Is there a technical reason why?

[CursedSorcerer]

As you may know, it is currently possible to have playable male Blood Widows/Night Widows/Fortunatas and female Wolf Spiders/Crab Spiders/Bane Spiders. I have noticed for a long time that there aren't currently any NPC's of the same. Is there a technical reason for that or is it simply because the devs want to make male Blood Widows/Night Widows/Fortunatas and female Wolf Spiders/Crab Spiders/Bane Spiders rarely appear? Just curious.

[Greycat]

Well, lore wise there's apparently a difference - at least for the Bane Spiders, they get added to a sort of psychic network. Psionic females go to the Widows/Fortunatas.

 

And yes, that was set up before VEATs kind of tossed it out the window. So, right now it's just... "they haven't made any," I guess.

[CrudeVileTerror]

My understanding of it, based on information during the original City of Villains Beta and the concept art, at least for the Wolf Spiders it was always meant to be gender non-discriminatory.  But the character models for Arachnos NPCs took time and resources, so it was decided for an entirely development pipeline reason that they would just focus on the male Spiders.

While it's not hard to believe that the same could be true for the Widows/Fortunata, their names do suggest a certain gendered aspect.  All the same, it was clearly established with Villain Epics that yes; Arachnos is equal opportunity, and past references to gendered roles in the organization were either non-canon or simply no longer restricted.

 

I have LONG felt that we should have that representation show up in the NPCs as well, but it's still a matter of someone needing to do the work.  If Homecoming had taken a more open source approach to development, this would have been one of the first projects I would jump on.  Relatively low overhead, enriches the lore of the game, and demonstrates a willingness to be forward focused.

As it stands, though, the specific development methodologies of Homecoming are largely secret, and I don't think any of the existing Dev team have decided to take up the initiative on this project.

 

I'd support it wholesale, and would be willing to help, if possible.

[CursedSorcerer]

2 hours ago, Greycat said:

Well, lore wise there's apparently a difference - at least for the Bane Spiders, they get added to a sort of psychic network. Psionic females go to the Widows/Fortunatas.

 

And yes, that was set up before VEATs kind of tossed it out the window. So, right now it's just... "they haven't made any," I guess.

That makes sense.

[DZKFire]

I would guess because VEATs came in much later than the initial release of Arachnos and the VEAT trailer introduced a lot of new background for gender balance. 

 

Maybe Paragon Studios might have been working on new Arachnos enemies, just like they did with Skulls and Circle of Thorns. I recall before their reworks, most of the enemies were males. 

 

Also small plug in, waist cape for male widows pls 🙂

[Aberrant]

Took a quick pic of the Wolf Spider concept art @CrudeVileTerror mentioned, sorry for the quality, I'm a very bad photographer.

[CrudeVileTerror]

Thank you!   I've been looking for that for ages now!   Muchly appreciated, @Aberrant.

[PresidentDSG]

The technical reason they don't exist is because they were never programmed. Versions of all these characters in the genders they are not would have to be built from the ground up as new enemies and then added to the faction. I don't know if the game handles spawning rules differently than AE does, but it could even start throwing off Arachnos' balance if every male character now had a female character that could spawn to or whatever.

 

Creating these models for the new player character's avatar is one thing, but transitioning them to functioning enemies is another entirely.

And now my armchair dev talking: It would *absolutely* harm your ability to identify them quickly and efficiently. The different enemies have different shapes and silhouettes- You can tell at a glance that this is a wolf spider, this is a mu, this is a crab spider, etc, and in a faction like Arachnos it pays a lot to be able to immediately identify what you're fighting. Crabs are HUGE, banes have a particular bulk to them, etc. 

For a faction like the Skulls it's one thing, there's not a lot of visual noise there in the first place, but Arachnos is already a busy faction visually, with numerous different types of units all with their own specific visual flair, abilities, and combat role. Adding the fact that every unit now has multiple different body shapes it oculd appear in would just add to that noise in not necessarily a good way

[GraspingVileTerror]

Given how varied methodologies different players have, and given that visual "noise" is already an issue which has resulted in numerous alternative methods to compensate for, I think the hypothetical harm you're suggesting is something that would need to have large-scale testing to see how it shakes out.  See if there's a marked difference in the rate which people clear Arachnos, or even increased defeats as a result of a change on this scale.  Otherwise, it's fairly speculative.  This isn't TF2, after all, and even AFTER they made a point of how important their characters' silhouettes were, they went and changed them all with cosmetics anyway.  It only -enhanced- that game!

[Darmian]

Well, they COULD be integrated, just in newer upcoming material.  Ahem.  They're all off on those as yet unexplored southern islands in the Etoiles.  Oh yes.  They wave at you while you take the ferry.  You didn't see them?  Damn.  Next time.