Gender Equality in Costumes - A lack thereof
The Paladin
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We've been closely following your feedback regarding this topic, both here and on the Beta forums. Unfortunately Cheryl, the artist who worked primarily on the Gunslinger Character Modelling, has been extremely pressed for time creating new costume sets and as such hasn't been able to post directly on the beta feedback thread. That being said, the feedback and concerns expressed have been communicated to the art and production team.
To address a few points We've been trying to add unique and different costume pieces for female options for the sake of overall variety, however I understand some of the concerns being expressed here, as does the rest of the Art and Production team. Moving forward, where possible, we will be making more gender neutral/male pieces created for females so as to more accurately reflect the Communities requests. Because each costume piece has to be individually created (we can't CTRL+C, CTRL+V the pieces from male to female unfortunately ), this does mean that we will be offering less overall unique options, however we feel it's important to address this concern. If anyone took offense to our artistic choices, we apologize. it's not our intent to offend anyone. Regarding the pretinting of costume pieces: While pretinted pieces give the artists the ability to provide some very unique materials and add more visual interest to select pieces, we don’t want to limit your creativity, either. Moving forward, we'll be offering both a pretinted and untinted option for all pieces which we choose to make pretinted. Thanks -Z |
As feedback in response to this: please keep in mind that while it may appear that you are getting more overall variety when you make different male and female costume items, when females overwhelmingly get "sexy <whatever>", females end up with less variety. I don't think the players view their characters in large groups (I know I don't), as if this were some kind of RTS, where male characters having 8 different new jackets and female characters having 8 different new corsets might make it feel like we have 16 new options. Since we play characters individually, it's important that each individual character type has a variety of options that can be used to bring our concepts to life.
Also, thank you for hearing the requests for untinted costume items.
Thanks again. The response is very appreciated, as is the content of it.
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Because each costume piece has to be individually created (we can't CTRL+C, CTRL+V the pieces from male to female unfortunately ), this does mean that we will be offering less overall unique options, however we feel it's important to address this concern.
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Mix-and-match is the greatest asset the character creator has. Trying to go too far in the "each set is unique" direction really cuts down on costume possibility and results in heavy reduplication of effort.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
We've been closely following your feedback regarding this topic, both here and on the Beta forums. Unfortunately Cheryl, the artist who worked primarily on the Gunslinger Character Modelling, has been extremely pressed for time creating new costume sets and as such hasn't been able to post directly on the beta feedback thread. That being said, the feedback and concerns expressed have been communicated to the art and production team.
To address a few points We've been trying to add unique and different costume pieces for female options for the sake of overall variety, however I understand some of the concerns being expressed here, as does the rest of the Art and Production team. Moving forward, where possible, we will be making more gender neutral/male pieces created for females so as to more accurately reflect the Communities requests. Because each costume piece has to be individually created (we can't CTRL+C, CTRL+V the pieces from male to female unfortunately ), this does mean that we will be offering less overall unique options, however we feel it's important to address this concern. If anyone took offense to our artistic choices, I apologize. It's not our intent to offend anyone. Regarding the pretinting of costume pieces: While pretinted pieces give the artists the ability to provide some very unique materials and add more visual interest to select pieces, we dont want to limit your creativity, either. Moving forward, we'll be offering both a pretinted and untinted option for all pieces which we choose to make pretinted. Thanks -Z |
I certainly understand the packs being seen as a chance for the team to offer some different options. This particular pack was a large misstep in regards to the theme, but I sincerely appreciate the apology from the team.
I am very excited about the last bit you mention about the pre-tinting options!
More options are gooder!!
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Because each costume piece has to be individually created (we can't CTRL+C, CTRL+V the pieces from male to female unfortunately ), this does mean that we will be offering less overall unique options, however we feel it's important to address this concern.
|
If anyone took offense to our artistic choices, I apologize. It's not our intent to offend anyone. |
I find it interesting that threads and comments about sexism are generally ignored, and it takes a thread in which multiple people express a refusal to give you money and many more people mention prostitutes to get a redname response.
Regarding the pretinting of costume pieces: While pretinted pieces give the artists the ability to provide some very unique materials and add more visual interest to select pieces, we dont want to limit your creativity, either. Moving forward, we'll be offering both a pretinted and untinted option for all pieces which we choose to make pretinted. |
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I have to agree with the OP, as I have done several times over in the Gunslinger Feedback thread, which (as mentioned by several others) garnered not even one dev response in regards to the concerns brought up there, and again here.
If anything, female characters should have more options than men. I say this because they should be able to wear dresses/ skirts and pants, bustiers/ corsets or jackets, etc.
As it is right now, there's not nearly enough lateral movement for female characters where these costume packs are concerned. As the OP has demonstrated, several packs in the past, and now the Gunslinger pack, leave female characters with little options but to dress in tops that leave little to the imagination, or bottoms that do the same. Where are the missing jacket and lower torso options?
Certainly, I understand that many comic females dress for sex appeal (it's part of what sells comics). At the same time, there are also plenty of examples of strong female characters that can pull off sex appeal without needing to bare most. At this point, the new costume boosters only cater to the former, IMPO. The focus of these certain costume packs is so narrow that there is little value to many concepts in them; quite the opposite actually - female characters are being pigeon-holed into a singular mold which consists of immodesty.
Until such a time whereas female characters can actually use a similar jacket as their male counterparts with these boosters, or get a decent pair of pants (instead of a skirt flap that barely covers their groin), I think I'll be abstaining from purchasing costume packs. Mind you, I don't have one female character in my arsenal, but until we can get some sort of reaction to the points that have been brought up time and time again, I'll through my hat into this Virtual Women's Rights Movement. You can call it a boycott if you wish, but I simply like to think that my money can be better spent elsewhere until something is done by the dev team to address this reoccurring matter to which many players have continually taken issue, myself included..
Edit: after having read Zwill's reply, I can appreciate addressing these concerns moving forward, but IMPO, I think it's a bit of a cop-out to say "we're too busy to fix sets we've already made". For me, it's a less-than-satisfactory reply. My previous request goes for not just moving forward, but for sets already created. Until they are addressed, I'm going to maintain my stance. I'm not asking for much on behalf of female characters - a jacket here, a pair of pants there.
Also, if you're going to set up a feedback thread for feedback, ensure that someone who actually does have time to respond actually delivers two-way communication to players leaving feedback, lest we think we're delivering feedback to a brick wall.
We're complaining about this outfit making characters look like prostitutes because it is an outfit most seen in a house of ill repute.
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But for me, as I've stated several times in several ways throughout the thread, it's about a divergence of implied roles, tactics and powers in the two different costumes.
A temptress or harlot recast as a super hero or villain has male counterparts, some sexualized some not. Regardless, the archetype carries with it an implication of distraction, seduction and or deception as a tactic. Look at the pinstripes while I rake you over the coals sort of thing. (Again, I think the riverboat gambler the more fitting period counterpart to the saloon girl we got here...)
Meanwhile, the gunslinger, as an archetype in my mind, is about grit. I've already used the word rugged to describe this character. This sort of character, though there are the Marty McFly exceptions, may be stoic but is not necessarily deceptive. They get by (or is it "git by" in this case?) on their stamina, constitution and will. The traditional gunslinger hero (and arguably even the villains) can be taken at face value--which is the opposite of a character that relies upon deception or seduction.
Risking jumping down a well of gender based literary critique, that sort of ruggedness, when championed in a female character can be quite compelling. It's arguably the central basis of both the book True Grit and the subsequent films. "Little prairie girl can't be tough." "Whoa. Little girl is tough." Or the story of Calamity Jane. Or Joan of Arc. Or Coco Chanel. Or Amelia Earhart. Etc. And many female characters in recent pulp narratives are cut from a similar cloth of tough, rugged, can-do exteriors.
From me, this is not a screed against overt female sexuality or the lasting realities of the male gaze. Both of those are worth celebrating and folding into characters. But there are also legitimate and worthy characters to be found that go against those grains. The female gunslinger is one such archetype IMO. So this is a headscratcher where the art direction and branding meet.
We've been trying to add unique and different costume pieces for female options for the sake of overall variety, however I understand some of the concerns being expressed here, as does the rest of the Art and Production team.
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Moving forward, where possible, we will be making more gender neutral/male pieces created for females so as to more accurately reflect the Communities requests. |
Moving forward, we'll be offering both a pretinted and untinted option for all pieces which we choose to make pretinted. |
Yay for Zwillinger! Sorry for any snarky/harsh comments earlier. I've just had an over looming fear the developers may start to forget the veterans and such as of I21. I've seen it happen with games before >.<.
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Ok, can we drop the overkill on hyperbole here?
No one I've seen is asking for 'Only ever having butch women outfits! From now on!' What we are sick of is ONLY having prissy stuff. It's what you said above, only in reverse. There are no or very few options for tougher female characters, no actual gunslingers. The issue is not that those parts exist, but that there are NO other options when there should have been. |
There's a fine line between asking for different options, and gunning down the options that exist, and I've never seen that line not erased in any of these threads.
There's nothing *wrong* with the female set in the gunslinger pack except that seriously there's no way that's a gunslinger. Except maybe in the 1800s version of Charlies Angels. And what species of miniature bovine did I assassinate to get those little cow skulls?
Something I keep reminding people, especially (although that hasn't happened here yet I think) when people say things like "the devs need to hire an actual woman to make female costumes" is that thinking your taste is representative of anyone but yourself is highly risky.
I was really hoping for an actual female gunslinger. Even if its intended to be a costume and not plain-jane attire, a hyper-embelished version of something Annie Oakley would wear to an exhibition would have been plenty fine. Or alternatively a modern version would have also been fine. If anything, I blame marketing. This is at best a western set, not a gunslinger set, because there's no female gunslinger.
That's really my main beef with the set. There's no female gunslinger. Everyone who wants to charge misogyny hill be my guest. I just want a female gunslinger costume. Something I can add dual pistols to and look cool wearing. I don't even think the cow horns go with all the bows, much less that costume go with pistols.
Also, please please tell me that the concept art for the set wasn't created after a screening of Jonah Hex.
There's only one gunslinger in that picture, and I'm pretty sure its the one on the right.
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Some consideration should be given to how many "unique" options there are. I mean, three packs so far have had a corset option. If more thought was given to interchangeability for costume pieces (which the non-tinted options will help with), then you can make one costume piece do the work of ten. A properly made corset could apply to several different costumes, rather than having to make an individual corset per costume. Yes, it can hurt period accuracy, but I don't think that's ever been a significant concern in this game.
Mix-and-match is the greatest asset the character creator has. Trying to go too far in the "each set is unique" direction really cuts down on costume possibility and results in heavy reduplication of effort. |
Basically, give us Lego pieces. Right now, what we're getting in packs is like a sloped Lego piece with a 30-degree angle, then the next set has a sloped Lego piece with a 45-degree angle, then the next has a sloped piece with a 60-degree angle. That's a nice level of detail, sure, but that's an awful lot of time wasted on minor variations of the same piece. Give us a single generic option, then let us build what we want with it. Further development time should be spent on making different shapes for us to use, not variations on the same shape.
In the same manner as Legos, themed sets are fantastic, sure. I like to see new pieces that create a completely new outfit. But as far as most of us are concerned, that set is just an excuse to have some brand new pieces to incorporate into our giant pile of individual Legos to make brand-new creations out of. The more a single piece is designed to work only with certain other pieces, or the more a single piece looks like a whole bunch of other pieces we already have with only minor variation, the less use it is to us.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
We've been trying to add unique and different costume pieces for female options for the sake of overall variety, however I understand some of the concerns being expressed here, as does the rest of the Art and Production team. Moving forward, where possible, we will be making more gender neutral/male pieces created for females so as to more accurately reflect the Communities requests. Because each costume piece has to be individually created (we can't CTRL+C, CTRL+V the pieces from male to female unfortunately ), this does mean that we will be offering less overall unique options, however we feel it's important to address this concern.
|
Regarding the pretinting of costume pieces: While pretinted pieces give the artists the ability to provide some very unique materials and add more visual interest to select pieces, we dont want to limit your creativity, either. Moving forward, we'll be offering both a pretinted and untinted option for all pieces which we choose to make pretinted. Thanks -Z |
And, just an FYI, if you guys ever decided to offer previously-tinted pieces as one-shot purchasables on the paragon market (not part of the original pack) I, for one, would not object one tiny bit. I'd just be happy to have stuff I can more easily mix-n-match.
Regarding the pretinting of costume pieces: While pretinted pieces give the artists the ability to provide some very unique materials and add more visual interest to select pieces, we dont want to limit your creativity, either. Moving forward, we'll be offering both a pretinted and untinted option for all pieces which we choose to make pretinted.
Thanks -Z |
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So, "Looking forward ..." is Marketing Language for, "You're not getting female gunfighter costume pieces."
I'm sad.
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We've been closely following your feedback regarding this topic, both here and on the Beta forums. Unfortunately Cheryl, the artist who worked primarily on the Gunslinger Character Modelling, has been extremely pressed for time creating new costume sets and as such hasn't been able to post directly on the beta feedback thread. That being said, the feedback and concerns expressed have been communicated to the art and production team.
To address a few points We've been trying to add unique and different costume pieces for female options for the sake of overall variety, however I understand some of the concerns being expressed here, as does the rest of the Art and Production team. Moving forward, where possible, we will be making more gender neutral/male pieces created for females so as to more accurately reflect the Communities requests. Because each costume piece has to be individually created (we can't CTRL+C, CTRL+V the pieces from male to female unfortunately ), this does mean that we will be offering less overall unique options, however we feel it's important to address this concern. If anyone took offense to our artistic choices, I apologize. It's not our intent to offend anyone. Regarding the pretinting of costume pieces: While pretinted pieces give the artists the ability to provide some very unique materials and add more visual interest to select pieces, we don’t want to limit your creativity, either. Moving forward, we'll be offering both a pretinted and untinted option for all pieces which we choose to make pretinted. Thanks -Z |
Regarding the pretinting of costume pieces: While pretinted pieces give the artists the ability to provide some very unique materials and add more visual interest to select pieces, we don’t want to limit your creativity, either. Moving forward, we'll be offering both a pretinted and untinted option for all pieces which we choose to make pretinted.
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As I said in the pre-tinting thread, I like a lot of the more recent costume bits (the Celestial armor, for instance) and I *WANT* to use them... But the tinting keeps getting in the way. When a new bit's colors don't work with the colors of the other items in the editor, it's a loss all around. So... avoiding that gets definite Win Points from me.
As for the rest, more "good stuff across-the-board" sets like the Martial Arts costumes and the CoT bits would definitely be welcomed... The gal's costumes don't have to be 100% identical to the guys', but giving female toons at least similar choices is a Good Thing. It's that whole "Guys get a rockin' coat... You girls get a corset instead"-business that makes people grumpy. Giving us all a rockin' coat solves the issue.
I'm not against corsets on principle... I think Shade looks pretty darn bad-*** in hers... I just like to have other options, too, and that hasn't been happening so much lately. Packs have fallen into this guy-stuff/girl-stuff division that doesn't leave a lot of room for cross-over pieces, and I think taking a step or two back from that might help a lot.
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There's nothing *wrong* with the female set in the gunslinger pack except that seriously there's no way that's a gunslinger. Except maybe in the 1800s version of Charlies Angels. And what species of miniature bovine did I assassinate to get those little cow skulls?
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And the skulls are from demonlings who didn't listen to their MM - which is why their dialogue is always talking about doing things "for the master!"
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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If anything, female characters should have more options than men. I say this because they should be able to wear dresses/ skirts and pants, bustiers/ corsets or jackets, etc.
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Is female characters should have access to every type of option, why shouldn't male characters?
Is it wrong that someone can see a cool gunslinger costume on a male character, want it for their female gunslinger but find out they're stuck with a striped corset?
Yes, it is, horribly so.
But, by the exact same token, if someone sees a striped corset on a female character and wants it on their male hero, but finds out they're stuck with all the "cool" pieces that don't fit the concept, that's sexist too.
There's absolutely no reason any costume piece should be exclusive to either gender.
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Sorry for the presumption in requoting, but I wanted to expand on this and the thread's moving too quickly to simply edit.
Basically, give us Lego pieces. Right now, what we're getting in packs is like a sloped Lego piece with a 30-degree angle, then the next set has a sloped Lego piece with a 45-degree angle, then the next has a sloped piece with a 60-degree angle. That's a nice level of detail, sure, but that's an awful lot of time wasted on minor variations of the same piece. Give us a single generic option, then let us build what we want with it. Further development time should be spent on making different shapes for us to use, not variations on the same shape. In the same manner as Legos, themed sets are fantastic, sure. I like to see new pieces that create a completely new outfit. But as far as most of us are concerned, that set is just an excuse to have some brand new pieces to incorporate into our giant pile of individual Legos to make brand-new creations out of. The more a single piece is designed to work only with certain other pieces, or the more a single piece looks like a whole bunch of other pieces we already have with only minor variation, the less use it is to us. |
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
|
To address a few points
We've been trying to add unique and different costume pieces for female options for the sake of overall variety, however I understand some of the concerns being expressed here, as does the rest of the Art and Production team. Moving forward, where possible, we will be making more gender neutral/male pieces created for females so as to more accurately reflect the Communities requests. Because each costume piece has to be individually created (we can't CTRL+C, CTRL+V the pieces from male to female unfortunately ), this does mean that we will be offering less overall unique options, however we feel it's important to address this concern.
If anyone took offense to our artistic choices, we apologize. it's not our intent to offend anyone.
Regarding the pretinting of costume pieces: While pretinted pieces give the artists the ability to provide some very unique materials and add more visual interest to select pieces, we don’t want to limit your creativity, either. Moving forward, we'll be offering both a pretinted and untinted option for all pieces which we choose to make pretinted.
Thanks
-Z
Also remember that most people who tend to be "harsh" on Dev design choices are usually only that way because they actually care very much about the game and want to see the best for it. I know for myself if I didn't care about this game I wouldn't even bother posting here at all.
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