Guild Wars 2

Within the story, 2 of five racial mentors and 2 of 3 order mentors are male, and the dip-kitten sylvari Orr expert whose name escapes me is male. In living story, 1 of 2 mentors from molten is male, lord faren and canach both male, moto was male along with more than half his ex- crew, gnashblade was male, mad king and blood prince both male, list goes on…

panzer.6034:

Good thing that this isn’t a concern in fantasy fiction or this game wouldn’t have magic or dragons or asuras or golems or a million other things that are far more unrealistic than women being heroes in a disproportionate amount. If you’re suspension of disbelief is stretched thin by having more female protagonists then men, then i’m not sure how you put up with 99% of this game.

This seems to be the crux of your argument. That nothing matters because you can do anything in a fantasy setting & that a writer can choose to do anything as long as the story is good. (btw, you commented on how I said completely unrealistic in GW1 & yet ignored the part where I said I liked the story in GW1) The problem is that just like most fantasy stories, most of reality is kept, down to sexual dimorphism. It’s what makes it interesting. So, without mixing gameplay & lore like you did, the variation between the two still exists.

Men identify with male characters more. That’s not wrong. that’s not bad. that should be celebrated. like I said, it’s just about normal expectation. Could a logging camp of women work as beneficently as a logging camp of men? Highly unlikely, since all things being equal the men have an unfair physical advantage. That’s physics. you can come up with as many hypothetical situations you want, but it just is. Now, is it possible that all the women in logging town are stronger than the men in logging town? Yes. but that doesn’t mean getting strong guys in there wouldn’t help. it’s not the social construct you want it to be.

You keep talking about artificial injection of males into this game, but you’re saying it’s only wrong after the fact. Essentially you don’t have any problem with what the writers do, you have a problem with weather people like it or not? ok, I can buy that. Don’t mess with a story that isn’t yours. You have a point there. & in that context my point is: I can’t relate to these characters on the same level because my biological makeup doesn’t allow me to. You can have an all-girl squad (which, story wise, is completely arbitrary. There is no story reason for it at all which is interesting) but it wont reach as many people as a mixture.

I want a game with cool male heroes I can identify with. This game killed off the best 2 and (I noticed you keep ignoring this) has a concerted effort to make women put-down, one-up & belittle males.(to me, this is what the thread should be about) I slowly noticed this more & more over the past year. It’s especially egregious in the npc banter. all that is what made this recent LS stand out soooo much. it’s like they finally got their chance & they were “free” of male character. I’m sure certain people we be fine with any story & nothing will matter. But it’s there. people have been posting about it off & on & it’s far more disconcerting than saying “I want more male heroes because I’m a male”. Again, it’s the whole that makes this stand out. all this stuff about physicality is to explain why I find certain things normal. You don’t care that there seems to be an agenda, fine. Some people do, fine. I honestly think this would be a veeeery different thread if the the places were swapped & you had male character insulting women all over the game.

1) human male and female anatomy, though different, and generally advantageous to men in sports, is very similar between genders, scientifically. In some sports, men and women compete equally. And women beat men. Even if men, scientifically, are better at something, it doesn’t make them so dramatically better that any man can beat any woman. Billy Jean King beat Bobby Riggs. I have beaten male opponents myself.

You beating a male is meaningless. You could beat me at most any sport. It’s when things are equal that you can measure then. As a scientist you should know that. & while there are sports that women are genetically superior, the evidence supports males being more built for war. You can’t seriously saying that sports have a vast massive divide for no physical reason. Men & women are not the same. It doesn’t mean we can’t give equal opportunity & let people choose how to live. It just means they are not the same.

panzer.6034:

2) The human brain is the same between the two (in terms of research, etc, not talking hormonal)

There are differences in violence control, willingness to reenter situations where they encountered pain & ability to emotionally detach to deal with traumatic behavior. There are plenty of marked differences. You are downplaying them significantly. That’s why if I say “murderer” you rightly assume male. It’s just true.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Infamous, i think the latter is Kal’s meaning… Also, kal, kudos to the “random and pointless maths” that is exactly what this thread is about. Fake numbers to find something to be b*tthurt about.

Fake math huh…you, and this Kal’s agenda in this thread is clear as well. You have no reasonable argument, no leg to stand on, sort of speak, so you do the next best thing, you attack any and all opposing views, use snide comments, in order to belittle said posters, consequently making them appear uninformed, or foolish. Good show.

This, is exactly why the current political system in the US is as broken as it is. Instead of mutual conversation, we get discourse and animosity. Hope you’re proud of yourself.

Now, back to the topic at hand. I want you, to list every single empowered, ultra intelligent, nearly flawless female character introduced into this game since it went live. Afterwards, [bold]equally[/bold], (key word, don’t just gloss over it, as you’ve done thus far with other pertinent facts stated), impressive male characters. Then, use basic math. Then attempt to continue this disinformation crusade of yours.

I’ll wait.

Lorelei.7809:

Thanks Pixelpumpkin! I added Tassi to my list

I find the characters competent in different ways. Braham is certainly competent.

My 2 cents on women, sports, fighting, emotions, yada, yada, yada and science. Unfortunately, you really hit a nerve (I am a female athlete and scientist).
1) human male and female anatomy, though different, and generally advantageous to men in sports, is very similar between genders, scientifically. In some sports, men and women compete equally. And women beat men. Even if men, scientifically, are better at something, it doesn’t make them so dramatically better that any man can beat any woman. Billy Jean King beat Bobby Riggs. I have beaten male opponents myself.

2) The human brain is the same between the two (in terms of research, etc, not talking hormonal)

3) You cannot dispute that women would not be equal to men in terms of magic ability. In fact, you could probably argue that they would be better at magic than men. Honestly, the only profession in the game that has an arguable male advantage (for humans assuming these human women have the same limitations as real-world humans) would be warrior as they do not use much magic nor does it depend on agility or subtlety (you do hear of a lot of women thieves). Men and women are both equally able to do the engineering profession. Note: This is regarding humans. Charr, Norn, Asura, and Sylvari have even less differentiation between the genders than humans do physiologically (Sylvari are the same, the shape is just different, Charr and Asura are the same between genders, Not sure about Norn, but certainly the Norn ladies are tough as nails – the men do not want weaker women so their strength then makes them far more equal, at the very least).

4) In terms of emotions, or whatever, men can also be brash and reckless. When men get brash and reckless, people can die (Snaff, for example – and Kralkatorrik is still around – and no matter what way you shake it, he maybe saved one person (she still may have lived) and he could have saved millions – I think the Queen would have been fine with dying if she knew he could have killed a dragon). When women get emotional, people often do not die.

5) As women are often weaker physically than their opponents they often use their mind to make up for it. How is it that women often become serial killers? They use poison. In other words, they are calculating.

Another note on emotion: Sometimes emotional can make you unpredictable which is an advantage in fighting.

In every instance where physical strength is seen as a key attribute in performance quality, (sports, military training, etc), we have two different and separate standards for qualification. Why do you suppose this is? If male and female anatomies were indeed so similar, (realistically, not just at a cellular level), then why is this the case?

Why are female military recruits allowed to join with lower physically qualification expectations than men? If human males and females are truly as physically similar as you make it out to be, then why do we still separate the two in ever major sport in the world, even golf…yes, even golf. NFL, World Soccer, MLB, NHL, World Basketball, NBA, Boxing, MMA, I could go on if you wish.

You’d think that, as similar as the two are, we’d be playing with each other, not separate, no? Personally, I cant wait till the reigning Women’s UFC champion takes on the Men’s champ. That should be entertaining. As well as enlightening.

I congratulate you on your accomplishments in athletics, I sincerely do, however, don’t make the mistake of truly believing that, when it comes to physical prowess, human males and females were created equal.

They were not.

With no official response regarding the matter, here’s my estimation of what this situation all comes down to.

Basically, the “feminist” of today isn’t looking so much for equality, as superiority. GW2’s lore/story direction seems be a visual representation of this. Not saying whomever is coming up with these ideas is a “feminist” per say, however, it does beg the question, why go to such lengths to blatantly denigrate male characters?

One would, or could not be accused of hyperbole by stating that this whole female-centric GW2/LS lore angle feels akin to retribution. It does indeed feel as if someone is trying desperately to get back at males anyway they can. In this case, using story writing

Its not so much due to the obvious quantity disparity, mind you, so much as its about quality of said male character development.

For every hyper intelligent, strong willed, cunning, courageous, and nearly perfect female character thus far introduced, (which tends to essentially describe every major female character introduced so far), there’s an equally inept, emotionally unstable, inexperienced, cowardly, or downright imbecilic male character counterpart.

At this point, whomever is writing this stuff isn’t even trying to be nonchalant about it, its becoming downright hostile. Am I wrong? Can we truly sit here and attempt to claim that the ratio between truly Heroic female and male characters in this game is even remotely balanced? Or, have I been looking at this all wrong.?

Are females the sole target audience for this game? Am I simply in a literal “no mans land”, and shouldn’t expect equal and fair treatment, (for bot genders), when it comes to RPG character development. Should I simply lower my expectations, and be happy with whatever meager lore scraps given by our benevolent writers? Or, should I simply dismiss GW2’s lore altogether?

I’d really like to hear from Anet about this. I really would, not that I’d expect to.

Anyways, Its worth keeping an eye on just to see how far these, or this individual writer(s) goes with this…and I hate to use the term…however, it certainly is starting to resemble an “agenda”, of sorts.

“You’re absolutely right about this being the reason the government is so messed up, you just have the cause and effect wrong. It’s people claiming wrongs where none exist and trying to impose that same belief on other who are just living in the world as it actually exists.”

I have to quote this it’s simply represent perfectly the current Quebec, where I live, situation with the introduction of “La charte des valeurs quebecoises”.

He’s right in every single way, thank you kal for pointing this out.

Tydarius.2631:

With no official response regarding the matter, here’s my estimation of what this situation all comes down to.

Basically, the “feminist” of today isn’t looking so much for equality, as superiority. GW2’s lore/story direction seems be a visual representation of this. Not saying whomever is coming up with these ideas is a “feminist” per say, however, it does beg the question, why go to such lengths to blatantly denigrate male characters?

One would, or could not be accused of hyperbole by stating that this whole female-centric GW2/LS lore angle feels akin to retribution. It does indeed feel as if someone is trying desperately to get back at males anyway they can. In this case, using story writing

Its not so much due to the obvious quantity disparity, mind you, so much as its about quality of said male character development.

For every hyper intelligent, strong willed, cunning, courageous, and nearly perfect female character thus far introduced, (which tends to essentially describe every major female character introduced so far), there’s an equally inept, emotionally unstable, inexperienced, cowardly, or downright imbecilic male character counterpart.

At this point, whomever is writing this stuff isn’t even trying to be nonchalant about it, its becoming downright hostile. Am I wrong? Can we truly sit here and attempt to claim that the ratio between truly Heroic female and male characters in this game is even remotely balanced? Or, have I been looking at this all wrong.?

Are females the sole target audience for this game? Am I simply in a literal “no mans land”, and shouldn’t expect equal and fair treatment, (for bot genders), when it comes to RPG character development. Should I simply lower my expectations, and be happy with whatever meager lore scraps given by our benevolent writers? Or, should I simply dismiss GW2’s lore altogether?

I’d really like to hear from Anet about this. I really would, not that I’d expect to.

Anyways, Its worth keeping an eye on just to see how far these, or this individual writer(s) goes with this…and I hate to use the term…however, it certainly is starting to resemble an “agenda”, of sorts.

You truly have an absurdly skewed view of things. Apparently having a couple skills and one friend makes a woman a "hyper intelligent, strong willed, cunning, courageous, and nearly perfect female character. "

I already answered your question. There are only four characters that could truly be considered flawless. Two of which have almost no personality and are kept devoid of any meaningful interaction with the player, the females. Two of which have a lot of interaction with the player and a fair in depth character. Rytlock is very rich in depth and Trehearn is around for almost half of the player story. All the Living Story characters are around for a couple weeks or a month at most before they stop being relevant again. For me it’s usually about a week cause that’s the most amount of time I’ve ever spent finishing the meta. But I keep getting reintroduced to those other four as I run more and more characters through the personal story.

I would definitely not say it is a feminist agenda Tydarius, writers often write what they are comfortable with. Perhaps those creating the Scarlet story arc are just more comfortable with writing female characters, which probably explains why Braham is such a poorly written male hero.

Just a reminder to people, try to keep this friendly, the moderators have been through this topic a few times cleaning out the bad posts. We are not enemies here!

:)

There has to be a difference between being against the taking of basic human rights and ownership of men and women and the over/under representation of genders in a video game.

Or do i have that wrong?

Yes you do have it wrong actually I wasn’t taking on this genders in video games argument.
That is why I made specific that single area that you are against extremists and that they are morons, my point was no not all extremists are morons sometimes they are very good, very intelligent people and their ideas eventually become common belief, but during their own times their ideas may be considered extreme/radical.