Scarlet Blade is adding a Male Character Class

[WindKnight]

So, Scarlet blade, the fanservice heavy MMO (there's a cash shop item to have your character be able to remove her starting underwear and be naked, and most outfits are not leaving much to the imagination) is adding a male character class to its roster!

So, what skimpy outfit are the boys going to be fighting in? what uncomfortable underwear will they prance about in?

Full body armour and sensible briefs underpants.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ySuO9oIFw

So, yeah, not entirely surprised, but still disappointed that given how heavily sexualised the female characters are, they didn't bite the bullet and go equal opportunities on this.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

It's unlikely that many girls actually play the game, or have any interest in the first place, and I doubt the guys playing wanted to see a male in skimpy outfit.

 

[Yuuki]

Firstly Scarlet Blade is not a "fanservice heavy MMO". It's a "fanservice MMO", period. It doesn't really try to hide what it's trying to be or who it's aiming itself at. It simply goes ahead hands itself to the straight-male demographic (for free) who enjoy being part of that kind of sci-fi-sexy fantasy. I'm not going to judge the players because they have a right to play whatever the hell they want, and the developers have a right to make whatever they want.

More importantly, thinking that Scarlet Blade would have males running around in skimpy armor/outfits so they're "equal" to the females:

So, yeah, not entirely surprised, but still disappointed that given how heavily sexualised the female characters are, they didn't bite the bullet and go equal opportunities on this.

...strikes me as a bit dim. This isn't Saint's Row where the ENTIRE point was to have everything balls-to-the-wall silly, to have virtually infinite character freedom/customization, etc to the point where standards can't even exist. This is just Scarlet Blade, a fanservice MMO aimed at guys.

Last time I checked, straight males (the target demographic) aren't interested in seeing ingame male models running around half-naked, it would be a big turn-off. Gay/bisexual males only make up a tiny percentage of the general population, same as whichever lesbians are playing this game (if any).

My guess is that there were complaints about lacking the option to play as a heroic armor-clad male which makes up a fairly large preference from male players in other MMO's.
I mean in most MMO's you see people either rolling a male for the badass armor models (or to portray their fantasy personas)...or a sexy female in as little armor as possible. Scarlet Blade cuts-out the pretense/riff-raff and just hands that shit to the players.

Mind you the gameplay itself is something I WILL criticize, for it is an absolutely shitty piece of shallow grindy pay-2-win microtransaction infested...urgh. Not the first Asian MMO to go that route. This game is riding on visuals alone so it's not praiseworthy, but it IS a free download so I'm not going to waste energy trying to blow-torch it with hate. It's simply exists for those who are interested, nothing more.

Peace.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Oh come on.
...
This is ridiculous. Want to do skimpy properly, do it like TERA.
Where the guys are hotter than the girls.

 

[EternallyBored]

Firstly Scarlet Blade is not a "fanservice heavy MMO". It's a "fanservice MMO", period. It doesn't really try to hide what it's trying to be or who it's aiming itself at. It simply goes ahead hands itself to the straight-male demographic (for free) who enjoy being part of that kind of sci-fi-sexy fantasy. I'm not going to judge the players because they have a right to play whatever the hell they want, and the developers have a right to make whatever they want.

More importantly, thinking that Scarlet Blade would have males running around in skimpy armor/outfits so they're "equal" to the females:

So, yeah, not entirely surprised, but still disappointed that given how heavily sexualised the female characters are, they didn't bite the bullet and go equal opportunities on this.

...strikes me as a bit dim. This isn't Saint's Row where the ENTIRE point was to have everything balls-to-the-wall silly, to have virtually infinite character freedom/customization, etc to the point where standards can't even exist. This is just Scarlet Blade, a fanservice MMO aimed at guys.

Last time I checked, straight males (the target demographic) aren't interested in seeing ingame male models running around half-naked, it would be a big turn-off. Straight/bisexual males only make up a tiny percentage of the general population, same as whichever lesbians are playing this game (if any).

My guess is that there were complaints about lacking the option to play as a badass armor-clad male which makes up a fairly large preference from male players in other MMO's.
I mean in most MMO's you see people either rolling a male for the badass armor models (or to portray their fantasy personas)...or a sexy female in as little armor as possible. Scarlet Blade cuts-out the pretense/riff-raff and just hands that shit to the players.

Mind you the gameplay itself is something I WILL criticize, for it is an absolutely shitty piece of shallow grindy pay-2-win microtransaction infested...urgh. Not the first Asian MMO to go that route. This game is riding on visuals alone so it's not praiseworthy, but it IS a free download so I'm not going to waste energy trying to blow-torch it with hate. It's simply exists for those who are interested, nothing more.

Peace.

I keep hearing from people that this game has a surprisingly large female player base (for this type of game anyway), or at least I see people talk about it in some threads, no clue how true it is. Even then, what female players there are might or might not be interested in male fanservice I have no clue.

Still I almost would like to see it just to see the playerbase have a conniption fit over fanservice males, would make for a few actually hilarious sexism controversy threads around here, also I'm kind of curious how such a male focused fanservice game would even pull something like that off, of course your right that they never had any intention of including skimpy males, but just the idea of them sitting in an office trying to brainstorm ideas on how to appeal to straight females makes me laugh.

 

[Yuuki]

but just the idea of them sitting in an office trying to brainstorm ideas on how to appeal to straight females makes me laugh.

Mmm yeah. Even if I think about it, I can't imagine what a female fanservice game would resemble besides simply having overly sexy males with varying muscular bodies and revealing armor (what some feminists call "male power fantasy" apparently). But I don't think that would be enough, it would most likely fail or have jack-all players because "sexy" to women is a lot harder to define.
A lot of their desired qualities aren't even physical (as opposed what you hear from most males when asked the question), often relating to emotional/psychological aspects of the male, their "charm/suave" factor, their confidence, their agency, etc.

Then again, MMO's have arguably the largest percentage of female players out of the "gamer game" genres due to appealing to such a broad audience, followed by RPG's/Adventure...and then waaaay down you'll probably find FPS, RTS, vs-Fighters and Racing games with extremely few female players.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Oh come on.
...
This is ridiculous. Want to do skimpy properly, do it like TERA.
Where the guys are hotter than the girls.

My exact thought, I was surprised how well done the TERA males were done. I can only think that Scarlet Blade is doing it to try and mimic the success that TERA gets for it.

On that thought, I've heard TERA is actually a pretty good MMO even though people have issues with character design. Anyone want to prove or disprove me?

 

[DementedSheep]

People were expecting them to? I remember when they announced this and there was a thread on it. The description for it was something along the lines of "for people who would rather their whatever-the-hell-they-are-called were more like them to project onto". So they are going for badass power fantasy not a male prostitute.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Oh come on.
...
This is ridiculous. Want to do skimpy properly, do it like TERA.
Where the guys are hotter than the girls.

My exact thought, I was surprised how well done the TERA males were done. I can only think that Scarlet Blade is doing it to try and mimic the success that TERA gets for it.

On that thought, I've heard TERA is actually a pretty good MMO even though people have issues with character design. Anyone want to prove or disprove me?

Well, the combat is really good.

Having said that, however, there are two elephants.
1) The questing is dumb as shit. If you can't stand "collect 12 bear asses" type of questing, you'd probably ragequit the game.
2) Latency affects this game a great deal. For instance, there's this video that shows 2 people firing arrows ... due to latency, one of the characters only fires half the number of arrows.

Having said all that, however, it's free-to-play, and with a good model.
Meaning, it doesn't cripple you in any significant way (such as SW:TOR does), so you can try the game indefinitely to see if it works for you.

 

[EternallyBored]

but just the idea of them sitting in an office trying to brainstorm ideas on how to appeal to straight females makes me laugh.

Mmm yeah. Even if I think about it, I can't imagine what a female fanservice game would resemble besides simply having overly sexy males with varying muscular bodies and revealing armor (what some feminists call "male power fantasy" apparently). But I don't think that would be enough, it would most likely fail or have jack-all players because "sexy" to women is a lot harder to define.
A lot of their desired qualities aren't even physical (as opposed what you hear from most males when asked the question), often relating to emotional/psychological aspects of the male, their "charm/suave" factor, their confidence, their agency, etc.

Then again, MMO's have arguably the largest percentage of female players out of the "gamer game" genres due to appealing to such a broad audience, followed by RPG's/Adventure...and then waaaay down you'll probably find FPS, RTS, vs-Fighters and Racing games with extremely few female players.

It's actually not that hard. The misconception that what women find sexy is so mysterious and hard to nail down stems from decades ago when female sexuality was largely discouraged and promiscuous women were considered a social taboo, it was hidden then out of social pressure. As female sexuality becomes more open, multiple studies have found similarities and commonalities for female attraction as well and an enormous number of parallels with men. It doesn't get pandered to in media often because males are still the primary content creators, there are still almost no female directors, or project leads, its getting better but the discrepency in many fields can range as high as 90% male dominated.

We see the difference between attraction to bishounen characters and romance novel men, and throw up our hands and say, "see they are attracted to totally different types of men how can we pander to that?" but how is that different from some men finding sterotypical moe anime girls hot, and men finding cougars and MILF women the height of sexy. We say that women are more attracted to nebulous mental qualities and don't care so much about physical appearance, this is a bullshit excuse because we are made uncomfortable by the idea of male sexuality as it is often confused with homosexual portrayals or media (hint hint maybe that's why females are often made uncomfortable with their portrayal in games, it rubs up into that same area where men are made uncomfortable by their own gender being sexy and calling it gay). Even then, men are on this site every day complaining about brainless female portrayals and how they find fleshed out characters much more attractive. How is attraction to Tsunderes, housewives, or the shy submissive somehow more obvious and easy to pander to than the brooding mystery man, the flirty playboy, or the sensitive nurturer. I live in Nevada where we have an abundance of male strip clubs and they are packed nightly, so trust me when I say there are a lot, and I mean A LOT of women who are perfectly willing to just sit there and ogle a tight jiggling ass.

Also for the last time male power fantasy shares many points of attraction with what females consider sexy, the difference is in the presentation not simply the physical traits. Marcus Fenix doesn't strip off his armor for a gratuitous shower scene, Nathan Drake doesn't have the camera linger on his ass in cutscenes while he slowly rubs his chest and abdomen, Jason Brody and vaas don't end up wrestling in slow-mo while suggestively grinding their hips together during a cutscene. Just as a female power fantasy can be sexy, the difference is in how the medium treats their portrayal of the character, nobody is going to call a character with DD breasts sexualized if she spends the whole game in a suit of power armor, or covered in the ashes of her dead family while she slaughters people for revenge.

Female attraction is not that hard, it just makes some men uncomfortable, and it is much harder for a man to write or draw something that is sexy for an orientation that isn't his own. Female writers and artists often have the same problem, romance books will quite often have scenes where you can blatantly tell the female (or gay male) author is trying to write a sexy woman and it just comes off awkward and sort of uncomfortable for everyone involved.

Which is why I don't blame the Scarlet Blade devs, they are pandering to a specific audience, and changing that would probably cause more trouble than any potential gain in female players.

 

[Erttheking]

That's a pity. The game would've gone from sleazy to hilarious if it was just about naked people running around killing each other.

 

[Lunar Templar]

So, Scarlet blade, the fanservice heavy MMO (there's a cash shop item to have your character be able to remove her starting underwear and be naked, and most outfits are not leaving much to the imagination) is adding a male character class to its roster!

So, what skimpy outfit are the boys going to be fighting in? what uncomfortable underwear will they prance about in?

Full body armour and sensible briefs underpants.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ySuO9oIFw

So, yeah, not entirely surprised, but still disappointed that given how heavily sexualised the female characters are, they didn't bite the bullet and go equal opportunities on this.

you sure that's a guy and not just a really flat chest girl? cause it totally looks female in the face

 

[OtherSideofSky]

This is incredibly disappointing. I was really hoping for something sexy and ridiculous, but instead it looks like the bishounen version of Too Human.

 

[Olas]

you sure that's a guy and not just a really flat chest girl? cause it totally looks female in the face

Oh course it's a guy! Can't you tell by the fact that his model is capable of wearing somewhat practical armor that actually looks like it would protect him?

Not sure if you're being serious or not, but I'm gonna have to go with Lunar Templar on this, not many male characters wear that much lipstick and mascara, and of all the facial designs I didn't see a single one with even a hint of facial hair. It looks more like a tall, slightly flat chested woman to me.

 

[SageRuffin]

I'm a bit disappointed, not gonna lie. I think the focus on busty, scantily-clad female androids with huge weapons gave the game some charm. Kinda like a throwback to the "golden days of gaming," so to speak, where nobody gave even the slightest fuck about being politically correct.

But hey, I don't have to (and probably won't) use him if I don't want to, even if I do like his outfit.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Damnit, girls can never have something all their own, can they?!
Dead Fantasy had guys thrusting their way into a perfectly good girl fight!!
Now Scarlet Blade!
What's next?! A guy in Skullgirls?!!
Men! Always boneing their way in with their bishounen looks, or huge muscles, wearing practical armor so stupidly often, swinging around their big, useful weapons, never healing cozza their stupid testosterone fueled bloodlusts, and almost always appealing to guys! Like we want to see that?!


They need to go back to their CoDs and Modern Warfares, and stay there! They're lucky they get to game at all! zzthey mneed to get back in the garage and fix my car!! We can't let those MRA people win anything! They'll just make moer demands, and we'll lose everything!!

... That was a joke. We clear on that? Good. <.<

OT:
So, I'm guessing the guys can't pay to walk around naked, and lack the cock physics of "Mount your friends" huh?

Not terribly surprised at this news, really. In the back of my mind, I expected it to happen. Guys want to be their own gender in a game, and women want to be their own gender in a game. Mass Effect introduced Male Quarians, and there was a huge clammor for them in ME3's MP when only female quarians represented the species in MP.
Guys don't really wanna be women looking at hot women.
Generally speaking, ofcourse. I know nothing I said is 100% absolute.

After a bit more thought, I figure I'll add this.

If it weren't an MMO, I'd probably play it, and get the nudity DLC. I like sexuality, and sexualization now and then. As it stands, though, I'm not the sort of person that can play an MMO. I don't have the drive to stick to a character for very long.

 

[oreso]

It's unlikely that many girls actually play the game, or have any interest in the first place, and I doubt the guys playing wanted to see a male in skimpy outfit.

Firstly Scarlet Blade is not a "fanservice heavy MMO". It's a "fanservice MMO", period. It doesn't really try to hide what it's trying to be or who it's aiming itself at. It simply goes ahead hands itself to the straight-male demographic (for free) who enjoy being part of that kind of sci-fi-sexy fantasy. I'm not going to judge the players because they have a right to play whatever the hell they want, and the developers have a right to make whatever they want.

I keep hearing from people that this game has a surprisingly large female player base (for this type of game anyway), or at least I see people talk about it in some threads, no clue how true it is. Even then, what female players there are might or might not be interested in male fanservice I have no clue.

I was surprised too: http://www.aeriagames.com/forums/en/viewtopic.php?t=1793473

So either those girls are all lesbians, or they simply enjoy playing sexy characters. *shrug* Takes all sorts, right? We shouldn't assume that an entire gender all wants well-covered and well-rounded characters.


As for the male guy, I wish he was a bit sexier too. His low-cut brief briefs are nice, but the swimsuit is a bit dull and the armour is blander than the stuff available for the ladies. If there's demand though, I'm sure the money-grubbing folks at Aeria will make a costume pack.

 

[VodkaKnight]

I support this.
It's a lot rarer, fanservice aimed at women.
The game has a lot of female players, so why not aim a bit of it at them?