![[de]](/mwf/flags/de.png "Germany")
This "customization" argument is amongst the dumbest I read in this thread. Why don't we introduce a wallpaper-chooser for the main menu then? I want it pink and gold checkered! Why? For customization! To boot, it "might attract more target groups too because I think girls would like that better." (that was an actual argument why female clonks would be great. Will girls play CS then if they add female characters?)- Only with the feature you guys are talking about its worse because at least nobody would be forced to see your pink-golden checkered wallpaper!
I think, if "female clonks" were introduced into clonk, more clonkers will actually be drawn away from clonk than winning over any new "target groups". Including me, actually. So, if we want to aim to alienate the confirmed clonkers - from who we can expect the most support in the next years - , this is the way to go. While switching to English was a foresighted decision, this is just senseless.
The clonk is for many a core element of clonk (haha, get it?) about which they can't and don't want to be rational. It seems almost perverse to... destroy the image of the clonk as being a manikin ("Männchen") like the Lemmings, the ZDF Mainzelmännchen or the Settlers . These manikins along with most other characters you play in video games (which are not roleplay games) are actually not really "genderless" in having no pipi-parts, but it's just something that is of no importance or anything anybody wants to think about - in the same way as small children are "genderless". The gender just is no topic, children are first of all just children. Clonks are first of all Clonks.
By the way: That I read about including "black clonks" in this topic makes me have the feeling that the whole thing drifted into some kind of tokenism discussion.
So much for my opinion. Now the whole "customization" thing from a more argumentative side:
Customization of the own character was and is a big thing in many games with roleplay-parts in it. This trend of being able to customize, train, name, dress your character(s) is a really old idea. And it turned out to be a major factor for letting the people keep playing the game. Practically every RPG has a lot of customization in it, in most you can freely define how he or she should look, what race, class larlarlar, etc etc he/she should be. There was a certain trend here. Over time, more and moer of these possibilities were added to the games, more and more games adorned themselves with these "RPG-elements" (or whatever you want to call it) even if they had nothing to do with RPG - just to make it more interesting.
Even clonk had at latest with Clonk 4 (and still has some) elements like this in it: You (as player) gain experience points and ranks, all your clonks gain ranks, learn important skills like climbing and hangling (till Clonk Endeavour), learn to hold the breath longer, to be stronger and you have different names for the clonks.
Problem: Clonk is not an RPG. Thats why all those RPG elements slowly vanished over time in the clonk titles since Clonk 4. As it turned out, Clonk is more about quick individual rounds. It is not some long adventure where you dress up and fiddle around with your clonk. Your clonk turned out to be nothing more than a crew member exactly like in your crew in a Worms title. He is just a manikin which you control. If he dies, doesn't matter because he is magically revived in the next round you play as if nothing happened. Have you ever experienced that in an RPG? No? Well thats because RPGs don't have "rounds" or "scenarios". Clonk on the other hand is based on that!
Now, all clonks can climb and hangle, the "fair crew" option arised, the player exp and rank is even more pointless than it was. When Clonk is an RPG, it is only an RPG inside one round (or scenario folder). So there, of course you might want to dress up, gear up, skill up your clonk but only in this round.
Travis tried to point this out and for me it's clear what he wanted to say. Why can't you dress up Super Mario? Why is there no black Super Mario, why can't you skill up, gear up, name your Super Mario? Because he is just this mascot, this tool Travis is talking about. It's not an RPG! And so is Clonk. Clonk is not defined by being a RPG - at least, it has other qualities, other even almost unique game principles. And we should focus on that instead of putting these customization elements into the game (again!) as the 1.000.000th game to do that.
And my guess is, that this whole trend of including "RPG elements"/customization in each and every game is currently reversing. Having a game with a new and interesting game principle gets to be more important. The celebrated (indie) games nowadays are NOT the games who distinguish themselves by having most customization options and RPG-elements but bringing in new fun gameplay.
I know that these are different issues. Customization/RPG elements != female clonks. But this was an argument for female clonks and the only "tiny bit of serious discussion about this" (including female clonks) as PeterW put it.
Good night.
![[ca]](/mwf/flags/ca.png "Canada")
Clonks are obviously the mascot of Clonk, as Mario is the mascot of Mario. However, since the very first Mario Bros. game, you were allowed to play as Mario or Luigi, and practically every game after that too. Especially in super Mario bros. 2, there was the option to play as mario, luigi, peach, or toad. The aim at this wasn't customization, and these games were certainly not RPGs; the difference between mario and luigi made the two player element much more distinguished. Player one played as Mario. Player two played as Luigi. It was obvious to tell whose turn it was, because the character's differences made the two distinguishable. Obviously the SMB2 four-character-selection wasn't used in the later games, because it was completely unnecessary.This reason of customization that stated was not intended as a suggestion to add RPG elements; it's just so that you can distinguish your clonks. Other player's clonks have nifty name boxes above their heads, but it can be a little confusing sorting out which Clonk of yours is which. The player could scroll through their Clonks to see which clonk is which, but should the player really have to press some buttons to find out who is who? In Clonk Rage, I remember turning one of my Clonks into a sorcerer just so I could quickly recognize him as the team leader. Even if you only have two Clonks, this can be helpful.
In games like lemmings or worms, it's unnecessary to recognize who is who. Lemmings are all automatons that are identified by what job they are fulfilling. Otherwise, they are just another part of the mindless mass. In worms, every single worm (for one player) has the exact same equipment. It doesn't matter who is who, because absolutely nothing differs between worms, except health, which is displayed readily above their heads.
The main reason team colours exist in Clonk? It's not about the "novelty of customization"; this customization is for recognition of which Clonks are yours, and which Clonks are theirs. The whole idea for customizing clonks (at least mine, anyways) is not about "I'm going to make a Sim that looks like me!", it is all about quickly recognizing which Clonk of yours is which.
I agree. With my sweeping blow aganst female clonks, I wrongly hit that topic too undifferentiated. The legitime reason to have these small differences in appearance is to have "individuals in a tribe of clones" (though I don't agree at all what ala said after that), with small but recognizable differences between the clonks. So NOT something, that might detest someone. (Why token clonks will detest people I already toroughly explained.)And actually, I didn't say anything about team colors. Of course there are there for recognition, in each and every RTS you have team colors.
> In Clonk Rage, I remember turning one of my Clonks into a sorcerer just so I could quickly recognize him as the team leader
> Lemmings are all automatons that are identified by what job they are fulfilling.
Randrian and Clonk-Karl are working on that what the clonk is holding in his hand is displayed on him. So if he selected a shovel, he will really carry a shovel over his shoulder, if he has a bow, he will have that ready etc. These items will also be displayed in the upper crew-selection bar (in the title images).
So the player will be able to clearly distinguish which clonk can fulfill which job.
The team colours argument I made was just an example of how 'customization' is used for recognition.>Randrian and Clonk-Karl are working on that what the clonk is holding in his hand is displayed on him. ... So the player will be able to clearly distinguish which clonk can fulfill which job.
Awesome! :D However, I must ask, what if your clonks aren't holding anything? I think there could be some distinguishing features that can't be changed during the game. Worms did this by showing your worm's names over their heads, though it was probably not necessary.
Heck, it could be possible to identify your clonks by making some graphic change per rank. I just thought gender/race differences would be a lot simpler to make, and more noticeable. I honestly don't care much about political correctness here. :/
I do not think it is tokenism at all to add the option or random choice of non-male, non-white characters. I do think that the default assumption of everything being white and male might rather be offputting to the majority of people who are not. It is easy for someone who actually is, presumably, white and male to not see an issue with this, but I am still surprised by the extent of your opposition to the idea.I can see where you are coming from and agree with substantial parts of your post and do not really care for the customisation aspect of the whole discussion either, but I still think that even something as ridiculous as tokenism would be a step in the right direction (without making an argument as to whether it is worth the effort).
... Are you serious? Clonks are not humans - there is not even the need to include "minorities". I won't even cater to talk about how many black people might be playing clonk and how much this would affect that after all they don't want to play anymore because they feel discriminated by all those white male clonks. So I should feel discriminated by clonks because they look more like dwarfs then normal-sized people while I am normal-sized?With your argumentation, you presume that there are clonks with different skin color, that there are women, that basically the clonks are just differently shaped humans - inheriting every aspect of at least male white humans! Asumed there are different "races" of clonks, who says that these clonks don't have heads like balloons, green skin or their lower part looking like a snail? Only because something looks roughly humanlike doesn't mean that we have to copy all human attributes to it.
>I am still surprised by the extent of your opposition to the idea.
I have to admit that I am still very unhappy with the current clonk model while lacking the skill to model something on my own. So I am dissappointed that effort is wasted on the creation of a ugly female clonk instead of improving/reinventing the current model.
But the main reason I stated above.
You can scratch up size differences to them being a cartoony representation of a human. But when your cartoony human-looking race is entirely white and male, you are obviously not representing minorities. Whether I want to make an argument about that being questionable or not, there are better counter-arguments than "these guys are not even human so I do not have to be politcally correct". Sure, you can make all your elves tall and blond and blue-eyed because they are not humans, and they can be shooting arrows at dark-skinned, hunched-over, savage orcs all day, and you might get out on a technicality, but that is still somewhat questionable.
Errrr....>But when your cartoony human-looking race is entirely white and male, you are obviously not representing minorities
Who says we want to do that? Why is it so important for you that a game represents minorities?! Have you heard anyone complaining about that the black population in Britain is underrepresentated in the Harry Potter books?? That Age of Mythology is missing the Native Americans?? Seriously!
And what has being "politcally correct" have to do with anything?! - including "minorities" in clonk? Since when does anyone has to include minorities as characters in a game to be politically correct? So, what the fuck, you say we need one nerd-clonk, one turkish-immigrant-clonk, one disabled-clonk, a jewclonk, at least one woman-clonk or what are you aiming at? That Tolkien is rascist because the orcs have black skin?
Anyway, this has really nothing to do with the original topic anymore. </Discussion>
Hey, Harry Potter has immigrants and everything, no hiding behind children's books there. But, fine, let us restrict this to the original topic: it also has female main characters!Tolkien is racist because the guys storming Minas Tirith were riding fantasy-elephants, if nothing else.
People so caught up with themselves in not being racist turn out to be just another racist themselves. Black people don't need any 'special treatment', and nor do women, because we are all equal humans.Why are Clonks white? Well, I suppose because the development team was white. It's not because they are all racists doing there best to exclude black people.
![[pl]](/mwf/flags/pl.png "Poland")
As I mentioned once clonks could have color other than white/black/yellow, in the end they are not humans, and since special types of clonks (like aquaclonks) are other colors we could make all clonks different color, like normal clonks are grey, aqua are blue, jungle/etc are greenish, fire-clonks would be red-ish, etc. this would not only allow to easily identify clonks, and would remove any further arguments for OC being racist, and IMHO would give the game nice little difference from CR and add a good 'taste', as clonk colors could vary a bit without making them look strange in comparision to 'normal' color clonks.
>Why are Clonks white?
Try Western and Far Worlds, all Clonks are still white?
By Anonymous ![[us]](/mwf/flags/us.png "United States")
Date 2010-01-25 20:17
Well, I never said all Clonks are white. I was just referring to the base "Clonk". In far worlds and western, there are very good reasons the Clonks are not white. Unless you have Metis in western pack, white Native Americans does not make much sense. I'd like to hear some good reasons, maybe other than recognition (or PC), why we should have other races in the base-game.
PS: This is Ringwaul from school. Stupid internet censoring.
PS: This is Ringwaul from school. Stupid internet censoring.
The Clonks live in a theme-tribed-world, their races (and looks) change with the theme. Basic theme means a basic Clonk, means basic look. For me that is the reason. If you want a black Clonk, make a theme, where the color is important, in the basic Clonk World it's not.
That sounds fair. However, on the main point of this topic, some people (I don't really know how many) still want female Clonks; and I don't think it makes much sense to have an entire culture/background about female clonks.
So, the only reason female clonks shouldn't be included is because the majority of us are male? That seems irrelevant, because the majority of this forum is German, yet it has been created in English. That turned out to be quite good luck for drawing me into development.
So you think there will be lots of females, just because there is a female Clonk? That's something different than English <-> German.
So far I've only seen one other western user on this site than myself (as I recall), and yet the forum was created in English. :/ Regretfully, I cannot speak German, so I am very appreciative of this choice. I am sure that it would also be a girl's preference to play as a girl.
Well, what should the clonk look like in your opinion, if you are not happy with the current clonk? I have tried to improve the clonk and have changes quite a lot. Well, I have to admit, that I only "changed" things, not made a completely new model.If you have a good new vision, of how the clonk should look like and can provide a sketch or something like that, I could have a try on it.
> This "customization" argument is amongst the dumbest I read in this thread.
Hey, you're calling my argument dumb? That's not really fair. All I'm saying is that players obviously care about it - so it's a good feature to think about. Look at CR's network community and their obsession with lobby icons. They are visible just there, yet there were people complaining that unregistered players also had access to this "feature". So we made it into an exclusive features for registered players.
Silly? Perhaps. Yet it's the pragmatic choice.
> the ZDF Mainzelmännchen
Bad example: The Mainzelmännchen do not all look the same. All of them have some different color scheme. Simply because they look more human this way.
> Clonk is not an RPG
That's shaky ground, historically. There have been RPGs in Clonk. And there will probably be RPGs in OpenClonk, too.
That aside: Even if Clonk isn't an RPG, why not learn from them? An old fried of mine - the one that introduced me to Clonk - said he disliked about the game how detached you feel from your Clonks. If one Clonk dies, you are one purchase away from a situation that's indistinguishable from the situation you started in. That's a pretty cold environment to get emotional about the game. And we want that - that's what games are about.
I do think that this discussion has become horribly side-tracked, but let's not dismiss the idea right away.
I always personalise my clonks, so my first clonk(leader) have got name, then there are A-01 and A-02, B-01 trough B-05 and then there are C-XX clonks, and I always feel attached to my leader and protect him the most, and I'd personally like to customise clonks.
When Super Mario dies, you absolutely don't care about it. That's what 50% of the games are about, like Clonk.
That's because it's always meant to be the very same mario. If you code a respawn mechanism, you'd also use the proper scripting to make the same Clonk reappear.
When there are more Clonks involved, on the other hand, it's not really intuitive to have them all look like copies of the first. Consider again Mario: the multiplayer games don't have the players play a few slightly color-coded marios, but instead Luigi or Bowser or whatever. And you bet players will have preferences.
When there are more Clonks involved, on the other hand, it's not really intuitive to have them all look like copies of the first. Consider again Mario: the multiplayer games don't have the players play a few slightly color-coded marios, but instead Luigi or Bowser or whatever. And you bet players will have preferences.
This feature could be just important in the very few extreme long settlement rounds. Normally in base-melees I just prefer my first Clonk for revaluation because of the group controls and nothing else (then I know that I can move the group and still can do spells). There is absolutely no other reason (such as identifcation could be) since there is a name above the Clonk.
In a normal deathmatch kind'a melee nobody cares at all!
So, it would end up like an unnecessary feature, even though I still think some characteristics on the Clonks could be different, by random of course (One Clonk wears suspenders, one is bald^^, one has a beard, one is fat and another thinner...and one looks like super mario).
In a normal deathmatch kind'a melee nobody cares at all!
So, it would end up like an unnecessary feature, even though I still think some characteristics on the Clonks could be different, by random of course (One Clonk wears suspenders, one is bald^^, one has a beard, one is fat and another thinner...and one looks like super mario).
>There is absolutely no other reason (such as identifcation could be) since there is a name above the Clonk.
Can't you only see names of enemy clonks (above their heads)?
>even though I still think some characteristics on the Clonks could be different, by random of course
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