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Is P101 discriminating?

AuthorMessage
Ensign
Jun 29, 2009
36
I recently read a topic that said a ladies daughter wanted more feminene companions, I thought to myself a little bit, and I came up with the thought that Pirate101 is discrimating against women? is this true, I talked to some people about and they said that there is 3 possible answers. 1 P101 mistaningly left out women companions, 2 This is specificly targeted at a male age, or 3 P101 are delibratly discriminating, Is this true????

Admiral
Jul 27, 2012
1196
No, I am sure Pirate101 is not discriminating -- indeed, that is a major reason I play P101 and W101; your characters are all treated equally, whether you are a girl or a boy. There's none of 'girls get advantages to be long range and disadvantages if short range fighters'. True, early on some of the NPCs refer to you as 'he' or 'a man of business' (I playfully assumed that since the NPC is usually of a different species, they can't tell the difference between male and female humans ), but clearly the P101 team has become more sensitive to this, and so even though it requires a new set of scripts (more work for them) you get people like Ulysses praising you using feminine pronouns (note to Blind Mew: I really appreciated that).

P101 is set in a parody of the historical time of the age of Pirates (late 16th - early 19th C.) -- one reason I like P101 so much as I am very fond of the real time period-- so males tend to have more prominent active roles in society, just like the historical period in question. Of course we women have always been there, but the historical record often treats us invisibly, unless women are strongly politically connected or outrageously flaunt convention (like female pirates. But there are others like Lady Mary Montague, Maria Sybilla Merian, Laura Bassi, ect. that did remarkable work in their own time period, and the latter two were especially highly respected) There usually has been an effort in P101 to have the player in interact with female NPCs, though female Bison -fighting or not- in Cool Ranch, and fighting nuns in MooShu would have been great. But in Marleybone and Aquila, the gender balance is much better (and I really liked children being visible in Marleybone), and the player gets at least two truly excellent female companions, as well as fighting against some female adversaries. The P101 team clearly is working to make historic-ish females more visible in the game.
Virtuous Anne Radcliffe

Lieutenant
Oct 01, 2010
103
No not at all. Pirate101 has recently been adding more female companions and enemies to the game. Yes, Pirate101 may have forgotten to add a good amount of female companions before the update, but to be fair female warriors weren't a common thing in the past. They exist, but you would more likely end up meeting a male warrior. Pirate101 is a family game. That means from girls to grandpas.

Ensign
Dec 22, 2008
24
Yumdrinker101 on Jul 6, 2013 wrote:
I recently read a topic that said a ladies daughter wanted more feminene companions, I thought to myself a little bit, and I came up with the thought that Pirate101 is discrimating against women? is this true, I talked to some people about and they said that there is 3 possible answers. 1 P101 mistaningly left out women companions, 2 This is specificly targeted at a male age, or 3 P101 are delibratly discriminating, Is this true????
Pirate101 is a family friendly game, why would they try and ruin that with this so called "discriminating". and what exactly do you mean by "specificly targeted at a male age"?

Ensign
Apr 21, 2009
25
The answer is no they are not. There was an imbalance at release but I do not believe it was intentional. The last two major updates introduced many new female companion options. The game developers are listening and are working hard for a balanced and fun experience for all ages and genders. I truly believe that.

Quiet Robert - 65 Privateer.

First Mate
Dec 12, 2011
422
You don't much on the pirate's history, do ya? Pirate's 101 is in no way discriminating against women (if they were, they'd be no female option in Character's Creation and Bonnie wouldn't be one of the best companions in the whole game!).

Pirate's 101 is basing their game around the history of real pirates (Bonnie and Subodai being examples). That being said, there weren't many female pirates in history. Women just weren't fighters back then, nor were they treated equality as ones. That's what makes pirates like Bonnie Anne, Gracie Conrad, and Sarah Steel so amazing (and they are). If Pirate's 101 was discriminating against women, they'd be no female pirates to begin with. No female companions and the only time you'd see a girl would be if she was in the house taking care of her children. I'm sure it was no mistake that there were few female companions in the game, because they're few to find in history. Sure, they can make some up (i'm sure a few companions in general were), but this game is trying their best not to. I'm sure we'll run into more female companions in the future, but just don't ask KI to make 20 of them up in the next world just to keep things balanced (cause they really shouldn't be).

I much rather have a few female companions that are epic and I love than to have two or three pages of worthless ones. Most the girls I have on my crew are epic and I'm a Swashbuckler (they get the most female companions, just so you know). The only one who isn't, in my opinion, is Nurse Quinn.

(PS: I'm a girl as well, so I guess that counts as another girl on me crew)

Pirate Overlord
Mar 10, 2009
6204
I do not feel they are discriminating, in a bad way, at all. It is just that pirates are a type of warrior and in most pirate stories and societies warriors are generally male. There are exceptions to the rule and they are reflected in the lore and here in Pirates 101. Mostly male but there are female ones and they are just as effective as the male ones. The balance seems fine with me, I enjoy both types of pirate and I do not feel that KingsIsle is picking on any particular gender.

Admiral
Oct 27, 2009
1439
There are female companions. The first is Bonnie the second companion you get, and a very good one. The others are in later worlds. Perhaps part of the problem is that there is a large gap between the first and the second female crew you get. Also, not every class gets those companions. Nurse Quinn, Calamity Jane, and Mustang Sally are in Cool Ranch. Shiroku Neku, the cat ninja, is in the later part of Mooshu. Grace Conrad is in Marleybone. There is an archer in Aquila. The girls are outnumbered. I'm thinking this is more of an unintentional thing. Given how cool people think some of these crew are, and the strong powers some of them have, I think they are trying to write good characters that seem to fit the settings. I think the crew members that the programmers and writers get excited about turn out better, like Bonnie and Mustang Sally. Some, like the male crab witchdoctor and female Nurse Quinn seem more like an afterthought. Nurse Quinn, a witchdoctor with no witchdoctor attacks and only a privateer heal, really? Why not just call her a privateer? Apologies if I level her up in Marleybone or Aquila and she turns out to have a witchdoctor attack finally.

Ensign
Jun 23, 2013
5
Could be they just didn't add a ton of female companions because it didn't occur to them. Implying that they're discriminating (which implies that they aren't providing equal opportunities which in turn has nothing to do with this) is a bit on the strong side methinks.

Plus after that topic they've made a point of adding more female companions so I would say that much like the skyways of cool ranch, the argument holds little to no water.

Lieutenant
Dec 19, 2012
173
Yumdrinker101 on Jul 6, 2013 wrote:
I recently read a topic that said a ladies daughter wanted more feminene companions, I thought to myself a little bit, and I came up with the thought that Pirate101 is discrimating against women? is this true, I talked to some people about and they said that there is 3 possible answers. 1 P101 mistaningly left out women companions, 2 This is specificly targeted at a male age, or 3 P101 are delibratly discriminating, Is this true????
in all fairness in real life there wasn't alot of female pirates.

KI has already places the most known of female pirates in anne bonney(bonnie anne) and mary read(mary reed) and Grace O'Malley(Gráinne Ní Mháille) i might have missed one or 2 but these 3 i know of.

Roughly around 34 known female pirates,compare that to male pirates and thats a small number.It was just how it was in that time not alot of females liked all the fighting plus when piracy first started females wasn't allowed to sail in battle.

I can understand people wanting more female companions but i can also understand KI trying to figure out when to place them in and not mess with the theme of pirate101. I wouldn't want loads of female companions in that make no sense to pirates. A few sure i can handle that but tons no thanks

Ensign
Apr 10, 2009
49
I think it may be theory 3. Remember that Kingsisle's trying to target a more adult crowd so therefore they had to go into much deeper detail about the time periods they're referencing. Since women played a more minor role during that timespan (From ancient times to early 20th century) we get fewer strong female characters.

Ensign
Jun 29, 2009
36
Thanks to all that have posted, just after that I had thought that they maybe discriminating, but now I see otherwise -Thanks!

Pirate Overlord
Mar 10, 2009
6204
Yumdrinker101 on Jul 10, 2013 wrote:
Thanks to all that have posted, just after that I had thought that they maybe discriminating, but now I see otherwise -Thanks!
The power of the post Woot woot.