Active Time Report 6.0, Episode Duscae 2.0 release date, Story updates

Well, Psychotic, Quina has a Q name and Quina is awesome, so I will miss the entirety of your post because you used the Q example. Maybe you should think about that next time.

Originally Posted by Pumpkin

Well, Psychotic, Quina has a Q name and Quina is awesome, so I will miss the entirety of your post because you used the Q example. Maybe you should think about that next time.

But that was my point! Q names are awesome!

Originally Posted by Psychotic

Originally Posted by Jinx

In the case of this game, they've really been trying to sell that it's a bro-fest. It's not just there's no playable female characters (although that does make me less inclined to go out of my way to play it), it's that they're really pushing that it's a game about a boy's club and that just doesn't appeal to me at all.

Having played through the primary marketing material for this game, Episode Duscae, it really does not come across as a boys' club or brofest to me. They're men and they're friends, but there's no stereotypical dudebro stuff like chugging beer, sport, MMM LETS PICK UP CHICKS etc. I think the worst thing was one of them calling another a princess in a teasing way.

Fair enough, but in that regards, I'd blame the marketing team. I'm only going by what I've seen, not what I've played.

The marketing team didn't say much on the matter, to be honest, they were just answering a question about why there were no playable girls and the media did the rest of the work. Just the way things go sometimes.

I'm talking about the people who made the game trailers.

It's all about first impressions. It seems Stella had a better first impression

Basically, what Psychotic said! Like all of it!

Originally Posted by Vyk

It's all about first impressions. It seems Stella had a better first impression

I'm still pretty young but in all my life I've never seen anything good or fruitful come out of making judgements from only first impressions in real life, video games, alternate dimensions, whatever the smurf, etc.

I really don't think they're gonna drop the ball with Luna, you guys (and girls ) so let's just pour some Promethazine into our collective Grammies, sit back, and let Hajime Tabata deal with making Luna a badass female character, so we can finally discuss other equally important things, like...why does everyone in this game have a stupid name? Or what that artwork of Regis holding a young Noctics could mean? Is Regis one of the Knights of the Round? Is Noctics himself a summon? Why did the chicken cross the road? Why isn't it the same chicken from the first time the joke was told hundreds of years ago?

Count the number of games in the last couple of years where you can play as a male lead.
Now count the number of games where you can play as a female lead.
Now count the number of those games with a female lead where the female in question was written for a female demographic.

And when you notice the gap you'll understand what the problem is which far exceeds that of Final Fantasy XV or any one title in particular. The fact of the matter is there are more options for the men when it comes to playing video games than there are for the women. The annoying part comes in when women still have to put up a fuss just to get a playable character of their own sex. Not speaking for anyone in this thread, just looking at the big picture. If women want to play games they either have to be a man or go without. As oppose to the man who always has the option to play the man even if they occasionally like to be someone with tits.

This is why my favorite games so far has been games where you can change the protagonist. Games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age. Do you want to play as a male or a female? The choice is there! Really at this point it'd be quite something to have the option to play as a non-binary character, or a transgender character. But you know, small steps. Most games can't even get male/female right

Saints Row 2 did it best because gender was on a slider.

I think what I and some other people have a hard time understanding is how much of a deal-breaker it is to not have any female playable characters, or whatever the issue is now (or maybe a culmination of issues.)

There are other games that are way more saturated with testosterone, and beer, and are actually misogynistic on purpose (Grand Theft Auto is a great example!) that I would think deserve a bigger outcry than Final Fantasy XV. I'd hate to think people would just absolutely tighten up their jackets and cringe away from one entry of a franchise that we've been waiting on for what feels like 82 years. The problem is obviously bigger than this game but it seems like it's been receiving the side-eye and especially more so after the Cidney thing. Which, the outcry was understandable then, and still is now. The Cidney thing. And I appreciate those with with the unpopular opinions making a fuss about it, but the whole Stella thing and all-boys party tantrums, in a game that explains why there's an all-boys party, just bewilders me.

And also, me being a black man I could complain about the lack of non-stereotypical black characters in FF. Other than Viera from Ivalice, I think we have Sazh and Barrett who are essentially the joke characters of their respective casts lmao. I could turn away from FFXV because of that but I think I would be missing out on too much of the good this game has to offer.

I'm not turning away on principle. I'm turning away because the story no longer interests me. You don't understand it, you just have to accept it. What I don't understand why it's such an issue to some of you that people aren't interested in something simply because of what it does or does not have. People have different interests and tastes and likes and dislikes. Deal with it.

Yeah, the Cindy thing is, to my mind and I appreciate everyone's standards vary, entirely worse than having the party be all male. You may well have to have played the demo to have my perspective (go watch my LP of it on the EoFF channel if you haven't! shameless plug ahoy!) The main team seem like an interesting and neat group, and it's a shame people feel that way about them without giving them a chance. Cindy, on the other hand, is gratuitous, awkward and cringeworthy. I don't feel strongly enough about her for it to be a dealbreaker, but I'd completely understand why it would be for some people.

Originally Posted by Jinx

People have different interests and tastes and likes and dislikes. Deal with it.

And I'm interested in discussing those tastes with people on the internet when they post about them in an internet discussion. You deal with it!

Okay that's the first time I've heard someone just not being interested in the story which is just as cool and awesome as any other reason. It's a good reason to not play Final Fantasy XV, but I will not just "deal with it" for the other reasons stated in the thread, because it's a discussion board, and I'm actually generally interested on why, if any, of the other aspects of this game irks you. Not you specifically of course!

I'm interested in the female opinions on here because I grew up surrounded by a lot of female family members and besides Cidney, I don't think they would get the anti-female vibe from this game at all that EoFF seems to be getting.

Okay. Fair enough. xD I just feel like a lot of the responses have been "HOW DARE YOU NOT BE INTERESTED IN SOMETHING SIMPLY BECAUSE IT DOESN'T HAVE THIS THING!!!!" which is frankly just silly. You mentioned lack of non-caricature minority characters, and you're right. And if you said you weren't interested in playing the game because of lack of representation or poor representation, I'd think your reasoning was as valid as any other.

I don't think the story is anti-female, just that's it's male-centric and it makes me less inclined to play it. I'm interested in FFvsXIII, not FFXV. If someone else had a copy of the game and offered to let me borrow it, I would definitely play it. But I'm not going to go out of my way to play something that doesn't interest me either. Same reason I don't watch Breaking Bad: even though people have said it's one of the greatest shows of all time, it just doesn't interest me.

I don't think anti-female is correctly how I feel. Uninclusive to the degree I would prefer is more how I would phrase it. Was it really truly totally necessary to axe Luna with so many male characters who can't all be of such esteemed value? Granted, we don't really know the true value of Stella, either; she could have been worthless.

I just feel like questioning why her out of all of the rest of the entourage. Surely one of them was expendable. It lessens my interest in a game whose creators would take that move when there were most likely other probable options.

Originally Posted by Jinx

Okay. Fair enough. xD I just feel like a lot of the responses have been "HOW DARE YOU NOT BE INTERESTED IN SOMETHING SIMPLY BECAUSE IT DOESN'T HAVE THIS THING!!!!" which is frankly just silly.

If my posts have come across as that then welp, my bad, as it's not my intention.

It calls back to that old adage of everyone being entitled to an opinion. Well, sure, but it works both ways. I'm entitled to an opinion on your opinion. And heck you're entitled to an opinion on my opinion of your opinion. And that's a discussion! If you were having a discussion in visitor messages and I suddenly burst in and started opinioning all over them I'd be an asshole, but conversely posting an opinion in a public discussion like this is just implicit permission to respond to that opinion. If we didn't respond to or interact with each other then forums would be boring as trout, and if people with differing opinions didn't challenge or discuss them with each other we'd never learn or grow. I don't think there's a sense of "How dare you post opinions! Hand in your opinion badge and gun!" but more "Oh, you think X? I don't get it because I think Y. Why do you think X?"

On the topic at hand, I'll try to clarify. I, too, would prefer all games to have protagonists that looked like me or a giant death walrus with lightsaber tusks but the difference is that it's not a dealbreaker if it doesn't. It intrigues me that people who are ostensibly fans of the Final Fantasy series are washing their hands of the game based on a reason that I don't get, and I'm trying to get it. I'm not saying that reason isn't real for them just because I don't get it and I'm not going to show up at anyone's house with a gun and a copy of FFXV and say "surprise mothersmurfer" either.

I also think there's too many what ifs and far too little information to actually go on with regards to Stella, Luna and other females and their roles in the game. I've posted about Noctis's retinue and Cindy because I've spent time with them in the demo. I have no idea what the full game has in store and, beyond assuming that Luna is going to have a big role to play and that Stella was cut because her story simply wasn't working, I wouldn't want to guess much more.

Originally Posted by Psychotic

I, too, would prefer all games to have protagonists that looked like me or a giant death walrus with lightsabre tusks

I think we can meet on common ground and say that would be a smurfing sweet game.

For the record, I haven't "washed my hands of it". I'm not boycotting the game or saying it's not worth playing simply because it lacks things that are important to me or would cause me to be interested in it. It's more just...there IS getting off of this hype train we're on. And I got off at the last station.

But if people enjoy the game, cool. Have fun.

Oh yeah sorry for exaggeration by saying anti-female.

Originally Posted by Jinx

Okay. Fair enough. xD I just feel like a lot of the responses have been "HOW DARE YOU NOT BE INTERESTED IN SOMETHING SIMPLY BECAUSE IT DOESN'T HAVE THIS THING!!!!" which is frankly just silly.

Ignore them they're so irrelevant!

Originally Posted by Shorty

I don't think anti-female is correctly how I feel. Uninclusive to the degree I would prefer is more how I would phrase it. Was it really truly totally necessary to axe Luna with so many male characters who can't all be of such esteemed value? Granted, we don't really know the true value of Stella, either; she could have been worthless.

I just feel like questioning why her out of all of the rest of the entourage. Surely one of them was expendable. It lessens my interest in a game whose creators would take that move when there were most likely other probable options.

Honeybunch you're right! Everyone got an updated look but it does seem like she's the only one whose actual role in the story got drastically changed. That would irk me too if Barrett was supposed to have Delita (I'm gonna say Delita and Tietra are black too. Please guys let us have this one!) from Final Fantasy Tactics levels of character development but then ended up being...well Barrett. But I didn't even see it that way until you said something, you was just gonna let me rant in my ignorance all day long huh?



Edit
I still think they'll do a bang up job with Luna though!

Chances are, they was nothing about Stella beyond the trailers to begin with. I wouldn't be surprised if the original "script" was basically just a notepad with some ideas Nojima and Nomaru had discussed and there was no real solid ideas whatsoever. Luna was obviously born from those ideas from the notes but may have shifted from what the concept trailers were implying and changed her name so players wouldn't be surprised that said scenes from the concept trailers never made it in.

I get the impression from the interviews and how quickly Tabata has been to release info on the game that nothing really solid had been done for most of the time fans thought Versus XIII was in development. I get the impression even Nomura couldn't tell you what Versus XIII would have looked like as a finished product because he never did enough work on it to have a solid idea himself. Same with Nojima, because if he had a script already written up, there wouldn't be any reason to change it beyond money concerns, but the fact it has been changed so much tells me there may not have been a solid concept to begin with, like the staff was working with a rough draft of the script (which happened with XII as well) and just had to do with it what they could. There is also the issue of the game now trying to fit into the traditional FF mold; Versus XIII was suppose to be a radical departure from the series norm, and while XV is keeping elements of that, it does seem like Tabata is working with fan feedback to try and shift it more into mainstream success, so that too would qualify for changes in the script.

Versus XIII has had such a shadowy and troubled production that I really don't see why people would be surprised or disappointed that it has dramatically changed from the concept trailers. I can't think of a game that spent close to ten years in development hell and not come out being somewhat disappointing. I think FFXV has a shot to be a real gem but I almost wonder if would have been smarter to just pull the plug on Versus XIII and just let Tabata, or some other director not named Toriyama, to just start fresh with an original FFXV.