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Inhabiting the Player Character


Shoelip
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1 minute ago, Gelkor said:

If I had to guess, @Valorosus is conflating the term asexual with androgynous, which is a common and fairly accurate description of the Tenno.

Asexual would be  "being neither male nor female", whereas androgynous would be "both male and female". Difference is there, and Tenno, I guess, is more asexual than androgynous, but latter is plausible too, I agree.

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14 minutes ago, BornWithTeeth said:

As per my question above, if the War Within changes the situation by allowing for:

- using the Operator as the default body while walking around Orbiter and Dojo
- making choices about the Operator's dialogue, the pool of lines they use, and attitudes carried, as well as maybe allowing players to directly control transmissions via a sort of 'dialogue wheel'

 

would that be enough for you to consider the Operator as the identifiable player character?

Absolutely. Allowing us those options to further interact with the world around us would definitively make me feel closer to seeing the Operator as my own persona.

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7 minutes ago, Valorosus said:

Still, I can give my Tenno female head and male voice... Bodies are the same, and at their "age" they should be rather different. Besides, Lotus states that they were children once, and now something more.

That doesn't make them asexual.  That's just a gameplay conceit the same way you can do that in the Saints' Row games.  They're androgenous sure, as @Gelkor Said, but they're not asexual.  That has a totally different meaning.  It refers to sexual preference rather than your own sex.

4 minutes ago, Sloan441 said:

This crops up quite frequently when you're thinking about your operator. What's their name? I mean, you, as the player, can call them whatever you want, but in the gameworld, they have no name.

It's possible they've forgotten themselves. Long years on cryosleep, possible conditioning when being groomed as tenno by the orokin, submergence for so long in the assorted warframes they use...all could contribute to a lack of discreet identity on the operator's part. It seems the Orokin robbed the tenno of quite a bit when they were chosen to pilot the warframes.

Does it even matter anymore? If you're running a mission with another tenno and they're an Ember Prime, well, you kinda know what to expect from them. Does it really matter who they are? Do they come up with nicknames to identify each other (seems likely and fits with user profile names)? How do regular people contact them? Does Darvo have a little list of contact numbers or nicknames associated with same he gets in touch with if he needs/wants a particular tenno for something?

It's an interesting bit of speculation.

Heh, I guess I'd name mine Eureka, but that name thing is what makes me think that they're intended to represent you in the game.  I kinda got the feeling that Rob designed his operator just to be attractive though from his comments about it technically being you so it's not creepy. XD

Edited by Shoelip
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4 minutes ago, Shoelip said:

That doesn't make them asexual.  That's just a gameplay conceit the same way you can do that in the Saints' Row games.  They're androgenous sure, as @Gelkor Said, but they're not asexual.  That has a totally different meaning.  It refers to sexual preference rather than your own sex.

As I wrote in previous post, asexual would be  "being neither male nor female", whereas androgynous would be "both male and female". Difference is there, and Tenno, I guess, is more asexual than androgynous, but latter is plausible too, I agree.

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3 minutes ago, Valorosus said:

As I wrote in previous post, asexual would be  "being neither male nor female", whereas androgynous would be "both male and female". Difference is there, and Tenno, I guess, is more asexual than androgynous, but latter is plausible too, I agree.

And as I said in the post you quoted, you've got the definition wrong.

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Just now, Valorosus said:

As I wrote in previous post, asexual would be  "being neither male nor female", whereas androgynous would be "both male and female". Difference is there, and Tenno, I guess, is more asexual than androgynous, but latter is plausible too, I agree.



Asexual:
a·sex·u·al
āˈsekSH(əw)əl/
adjective
1. without sexual feelings or associations.
"she rested her hand on the back of his head, in a maternal, wholly asexual, gesture"
noun
1. a person who has no sexual feelings or desires.

 

Sorry, has to be done.

 

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5 minutes ago, Valorosus said:

As I wrote in previous post, asexual would be  "being neither male nor female", whereas androgynous would be "both male and female". Difference is there, and Tenno, I guess, is more asexual than androgynous, but latter is plausible too, I agree.

Uh, actually the word 'asexual' means not having a sex drive, no sexual attraction to anyone. It's like if you had to mark a box for Gay, or for Straight, or for Bi, and you instead just drew another box marked No Thanks and ticked that.

 

 

 

Being asexual has quite literally nothing to do with what your body looks like. The word which you are looking for is 'androgynous'. That word can mean having both male and female characteristics, but it is also used to mean indeterminate, as in "That person is so androgynous that I cannot guess whether they are male or female."

Edited by BornWithTeeth
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7 minutes ago, Sloan441 said:

This crops up quite frequently when you're thinking about your operator. What's their name? I mean, you, as the player, can call them whatever you want, but in the gameworld, they have no name.

It's possible they've forgotten themselves. Long years on cryosleep, possible conditioning when being groomed as tenno by the orokin, submergence for so long in the assorted warframes they use...all could contribute to a lack of discreet identity on the operator's part. It seems the Orokin robbed the tenno of quite a bit when they were chosen to pilot the warframes.

Does it even matter anymore? If you're running a mission with another tenno and they're an Ember Prime, well, you kinda know what to expect from them. Does it really matter who they are? Do they come up with nicknames to identify each other (seems likely and fits with user profile names)? How do regular people contact them? Does Darvo have a little list of contact numbers or nicknames associated with same he gets in touch with if he needs/wants a particular tenno for something?

It's an interesting bit of speculation.

It is interesting.

My friends and i have discussed this at length. I always thought the word tenno was interesting. As its both singular and plural at the same time. Which makes me want to think that it has something to do with the game and not just clever script writing for multiplayer missions.

I want to think that its possible that your operator is controling multiple warframes? Whenever you go in with a squad of four is it entirely unreasonable that you control the most powerful tenno to ever live? And that in your game your the last living tenno and its up to you to save the universe.

(Speculation)

 

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6 minutes ago, Valorosus said:

Asexual would be  "being neither male nor female", whereas androgynous would be "both male and female". Difference is there, and Tenno, I guess, is more asexual than androgynous, but latter is plausible too, I agree.

Not how those words work.

Asexual uses the a as the Latin prefix for 'Without/Not', so it literally becomes 'Without Sex/Not Sexual'. This typically refers to the reproductive trait, such as in some plants and animals, however in recent years it is also getting used in regards to people's sexual orientation and the lack of any inherent sexual desire. Not something we actually have any reasonable evidence to argue one way or another, honestly when it comes to the Tenno.

Androgynous means indeterminate gender. Having both male/female traits is being a Hermaphrodite. 

8 minutes ago, Sloan441 said:

This crops up quite frequently when you're thinking about your operator. What's their name? I mean, you, as the player, can call them whatever you want, but in the gameworld, they have no name.

It's possible they've forgotten themselves. Long years on cryosleep, possible conditioning when being groomed as tenno by the orokin, submergence for so long in the assorted warframes they use...all could contribute to a lack of discreet identity on the operator's part. It seems the Orokin robbed the tenno of quite a bit when they were chosen to pilot the warframes.

Does it even matter anymore? If you're running a mission with another tenno and they're an Ember Prime, well, you kinda know what to expect from them. Does it really matter who they are? Do they come up with nicknames to identify each other (seems likely and fits with user profile names)? How do regular people contact them? Does Darvo have a little list of contact numbers or nicknames associated with same he gets in touch with if he needs/wants a particular tenno for something?

It's an interesting bit of speculation.

It's possible, though I think for simple communication, not using a name leads to more hassle than not. Especially as going by Warframe really wouldn't help at all. Whether or not the aliases represent the lack of a name, or such, is a good question. I know I've played off of the 'alias rather than name' in the characters I've devised as of yet, but it's still nice to have clarification on what it's meant to serve.

I mean, Shadowrun Hong Kong lets us have Name and Alias crop up as relevant, which is nice. Perhaps something like that could be implemented down the line. Might be interesting, least in my estimation.

 

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6 minutes ago, (PS4)Chaosphoenix101 said:

It is interesting.

My friends and i have discussed this at length. I always thought the word tenno was interesting. As its both singular and plural at the same time. Which makes me want to think that it has something to do with the game and not just clever script writing for multiplayer missions.

I want to think that its possible that your operator is controling multiple warframes? Whenever you go in with a squad of four is it entirely unreasonable that you control the most powerful tenno to ever live? And that in your game your the last living tenno and its up to you to save the universe.

(Speculation)

 

According to the wiki Tenno can be translated to Divine Emperor in Japanese, and I always figured it was a Japanese word considering the obvious East Asian influences in the game.  Of course the ingame reason for their name seems to be that they were found aboard the Zariman Ten Zero.

Edited by Shoelip
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6 minutes ago, Shoelip said:

And as I said in the post you quoted, you've got the definition wrong.

You're right, my wrong :) What I was trying to say is that Tenno are some kind of transhumans (Lotus indirect words) that don't need male nor female features rather than having them all and being androgynous. But yeah, I can accept them as andro for we don't have other semantic options :)

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2 minutes ago, Shoelip said:

They have male or female features, and can have both.  Like I said.  They have a male or female body model that's determined by the chosen primary head.

I didn't check it with female primary head, so I have to believe You :)

EDIT:

Checked it at YT, and I was wrong, they're clearly male and female. Sorry for my ignorance on this particular topic.

Edited by Valorosus
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14 minutes ago, Valorosus said:

You're right, my wrong :) What I was trying to say is that Tenno are some kind of transhumans (Lotus indirect words) that don't need male nor female features rather than having them all and being androgynous. But yeah, I can accept them as andro for we don't have other semantic options :)

Technically only the Cephalons (and maybe the Orokin) are transhumans. (Transhumanism being the concept of brain-uploading into an immortal, often digital, form).

Silvana could be considered Transhuman after a form, having given up her human body to be a gestalt grove of trees. 

The Tenno are what is often called in sci-fi as being superhuman or metahuman.

Edited by Gelkor
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I know a few of us expected something similar to the operator.

 

After the lore of the children we knew it was either going to be somebody controlling the frames or somebody inside the frames. It couldn't possibly be anything else so the whole operator thing, for me and a few people I know, was great.

 

I suppose we could have gone completely off the rails and thought the tenno were balls of energy. That was the most hilarious theory I heard.

 

As far as identifying .... I did try and make my operator similar to how I looked in my teenage years with the incredibly limited tools available. I highly doubt anyone could identify with an all powerful teenager that needs to use warframes because their power can't be contained any other way. I don't recall a time of ever being like that.

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35 minutes ago, Valorosus said:

Still, I can give my Tenno female head and male voice... Bodies are almost the same, and at their "age" they should be rather different. Besides, Lotus states that they were children once, and now something more.

It happens. I've met a guy at the gym, he was a pack of muscle and looked like an ice cone: thin waist, large shoulders and bulging arms.... and an afeminate voice.

Let me tell you something: to a parent, their offspring will always be their child, its the reality of the situation: my son, my daugther, my child. Its doesnt matter how old you are.

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4 minutes ago, Ailissa said:

I know a few of us expected something similar to the operator.

 

After the lore of the children we knew it was either going to be somebody controlling the frames or somebody inside the frames. It couldn't possibly be anything else so the whole operator thing, for me and a few people I know, was great.

 

I suppose we could have gone completely off the rails and thought the tenno were balls of energy. That was the most hilarious theory I heard.

 

As far as identifying .... I did try and make my operator similar to how I looked in my teenage years with the incredibly limited tools available. I highly doubt anyone could identify with an all powerful teenager that needs to use warframes because their power can't be contained any other way. I don't recall a time of ever being like that.

Damn, now I'm trying to think how this could be a working metaphor for puberty.

Edited by Shoelip
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It is hard to say if I indentify with the Operator and the Warframes or not, but in great parts, I would put it like Blakrana did.

52 minutes ago, Blakrana said:

 ~snip~

I play games to get away from being me for a while, so why then would I want to try and replicate myself in that space?

 Why limit myself in virtual space to the same morphology I have every day? In Skyrim I can be a Werewolf Kajiit, I can be a Charr Necromancer or Sylvari Mesmer in Guild Wars 2

When it comes to the Operator, honestly the one thing that bugs me is the inability to actually grant a name. Much as I have no issue with my handle being used in general, for a character, it sort of breaks that capacity to be more. It's not that I don't like the idea of them and me being one and the same...It's more that I dislike the potential of the character being reduced by my handle. 

I don't know how to put it. I don't need to 'be' the character on the screen. I like making distinct characters for whom I can enjoy weaving stories and histories for, who I can observe grow through varying trials and adversity. Perhaps that's just the propensity for writing I have, or whatever it is. Character creation is an open book, and I for one believe in having something different on each page should I have the means to do so.

~snip~

Just like him/her I play games to not be me for a while, preferably in a different physical form than what I am stuck with IRL. When I create a character in which I have free reign - or close to it - over how I want to design him, I just wing it, try a few settings, see what clicks and what not. I have very few constants, like that if I can choose the gender I will always go for male, except if there are female exclusive classes that intrigue me in class-based games, or heterochromia.

Another quirk of mine, is that I see all my characters as their own individual who allow me to share their body, as a friendly ghost tagging along, so to speak, never dominating them, but giving them a nudge in the right direction every now and then. To me each of my characters have their own quirks and personalities, which can be similiar to my own. Usually it is nothing all too major, it's things like food dislikes and likes or sexual preference that is often shared between me and my characters.

However there's one thing that's makes the Operator different to me, than other characters. It's the fact that I know almost nothing about him, even his name is a mystery to me. I do not know whether he feels remorse or joy when thinking about all the enemies he has killed or downright annihilated. I do not know if he cares for his Kubrow and Kavat, or if he sees his Sentinels as more than just tools. Yet there are times where I can feel a connection and sympathy for him.

It's almost like the relation between a Shinigami and their Zanpakuto. At first a Shinigami is given an Asauchi which over times developes into the Shinigami's Zanpukto which in turn will reveal it's name to it's wielder as soon as the Shinigami is ready for that bond.

The same goes for the Warframes, They too are individuals to me, after what I have learned in TSD and TSG has only cemented that belief. In addition to that, when I gain a new primed Warframe, I am not replacing the regular Frame with it, to me, it's like the regular Frame evolves into the Primed Variant, regaining some, if not all, of it's original strength.

11 minutes ago, Valorosus said:

You're right, my wrong :) What I was trying to say is that Tenno are some kind of transhumans (Lotus indirect words) that don't need male nor female features rather than having them all and being androgynous. But yeah, I can accept them as andro for we don't have other semantic options :)

I think the term you might have been going for is agender, genderfluid or genderqueer.

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2 hours ago, BornWithTeeth said:

Uh, actually the word 'asexual' means not having a sex drive, no sexual attraction to anyone. It's like if you had to mark a box for Gay, or for Straight, or for Bi, and you instead just drew another box marked No Thanks and ticked that.

Much as this is somewhat of a delayed note...I feel it worth pointing out that Asexual is a component of orientation, rather than a whole orientation on it's own. It'd be like trying to argue Sexual is an orientation in its own right...a logically strange stance, considering we require the Gender prefixes to clarify just where that 'Sexual' identity is actually orientated. Though I'm reasonably confident you likely understand that anyway so apologies if stating the logically obvious.

Personally when it comes to sexual orientation forms, I think it'd be better to have a set of options for the Gender Preference/Sexual set, and Gender Preference/Asexual set, with of course an Aromantic/Asexual option if neither apply at all. So it'd have Hetero-sexual etc options for Sexuals, and Hetero-Asexual etc for Asexuals to fill in. If nothing else, would hopefully give better demographic data than the 'you're either this, or you're not' binary we're currently contending. Alternatively, a sort of 'delete as appropriate' field: Gender Preference is one group, so Hetero/Homo/Bi/Pan etc, and then Sexual/Asexual as the other half of it. Might save space, at least...

Apologies for going on, as always. In the event this statement causes the thread to blow up, I really didn't intend for that.

*Dons flak jacket and braces*

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3 hours ago, SenorClipClop said:

It's down to player preference.

When you can customize a human character at the start of a game (Dark Souls, etc.) do you make it look like you and project yourself onto it, or do you make if look like its own character and watch their story without self-inserting?

That's what I'm asking.

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14 hours ago, Shoelip said:

 

 Do you guys identify as the operator? 

 

No,I have more attachmentt to the frames to the Operator.

 

14 hours ago, Shoelip said:

S Do you think of the Operator as the representation of yourself in the game or are they just the character you happen to be controlling as you experience the game through their eyes? ... Or well... a camera magically hanging behind their Warframe's shoulder.

 

I ended up going with the idea the Operator was the commander from xcom in my own head. I know that is not DE wanted,but for the fact I use the Operator only for the boost they give and nothing else..And having to hear their voice (Thank god for mute button on them) Honestly nothing is gonna change that. I just do not care for the Operator and feel no real relation to them. I guess I was canon long before It even came out that something was amiss with the tenno warframes not ever taking the armor off. But,The Operator also came off at best the Xcom commander for me. And At worse (with the voice on) some weeb trash "My warframe is strong". I guess It goes vs my idea which all things should be treated different as design. It makes the Operator come off as kind of that one guy who collects only the most Op Cards,pokemon whatever and no personal bond with them they are just "Op" so use em. In my own head every frame acts differently and has a personality based on the frame.

 

Limbo is C3-P0 but more agressive.

Oberon acts like a hero but likes to talk S#&$ on loki.

Mesa likes shotguns and Yells "tarnations" If something is too much bs for her to deal with.

Nyx thinks every is fighting for her (Chaos spam) cause she thinks she is a popstar

Rhino is actually very chill..Like the dude mixed with Cole Train.

And Valkyr just goes "rawww" but It is translatable.

 

 

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10 hours ago, Kiyomaru-EN- said:

I think the term you might have been going for is agender, genderfluid or genderqueer.

I was avoiding words with "gender" on purpose, because it describes social and cultural differences rather than biological ones, whereas biological ones are described by word "sexual", which lost its meaning nowadays and was "shrunk" to sexual attraction, or simply having or not sexual desires. Latin word "sexus" describes biological differences, but I didn't want to bring etymology to this conversation and I didn't found better word or meaning.

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