Gender Equality in Costumes - A lack thereof
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2011-11-29 06:36 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Yes sadly that has been his answer.|
Originally Posted by DumpleBerry
Whether or not it makes any sense, or whether or not you like the reasoning, does not change the fact that this was Positron's answer.
I'm staying out of it. Prostitution was the reason he gave, and I am staying out of people's opinions of his answer. |
And yes sadly that couldn't continue to be more hypocritical of him if he tried. *shrugs*
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No, but at the same time, gender issues aside, they could have at LEAST fixed the bugs that were found in beta. The latest costume pack feels like they were just putting it out there to get it out there, instead of listening to issues/comments/suggestions.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
They likely listened. In fact, I do believe they read the posts.
Now, really, let me ask, do you think they're going to let all that time and resources go to waste and not release it? |
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They're not. But knowing the other things theyve said. Like "We have what's going to be released every week planned untill such and such date" makes me think, the gunslinger bundle was going to go out at this week, there was no stopping that.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
No, but they could release more options that covered the complaints.
How are more options a bad thing? |
They needed to find out any bugs on it, and get feedback on it.
They heard "We want more of a gunslinger option for females!" but there's only so much time from when it went onto test and was going to go live.
They've also said they're going to judge things by how well they sell.
Best way to get it the way you want, is not to buy it. But then you have to wonder, when you don't buy it, are you in the minority of those who didn't?
If you are, and there are some options you want, then you're either missing out on some options you may want, or you're buying those pieces, which the devs likely look at as "part of the whole"
Now if most people buy it, then that also just goes to show that the vocal ones on the forums are still the minority in the game.
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Verily. I'm don't know why they don't make both sexy and sensible options for female characters or if only one costume is going to be made then make it sensible yet sexy.
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Originally Posted by Firemoth
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.... |
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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I think it would sell enough.
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Originally Posted by Cosmic_Herald
I think Chase has the right idea on everything.
He recognizes that 'sex sells' and that this dev team is designing for what sells within the genre. It really is a simple as that. What sells within this genre. IF they choose to try Chase's idea and see what happens, they will, but I wouldn't expect them to do that. I don't think it would sell enough to justify their time and effort. |
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Eh, on a personal note, I'd rather see the female sliders tweaked and adjusted to allow more diversity than a 'Huge' variant. I agree with the 'always skinny' thing, but wouldn't want to take it further than natural-ish.|
Originally Posted by Firemoth
I have a way we can solve the unbalanced amount of clothes men get versus women. Make a huge version for females.
 I'd actually be interested in seeing a huge form for them, because no matter how big you try to make them on the current sliders, they still look either skinny/lithe, or no curves (just really really tall) |
On a technical note, I can see why they've never pursued that option. It would require re-coding an insane amount of things, recoding all the existing costume parts for female Huge and all the technical stuff like that. Simply making two female options for every male/huge option, while still time consuming, would be less consuming than that would be.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
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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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Clothes are serious business |
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Also...you're making sense...this is scary. Who are you and what have you done with Golden Girl? >_>
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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It'd also be a waste in their time. Huge males arent that heavily used now. I doubt the huge female option would be used as much as those who want it, either think it will, or just want it because that's what they want.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Eh, on a personal note, I'd rather see the female sliders tweaked and adjusted to allow more diversity than a 'Huge' variant. I agree with the 'always skinny' thing, but wouldn't want to take it further than natural-ish.
On a technical note, I can see why they've never pursued that option. It would require re-coding an insane amount of things, recoding all the existing costume parts for female Huge and all the technical stuff like that. Simply making two female options for every male/huge option, while still time consuming, would be less consuming than that would be. |
Thusly creating a waste of resources for them, and then still having to waste time on making every costume option fit them, on a model no one is using.
If they do a CoH2, I'd suspect they go with male/female option, and then just enhance the sliders.
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Or a little of both after making some sound judgement calls regarding the branding. i.e. if you make a princess, also make soft unarmored princely pieces with royal cloak, spotted fur collar, various crowns and doublets for him.|
Originally Posted by Doc_Reverend
Or they could just make the Knight and Gunslinger parts for girls and skip the Saloon Girl and Princess. And I get the feeling that the vast, vast majority of the players would be HAPPY with that. Heck, I'd love it. I can get far more mileage out of chaps or medieval armor than I can out of another set of underwear.
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If you make a saloon girl, balance it out with a wild west gambler
But the "gunslinger pack" is as if they made a full "firefighter set" which consisted of a full firefighting outfit for him and a burn victim set for her. The two are thematically adjacent. But they miss two big points: some people with female characters might want to make female firefighters while other people with male characters might want access to all those wonderful icky burn scarred skin textures and scorched clothing items.
My example may be a bit severe, but it is to illustrate what I think is at play here. For me it is not gender inequity in terms of unique looks or skin vs. little skin (though this is still an issue), it is about the implied roles. If you make a pack of "soft" costume pieces that implies roles inside the saloon, spread it across both genders. (i.e. bartender/male gambler.) (Would have loved those arm garters for him BTW.) If you make a rugged pack that implies action out amongst the tumbleweed, again, spread the opportunity evenly across both genders. Hence: "chaps for girls."
Female gunslinger outfit with a breadth of more period references at http://www.westernemporium.com/ladie...st_outfits.php
The trail cook, ranch owner and rancher outfits all say "rugged" to me. Meanwhile, with this pack while we get rugged for him, we got a combination of the saloon girl and soiled dove for her.
The huge male model(and the gender inequality it inherently brings with it) is really one of those unpleasant artifacts from the early days of the game. I'll be happy to see it go in a possible sequel.
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And I'd just kill for some corsets, skirts, and frilly bits for guys.
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Originally Posted by Lothic
Yes sadly that has been his answer.
And yes sadly that couldn't continue to be more hypocritical of him if he tried. *shrugs* |
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That "Rancher" outfit from the link looks amazing. It's a shame we didn't get anything like that with the Gunslinger/***** pack.
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All of those parts would need to be available for females too.
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Originally Posted by SilverAgeFan
Or a little of both after making some sound judgement calls regarding the branding. i.e. if you make a princess, also make soft unarmored princely pieces with royal cloak, spotted fur collar, various crowns and doublets for him.
If you make a saloon girl, balance it out with a wild west gambler |
@Golden Girl
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In a perfect game we would have:|
Originally Posted by Premonitions
The huge male model(and the gender inequality it inherently brings with it) is really one of those unpleasant artifacts from the early days of the game. I'll be happy to see it go in a possible sequel.
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Customizable MM pets
Female MM pets
All costumes items available to all body types
A "female huge" body type
Female chest sliders that would allow for realistically flat chests
A male "package" slider
Un-nerfed female nipples
Allow for any color to be used for costume items
And probably a few dozen other things like this...
Will we ever get any of these things? My guess is no, at least not in this game because most of these things would simply take far too much Dev effort to justify. Still, all this talk about how many of these things will never happen because they would be "sexist" or "promote prostitution" does at the very least give me a good laugh from the point of view of how ironic it is.
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For the sake of equality male characters should have access to all of those things.|
Originally Posted by DumpleBerry
And I'd just kill for some corsets, skirts, and frilly bits for guys.
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I might never use them myself, but again in a "perfect" game having that choice would be better than not having that choice.
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Agreed, basically it's the idea that two similar but extremely different ideas are equal. The Male gunslinger=saloon girl idea is offensive because it implies the roles are static with one role for the males and one for the females. and yes, if you change it to "Western" that dichotomy still remains. In the future, which, by the way is the most important part of threads like this, I'd hope the devs get that. |
Originally Posted by SilverAgeFan
Or a little of both after making some sound judgement calls regarding the branding. i.e. if you make a princess, also make soft unarmored princely pieces with royal cloak, spotted fur collar, various crowns and doublets for him.
If you make a saloon girl, balance it out with a wild west gambler My example may be a bit severe, but it is to illustrate what I think is at play here. For me it is not gender inequity in terms of unique looks or skin vs. little skin (though this is still an issue), it is about the implied roles. If you make a pack of "soft" costume pieces that implies roles inside the saloon, spread it across both genders. (i.e. bartender/male gambler.) (Would have loved those arm garters for him BTW.) If you make a rugged pack that implies action out amongst the tumbleweed, again, spread the opportunity evenly across both genders. Hence: "chaps for girls." Female gunslinger outfit with a breadth of more period references at http://www.westernemporium.com/ladie...st_outfits.php The trail cook, ranch owner and rancher outfits all say "rugged" to me. Meanwhile, with this pack while we get rugged for him, we got a combination of the saloon girl and soiled dove for her. |
Don't try and sell us two completely different things as part of the same idea. If you give us saloon girls, give us bartenders. If you give us Wyatt Earp, give us Annie Oakley. I might really really like the baron Jacket, and I might really want it for females, but that's only because they didn't get anything close to it for females.
If men got, say the Steam Punk Jacket and Women got the baron jacket, I don't think I'd be affected quite as much, particularly when that doesn't fall along classical gender lines the way this gunslinger pack does.
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o.O Why exactly do we need all that in a perfect game? And I'll still disagree. They don't need every costume item available to all body types.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
In a perfect game we would have:
Customizable MM pets Female MM pets All costumes items available to all body types A "female huge" body type Female chest sliders that would allow for realistically flat chests A male "package" slider Un-nerfed female nipples Allow for any color to be used for costume items And probably a few dozen other things like this... Will we ever get any of these things? My guess is no, at least not in this game because most of these things would simply take far too much Dev effort to justify. Still, all this talk about how many of these things will never happen because they would be "sexist" or "promote prostitution" does at the very least give me a good laugh from the point of view of how ironic it is. |
In a perfect game, I wouldn't want them wasting time making skirts for men, when the vast majority of players wouldn't use them, when they could be spending time on other things the vast majority would use.
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How awesome does this lady look? All of it.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
'
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Seriously, stop it with the scantily clad ladies costumes. We've got more than enough of them as it is, give us some that actually look heroic rather than sexualised.
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Yeah. This does not mean that every single bit of everything or whatever has to be copied over. If they make, say, a Retro 1950s Sci Fi costume like they discussed at the Player Summit, and the female version has a skirt instead of pants for our space cadet, I'm fine with that. That's fine and fits the style and theme of the set. It doesn't have to be identical, but at least a fair, viable counterpart. A pile of corsets is NOT a fair and viable counterpart to a jacket.|
Originally Posted by Premonitions
Agreed, basically it's the idea that two similar but extremely different ideas are equal. The Male gunslinger=saloon girl idea is offensive because it implies the roles are static with one role for the males and one for the females. and yes, if you change it to "Western" that dichotomy still remains. In the future, which, by the way is the most important part of threads like this, I'd hope the devs get that.
Don't try and sell us two completely different things as part of the same idea. If you give us saloon girls, give us bartenders. If you give us Wyatt Earp, give us Annie Oakley. I might really really like the baron Jacket, and I might really want it for females, but that's only because they didn't get anything close to it for females. |
It's the implied statement that for girls, an underdressed saloon girl is an equal equivalent and counterpart to a badass gunfighter, that sticks in our craw.
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Why would you not want it in a "perfect" game? seriously, now this just feels like railing against other people liking different things than you. In a hypothetical situation where everybody was satisfied you'd still argue against others being satisfied for no discernible reason?
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Originally Posted by BrandX
o.O Why exactly do we need all that in a perfect game? And I'll still disagree. They don't need every costume item available to all body types.
In a perfect game, I wouldn't want them wasting time making skirts for men, when the vast majority of players wouldn't use them, when they could be spending time on other things the vast majority would use. |
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In my "perfect game" scenario the implied assumption is that there would have been adequate Dev time and resources for all these things to be possible without any negative impact on any other features. It's primarily a lack of real world resources that forced most of these Dev compromises/limitations in the first place. *shrugs*
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Originally Posted by BrandX
o.O Why exactly do we need all that in a perfect game? And I'll still disagree. They don't need every costume item available to all body types.
In a perfect game, I wouldn't want them wasting time making skirts for men, when the vast majority of players wouldn't use them, when they could be spending time on other things the vast majority would use. |
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Originally Posted by SilverAgeFan
Or a little of both after making some sound judgement calls regarding the branding. i.e. if you make a princess, also make soft unarmored princely pieces with royal cloak, spotted fur collar, various crowns and doublets for him.
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Personally, I've wanted those pieces since I started playing this game. If they introduce a Princess set without a Prince set I will go into full on rage mode.
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IIRC, one of the devs said as much- the amount of data overhead that total minion customization adds was quite a lot, not to mention all the variations that have to be covered. For each minion set, you need an original look and one for upgrades 1 & 2. The "minion" sets often have a third variant (like "medic" in the soldiers set) that has its own customization.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
At best the idea that they are going to "avoid prostitution" by this decision is a convenient secondary Dev excuse. Trust me when I say the REAL excuse is that they just don't want to spend the time and effort on it. I've been a software engineer for almost 20 years so I can tell when a Dev is using something like "we don't want people to abuse female pets" as a smoke screen for -real- excuses.
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For those reasons, we will NEVER have full-character-creator customization there. They *might* be able to make alternate dev-created sets (an alternative 'bots set based on crey models or praetorian clockwork, variant "thug" based appearances, etc).
As for Posi's original remarks, developers do tend to put some consideration into 'potential for misuse' of certain assets, as you generally don't want something so simple to abuse that it becomes the poster-child for a PR-seeking anti-gaming crusader. When yo do this, you often get a degree of tunnel vision looking at JUST that asset you're examining by itself. You become aware of the potential to make "pimpdaddy and his ho's" in a custom mastermind and neglect to see that a supergroup could essentially express that same thing.
I have a feeling that the ease of abuse was probably a factor that came up in a meeting discussing that, but it wasn't necessarily the deciding factor. It was just an easy example of many of the reasons that Posi could give without delving into a complex discussion he had little interest in getting into.
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But that's the value of a market-based system. If we can SHOW that developing these assets pays for itself (and reasonable profit) then it makes sense to invest in expanding the dev team and making them available.
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Originally Posted by Premonitions
Why would you not want it in a "perfect" game? seriously, now this just feels like railing against other people liking different things than you. In a hypothetical situation where everybody was satisfied you'd still argue against others being satisfied for no discernible reason?
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I've resigned myself to that reality.
The devs just develop toward what sells.
I'd had great plans for a classic female gunslinger- very much a female version of Techbot_Alpha's male gunslinger outfit. Obviously, I'll be waiting longer.
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Still, the benefit of a market-based system is you CAN develop for niches if those niches are large enough to sustain themselves. If a costume option has the potential to more than pay for its development costs, then its a viable development option, and you could even justify expanding staffing to cover it. (Or subcontract out to freelancers / between-work artists / modders aspiring for an industry break on a per-project basis )
I STRONGLY suggest the devs take a chance here. Take the time to make a female gunslinger variant similar to the male's and put it on the market.
Just give us a chance to prove that market demand IS there for something less trampy.
He recognizes that 'sex sells' and that this dev team is designing for what sells within the genre.
It really is a simple as that. What sells within this genre.
IF they choose to try Chase's idea and see what happens, they will, but I wouldn't expect them to do that. I don't think it would sell enough to justify their time and effort.
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