I regret ever posting here-- I'll just say I'm sorry to those that I caused grief or some negative emotion and unless someone replies to me in a civil manner, I'll be taking my leave of this thread--
I'll just say this:
life is far more enjoyable if you spend time and energy on things you LIKE, instead of using your energy to combat things you DON'T like
Threads like this do have a habit of spiraling out control pretty fast, so let's all try and keep the discussion nice and civil and respectful. Thanks
Just popping in here for a points:
-While I certainly don't want this to sound like we are saying a female character is "too much work and not important" I do want to go into a bit more detail of the work involved. First there is the concept design phase, which takes many sketches and iterations to get to the final proportions and face that we are happy with turning into a final model. The high poly model is created, then the low poly model, and textures. The character needs a unique rig. Admittedly we can likely get away with the same swimming animations, though for walking animations (on subs, bases, islands) it is likely we would want to do a unique animation (that is mostly only important if we add co -op, though). Some new sounds, though that is not a big deal. And there is code, both on the UI side to set the game up to allow for character selection, and probably a bunch of other little things here and there that come up. All of is this is already a month and a half to two months of combined work.
Where things get more complicated is when we add additional suit variations. For example, we are already adding a radiation suit that you will be able to craft. It is an entirely new suit, and we would need to create a radiation suit for both the male player model and female. Anytime we add something new like that, the workload is basically doubled.
There is comparison in this thread to the time spent on a unique Reaper animation. That animation will take 1 animator, 1 day or less, compared to the months of work, and multiple people required to implement the female model into the game. Again, I am definitely not trying to make an argument that adding a female player model is not worth the effort, just trying to give some more insight into the process.
--The ponytail is just for the mask-less version of the female. Like the current male character has, she would have a diving mask / hood that actually is pulled over the entire head, covering up and containing the hair. Even the male character's crazy big hairdo is contained (slightly unrealistically) under that hood when in diving mode.
As a female gamer I certainly do enjoy seeing the option to play as a female in most games where it makes a noticeable difference such as rpg's (Skyrim, Fallout NV, Mass Effect etc,) or in multiplayer games where I'll be interacting with one or more others, (7 Days to Die, Planet Explorers, Saints Row IV etc,) but in a single player only first person game like this one I'm a bit indifferent to the idea.
I suppose my interest in a female character is based on 3 questions:
Will there be a third person view implemented at some point point in the future?
Will there be any kind of 2 player (or more) co op?
Will there be any in depth rpg like story elements where playing as a female will make for a different story experience?
Unless the answer is yes to at least one of these questions, I'm over all luke warm to the concept of a female character in Subnautica since the inclusion will be by and large unnoticeable. (If the answer is yes however then I'm all for it and happily support the additional cost and time!)
It's not I wouldn't enjoy playing as a female character in the game, (when given the option that's always my choice for the first play through,) but unless doing so will be noticeably different than playing as a male, over all I consider it a waste of coding time/money that's better spent in other areas of the game really.
While it might be "nice" to include a female character for variety and equality or what not, it's worth asking ones self "is the pay off worth the time?"
Unless they plan on adding a unique personality to both the male and female characters story line experiences the female character might not actually "fit" with the story, much like making the hero Jason Brody from Far Cry 3 into Janice Brody would require more than just voicing the same lines of dialogue by a female voice actress. In such a case the actual character themselves would have a different personality, and respond differently to events within the game world so would require restructuring of the individual cut scenes and some story elements to take this into effect.
Such extra work takes money that's not always in the company budget, (especially for indy devs) and even then, if the storyline is written for a male (or female character) trying to adjust things to shoe horn in the opposite gender option can limit the over all story telling experience, much like playing Tomb Raider as Larry Croft would feel decidedly different than it does playing with Laura.
In short I see games a lot like movies in that aspect, if the script calls for a male or female protagonist then that's what you cast for the role, rewriting the entire script just to offer a gender choice is both time consuming, and can sacrifice core story elements limiting the enjoyment of the title.
Since we have the Official Word above, at this point I'll just say this, in answer to @candledicks: The 'token black guy', in fact tokenism itself, is a product of "white guys for white guys sake", the extreme lack of diversity. It's what happens when white, male, straight, cisgender and non-disabled (and so on) is the baseline and default, and any divergence from that has to be explained. The fact remains, that baseline is a tiny, tiny slice of life as it's like in reality. So overextending it like that makes for deeply unauthentic stories and environments, and basically makes for worse media that appeals to fewer people. That our media has come to regard that as a standard is a sad state of affairs that makes a lot of things a lot less enjoyable to a lot of people. Breaking that pattern can be highly lucrative, entirely apart from the positive societal effects. Which of course should make any red-blooded capitalist seriously question why that standard pattern persists - it ought by rights to disappear in a puff of unprofitability. That it doesn't indicates something else is at work here than mere economic concerns.
maybe u can add a female Charakter as a rescuable NPC that somehow survived the Crash in some sort of lifepreservation System ... something like that ...
would be cool to have a feature like in "Enslaved" or "the last of us" where u have to take care of someone other than only urself... a npc that can provide rare skills, like tech or research, travels along with u in ur Sub and makes comments about creatures or plants u see... but maybe this is getting annoying sooner or later
Just wanna chime in here a little bit; as a female gamer, I have literally been waiting on this game getting a lady-character option to buy it. The minute that's a thing, I am going to push my money onto it. This is not the only time I will have done this. In short, I am some kind of proof that people will pay to be catered to a little bit by video game makers, insofar as 'being able to play my own gender' counts as catering.
There's only two, after all. If there were like two dozen genders I could understand there being some hesitation in making all of them - like Mr. Squeal_Pig explained, more than a bit of work is involved in that - but with just a pair of em, I like to hope that it's doable.
So yeah! Lady character = instant sale. Please? I would really appreciate it, because your game looks beautiful and fun, and I would love to feel at home in it from the moment I drop in.
Comments
I'll just say this:
life is far more enjoyable if you spend time and energy on things you LIKE, instead of using your energy to combat things you DON'T like
Just popping in here for a points:
-While I certainly don't want this to sound like we are saying a female character is "too much work and not important" I do want to go into a bit more detail of the work involved. First there is the concept design phase, which takes many sketches and iterations to get to the final proportions and face that we are happy with turning into a final model. The high poly model is created, then the low poly model, and textures. The character needs a unique rig. Admittedly we can likely get away with the same swimming animations, though for walking animations (on subs, bases, islands) it is likely we would want to do a unique animation (that is mostly only important if we add co -op, though). Some new sounds, though that is not a big deal. And there is code, both on the UI side to set the game up to allow for character selection, and probably a bunch of other little things here and there that come up. All of is this is already a month and a half to two months of combined work.
Where things get more complicated is when we add additional suit variations. For example, we are already adding a radiation suit that you will be able to craft. It is an entirely new suit, and we would need to create a radiation suit for both the male player model and female. Anytime we add something new like that, the workload is basically doubled.
There is comparison in this thread to the time spent on a unique Reaper animation. That animation will take 1 animator, 1 day or less, compared to the months of work, and multiple people required to implement the female model into the game. Again, I am definitely not trying to make an argument that adding a female player model is not worth the effort, just trying to give some more insight into the process.
--The ponytail is just for the mask-less version of the female. Like the current male character has, she would have a diving mask / hood that actually is pulled over the entire head, covering up and containing the hair. Even the male character's crazy big hairdo is contained (slightly unrealistically) under that hood when in diving mode.
I suppose my interest in a female character is based on 3 questions:
Will there be a third person view implemented at some point point in the future?
Will there be any kind of 2 player (or more) co op?
Will there be any in depth rpg like story elements where playing as a female will make for a different story experience?
Unless the answer is yes to at least one of these questions, I'm over all luke warm to the concept of a female character in Subnautica since the inclusion will be by and large unnoticeable. (If the answer is yes however then I'm all for it and happily support the additional cost and time!)
It's not I wouldn't enjoy playing as a female character in the game, (when given the option that's always my choice for the first play through,) but unless doing so will be noticeably different than playing as a male, over all I consider it a waste of coding time/money that's better spent in other areas of the game really.
While it might be "nice" to include a female character for variety and equality or what not, it's worth asking ones self "is the pay off worth the time?"
Unless they plan on adding a unique personality to both the male and female characters story line experiences the female character might not actually "fit" with the story, much like making the hero Jason Brody from Far Cry 3 into Janice Brody would require more than just voicing the same lines of dialogue by a female voice actress. In such a case the actual character themselves would have a different personality, and respond differently to events within the game world so would require restructuring of the individual cut scenes and some story elements to take this into effect.
Such extra work takes money that's not always in the company budget, (especially for indy devs) and even then, if the storyline is written for a male (or female character) trying to adjust things to shoe horn in the opposite gender option can limit the over all story telling experience, much like playing Tomb Raider as Larry Croft would feel decidedly different than it does playing with Laura.
In short I see games a lot like movies in that aspect, if the script calls for a male or female protagonist then that's what you cast for the role, rewriting the entire script just to offer a gender choice is both time consuming, and can sacrifice core story elements limiting the enjoyment of the title.
I'll go play Tomb Raider a bit... nothing better than the feminine delicate touch of dual Uzi's 8-|
There's only two, after all. If there were like two dozen genders I could understand there being some hesitation in making all of them - like Mr. Squeal_Pig explained, more than a bit of work is involved in that - but with just a pair of em, I like to hope that it's doable.
So yeah! Lady character = instant sale. Please? I would really appreciate it, because your game looks beautiful and fun, and I would love to feel at home in it from the moment I drop in.