The Half-Naked Elf Problem

[Nurb]

Spoiler

Actually i have heard of Tera, the biggest thing i heard about it is that is basically has a "Scantily Clad Loli" class. No seriosuly look;

Yeahhhh... im not comfortable with whoever designed those. Stay the fuck away from me

It's an adult female of that fuzzy race, only with smaller boobies compared to the gazungas on the other characters.

Really? Because Those are clearly loli fox girls. They are the same size as children, they are proportioned like childen. They clearly stray into loli territory. I hope there are no tentacled boss monsters because i know exactly where that would go. *sigh* I've been on the internet too long...

I still think you're being too paranoid, but if they are what they are, am I the only one that thinks it's hilarious they'd be kicking the asses of other characters in PVP? People are taking vidya games too seriously.

"THIS LOLI IS GANKING ME!" Ha! XD

If people get off on anime characters that's their own problem. It looks like a grindfest anyway.

That this fuzzy race resembles four-year-olds in metal thongs was a conscious decision on the part of an actual developer, you know. They didn't just "get that way" out of nowhere, and characters aren't designed in a vacuum.

Whoa, I don't know where you're seeing 4 year olds, I've never seen one with wide hips.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

I'd like to point out something that seems to get overshadowed by the talk of sexism. First, let me admit that I tend to play female avatars in MMO's that "morph" armor depending on gender. Not because I want to stare at a lady's bare cheeks while slaying goblins, but because the designers put more effort into the female armor in these games.

Yes, the armor is usually morphed into something overly revealing that should have been dry cleaned instead of machine washed, but it's also a hell of a lot more ornate than on the male avatars. So yes, I Stand with the people who say "I'm okay with the females getting skimpy armor, as long as males do too," but I'll adjust it to say that all I ask is that designers put as much effort into the simple *aesthetics* of male armor as they do with female armor.

One game that does this really well?

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

 

[mattaui]

The solution that will satisfy nearly everyone is what's slowly working across most of the MMO space, and that's some form of wardrobe or cosmetic armor slotting. Cosmetic armor solves several problems, as mentioned, and even for armor that isn't revealing, some pieces just make you wonder if the designer purposefully set out to punish whoever decided to wear it.

The sexy versus non-sexy armor debate (as it's not sexy versus realistic, since plenty of non-sexy armor is also unrealistic) is going to come down to personal choice and what an individual is after. I know guys and gals who fall on both sides of the line, though yes, a lot more guys want their female toons scantily clad than they want their male toons scantily clad (but some definitely want both). We can't forget the classic loincloth wearing barbarian or jungle hunter, so there's definitely a tradition of barely clothed men to go along with the barely clothed women (see Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell just to name a few.)

It's also amusing that some commentary regarding revealing or impractical female armor starts to take on an almost moralizing tone that I'd expect to hear from social conservatives bemoaning the state of today's youth, or whatever. As one of my female friends remarked, she hates it when other women (not to mention men!) try to tell her what she should find offensive or demeaning.

 

[Kahunaburger]

It's also amusing that some commentary regarding revealing or impractical female armor starts to take on an almost moralizing tone that I'd expect to hear from social conservatives bemoaning the state of today's youth, or whatever. As one of my female friends remarked, she hates it when other women (not to mention men!) try to tell her what she should find offensive or demeaning.

I think that's missing the point, somewhat. The type of objectification with female avatars is incredibly unpleasant [http://geekfeminism.org/2012/03/14/a-jedi-needs-not-games-to-fail-ableism-fat-hatred-heterosexism-and-misogyny-in-star-wars-the-old-republic/] to some women. The same way the pedo shit you see above is incredibly unpleasant for those of us who would rather not look at pedo shit in our games. So when dudes wonder why more women don't play MMOs, there's your answer.

 

[Vault101]

I think you can be attractive WITHOUT wearing outfits that are downright rediculous and almost plain insulting

I mean this shit right here is unacceptible

[http://photobucket.com/images/female%20master%20chief]

 

[Woodsey]

Pah! If it's gay to watch men thrusting their junk in thongs, I don't want to know what being straight is anymore.

 

[mattaui]

It's also amusing that some commentary regarding revealing or impractical female armor starts to take on an almost moralizing tone that I'd expect to hear from social conservatives bemoaning the state of today's youth, or whatever. As one of my female friends remarked, she hates it when other women (not to mention men!) try to tell her what she should find offensive or demeaning.

I think that's missing the point, somewhat. The type of objectification with female avatars is incredibly unpleasant [http://geekfeminism.org/2012/03/14/a-jedi-needs-not-games-to-fail-ableism-fat-hatred-heterosexism-and-misogyny-in-star-wars-the-old-republic/] to some women. The same way the pedo shit you see above is incredibly unpleasant for those of us who would rather not look at pedo shit in our games. So when dudes wonder why more women don't play MMOs, there's your answer.

I won't argue in the slightest that there's excessive objectification of women in most games, and that post you linked seems to deal less with the choices that players make, and more choices that the designers have made. I'd be all for equal opportunity eye candy and for games to take a much wider view of the human experience. Also, I've always been under the impression that quite a few women play MMOs, though I know not in the numbers that men do, but at a greater number than many other types of games.

Star Wars wasn't ever going to be that game, given Lucas Arts and its strangely hidebound view of the world. I was disappointed with the game in many ways, several of which that article does cover nicely, so I appreciate the link.

I'm just trying to think of the easiest and fairest way of letting people get as creative and outlandish with their fantasy characters as they want, but certainly we're going to run into barriers and lines that people don't want to cross. I'm likewise very uncomfortable with the child-like characteristics of that race you mentioned, and judging by the thread here, so are a lot of people.

But when we're talking about female objectification, is it going to come down to the sex of the player at the keyboard? Is it bad when a man is making his female toon look 'excessively sexy' but not when a woman does? Or is it all in the intent behind the decision to dress them that way, regardless?

 

[Nurb]

ಠ_ಠ

My congratulations on continuing to miss my entire point whilst being mildly creepy.

Anyway... I had the same idea as Shamus a while back, but mainly becuase some gear looks kick-ass and also having your own look and gear is REALLY great for roleplaying in an MMO. It can show off the attitute and personality of your character.

HA! Not at all. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll get back to painting my van.

Spoiler

 

[Damien Granz]

The Half-Naked Elf Problem

Yes, this is an old issue. Humor me. I know how to fix this.

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This is pretty much spot on. And a 'not entirely covered in metal' suit might convince me to roll a male character for once which is something I regularly don't do.

 

[Dreadjaws]

They should all have a system like Champions Online. Your gear has absolutely no effect in what you wear. And you can swing around with a half naked dude as much as you want. The customization of your character can be done pretty much anytime you want (unless inside a dungeon, I think) and you can dress however you like. You can even put some skirts on guys if you want to.

Now, if there's a way to know what gear another person has on PVP I have absolutely no idea, but then again, I don't give a poop about PVP.

 

[That_Sneaky_Camper]

The easy solution to all of this is to simply allow players to choose what sort of clothing they want. If they want to dress in a overtly sexual manner for their female characters then let them, but just make it so that they could also choose to dress normally. Not much we can do about characters canonically dressing that way in the cutscenes, but hey baby steps as they say.

Also I hate the term immersion and breaking immersion when it comes to video games. What is that even supposed to mean? You feel like you're part of the story, the video game world itself? Bullshit. It's a video game, it is a hobby, something you play to have fun. No amount of good writing or story telling is going to delude the line between reality and fiction for me. Besides I find it awfully petty that something as petty as clothing options going to ruin this so-called "immersion".

If you actually look at the definition of immersion it is defined as: "The state of consciousness where an immersant's awareness of physical self is diminished or lost by being surrounded in an engrossing total environment." I am always aware of myself when I play video games, I may be captivated by good video games and their stories but I never get lost in them.

 

[AdmiralCheez]

Star Wars Galaxies probably had what everyone is looking for. It had two options for wearing armor/clothing, where each piece could be equipped as normal for stats, or "appearance" for just that. It also had hundreds of clothing items / armor pieces in hundreds of colors so you effectively dress your character however you wanted, and each piece looked the same on either male or female. The only problem you really ran into were the rare pieces of clothing that were gender-specific (for some reason, females couldn't wear Tusken Raider outfits, and males couldn't wear bikinis).

It seemed like the closest to a perfect system for this kind of thing I've seen yet, but of course, no one can see it anymore due to the game being shut down. Everquest 2 has the appearance option, but sadly has infinitely fewer clothing options, and the problem with the same piece looking different between genders. Oh, and it doesn't cost money like WoW's system.

 

[I.Muir]

Armor eh.... interesting concept but swimwear is in this season. I know!
Later
It appears all the women are dead, and some men too. Oh well come here you man stallion.

Anyway I'm going to say the fuzzy race is pushing a boundary that should be left alone. They look like cartoon children who had been abused by a mother with an obsession for beauty pageants. Scantily clad and children are not things that should EVER be put together.

 

[Sewa_Yunga]

Actually, the system you've proposed was recently put in place by WoW as "Transmogrification", you can now change the appearance of a piece of gear into something else, with specific restrictions:

1. You have to have the gear you want to Mog your current gear into.
2. Armour has to be the same armour class and weapons have to be the same weapon type, the latter applies to both not being allowed to Mog 2-handers into 1-handers and visa versa as well as not being able to Mog, say, Axes into maces (Though that last part might be changed come mists).
3. You can't Mog weapons to look like legendary weapons and legendary weapons to look like something else.

I still can't believe they implemented it to be so incredibly tedious.

Rift did it way better by simply providing several wardrobe sets where the first one is free.
It has to be your callings favored armor class or a special costume type of armor though.
You can even tick a box for showing no armor at all for every slot so you can play as a warrior who fights giant dragons in his underpants.
Sadly there are no weapon slots in the wardrobes though there are some "costume" weapons.