Ion Fury "formerly Ion Maiden, launching August 15!"
#1201 Posted 24 March 2018 - 03:02 PM
So we went with a character who is a cross between Sarah Connor and Anne Lewis. And Fred wasn't involved in the design of Shelly for Ion Maiden.
This post has been edited by Fox: 24 March 2018 - 03:03 PM
#1202 Posted 24 March 2018 - 03:05 PM
cosmonautcowboy, on 24 March 2018 - 02:47 PM, said:
If they need a 90's role-model for trope purposes, they should consider Tank Girl.
At least the attitude.
(the hair not so much, not until she has one arm and an excuse for doing that to her head)
Fox, on 24 March 2018 - 03:02 PM, said:
some Private Vasquez from Aliens wouldn't hurt
This post has been edited by Forge: 24 March 2018 - 03:16 PM
#1203 Posted 24 March 2018 - 03:31 PM
Besides, if she were to be 'hot' and had to sell on that, you'd have to deal with that Trespasser trope, or maybe something ridiculous like 'mighty boob engaged' for death smothering or something as depraved.
This post has been edited by leilei: 24 March 2018 - 03:34 PM
#1204 Posted 25 March 2018 - 01:19 AM
Zaxx, on 24 March 2018 - 04:49 AM, said:
I didn't say anything about needing her to show tits. Provactive in terms of her character.
What I said on the subject of T&A was specifically directed at this notion that it's "embarrassing." Which is a load of shit. No, it isn't. The problem with that line of thinking is that it leads to not just a reduction in the amount of skin on show, it effects the way characters are being portrayed too. Women in games seem to only have "angst" and "anger" to work with.
Having the bikini battle-armor sorta tells you about the character "Oh! This is silly, over the top, juvenile, and immature!" When you put the same character in something far closer to a realistic police/military BDU battle armor look, you're saying "Ah! This is taking itself a little more seriously."
Wanting to play in the same field as Caleb, Wang, Leonard, and Duke Nukem means you gotta step up on that personality. The design from the outset since BS has been tripping over it's own feet. People can't have forgotten just how tremendously bad the backlash for Beta Bombshell was, right? Tonal dissonance. Big time. Ion Maiden managed to save the character from the ashes because it's a good shooter first and foremost. The weakness inherited from her "initial" conceptualization from Bombshell 2015 going forward are the colder look and feel of the character. The color is gone from the design entirely.
Forge, on 24 March 2018 - 05:35 AM, said:
You having an opinion, and you expressing that opinion aren't the issue. You went and edited the quote his post in an infantile, and there was no need for that.
Forge, on 24 March 2018 - 05:35 AM, said:
He should probably shut the fuck up though, before he alienates potential customers and fans.
Yes, it's what Fred and others have stated in this thread and what I and XmobilemuX were responding to. My issue is, hey, if you don't like the other concepts that's fine. if they're not the way you want to take the character, that's fine, but this post-modern thought process (re: bullshit) that a sexed up character is some how "embarrassing" is the silliest thing I've ever heard. Fred is the last person who should be bringing up embarrassing, and furthermore, implying that there was no other valid course but what we got, or that the "Barberella/Stripperella" inspired version of the character had no merit is based on empty air. We have no idea what that character might have turned out like.
Forge, on 24 March 2018 - 05:35 AM, said:
I don't think anyone suggested soley basing her character off her looks. However, people are kidding themselves if they don't think appearance informs characters like this. These are larger than life, pulpy, characters.
Forge, on 24 March 2018 - 05:35 AM, said:
I'm about the one of least sjw people on here. I'm not promoting a conservative view of the Shelly character for 'social' reasons. Don't get the issues confused.
Yes, It's a prequel to the Bombshell game. This is pre-war injury, pre-grimdark vendetta against Haskell.
My remarks on the social aspect this are generalities based on the side effects apparent in the way people seem to be thinking about this as a whole, not at anyone in particular.
Forge, on 24 March 2018 - 05:35 AM, said:
I don't even know that it's a matter of her needing to get more nasty. She just needs to have more personality. All of her lines in the game at this point are somewhat pedestrian. There's a couple good zingers, but the rest is very blaze.
Forge, on 24 March 2018 - 05:35 AM, said:
Oh, give them time. I'm sure someone's cooking away.
leilei, on 24 March 2018 - 03:31 PM, said:
Well, by that logic, why didn't Duke have to flex his muscles in Duke Nukem 3D?
I must be coming off as over critical towards IM, and I want to try and correct that impression because I have nothing against what Voidpoint has done. The game is great so far. I just think that the character of Shelly doesn't quite have enough punch, and that's partially because the design still hangs on to what BS did with the character. I will commend VP though for not swinging the pendulum to the other extreme and turning into the very porn parody joke that she could have been.
Anne Lewis, Pamela Anderson, Tank Girl, Sarah Connor... I'd like to drop another name into this discussion.
Lauren Bacall. I'm almost certain Lani Manilla used her as a reference guide when she played Kimberely Strokes (the general) in Duke Nukem Zero Hour, and it's exactly Bacall's persona that I imagined which would fit a character like Bombshell. Just as Eastwood's gritted teeth hard-assery made for a great "shell" for Duke's character, so to would Bacall.
That's just me though.
#1205 Posted 25 March 2018 - 04:56 AM
Commando Nukem, on 25 March 2018 - 01:19 AM, said:
But why do you need a bikini armor to express that? It's always these long comments about how Shelly should be "brave" and "provocative" and it all comes down to the fact that some of you want a more sexy protagonist. It seems to me that you're intellectually beating around the bush in order to dress up a simple, easy to understand opinion. You can be silly, over the top and juvenile without bikini armors... and I like women in uniform, okay?!
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But that's exactly what Ion Maiden does, no? It's not like Duke Nukem Forever where everything has to be a pun or a joke to the point where the game is destroying a legendary character, it's like when you were a kid playing Duke 3D for the first time and you laughed on the jokes but you also took it a bit more seriously than maybe how it was intended. IM has a bit more class to it and in my opinion that's a unique flavor that's very welcome in a Build game. Why not?
And really if you think about it the way old Build games did provocative was not always top notch. Let's take Shadow Warrior for example: there are a lot of good jokes in there but there's also stuff like "Haha, hihi, you go poo poo, I leave room", elements like pieces of shit floating around in bathtubs, toilets full of diarrhea and all of these really embarrassing, cringe worthy, cheap stuff. DNF is the continuation of that to the point where Duke can just pick shit up from toilets and throw it around like if he was some retard so it's clear which path that approach leads to (the brown brick road, haha, hihi... oh God). I think it's pretty normal after all that - literal - shit to say that "Okay, we'll draw a bit of a line here, we may be juvenile but we're grownups too". There is nothing wrong with taking that approach other than wanting to be a bit different than the old Build games but if that's a sin then good morning, IM already does it by not having an inventory, not having hitscan enemies, not having a classic level structure etc.
This post has been edited by Zaxx: 25 March 2018 - 04:59 AM
#1206 Posted 25 March 2018 - 05:06 AM
#1207 Posted 25 March 2018 - 05:29 AM
Phredreeke, on 25 March 2018 - 05:06 AM, said:
Yep, it's really the point where just can't laugh at it in an honest way because a bell goes off in the back of your head saying "well, let's be honest, that was tasteless as hell" and that's what I see on those early Bombshell designs too. To me it's not about being sexual, PC or anything like that, it's about having just a bit of taste while doing anything you want, I mean even if you deliberately want to be tasteless you have to do it with a bit of style so it will have a point. It's the difference between having a stripper in a stripclub (Duke 3D - it's appropriate for the setting with a bit of taste) and having a side character holding a whip with her tits out (early Bombshell - tasteless).
Playing Ion Maiden after games like DNF, Redneck Rampage (enemies made out of poop, yay!) and to a lesser extent even Shadow Warrior is like if you've stared into the abyss and decided to leave once it started staring back at you. IM is clearly not an innovative but an iterative game and iteration is about learning from the past while also replicating what was good in it.
#1208 Posted 25 March 2018 - 05:35 AM
Zaxx, on 25 March 2018 - 04:56 AM, said:
It's always these long comments about how Shelly should be "brave" and "provocative" and it all comes down to the fact that some of you want a more sexy protagonist.
No. I've spoken fairly clearly on the subject.
Zaxx, on 25 March 2018 - 04:56 AM, said:
I didn't say I needed it. I was saying, in fewer words, there is such a thing as visual short hand.
Zaxx, on 25 March 2018 - 04:56 AM, said:
That's totally fine. That doesn't mean that the main character couldn't use a bit more punch. There's nothing, as yet, that makes me go "Damn, she's a badass!" It would be one thing if the character wasn't a talker, but she is, and again, she's playing in that same backyard, as advertised, a BUILD engine game in that same spirit.
Zaxx, on 25 March 2018 - 04:56 AM, said:
I think it's a fairly common understanding that Shadow Warrior went too far with it's crass humor. The reboot's sequel, Shadow Warrior 2, also suffers from now knowing when to stop throwing out stupid jokes and infantile humor.
Like I said, i'm glad that the reaction to Bombshell's lukewarm reception wasn't to swing the pendulum all the way into extreme crass with Ion Maiden.
#1209 Posted 25 March 2018 - 05:50 AM
Commando Nukem, on 25 March 2018 - 05:35 AM, said:
On that one I agree, Shelly needs to have a few "stronger" lines in there and she generally needs to talk a bit more. I think that's coming in the full version though.
Quote
Oh yeah, it's one of the aspects where I felt SW2 was a letdown. In SW2013 they managed to come up with a really good character: he was a wannabe superhero and a comic nerd and acted like that, it was wonderful. For example the part where he shaves his head because "every hero has to shave his head in a moment of crisis" was just funny as hell and Wang even got to grow a bit as a character by the end, it was super good for what it was. Then SW2 came with 10000 dick jokes and ruined everything... not just Shadow Warrior but EVERYTHING.
This post has been edited by Zaxx: 25 March 2018 - 05:51 AM
#1210 Posted 25 March 2018 - 06:08 AM
Commando Nukem, on 25 March 2018 - 01:19 AM, said:
Yes, it's what Fred and others have stated in this thread and what I and XmobilemuX were responding to. My issue is, hey, if you don't like the other concepts that's fine. if they're not the way you want to take the character, that's fine, but this post-modern thought process (re: bullshit) that a sexed up character is some how "embarrassing" is the silliest thing I've ever heard. Fred is the last person who should be bringing up embarrassing, and furthermore, implying that there was no other valid course but what we got, or that the "Barberella/Stripperella" inspired version of the character had no merit is based on empty air. We have no idea what that character might have turned out like.
For whatever it's worth, I agree with you completely.
Are we sure Fred wrote that piece? Over on the 3DR forums, Joe commented that the Bombshell character model from the original announcement trailer wasn't included because "Fred didn’t want me to put it in the article." That makes it sound like it was Joe that wrote it.
#1211 Posted 25 March 2018 - 06:17 AM
#1212 Posted 25 March 2018 - 08:29 AM
Commando Nukem, on 25 March 2018 - 01:19 AM, said:
His post was infantile. He basically demanded that Shelly look and act like some trashy whore or tit flashing bimbo, then to build a game world around that.
Commando Nukem, on 25 March 2018 - 01:19 AM, said:
pretty much like all the earlier versions of that character, shallow, and teeth-grindingly annoying. It's still the same formula, nothing's changed.
Commando Nukem, on 25 March 2018 - 01:19 AM, said:
That's not the impression I got. This is pretty much a tirade on making Shelly look like a retro 90's bimbo whore, then designing an entire game around a giggly dumb bimbo world.
xMobilemux, on 23 March 2018 - 06:24 PM, said:
there are so many things that could have come from building the whole game around one of those past designs
I mean if they designed Shelly from one of those past designs, the rest of the game would be designed with that in mind,
note the focus on looks
past design comprising mostly of half-naked big boobs in a pair of daisy dukes.
Telling me how tough you are while you're nipping out?
Not buying it.
What do you really do with that baton when not fighting cyborgs?
Commando Nukem, on 25 March 2018 - 01:19 AM, said:
this is what I commented against and you got offended.
This post has been edited by Forge: 25 March 2018 - 08:41 AM
#1213 Posted 25 March 2018 - 08:47 AM
This post has been edited by Striker: 25 March 2018 - 08:48 AM
#1214 Posted 25 March 2018 - 09:43 AM
#1215 Posted 25 March 2018 - 01:42 PM
This is sexy.
#1216 Posted 25 March 2018 - 05:20 PM
Forge, on 25 March 2018 - 08:29 AM, said:
note the focus on looks
past design comprising mostly of half-naked big boobs in a pair of daisy dukes.
Telling me how tough you are while you're nipping out?
Not buying it.
What do you really do with that baton when not fighting cyborgs?
Where did I demand that? I never said I wanted Shelly to be designed as a pornstar with a microbikini. When I said past designs I was referring more to these ones:
She's not running around with her tits out or anything like that here. Here I see the female Duke Nukem, Duke never ran around in a mankini, but he didn't wear some standard generic military gear either, he had a signature look with a personality that complimented it.
I wanted Shelly to be similar if not the same.
If you're referring to my post with Bayonetta, that was a response to everyone and Fred about the sexualized designs being embarrassing today when Bayonetta who is designed that way is among the top ladies in gaming.
This post has been edited by xMobilemux: 25 March 2018 - 05:22 PM
#1217 Posted 25 March 2018 - 06:23 PM
xMobilemux, on 25 March 2018 - 05:20 PM, said:
But didn't you say that the current design is boring and generic? I'm asking because those drawings from 97 are just that: boring and generic. It's just Barb Wire's and Heavy Metal's post-apocalyptic design, nothing else and while that's good enough for an NPC in the early versions of DNF it's not exactly protagonist material.
The main problem is however that when you take the character away from Duke Nukem and change her into a tough police officer the 90s design just stops making any sense whatsoever. Originally she was a hot as hell chick with an attitude towards Duke and in Duke's world her looks make sense, hell, the whole sexualization aspect makes sense because her attitude only works if Duke's interested in banging her. That's what you keep forgetting or simply don't understand: the character design has to make sense in the context of the game world, you can't just throw Barb Wire into a cyberpunk cop setting and expect it to make sense because it won't.
Bayonetta's a bad example because she works in her game while what you're proposing wouldn't work in IM. Character design is all about context, especially in old school games where every single pixel counts in world and character building.
This post has been edited by Zaxx: 25 March 2018 - 06:25 PM
#1218 Posted 25 March 2018 - 06:49 PM
It is time to promote Ion Maiden. Promote the hottest game I’ve seen to date.
#1219 Posted 25 March 2018 - 06:55 PM
Zaxx, on 25 March 2018 - 06:23 PM, said:
The current design is boring and generic because the industry is full of standard soldier characters, larger than life female characters are hard to find these days and those 97 concepts don't seem generic at all to me, plus they would obviously be reworked to look better.
I disagree on it not being able to work as a protagonist design, if it can work for Lara Croft, it can work for Shelly.
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Bayonetta's a bad example because she works in her game while what you're proposing wouldn't work in IM. Character design is all about context, especially in old school games where every single pixel counts in world and character building.
That's what I was talking about in this post:
v
v
v
xMobilemux, on 23 March 2018 - 06:24 PM, said:
I mean if they designed Shelly from one of those past designs, the rest of the game would be designed with that in mind, that would set up an interesting game, just makes me wonder what the themes would be, the music, the enemies, the bosses, the atmosphere, etc.
Ion Maiden has nothing noteworthy in those areas so far. I mean the final boss of the preview was just some mech.
Yes Bayonetta works in her world and true that the 90s design of Shelly wouldn't work in the garbage lore 3DR and Interceptor have cornered Voidpoint into.
But there could have been a middle ground in which the current Shelly could have retained some of her past design in the current IM world. Instead they went as generic and safe as one could go with no stand out weapons, no stand out enemies and no stand out protagonist.
IM Shelly retains pretty much nothing what so ever from her past designs.
It's like if Gearbox decided to reboot Duke into a standard soldier with full military, no shades, no color and didn't even make him blonde.
#1220 Posted 25 March 2018 - 07:19 PM
Zaxx, on 25 March 2018 - 06:23 PM, said:
It's taking a side-kick character there for her sexual appeal and turning her into a main character and centerpiece of a game.
If you keep her in her original role and then build a game world around her, you'll end up with a sad soft-core porn of a game. Great for a one-off to 13 year old little boys. Bad for any future of the character.
Even in those 'tame' pics that were recently posted by someone in *denial, the focus is still her ass and boobs.
*Denial is not a river.
This post has been edited by Forge: 25 March 2018 - 07:24 PM
#1221 Posted 25 March 2018 - 07:26 PM
Hank, on 25 March 2018 - 06:49 PM, said:
It is time to promote Ion Maiden. Promote the hottest game I’ve seen to date.
#1222 Posted 26 March 2018 - 01:54 AM
Striker, on 25 March 2018 - 07:26 PM, said:
Oh, I see, you wanna help Fred.
Tell me, which of the tramps, from yesteryear, did he (image above) sketch?
This post has been edited by Hank: 26 March 2018 - 02:20 AM
#1223 Posted 26 March 2018 - 06:06 AM
Hank, on 26 March 2018 - 01:54 AM, said:
or Striker's wondering the same thing as you, as in, "wat the hell you thinking, fred"?
at least that's how I took it.
text messages can be a funny thing when a person's expression, influx, or intent isn't always apparent.
Maybe he's wondering why you want to burn history. It should be archived, not destroyed.
Now I'm not sure wat he originally meant by posting that and having your entire comment quoted.
So what is Fred doing? Trying to show how socially conscious he is, and how progressive the Shelly character is by being a strong female instead of the original bimbo?
That's going to go over about as well as the ghost-busters reboot movie. If you try to push a social issue, you alienate half the games potential audience. Let gamer-gate die.
Tx or Hendricks need to reign him in before he kills the future marketing of the franchise (if that is indeed what he's doing).
This post has been edited by Forge: 26 March 2018 - 06:44 AM
#1224 Posted 26 March 2018 - 01:05 PM
Forge, on 26 March 2018 - 06:06 AM, said:
This!
#1225 Posted 26 March 2018 - 04:22 PM
Forge, on 26 March 2018 - 06:06 AM, said:
at least that's how I took it.
text messages can be a funny thing when a person's expression, influx, or intent isn't always apparent.
Maybe he's wondering why you want to burn history. It should be archived, not destroyed.
Now I'm not sure wat he originally meant by posting that and having your entire comment quoted.
So what is Fred doing? Trying to show how socially conscious he is, and how progressive the Shelly character is by being a strong female instead of the original bimbo?
That's going to go over about as well as the ghost-busters reboot movie. If you try to push a social issue, you alienate half the games potential audience. Let gamer-gate die.
Tx or Hendricks need to reign him in before he kills the future marketing of the franchise (if that is indeed what he's doing).
Striker called my out with my gibberish post, well, so I think, and I simply had to counter.
My issue is, that personally, I'm a pervert. I like those babes; but not on Steam under Ion Maiden.
Another fact is, I'm not into Betas. OK then, you're right, keep it, make it public under the right context.
As for Ion Maiden, it's a hot game, in my not so humble opinion, it may sell very well despite marketing that's not to par with the game.
#1226 Posted 26 March 2018 - 11:09 PM
#1228 Posted 27 March 2018 - 09:21 AM
#1229 Posted 27 March 2018 - 11:38 AM
#1230 Posted 27 March 2018 - 12:40 PM
Zaxx, on 27 March 2018 - 07:23 AM, said:
I love this!!!!! Perfect example of retromarketing. So the physical copies are gonna be USB Floppies? Who needs CD in 2018 anyway! XD
This post has been edited by Mike Norvak: 27 March 2018 - 12:42 PM