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with Wonder Woman, it's perplexing how you can say she's supposed to be empowering, when she supposedly has ...
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a bondage fetish.
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Super Girl?
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DC Comics editor Matt Idelson: "I never want to see Supergirl's panties again."
Teams are the number one killer of soloists.
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Super Girl?
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DC Comics editor Matt Idelson: "I never want to see Supergirl's panties again."
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Me neither! Make her wear NOTHING under that skirt. 
*giggity giggity*
Just board and picking through this.
I love heels in this game, sure they aren't realistic but then neither is anything else my characters do and just like I wish I could fly around and shoot lasers from my eyes, so do I wish I could run at 35mph in heels all day and have gravity defying breasts.
Meanwhile some of the points in this thread remind me of the hand waving in the old Dirty Pair comics/amine (one of the progenitors of the Girls With Guns In Bikinis genera and inspired by woman's wrestling if it matters), once personal force field technology became cheap enough to give to all their agents, the WWWA learned that putting their more attractive agents in skimpy outfits ruined the combat efficiency of the typical outlaw type. Regardless of it was due to the old chivalric codes that many of them held to "I just can't shoot a half naked girl" or the fact that the agents where trained to fire while the bad guys where oggeling their ta-tas.
Of course most of my characters where the really impractical pencil skirt, there is no you cannot run in one of them, thanks for playing, with tops with skins and variations of the vest and jacket tops.
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Honestly, modest costumes aren't realistic for certain types of fighting, for either male or female. Superheroes lean heavily towards hand to hand fighting, and when your enemy is close enough to lay hands on you they can easily avoid most protective clothing. In addition, things like body armor make really great handholds, making it really easy for your opponent to throw you around. It doesn't matter how strong you are, if you give your enemy a good enough grip to get your feet off the ground, you're going pretty much wherever they want to put you.
If a character has more than a quarter inch of hair, you have no business talking about how "practical" or "impractical" their outfit is -- if you have hair you aren't prepared to fight. Necks are weaker than arms, and hair tends to be stronger than neck muscles, so hair is nothing more than an invitation to getting your face slammed into the nearest hard object. Almost all heroes and villains have hair that is way too long to fight in, after which point it's just silly to worry that their shirt looks too easy to pull off in a fight.
Really, once a character has hair they're already so hopelessly impractical and vain that nothing else is even close in importance. (Which is why the Frank Miller incarnation of Catwoman shaved her head.)
Capes are straight out.
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Way off topic, but I like how they follow this with the new Batwoman. Batman even tells her to lose the hair if she's serious about fighting 
In general, I stopped making assumptions about who is playing what, I also generally stopped caring.
Fact is, a LOT of girls play video games now, and while it may not be true last time I saw the numbers more girls played MMOs then guys did world wide. (I no longer have the numbers was years ago). Add to this the fact that all the friends I know that are female and play this game, their female toons wear much skimpier clothes then my ones.
The only way I do guess "boy" when I play and see a skimpily dressed female toon, is the ones that I've seen people I know are girls playing have looked GOOD while being sexy. The ones I've seen boys playing have just looked...bad. The style wasn't there. Granted, that is just my opinion.
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Hmmm, my Agent Wildkatze is guilty of just that in her base costume. The suit covers head to toe, but has stilettos. I vaguely recall debating about it for half a second and deciding she's just that agile she can do it. As a comparison, my tankers I don't expect to be that agile, and have flat soles.
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A colleague at work says she doesn't find high-heel shoes at all uncomfortable because she always walks on her toes when wearing them, so the heel doesn't matter. I'm not sure how much faith I can put into this, but it's certainly POSSIBLE that an agile character can dash around in high heels by just not touching the heel.
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My wife wore heels for so many years that if she wears flats for too long, her ankles hurt.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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Actually from a pure Sun Tzu point of view of combat it's probably not a bad thing for enemies of heroes like Superman or Wonder Woman to be "distracted" by their flashy outfits because while the bad guys are busy laughing/gawking they are getting their butts beat down badly.
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Again, if you have the invulnerability to get away that, fine. At that point it's a matter of vanity or personal taste.
If I were an invulnerable super, I wear something durable and sensible because even if I don't care about Godzilla's breath, my clothing should be tough enough to withstand that. Bikinis and briefs made out of buckytube fibre might not burn or tear easily but they can get pulled off in combat, right? At least Superman has considered this. I suppose someone could give him a superwedgie but his suit is composed of Kryptonian fabric that can't tear easily and it covers most of his body so someone can't pull it off easily.
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Why do you think costumes at Icon/Face Maker cost so much? You think it's easy to make bullet-proof, fire-proof, untearable fabric into a costume?
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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If a character has more than a quarter inch of hair, you have no business talking about how "practical" or "impractical" their outfit is -- if you have hair you aren't prepared to fight. Necks are weaker than arms, and hair tends to be stronger than neck muscles, so hair is nothing more than an invitation to getting your face slammed into the nearest hard object. Almost all heroes and villains have hair that is way too long to fight in, after which point it's just silly to worry that their shirt looks too easy to pull off in a fight.
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Oh, you're not thinking sideways enough
When making Crash, my indestructible cyborg chick, I was facing this exact problem - she's invulnerable and supposed to be able to take any impact without budging an inch (after all, I was going to take Unyielding STANCE). See, she's a martial artist, so I couldn't very well make her 20 tons heavy or she wouldn't be able to prance around, yet she had to be "heavy" so as to be unmovable.
The solution? Technobabble! Between artificial inertia control and magnetic repulsors pointing in every direction, a reasonably competent computer subsystem could actively counter any amount of kinetic force delivered from any direction. Combine that with a completely indestructible body that doesn't take damage and transfers any impact into fully-body kinetic force and you have the recipe for... Well, not yielding Which is pretty cool when I fancy writing her getting hit by a speeding van, tackled by a rampaging giant monster or shot at by a tank.
I don't know how that came to happen, but purely in terms of plot and concept, Crash turned out to be by FAR the toughest of my characters and ALWAYS the one who seems to take the heaviest fire. It's pretty funny when you write about all these big, burly men, some in armour, some covered in stone, and the one standing up-front and taking the punches is an average-height woman in short pants and a jacket. That has GOT to make them feel really inadequate
To comment on what someone said before, about how comic books at large are boy fantasies and women in them are hard to take seriously - that wholly depends on the writer, and I don't mean just "if the writer is a woman." Some people do make women because they want a weak woman to be kidnapped and saved and even the strongest of women are touted as "almost as strong as a man," as a friend of mine aptly put it. That doesn't have to be the case, and I know of at least one author who makes female characters with the sole intention of being really, really, REALLY badass
Now, there is a distinction between females as strong leads and females as bombshells, and I see no reason why a character cannot and should not be both. I make most of my female characters because I have an interesting idea for a powerful character, but I have one (OK, a few) whom I made just because I thought they looked sexy. That hasn't stopped me from giving them serious concepts and sufficient ability to hold their own (one of THE most important prerequisites for my characters is that they hold their own), but the fact remains that this strong female character's appearance was designed to make me look at it and go "Oh, yeah!"
I don't see that as a bad thing. Looking good is not a crime nor is it despicable. As a matter of fact, it's often interesting to design a character such that she looks exactly like a male fantasy cheese cake ON PURPOSE, then giving her a personality that crushes balls. All in all, in my head, a good concept and a well-made story can work with ANY starting point.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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[ QUOTE ]
Fact is, a LOT of girls play video games now, and while it may not be true last time I saw the numbers more girls played MMOs then guys did world wide. (I no longer have the numbers was years ago).
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The numbers I remember (alas, no links) was for gaming online in general rather than specifically MMOs. It included things like Yahoo Games, or online Solitaire (a concept which always kinda puzzled me). I don't think I've ever seen/heard anything that suggests Everquest, WoW, et al have ever been anything other than male dominated all this time, despite the gradual shift in ratios.
As to the thread topic, eh, I guess I have some preconceptions about the more scantily clad female characters mostly being male players, though it tends to be heavily influenced by both the character's name, bio, and the way they act. But said preconceptions only usually result in a passing idle thought, then it's gone and I continue playing the game. Ultimately I don't care who the player is so long as they play half-way decently and don't have an irritating personality.
My own female chars (probably about 40% of my alts) tend towards the more covered costumes. I'm looking through them and the majority of them are in some kind of power armour, along with one in military uniform and another in a suit (Crey agent look). The closest mine come to "bare" is a stalker in a t-shirt with the "shredded" bottoms option. I probably have "issues" ; I found myself feeling awfully self conscious on the rare occasion I made one running around in little more than her underwear, it was almost like I was creeping myself out.
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I probably have "issues" ; I found myself feeling awfully self conscious on the rare occasion I made one running around in little more than her underwear, it was almost like I was creeping myself out.
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What you have, most likely, is preconceptions about what preconceptions other people would have when they saw your character. I used to feel the same way, feeling bad about playing scantly-clad girls. But the fact of the matter is that, for the most part, what we are upset with is not how we look at the characters, but how we project other people would look at the character. "Man, this makes me look like some 13 year old hormone addict little boy!"
For me, admitting this to myself was my release. Fact of the matter is, I like the look of a scantly-clad girl. I never hated it, not as a kid, not as an adult, but I grew up with a heavy taboo about it. Only perverts liked seeing scantly-clad women, and I sure as hell wasn't one! Except I was and I am. No sense in trying to act up and not do things I like just because of how other people might see it.
Oh, sure, there are tasteless morons who make barefoot women in a string bikini and run around the world giggling to themselves. You don't have to be one of those people even if you made a character pretty much like this as long as you pulled it off with style, though... Pulling that specific one off with style might be pretty hard. The point is, DO creep yourself out from time to time and DO stick with it. Once you get past the taboo, you might find that you actually like it. Or find you hate it, who knows. Either way, don't stop just at the gut reaction of "I'm creeping myself out." There's a broader world out there, and some of the coolest stuff is the stuff that we, for one reason or another, have an abject taboo against.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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My female toons tend to be either fully clothed or catgirls (who come with their own "clothing" so to speak).
Also, I tend to use ponytails or buns on my female toons... anything else seems like the hair would get in your face and mess up your shot or blind you for a split-second.
My Blogs on TGWTG.com
Angels of Wrath/Evilnighters/Legion of Catgirls
Mission Arc: #352860 - RJ The Road Dog: Big Trouble in Little Tokyo
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I probably have "issues" ; I found myself feeling awfully self conscious on the rare occasion I made one running around in little more than her underwear, it was almost like I was creeping myself out.
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What you have, most likely, is preconceptions about what preconceptions other people would have when they saw your character. I used to feel the same way, feeling bad about playing scantly-clad girls. But the fact of the matter is that, for the most part, what we are upset with is not how we look at the characters, but how we project other people would look at the character. "Man, this makes me look like some 13 year old hormone addict little boy!"
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I think there's probably a large element of that - I think of how I roll my eyes at the ones that *do* come across as the hormone addled teenage boy and don't want to be the person I'm rolling my eyes at. Though there's also an element of it just not doing much for me - even in real life the swimsuit models and Maxim centre spreads just don't interest me much (maybe if they were right in front of me in person and showing me a certain amount of, ah, attention, but not just to look at in a magazine), so a collection of pixels depicting a fictional character certainly won't. Which kinda takes away the incentive to get past the how-it'll-make-me-look aspect.
Fair enough
I'm just saying that I've spoken with a few people who were afraid to make certain characters because of how others would look at them, and I've been there, myself. For the most part, sticking with it just so you know you've done it once tends to open up new possibilities in the future. It doesn't HAVE to, but once you get over the "shock value" of making and playing one, you might find this creeping into future characters and future costumes ever so subtly.
'Course, if it doesn't do it for you, it probably won't, but it's a general thing
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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[ QUOTE ]
Really, once a character has hair they're already so hopelessly impractical and vain that nothing else is even close in importance. (Which is why the Frank Miller incarnation of Catwoman shaved her head.)
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That claim strikes me as rather dubious. If you are in a position to grab a person's hair, you're also in a position to push a knife through their throat.
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Capes are straight out.
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The Incredibles and the wisdom of Edna "E" Mode aside, it depends on how they are used. Cloaks were historically used by fencers as defensive devices. Obviously, most superhero capes these days are just fashion items, but different uses are not inconceivable.
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The Incredibles and the wisdom of Edna "E" Mode aside, it depends on how they are used. Cloaks were historically used by fencers as defensive devices. Obviously, most superhero capes these days are just fashion items, but different uses are not inconceivable.
[/ QUOTE ]
Seeing her quoted again and again and again over the years, I feel Edna Mode did more damage to the image of super heroes than anyone else I'm aware of. Capes are only impractical if you're some wannabe who tied one around his neck and went running around the streets. However, if you're super strong, able to fly and nigh-on invulnerable, what's a cape really going to do to impede you? At worst it will get torn off, but when your muscle strength exceeds the cape's tensile strength by a thousand fold... So what?
And that's neglecting to mention heroes with powers to use their capes or, even furthermore, powers that ARE their capes. I don't recall anyone chastising Spawn for having his when it can shield him from bullets and turn into spikes.
Oh, sure, I'm not open to everything, myself. Super fighters fighting hand to hand in 10 inch stilettos bug me, personally, partly because it looks AWFUL and partly because it's the most impractical thing in the world, but if there's a logically illogical explanation for it, then why not? Again, a colleague of mine insists she never actually steps on the heel of her high heels when she walks, walking practically in her toes, so eh. Why not? Long as it doesn't look tasteless, why not?
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Re:Capes.
There is a very early Batman where Batman has his cape grabbed by a villain, after that in the next comic he points out that indecent all his capes where tear away. If Bob Kane could figure it out in the early 40s I'm sure most people could figure it out today.
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Re:Capes.
There is a very early Batman where Batman has his cape grabbed by a villain, after that in the next comic he points out that indecent all his capes where tear away. If Bob Kane could figure it out in the early 40s I'm sure most people could figure it out today.
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I think a lot of later stuff also points out that Batman's capes (as well as those of Robin and Batgirl - Nightwing typically eschews the cape) are made of advanced polymers/metal weaves that make them fairly heavy and bullet resistant as well. In addition to the body armor, that's a significant ranged deterrent right there - and allows them to extend that protection (in a limited fashion) to someone they may be rescuing.
Now that's an interesting concept. If it gets grabbed or caught on something, it simply tears away and doesn't impede. Cool!
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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[ QUOTE ]
Honestly, modest costumes aren't realistic for certain types of fighting, for either male or female. Superheroes lean heavily towards hand to hand fighting, and when your enemy is close enough to lay hands on you they can easily avoid most protective clothing. In addition, things like body armor make really great handholds, making it really easy for your opponent to throw you around. It doesn't matter how strong you are, if you give your enemy a good enough grip to get your feet off the ground, you're going pretty much wherever they want to put you.
If a character has more than a quarter inch of hair, you have no business talking about how "practical" or "impractical" their outfit is -- if you have hair you aren't prepared to fight. Necks are weaker than arms, and hair tends to be stronger than neck muscles, so hair is nothing more than an invitation to getting your face slammed into the nearest hard object. Almost all heroes and villains have hair that is way too long to fight in, after which point it's just silly to worry that their shirt looks too easy to pull off in a fight.
Really, once a character has hair they're already so hopelessly impractical and vain that nothing else is even close in importance. (Which is why the Frank Miller incarnation of Catwoman shaved her head.)
Capes are straight out.
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You sound like you fight like a girl.
Take care.
Learn modesty, if you desire knowledge. A highland would never be irrigated by river." (Kanz ol-Haghayegh)
re: capes
If I recall correctly, Watchmen also had some "capes = bad news" bits in it, talking about the heroes from earlier decades.
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If a character has more than a quarter inch of hair, you have no business talking about how "practical" or "impractical" their outfit is -- if you have hair you aren't prepared to fight.
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Medusa, a Marvel character which has been in comics since the mid-60s.
Probably not the only superhero/villain with "superhair", either.
Might want to reconsider your position.
Cloaks can be good or bad.
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[...] Watchmen also had some "capes = bad news" bits in it
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Dollar Bill was fatally shot at the bank he was guarding when his cloak got caught in the bank's revolving doors.
On the other hand, the Orcs of the tower of Cirith Ungol largely killed each other off after fighting broke out over whom would get Frodo's spoils, which included his cloak.
Remember: with great chest slider comes great responsibility. Especially in City of Heroes. Because even with all sliders on default, female models look kind of like crippled Barbie dolls, and messing with scales only makes it worse.
Developers! Make a new female model already, for the current one sucks. But I digress...
Heels. Every one of my attempts at a female character wore heels because of the odd way legs look on the female characters. I'm no artist, but something is just WRONG with females' legs when you wear flat shoes or go barefoot, it's bordering on the uncanny valley. Wearing boots with any kind of heel almost certainly cures this problem. I think the female models were INTENDED to wear heels all along, and flat footwear (or lack thereof) was more of an afterthought.
Skimpy outfits. I'm pretty sure some of you know my attitude towards nudity (well, Lothic should at least). That said, the problem with wearing skimpy clothes is that they are nothing more than body paint. Female models are already awful (where's the belly button by the way?) and outfits like Eden that lack any "substance" to them produce the effect of an animated, painted plastic doll. It's not alluring in the least and results in the uncanny valley effect again.
Side note: I'm shocked that this thread was started by a female.
>.O
I'm male, and play female alts quite a bit. So This gives me a confusion. I do usually go with the Civie Spandex route of 'normal' clothes rather than spandex, a trend I've been mostly trying to invert lately.
I've never balked. . . no, that's a lie. I do occasionally balk at having characters exposing too much skin. One of my characters is based on the Yuki-Onna legend, part of which is the ice-spirits being basically naked in the snow. So one of her costumes has glowing blue eyes and a 'naked' body covered in frigid mist. It looks nice, but I'm usually very hesitant to click over to it despite the fact that it looks really neat, just based on how people will perceive me.
. . . I don't even remember what this conversation was about anymore. :\
Lunchtime now, so I can focus better.
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Remember: with great chest slider comes great responsibility. Especially in City of Heroes. Because even with all sliders on default, female models look kind of like crippled Barbie dolls, and messing with scales only makes it worse.
Developers! Make a new female model already, for the current one sucks. But I digress...
Heels. Every one of my attempts at a female character wore heels because of the odd way legs look on the female characters. I'm no artist, but something is just WRONG with females' legs when you wear flat shoes or go barefoot, it's bordering on the uncanny valley. Wearing boots with any kind of heel almost certainly cures this problem. I think the female models were INTENDED to wear heels all along, and flat footwear (or lack thereof) was more of an afterthought.
Skimpy outfits. I'm pretty sure some of you know my attitude towards nudity (well, Lothic should at least). That said, the problem with wearing skimpy clothes is that they are nothing more than body paint. Female models are already awful (where's the belly button by the way?) and outfits like Eden that lack any "substance" to them produce the effect of an animated, painted plastic doll. It's not alluring in the least and results in the uncanny valley effect again.
Side note: I'm shocked that this thread was started by a female.
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It's the legs. More noticeable when bare foot/high heels.
My main has her legs at the middle mark. In her normal boots (Large Heavy Buckles...pretty much on any outfit that will allow it for her) her legs look fine.
Minute I put her in a bathing suit/bikini for the SG beach/pool party *sigh* Her legs look way to long.
Put the legs at max, and it's seen even more.
The legs length all the way the other direction tend to have problems of their own.
In the end, a SG member of mine told me...
"All your toons look alike."
And this bothered me for awhile. Then I realized, I might have a billion+ options, but I only like a handful of those billion, and so, I'll continue to do what I've always done...
Make the toon look good in my eyes. All the matters.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
Honestly, modest costumes aren't realistic for certain types of fighting, for either male or female. Superheroes lean heavily towards hand to hand fighting, and when your enemy is close enough to lay hands on you they can easily avoid most protective clothing. In addition, things like body armor make really great handholds, making it really easy for your opponent to throw you around. It doesn't matter how strong you are, if you give your enemy a good enough grip to get your feet off the ground, you're going pretty much wherever they want to put you.
If a character has more than a quarter inch of hair, you have no business talking about how "practical" or "impractical" their outfit is -- if you have hair you aren't prepared to fight. Necks are weaker than arms, and hair tends to be stronger than neck muscles, so hair is nothing more than an invitation to getting your face slammed into the nearest hard object. Almost all heroes and villains have hair that is way too long to fight in, after which point it's just silly to worry that their shirt looks too easy to pull off in a fight.
Really, once a character has hair they're already so hopelessly impractical and vain that nothing else is even close in importance. (Which is why the Frank Miller incarnation of Catwoman shaved her head.)
Capes are straight out.