Guild Wars 2

Uh…
Wow.
So folks, I’d like to examine a few things. One, that some people are arguing for GW2 specifically, as in they want to examine GW2 and its representation outside of the realm of other video game media. Alright. Let’s first examine something else.
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air is a TV show about a black family. There’s white people on it sometimes but they’re not the focus. Did people throw tantrums when white people were not represented on this show? I don’t think so.
There are a multitude of Shoujo (more feminine, traditionally marketed towards girls and women, although very popular with men and boys too) manga and anime which has majority female casts. In addition, there are many Shoujo manga and anime that has majority male casts (I’m looking at you Ouran Host Club). I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with either one.

Now in GW2, we have a majority of women characters introduced. What’s wrong with that? It just happens to be a game with more women. To argue for having more men or an equal number is to make GW2 like any other video game, thus debunking many of your arguments that this is existing within a vacuum. You’re used to having representation but you’re uncomfortable when you don’t get as much of it. You may not realize this on a conscious level and are ‘fighting the good fight’ to get men represented in one game. But I’d like to point out that to do that is to effective bring GW2 to being similar to other games out there. Your argument is not to put GW2 in a vacuum, it’s to make GW2 indistinguishable from many other games that have equal men and women in the main cast. GW2 stands apart and that’s important; it’s important to have many women represented in many different forms.

Oh and by the way an objective argument is impossible because we all have subjective perspectives and thus exist in an intersubjective relationship with others. All knowledge collected is intersubjective and has no basis beyond subjects. This discussion is specifically about western culture and the debate would look different if one took a different culture into account. However since we’re in this western culture, my point still stands: there is nothing wrong with having a game with a majority of women characters.

My post was quoted earlier in this lovely little argument so I find no need to say any of that again but if you’re curious I recommend going to page 1 or 2 or wherever it is to get my full view.

I can’t believe this is an issue. How many stories are rife with male characters while females have very little presence?

I actually find it refreshing to have such a high number of them. The ONLY thing that matters is how well they’re written.

Einlanzer.1627:

I can’t believe this is an issue. How many stories are rife with male characters while females have very little presence?

It’s an issue because priviledged groups are used to being the main target of everything.
If a game doesnt target them then it’s wrong, requires balancing, it’s discriminating them, etc. while ignoring the fact that they’re the target of the vast majority of games

Just some questions i have in mind after reading this thread.
Is the story bad because there are 4 women and 1 man? Thusly, would the story be improved if a-net adds a male to the biconics?
But, does that mean that the story would not as well improve if they add an additional female to the biconics?

And as a sidenote, i think that Marjory is pretty much male, there isn’t much feminine on her. I mean she is a typical hard boiled film noir detective. Although she is female (as a guy) i can easly relate to that kind of person.
I mean, she is Humphrey Bogart from Casablanca (with breasts).

Derom.1205:

Just some questions i have in mind after reading this thread.
Is the story bad because there are 4 women and 1 man? Thusly, would the story be improved if a-net adds a male to the biconics?
But, does that mean that the story would not as well improve if they add an additional female to the biconics?

And as a sidenote, i think that Marjory is pretty much male, there isn’t much feminine on her. I mean she is a typical hard boiled film noir detective. Although she is female (as a guy) i can easly relate to that kind of person.
I mean, she is Humphrey Bogart from Casablanca (with breasts).

sigh seriously? We already said that there being so many females in the group is not a bad thing, some of us were just wondering if the males in Tyria actually possess spines to fight along side them or if they are actually some sub-species of invertebrate.

bullyrook.2165:

Derom.1205:

Just some questions i have in mind after reading this thread.
Is the story bad because there are 4 women and 1 man? Thusly, would the story be improved if a-net adds a male to the biconics?
But, does that mean that the story would not as well improve if they add an additional female to the biconics?

And as a sidenote, i think that Marjory is pretty much male, there isn’t much feminine on her. I mean she is a typical hard boiled film noir detective. Although she is female (as a guy) i can easly relate to that kind of person.
I mean, she is Humphrey Bogart from Casablanca (with breasts).

sigh seriously? We already said that there being so many females in the group is not a bad thing, some of us were just wondering if the males in Tyria actually possess spines to fight along side them or if they are actually some sub-species of invertebrate.

You are right, men are underrepresented in the story.
It is just interesting for me because if you swap the words “males” and “females” it becomes similar to an argument that many Feminists use who are critizising the representation of women in media (example: Can women be more than powerless Damsels to be rescued by men?).

I guess no-one wants to see his gender/religion/race represented badly.

Raziel.4216:

How many times did you call for equality? I bet none.
But when a game has a strong female cast it’s imbalanced, LOL.

Equality? I just want characters that I can identify with. Think of like your friends. I don’t hang out with just all girls, I hang out with people that I enjoy hanging out with. If they are stupid, dimwitted or nasty then I don’t like being with them. Its hard to like any of the male characters in this game.

I find not only is there a lack of major male characters, there is a lack of GOOD male characters.

Raziel.4216:

Aedelric.1287:

Raziel.4216:

Almost every other game out there is the other way around, with a male cast and THE female char.
It’s a nice change.

I do not play every other game.

GW2 doesnt exist in a vacuum.

So should we turn the tables, identify a problem with gender portrayal and inflict that problem on the other gender because “they did it to us”?

The Living Story definitely challenges the perception of gender portrayal – there are more leading females than males, particularly when you look at DE 2.0, even if you spend time paying attention to new named NPCs or ones that were given voice actors and dialogue. If you have a problem with that, ask yourself, do you have a problem with the Hobbit (written in a different era) focusing on an almost all male cast (changes had to be made to include a single female let alone multiples) or the Avengers (one of the biggest movies of the year) including a single female on the team (admittedly that movie uses iconic Marvel characters and takes place in a world where woman in combat roles are somewhat less prevalent)? If you are fine with the Hobbit and the Avengers being male dominated, it seems unfair to be unhappy with the Living Story being female dominated.

Tyria is actually really fair to females even before the Living Story. Spend some time exploring Hoelbrak and hear (over and over) about the little girl who wants to grow up to be just like Eir, or the norn woman who wants to take on her father’s legacy – their gender didn’t matter. Anyone paying close attention to the world of Tyria would see that despite the video games industry having a legacy of poor portrayal of women, that legacy wasn’t carried over (at least not in the most meaningful ways imo) to GW2. The girls are on equal footing as the guys, Tyria is full of legends of influential female heroes, from Jora the first norn to take down an Elder Dragon champion, Salma the Krytan Queen who united her people against the White Mantle (I honestly don’t think her reputation in GW2 is well earned – other Krytan leaders before her and probably after her are just as if not more influential imo, this did feel like giving prominence to her simply because she is female), Gwen who lead the Ascalonian survivors to found Ebonhawke, and Pyre’s daughter who freed the female charr. Nikka took down Shiro after he killed the Emperor, the only warrior in the original iconic GW1 cast was Devonna, a female (the males were the healer and the archer – this group also had three females and two males). Evennia and Livia were very important in Krytan history as well.

Look at GW2 today, two Orders are lead by a female, we have a Queen, Bear is female and the most powerful Spirit of the Wild, the Pale Tree is female and three of five members of Destinty’s Edge are female (including their leader – Eir).

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t exist in a vacuum but the Living Story doesn’t either. I think Guild Wars 2 does an excellent job of portraying women, making them feel included and having several important female characters that show them Tyria is a place where they are the heroes just like the men, long before the Living Story came along (long before GW2 came along). You don’t need a Living Story to heavily favour one gender to make up for industry bias – portraying a world where the genders are equal (both in lore and story characters) is perfect. If your goal is equality (and not revenge or “teach them how it feels”) turning the tables is going too far and not in the spirit of equality.

Is it a problem that the Living World has arguably been heavily centred by females? I suspect that answer depends on the individual. I’m more concerned that the story has been following characters that had nothing to do with the plot. Marjory and Kasmeer’s romance is nice and all but it takes up a good chunk of why they exist at all, and outside of that relationship they added very little to the overall plot which imo makes them poorly implemented characters and contributed to the story problems.

I think it’s fine we’ve had so many female characters, but moving forward into season 2 I think it’s important to remember that Tyria is a place of gender equality (at least from the allies perspective, males are still villainous sexists). Are the writers believably portraying Tyria if they continue to write more prominent females than males?

Not LS, I know, but Trahearne is by far my favorite male character in the game. Also one of the very few aside from the player (if male) that represent a desirable connection in the game. I get both sides of this argument, and I think it really doesn’t boil down to a right or wrong thing. It’s simply about a large demographic (men) wanting a strong character to represent them. Braham isn’t a widely likeable character, and he’s the only true spotlight male of the LS. I can’t wait for future expansions into Elona and Cantha so we can get more ethnicities involved as well, and some races could use more representation. Better characters all around would be fantastic.

Thobek.1730:

Raziel.4216:

How many times did you call for equality? I bet none.
But when a game has a strong female cast it’s imbalanced, LOL.

Equality? I just want characters that I can identify with.

I can agree with this. My favorite character type is the Intellectual, the Scholar, the Gentleman, the Mage… The closest I get is most Asura, but I just do NOT like that race at all. It’d be easier to relate to a human character honestly, but now we have 3 prominent human mesmers, all of which are female, and as a guy, I can’t identify with a woman. I don’t think any man can understand what its like to be a woman, after all. I’m not saying that both genders don’t share qualities or what have you, but when it comes down to gender, men and women often have different ways of thinking. If I can’t understand the character’s thought processes, I can’t really relate to them.

I wouldn’t mind seeing the next, ‘Lord Odran,’ as a mage caster type human. It’d be a character I could finally relate to.

Cant quote all, way too long :/

You don’t need a Living Story to heavily favour one gender to make up for industry bias – portraying a world where the genders are equal (both in lore and story characters) is perfect. If your goal is equality (and not revenge or “teach them how it feels”) turning the tables is going too far and not in the spirit of equality.

As someone said b4, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a game that has a male heavy cast, just like there’s nothing wrong with a game that has a female one.
The problem is that the % of male ones beat women by a very, very, loooooonnnng shot (as mentioned in the 5 research articles posted b4), so you shift the focus from the priviledged group to the unfavored ones so they feel represented, they feel it catters to them.
A priviledged group – males in this case – will be the prevalent targed of almost every single game out there. Just last year only 1 of the top 25 games had a female protagonist, that’s 4% female centered and 96% for males. Why cant a game challenge that?
You do not require balance in every single game, you look for it in the industry.

Raziel.4216:

What if I want to make a game for black lesbians, do I have to include asians, latinos, whites and every other race/gender/sexual orientation out there?
No, the industry should be broad enough to make games for everyone

Shiren.9532:

I think it’s fine we’ve had so many female characters, but moving forward into season 2 I think it’s important to remember that Tyria is a place of gender equality (at least from the allies perspective, males are still villainous sexists). Are the writers believably portraying Tyria if they continue to write more prominent females than males?

They can continue to focus on the target of 4% of last year’s top games, after all, they seem to be forgotten by almost every developer, even tho they make up 45% of the overall users.

Yo, male characters aren’t needed in a focal position at all. Considering, about every other videogame features the grizzled, middle aged white dude as the main character in just about every other situation, with a large lack of female leads and characters supplementing the cast.

Over 45% of gamers are female, so it’s not really so shocking there’d -be- female leads, but aside from GW2, most games have male characters leading everything. It’s not even an issue in a genre dominated by male characters in the first place, anyway. (Seriously, do people take the overbearing amount of male leads to a pitiful amount of female leads seriously? Most of the time I just hear sexist jokes, some asinine dismissive statements followed up by a “it’s just the way it is stop crying about it”).

Men are very, very, very privileged in video games. And everything, really. Giving some acknowledgment to those underrepresented and who lack the privilege of having this representation is not some slight, if anything it’s a positive move because it’s making the video game world just that bit more inclusive, rather than an exclusive “boys” club as it tends to be.

If you look at gamestatistics survey roughly about 90% of the player base is male. I think it would be prudent to have a few more male characters in the game that aren’t stupid, dimwitted or there for comic relief. Its almost insulting.

Thobek.1730:

If you look at gamestatistics survey roughly about 90% of the player base is male. I think it would be prudent to have a few more male characters in the game that aren’t stupid, dimwitted or there for comic relief. Its almost insulting.

I call bullkitten on that statistic, please correct me if I’m wrong.

Considering the huge number of female players I’ve encountered during my GW2 gameplay, I don’t believe I fall in to the 10% group.

CharrGirl.7896:

Thobek.1730:

If you look at gamestatistics survey roughly about 90% of the player base is male. I think it would be prudent to have a few more male characters in the game that aren’t stupid, dimwitted or there for comic relief. Its almost insulting.

I call bullkitten on that statistic, please correct me if I’m wrong.

Considering the huge number of female players I’ve encountered during my GW2 gameplay, I don’t believe I fall in to the 10% group.

No problem, you can call bullkitten on this if you like. But Gamestatistics DID do a survey and the numbers WERE “91% male – 9% female”. Of course this isn’t 100% accurate otherwise they would have to get everyone to do the survey.

It’s also the only survey I’ve seen that actually took into account the gender of the player.

Thobek.1730:

CharrGirl.7896:

Thobek.1730:

If you look at gamestatistics survey roughly about 90% of the player base is male. I think it would be prudent to have a few more male characters in the game that aren’t stupid, dimwitted or there for comic relief. Its almost insulting.

I call bullkitten on that statistic, please correct me if I’m wrong.

Considering the huge number of female players I’ve encountered during my GW2 gameplay, I don’t believe I fall in to the 10% group.

No problem, you can call bullkitten on this if you like. But Gamestatistics DID do a survey and the numbers WERE “91% male – 9% female”. Of course this isn’t 100% accurate otherwise they would have to get everyone to do the survey.

It’s also the only survey I’ve seen that actually took into account the gender of the player.

Sorry but its way more than 9%. Its more like 35-40%

2013 Gamer Stats

http://www.theesa.com/facts/gameplayer.asp

I will never understand why some men have issues with the fact that women play games.

We deserve representation. Its not 1994. Its 2014. Times have changed.

And I don’t think they have forgotten male gamers. There is Braham. Theres Evon. Rytlok, etc. And theres likely more in the works.

melodyca can you point to me where “some men have issues with the fact that women play games” in this thread?

1) Thobek is referring to a specific survey done about GW2 gamers not all gamers across all genres. It’s not perfect but it’s better than anecdotal experience (http://www.gamestatistics.fr/Guild%20Wars%202%20survey%202013_Full%20Report.pdf is the survey btw).
2) The 2013 Gamer Stats isn’t specifically about GW2 or MMOs in general. Angry Birds counts as a game and it’s easily possible that the 45% of female gamers figure is heavily skewed towards casual games on mobile phones and that figure does not represent female representation in MMOs or GW2.

I don’t think “males make up more of GW2’s audience thus should have more representation in the story” is a good argument (it’s not being made here btw). I think it’s fine to have several female leads regardless of the number of female players – you don’t need to be the same gender as a character to identify with them nor do you need to be the same gender to enjoy a character. You also shoot yourself in the foot from ever having lots of female players if you don’t welcome them. I don’t think it’s wrong for some players to want more positively portrayed male characters in the story either (tbh if they are written the way the cast this last season was written I don’t think it would matter, I’m personally not a fan of how the Living Story has been handling characters and stories – it’s too much about the individuals or their relationships and has very little to do with the story).

Raziel.4216:

They can continue to focus on the target of 4% of last year’s top games, after all, they seem to be forgotten by almost every developer, even tho they make up 45% of the overall users.

As my first post attempts to demonstrate, ArenaNet is doing fine when it comes to representing women imo. What happens in the industry outside of ArenaNet and Tyria doesn’t change the fact that Tyria is packed with awesome female heroes, many of which were/are leads. Typically they do this without swinging one way or the other. We’re probably going to have to agree to disagree here but I don’t care what % of games have male or female portrayal when it comes to GW2, the only thing that matters to me is the portrayal in GW2. ArenaNet doesn’t have some debt to pay or some point to prove, they make games for their players regardless of their gender. You can throw all the statistics about the game industry you want, it won’t change the fact that humans have a Queen, Ascalon has heroes like Gwen, Langmar and Devonna, that Kryta has heroes like Salma, Livia, Evennia and Saidra, Elona has heroes like Margrid, Kormir (ugh), Melonni etc (many of these heroes have been around for eight years or more). I don’t dispute your quotes on the gaming industry, I just don’t think they are relevant when we are talking about Tyria.

melodyca.8921:

I will never understand why some men have issues with the fact that women play games.

Whoa! where are you getting this from?

Where are these disgruntled males complaining about girls that play video games? Tbh I would like to see more girls play games and I’m not talking about on their phones or facebook games either.

Most girls I know find computer games to be lame and nerdy. Most of my ex-girlfriends hated the fact I enjoyed gaming. Trust me, I’m with you on this. I would rather they joined in than ridiculed it. But that’s not what we are talking about here.

I’m glad they don’t have many male characters, ANet has shown that they’re a bit rubbish at making them anyway. Logan anyone? What a ponce (although actually the only likeable character out of the original lot was the Norn lady, because she was actually sensible!).

I’ve only just rejoined the game a few days ago, so beating up that Scarlet lady and then watching the blonde (drunk/nervous?) girl get into her friend in what was probably the most wooden kissing animation I’ve ever seen was marvellously amusing. I’ve seen it three times now and it simply does not get old. They ought to add a little sliver of spit in there by random chance as well just to spice things up.

Keep making hot hic female leads Arena*hic*Net!

I am confused. This is a MMO, which means every player can make a character they can relate to, be it then male, female or furry. Going beyond that and demanding that NPCs follow some predetermined gender distribution so that nobody gets a sad sounds like … I don’t know what, the whole idea is too ludicrous to properly register in my head.

I have 12 characters in GW2, all of them female, because I simply can’t relate well enough to a male character. I am quite happy for the option — a very large majority of games is automatically outside my consideration because I just can’t see myself interacting with a game world through the type of (male) character most games provide as their only option. The gender of NPCs is a non-issue to me, since I’m not going to have an intimate relationship with any of them. They are just … characters. Quite naturally, the same goes with PC characters.

The last time I checked, players who want to relate to male characters have the same option as I do, and they are free to make a (male) character to their tastes. See, freedom and equality!

Demanding that other people, including NPCs, fall into certain categories “because fair and balanced”, on the other hand … words fail me.

Can you please enlighten me? What kind of privilege is needed for thinking that one is entitled to having other people around them to be of a particular gender? That a story is not interesting enough solely because there are too many people of “wrong” gender in it?

Shiren.9532:

1) Thobek is referring to a specific survey done about GW2 gamers not all gamers across all genres. It’s not perfect but it’s better than anecdotal experience (http://www.gamestatistics.fr/Guild%20Wars%202%20survey%202013_Full%20Report.pdf is the survey btw).

Never heard of this survey so I’ll keep my eyes open to see if I can spot it next time to make my voice heard. According to the pdf, 6500 players were surveyed. In the first year alone, GW2 sold over 3.5 million copies. They surveyed 0.19% of the game’s population (as of year one – I’m sure it’s gone up since). That sample size seems… incredibly minute in comparison. When you consider that in statistics they tell you that the smaller the sample size the larger the potential for inaccuracy in extrapolating those numbers into representing an entire population/concluding on unknown parameters, it seems like a poor idea to support an argument with that survey.

It also seems like it’d be swayed by the player base built into each site they used to advertise. It was posted on 2 english fansites (plus a spanish and a french site), reddit, twitter and the official forums. I’ve never spent time on Guild Wars 2 Guru or Guild Wars 2 Online at all. I used to frequent reddit but avoid it like the plague now after some bad experiences with vitriolic users and their policy on keeping certain subreddits going. I probably never saw the thread on the official forums here, as I stick to only a few main subforums and don’t venture past page 1 most of the time. I rarely use twitter, and only catch what happens as I happen to be checking. It’s easy to miss tweets. I mostly stick to the official site, Tumblr’s GW2 tag (same problem as Twitter in that I can miss posts), my guild’s forums and tumblr, and Massively’s GW2 articles if I remember to read them.

The survey itself says, “Sample cannot be regarded as truly ‘representative’ of Guild Wars 2 players population, because of the methodology used (based on free access and not an online panel). However, we can consider it is representative at least of the main involved players.” The first part is the truth. The second part is conjecture. I’m on these forums a lot, I’m in the GW2 tag on tumblr a lot, I get my daily almost every day, played GW1 and GW2 since preview weekend/launch etc. Still never heard of it. Yet I’d consider myself a “main involved player.” The arrogance of that sentence astounds, but I digress.

tldr; That sample size is so small and the places the survey was posted are so limited that I would not tout that number around as anything resembling reality. All I really know now is the opinions/makeup of the populations of those few fan sites.

Shiren.9532:

2) The 2013 Gamer Stats isn’t specifically about GW2 or MMOs in general. Angry Birds counts as a game and it’s easily possible that the 45% of female gamers figure is heavily skewed towards casual games on mobile phones and that figure does not represent female representation in MMOs or GW2.

I don’t understand why those that play “casual games” are somehow not considered gamers to those who like to dismiss that statistic. Is Angry Birds not a non-casual game if someone plays it regularly? Is Pokemon? Secret of Mana? Is Pinball, or Tetris or DDR…? Man, gatekeepers of communities really keep you sprinting to prove yourself in their community. As a sidenote, this reminds me of the ~fake geek girl~ discussion going on in the comics community right now. When is the ever-moving invisible line where your enjoyment/use of a media is “enough” or “the correct kind” for an individual to be considered part of the community?

If you’d like something that looks specifically at MMOs, the percentage is more like 40%, according to this BBC article from 2008 which sees the gap as closing over time.

Shiren.9532:

I don’t think “males make up more of GW2’s audience thus should have more representation in the story” is a good argument (it’s not being made here btw).

I agree that it’s a poor argument. But actually, that was seemingly the implication of Thobek’s comment:

Thobek.1730:

If you look at gamestatistics survey roughly about 90% of the player base is male. I think it would be prudent to have a few more male characters in the game that aren’t stupid, dimwitted or there for comic relief. Its almost insulting.

I would not call Braham, Canach, Evon or Faren “stupid, dimwitted or there for comic relief” (esp not Evon) any more so than I would accuse some of the female characters of some of these qualities. Faren @ Jubilee. Pay attention to Braham’s sensitive side w/ Ottilia, the scars of Eir’s ignoring, his attempted diplomacy w/ two races before standing alone to defend his home, how he treats Taimi or how he cares more about Rox getting what she wants (even if it’s against what he wants) when he’s in pain and wounded. Right in the feels. Even paragon Ellen thought Canach was doing the right thing but in the wrong way. I would call him misguided/impulsive (as a young sylvari might be) with his heart in the right place. Maybe Heal-O-Tron will relate to him and they can go adventure together. But I also feel like Rox was underutilized, and Kasmeer’s character building was tacked on to the end (Marjory, too. She’s the least developed as an individual, imo, despite the sudden exposition with Kas in the Lornar’s camp about her family). And I think OP cherry-picked a little by adding Mai Trin but not Horrik to the “boys vs girls” list, and having Turma who I’ve literally seen once but not The Mad King and Prince Thorn who’ve had way more development in their two Halloween updates. -shrug-

Shiren.9532:

As my first post attempts to demonstrate, ArenaNet is doing fine when it comes to representing women imo. … I don’t dispute your quotes on the gaming industry, I just don’t think they are relevant when we are talking about Tyria.

Cut for length, sorry. I agree with your first sentence or two. But I want to take some time to defend the “broader context” discussions. Upthread, there are accusations of reverse sexism (~not being for equality~) slung at those who don’t see a problem with the balance of the group’s gender. I believe the contextual explanations that came after are specifically in defense of this line of thought, and were not a generic rebuttal to the thread. Context is important in a discussion about widespread issues like gender imbalance, issues of representation in popular media, and in getting at what exactly constitutes equality. GW2 doesn’t exist in a vacuum, as others have said, and neither does the concept of equality. To frame the discussion in this narrow way seems like a convenient method to avoid being called out on not upholding the same standards of equality in situations that are less self-promoting. It whiffs of hypocrisy from those already in positions of privilege and I think this “only focus on the single game” viewpoint is a way to avoid accusations of cutting the cheese. Are those pointing the finger at male inequality (and heterosexual inequality, as with another recent thread) as concerned with equality in any other form in this game? Do they discuss the main cast’s shortcomings at representing people of color? The “let’s just focus on this one game” approach would seem less suspiciously self-serving if those who cry reverse sexism were openly critiquing and starting dialogues with equal zest regarding all the problematic areas of GW2 (hello, armor set disparity). A broader context would lead to a discussion on whether “equality” is something they fight for in forums for other video games that have the more traditional “token girl”/white/straight inequality, or if the fight is only apparent/important to them in the games/specific elements of a game that happen to challenge the privileged main stream narrative that we are used to.

My point there is that if you (the general “you”, not you as in Shiren) want to get into a meaningful discussion on the nuances of equality, prepare to engage in some academic theory and macro discussion. There is no longer a simple definition of feminism or equality or social justice. There’s ~50 years of social theories, systems and context (history) to be knowledgeable about or at least aware of. And, as with all academic fields, the discussion is an ongoing one because the world is ever changing. I don’t think those accusing of reverse sexism actually want that macroscopic conversation because it’s too hard. It’s more than a two sentence reply and walking away from the keyboard. It’s a lifestyle of constant reflection. I think some people just want to use the word “equality” when it suits them, but I would love for the people championing male/heterosexual equality to prove me wrong and show that they’re passionate about other forms of inequality as well!

The Fresh Prince explanation upthread is a wonderful one regarding why such a micro-view is harmful in discussing equality. I’ve seen others in similar threads reference Tyler Perry and Sailor Moon, for more examples of media that provides a platform for primarily minority casts at the expense of equality on a micro scale.

Back on track. We know there are strong female characters in this series. I think we all began at least vaguely on-board with that premise, regardless of whether we quibble about males being equally represented in such a fashion in this single season of Living Story XD I can make a list of all the male characters to show that they have an equally strong presence in the series..?

For me, I think my curiosity at those responses in this thread comes down to: A party of 4 men and 1 woman has been the status quo for most media. A party of 4 women and 1 man upsets the status quo in a single game. The complaining that comes from that role reversal comes off as the sound and fury of privilege unable to cope with narrative elements that operate outside the status quo. It sounds like fighting for visibility and equality only when it is for characters that reflect their already privileged and visible self, not because there is a legitimate issue with the quality of writing of the male characters in comparison to the females, or because there is a character traditionally under-served in our society’s media that needs the spotlight.

Am I the only one who doesn’t actually care if the cast is male or female dominated it is a non issue to me and if (being male myself) i hadn’t seen this title would i have even noticed the cast is mostly female – nope i play and love this game and it doesn’t matter to me who the main cast consists of as long as they kick butt.

lol i bet the majority of male players on here play as a female character anyways c’mon tell me i’m wrong lol

dgenxp.8650:

Am I the only one who doesn’t actually care if the cast is male or female dominated it is a non issue to me and if (being male myself) i hadn’t seen this title would i have even noticed the cast is mostly female – nope i play and love this game and it doesn’t matter to me who the main cast consists of as long as they kick butt.

lol i bet the majority of male players on here play as a female character anyways c’mon tell me i’m wrong lol

Mhm, I didn’t notice at first as well, but when I started getting into the story with Braham and Rox’s story arc, I slowly noticed a spike from the minor characters, to the semi-important to the major.

Aye lad, majority I would normally agree wif’ ya (in other games), but this game is a mixed plate to be fair with so much going on when it comes to player gender, mainly because race also plays a role.

I myself have a relatively balanced cast, 5 males to 4 females (9 total) last time i checked, I wouldn’t call out balance in this about the first season if not.

hehe but as i said its a non issue for me but i also think it is a good thing due to the majority of games are male oriented this makes it stand out apparantly lol

dgenxp.8650:

hehe but as i said its a non issue for me but i also think it is a good thing due to the majority of games are male oriented this makes it stand out apparantly lol

Good content makes an MMO stand out from the crowd, not gender bias. If you imply that it was Arena Net’s intention to have a female heavy cast only to make itself different from the rest, then that was quite a failure. Neither does the story to the LS stand out from any other MMO as exceptional, the quality of the content itself has been fairly mediocre.

Many in this topic have said gender bias is fine if the story calls for it, but if they are not using story reasons for their decisions then that speaks volumes about the lack of quality to the writing.

Aedelric.1287:

Good content makes an MMO stand out from the crowd, not gender bias. If you imply that it was Arena Net’s intention to have a female heavy cast only to make itself different from the rest, then that was quite a failure. Neither does the story to the LS stand out from any other MMO as exceptional, the quality of the content itself has been fairly mediocre.

Many in this topic have said gender bias is fine if the story calls for it, but if they are not using story reasons for their decisions then that speaks volumes about the lack of quality to the writing.

You keep insisting that there is a “gender bias” as if that were a given fact.

Too bad that this claim is not supported by statistics.

In order to establish the presence of a bias, the measurement must be outside the confidence interval of the null hypothesis that there is no bias and the outcome is random. In the case of a binomial distribution, the null hypothesis confidence interval is

0.5 ± 0.5 z / sqrt( n )

where z is a percentile value corresponding to confidence percentage, and n is the sample size. For a statistically significant result, z = 3. Thus, for any n we can calculate where the null hypothesis fails, i.e., what kind of result supports the existence of a bias. For your convenience:

For groups of up to 8 characters, null hypothesis always holds. The sample size is too small to say anything about a bias.

For groups between 9 and 12 characters, there is a bias if all characters are of the same gender.

For groups between 13 and 15 characters, there is a bias if there is at most one character of one gender.

For groups between 16 and 19 characters, there is a bias if there are at most two characters of one gender.

And so on.

In light of these numbers, there is insufficient evidence of a gender bias in GW2.

Yes there are allot of female characters if you include DE and DE Mk2 there are 3 Males and 7 females granted but the number of males increases if you include non DE and DE Mk2 characters such as magnus, treesus, Evan Gnashblade, lord Faren and who ever E is (it is implied its a male) the majority of PS characters are male so IMO just because the DE and DE Mk2 are mostly female i think it balances out with other characters that are able to be interacted with just because the Iconicles are mostly female does not represent a bias in my opinion just mainly female coincidentally and why not.

I don’t honestly think ANET said oh we don’t like male characters so lets do a mainly female cast, this is just a coincidence – also i think it might be because the lead writer if the story is female so maybe (as my friend is a story writer too) prefers to write in interesting females in the main cast which is a non issue imo

Leshain.6720:

Oi’ people keep talking about the whole “relationships” deal going on in season 1 with the two human female characters going all kissy face on each otha’.

Jus’ sayin it kinda ruined the experience for me, nothin wrong with a strong cool female character, but kitten mang balance the scales for season 2 please.

Pick any lad from this wallpaper and it’ll be all gewd.

I agree (I think – see below). The first season does cater to a number of strong females but I’m not going to go as far as to say we need a balance all the time. Story drives the characters, not gender.

Sorry this is off topic but what language is this? It’s kind of cutesy to type the way your particular dialect sounds when spoken, I’m thinking? I’m sorry, I just can’t get past anything of importance when I have to do a mental translation of ‘ghetto jive’ to English. Sorry again for the off topic comment.

tmakinen.1048:

there is insufficient evidence of a gender bias in GW2.

Firstly I never said Guild Wars 2, I said Living Story.

Insufficient evidence of bias? Sure their is, the heroes of Tyria are almost all female, Rox, Kasmeer, Marjory, Taimi and only Braham is male. The main antagonist is a female Sylvari and most of the rest are just background characters with the exception of Ellen Kiel who has been an important character in numerous updates.

Aedelric.1287:

tmakinen.1048:

there is insufficient evidence of a gender bias in GW2.

Insufficient evidence of bias? Sure their is, the heroes of Tyria are almost all female, Rox, Kasmeer, Marjory, Taimi and only Braham is male. The main antagonist is a female Sylvari and most of the rest are just background characters with the exception of Ellen Kiel who has been an important character in numerous updates.

You list seven characters. As I explained in my previous post, that wouldn’t provide sufficient statistical evidence for a bias even if all the seven were female (which isn’t the case). It really is all about sample size. A group of seven males and zero females (100% male group) is not evidence of bias. A group of 550 males and 350 females (61% male group) is evidence of male bias (anything below 405 of minority gender fails the null hypothesis). Please check a statistics textbook on binomial distributions if necessary — this issue is not open for argument.

Incidentally, the sample size effect is also why bias cannot be examined on a case by case basis. Almost all individual cases have sample sizes that are insufficient for making any conclusive statements about bias. On the other hand, it is very easy to demonstrate the overall bias towards male characters when examining the industry as a whole.

You do understand it is the main living story leads we are talking about here tmakinen? Because it seems that you think every npc in the game including pre-living story should be accounted for, which is a senseless notion considering it is only the living story main cast that people are complaining about.

Shiren.9532:

Raziel.4216:

They can continue to focus on the target of 4% of last year’s top games, after all, they seem to be forgotten by almost every developer, even tho they make up 45% of the overall users.

As my first post attempts to demonstrate, ArenaNet is doing fine when it comes to representing women imo. What happens in the industry outside of ArenaNet and Tyria doesn’t change the fact that Tyria is packed with awesome female heroes, many of which were/are leads. Typically they do this without swinging one way or the other. We’re probably going to have to agree to disagree here but I don’t care what % of games have male or female portrayal when it comes to GW2, the only thing that matters to me is the portrayal in GW2.

GW2 doesnt exist in a vacuum, it exists as part of the gamer culture and that’s male dominated.
That cant be ignored, the fact’s that when I go to a game store I’ll find 86% overall games that catter to me (research article posted b4 in this topic) and 96% out of the top 25 games.
More on social priviledge http://teddykw2.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/encyclopedia-of-communication-theory.pdf
Page 798.

Shiren.9532:

ArenaNet doesn’t have some debt to pay or some point to prove, they make games for their players regardless of their gender.

Gender is a demographic, they can decide who they target.

Shiren.9532:

You can throw all the statistics about the game industry you want, it won’t change the fact that humans have a Queen, Ascalon has heroes like Gwen, Langmar and Devonna, that Kryta has heroes like Salma, Livia, Evennia and Saidra, Elona has heroes like Margrid, Kormir (ugh), Melonni etc (many of these heroes have been around for eight years or more). I don’t dispute your quotes on the gaming industry, I just don’t think they are relevant when we are talking about Tyria.

Once again, the status of the gaming industry is not irrelevant when talking about a specific game, this game doesnt exist in it’s own, unique and exclusive culture.
The priviledged group can be underrepresented to give the spotlight to those who are less favored by the industry.
Just like the white-dominated TV industry was not ignored when people analized the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. This argument would translate into “I dont care about the rest of the white dominated TV shows, I want balance in this particular one that challenges the status quo”

Aedelric.1287:

You do understand it is the main living story leads we are talking about here tmakinen? Because it seems that you think every npc in the game including pre-living story should be accounted for, which is a senseless notion considering it is only the living story main cast that people are complaining about.

He never said every NPC should be accounted for.
He’s telling you the basic procedure to establish the bias and, like he said, it’s not open for discussion. Just like 2+2=4.
You can establish gender bias in studies like this http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-009-9637-1 with a sample size of 489, out of which 86% is male.

Aedelric.1287:

You do understand it is the main living story leads we are talking about here tmakinen?

Yes, I completely understand that. In your previous post you mentioned seven characters (6 female, 1 male) and I explained why that does not constitute sufficient evidence for claims of gender bias.

On the other hand, I am starting to suspect that you don’t understand what the word ‘bias’ means. It is not synonymous with “there are more women than men in the group”. Bias is a property of the underlying distribution, not one of a random sample drawn from it.

If you are interested in learning more, please provide me a list of characters related to the Living Story, in order of importance (starting from most important). Feel free to cut the list at any point where you feel that the rest of the list consists of characters of little importance.

In return, I will explain (again) why that list does not provide sufficient evidence for a claim of gender bias.

Shhh! If you say anything that doesn’t kiss ANet’s kitten and insults everyone else who doesn’t agree with this obviously forced homosexuality and women-on-top thing you’ll get called a homophobe, sexist, infarcted then banned for hate speech for demanding equality for all sexual preferences that they themselves aren’t comfortable with (oh the irony).

But in response to the post…I think it would be better if they proved they could consistently write decent characters (and not die halfway through the personal story) before even remotely wanting cast balance. Given the…standard… of writing on display, do you really think adding more males would do any good? Atm, the only real ‘strong’ male character is Evon….and surprise surprise…he’s designed as an immoral, selfish, spiteful individual. Rytlock would be close up there…but he becomes increasingly less admirable the more he opens his mouth, so yeah. Also, check the ‘male bonding’ between him and Logan during CoE story….cringeworthy at best. I understand why you’d be annoyed, but quite frankly I think writing strong males (I’d even argue strong females as well-they just used ‘women-on-top’ and homosexuality to divert eyes from the fact that the characters themselves are just awful…except Eir and Zojja…Eir is awesome on too many levels and Zojja has a well realized personality) is beyond them tbh.

Oh, and to people who think ‘well we women have been poorly written in every game so now it’s fine to have the roles reversed’….thank the spirits you aren’t influencial in the running of world politics. Or else every black person would be ‘well we’ve endured slavery and racism for centuries-it’s only fair that now we enslave all white people’….yeah….that sounds STUPID doesn’kitten You can’t demand equality then go on a parade of justifying the very thing you’re fighting against..I…I don’t even….sigh

On a side note I like how this ‘progressive’ game would rather full the major roles with women and homosexuals but not include a single black person in a year and a half. Guess we’re even less important than sentient vegetables, go figure. But hey…nobody mentioned it and you don’t see me crying and calling people racist.

Imbune.5497:

Shhh! If you say anything that doesn’t kiss ANet’s kitten and insults everyone else who doesn’t agree with this obviously forced homosexuality and women-on-top thing you’ll get called a homophobe, sexist, infarcted then banned for hate speech for demanding equality for all sexual preferences that they themselves aren’t comfortable with (oh the irony).

Summing up every argument into this category is silly

Imbune.5497:

But in response to the post…I think it would be better if they proved they could consistently write decent characters (and not die halfway through the personal story) before even remotely wanting cast balance.

How well the characters are written is a matter of personal opinion, gender bias is not.

Given the…standard… of writing on display, do you really think adding more males would do any good? Atm, the only real ‘strong’ male character is Evon….and surprise surprise…he’s designed as an immoral, selfish, spiteful individual. Rytlock would be close up there…but he becomes increasingly less admirable the more he opens his mouth, so yeah. Also, check the ‘male bonding’ between him and Logan during CoE story….cringeworthy at best. I understand why you’d be annoyed, but quite frankly I think writing strong males (I’d even argue strong females as well-they just used ‘women-on-top’ and homosexuality to divert eyes from the fact that the characters themselves are just awful…except Eir and Zojja…Eir is awesome on too many levels and Zojja has a well realized personality) is beyond them tbh.

That’s your opinion, some of us like those characters and this is irrelevant.

Imbune.5497:

Oh, and to people who think ‘well we women have been poorly written in every game so now it’s fine to have the roles reversed’….thank the spirits you aren’t influencial in the running of world politics. Or else every black person would be ‘well we’ve endured slavery and racism for centuries-it’s only fair that now we enslave all white people’….yeah….that sounds STUPID doesn’kitten You can’t demand equality then go on a parade of justifying the very thing you’re fighting against..I…I don’t even….sigh

Right, arguing for representation in 1 entertainment medium and violation of human rights goes hand-to-hand doesnt it. Makes no sense.
The issue of priviledge, going agaisnt the stratus quo and giving the spotlight to the underrepresented has been discussed already, read b4 replying.
Based on your logic, the prince of bel-air was racist and sailor moon was sexist. Let’s completely ignore the fact that they gave the spotlight to groups that have been left out by almost everyone else.

Imbune.5497:

yeah….that sounds STUPID doesn’t it

Yes it does.
Your argument has been debunked more than once in this topic, I suggest you read b4 replying.

On a side note I like how this ‘progressive’ game would rather full the major roles with women and homosexuals but not include a single black person in a year and a half. Guess we’re even less important than sentient vegetables, go figure. But hey…nobody mentioned it and you don’t see me crying and calling people racist.

The case-by-case method has been debunked more than once in this topic.
But I agree that we could use some major black character

Aedelric.1287:

dgenxp.8650:

hehe but as i said its a non issue for me but i also think it is a good thing due to the majority of games are male oriented this makes it stand out apparantly lol

Good content makes an MMO stand out from the crowd, not gender bias. If you imply that it was Arena Net’s intention to have a female heavy cast only to make itself different from the rest, then that was quite a failure. Neither does the story to the LS stand out from any other MMO as exceptional, the quality of the content itself has been fairly mediocre.

Many in this topic have said gender bias is fine if the story calls for it, but if they are not using story reasons for their decisions then that speaks volumes about the lack of quality to the writing.

So… having the characters be male would magically fix these other issues, that have no relation to character gender? Granted, so many games with all male, or male heavy (re: Almost any game ever made) casts have some really, really wretched and horribly executed and written stories (Anything in the FPS genre, for the most part)… so, gender of characters =/= good story or not.

And what reasons do they need? Women are being put into the story as characters, as people. Is there some magical reason why it must be female? Is male some sort of default for leads? Sure, there’s quite a few females in the LS cast… but, who cares? I see little to no merit in this complaint, considering how the opposite is true in almost anything, yet I highly doubt you’d voice complaint in those cases.

So, if you feel underrepresented, that the male characters are comical caricatures that paint men in a silly light… well, welcome to how women characters are treated in the vast majority of most other things.

tbh, one can’t really comment definitively and factually on the quality of a written character unless one’s an expert in that field, considering opinions of the average person would always differ and generally hold the same merit.

Kit.3986:

tbh, one can’t really comment definitively and factually on the quality of a written character unless one’s an expert in that field, considering opinions of the average person would always differ and generally hold the same merit.

You can read some research on this field
https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/47355
From the discussion:
Our literature reviews show that female roles in game storylines are most often of secondary nature (Miller and Summers 2007; Behm-Morawitz and Mastro 2009; Dill and Thill 2007). Female characters are commonly underdeveloped in personality, or not developed at all. Conversely, male characters often possess complex and developed personalities that reinforce archetypes of strength, strong will, and independence, making them most often the primary and leading characters. These in-game disparities can be viewed as a reflection of women’s perceived traits, roles, and importance in non-gaming environments. Moreover, when combined with hyper-sexualized character designs, underdeveloped character personalities and plot-lines reinforce the notion that women’s roles are inconsequential and closely associated with sex.
From the conclusion:
Character designs and representations are critical components of overall game design and should be considered when attempting to create an inclusive gaming environment for women. Our project built on existing research by identifying and highlighting the portions of female characters that are most often exposed in popular contemporary video games. A visualization of character body types was created using twenty-eight character images. When compared to their male counterparts, female characters were often hyper-sexualized in appearance, body proportion, and lack of clothing.

Another one, a bit older http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-007-9307-0
From the abstract
First, it is clear that women are under-represented across a range of media and settings. Second, when women are portrayed, it is often in a circumscribed and negative manner. Women are often sexualized—typically by showing them in scanty or provocative clothing. Women are also subordinated in various ways, as indicated by their facial expressions, body positions, and other factors. Finally, they are shown in traditionally feminine (i.e., stereotyped) roles. Women are portrayed as nonprofessionals, homemakers, wives or parents, and sexual gatekeepers. Although the studies generally support these conclusions, some interesting moderating factors are identified, such as race. It is suggested that next steps involve the development of theory and a body of empirical evidence regarding the effects of exposure to under-representation of women.

There’s so much research on this subject

Oh, no I meant that one can’t factually state that Kasmeer, or Marjory, are poorly written characters and have that as a fact for an argument against having female characters. Since some posts seemed to be implying that.

I wasn’t referring to a bigger picture on that last statement, I agree with what those studies show and that was more or less what I was saying in my post (Female characters tend to be poorly represented in media, are often not particularly complex in the vast majority of things, whereas their male counterparts are treated a lot better on the basis that they’re male characters). Which is why I find it positive that GW2 seems to be going in a route where they, at least, seem to want to write stronger female characters.

Character gender doesn’t matter to me really. What I want is a good character development.

Raziel.4216:

Women are often sexualized—typically by showing them in scanty or provocative clothing.

Like Lady Kasmeer Meade and her fairly provocative clothing, especially during her visit to Southsun.

Raziel.4216:

Women are also subordinated in various ways, as indicated by their facial expressions, body positions, and other factors.

Like her very feminine idle stance or perhaps the massive downblouse shot we get during her kissing scene?

Raziel.4216:

Finally, they are shown in traditionally feminine (i.e., stereotyped) roles. Women are portrayed as nonprofessionals, homemakers, wives or parents, and sexual gatekeepers.

Like being a mesmer? She could have been a guardian, but I guess all that plate would have made it harder to sexualize her.

Guild Wars is a game like the rest, the female characters in it are not portrayed much better than any other MMO. The only real difference is that the -living story- main cast seems to have more women than men, one can say it is a change but not a healthy or groundbreaking change. I would have had more respect if Arena Net chose a character like Ellen Kiel as main focus, a no nonsense person that does not rely on sex appeal or controversy to catch peoples attention.

Anyway, bring on Canach we need some flavour to the heroes of Tyria crew, they are far too bland.

If you dislike the fact that there are so many female characters. Maybe you can now understand why a lot of female gamers have been getting tired of all male casts in every other game EVER. Or at least to me I find it harder to relate to a cast of predominantly male characters (Some may disagree).

It’s refreshing to see more woman represented in varying roles and equally seeing male characters in the kind of intellectually challenged role you would usually see woman in (Lord Faren). Usually games are filled with the dumb girl that needs saving tropes. It’s definitely nice to see woman characters being treated the way male characters are usually treated in other games and vice versa. It’s about time more games do this and treat genders more equally and varied. No stereotypes attached to a specific gender and instead have either be fair game.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t mind more male characters. I think it would be nice if there could be more of them but not for the usual reason of it merely being the norm.

Demented Sheep.1642:

Vexander.9850:

bullyrook.2165:

Agreed. I didn’t notice too much of an “imbalance” between genders up until the living story, the only male we have in the main group is Braham. There is nothing “wrong” with this, but it seems unlikely that all the men in Tyria lack spines, talent, and good will.

Not only this, but it often feels like the Males are being type casted in a way. -Most- major male lore characters are either Warriors or Guardians it feels like.

Logan – Guardian
Braham – Guardian
Rytlock – Warrior
Faren – Warrior

Its kind of like the writers are telling us the male characters are only good enough to be meat shields, that they’re not smart enough to be an Engineer or an Elementalist or a Mesmer. Especially mesmer to be honest. We’ve got 3 human female Mesmers now who are very prominent in the story (Jennah, Anise, and Kasmeer).

Treherene, the main of the personal story who everyone seems to forget is a necromancer and a scholar. The main reason why he got the job of marshal was due to his knowledge.

Gixx the head of the durmand priory is also male.

Tybalt is an engineer and by far the most popular of the mentors.

Evion isn’t much of fighter but he’s crafty.

Guardians are spell swords, not just meat shields.

Not to mention women being sepllcasters, archers and thieves and men being warriors also comes with the implication that woman should stay at the back and can’t be useful without trickery or unless it’s fantasy world where magic makes up for gender.

Correction, Tybalt was an engineer. Now he’s just dead.

Also notice the amount of lesbian couples compared to male gay couples. I can mention none of the later, cause probably there are none in the main story too. However, everyone knows Kas-Jory and Caithe-Faolain. I can also recall two sylvari girls from the ‘green knight’ personal story.

Aedelric.1287:

Raziel.4216:

Women are often sexualized—typically by showing them in scanty or provocative clothing.

Like Lady Kasmeer Meade and her fairly provocative clothing, especially during her visit to Southsun.

Raziel.4216:

Women are also subordinated in various ways, as indicated by their facial expressions, body positions, and other factors.

Like her very feminine idle stance or perhaps the massive downblouse shot we get during her kissing scene?

Raziel.4216:

Finally, they are shown in traditionally feminine (i.e., stereotyped) roles. Women are portrayed as nonprofessionals, homemakers, wives or parents, and sexual gatekeepers.

Like being a mesmer? She could have been a guardian, but I guess all that plate would have made it harder to sexualize her.

Guild Wars is a game like the rest, the female characters in it are not portrayed much better than any other MMO. The only real difference is that the -living story- main cast seems to have more women than men, one can say it is a change but not a healthy or groundbreaking change. I would have had more respect if Arena Net chose a character like Ellen Kiel as main focus, a no nonsense person that does not rely on sex appeal or controversy to catch peoples attention.

Anyway, bring on Canach we need some flavour to the heroes of Tyria crew, they are far too bland.

You have to cherry pick to support your argument, that itself sets gw2 appart.
We have a sexualized character, but it’s not the standard

Fay.2735:

If you dislike the fact that there are so many female characters. Maybe you can now understand why a lot of female gamers have been getting tired of all male casts in every other game EVER. Or at least to me I find it harder to relate to a cast of predominantly male characters (Some may disagree).

That’s not what the thread is about! Its the lack of Male characters. People are not asking to remove this female character or that one because there are too many.

We are saying for balance and equality ADD in some male characters that some people enjoy identifying with. Why would this be a problem? You have quite a few female characters taking up key roles, how about some for the guys…

Personally I don’t identify with Braham, he’s a dimwitted oaf that hits first and thinks later. Faren and his fancy panties is a joke, Canach is a villian that has perhaps seen the error of his ways and currently rots in a cell, and Evon is a opportunist with questionable ethics (tbh I like Evon the most out of this sad ragtag bunch). The other two are Logan the love sick puppy who I would expect to see carrying around Jennah’s purse while she goes shopping and Rytlock who is so caught up in administration duties you barely see him anymore.

The best two real male heroes of this game were Forgal and Tybalt and they were unfortunately killed off. They had substance of character.

So ultimately I agree with the OP, there is a lack of male major characters, or should I say GOOD ones.

Dbenji.9230:

Also notice the amount of lesbian couples compared to male gay couples. I can mention none of the later, cause probably there are none in the main story too. However, everyone knows Kas-Jory and Caithe-Faolain. I can also recall two sylvari girls from the ‘green knight’ personal story.

Nope, those sylvari were male. They’re often cited as the game’s one canon gay male couple.

Considering there’s not that many couples in the game to begin with, though…

I can’t believe people are actually upset about this though. Angry that most of the prominent characters in this game are female? Pick up literally any other game in your home or the local GameStop. Problem solved. It’s pretty gross, really.