SS2 FemGoggles

[66661a212ce31ZylonBane]

I just noticed that every time the SS2 player character is referred to in dialog or a cutscene, it's always in a gender-neutral way. "He" or "him" or "that guy" is never uttered, it's always "soldier", "another", "someone else", "a UNN operative", "avatar", "some grunt", "a crewmember", or just "you".

This conspicuous absence of gendered language when referring to the player leads me to suspect that Irrational had originally planned for players to be able to select Goggles' gender. Sadly, no game assets appear to have ever been created to support this, so if it was ever planned, it must have been cut at an early stage.

Still, in the final game the only indication of the player's gender is his appearance in the cutscenes, his pain and grunt sounds, and "Nah." An argument could be made that the player hands on the weapon models are more masculine than feminine, but they're so low-poly that you can barely tell either way.

So I'm wondering if anyone who wanted to play as a female Goggles would feel satisfactorily gender-swapped by just changing the damage grunts. There's around 90 of them, so even such a seemingly small change would still be a significant amount of work.

[66661a212d2ecJoin2]

There's around 90 of them

Nah. No way. What the fuck? Ninety? Not nine, but ninety. More than a little overkill. I always just thought it was the standard 3-10 range

[66661a212d448ZylonBane]

They combined pain grunts and weapon impact sounds into the same WAV files, probably to save an audio channel when the player gets hit. So you have three or so "Oofs" for every damage type, multiplied by variants for high, medium, and low damage intensity. I haven't gone through the schemas to verify they're all used.

[66661a212d653voodoo47]

strangely enough, I don't think this is a bad idea, I can imagine having to listen to male player sounds can be immersion breaking if you are a girl.

some logs would have to be modified though;

LogName20:"BAYLISS 06.JUL.14\nRe: What gives?\n"
LogPortrait20:"Bayliss"
LogIcon20:"RickIcon"
LogText20:"To: Polito, Dr. Janice\nDoc - I don't feel right about any of this.  I still don't understand why you asked me to mess with the memory restoration on that grunt.  Why didn't you want him to remember volunteering for this gig?  He did volunteer for the implants, right?  Every email from you gets stranger and stranger... it's like you're not even the same person anymore.\n"

[66661a212d72eZylonBane]

Ah, I missed that one.

[66661a212d801voodoo47]

not a dealbreaker though, the log can be cut down if nothing else.

[66661a212da36Valet2]

Well, there could be two log strings and two wav-files according to the character. Here's the file with his-he replaced to her-she using sounds of the same voice artist from other logs (background noise left intact).
[LOG0420F.WAV expired]

[66661a212db26voodoo47]

eeh not sure about that. maybe cutting away the middle part of the log would be preferable.

[66661a212dc1bValet2]

Agree!

[66661a212dd1eZylonBane]

Anyway, if this happens, it won't be any time soon, at least not by me. I'm squeezing what little free time I have into SCP.

[66661a212e0c8Xkilljoy98]

I'm kinda surprised a mod like this doesn't exist already, I figured a model swap wouldn't be too hard.

Though I suppose someone would need to create a fem goggles model or reused one of the other models.

[66661a212e206voodoo47]

the model is only relevant in multiplayer, and retexturing one of the existing female models shouldn't be a big deal. the other bits are more important - the log, and the grunts.

[66661a212e43eJules]

I'm definitely a fan of mods introducing a female option in RPGs that only feature male characters (and I'm a guy!). It feels really refreshing to being able to play as a woman rather than a man as it is in most videogames (NOLF and Perfect Dark, anyone?)

About a year ago one such mod was released for Deus Ex and that was enough to make me replay the game once again. Considering the sheer amounts of dialogue that game has, swapping the gender changed how the experience felt quite a lot. It wouldn't be as significant in SS2 considering the absence of any dialogue or the ability to see your character, but it'd definitely still be a nice mod to have.

[66661a212e8d9sarge945]

the model is only relevant in multiplayer, and retexturing one of the existing female models shouldn't be a big deal. the other bits are more important - the log, and the grunts.

The log?

[66661a212e9fbvoodoo47]

there is (at least) one log that refers to the player as a guy. kind of immersion breaking if you are a girl playing the game with a mod that is supposed to make the game more immersive for you by giving you a female character.