More gender differences

Sorry if this has been suggested before but anyway, just something I noticed that lacked in Arcanum that was present in Fallout...

I remember my first game, I made a super model female human, assuming my good looks would win any guy over as well as being the envy of any female. I assumed that I could get places simply by playing the sweet innocent female.
However this wasnt the case, and the only difference was a 'Good Morning Madame' instead of a 'What do ya want?'.

Anyway, females should be treated better by most males, I mean most males are nicer to females then to other males. Also a good looking female may find an 'alternative' method to 'persuade' males (and vise versa for males).

As for stats, I beleive females should have -1 strenth and perhaps +1 willpower.

Any other ideas for gender differences?

 

I think u hsould be able to play as a female dwarf, cause they wont need to create a new graphic.........Apparantly feamles are ment to look like the men

 

There are few female dwarfs according to almost every fantasy book I have ever read (i.e. LotR ) but dont' base it off LotR...., I just can't see a female Dwarf in the game

 

It is clearly stated by Troika that there were never intended to be female Dwarfs seen anywhere in Arcanum and the reason is intended to remain a mystery. However, all of the other races, including Half-Ogres, at the point at which Arcanum was released are shown to have a reasonable basis for having playable characters. The Half-Ogre female is the only one of that set that is even the least bit shaky and one can make a case for that, but it involves lots of spoilers for those who haven't finished the game or researched the "Half-Ogre Plot" so I won't go into them here.

 

maybe that should be the quest in the aracanum 2... find the female dwarfs

 

It's All Relative...

Yes, women do get better treatment from men, but this isn't because of any secret mind-control powers. It's because men are naturally nicer to women they find attractive, because some distant part of their brain thinks that it will somehow increase their chances of having sex with her. Now, the realistic portions of his mind know it's never going to happen, but he just can't fight biology on some basic level. (Yes folks, I'm being exagerrative and facetious here, no need to correct me.)

However, this would make it quite difficult for a Reaction Modifier based on gender to actually have an appropriate effect. After all, unattractive women get treated worse than other men by most of the blokes I know. And furthermore, there's the difficultly of calculating the inter-species difference.

After all, even if humans -can- mate with everything, as the canon states, it's doubtful that most human men find your average Orcish female terribly fetching. Same for Ogres, Half-Ogres, Half-Orcs, Gnomes, Halflings, and so on. Now Elf women, as we all know from Liv Tyler, are hot beyond all belief, yet their men don't seem to get that benefit. Sure, they have Orlando Bloom, but they also have Agent Smith with a widow's peak and Spock ears.

What this boils down to is, I don't think that a gender-based reaction modifier is actually implementable in a practical sense. It's a nice idea in theory, but then... so is Marxism to some people. And we're overlooking the fact that while men may be nicer to women, it certainly doesn't mean that they respect them more, or think more highly of them in a more-than-superficial sense because they're beautiful. The truth is often the opposite.

I think that right now, the gender modifier is actually appropriate, since it does reflect what is generally accepted as the genuine, factual difference between men and women on a biological level.

However, I -would- like to suggest an alteration to the Tomboy background for women. I think it would make more sense if the addition to Strength were left as-is, but the subtraction was from Beauty, rather than Constitution. I just don't see how being -more- active as a child would lower a woman's endurance, but I can certainly imagine that she might not be as acquainted with the niceties of froofy dresses and high-heels. Plus, she might favor one of those awful bob-cuts... I think Americans call them "mullets"?

Which reminds me of another unrelated rant... why does everyone have to be brunette!? Why aren't there any people with other hair colours?

 

u have a problem with writing .... u wright to much dude ...cill ...but is rather nice of u 2 do that because i got sick and tired of dumb replays ....some are those i posted earlyer.. thx mate

 

Tzaca, finding the female dwarfs is a cool idea for one of the quests in Arcanum 2. I'm not sure how it would work out, but it could be fun.

Those are some very good observations, DivisMa1.

In reply to your question about why there aren't people with more different hair colors, I can answer that one very simply. More hair colors would require a LOT more sprites the way that Troika built Arcanum and thus a LOT more space. Having given you the simple answer, I'm going to expand on this now by saying that it would also take a lot of extra programming to put multiple hair colors into use. As it was, they left out true Gnome sprites because of space constraints and use the same sprites for Humans and Half-orcs. They also left out the female Halflings, Half-Orcs and Gnomes because of time constraints and the space for the sprites - most of the coding to use them is there. If you use a character editor, it is even possible to make a female Dwarf or Half-Ogre character and have them work in the game, so most of the coding is there for them, too.

I like your suggestion for the change in the Tomboy background and I agree that it makes more sense. I may even make that change in the next version of my Ship's Cabin and Cargo Hold Hack.

 

Dumb, But Slightly Funny Idea

Or how about a background that is equivalent to the Sex Appeal background in Fallout? You're better recieved by males, but women are either jealous or brush you off as a tramp. I think it was omitted from Arcanum because (while there is some sexual content) it would go against the Victorian theme a bit to have backgrounds in there that directly relate to the taboo idea of sex.

Hmm... maybe even one for people who are exceptionally well-endowed. Better reaction from the opposite gender, but a penalty to Dex because your naughty bits keep getting in the way while you're running or fighting. I mean, let's face it.. if Lara Croft was real, she'd lose an eye when she sprinted.

 

i think thier should be female halflings, appearance alterations(e.g baldurs gate style), more schematics and last but not least advance past lvl 50

 

Not really Divis, as long as it's approached in a respectable way. Take Tarant's favorite brothel for example.

 

still it could be cool to have more races of both sexes

 

It would be cool to be able to play a hermaphrodite who drives a tank too.

 

interesting point Blinky

 

Blinky, you are warped.

 

Blinky maybe there should be a schematic for a tank first

 

my halfling would have a jet and blow the tank to peices

 

But there are blonde ladies! (But obviously they dyed their hair because it looks soooooo tacky) Take Whysper in Qintarra, for example.
And anyway, what's the point of having blonde chicks, if fair-haired people are going to disappear in a few years' time?

 

I think we can safely assume that they didnt have other hair colours because arcanum was a budget game - they didnt get the oppertunity to put in the trivialities.

Sex appeal I think should definately have more of a role in arcanum - it just makes it more realistic.