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[Scrooge McDuck]

But how would those require everyone to be Arno if they don't transition directly from gameplay into cutscene? That can't be how it works either since every player is, technically, Arno.

Mm, if Arno appears in the cutscene, then at least one of the players must be Arno. Allowing everyone to play with their own customized characters would eventually lead to a group with no Arno. And that would be weird.

It comes down to how much individuality would Arno display in these cutscenes. I say that this is the biggest hurdle to adding female characters to co-op on top of the already existing game. If all the cutscenes were general "four people do stuff" and all dialogue referencing the missions were all "that thing the Order did that one time", then the matter would be much simpler.

 

[Teeth]

But how would those require everyone to be Arno if they don't transition directly from gameplay into cutscene? That can't be how it works either since every player is, technically, Arno.

I have a feeling this is exactly how it works. There will probably be inter-mission cutscenes along the way on all of the co-op missions with Arno specifically speaking/acting in them. That's likely the reason for the strange co-op setup and their "inability" to just add female avatars.

Any player who goes through the mission is seeing themselves as the hero; the 1-3 other players are just set dressing, much like the summonable assassins from Brotherhood.

Using your method, you won't actually be Arno, so likely a lot of (superfluous) story beats would be completely missed.

Of course all of this could have been avoided by Ubisoft if it were planned for in the beginning, but it wasn't, and it's almost assuredly prohibitively expensive to find a "compromise" implementation now.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Well, it is only speculation as at this moment, we don't know exactly how it works. If there is a story-driven narrative though, where all missions have relevance to the narrative then, I'm not sure it is an easy thing to accommodate. You could play the game entirely in singleplayer, or play some missions in singleplayer and some in co-op. There could be a varied amount of combinations of which missions you play singleplayer and which you play co-op. Obviously those missions are a large part of the game, so you'd imagine it would be quite hard to accommodate a narrative where not only is the sudden switch of character explained, but also doesn't seem weird that NPCs all vaguely refer to you because the character you are is always changing.

It depends on whether people willingly assuming the role of a different assassin is any more jarring than teleporting to another player's game, or to a previous checkpoint. Resetting to a checkpoint and dying in these games are both just the Animus resetting or rewinding through a genetic memory, right? What makes those breaks in consistency more acceptable than the player opting to choose a different avatar when they want to?

In this theoretical character select, once the mission is complete and the player exists to normal single-player, they could resume control of Arno. The only times where being Arno would matter would have to be outside of co-op because everyone, technically, is Arno. If there's a way that co-op gameplay is reliant on the player "being" Arno, I'd like to hear it.

Mm, if Arno appears in the cutscene, then at least one of the players must be Arno. Allowing everyone to play with their own customized characters would eventually lead to a group with no Arno. And that would be weird.

It comes down to how much individuality would Arno display in these cutscenes. I say that this is the biggest hurdle to adding female characters to co-op on top of the already existing game. If all the cutscenes were general "four people do stuff" and all dialogue referencing the missions were all "that thing the Order did that one time", then the matter would be much simpler.

If the cutscenes are in-engine and have all the players appear in them as they appear in-game, then that wouldn't work. It would still allow for joined players to appear however they want.

Still, none of this would prevent adding dialogue/text that Arno isn't operating alone. If the game says that Arno is watching the missions take place or is giving orders to the other assassins, then that problem is bypassed, and even if it seems silly to have him appear only after the mission is completed, will it truly be so jarring that it spoils the story of the game more than the endings of previous titles? Is the idea that Arno isn't personally taking care of all of these missions somehow too outlandish compared to what already takes place in the AC series?

 

[Carlius]

how many of you does it actually bother that it doesnt have female characters? honest question here. not trying to troll

 

[Spring-Loaded]

^you might want to reword that. I will say that the notion that I don't like the notion that something isn't possible to do properly in a game, even though it actually is possible.

I have a feeling this is exactly how it works. There will probably be inter-mission cutscenes along the way on all of the co-op missions with Arno specifically speaking/acting in them. That's likely the reason for the strange co-op setup and their "inability" to just add female avatars.

Any player who goes through the mission is seeing themselves as the hero; the 1-3 other players are just set dressing, much like the summonable assassins from Brotherhood.

Using your method, you won't actually be Arno, so likely a lot of (superfluous) story beats would be completely missed.

As I said, what's preventing inclusion of the Arno cutscenes if a given player isn't controlling Arno? Randomly pick one character to appear as Arno to everyone else and use them in cutscenes. Or just have him step in during important story beats and say that he's been observing the mission from afar. If that's the true reason Ubisoft considers this unfeasible, it's not a convincing reason because there are multiple ways this could've been added in without compromising the game, let alone if they'd thought of something at the outset.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

In all honesty, the way Ubisoft did implement co-op in to this game is so fucking sloppy. I totally believe them when they say it can't be done at this point because the whole thing seems like such an afterthought.

They're pushing it as a major new feature when it barely seems half-baked.

 

[Teeth]

In all honesty, the way Ubisoft did implement co-op in to this game is so fucking sloppy. I totally believe them when they say it can't be done at this point because the whole thing seems like such an afterthought.

They're pushing it as a major new feature when it barely seems half-baked.

Errrr....By all accounts they got Ubisoft Toronto to work on the co-op parts due to their "specialization" in co-op. While I wouldn't say it's going to be as integrated as, say, Dark Souls, I have a feeling that it's more well developed and integrated than any standard co-op mode in other AAA games. They are at least integrating it directly into the single player rather than have it a menu selection.

I wouldn't call it an afterthought; it's directly in the wheelhouse of AC development: take an entirely different team and bolt their work onto a core that has a bunch of other bolted on sections.

As I said, what's preventing inclusion of the Arno cutscenes if a given player isn't controlling Arno? Randomly pick one character to appear as Arno to everyone else and use them in cutscenes. Or just have him step in during important story beats and say that he's been observing the mission from afar. If that's the true reason Ubisoft considers this unfeasible, it's not a convincing reason because there are multiple ways this could've been added in without compromising the game, let alone if they'd thought of something at the outset.

Sure, anything is possible. And everything comes at a price. Where development budget x meets projection y comes the game. This isn't it.

I really get the feeling that your spitballing a compromise for late game development that would make everyone happy is just a thinly veiled form of concern trolling that manifests as a way of projecting "See how easy it is Ubisoft?" When none of us has any idea. Like as if a bunch of people outside the project can daydream a nirvana solution and then point fingers even more harshly when it doesn't happen.

I would love to see a main female protagonist in AC6. I would love even more to see full character creation in AC6.

Ideas are cheap. Implementation is hard. Ask anyone who's actually made a game.

 

[Scrooge McDuck]

Still, none of this would prevent adding dialogue/text that Arno isn't operating alone. If the game says that Arno is watching the missions take place or is giving orders to the other assassins, then that problem is bypassed, and even if it seems silly to have him appear only after the mission is completed, will it truly be so jarring that it spoils the story of the game more than the endings of previous titles? Is the idea that Arno isn't personally taking care of all of these missions somehow too outlandish compared to what already takes place in the AC series?

As I said, this all depends on Arno's individuality regarding these missions. If, for example, some time before killing a noble he said "I shall be the one who personally carved out his still heart, then revenge at last shall be mine", then it would be pretty disappointing, yes, if he's not actually there taking that co-op mission, saying "repose en paix, salaud" to the target.

Also, I said this is the biggest hurdle, but I didn't say that it is insurmountable. There are ways to go around it, of course, and it's much simpler if they had planned for it from the beginning. Simpler still with limitless resources.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Sure, anything is possible. And everything comes at a price. Where development budget x meets projection y comes the game. This isn't it.

I actually mention that this thread isn't about budget/time concerns in the OP specifically because adding this in would obviously require more of both and Ubisoft has already shown that, at this point in production, they believe that can't add in playable female avatars.

I really get the feeling that your spitballing a compromise for late game development that would make everyone happy is just a thinly veiled form of concern trolling that manifests as a way of projecting "See how easy it is Ubisoft?" When none of us has any idea. Like as if a bunch of people outside the project can daydream a nirvana solution and then point fingers even more harshly when it doesn't happen.

No one outside of production knows specifics related to budget, scheduling, Etc. However, anyone who reads/understands how the co-op is projected to work can come up with conceptual solutions, which is what this thread is about. If it's unreasonable to discuss anything about a game without being intimately familiar with its development, discussion on this board would cease to exist.

Even if I was concern trolling, it wouldn't change whether someone can provide a conceptually sound solution or comprehensive reasoning why this isn't possible. No one's provided any of the latter so far, I'm still open to more of both.

As I said, this all depends on Arno's individuality regarding these missions. If, for example, some time before killing a noble he said "I shall be the one who personally carved out his still heart, then revenge at last shall be mine", then it would be pretty disappointing, yes, if he's not actually there taking that co-op mission, saying "repose en paix, salaud" to the target.

That couldn't happen, unless every player in co-op does that one action themselves in-game, simultaneously. If each player sees themselves as Arno and Arno says that later in the game, the players who didn't personally kill that target would remember that their Arno never did that. If Ubisoft includes lines like that in the game — even in the game's current state — then that wouldn't make sense. Whether there are generic and/or female playable avatars in the game aside, dialogue like that wouldn't work no matter what.

 

[Scrooge McDuck]

That couldn't happen, unless every player in co-op does that one action themselves in-game, simultaneously. If each player sees themselves as Arno and Arno says that later in the game, the players who didn't personally kill that target would remember that their Arno never did that. If Ubisoft includes lines like that in the game — even in the game's current state — then that wouldn't make sense. Whether there are generic and/or female playable avatars in the game aside, dialogue like that wouldn't work no matter what.

Eh, that white-limbo conversations between the main character and the victims always happens in every AC game no matter how the victim died. Also, I'm not talking about a cutscene in which Arno is show personally killing the target. I'm saying if he had a very personal stake in the mission, then he should be there during the mission.

This is all hypothetical anyway. Without that degree of involvement, this problem wouldn't exist.

 

[Teeth]

I actually mention that this thread isn't about budget/time concerns in the OP specifically because adding this in would obviously require more of both and Ubisoft has already shown that, at this point in production, they believe that can't add in playable female avatars.

If the game is releasing in October, it is 100% guaranteed that it is content complete and likely was months ago. Cert, QA, and stability testing is all that is likely going on now.

No one outside of production knows specifics related to budget, scheduling, Etc. However, anyone who reads/understands how the co-op is projected to work can come up with conceptual solutions, which is what this thread is about. If it's unreasonable to discuss anything about a game without being intimately familiar with its development, discussion on this board would cease to exist.

Even if I was concern trolling, it wouldn't change whether someone can provide a conceptually sound solution or comprehensive reasoning why this isn't possible. No one's provided any of the latter so far, I'm still open to more of both.

Literally nothing is impossible when you exist in a non-reality without budget, time, or workload constraints.

There is nothing preventing AC from having combat as good as Dark Souls, attention to graphical detail besting GTAV, the ability to enter every building, unique dialogue and animation sets for every NPC, a fully rendered country side, the predation system from Far Cry 3, a branching storyline with dialogue choices like The Walking Dead.

None of these things are technically infeasible. Some of them would take an astronomical budget (combinatorially or alone) and some would just take a different focus.

Saying that there isn't budget or time or focus isn't a reason you want to hear doesn't invalidate those things as reasons. I guarantee that when the designers were sitting around coming up with what they wanted for co-op, they probably thought they were being awesome when they found a way for everyone playing to maintain "an emotional connection with our lead hero, Arno"..."never breaking immersion, integrating the narrative through clever illusion." It just happened to be this game where everyone finally lost their shit at the lack of playable female characters. It's been a long time coming, and it's a fight worth having, but pillorying this game for it (which probably had its narrative design nailed down years ago) is kinda baffling.

And then we come to you. You keep wanting to hear a reason why it isn't happening and "you haven't been convinced yet"...yet the reasons are plain as day. So A) what are you looking for? and B) why are you looking for it?

You aren't asking the question; you're saying every reason isn't good enough and no one is going to convince you. Ubisoft screwed up one more time in not allowing female playable characters in co-op. They didn't plan for it, it was cut due to budget/time, or they are monsters.

Seeing as they're one of the only publishers to have a black female lead (non-sexualised), a native American lead, and an anti-Christian lead (who would also be considered of Middle Eastern descent), it seems unlikely that it was done because of sociopathy.

Game development is trade-offs. Features are added and taken away based on budget and projections. They didn't think that the audience would have a problem with everyone being Arno and they were wrong. The voices were/are loud (and for good reason) and future projections will likely take this into account.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

If the game is releasing in October, it is 100% guaranteed that it is content complete and likely was months ago. Cert, QA, and stability testing is all that is likely going on now.

Yes, and no one's tried refute that. Since a lot of your post suggests you haven't read through the other threads, I'll say this here: In the past few threads about this game's co-op, people ofeten have presented the format of Unity's co-op multiplayer as a reason why female/customize-able playable avatars wouldn't work. I made this thread in order to focus on how that specific reasoning doesn't actually hold water, to see whether there are any other conceptual reasons why this co-op can't allow female playable avatars and for others to come up with their own possible conceptual solutions to this problem.

Literally nothing is impossible when you exist in a non-reality without budget, time, or workload constraints.

Something can be impossible even without these concerns. Take for example the circumstances I provided in this thread (in order to give the thread some focus): I asked for way Ubisoft could add playable female avatars to the game in it's current state without fundamentally changing the way the co-op worked. Since no one here knows or is able to divulge specifics about development of Unity, ignoring those only helps cut down on "no one here knows anything about the specifics of the game's development" posts, in turn, helping to keep the thread on topic.

Saying that there isn't budget or time or focus isn't a reason you want to hear doesn't invalidate those things as reasons.

As I said above, I asked that people not mention those things because 1) we don't know the specifics of budget or schedule — something you acknowledged earlier in the thread — and 2) it would obviously require more time/effort/money to add something into the game, in turn, making the observation a very obvious one, to the point that it would posting that observation here would be a waste of time for anyone that understands content put into a game requires more work & time.

And then we come to you. You keep wanting to hear a reason why it isn't happening and "you haven't been convinced yet"...yet the reasons are plain as day. So A) what are you looking for and B) why are you looking for it.

A) I'm looking for conceptual solutions to including female playable characters in co-op. Again, people frequently mention that way co=op os setup in this game as a reason why female playable characters can't exist for this co-op. B) I'm interested in how people determine what's possible/impossible in game development.

I won't ask you why you're posting since you don't need to explain yourself to other users on this site, but I will ask: does the above make sense?

You aren't asking the question; you're saying every reason isn't good enough and no one is going to convince you. Ubisoft screwed up one more time in not allowing female playable characters in co-op. They didn't plan for it, it was cut due to budget/time, or they are monsters.

You should go back and read what I've posted in this thread without the notion that I'm concern trolling, and you'll come away with a better understanding what I've written so far.

Seeing as they're one of the only publishers to have a black female lead (non-sexualised), a native American lead, and an anti-Christian lead (who would also be considered of Middle Eastern descent), it seems unlikely that it was done because of sociopathy.

Yes, Ubisoft has had generally diverse playable characters and settings in their past games. Since this thread isn't about how Ubisoft is and always has been sexist, racist and poor at creating diverse characters in their games, this is tangential to the discussion. Check back through the OP and my past posts to see what I mean.

Game development is trade-offs. Features are added and taken away based on budget and projections. They didn't think that the audience would have a problem with everyone being Arno and they were wrong. The voices were/are loud (and for good reason) and future projections will likely take this into account

I don't mean to be dismissive, but you sound like you misunderstood much of what's been posted so far. I cut out or didn't reply directly to some portions of you last post because they simply go off on tangents unrelated to the thread. Did what I just post clear things up?

 

[dex3108]

With their current system they cant implement female assassins because 3D characters is always the same only face is changed in coop. You can hear that here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rko-ottQm2U#t=198

So basicly in coop you see Arno in your game and you see other players as Arno with different face.

 

[Toski]

I think the focus of this issue (spanning 3+ threads now) should be on the next AC game, and how they can find a way to incorporate a more diverse selection of main/playable characters while also allowing the story to continue as living the memories of a departed relative.

A Fallout type system where you answer questions about who youre going to research could solve that in a good way, I think.

I agree with this. Due to the "you're always Arno" design of the co-op, changing it even before E3 was probably impossible. I think publicly pushing for a different multiplayer/co-op design for the next game seems more feasible.

 

[Yoshi]

I can somehow (but I still think it's talking superficial, unimportant parts of a game, for me the character can be anything, even a horrid monster like Vexx) understand wanting to be able to play a character of your gender, but what do you gain in altering the gender of someone else's character?? I'd be annoyed if I was forced to choose a gender for my coop partners. If Ubisoft gives in to the strange pressure, they should just determine the gender automatically / random, without any input by the player.

I think the focus of this issue (spanning 3+ threads now) should be on the next AC game, and how they can find a way to incorporate a more diverse selection of main/playable characters while also allowing the story to continue as living the memories of a departed relative.

A Fallout type system where you answer questions about who youre going to research could solve that in a good way, I think.

Complaining and criticizing Ubisoft about Unity has been done to death and need not be revisited.

No, please, I abhore such a thing. Design a character and go with it. But, if it's that important to some people, make the next Assassin a female, homoxesual, black and handicapped one or something. Less polemic: In a series like Assassin's Creed, look, which variables may realistically change and apply gender, sexuality, skin colour and whatnot according to real-life distribution. But please, do not ever annoy me with a character editor that even forces me to go through several questions.

 

[Htown]

1. When you go to the tavern and decide to do co-op, you can play as Arno or choose to "hire" somebody else to do the job. The one you hire is the character you play as for the duration of the mission. If you want, make this cost a non-trivial amount of in-game cash, but have the benefit of keeping Arno's notoriety low. (Is notoriety still a thing?)
2. Alternatively, simply have the option to not play as Arno during the mission. You can play as who you want to play as, and the game can display one of the other players as Arno.
3. Oh no, while starting this coop mission you encountered a glitch in the animus, now you look like this other person from your bloodline for the duration of this memory!
4. You decide to wear a disguise or maybe some plot related apple of eden nonsense lets you project the illusion that you are someone else during this event.

This ain't hard.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

With their current system they cant implement female assassins because 3D characters is always the same only face is changed in coop. You can hear that here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rko-ottQm2U#t=198

So basicly in coop you see Arno in your game and you see other players as Arno with different face.

Female character models would need to be made, yeah. If those were added, then the co-op would still work if a character select was added without having to fundamentally change the way co-op works.

I can somehow (but I still think it's talking superficial, unimportant parts of a game, for me the character can be anything, even a horrid monster like Vexx) understand wanting to be able to play a character of your gender, but what do you gain in altering the gender of someone else's character?? I'd be annoyed if I was forced to choose a gender for my coop partners. If Ubisoft gives in to the strange pressure, they should just determine the gender automatically / random, without any input by the player.

No one's suggested this in the thread so far. If you're referring to the character select I and HTown suggested, that would be for players to choose which character they themselves would play as, not who other players would play as.

 

[Wounded]

FWIW (I didn't see anyone mention this) you actually see other players in your game as they have customised themself. They aren't random, they just had a different face. Their clothing, weapons etc are as they picked for their Arno.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

bump, I was curious whether anyone else had potential solutions

 

[soulassssns]

how many of you does it actually bother that it doesnt have female characters? honest question here. not trying to troll

Does not bother me.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Does not bother me.

That specifically doesn't bother me either. However, and I can't speak for anyone else, what is bothersome for me is how so many adamantly reinforce the idea that something was, or is impossible when that's not the case. Hearing from Ubisoft say the extra animations would be too much work to do before release was such a "well, no shit" response to the situation that it shows whoever came up with and/or thought to use that answer is missing the point, which is annoying. If they don't want to spend the time/money on the addition further down the line (or admit they could've built the game to accommodate this early on), they can say that rather than try to convince everyone the matter is completely out of their hands and beyond their control.

Others doubling down the idea that the way the game's co-op is designed wouldn't allow for such an addition is pretty small-minded, same with those ardently defending the notion designers should be able to make what they want how they want, as if that idea is being attacked here (it really, really isn't).