Famale Charchters in Videogames: The Opposite of "attractive" would it work?

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On a slightly different note: I really like the way the Elder Scrolls series approaches gender in their games. As in, there is barely any difference between them.
If you are told to go and see a character in Morrowind, chances that it's a man or a woman are pretty much the same, no matter what profession that character has (guard, mage, trader, inn owner, leader of the thieves guild...). It's like they just rolled the dice for every character

Skyrim, alas, does this to a much lesser degree. If I remember correctly, almost all guards were male and only two of the Jarls were female. Maybe this was to emphasize the traditional nordic spirit of the land Skyrim? I don't know but I found it a bit disappointing compared to the randomness of Morrowind.

As for an interesting female character, I would go with Fall from Grace from Planescape Torment. She's a chaste succubus who has chosen to devote her life to purely intellectual activities, founding the "Brothel for the slating of intellectual lusts" to do so. It's a brothel were instead of having sex, you pay to have interesting and inspiring conversations with the highly intelligent and well read ladies living there. Some things can only be found in the city of Sigil!

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I could talk for days about Morrowind. I have never felt more engrossed in the game world than when playing that game. Seriously, when I went places I actually felt like I was traveling. If someone were to say: "Anybody remember Vivec?", my first reaction would be: "Yeah, I've been there. Great place.", rather than "Yeah. Good level design." Totally unmatched in terms of charm and atmosphere (and everything else) IMO. But I don't want to derail this thread too much.

[the dark side]

@andyrockin, do you mind being a little less rude please? , i know full well the concept of a target demographic, its just i have aimed at an entirely different one to what the games industry normally aims at owing to gameplay choices i have made, you can't sell to the "call of duty" audience with Medikits! they just wont tolerate the mechanic as they consider it "outdated" and "too hard!".

The games industry these days is after an extremely rapid buck, so it aims at an audience of immature males, aged between 8-15 with an Xbox 360 and a Live "Gold" account and located in mid west USA, hence the highly simplified gameplay, extremly fantasised charachters based on GQ magazine models and hollywood strereo types, miniscule, overly 'murican' campains and non existant challenge of todays titles. seeing as that market demands a gameplay style i simply CANNOT stand, i will have to ignore them.

The demographic i have chosen, is older, experienced, PC based gamers, primarily in europe, and aged in there mid twenties to there mid 30s, people who will remember my projects gameplay style from the games they grew up with, and will have the patience to play a game that escews any form of muliplayer in exchange for a massive, compicated, and intriquing single player campaign in the style of older story based action titles.

However, as that is a smaller demographic than many of todays publishers would like, i have to ensure i can max out the limited sales that demographic brings, wich is about 3 million, to stand a chance of being given a decent budget. i can't do that if i have an NPC that stops those people from playing the game because they find her embarassing due to her childishness or disgusting because she isnt the "tough careet woman" femenist icon or simply because she has learning difficulties, as sadly, it would seem faschist hartred of people with learning difficulties is still strongly engrained in many cultures, especially in the United States. thats why i need the opinion of users, to see how my demographic, older, more experienced PC based gamers primarily in europe, would respond to that NPC.

read the post properly please before leaping down my throat and casting aspersions on my credentials thank you.

[failedALIAS]

It's a brothel were instead of having sex, you pay to have interesting and inspiring conversations with the highly intelligent and well read ladies living there. Some things can only be found in the city of Sigil!

That definitely is something I'd want to check out! All the philosophy they must've picked up over the years, coupled with their fluency in speaking and the professionalism of the conversation.

[CorinthianMerchant]

@andyrockin, do you mind being a little less rude please.

You're one to talk.

You're ranting the same weakass copy-paste rants in every, and I mean litterally every goddamn post you write, that anyone that enjoys a FPS made after 1998 is a mainstream american noobish subhuman troll.


Nobody will take you seriously if you keep your houlier-than-thou-scumbag attitude.

[the dark side]

you have been reported. i dont tolerate abusive users like you. goodbye.
oh, and change that year to 2005 for goodness sakes. my fave game is from 2003.
if you dont like they way i am, or my attitudes or opinions, then deal with it or shut up about it and put me on ignore, its why the function is there!, dont come ranting at me with abuse because it just makes you look like a hatemonger, i am who i am, and i am changing for nobody, if you, or anyone else, has a problem with me, it is there or your problem, not mine.

deal with it and move on, the report and ignore functions are there for a reason,. use them. i have.

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Hm... after reading through that character description, I believe it's not her appearance that you have to worry about, it's her personality. I do not mean to insult those real women that your character is based on, but dealing with a person who has character traits like these

she is very emotionally confused, she is easilly upset by things, such as changes to her routine, wich can send her into a meltdown (a complete loss of all emotional controll) and is incredibly sensative to what people say to her, she has difficulty with empathy for other people, [...] she can often show the wrong emotions to certain stimuli, for example, she might laugh at something everyone else feels sad about. she responds best when someone talks to her in a bright, happy voice, and explains things in detail to her.[...]

she is obsessed with being clean, if any dirt gets on her she will become upset and try to claw it off, and she will start to shake and sob.

her morals are unshakable, and she gets angry and upset when she sees people who do not follow them as she cannot understand how they can live without her morals.
etc.etc.

requires a LOT of patience. I would not have that patience, to be honest, I couldn't stand talking to that person for more than a minute. I think it would be very hard to make that character a likeable NPC, mainly because making an NPC likeable is already very difficult, even if he/she doesn't have any "difficult" character traits like these. It's because in real life you get all these subtle body language cues and whatnot when talking to a person, so you can like someone even if he or she seems to be annoying to deal with at first. In a game you don't have that, you have only the voice acting and some stiff animations.
So unless a huge amount of effort is put into making this character likeable, she will probably end high up on a list of "most annoying character ever".

Also, I'd like to add that I would find a female character who's like this:

she is incredibly dependant on other people, she is scared of situations she doesnt know, cannot drive, needs help getting dressed, can often forget about her hygine and needs to be reminded as she will have other things, like maths puzzles, on her mind, she is very delicate and sensative, and has a very "girlish" personality, loving things like flowers and animals, and being incredibly sensative, liable to burst into tears at the slightest upset. she is unable to cope without someone to look after her, and she is frightened by this ideal of tough, indipendant women put across by femenist groups, as she cannot cope with being independant, and she is too sensative to be tough, she hates the idea of upsetting anyone, she wants to be nice to everyone, in the way a child does.

a hundred times more offensive and sexistically portrayed than any of those tough females. Yeah, they're kinda annoying, but at least they're not a stereotype from 200 years ago.
Edit:
Seriously, the more I read it... yeah, seeing a female character that weak and girly in a game would send me into a fit of rage. Especially if it's not explained VERY CLEARLY that these character traits are caused by her mental..uh...problems? (sorry, don't know how to say it without being offensive myself!) and NOT by the fact that she's female. Especially since the male character is such a tough guy in contrast to that. You would at the very least need another more "normal" female character to balance it out, or you'd be branded as being sexist asshole of the year (which you are clearly NOT trying to be!).

[CorinthianMerchant]

you have been reported. i dont tolerate users like you. goodbye
oh, and change that year to 2005 before you get kicked off.

[video=youtube]http://youtu.be/paw_2EJBzFs[/video]

Do you seriously think that I'll be banned for having different opinions than you?

[Obliviator27]

Do you seriously think that I'll be banned for having different opinions than you?

Eh, I wouldn't start with him. We had this discussion before. It's not worth it unless you're looking for a good laugh.

[the dark side]

@hirnwirbel, OUCH!, looks like i may have got a project to kill then as ill never meet the 3 million sales, and i did say i would sooner kill the project than change that charachter even in the slightest as it would ruin her purpose. how can it be a stereotype though when its based 100% on real people? you would be surprised how many aspergirls meet that description, just take 5 minuites on wrong planet. im confused how reality can be seen as a sterotype?

ill definatly see to it that it is directly mensioned she has aspergers syndrome and the way it affects her behavior, before she gets met, maybe a monoloque from the player charachter flashing back to when he was given her as his secretary would do the trick? and show that he adores her, not because she has aspergers, but because he finds her sweet, funny, loyall to the end, and the very image of innocence he fights to protect. that could work! if not well, ill have to abandon ship.

oh PS, yes, she is balanced out, the characthers Boss is also a female, a former operative of her majesties government who has been promoted to the senior position, she is tough, determined, coldly logical, and takes no nonsence, she is clearly the hardline career woman, a true professional, she thinks nothing of sending her agents to there deaths in the name of queen and country, but, on a postive trait, is more than likely to go to hell with them as she still goes into the field from time to time. imagine if Cate Archer took over UNITY 10 years after the events of NOLF 2, and you get the idea of her persona.

There is also a tough, flirty, professional, and experienced female operative avilable as a Player charachter in one episode that is set a few years before the main storylines setting.