238: Stripping Down the Nude Mod

[dead_rebel]

I don't see the objection you see to oogling your own character. I know that in a game where you design a character, I tend towards going for a girl avatar since I'll be stuck with her in a game for presumably hours. What better way to spend it than oggle-ing.

 

[commasplice]

Oh man, The Sims. I remember back in the day when I was 11 or 12 and I used to play the shit out of that game. Even at that age, I wondered what the point of showing the characters fooling around in the bed or in the hot tub was if they were unwilling to go that extra mile. I mean, it's one thing to try and keep a somewhat kid-friendly rating, but if you're putting sexual content like that in there to begin with, it just seems kind of silly to try and pretend to be a saint about it and, at least in The Sims, it just comes across as goofy and awkward.

Then again, I'm vehemently anti-censorship. It strikes me as just...hypocritical to write a nude scene or profanity into a story, then, in hindsight, add in a few bleeps and blurs on the off-chance that a child could be watching. Anyone young enough not to understand what is going on behind the mosaic isn't the target audience and shouldn't have been watching to begin with. Okay, yeah, I agree that it's not okay for an 8 year-old to be commenting to his teacher about how the women in the commercial for Spring Break Boobie Bonanza must be cold since they never wear shirts, but where the hell were his overly concerned parents when he was watching Comedy Central at 4 AM in the first place?

As for ogling player avatars and such, I can see how some people would find it weird if they thought of the character as an extension of themselves, but not everyone sees it that way. If I'm given the choice of playing a male or female character in a game, I tend to go with female. I get asked whether I'm gay or wish I'd been born a girl all the time, but I'm not and I don't. Part of the reason I go with girls is because the ladies are typically faster in fighting games and sometimes the reason is simply because the option was presented to me. However, when it comes to MMOs or other games where I'm likely to be staring at the same character for 100+ hours, the reason is simply because I'd rather spend that time looking at a girl than a guy.

Incidentally, the first time I ever saw pornography, it was because I mistyped the URL for a website dedicated to (non-nude) custom skins for The Sims.

 

[Jovlo]

Did you know there's even a patch for Dragon Age: Origins that makes the ogres anatomically correct?
Perfect if you've always wanted to slay giants with huge throbbing erections...
Bleh...

 

[DoW Lowen]

I'm surprised to see the lack of mention of the Dragon Age: Origins. I know this article was mainly discussing nudity in games where the clothes aren?t kept on 100% of the time, however games such as Dragon Age reflect nudity and sex in a different light to say Tomb Raider.

The developers had made a conscious decision to de-eroticise the game, and yet on the Bioware forums the most popular and endorsed user created files are often those involving improved sex scenes that depict oral sex, nude patches and quite humorous if not well made strap-on dildos for females.

It is interesting to note that user created patches such as these are not paid for. The user in most circumstances remains anonymous existing only through their pseudonym. And yet with unfaltering dedication they continue to dish out these patches for communities to enjoy. Requests are often granted as well with no ask for payment beyond recognition. It could be considered altruism.

I myself in the past month have been quite obsessive with the nude and sex mods within Dragon Age. I wouldn't say that I do it for erotic purposes, high speed internet and access to porn themed youtube sites easily satisfies that particular animal instinct. However in my games I use them for the same reason I use patches that had increased penalties to injuries, or increasing the weight of my heavy armour or allowing my characters to bash open locks rather than needing a pick locking skill.

Because it makes sense. As you put it so well ?All this time they were naked under those clothes?.

I know sex well enough that I don?t keep bras and panties on and embrace by the fire side for 15 seconds just as I know that if I can?t pick open a lock I?m going to break the door down with a battle axe.

The paradox of gaming is that we recognize our detachment of gaming to reality, yet we often wish for the game to be as realistic as possible. (Apparently G cup breast are realistic in Japan).

 

[Sully173]

there's already a nude mod for tetris, it's called sextris

 

[wildcard9]

Well, I might as well make a confession....

I'm running the "revealing vanquisher mod" on Torchlight. The mod, obviously, converts all of the vanquisher's(or as Yahtzee called her, "the titties") armor into skimpy see-thru outfits that reveal her breasts. Not too much detail, though...Ah well, you can't win 'em every time.

Why did I did it? For curiosity's sake. It was my first nude mod, and I'm rather disappointed in it. Will I keep it up? Not likely. Most likely I'll grow bored of it and take out the mod.

 

[Asehujiko]

A well made nude mod has a lower poly count then whatever it's based on. I don't mind those. It's the 15 seconds "draw a nipple in mspaint and copy it over the regular texture" kludges that bother me, especially if they have memory leaks. There's this TR patch that makes the game take up 7GB of RAM in less then an hour and bluescreens shortly after.

 

[NeoShinGundam]

"Stripped of context as well as clothes, these nude characters sleepwalk through unblinking games in a way that is comic rather than erotic. The result is somehow less than its combined parts, like a man arriving at a cocktail party wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a tuxedo on it."

You know, when I first heard that Playboy had a feature for naked video game females, I was excited. Then when I opened it, it was pretty damn BORING. What made characters like Rayne or Mai Shiranui fun, was that their outfits were just so improbable. Take that away, and they're no different from any other naked female. And even the most highly rendered nude is no replacement for a photo of the genuine article.

 

[Tiamat666]

Considering the fact that pictures of naked cartoon characters are considered child porn and therefore illegal in australia
http://www.qt.com.au/story/2010/01/26/an-ipswich-man-has-admitted-downloading-graphic-ca/

You can probably get into jail in Australia for having a nude patch installed in The Sims, which also features kids.

 

[The Great JT]

Y'know why men like nude mods? Men like to look at boobies. Nude mods = boobies.

 

[Logan Westbrook]

Good article BUT...

No Hot Coffee?

I would have thought that was the epitome of the article?

Given than the thrust of the article, and indeed the entire issue, is user created content; an unimplemented feature designed by the developers of the game, is a little outside its scope.

And an unimplemented feature that changed Oblivion's rating obviously had nothing in common with that, right?

There's quite the difference between assembling a mod out of unused textures, and reinstating an essentially complete feature.

 

[geldonyetich]

The fascination with nude mods is not so complicated: post-adolescent imaginations infused with enough horniness hormones to want to see anything vaguely female naked. If you think wanting to see Laura Croft nude is weird, you haven't seen the great dearth of Sonic the Hedgehog porn.

 

[Brendan Main]

The fascination with nude mods is not so complicated: post-adolescent imaginations infused with enough horniness hormones to want to see anything vaguely female naked.

Egad.. "horniness hormones?" Those are the worst KIND of those!

If only we could pump those post-adolescents full of that other kind of hormone, the one that makes you want to walk dreamily through the park and discuss French literature.

I call it "Proustosterone."

 

[SinisterDeath]

As long as the internet exists, I've got better ways to look at porn.

Also, if a mod can change a game's rating, why aren't all PC games rated for adults?

Because the skins the moders used were already in Oblivions codeing, just unreachable to the average gamer.

Thats a misunderstanding.
I've seen those myself.

When you unpack the BSA archives, you can find a 'skin' but its nippless.
They then have another skin with bras over it.

Thats the extent of that 'issue'...
If any 'politician' got there hands on an actual 'nude' skin, heres what happened.

There son (or daughter) downloaded a nude patch, and back in the early days, you had to repack the BSA with the costumized skin. Thus altering the orginal BSA archives.

Bethsoft didn't include actual nude skins, simply barbie-skins.

 

[geldonyetich]

The fascination with nude mods is not so complicated: post-adolescent imaginations infused with enough horniness hormones to want to see anything vaguely female naked.

Egad.. "horniness hormones?" Those are the worst KIND of those!

If only we could pump those post-adolescents full of that other kind of hormone, the one that makes you want to walk dreamily through the park and discuss French literature.

I call it "Proustosterone."

If there is such a thing, you'd have a hard time finding any that the beatniks of past decades haven't consumed already.

 

[VondeVon]

I noticed the brief mention of nude sims did NOT include all those OTHER delightful mods people have come up with.

And I MEAN delightful. *leer*

*cough*

I'm sure I have no idea what I'm talking about, Mum.

 

[VondeVon]

All completely stripping a corpse of all possessions felt quite degrading, I only reserved it for bitter enemies.

...That is so odd. I, too, felt bad for stripping total strangers butt naked. Then I remembered that I had no problem actually *murdering* total strangers and shooting their corpses full of arrows in their naughty bits, and thus felt better about it. If a little depraved.