It’s sounds really cool I like how the person live and live forever
Finished the prologue! Now to get some feedback on it and work on Ch.1…
Well my vote certainly is to have the option to be female
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I really think that an option to play as a woman would be valuable. Just take a peak at this thread, I do wonder how many ladies play gender CSG to see that many women will be turned off of reading your work if you lock it, and even some men will be less likely to read it.
Where it comes to writing a woman’s perspective, well, first I’d say that as long as you don’t rely on stereotypes, it’s not something you need to feel unable to do; women aren’t aliens. Just make sure to write a woman as a particular character, rather than an embodiment of womankind.
That said, I’d secondly like to note that writing an interactive story makes this a whole lot easier for you. Someone playing a woman can decide what being a woman means to their character.
Now, being as you have a Chinese cultural theme, you would have to consider whether you are writing with the kind of patriarchal society which China historically has had, or whether your setting is more egalitarian. The former would involve more work at differentiating the playthroughs, but could be worthwhile if you want to stick closer to the historical model. (And even with a patriarchal society, there were women who achieved great things in Chinese history.) Another alternative could be something like Choice of Broadsides, where the whole culture flips with the player character. This could also involve more coding.
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cliffhanger word I type many today 
Honestly I said more interesting game would be getting a historical setting with two different genders of course it’d be a hell of a lot more writing on your part they would be two distinctly different perspectives and if you are playing as an ageless immortal. And that you can always look at the the doaist perspective of immorality. I would say go for the historical ibecause it could make your character even more interest.
If one be wanting a female Empress Regent, considering the lives of the English Matilda and the Chinese Wu Zetian might be good inspiration for a writer.
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Interesting, it seems xianxia has made its way to choice of games…
What you are describing are nationalities/cultures. While there are certainly genetic adaptations among people in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Americas I’m not sure “race” is the right label for them.
Also I’m strongly against gender locking.
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[quote=“57Faults, post:27, topic:22508”]
Wu Zetian
[/quote] the thing about her is we don’t know how much is true and how much is fiction because her contemporaries absolutely despise her. So I’ll give her the past on the mediation and torture of her rivals and the possibly killing her infant daughter because that may have been a freak accident. But she had no problem killing her son’s if they proven themselves to be too independent. I mean at the same time she was great for the populace but if you were in the official class it was the 8 Century equivalent of living under Stalin the closer I got to her the more chance of you have of dying. I do find it funny though that she started openly having a harm time and lovers when she was in her sixties versus the entire time up to that point. She made one of them Abbot of the holiest monasteries in the Empire so she could have a reason for him being close to her. It’s like the Queen of England making a merchant that she has the hots for the Archbishop of Canterbury.
General lock can be great if it’s done well! If you’re doing historical setting depending on the area the gender perspective would be incredibly different which if the writer up to it can make excellent storyteller but it’s taxing but much more rewarding. Examples of methods and way Empress Wu who took power. Was only done by women or Emperor’s that had mothers like Wu to take the power back.
@Lizzy Alright then, I’ll make the option to play as a woman. Hopefully I can do this well.
@LordOfLA Oops, you’re right I was thinking of ethnicity.
@childofgod 
Your name sounds like it came from a xianxia itself. Plus I don’t see much games focusing on Chinese fantasy so I wanted to give it a try and see if people here are interested.
@Rogar Hell of a lot more writing and putting myself in her shoes. Going to have to think of some things
@Vattena Thanks for supporting me. I’ll try not to end it on a cliffhanger again (no promises).
Going to update a few things later today.
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Gender lock is unnecessary these days. Artistic license can be used to bend things as necessary.
I increasingly view gender locking to be lazy whether the developer be a AAA publisher team or a solo gig.
That said developers are free to do as they wish so long as they understand that gender locking will diminish their potential customer base.
Tell that to @Cataphrak and @Goshman @jeantown it’s a tool my friend. It’s not lazy lazy writing, making both perspectives same or just doing a gender swap is lazy writing.
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In an equal society, making gender views the same and using pronoun swaps for the MC is not lazy; it’s logical. The only difference is sexism (and a little bit of biology), and if sexism was fun, there wouldn’t be feminism and women’s rights.
Historical based games have to deal with sexism and ridged gender roles, so it may not be easy to do a pronoun switch and have a logical story without handwavy magic. I don’t think historical gender locking is lazy (it’s hard to complete one game, let alone two), but @LordOfLA has a point that it will decrease the potential customer base.
[quote=“Sovereign2Lilith, post:35, topic:22508”]
In an equal society, making gender views the same and using pronoun swaps for the MC is not lazy; it’s logical.
[/quote/]
The game of historical setting or wants to be inspired and uses the flaws of historical setting as part of the inspiration. Then gender locking on making the gender perspectives different it’s going to make it hard to the right but the more interesting game. Example of a game about the mob in the 1920s will have a very different point of view for a man and or woman.
Cataphrak has already mentioned in another thread regarding gender locking he’s happy to take the reduced customer base. Jeantown’s Guenevere is retelling a British Legend from an alternative point of view - I’m not as against gender locking to female as there are very few games of any type (though increasing with time) with female leads.
Computer games of all shapes and sizes have been predominantly fronted by a male main character since the 80’s - it’s high time we got over ourselves and accepted that “default male” and more so “default straight white male” is a poor choice of lead character for modern games. Falling back on those two options is most definitely lazy.
There are many CoG/Hosted games that excel with the male/female options and a wide selection of sexual preferences - many from solo developers. Bioware is an example of a AAA developer showing that those sorts of games can be inclusive of both genders and a limited range of sexual preferences and most recently Dishonored 2 allows for male/female main character and has nods to non-straight preferences.
I understand historical gender locking ,even though I don’t particularly like historical games. But, when fantasy creatures and immortality (and other such things that didn’t actually exist in history) are included in a game, some people may wonder why certain things are included and others are not.
I wouldn’t play a male locked game because it doesn’t represent me, but I’d at least try the demo of a historical game that made me female in the role of a male, before deciding if I like it or not.
Whatever the author wants to do regarding gender is fine, but this is their first WIP (WIPs usually have a high mortality rate) and I don’t think it’s good to be too over ambitious or burn out from trying to make two different stories at once when gender flipping ,while imperfect, could at least make a game more appealing to people.
That still a double standard you got going here. And I’m aware of How It’s heavily male-dominated. But the same time too you learn to enjoy meeting regardless of who the gender is if it’s film books or movies and games included. Also he wants to make this game about historical oldest Chinese setting sadly one of the aspects of China is it’s more patriarchal view point. There’s a reason the last Empress of the Ming current straight rule out right. You know where the Viewpoint comes from Confucianism. You cannot divorce that from trying to help even that Chinese inspired setting it’s one of the pillars of legitimacy for the emperor. The only way for China itself to start to break that there would need to be before five generations of Empress Wu like figures to take power openly until it socially acceptable. Very few people that type of personality intelligence cunning and ambition come along that often.
Minor update as I had to find out how to work with gender and names so no update in story today! Female edits to the story will be done tomorrow after I figure out what I should do with them!
I’m still conflicted between making a Chinese or English story, so I decided to upload both and let you guys decide.
A Chinese story is hard to make as I want to stick as close as possible to Chinese customs, certain religions, backgrounds and even names! Most names in Chinese are meant to sound nice or represent something like Plum Peach Blossom can become a name and that DOES require understanding of Chinese names.
Should I add the ability to customize your appearance? I won’t make it a big part of the story or a big list of customization as I’m still new to choice script, but I’ll add it in if people are interested.
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