Gender Equality in Costumes - A lack thereof

Trading one extreme of gender-specific costume pieces being utilitarian for men and sex kitten for women for an opposite extreme of "well, we'll just make all the new costume pieces look identical" leaves me listening for the sure-to-follow, "...that'll show those pesky kids!"

No one here is arguing that the male and female genders are identical. Different body shapes, different body part proportions, different cut and fit for the same clothing type. Anyone who's ever tried on clothes made for the other gender can vouch for this. We're not arguing for the total elimination of female-only or male-only costume pieces; we're asking to simply have more choices and more options.

I thought that part of the intent behind CoH Freedom was to allow players who were willing to pay extra for more goodies (including costume pieces) to do exactly that, letting the new cash influx in excess of the monthly subscription fee pay for more artists and more resources to create more amazing content. Would I have liked to see an outfit for female characters more like Sharon Stone's character from "The Quick and the Dead"? Yeah, I would. But I kind of like Megan Fox's look in "Jonah Hex", too.

I'm one of the many female players who often will dress my characters in rather revealing costumes. I like having the chance to dress that way both in game and in real life. But I don't want to ONLY dress that way. Almost all of my characters have conservative ensembles and practical outfits in addition to their more risque outfits; therein lies the beauty of multiple costume slots. Again, it's about choice, whether it's for male characters or female characters. If I don't like the way a pair of jeans fits me in real life, I can always walk over to the men's section and try on a pair of men's jeans. I might not like the result, but then again I might (and I have before, more than once). A label that says "men's" or "women's" is no more binding than a boy named Francis or Lacey or a girl named Joseph or Michael. I'm not going to pigeonhole myself just because a store directory or a clothing designer wants me to, and we don't want the designers and developers to fall prey to the same thinking. It's not all about equality, it's about more options for both male and female characters. (And I suppose huge characters too, I just don't ever play them.)

Was I disappointed that I'm not going to get a real gunslinger jacket and chaps for my girl gunfighters? Yes. Would I be willing to trade in the saloon girl costume pieces for it? Well... I don't think so. Not just yet. A very important point that's not being mentioned is that several artists, designers, and programmers put a great of time, effort, and care into making these costume pieces we did get, and I think it's important that we acknowledge that. Yes, we'd love more choices and we'd love to have this and that, but the pieces we got are pretty nice. I'll certainly be able to use them for both existing and future characters, and I expect nearly everyone else can too. I appreciate all the hard work and hours spent on creating each of the costume pieces we did get, just like I appreciate the fact that devs and designers listen to our feedback and make adjustments in response to that feedback. Thank you.

Quite frequently our feedback in the beta threads does indeed effect real change, like with the planned costs to unlock the new Incarnate powers. When it became apparent that a huge majority of the player base was strongly opposed to those proposed costs, change was made. I believe that if adding a female gunslinger jacket and chaps to this set at the last second had truly been possible, it would have been done after the feedback on the Beta threads. It just couldn't be done that quickly.

To seize upon the poignant phrase, "looking forward," I think that it would be great to offer versions of new costume pieces for both male and female characters, but they really don't have to be identical. We don't expect them to be identical. But if a set gives us a really cool jacket or look for men, please try to give us the same for women and vice versa. A loincloth or new briefs could provide a nice male equivalent for an awesome new skirt introduced for the female characters. That way we don't lose the gender-specific pieces entirely, because it's nice to have them as options too!

Maybe it would be helpful to float around proposals and solicit player feedback on costume pieces earlier in the process, such as in the concept art stage, so if there happens to be a groundswell of player sentiment there could be time to learn from and build upon that input. It might eliminate some, not all, of the pleasant surprise experienced upon seeing the new goodies for the first time, but preemptively defusing some of the OMGRAAAAGGGGEEEEE!!!1!!! might be worth it.

I'll buy this Gunslinger set, even if it's not exactly what I was hoping. It's still a nice set. And it's just as nice to have the option to either buy it or not buy it, too. Go Freedom.

K

No.

You can quibble about whether the pack should have been called a gunslinger pack - if they had called it the Wild West pack, that would have addressed your central thesis and left you with nothing to discuss. I believe that the problems with the pack extend beyond what marketing decided to name it.

You can quibble about whether I'm wrong about calling the female costume that of a sex worker - prostitute, dance hall girl, saloon girl, floozy, choose your adjective. I'm not wrong in my central thesis - the pack treats female avatars very differently than male avatars. Male avatars dressed in the options provided by the pack are rugged survivors; female avatars are sexually available.

There are individual pieces of the pack that are worthy: the bow is not a bad option to have available if it was working correctly. I would like it better if there was an option without the veil, but that's neither here nor there. But there's no reason why a female wild west costume should have gone to the overtly and explicitly sexual - why not a jacket, maybe with a fringe option? Why not a vest with a star on it? Why should chaps be only for males?

I don't see why I need to extend wiggle room. They created it; I have issues with it and I have clearly delineated them. If you want to debate the name of the pack, that's fine, but that's not my argument.

Zwillinger, please don't take this the wrong way, but I'm going to have to give you and Paragon Studios some rather unpleasant feedback. It isn't directly about the game, or even this costume set. It is more about how Paragon Studios does business.

I like the game. I really do. However Paragon Studios seems to have some fairly unrealistic goals currently and we're seeing the results of trying to adhere to those goals. For the rest of this post, the "you" I'm referring to is Paragon Studios, not "you, Zwillinger".
---------------------------------------
An open letter to Paragon Studios:

You have set a goal to produce enough for the market to have something "new" on it every week. However you don't seem to have allowed yourself any time to correct anything but the unmitigated disasters based on feedback.

Your customers aren't all idiots, some of them can smell a sub-standard "feature" a mile away. Some of your customers are patient and don't expect miracles (despite what you might think). However they do expect to be treated in a fair manner (problems: VIP Perks awarding in an obfuscated fashion, EU players not being able to buy year subscriptions, Central/South American customers having to deal with a less than savory company that doesn't carry a full range of products, etc).

There seems to be a "We know best." attitude pervasive at your company. Even when feedback is fairly uniform across a broad-spectrum of players, you go ahead despite the feedback and tell the players "just test it" when testing if something is "working as intended" isn't the point. When your players tell you that the intention itself is wrong, that is the point where you need to step back and open a discussion as to "why" it is wrong. It isn't a cue to push ahead and fix things 6-8 months down the road "when you have the time".

You need to allocate less time to throwing everything including the kitchen sink at us. You need to allocate some time or people to bug fixes and adjustments, something that clearly doesn't have enough time allocated to do well. If you feel the need to disregard feedback, explain why. You have had over 7 years with this live product and the times you got into the most trouble were when you didn't explain yourselves despite protests.

Again, I like the game. I've remained a steady subscriber since 2005. I've a lot of time (and money) invested in this game. I intend to continue to subscribe for the foreseeable future. Are you willing to invest your time in a manner that will make me want to continue to subscribe or will you continue to drive customers away?

Sincerely,
Snow Globe.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

No they're not - and thinking that showing some skin means a woman is "sexually available" is a very dangerous mindset to have.

Hear hear.

He needs a good troll name. Seriously. And an AE arc.

Edit: But I would have gone with the Barbarian bracelet gloves instead. Those are an option for males, right? Or am I misremembering?

My husband and I were talking about this the other day. We thought a "streetwear pack" would be awesome for this. It would allow them to revamp the Hellions, Skulls, Outcasts, and Trolls, while giving players new pieces. Like ripped jeans.

I'd still be fine with the Hellions and Skulls not having any actual female members, due to the nature of the groups. Outcasts would be more likely to include women. Trolls supposedly do, since Superdyne is supposed to make you androgynous, but I wouldn't mind seeing actual female Trolls. It would also provide an excuse for some more muscular textures for women. The barbarian top is win right there.

And the Steampunk and Barbarian corsets are just plain better-looking than the ones in the Gunslinger pack. Why in the world would I want that stripy thing when there are already two corsets, one of which has quite a few variations, available? Three if you count the old-school Tops with skin > Leather piece.

Ah finally with those costume outfits I can get a little bit closer to a character I've been trying to recreate in CoH for a long time.

Nice try, but he's obviously wearing pants.

Plus, you used pieces from the barbarian set, and nobody is arguing that the barbarian set isn't stripperific for both genders. It totally is. Which is fine. Because barbarian = partial nudity. For everyone. Which is why it is fine.

Agreed. And the sets that DO have female models (Aside from KoA and CoT), only have one or two, and a lot of them are rather...well background fodder.

*points at her daughters* One of them is named Tsunami for a reason....
And I was always the more violent one in my circle of friends, and I was the only female. :-p

And Miss Kitty was someone Matt Dillon "has to visit every once in a while" in Gunsmoke (ahem). There aren't too many archetypal roles for women in oaters, and the devs clearly haven't gone the Annie Oakley/Calamity Jane route with this costume pack.

For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
- Rudyard Kipling

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Alright, let's not get sappy...

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

No they don't, but the problem is not one is talking about that [heck I don't see the Steam punk as being terribly down that road.

Doom/Batman in 2012

The Resistance has boobs too, and better hair!

Cap'n, I'm finding your approach a bit shocking...
And not just these two posts, there were some more...
Mainly, you came into this thread putting individuals' opinions and feedback down. Mostly by the old method of pointing out that forums-users are very much a tiny majority compared to the rest of the playerbase... And that those speaking up here were just a vocal minority.

We can only speak for ourselves. Frankly, that idea gets abused greatly by people. It is certainly no given that the percentages would be drastically different in opinions between forum-goers and the entire playerbase.

Then you tout your own empirical evidence of female players that you know.
So, our opinions are not good enough vs. the entire rest of the playerbase that does not visit the forums and the female players that you know and are now speaking for.
I am sorry, Captain, but that is just an odd way to take part in this discussion.
I've actually found this thread to be quite civil. It hasn't really devolved into a lot of directions that a topic such as this often leads to.

For whatever it is worth, I know quite a few female players of this game (personally/out-of-game) and they greatly contradict the reports you have given.
So what does that mean? *shrugs*

One other thing, based on some of the notions you have expressed...

Why would a female player's feedback be of greater importance than a male player's in this case?
We can all play male, huge or female, no matter what parts we're equipped with.
We all have opinions, tastes and feelings on the matter. Each and every part of this topic may effect each and every one of us equally.
Claiming that some or all (or whatever your point was in saying that there is an over abundance of male chauvinistic bias in this thread) really seems to me to be unnecessary at best.

I've known you to be of a rather reasonable mind and I can understand if you've grown to find these forums as dens of negativity, but be careful... Those feelings can easily betray you and make you an embodiment of it.

I think I can reasonably speak for myself and say that...
When I look at just the images advertising this pack...



There is a major discrepancy in the iconic archetypes that those costumes bring to mind.

It's no more complicated than that.
If you're okay with that, you're okay with that.
I'm not slamming my desk nor making any legal charges of sexual discrimination... I just think they erred farther than I'm willing to let go without commenting on it.



Just because I am a male shouldn't lessen my opinion, nor the worth of my feedback, on any of that.

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

*holds up hand* Female, right here (Joyrock can vouch for me on this one). While I do at times give my female toons "sexy" outfits, I would like to see other options than just sexy after sexy coming out.
I would also like to see a few more options for male toons, like more shorts/kilts or more options where the guy isn't so ripped he looks like someone airbrushed his abs. (I play about 70% male toons)