so long as you can get the girl interested, and a lot of us are sci-fi fans. Aliens, maybe not so much. And I don't think the latter counts - if anything, I would think more self-conscious girls would jump into online gaming, since they'd probably get fawned over by the server populace (no offense to you guys <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />), while those of us that aren't selfconscious wouldn't really see the point in that kind of interaction.
I think it's more that most of us just aren't wired to be "into" gaming. Maybe it's just me, but the girls I've known that are gamers tended to be pretty into it; I think they just have to be attracted to gaming in general (in this case, FPS games) somehow, and given a positive experience, they'll stay. Maybe most girls don't get a good intro, or just don't find that kind of visceral experience (as opposed to, say, an MMORPG) appealing. I wasn't into FPS for a long time either, until I started playing CS online (and thus experienced the 'social' aspect of FPS gaming).
... too much rambling and not enough sense made. Hopefully someone actually got something out of that...
We'd like to have a female marine in NS2. This may or may not happen depending on our resources, but if we do include a female marine she definitely won't be wearing an armor bikini or any of the other misogynistic nonsense you typically see in video games. We don't want to include the female model just to appeal to women though (although I'm sure a lot of people include gender as a way of identifying with their avatar). Part of it is just giving the players additional options and making the NS universe a little more progressive.
In terms of growing the female NS player base, that's certainly something we'd like to see happen. However in my opinion this is the same problem as opening up gaming to the population that traditionally are non-gamers, including seniors, fathers, etc. as well as women. The solution isn't to make the aliens look like My Little Ponies or make it so that you can play dress up with the marines, but rather to eliminate the obstacles that make it hard for people to pick up a video game and have fun with it. These obstacles are things like the game not being fun with in the first few minutes, requiring a large time investment, providing poor feedback to the player and relying on video game conventions that many people may not understand.
The mission statement for Unknown Worlds is to unite the world through play, and for us, Natural Selection 2 is less about aliens and humans than it is about the social experience of working together as a team and brining people together.
If you add a female marine.. Can you add a female Onos too? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tiny.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::onos::" border="0" alt="tiny.gif" />
<!--fonto:Times New Roman--><span style="font-family:Times New Roman"><!--/fonto-->EDIT: This post is soo long I had to split it in two to make the quotes work. 10 quotes per post seems to be a limit<!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc-->
<!--quoteo(post=1627871:date=May 19 2007, 07:16 PM:name=Freewave)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Freewave @ May 19 2007, 07:16 PM) [snapback]1627871[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You misinterpreted that last part. That's a genuine question - no stereotype. Just turn the TV on when kid shows are on. It's blatantly clear that the majority of child female aimed advertisements are themed in the color of pink. Even when children are born, they are wrapped in a blanket of blue or pink.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ah so we are talking about SCR again. Sorry, now that you explain what you were meaning it's fine. I wouldn't call it useless though. The majority of all the women I've talked to have been for it. In the end if you are just a cynical capitalist, we are talking about sales dollars and anything that boosts that is good for UWE.
<!--quoteo(post=1627874:date=May 19 2007, 07:41 PM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 07:41 PM) [snapback]1627874[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As far as developing the social dynamic, I think NS already encourages it much more strongly than other games. Because it requires teamwork and communication, players are more likely to chat (both text and voice), and part of that inevitable game-relevant chatter is general socializing. It also means that players will find other players they get along with (and can depend upon in-game to play as a team) and will orbit the same servers, or start a social clan, or whatever.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
QFT. Teamwork mostly I think. You have your hardcore fragger-ladies out their two but I think a lot of people (guys and gals) would like more RTS elements. I personally LOVE building bases, I used to be the engineer the majority of the time in TFC before I was introduced to NS.
<!--quoteo(post=1627874:date=May 19 2007, 07:41 PM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 07:41 PM) [snapback]1627874[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The learning curve also serves to weed out players that just can't hack it in the social teamwork atmosphere - I've heard many people say that NS tends to have a generally more mature playerbase and I'm inclined to agree. It also means less guys jumping all over the girls who are open about their gender; get a girl to join a CS server and see what happens. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I disagree. The learning curve will never improve the quality of the people. As we all know, a uber-skilled aimbotting-like player does not mean they are also good at following orders, working as a squad and teammate, or even a good person. In fact, I'd say some of the people only interested in their score and blaming their team for sucking are one of the WORST kinds of players. The learning curve isn't a bad thing per se, in fact it make the game reach higher levels of acheivement and depth, and enjoyment from mastery of it. But again, as a cynical capitalist, it prevents a lot of new player growth and for women the initial complexity combine with not as much interest in a FPS means they may not give it an open-minded try to learning the game.
Remember when you first started playing NS? I do. I think it was the OLD ns_caged. I was so lost. I was like, "What the hell is going on?! There's so many sprites on the screen and I'm walking on the walls and I have teeth! Hey I'm going to follow that'd critter he's on my team. Wait where'd he go? Ah I see, the vent. Gunfire? Oh noes! *dead*" "Omg x5 is a n00b, kick him" Very few players have a good experience, somebody to take their hand and teach them, and the patience to learn. Does that mean we remove the complexity that makes NS unique? HELL NO!!! In fact we need more depth and complexity with RTS aspects. But, we need community support and a good way to train people. That's usually a function of a single-player mode. It get's the basics learned. Then a good guide system to train a bit more, then some marine or alien bot trainer servers, and finally some nice people in the pubs who'd explain the more important tactical details. Such a system does not exist, or at least not well. And the NS community is down right HOSTILE to newbies. Heck even tonight there was a guy named "Threshold" who immediately starting going "omg the commander sucks, he's a noob, eject", this ticked me off a bit so I ranted on him and when we won the game rubbed it in a bit. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> ...anyways, my point is that NS players are generally intolerant of newbies or any kind of (how they subjectively view it) "incompetence" in the game. This hurts the game and the community. If we are going to get the female market in a larger percentage of total population diversity we have to accept that those issues also factor in and will need addressing.
<!--quoteo(post=1627874:date=May 19 2007, 07:41 PM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 07:41 PM) [snapback]1627874[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Do you really want to market NS to the female gaming population?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Absolutely.
<!--quoteo(post=1627874:date=May 19 2007, 07:41 PM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 07:41 PM) [snapback]1627874[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->...not to mention inflict changes that could possibly alienate (har har) your main source of revenue, which is males - and hope that you manage to attract enough female gamers that it was worth the costs, or that you keep your original revenue source.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Whoa whoa, I'm NOT in favor of turning NS2 into Viva Pinata or something crazy. No no no! I'm talking about things that don't scream "we only acknowledge our young, white, male, FPS fragger audience" and more importantly, thing which will appeal to ALL potential gamers. Or even get people to try something new because they heard it was cool.
<!--quoteo(post=1627874:date=May 19 2007, 07:41 PM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 07:41 PM) [snapback]1627874[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Then there's the fact that once you've got those female players playing, the social dynamic in-game will change; there's no way around this.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Of course it will indeed, correct Athena. You make that sound like a negative. I think the diveristy could only be a positive unless you are a sexist jerk. ^_^ Just look at how much the NS community has changed since the Halloween 2002 release; ask some of the "old timers" here on the forums. They can surely tell you. In fact, there's been hostility towards Combat as people pointed out that it'd pull some of that CS crowd you mentioned. The cool thing about having more women in the game is that it changes the behavior of the guys. A few act out even more but are quickly shot down by peers or banned by admins, (and as such servers like <BAD> where there are good admins like Ronald_McFondle and PAIN to slaughter such ill behavior out of the server have a high female presence, almost 40% at times which is more than 40 times higher than the NS average according to Flayra's poll) but in general, most guys act more mature and try to befriend her: covering her, following in her squad, welding her when she asks, etc. Is this bad? No from a gameplay aspect, better teamplay helps the team. No from a social aspect, some of the women admittedly like the social attention, the guys like giving attention, and for those that don't care or don't want the attention sharing are generally left alone. If you want to be ignored in a game it's boring but not that hard. You can argue the social aspect all day since it's quite situation dependent, but a server with a good admin and <i>just</i> admins presence always keeps things pleasant and fun for all. (that's he job of a server admin by the way, keep the server fun)
Ack, now you got me rambling. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
<!--fonto:Times New Roman--><span style="font-family:Times New Roman"><!--/fonto-->EDIT: Continued below...<!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc-->
<!--fonto:Times New Roman--><span style="font-family:Times New Roman"><!--/fonto-->...Continued.<!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc-->
<!--quoteo(post=1627874:date=May 19 2007, 07:41 PM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 07:41 PM) [snapback]1627874[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think it's more that most of us just aren't wired to be "into" gaming. Maybe it's just me, but the girls I've known that are gamers tended to be pretty into it; I think they just have to be attracted to gaming in general (in this case, FPS games) somehow, and given a positive experience, they'll stay. Maybe most girls don't get a good intro, or just don't find that kind of visceral experience (as opposed to, say, an MMORPG) appealing. I wasn't into FPS for a long time either, until I started playing CS online (and thus experienced the 'social' aspect of FPS gaming).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> It is just you in some respects, but there is a fast growing population of female gamers in the gaming market. It would be STUPID to ignore that no matter what your stance is. Why is this? Lots of speculation. My personal opinion is that guys are introducing girls to it. Peer advertisement in a sense, the most effective form of advertisement in fact. (ie: Ever asked your peers and friends of advice on an activity, sevice, or product before committing to it? More important than some TV ad? I thought so...) Now that's just my opinion, but I can list a large number of ladies at where I work who got into WoW because they had a boyfriend/husband who played it and introduced them to it.
<!--quoteo(post=1627874:date=May 19 2007, 07:41 PM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 07:41 PM) [snapback]1627874[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->too much rambling and not enough sense made. Hopefully someone actually got something out of that...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> It made perfect sense and I did get something out of it. Thank you.
<!--quoteo(post=1627896:date=May 19 2007, 10:10 PM:name=Max)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Max @ May 19 2007, 10:10 PM) [snapback]1627896[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->We'd like to have a female marine in NS2. This may or may not happen depending on our resources,<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> You can always have some fantastic volunteers. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1627896:date=May 19 2007, 10:10 PM:name=Max)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Max @ May 19 2007, 10:10 PM) [snapback]1627896[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->but if we do include a female marine she definitely won't be wearing an armor bikini or any of the other misogynistic nonsense you typically see in video games.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Good.
<!--quoteo(post=1627896:date=May 19 2007, 10:10 PM:name=Max)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Max @ May 19 2007, 10:10 PM) [snapback]1627896[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->We don't want to include the female model just to appeal to women though (although I'm sure a lot of people include gender as a way of identifying with their avatar). Part of it is just giving the players additional options and making the NS universe a little more progressive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> So you agree with one of my two main points then, awesome. That just made my day.
<!--quoteo(post=1627896:date=May 19 2007, 10:10 PM:name=Max)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Max @ May 19 2007, 10:10 PM) [snapback]1627896[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In terms of growing the female NS player base<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->The second main point... <!--quoteo(post=1627896:date=May 19 2007, 10:10 PM:name=Max)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Max @ May 19 2007, 10:10 PM) [snapback]1627896[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->that's certainly something we'd like to see happen. However in my opinion this is the same problem as opening up gaming to the population that traditionally are non-gamers, including seniors, fathers, etc. as well as women. The solution isn't to make the aliens look like My Little Ponies or make it so that you can play dress up with the marines, but rather to eliminate the obstacles that make it hard for people to pick up a video game and have fun with it. These obstacles are things like the game not being fun with in the first few minutes, requiring a large time investment, providing poor feedback to the player and relying on video game conventions that many people may not understand.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes of course, though, Max, I'd hate to have the game go in the direction away from the creative, higher entropy design of a RTS. And I think I can speak of a large portion of your NS community base when I say that shorter games are not favored. I'm sure you've seen the nostalgia of the 1.04 "epic battles", long battles with powershifting are fun. Now that is opinion, but as I indicated, I'm NOT alone on that point.
<!--quoteo(post=1627896:date=May 19 2007, 10:10 PM:name=Max)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Max @ May 19 2007, 10:10 PM) [snapback]1627896[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The mission statement for Unknown Worlds is to unite the world through play, and for us, Natural Selection 2 is less about aliens and humans than it is about the social experience of working together as a team and brining people together.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Quoted for rememberance. To the community involved in the NS2 I&S: let's remember that. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1627898:date=May 19 2007, 10:15 PM:name=pinkfairie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(pinkfairie @ May 19 2007, 10:15 PM) [snapback]1627898[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you add a female marine.. Can you add a female Onos too? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tiny.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::onos::" border="0" alt="tiny.gif" /> <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->-_- Come on, don't troll my topic. Again: <!--QuoteBegin-x5+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(x5)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->On aliens yes, on marines no.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->that and: #1 Stay on topic #3 Try to avoid stereotyping
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm talking about things that don't scream "we only acknowledge our young, white, male, FPS fragger audience" and more importantly, thing which will appeal to ALL potential gamers. Or even get people to try something new because they heard it was cool.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Er, you're right - sorry, I was just going on a more extremist angle, I guess, since I thought that was an angle that needed exploring.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->most guys act more mature and try to befriend her: covering her, following in her squad, welding her when she asks, etc. Is this bad?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It can be - maybe she's not the greatest player and you don't want player-resources (ie, the dude carrying the welder) chasing her around instead of welding the heavy gunning down the hive. I've also seen servers where they get so busy chatting it up that people get fragged (classic example, joining a server and seeing all the guys get shot up while they try to ask the gal for her Myspace... just socializing but maybe not kickworthy). You're right though, admins enforcing general civil behavior on servers *really* makes it more welcoming, part of that whole orbiting the same servers thing, which I certainly did; and once I was a regular on some servers, everyone knew me and my gender wasn't such a big deal anymore, I was just one of the regs.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It is just you in some respects, but there is a fast growing population of female gamers in the gaming market. It would be STUPID to ignore that no matter what your stance is.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Indeed it would be stupid to ignore - I'm a game developer (specifically design - I also have a hand in PR) so this is something I keep in mind not only as a so-called "gamer girl" in the scnee, but from a marketing standpoint. I was speaking from my personal experience, but now that I think about it, the vast majority of my friends are male, so it's a biased standpoint. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
[quote]but rather to eliminate the obstacles that make it hard for people to pick up a video game and have fun with it. [/quote
I think he hit it on the head - it's not about growing the female player base, it's about the general base, of which women will be a part of.
schkorpioI can mspaintJoin Date: 2003-05-23Member: 16635Members
<!--quoteo(post=1627785:date=May 20 2007, 02:51 AM:name=Faskalia)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Faskalia @ May 20 2007, 02:51 AM) [snapback]1627785[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> I am not free of spelling errors myself, but something about nex' post makes my giggle like a little girl <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
yes - most people don't have a lisp when they type <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
As for helping people to get into the game increasing female players and whatnot, well yeah... but again it's a gender neutral situation; if you make a game more friendly to new players then you get new players, not specifically male or female ones.
I couldn't help notice the suggestion of a 'single player tutorial' to help people ease into the game. I kinda have mixed feelings about that one. While a single player can help you learn the basics in a comfortable, safe environment its lessons are often quickly forgotten once you're dunked in the social game; I played Phantasy Star Online solo for a while before going online and while I was exceptionally conditioned in playing the game I felt lost, awed and bedazzled when I went online... it was like I had to relearn the game again :o
You should also take into account that often single player aspects of games can teach bad habits that aren't conductive in the social game (see WoW aggro control fun in a group for a classic example :p ).
Perhaps a better idea for 'training' would be Coop Scenarios? These would be simple objective based missions where a team of players has to take on a map populated with scripted and AI stuff to fufil their goals in the NS universe. If done correctly, these would be ideal for training people up not only in play mechanics but also in teamwork :D
I would but I tend not to bother with I&S. After my time spent there in the old NS days trying to keep people calm and playing peacekeeper I don't really have the heart to go back there even if it has maybe changed for NS2 :/
Feel free to post it in my stead though... oh and for ignoring my first post in this thread you get a big fat nyeah from me :p
As for the community part of NS, just convince me to play again and people can always find a friendly smile, patience and help on whatever server I end up on. Ahhh... If only you could clone me :3
<b>edit:</b> darn you X! You made me look in the I&S forums @.@
I see there could be an in-game experience issue with the male players being jerks, that is out of development control but we should talk about that in this thread too.
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I agree there are alot of jerks, but worse than them are the sycophant 'overly-friendly' males that kick into action as soon as anything female enters a server. Straight away these guys are like "hi", "how are you", "teeheehee =)", constantly giving and thus attracting attention upon to the token female. Then the jerks notice her. Then the sycophant starts getting all riled up 'defending' her. God how many times have I seen this situation.
Making a female model to attract females to the game is like making pink snooker tables to get more women to play snooker, it isn't going to happen.
X5: apologies about the "alternative agenda" comment, it wasn't meant as an insult, and it certainly wasn't meant as a counter argument <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
I like the idea of more diverse player models, I like the idea of choosing your favorite. The one thing I don't agree on is that this is an element required to sell the game to the female audience, I don't think it has anything to do with catering to specific gaming demographics, it's just a nice feature that lots of people will appreciate, not just females.
In my opinion NS isn't anti female. Our low female audience is mostly a result of a very small female audience in game modding to begin with.
You have to understand that to most people modding is a weird idea... you're saying I can buy one game and other people have made other games for free that run off of it? All us techy nerds heard that, we instantly said "frigging cool!" and did everything we could to find these things, it's beyond the mindset of most people though, and being that gaming on any more then a casual level is generally an unpopular hobby amounts the female demographic, for no reason other then that sociaty sort of arbitrarily drifted that way, these weird free games that use engines of commercial games you have to buy first, and then go and download the game, are in a realm just out side of the female mass demographic. It's not a fault of NS.
Seriously, go try to find females in the fan populations of linux in development titles, or female linux contributors. There are some out there, sure, but the male dominance of those fields is even greater then the male dominance of game modding. It's not really that modding is a complicated subject, but understanding the structure of gaming as a whole well enough to understand the underlying structure of modding is something beyond most people who just kind of want to play games for fun. Our market in NS is primarily semi serious, technical minded, gamers. People who see not only gaming as a hobby, but the business of gaming as something they are actively involved in, even if it's just that they understand their role as a consumer. The female population of that group is low, not nonexistent, but still, low.
If NS2 does a better job of attracting a female population then NS did, it won't be because of adding dress up features or decreasing violence, or even adding teamwork and creativity. It will mostly be because it's being sold commercially, and therefore reaching a less gaming literate market.
<!--quoteo(post=1629551:date=May 27 2007, 09:12 PM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swiftspear @ May 27 2007, 09:12 PM) [snapback]1629551[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I like the idea of more diverse player models, I like the idea of choosing your favorite. The one thing I don't agree on is that this is an element required to sell the game to the female audience, I don't think it has anything to do with catering to specific gaming demographics, it's just a nice feature that lots of people will appreciate, not just females.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ah that's cool Swiftspear ol' friend. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" /> I can understand what you mean though, and I'm glad you liked my idea even I can see how an impact of that would be unlikey and rather insignifigant in actually making the female audience want to play the game. I didn't want to say it was insignifigant though because most of us here are guys and personally I don't think we have a whole lot of say in the interests of women. (Speaking off topic, it's the same reason I get irritated when male politicans try to <i>tell</i> women what their rights are. Grr! It makes me want to stangle the daylights out them and shout, "You are not a women! Shut up!") Anyways, if you've ever been roleplaying. You don't refer to a male character as "she", this goes back to what I think a lot of gamer girls want which is be treated as equals, for the topic to be on the game rather than her. (although admittedly some like the attention when it's positive)
<!--quoteo(post=1629551:date=May 27 2007, 09:12 PM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swiftspear @ May 27 2007, 09:12 PM) [snapback]1629551[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You have to understand that to most people modding is a weird idea... you're saying I can buy one game and other people have made other games for free that run off of it? All us techy nerds heard that, we instantly said "frigging cool!" and did everything we could to find these things, it's beyond the mindset of most people though, and being that gaming on any more then a casual level is generally an unpopular hobby amounts the female demographic, for no reason other then that sociaty sort of arbitrarily drifted that way, these weird free games that use engines of commercial games you have to buy first, and then go and download the game, are in a realm just out side of the female mass demographic. It's not a fault of NS.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good point Swiftspear. However, the female population IS growing at a rapid pace. My theory is that it has something to do with the decaying of the SCR stereoptype that computers and computer games are just for guys. Regardless, I guess I was trying to be capitalistic and see what we could do to gain favor in that market segment. Again, good point. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1629551:date=May 27 2007, 09:12 PM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swiftspear @ May 27 2007, 09:12 PM) [snapback]1629551[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If NS2 does a better job of attracting a female population then NS did, it won't be because of adding dress up features or decreasing violence, or even adding teamwork and creativity. It will mostly be because it's being sold commercially, and therefore reaching a less gaming literate market. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Commercialization will improve the diversity perhaps just out of increased quanity (probably not affecting ratios) and awareness of the product (possibly affecting the ratios but not necessarily), but I'm wondering if we should try adding hints into our marketing that encourage the female audience to give the game a try...
Everything developed has a net effect, whether signifigant or not, on the resulting community. NS has a great community (even if I've been disturbed by it's shrunken size from what it was before the site was hacked), but it is affected by everything that goes on. Heck, just point to the addition of the Combat mode and the strong resentment you can find on these forums as to the effect on the community. (personally I don't blame Combat for anything like I used to, and I hate giving it as an example lest we get off-toic, but it was the strongest example to come to mind I could give of having game development even having an effect on community) With that said, I think the marketing, community's level of egalitarianism, and how much fun and socially oriented the game is will have the biggest influences on attracting (and retaining) a female market.
I have raised awareness and promoted a good discussion with this thread, and even got developer feedback. I think I've had good success with the purpose/goals of this thread and am very please to have had you all give your feedback. Thank you NS community! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1629577:date=May 28 2007, 12:49 AM:name=WorthyRival)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(WorthyRival @ May 28 2007, 12:49 AM) [snapback]1629577[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's the future due to genetic / cloning technology women have become exstinct. Problem solved <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> lol!
First, this is off-topic; and second, men would have a hard time growing babies. In fact, I remember there is a SciFi film where there are no men and only women on Earth. Can't remember the name of the film...
funny you should mention that... I read an article not too long ago detailing how the male chromosome was slowly breaking down; it's not even half what it used to be and at it's current rate of unravelling it will eventually wither away to nothing.
That's not to say males are doomed to extinction though or that they're less 'male' than they used to be (though they're perhaps scientifically less 'male' in the sense of what we understand the origin of male to be); there's a few species of animals on the planet that have males without the chromosome, instead developing from different genetical traits and this could very well be the way humanity is headed :o
<!--quoteo(post=1626703:date=May 14 2007, 03:01 PM:name=Depot)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Depot @ May 14 2007, 03:01 PM) [snapback]1626703[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> If you want to know what would make Natural Selection more appealing to women, then ASK THE WOMEN ffs. Unless you think you're an expert on them, which I seriously doubt. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm with Depot. Men can't decide how to make NS more appealing for Women. While Female avatars would might help, its definitely not gonna be a cure-all answer.
Also you should refine the female audience your talking about in your question. Do you want females new to FPS gaming? Or do you want females from other games games like CS, Quake, etc? Stealing them from other games would probably just be a marketing thing more then a gameplay thing.
x5: I don't have tonnes of marketing experience... and my psychology experience isn't massive either... but from what I do understand, the difference between male and female psychology from a marketing perspective is pretty much just a matter of weather or not your market can see them selfs playing the game. There is virtually no way you can market something like a video game so that females will see them selfs as unable to participate in that protect, or use that product. You say "commercializing will increase exposure, but most likely it won't increase the ratios"... Well, what are the most commercialized multiplayer video games to date right now? In my opinion they would be Halo2, Sims, CS, and WoW. All of which have massive female populations. In my mind I see a clear trend in commercial games attracting a higher ratio of female players. Like you say, it's now becoming ok for girls to game, and because of that it's slowly but surely becoming cool for girls to be gaming savy the way males have for many years already. But we're still only halfway there right now, and most girl gamers are still casual gamers (they buy games that the industry tells them are good). Over time, assuming the maintained popularity of video gaming, most likely these trends will even out more. But it's not something you can fight with content level changes at this point in time IMHO.
<!--quoteo(post=1629962:date=May 30 2007, 03:12 AM:name=Swiftspear or somebdy else?)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swiftspear or somebdy else? @ May 30 2007, 03:12 AM) [snapback]1629962[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->x5: I don't have tonnes of marketing experience... and my psychology experience isn't massive either... but from what I do understand, the difference between male and female psychology from a marketing perspective is pretty much just a matter of weather or not your market can see them selfs playing the game. There is virtually no way you can market something like a video game so that females will see them selfs as unable to participate in that protect, or use that product. You say "commercializing will increase exposure, but most likely it won't increase the ratios"... Well, what are the most commercialized multiplayer video games to date right now? In my opinion they would be Halo2, Sims, CS, and WoW. All of which have massive female populations. In my mind I see a clear trend in commercial games attracting a higher ratio of female players. Like you say, it's now becoming ok for girls to game, and because of that it's slowly but surely becoming cool for girls to be gaming savy the way males have for many years already. But we're still only halfway there right now, and most girl gamers are still casual gamers (they buy games that the industry tells them are good). Over time, assuming the maintained popularity of video gaming, most likely these trends will even out more. But it's not something you can fight with content level changes at this point in time IMHO. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
InsaneAnomalyJoin Date: 2002-05-13Member: 605Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
<!--quoteo(post=1630360:date=May 31 2007, 09:40 PM:name=J_D_W)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(J_D_W @ May 31 2007, 09:40 PM) [snapback]1630360[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Just make a fat butch lesbian, then the men wont be attracted to it and the women won't care anyway because they aren't playing it. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's a commonly known fact that there is no female appearance other than "stripper" and "butch".
Maybe if you guys would stop hitting on every girl you see in the game. It is funny, but it's kinda lame. Plus they're like 5 years old. Maybe put an ad on MySpace, which is probably the most popular website around.
Can't say I think that much needs to be changed. Variation in character models would be nice (male/female) but it's not a requirement. Yeah, you do like playing as your own sex, but until there are mirrors in NS2 we can make believe. It's the gameplay that will grab and hold people first, not the "Ooo, pretty colors!" because honestly, Natural-Selection doesn't appeal to 'that kind' of audience (male or female).
Female models would mke no difference to me. I preferred playing alien anyway. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wow.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":0" border="0" alt="wow.gif" />!
Comments
Nonsense.
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Well, <i>that</i> was laughably reductivist.
exsackly
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I am not free of spelling errors myself, but something about nex' post makes my giggle like a little girl <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
Most people are stepping in saying that it's pointless trying to appeal to females with NS because of tastes. They are probably right. NS cannot be won without violence. ALOT of posts here are assuming everyone is obsessed with raking in females. I suppose people are just trying to be right. And so am I for saying that. I'm a hypocrite.
It depends whether you want a more popular game. That's what some people want for NS. You can try luring the female fan base - you might succeed, but ultimately, it's still just NS. It will still be just as fun. But that's assuming you don't change anything game play wise. It seems that this thread's goal is to just change NS cosmetically.
I don't know - I can't put my finger on it. There just seems something neutral about this topic. Like it's pointless, but not because you can't get the female fan base over. The only thing you are doing is getting more players.
I would love to see females coming in. Sarisel mentioned that it was some ideology that males in NS have: that they will develop relationships with the opposite sex. We all have instincts to make us feel this way (now I feel reductionist).
Wow, I actually have just realized I've regurgitated a lot from this thread in this post. Urgh. Anyway...
I've spent many, many hours trying to devise game designs documents for multiplayer mods on Half-life 2 without violence. It's not just that violence adds a instinctual satisfaction - it actually adds very clever dynamics to a game. You get to "disable" the opposing player's ability to effect the game. Presumably, this means you can complete your own objective (or killing off the opposing team IS the objective). You also get a competitive factor (naturally). Which means people will keep coming back to win. Violence is such a versatile feature in games, it's depressing. Now, what I've just said seems really blatent and obvious... and... you're right... urgh.
Nevermind.
****...
Just as a side question: why do girls like pink and boys like blue?
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On aliens yes, on marines <!--coloro:#CC0000--><span style="color:#CC0000"><!--/coloro-->no<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->.
Again I keep asking why not have customizable models and on marines allow for people to choose a male or female model, but I never get anything more than jeuvenille twisting of my topic into "I bet x5 has hidden motivations haha" Screw that, I have better things than to waste my time making a thread like that. If you know me at all you'd know that I'm quite litteral and business-like level of seriousness for 99% of the time I post on these forums. Sure I can act casually on these boards too at times, but the fact that the majority of my posts in these forum are in I&S or now the two new NS2 forums should be clear enough that I have interest in the game itself doing well. I want to learn from where it's been, fix what's currently wrong with it, and work on helping the future be creative and something enjoyable for all. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
NS2 is a professionally developed game which is going to be sold for money. Now I'm telling you my purpose in this thread is to make NS2 more marketable to the female gaming community. Stop talking BS Sarsiel and others about what my intent was. Capice? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":angry:" border="0" alt="mad-fix.gif" />
If you'd actually read my first post, you also see that I had suggested customizable models as a possible idea which had no definite contra's to it. This thread would be a bit hollow if I didn't at least attempt a suggestion for my own thread. And furthermore adding an image which symbolizes a point in the thread a a very effective way of grabbing reader's attention, a type of advertising a thread almost, and making your audience want to read through the idea rather than just taking a two-second skimming over of the presentation. Too many I&S ideas are a bunch or poorly written scattered textual information that you have to be good at reading through. No offense, but most people here don't take as much time as I do (because I'm highly interested in the future of NS) to read through the topic on this forum
<!--quoteo(post=1627712:date=May 19 2007, 04:49 AM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 04:49 AM) [snapback]1627712[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->While I'm pretty ungirly as far as hobbies and interests, I don't think having a 'female' gender option in games is really something we want (as a group) - customization would be cool but gender is irrelevant. In fact, I think I would prefer <i>not</i> to have the option even available; it's just one more thing I don't care about that doesn't add to the experience.
I played NS for various reasons, part of which was the social factor (and why I always orbited the same cluster of servers), and I like making friends online - and part of friendship is knowing who the person is, which includes gender; it's just part of the social dynamic. My female roommate took up NS because she liked the teamwork (all she did was gorge), but wasn't social in the game - and had absolutely no interest in having her gender known.
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I thank you for replying. We need more women replying to this thread and less speculation by guys. I'd argue given that several of the other women who play NS that I've talked to were like "sure I'd like custom models" that is isn't "irrelvant" or not interesting to some. It depends on the individual it would seem -- just like it does with guys who play NS.
I've heard the social factor come up several time in this thread. Perhaps we should focus on that more? Any ideas anyone? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1627737:date=May 19 2007, 07:37 AM:name=cortex)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(cortex @ May 19 2007, 07:37 AM) [snapback]1627737[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->'long' periods of time in front of pc + steep learning curves + aliens + unfamiliar concepts + already very self-conscious girls = very, very, very limited female audience. off the top of my head, there really is no reasonable way to change ns in order for it to appeal to a large female demographic...
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Not all women who play NS are that extremely self-concious and I think if anything aliens would be part of the appeal of NS to a female audience.
PS: before the forum trolls decide to visit let me remind you all:
1. to stay on topic
2. to discuss NS2 in the same level of respect demanded in a business environment
3. to avoid making stereotyping assumptions, even if in jest
<!--QuoteBegin-Freewave+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Freewave)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Just as a side question: why do girls like pink and boys like blue?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Read #3 above, Freewave, then remove please.
I know more women that prefer blue than pink actually. (mostly because several of them are UK fans) But to be fair there techinally supposed to be a difference between a boy or a girl versus a man or a woman -- one word implies more maturity and wisdom than the other.
This brings me to another point - if it is all a stereotype (nothing different about color choice to boys), then girls don't care about what colors their toys are in. From day 1, they have no preference of colors. I'm not saying that women retain their past preferences into the future, but there is always an aspect of comfort.
If it's not inherited, then it's influenced. Advertisers, magazines, books, toys; pretty much everything a little girl owns influences her. I actually think, despite the "mind differences: to men, women have as much potential of finding activities satisfying, even violence.
To bring this back round, in case you are thinking this is going off topic, my point is that trying to make female themed attributes for NS2 is useless. If you put them in, you are only submitting to the current materialized fashions of society. Move on, change.
If it still makes you uncomfortable, I can remove that question from my post. I still think it's a legitimate question though.
As far as developing the social dynamic, I think NS already encourages it much more strongly than other games. Because it requires teamwork and communication, players are more likely to chat (both text and voice), and part of that inevitable game-relevant chatter is general socializing. It also means that players will find other players they get along with (and can depend upon in-game to play as a team) and will orbit the same servers, or start a social clan, or whatever. The learning curve also serves to weed out players that just can't hack it in the social teamwork atmosphere - I've heard many people say that NS tends to have a generally more mature playerbase and I'm inclined to agree. It also means less guys jumping all over the girls who are open about their gender; get a girl to join a CS server and see what happens.
Do you really want to market NS to the female gaming population? If so, which specific demographic? The social ones that would rather play slow games they can chat between? The very, very small pool of FPS gamers? The older, the younger? How will you appeal to them? In the end, I would venture that it's really not worth the bother - unless you intend to spend a significant amount of resources, not to mention inflict changes that could possibly alienate (har har) your main source of revenue, which is males - and hope that you manage to attract enough female gamers that it was worth the costs, or that you keep your original revenue source. Then there's the fact that once you've got those female players playing, the social dynamic in-game will change; there's no way around this.
My train of thought (which derails easily, so forgive me) may be this: background of game weeds out more immature (probably younger) players and encourages socializing; player audience is in general teens or older; females are drawn to game for various reasons, particularly socializing; socializing occurs; because of the age levels and socializing aspect, girls throw off the overall male group in various ways, and because it's a gender thing, crushes/romantic attachments/whatever gender-based chicanery occurs - and with that you really change the community within your game and how the players percieve it, due to their treatment within the game. This is assuming you had a large influx of females to your game. And I'm not saying this WOULD happen, it's just a possible train of thought.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->'long' periods of time in front of pc + steep learning curves + aliens + unfamiliar concepts + already very self-conscious girls = very, very, very limited female audience.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We already spend long periods of time at the pc (and that number is growing), learning curves aren't really an issue - so long as you can get the girl interested, and a lot of us are sci-fi fans. Aliens, maybe not so much. And I don't think the latter counts - if anything, I would think more self-conscious girls would jump into online gaming, since they'd probably get fawned over by the server populace (no offense to you guys <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />), while those of us that aren't selfconscious wouldn't really see the point in that kind of interaction.
I think it's more that most of us just aren't wired to be "into" gaming. Maybe it's just me, but the girls I've known that are gamers tended to be pretty into it; I think they just have to be attracted to gaming in general (in this case, FPS games) somehow, and given a positive experience, they'll stay. Maybe most girls don't get a good intro, or just don't find that kind of visceral experience (as opposed to, say, an MMORPG) appealing. I wasn't into FPS for a long time either, until I started playing CS online (and thus experienced the 'social' aspect of FPS gaming).
... too much rambling and not enough sense made. Hopefully someone actually got something out of that...
edit: and I don't like pink. OR blue.
We'd like to have a female marine in NS2. This may or may not happen depending on our resources, but if we do include a female marine she definitely won't be wearing an armor bikini or any of the other misogynistic nonsense you typically see in video games. We don't want to include the female model just to appeal to women though (although I'm sure a lot of people include gender as a way of identifying with their avatar). Part of it is just giving the players additional options and making the NS universe a little more progressive.
In terms of growing the female NS player base, that's certainly something we'd like to see happen. However in my opinion this is the same problem as opening up gaming to the population that traditionally are non-gamers, including seniors, fathers, etc. as well as women. The solution isn't to make the aliens look like My Little Ponies or make it so that you can play dress up with the marines, but rather to eliminate the obstacles that make it hard for people to pick up a video game and have fun with it. These obstacles are things like the game not being fun with in the first few minutes, requiring a large time investment, providing poor feedback to the player and relying on video game conventions that many people may not understand.
The mission statement for Unknown Worlds is to unite the world through play, and for us, Natural Selection 2 is less about aliens and humans than it is about the social experience of working together as a team and brining people together.
Max
Can you add a female Onos too? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tiny.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::onos::" border="0" alt="tiny.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1627871:date=May 19 2007, 07:16 PM:name=Freewave)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Freewave @ May 19 2007, 07:16 PM) [snapback]1627871[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You misinterpreted that last part. That's a genuine question - no stereotype. Just turn the TV on when kid shows are on. It's blatantly clear that the majority of child female aimed advertisements are themed in the color of pink. Even when children are born, they are wrapped in a blanket of blue or pink.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ah so we are talking about SCR again. Sorry, now that you explain what you were meaning it's fine. I wouldn't call it useless though. The majority of all the women I've talked to have been for it. In the end if you are just a cynical capitalist, we are talking about sales dollars and anything that boosts that is good for UWE.
<!--quoteo(post=1627874:date=May 19 2007, 07:41 PM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 07:41 PM) [snapback]1627874[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As far as developing the social dynamic, I think NS already encourages it much more strongly than other games. Because it requires teamwork and communication, players are more likely to chat (both text and voice), and part of that inevitable game-relevant chatter is general socializing. It also means that players will find other players they get along with (and can depend upon in-game to play as a team) and will orbit the same servers, or start a social clan, or whatever.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
QFT. Teamwork mostly I think. You have your hardcore fragger-ladies out their two but I think a lot of people (guys and gals) would like more RTS elements. I personally LOVE building bases, I used to be the engineer the majority of the time in TFC before I was introduced to NS.
<!--quoteo(post=1627874:date=May 19 2007, 07:41 PM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 07:41 PM) [snapback]1627874[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The learning curve also serves to weed out players that just can't hack it in the social teamwork atmosphere - I've heard many people say that NS tends to have a generally more mature playerbase and I'm inclined to agree. It also means less guys jumping all over the girls who are open about their gender; get a girl to join a CS server and see what happens. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I disagree. The learning curve will never improve the quality of the people. As we all know, a uber-skilled aimbotting-like player does not mean they are also good at following orders, working as a squad and teammate, or even a good person. In fact, I'd say some of the people only interested in their score and blaming their team for sucking are one of the WORST kinds of players. The learning curve isn't a bad thing per se, in fact it make the game reach higher levels of acheivement and depth, and enjoyment from mastery of it. But again, as a cynical capitalist, it prevents a lot of new player growth and for women the initial complexity combine with not as much interest in a FPS means they may not give it an open-minded try to learning the game.
Remember when you first started playing NS? I do. I think it was the OLD ns_caged. I was so lost. I was like, "What the hell is going on?! There's so many sprites on the screen and I'm walking on the walls and I have teeth! Hey I'm going to follow that'd critter he's on my team. Wait where'd he go? Ah I see, the vent. Gunfire? Oh noes! *dead*" "Omg x5 is a n00b, kick him" Very few players have a good experience, somebody to take their hand and teach them, and the patience to learn. Does that mean we remove the complexity that makes NS unique? HELL NO!!! In fact we need more depth and complexity with RTS aspects. But, we need community support and a good way to train people. That's usually a function of a single-player mode. It get's the basics learned. Then a good guide system to train a bit more, then some marine or alien bot trainer servers, and finally some nice people in the pubs who'd explain the more important tactical details. Such a system does not exist, or at least not well. And the NS community is down right HOSTILE to newbies. Heck even tonight there was a guy named "Threshold" who immediately starting going "omg the commander sucks, he's a noob, eject", this ticked me off a bit so I ranted on him and when we won the game rubbed it in a bit. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> ...anyways, my point is that NS players are generally intolerant of newbies or any kind of (how they subjectively view it) "incompetence" in the game. This hurts the game and the community. If we are going to get the female market in a larger percentage of total population diversity we have to accept that those issues also factor in and will need addressing.
<!--quoteo(post=1627874:date=May 19 2007, 07:41 PM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 07:41 PM) [snapback]1627874[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Do you really want to market NS to the female gaming population?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Absolutely.
<!--quoteo(post=1627874:date=May 19 2007, 07:41 PM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 07:41 PM) [snapback]1627874[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->...not to mention inflict changes that could possibly alienate (har har) your main source of revenue, which is males - and hope that you manage to attract enough female gamers that it was worth the costs, or that you keep your original revenue source.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Whoa whoa, I'm NOT in favor of turning NS2 into Viva Pinata or something crazy. No no no! I'm talking about things that don't scream "we only acknowledge our young, white, male, FPS fragger audience" and more importantly, thing which will appeal to ALL potential gamers. Or even get people to try something new because they heard it was cool.
<!--quoteo(post=1627874:date=May 19 2007, 07:41 PM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 07:41 PM) [snapback]1627874[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Then there's the fact that once you've got those female players playing, the social dynamic in-game will change; there's no way around this.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Of course it will indeed, correct Athena. You make that sound like a negative. I think the diveristy could only be a positive unless you are a sexist jerk. ^_^ Just look at how much the NS community has changed since the Halloween 2002 release; ask some of the "old timers" here on the forums. They can surely tell you. In fact, there's been hostility towards Combat as people pointed out that it'd pull some of that CS crowd you mentioned. The cool thing about having more women in the game is that it changes the behavior of the guys. A few act out even more but are quickly shot down by peers or banned by admins, (and as such servers like <BAD> where there are good admins like Ronald_McFondle and PAIN to slaughter such ill behavior out of the server have a high female presence, almost 40% at times which is more than 40 times higher than the NS average according to Flayra's poll) but in general, most guys act more mature and try to befriend her: covering her, following in her squad, welding her when she asks, etc. Is this bad? No from a gameplay aspect, better teamplay helps the team. No from a social aspect, some of the women admittedly like the social attention, the guys like giving attention, and for those that don't care or don't want the attention sharing are generally left alone. If you want to be ignored in a game it's boring but not that hard. You can argue the social aspect all day since it's quite situation dependent, but a server with a good admin and <i>just</i> admins presence always keeps things pleasant and fun for all. (that's he job of a server admin by the way, keep the server fun)
Ack, now you got me rambling. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
<!--fonto:Times New Roman--><span style="font-family:Times New Roman"><!--/fonto-->EDIT: Continued below...<!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc-->
<!--quoteo(post=1627874:date=May 19 2007, 07:41 PM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 07:41 PM) [snapback]1627874[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think it's more that most of us just aren't wired to be "into" gaming. Maybe it's just me, but the girls I've known that are gamers tended to be pretty into it; I think they just have to be attracted to gaming in general (in this case, FPS games) somehow, and given a positive experience, they'll stay. Maybe most girls don't get a good intro, or just don't find that kind of visceral experience (as opposed to, say, an MMORPG) appealing. I wasn't into FPS for a long time either, until I started playing CS online (and thus experienced the 'social' aspect of FPS gaming).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It is just you in some respects, but there is a fast growing population of female gamers in the gaming market. It would be STUPID to ignore that no matter what your stance is. Why is this? Lots of speculation. My personal opinion is that guys are introducing girls to it. Peer advertisement in a sense, the most effective form of advertisement in fact. (ie: Ever asked your peers and friends of advice on an activity, sevice, or product before committing to it? More important than some TV ad? I thought so...) Now that's just my opinion, but I can list a large number of ladies at where I work who got into WoW because they had a boyfriend/husband who played it and introduced them to it.
<!--quoteo(post=1627874:date=May 19 2007, 07:41 PM:name=Athena)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Athena @ May 19 2007, 07:41 PM) [snapback]1627874[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->too much rambling and not enough sense made. Hopefully someone actually got something out of that...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It made perfect sense and I did get something out of it. Thank you.
<!--quoteo(post=1627896:date=May 19 2007, 10:10 PM:name=Max)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Max @ May 19 2007, 10:10 PM) [snapback]1627896[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->We'd like to have a female marine in NS2. This may or may not happen depending on our resources,<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You can always have some fantastic volunteers. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1627896:date=May 19 2007, 10:10 PM:name=Max)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Max @ May 19 2007, 10:10 PM) [snapback]1627896[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->but if we do include a female marine she definitely won't be wearing an armor bikini or any of the other misogynistic nonsense you typically see in video games.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good.
<!--quoteo(post=1627896:date=May 19 2007, 10:10 PM:name=Max)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Max @ May 19 2007, 10:10 PM) [snapback]1627896[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->We don't want to include the female model just to appeal to women though (although I'm sure a lot of people include gender as a way of identifying with their avatar). Part of it is just giving the players additional options and making the NS universe a little more progressive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So you agree with one of my two main points then, awesome. That just made my day.
<!--quoteo(post=1627896:date=May 19 2007, 10:10 PM:name=Max)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Max @ May 19 2007, 10:10 PM) [snapback]1627896[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In terms of growing the female NS player base<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->The second main point... <!--quoteo(post=1627896:date=May 19 2007, 10:10 PM:name=Max)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Max @ May 19 2007, 10:10 PM) [snapback]1627896[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->that's certainly something we'd like to see happen. However in my opinion this is the same problem as opening up gaming to the population that traditionally are non-gamers, including seniors, fathers, etc. as well as women. The solution isn't to make the aliens look like My Little Ponies or make it so that you can play dress up with the marines, but rather to eliminate the obstacles that make it hard for people to pick up a video game and have fun with it. These obstacles are things like the game not being fun with in the first few minutes, requiring a large time investment, providing poor feedback to the player and relying on video game conventions that many people may not understand.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes of course, though, Max, I'd hate to have the game go in the direction away from the creative, higher entropy design of a RTS. And I think I can speak of a large portion of your NS community base when I say that shorter games are not favored. I'm sure you've seen the nostalgia of the 1.04 "epic battles", long battles with powershifting are fun. Now that is opinion, but as I indicated, I'm NOT alone on that point.
<!--quoteo(post=1627896:date=May 19 2007, 10:10 PM:name=Max)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Max @ May 19 2007, 10:10 PM) [snapback]1627896[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The mission statement for Unknown Worlds is to unite the world through play, and for us, Natural Selection 2 is less about aliens and humans than it is about the social experience of working together as a team and brining people together.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Quoted for rememberance. To the community involved in the NS2 I&S: let's remember that. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1627898:date=May 19 2007, 10:15 PM:name=pinkfairie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(pinkfairie @ May 19 2007, 10:15 PM) [snapback]1627898[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you add a female marine..
Can you add a female Onos too? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tiny.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::onos::" border="0" alt="tiny.gif" />
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->-_-
Come on, don't troll my topic. Again:
<!--QuoteBegin-x5+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(x5)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->On aliens yes, on marines no.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->that and:
#1 Stay on topic
#3 Try to avoid stereotyping
Er, you're right - sorry, I was just going on a more extremist angle, I guess, since I thought that was an angle that needed exploring.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->most guys act more mature and try to befriend her: covering her, following in her squad, welding her when she asks, etc. Is this bad?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It can be - maybe she's not the greatest player and you don't want player-resources (ie, the dude carrying the welder) chasing her around instead of welding the heavy gunning down the hive. I've also seen servers where they get so busy chatting it up that people get fragged (classic example, joining a server and seeing all the guys get shot up while they try to ask the gal for her Myspace... just socializing but maybe not kickworthy). You're right though, admins enforcing general civil behavior on servers *really* makes it more welcoming, part of that whole orbiting the same servers thing, which I certainly did; and once I was a regular on some servers, everyone knew me and my gender wasn't such a big deal anymore, I was just one of the regs.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It is just you in some respects, but there is a fast growing population of female gamers in the gaming market. It would be STUPID to ignore that no matter what your stance is.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Indeed it would be stupid to ignore - I'm a game developer (specifically design - I also have a hand in PR) so this is something I keep in mind not only as a so-called "gamer girl" in the scnee, but from a marketing standpoint. I was speaking from my personal experience, but now that I think about it, the vast majority of my friends are male, so it's a biased standpoint. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
[quote]but rather to eliminate the obstacles that make it hard for people to pick up a video game and have fun with it. [/quote
I think he hit it on the head - it's not about growing the female player base, it's about the general base, of which women will be a part of.
I am not free of spelling errors myself, but something about nex' post makes my giggle like a little girl <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
yes - most people don't have a lisp when they type <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
As for helping people to get into the game increasing female players and whatnot, well yeah... but again it's a gender neutral situation; if you make a game more friendly to new players then you get new players, not specifically male or female ones.
I couldn't help notice the suggestion of a 'single player tutorial' to help people ease into the game. I kinda have mixed feelings about that one.
While a single player can help you learn the basics in a comfortable, safe environment its lessons are often quickly forgotten once you're dunked in the social game; I played Phantasy Star Online solo for a while before going online and while I was exceptionally conditioned in playing the game I felt lost, awed and bedazzled when I went online... it was like I had to relearn the game again :o
You should also take into account that often single player aspects of games can teach bad habits that aren't conductive in the social game (see WoW aggro control fun in a group for a classic example :p ).
Perhaps a better idea for 'training' would be Coop Scenarios? These would be simple objective based missions where a team of players has to take on a map populated with scripted and AI stuff to fufil their goals in the NS universe. If done correctly, these would be ideal for training people up not only in play mechanics but also in teamwork :D
Feel free to post it in my stead though... oh and for ignoring my first post in this thread you get a big fat nyeah from me :p
As for the community part of NS, just convince me to play again and people can always find a friendly smile, patience and help on whatever server I end up on. Ahhh... If only you could clone me :3
<b>edit:</b> darn you X! You made me look in the I&S forums @.@
I see there could be an in-game experience issue with the male players being jerks, that is out of development control but we should talk about that in this thread too.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree there are alot of jerks, but worse than them are the sycophant 'overly-friendly' males that kick into action as soon as anything female enters a server. Straight away these guys are like "hi", "how are you", "teeheehee =)", constantly giving and thus attracting attention upon to the token female. Then the jerks notice her. Then the sycophant starts getting all riled up 'defending' her. God how many times have I seen this situation.
Making a female model to attract females to the game is like making pink snooker tables to get more women to play snooker, it isn't going to happen.
I like the idea of more diverse player models, I like the idea of choosing your favorite. The one thing I don't agree on is that this is an element required to sell the game to the female audience, I don't think it has anything to do with catering to specific gaming demographics, it's just a nice feature that lots of people will appreciate, not just females.
In my opinion NS isn't anti female. Our low female audience is mostly a result of a very small female audience in game modding to begin with.
You have to understand that to most people modding is a weird idea... you're saying I can buy one game and other people have made other games for free that run off of it? All us techy nerds heard that, we instantly said "frigging cool!" and did everything we could to find these things, it's beyond the mindset of most people though, and being that gaming on any more then a casual level is generally an unpopular hobby amounts the female demographic, for no reason other then that sociaty sort of arbitrarily drifted that way, these weird free games that use engines of commercial games you have to buy first, and then go and download the game, are in a realm just out side of the female mass demographic. It's not a fault of NS.
Seriously, go try to find females in the fan populations of linux in development titles, or female linux contributors. There are some out there, sure, but the male dominance of those fields is even greater then the male dominance of game modding. It's not really that modding is a complicated subject, but understanding the structure of gaming as a whole well enough to understand the underlying structure of modding is something beyond most people who just kind of want to play games for fun. Our market in NS is primarily semi serious, technical minded, gamers. People who see not only gaming as a hobby, but the business of gaming as something they are actively involved in, even if it's just that they understand their role as a consumer. The female population of that group is low, not nonexistent, but still, low.
If NS2 does a better job of attracting a female population then NS did, it won't be because of adding dress up features or decreasing violence, or even adding teamwork and creativity. It will mostly be because it's being sold commercially, and therefore reaching a less gaming literate market.
Ah that's cool Swiftspear ol' friend. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" /> I can understand what you mean though, and I'm glad you liked my idea even I can see how an impact of that would be unlikey and rather insignifigant in actually making the female audience want to play the game. I didn't want to say it was insignifigant though because most of us here are guys and personally I don't think we have a whole lot of say in the interests of women. (Speaking off topic, it's the same reason I get irritated when male politicans try to <i>tell</i> women what their rights are. Grr! It makes me want to stangle the daylights out them and shout, "You are not a women! Shut up!") Anyways, if you've ever been roleplaying. You don't refer to a male character as "she", this goes back to what I think a lot of gamer girls want which is be treated as equals, for the topic to be on the game rather than her. (although admittedly some like the attention when it's positive)
<!--quoteo(post=1629551:date=May 27 2007, 09:12 PM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swiftspear @ May 27 2007, 09:12 PM) [snapback]1629551[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You have to understand that to most people modding is a weird idea... you're saying I can buy one game and other people have made other games for free that run off of it? All us techy nerds heard that, we instantly said "frigging cool!" and did everything we could to find these things, it's beyond the mindset of most people though, and being that gaming on any more then a casual level is generally an unpopular hobby amounts the female demographic, for no reason other then that sociaty sort of arbitrarily drifted that way, these weird free games that use engines of commercial games you have to buy first, and then go and download the game, are in a realm just out side of the female mass demographic. It's not a fault of NS.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good point Swiftspear. However, the female population IS growing at a rapid pace. My theory is that it has something to do with the decaying of the SCR stereoptype that computers and computer games are just for guys. Regardless, I guess I was trying to be capitalistic and see what we could do to gain favor in that market segment. Again, good point. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1629551:date=May 27 2007, 09:12 PM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swiftspear @ May 27 2007, 09:12 PM) [snapback]1629551[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If NS2 does a better job of attracting a female population then NS did, it won't be because of adding dress up features or decreasing violence, or even adding teamwork and creativity. It will mostly be because it's being sold commercially, and therefore reaching a less gaming literate market.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Commercialization will improve the diversity perhaps just out of increased quanity (probably not affecting ratios) and awareness of the product (possibly affecting the ratios but not necessarily), but I'm wondering if we should try adding hints into our marketing that encourage the female audience to give the game a try...
Everything developed has a net effect, whether signifigant or not, on the resulting community. NS has a great community (even if I've been disturbed by it's shrunken size from what it was before the site was hacked), but it is affected by everything that goes on. Heck, just point to the addition of the Combat mode and the strong resentment you can find on these forums as to the effect on the community. (personally I don't blame Combat for anything like I used to, and I hate giving it as an example lest we get off-toic, but it was the strongest example to come to mind I could give of having game development even having an effect on community) With that said, I think the marketing, community's level of egalitarianism, and how much fun and socially oriented the game is will have the biggest influences on attracting (and retaining) a female market.
I have raised awareness and promoted a good discussion with this thread, and even got developer feedback. I think I've had good success with the purpose/goals of this thread and am very please to have had you all give your feedback. Thank you NS community! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1629577:date=May 28 2007, 12:49 AM:name=WorthyRival)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(WorthyRival @ May 28 2007, 12:49 AM) [snapback]1629577[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's the future due to genetic / cloning technology women have become exstinct. Problem solved
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
lol!
First, this is off-topic; and second, men would have a hard time growing babies. In fact, I remember there is a SciFi film where there are no men and only women on Earth. Can't remember the name of the film...
That's not to say males are doomed to extinction though or that they're less 'male' than they used to be (though they're perhaps scientifically less 'male' in the sense of what we understand the origin of male to be); there's a few species of animals on the planet that have males without the chromosome, instead developing from different genetical traits and this could very well be the way humanity is headed :o
If you want to know what would make Natural Selection more appealing to women, then ASK THE WOMEN ffs. Unless you think you're an expert on them, which I seriously doubt.
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I'm with Depot. Men can't decide how to make NS more appealing for Women. While Female avatars would might help, its definitely not gonna be a cure-all answer.
Also you should refine the female audience your talking about in your question. Do you want females new to FPS gaming? Or do you want females from other games games like CS, Quake, etc? Stealing them from other games would probably just be a marketing thing more then a gameplay thing.
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?s=8138007016728692736&showtopic=101563&view=findpost&p=1629804" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index....t&p=1629804</a>
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I'm assuming that's from somebody else?
Just make a fat butch lesbian, then the men wont be attracted to it and the women won't care anyway because they aren't playing it.
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It's a commonly known fact that there is no female appearance other than "stripper" and "butch".
Commonly known.