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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Sexualization of women from a woman's perspective
Something I have noticed as of late is some women gamers complaining of
sexualization of the female characters in a game in terms of aesthetics.
Many of us are excited at the prospect of being able to customize our
characters in any way we wish. There are also those that want to tamper
that in whatever way they feel is best. I personally enjoy playing
"dress up" with my characters and yes, there are some sexy outfits in
there. I don't think that going through and having full on nudity is
great, but having some sexy outfits aren't bad either. I understand
that in many aspects women are viewed as strictly sex objects, but there
is also another point of view that we go through and make ourselves sex
objects as well. There isn't a woman out there that doesn't like to
feel desirable, and sexy outfits happen to be part of that, or so some
choose. I believe that some female characters can look "bad-ass" while
still looking sexy. It doesn't mean that that has to be thrust upon
you, you can still have the choice to go through and look "bad-ass"
without having a whole lot of skin showing, but there should also be
that other option too for those who really enjoy playing "dress up" and
wishing that in many ways we could wear that sort of thing in the real
world. Going through and tampering the choices of xmog and
customization is the answer as the attitude behind it should be examined
instead. Just my perspective.
1
Comments
Like, a Woman in a functioning Armor can still be sexy/attractive
If female characters can wear bikinis, male characters should be able to wear bikinis too.
And, really male characters should also be able to wear dresses and skirts.
I could also suggest that males characters are also sexually exaggerated.
However I have played enough MMO's to know that the majority of female in game characters are typically played by males.
The hyper boob slider is a facet of eastern gaming culture.
I am fairly confident AoC will be a somewhat more refined and respectful character design.
I want to play a staunch, pot bellied, beardy dwarf so I hope the will be a sufficient belly slider.
https://www.change.org/p/target-withdraw-grand-theft-auto-5-this-sickening-game-encourages-players-to-commit-sexual-violence-and-kill-women
And yes I am fully aware of GTA problems but banning it was NOT the way forward however this wasn't the first time this sort of dumb outrage has happened before (the whole gta san andreas outrage over disabled hot coffee minigame you could only access VIEW MODS)
Got totally surprised to find another person that has a vision similar to mine on the topic
As a woman too I'm 100% with you: I personally don't mind to see a petite body dressed in a bikini or in a sexy outfit and I never felt less badass because of some revealing cloth nor I think bad of others just because they're males playing a bikini girl in a videogame (who am I to judge afterall?).
Would love to see the possibility of variety though: I may enjoy a certain style of outfit but others like different things too so it will be good to have a lot of different choices about this, both for females and males. I personally know other girls which are completely the opposite on this matter: while i like to dress up my pg they prefer those huge armor (and yes, women - or even men - that don't want to feel desirable do actually exist) which are totally disappointed to the clothing system applied in some games (i.e. bdo).
For example if I want to make a bearded woman with a small body but very long arms it will be bad to be limited because you have to follow a certain standard, same applies for the outfit: why - as said by others - male pgs can't have skirts or some sexy outfit too?
Not because of "if females have revealing outfit then males have to got them too so there is no gender's disparity" but rather because of roleplay and personalize your own character and who you want to be in the game.
A full set of heavy armor would be rather inappropriate for a male character which has a "playful" personality and drinks every night in the tavern enjoying the "company" of others, while a more casual or elegant attire would be much more appropriate.
But if male pgs got just full armor clothing this fact will limit your creativity as a player, which imo harms the game's experience.
1. In terms of variety I think you suggested is kinda odd like I would want more customization to be more like Fallout (it has cross-dressing) or MGSV and be in a realm where it doesn't go too much into the uncanny valley like not adding weird stuff like bearded females or long arms because people might lambaste it for being stupid and I know it's a fantasy game but if something goes way to off to the uncanny valley it starts to turn people basically.
2.You are aware that in some MMO's and other games the whole skimpy outfits apply to Males right? Like you don't have to look really hard enough to find such things:
3. I like creativity aswell but sometime devs just can't do everything especially if they allow for full body customization because it's ALOT of time and effort to make sure that if you want to have very arms, you can wear anything in the game without breaking or looking weird, too stretch or compressed or even broken.
Doesn't really take any more effort.
As a female gamer, I'm also fine with this!
And I wasn't really talking the whole male/female thing but I was talking about the whole customization thing as if you make a set of armor you have to make sure that armor goes well with long arms or leg or even bust size and that's really hard to do actually and can take a lot of time and money make it all work at which the developers might not want to do if there's not REALLY a big demand for this sort of stuff.
Female outfits don't need to be any more loose or tight than male outfits.
A magician's robe isn't that different from a dress.
I'm joking.
But things can go over the top there should be feminine armor that is practical too, I want options for both! I wish people would stop saying that there should be no sexy armor at all. This isn't your game it's everyone's game, so let people who enjoy that have it and we can all support everyone having both options!
I do care what I wear though. I would prefer armor that is designed to protect my skin. I would like robes that don't have slits going from ankle to neck.... hello sun damage, I would like to dress in dark rouge clothes that cover me, protect me and help conceal me.
I don't need or want a sexually attractive avatar. What I want is after a lovely day of questing and slaughtering my skin is still intact and the brains wash out.
Perfectly happy if others have what they want for their own avatar. Choices are important.
Who said anything about allowing players to individually modify each armor part?
If the devs can make armor that fully covers male bodies, it is not more difficult to make armor that fully covers female bodies.
Doesn't matter whether that's loose or tight. If it's difficult to do for female bodies, it's just as difficult to do for male bodies.
And that's not necessarily saying that every piece of armor should look exactly the same for both genders. But if they can make the same piece of armor fit 9 different races, they can also do the same for both males and females.
My main point is that it's..... HARD to do customization as you need a base for it which has already but if you want a game that allow for complete body customization that's going take a huge amount time and money to do and I'm not saying it's impossible as many games have done it like EVE Online but they were able to do it due to multiple teams and millions of dollars behind their back
And one final point no one would want Halo 5 like customization in a MMORPG at all and I'm not saying we need every armor piece to be customized rather it's extremely hard to implement what Nirablade suggested which was a smaller body with long arms which are extremely disproportionate and is like I said before hard to implement.
It's getting late so no more reply's but I will come back to this thread to see how it goes and to see if people still don't get my point.
When I play any female characters in the games I will often pick a class that has the medium/light armour options, because well I really like to look at the female form and its curves. What can I say I am a randy heterosexual man. I also think that armour should at least look like it is protecting the wearer regardless of gender. Bethesda did a brilliant job on this with their vanilla armour in Fallout and Elder Scrolls games.
Really pleased though see a balanced view here on the forums regarding this, was expecting a huge speech from some feminist detailing why they should look like the men in games.
Just to note I am going to be rocking a male dwarf with a massive beard, because I love dwarfs in fantasy games.
Hey Sam! Thanks for your comment! Reading it makes me think that I wasn't that clear tbh, so I'll address stuffs to clarify a little:
Imho flame wars burn in the moment people don't accept there are different opinions than theirs so they'll start to flame each other (though the more controversial the discussion is the higher the probability that it happens!).
It's just my opinion so I don't want to make you feel bad about this but just giving my 2 cents: limiting your game because some people may think it will end up with stupid result is -- imho -- wrong. If we got maid costumes and bikini then why not beards on females? Where is the difference in terms of customization of your character?
About the long arms, it was poorly written so I'll explain better; I saw this problem mostly on bdo so I'll take examples from there: wizards were meant to be old men no matter what, while sorceress's class was represented by the amazing good looking megan fox type. Although I like how they imagine their classes I read from time to time people desiring a young looking wizard (and I remember there was a player that after hours n hours managed to do that, fantastic job tbh) while others wanted for a more japanese lolilta style for the sorceress and I myself struggled in creating a second sorceress different from the previous. Why do we have to limit ourselves with a set standard? If other players want to go for a peculiar style who are we to stop them?
I'm trying to figure out why you're asking me this so if my assumptions are wrong please correct me! Quoting the first part of your and my comment imo there is an imprecise assumption here: i don't get annoyed about these sort of stuff both for males or females.
Let me be more clear: to me gender is like hair's color, eye's shape, ecc. Pratically speaking will you "divide" pgs because of the color of their hair? Like blue vs black haired? It will be a bit silly to do that, right? To me the same applies to gender, especially in videogames: why do you (in terms of society n in general, not you personally) divide that much between males and females? (meaning for divide phrases like "females should get full armor because males got them too | males should get sexy outfit because females have them already".I don't see a problem with sexy outfit no matter what the gender is, so answering your question yes, I'm aware of that I just don't see any problem with it
Yep of course compromises must be made in videogames, so I'm 100% with you on this. Although it will be a bit irritating if they'll put just full armor for males and bikini for females but not for gender inequality just because will give 0 variety to my outfit. Imo Intrepid will be able to get us a decent mix of clothing and I don't mind if they'll add some more of it later - if they'll keep out p2w n p2c stuffs I'll gladly buy some skins to support them more.
Hey Sam, thanks for the comment! I think I wasn't that clear with my previous message so I'll clarify a little:
Well I have seen threads like this turn into a flame war and even though I can't feel what you feel when you see oversexualized females and can see why you get annoyed when you see that sort of imagery (I don't like horror movies or really disturbing imagery like torture) however I would like to kindly address some of you points:2.You are aware that in some MMO's and other games the whole skimpy outfits apply to Males right? Like you don't have to look really hard enough to find such things: <a rel="nofollow" href="https://ashesofcreation.vanillacommunities.com/home/leaving?target=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DkQbd5W7VKh4%26amp%3Bindex%3D4%26amp%3Blist%3DPLQcEfI3vHGEAszkg1lNCwtaVHIDvAm-gB" title="Link: https://ashesofcreation.vanillacommunities.com/home/leaving?target=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DkQbd5W7VKh4%26amp%3Bindex%3D4%26amp%3Blist%3DPLQcEfI3vHGEAszkg1lNCwtaVHIDvAm-gB">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQbd5W7VKh4&index=4&list=PLQcEfI3vHGEAszkg1lNCwtaVHIDvAm-gB</a> <br>I'm putting down some assumptions on why you've addressed this to me, if they're wrong please let me know! I suppose you're asking me this because you thought I get annoyed by this same concept when it's applied to females (which I'm not as said above). I'm aware that games like this do exist, same for the outfits; I just don't see the problem with it (same for females ofc!).
1. In terms of variety I think you suggested is kinda odd like I would want more customization to be more like Fallout (it has cross-dressing) or MGSV and be in a realm where it doesn't go too much into the uncanny valley like not adding weird stuff like bearded females or long arms because people might lambaste it for being stupid and I know it's a fantasy game but if something goes way to off to the uncanny valley it starts to turn people basically.<br>Y you're right I went totally out of the board with some of these personalizations :P It's just my opinion so don't take it badly: I don't think we should limit ourselves, blocking the possibility to have some stuff which are already present in the game (aka bearded women). You don't have to use it (I'm 99% I'm not gonna use it neither) but if someone wants to do it who are we to stop them?
Concerning the long arms part I was a lot more imprecise and didn't explain properly; I'll take bdo as an example because it's the more vivid for me: in this game wizards have this standard to be old men no matter what; on the other side sorceress is supposed to have this standard gorgeous Megan Fox looking. The issue with this is that in the moment you want to make a young looking wizard or a japanese face for the sorceress you get a "barrier": it takes a lot of efforts to realize something like this because the game forces you inside these standards. I know people who got to have those two styles but it was a total pain for them (hours n hours of hard work). Why do we have to make people's life difficult when we can help them in creating what they want?
3. I like creativity aswell but sometime devs just can't do everything especially if they allow for full body customization because it's ALOT of time and effort to make sure that if you want to have very arms, you can wear anything in the game without breaking or looking weird, too stretch or compressed or even broken.Y when it comes to games and programming they'll face limits, that's inevitable. No problem with that, although imo it will be not that good to have just full armor clothes for men and bikinis for women - not because of gender inequality but because it will give 0 variety to my pg (not gonna happen, it's just an extreme example). I think they'll be able to give us different styles of clothing, even if they'll add them after the release to make sure everything is in place is not a problem a tall.
Probably will support them buying some good clothes (if they'll stay far away from p2w and p2c stuffs, otherwise i'll do as i did in bdo: not buying a thing because i don't support
I like strong armors and I like some nice outfits from time to time. If you see some skin that's ok - as long as nobody is doing this special physic for the best two arguments of a woman. They don't need to spin around with every step I take... :x