Gender Equality in Costumes - A lack thereof

So, am I the only one irked by the reaction of, "we're going to stop offering unique female pieces now"? I get it, you want to avoid pissing people off, so offering the same costume pieces across the three body types is the easiest way to do it, but there's something about that answer that came off as immensely childish to me. Maybe if, for some inexplicable reason, costume designers can't design female pieces that are theme appropriate and not automatically the "sexy Halloween costume version," this would be the better choice. Otherwise, I'm left scratching my head some, since the alleged fallout of that design decision means less choices overall (which humorously has been proven inaccurate earlier in this thread, where a player ported the male pieces themselves).

The name is part of it, but when I think of female heroes in Westerns (Calamity Jane, Annie Oakley, Cat Ballou) in action, I see them dressed in costumes more like the male costume. The may wear more frills in off time, but the only time we'd see them in something like the female costume is if they are going under cover for something.

Compare that to the steam punk costume set. Yes, there is a disparity, but the female
steam punk costume is something I have seen female steam punk heroes wear.

There are some nice pieces in the female gunslinger costume I may use in the future, but looking at the complete character, I don't see hero (or villain), I see NPC.

I apologize if I feel that bringing up a topic and calling it "Gender Equality in Costumes - a lack thereof" means that both sides should be brought to the table equally. Imagine that. If that was not the point of this post, then I wish it would have been named different.

As for the argument not existing? I wouldn't have mentioned it if I didn't believe in it myself. I'm not throwing it out there to be a troll or to drum something up. To say that an argument does not exist because it was brought in as more of a discussion point instead of a bold statement is a rush to judgement inside of itself.

Now, I'm not trying to be snarky or disregard everyone's opinion on the constant sexy costumes, I just feel, that there is an equality issue on both sides. Does that make it equal or any better? No.

I understand the issue with the women not getting something as heroic (personally, I think the jackets are lame) as the guys. But, at the same time how many people are going to find creative ways to use the pieces in the pack? How many people would have complained if there had only be unisex chaps and stated that it's not right that women aren't allowed to explore their feminine natures through costumes?

It's a huge catch-22, that's not going to go away anytime soon, because of what is prevalent in comics. Just like the females are portrayed as scantily clad vixens, the men our portrayed as muscled tight wearing heroes. I don't think it's right either way. Where are the warrior women? Where are the everyday hero men? Where's the in-between.

We all want Paragon Studios to be more progressive. I'm on that boat of being able to move away from the norms, but honestly I'm not sure how much that's going to happen. There's a major factor and that's $$$. Yes, they can listen to the outcry and suggestions. But, at the same time timetables exist and they do need to try and make money to keep the game running. Unfortunately, the easiest way to judge what to make is based on trends and what sells in the genre. We all know what that is. It sucks. Doesn't mean it's not good business. We live the game, but they have to make money or their's no game. They make that money not only by selling these things to the VIPs but also the the Free players. It still sucks, but it's sound business.

I may have gone off on a tangent here and rambled, but it's how I feel.

I agree completely with DerekStorm. I'm a woman and I like my characters to have some substance and look good doing it. I don't want all of my women to wear thongs and gravity-defying shirts. I was overjoyed when I got the barbarian pack because I could make it gothic and look like it physically works. Unlike some, I do like the bows and girly outfits, but I don't want them to all have v-neck shirts down to the waistline or tiny titty strips. Most of my characters are pretty average teenagers or in their 20s and like to wear nice shirts and skirts or pants. Some have better fashion senses too.

Which gets me on another subject. I don't always like rping women. nearly half of my characters are men. The problem with that? If they're not business workers or the tights-wearing kind, all they have are t-shirts for casual wear. Even for my office worker, he wears the same vest three times because the others just suck and he's not wearing a metallic steampunk vest to work ktxh. But for the others, like my guys in high school and college, what do they have to wear? T-shirts.

I'd really like variety in my packs else I just don't feel like it's worth the points to spend. Martial arts pack? bought without question. Barbarian pack? bought for my female characters. None of my males used a thing in that pack (not that there was much to use). Gunslinger? bought that blouse because it was cute. That's it. Granted there were more men costumes in this pack than most (like the wedding pack with only one male costume in it) but the problem is I can't mix & match them and I don't have any cowboys.

tl;dr: I'd like to see more casual clothes and equality between men and women and for the love of god, no more slutty outfits and spandex.

As a female player, I personally don't particularly care about how many female characters/avatars we have running around in 'scandalous' outfits. I play my fair share of female characters. And my fair share of female characters have their own fair share of scandalous outfits (which again, doesn't bother me).

If we're complaining about how all the women get slutty outfits, maybe we could avoid this if we cut down on the number of female characters. Go through the game whether you're on an RP mission or not and chances are the women you do see, are going to be dressed slutty. If you want them to stop making them, stop using them. If you boycott them then it'll make more sense. Complaining about it when the majority of our female characters are a bit slutty (whether it's male players or female players who - like me, just really don't care, in moderation) seems to be a bit silly.

Like Plum Whine, I play a lot of male characters as well. I'm also going to agree with Derek Storm up above who brought up a good point that when it comes to men's costumes in general, there's a very clear view that the developers favor the women over the men.

Let's consider we can accumulate five costume slots per character (without the use of the Paragon Market). Let's also consider that I have an average number of maybe eight male characters. That is forty costume slots total. Of these forty costume slots, some are set aside for heroic costumes (whether they're actual heroes or simply 'acting' as one), and some are casual/formal clothes.

You can only use the same type of vest/shirt combination before you get tired of using it. Let's count how many times we see boys using the baron jacket? (It's a good jacket, one of my favourites.) Not all styles work on all body types, unfortunately. You can take a costume from one character/avatar and put it on another with a different body type (sculpture, et cetera) and watch it clip.

Just because it may work for you (in general), doesn't mean it'll work for everyone. Personally, I'd like to see some new male hairstyles, and I'd like to see some costume packs come out that give a little more to men as opposed to six new chest pieces for women and three for men. The male characters are severely gypped in comparison to women.

(By the way, I'm not arguing against women and their skanky outfits versus men and their heroic outfits. It's true that women get a lot of apparel that can potentially be scandalous. It's true that men do get a lot of apparel that can be potentially be heroic. But we're creative people. We can work around this kind of thing. Want to make a girl less skanky? Put her in tights (and no, I don't mean fishnets). Want to make a guy less heroic? You get the picture.)

Wait, wait wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Waaaaait.

Players can go in and edit the costume files? I mean, sure, it takes work, I don't doubt but... we have the technology for just ANYBODY to tinker with what the costume pieces look like and such?

Why aren't the devs letting us DO that? I mean, maybe just accept submissions, and even if they want to sell them, still. I mean IMVU and Second Life are nothing BUT letting players make costumes and such, and they've got a bajillion options. If the tools exist for people to make costume pieces and files on their own, why are the devs not taking advantage of this?

As a guy who has a number of female toons, I find it infuriating that so many good parts are only available on male and huge bodies.

No, no, I'm not saying they should let us go nuts.

I'm saying the devs should say "Send us your best costume pieces that you have made on your own, and if we like them, we'll put them in the market and give you... 1 paragon point per sale." Gods know the IMVU/SL method lets you do copyrighted stuff far too easily.

Devs: You need to step up.


This is the moment for you to step forward and show your commitment to treating your female customers with respect.

You must have female versions of things like a gunslinger outfit. This is really unacceptable.

David, we know you know better than this.