It's not that modern shooters are something that women automatically dislike, it's that they assume women will dislike them and market them to guys. I'm sure women and men alike enjoyed Portal and Portal 2, but all shooters these days have to involve modern military settings (of which all the characters are men) and ultraviolence, something that society breeds men to tolerate/enjoy more. Shooter is a genre, not something that has to be located in the middle of a war.

Basically "if you build it they will come". If you make a female character, women will want to play it more.

I think a next-gen Advance Wars game, on PC with online multiplayer, or on 3DS, would be cool. That, or a successor to Skies of Arcadia or Infinite Space (basically, a jRPG with ship to ship battles and customization). Or maybe a new Front Mission game in a new universe?

I think the dig at having a "class system" is actually a bit unwarranted considering that there are "builds" for Dark Souls that work better than just having all-around balanced stats. There is technically a class system, even if it is never set in stone. For example, a DEX+INT build could be considered a "spellsword", while a STR+HP+END build is more like a "warrior".

Of course, the set weapon levels really do counteract the addition of any sort of set class to the game. However, getting bonus moves and abilities depending on what levels you raise would be cool. Perhaps the game could tell your highest stat(s) and classify you as such.

Romance options in Dark Souls would be as thus: everyone dies.

Also, what's so horrible about Covenant-specific story options, considering you have to do fetch quests to level up in each covenant?

Soooo basically Mass Effect then?

Difficulty selections... *shudder*

All those sample women everyone posted can all be either criticized or supported for their design. Let's put Shanoa from Castlevania as an example:

Pros:
1) Strong willed
2) Wears armor
3) Equal in combat to the male supporting lead

Cons:
1) Wears hooker heels and shows some unrealistic leg and back skin
2) Obviously prettier and less muscular than a real vampire hunter would look

So, there is really no "correct" way to design a female character. They will all have pros and cons to their audience. And when you put it in those terms, no one really knows "was that female character horrifically scarred for plot reasons, or just to prove a point?"

If you want to make it ultra-realistic, it still doesn't remove you from potential criticism. Even a homely character like Alyx can be criticized for having a grungy outfit - it really doesn't make a difference. It just depends on your preferences, and your audience.

I really don't mind making an attractive female character, if it makes me like to work on the game more, then I'm not going to make her less attractive to send some sort of message. I dislike the "bro culture" just as much as anyone, but as long as said character is treated with respect, I see no problem with it. I don't think female gamers are turned off by attractive characters so much as needlessly objectified and gratuitous characters.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A9pWR3pCQAMBnBZ.png

A 16bit dream.

That looks like Advance Wars x Front Mission 

Breath of Fire 3 is soo good. The feeling of unfamiliarity and trepidation once you crossed the ocean was nailed so perfectly.

It's a great game, just about 75% too long...

front mission isnt a jrpg

its a robot srpg

so yes play it

I second this motion.

Skyrim is so derivatively "sword and sorcery" that you might as well just compare it to Lord of the Rings and it would be the same difference. Heck, it's first person and Dark Souls is third person, I don't see any similarities at all besides swords, armor and dragons. It's probably just the moneyhats.

agree 100%. longer cutscenes with QTEs would be awesome too. also, as someone else suggested, the girl in the trailer should constantly communicate with you via telepathy and tell you where to go if the yellow arrows and quest markers ever become too confusing.

"There's a giant boss over there! Be careful! Hey, listen! Wait, don't go over there, YOU'RE LEAVING THE COMBAT AREA!

On PC, I've seen people from level 50-70, but I don't know about the rest.

As long as they don't have the hooded girl's magic voice in your ear, telling you where to go like a schizophrenic crazy man... oh, wait, who am I kidding, that's exactly what's going to happen...

I think my point is, make the character you want to make as long as you're not being directly insulting by doing it. If you want to make a self-sufficient female action lead like Jade from BG&E, that's your perogative, but people shouldn't be penalized for putting sexy women into the main role just like guys like Edward are stuck into Twilight (and pretty much every bishonen character ever). There are no "rules", so to speak.

my friend was saying that it will still have gfwl. fuck everything

Doesn't GFWL require peer to peer multiplayer, or am I wrong? Either way, since it's natively PC, they reeeally need to have Steamworks inteegration.

but that's what i want

Sure, I would personally be willing to look through a strategy guide to understand Dark Souls, but the game should not leave people at a disadvantage because of a poor tutorial. There's a difference between challenge and bad design. It is completely possible to make it heavily customizable without being confusing. I'm pretty sure deliberately obfuscating the systems gives an unfair advantage to pros (which you were arguing about before, due to invaders).

Guys, guys, just because it's going to be more understandable doesn't mean "easier". It just means that all the stupidly opaque stuff will hopefully have a clearer tutorial. Honestly, I felt that in a lot of places, you basically need a strategy guide to completely learn how to play, and that shouldn't be the case. Case in point: how to properly distribute your stats, and why weapon and armor forging is important.

Then it's dum, and the designers are dum.


Let me put it this way:
When you invade, you have fun at the expense of others fun.
When you coop, everyone has fun.
When you duel through official channels, everyone has fun.

Speak for yourself - I personally think repelling invaders is fun, and so do a lot of other people. It's a rush to fight a mysterious enemy at an inopportune time, especially if you win. And if I don't feel like it, I just don't go human until I get through the area. Just because you think it's not fun doesn't mean it isn't.

That said,
DARK SOULS II PC!!!!!!!!!!
Server-based multiplayer!
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!  

I don't really agree that a scantily clad woman is necessarily eye candy for guys (at least, to a point - some outfits are just stupid). It might be unrealistic, sure, but being sexy is not always a "negative" trait for a character to have. Of course, I wouldn't really care whether said character wore full body armor and a mask to hide their gender completely, as long as they were well-written.

I also don't believe that female characters should automatically be "optimal" to cater to what women (or men) want in a protagonist, because then they become two-dimensional. A character should have weaknesses and flaws and should not automatically become a badass, self-sufficient protagonist to an unrealistic extent.

I also wouldn't care if the character creation options had every possible body type. If anything, it would make things interesting versus all kinds of clone-type characters running around. But, don't expect most people to want to play as fat versus fit.

I also find it hilarious when I browse the forums and have some purported invader whine and bitch about spawn-campers and people that unplug their internet; it's like they actually believe they have a god-given right to douche it up and that it should be effortless.  

What? No! Invading is PART OF THE GAME, whether you like it or not. If you go human, you are taking a risk of being invaded, period, end of story. You can't have your cake (being able to summon people) and eat it too (not being invaded). Those are two sides of the same coin, like yin and yang. It was purposely created that way.

Or to put it the other way, if you don't want to be invaded, you shouldn't be able to summon people.

Humble Bundle "sold out" a long time ago, dunno why this was so surprising. If anything, it's good for those poor people out there who would otherwise pirate the games. If you wanted "real indie", it would probably be better to look for another bundle, though. Besides, Humble was running out of variety anyway.

Yeah, it's true that Lost Izalith reeks of shortcuts, which is a shame because it had the potential to be an epic area. Unfortunately, many of the enemies are re-used (Taurus, Capra, Dragon Zombie, Demon Firemage) and the boss fight is down to blind luck rather than skill, forcing you into 1 hit kill cheap deaths. The gargoyle statues just float around without moving, FFS.

Ugh, lines. JRPGs today have too many lines of dialogue. Maybe even games like Dragon Age. But I don't actually want to read/listen to all that. Sometimes there's a good game underneath all that, but you have to smash the any key to grind through all the dialogue and get to the gameplay.

Sorry, but I would argue that the main purpose of RPGs (especially jRPGs) is the story, rather than the gameplay. It often tends to stay the same over large numbers of RPGs because it's not the real focus, no one buys RPGs for the innovative gameplay (though there are often some good incremental improvements). jRPGs did stem from visual novels, after all.

Basically, if you want gameplay to take a front seat, that's the domain of action games.