Arma 2 - Female Characters?

[MBot 0]

Frankly I am a bit surprised that it matters so much to some what kind of gender you play.

I played No One Lifes Forever as agent Catherine Archer and never spend a thought that I would rather play a male character. Doesn't matter at all for me.

[Hell_Toupee 0]

It's debatable as to whether 'by nature' women aren't worse soldiers than men. If you are talking by nature, men have typically been the hunters and warmongers throughout history. Not women. I'm not getting into any sexist bullsh*t here so don't accuse me of such so read more carefully next time.

Being warmongers by nature however does not mean it makes a good soldier, just means males are more aggressive and hotheaded, in some roles like sniping women have been found to be better than men for the role.

[myshaak 0]

I must confess I didn't read the whole thread, being there are mostly a little sexists or childish (flaming?) posts. From the "moral" point of view I agree with MadDogX the most:

If it has a weapon and intends to shoot at me, I have no qualms about shooting back, be it man, woman or otherwise.

And as for the technical view - what would need to be created so there would be an in-game equality between men and women?

• New models - as mentioned by NeoArmageddon, not really necessary
  
• New faces - not really difficult, even for inexperienced modders
  
• New animations - I guess that female soldiers do not walk exactly like models on a catwalk, so again - not really necessary
  
• New voices - now that would be the pain in the ass, we all know how the voice system looks now, recording at least a few female voices for each faction wouldn't be a piece of cake (however, not impossible, just time-consuming)
  
• New accesories - men can only choose face and glasses.. fine with me, this is no "Sims"
  
• Recognition - If you see a person like 200m away from you, would you like to order your team "ALL, ATTACK THAT MAN/WOMAN!" or would you feel it is sexist when the commander orders the team to attack just some "MAN" ?
  

So all in all, "just" voices.. If there are women in the game, they should speak like women of course, but I doubt that devs or mods will spend their time and resources for proper female voice acting.

[kocrachon 2]

In all honesty I think everyone else is looking at it the wrong way, it has little to do with the military not allowing women I bet..

I think they are more worried about repercussion of the media if people started having mass women killings and wars going on. Same reason they wont put kids in games. Probably more of a safety net really...

[maddogx 13]

In all honesty I think everyone else is looking at it the wrong way, it has little to do with the military not allowing women I bet..

I think they are more worried about repercussion of the media if people started having mass women killings and wars going on. Same reason they wont put kids in games. Probably more of a safety net really...

Errm... you're aware that there is already a wide range of female civilians in the game, right? People could easily make a "mass women killing" video with those. The OP asked about being able to play a female character in an actual combat role, which is why we are mainly talking about women in the military (and their possible depiction in the game).

[sic-disaster 311]

I would not mind a female soldier in the game.

There ARE female soldiers in the infantry, though as said, not a lot.

But i sincerely doubt that if you put a female model in the game, suddenly half of the fighting soldiers is a female.

As for multiplayer, most people would not chose a female character as their skin anyways, and should be pretty scarce there as well.

This does not take away from immersion.

What would take away immersion is seeing female characters in Force Recon squads, the special forces squads.

The reason for this is pretty simple: in real life, there arent any women because no-one so far has managed to get passed the training (to my knowledge that is. For any female SF out there, dont cut my throat in my sleep!)

Still, i have got to ask: is it that difficult for people to accept a female character in an SF uniform? Can't we for the sake of her just imagine one girl making it through the training? It's not like it could not happen.

I can't remember who said it, though i agree with his point that NAPA could have some more women in their fighting force, considering they are ordinary civilians who fight for their country, women can be just as nationalist as men.

[TankCommander 3]

Being warmongers by nature however does not mean it makes a good soldier, just means males are more aggressive and hotheaded, in some roles like sniping women have been found to be better than men for the role.

Very well, but I also wasn't going to sum up a perfect generalisation of men throughout history into one short paragraph (which is impossible as generalisations are fundamentally flawed).

To elaborate, I was meaning more that men throughout the ages were waging and fighting wars. They were most combat effective with their primitive heavy weapons etc etc. Modern warfare has evened up the playing field as we even see child soldiers in Africa and the like. To state my opinion clearly as I had done a few pages back, I would like to see female soldiers in a military sim like Arma2. But ask yourself, would a typically niche market prioritise the wants of such a small minority audience by adding another 10+ units into an already behind schedule game? Arma2 already had a thousand requests to add other more gameplay oriented features to improve the experience for it's main fan base. If you want to play a woman, try the previously suggested custom face or perhaps try to move past your characters appearance. After all this isn't the Sims and there will hopefully be an addon released in future to cater to the women.

So please guys. It's a game that offers so much already and can't be perfect for everyone even tho it already seems so close. Just stop this sexist witch hunt that seems to have emerged. 21st Century. Get with it.

It's a GAME.

[mattxr 9]

I remember watching this SAS program once and he said we try to tell civilians to keep away from us and avoid all contacts because they would have to kill them [men, woman and children] he said because of an incident that happened when they didn't and apparently a civilian came across was getting in their way and they told him where to go and left him and bam he told the enemy of the SF position and direction they headed and this got a lot of men killed!

I wonder if its on youtube now?

[nodunit 397]

That has nothing to do with this topic.

I'm all for having female soldiers if nothing else just for the sake of "it can be done." It would be nice to see more female soldiers in war games and less 'streamlined war'. There are hookers, why can't there be female soldiers.

Many people have forgotten the "FUN" factor in Arma 2 since 1. Just because something is not realistic doesn't mean it wouldn't be fun to do, IE the discussion on flashlights some time ago, in OFP we had rocket propelled shopping carts, exploding fruit, was this real? No but it was fun.

I don't see why the idea is being opposed so much especially on the basis of "realism", we don't know what or who is on the battlefield even if we serve we don't know everything that is going on.

And last but not least why deny somebody that extra bit of immersion for something so small yet so large as their own gender? Why worry about it massing in multiplayer, for the most part addons aside from replacement packs and other things that don't add extra units into the mission have never been used en masse. And once more come to the "Don't like? Don't use it." motto.

Edited June 10, 2009 by NodUnit

[343rdBadger 0]

I think that some experienced modder (based on what I've read here)should do a female Helo pilot ...callsign...Vampire

[st!gar 3]

Well, the game already spawns you with a random skin, so perhaps in the future, a patch could make it possible to spawn randomly with one of several female skins? There could be less chance of spawning the player as female than as male, and so we could still have a semi-realistic much lower number of women in, for example the USMC, than men. This way, women perhaps wouldn't feel so underrepresentated anymore, and at the same time, realism buffs wouldn't have to run around with a 50% female USMC-force, either.

[Skeptic 10]

Yeah, I'd want to play as blond with mini-skirt and lot's of make-up on 4" hills lady wielding M107.

"Hey sailor! You new in town?"

[max power 21]

I think that some experienced modder (based on what I've read here)should do a female Helo pilot ...callsign...Vampire

Can't do until the tools are released, I don't think. There are new selections for the new animation system and such. At least I don't think it could happen until the really experienced modders do some R&D to see what it takes to get an O2pe model working in ArmA2.

[ScorpionGuard 10]

Well. I find this thread very Eurocentric. From the African and Eastern Eurasian view of ancient to modern history of warfare. There have been a lot of women in Combat up to modern battle fields of today. “Queen Candace, Empress of Ethiopia (Ta-Nefer) and General-in-Chief of its armies, waited for Alexander the Great to cross the new borderline at the First Cataract. Alexander, having conquered Egypt (Ta-Merry) easily, decided against the invasion of the ancient center of Black Power and halted his army at the First Cataract, 332 B.C.†When Alexander (the so Great) invaded North Africa. He was beaten back by a female General-in-Chief Queen Candace of Ethiopia. When the Portugal invaded West Africa to enslave and pillage the African Content. The Portuguese where beaten back by a female general named Queen Nzinga of Matamba. “During their long wars of invasion the Portuguese met a formidable adversary in Queen Nzinga of Matamba (c. 1580-1662). In 1662 she went to Luanda on behalf of her brother, the king of Ndongo, in an effort to negotiate peace. When the Portuguese governor refused her a chair, she disdainfully called up one of her attendants and sat down upon him†" Africa's greatest daugther, "Queen Nzinga of Angola, leaded her troops against the Portuguese armies aganist which she fought for forty years". Also there where female infantry during the African invasion of Spain, Portugal, and Southern France. The last of these female soldiers died in the 1920’s when an English historian/ reporter was researching about the invasion. He saw a woman from North African (Abu-ku-lan) in Southern Spain guarding a door for her employer. An begin to ask her questions of her organs. When he asked she explain societies in North Africa that the female solider came from beginning in the 400’s A.D. You still can find female soldiers of side of Western Eurasia. Israel is one of those countries that have women in front line combat and SpOp. And there other.

Hetep.

Edited June 10, 2009 by ScorpionGuard

[Spetz 0]

women belong in kitchens not in battlefields

[sic-disaster 311]

Some of you guys can be SO sexist.

Medieval ages have gone, you know?

[Spetz 0]

Some of you guys can be SO sexist.

Medieval ages have gone, you know?

Women aren't given combat roles in any military, even in the US, they are usually just technicians, etc,

[ScorpionGuard 10]

Wrong Spetz. The US Army has been assigning females to combat unit slowly starting in the mid 90's. This was a test phase for the US Army. Hell; I met one of them myself. When she was telling me how she got assigned to a combat unit. She complained to her CO about that there must be a mistake. The CO just looked at her and repeated the orders. And off she went. Another case I ran across. The US Army in the 80’s where using the wives of SNCO to see how women would perform in combat if Russia invaded Germany. The US Army did a week long boot camp and combat simulation while there husband where doing there own assignments (SpOp). All doe this was done in Germany and other NATO bases. It leaded the way for the US Army to think how it would be to incorporate woman into combat units.

P.S. By the way. Military Police Units are combat units. And woman are in MP units. If you can remember in the First so call Gulf War. There was a female MP that was a POW. Do to the fact she was in the combat zone doing her job.

Edited June 10, 2009 by ScorpionGuard

[Jex =TE= 0]

I'm not sure the "reality" comments help - it's a game and meant to be accessible and fun. Women play video games and should be represented more. In Arma they could just add a female face or 5 and some additional voices that you pick when you edit your profile (I beleive arma 1 has a female voice? - I just checked and you can choose "Amy" :)). They could add a more feminine character model for a bit of extra work. There are many games out there that have female models (Ghost recon, RavenShield, Falcon 4, etc) and I see no reason to exclude them for the sake of realism.

[Litos 10]

Why diss a person who's asking for female characters? So she's a girl that plays games. If you never known a girl who plays games I assure you even mentally challenged people play games.

And no, Vampire, most people on gaming communities are nice and mature, including the people you mentioned above. It's just that gamers use an extreme overdose of sarcasm.

Sarcasm for the win though :P

[kocrachon 2]

Errm... you're aware that there is already a wide range of female civilians in the game, right? People could easily make a "mass women killing" video with those. The OP asked about being able to play a female character in an actual combat role, which is why we are mainly talking about women in the military (and their possible depiction in the game).

I was under the impression that you could not kill them though... Huh, guess some one illinformed me then =/

[dvolk 10]

The AI refuses to fire on civilians, even when civilians fire at them. This was a source of some entertainment for me with the editor :)

Some... experiments indicate that in the campaign you can kill civilians all you like. The game only considers murder if you kill a fellow soldier outside of battle.

[kocrachon 2]

I'm not sure the "reality" comments help - it's a game and meant to be accessible and fun. Women play video games and should be represented more. In Arma they could just add a female face or 5 and some additional voices that you pick when you edit your profile (I beleive arma 1 has a female voice? - I just checked and you can choose "Amy" :)). They could add a more feminine character model for a bit of extra work. There are many games out there that have female models (Ghost recon, RavenShield, Falcon 4, etc) and I see no reason to exclude them for the sake of realism.

Sorry for the double post but there are 2 problems with your 3 examples.

1) RavenShield is a police force, not a military force, thus why women are in it.

2) Falcon 4 is a pilot simulation, women are allowed to be pilots.

Also Scorpionguard a couple of problems with your comment as well.

First off, a MP is considered more of a police job, thus why they allow women in it. Its not designated to perform operations, they are more of a defense/guard unit. When I was in Iraq and Afghanistan MP were mainly to play a roll as police officer (thus why called military police) and they were also the ones generally defending outpost.

Even with the roles you mention, these are not roles incorporated into ArmA 2. In ArmA 2, almost every character is a basic infantrymen. The only things that in the real world that would be Female that are in this game, are the pilots. Even crewmen are going to be men. But a pilot could be a woman. But why take all that time to make a female for pilots if nothing else? That would limit a person to being a pilot character at all times.

Anyways, I dont see the big deal either way, I think they should but at the same time its like others said, then they would have to make a female version of everything and that would take time. So odds are they saw little need for something cosmetic. Seriouly, does looking like a girl matter in first person? Give yourself a voice and its all the same. Your just a very manly woman.

Edited June 10, 2009 by HavocDemon

[sic-disaster 311]

Women aren't given combat roles in any military, even in the US, they are usually just technicians, etc,

Women ARE being given combat roles.

There arent that many that want to be in the front line though, and they are sparse.

But i explained that a couple of posts back already.

Your point is invalid.

And @HavocDemon:

Ghost Recon focusses on a special forces squad.

The specialist characters are even better then regular squad members, and funnily enough the special characters have women.

Edited June 10, 2009 by SiC-Disaster

[Binkowski 26]

Just because females are not allowed to be combat roles in the US military doesn't mean they don't see combat. There's some females from my division's MP brigade (38th Infantry) that saw combat in Iraq, but they are not assigned to combat job.