I think that's a great idea, Echo!

As an aspiring mission designer myself, I too agree that only having bulky marines is greatly limiting my creativity. That's why I'd like to expand this ticket and ask not only to add women, but also children (naturally, of both sexes)! Now I know you probably don't have children serving in Swedish infantry, but you shouldn't be so narrow-minded and open up to the possibility of a campaign set in the Central African Republic, where the use of child soldiers was a common phenomenon among rebels as little as ten years ago! Not only does Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear series feature a main character who used to be a child soldier, thus making it an established and safe theme in the video game medium, but it is also important to remember that there are many more child soldiers in the world (approx. 300,000) than females in the Swedish infantry or, for that matter, female soldiers in all front line infantries put together. Clearly, anyone opposing the effort of adding child soldiers into ArmA III is not only an ageist, but also a downright racist, making me very glad and, dare I say, proud to have allies like Echo on my side.

Please also add the ability to make my character a little chubbier and shorter. Not all civilians look like 1980's action stars and there's really no need to indulge in this militant fat shaming propaganda.

Once and only once, ladies and gentlemen, BiS has integrated all these quintessential features should they proceed to work on the milsim aspects of the game! Thank you, DayZ, for setting this community on the one righteous path!

@MaJoR Mole:
What's wrong with the term "Western Soldiers", except the fact that "soldiers" is written in capital letters? In terms of equipment and logistics European and North American (along with Japanese and South Korean) armies are quite similar to each other, as opposed to, say, armies of developing nations like Namibia that can't afford to properly equip their troops.

Take it easy, dunadan, just give it a few months and it'll be back to its regular user base (I agree, now it is absolutely horrendous). The original Operation Flashpoint attracted a huge crowd, but only few people stuck to playing it past the release of Resistance.

As I've stated before, these are milsims, not RPGs where a big part of the game is customising your character's look, cloth, gender, race or what have you. I'd even go as far as to say that the whole faces feature that has been present since the beginning of time is fairly redundant. Hell, if we want to make a huge issue out of it, why can't I play an Asian character? Why are there a dozen Caucasian faces, but only three African ones? Where's the height slider? Added all that? Okay, now why can't I play a Hispanic? This sort of thing can go on forever to the point where we'll argue whether male or female has to be a binary choice or a slider (which would be a viable argument for something like a Bioware RPG, but a milsim?).

That being said, I think that raising this issue at a later point in game development wouldn't be a bad idea. Once the hype dies off, it is not the number one sold game on Steam and DayZ people leave for DayZ (yes, you, Breck), we could see whether the core audience actually wants this feature. If there is indeed a large enough group of dedicated players that has interest in this, hey, they've been playing ARMA, or maybe even Operation Flashpoint, for up to twelve years now. Another year is hardly a long time in this regard.

And to answer whoever said "This is a milsim, not the next instalment of Dragon Age." YEAH RIGHT BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW WOMEN ARE A THING OF FANTASY.

Seriously...

You mean female soldiers on the front lines? Not far from it.

Not that this makes OP's point any more invalid, but she is clearly exclusively a DayZ player. 228 in Arrowhead, no Arma 2 or any other pre-Arma 3 titles. Huge surprise.

I fully support the women in DayZ notion. This, however, is not DayZ.

Please no. This is a milsim, not the next instalment of Dragon Age. There are much more important features that could be added rather than this nonsense (like actual furniture in buildings).

I also see this as a balance issue. Women are generally smaller than men and, in a realistic game, would be represented as such. This will allow people to play slightly smaller targets without any accompanying penalties. If you adjusted for it by decreasing carrying capacity, running speed and bullet wound survivability, LadyBreckies and blogs like Kotaku would be all over ArmA, because *gasp* MISOGYNY and SEXISM.

This is indeed a problem. My headset also sometimes resets the connection between itself and the system once, leading to the sound dying completely until the game is restarted even after the connection with the headset is reestablished. This is particularly annoying when you're in a larger multiplayer OP or something like Wasteland when restarting your game is simply not an option.

Issue 16720 is related.