Seeing that the visual representation of your characters is a topic people in this community have strong opinions about, what are your thoughts on gender differences?
I believe I saw someone post that the devs have mentioned keeping the same look for a piece of gear between races (I could be wrong here). Will that also be the case between genders?
What are your preferences? I, for one, would like to see a game that finally doesn't have metal bras as the female equivalent of a full breastplate on males. If the male version is a berserker-esque partial armor then that would be a fine female alternative though.
However, I only play male characters. For those of you who play female characters, what would you like to see? Do you care? Would you prefer to see gender-locked armaments?
I'll link the video I watched several weeks ago that made me think about this. Hopefully you find it interesting as well. Female armor: Fantasy vs Reality
I think that armor shouldn't be "skimpy" unless it has a class reason to be; such as barbarian/berserker leather. In those cases it should be equal for both genders. I think it would be a shame if there were absolutely no differences between male and female armor models. Armor should always be practical; but that doesn't mean it male and female armor can't be expressed differently as long as it isn't exploitative.
For the plate example; plate is shaped the way it is for a reason, to deflect projectiles. Because of this it shouldn't be fitted around breasts, providing a perfect spot for an arrow to penetrate. That's probably the same for boiled leather armor and chain armor.
I don't see a problem if female robes or gis are different between men and women. For instance; a monk would probably go topless with loose fitting pants, whereas the female may add a strap around the chest. Magical robes don't gain their protective aspects from the strength of fabric but from the strength of the runes and enchantments woven into the fabric which should provide a lot of variety in form without defeating function.
EDIT: Sorry I missed the video link but I had watched that in the past. To be honest, I really can't get into Shadiversity. I much prefer watching Tod Cutler and Scholagladitoria. Those are some really good resources for medieval (western) weapons and armor.
Imo it doesn't make any sense if the same item can change appearance depending on who is wearing it. Is it a shapeshifting breastplate? It'd also get a bit annoying if you wanna "window shop", see someone wear a cool item, go get it and then it looks completely different on your own character.
I hope there is a gender difference in armor, and I hope female armor is practial and not impractical 'sexy'. I don't mind if some armor enhances / shows off aspects, so long as it's still practical. There is a history of RL armor that does this (cod pieces, faux 6 pack abs), so that's not unrealistic. I also don't mind if there are under-armored looks if it makes sensce (like if it's from a deser region that gets crazy hot, so only a few pieces are worn). But I don't want to see chain mail bikinis.
Spluffen said:Imo it doesn't make any sense if the same item can change appearance depending on who is wearing it. Is it a shapeshifting breastplate? It'd also get a bit annoying if you wanna "window shop", see someone wear a cool item, go get it and then it looks completely different on your own character.
I don't disagree with you on principal, but this is a compromise I have already made regarding fantasy games. To be honest; the idea that your best armor would drop off of a boss is already ridiculous by this standard. No elite fighter in medieval times was getting his very best armor by defeating his opponent and taking his armor. He was getting it by having it custom crafted by a master. I have already suspended my disbelief that the armor that some boss is wearing will automatically perfectly fit me. It is a teensy tiny step farther to say that it would look different on a female than a male.
I don't mind seeing slight variations in armor based on gender, as long as this variation is realistically implemented and believable. I don't think there is anything wrong with armor having a sightly redesigned model for female characters.
That being said I wouldn't want to see armor that completely changes styles on a female character. There is no reason that a full plate breastplate should transform into something skimpy that barely covers anything when worn by a female character.
When I was a young buck I perfered seeing the scantily clad female characters in paper thin pasties that are supposed to be massive chest plates of hardened steel, but still only played males. Now, i'm desensitized to it and don't care. I'd want fairly equally designed armor schemes to make sense as well, but still have a variety of appearances to add flavor to the same armor types. I understand some would want their characters to be sexy. should they no be allowed that choice?
Everything should follow the aesthetic that VR wants to design, without them fealing constrained to player choice or standards, it's still a high fantasy game, not a medieval simulator.
My take to be implemented if Visionary Realms accepts my generous offer to become high lord ruler of all decisions for the small sack of coins and a wink would be: Basic armor sets that favor function over form would be the default. An option in settings would enable the "tailored armor sets" allowing the items a player had had tailored to be seen . So that anyone that wished to see the variations could opt into that visual feature. This would still be a controlled environment but granting looser applications of style appropriate for the lore and world overall.
The default armor sets being almost indistinguishable between gender.
The optional armor sets could be wild. I personally would love my male Halfling ranger to dress up in a skimpy flowing robe and halter top to down a congregation of wraiths under a pale moon by the river. It would be beautiful.
"For those of you who play female characters, what would you like to see?"
1. A good choice of hairdos including both short and long hair. At least for the human or demi-human races. This is a bit off-topic but it is important - when adventuring all we usually see is our character's behind. So hairdo matters. So to does a hide helmet option that either applies to hooded cloaks or is joined by a hide cloak option.
2. As others have mentioned - ditch the blatantly pandering bras. Chest armour should cover the chest and be defensive not titillating. If you want blatant pandering just do what Conan did and allow full topless.
Manouk said:Female plate?
st-joan-arc-WEB-3.jpg (1067×1600) (catholicsun.org)
Joan of Arc looks awesome but her armor is mostly male in nature-because she wore it in world full of patriarchy. If it was normal practice for women to wear armor, there probably would have been fashionable styles of female armor made available.
As others have stated, male armor had things like thin wastes and codpieces-completely as a fashion choice of the times.
There should be slight adjustments for female armor compared to male armor. I'm only gonna play a guy, since I'm a guy. You do you. I also do not want to see bikini tops for female armor. I do support hiding helmets and cloaks, if possible. I don't spend much time personalizing my toons look since I will show my helm and cloak.
dorotea said:"For those of you who play female characters, what would you like to see?"
1. A good choice of hairdos including both short and long hair. At least for the human or demi-human races. This is a bit off-topic but it is important - when adventuring all we usually see is our character's behind. So hairdo matters. So to does a hide helmet option that either applies to hooded cloaks or is joined by a hide cloak option.
I absolutely agree on wanting a large variety of hairstyles. I hope all asymmetric ones can be flipping, to add even more variety. Multiple hair color choices and highlights are also important.
I really hope for a hide helmet option, even if it only is active when out of combat. I also hope there will be magic head items that aren't gaudy or huge that will be as desirable as helmets (at least for us squishy, non-melee types).
dorotea said:2. As others have mentioned - ditch the blatantly pandering bras. Chest armour should cover the chest and be defensive not titillating. If you want blatant pandering just do what Conan did and allow full topless.
I don't mind nudity, so long as it isn't pandering and it fits the game. I really dislike hypersexualized armor because it's ridiculous, it's immersion-breaking, and it's demeaning. I object to gigantic anime swords for most of the same reasons.
This topic has been promoted for my CM content, please continue the discussion and have fun! :)
"Hot Topic - Gear - Gendered Aesthetics, what are your thoughts on a character's gender differences for armour and weapons in Pantheon? Join in on the community created discussion here: https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/13629/gear-gendered-aesthetics #MMORPG #CommunityMatters"
In reality a woman can wear the same armor as a man. The chestplate dosen't have to be shappen to the womans breast to fit, there is enough room in a regular chestplate for them to fit. Wearing armor with a lot of skin showing is also impractical for obvious reason. Also people wear a gambeson under the plate or chain armor. Leather armor wasn't a thing. Armor is lighter and mobile than people think. So "gendor armor" is a video game and movie thing. Even is some old fighting manuals depict women in just normal armor fighting. But this is a fantasy game so do whatever just make it look good.
Forced gendered aesthetics are terrible. Absolutely one of the biggest turnoffs for me for any game, and actually the main reason why I ended up quitting Lost Ark.
Josh Strife Hayes has an excellent video where he breaks down exactly why gender locking classes/abilities (and by extension gender locking appearances) is just plain bad and lazy, regardless of the reasons behind it.
For my part, there are three main reasons why I think things get gender locked or have gendered aesthetics:
Saving money via animations, doing so because of lore reasons (ie: only this one species of all female people can be mages), and Thirst.
Doesn't apply for gear, it's actually that opposite. Twice as much work. It really only applies to classes or races.
This is a stupid and lazy reason. It's not like the lore is ancient text that you are following blindly, you guys write the lore. Unless that unisex magic using race is adding something particularly amazing and flavorful to the world, then it's just plain lazy and stupid. It's bad lore. Do better.
Oftentimes part and parcel of number 2, but without the thin veneer of respectability that lore gives.
If you are going to have gendered aesthetics, then make sure the mesh can fit on all models, so male, female, and others can all interchangeably equip whatever they want. That's the only way to go about it.
In this particular game, there is no reason to be able to identify class at a distance so the clothing style does not matter.
I play a game to be entertained. I have no interest in being part of someone else's nerd rage or fantasies about ideals. I have my own aesthetics.
After all the time I've spent creating a character that has the physical features that I like, why would I dump the Best in Game Breastplate of Blandness onto them?
Allow me the ability to keep an item image that I like and to place that image onto all future versions of that gear.
Also allow me to 'hide' things like helmets that cover my features. Not to mention those huge pointy shoulderpads.
Keep the armor anatomically correct for both male and female.
I like the idea of everybody picking up X breastplate and being able to say yes, that is X breastplate that drops from Y because of the color and flavor etc.
I think Everquest got it right with race / gender.
Male and female armor are simaler but not the same. Different races had different asthetic appeal to their armor because each race was unique with its own culture and story.
Keep the armor practical, funtional and beautiful for both genders. When everybody is the same is when we stop appreceating our differences
Jaja said:Keep the armor anatomically correct for both male and female.
I like the idea of everybody picking up X breastplate and being able to say yes, that is X breastplate that drops from Y because of the color and flavor etc.
I think Everquest got it right with race / gender.
Male and female armor are simaler but not the same. Different races had different asthetic appeal to their armor because each race was unique with its own culture and story.
Keep the armor practical, funtional and beautiful for both genders. When everybody is the same is when we stop appreceating our differences
Armor is armor. It's not concerned with what squishy bits someone has underneath it. A breastplate looks the same no matter what size breasts are behind it. Armor covering your crotch will be the same regardless of what you are or are not packing. Having armor aesthetics genderlocked is lazy and antique game design. Having armor ""practical and functional" necessarily means it's not going to have visual... accomodations..., lol. I get what you mean about "when everybody is the same...", but all your example leads to is all females being the same and all males being the same. I would like to "appreciate the differences" of everyone around me, not just two distinct and limiting categories.
Extrusions on armor cause weak spots where the impacting object's force is differently distributed than on a more evenly curved surface - the curves, hit at the right angle, constitute structural weaknesses. Armor that simulates a woman's form is rife with these structural weaknesses and in a "realistic" scenario would only be worn in a ceremony, imo.
I realize this isn't realism, but fantasy. However, those who play men aren't forced to tolerate oversized wangs molded onto their codpieces, I see no reason why those who play women should be forced to endure a similarly exaggerated sexuality represented on their protective gear. For this reason I'd like to see men and women with the same armor. Chainmail bikinis are right out, and curvy armor that hypersexualizes should be as welcome on men as it is women.
Ruinar said:I don't disagree with you on principal, but this is a compromise I have already made regarding fantasy games. To be honest; the idea that your best armor would drop off of a boss is already ridiculous by this standard. No elite fighter in medieval times was getting his very best armor by defeating his opponent and taking his armor. He was getting it by having it custom crafted by a master. I have already suspended my disbelief that the armor that some boss is wearing will automatically perfectly fit me. It is a teensy tiny step farther to say that it would look different on a female than a male.
Yea I see what you mean but I wasn't thinking about realism. I completely accept at the moment i start any game that it is an abstraction of reality/fantasy and that whatever I see happen in the game isn't intended to be portrayed as a 1:1 representation of the world its set in. So immersion in a game rather than a setting isn't really about realism to me but has more to do with the game abstracting things in as simple and consistent of a way as possible. For example when you see a mob in EverQuest with a sword you can expect to loot a sword if you kill it. The first time I played EQ, after having played many other (more modern) MMOs before, it blew my mind. It has nothing to do with realism, but that the abstraction appears trustworthy.
So at least for me when I see an item look a certain way in a game I expect it to look the same but fitted to the mesh of my PC when I equip it. If its appearance changes the game has sort of "betrayed" me in some little way and some of the veil is peeled back a little bit. Do this enough times and imo the game will ultimate seem bland like a Ubisoft game.
There's a lot more armor in the game than just generic plate armor
For example I would expect a rogues armor to be more sensual than a Paladins armor, and as such I would expect the male and female versions of the armor to be more varied. Being a worldly trickster is part of the class fantasy.
Also I wouldn't expect a female monk to run around topless like some of the male monk armor revealed so far. It simply wouldn't make sense to have your jiggly bits flopping aorund in combat.
Now I would expect a Clerics, Paladin or warriors armor to be more gender-neutral because that fits the class fantasy of those classes.
It's a role playing game. Let people have roles that they can play.
Turnip raises a good point. The class should also factor in. Bards might delight in over-the-top motley clothing and it makes sense for them to have some more exaggerated options, though they shouldn't be too exaggerated since they still need to be functional. It all comes down to whether or not it feels consistent with the game's world.
