Garry writes for The Guardian: Why my videogame chooses your character’s race and gender for you
277 replies, posted
[QUOTE=sgman91;50126539]People play the game to build, to raid, and to have fun social interactions.[/QUOTE]
Oh right, I forgot the latest update prevents female characters from building things
[QUOTE=sgman91;50126562]
With that said, the entire joke about Rust is the immaturity of it's player base. So there's no reason to think that you will be playing with "well adjusted person[s]."[/QUOTE]
Which again, is another reason why this makes perfect design sense to me.
If this kills the community of Rust, then so be it, but that's not going to be on Garry as much as it would be on stupid people in the games community.
The game is not about how you customize your character, it's about how you play the game with a randomized character.
Like playing Poker, except with character looks instead of cards you've been dealt.
And if I wasn't such a cheapskate and that the average person who's joined the forum primarily for Rust were making posts that makes Fast Threads shitposters seem like rocket engineers, I'd play it because it's a neat as hell concept, forcing players to play their characters traits as best as possible instead of always get something that cater to their desires.
Basically [I]"shut up and deal with it: the survival game"[/I]
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;50126566]It isn't an argument you like, but it's an argument that's just as valid as it was before.
Your basic premise is that "Good game design lets you choose your character". I disagree with that premise.[/QUOTE]
... what. Please, PLEASE, quote where I said a generalized statement like that about game design. PLEASE.
[QUOTE=sgman91;50126574]... what. Please, PLEASE, quote where I said a generalized statement like that about game design. PLEASE.[/QUOTE]
You haven't. It's the gist of your argument though.
You keep talking about player choice in regards to their representation in the game world. That's letting you choose a character.
[QUOTE]In my opinion, forcing a player to be represented by an avatar that looks nothing like the way they want to be represented in a game that centers around social interaction between you, as an individual behind the screen, and others is a bad choice, yes.[/QUOTE]
SO yeah, you are saying in effect, in this type of game, it's bad game design to not give the player agency on that front.
I disagree!
Didn't take long for someone to switch into I LITERALLY FEAR FOR MY LIFE EVERY DAY mode and completely melt down
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/zlmSs5l.png[/IMG]
they're just kicking and screaming
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;50126523]Now maybe I don't understand the appeal of Rust, but the whole concept of it that interests me is a social persistent survival game.
Not looking at your dick and giggling because you're 12 and literally can't handle the sight of a dick without laughter. The dicks and boobs in it are there as a joke, but I don't see how it's inherently immature humour, it's only seeming that way because we have a great deal of body shame in the western world.
It's a game that's sole goal is survival and customizing your characters skin and gender doesn't matter. The game reinforces that. I don't see why it's essential all games have the exact same level of customization.[/QUOTE]
It isn't. But character customization is usually a do it or don't kind of deal, for a reason. I don't really play Braid and say "Damn, but if only I could customize the little guy". But that's also because they just said "Right, this is our protagonist, everyone plays as him", they didn't go halfway and make little sprites of a white guy, an indian guy, and an asian lady and just give me a random one and said deal with it.
Like I said, I think they should have just not done it at all. Keep everyone looking like a white bald creepy mannequin man if you don't want to do a character creator. It's just going halfway and acting like you've struck some deep interesting feature is bullshit. You're dangling choice in front of people and snatching it away, while acting like you're doing them some kind of favor. It's not eye-opening, it's not helping people out of their comfort zone, it is at worst annoying and at best used for immature comedy. And there's nothing wrong with immature comedy, but there is something wrong with acting like it's something deep and profound when it isn't. And excusing it as saying "Oh we don't want to put in bells and whistles that don't matter to the goal" is invalid when you're adding in [I]other[/I] bells and whistles (like dick size generator)
What I would do if I were the devs and I didn't want to commit fully to the character creation model, but for some reason can't let it go that everyone looks like a mannequin? Simple. Make like 10 characters. White guy, black guy, asian guy, white girl, black girl, asian girl, so on, then just let people pick one of 10. CoD does that nowadays, and I think it's kind of silly, but it's better than if CoD just grabbed one of them and stapled it on to you while going "IT DOESN'T MATTER, IT DOESN'T MATTER, WHY DO YOU CARE, IT'S A PROFOUND CHOICE OF GAME DESIGN"
[QUOTE=Grandzeit;50126537]I reckon it just randomly assigns a race and gender to your Steam account ID once you first get into the game, which cannot be changed.
You might be able to do it through Steam Family Sharing, but I'm not sure.[/QUOTE]
I wonder if the SteamID is used as a seed and it's dynamically generated from that, or there's a different seed and the game assigns a random configuration to your SteamID that is then looked up at the game's central servers.
As a trans person i don't fuckin' care what my character is because it's a fucking video game, plus half the time people are too busy trying to murder me while I go around collecting hemp to care what I look like lol
[QUOTE=Mister Sandman;50126598]It isn't. But character customization is usually a do it or don't kind of deal, for a reason. I don't really play Braid and say "Damn, but if only I could customize the little guy". But that's also because they just said "Right, this is our protagonist, everyone plays as him", they didn't go halfway and make little sprites of a white guy, an indian guy, and an asian lady and just give me a random one and said deal with it.
Like I said, I think they should have just not done it at all. Keep everyone looking like a white bald creepy mannequin man if you don't want to do a character creator. It's just going halfway and acting like you've struck some deep interesting feature is bullshit. You're dangling choice in front of people and snatching it away, while acting like you're doing them some kind of favor. It's not eye-opening, it's not helping people out of their comfort zone, it is at worst annoying and at best used for immature comedy. And there's nothing wrong with immature comedy, but there is something wrong with acting like it's something deep and profound when it isn't. And excusing it as saying "Oh we don't want to put in bells and whistles that don't matter to the goal" is invalid when you're adding in [I]other[/I] bells and whistles (like dick size generator)
What I would do if I were the devs and I didn't want to commit fully to the character creation model, but for some reason can't let it go that everyone looks like a mannequin? Simple. Make like 10 characters. White guy, black guy, asian guy, white girl, black girl, asian girl, so on, then just let people pick one of 10. CoD does that nowadays, and I think it's kind of silly, but it's better than if CoD just grabbed one of them and stapled it on to you while going "IT DOESN'T MATTER, IT DOESN'T MATTER, WHY DO YOU CARE, IT'S A PROFOUND CHOICE OF GAME DESIGN"[/QUOTE]
"It's a or it's b but it can't be C"
Why?
Why does it have to be how you say it has to be? Why are those the conventions of the genre and why can't we change them? They haven't been pushed in fucking decades.
Gaming is stagnant as fuck. I'm okay with designers trying left field ideas.
So you'd have the majority of your community look a certain way because, like in ARK, they choose to do so.
This isn't about player agency. This is not a design decision that gives even the tiniest shit about player agency. And that's the whole point of it.
They're probably conventions of the genre because it's a good idea that makes sense.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;50126636]"It's a or it's b but it can't be C"
Why?
Why does it have to be how you say it has to be? Why are those the conventions of the genre and why can't we change them? They haven't been pushed in fucking decades.
Gaming is stagnant as fuck. I'm okay with designers trying left field ideas.
So you'd have the majority of your community look a certain way because, like in ARK, they choose to do so.
This isn't about player agency. This is not a design decision that gives even the tiniest shit about player agency. And that's the whole point of it.[/QUOTE]
Doing something left field for the sake of doing something left field is not inherently good or intelligent. You can't just say "Fuck player agency" and knock off for lunch like you've done something profound when you haven't because you don't have anything to back it up. And it is a fucking horrible idea to take a "THIS IS WHAT WE'RE DOING DEAL WITH IT FAGGOT" attitude with your [I]paying customers[/I].
[QUOTE=Mister Sandman;50126598]It isn't. But character customization is usually a do it or don't kind of deal, for a reason. I don't really play Braid and say "Damn, but if only I could customize the little guy". But that's also because they just said "Right, this is our protagonist, everyone plays as him", they didn't go halfway and make little sprites of a white guy, an indian guy, and an asian lady and just give me a random one and said deal with it.
Like I said, I think they should have just not done it at all. Keep everyone looking like a white bald creepy mannequin man if you don't want to do a character creator. It's just going halfway and acting like you've struck some deep interesting feature is bullshit. You're dangling choice in front of people and snatching it away, while acting like you're doing them some kind of favor. It's not eye-opening, it's not helping people out of their comfort zone, it is at worst annoying and at best used for immature comedy. And there's nothing wrong with immature comedy, but there is something wrong with acting like it's something deep and profound when it isn't. And excusing it as saying "Oh we don't want to put in bells and whistles that don't matter to the goal" is invalid when you're adding in [I]other[/I] bells and whistles (like dick size generator)
What I would do if I were the devs and I didn't want to commit fully to the character creation model, but for some reason can't let it go that everyone looks like a mannequin? Simple. Make like 10 characters. White guy, black guy, asian guy, white girl, black girl, asian girl, so on, then just let people pick one of 10. CoD does that nowadays, and I think it's kind of silly, but it's better than if CoD just grabbed one of them and stapled it on to you while going "IT DOESN'T MATTER, IT DOESN'T MATTER, WHY DO YOU CARE, IT'S A PROFOUND CHOICE OF GAME DESIGN"[/QUOTE]
But that doesn't force players to adapt to the opposites of what they expect.
Which often is involved with survival, because actually surviving is about taking all variables into account and be prepared.
The game takes it one step further and throws the character generation into the randomizer pot to stir up the challenge even more.
So it's obviously not meant to be your average cozy & typical survival game of today, because so far they all offer that, or has no customization or randomization at all.
So in essence it's another step to make the game stand out in the survival game crowd.
[editline]13th April 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=sgman91;50126652]They're probably conventions of the genre because it's a good idea that makes sense.[/QUOTE]
Haha...
At no point does trying to survive in the wilderness make you change your race and gender. "It's survival" doesn't make any sense as a justification.
[QUOTE=Van-man;50126657]But that doesn't force players to adapt to the opposites of what they expect.
Which often is involved with survival, because actually surviving is about taking all variables into account and be prepared.
The game takes it one step further and throws the character generation into the randomizer pot to stir up the challenge even more.
So it's obviously not meant to be your average cozy & typical survival game of today, because so far they all offer that, or has no customization or randomization at all.
So in essence it's another step to make the game stand out in the survival game crowd.[/QUOTE]
I don't agree with the majority of the things here because I don't think it adds anything to challenge, but the standing out point I think is actually valid, because that [I]does[/I] make RUST stand out, for better or worse. I think if Rust [I]didn't[/I] have that going for it it would be dead now because I have seen nothing about the actual game-game that doesn't make it look like another generic crafting/survival game.
Minecraft has infinite worlds and we-did-it-first. Don't Starve has a Tim Burtony gothic art style with magic and sanity elements and a perspective not usually seen in the genre. Rust has tiny dicks.
If the game was like this at release, no one would care. But it's a feature that changed something clearly unfinished in the public beta so now it's making people mad
To be honest, one of the advantage of the system is that you get a wide and more even distribution of character types this way, which is a non-trivial aspect.
Feature is making me want to buy rust just so I can see what I get meshed up with
[QUOTE=sgman91;50126652]They're probably conventions of the genre because it's a good idea that makes sense.[/QUOTE]
Do they? Then why do I have issues with them? Because I'm dumb and can't grasp the perfect game design they figured out 10 years ago? No, because it's fucking stagnant and it's tired and it's overworn.
But feel free to disagree with me. I'm just tired of being made to feel stupid for not agreeing with conventions that are in my opinion, not right. You guys find them to be correct. I do not. I do not think they represent solid game design decisions, and I think there's other ways to do it.
Clearly, I feel like a fucking idiot for disagreeing with the group, but I don't care. I think there's better ways to do it.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;50126738]Do they? Then why do I have issues with them? Because I'm dumb and can't grasp the perfect game design they figured out 10 years ago? No, because it's fucking stagnant and it's tired and it's overworn.
But feel free to disagree with me. I'm just tired of being made to feel stupid for not agreeing with conventions that are in my opinion, not right. You guys find them to be correct. I do not. I do not think they represent solid game design decisions, and I think there's other ways to do it.
Clearly, I feel like a fucking idiot for disagreeing with the group, but I don't care. I think there's better ways to do it.[/QUOTE]
Why do you feel so personally attacked? You're welcome to just disagree. It's not a big deal.
[QUOTE=Mister Sandman;50126653]Doing something left field for the sake of doing something left field is not inherently good or intelligent. You can't just say "Fuck player agency" and knock off for lunch like you've done something profound when you haven't because you don't have anything to back it up. And it is a fucking horrible idea to take a "THIS IS WHAT WE'RE DOING DEAL WITH IT FAGGOT" attitude with your [I]paying customers[/I].[/QUOTE]
And staying with the status quo forever isn't inherently smart or good or intelligent either.
If you buy into an early access game, you get what you pay for, namely, WHATEVER THE DEVS WANT. You don't always have a recourse with your money. Sometimes you have to own your fucking decisions.
This isn't profound. It's different and will create a different atmosphere for social survival to occur in. I guess that's bad and we should just hope for Ark where it's basically 3 body types that are laughable that people pick BECAUSE they're laughable. Fucking god forbid game devs want something else for their game. You're the owner, you get to design it, right? You paid for it, you have every right to tell them to paint by the numbers. But they have every right to not do what you're asking because they're the designers of their own product.
[editline]13th April 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=sgman91;50126744]Why do you feel so personally attacked? You're welcome to just disagree. It's not a big deal.[/QUOTE]
Because I feel any and all of my thoughts, explanations, or otherwise about this are being handwaved away without a thought given to them.
[editline]13th April 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=sgman91;50126662]At no point does trying to survive in the wilderness make you change your race and gender. "It's survival" doesn't make any sense as a justification.[/QUOTE]
Yeah but it's not about changing it.
The update is a wipe, a reset, a new world.
At no point will you change. Just like in real life survival, and social situations, you are what and who you are that's it. Work with what you got.
That sounds perfect to me.
[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;50126501]I kinda wanna see what my character will be now but I don't wanna get Rust. Any way to do this?[/QUOTE]
If you have a friend who has Rust and can set up family sharing, you can try it that way.
Just a PSA, not that I suspect you'll do it but maybe the other guy's an idiot: bans can infect both primary and shared account if cheating is detected in Rust when it's family-shared and both accounts have been playing Rust. It's possible to get banned while innocent because your share buddy's a nitwit.
[QUOTE=sgman91;50126539]Can we stop pretending that the game is about survival? No one plays the game because of the hunting and gathering. People play the game to build, to raid, and to have fun social interactions.[/QUOTE]
The current state of the game, sure, but unless you want to be terminally myopic or just declare that the Rust Steam Store page's description is a lie, the game meta will likely evolve and become something different by the time the Early Access tags come off, and I put it to you that no more than 25% of the devs' intended design into combat/raiding/survival has been implemented so far because they're focusing on building the fundamentals and experimenting with them (e.g. fleshing out a design and spec for procedural dungeons for the procedural maps) first.
Right now the actual survival aspects are fairly toned-down, which emphasizes the deathmatch-with-building-and-maybe-RP/social aspects, and modded servers tend to crank up deathmatch and/or building to extremes, sure. There have also been other servers in the past who've run mods that've made advanced weaponry and tools very scarce or nonexistent with much more meagre resource returns and amplified food/health-drain intensity to amplify the survival aspect and make death and leaping into combat on sight much more meaningful.
Don't confuse Rust's current state with the end goal the devs have. The last time that happened we got bombarded with threads demanding the return of zombies for a year and a half despite the fact that they were removed from the game less than two full months after the Steam release. (Yes it was possible to buy a key directly from FP Studios before then, but garry limited the number of keys per day until they were able to get onto Steam.)
[QUOTE=sgman91;50126652]They're probably conventions of the genre because it's a good idea that makes sense.[/QUOTE]
And this is an appeal to (nebulous) authority.
[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;50126604]I wonder if the SteamID is used as a seed and it's dynamically generated from that, or there's a different seed and the game assigns a random configuration to your SteamID that is then looked up at the game's central servers.[/QUOTE]
Your Steam ID is the seed; at least it's the primary seed, I can't claim to know the precise algorithm.
[QUOTE=StrawberryClock;50126698]To be honest, one of the advantage of the system is that you get a wide and more even distribution of character types this way, which is a non-trivial aspect.[/QUOTE]
This right here. Imagine the number of servers that would be 95% tall white guys with the two largest dong sizes.
idk man i like customizing my characters
the real answer is he likes to laugh at people's dumb reactions
Now I kinda wanna see what my character would look like :v:
[QUOTE=proch;50126818]the real answer is he likes to laugh at people's dumb reactions[/QUOTE]
Nah, the real answer is that it's stealth marketing to get the rest of FP to buy Rust already. Because
[QUOTE=Crimor;50126820]Now I kinda wanna see what my character would look like :v:[/QUOTE]
:garryspin:
The diversity factor really is the interesting one, though, because it makes it possible to group up entirely by looks alone if you really wanted to, but it also makes it more likely that you and your friends will have different appearances and will be little mismatched survivor bands in your little compounds, stockpiling food and raw materials and weapons and ammo and holding off raiders as best as you can.
If you group up by looks such that, say, whites vs blacks vs other is what's happening on that server, there's a huge risk of betrayal because you've teamed up based on skin colour, not any sort of interpersonal trust -- which makes for some interesting practical outcomes of game theory when a group suddenly fractures into two or someone breaks away to go solo and steals a bunch of shit from the group stockpiles.
[QUOTE=TomoAlien;50125406]I think that coding a system that sets up the race and gender and other appearance-related things based on your steamid is more complicated than making a menu that allows you to choose these things.[/QUOTE]
It's not that difficult really, I'd say it's even easier because you don't have to fuck with GUI.
[QUOTE=Crimor;50126820]Now I kinda wanna see what my character would look like :v:[/QUOTE]
Yeah I wish there was a way to find out without buying Rust. I'm not into those "social/survival" games, but I find it legitimately interesting how my Steam ID "looks like" according to Rust's algorithms.
Garry continues on with the tradition of creating idiot culls, intentionally or not.
Someone make a forum where your username and avatar are randomly selected.
Your username will coenside with a randomly selected gender (Male, Female, Special Snowflake) and your avatar will be a random 128x128 image chosen from a random search query on Google Images.
Oh and you get banned if your avatar contains porn.
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