Women

[kwright]

Why can your character only be a male? When are women players going to be intergrated into ITP and OOTP?

[RandyWolf43]

Women don't play professional baseball. This isn't a softball oriented game.

[kwright]

so? this game it not quite real life. I've never heard of someone selling a $7 million baseball bat (think about a $7 million bat) on "BBay." I've never heard of ILB. It has disticnt similarities to real life but it is just a bit different, why can't one difference be women in baseball?

[fluharty]

OOTP is not restricted to MLB or to professional baseball and never has been, so ITP is therefore not restricted in this manner either. I can set up a league for whatever purpose I want, including women's baseball or the mexican leagues. Women have played baseball in the past (the AAGPBL ran from 1943 to 1954 http://www.aagpbl.org/) and there have been attempts to organize other leagues since then. Here is a web sight dedicated to the subject:

http://www.womensbaseball.com/index2_frameset.htm

I have asked about this in the past and have never gotten a satisfactory answer. Its sad that the makers of this game choose to be descriminatory in this way. I would love to set up a league and play the history of the AAGPBL or even run one of the modern leagues like the Eastern Women's Baseball Conferance (http://home.att.net/~itsahit/).

[drprestwood]

Oh my God, seriously.

Women have played baseball in the past. Good.

It would take a lot of coding and design to make all of the pronouns work and to change these games to include women. If you're pissed at a company that is this responsive to its users, you had better be email bombing EA Sports for not including women in Madden, MVP, NBA Live and so on.

The makers of the game aren't being "DISCRIMINATORY." That's a relatively loaded word. Instead, they're making a game that simulates professional baseball, and in professional baseball 99.9% of all players are men.

Should they expand to include wheelchair leagues too?

[fluharty]

pissed? email bomb? WTF, man? I said it was sad. I said it was discriminatory. That is my point of view. As far as the amount of work it would take too allow it, it wouldn't be much more if the software had been designed with it in mind in the first place. I have 12 years of experience backing that opinion, and I can go into any amount of detail you want. You could use news story template with placeholders where pronouns could be droped in or you could just write two of each story snippet and chosse one depending on sex. Saying its too much work, if true, is due to a lack of design forsight more than anything else.

And IMO the wheelchair comment is WAY out of line. I should be able to express my opinion without having someone ridicule me for it. This board is for game-related discussions, and is should not be a place to bash people for expressing an opinion.

[DocBBall35]

I really can't believe this is really an issue. I never even considered the female possibility there, but alas, I admit, I am male and therefore my view is clouded.

I don't believe the programmers were being "discriminatory" in their all-male gameplay. In my opinion, I feel they were attempting to make the game as closely as possible, be modeled after MLB, which is all male, not by discrimination, but more by tradition (which I'm not even going to say if its right or wrong, not the issue here). An all-male baseball league is what almost everyone who would be playing the game would be most familiar with. And I also don't think I would be going out on a limb to say that the target population for their marketing is mostly male.

Now, if you remember Tournament Dreams College Basketball (before .400 and OOTP Dev. split), it had an option built in for mens or womens basketball. This is also an instance where there would be a greater population familiar with womens basketball rather than womens baseball.

To say that OOTP Dev. is being discriminatory is isolating one instance that has allowed virtually limitless feedback. They are simply following the norms of society (which once again, I will not elaborate on correctness of society).

However, I also feel that the comments posted in return (particularly the wheelchair comment) were out of place. A less involved group is always entitled to equal rights, in this case, the prevention was social norms and general familiarity.

I can't say who's right and who's wrong. There's only one who knows that for sure and he doesn't speak as audibly as some of us would like, so go with what's been given. Work together, not maliciously (this goes for both sides), and maybe something can be worked out.

[Jordan]

[Deattribution]

Originally posted by fluharty
Saying its too much work, if true, is due to a lack of design forsight more than anything else.

Create your own 'woman's baseball sim' if you're so good at design and forsight --- oh and programming too. Nobody is stopping you since it's so important and such a discrimination.


Otherwise let everyone who decides they want to create a game create the game THEY want to make. If you don't like it, then voice your opinion and/or don't buy it.

But don't say because something you think is so important that is not in the game, that they lacked the effort or design planning to do so.

[fluharty]

First of all, I never spoke to the level of importance of allowing for women. From a purely marketing standpoint its likely not that important, since the percentage of users that desire the feature is likely very low.

But, IMO, if the news reporting code has been designed from the start with more than one sex in mind supporting both would not have been that much additional work. Therefore, it would have been worth including for the simple sake of equality, since women have played the game in the past and contiinue to do so in the present.

I may have been too harsh in my earlier judgement. I tend to forget Markus is not from the US and is relatively young. It is entirely possible he was unaware that women had ever played baseball and simply never considered allowing such a thing. Including it now, after the fact, may be more effort that it is worth, given all the other stuff on his to-do list.

Mogul does allow women, and also has news reports. I offer this as evidence that other agree with my opinion that is it woth the effort to include women. I'm not sure I like the fact that Mogul offers men-only or co-ed and has no women-only option, but thats a matter to take up with the mogul folks.

[Tib]

"Chicks are for sleeping with after the game, not coaching during the game!" - Jimmy Dugan

[Northernsky]

I thought OOTP was created to escape the real world and live in your own world where you are a baseball icon... why does everyone need to get all political...its a game.

[Karen Lutz]

although some of you should really choke on your knees for these posts, lol, I have to agree as a female myself that it isn't neccassary for females to be added to the game. There simply isn't enough of us playing it for it to be a factor. Although I did jokingly suggest it to Markus one day and he didn't say no, lol, but I still don't think it is worth the time it would take to impliment.

[StacyDlacy]

I am a woman and I agree. It might be nice when playing in 2134 or so to see/be a woman, but it really doesn't matter much to me.

[yankeedoodledandy]

Me too. I am a woman also and although I would prefer to have a female character it does not deter me from enjoying this game. I do have a feeling that there may be more women who play sports games than people realize. They may not post to boards like this but they are out there. This is my first post but I have been actively reading these boards and the OOTP series as well. I have been a long time fan of OOTP since its inception.

[Queensryche]

OH PLEASE.

Feminists make me sick. Stick to softball.

[Northernsky]

And I dont suppose you drag your woman around by the hair while grunting and playing with fire? :P

[Queensryche]

^^Weak excuse for a man.

[Skipaway]

I would like to play female characters too.

"Discriminatory" or "sad" are indeed very odd choice of words, considering the other thousands of possible features that's also missing from the game.

Perhaps we could follow the same logic and say it's sad that the makers of this game choose to be descriminatory in having all ball players collect stamps. Markus should at least make some of them coin collectors.

Or you'd believe OOTP is also "discriminatory" in not allowing polygamy? gay couples? more than five children?

[Northernsky]

Originally posted by Queensryche
^^Weak excuse for a man.

*smirk* I am not the one with the cave man mentality. It is that kind of thinking that holds things back. Generally speaking.