Female Mastermind Pets Suggestion

I've been playing MMs since I started (first toon was a blaster, but then I discovered the awesomeness that is MM), and one thing that always felt lacking was the lack of customization with the pets. There's not even an option to change the colours on the minions (except for demons...but that's only to a minor extent)

One thing that I've always wanted to see, especially since you only get the option for male or gender neutral (robot/zombie), is female minions.

I can understand the reservation because of the potential for people to scream "OMG SEXISM!", but at the same time, the same could be said for the fact that a MM can only control males. (ex complaint: What, are females not good enough to work together with a MM? We can fight against them and defeat them, but we can't work with them?)

I've brought this up at two occasions, the first being the 2010 SF M&G, and the second being the CoH Pummit earlier this month. Both times I was given the response that they would prefer to "err on the side of caution". Funny thing is, that the issues that were presented, like the misuse of emotes on the minions, (such as using swoon or collapse, and then doing pushups on top of them) is already being done, and it's with males as the minions....or with dead mobs (yes, my husband, Joyrock and I actually saw that happening in DA with the BP during our little excursion to Freedom server).

If the potential for "abuse and misuse" is so great, why not remove the ability to use certain emotes/commands all together?

My two cents on the subject would be to have set outfits/appearances like with the male versions, thus removing the potential for "fembots" or "bikini girls" running around. If sexism complaints are such a concern that the Devs prefer to err on the side of caution and just not bring out the option, then what about the latest items available such as the gunslinger set? Saloon girls were essentially viewed as "dancing girls" or "soiled doves" (which aren't T for Teen), yet they're still being put out there as an option. Shooting down an idea just because someone, somewhere, at sometime might do something wrong and then offend someone, would put it to the point that NOTHING could be in the game. Because there is at least SOMETHING that is going to offend SOMEONE.

Instead of going and not putting out something because of the chance someone might become offended, why not give us the chance to try out the option.

So here's my suggestions, please critique/add to them as you see fit.

-Give us a drop down option to switch between male/female with the powers.
-Have set skins for both genders, if able to, give some sort of colour tinting.
Examples of what could be used for the pets, or as base suggestions:
Thugs- Rocket Girls
Mercs- Knives of Artemis style?
Robots- either keep them gender neutral, or the Victorias from Praet
Zombies- um....do they even have a gender anymore?
Ninjas- Use the sliders to make them more feminine
Demons- Girlfriends from Hell, or just keep them the same/different colour?
-At least give us the option to see the product, instead of assuming that people will get up in arms and begin to form a mob to storm Paragon Studios.

Thanks for your time. This is something that I feel really strongly about.

I don't even like MMs, but I think a game that has hung it's hat on character and power customization options should have done this a long time ago.

/signed

I was at the Player Summit and in the room when you made your case (repeatedly at different panels). I agree that this is something that should be made available.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

I'd love to see this kind of thing too - and definitely in the spirit of the original, with female counterparts that share a suitable level of competence and clothing with the original models.

Playing devils advocate here.

What are the repercussions when a player named Pimpdaddy or Pimpsalot which would be okay for a single toon player as I have seen in the past, now makes one for a female based Mastermind. Or picks a adult entertainment type name and then names the pets similarly.

As a side note I took on a slight offense to denoting that bad behavior is only seen on freedom server.

I'm no fool and I know at the end of the day it is going to be hard for a player to fight against Devs or this game if they decided to change his name or his pets names even if he had a similar name on a non mastermind toon if they or someone else found it offensive. I don't see someone getting a lawyer or something, but I do think it would be a form of double standard allowing a blaster named Macdaddy but DaddyMac mastermind with female toons is not allowed.

P.S. while posting this I logged in and reserved 2 names. Peter South and Peter of da North. Again just making a point.

I find it great and dandy and have no issues with your request, but I do think you need to give valid way that might be acceptable to resolve these possible issues. You want them to give you something and then have them deal with the issues of what they gave you might cause. As much as I don't care about the Dev's I do agree this would be more work for them in what is now a F2P game.

Other things that could be used for the base forms for female pets:

Mercs: Crey agents (the suit and tie females)
Thugs: Skull's girlfriends (I know they're not actual mobs we fight, but it's an idea. Like they've decided to finally step up and fight along the rest of their bf's gang.)
Ninjas: The females from the Legacy Chain group

Two words for this whole 'female pet' idea:

Amazon. Women.

And I'm in. That is all.

/re: Pimpdaddy or such... Yes and no. Yes, not wanting to promote that, no, there's nothing techically wrong with the name/idea of a man tellin' women to beat up on villains.
//Mixed emotions, am I.
///'Specially since I have Nearly Nekkid, female stalker, runnin' around somewhere...
////She wears a specially made bikini, honest... just really close to her skin color for the stealthing to work...

I can't wait for female henchies. Puts women in their rightful place serving my bidding.

You can already make stupid mysoginistic characters with idiotic ideas behind them. Adding the option of female mastermind minions doesn't really do much but piss into the ocean of piss as far as negative consequences go.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

I don't know what the OP is talking about. My robots are clearly female.

Most likely if this were to happen, we probably won't have much in the way of customizing their appearance.

I hope they do this, but I expect if it does happen it will be "Soon"(tm)

Um yeah people will make jerky toons nomatter what......... just this year ive seen.....

1) BoBo TheRape Clown

2) Eye(f-word)(n-word)s (all one word)


Worst part is these arent toons I saw one time and then oh look they got deleted. Ive seen both of them several times over the coarse of the year. They were both in the 3-40 range last time I ran into them.


Though BoBos backround story was pretty funny. BUT BACK TO THE POINT!!!!!!!!

I wish they'd give us pet customization in the first place. And do like you suggested earlier: just use existing models. Knives of Artemis, Crey, Longbow, Legacy Chain....etc... all have character models appropriate for henchmen, most of which have even been tested handling the appropriate weapons already.

They claim that players would abuse the emotes with the collapse and the pushups thing?

You can do that already, the other way around, can't you?
I guess if nobody's thought of it, it doesn't count?

I suppose it's equally unlikely that the "male on male" has been abused?

If you can show them that those emotes don't work or that the problem isn't that bad, I'm sure they'd reconsider.

I think the whole thing is a double standard. While there is the issue of a male mastermind abusing his henchwomen, how is ok for a female mastermind to abuse or be abused by their henchmen? To me it looks worse for the female mastermind to be gang banged by the henchmen. What works for one can work for the other. The devs need to stop with this double standard approach.