A veiw on Female characters and Armor. {Discussion}

[Eefness]

(Sorry for the long read but Im trying to at least give reasoning and backround to my friends and I's views. Go ahead And skip to the last paragraph for a somewhat condensed version of the whole thing.)

Sooo as you might have guessed I just finished watching the PAX Panel podcast (which was awesome and very insightful) buuuuttttt I did have one question or point of view discussion however you wish to see it.


Being primarily an MMO player (having too much time on my hands and a working internet connection) I am all too familiar of the "Slutty Armor" effect. If you look back to Vanilla WoW you can see chainmail bikinis and thongs as far as the eye can see. In the standard formula most of the armor for the female half was pretty ridiculous you have to admit, which I do. There wasn't much choice in the matter and all female toons ran out looking like they should be posing on a Maxim Mag.

Then the further the game went along the less and less slutty and/or beautiful the outfits became till finally we are left with every female running around covered head to toe, they all seemingly digressed into old Victorian times with full long skirts reaching past their knees and gloves going up to their forearms, overlapping the long sleeves of the robes. Now I understand if it was someone with full on platemail, I get that, but even Mages were MAYBE only allowed to show some skin with a low cut top. Again it is not bad but a bit overboard. Again there really is no choice in this matter.

After talking with many of my female guildies for long periods of time about this (<_< In between poking fun and laughin it up) the general consensus was that while they did not like the "Slutty Armor" effect on everything completely removing the option entirely also pissed them off (if to a slightly lesser degree). In fact many of us would deliberately hunt down old Vanilla and early BC armor just so we could hang out in more casual, appealing wear (yea we are weird like that).

I mean compare:

Spoiler

To

Spoiler

The first one, Bit too much skin? Yes. Appealing to look at? Very. Realistic in the heat of battle (even for a mage) Not really.

Then we get to the second, Bit too much skin? Not in the slightest, shows neither hide nor hair of the character while also being generic and only knowing it is female by the curves. Appealing to look at? (IMO) No, it is over designed, covers up every bit of customization you put on you character besides the name, and is , Again, completely lacking any kind of femininity of any kind, in fact it is completely gender natural. Realistic in the heat of battle (even for a Mage)? Ehhh I guess, I mean you are going to be surrounded by fire and exploitations, but this is supposed to be made of cloth, and besides you wouldn't dress up that much if you were going to a ball with the Queen, let alone going into the heal of battle with a big ass dragon.

To get right down to it, I do realize that if all you have is a bunch of slutty armor then yea, that is a bad thing, but when you remove the option entirely for ANY kind of titillation or beauty in the game that is almost as bad. So to all you gamer chicks out there, how do you feel on this matter? Are we in the right, is our logic flawed in some way, what is your veiw on this matter ........... or are we all just a bit too horny ........ and coming from out guild-chat I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[TehCookie]

I'd rather have the bottom that the top... that did not come out right.

If you want sexy girls go watch porn, however I do agree that there should be some middle ground. Girls can wear cloths and still look good.

 

[Eefness]

I'd rather have the bottom that the top... that did not come out right.

If you want sexy girls go watch porn, however I do agree that there should be some middle ground. Girls can wear cloths and still look good.

Well it is not really about the sexy girls, it about at least having the option instead of the decision being made for you.

And yes they CAN wear clothes and look good but what I saw happening was it going too far, like they were SO ashamed of what they did before that they overcompensated and made sure that you saw nothing. There is such a thing as being overdressed and this seems to be it. No I do not believe they should go back to what they did way back when with the 3 napkins for armor but I dont exactly want a toon that looks like they spent 3 hours getting dressed in the morning.

 

[dyre]

I guess that makes sense. Maybe there could be an armor tailor that lets you choose between several textures of the same armor.

 

[Hagi]

There's looks that can be titillating, practical and female-friendly.

Usually you're still in fantasy world with magical fire swords, magic missiles and poisonous armour-piercing arrows or a sci-fi with guided missiles, plasma shields and high-power lasers so it's not like showing any skin at all is immediately impractical.

Problems occur when you've got men who look like canned beef and women with a few scraps of cloth floating around them. A bit moderation wouldn't be so bad I think. Your top example is, imho, still a bit too much in the 'scrap of cloth' territory. While the bottom one is firmly in 'canned beef' territory.

Next to that, as far as I know, women don't really object to sexy clothing. But there's two ways to do sexy. One way is clearly for pleasing men, as much as possible is revealed and there's generally a very objectified and submissive look to the armour. But another way is teasing and confident, there's enough shown to arouse interest but it doesn't look like a love slave. She looks sexy, but still capable of being in charge. But again, that's just my own limited point of view, could easily be wrong.

So I think you can easily do sexy female armour that makes sense in the setting, but it needs some care.

That being said, you may want to provide examples from another game. I don't know about the rest of you but while there are certainly female character models that look sexy, I don't think WoW has any.

 

[Arina Love]

i like pretty stuff so i always play as female character. screw the reality i want armour that looks good on my character!

 

[Smertnik]

Yeah, it can be quite annoying, especially if overdone.

Also:
<spoiler=relevant><youtube=OTGh0EMmMC8>

 

[Hitokiri_Gensai]

Hm... as a woman, i think its horrid! down with skimpy outfits!


kidding xD

I dont mind the outfits, as its just a video game.

 

[WanderingFool]

I'd rather have the bottom that the top... that did not come out right.

If you want sexy girls go watch porn, however I do agree that there should be some middle ground. Girls can wear cloths and still look good.

I wish I was able to get mage armor (thats mage armor, right?) that was that awesome. (talking about the bottom image.)

As a Guy, I never understood the point of the chain mail bikini. I guess making something in between the bikini and the Victorian (almost no exposed skin ANYWHERE) models would be best.

*Edit*

Spoiler: OH, and because this is so related to the conversation :P

 

[Elysis]

I thought the armors in DA:O were great : Protective (well... They looked protective to me!), yet didn't cover up my character completely. In fact, I thought my Warden was hot as hell when sporting Scaleplates!

It's possible. (Male) Developpers are just... Sometimes clueless when it comes to us, ladies.

 

[chstens]

To be honest, I just don't care, but the bottom one looks cooler.

 

[Mallefunction]

I thought the armors in DA:O were great : Protective (well... They looked protective to me!), yet didn't cover up my character completely. In fact, I thought my Warden was hot as hell when sporting Scaleplates!

It's possible. (Male) Developpers are just... Sometimes clueless when it comes to us, ladies.

Pretty much this. I really liked the Dragon Age armor because of that. As a fellow female, I approve of the middle ground. :3

 

[Palademon]

I've found an amusing example of the slutty armour effect in Xenoblade Chronicles.

Near the start the game, the outfit providing the highest stats for females is a bikini, which looks identical to what they look like without any clothes.

About 20 hours later I had found better clothes for females that were more covering, but my best male clothes are experiencing the same situation.

Shulk is running around fighting monsters with a big sword in his boxors! THERE IS NO WAY FOR ME TO SAY THAT SENTENCE WELL.

 

[Eefness]

There's looks that can be titillating, practical and female-friendly.

Usually you're still in fantasy world with magical fire swords, magic missiles and poisonous armour-piercing arrows or a sci-fi with guided missiles, plasma shields and high-power lasers so it's not like showing any skin at all is immediately impractical.

Problems occur when you've got men who look like canned beef and women with a few scraps of cloth floating around them. A bit moderation wouldn't be so bad I think. Your top example is, imho, still a bit too much in the 'scrap of cloth' territory. While the bottom one is firmly in 'canned beef' territory.

Next to that, as far as I know, women don't really object to sexy clothing. But there's two ways to do sexy. One way is clearly for pleasing men, as much as possible is revealed and there's generally a very objectified and submissive look to the armour. But another way is teasing and confident, there's enough shown to arouse interest but it doesn't look like a love slave. She looks sexy, but still capable of being in charge. But again, that's just my own limited point of view, could easily be wrong.

So I think you can easily do sexy female armour that makes sense in the setting, but it needs some care.

That being said, you may want to provide examples from another game. I don't know about the rest of you but while there are certainly female character models that look sexy, I don't think WoW has any.

Ahhhhh yea that is one aspect I didnt touch on, the Manly Man Models for the Manly Men to do Manly things .......... is the major reason why I never use Male toons. I simply loose so much immersion when my guy looks like .... well to be frank, "Two Brick shit-houses stacked atop one-another".

As for the other examples ... ehhhh unfortunately my gaming index is rather limited, but I can think of one.

Spoiler

This is pretty much done at least close to right. It fits in with the setting and lore very well (being fighters who require a lot of movement and can not be hampered by heavy armor or anything restrictive). The style is consistent with the world, And is defiantly sexy but without being nothing but two dish towels sewn together. The models are pleasing to look at and the animations are nice and fluid and a lot of their attacks fit well with the concept. But again this is only my personal veiw and I do agree that the top is a bit too small but again they need a lot of room to swing around their scythes and maneuver.

 

[Antonio Barrientes]

Hilde may be one of the most unbalanced characters in Soul Calibur 4

But she also manages to wear practical, functional, yet attractive looking armor.

 

[Rogthgar]

Fist set is ofc showing off too much to be considered practical or realistic (for the world it comes from that is).
Second one is as much a status symbol as anything else, sure its not pretty if she's wearing it in the local tavern while trying to get laid ('So your name's Scully, right?'). But then again, its a suit of armor thats meant to do battle in, not a costume for halloween.

Would it be nice (for us guys) if it was less covering of the female underneath? Sure it would. Would that be sexist to portray women wearing suit of armor that was more focused on showing off their 'bits' rather than make sure those same bits werent going to chopped off? Yup, same way it would be sexist to remove the armor of male characters to showcase their huge muscles or whatever (people like Conan and Red Sonja (the one who owns the patent on the mail bikini) can get by with less because of ridicolous levels of fencing skills (and lack of people who simply put an arrow or fireball in them), MMO chars...not so fortunate).

So yeah, I think its fine that women and men are covered and as safe as can be when wearing suits of armor when charging into battle with a huge dragon rather than act as eye candy. (Focus on the firebreathing lizard and not the tanks rear!)

Actually to the OP, I could suggest he and his friends try DC Online, as it has a feature that lets you tailor your armor to whatever you want it to look like (end game armor stats, rookie-level appearance).

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

Eh, in my opinion the armour between men and women should be identical save for some changes to make it fit their respective bodies properly. If a guy wears full plate armour then I expect full plate on the female as well. Otherwise, yeah, it'd make no sense, especially in universe why the guy covers himself head to toe while the woman runs around with a bare midriff and at least one exposed arm. That basically screams "Stab here!".

If a guy wears a lighter cloth or leather armour that shows his bare arms, then sure, you can redesign it a little to look a bit more "attractive" since at the end just about equal amounts of skin are covered.

But yeah, in a nutshell, chainmail bikinis infuriate me to no end.

 

[Nickolai77]

I think the armour women NPC's wear on Oblivion (vanilla version) strikes about the right balance- not too slutty, practical as armour but subtly reveals the pleasant female form.

I would post some examples but unfortunately when i google "women female armour" i get exactly what i am not looking for.