NPC Crew Gender / Skill Level update - No bias found
- Thread starter Susanna
- Start date
- Status
Susana, I suspect that the reason you got so much kickback on the other thread is exactly because of what we've experienced over the last few decades. Time after time someone makes an apparently innocuous observation, it's taken up by a large number of people in unison and changes are demanded. All totally innocent, of course, no hidden agenda or confirmation bias involved. 
Because the political faction that must not be named has managed to convince all and sundry that they represent equality the observation and the demand for change is automatically morally superior to any arguments based on facts, research or anything that might run the risk of upsetting the loud harridans fearless champions of Truth demanding change.
It's not personal. Gender politics has been a one way battle for decades. Your side won because there was never an opposing one. There still isn't. But long and bitter experience has taught people who don't subscribe to your particular world view to be be very suspicious of anyone 'just' noticing gender bias.
Of course, I also suspect that none of this is news to you and the other thread had nothing to do with Frontier's programming. If that's true, then o7 Commander, GG. 10/10 for trolling and another 10/10 for getting those who disagree with your views on gender politics to publicly identify themselves. Well played...
Because the political faction that must not be named has managed to convince all and sundry that they represent equality the observation and the demand for change is automatically morally superior to any arguments based on facts, research or anything that might run the risk of upsetting the loud It's not personal. Gender politics has been a one way battle for decades. Your side won because there was never an opposing one. There still isn't. But long and bitter experience has taught people who don't subscribe to your particular world view to be be very suspicious of anyone 'just' noticing gender bias.
Of course, I also suspect that none of this is news to you and the other thread had nothing to do with Frontier's programming. If that's true, then o7 Commander, GG. 10/10 for trolling and another 10/10 for getting those who disagree with your views on gender politics to publicly identify themselves.
Well played...
The ultimate rule: YMMV.
Politics correctness died out in the Early 21st Century. There is no gender bias with NPC crew members.
This is the danger of statistics, particularly with a very small sample size; and if you go into a scenario with an assumption. It's extremely easy to get stats to say anything, and to support an argument (even if well intentioned, which I think it probably was).
I tend to think the "assumed guilt" and fairly strong verbiage probably didn't help. It was a surprise to me that a procedural system would be that biased, though, at the time. Frontier are almost too reliant on the procedural mechanics they've built (it does amazing things, granted) so statistically speaking, it would take quite a huge sample size to potentially spot unusual outcomes.
The reality is, within the gaming industry (like anywhere else) non-male, non-hetero has been very under-represented. Partly due to a lack of consideration, and partly due to historical behaviours. Frontier has never struck me as either of those, though it was always possible; but the fact this is a reset and new take on a franchise, and not a continuation means this is a much lower risk.
Frankly if the procedural system is actually performing based on a set of consistent rules, and those rules don't have a set of bias per-se; then it's actually going to be way way less biased than hand-coded, because the system processing algorithms doesn't care, won't care and isn't capable of even trying to. Programmers, however can and sometimes do.
This is a roundabout way of saying procedural systems aren't all bad, and the ability to represent a variety of outcomes is actually one of the best aspects; that and it has no internal stake on boys being better or some sort of desire to conform to a group hot-take, or any of the other assumed knowledge people might be carrying about.
Thanks for the update, OP.
I tend to think the "assumed guilt" and fairly strong verbiage probably didn't help. It was a surprise to me that a procedural system would be that biased, though, at the time. Frontier are almost too reliant on the procedural mechanics they've built (it does amazing things, granted) so statistically speaking, it would take quite a huge sample size to potentially spot unusual outcomes.
The reality is, within the gaming industry (like anywhere else) non-male, non-hetero has been very under-represented. Partly due to a lack of consideration, and partly due to historical behaviours. Frontier has never struck me as either of those, though it was always possible; but the fact this is a reset and new take on a franchise, and not a continuation means this is a much lower risk.
Frankly if the procedural system is actually performing based on a set of consistent rules, and those rules don't have a set of bias per-se; then it's actually going to be way way less biased than hand-coded, because the system processing algorithms doesn't care, won't care and isn't capable of even trying to. Programmers, however can and sometimes do.
This is a roundabout way of saying procedural systems aren't all bad, and the ability to represent a variety of outcomes is actually one of the best aspects; that and it has no internal stake on boys being better or some sort of desire to conform to a group hot-take, or any of the other assumed knowledge people might be carrying about.
Thanks for the update, OP.
Last edited:
Well, in my country's 21st Century armed forces, people say "sir" to male superior officers and "ma'am" to female superior officers.
Up till now (male bias acknowledged) the fact that my SLF pilots call me "sir" hasn't struck me as odd, but now it will.
How about it, FD? There is already something in the options menu - I can't quite remember exactly where - which allows you to specify your commander's gender. Why not change the script for the voice actors accordingly?
Up till now (male bias acknowledged) the fact that my SLF pilots call me "sir" hasn't struck me as odd, but now it will.
How about it, FD? There is already something in the options menu - I can't quite remember exactly where - which allows you to specify your commander's gender. Why not change the script for the voice actors accordingly?
Last edited:
In the Star Trek Universe all superiors are referred to as "Sir." Nuff said
![[VR] Goooost](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/111/111637.jpg?1589354934){kind=avatar}
It was silly for you to even think that there might have been a bias. Nobody in their right mind would go through the trouble of hard coding a bias into the game. If there was any, it would simply be how the NPC dialogue affected your ability to get in the zone and play better- Nothing more. The data shows that you usually play better while hearing male voice patterns. So if you really want to rerun your tests, I suggest you do it with the volume off.
I'm hesitant to get involved in this thread as I can see it being locked again as people are clearly passionate on the subject.
All I will say is that while all the progress we've made has been great, we still don't have 100% equality between genders. The people who are so eager to dismiss this topic as nonsense and shut down the conversation should try to remember that.
All I will say is that while all the progress we've made has been great, we still don't have 100% equality between genders. The people who are so eager to dismiss this topic as nonsense and shut down the conversation should try to remember that.
Last edited:
Thanks Susanna. We appreciate the update. Good on you for persevering through this.
I'm pleased that Susanna's current results show no bias. And good on Ed for informing us early that coding is intentionally gender neutral between men and women. A bias would be an error in coding, which implies they would correct it.
It is worth noting however that Frontier was willing to allow community members to deride Susanna's very interest in the topic based via overty hostile and sexist remarks. It then censored the last thread when several of us jumped to her defense and the importance of keeping an open mind about such matters.
Let's hope we don't have the wave of bad behavior from some that characterized the last thread, or Frontier's effort to censor in this thread.
I'm pleased that Susanna's current results show no bias. And good on Ed for informing us early that coding is intentionally gender neutral between men and women. A bias would be an error in coding, which implies they would correct it.
It is worth noting however that Frontier was willing to allow community members to deride Susanna's very interest in the topic based via overty hostile and sexist remarks. It then censored the last thread when several of us jumped to her defense and the importance of keeping an open mind about such matters.
Let's hope we don't have the wave of bad behavior from some that characterized the last thread, or Frontier's effort to censor in this thread.
Last edited:
I've noticed how quite a few people get real touchy when the existence of sexism or racism is hinted at. "Go away! It isnt true! You're just stirring up trouble! You have an agenda! Whatever we're doing is a tradition!". Rarely an actual argument is presented against whatever is being said. It basically just keeps boiling down to:"Go away, I like how stuff is now!"
In this case: Sorry for not getting back to you sooner Susanna, but I am quite sure you forgot to check the assumptions required for doing an ANOVA. Your groups here is 'skill', at five different levels. Your dependent variable is 'sex', at two values. You need a continuous dependent variable for ANOVA, whereas it is categorical here. If you want to use ANOVA: use 'sex' as category, 'skill' as a continuous variable and throw all participants in one pool rather than separating per rank. Which would still be somewhat... unconventional but hey.
I've noticed how quite a few people get real touchy when the existence of sexism or racism is hinted at. "Go away! It isnt true! You're just stirring up trouble! You have an agenda! Whatever we're doing is a tradition!". Rarely an actual argument is presented against whatever is being said. It basically just keeps boiling down to:"Go away, I like how stuff is now!"
In this case: Sorry for not getting back to you sooner Susanna, but I am quite sure you forgot to check the assumptions required for doing an ANOVA. Your groups here is 'skill', at five different levels. Your dependent variable is 'sex', at two values. You need a continuous dependent variable for ANOVA, whereas it is categorical here. If you want to use ANOVA: use 'sex' as category, 'skill' as a continuous variable and throw all participants in one pool rather than separating per rank. Which would still be somewhat... unconventional but hey.
the reason people get tend to be initially suspicious is because recently there has been a small, but vocal, group of SJW types shouting racism and sexism at everything. Most of the time it only exists in their heads. This is a shame because it causes people to be initially skeptical when real cases of sexism and racism arise. It's like the boy who cried wolf. These people are doing a disservice to true victims.
It's amazing, no gender gap for pixels, who knew?
Though, now it does appear to be categorically proven so I suppose that's a pretty cool time filler for those long journeys.
Though, now it does appear to be categorically proven so I suppose that's a pretty cool time filler for those long journeys.
Last edited:
Well, not quite all.
"It's not crunch time yet, Mr. Kim. I'll let you know when."
Equality of opportunity is desirable.
Equality of outcome is undesirable.
One represents freedom, the other tyranny.
Choose wisely as the consequences will roll on for eternity...
Good on the OP for having the integrity to update this. [up]
It would have been easy to treat the previous topic as a "thread bomb" and then just slope away thinking "My work here is done!"
Also, to all the people who's saying "Y'see, this is all in your head and you were just displaying a toxic ideology", I gotta say that I didn't get that from the previous thread at all.
To me, it just seemed like the OP had noticed a trend and was trying to discuss it objectively.
Sometimes the RNG is weird like that, I guess.
More subjectively, I wonder why it seems to be easier for the game to generate human-looking male characters than female?
Seems like most of the male characters look fairly normal whereas normal-looking female characters are rare as hen's teeth.
It would have been easy to treat the previous topic as a "thread bomb" and then just slope away thinking "My work here is done!"
Also, to all the people who's saying "Y'see, this is all in your head and you were just displaying a toxic ideology", I gotta say that I didn't get that from the previous thread at all.
To me, it just seemed like the OP had noticed a trend and was trying to discuss it objectively.
Sometimes the RNG is weird like that, I guess.
More subjectively, I wonder why it seems to be easier for the game to generate human-looking male characters than female?
Seems like most of the male characters look fairly normal whereas normal-looking female characters are rare as hen's teeth.
Honestly, I dont care too much about such things. If someone is wrong, use arguments to demonstrate it when it is important. I am fine with people being either skeptical, critical or indifferent. It is the mindless rage that is irritating.
Honestly, I dont care too much about such things. If someone is wrong, use arguments to demonstrate it when it is important. I am fine with people being either skeptical, critical or indifferent. It is the mindless rage that is irritating.
I totally agree.
- Status