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PC Gamer criticizes RimWorld for being too "heteronormative".

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
pretty sure being hetero is more common then gay.

on what planet is thinking hetero is more common offensive?
 
pretty sure being hetero is more common then gay.

on what planet is thinking hetero is more common offensive?

I don’t think any reasonable person would try to argue it’s offensive to say heterosexuality is more common than homosexuality.
 
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Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
The world is heteronormative, why do these snowflakes need over representation to feel better about themselves? Its like these people think 1 out of 4 people is gay, or trans, or whatever. Just look at shows like Riverdale and their complete over saturation of lgbtq.

Same goes for race. If your race makes up 13% of the population then you should make up 13% of the movie castings, win 13% of the awards and be represented at around 13% on tv.

Tokenism has gotten out of control
But they do not want relative representation, which would be logical, they want equal or in most cases over-representation. That's all well and good until you have hundreds of fringe groups who make up a small percent of the population all demanding equal representation. Then you just have a circus.
 
Oh boy, here we go again, PC Gamer seems to be desperate for clicks reheating clickbait outrage. RPS were the first to kick up a fuss about this like two frikkin' years ago:

76veJEU.jpg


I've just spend a considerable amount of time questing with a flamboyantly gay character in DQXI and I've put an even bigger amount of time into Rimworld. Both games are fine just as they are. This is a non-issue, a desperate attempt at making a mountain out of a mole hill, designed to rile up people for the mere sake of attention.

This was Tynan's response back then, I'm sure the same applies here:

Hey all. As some of you know, there's been a bit of a Twitter brouhaha about the romance system in the game.

The whole thing is rather banal, unfortunately, but I feel forced to add information because much of it is based on notions that are untrue or significantly misconstrued. So I just wanted to dispel these false memes here in a centralized place. I'll just go through them one by one.

  • "RimWorld defines strict gender roles"
RimWorld scarcely defines gender at all. In RimWorld, males and females are almost entirely identical, physically and behaviourally. They fight the same. They cook, build, craft, and clean the same. They have the same kind of emotional breakdowns in the same situations, and the same things affect their moods the same way. They spawn into the same roles of trader, pirate, drifter, ally, and enemy, with the same mixes of skills.

The only asymmetry is in the probability of attempting romance interactions, but even there there are no "strict gender roles". Women propose to men, and hit on them, and so on. Women do all the same behaviors as men. The only difference is that the game applies some probability factors to romance attempts based on the character doing the behavior. That’s it. Every character can still do everything behavior (except one case which is being fixed for next version). So it’s simply wrong to say there are “strict” gender roles in the game.

  • "Tynan thinks bisexual men don't exist"
It's true there's an issue in the game where this behavior won't appear. It'll be fixed in the next release.

As for my personal beliefs, I'm on record specifically saying bi men exist and citing research with this info before this so... yeah. Not much more to say about this rather strange personal accusation except that it's false.

  • "There are no straight women in RimWorld" or "All women are attracted to women in RimWorld".
This isn't true, though I can see how a naive reading of the decompiled game code might make it seem so.

This is a fairly subtle point, but it's important: People tend to think of game characters as people, but they're not. They don't have internal experiences. They only have outward behaviors, and they are totallydefined by those behaviors, because that's all the player can see, and the player's POV is the only one that matters.

From the player's POV, most women in the game are straight, since they never attempt romance with other women. A player who sees a female character who never interacts romantically with another female character will interpret that character as straight, and this interpretation forms the only truth of the game. So that character is actually straight.

The way this is modeled in the code is just the quickest way I could think of to get the system working on that night I wrote it seven months ago. And it did work just fine, for those whole seven months. It's only an uninformed reading of the code, inferring hidden emotions from data structures (instead of reading them as the probability functions they are), that could lead to this conclusion.

This goes equally for every other statement of who is "attracted to" whom in the game. Characters in RW aren't attracted to anyone. There is no player-facing "attraction" mechanic or statistic that the player can perceive at all. What these numbers really are are probability factors on romance interactions, which is a rather different thing.

  • "RimWorld implements gender roles based on unexamined cultural assumptions"
Like #2, this one is strange since it assigns unknowable motives and thoughts to me personally.

It's also false. An assumption is a piece of information that is invented without evidence and without any attempt to get evidence. This is not what RimWorld's romance mechanics are based on. Nothing was just assumed.

Rather, I did the same thing I do when setting weights for weapons or nutrition values for food or nearly any other such balancing task: I did some quick research to get some ballpark numbers, simplified them to be implementable and easy to read, and put them in the game. Example sources would be:

OKCupid statistics blog: https://blog.okcupid.com/
This site: http://www.advocate.com/bisexuality/2015/08/26/study-women-are-more-likely-be-bisexual-men
This site: http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Gates-How-Many-People-LGBT-Apr-2011.pdf

So I made an honest attempt to understand the reality, and applied that to the game as I learned it. And, I'm updating it as I learn more. What else can anyone do?

Of course, I could've spent more time trying to get everything even more perfect, doing more research, and so on. But my general philosophy is to make it work well enough and move on. There's tons of stuff to work on in this game and I'm always balancing between many different tasks. Often I'll come back to a system many times over the years to touch it up (as I'm coming back to this one). All this is a good process that works well.

I also could have taken the easy way out and just modeled everyone identically. But that really struck me as bland and a bit lazy. I wanted to at least attempt to make a good-faith effort to model these things in a bit richer way. Now it's blown up on me, but it was always no more than an attempt to make the game better.

In any case, I'm always open to new information if anyone thinks something has been modeled wrong.

  • "Pawns with disabilities are found to be less attractive"
No, not in general, not as presented. I just checked the code, there is a factor for the probability of romance attempts related to several Pawn Capacities like Talking and Moving. This means that pawns are less likely to attempt romance with a pawn who can't speak, or can't move. This can be for any reason, including the person being shot and recovering in bed, drunk and near-passed-out, or sick from the flu. It is not a penalty for "disabilities". In truth there isn't really a concept of "disability" in RimWorld as there is in real life; there are major injuries or illnesses pawns can have but it's not the same feel at all as what people think from the word "disability".

You probably wouldn't attempt a romance with someone who had a fresh gunshot wound or who had severe flu. That's all these factors are intended to represent. If I had characters attempting romance in these cases it'd look ridiculous in the game and it'd be reported as a bug.

Again, this assertion also depends on confusing the ideas of "attraction" and "probability of romance attempt when interacting socially".

Also note that the original article presented this as a "code comment" which was interpreted by some readers as having come directly from my code. Decompiled code does not include comments. The blogger wrote that comment (and all the others) herself. She also restructured the code and added names of variables and such (decompiled code doesn't include local variable names). It's better regarded as her pseudocode interpretation of my code, not anything I actually wrote. (To clarify, she did note that it was pseudocode in her write-up, but not all readers may have understood that this means all the comments and variable names are hers).

  • "Rebuffing people doesn’t cause to a mood decrease for female pawns"
I'm not sure if this is true, but if so it's not as intended. If it is true, it's just a bug and it'll get fixed. There are thousands of things like this in the game and they break and fall through cracks very easily - from our bug tracker and forum we've fixed about 3,500 formal bugs and many other informal ones. It's a very bug-happy game!

And just some final notes on it all: RimWorld's depiction of humanity is not meant to represent an ideal society, or characters who should act as role models. It's not a Star Trek utopia. It's a depiction of a messy group of humans (not idealized heroes) in a broken, backward society, in desperate circumstances. Some RimWorld characters have gender prejudices, some enjoy cannibalism or causing others suffering. Some are just lazy or selfish. Many of them come from medieval planets, others from industrial dictatorships, others from pirate bands or brutal armies. They're very very flawed, and not particularly enlightened.

The characters are very flawed because flaws drive drama, and drama is the heart of RimWorld. Depicting all the RimWorld colonists as idealized, perfectly-adjusted, bias-free people would make for a rather boring social simulation, in my opinion. So, please don't criticize how the game models humans as though it's my personal ideal of optimal human behavior. It's not.

Always happy to chat in comments, just be civil as usual please. And I'm really hoping RimWorld can be appreciated as the game it is and not just become a culture war battleground. I've actually been quite proud to have many players of all backgrounds and ages play the game over the years. I'd really hate for outsiders to turn it into some sort of identity conflict focal point.

Also amusing, this is now the second such hubbub around the game. The first was from the inclusion of the drugs system - I got some choice words from the other side from that one. I suspect this won't be the last either. I see it as part of the challenge of making a game that even tries to address the most impactful aspects of human behavior - and it's a challenge I don't want to shy away from, because I do think it adds to the game. And even if I make mistakes in the process, I can always correct them with helpful feedback :) It's a process and you're all part of it, and I appreciate that.

Thanks all. I'm hoping I can get back to developing the game for you all as soon as possible!
 
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Why do all the SJW weirdos have this weird assumption that in the future there are so many more gay people than there are now? I see this mentality a lot about shows/movies/games that take place in the far future.

Why would people be more likely to be gay/bi/trans/whatever just because time has passed? If it was a better fit for a human's environment then I could see things evolving that way, but from everything we're told on a daily basis, life is so much harder if you're one of those things. So why is it always their assumption that we would be evolving to be less fit for our environment in the far future?
Because a lot of it is trendy and people are extremely confused, not even joking. There's been this huge spike in trans people over the last 6 years and it's not because "society is safer now", it's because mental confusion and coddling of disorders is at an all time high and it's messing people up.

Most people that identify as trans wind up abandoning that identity in the end anyway and default to homosexuality because that's what they were the whole time. Along the way they simply got caught up in a confusing societal trend that led them astray of their actual identity and sexuality.
 

ExpandKong

Banned
To be honest, calling it International Men's day is just stupid! Someone on some PR team needs to explain why it seems. Covering those issues that adhere to men more than women is a perfectly legit thing to do and it's 100% necessary. You just gotta come up with a better name.

Like Country Music Television (CMT), didn't name their music channel WET (White Entertainment Television) just because there's a BET (Black Entertainment Television) channel on cable that exists.

Oh so only white people listen to country music huh? REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
 
To be honest, calling it International Men's day is just stupid! Someone on some PR team needs to explain why it seems. Covering those issues that adhere to men more than women is a perfectly legit thing to do and it's 100% necessary. You just gotta come up with a better name.

Like Country Music Television (CMT), didn't name their music channel WET (White Entertainment Television) just because there's a BET (Black Entertainment Television) channel on cable that exists.
You're probably one of 'them' who thinks Boy Scout's should have girls in it, huh?
 
Most people that identify as trans wind up abandoning that identity in the end anyway and default to homosexuality because that's what they were the whole time. Along the way they simply got caught up in a confusing societal trend that led them astray of their actual identity and sexuality.

Is this an actual fact?
 
Well I think so too. But there should be only one organisation not one for girls only and then the boy scouts. Put them all together.
I have no issues with a third organization but boys and girls need separate learning environments along the way that teach them to be men and women. Much like a mother and father you spend time with individually which will instill different attributes into your personality and character as you're coming up.
 

MMaRsu

Banned
Yeah and learning how to be a man isn't something you do in the frigging boyscouts is it? Or do they learn how to be a man there? I thought it was just boys doing fun shit building camps and making fires.

I never had 'seperate' learning enviroments, girls and boys were always mixed in schools and in school activities. I never was with the boy scouts.

But I grew up to be a man, and it has nothing to do with a seperate learning enviroment.
 
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RedVIper

Banned
Um.

Yeah.

You did read this thread, and hence my previous replies, right?

Key word was “reasonable.”

Salty, ain’t ‘cha

I’m so fucking thankful for the ignore feature.

I did read the thread, and there was someone defending the article here aswell.

Salty? I did just have some fries but I'm alright.

Anyway you keep ignoring people you're going to end up talking to yourself.
 
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If someone posted a broad sweeping generalization of cisgender straight people they would absolutely be expected to back up the claim.

I don’t know much about the trans community, to be honest, however I don’t think you’re correct.
 
H

hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
- interesting that the bit about trans characters doesn't make the print version. I wonder why *strokes chin*.
 

Filben

Member
now journalism
Nah, I'm not to harsh with them in that regard. It's okay sometimes to have more light-hearted and entertaining articles instead of all this 'seriousness'. Though I usually read rarely on those outlets, so it might be too much of such articles when they bring them each and every day.
 

Dunki

Member
I have no issues with a third organization but boys and girls need separate learning environments along the way that teach them to be men and women. Much like a mother and father you spend time with individually which will instill different attributes into your personality and character as you're coming up.
This is not what the boy scouts are or what their goal is.

Boyscouts is about social interactions with others to learn how to work in a team etc. It is to teach them a bit of respect and to be good to others, to be helpful etc.
 
This is not what the boy scouts are or what their goal is.

Boyscouts is about social interactions with others to learn how to work in a team etc. It is to teach them a bit of respect and to be good to others, to be helpful etc.
Yeah, a team of boys.

Don't lay that newage "equality" BS on me, it has no place. Some things should be separate, some things need to be separate. Men and women are not the same, and they shouldn't develop the same.
 

Dunki

Member
Yeah, a team of boys.

Don't lay that newage "equality" BS on me, it has no place. Some things should be separate, some things need to be separate. Men and women are not the same, and they shouldn't develop the same.
No they are not the same but they need to learn how to cooperate with each other. In today's society so many boys also have problems to interact with girls. And this is a nice bridge to close this gap as well.

And no teaching environments should never be separated because this is not how the real world works outside of your "safe space". And it is not new age BS. It is called common sense.
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
Well I think so too. But there should be only one organisation not one for girls only and then the boy scouts. Put them all together.

85013_XXL.jpg
The last think I want is for my daughter to go on camping trips with a bunch of horny boys. Fuck that.
 
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Dunki

Member
The last think I want is for my daughter to go on camping trips with a bunch of horny boys. Fuck that.
Yeah all these horny 7-10 year olds..... Seriously some people. This is not American pie or some horny teenager summer camp movie. This the real world.
 
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No they are not the same but they need to learn how to cooperate with each other. In today's society so many boys also have problems to interact with girls. And this is a nice bridge to close this gap as well.

And no teaching environments should never be separated because this is not how the real world works outside of your "safe space". And it is not new age BS. It is called common sense.
It's not a safe space you overtly confused millennial, men need to learn to become men around other men. I've seen the results of this indoctrinated kumbaya world you want, it results in feminised man boys who are incapable of exerting themselves in the world, who are incapable of basic life skills, who think they're above trades and physical work, men who can't even change a car tire.

You learn social skills and interaction with females at school and in generalized social interaction throughout daily life, specialized organizations like the Boy Scout's are intended to turn boys into men and prepare them for the world, girls have no business there.
 

Dunki

Member
It's not a safe space you overtly confused millennial, men need to learn to become men around other men. I've seen the results of this indoctrinated kumbaya world you want, it results in feminised man boys who are incapable of exerting themselves in the world, who are incapable of basic life skills, who think they're above trades and physical work, men who can't even change a car tire.

You learn social skills and interaction with females at school and in generalized social interaction throughout daily life, specialized organizations like the Boy Scout's are intended to turn boys into men and prepare them for the world, girls have no business there.
I am the last person who wants feminism. I know its kind of difficult to believe but this also can exist without any agenda driven bullshit. I would be the last person to accept using feminist teaching methods.
edit: given how this is totally off topic how about creating a new thread in politics or general?
 
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Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
Yeah all these horny 7-10 year olds..... Seriously some people. This is not American pie or some horny teenager summer camp movie. This the real world.
I mean, do you realize that there are also 12, 13, 14 and older kids also in Scouts? Girls are getting pregnant at 12 years old nowadays.
 

MMaRsu

Banned
Yeah, a team of boys.

Don't lay that newage "equality" BS on me, it has no place. Some things should be separate, some things need to be separate. Men and women are not the same, and they shouldn't develop the same.

I know it's offtopic but this is pathetic.

This kind of shit shouldnt be seperated. What you want is a Islam equivelant of the boy scouts. Where men and women are seperated.

Fuck that shit, you can grow up and learn how to be a man even if you interacted with young women.
 
I know it's offtopic but this is pathetic.

This kind of shit shouldnt be seperated. What you want is a Islam equivelant of the boy scouts. Where men and women are seperated.

Fuck that shit, you can grow up and learn how to be a man even if you interacted with young women.
Uh no, what it is is maintaining the integrity of a 110 year old organization which focused on the development of young boys and adolescent males into adulthood.

You people are psychotic.
 

Dunki

Member
I mean, do you realize that there are also 12, 13, 14 and older kids also in Scouts? Girls are getting pregnant at 12 years old nowadays.
Yes but the last people you should be afraid of in this regard are fucking boy scouts.....

I would rather worry about boys in school who have not learned the way of a boyscout of showing respect to others etc. But maybe you are also someone who does not let their daughter take part in swimming classes that are not separated. Or not allowing school trips together etc.
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
I know it's offtopic but this is pathetic.

This kind of shit shouldnt be seperated. What you want is a Islam equivelant of the boy scouts. Where men and women are seperated.

Fuck that shit, you can grow up and learn how to be a man even if you interacted with young women.
What stupid logic. Are you saying there is no benefit of having all girl or all guy groups? People form groups based on all kinds of shared interests a ideals. I know we are working hard to destroy gender, but shouldn't that be one of them?
 
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MMaRsu

Banned
Uh no, what it is is maintaining the integrity of a 110 year old organization which focused on the development of young boys and adolescent males into adulthood.

You people are psychotic.
What stupid logic. Are you saying there is no benefit of having all girl or all guy groups? People form groups based on all kinds of shared interests a ideals. I know we are working hard to destroy gender, but shouldn't that be one of them?

There is nothing wrong with mixed boyscouts. This maybe just some American bullshit sexist standards you're trying to preserve here, but you wont get soft kids who dont grow up to be a normal functioning male or female because they were in a mixed boyscouts group lol.

I went to school with girls, I went swimming with girls, all school activities were mixed.

I grew up to be a normal male, functioning well and not having any issues talking to women or dating them.

So what exactly is the problem here?

Destroy gender? Because they are in a mixed boyscouts group? LOL dont make me laugh.
 

Dunki

Member
What stupid logic. Are you saying there is no benefit of having all girl or all guy groups? People form groups based on all kinds of shared interests a ideals. I know we are working hard to destroy gender, but shouldn't that be one of them?
Not in teaching environments. And you do not destroy gender. Just be aware that there is no feminism teaching involved.
 

mckmas8808

Banned
WHAT?

There is an international women's day there is an international children's day so why is a international men's day wrong?

Also I think people do no even know how old these days are.

Women's day was established around 1910 while the Men's Day is around since 1992

The first Children's day is even older since it first was established in 1857

But Dunki that's the point. The days they were established matters. 1992 is super recent. And why are you going crazy on me when I said having a International Men's Day in theory makes great sense. It's 100% fine! I'm not against you on that. I personally think to call it that will come off in a negative way. Just give it a different name only just focus on Men's issues. Don't use it as a weapon. Men have basically all the power and have had basically all the power for 1000s of years. Let not play stupid on this.
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
I don't have any problem with mixed gender groups, but why can't we have single gender groups as well? Not everything is automatically better when you include everyone.
 
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There is nothing wrong with mixed boyscouts. This maybe just some American bullshit sexist standards you're trying to preserve here, but you wont get soft kids who dont grow up to be a normal functioning male or female because they were in a mixed boyscouts group lol.

I went to school with girls, I went swimming with girls, all school activities were mixed.

I grew up to be a normal male, functioning well and not having any issues talking to women or dating them.

So what exactly is the problem here?

Destroy gender? Because they are in a mixed boyscouts group? LOL dont make me laugh.
It's not sexist, you people are just being newaged weirdos. Boys and girls are intrinsically different on mental and physical levels, interests, abilities, skills, we vary greatly. What is the logic for mixing and jumbling everything together? Why can boys not be taught how to be men from strong male leaders and role models independent of girls?

Why can girls not be taught the same via their virtues on how to become women via Girl Scouts? Why does it need to be mixed?
 

Dunki

Member
But Dunki that's the point. The days they were established matters. 1992 is super recent. And why are you going crazy on me when I said having a International Men's Day in theory makes great sense. It's 100% fine! I'm not against you on that. I personally think to call it that will come off in a negative way. Just give it a different name only just focus on Men's issues. Don't use it as a weapon. Men have basically all the power and have had basically all the power for 1000s of years. Let not play stupid on this.
It was established in 1992 because the issues men were facing especially regarding suicide have grown to a dramatic level. And there is a international day for almost every fucking thing in the world. Dogs, cats, Sex, There is a even a international day for fucking toilets. It is a common things these days.

How is this a weapon?
 
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mckmas8808

Banned
You're probably one of 'them' who thinks Boy Scout's should have girls in it, huh?

When you say girls what do you mean? I mean that honestly considering your thoughts on Trans people. Like do I think Boy Scouts should have cis-gendered girls in it? Nope not to me. I don't think they should. But I'm okay with a Gay guy leading the boy scout groups though if that means anything.
 
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