Guild Wars 2

Bring Tybalt and Forgal back and maybe I’ll care.

Terrahero.9358:

Yah it seems the living story is all about gurlpower. Scarlet in the spotlight, Queen Jenna in the spotlight, Marjory, Lady Kasmeer, Kiel.
Logan and Faren only make an appearance when they need someone to fail (comicaly).

Some more character diversity would be great.

Having the male act like a buffoon is a pretty common male trope. You see it a lot in advertising.

Anyways I do agree that there needs to be a couple more prominent male characters. Though this may not have been as much of an issue if people voted for Evon Gnashblade. :P

Females have had ‘a little spotlight’ for about a year now. Time to recover the balance, and not with ridiculously overstereotyped and one dimensional chars like Logan, Forgal and Rytlock.

We would have Evon Gnashblade if you people had voted right.

Aerlen.5326:

I dunno, it’s nice to see a lot of women in roles that gaming traditionally gives to men….

This is my issue with the abundance of females taking up the major roles. No balance.

In F&F you had the dimwit Braham and the much smarter Rox. We had some balance there but still favoured the females as far as competence is concerned.

Then things went heavily skewed towards female heroes – there was Kiel (female) that was used as the main point of contact through a few patches.

Now its moved on to Scarlet (female) as the main driving force behind the next LS arch. But it overlaps with Kiel (female) investigating the pirates and Marjory (female) tracking down the killer (who happens to be… another female)

Faren is there for comic relief and is a bit of an idiot. Nice male representation there.

Scarlet (female) turns up again and you accompany Caithe (female) through TA.

Currently we have Scarlet (female) + Krait (leaders are Priestesses – females) + NC (leader Faolain – female) and on the shore overlooking this are Kasmeer, Marjory, Dolja, Mykala, Senna and Kari (all females)

I like that Anet are willing to give major roles to females, I have no issue with that. But currently there isn’t a male in sight, nor has there been for a while. Unless you think Canach who we encountered once in a small cave is enough to balance out the ratio. Which it isn’t.

Why does anyone care what the gender ratio is for the significant NPCs? In what way does that affect your gameplay?

Imagi.4561:

Why does anyone cares what the gender ratio is for the significant NPCs? In what way does that affect your gameplay?

They care because it is women! :o
Had it been men (as it normally is) this thread would most likely not exist in the first place.

Thobek.1730:

But currently there isn’t a male in sight, nor has there been for a while.

Mad King? Bloody Prince?

Lily Miranda.5407:

Thobek.1730:

But currently there isn’t a male in sight, nor has there been for a while.

Mad King? Bloody Prince?

That’s not the LS, its a festival. geez come on!

This whole thread is a big facepalm. Lets all sit here and pretend that the entire history of male empowerment and privilege in mythology, books, movies and society at large never happened and then demand that we make up for it by arbitrarily injecting more male heroes into this game. This is some bizarre form of affirmative action where we must force the privileged and more commonly represented demographic into a story without any solid, compelling reason to so.

Considering the wide-spread negligence of female heroes in video games, I say it’s a good move. Funny to see the reaction of some people as soon as not 99% of all video game characters are male…

Thobek.1730:

Aerlen.5326:

I dunno, it’s nice to see a lot of women in roles that gaming traditionally gives to men….

This is my issue with the abundance of females taking up the major roles. No balance.

In F&F you had the dimwit Braham and the much smarter Rox. We had some balance there but still favoured the females as far as competence is concerned.

Then things went heavily skewed towards female heroes – there was Kiel (female) that was used as the main point of contact through a few patches.

Now its moved on to Scarlet (female) as the main driving force behind the next LS arch. But it overlaps with Kiel (female) investigating the pirates and Marjory (female) tracking down the killer (who happens to be… another female)

Faren is there for comic relief and is a bit of an idiot. Nice male representation there.

Scarlet (female) turns up again and you accompany Caithe (female) through TA.

Currently we have Scarlet (female) + Krait (leaders are Priestesses – females) + NC (leader Faolain – female) and on the shore overlooking this are Kasmeer, Marjory, Dolja, Mykala, Senna and Kari (all females)

I like that Anet are willing to give major roles to females, I have no issue with that. But currently there isn’t a male in sight, nor has there been for a while. Unless you think Canach who we encountered once in a small cave is enough to balance out the ratio. Which it isn’t.

So…

You don’t like men being treated the way women have been for decades in most media and video games, you don’t like the fact GW2 favors portraying women in important roles rather than men, and you think this is a issue that needs to be fixed or “balanced”?

Forgive me for not taking you very seriously and seconding that if all the female roles were occupied by men, most of the player base would see no issue at all.

I love GW2 for having a lot of women in a lot of very important roles – gay/bi/pansexual women too – and while there are things that need improvement, an overabundance of women isn’t one of those.

What have other games got to do with it? Nothing.

It ridiculous seeing people try to defend the fact that their is a bias and their should be no gender equality. Can any of you say you like the currently represented male characters like Braham the idiot and Lord Faran the buffoon?

It is not outrageous to ask for a least a couple of decent male lead heroes to accompany the current female heavy cast.

Demolitionist Tonn was a hero… just saying.

keenlam.4753:

Demolitionist Tonn was a hero… just saying.

That he was.

He was also not in the living story.

Aedelric.1287:

keenlam.4753:

Demolitionist Tonn was a hero… just saying.

That he was.

He was also not in the living story.

My bad, didn’t read the topic properly.

Aedelric.1287:

What have other games got to do with it? Nothing.

It ridiculous seeing people try to defend the fact that their is a bias and their should be no gender equality. Can any of you say you like the currently represented male characters like Braham the idiot and Lord Faran the buffoon?

It is not outrageous to ask for a least a couple of decent male lead heroes to accompany the current female heavy cast.

Did you ever think that maybe Anet decided to do this to stand out from other male character oriented games?

I really like Lord Faren because he’s a fop – a lovable one, I also adore Mad King Thorn, Logan Thackery, Rytlock and just about every male character I’ve met aside from Evon and Trahearne.

But honestly? It feels good to play a game where females aren’t put beneath men automatically and where LGBTQA folks are somewhat represented too. I don’t want to give that up for more straight white men being inserted in the name of “equality”.

Aerlen.5326:

So…

You don’t like men being treated the way women have been for decades in most media and video games, you don’t like the fact GW2 favors portraying women in important roles rather than men, and you think this is a issue that needs to be fixed or “balanced”?

Forgive me for not taking you very seriously and seconding that if all the female roles were occupied by men, most of the player base would see no issue at all.

I love GW2 for having a lot of women in a lot of very important roles – gay/bi/pansexual women too – and while there are things that need improvement, an overabundance of women isn’t one of those.

oh god stop with your moral crusade. I’m not talking about how they are portrayed in other media or games. I’m talking about GW2 ONLY. Don’t start with this treatment of woman in other areas, I’m talking about an MMO, THIS MMO.

and yes I would like to see an EQUAL balance, what’s so wrong in that?! Having a mixture of personalities and sexes makes for a more interesting setting. You should have characters in the game you can relate to and having a good mixture helps with that.

You seem to think this is some hidden male agenda to keep woman down or out of sight. Its not at all so stop making it out to be.

Aerlen.5326:

Aedelric.1287:

What have other games got to do with it? Nothing.

It ridiculous seeing people try to defend the fact that their is a bias and their should be no gender equality. Can any of you say you like the currently represented male characters like Braham the idiot and Lord Faran the buffoon?

It is not outrageous to ask for a least a couple of decent male lead heroes to accompany the current female heavy cast.

Did you ever think that maybe Anet decided to do this to stand out from other male character oriented games?

I really like Lord Faren because he’s a fop – a lovable one, I also adore Mad King Thorn, Logan Thackery, Rytlock and just about every male character I’ve met aside from Evon and Trahearne.

But honestly? It feels good to play a game where females aren’t put beneath men automatically and where LGBTQA folks are somewhat represented too. I don’t want to give that up for more straight white men being inserted in the name of “equality”.

Making the game biased towards a gender not because of story reasons but because of a misguided belief that it will make the game unique, is fairly preposterous and perhaps not a good design choice. The only importance in selecting a characters gender should be due to lore and equality.

And I like Evon, just because you find a character enjoyable does not mean everyone thinks the same. Faren is a twit and not a good representation of males, Thorn is a festival NPC not living story, Rytlock had little more than a one minute cameo and Thackery is a dolt.

No one is asking for women to be put below men, just have a couple of male heroes equal to the quantity of female. Go to Thunder Ridge, how many male and female NPC’s can you spot?

I would settle with one good relatable male lead, shame they killed off the best, Forgal and Tybalt.

I think of it like a scale: It has a male side and a female side. On the scale is 4 weights.

For centuries one side had all four weights. In recent years they were willing to give up just one of those weights making the ratio 3:1. (Don’t argue ratios its example only.)

Now we have two groups trying to take the wrong approach:
To keep with the status quo, a group from the side with 3 weights aren’t willing to give up that second weight any time soon.

Meanwhile, some members of the side with one weight want to take all four for a time to show the other side how it feels.

The solution? Remove all the weights, give two to Tybalt and give two to Countess Anise.

DarkWasp.7291:

solution? Remove all the weights, give two to Tybalt and give two to Countess Anise.

I can get behind that.

I don’t see the problem that this thread starter is trying to address. As a female gamer I connect more with the female cast and males get to look at some beautifully rendered women. Hey, I didn’t have a problem with Lord Faren, Trahearne, and Logan in my main story. I think this is getting blown out of proportion. (Girl Power!)

Barabbas.8715:

Caring about nonsense like this is immature. Maybe they should have made this game rated 18+…

i don’t think it would help

there are plenty of 18+ year old “males” that think females belong in the kitchen basically and threat them like a thing

i played quite few games and sadly there are such people who just hate females for w/e reason

Male heroes and male novel protagonists are old school like Lord of the Rings.

panzer.6034:

This whole thread is a big facepalm. Lets all sit here and pretend that the entire history of male empowerment and privilege in mythology, books, movies and society at large never happened and then demand that we make up for it by arbitrarily injecting more male heroes into this game. This is some bizarre form of affirmative action.

males identifying with male characters in a male-focused form of entertainment about male-centric activities? Oh NOES! they MUST be hate-mongers! I used to believe that too. I suggest you listen to a little girlwriteswhat & read some Warren Farrell before you start making your own mythology. Farrell has particularly interesting insights in that he is a feminist. Your “privileged” remark holds little water in the light of history.

Cynz.9437:

there are plenty of 18+ year old “males” that think females belong in the kitchen basically and threat them like a thing

so.. where are those people in this thread? oh.. I see, you made that up.. huh.

i played quite few games and sadly there are such people who just hate females for w/e reason

There is hatred for females in this thread? where? The only anti-gender comments in this thread are directed against males. Your kind of generalization & vilification is far more egregious than anything people are saying here about “why is there a female focus in war game?”.

a 50 50 split would be nice.

Thobek.1730:

Aerlen.5326:

So…

You don’t like men being treated the way women have been for decades in most media and video games, you don’t like the fact GW2 favors portraying women in important roles rather than men, and you think this is a issue that needs to be fixed or “balanced”?

Forgive me for not taking you very seriously and seconding that if all the female roles were occupied by men, most of the player base would see no issue at all.

I love GW2 for having a lot of women in a lot of very important roles – gay/bi/pansexual women too – and while there are things that need improvement, an overabundance of women isn’t one of those.

oh god stop with your moral crusade. I’m not talking about how they are portrayed in other media or games. I’m talking about GW2 ONLY. Don’t start with this treatment of woman in other areas, I’m talking about an MMO, THIS MMO.

and yes I would like to see an EQUAL balance, what’s so wrong in that?! Having a mixture of personalities and sexes makes for a more interesting setting. You should have characters in the game you can relate to and having a good mixture helps with that.

You seem to think this is some hidden male agenda to keep woman down or out of sight. Its not at all so stop making it out to be.

And you seem to think there’s some hidden agenda to remove male heroes from Guild Wars 2 when there isn’t. Stop with your crusade, there is no female master plan to destroy male characters in GW2.

You seem to want more men not out of a genuine desire for equality but because it makes you happier and out of some misguided belief you need an equal amount of men for a story to be interesting, relatable and engaging.

Aerlen.5326:

And you seem to think there’s some hidden agenda to remove male heroes from Guild Wars 2 when there isn’t. Stop with your crusade, there is no female master plan to destroy male characters in GW2.

Based on the ambient npc chatter I honestly feel like there was a concerted effort to make women put down, one-up, snarkly zing & make men look foolish. I loved GW1 & I had no reason to expect anything like that, but the more & more I listened to the audio I couldn’t deny it. I’ve never seen a game do this kind of thing so it stood out.

As for the Heroes, I just think the writers just don’t care for male heroes. Unless the are Sylvari.

lordkrall.7241:

Imagi.4561:

Why does anyone cares what the gender ratio is for the significant NPCs? In what way does that affect your gameplay?

They care because it is women! :o
Had it been men (as it normally is) this thread would most likely not exist in the first place.

Stop trying to make all who agree with Op out to be sexist/misogyst having all the male characters be morons is not fun to see at all, and yes this thread would still HAVE existed, and i bet title would say ANET SEXIST or something along those lines.

Kimyrielle.3826:

Considering the wide-spread negligence of female heroes in video games, I say it’s a good move. Funny to see the reaction of some people as soon as not 99% of all video game characters are male…

I’m seeing a lot of responses like this one in the thread. It’s a little disheartening. Some people think there should be a few more male NPCs in the living story, and all the sudden it’s some sort of attack against women and all of womankind. Then there’s the people saying that nobody would be saying anything if it was all males, and that’s a flat out lie. Then there’s people saying that it’s ok that men are under-represented because women were under-represented in the past. It’s hard to have any kind of real discussion when people act like this.

I never noticed the imbalance before it was pointed out, and I still fail to see the relevance. Male, female … human, sylvari … dark hair, fair hair … what does it matter? Since the particular quality only enters the question in the context of procreative activities, which categorically don’t take place between PCs and NPCs, the issue is completely moot.

From my point of view, anyone who gets their knickers in a knot over the perceived ‘imbalance’ harbors a not entirely healthy fixation on the issue, demonstrated by the fact that they are not simultaneously expressing the same amount of concern about the even more conspicuous imbalance in the skin colors of the same protagonists (in a world where possible choices run through the entire RGB gamut, the variety found in heroic NPCs is rather severely lacking).

I’m the only hero that matters. Who care’s who they chose to be my supporting cast.

The female characters they do have are fine, but in this day and age I just find it sad how little gender diversity they have in the cast. Yes, there are a few token males, mostly following the standard female gaze stereotypes, but it would be nice if there were more men that were positive role models for young boys who may be playing the game.

Keiel.7489:

I’m the only hero that matters. Who care’s who they chose to be my supporting cast.

Yeah! That’s right!

No one was watching those minions anyway, they were all watching MY character! My hero!

My character was a woman though so… I guess the thread is still relevant. I’ll just go ahead and blame ArenaNet anyway :P

Ohoni.6057:

it would be nice if there were more men that were positive role models for young boys who may be playing the game.

Breaking news: It is not ANet’s job to raise some random kids.

Aerlen.5326:

So…

You don’t like men being treated the way women have been for decades in most media and video games, you don’t like the fact GW2 favors portraying women in important roles rather than men, and you think this is a issue that needs to be fixed or “balanced”?

So…

By the token of “the best thing to fix inequality is to reverse the trends of the past” you would think that the military (the US one at least) should be all women…women who should all sign up for the draft. Thousands of other example…media and games being some of them.

Equality is not built on vengeance. (“men being treated the way women have been for decades”)

As to GW2, the most serious offense is that all the characters seem relatively shallow and boring. There certainly seem to be more prominent women than men however. As someone who tries not to make too much of a deal of sex, I’d be likely to ignore it if I didn’t see so many people making comments like yours above.

Shiren.9532:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Who on Earth said that gender balance was bad? This is about as positive a behaviour as you could get in terms of gender treatment, and they’re doing it in an industry that is renowned for poorly representing females.

This is why people hate femminism. You make it about female entitlement and not about gender equality.

You praised ArenaNet for doing the opposite. In a thread pointing out that there is an incredible imbalance of female characters in the Living Story you praised the company for writing it that way simply because it appeases what you want to see. It’s simply not true to claim the females are not significantly outnumbering the males at this point (certainly not in the positive portrayal department). The running tally has been way out of balance for a long time and it keeps getting worse with the new Lionguard from Twilight Assault and the captain from Tower of Nightmares.

No-one is saying there shouldn’t be strong female characters in the story. Many of us enjoy and expect them to be in a modern work of fiction. Many of us are growing increasingly frustrated with the asinine way the Living Story has marginalised male characters in a clear agenda to promote female characters at the male’s expense.

That is not gender balance.

Firstly it is common courtesy, if editing a quote, to draw attention to the fact that it has been edited via use of ellipsis. It is also common courtesy not to edit the quote in such a way as to change its meaning. Here, for reference, is what I actually said:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Who on Earth said that gender balance was bad? The media portrayal of women isn’t even remotely balanced, and to call it “dominated” by females is ludicrous including in GW2. ANet have a handful of females in leading roles at this current stage of the Living Story, which is incredibly unusual for videogames. They also haven’t painted a big feminist arrow over the fact that they’re doing it, they’re actually just treating genders equally (body options and skimpy armour discussions aside) as a matter of course. This is about as positive a behaviour as you could get in terms of gender treatment, and they’re doing it in an industry that is renowned for poorly representing females.

I quite explicitly stated that having gender dominance was not a good thing, and that I was praising GW2 for having a mix of genders as well as for not drawing attention to that fact. I never suggested that I wanted more females than males.

On the subject of this “imbalance”. Even the OP lists four females and four males in the Living Story (Rytlock was indeed involved during the Flame and Frost part), so to suggest that ANet are “marginalizing” male characters is just silly. The main character of the game, two of the three Order partners, three out of six destinies edge members, both current Halloween antagonists, and several previous Living Story antagonists are all male.

Moreover, what exactly do you actually want? For there to be a checklist so that every time a female character is introduce, a male character has to be introduced too??? I’m praising ANet for having an actually near even gender balance in an industry where gender balance is basically an alien concept. I’m also praising them for doing it entirely casually with no overt agenda. That you consider this “why people hate feminism” seems to me something of an overreaction, particularly as I never implied that I was a feminist.

Aerlen.5326:

And you seem to think there’s some hidden agenda to remove male heroes from Guild Wars 2 when there isn’t. Stop with your crusade, there is no female master plan to destroy male characters in GW2.

You seem to want more men not out of a genuine desire for equality but because it makes you happier and out of some misguided belief you need an equal amount of men for a story to be interesting, relatable and engaging.

Its not hidden when the current cast of characters in this patch are ALL female, all 8-9 of them. I know there is not some master plan, what a silly thing to say. But it may be an oversight that they haven’t balanced out the characters.

And its not misguided at all, I would like to see a character that I identify with. Having a lunatic female villain combating the two lesbian lovers is like some HBO soap opera. Throw in another character like Forgal to add balance. I’m not saying remove them but instead consider other sexes when putting together npc’s for the LS chapter not just an entire cast of females.

You see this all the time in movies, tv shows, books, games etc… they give you a range of characters and people are normally drawn to one they identify with, it helps with the immersion when you actually like a particular character.

Lets have it your way, from now on continue to make the entire cast females, and the few males comic sidekicks, dimwits or love sick puppies.

This is so sexist toward women. I can’t believe people are trying to say that female leads would no longer be good leads if there were an equal amount of male leads. It seems these people are defending the game for necessarily having dumb male leads just so the females stand out rather than female leads who can stand on their own interesting character design. All of the female leads seem to have the exact same personality. They are all flawless/heroic/sexually ambiguous. All of the male leads have stereotypical dumb male personalities. They are either dumb brutes who don’t think before they act (Rytlock) or they are whiny idiots (Logan, Braham, Faren, Trahearne). It is fine for that to be a part of their character, but there needs to be something more about them. They are not interesting. It is about quality, not quantity. I think it is disturbing that a game that you all are saying is a landmark in feminist game design has some of the blandest and 2d female characters. It completely diminishes the achievement. I think if the female characters were more interesting, most people wouldn’t feel threatened by the request for a few more male leads. That is what we should be upset about. If there was one good character (male or female) in the game, no one would be angry, I think.

TL;DR: It is sexist to think that for female leads to be strong, they necessarily need for there to be a lack of male leads. No one would have a problem if there was a single characters (male or female) who was interesting.

Lostwingman.5034:

Laurelinde.4395:

“The dudes I don’t like don’t count!”

Sorry, but Logan, Trahearne, Braham and Faren are still male and still living story characters no matter how much you or I or anyone else likes or dislikes them. You can’t just discount them all together and then claim that supports a lack of male characters.

P.S. Plus, men get Hobotron on their team, so that’s a win right there.

All but Trahearne are doofus’s or muscleheads. I’m sure you would feel there wasn’t a lack of good female characters if all of the female MCs were changed to ditzy airheads?

Up until her recent revelation as an apparently astoundingly powerful mesmer (which is both weird and suspicious IMO), Kasmeer came across as the female version of Faren to me – she was introduced to us as a spoiled bikini babe. And Scarlet has been roundly criticised as an annoying character and a ‘Villain Sue’ (which I would have to agree with.) I don’t think either of them is a great character, nor was Kiel, who was fairly unobjectionable but not particularly interesting. More screen time does not a great character make. (Oh hi there, Jar-Jar.)

Does that mean I can discount Scarlet, Kiel and Kasmeer as living story characters? And if not, then why can we just dismiss Braham, Faren, Evon, etc.?

Either we have to count all the living story characters, in which case it is relatively balanced; or we only count the ones we deem acceptable, in which case there will never be a consensus because it will be a subjective measurement.

As it happens, possibly my favourite character in GW2 thus far was Sieran, who was a bit of a ditzy airhead…as was Tybalt, who I also liked. I would hardly call the well-liked Hobo-tron a serious and dignified character either.

Basically, this whole topic is highly prone to cognitive bias (from any direction), because humans have a marked tendency to overestimate the numbers of minority or ‘other’ groups when they are part of an in-group. See studies about people wildly overestimating the number of immigrants in the US or the number of LGBTQ people in the population compared to actual reported numbers, for example. Basically, men are more likely to feel outnumbered by female characters, and vice-versa, even if neither is actually true and the numbers are even.

Laurelinde.4395:

Lostwingman.5034:

Laurelinde.4395:

“The dudes I don’t like don’t count!”

Sorry, but Logan, Trahearne, Braham and Faren are still male and still living story characters no matter how much you or I or anyone else likes or dislikes them. You can’t just discount them all together and then claim that supports a lack of male characters.

P.S. Plus, men get Hobotron on their team, so that’s a win right there.

All but Trahearne are doofus’s or muscleheads. I’m sure you would feel there wasn’t a lack of good female characters if all of the female MCs were changed to ditzy airheads?

Up until her recent revelation as an apparently astoundingly powerful mesmer (which is both weird and suspicious IMO), Kasmeer came across as the female version of Faren to me – she was introduced to us as a spoiled bikini babe.

This. I didn’t understand then (and wrote so on the forums on several occasions) why the character was so popular.

I assume that ANet gave her a bigger role after seeing that she was popular with the community.

In regards to Ellen Kiel: She was voted by the community, not ANet. Some people even feel that whoever was voted council member would likely disappear in council duties and the other, not-elected character was going to be “free” to appear in living story chapters. I guess we won’t know until we know! So far, neither Gnashblade nor Kiel have had anything to do at all since the election.

I would also like to point out that while I see that in the last few story chapters (IF you don’t cound Halloween, SAB, etc.) had more female than male characters, but keep in mind that we now know that the Moto story is not limited to thinking inside the box anymore and it was foreshadowed that the whole story was going to go somewhere with Moto the protagonist in the next SAB release.

Jennah is not a living story character; this year’s updates combined (starting with Flame & Frost), Rytlock had just as much “screen time” as Jennah. So if you count one of them, you have to count the other. Logan and Eir appeared in story instances with less screen time.

In fact, the only member of Destiny’s Edge that I don’t remember playing a role in the living story so far is Zojja.

Thobek.1730:

Lily Miranda.5407:

Thobek.1730:

But currently there isn’t a male in sight, nor has there been for a while.

Mad King? Bloody Prince?

That’s not the LS, its a festival. geez come on!

The festivals tie into the Living Story (Dragon Bash and Queen’s Gauntlet were festivals, too…) and other living story elements were designed to be recur (Zephyrites, SAB) so you’re drawing a pretty arbitrary line there.
But I’m not going to create a thread now complaining that the Mad King, Bloody Prince, Tixx and Moto are all male, because that would be silly. I’d rather look at the complete picture, and the complete picture shows that the male/female distribution overall is ridiculously even in this game. (I’ve listed plenty of examples on the first page of this thread.)

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

Just look, all living world heroes are female – Queen Jennah, Marjory, Kasmeer, Elen Kiel, Roxx and few more i already forget names.

And all male characters are Rytlock (didn’t even participate any party of Living world), Logan and Lord Faren (well, and Braham, but meeeeeeeh, he don’t even look like a man).

Let me guess: you feel oppressed and offended?

Goose.5196:

All of the female leads seem to have the exact same personality. They are all flawless/heroic/sexually ambiguous. All of the male leads have stereotypical dumb male personalities. They are either dumb brutes who don’t think before they act (Rytlock) or they are whiny idiots (Logan, Braham, Faren, Trahearne).

You can’t whine about being sexist, whilst being a wild sexist, Goose, it’s just silly. The female characters in this games have plenty of flaws and problems and personality issues.

Is Zojja flawless? Are you kidding me? She’s ill-tempered and bit of a maniac. Is she sexually ambiguous? Nope.

What about Caithe? She takes things far too personally, is unnecessarily mysterious about stuff to everyone, and lies to her friends, you call that flawless? Is she “sexually ambiguous”? Nope, she is very clear about her love for Faolain (it’s amazingly sexist to suggest clear lesbians are “sexually ambiguous” – that’s a typical male fantasy).

What about Eir? Flawless. No, she’s kind of shortsighted, just like you say Rytlock is, but actually she does less smart stuff in the stories she appears in than Rytlock. She doesn’t seem to be a particularly great mother to Braham either. So that’s flawless to you? I don’t see anything sexually ambiguous about her.

What about Rox? She seems fairly competent, but not overly so. She is not sexually ambiguous that I am aware of.

Then there’s Braham, whose only sin is being young and having a fancy haircut, yet posters are claiming he “doesn’t look like a man” (I would love to see the pictures of the people claiming this!), and he’s not particularly silly or stupid, and is both brave and kind. Apparently that’s not okay, though.

What about Kasmeer and Majory? Majory certainly is competent and sexually ambiguous, but the only one who clearly is. Kasmeer just seems kind of dim – like Lord Faren as others have said – has good instincts, but not a great thinker. That’s not flawless on any level.

Hmm… come to think of it there are quite a bit more female characters than male. Kind of annoys me, but I’m sure we will have a good male character in the future BUT NOT SOMEONE LIKE TREHERN.

This is getting to be quite the hot topic, just shows their is genuinely an issue here.

I do have my hopes up that we will get a few good male heroes in the living story, perhaps after this Scarlet nonsense is over.

Bobby.3721:

Hmm… come to think of it there are quite a bit more female characters than male. Kind of annoys me, but I’m sure we will have a good male character in the future BUT NOT SOMEONE LIKE TREHERN.

Oh, no. Women are doing things. Quick, devs, make twenty men to do things. That way we have a nice, exact, 50/50, half and half, TOTALLY EQUAL ratio of men doing things to women doing things.

You have my sympathies, sir.

Aedelric.1287:

Kal Spiro.9745:

I’m unclear what the problem here is.

If you bothered to read the posts, you would likely have no trouble working out what the problem is.

Lack of male heroes in the Living Story arc.

Ok, how about this. I’m unclear why this is a problem. Does that explain my position a bit better?

The only post that I have seen expressing an understanding of the problem have been absurdly chauvinistic and repugnant. Why does it matter if they’re guys or girls or raccoons? How does this effect anyone at all in the world such that it warrants being complained about by anyone?

Eurhetemec.9052:

deeply outraged

I can barely breath I’m laughing so hard.
The only people deeply outraged and guffawing are the ones that think that having a male MC that isn’t a doofus or part of the main story is sexist.

Aedelric.1287:

This is getting to be quite the hot topic, just shows their is genuinely an issue here.

I do have my hopes up that we will get a few good male heroes in the living story, perhaps after this Scarlet nonsense is over.

On the contrary, it shows people will complain about absolutely anything, and some people have no sense of irony, nor any ability to understand how others live.

I’m sure we will see more decent male heroes – Braham was fine with me, though, because I don’t hate young people, unlike some, apparently – but demanding them is utterly silly and shows a complete sense of entitlement of the worst kind, as well as a serious lack of patience.

Lostwingman.5034:

Eurhetemec.9052:

deeply outraged

I can barely breath I’m laughing so hard.
The only people deeply outraged and guffawing are the ones that think that having a male MC that isn’t a doofus or part of the main story is sexist.

That word does not mean what you think it means. Using the phrase “gurlpower” or denigrating feminism is certainly very sexist, and you’ve done both. At length.