Reminder: Selectable Character Gender is a "Minimum Bar."

The level of projection and straw-manning in this thread is unbelievable. We're well and truly into someone's woe-is-me thesis, where the entire premise resembles 2017 clickbait: "you won't believe how ***ist/phobic this is!".

Without examples, links, or evidence, straw-manning and then insulting a community while making demands is peak petulance.

This discussion does not need to be this way, but the irony is that the main character in this story is also the antagonist.

Unsure why gender matters at all for a video game. I'm 41 and never in my life cared if my hero was male or female in any game. Seems sexist

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HeroEvermore wrote:

Unsure why gender matters at all for a video game. I'm 41 and never in my life cared if my hero was male or female in any game. Seems sexist

The immediate and probably most suitable rebuttal to that, is that it's easy to not care when you've almost always been able to identify with the character you're playing. It's a genuine desire to relate to the character in the world, which is why people spend hours in character creation. This thread is coming from a legitimate place of enthusiasm, the delivery is just so abrasive.

I will add though, that it doesn't matter how long you spend on character creation because as soon as the character smiles or opens their mouth, it all turns to custard. I tried making an attractive female character in Elden ring the other day and all I could muster up was what looked like a Thai ladyboy.

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hmcg020 wrote:

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HeroEvermore wrote:

Unsure why gender matters at all for a video game. I'm 41 and never in my life cared if my hero was male or female in any game. Seems sexist

The immediate and probably most suitable rebuttal to that, is that it's easy to not care when you've almost always been able to identify with the character you're playing. It's a genuine desire to relate to the character in the world, which is why people spend hours in character creation. This thread is coming from a legitimate place of enthusiasm, the delivery is just so abrasive.

I will add though, that it doesn't matter how long you spend on character creation because as soon as the character smiles or opens their mouth, it all turns to custard. I tried making an attractive female character in Elden ring the other day and all I could muster up was what looked like a Thai ladyboy.

I appreciate that, HMCG.

I will say, as an attempt to clarify the matter and because this has come up a lot in conversations with me, that the most common issue a lot of trans/LGBT folks face is "why does this matter?"

Not necessarily out of a place of spite, viciousness, or hostility (though there is definitely plenty of that in places), but because to a majority of cisgender folk, gender simply doesn't factor into their thinking. It's background noise, something that exists and Is, but which doesn't bear dealing with for the most part. because it's background noise that doesn't really bother or affect them, they don't have nearly as much trouble playing a game where their character's gender misaligns with their own. As Hero said, he's 41 and has never cared. He's unsure why it matters - because to him it doesn't. Gender is background noise, as present-but-unseen as air. You breathe, but you never really think about breathing unless something is stopping you from breathing, at which case breathing becomes incredibly important.

The problem comes when one's own experience and personal make-up (as in the composition of one's self, not 'make-up' the cosmetics) disallows gender to be background noise. For folks like me gender can't be background noise. I'm always aware of it, because when yours doesn't align with your presentation you are reminded of that fact ten thousand times a day. It's like never being able to draw a full breath, like a thousand thousand things are stopping you from breathing properly. Moments of affirmation feel like being able to take one single proper breath in an entire lifetime of feeling smothered and suffocated - and moments of denial or negation feel like something stealing the air right out of your lungs.

It's how many of us end up discovering what we are, honestly - something happens by random chance to give us a chance to experience that full breath, experience that sense of escaping the smothering, and all of a sudden you look back at your entire life's history in a new light. It's a paradigm shift in one's thinking - sometimes gradual, like it was with me, and sometimes it hits you like a bolt of lightning - but once you go through that shift you can't ever go back. You can't ever go back to thinking the way you did before, to not realizing you've spent your whole life half-smothered.

Hehe, it's a meme in trans circles honestly. Some cis guy saying "have you tried, like...not being trans?" and the trans person staring at the cis guy with crazy eyes in various versions of Comedic Overemphasis saying "HAVE I?!"

Yeah, we have. For many of us, we've spent decades Not Being Trans, and we simply can't go back to it. We can't go back to not caring. We are not psychologically capable of it.

None of which is particularly pertinent to Path of Exile specifically, and doubtless I will be scourged like crazy over it and told how much it's a "Me" problem. But hopefully someone out there reads all that and now understands just a bit better "why it matters."

Every people who give a shit about genderlock are here.

Good thing people in this thread aren't managing GGG money they'd waste so much and we wouldn't see poe 2 for years.

This is a fantasy arpg, If ggg can do gender select cool, whatever, if not cause of costs or they prefer that each class to have a defined back story, guess what there will be plenty of male or female characters for you to select, no need to be demanding arbitrary minimum requirements which is only your opinion anyway.

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Kick_DarkAngel wrote:

This is a fantasy arpg, If ggg can do gender select cool, whatever, if not cause of costs or they prefer that each class to have a defined back story, guess what there will be plenty of male or female characters for you to select, no need to be demanding arbitrary minimum requirements which is only your opinion anyway.

But what about the 3 potential players they might get?

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1453R wrote:

Do you want me to go through this thread and rewrite every single post I've written to be kind and generous and supportive of the people who keep telling me I'm a terrible human being for wanting something they don't think is important, Art?

When I asked you "how do I fix this?", that's largely what you said to me. You told me to retroactively go back in time and change my presentation to be sweet and endearing, in a way that was in fact impossible to do as per our current understanding of the universe. But here. let me try. I will go fetch my first post in this thread and rewrite it, and we will see what you think:

[...]

1st paragraph: no, I don't.

2nd paragraph: no, I didn't.

You keep attributing things I didn't say and didn't mean. You asked me what went wrong and I gave you my honest thoughts. There's a coaching method called a feedback burger. You start with something nice, then comes the meat (i.e. actual criticism / something negative) and then you loop back to something positive. You draw sympathy, get your point across, and end on a good note.

Your opening post was the opposite.

Now, you can't change what happened, but you can learn from it. Maybe next time will be better and the discussion more fruitful. I'm officially done with this thread now, bye

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Warvald wrote:

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Kick_DarkAngel wrote:

This is a fantasy arpg, If ggg can do gender select cool, whatever, if not cause of costs or they prefer that each class to have a defined back story, guess what there will be plenty of male or female characters for you to select, no need to be demanding arbitrary minimum requirements which is only your opinion anyway.

But what about the 3 potential players they might get?

Not really worth it, word on the street is they only have like 50-70% retention anyway 🤣

Honestly tho, I do understand that it's an aRPG. But I feel like that what people do wrong is try to see themselves as the character they are playing. I mean, whatever floats their boats but it's childish, playing pretend. And I think it comes from the media-fake perception and representation of nerd culture. I don't think I know anyone that would honestly say "I am now Sheldor, Destroyer of the Universe, Wielder of the Giant Purple Rubber ... Destroyer? Fear my wrath..." and shit like that. Well, scratch that, maybe except for a few of them that play D&D ... Maybe? I'll have to ask if they play it as "I try to jump across the lava pit" or "He tries to jump across the lava pit"

When I have a chance to create a character, I create as unrealisticly attractive female character as I have a chance to. And no - I am not a woman. I just like eye candy when I am supposed to spend hundreds of hours with the character. But that's it - I am spending time with the character, not as the character. I am the one that gets to control their universe. I am the puppet master and they are my marionettes.

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ArtCrusade wrote:

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Dude it's 3am and I'm meant to be editing, so yeah. I am probably a bit too edgy right now but ArtCrusade made a damn good point and I am happy to engage with that. The rest...well, now I know We Are Not Alone, I will not engage. Especially not people who think they're being clever and smart and not merely facetious and contentious. ;)

Just had to speak my mind on the Indie subject, because a lot of people seem to believe anything that isn't Triple-A or the newly invented (and totally loony) Quadruple-A warrants the Indie label, lol.

And I sincerely hope you don't have a stake in Star Citizen LOL.

Fuck no, Brother/Sister/Exile. I actually went to a Chris Roberts panel in I think it was 2013 or 14. I was at the convention to meet or hang out with a different Chris and his peeps (we had some banger Exile meetups at Pax Aus back then), but also deeply curious about the whole 'return of the Wing Commander great' hype. The girlfriend was like, 'this is gonna be bad' and sure enough it was.

So this one time I was kinda dragged to a cult meeting in my uni days. They NEVER say it's a cult meeting, do they? Of course not. It's always 'a philosophical group' or 'open-minded discussion circle'. Yeah nah, totally a cult meeting. Anyway, the Star Citizen panel had that same energy TIMES A MILLION. Whatever Roberts said was taken as gospel and manna from heaven. Every janky demo on the giant screen might as well have been the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. We weren't quite using the word 'cringe' as an adjective then but good grief, that's the word for it.

And that was way back before it even made a hundred million I think. The CIG grift is *legendary*.

Oh, it was 2013 I think. The Exile meetup after the convention was at a German beer hall, and then somehow we ended up at another bar and I made an idiot of myself at the not-yet-famous-because-Australian-Internet-couldn't-stream Steelmage at 1am. It was fun.

Anyway, yeah. It should go without saying but PoE is the only game I went ham on with the support. I wouldn't put ten cents into Star Citizen.

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I suppose we need a new term then. Indie will always represent a certain 'go get 'em, tiger' energy. A little engine that could. PoE had it. Last Epoch had it. I do believe that both started indie for sure. But what is 'indie' short for? Independent. Are you really 'independent' if a huge megacorp has bought you? 'Course not. Are you independent if you court a megacorp for a minority share? Probably.

But then we have different ideas of independent, right? Financial and creative. GGG is not financially independent anymore. But creatively? I do think Tencent are smart enough to leave the GGG devs to their own devices most of the time. If it ain't broke and all that.

But then we have the Star Citizens, and the Genshins, and the LoLs. The empire-makers. For them I would use the word 'self-published' because that's literally what they are (developer+publisher in one). And that term, unlike 'indie', no longer assumes something isn't a huge fucking hit hooking millions of consumers.

But that's just me. This is an ongoing debate among much bigger movers and shakers in the industry. Gamers though? Honestly, they shouldn't care that much. A good game is a good game. Pay for what you like, support what you enjoy. It's impossible to be both a moral and satisfied gamer now, at least not without planting your head very deep into the sand of a twilight strand.