Its a game after all as I said so why not have both female and male on the battlefield?
Because the main selling point, and a reason why many people support this game is that they will do what they can to make it historical correct. Adding female warriors would be breaking the promise they made during the kickstarter.
(unless you actually have proper sources for the persons, like female peasants fighting during the Hussite wars)
Also this is NOT about english history… but Czech history.
For one thing the basic houses used by the peasants is a LOT different than what danish peasants lived in.
So even on mainland europe a few hundred km can make a huge difference.
TBH, the best option at this point is to wait for the modding community to get going and start releasing original content, because for various reasons introducing a female option for the entire game just isn’t practical. It frankly doesn’t even have anything to do with the historical aspect (which DOES offer some room for leeway. Who knows what slipped through the fragmentary historical record, to say nothing of women who disguised themselves as men and were never identified IE as happened in later conflicts). But simply as noted in one of the early posts, the story is HENRY’S story. It’s written around an individual with a particular background and history that will be informing his actions and how others respond to him. It’s going to be at a level of detail that’s impossible for games like Skyrim, which by its nature has to be more ambiguous due to the fluid nature of the protagonist’s identity.
If the (original) Tomb Raiders weren’t targeted at a male demographic, I’ll eat my hat.
Other than that, I agree. There are games with female protagonists and no reason to complain about that. (Incidently, when trying to come up with examples, Tomb Raider was amongst the first, so I dismissed the whole train of thought.). Some storys simply require a certain character, and to be truly engaging, a generic main character that could be anyone and everything is not the right choice.
Not for example in Austria as a part of the Holy Roman Empire. There the Salic law ruled the succession and it was a Agnatic succession, so only a man could be a successor. It was changed by the Emperor Charles VI of the HRE at 1713, so his daughter Maria Theresa could be his successor and be titled Queen of Hungary, Queen of Bohemia and archduchess of Austria.
[quote=“Katha-MartinLuther, post:1, topic:29067”]
hey don’t we all agree that if look through the game we could point out many things that are fiction? Even though the game wants to be an accurate representation of History? […] The game cannot be totally 100% accurate to real life[/quote]
Thats true, the game is not 100% accurate, but we want to make as less compromises as possible.
The game is not about England at all. It is about Bohemia in the Holy Roman Empire in 1403 in the region of Sazava about the war between the brother kings Wenceslaus the IV of Bohemia and Sigismund of Hungary. It is not loosely based at all, we are very strict and very accurate. Every town, every castle, every church in the games exist or existed in real life. Our map is a reconstruction of a real map and have done some research who lived there and what happend to the people there in the summer of 1403.
The context is not fictional at all, like for example the historical novel “the pillars of the earth” which plays “somewhere in england” “somewhen in the 12th century”.
But sure, Kingdom Come Deliverance is still entertainment and not an educational historical software, but it comes close and there is very very few entertainment that is more accurate in history compared us. Not only in software, where you will find probably nothing that comes even close, but also in movies and literature.
You have to go to a museum, to the university, watch an educational documentation or visit a reenactment fair to come closer to historical accuracy, and even here you will not get 100%.
And yes, the game is made to be this accurate, we want it this way. Thats why we had to create Warhorse Studios, because no established development studios wanted to make this project. We took years and tausands of dollar of our own private investment in this project to make it possible nevertheless, against the establishment, because we believed in it. It would not be possible without kickstarter, we would not have an invenstor who would believe in us if we wouldn´t have the community who supports us.
It would be a lot of easier to make another elven and dragons MMORPG with diamonds, and we would possible gain more money with a more mainstream game idea like this, but Kingdom Come Deliverance is not made because we want to milk the market, but because we want to create a realistic medieval game. Something that was never done before like we do.
Technically it is possible to play as a Women, it is just that the story would be a lot different. It is not exchangable at all. Unfortunately I can´t go into detail here, because it would spoiler the story, but there are a lot of reasons why this would not work. The only thing that does work is to have a second unique female character with her own unique story.
This would be awesome indeed, but we are still not a AAA-Game studio, we a still a relatively small studio. We just don´t have the capacity to develop a second full story. If we would try to do this, we would run out of money before finishig the game, because we had to swift rescources and in the end we would have no finished game at all.
Or we could simply create a female main protagonist and totally ignore that she is female. But thats not what we want to do. You can not comepare a highgly realistic story driven game in the medieval world with Life is Feudal, Star Citizen or Ghost Recon.
You could either say gender matters, and in this case female and male roles are different, with its own experiences. We would love to go this way if we could establish another full main character.
Or you could say that this is not important, and gender does not matter in the end, because both would play in the same way. But this would be trivial, if it does not make a difference, why need to play as a specific gender at all?
[quote=“Katha-MartinLuther, post:1, topic:29067”]
Perhaps someone need to show all the FPS developer having women brings lots of benefits to the game and it will be a success. [/quote]
We don´t only have requests like yours, we don´t only have requests for playing as a women.
We also have requests from people who are angry because they are forced to play as a straight male, who want to play as their selfs, as gay, because they can´t immagine to be straight.
Or we have request from black people too, from french, russian or turkish ones. We have requests from people who wants to play as an islamic character. How should we do this? How?
Don´t be mistaken, there is no character creation, you can´t create your own character at all, you will be Henry the son of a blacksmith from silver skalice. It is not about you, he is the role into you would reincarnate in Kingdom Come Deliverance.
You have to ask “If I am Henry, what would I do?” not “I am in the medieval ages now, what do I do”. It is not about you, it is about Henry.
[quote=“Katha-MartinLuther, post:1, topic:29067”]
Its unbelievable how many FPS developers have used the statement that its unrealistic for women to be in historical battle games. [/quote]
We don´t make a game about pagan Vikings or centralised England, where King Henry VIII some years after the game established his own church, or in France where they had their own Pope in Avignon in 1403 during the papal Schism. It is the Holy Roman Empire, the country where the church was most powerful.
We have choosen this time because this was one of the most interesting times in czech history, shortly before the hussite wars. It is like 1066 in English history, and we are doing a game about czech history because we are a czech company and we know most about our own history. It would be more difficult for us to make a game about England or feudal Japan in a similar deep way.
And it is not just that women were not fighting on Battlefields, there are a lot of reasons storywhise. For example: You have to infiltrate a monastery to find someone. Totally not believable.
Okay, maybe she displays herself as a man to do so. Great idea. But this will give us an instand new storyline: she have to fear all the time to get detected not only as an invader, but also as a female invader. Maybe it is the same for the combat. Beautful. But why does she do this in the first place? Because it is cool to swap gender? No, now we have to discover a whole new storyline about it. And we have to do it in a way where we have to force the female player to play as a female hidden in a male role. And it is also not only about this points, the story have many many points, and some would not be solvable at all. Soo… throw it away now and start new from scratch to find a way to make a story where gender don´t matter. Difficult in medieval times if you want to stay to realism. And again, how should we do this without running out of money in development?
It would be a great feature, no doubt. Play as a woman would be great, see the differences and discover the would through her eyes. It would not be inaccurate to play as a female character at all, but it would be inaccurate to play as the same role as our character Henry does. So how should we do it in a decent way? This game is already developed on the edge, against the gaming industry establishment. We don´t have enough reserves. Please take a look at the history of our studio.
No, but wrong country, wrong time. This is about Boheima in the Summer of 1403. And the fact that you don´t know that shows that you probably don´t know enough about our game.
Okay, we have one main character. Henry. So even you say that it is true that this will blow up our budget. Thank you. And it is not only about the character creation, about the design and animations, this is probably doable, even if it is exensive. But changing nearly all quests and the whole story. This would effect not only one additional actor, but a whole team of them, and designers, and story writers, scripters etc. This is huge and will cost additional millions of dollars.
Not the case here. We have only one main character.
Totally invalid for Kingdom Come Deliverance. We don´t have anyone like Cole MacGrath wo shoots lighting bolts out of his hands, because it is not realistic. We don´t have dual wielding, because it is not realistc. We don´t have white chickens because they are not realistic. We don´t have orange carrots because they are not realistic. We don´t have great swords because they don´t fit into the timeframe. Same is for the great helm.
All our cities, villages, churches and castles are reconstructions of real ones in the game. This argument is not valide at all here.
Because it is important to the story. Battles are not fought for bloodlust but to accomplish a goal in a war.
And the problem is not only the battlefields, there are lots of points in the story which would not work at all as a female character. The only way to establish a believable female character is to create a second character.
And to the extent that it is feasible this has been attempted. With the prologue protagonist, who you can only play as one character, who is a woman, a specific woman with a specific role.
people who are angry because they are forced to play as a straight male, who want to play as their selfs, as gay, because they can´t immagine to be straight.
That was the most beautiful line of text I have ever read. Thank you. XD
This requests are pretty rare to be honest, but they do happen. Mostly because people don´t understand that there is no character creation.
I think the request is reasonable and valid, like every other request. It is feedback. But we simply can´t make everything.
You guys are getting trolled. Whenever someone is refrencing somebody like Sarkeesian (who doesn’t even play videogames) it is a clear sign that you’re dealing with a troll.
Thank you Community manager for responding and taking time to explain a few things. At least it was sensible then the argument I have heard so far in most FPS guy dominated games. So thank you for the explanation and as i said i am not expecting the beta to change because of my request. Just further down the road where you can have 2 Patagonist that are female and male. So all of us women can also enjoy the combat and story line with out saying women never were in the battle field so go to another game.
Because it is important to the story. Battles are not fought for bloodlust but to accomplish a goal in a war.
And the problem is not only the battlefields, there are lots of points in the story which would not work at all as a female character. The only way to establish a believable female character is to create a second character.
I was replying to the Op when he said they are no women in history that fought in the front line. So I gave an example that women can be aggressive just like their male Kings! And I do know there are many plots that can be in the story for women but perhaps you need a poll to see if most women out there want to play that kind of role where you don’t go into battle?
Aren’t guys excited for Kingdom come because of the battles and how much effort you pour into it? Its latest technology not seen in any previous middle ages game. So its why almost all backer are guys? Or am I mistaken and they are lots of backers who are women who would played the game anyway?
And battles during those time are very bloody and its reign for power and control like Bloody Henry IV. Heads of the leaders were chop off and sent to the adversary or to prove a kill or even displayed in the towns to provoke fear among everyone. It is very blood thirsty the more i read into the History of how they live their lives.
I don’t even think the game will display such blood of what you will really see long ago fighting with Swords and axes. Its not a sight you want to watch and play over and over again.
You guys are getting trolled. Whenever someone is refrencing somebody like Sarkeesian (who doesn’t even play videogames) it is a clear sign that you’re dealing with a troll.
Then please refute the research study done because even though you might not like her some of the things she say is true. It would be an all dominated male combat game if there was no voice to urge developers to have women lead roles in their game. We got it much harder to get into the game industry then the guys and that is a fact.
The reference I posted was just a video the other research done was from other research study so you can ignore the video if you want. But do not ignore what the studies that have been done.
All I had readed so far in this post from @Katha-MartinLuther makes me strongly believe that he or she has no real interest in KCD.
I also belive that the shown willfully ignorance is only shown to creat rage and to maipulate.
I don’t know if @Katha-MartinLuther is really a women and feminist, who wants to prove others how rude man can get.
Or is @Katha-MartinLuther a man and antifeminist in real life, who wants to enrage other males as a “female” and convince them to join his side.
For me it is clear how to react. In a verbal conversation I would stick my fingers in my ears and sing one of my favored songs and get out some joy of the moment.
And this graphic is about all Kickstarter projects, the number of female users in the kickstarter section for games will be even smaller. The number of female backers is really small, and we doupt that the main reason for this is because the main protagonist is male. There are other factors, like the demographic of Kickstarter, or the demographic of women who play complex RPG games like this in general.
We put a lot of effort into our combat system, but the combat is still not the main part of the game, it is not in the focus. The story is in the focus, interaction with other NPC in general. Thats why we have such a complex AI.
It is not that we would not believe that also women could be gruesome and that you could play as such a woman, it is just that there are a lof of factors in the story where gender indeed matters. And a story with less combat focus, without battles would be also possible. But most of our fans, male and female expect combat in the game.
You probably say that we should keep the combat focus and put a female character anyway, but this would go against our main point of the game: be as historical accurate as possible. And please take a look at the answers here in the thread, most of our fans like the focus on historical accuracy, male and female.
And to bring one more detail in: Henry is not a noble, not a king. He is not privilaged member of the higher society, he is a common guy.
The situation is very complex here. It is more difficult to get a female main protagonist into an realistic medieval RPG with historical focus like Kingdom Come Deliverance.
This is way different on Sci-fi or fantasygames, where I would totally agree to your points, but in this special case here your arguments are reasonable but pretty weak.
Lots of big words, very little substance, Anita Sarkeesian, reinterpretation of history, not much knowledge about KCD… And it all narrows down to a feeling that there should be a female protagonist in every game because of reasons. OK.
And I do know there are many plots that can be in the story for women but perhaps you need a poll to see if most women out there want to play that kind of role where you don’t go into battle?
