Dragon Age 2 - Female Hawke at PAX

VG247 picked up a BioWare tweet that says...

Did I mention you can play as female Hawke? PAX world premiere at the Dragon Age 2 booth.

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More information.

Nothing new, essentially. As I reported from the GamesCom, there are 3 classes of characters available, but only the male version of it was playable there. The others were "unplayable".

So - okay, it's something new. But the fact alone is already known.

The 3 classes which I saw :

- magic
- warrior
- thief/scoundrel or how it is called

All of these 3 classes can be played either male or female.

I find it tasteless to make it canon that the main char is male when the option is to make it a female. We live in the 21th century now, and the amount of female gamers is growing, no thanks to Bioware trailers.

The KotORs have one canon male and one female:
- KotOR1 Revan is male.
- KotOR2 Jedi Exile is female.

Suits the story fairly well in my opinion.

JemyM said:

I find it tasteless to make it canon that the main char is male when the option is to make it a female.

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Kinda agree, the on-male focus is unnecessary anyway.
Remembering how in Mass Effects female Shepard outclassed the male one by landslide, I expect something similar happening in DA2 as well.

But the male character in ME2 was used 80% of the time, so shouldn't you put your resources where most gamers will enjoy them?

I acctually think the amount of resources needed to make both a female and male version of the main character, plus the modifications to the story and possible love affiars, extra voice acting, and all the other things isn't worth it.

It's worth it:
Make the protagonist male only and people will get offended.
Make the protagonist female only and people will not play the game.

(That goes for for games that are specifically designed to have the broadest possible appeal… not for the Gothics and the like. Also… which was the most common complain about PS:T?)

I think it partuially depends on the target group.
I once wrote in the forum that I'd like to see the social struture of Gothic 1 changed to exactly the opposite (including playing a famale character) ... Boy, I was flamed ...

So ... some games like Gothic 1 are unthinkable with playing a female character. And that would be with machos as the target group, people who believe themselves to be "*real* men".

Alrik Fassbauer said:

So … some games like Gothic 1 are unthinkable with playing a female character. And that would be with machos as the target group, people who believe themselves to be "*real* men".

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I think that's a bit of an exaggeration.
I admit I haven't played the first two Gothics yet - only #1 for a few hours - but of what I understand they are pretty much about men - not for men. Changing that would change the identity of the games altogether, which doesn't have to do much with being macho.

I believe that the lack of women being by default protagonists in RPGs more often is a result of people not having enough imagination and/or guts to create a character that isn't the generic one we've seen countless times before.

Even if the the target audience is mostly men, I doubt that most people who would play a less celebrated game such as Gothic are boys that are insecure about their sexuality.

I see Bioware's choice as purely guided by the fact that straight white men are the group least likely (to not likely at all) to be offended by any kind of representation of themselves, therefore by far the safest choice, and not so much because they are their target group.

The only thing I want in a CRPG in this way, is someone I can identify with.

I often have trouble with that, even as a male protagonist. I like Gothic, because the character has a minimal personality served from the developers - so I can just imagine whatever.

The more they build my character in terms of giving him a personality, the less immersed I become - which is probably why I have such trouble getting into a game like The Witcher.

With a female protagonist, I give up entirely trying to identify with the character, as is the case with the recent CRPG that I forget what's called

kalniel said:

But the male character in ME2 was used 80% of the time, so shouldn't you put your resources where most gamers will enjoy them?

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Ignore 20% of the players and maybe lose another 5%. Acknowledge 20% of the players and maybe gain another 5%. The "find the generic player archetype" is the misguided goal that in the long run decrease interest for your product when you could expand your market. Sims is the most popular franchise ever that dwarfs even the most popular "male" games. Maybe that should tell you something about what potential you waste when you try to appeal to the majority.

Just think about the potential gain from expanding your market to the other sex and suddenly you see that you have WASTED resources by not making that investment, just like not spending money on advertisement on a product you payed to develop is a tremendous waste of resources.

I'm all for equal representation, but let's not forget what kind of game this is, versus what kind of game The Sims is.

Naturally, there are plenty of females who enjoy this kind of CRPG, but I'm pretty sure The Sims is MUCH more attractive to that particular sex than a violent fantasy CRPG.

GothicGothicness said:

I acctually think the amount of resources needed to make both a female and male version of the main character, plus the modifications to the story and possible love affiars, extra voice acting, and all the other things isn't worth it.

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Whenever a player make a choice, they give up content. Content that took time and resources to create. I have almost never heard the male voice of Shepherd, nor did I see the darj side endings of KOTOR or Jade Empire. But when the option to make that choice is the key behind the customer buying the game, and the customer getting immersed into the game, and have fun with the game, spending resorces to improve the players choice is worth it. Choice is actually a way to make one-game-fits-all, than trying to find the "average player" and build a game for him, ignoring the rest of your potential customers.

I know that if I recommend some games to friends, they might enjoy the game like I did, but they didn't play the game the way I did. One could say they played a game more suited for their taste.

There's a reason you can have a fanta or a sprite rather than only Coca-Cola. There's enough room in the fridge for more kinds of customers.

In fact, once there was a major research done on the ultimate tomato sauce. After developing the perfect and most beloved taste, the company lost customers. They learned that producing a number of different tastes, they sold more, even if it demanded more resources.

DArtagnan said:

I'm all for equal representation, but let's not forget what kind of game this is, versus what kind of game The Sims is.

Naturally, there are plenty of females who enjoy this kind of CRPG, but I'm pretty sure The Sims is MUCH more attractive to that particular sex than a violent fantasy CRPG.

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The assumption is a self-fulfilling prophecy. When playing SWG we had a large amount of female pvp's. My cohabit played and loved KOTOR.

I am male. I do not enjoy Dragon Age because it have violence. I enjoy it because it challenges my tactical skills and pose moral questions.

I just have to re-iterate how much I love the character of PS: T (TNO). In a way he's defined, but he's defined in such a way that anything is possible. Easy to identify with, as his current incarnation is "you", yet still with a past that is used to define the story and characters you meet without giving TNO enough background to ruin the fact that it's "you". Brilliant.

JemyM said:

The assumption is a self-fulfilling prophecy. When playing SWG we had a large amount of female pvp's. My cohabit played and loved KOTOR.

I am male. I do not enjoy Dragon Age because it have violence. I enjoy it because it challenges my tactical skills and pose moral questions.

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Are you really trying to claim that Dragon Age appeals to women as much as The Sims?

Maybe you're forgetting my point. The two games are different, and one appeals MORE to women than the other.

Doesn't mean both sexes shouldn't be represented, and it doesn't mean women can't come to appreciate violent fantasy CRPGs more than they do now.

Personally, I don't care - because women will find other ways to amuse themselves, but pretending like everything in the world appeals equally to both sexes is ignoring certain established things, which I don't see much point in doing.

In my personal experience with women, they're not drawn to violent fantasy CRPGs like many men are - and in fact they detest that sort of juvenile fantasy - that Bioware tried to market. You might have been drawn to the game for other reasons, but I bet you didn't exactly mind the violence.

Also, tactical combat is another thing I find most women don't like. They're more into strategy, because it suits their traditional strengths more.

Not everyone, no, but most women.

WoW, on the other hand, appeals to almost everyone - because it doesn't "push away" anyone specifically.

See, the interesting thing here is that when you out a female face on a game in another genre, e.g. the adventure game genre, people will play these games. That's because most of the audience for these types of games today will be girls, women and ladies.

As to the question at hand, I have tried to convince Bioware (and EA) that it would be a very good idea to show off female Hawke, simply because it could mean more sales.

I tend to play female characters in games, whether Mass Effect, Divinity 2, Drakensang or even Unreal Tournament and Civilization IV. I don't think Dragon Age is any more aimed at men than The Sims is aimed at women. I think they're both relatively gender neutral games that have just been picked up more by one gender. If Dragon Age's lead marketing character was a scantily clad female with two huge charisma scores, then yes, I'd agree it's aimed at men, but I don't think it is.

I saw a few tiny thumbnail pics of FemHawke, and my first thought was "Wait, is that Sora from Kingdom Hearts?". Would be nice to see a proper screenshot of her in the off chance I have something positive to say about DA2.

Lady Hawke Images - large size

Released today - figured it would go well in this thread:



Also the Quanari:



I should add to the thread by saying I also think having both roles is very important to a RPG game. I am finding the Witcher not to bad but I still dislike how limited it is as far as the character being so defined. W2 looks promising as far as choices go ... but you are still a male only Witcher with a lot of preset history. The Witcher games tend to be better for "choose your own adventure novels" then an RPG where you can make your own character.

Diversity is good overall. I would hate to see big companies creating a monopoly on game styles. Games like the Witcher, ME2, and DAO should all be able to coexist ... or at least I would hope.

IF games want to get a wider audience it is important to be as inclusive as possible. It is fairly clear female gamers really want a female version (at least as shown on forums … which I know is not always reflective of the masses).

This isn't even related to appealing to certain minority groups. Females are half the race (if not half the gaming population … although some studies have indicated there are more female gamers then people suspect).

I also recall a comment on that 80% played male hawke stats - sometimes that is because many folks just jump right in with defaults. I can't recall the other comments in that thread but one can't go 100% by the stats. Plus 20% is still a fair number of players. If you could continue to entice female gamers I see that as a good thing and worth the extra resources.