Venetica - Gamescom Trailer

Given the site, I'd peg 99.5% interest here as 'PC'. ;)

Well.
Theres the PC UI.
946567_20090603_790screen055.jpg
 
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They had to commit to a female character if their story is centered around deaths daughter taking over daddy's job.

Dragon Age has something similar. You can choose a lot of stuff during char creation, but only the first name can be chosen. The last name is fixed depending on race.

It's no problem, and I think it's nice that we can diversy like that in the industry. It's good for female gamers as well ;)

Names are not a big issue for me, though.

It's just that I typically play CRPGs in a certain way, and one aspect I REALLY enjoy is to identify with the character I'm playing.

I can't really identify with a woman - or at least I've never felt capable of that. It feels wrong somehow, which is why I've never had a female avatar in any game where I had a choice. It's actually something I've never really understood in MMOs - where you very often see males having female characters.

Well, ok, I can understand it on some levels - but it must be that I play the games for different reasons :)
 
I like to get in touch with my feminine side by using female avatars in cRPG's. Also I prefer looking at them, especially in third-person games where you're essentially staring at somebody's ass most of the time.
 
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I'd have to give up playing a lot of games if I shared your gender centric outlook, D'artagnan. ;)
I do agree though that while generic male avatars are acceptable, they're something of a turn-off--especially the musclebound brute-looking ones, and I'd prefer a female--but then you have the story-focused games that have been mentioned, where the plot revolves around a definite persona. I would have missed Gothic, PS:T and The Witcher, my three favorite non-party rpgs if I let stuff like that stop me. :)
 
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I like to get in touch with my feminine side by using female avatars in cRPG's.

Likewise.

For the first time I always play crpg´s as a male but for a second playthrough I always opt for a female character if possible.
I can see how it may be somewhat harder to identify with avatar of opposite gender but that´s part of the challenge/fun, at least for me.
I got in touch with a lot of my sides playing female malkavian in Bloodlines :).
 
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I'd have to give up playing a lot of games if I shared your gender centric outlook, D'artagnan. ;)
I do agree though that while generic male avatars are acceptable, they're something of a turn-off--especially the musclebound brute-looking ones, and I'd prefer a female--but then you have the story-focused games that have been mentioned, where the plot revolves around a definite persona. I would have missed Gothic, PS:T and The Witcher, my three favorite non-party rpgs if I let stuff like that stop me. :)

It's not really a deliberate obstacle I place in my own way, and sometimes I wish I could enjoy taking a different approach. I've tried, and I never really enjoy myself if I go away from what I like.

If I'm to play a role and live it - which is sort of the ideal - I must be able to identify with the character.

That's probably why I always end up playing human males, and they generally focus on the same kind of skills I imagine myself to be good at in a fantasy combat heavy setting. I always play fast and stealthy characters if that's possible, and I always go for the same kind of weapon setup - which is either bow or dual weapons.

It may sound pretty boring to those who don't care about identifying closely with the player character, and who simply enjoy experiencing different sides of themselves.

Also, I always play good characters and I never replay as "evil" ones.

Oh, and my identification thing is likely why I had a much harder time enjoying The Witcher and Torment. Both characters were sort of hard to relate to, though the dude in TW was ok. The nameless one, though, was just not.... me.

The hero in Gothic is so anonymous - I had no trouble identifying with him, especially since you have quite a lot of freedom in how you go about doing stuff.
 
It may sound pretty boring to those who don't care about identifying closely with the player character, and who simply enjoy experiencing different sides of themselves.

I care very much about identifying closely with the player character. I just have no trouble identifying with a rather broad range of them. (Admittedly I tend to skip any hetero romance subplots if I'm playing as a woman, but then I usually don't care much for the romance subplots anyway.)
 
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A good role playing experience shouldn't just be about playing yourself in an imaginary world, though. (Or should it? I guess if that's what you enjoy, then it should.) But I know I enjoyed the three games I mentioned just because I completely got away from being myself and could imagine myself as someone doing things I would never have the chance or ability to do, for reasons that were at first very foreign but ultimately made sense and made me see things from a new perspective.

Also, I found things in those characters that would turn up and be familiar--for instance, sitting by the campfire and sizzling things up in the frying pan in Gothic--and it made the whole game more vivid. After all, male or female, we're all human(at least theoretically. ;) )
 
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"Wow, actually a heroine that isn't scantly dressed at all times"

What!? There will be mods, right?? ;)

This does look interesting but, as usual, it's going to depend a lot on the story and gameplay. I'll definitely be reading the reviews. (Though maybe I'll wait for the chainmail bikini mod to come out. ;)
 
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I've pretty much ignored this game until now. I'm sooo getting this once it comes out.

And about playing a female character. I have no problem with that. Who wants to stare at a guys butt the whole time? :lol:

Seriously though, like Magerette said, part of the fun of "roleplaying" (even in a computer game) is doing things you wouldn't normally do. I still have a hard time playing an evil character. They evil path is always so predictable. You'll end up dead or betrayed at the end.

Only a few computer games let you seriously roleplay your character. The best was Bloodlines. The first time through I was a brown noser and ended up ....well you know how that ended if you played it :)
 
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I don't really enjoy doing things I wouldn't normally do, at least not beyond the "fantasy" extension of myself. This is only the rule, though, and there are exceptions. Some games are so obviously not about roleplay and immersion that I don't care what my character does.

But it's always interesting that we're all different. I think it's more common to play whatever role you're handed, so it's probably just me that's weird in this way.

A good role playing experience shouldn't just be about playing yourself in an imaginary world, though. (Or should it? I guess if that's what you enjoy, then it should.) But I know I enjoyed the three games I mentioned just because I completely got away from being myself and could imagine myself as someone doing things I would never have the chance or ability to do, for reasons that were at first very foreign but ultimately made sense and made me see things from a new perspective.

I wouldn't presume to speak about what roleplaying is about or how CRPGs should be played, so I simply accept that it's fully up to the individual.

It's true that you've been able to enjoy more games because of your position, but I find myself incapable of adjusting my inner core to ensure maximum enjoyment. Certain things are so much a part of who I am, that I'm sort of forced to live with them.

Besides, there are more than enough games for me to enjoy anyway.

Also, it's important to note that I had tons of other problems with TW and Torment, and the character thing is just a drop in the ocean. I can easily enjoy a game if other things work well for my tastes.

A good example, I guess, is that I played an assassin in Oblivion - simply because that questline was so fascinating (the only thing good about the story). I had no problem doing these things and I became a murderer gladly :)

But I think it was very important that it was a personal choice, and not some character I was force-fed.

However, beyond the mere detail of killing people for pleasure - I was much the same as I always am :)
 
Hmm, personally I rarely feel the need to identify that much with the character, that
I imagine myself in his/her shoes, in order to enjoy a game.

On the contrary I almost always play games (even RPGs) from a more detached
perspective, like directing an unfolding story of which not all the elements are under
my control and being both instigator and audience. (guess that explains why I was
mostly DM or GM back in my PnP days...)

I do ofcourse like to create a character concept and roleplay accordingly but this
detachment makes it particularly easy to do different roles (i.e this is the story of
a Female Malkavian, that is what a female Malkavian would do in these circumstances
etc..).

On the other hand I do find myself struggling to play an Evil or particularly cruel
character (I can do chaotic quite easily though) so I guess I'm not completely
detached. That, I believe, is understandable. You do need a degree of emotional
attachment to the hero's plight or to the concequences of his actions to the
imaginary characters and circumstances of the game, or else you might as well
be playing tetris.

What I mean to say I guess, is that I mostly need to get into the skin of the story but
not necessarily the character to actually enjoy and be moved by a game.
 
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A good role playing experience shouldn't just be about playing yourself in an imaginary world, though. (Or should it? I guess if that's what you enjoy, then it should.)

There are character actors and method actors. Perhaps the same goes for role-playing gamers. I don't think one is better than the other; just different.
 
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I have to admit, when I first play a game, I tend to "play myself in a fantasy world". I do whatever I'd do in that particular situation (usually end up as Neutral Good). I might have problems in Venetica for that reason. I only try to roleplay different characters once I've already played as myself.

That's one of the reasons PS:T, Gothic and ME work out so well for me - while the story evolves around a predefined character, that character is open enough to allow me to play more or less any kind of character. Overall I feel that PS:T had the best character, but ME actually allowed you to be either a male or female character (still predefined), so that's certainly something to include in future games.

I would, indeed, have problems playing games like Gothic if I was a woman.
 
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I have to admit, when I first play a game, I tend to "play myself in a fantasy world". I do whatever I'd do in that particular situation (usually end up as Neutral Good). I might have problems in Venetica for that reason. I only try to roleplay different characters once I've already played as myself.

Yup, that's me.

I do this even in PnP roleplaying sessions. Pretty boring, I guess, but it's what I enjoy the most.

I've tried playing evil characters, believe me, but I find it disturbing and it tends to ruin the experience for others.

Also, I don't even believe in the concepts of good and evil, so my version is more like good = altruistic and evil = selfish, and those concepts are equally implausible when taken to the extreme, but I find I can relate to them better than those other overly moralistic concepts.
 
That's one of the reasons PS:T, Gothic and ME work out so well for me - while the story evolves around a predefined character, that character is open enough to allow me to play more or less any kind of character. Overall I feel that PS:T had the best character, but ME actually allowed you to be either a male or female character (still predefined), so that's certainly something to include in future games.

PS:T is a good example. The character is a short of tabula rasa for you and you can
indeed form him somewhere close to the concept you want to roleplay.

But for me Gothic is the exact opposite. This is the nameless dude's story. Sure there
are a number of options and choices and consequences but not diverse enough to
allow you to play any real range of actually different characters. Also the Nameless
one himself oozes with character (that short of dry irreverent wit that you can't really
change whether you want to play a Paladin or a Mercenary). Not to mention that the
ways you can change the overall story is pretty much limited (no separate endings
except in G3). But that (as PJ noted above I think) is what allows the game to focus
on telling a compelling story (without having to invent such a cunning design as PS:T)
and thats a good thing.
 
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