Your opinion: How much has female characters in games changed (or not changed) in the past 2 years?

nomotog_v1legacy

New member
Jun 21, 2013
909
0
0
Smithnikov said:
If I want porn, I'll watch porn. I prefer believable armor and armaments on women in my games.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking you want realistic. If you want non porn armor, you can still go unrealistic in a non porn way.
 

Smithnikov_v1legacy

New member
May 7, 2016
1,020
1
0
nomotog said:
Smithnikov said:
If I want porn, I'll watch porn. I prefer believable armor and armaments on women in my games.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking you want realistic. If you want non porn armor, you can still go unrealistic in a non porn way.
Okay, somewhere between full realistic and chainmail thongs, that make more sense?
 

Gethsemani_v1legacy

New member
Oct 1, 2009
2,552
0
0
nomotog said:
Smithnikov said:
If I want porn, I'll watch porn. I prefer believable armor and armaments on women in my games.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking you want realistic. If you want non porn armor, you can still go unrealistic in a non porn way.
I think the proper word for what most of us want is "plausible". We want armor that actually looks as if it could protect you from harm, nothing else.
 

nomotog_v1legacy

New member
Jun 21, 2013
909
0
0
Smithnikov said:
nomotog said:
Smithnikov said:
If I want porn, I'll watch porn. I prefer believable armor and armaments on women in my games.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking you want realistic. If you want non porn armor, you can still go unrealistic in a non porn way.
Okay, somewhere between full realistic and chainmail thongs, that make more sense?
The point I was making is that you can go other places then thong when you leave realistic. Like you can go to impractically over armored armor for one. Making it unrealistic don't automatically makes it into a bikini.
 

Chewster

It's yer man Chewy here!
Apr 24, 2008
1,050
0
0
Gethsemani said:
gyrobot said:
Realism has become something of a negative to me these days, part of the charm of why sexually appealing designs still exists in Asian game design is because they don't care much about it. That is why Korean MMOs have girls in high heel bikini chainmail armor and ribbon robes to put it mildly, it is because they are more concerned about turning their brain off.
And also because South Korea is a highly patriarchal society that takes the notion that women have no real agency up to eleven, especially compared to western countries. Korea is literally decades behind in its' feminist and equality movements, to the point where they still struggle to get women into the workforce and even the women who are in the workforce are highly restricted to "feminine" jobs. South Korea is a society where women doesn't have much say and few women's voices, so it is no wonder that they can still create media with gender portrayals like those that American and Western European companies produced in the mid-90's.

It has nothing to do with "turning the brain off" and everything to do with the lack of gender equality in Korea and pandering to the gender that has all the privilege.
Pretty much. Most KMMOs are made for middle/high school boys so they go with what is most appealing to them. Most Koreans I know around my age (early - mid 30s) don't even really play video games that much any more. They're too busy working, drinking, looking for love and starting families. And those that do game are usually the hikikomori-lite type, tend to not give a shit about love and are playing LoL or StarCraft. My girlfriend's younger brother is 29 and all he does is work, smoke cigarettes and play League in his room. I don't think I've seen him play an MMO once in three years.

Take heart though. Things are changing, albeit slowly. Seoul held their first ever Pride Parade a few years back and it seems like people are becoming more aware of the issues women face. There is less social pressure to partake in office drinking culture too, which has long since been considered a sign of manliness and comraderie and all that sort of "alpha male" garbage so there's that. The social pressure to get married and start a family is still pretty immense though from what I hear, Korea will soon be going the way of Japan, with its increased elderly population and declining birth rates so I guess we have that crisis to look forward to.
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
8,407
0
0
2 years isnt long enough. Most games take longet to develop. Games releasing today had their main characters designed longer than 2 years ago. That being said, i didnt notice any significant difference. We always had female protagonists, but not at 50/50 representation. Given that the playerbase isnt 50/50 either, thats not surprising.

Gethsemani said:
nomotog said:
Smithnikov said:
If I want porn, I'll watch porn. I prefer believable armor and armaments on women in my games.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking you want realistic. If you want non porn armor, you can still go unrealistic in a non porn way.
I think the proper word for what most of us want is "plausible". We want armor that actually looks as if it could protect you from harm, nothing else.
The purpose of armor is to take the kinetic impact of a weapon blow and/or bullet and distribute it as evenly as possible across your body so instead of piercing you it would simply give you a push. Therefore the most effective and thus "plausible" armor is one that fits your physionomy the best. As in, skintight armor would be ideally effective. Thus the "Breasted breastplate" is actually practical armor. Now there is other concerns with it, such as when it comes to swordplay a way to slide the enemy blow away is often more useful than a way to distribute the force, hence the corner-less design being popular. Theres also the fact that in medieval times it was much simpler, and thus cheaper, just to create a plank-style armor despite it not being the best possible one. Most soldiers could not afford armor, let alone good armor.
 

EternallyBored

Terminally Apathetic
Jun 17, 2013
1,434
0
0
undeadsuitor said:
Strazdas said:
. As in, skintight armor would be ideally effective. Thus the "Breasted breastplate" is actually practical armor.
Nope nope nope

Skintight LEATHER armor would be ideal, but once you get into plate armor you need room for the armor to bend and absorb the impact for it to work. Google knight armor. Do you really think their chests are that big?

Also, molding breasts into plate armor is a good way to get your sternum broke.

Which is bad
Even then, with hardened leather armor the boob cup design would be worse than just a slope to give room for breasts, and that would only really matter on a woman with particularly large breasts, with anything else I would imagine you would just do similar to Kevlar and make it as close to unisex as possible, with as little differentiation in the chest as you can comfortably get away with.

The boob cup design in leather would still be directing force right into the center of the chest, hardened leather armor is one of those things that exists more in fantasy than real life, in real life its of historical debate how often leather was actually used as armor, and almost all pictures I can find of real leather armor is leg or arm pieces or hardened chest pieces that look almost exactly like plate equivalents. Interestingly enough in google searching, apparently there is a debate in how many historical pictures are actually leather armor versus some form of metal.

The closest I can find to tight leather in real life is the buff coat worn in the Renaissance and a little later by cavalry and even that is less skintight and more just a long leather coat you wore a metal breastplate over. There are leather corsets worn by women, but those are not hardened leather and are for fashion not protection.

Maybe you had something specific in mind, but for the life of me I can't find any historical examples of skintight leather armor, Slightly tighter than a metal breastplate, but still not something you want to put boob cups on.
 

TheMysteriousGX

Elite Member
Legacy
Sep 16, 2014
8,300
6,798
118
Country
United States
Strazdas said:
2 years isnt long enough. Most games take longet to develop. Games releasing today had their main characters designed longer than 2 years ago. That being said, i didnt notice any significant difference. We always had female protagonists, but not at 50/50 representation. Given that the playerbase isnt 50/50 either, thats not surprising.
According to Microsoft's internal documents, xBox Live is 57/43. Which is a damn sight more even than games would suggest.

Strazdas said:
The purpose of armor is to take the kinetic impact of a weapon blow and/or bullet and distribute it as evenly as possible across your body so instead of piercing you it would simply give you a push. Therefore the most effective and thus "plausible" armor is one that fits your physionomy the best. As in, skintight armor would be ideally effective. Thus the "Breasted breastplate" is actually practical armor.
...not to continue to pile on about this, but no. Not in the history of anything. I mean, historicosity aside, modern militaries don't do with "breasted" armor for their female soldiers for good damned reasons. The problem of shot traps, mainly. Well that and, unless you're ridiculously stacked, boob cups serve no purpose.
 

EternallyBored

Terminally Apathetic
Jun 17, 2013
1,434
0
0
Strazdas said:
2 years isnt long enough. Most games take longet to develop. Games releasing today had their main characters designed longer than 2 years ago. That being said, i didnt notice any significant difference. We always had female protagonists, but not at 50/50 representation. Given that the playerbase isnt 50/50 either, thats not surprising.

Gethsemani said:
nomotog said:
Smithnikov said:
If I want porn, I'll watch porn. I prefer believable armor and armaments on women in my games.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking you want realistic. If you want non porn armor, you can still go unrealistic in a non porn way.
I think the proper word for what most of us want is "plausible". We want armor that actually looks as if it could protect you from harm, nothing else.
The purpose of armor is to take the kinetic impact of a weapon blow and/or bullet and distribute it as evenly as possible across your body so instead of piercing you it would simply give you a push. Therefore the most effective and thus "plausible" armor is one that fits your physionomy the best. As in, skintight armor would be ideally effective. Thus the "Breasted breastplate" is actually practical armor. Now there is other concerns with it, such as when it comes to swordplay a way to slide the enemy blow away is often more useful than a way to distribute the force, hence the corner-less design being popular. Theres also the fact that in medieval times it was much simpler, and thus cheaper, just to create a plank-style armor despite it not being the best possible one. Most soldiers could not afford armor, let alone good armor.
Undeadsuitor talks about medieval armor and I followed up on leather but I want to talk about modern armor and why this design philosophy doesn't work. Skintight to the point of boob cups is not an ideal design in any historical era.

Absorbing impact is only part of how armor works, by absorbing impact the armor still moves, especially in modern armor designed to stop bullets, in bullet resistant armor the best armor is actually still rigid plates, so no boob cups there, higher rated armor is designed to be a thick flat or slightly curved plate, you could make a boob cup out of those plates but those plates are only designed to take a limited number of shots and a boob cup would risk deflecting the bullet towards the center of the chest back into the same plate or another plate causing unnecessary further damage to the plates, they also tend to be thick enough that designing a plate carrier that way would noticeably reduce mobility as well as your ability to shoulder and fire a rifle. The plates are thick to absorb the bullet as rifle rounds will dig in and often stick in and crack the plate, skin tight against rifle rounds is a very bad idea.

Here is what modern female armor looks like:

For kevlar, you can make them thin enough to do boob cups, but you are compromising most of the protective quality of the armor to do so, only letting it stop the lowest pistol calibers, even high end female kevlar does not have boob cups for a reason, when a bullet hits kevlar it pushes the kevlar in, the thinner the kevlar and the closer it is to the body, the further it pushes in to your body, hence why you get nasty bruises even when shot with pistols while wearing kevlar, you make the kevlar too thin or too skintight and the bullet actually pushes in to your body creating wounds and holes even if the kevlar doesn't break.

Another point with medieval armor, you don't wear metal armor on bare skin, you are usually wearing a thick cloth gambeson, and sometimes chain mail on top of that, Renaissance breastplates were generally worn over a thick cloth or leather coat, you do not want skintight metal armor anywhere really, that's how you get broken bones anytime you get hit. Any boob cups on medieval plate would not be close enough to the skin to be anything except decorative unless the wearer had truly abnormally sized breasts
 

Gethsemani_v1legacy

New member
Oct 1, 2009
2,552
0
0
EternallyBored said:
Another point with medieval armor, you don't wear metal armor on bare skin, you are usually wearing a thick cloth gambeson, and sometimes chain mail on top of that, Renaissance breastplates were generally worn over a thick cloth or leather coat, you do not want skintight metal armor anywhere really, that's how you get broken bones anytime you get hit. Any boob cups on medieval plate would not be close enough to the skin to be anything except decorative unless the wearer had truly abnormally sized breasts
The irony is that even the most basic of armor concepts consists of putting as much stuff as possible between your body and the source of harm. Hence why a gambeson is basically a thick coat of multiple layers of fabric and why you'd wear that under a mail (and the chafing and pinching issues) and would put plates on top of both if you could.

Even more irony is that Strazdas has the "best" type of armor wrong. If you want to minimize force transfer, you'd want a flexible armor that would let the force of the hit disspiate along it, such as a chainmail or a brigandine, where the fabric and plates would let the force travel along the brigandines length instead of straight into your body. Still, a brigandine is decidedly worse then the rigid, bulky plate mail, which simply stops the blow dead and relies on multiple layers to diminish the force transferred onto the wearer.
 

Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
13,769
5
43
Well, not all that much in the last two years. I mean, that's a pretty small time frame. It often takes that long to make a single game, if not longer.

Female character have changed a ton in the last 15 years though.

Remember when everyone was losing their shit over Alyx Vance from Half Life 2/Ep1-Ep2? "Omigosh, a female character who wears sensible clothing for what she does, isn't doing a striptease routine every two minutes, is generally capable and resourceful and has a personality and coherent motivations!"

No, she wasn't the first such specimen, kindly spare me your indignant barrage of slightly flimsy examples. However, she was considered notable for being the way she was. If she was to have come out for the first time in a game today people would barely notice.

Obviously the old ways haven't disappeared completely (Quiet from MGS5 says hi, or rather she doesn't because having her able to speak might disrupt some nerd's fragile, sweaty erection). But as fan of practical and understated character designs who isn't 14 any more, and found that shit a bit cringy even when he was 14, the way things are going makes me happy.
 

Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
13,769
5
43
Strazdas said:
The purpose of armor is to take the kinetic impact of a weapon blow and/or bullet and distribute it as evenly as possible across your body so instead of piercing you it would simply give you a push. Therefore the most effective and thus "plausible" armor is one that fits your physionomy the best. As in, skintight armor would be ideally effective. Thus the "Breasted breastplate" is actually practical armor. Now there is other concerns with it, such as when it comes to swordplay a way to slide the enemy blow away is often more useful than a way to distribute the force, hence the corner-less design being popular. Theres also the fact that in medieval times it was much simpler, and thus cheaper, just to create a plank-style armor despite it not being the best possible one. Most soldiers could not afford armor, let alone good armor.
Ohhh, ohhhh, ohhhhhh, I smell someone talking directly out of their arse and being hilariously wrong about one of my pet subjects! Let me get in on this pile-on!

To be fair, you're actually not entirely wrong about the force distribution thing. Having a plate of metal (or ceramic in some modern armour) between you and a sharp thing turns a cut or penetrating stab into blunt force. That blunt force will still be transmitted to your body though. A layer of robust non-rigid padding (think of punching a mattress) will harmlessly distribute blunt force, but will be vulnerable to being cut or penetrated by sharp weapons. Hence why armour of old often incorporated both, with plates or chainmail on top of a padded gambeson or equivalent (also because metal on skin would be supremely uncomfortable).

However, saying that skintight armour would be "ideally effective" is complete bullshit and doesn't logically follow on from your previous point. See, another aspect of properly designed armour is deflection. For example, a good breastplate will stick out in a crease running from neck to waist. Thus incoming blows strike at an angle and some of the force is redirected out to the sides rather than straight into the wearer's chest. It's not skintight because being skintight in shape would not have that effect. Natural and unavoidable weak spots are those parts of the body which create natural "valleys" such as the armpits and where neck meets shoulder.

A "breasted breastplate" is just about the worst possible shape for a breastplate. You're creating unnecessary weak points all around the boobs and a massive one right in the middle of the cleavage, right over the fucking heart. Worse still, the shape will guide any blows that land nearby straight into that weak spot. It's a big, stupid invitation to get stabbed directly in a vital organ that will even collect extra blows that weren't going to land there.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

New member
Aug 28, 2008
4,696
0
0
I don't get how one can gauge "change" in this context. All that is done is cherry-picking as one can find enough examples of absolutely any type of character of any group.

People arbitrarily decide that chars of X game matter while those of Y game don't and they focus on those chars while ignoring the chars in the other game which actually are like what they describe as wanting.


If we are to have this discussion, first we need a set of standards to be established which define what and why only chars of specific games are relevant or important and until that is done nothing will get anywhere.


The entire line of questioning is absurd, really. If you wanna tackle Japanese games as in the OP, to ask this question is in itself to miss the point. There's not just one type of look, change has been ever-present and variety is constant. Nothing especially unique occurred in the last 2 years that hadn't been already occurring in years past, and there's a deeply rich variety of various visual elements out there for those with the inclination to partake in them. The presupposition that this wasn't the case is just bizarre and screams ignorance to me. It's ignorant generalization with no foundation, sounding as though someone just looked at 5 randomly known games that support what they already-decided to believe, ignored everything else and just settled it that that's all gaming is. I don't expect to run into such shallow, skin-deep analysis here lol.



So yeah, to summarize, there is, and there have always been, tons of different-looking chars, each with differing levels of sex appeal, cuteness, hotness, coolness and epicness and so on, nothing is different and no change can be noted because the natural state is one of shifting variety of all types and there's no reasonable standard for one to measure this change by so the best one can reasonably say is that there's no negative matter pertaining to this subject to be found here.


If you wanna actually achieve something, list what you desire and I'll recommend you some stuff or something that will be fun and whatnot. Then, by supporting it through ACTUALLY playing it and stuff, you'll get more of it made, getting more stuff to play. If everyone does this, then everyone will be happy, and no more silly threads like this will need to be made. :p
 

CaitSeith

Formely Gone Gonzo
Legacy
Jun 30, 2014
5,343
358
88
Dreiko said:
I don't get how one can gauge "change" in this context. All that is done is cherry-picking as one can find enough examples of absolutely any type of character of any group.

People arbitrarily decide that chars of X game matter while those of Y game don't and they focus on those chars while ignoring the chars in the other game which actually are like what they describe as wanting.


If we are to have this discussion, first we need a set of standards to be established which define what and why only chars of specific games are relevant or important and until that is done nothing will get anywhere.


The entire line of questioning is absurd, really. If you wanna tackle Japanese games as in the OP, to ask this question is in itself to miss the point. There's not just one type of look, change has been ever-present and variety is constant. Nothing especially unique occurred in the last 2 years that hadn't been already occurring in years past, and there's a deeply rich variety of various visual elements out there for those with the inclination to partake in them. The presupposition that this wasn't the case is just bizarre and screams ignorance to me. It's ignorant generalization with no foundation, sounding as though someone just looked at 5 randomly known games that support what they already-decided to believe, ignored everything else and just settled it that that's all gaming is. I don't expect to run into such shallow, skin-deep analysis here lol.



So yeah, to summarize, there is, and there have always been, tons of different-looking chars, each with differing levels of sex appeal, cuteness, hotness, coolness and epicness and so on, nothing is different and no change can be noted because the natural state is one of shifting variety of all types and there's no reasonable standard for one to measure this change by so the best one can reasonably say is that there's no negative matter pertaining to this subject to be found here.


If you wanna actually achieve something, list what you desire and I'll recommend you some stuff or something that will be fun and whatnot. Then, by supporting it through ACTUALLY playing it and stuff, you'll get more of it made, getting more stuff to play. If everyone does this, then everyone will be happy, and no more silly threads like this will need to be made. :p
I want to know the trends restricted per genre and niche. People who are more familiar with such genres (and thus actually play more of them) can notice them more clearly than me. You have seen how the game mechanics trend in AAA action games went from linear shooters to open-world (not all games were and gaming is in constant shifting; but there was more than enough to see a pattern). I'm looking for similar general trends in the context of female character (or if such trends exist at all). If had time to play every game on Earth to see for myself, I would; but there are things called work and life that get in my way. If I wanted recommendations for games to play, I would had made a thread for it again (I still haven't played everything on the list from the previous one).
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

New member
Aug 28, 2008
4,696
0
0
CaitSeith said:
Dreiko said:
I don't get how one can gauge "change" in this context. All that is done is cherry-picking as one can find enough examples of absolutely any type of character of any group.

People arbitrarily decide that chars of X game matter while those of Y game don't and they focus on those chars while ignoring the chars in the other game which actually are like what they describe as wanting.


If we are to have this discussion, first we need a set of standards to be established which define what and why only chars of specific games are relevant or important and until that is done nothing will get anywhere.


The entire line of questioning is absurd, really. If you wanna tackle Japanese games as in the OP, to ask this question is in itself to miss the point. There's not just one type of look, change has been ever-present and variety is constant. Nothing especially unique occurred in the last 2 years that hadn't been already occurring in years past, and there's a deeply rich variety of various visual elements out there for those with the inclination to partake in them. The presupposition that this wasn't the case is just bizarre and screams ignorance to me. It's ignorant generalization with no foundation, sounding as though someone just looked at 5 randomly known games that support what they already-decided to believe, ignored everything else and just settled it that that's all gaming is. I don't expect to run into such shallow, skin-deep analysis here lol.



So yeah, to summarize, there is, and there have always been, tons of different-looking chars, each with differing levels of sex appeal, cuteness, hotness, coolness and epicness and so on, nothing is different and no change can be noted because the natural state is one of shifting variety of all types and there's no reasonable standard for one to measure this change by so the best one can reasonably say is that there's no negative matter pertaining to this subject to be found here.


If you wanna actually achieve something, list what you desire and I'll recommend you some stuff or something that will be fun and whatnot. Then, by supporting it through ACTUALLY playing it and stuff, you'll get more of it made, getting more stuff to play. If everyone does this, then everyone will be happy, and no more silly threads like this will need to be made. :p
I want to know the trends restricted per genre and niche. People who are more familiar with such genres (and thus actually play more of them) can notice them more clearly than me. You have seen how the game mechanics trend in AAA action games went from linear shooters to open-world (not all games were and gaming is in constant shifting; but there was more than enough to see a pattern). I'm looking for similar general trends in the context of female character (or if such trends exist at all). If had time to play every game on Earth to see for myself, I would; but there are things called work and life that get in my way. If I wanted recommendations for games to play, I would had made a thread for it again (I still haven't played everything on the list from the previous one).

That's a useless thing to know because there's no standard by which one measures trends, nor by which we show how a AAA game is somehow different when we examine the act of playing it as opposed to an AA one or an A one and so on.

By asking this, all you'll get is biased people giving you their biased, useless opinions that only reflect the few games they managed to play on their own limited time, which also will be further impacted by the effects of money spent advertising and will give you a skewed image, like looking through a kaleidoscope while underwater, and then whatever you may deduce on that basis will be equally tainted and useless.

I don't see any meaningful distinction between all games, irrespective of budget, fanbase, popularity, anything. Games are games, if a game made by two dudes in a basement has something, that something is within the realm of "things games have" equally as much as whatever is in CoD.


Presuming you want more games of X style or with Y type of chars to be made, all you can do that will actually amount to anything is to find them out and play them, support them and spread the word. You can functionally ignore whatever outsider trends are occurring and just focus on that alone.