Gender Equality in Costumes - A lack thereof
As much as I would love new jackets for women I can understand why they don't make more. And it all comes down to the chest. Look at anything in the jackets section while playing a woman. All of the pieces suddenly make you 20 times bigger than you were before. The places where I take issue with the inequality are with what in theory could be gender neutral. I'm talking about the likes of the gloves from the Barbarian pack. Or even that women it seems have to wear spurs in this new set. Men get boots without, why don't women? Is this just an oversight? Its one that seems to be getting worse.
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Also SLIGHTLY off topic on what I'm about to say, but I was hoping the gunslinger outfit would add a new trench coat >_>. I like the male jacket, but it's kind of silly to let trench coat hog its own category like that. And yes I know it's because of coat tails etc. to make back details unusable for clipping reasons and what not.
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Shadow_Mokadara
It's not a problem if certain costume pieces don't have an equivalent for the opposite sex because they'd look ridiculous, but there's no reason why perfectly serviceable items are restricted.
Also, the trend in female CoH costumes seems to be mirroring the "sexy" one in real-world Halloween costumes. Please, art department, stop going for the LCD gaming demographic. We know you are capable of far better.
...*points at his OP*
That is the default 'Gunslinger' costume for females when selected from the drop down menu. |
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I do admit, the jack of jackets for females in Steampunk was a bit disappointing.
Also SLIGHTLY off topic on what I'm about to say, but I was hoping the gunslinger outfit would add a new trench coat >_>. I like the male jacket, but it's kind of silly to let trench coat hog its own category like that. And yes I know it's because of coat tails etc. to make back details unusable for clipping reasons and what not. |
*slaps self* NO! Bad Firemoth! No tangent!
In the designer's defense, we also got Nightstar and Battle Maiden, who are both pretty tough customers that are less revealing in their outfits.
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Again, it's not totally all the time, as shown by some of the armour sets. But all the sets that are more out of the ordinary, with stuff that players have been asking for for ages? Nope, females get 'sexy' wear for the umpteenth time. No questions.
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Hmm...thought.
Ok, I presented the idea of Female pets for MM 2 years in a row, and they used the "err on the side of caution" excuse on me both times, stating that it could be seen as offensive, or sexist, or a setup for misuse of mobs/minions. Yet they keep giving us the costumes like in the OP? It kind of removes their sexist argument on the MM pets.... |
![](http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/8918/cohmagicpack.jpg)
Because, as we all know, City of Heroes is a well spring of progressive thinking, and has not now, or ever, had sexist material within their game.
*Snort*
More to the point, female pets would've been awesome. After all, we have the male thugs/mercenaries.
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Shadow_Mokadara
But all the sets that are more out of the ordinary, with stuff that players have been asking for for ages? Nope, females get 'sexy' wear for the umpteenth time. No questions.
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*goes to find the duct tape and straight jacket* Gonna go wake up Joyrock before I pull a Hulk and have him put me in the jacket and duct tape my mouth.
On one hand, I like a lot of the new female pieces and the whole "costume equality" thing isn't a banner I care much about.
On the other hand, it's somewhat boggling that after this long the art team still hasn't taken the hint from the numerous complaints. But then, they're still giving us pre-tinted pieces as well so there ya go.
I imagine they must be selling or else they'd have some incentive to change their practices.
But it is not about this game only. Today Pop culture want to make all females s...s. Just look at videos either on TV or Youtube. The most of "popular" singers wear less clothes then MM and Bobcat.
Unfortunately this game is just following trends, and I don't believe that anything in game is going to change, unless we have change in society in general.
I don't mind sexy option in game. It is nice to have it. Since dual identity is used to hide real identity, if my alt is in her normal life covered from head to toes she will have almost no clothes as hero. It would still be nice to have some diversity, since not all my alts are same and some doesn't have hidden identity. Some of them are actual gunslingers that will continue to use trench coat vet reward since females doesn't have any other long coat option.
And males should have more long hair options. I grew up in 80's and the most of my male friends had longer hair then me.
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I will sign this in blood if I have to...so frakken SICK of it.
Yes, I have SOME costumes on my females that could be considered "sexy", but I would like to have other options! When my options are weighted towards sexy, or to just keep repeating the same basic costume on all my characters (curse you Altitis). Even the "shirts" are sexy style.... As a female gamer, I am not going to go on some feminist rage rant or anything, I just want to see more options aside from "sexy" out there. |
I would love to have one of the longer coats, such as the Baron coat, for some of my characters.
There is no period in history where the items in the so-called Female Gunslinger costume were worn in that manner outside of a fairly high-class "gentleman's club". And what is the deal with those hooked "spurs" on the back of the boots/stockings?
And for the steampunk female costumes - what I really, really wanted was to recreate the costume worn by Mina Harker in "League of Extraordinary Gentleman" (the movie, not necessarily the graphic novel) - the one she wore while fighting Dorian Gray, with the corset and leather pants and long coat (sorry, I wasn't able to find a good picture of it).
And much as I love the pieces from the female Witch Leathers, I'm still uncomfortable in wearing the option with skin, because the way the top curves around the bosom just screams "Here they are, Boys! Get a load of my (insert very vulgar terms for the female mammary glands)!"
I know that you can't really base an estimate of the player-base from the forums, but I do see a fair number of female players here and at the Meet-n-Greets I have attended. I wish the David N. et al. would realize that not all of their target audience is slavering immature schoolboys looking for T & A costumes.
Thanks for starting the thread, TechBot!
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Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
"You gave us a world where we could fly. I can't thank you enough for that."
If they're going to release "sexy" costume after "sexy" costume, they could at least give us warning. Like a "hey guys and gals, sorry you wanted something different...but here's the newest set! "Sexy mcSexyskirt Sexy outfits!"
*goes to find the duct tape and straight jacket* Gonna go wake up Joyrock before I pull a Hulk and have him put me in the jacket and duct tape my mouth. |
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Shadow_Mokadara
That's exactly what my husband just said when I woke him up and told him that.....
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Also if females can get the darned tuxedo, I'm sure they can at least get some more coats. Maybe the developers felt like males would be getting less, then. But then there's the whole Females can wear male clothes but males in female clothes is...
Er...
Kilts are the closest we'll get.
If not, then I will not rest until my 50(+1) blaster can wear a frilly bra!
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Shadow_Mokadara
Sadly this thread is just repeating the sentiment that showed up in the VIP beta section of the boards when this pack went onto the test servers. That thread, though dozens of pages long, did not even garner one redname "We hear your criticisms" response.
Nada. Zilch.
In that thread, I asserted that if any pack in recent memory warranted being delayed by a couple weeks to reproduce or retrofit the "male" components (the chaps, jackets and corresponding shorter boots) for female models, it was this pack.
Yes there are myriad other problems including pretinting, lack of holsters, and lack of cowboy hats beyond the one model that came with the i0 base game years ago. Personally I realized that all these points were not all of these battles could be won, as did other posters. So the two that the feedback thread focused on were: no more pretinting of parts please, ever; and "chaps for the female characters" please.
But alas, it was for naught. The pack has gone live exactly as teased via the concept art. Exactly as was put up on test. Feedback in this case null and void.
Personally, I am not too miffed by "gender inequality." Nor am I miffed by skimpy, ****ty outfits for the females as I do have a couple characters who vamp it up as part of their character. But I am miffed by the lack of obvious options in some cases. The Gunslinger pack is currently one of the most egregious offenders thus far. I think the accusations of art direction once again veering out of touch is accurate.
A year and a half ago or so, the multiyear trend was tech skin suit after tech skin suit with chunk armor overlay after chunky armor overlay. There was a wave of rather vocal criticisms and at some point we got a "we hear you" and an indication of correcting course. Even more exciting was Noble Savages assertion that he wanted to see the release of more costume parts that could be mixed and matched. I welcomed this first round of releases all the way through the Barbarian pack--despite the stark gender difference in outfits, I've been able to utilize numerous pieces from all the packs.
But for me the gunslinger pack really drifts into a dead zone: very specific pieces, further constrained by massive pretinting, and lacking in anything rugged for females. Reading the feedback throughout the now multiple threads I get one unifying sense regarding the "chaps for girls" sentiment: most people when they think "Gunslinger" have one thing in mind--a rugged persona. The "saloon girl" (massive pretinting problems aside) has some wonderful design to it but it misses the branding mark of "rugged persona" by about 20 miles. Would it have really taken more than two weeks to retrofit at very least the jacket and pants from the male and huge models to adjust them to work with the female models?
My overall outside perspective: Like most careers in entertainment industries, most likely for the a majority of our dev team, CoX represents a job. But for us members who actively, regularly spend on and participate in the game, CoX represents a passion. The dev and community reps have given lip service to valuing "the community" as we represent a core asset of their property. I understand that CoX and its character creator might no longer be a hardcore passion for those working on the game. A job is a job. And personal and creative interests will inevitably stray, either temporarily or permanently, for any given member of the development team. But when this does happen, for the love of Pete, please pay heed to the feedback that those of us who still are passionately engaged with the character creator provide to you the developers. When such a uniform response goes up, as did in the test forums regarding this pack, it is a sign that something is missing the mark.
You guys did this with the CoT. And the results were wonderful. Jay's revisions of the "first pass" that got such negative feedback did a great job of capturing the feel of the original CoT while sending the new designs sailing up and out of the park.
On paper, the one word branded costume theme "Gunslinger" should have equally been such a home run. But as of yet, you guys (the devs) have balked at doing any revisions on this one.
I don't see any issues with it. They are costumes representing dress of those periods in time.
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Edit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calamity_Jane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Oakley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ho...er_NE_1866.png
LOL that's awesome. Great minds think alike ;P.
Also if females can get the darned tuxedo, I'm sure they can at least get some more coats. Maybe the developers felt like males would be getting less, then. But then there's the whole Females can wear male clothes but males in female clothes is... Er... Kilts are the closest we'll get. If not, then I will not rest until my 50(+1) blaster can wear a frilly bra! |
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Shadow_Mokadara
Hmm...thought.
Ok, I presented the idea of Female pets for MM 2 years in a row, and they used the "err on the side of caution" excuse on me both times, stating that it could be seen as offensive, or sexist, or a setup for misuse of mobs/minions. Yet they keep giving us the costumes like in the OP? It kind of removes their sexist argument on the MM pets.... |
The fact that player characters can easily dress themselves up slutty and RP far more nasty things than what little Johnny can dream up with his female MM pets has always been laughable to me.
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The fact that player characters can easily dress themselves up slutty and RP far more nasty things than what little Johnny can dream up with his female MM pets has always been laughable to me.
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I was often accused of being in one for being the only male in mine for a short period of time. Active male, that is.
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Shadow_Mokadara
I think it's been well established (at least among players) that the "female MM pets could be considered sexist" argument has been dismissed as ridiculous. The only argument that actually makes a tiny bit of sense is that it would simply take too much time and effort to create a whole new set of female models for them. It'd be far easier for me to accept the idea that the Devs just don't think it's worth doing time/benefit wise than to think they have something against potential misogyny.
The fact that player characters can easily dress themselves up slutty and RP far more nasty things than what little Johnny can dream up with his female MM pets has always been laughable to me. ![]() |
And yeah, I've seen some REALLY freaky stuff that is DEFINITELY not T for Teen on multiple servers with the stuff we already have. The Dark Astoria SRP is still scary....
What I find really funny is that since Freedom launched they have not really listened to feedback and then they tell us the market stuff is not selling as well as they would like.
The thing that makes these Underwear Packs more irritating is the line Positron gave at the Player Summit for why the devs were wary of allowing full Mastermind minion custombility: they were afraid of the possibility of people making a Thugs mastermind with gun toting bikini girls.
I mean, seriously? You guys talk about "We don't want Masterminds with armies of strippers" but then give players stuff like this.
One of these things is not like the other.
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I don't really have much to add, since I already went into several long tirades in the beta feedback thread for the Gunslinger pack (which, by the way, is over 500 replies long: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=277846 ). Basically, the whole thing leaves me with a really, really bad taste in my mouth, especially since I was one of the ones who stood up and complained about the Steampunk Pack, was told "oh, they just did it this time due to time, but next time they'll add different stuff"... and then saw the Barbarian Pack and now this one... I need an "I told you so" button here.
And for those people who bring up the IDF and PPD and CoT sets, I've said in my posts in the beta forum that the "Trend Against the Feminine" skips those sets for which "feminine" isn't relevant (namely, full body armor) and for which the theme is completely divorced from reality. The problem is that they can't do "feminine" without doing "titillating". It is possible to create female clothing (as opposed to unisex clothing) without going into "hypersexed" mode, but they just aren't doing that anymore.
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Tho Zortel is correct and i agree with her!
Its gunslinger for males, and barwench for females ><