WF'99 and Other Thoughts

[Rachel_dArc]

I admit, I never would have seen this coming in a million years.  WF'99 looks cool, and it adds an amazing twist to the game -- the Earth of WF is not our Earth -- it's a parallel with its own history and own events in the past, and I love it. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

I just have one complaint. It's the same complaint I had with The New War.

Why is it, every single time we have to play someone who isn't our DROP (Drifter/Operator), the character we have to use is a guy?

Excal Umbra? Guy. 
Kahl-175?  Guy.
Veso? Guy.
Teshin. Well, that's Teshin.

I wind up suffering dysphoria when I get stuck doing this - enough so that I have to hand off to someone else to get through those things so I can get back to enjoying the game. I'm really hoping that, for WF'99, playing Arthur is brief, and you get to return to your DROP ... or maybe you have the choice between Arthur and the woman you heard on the other side, or something.

And really, that's my only issue. Everything else? Was totally cool, and I have no issues. But ... I don't play the male warframes for a reason. They give me headaches. (And yeah, that severely cuts into my ability to gain Mastery, but I'll live). And while it's fine having friends / my brother run the game for me when we get to those points, I'd really like to be able to play myself and not have to rely on them getting me through those stages.

And yeah, I get it - having to do the same thing twice if the player had to choose who they were gonna play (voice acting and everything else), maybe just give us a 50-50 on M/F leads for when you're playing someone new? Please?

*counts down to getting flack and a bunch of 'suck it ups' and 'then don't plays'*

[DeckChairVonBananaCamel]

yeah hey any of the past characters we played as could have been made female, but the WF1999 person kinda had to be a dude. Gotta have that Arthur -> Excalibur connection.

Edited August 27, 2023 by DeckChairVonBananaCamel

[chaotea]

38 minutes ago, Rachel_dArc said:

Why is it, every single time we have to play someone who isn't our DROP (Drifter/Operator), the character we have to use is a guy?

Excal Umbra? Guy. 
Kahl-175?  Guy.
Veso? Guy.
Teshin. Well, that's Teshin.

Kind of easy to explain.

Excal umbra is male because Excal is male. Excal umbra was originally a version of prime excal for china, hence why it was the center of its own quest.

Kahl, is a grineer foot soldier. All the foot soldiers are male. The female grineer models are either too elite (heavy gunner) or otherwise melee only (scorpion) and so wouldnt have been as suitable for what they wanted to portray.

Veso, much the same as Kahl, they wanted a grunt, and all the corpus females are higher ranking.

 

In the case of 1999, the character is a take on excaliber, and by the looks of things riffing on the hayden tenno character.

That said, Its surprising that the male / female character thing would bother you considering the breadth of diversity if warframe genders. Unless you strictly only play female warframe in which case fair enough.

(Edit: Just to make sure, nothing in here is a dig at you or your opinions. I dont necessarily disagree, though more that it doesn't bother me as i often play games as either male or female characters when given the choice, and most of my favorite frames in warframe are female.)

Edited August 27, 2023 by chaotea

[(PSN)robotwars7]

personally I think it's kinda narrow minded to limit yourself to one gender; I'm a male and I usually prefer male frames, but I'm happy to play as a female frame whenever I feel like using one (and I'd argue most of the best/meta frames there are right now are female).

[MCNacho]

Arthur looks like Jetstream Sam in his younger years.

 

[Rachel_dArc]

16 minutes ago, chaotea said:

That said, Its surprising that the male / female character thing would bother you considering the breadth of diversity if warframe genders. Unless you strictly only play female warframe in which case fair enough.

(Edit: Just to make sure, nothing in here is a dig at you or your opinions. I don't necessarily disagree, though more that it doesn't bother me as i often play games as either male or female characters when given the choice, and most of my favorite frames in warframe are female.)

Fair answer. Just ... frustrating.
And no, nothing you said felt like a dig -- and yeah, I do strictly play female warframes, as I mentioned, I suffer dysphoria otherwise. It sucks, but it is what it is. There's a lot of games I simply can't play because of it.

[Rachel_dArc]

12 minutes ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

personally I think it's kinda narrow minded to limit yourself to one gender; I'm a male and I usually prefer male frames, but I'm happy to play as a female frame whenever I feel like using one (and I'd argue most of the best/meta frames there are right now are female).

Then you probably don't suffer from dysphoria when you play - which is good. Unfortunately, I don't have that luxury, so it seriously limits my options. It wasn't so bad back in the day -- then it was a matter of preference, because the graphics weren't up to snuff, but these days it's become harder to switch things up. Especially when I'm playing a 1st or 3rd person game as opposed to, say, top down isometric games which are a bit more disconnected.

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

14 minutes ago, MCNacho said:

Arthur looks like Jetstream Sam in his younger years.

 

Bro I was saying this the entire time they showed it off lol.

[FulfillMyWill]

There could be a sequence, where we play as Mag Aoi later in the story.

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

21 minutes ago, MCNacho said:

 

Aznvasions pointed out that he looked like Hayden Tenno.

Edited August 27, 2023 by (XBOX)Upl0rdYT

[MCNacho]

vor 1 Minute schrieb FulfillMyWill:

There could be a sequence, where we play as Mag Aoi later in the story.

 

who is then volt?

[FulfillMyWill]

Только что, MCNacho сказал:

 

who is then volt?

Not shown yet.

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

14 minutes ago, Rachel_dArc said:

 Especially when I'm playing a 1st or 3rd person game as opposed to, say, top down isometric games which are a bit more disconnected.

I understand third person because maybe somehow seeing you control a male character could be offsetting, but how is first person upsetting? 

Like the only thing you see in first person 99% of the time are your character's arms (with only a few exceptions like destiny that let you look down at your torso and legs). 

The only time I've ever felt weird was temporary and was caused by me playing a female character in VR (but then again, playing a smol  anime character in VR while staring at a mirror is very different from running around and gunning things down).

Edited August 27, 2023 by (XBOX)Upl0rdYT

[MCNacho]

vor 9 Minuten schrieb FulfillMyWill:

Not shown yet.

cant be Mezner he is later lephantis

Yargo ist way to old (but hes probably the only choice for volt mhh)

Nadia is a woman (maybe AIO or how shes called? Mag)

Victor Sudek later killed (maybe put in ice to preserve for later experiments, future nidus?)

 

my head hurts

Edited August 27, 2023 by MCNacho

[MCNacho]

vor 13 Minuten schrieb (XBOX)Upl0rdYT:

Aznvasions pointed out that he looked like Hayden Tenno.

the duviridrifter from the trailer looks like hayden tenno this guy not.

Edited August 27, 2023 by MCNacho

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

2 minutes ago, MCNacho said:

the duviridrifter from the trailer looks like hayden tenno this guy not.

The armor is still very similar to Hayden Tenno wearing the proto Excalibur suit.

[Sporthand]

39 minutes ago, MCNacho said:

Arthur looks like Jetstream Sam in his younger years.

 

This picture gives me a music vibe!

 

[MCNacho]

vor 5 Minuten schrieb (XBOX)Upl0rdYT:

The armor is still very similar to Hayden Tenno wearing the proto Excalibur suit.

 

indeed, but these was a combatsuit nothing special. didnt find even something about this. special unit armor maybe?

Edited August 27, 2023 by MCNacho

[SneakyErvin]

2 hours ago, Rachel_dArc said:

I wind up suffering dysphoria when I get stuck doing this

I've said it before and I'll say it again. That is not how that works. If it was you would not be able to be around people, listen to music, watch movies or anything else that is focused on or performed by the gender you dont identify with. If you have dysphoria it is about your own body, unless of course it also comes with "supremasist" thoughts and compulsive behavior. Which is what it sounds like in your case. Since you simply shouldnt suffer dysphoria on behalf of someone or something else.

While it is natural to want to create a you in character based settings, like with the operator and drifter here, it is not natural to want to force that on litteral NPCs that arent at all you. If you get problems with things like controlling Kahl, Teshin, Veqo or the future Arthur the problems is rooted far far deeper and the solution is not to change the game at that point. The same would also go for having a compulsive need to pick frames based on their gender in order to not feel sick, it is a deep deep problem at that point since frames do not represent you, they are each their own individual and is there for you to control as the situation requires.

Edited August 27, 2023 by SneakyErvin

[Rachel_dArc]

58 minutes ago, (XBOX)Upl0rdYT said:

I understand third person because maybe somehow seeing you control a male character could be offsetting, but how is first person upsetting? 

Like the only thing you see in first person 99% of the time are your character's arms (with only a few exceptions like destiny that let you look down at your torso and legs). 

The only time I've ever felt weird was temporary and was caused by me playing a female character in VR (but then again, playing a smol  anime character in VR while staring at a mirror is very different from running around and gunning things down).

Autism.
1st person it registers as 'me', which bothers me if I know the character's male.  :\

[-Krism-]

1 hour ago, DeckChairVonBananaCamel said:

Gotta have that Arthur -> Excalibur connection.

Holy S#&$, can't believe I didn't caught on that

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

2 hours ago, Rachel_dArc said:

Autism.
1st person it registers as 'me', which bothers me if I know the character's male.  :\

Ah ok. So no matter what you still focus on the character. 

[(PSN)Unstar]

7 hours ago, Rachel_dArc said:

Why is it, every single time we have to play someone who isn't our DROP (Drifter/Operator), the character we have to use is a guy?

Valid point.  Hopefully the teaser we saw is only one possible way it can be played; from the trailer, it seemed implied that the Aoi (the femme voice on the com) was Mag, so it would be nice if you have the option to play as either her or Arthur.

My condolences on the struggles with your dysphoria.  I don't experience dysphoria in that specific way but there were definitely periods in my life where I avoided playing as masc frames.  I still prefer femme frames, but I'm happy to say that I've made progress where it isn't unpleasant for me to play the masc ones.  I know it doesn't solve the immediate situation but I genuinely hope that life makes a path so you can get there as well, since I don't want you in pain.  Either way, you're valid, sister.

One thing that might help, because it has helped me in the past, is in the moment, remembering that gender itself is fake.  When I look at Kahl, for example, he definitely reads as masc.  But I bet as a Grineer soldier he hasn't been given the space to explore gender identity.  Heck, I bet he's ignorant to the fact that that's even a possibility.  So maybe all it would take is a mild stimuli to start his questioning journey, to discover that maybe he isn't actually he at all, but they, she, or something else entirely.  Sometimes thinking about the possibilities that are unspoken about a character can be grounding.  And Kahl makes such a sweet little egg. ^^

Regardless, wishing you the best!

[Rachel_dArc]

10 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

I've said it before and I'll say it again. That is not how that works. If it was you would not be able to be around people, listen to music, watch movies or anything else that is focused on or performed by the gender you dont identify with. If you have dysphoria it is about your own body, unless of course it also comes with "supremasist" thoughts and compulsive behavior. Which is what it sounds like in your case. Since you simply shouldnt suffer dysphoria on behalf of someone or something else.

Yes, it does work this way. Being, you know, someone who has to live with it. And speaking with others who have to deal with it.
Unless you can somehow read my mind or something - that'd be amazing. But it's different from 'playing something that you identify with' and 'watching something that's not associated with you' is two different things. And it isn't like I'm the only case in my social circle.

5 hours ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

Valid point.  Hopefully the teaser we saw is only one possible way it can be played; from the trailer, it seemed implied that the Aoi (the femme voice on the com) was Mag, so it would be nice if you have the option to play as either her or Arthur.

My condolences on the struggles with your dysphoria.  I don't experience dysphoria in that specific way but there were definitely periods in my life where I avoided playing as masc frames.  I still prefer femme frames, but I'm happy to say that I've made progress where it isn't unpleasant for me to play the masc ones.  I know it doesn't solve the immediate situation but I genuinely hope that life makes a path so you can get there as well, since I don't want you in pain.  Either way, you're valid, sister.

Regardless, wishing you the best!

I'm glad you're doing better and finding progress, and thank you for the kind words.  :)

[SneakyErvin]

11 hours ago, Rachel_dArc said:

Yes, it does work this way. Being, you know, someone who has to live with it. And speaking with others who have to deal with it.
Unless you can somehow read my mind or something - that'd be amazing. But it's different from 'playing something that you identify with' and 'watching something that's not associated with you' is two different things. And it isn't like I'm the only case in my social circle.

My point is that it isnt rooted in dysphoria, it is something else in you that triggers those emotions regarding these things, because something like dysphoria simply shouldnt take that form, since well we arent talking about being uncomfortable in your own body at this point. You host these emotions towards what translate to a completely different individual, since that is in effect what all these characters besides your operator/drifter are, artificial beings with their own story. It should really be nothing unlike watching something, since these characters are not associated with you, neither are the frames. Same goes for any game where you control a pre-defined individual.

The frame is more like your ally, friend or machine/tool/weapon, an individual you team up or work together with. I'm not Lara Croft when I sit down to play Tomb Raider, I'm not the Marvel Hero I control in a Marvel game, I'm not Jill or Chris when in RE, I'm not the Atlas, Wasp nor Warhammer mech when playing Mech Warrior, I'm not Frost, Oberon, Garuda or Saryn when playing those frames and I'm not the origin characters is games like DoS or Baldur's Gate. They are all their own individuals or just machines. However in Mech Warrior I am the pilot behind the stick, in DoS and BG I can make my own character aswell that would be me, the one I can actually identify with. Playing the pre-defined characters is like watching a movie or reading a book.

And there being others in your social circle that feel the same doesnt mean the problem is what you percieve it to be. Social circles tend to jade things in order for people to feel connected and have things to talk about which are of the same interest. Which also often leads to the actual problem not getting solved, or worse that it is added to. I would suggest you to seek out help for this instead of asking for things to change around you so you can keep on living with the problems instead of facing them.