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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So if they changed the name of the pack to Old West or something similar this whole thread could be dropped? I know I would have issue if they did not have the bar maid outfit in the set. |
Originally Posted by ArcticFahx
The problem is, it's a gunslinger pack. I want to make Annie Oakley, not an employee at the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. If they advertised it as "Western", there'd be a little less hue and cry (though not much, because seriously, more pants please). What people are asking for is the devs to give us what they're saying they're giving us. And to give us more options.
Also, you're falling into the fallacy of false dichotomies here, because you can only see "skimpy" and "man clothing", when there's a nice middle ground that pretty much gets no exploration by the art devs. |
I bought the set but found the male Gunslinger pieces lacking.
Paragonian Knights
Justice Company
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The title of this thread is about Gender Equality in costumes. So the answer is rather obviously "No".
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Originally Posted by Grae Knight
So if they changed the name of the pack to Old West or something similar this whole thread could be dropped?
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The arcane collar is available to females though. The only difference between the occult collar and the arcane collar is the texture on it.
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Originally Posted by Red_Gren
Hair.
Sure, one can argue that the sensible person would select a hairstyle that wouldn't clip, but I can imagine a significant proportion of forum-goers who would rage at the idiocy of releasing a costume part that clips so badly with so many of their favorite hairstyles, or that they have to look at other people's horribly clipping costumes. And that, I believe is a pretty good reason for not including it. Disappointing, but understandable. That said, I too am disappointed that I can't kit out a lady cow-poke with the gunslinger costume set. On the other hand, I'm not too disappointed that I don't get that silly gunslinger jacket. UNDERARM ROPES!?! What the heck!?! |
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No, because this is an issue many feel exists, and goes beyond just this one set. |
Originally Posted by Grae Knight
So if they changed the name of the pack to Old West or something similar this whole thread could be dropped? I know I would have issue if they did not have the bar maid outfit in the set.
I bought the set but found the male Gunslinger pieces lacking. |
I also found parts of the male pieces to be...well...let's just say I don't know thought someone wearing cow skulls on their shoulders was cool, but what it DOES make you look like is a bit of a wazzock
In fact, the only really redeeming piece, the one I still might buy (separately) is the cigarette option for male and female. Only took them however long to finally get around to that...
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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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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
What I got from your posts was indeed hyperbole.
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No more so than most of what else has been written here. She wasn't the one posting in all caps after all, or equating the liberation of women gamers with the corset-jacket ratio.
I'm sorry, but extremely direct attacks being made on specific developers make me very uncomfortable. I don't think it's productive and I won't support it.
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I suppose this is a step in the name of equality.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
In fact, the only really redeeming piece, the one I still might buy (separately) is the cigarette option for male and female. Only took them however long to finally get around to that...
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So now our female characters can have lung cancer to go with whatever else they pick up in the course of doing the job they'll be dressing for if they use this pack.
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Hence my suggestion upthread for the project managers of these releases to look more carefully at the concept art and ask whether it is a complete, equitable release or if they are in fact looking at two distinct but adjacent themed costumes.|
Originally Posted by Grae Knight
So if they changed the name of the pack to Old West or something similar this whole thread could be dropped? I know I would have issue if they did not have the bar maid outfit in the set.
I bought the set but found the male Gunslinger pieces lacking. |
Ideally, these themed sets should represent female and male costuming for the *same* role. Not two *different* characters in the same play.
If the concept art in fact does portray two compelling, but distinct characters or roles, then perhaps the project manager should instead split the two and say "Awesome. Now give me a female version of that *points to Marty McFly* and a male equivalent of that *points to saloon girl*"
As I suggested, the equivalent of the saloon girl would have been the riverboat gambler male/old west barkeep/piano player--straw hat, arm garters, silk vest, etc. And the female equivalent of Marty would be some sort of Annie Oakley, with pants or long leather split skirt with fringe.
Anyone arguing for the costume piece segregation based on source material concepts must presumably insist that all Valkyrie pieces be Female Only, or be engaging in rank hypocrisy.
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Originally Posted by Zombie Man
. I hope everyone boycotts this set until there's a real female gunslinger costume added to it.
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There's the GG we know and love...|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
I'll buy it
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| Originally by Arcanaville: Everything in Praetoria was designed during a drinking binge in which the devs temporarily forgot the rules. |
I like my female toons to be sexy. Am I in the minority?
As for equality, the more costume options the better. With the exception of my namesake character, none of my toons use the complete set as provided.
Paragonian Knights
Justice Company
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I don't find the saloon girl all that sexy myself. A decent gunfighter outfit tailored to the female form would be loads more appealing.|
Originally Posted by Grae Knight
I like my female toons to be sexy. Am I in the minority?
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The costume creator has about a billion variations on "skimpy" for women. I was playing with character ideas for my upcoming Titan Weapons character, so I loaded the Valkyrie outfit, changed the chest to Witch Lace, and immediately started blushing. I think we can afford to have the occasional robust outfit.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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Yes! I always loved Maverick. I'd much rather have a hero like him than whoever the Gunslinger in the pack is supposed to be. And if the two themes this generated is too much for one pack, make two. I'll wait.|
Originally Posted by SilverAgeFan
...
If the concept art in fact does portray two compelling, but distinct characters or roles, then perhaps the project manager should instead split the two and say "Awesome. Now give me a female version of that *points to Marty McFly* and a male equivalent of that *points to saloon girl*" As I suggested, the equivalent of the saloon girl would have been the riverboat gambler male/old west barkeep/piano player--straw hat, arm garters, silk vest, etc. And the female equivalent of Marty would be some sort of Annie Oakley, with pants or long leather split skirt with fringe. |
So, what are the shoulder cords about on the Gunslinger jacket, really? Does it mean he was a patrol leader in the War? I don't understand ... And the skulls? It's like they took some random bits they had sitting around and said, "We really need to do something with these. Let's throw them in there." Which isn't particularly a bad thing, I suppose ...
It's just that I've never made a character who would wear bones, so I don't get it.
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Please note that Dressing Sexy doesn't make women sluts automatically I I think very much that is the tone most of the Anti-sexy posters are having here. Not to detract from their over all point that is valid but let us not heap on other stereo types while fining against one.
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Literally no-one is arguing against sexy characters. |
Originally Posted by Grae Knight
I like my female toons to be sexy. Am I in the minority?
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In fact I'll just go right to the point. http://womenfighters.tumblr.com/
There. A lot of those are both sexy and actually look like they belong as some kind of action hero. That's all we want!
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You are misinterpreting then.|
Originally Posted by Daimyo_Shi
Please note that Dressing Sexy doesn't make women sluts automatically I I think very much that is the tone most of the Anti-sexy posters are having here. Not to detract from their over all point that is valid but let us not heap on other stereo types while fining against one.
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Many of the posters have said, repeatedly, they are perfectly happy to dress their characters sexy and do so.
We wanted legitimate gunslinger options in the gunslinger set, not just refashioned sexy bits from the last couple of sets.
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Those are some amazing pictures.
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Originally Posted by Fanservice
Literally no-one is arguing against sexy characters.
In fact I'll just go right to the point. http://womenfighters.tumblr.com/ There. A lot of those are both sexy and actually look like they belong as some kind of action hero. That's all we want! |
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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It's well worth going through the archives, there's some really good stuff in there!
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Originally Posted by Bosstone
Those are some amazing pictures.
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As far as I can tell, the art department is providing people the opportunity to buy things that most people are buying. The name's misleading, and I hope that the income from these products lead to more diverse, niche costume sets, but I'm not in a position to tell the marketing department to handicap themselves by not delivering what so many people are buying.
In regards to the Medieval pack hypothetical discussion above, I truly and sincerely hope that both armor and "court" outfits would be available for both sexes. My main's been praying for BOTH of those things. A prince outfit complete with crown, without the silly Fabio-hair would be incredible.
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How do you quantify "enough", because clearly a 27 page/500 post thread about the issues wasn't even close.
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Originally Posted by Firemoth
The devs did state at the Pummit that if enough people mention/ask for/complain about a subject, they will take notice.
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I have... something of a Kraven the Hunter with several twists. Swapping gender, race & ethnicity to create Big Game Bakhhita, an African National who... well... hunts.|
Originally Posted by Primary_Unit
It's just that I've never made a character who would wear bones, so I don't get it.
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That being said, I've wanted more skulls. The single shoulder legacy skull we have from CoV is a bit too Alien Resurrection at this point IMO. But I've never bothered requesting the bits as I thought it were simply too niche, especially with how many skulls we do have.
That being said, she has little use for much of the gunslinger set except MAYBE the gloves as she maintains much of Kraven's air of brutality and grittiness. IMO it helps make this particular gender swap work.
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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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Originally Posted by Daimyo_Shi
Please note that Dressing Sexy doesn't make women sluts automatically I I think very much that is the tone most of the Anti-sexy posters are having here. Not to detract from their over all point that is valid but let us not heap on other stereo types while fining against one.
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Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler
Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?
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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
Andy Belford
Community Manager
Paragon Studios
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My tone is that the Gunslinger outfits for females looks like the attire of a Hollywood film harlot rather than anything period, sensible or seemly.|
Originally Posted by Daimyo_Shi
Please note that Dressing Sexy doesn't make women sluts automatically I I think very much that is the tone most of the Anti-sexy posters are having here. Not to detract from their over all point that is valid but let us not heap on other stereo types while fining against one.
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I have characters that have hero (or villain) work outfits, formal outfits, work outfits (A fair few of my characters have a nice selection of lab coats, being scientists and such, and a couple have overalls being mechanics and engineers and so on), casual outfits, suits (including dress suits and trouser suits for females) and so forth. Hell, one even has my idea of a Mighty Mart uniform, being his place of work.
Another poster mentioned Baron jackets and people wanting their female characters to dress like men, to which I say:
Special Operations Unit N would look bloody awesome if they could all wear Baron Jackets as military overcoats. Nachtbrecher, Hochstapler, Isaiah Creed, Gail's Force, Project Geist, Chromagia. Three girls in that set up.
Masugn doesn't get an overcoat because he's a walking blast furnace golem from Sweden.
I have other characters that'd love the Baron jacket for various reasons, from military to just looking cool to protecting from the weather.
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A Knight pack does not need a Princess costume. Let a princess costume be paired with a prince costume, not with a suit of armor.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
But that would be ignoring traditional feminine clothing options, and limiting girls to refitted versions of male outfits, which would be totally sexist - that's why the devs are in a difficult position with these costume packs - whatever choice they make will still get them called out on a lack of equality, even though there's a lack of equality in clothing choices for women and men in the real world, and no one really complains about it.
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Just as a gunslinger for a gunslinger and a common western dress with common western attire...
Honestly, this Gunslinger pack is about the same as if they released a Doctor Pack that contained a surgeon's outfit for males and a stripper's sexy nurse outfit for females.
I have no problem with these female clothing options being in the game, but it shouldn't have been packaged in the Gunslinger Pack or it shouldn't have been the only female options in the Gunslinger Pack. Those are the two options... Including the saloon girl in lieu of including female gunslinger options is, at best, a mistake.
I was looking for a video clip of the Simpsons episode where Lisa is trying to make a doctor doll (at some make your own doll party thing at a store) and the only option for the girl doll is the nurse outfit.
In my searches, I found this excerpt from that episode. While I don't think CoH has gotten this bad, I just thought it was humorous and, sadly, within range if people can't start to understand why this pack has caused these criticisms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftde81QNXDY
One other thing...
My personal opinion on the Barbarian Pack is that the only "mistake" along these lines is that the thigh high boots have stiletto (or near stiletto) heels.
I'd like to see the people who designed that and the people who okay'd it to go and explain why those boots have those ridiculous heels to the tough and rugged female barbarian characters of Paragon, Preatoria and the Rogue Isles!
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Sigh. I am sorry if I misunderstood, but I don't see sluttyness anywhere on the female gunslinger outfit my toon is presently wearing. If I knew how, I would post a screenshot....I agree it is not a gunslingin' outfit, but it does not deserve all this hatred.
Hate the artists for not giving us man clothing for our females..don't hate the outfit.
Lisa.
Also, you're falling into the fallacy of false dichotomies here, because you can only see "skimpy" and "man clothing", when there's a nice middle ground that pretty much gets no exploration by the art devs.