How do you feel about gender issues in plugins?

Many plugins lean toward the the typical player of EV - the adolescent male. Probably the most typical example is Clavius and Beyond. Frozen Heart puts you in the shoes of a male archaeologist - Femme Fatale as a young female amnesiac. EV is more or less gender-neutral - references from a male viewpoint are rare. EVO is completely gender-neutral - not a single reference from either a male or female perspective.

The question is, which path do you take? Adopting a gender-specific viewpoint allows for more vivid descriptions and a more detailed storyline, but it also is a bit limiting and forces players to adopt a role they may not like. Gender neutrality is less taxing on the player, but it's a lot less flexible. How should this problem be approached?

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"I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."
-Gen. Jack Ripper, Dr. Strangelove

I really don't care, I still play Femme Fatale.

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(url="http://"http://www.blackrockmac.com/ajm/sig.html")~AM~(/url)

"Je deteste Wyndoze!"
-Me.

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ColdFusion wrote:
**How do you feel about gender issues in plugins?

Many plugins lean toward the the typical player of EV - the adolescent male. Probably the most typical example is Clavius and Beyond. Frozen Heart puts you in the shoes of a male archaeologist - Femme Fatale as a young female amnesiac. EV is more or less gender-neutral - references from a male viewpoint are rare. EVO is completely gender-neutral - not a single reference from either a male or female perspective.

The question is, which path do you take? Adopting a gender-specific viewpoint allows for more vivid descriptions and a more detailed storyline, but it also is a bit limiting and forces players to adopt a role they may not like. Gender neutrality is less taxing on the player, but it's a lot less flexible. How should this problem be approached?

**

I have never met a female who likes EV or EVO. They tend to loathe it and denounce it as a "violent killing game". Do these elusive creatures exist, or are they just figments of the imagination. If anyone knows a ev-liking female or is a ev-liking female, please come forward.

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"You all look like happy campers to me. In fact, you are happy campers. You always have been happy campers. As far as I'm concerned, you'll always be happy campers."

-Dan Quayle on a 1990 state trip to Samolia

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OctoberFost wrote:
If anyone knows a ev-liking female or is a ev-liking female, please come forward.

Basilisk, Jude. That's right off the top of my head.

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(url="http://"http://www.blackrockmac.com/ajm/sig.html")~AM~(/url)

"Je deteste Wyndoze!"
-Me.

Join #ajmeilstrup on DALNet!

What kind of plug are you making? If it is an expansion... keep with the feel of EVO.

I hate it whenever I get an expansion plug that is totally different the EV/O

Keep with the flow.. .atleast thats my advice...

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596F7520686176652057415920746F206D7563682074696D65206F6E20796F75722068616E64732E2E2E

I'm not making a plugin - at least not yet. I was just curious as to your opinion

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"I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."
-Gen. Jack Ripper, Dr. Strangelove

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OctoberFost wrote:
**I have never met a female who likes EV or EVO. They tend to loathe it and denounce it as a "violent killing game". Do these elusive creatures exist, or are they just figments of the imagination. If anyone knows a ev-liking female or is a ev-liking female, please come forward.

**

I wrote Femme Fatale partly as a result of the number of female players who emailed and said they wanted a female-lead.

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M A R T I N • T U R N E R

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ColdFusion wrote:
**How do you feel about gender issues in plugins?

Many plugins lean toward the the typical player of EV - the adolescent male. Probably the most typical example is Clavius and Beyond. Frozen Heart puts you in the shoes of a male archaeologist - Femme Fatale as a young female amnesiac. EV is more or less gender-neutral - references from a male viewpoint are rare. EVO is completely gender-neutral - not a single reference from either a male or female perspective.

The question is, which path do you take? Adopting a gender-specific viewpoint allows for more vivid descriptions and a more detailed storyline, but it also is a bit limiting and forces players to adopt a role they may not like. Gender neutrality is less taxing on the player, but it's a lot less flexible. How should this problem be approached?
**

I agree about EV being fairly gender neutral in practice--that is, in the mission text itself--though the splash screen at the start of the game (with the very male captain on the bridge of his ship) pretty much sets the stage for a male perspective on the game.

I prefer the gender neutral route myself, as it feels more inclusive for folks who want to play the game. But what may be more interesting to the player is the gender (among other details) of the various characters in a plug's storyline. Pilots, pirates, merchants, spies--they can be male, female, or any gender one can imagine. It can make for a very interesting universe.

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OctoberFost wrote:
**If anyone knows a ev-liking female or is a ev-liking female, please come forward.
**

I think I remember a young woman by the name of Sun Hater; she had a GeoCities website called the 5014th Vault, or something like that. Part of the site was devoted to EV and she was working on a plug of her own, but that was a while back.

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PlanetPhil
you got to burn to shine

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OctoberFost wrote:
**If anyone knows a ev-liking female or is a ev-liking female, please come forward.

**

Ev is one of the only games my sister likes

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My decision is maybe, and that's final!

If you want to make it multi-geneder, just make the missions into two seperate plugs, one with the plot for a female, one for a male. I did that with a few plugs I made and distribuited to my friends. Mabye more plugs could be made with missions like that. (call them mission modules?) Mix and match the plugs?

I know. It's a dumb idea.

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"Fine! I'll go play with myself! I'LL PLAY WITH MYSELF ALL NIGHT LONG!!" Cartman

I like gender ambiguity. What does it really matter, anyway? My opinion: Make the plug-ins and games gender-neutral and let the players imagine the characters as they please.
Although, in a male-dominated area, it's good to see some female protagonists--Thanks Martin for Femme Fatale!
Jude

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I am nearly finished my plug-ins "Mugabi and Destiny" (5M) and "Mugabi and Destiny... for her" (5M). It is definitely more work, but allows for much more story development....

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Mace means no.

I think that you should just make two versions,One male and One Female.I think that frozen heart is making males look like gods and females looking like mens poor pitifull servents. :mad:

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Lance,Captain of the White Swan.

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Lance wrote:
_I think that you should just make two versions,One male and One Female.I think that frozen heart is making males look like gods and females looking like mens poor pitifull servents.:mad:
_

Femme Fatale. Enough said.

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"I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."
-Gen. Jack Ripper, Dr. Strangelove

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Lance wrote:
**I think that you should just make two versions,One male and One Female.I think that frozen heart is making males look like gods and females looking like mens poor pitifull servents.:mad:

**

Well that's not the way I saw it.

I wrote the original novel while I was finishing my thesis on "Medieval Feminism in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde".

The most powerful characters in Frozen Heart (Virana Chabarti and Alana de Quinet) are women. The best non-player pilot ever (Lindi van Roth) is a woman (and fairly scathing about men, as far as I recall). Katherine Baxter is not a sci-fi-babe, she's a political activist and undercover agent streets ahead of the player's persona. And then there's Dr Blatavska, Maida McDowell, and other powerful, effective and in-control women you run into.

On the male side, Emile isn't quite in touch with his practical side, Mordillo is morally ambiguous (to say the least), Critch is half-way to becoming a nut-case, and Piper is a complete psychotic.

You may be thinking of Anila Stockton. Aside from being scatty and occasionally needing help, Anila is a born adventurer with a taste for danger and the knack of always escaping it.

Incidentally, all of these characters are based on real people. With some of them, the names are hardly even changed.

I agree that some of the women you meet on New Venus are in a different category. But this is a result of what has been done to them, and of what New Venus 'society' allows.

Which is why it had to be destroyed

Sorry, I'm getting too much into it here. But New Venus was also based on real life situations, and it still makes me see red if I think about it too long.

Regards

Martin

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M A R T I N • T U R N E R

Alright,Maybe i let of a little to much steam.

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Lance,Captain of the White Swan.