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

No way in hell im reading all of that but

No.

I'm down for that, the ideal scenario would be to have it on character creation, but I would settle for that. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

"

Glorfndel01 wrote:

Somehow having to buy MTX for gender choice seems...chincy as hell.

Offer as a choice at character creation or come across as cheap.

100%. It would be shot down as one of the worst mtx decisions in history. Especially given how the current climate is we do not 'choose' our gender/sexual orientation in real life. Monetising that lack-of-choice would be *grotesque*.

What they did for PoE 1 looks like it'll be what they do for PoE 2. Far less risk involved in simply telling players, 'this class is this gender, end of' (something we're more than used to) than saying 'this class is this gender BUT FOR ONLY $9.95 you can make them a different one!'...without at least more added to the package.

For example, take the Witch. Looks like's she a she. Okay, works for me; she's not called a Warlock after all (ignoring the fact that 'Warlock' has been a gender-flex class in WoW forever). But, in the grand time-honoured tradition of apparently popular mtxes, if GGG wanted to release a Witch skin that used, I dunno, Popular Esports Dude #43, complete with new voice lines and model change, well okay then. This isn't monetising a generic concept but a very specific one.

I am in no way endorsing that sort of mtx. They kinda creep me out tbh. But that's my example of what I'd find an acceptable gender choice mtx.

___

@DS44: It's a game of priorities. Nothing shits me more regarding this topic than when something made to be inclusive sacrifices crucial elements like good writing and characterisation to do so. These are not fucking mutually exclusive concepts and I pray I don't have to provide examples there. And when they do that, all they're doing is self-sabotaging because it makes it real fuckin' hard to defend the whole notion when it's attached to something almost objectively shit.

As for those businesses, eh, corp gonna corp. They jump on bandwagons and trends and these just happen to be the current ones. It's soulless and vapid. We all know that. We've all seen them stumble and misfire. They very rarely go down as a result.

Soulless, vapid: two words I hope we never feel justified in applying to PoE, 1 or 2.

"

Glorfndel01 wrote:

Somehow having to buy MTX for gender choice seems...chincy as hell.

Offer as a choice at character creation or come across as cheap.

Thinking you are entitled to something in a free game comes across as cheap too.

Nothing is free. Some things just hide their price tags better.

Nothing. Not even good manners. I have to go out of my way to say 'thank you' and most of the time it's ignored. So not only does that take time, it also requires a measure of willpower to keep at it despite it being largely wasteful.

On the other hand, it's also a habit. That didn't come free either. Someone made the effort to impart that habit upon me.

PoE is free to play but it is not free to experience in totality. Storage is the hidden cost once you play long enough and we all know it so please don't go down the 'you can't complain/have expectations because the game is free' path. I strongly doubt GGG want anyone to do that, given they work pretty damn hard to meet some pretty high expectations.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

Nothing is free. Some things just hide their price tags better.

So putting the price tag indirectly instead of directly for those that want it is supposed to make the game better?

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

Nothing. Not even good manners. I have to go out of my way to say 'thank you' and most of the time it's ignored. So not only does that take time, it also requires a measure of willpower to keep at it despite it being largely wasteful.

And what does this have to do with wanting something for free that would obviously not be fast nor cheap to make/code?

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

oE is free to play but it is not free to experience in totality. Storage is the hidden cost once you play long enough and we all know it so please don't go down the 'you can't complain/have expectations because the game is free' path. I strongly doubt GGG want anyone to do that, given they work pretty damn hard to meet some pretty high expectations.

I also played the entirety of the game on a free account, so not even that is completely truthful.

Good for you, and I mean that.

You defied their attempts at getting money out of you by making the deeper parts of the game rather uncomfortable without some sort of financial investment.

You did nothing wrong. Hell, you did everything right.

But if everyone else did, the game wouldn't exist and then where would you be, hm?

As for the rest of your response, I don't...really see how they're related to my core statement. Soz.

I would be playing something else, as i am.

I enjoyed the direction the game took when i bought the supports in this account, and then it went in a direction i didn't like, so i didn't support anymore. That's how anything works.

I made a statement about being entitled, you wandered into good manners somehow, don't put this on me.

Isn't it a simple flow chart? I said he's entitled for wanting something for free, you said the cost is hidden, i asked how is keeping the cost hidden a better thing (for the game).

Isn't that also the gamble "free games" make? Attract people with the game and hope they will pay for comfort or looks eventually?

I respectfully disagree. I embrace the lived experience of male and female characters as they are and acknowledge both genders have specific traits that relate to the classes in PoE. It's a deliberate choice by GGG to tell their story this way. If PoE 2 featured the ranger and witch as a male and the marauder and shadow as a female that would be fine to. Making everything in a game customizable just takes away the meaning and richness of these narrative/design choices by the creators. I don't understand why this is so controversial. I'm also glad GGG doesn't pander to an audience that wants to politicize everything. One of the reasons I find enjoyment in games is being able to escape the rat race of everyday life where you're completely engulfed in politics, status, money, and advertising.

"

AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

I would be playing something else, as i am.

I enjoyed the direction the game took when i bought the supports in this account, and then it went in a direction i didn't like, so i didn't support anymore. That's how anything works.

I made a statement about being entitled, you wandered into good manners somehow, don't put this on me.

Isn't it a simple flow chart? I said he's entitled for wanting something for free, you said the cost is hidden, i asked how is keeping the cost hidden a better thing (for the game).

Isn't that also the gamble "free games" make? Attract people with the game and hope they will pay for comfort or looks eventually?

Absolutely. We are on the same page and in agreement here.

The manners thing was just an example of how something many people consider 'free' is possibly not. An aside. Forgive my tendency for such.

I don't think keeping the cost hidden is a good thing at all. I'm an old, old whale of Wræclast and for the longest time resisted the argument that there were hidden costs. Easy to do when your natural state of being is 'rich AF' in terms of GGGold. I did have a free to play account or two and found them insufferably limited. Would I have done so had I only played f2p? Maybe not. Can't say. I only know that IF GGG has a hidden cost, it is in the storage department.

The game isn't meant to be free for everyone. Of course not. So I disagree that the OP is 'wanting something for free'. They (she?) are merely pointing out that certain features of ARPGs that might not have been standard before are pretty much standard now.

I elaborated on that along the way, but ultimately agree. Even if that means discarding class-specific models.

Which ironically is something PoE 1 could always have done given class identity in PoE 1 is flimsy as hell if you remove Ascendancies -- they can all equip the same skill gems, the same support gems, and they all traverse the same passive skill grid. I am fairly sure an early version of PoE 1 was just what would later become the Scion -- same starting place in the middle of a huge map allowing the player to choose a direction befitting their play style and desired skill set up.

For that they could easily have just done male and female models.

I liked the idea of Ascendancies as de facto prestige classes but have never liked how they implemented it. But that's another story for another time.