Watch Dogs Graphics Downgraded on PC

[salm]

Yes. And the other people, like the technical director are saying that it´s too much work. I guess it comes down to how many animations of the 8000 you want to be the same and how many you believe you have to redo because you want them to be more feminin.

In the last game i worked for we used all animations for male, female and even child characters. The budget simply wasn´t there.
But then, maybe the art director would rather have no female character at all than one that isn´t absolutely perfect.
Personally I can understand both ways of thinking.

[bilateralrope]

Yes. And the other people, like the technical director are saying that it´s too much work.

Did the technical director quantify how much extra work it was ?

If not, then I see nothing to dispute the claim that it would take days. All I see is the technical director saying that a few days is too much work.

[salm]

Like said before, you can do something like this in very short time or a very long time. It really depends on how much you want to differentiate one character from the other. You can´t quantify this with a single number. You can only quantify it with a range.

The main character has 8000 animations. You could "feminize" all of them which would take very long or you could "feminize" non of them which would take very short. Or you can do something in between.
You´ll have to create a whole bunch of models (apparently the character is customizable). You can either change the male ones and save some time or you can create a completely new set.
Same for textures and shaders.
You can change the storyline in order to better reflect a female character or you can leave it completely the same.
Same for reactions of NPC.
You´ll have to create new voice overs.
You have to send it through QA.

Creating a good new character is more than just a new model with a couple of altered animations, imo.
So if you believe that allways using the shortest and cheapest way (i.e simply adopt as many things as possible from the male character) would just lead to having a really bad female character then you should do what they did and simply don´t do it at all. It´s better to spend these resources on other things than on a half assed character that feels like a male character trying to be female.

I´ve never worked for an AAA title before so I can´t really comment on the feasability but if they can pull off a decent female character in only three days then I´d be seriously impressed. And if that is the case they should be whacked over the head for not doing it.

[bilateralrope]

You can change the storyline in order to better reflect a female character or you can leave it completely the same.

We are only talking about the co-op characters here. What you see the other players as in co-op because everyone sees themselves as Arno, the main character. I doubt the storyline will make much reference to the other co-op avatars.

I´ve never worked for an AAA title before so I can´t really comment on the feasability but if they can pull off a decent female character in only three days then I´d be seriously impressed. And if that is the case they should be whacked over the head for not doing it.

Here is what we do know:
- Ubisoft creative director Alex Amancio says that a female character is too much work.
- The next day Jonathan Cooper speaks up to give the timeline of a few days. He was the animation director on AC3, among other games. He work on AC3 would let him know Ubisoft's standards. His experience on several AAA titles as animation director says he knows how long animation work takes. I'd say he knows enough to give an accurate statement on feasibility.
Ubisoft have not said anything to dispute his claim that it would only take a few days. They haven't offered any timeline for how long it would take. Only that it's too much work.

Cooper has direct experiance of making a female character for an AC game:

Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation heroine Aveline de Grandpré got many of her movements from Assassin's Creed 3's male protagonist, Connor. Only a handful of her animations, such as walks and runs, were replaced.

"The games were made in parallel," Cooper explained. "Pretty much, you're just taking Connor's animation set and replacing key animations.

"They do some really clever stuff there. For example, Connor uses this tomahawk during a fight, and they actually gave her a weapon that was similar in shape to the tomahawk, so all the animations would work on her without having to change them at all."

Note that last paragraph. That wouldn't be necessary for AC:Unity because the male and female characters would be using the same weapons.

The way I see it, there are three possibilities:
- Both people are telling the truth. Meaning that a few days work is too much for Ubisoft.
- Amancio is lying and Ubisoft have some other reason for not including female characters. One they refuse to state publicly.
- Cooper is wrong and Ubisoft isn't willing to say that he is wrong.

If you think it's the last option, why hasn't Ubisoft got someone to explain why Cooper is wrong ?

[salm]

We are only talking about the co-op characters here. What you see the other players as in co-op because everyone sees themselves as Arno, the main character. I doubt the storyline will make much reference to the other co-op avatars.

This is a good example for a compromise. If they´d had enought money/time they could have made the gaming experience more seamless by incorporating all co-op characters into the main story somehow. They decided that it isn´t worth the effort so they didn´t.
Perhaps it´s the same for the female character.

Here is what we do know:
- Ubisoft creative director Alex Amancio says that a female character is too much work.
- The next day Jonathan Cooper speaks up to give the timeline of a few days. He was the animation director on AC3, among other games. He work on AC3 would let him know Ubisoft's standards. His experience on several AAA titles as animation director says he knows how long animation work takes. I'd say he knows enough to give an accurate statement on feasibility.
Ubisoft have not said anything to dispute his claim that it would only take a few days. They haven't offered any timeline for how long it would take. Only that it's too much work.

Cooper has direct experiance of making a female character for an AC game:

Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation heroine Aveline de Grandpré got many of her movements from Assassin's Creed 3's male protagonist, Connor. Only a handful of her animations, such as walks and runs, were replaced.

"The games were made in parallel," Cooper explained. "Pretty much, you're just taking Connor's animation set and replacing key animations.

"They do some really clever stuff there. For example, Connor uses this tomahawk during a fight, and they actually gave her a weapon that was similar in shape to the tomahawk, so all the animations would work on her without having to change them at all."

Note that last paragraph. That wouldn't be necessary for AC:Unity because the male and female characters would be using the same weapons.

It doesn´t matter if the female character uses the same weapon as the male character. If you want to make the animation more feminin you have to change the animation no matter what kind of weapon they are using.
You can of course leave the animation the same but then you will have an overall worse character. If you think this will lower the value of your product more than not having a female character the logical consequence is to kill the female character entirely.

The way I see it, there are three possibilities:
- Both people are telling the truth. Meaning that a few days work is too much for Ubisoft.
- Amancio is lying and Ubisoft have some other reason for not including female characters. One they refuse to state publicly.
- Cooper is wrong and Ubisoft isn't willing to say that he is wrong.

If you think it's the last option, why hasn't Ubisoft got someone to explain why Cooper is wrong ?

I have no idea. Maybe they don´t care. Maybe Ubisoft or the former animation director are lying, maybe the former animation director is misjudging, maybe the former animation director doesn´t know what the current art director wants because his quality requirements have gone up. Maybe he knows how long the animation would take but can not judge how long other things would take. I don´t know and based on the information available every guess is purely speculative.

What I´m saying is that we can not know if a good enough implementation of a female character is as trivial as people have been claiming. You can believe what you want. In my opinion there´s not enough information to make a judgement.

[TheFeniX]

It doesn´t matter if the female character uses the same weapon as the male character. If you want to make the animation more feminin you have to change the animation no matter what kind of weapon they are using.
You can of course leave the animation the same but then you will have an overall worse character. If you think this will lower the value of your product more than not having a female character the logical consequence is to kill the female character entirely.

Why do women have to be more feminine then men? Why would a trained assassin (at least in the veins of the AC games) need to move and act more feminine? A lot of what we gauge as feminine is learned, not inherent to being a woman. Yes, by nature of their bodies, women tend to have more natural hipsway, but I see plenty of women in real life pounding around with a masculine gait. I've seen women fight in martial arts and with weapons: their stance, swings, and other movements are based on the fighting style, not their gender.

What business do women, raised and trained to murder people, have to act feminine in any way? If they were trained like real assassins (using social engineering more than brute force), yea I'd get it. But this whole argument bugs me as much as Kerrigan, The Queen of Blades, walking like a runway model when neither a Zerg nor a Ghost would have any business even knowing how to walk in high heels.

Also, I doubt there's 800 animations related to the PC, much less 8000. While Beth animations are usually pretty buggy, I like that most animations are parallel, aside from the feminine idle and walk animations. You don't need different animations for everything. The whole "men strong, women nimble" shit just needs to die. I happen to like my Nord Red Sonya ripoff decapitating Bandits with a Dragonbone Greatsword and the "masculine" animations look just fine because that's how you swing that sword.

[bilateralrope]

Also, I doubt there's 800 animations related to the PC, much less 8000.

The issue of female characters isn't limited to the PC. It's relevant to all versions of AC: Unity.

You don't need different animations for everything.

I remember one MMO that had different attack speeds for male and female characters. I remember the uproar when someone tracked damage numbers for long enough to confirm that female characters didn't have any advantage to make up for it. I remember the devs blaming the different animation speeds as the cause of the attack speed difference.

Sometimes different animations are a very bad thing.

The whole "men strong, women nimble" shit just needs to die.

Agreed. I'd like to see some justification for different animations that isn't sexist.

[AniThyng]

It may be because I live in a sexist society but why wouldn't a ghost know how to walk in high heels, I mean I know they mind wiped her and all that but most women I know regardless of profession "know" how to at least function in high heels.

[TheFeniX]

You don't need different animations for everything.

I remember one MMO that had different attack speeds for male and female characters. I remember the uproar when someone tracked damage numbers for long enough to confirm that female characters didn't have any advantage to make up for it. I remember the devs blaming the different animation speeds as the cause of the attack speed difference.

Sounds like SWTOR and some other issue with earlier builds of the Hero engine. In competitive video games, animations should serve actions, not the other way around. Blizzard figured this out years ago.

It may be because I live in a sexist society but why wouldn't a ghost know how to walk in high heels, I mean I know they mind wiped her and all that but most women I know regardless of profession "know" how to at least function in high heels.

I would assume most women you know weren't psychic killing machines kidnapped as children and forced into a life of military servitude. Now, it's certainly possible when Mengsk liberated Kerrigan, she had time to learn more social skills.... in a section of space that's basically a continuing war zone with very few centers of high society and also dealing with her latent psychic abilities that makes her read the minds of pretty much everyone she meets. Do high-heels even exist in the SC universe outside of Kerrigan's carapace?

I'm just not seeing that's what breaks through her Zerg form and becomes a part of her. Unless she always had fevered dreams of walking the runway. She's a killing machine that Blizzard loves to constantly portray sexually. It gets old, just like developers who think women have to be unique (read: feminine) as part of their character to be sellable. For all their faults, Bethesda is one of the only developers that put women in games, in positions of servitude and/or power, without worrying about explaining it or explicitly saying "This character has a vagina, pay attention to that!"

[loomer]

It may be because I live in a sexist society but why wouldn't a ghost know how to walk in high heels, I mean I know they mind wiped her and all that but most women I know regardless of profession "know" how to at least function in high heels.

There is a distinction between 'knows how', and 'does it all the goddamn time'. How many women do you know who wear nothing but high heels, while actively involved in physically demanding activities?

Shit, I cringe whenever I see someone with heels walk in a damn untended garden. Ever since that one episode of True Blood all I can think is -snap-.

[Grumman]

Also, I doubt there's 800 animations related to the PC, much less 8000.

The issue of female characters isn't limited to the PC. It's relevant to all versions of AC: Unity.

"PC" meaning "Player Character", not "Personal Computer".

[salm]

Why do women have to be more feminine then men? Why would a trained assassin (at least in the veins of the AC games) need to move and act more feminine? A lot of what we gauge as feminine is learned, not inherent to being a woman. Yes, by nature of their bodies, women tend to have more natural hipsway, but I see plenty of women in real life pounding around with a masculine gait. I've seen women fight in martial arts and with weapons: their stance, swings, and other movements are based on the fighting style, not their gender.

What business do women, raised and trained to murder people, have to act feminine in any way? If they were trained like real assassins (using social engineering more than brute force), yea I'd get it. But this whole argument bugs me as much as Kerrigan, The Queen of Blades, walking like a runway model when neither a Zerg nor a Ghost would have any business even knowing how to walk in high heels.

Also, I doubt there's 800 animations related to the PC, much less 8000. While Beth animations are usually pretty buggy, I like that most animations are parallel, aside from the feminine idle and walk animations. You don't need different animations for everything. The whole "men strong, women nimble" shit just needs to die. I happen to like my Nord Red Sonya ripoff decapitating Bandits with a Dragonbone Greatsword and the "masculine" animations look just fine because that's how you swing that sword.

You know, I doubt that it´s your intention, but you make it sound like you equate feminin to bad.
Womens bodies just move differently than mens bodies. That´s not better or worse, just different. If you want to make a female character more believable you make it move more feminin. This has nothing to do with the some high heel cliché.
Of course this is something that enters dicission making sooner or later. Plenty of female characters are oversexualized in completely silly ways. But that decission has nothing to do with the fact that women simply move differently.

The 8000 animations are not pulled out of my ass but from one of the articles posted above in a statement from Cooper the former animation director. Sounds believable to me. Gaming animations are often broken down into Subanimations because in order to fake randomness you want a gazillion of very short seamless loops which you can let the engine randomly stitch together.

[Purple]

It may be because I live in a sexist society but why wouldn't a ghost know how to walk in high heels, I mean I know they mind wiped her and all that but most women I know regardless of profession "know" how to at least function in high heels.

There is a distinction between 'knows how', and 'does it all the goddamn time'. How many women do you know who wear nothing but high heels, while actively involved in physically demanding activities?

Shit, I cringe whenever I see someone with heels walk in a damn untended garden. Ever since that one episode of True Blood all I can think is -snap-.

Well to be fair with her level of power she could walk on one finger and still pull off all she does. I can perfectly see her putting on high heels for some reason known only to her self and than just balancing via telepathy.

[TheFeniX]

You know, I doubt that it´s your intention, but you make it sound like you equate feminin to bad.

There's nothing wrong with a female characters being feminine when it makes sense. But femininity (and even that stupid "Alpha Male Bro-Dog" culture that's popped up) are luxuries afforded by modern living or in the case of a fantasy setting: your social status.

People in real life tend to be a lot more complex than they are in fiction. It's expected that a woman can work 8 hours a day and still rock a dress and heels. It's expected that even the most nerdy guy can man up when the need arises. But just like the tired "young farm boy picks up sword and in 2 days is killing seasoned fighters" is dumb, so is a woman conforming to modern ideals of femininity for no good reason.

But fiction, video games in particular, sets up these extremely specific characters because the entire system relies on stereotyping. When you build up a character along this stereotype and then see them perform an action outside of that stereotype with no explanation, I get annoyed.

Womens bodies just move differently than mens bodies. That´s not better or worse, just different. If you want to make a female character more believable you make it move more feminin. This has nothing to do with the some high heel cliché.
Of course this is something that enters dicission making sooner or later. Plenty of female characters are oversexualized in completely silly ways. But that decission has nothing to do with the fact that women simply move differently.

How many ways are there to stab someone with a dagger? Swing a sword? A hammer? An axe? Now how many of those ways are because you have a wider hips than a man?

Ronda Rousey does a takedown or hip toss just like any man would. The only difference is the gratuitous butt jiggle due to her being a woman... also nice to look at. Female lumberjacks swing an axe the same way everyone else does. It's not because they've worked around their biological differences, it's because there's only a few correct ways to swing an axe or slam someone on their back.

The 8000 animations are not pulled out of my ass but from one of the articles posted above in a statement from Cooper the former animation director. Sounds believable to me. Gaming animations are often broken down into Subanimations because in order to fake randomness you want a gazillion of very short seamless loops which you can let the engine randomly stitch together.

And probably 95% of those animations are gender neutral.

[salm]

Different bone structure = different movement.
Weight is distributed differently and so the center of mass is somewhere else. If the center of mass is somewhere else the joint will have to angle differently in order to compensate the forces applied efficiently. Also mens and womens muscle differ which adds to different movement as well.
Here´s a study by a couple of universities that looks into this topic.
Another one regarding Hurdles
And one regarding golf swings

If you google kinematics men women and you´ll find a whole bunch of studies in which athletes and normal people are filmed and analysed.

And probably 95% of those animations are gender neutral.

And again, there´s just too little information to judge this.

[TheFeniX]

I think we're finally getting to the point of absurdity. We're honestly going to even jokingly assume fucking Ubisoft nixed female PCs because they didn't want to create animations for minute visible differences in the way a particular female model might animate a particular task? No, it's because they're either lazy or just didn't think it was worth doing. I have to agree, I don't see female PCs being a huge deal, but the option would be nice because it's pretty damned easy if you've already got animated female characters in the game.

Yes, women need to do things differently than men. I recall interviews with a weight lifter where she talked about how the "man way" had to be modified by her (and other athletes) in a male-dominated sport. But to the outside observer, it's looks about the same. If you were to animate a male and female weight lifter, you could easily pass off the same animation and the average person wouldn't notice.

Elder Scrolls games do this and quite well: gender specific animations are used only where needed. It causes some issues, like the "drinking animation" seeming to be made for a guy with body-builder arms, but only because the animation itself is dumb because it looks awkward on any model. Using a forge doesn't require a different set of animations for male/female, neither do loads of other immersive animations. The idea of needing to make subtle changes to each animation in order to make it look right doesn't hold up because your actual job is to fool the player into thinking it all looks natural.

And for the most part: gender neutral animations will accomplish that. And no amount of reading is going to convince me otherwise. Nor do I honestly believe any of this has anything to do with Ubisoft's business decisions.

EDIT: I'd also like to add. For the purpose of Skyrim, there are no physical differences strength-wise between men and women. A 5'0" female Breton can wield the heaviest warhammer out there without issue. It might be immersion breaking, but that has nothing to do with the animation and it's up to the player to determine if that's an acceptable break from reality.

[salm]

Well it´s the most obvious explanation that they didn´t do it because they didn´t thnk it was worth doing. I´ve been saying that all the time. They didn´t do it because they couldn´t create an acceptable character with an acceptable amount of resources. Therefore they didn´t do it. That´s what the Ubisoft guy is saying as well.

Regarding the technical aspect:
If you don´t accept that female and male characters move differently enough to warrant changing the animation in a range of animations there´s nothing left to argue about. It´s logical that you come to the conclusion that it would take only a very short time.
Apparently the Ubishoft guy who calls the shots believes that they move differently enough to make it necessary to change a lot of animations. Therefore it is logical to nix the character.
Imo it can be necessary. Women move visibly different and these differences can be important even if in some movements it´s only very nuanced. In this game I don´t find it very important but then I don´t even find it very important to be able to chose wich sex to play either.

Personally I see no way to reach a good conclusion without knowing the workload. My point still is that the workload could be higher than many here expect.

[bilateralrope]

Sounds like SWTOR and some other issue with earlier builds of the Hero engine. In competitive video games, animations should serve actions, not the other way around. Blizzard figured this out years ago.

Not the game I was thinking of. I was thinking of Age of Conan.

Well it´s the most obvious explanation that they didn´t do it because they didn´t thnk it was worth doing. I´ve been saying that all the time. They didn´t do it because they couldn´t create an acceptable character with an acceptable amount of resources. Therefore they didn´t do it. That´s what the Ubisoft guy is saying as well.

Here are the relevant facts as I understand them:
- Ubisoft says that female characters are too much work. They never say how much work they consider too much.
- Cooper says that it will only take a few days.
- Ubisoft doesn't dispute the few days figure.

So either Cooper is wrong and Ubisoft hasn't come out to say so (Why ?) or Cooper is right and Ubisoft things that a few days is too much work for female characters.

So I've got one question for you. One I expect to get an answer of yes or no. Do you think it is acceptable for Ubisoft to decide that a few days work is too much work to make female co-op characters ?

[salm]

So I've got one question for you. One I expect to get an answer of yes or no. Do you think it is acceptable for Ubisoft to decide that a few days work is too much work to make female co-op characters ?

I think pretty much anything they decide is acceptable. I don´t care if there´s a female character in this game or not.

If I was responsible for producing it, though, I´d look at the numbers and check how many resources it would take. If the few days figure is correct, then I´d look at how many people will work on it for a few days (1 single guy or a team of 80? Something in between?) and if the few days gives me an adequat character and if the few days include everything from modelling to beta testing.
Then I´d check if the target audience wants a female character badly enough to justify the extra cost and then act accordingly.

[TheFeniX]

Well it´s the most obvious explanation that they didn´t do it because they didn´t thnk it was worth doing. I´ve been saying that all the time. They didn´t do it because they couldn´t create an acceptable character with an acceptable amount of resources. Therefore they didn´t do it. That´s what the Ubisoft guy is saying as well.

If Ubisoft can't devote resources to something this simple, that would add something to the game, then that's their problem. Many other developers (even Ubisoft themselves WRT Rainbow 6) do this without issue. I'd be surprised if there were any animation differences between a male and female PC in the R6 games (or most games that allow a male/female selection of protagonists). If there are, I doubt I'd notice it because I'm too busy shooting dudes and "not bad asshole, not bad."

If you don´t accept that female and male characters move differently enough to warrant changing the animation in a range of animations there´s nothing left to argue about. It´s logical that you come to the conclusion that it would take only a very short time.

I've played games with parity among 99% of the animations and it didn't bother me in the slightest unless the animation was bad to start with. Now, if I was playing something like The Sims or some type of dating simulator, that would be another story. But in a game about killing dudes, "kill dude animation #76" can almost always be used with both male and female models.

Apparently the Ubishoft guy who calls the shots believes that they move differently enough to make it necessary to change a lot of animations. Therefore it is logical to nix the character.

Well, he's an idiot, a liar, or just doesn't know any better. I'm betting on the later. This is the same kind of back and forth we saw from The Sims team where one person was saying there were too many gigaflops on the intertrodes to make the game offline whereas the guys actually making the game were saying it was built to do that from the start. I don't believe him, just as I didn't believe the morons at MS saying the Kinect was too integrated into the Xbone to be removed.

And this is my main beef: that Ubisoft said anything rather than "whoops." Instead they come up with some weak rationalization that is easy to spot as bullshit and boils down to "programming is haaard."

Imo it can be necessary. Women move visibly different and these differences can be important even if in some movements it´s only very nuanced. In this game I don´t find it very important but then I don´t even find it very important to be able to chose wich sex to play either.

Walking and running animations. Maybe dance animations. "Stabbin' dude from stealth" animations are not a big deal. The emphasis isn't on nuanced movement. It's on the stabbin.'

Personally I see no way to reach a good conclusion without knowing the workload. My point still is that the workload could be higher than many here expect.

Look at other developers that don't kick up a fuss about women and their lady parts and just do things. They don't cry about shit like hard work.

Not the game I was thinking of. I was thinking of Age of Conan.

I meant that SWTOR had issues because they tied actions to the animations. This lead to issues such as the (lack of) parity problems between the Trooper Mortar Volley and Bounty Hunter Death from Above. Even though they both had the same cast-timer, the BHs DFA started and executed faster, allowing you to interrupt it ~3/4 and still get all the damage out of it. The Trooper was not so lucky. It's a programming quirk no MMO developer should do, yet they still do it.

[salm]

There´s no use in discussing the simple/not simple argument anymore. Non of us will change their mind. Most of the rest is based on this single asumption.

As for the beef: I wouldn´t invest any kind of emotions into whatever nonsense some corporate dumb ass spouts this week.

Look at other developers that don't kick up a fuss about women and their lady parts and just do things. They don't cry about shit like hard work.

Features get droped all the time by every developer for every kind of product. Dropping features is an essential part of every development process. Just because some games come with a certain feature doesn´t mean that it´s not a feature widely dropped.

[Grumman]

So I've got one question for you. One I expect to get an answer of yes or no. Do you think it is acceptable for Ubisoft to decide that a few days work is too much work to make female co-op characters ?

No. If you're all playing as Arno in co-op and Ubisoft had decided to simply make four different skins for Arno for that purpose, that would make sense. I still wouldn't buy their game, but it would be marginally less insulting.

Apparently the Ubishoft guy who calls the shots believes that they move differently enough to make it necessary to change a lot of animations. Therefore it is logical to nix the character.

Well, he's an idiot, a liar, or just doesn't know any better. I'm betting on the later. This is the same kind of back and forth we saw from The Sims team where one person was saying there were too many gigaflops on the intertrodes to make the game offline whereas the guys actually making the game were saying it was built to do that from the start. I don't believe him, just as I didn't believe the morons at MS saying the Kinect was too integrated into the Xbone to be removed.

And this is my main beef: that Ubisoft said anything rather than "whoops." Instead they come up with some weak rationalization that is easy to spot as bullshit and boils down to "programming is haaard."

Speaking of The Sims, EA is pulling the same bullshit again with The Sims. This time they're trying to pretend that swimming pools - a feature that was in the original game fourteen years ago - will not be in the next Sims game on release.

[TheFeniX]

As for the beef: I wouldn´t invest any kind of emotions into whatever nonsense some corporate dumb ass spouts this week.

Corporate dumbasses are dictating where one of my only hobbies is going. So, I think it's legitimate beef. Gaming is going through a downhill slide as people with absolutely no knowledge about anything concerning the market are making all the decisions. We are just piling up the examples of people who literally run the fucking show not understanding the most basic concepts of their product.

Features get droped all the time by every developer for every kind of product. Dropping features is an essential part of every development process. Just because some games come with a certain feature doesn´t mean that it´s not a feature widely dropped.

No shit? Spore, KOTOR2, among innumerable other games have suffered from this. Sometimes for "good" reason such as Spore reaching for the stars and KOTOR2 getting jacked by just having way more content than their release schedule (the bane of good games) from LA would allow.

But that's not the point. A female model with mostly male animations would have worked just fine and would have been fairly simple to implement considering the benefits to not continuing to alienate an entire playerbase that wants to play as a female character. We're not talking about fully realized and developed female characters. We're talking about a model swap and grunt-sound swapping, something even the most amateur of modders can do. And since the whole point of the game is pretty much stabbing people, it's not like it would have cratered the immersion if there wasn't enough butt wiggling going on.

But even more so, it's really the level of bullshit on why it's not possible: "too much time," but I'm sure we'll have plenty of launch DLC they were willing to burn time on (or just pull out of the completed game like other so-called AAA developers do).

Speaking of The Sims, EA is pulling the same bullshit again with The Sims. This time they're trying to pretend that swimming pools - a feature that was in the original game fourteen years ago - will not be in the next Sims game on release.

That's.... fucking hilarious. I can see the aftermath a month or so later.

"Hey guys, theses stupid Sim fans are mad about Pools. Can we come up with something for that?"
"I coded that like a year ago when I was bored."
"Awesome, slap a $4.99 price tag on it and put it on Origin."

[salm]

It appears that Jonathan Cooper, the guy who said that implementing the character would take a day or two backpeddaled a day later saying:
"That said, character models, voice acting and the systems to switch them take more time."

His Twitter account

So it appears that he was of the impression that he´d be able to implement the characters animation in a day or two. Since that is only one part of it, even if he is right, the information is absolutely useless for evaluating the feasability of implementing this character.
We still don´t know how long character concept, modelling, sculpting, rigging, texturing, voicing, testing and polishing would take.
All of this is stuff you can not do parallel because every step of the pipe line requires the first one to be finished, so you can not simply throw money at it.

If you have a fixed shipping date I can easily see how this might be a reason to kill the characer.

And that is if the guy is indeed correct. Estimating development is incredibly difficult and from my experience most often the time required gets underestimated. And he isn´t even on the dev team, so it would be even harder for him to make a good estimation.

Correct me if I´m wrong but it seems like the last AC game he worked on was AC3 which came out two years ago for last gen platforms. The new game is for this gen platforms and customers expectations of graphical bling bling has gone up significantly. The new pipe lines might be a lot more complex than what he knows from the AC game he worked on.

Furthermore, judging by his twitter account he doesn´t particularly like his former employer.

Now, taking all this information doesn´t disprove that the animation (without the rest of the pipe line) could be done in two days but it does give me a reason not to give this guys words any weight. It looks increadibly a lot like he fired some shots without thinking the whole thing trough.

[bilateralrope]

Features get droped all the time by every developer for every kind of product. Dropping features is an essential part of every development process. Just because some games come with a certain feature doesn´t mean that it´s not a feature widely dropped.

The problem is that Ubisoft is willing to drop working features. Like the E3 graphics in Watch Dogs. Then spin some obvious bullshit about "possible impacts on visual fidelity, stability, performance and overall gameplay quality" to justify it. Not impacts they had seen, but possible ones.