Still Sexism in costume choices? Really?

Perhaps because they have males and females on the art team, and those people can relate to male and female costumes. There aren't any huges on the art team**, so no one is applying their experience to influence those costume sets.



** Nate is a producer, not an artist

Because the "Huge" model is nominally male and it makes more sense -- and would be more expected -- to have both "Male" models match in costumes than to match the male and female models.

I suspect you knew this already.

I did, and it is precisely my point. The artists are thinking in terms of gender at least as much as in terms of "model type". The fact of the matter is that the argument was about model types and how much work it is to make things multiple times, yet they do it every single time with male and huge. They choose to make the items twice for the male and the huge, and they consistently choose to do so. If it was simply an issue of variety between model types, then there would be items that exist only on male and not on huge, and vice versa.


So why don't they port some of the female items to the huge, then? :P

Because some things Should Not Be

I dunno, I think a huge male might look cute with a shoulder kitten.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Only when the stars are right

Which isn't a good reason to do it three times for every piece.

It is an issue of variety between types. The "types" being Male/Huge & Female.

I already have a shoulder kitten in real life. Only the future can tell what I'll have to do when the little darling gets bigger.

AKA Gender.

I need those coats for a few of my characters.

Erm... yeah. I don't know who was arguing anything different. Females get different parts because they want variety between the two genders and porting pieces so each side gets the same exact stuff means less variety overall. The only one who seemed hung up on "Huge" as a separate type was you. Sure, it might mean that each male part takes twice as long to do (since you have to do it twice) but it doesn't change the fact that they need to make the decision for the female part as to whether they're going to copy the male part again or come up with something new.

No, the decisions are plainly and obviously gender based and not model based. Imagine if all the really big and heavy armor in the game was reserved to just the Huge model. That would give us ' ' more diversity ' ' because then that would have freed up the art team to give the Male and Female models other and different types of pieces: More suit jackets for Males and more Tops with Skin for Females.

Would you have been OK with that?

Actually, Arcanaville was the one talking about model types, how there are three of them, how there's no difference between making the same thing for each model and making a different thing for each model, and how that is the reason for them making the decisions they do. Other people who didn't specify the breakdowns of the model also made the argument regarding the issue of porting things from models. I am simply pointing out that the model thing isn't a sufficiently valid response because it is obvious the issue is purely one of gender, and the fact that they keep Male and Huge step-in-step - even though that requires them to do the exact thing Arcanaville and others were talking about - is a key indicator that the issue is not one of model types but one of a conscious gender-based decision.

^ This is basically my point.

If their sole or primary rule was "more diversity > duplicating", then Huge and Male would be different. But they aren't (at least, not in any parts that I can think of), so it isn't. Proof by contradiction.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, given that 2/3rds of the models represent standard gender body types, it's pretty much impossible for them to be mutually exclusive.

I've seen quite a few very nice designs as well. However, I will say this: it is significantly harder to make certain styles of costume for females than it is for males. My husband and I've been playing, for years now, a married couple who dress in fairly similar tones. It had always, almost without exception, been more difficult for me to design anything than it had for him. This holds true for several different styles of dress: dressy, casual, awe-inspiring, combat, etc' etc'. This is not an absolute digital yes/no issue, but the possibilities are indubitably skewed.

What I've been clamouring for, from the very first moment this issue came up - and for me it truly became evident when the Magic pack came out - was a less skewed output regarding costume pieces. It does not have to be identical. It does not have to always match item for item and tit-for-tat, but a less skewed selection of a greater variety that would enable female characters to have a better set of options for dress that is not inclined towards the absolutely slinky would make almost automatically for greater equality, and lesser levels of unfortunate social undercurrents.

I'd never bar anyone from making a female toon dressed in what could easily pass for underwear if they so wish. Some people - even some people who posted in this thread - obviously are inclined to make these sorts of choices in their costume creation. That is okay. But the fact that making costumes of a different variety is difficult is not okay. This is what I essentially want corrected. Surely, the artistic mettle of the developer team is sufficient that it can be applied, from time to time, to original female pieces, if they so wish it, that portray female power of a more comparable type to men. They could view it as a challenge, if they feel so inclined.

As for myself, my characters, who do not choose to dress to show everything at all times, have been stuck with a nigh-onto-unchanged set up jackets, skirts, blouses, pants, since Issue 13 came out. That makes me sad. But what disappoints me even more is that so few people truly see the problem with the costume choices we are given. I have to agree with Kid Crisis that, while I wouldn't want to accuse the developer team of any sort of bias - at the least not without any kind of evidence - the social tendencies underlying the presentations that we're seeing are problematic. Call me a misguided feminist, if you will, but I feel it's my duty, as a female player of this game, to point them out.

I don't ask for complete identity. I don't even ask for complete parity. But I think female toons deserve greater variety of styles and options than what they get, and at least a somewhat comparable ease in making them to the male models. I don't think that is an unreasonable request, or a limiting one.

Hurt someone's feelings? How is it hurtful to say "hey, that is a really awesome jacket you designed and I want my female characters to be able to wear it too"? The vast majority of my characters are female, so I'm automatically being given fewer choices. The vast majority of my husband's characters are male, so he's automatically being given fewer choices. We're not the only ones who predominantly play one gender.

And there is no excuse for not making the "occult" pattern available for female magic capes. I haven't checked in a while, but isn't the "long cape" option also unavailable with the high collar for female models?

I don't see much value in just going back and forth on it so I'll say that my main point was regarding the "lingerie" statements from several people in the thread. Claiming that women are stuck with lingerie or have all this sexy stuff thrust upon them or can't create non-sexy costumes does a great disservice to the argument because it's so easily proven wrong. Making a "fully dressed" female character in all manner of styles (civilian, superhero tights, power armor, magical garb, etc) is trivial. Arguments that imply that it's not just make the person look uninformed.

I'm not saying you're uninformed, and I'm generally in favor of new stuff so I'm not going to say you shouldn't get a long coat or whatever, just that the hyperbole in the thread goes counter to what you (general "you") are trying to achieve.

It may be trivial, but casual and respectable together are not an overwhelming majority of what we're offered, particularly with some of the perk packs (see: Slu^H^H^HWedding Pack) being more strongly slanted.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

There isn't much point arguing and nitpicking over single word choices used by people. Especially since she explicitly gave the restriction of post-I13, which most of the "non-skimpy" outfits wind up having to utilize (shirt over top to fake a non-crazy neckline, pencil skirt, etc... and I can't think of many "superhero tights" pieces being given since I13). We'd also have to give the restriction about the "non-clothing" things like power armor, Mutant Pack pieces, and Praetorian stuff, because they've been pretty good about seeing that all body types share the same pieces for those.

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My opinion is that in this case, those missing pieces are bugs. The Male and Huge models shouldn't have had a back-door to having all the level 20 locked choices available with the long magic cape. And similarly, it was a bug which kept the female model from having the long cape and the occult pattern.

So, my suggestion to the whole Paragon Team is this: Schedule time for a *programmer* to dive into the costume creator interface and sort it out. The art department has a really bad history of making that interface work correctly. Remember how the buzz cut for men went missing for a whole year? It took quite a bit of public shaming to get them to finally look into it. But we've had the same problem with other pieces that mysteriously appear and disappear.

Not to mention that the Art Department seems to be excluded from having to check in on the Patch Notes. Things get added, disappeared, fixed, and replaced without any Patch Notes. As the self-appointed unofficial keeper of the Missing Patch Notes, I know quite well how costuming changes are almost never registered in the Patch Notes.

There's just something *odd* in how the costuming department works when compared to say the Powers Team or the Design Team. We need a programmer in there to impose order. The artists create great and magnificent art. The artists don't do as well as keeping it all organized.

Which means, this now falls on Production's door. They're the new gatekeepers in the Studio. If the Art Team isn't checking in on path-note-worthy info, then that's Production's fault. If the Art Team needs help keeping their player interface organized, and they don't get it from the programmers, then that's Production's fault. So.. Second Measure, this is something you need to get your team on: Fix the problems in character costume interface.

That is a particular extremist black and white worldview: if someone makes a sex-biased decision, then the person is a sexist.

Besides getting one's post modded for applying that term to the person, the reason to avoid that is the point I made earlier: That a sexist decision in one area in life does not mean that there is going to be automatic and similar sexist decisions in other areas of life. But if you call someone a 'sexist', that would be the most common interpretation of applying the label to the person and not just the action.

People who abhor a particular ideology whether it be sexism or violence or consumerism are not above being influenced by those things if they're systemically entrenched in their culture and thus partaking of them in unconscious ways: buying a luxury item, seeing a movie glorifying violent vengeance, or thinking that girl costume tops is all about corsets and lacy, puffy sleeves.