Originally posted by cichy1012

 OP you got owned by this one...........

Lol. I didn't know my thread was about owning and getting owned, or who has the biggest e-peen, but it's never too late to learn, thx

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

 

Is that the Jungle Queen from The Maxx?

If so.... God I loved that show. Mr. Gone is friggin awesome, and I quote him very often.

Eh, what? Jungle Queen? Maxx?? Mr Gone??? Out of reference scope, at least mine

Originally posted by NovaKayne

 

 Outside of a lot of the Asian games which really seem to be catering to ( for lack of a better term ) something really close to sexual predators or boyhood fantasy's.

 

Does every Asion MMO have to have women in some version of a sailor outfit or school girl uniform?  SRSLY?

You forget the maid outfits, for some strange reason also very popular there.

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Originally posted by Aeroangel
I like the skimpy armor on females in MMORPGs. I mean if a character is conjuring up fireballs and thunderstorms I don't think it's a far stretch for females to be fully protected by a little bit of armor =P. If the MMO is supposed to be realistic on the other hand, sure make the armor realistic too, but hopefully not too ugly. Tldr dressing up your avatar to wear cute, sexy, or funny clothing is fun. 

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Umm, keep male armor the same, skimpier clothes for female, best way to go.

I'm not a woman, but I think all this talk about skimpy armor is ridiculous.  It's a game.  If they made male armor that was skimpy, but looked cool, I wouldn't really care.  Basically, whether the armor is skimpy, or covers the whole body, it doesn't matter.  If the armor would be effective in real battle or not, doesn't matter.  The only thing I care about when it comes to armor style is if it looks good.  

Having said that, I believe MMOs need to give players more options.  Armor should be more for looks and not stats.  You should be able to choose if you want to look like a slut or a regular woman.  This way people can look however they want, and nobody can cry about it.

Male here.

My main MMO is LOTRO, which went with "realism" and put both genders in full armour if that's what the class wears. A chain shirt is a chain shirt and fully covers from the neck to the waist, even on the women. This is a rare exception amongst the MMOs I've played (around 30 and counting). Asian-developed games definitely favour the "less-is-more" theory of protecting their female avatars. I know a couple of the women in the guild I belonged to in Aion got uncomfortable with what passed for armour in that game, although to be fair, one absolutely loved the look.

Personally, I prefer "realism".  If someone is going to charge into a melee, they probably want to wear as much protection as possible. The way I rate armour - would I, as a male, wear the female version and feel equally safe? The answer in most MMOs is "no".

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by generals3

 

Yes you could but can you find a bullshit reason why it magically only works for female warriors ?

Nobody said anything about the thong not working on men, we all just assumed the discussion "wouldn't go there". I'd wear it on my head if need be.

Btw, Conan wore a thong and could kick the ass of anyone calling him on it.

Rofl! Go anywhere you like In fact, it was one of the discrepancies I commented about.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

You can shoot lightning bolts from your finger tips. You can fly with wings. You can teleport across the world. You can turn yourself invisible. You can wield a sword that can burst into flames, and kill a dragon. You can mesmerize creatures so they are stopped in their tracks. You can shoot a laser gun, or fly a space ship that can travel across the galaxy.

And you can't make magic armor that protects without covering? Or you can't make armor that produces a forcefield, instead of covering your body with metal?

Bikini Armor is magic, or technology. Just like flaming swords, teleporting, or shooting lightning out of your fingertips, or shooting a laser gun.

 It's also been around in comics, book covers, movies, etc., long before MMORPGs and the home computer.

Originally posted by Senadina

As a female, I am as used to seeing skimpily clad women as the rest of our society. As you pointed out, it isn't just games, but all popular media.

However, occasionally it pushes the boundaries even for a jaded individual like me. Case in point: Aion. The female toons had to fight in high heels for god's sake. And there was no escaping looking like a hooker. Now that was more a consequence of design than amount of armor.

Originally posted by Aeroangel

 Tldr dressing up your avatar to wear cute, sexy, or funny clothing is fun. 

Originally posted by Plutonicwoes

As I recall, Aes Sedai did quite well without a full suit of metal armor.  

It's fantasy.  Just like all the girls are 'too sexy' the guys are usually too muscular, or whatever.  

It's safe to say that most men have no problems at all with skimpily-clad women running around in their game.

We like looking at lots of bare skin and hot bods no matter where, it's basic nature. 'But it's just pixels' is no counter argument, I could as well say 'it's just ink' when it comes to pictures in a magazine.

Doesn't mean we automatically feel the urge to hump anything that looks good as a dog looking for a leg, but we're thus wired that our brains go 'ooooh, nice' when confronted with a good looking female figure. Yes, also in games. And the designers know it well.

It doesn't only apply to scantily-clad female figures, also good looks. It's why you see so many more catwalk model-like characters ingame to choose from than obesily overweight or 60yr+ grannie characters, heck, it's even why in WoW's tBC expansion the Blood Elves were part of the Horde (wanna go Horde + still look good => Blood Elves)

I've the impression that most girl/woman gamers don't mind the skimpy clothes much as long as it looks good (+options to accessorize), and as long as it's not the only choice, having to walk around dressed as the fantasy or elven equivalent of a street hooker.

But it's why female characters in a lot of MMO games have far less skin coverage with their armor than male characters, and why there are far more female stripper outfits than male stripper outfits. Fair? Lol, no (but who cares?) Commercially understandable? Absolutely!

But about skimpy female armor being the same as magic and sorcery when it comes to believability, that I don't agree with: when we read a fantasy book or play a fantasy (MMO) game we suspend disbelief to 'accept the fact' that all the action is taking place in a world where magic is common, that's the nature of the world the book or the movie or the game describes.

That doesn't have anything to do with why female armor in that world can be mere pieces of leather or metal, where the male armor is more covered, as is the case in a lot of (MMO) games. In the descriptions in many fantasy books there is no difference between heavy armor for men and women.

Sure, there have been many drawings and images of scantily clad women in fantasy and sword & sorcery covers from the beginning, best examples are probably Conan and Red Sonja, so it suits Age of Conan in a way.

But another example is the Lord of the Rings movies: a fantasy world made believable, but without a Arwen or Eowyn running around in a Princess Leia slave outfit as armor.Liv Tyler still looked sexy, only not as a Middle Earth stripper.

In short:

- presence of magic => that's the way the created world works, still consistent within the boundaries of its own internal logic

- skimpy (heavy) female armor in contrast to male armor => commercial reason, 'sex sells' motiv

Of course, in the end we take it all for granted. After all, it's just a game

TL;DR 

in a MMO game world, anything is possible.

I've always thought that a nice option in your character sheet under "armor types" would be: Standard vs Stylized. Standard would be armor looks more real. Stylized is my euphemism for "hottie."  That way people can look more like they wish, and not have to wear a thong if it makes them uncomfortable.

Now everyone is happy except the coder who has to do two versions of many armor pieces.

Originally posted by Andraxx

Personally, I prefer "realism".  If someone is going to charge into a melee, they probably want to wear as much protection as possible. The way I rate armour - would I, as a male, wear the female version and feel equally safe? The answer in most MMOs is "no".

Yep. You'd also look silly, wearing the female version of the armour, but by looks it would stand to reason that it would protect less

(It's so funny that my first post here is on this topic xD )

But yeah, girl gamer here and honestly, maybe all of these skimpy armors on female characters are to satisfy the requirement of the idea "sex sells". But who honestly cares?

I, for one, do not really care. As it was said earlier in this thread, let me just have my gaming time please. I'm used to the fantasy/gaming society of having girls running around in skimpy things while the guys are usually fully armored and it makes no logical sense at all considering the time and place these characters are in. But my first question is: is something made completely for fantasy or something that has trees fighting you, orcs throwing boulders at each other or whatever...do these really need to have realistic anything? Logic?

I honestly think not. My opinion is I could care less how my characters are dressed as long as they have something on. And it should look cool of course xD It doesn't matter if skimpy or not. If it makes logical sense or not. From an artist's point of view, I also kind of see it as a form of flattery and appreciation for the female body. Of course some overdo it with the measurements but meh lol It's fantasy. Now that could be the artist in my talking but in the end, I just wanna' play my game and looking cool. Period.

As a female player, I'd totally rock the Tera armor.  I actually look to see what type of armor games offer before I play them. If the women are covered up and look like men, I don't play the game. The armor is part of my fun..questing, raiding for it or what have you. I think thats a huge part of why I got bored with Lord of the Rings.

Originally posted by orangerascal

Protip: Contrary to popular belief, some girls actually like it when you treat them like sex objects and vice versa. It's part of our evolution ... enjoy the ride.

You mean, I hope, when your having sex or something. Ive never had a girlfriend who wanted to be treated like a sex object and I can imagine what they would have done to me if I even tried.

Skimpy armor, clown suits, full metal of encumberment...

Appearance equipment slots would go a long ways to solving these silly "problems".

Anyways, skimpy armor protects via magic. Mages in most of these games can rip holes in space/time. Skimpy armor being protective or rings of protection can't be all that hard. Now, the sexism issue is easily solved through appearance equipment. Always been curious why more games do implement such a thing so people can actually choose how their character looks (I miss UO and feel disgusted when a SoE game has a GOOD feature very few other games have).

Skimpy armor, full armor, something inbetween, let the individual players decide from the plethora of armor available and not some crack pot developer latest wacked out design on the "effective" gear.

You gotta admit, sex sells. Thus skimpy armor suits.

It's not always the males that gets more clothes :)

Not a woman here but some armor really makes me go WTF. I mean, it is downright unrealistic. In fact, might as well go to battle naked. Which may be fine for a long range caster but defenately not for a rogue/warrior.

Originally posted by nanalie

 

[...] But my first question is: is something made completely for fantasy or something that has trees fighting you, orcs throwing boulders at each other or whatever...do these really need to have realistic anything? Logic? [...]

A fantasy world has its own rules and logic that should follow.

I wouldn't question for example if a fantasy world declares it has reversed gravity and everything i meet follows that rule. But if i find inside that world something that has normal gravity, i need a pretty damn good explanation (that makes some sense in that fantasy world). Otherwise i would lose all my interest in its lore and i think everybody would.

Thanks for posting this, cyphers ^^

As a woman who does not enjoy pornographisation (of either gender, actually), I often have problems in mmo's if I want to play a mage or similar who are usually portrayed semi-naked.  It makes me feel uncomfortable and ludicrous to play a character who has so clearly been designed with the idea of sexually titillating the players.

Despite the fact that a number of respondents to this thread who have identified themselves as male have stated that they don't mind, I believe that not only does skimpy/over-sexualised female armour denigrate women by stereotyping and limiting them to a barbie-doll type appearance whose underlying mesage is that the way the female character looks must be a) supposedly pleasing to males, and b) is more important than what the female character does.  This stereotyped restricted representation of female characters  also under-estimates male players who surely don't want to be sitting goggling at pixelated fantasies rather than foccusing on playing the game?

Guy posting.

I think that no matter what world we are playing in an armor made from a layer of air can be a nice protection against a hot day. Against sharp, dynamic objects it isn't exactly effective. Why the hell a female tank is not wearing a full plate armor made up from plates of metal covering every part of the body? She is expected to get a lot of attention from swords, hammers, arrows and all that.

And why the hell game designers keep thinking that less clothes = more sexyness? I mean DAMN! Haven't you ever met a girl or a woman that know how to dress to be sexy?

On the other hand. I think that the armor that makes one look like a hooker should have some effect on male mobs. One can look at the boobs instead of trying to stab you. That would be an extremaly hilarious gameplay mechanic.

Edit: Sniped by the post above, which is made of truth.

I do not care either way.   I have started threads here in this forum on this very subject and I think the consensus was that many players feel like I do - they just wish to have a wider variety for customization purposes.   One thing I do not like is seeing characters running around in 3 inch heeled ankle strapped pumps.  That is just stupid and silly.

BTW this is my character from the game Mount and Blade and I think she just rocks.   ^_^

Originally posted by Giemz

Guy posting.

I think that no matter what world we are playing in an armor made from a layer of air can be a nice protection against a hot day. Against sharp, dynamic objects it isn't exactly effective. Why the hell a female tank is not wearing a full plate armor made up from plates of metal covering every part of the body? She is expected to get a lot of attention from swords, hammers, arrows and all that.

And why the hell game designers keep thinking that less clothes = more sexyness? I mean DAMN! Haven't you ever met a girl or a woman that know how to dress up to be sexy?

On the other hand. I think that the armor that makes one look like a hooker should have some effect on male mobs. One can look at the boobs instead of trying to stab you. That would be an extremaly hilarious gameplay mechanic.

I is DUUUUUUUUUUDE!

Using your tank scenario good sir, I've been wondering for a long time how any "threat" mechanic would realistically work. I mean, any smart enemy would ignore the macho tank's "HEY YOU DOOFUS LOOK OVER HERE AND HIT ME INSTEAD OF MY VULNERABLE HEALER!" So how could a tank get that attention? Well, if the tank was a very sexy female and scantily clad, she might be more successful. Unfortunately, you're right about the armor bit. Plus, some enemies wouldn't care about nice boobies.

As for female armor overall... I'm in the middle. I think some of it is ridiculous, particularly from the East (where girls fight in 6-inch high heels, HELL YEAH!?!?!), but some of it is semi-realistic, like WoW. I mean, I don't have a problem with some cloth class wearing a stylish robe that reveals a little more than a robe should. They're protected by magic/holy barries and friends, so they don't have a dire need for realistic armor. If it's a chainmail bikini, well, that's a bit ridiculous. I think these MMOs should have believable armor for both genders in combat and nice non-combat clothes for when they want to relax or turn on their sex appeal. Like a nice evening dress from the Auction House, right? Right.

Edit: Teala, I wouldn't say it to her face because she looks like she could kill me in any number of ways, but I couldn't tell she was female at first. But then I looked at the face instead of the chest. Sigh.