Reminder: Selectable Character Gender is a "Minimum Bar."

^Lol. Gotta love those "look at me not contributing" bumps.

I've always thought this was a weird hill to die on for GGG. It's not even their money anymore. Just spend the resources, and get it done for the new game. I don't even really know what the reasonable developmental or philosophical objection would be here? Let the players decide seems like an easy win. I don't care either way truly, but it's clear GGG does, which again, seems odd.

That said, and this is a bit of a tangent, I do think Jonathan has come off a bit arrogant in some of these articles. Especially considering players haven't even really experienced PoE2. I mean can you at least wait until the product is out before this level of grandstanding? Like even some of the shots at Diablo and the arpg market in general just are not warranted. I think some humility, while being totally excited about PoE2 is the way to go. Some of the other dev interviews/videos, have been quite good, and Id like to see that translate all the way up. I'm just not sure if there is anyone at GGG that would tell Jonathan this...

@Forever:

Yeah, the Scion was cut because Grinding Gear didn't like what her presence did to the passive tree. It warped the tree and severely constrained what they could do with it, as well as taking up real estate in the middle of the tree that could be used for something else down the line. The Scion was also conceived in the pre-Ascendancy days and didn't really fit properly in the Ascendancy class paradigm, since every time they rebaked/rejiggered/rebalanced another Ascendancy they hadda fix the Scion's micro version of it. All valid, perfectly reasonable design decisions I largely agree with, but it still leaves me down one playable lady. Sadness.

And yeah. I don't buy the "but muh Artistic Expression/Storytelling!" bit at all from other folks. The Exile is barely a character at all; it's a catalyst driving the story of other people and of the land of Wraeclast forward. If I'm a catalyst with no agency of my own, the least you can do is lemme have my lady bits while I do it, Grinding Gear. Hueh. Or more rather my feminine voice, since the various voice barks are the most obvious signifier of PC gender. Even then, I'll often tailor my MTXs on Witch (and Scion, come to think opf it) to show off her hair, and to avoid obliterating her figure beneath three hundred pounds of Cherenkov-radiating steel+bone+leather+crystal+whatever-the-hell-else-the-newest-MTX-armor-is-made-of.

@Darth

Yeah, the more they've talked about what they're doing in PoE2 the less sense this particular hang-up makes to me. Seven/six/twelve entire new character models and bespoke animations? A decent reason not to do the thing...but that's not the case anymore. They're using a single animation rig for all humanoid entities, and I presume skill animations are similarly shared, so there's no more duplicating-efforts excuse. Story/Art/Plot? Never a good excuse to start with. And with Jonathan talking "No Excuses" and minimum bars, and going out of his way to actively and intentionally position Path 2 as the Other Big ARPG? The high-production juggernaut that can go head to head with Diablows More? Such a (relatively) simple thing as selectable genders feels like an obvious shoe-in. I forget what their headcount is now, but Grinding Gear's a pretty hefty studio at this point. Obviously not Blizzard-sized, but if they want to box at the same weight bracket Diablows is in, they need to act like they're a studio that can deliver that sort of heft.

They don't need full character customization the way Diablows More went in for, I don't think anybody who wants to get away from gender-locked characters cares about titty sliders or Cheekbone Selection. And if they do, that is the province of MTX character model replacers. I really don't think we're asking for the moon here, even as I acknowledge that the cost of VO could well be painful and there may not be enough room in the development pipeline for it at this stage in the game.

"

1453R wrote:

I'm not really here to discuss that, though inevitably that's exactly where we'll end up.

"I know where it ends, it usually depends on where you start"

Starting off a thread/post by (practically) throwing derogatory terms towards 'everyone' that might disagree with you, does invite a rather negative attitude, don't you think? In addition to that, you're posting in general discussion and not feedback, so you do want a discussion.

----

To be better than that, though, I can discuss the case here.

...As I see it, gender roles are important in immersive RPGs where you more or less (role-)play as 'you'. But in some games, the developers want you to take the role of (a) certain character(s) - and follow that character's arch. Take Skyrim vs The Witcher; in one game, gender roles make perfect sense, the other? Not at all. Do you expect gender role options when reading a book? The Ranger in PoE is a woman with certain 'important' character traits. It would make no sense with a male option here.

Would a gender role option be bad for players? Probably not. Would it... Infringe on the creative sotry telling of some of the developers? Maybe.

"

Phrazz wrote:

"I know where it ends, it usually depends on where you start"

Starting off a thread/post by (practically) throwing derogatory terms towards 'everyone' that might disagree with you, does invite a rather negative attitude, don't you think? In addition to that, you're posting in general discussion and not feedback, so you do want a discussion.

I'm willing to discuss, certainly. Historically such discussions have not gone well, as we've seen some beginnings of. I'm surprised we've gotten to page 2 without any flaming rants, to be sure. I understand your point, but I do not apologize for my curtness, either. We also both know there's no difference between General and Feedback when it comes to developer attention, they don't bother tracking Feedback and never have. So eh.

"

Phrazz wrote:

To be better than that, though, I can discuss the case here.

...As I see it, gender roles are important in immersive RPGs where you more or less (role-)play as 'you'. But in some games, the developers want you to take the role of (a) certain character(s) - and follow that character's arch. Take Skyrim vs The Witcher; in one game, gender roles make perfect sense, the other? Not at all. Do you expect gender role options when reading a book? The Ranger in PoE is a woman with certain 'important' character traits. It would make no sense with a male option here.

Would a gender role option be bad for players? Probably not. Would it... Infringe on the creative sotry telling of some of the developers? Maybe.

This would matter if those 'important character traits' actually mattered to the story. They do not. There is no 'character arc'. As I said, the story of Path of Exile 2 responds to a giant roid-chewing meat mountain of a Marauder and a psychotic skinny-boned waif of a Witch in exactly the same way. There is no story differentiation between classes, no "if you're a Maraketh you get Dialogue A, and if you're an Oriathan you get Dialogue B". Or at least I am willing to stake a steak sandwich on this being true. And if this is true, then the character traits ascribed to your murder avatar of choice don't matter in an artistic/Story context. Any Exile is as good as any other, so why not allow people to play what they want?

Path of Exile - 1 and 2 both, in this case - are not books. They're games. Games which ask you to invest yourself in your character just as much as an 'immersive RPG', if in different ways. The vast and endless MTX offerings for the game and its nigh-infinite (theoretically) build diversity argue against the "fixed protagonist" angle, and the fact that the story cares not one whit for which sorry bedraggled criminal bottom-feeder ends up becoming the Overlord of Slaughter puts the final nail in that argument as well.

"

Phrazz wrote:

Would a gender role option be bad for players? Probably not. Would it... Infringe on the creative sotry telling of some of the developers? Maybe.

Ok ill bite here.

"Probably not" bad for players? Please do tell how in the world a simple gender option could be bad from a player / consumer angle. I literally cannot think of a single reason.

As far as creative story telling. That's on GGG. It's a new game, they can do whatever they want from a narrative perspective. You mentioned the female ranger. The notion there are no male Rangers in Wraeclast, in this example, is absurd.

There are no valid excuses imo for GGG here with PoE2. If they want to simply say that they refuse to offer it as an option, then fine, but again, as I said, weird hill to die on, and no good reason as to why that would make sense if explained.

When they announced two classes for each attribute combo, I was really hoping there would be one male, one female. Like instead of witch and sorceress, why not witch and sorcerer? I can understand the voice acting cost, but don't the witch and sorceress already have different voice lines?

IMO it's a bit wild to read such statements as "there is no excuse" as if GGG wronged its playerbase and owed everyone an apology.

That's just the way they intend it to be. Some may find it old-school, but that's also the case for other facets of the game.

And I respect them for staying faithful to their vision instead of juming into the pitfall of catering to the "modern audience".

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

^Lol. Gotta love those "look at me not contributing" bumps.

And here you are bumping the "useless"bump and why? O yeah starved for attention thats right, well i am not your daddy go find it elswhere.
Also who says i want to contibute to this nonsense anyway? Just here to point out how absolutely ridiculous that first paragraph was.

Couldn't really care to be honest. I think BG3 got it right with the male/female/binary option model.I recommend going with that one.
In Poe most characters look EXACTLY the same with gear on especially if they are using a purchased micro-transaction skin.