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

Now, before y'all @ me: yes, I know how these threads go. The forum userbase gets vehemently toxic towards anyone who expresses a preference for selectable gender in PoE2 and trots out all the usual excuses: VO costs, 'Artistic Expression', anti-wokeness, "oh here we go not this again", so on and so forth, whatever. I'm not really here to discuss that, though inevitably that's exactly where we'll end up.

I'm posting this not as a Reminder to the playerbase, but as a Reminder to the Grinding Gear team: selectable gender is often held to be a Minimum Bar in modern game development. Jonathan Rogers has - correctly - noted on multiple occasions that the most useful thing PoE/2's competitors do for it is inform Jonathan and the team of what new minimum bars there are that they have to meet - things a game will be seen as incomplete/lacking/Not Good if they do not have.

This is what led to trade shifts in PoE2 - Jonathan Rogers surmised (also correctly) that the larger, more casual playerbase he is attempting to court would not accept the jank that is PoE1 trade, so he found a way to solve the problem via in-game costs associated with trading and making those costs resistant to bamboozling.

Here's the thing, Jonathan - gender-locked characters are as much a relic of old, creaky, non-modern ARPGs as janky trade is. The modern era does not generally look favorably on this sort of thing in a game where customization and personal expression is at the forefront. It's different in a game like Devil May Cry where the story is centered specifically and inextricably around its protagonist and there's no room for self expression. That's fine - you play a DMC game because being Dante/Nero/Vergil (but not V, fuck V and his dumb janky Pokemon trainer bullshit) is awesome and their story is fun to play through and witness.

But that's not the case in PoE2. Oh sure, I hope the story in PoE2 is also fun to play through and witness, but that story won't care if you're an eight-foot roided-out pile of overblown testosterone wearing Karui war paint and a codpiece, an eighty-pounds-wet pallid little waif who hasn't seen the sun in fifteen years and could out-Addams Wednesday Addams, or for that matter an insane conglomeration of light, particles, flame effects, and other MTX skins that turn you into The Primordial Doomguy or what-have-you. The story of Path of Exile does not care who or what you are (and we'll get to that point again later, so sit on your immediate and obvious protest). It reacts to you exactly the same no matter what. The Maraketh sorceress gets no special dialogue from the Maraketh convoy in Act II (presuming that's still a thing), the Marauder gets no special dialogue from the Karui islands in Act 4, none'a it. The story is 100% identical no matter which exile it is whose rope breaks in Char Select.

Now, to address the immediate nay-say: "if the story doesn't care who you are, why should you?!" Because I do. Simple as that. Some people simply have a preference for going one way or another, whether it's because they want to reflect their own identity, because they like the model/animations of one over the other, because they prefer hearing the VO of one over another - doesn't matter. This is a game where you can turn your character into anything you want, so long as that anything involves becoming a walking avatar of murder in some form or another. The game does not tell you who you are - you do. That's reason enough.

Now Jonathan has mentioned in the past that he could see selling MTXs that swatch out your entire character for a different one, VO and all, which demonstrates that the company is not against the idea of selectable genders for Artistic Expression reasons. Which is good because if you can buy eight supporter packs a year that turn your character from a dude/dame into various forms of The Copncept of Death Itself, the idea of 'we want the game to be about these specific characters" is just right out. The traditional excuse of "you'd need seven/six/twelve entirely new animation rigs!" is also out because the game now has ONE rig for all humanoid entities that GGG can easily tweak. There are two remaining stumbling blocks - the price of VO, and the Karui/Maraketh cultural issues in the game's lore.

The price of VO is certainly a factor, given that character VO seems to be dramatically expanded in PoE2. I do not presume to know what GGG's VO costs look like. However. I will point out that Grinding Gear routinely does new VO for random temporary NPCs in new leagues. They did a full set of VO lines for all four schmucks in the Kalguuran enclave for Expedition. Hell, the Parrot of Exile has the ability to echo almost all the voice barks of all seven core PoE1 exiles, and that was a one-off they did for a single supporter pack they can't even sell anymore. While I understand that a full set of VO work for a PoE2 core class will be much more extensive than a league NPC or an admittedly hilarious squawking parrot, I do not believe it to be a dealbreaker expense based on the evidence I have available to me.

That leaves the matter of the Karui/Maraketh characters and there being no combat-capable female Karui/male Maraketh in the lore. To this I say: when has that ever stopped people? Marauder players use bizarre janky bow or spell builds all the time with not a thought in the world for the fact that canonically, a Karui warrior would be branded an outcast and exiled for not picking up an axe.

Oh, wait. Just a sec. Yeah, that's right...all the characters are exiles. Criminals. People sentenced to death, for unspecified crimes. Who's to say the female Marauder wasn't sentenced to death for unforgiveable breach of the Way, or the male Sorcerer wasn't sentenced to death for speaking out against the matriarchal oppressiveness of Maraketh society the way Tasuni did (whether that oppression is real or not)? The lore only tells us what is normal for these societies, and our exiles are by fundamental definition the very opposite of 'Normal'.

Does any of this matter? Likely not. It's too late in development of the game to adjust course on this matter; PoE2 is already feature complete for the most part and simply undergoing final tuning/balancing/polish at this stage. But a conversation with a friend reminded me of this old pain point in the game and as a trans woman, I wanted to shout into the wind one final time in the largely vain hope that at some point - at some point - I'll be able to play a Strength character and experience those Ascendancies and builds without having to be an eight-foot roided-out pile of overblown testosterone wearing Karui war paint and a codpiece.

Because regardless of whether or not this issue matters to you personally, it does matter to a great many other people. And if Jonathan Rogers wants to appeal to a much larger player base, this would've been a great way to do it.

Anyways. You may now commence ripping me several new assholes for bringing this up again and reminding y'all that the gender locking still sucks, and in turn remind me of how fundamentally toxic and awful this community is. Have fun.

The community is toxic for disagreeing with you?
1) there is no unanimous opinion on the matter
2) I only speak on my own behalf
3) I still don‘t care about this and won‘t no matter how many threads are written about this. It is GGG‘s creative right to choose how they tell their characters‘ stories.

Maybe try and zoom out a little if the thought of disagreement is too much to bear for you. You definitely won‘t win anyone over like this. Edit: apparently Charan is the rare exception to my last sentence. However, most people don‘t like being talked down to like that.

^OBJECTIVELY WRONG. Kinda won me over, albeit with qualifiers.

I have decided to read this. All of it.

But yes. Gender choice is preferable.

And I won't threadjack with other things that are standard across all models of ARPG now either. This one I think is more important than any of them.

Even though sometimes the gender select comes at a cost of distinct class models -- Titan Quest, Wolcen, and Grim Dawn all follow this pattern I believe. And WH40k and Last Epoch are gender-locked but with unique class models. 40k gets around this with its inherent gender roles though: Sisters od Battle and Assassins are typically female from memory, and Crusaders cosplaying as space marines would be dudes...

Only the big budget ARPGs have gender and class, right? Diablo 3 and 4. Am I missing one?

Okay reading. Then I may have another question...

Oh you're a trans woman? Cool. Happy month and all that.

Now my question. Did the Exiles get their voicelines for acts 5-10 yet?

Oh. And I know how much the 90 or so voicelines of my sword cost. Yeah. Not cheap.

Which people should keep in mind when they find out *every single line* in DIV is voiced. Which is nuts for what is essentially an MMO/ARPG hybrid. And some of the voice actors in DIV are not cheap at all -- Ineson and Blum would be top shelf for sure.

this is gonna get locked off quicker than the next SadDropUser alias thread

"

ArtCrusade wrote:

The community is toxic for disagreeing with you?
...

Oh nah, not at all. Simple disagreement is perfectly fine. I have no issue with you disagreeing with me. However, previous threads on this subject have typically gone to places which are quite, quite thoroughly transphobic, in addition to a great deal of not-phobic-but-still-awful caustic and hostile judgment cast on people who wish for this feature.

If all you do is disagree with me? Cool. We're good, and thanks for being calm and reasonable over it. I've had some real bad times trying to explain why this is important to me here in the past that have colored my expectations.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

^OBJECTIVELY WRONG. Kinda won me over, albeit with qualifiers.

I have decided to read this. All of it.

But yes. Gender choice is preferable.

And I won't threadjack with other things that are standard across all models of ARPG now either. This one I think is more important than any of them.

Even though sometimes the gender select comes at a cost of distinct class models -- Titan Quest, Wolcen, and Grim Dawn all follow this pattern I believe. And WH40k and Last Epoch are gender-locked but with unique class models. 40k gets around this with its inherent gender roles though: Sisters od Battle and Assassins are typically female from memory, and Crusaders cosplaying as space marines would be dudes...

Only the big budget ARPGs have gender and class, right? Diablo 3 and 4. Am I missing one?

Okay reading. Then I may have another question...

Oh you're a trans woman? Cool. Happy month and all that.

Now my question. Did the Exiles get their voicelines for acts 5-10 yet?

Oh. And I know how much the 90 or so voicelines of my sword cost. Yeah. Not cheap.

Which people should keep in mind when they find out *every single line* in DIV is voiced. Which is nuts for what is essentially an MMO/ARPG hybrid. And some of the voice actors in DIV are not cheap at all -- Ineson and Blum would be top shelf for sure.

Yeah, I was honestly thinking of the Goddess swords while writing this up as well. I have no doubt that VO is in fact a cost, and probably more significant than I'm anticipating. I pretend to no especial insight into game development. It's why I tried to only work within what we've all seen - Grinding Gear is clearly willing to pay for VO for ancillary NPCs like the League Mechanic NPC if it makes for a better game, because they understand that a better game is a more profitable game.

Would the MTX solution they floated a few years ago be a workable one? probably. It feels skeevy to me to make people pay for it, but as long as it's not some prohibitive triple-digit dollar count thing I'd probably do it. Y'know, given my collection of Badges of Shame over there.

Like, I know it's an undertaking, and one I'm not likely gauging properly. I know it's something people generally hold to be "minimal return on investment". I just wanted to keep the torch lit for a little while, because I strongly feel that this is one of those intangibles that can't be pointed to as "(X) feature earned (Y) dollar value during (Z) sales period for us", but which nevertheless makes a game better for its inclusion.

I can say for absolute certain myself that I have a hard time playing Marauders because they poke my dysphoria, and I don't have many Templars or Duelists either. I'm extremely fortunate in that my general skill preference is for Intelligence or Dex builds so the Witch and Ranger being female works for me (which is also why I have significantly more Shadows than Strength-aligned DUDEBROGUYMANs), but that's not gonna be the case for everybody. Some gals want to be badass armored Ladies of War and they can't be, and some guys want to be nimble, agile warriors of the wood and don't really have that outlet either.

Does that matter enough to sink dev resources into? Dunno. Not my call to make. Obviously I think so, but I'm one wench on the Internet. My opinion weighs no more than anyone else's. it weighs no less, either - this is me staring at all the people who've been awful to me and other trans folk about this in past threads - but it weighs no more.

Ah well. Thanks for hearing me out, either way.

Yeah but the question i asked?

It has been disappointing to see them appearing to follow the same patterns for POE2 (in what's been shown so far at least). Would have been a good opportunity for a change on this front. The tiresome "tough warriors are male, women are for agility and magic" thing is a weird one to double down on.

"

ArtCrusade wrote:

It is GGG‘s creative right to choose how they tell their characters‘ stories.

Of course it is. I don't think anyone's questioning GGG's rights. Criticising their choices, more like.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

Yeah but the question i asked?

Spoiler

It was somewhere between 2k and 10k USD. Thats all I will say.

To the best of my knowledge, they're rolling out VO for all the various exiles over time. I know they've done it for Witch, Ranger and Duelist, but the last time I played a Scion they hadn't given her her late-game VO yet.

Heh, like I said, I know it's not necessarily a cheap or easy undertaking. But Jonathan has specifically said "Nothing's off the table for changing" and has talked about the Minimum Bar thing quite a bit as well. "No excuses", he's said. Most of the reasons people give for No Selectable Genders definitely qualify as excuses.

Is the cost of VO quite possibly a prohibitive reason to not do selectable gender? Sure. It's the biggest hurdle, for sure. But PoE2 as a game can easily accomodate different models/animations for Plug/Socket versions of the different classes, and given the fact that they cut the Scion completely and thus reduced the Gurl Count in the game by 33%? Feels a little frustrating that folks who prefer to present as the fairer sex lost one of our options completely while the other half of the equation didn't lose a dang thing.

Really, that's one of the things that galls me most about this issue. I totally get the game-dev reasons for cutting the Scion, and I agree with most of them. But hell - if you're going to cut her as a separate playable class, make her a selectable alternative for all the other classes. The Scion was always supposed to be able to become anything on the tree, ne? So offset the preponderance of testosterone with a Scion Toggle that allows you to play as any other start on the tree, but with the Scion's voice lines and model. That way they only pay for the extra VO once (or twice, because they'd have to make a male version of the same override class), but people who just can't with the Marauder (or Witch, as is usually the case with folks whose dysphoria runs the other way) have an option.

Unlike tricky balance and tuning issues, this is an easy, straightforward solve. There's no real stumbling blocks of design, no tradeoffs between mutually desireable-yet-exclusive end goals. The only real tradeoff is "can we afford the financial cost and man-hour requirement to make this work?" The answer can be 'no' because they're stretching to fit all the core stuff they want in the game before launch, but that doesn't mean it always has to stay 'No', or that there's any reason we can't periodically remind them that this is important to some of us.

I only ask because I believe the Shadow's VA is less than accessible these days. Moved to Canada last I checked.

As for the Scion. Her backstory as a wedding night homocide slash prodigy never sat well with me compared to the others and it would have been nice to get a gender selection for the so-called tabula rasa class.

I had no clue she'd been cut from poe 2 mainly because I assumed PoE 2 wouldn't have cuts, just some recurring classes and some new ones. The Scion is the only class with a crime I find too specific to repeat. So maybe there will be some equivalent. Dont know dont care.

Ideally poe 2 if gender locked would be even split male/female/NA. Love me a good asexual/nonbinary player class. Golems. Mecha. Homunculi. Etc. Go nuts dudes. Inpress me with your ability to think beyond our real world constraints. Sacred 2 had a wicked fucking class called the Temple Guardian. Basically a mech version of Anubis. Absolutely brilliant.

---

Financially speaking, at least one other sine qua non of ARPGs I can think of is much cheaper and more likely, but I suppose it all comes down to just how much GGG want players to identify with their walking dps simulators.

And again I will refer to D3 vs DIV here: DIV has a LOT less PC voicework than 3 and yet I identified far more with the DIV Wanderer than with the frankly juvenile Mary Sue that was the D3 Nephalem. Less can be more when it comes to good ARPG protagonist writing.

PoE 1 nails this imo: I got such a strong idea of who and what the Shadow is from his sparse but well-written one liners. The Scion was the only misstep and that is because she said way too fucking much in her first incarnation


You better believe I wrote more than 90 lines for the Goddess. Always something mpre to say. Question is -- is it the best thing to say in that moment? One thing I loved about writing her lines was she always had someone to talk to: the now mute protagonist. I always found it a bit weird when the Exile would quip at a corpse, no matter how good the quip was.

And I do believe that the very best ARPGs use their character as a vehicle to experience the stories of others. Let us be the Exile With No Name, not the fucking Chosen One Yet Fucking Again.

So cost of VA is a thing...but it shouldn't be a deciding factor for gender choice for a role that traditionally says very little compared to those we help and hinder.

"

1453R wrote:

Now, before y'all @ me: yes, I know how these threads go. The forum userbase gets vehemently toxic towards anyone who expresses a preference for selectable gender in PoE2 and trots out all the usual excuses: VO costs, 'Artistic Expression', anti-wokeness, "oh here we go not this again", so on and so forth, whatever. I'm not really here to discuss that, though inevitably that's exactly where we'll end up.

Already 0 interest in any opinion of you after reading this, didn't read the rest.