"Is it just me ore are female characters a little bit oversexualized?"

Nope... not a little... A LOT. Because it sells and if it sells you can be sure that they will do it.

I always wonderd why female armor often left the mid open.. a stab in the guts as a good ticket to the pale man. But then i just gave up and wrote off the entire fantasy estetic as a joke, or maybe not a joke but in every sense of thr word a fantasy.

Which is cool, but consider the breadth of the audience they're trying to present a fantasy to.

Originally posted by Saerain

Indeed, Aesperus, although showing that at least it's not TERA maybe isn't the best way to make the point. 

 

Originally posted by Adalwulff

The males are all buffed out, so I dont see females being singled out for anything.

Some people are just a tad too sensative.

Talk about a false equivalence. It's more like you're saying ‘the males are designed to appeal to males, so why not the females too’. Seriously, who do you think that buffing-out is for?

I want to be on your side because there's a lot of oversensitivity on this issue, but that argument just sucks.

What your saying is that all men find these avatars appealing, while at the same time, claiming all women do not find the female avatars appealing. I find it rather repulsive that you would just assume all this, talk about generalizing the genders!

How can you say those male avatars were built just to appeal to men, are you actually trying to claim women do not find buff men appealling....seriously?! I have known many women who play male avatars, because it appealed to them.

Your argument is flawed.

This is a pretty challenging question. At one end, I want to say no, this game is barely sexualized at all compared to a lot of mmo's.... but on the other end, I do like boobies.

I was playing with a female friend of mine, and while she liked the starter armor as an elementalist...

... as the game went onwards, she got cranky that it started covering her up and she didn't have much choice about that if she wanted to keep up with good stats (Either that or buy a TON of transmutation stones to keep pace).

So uh... I guess I'd vote undersexualized, since I KNOW she's a girl, and I have no idea about the rest of you, no matter what you claim.

So 100% of women wish it was sexier and showed off cleavage more consistently.

(To anybody who thinks this argument is absurd, no more absurd than many of the other 'I speak for all women/men' type posts I've seen around here.  At least I explained my methodology. :) )

Originally posted by Saerain

Originally posted by Hurvart

Men in some games are like muscular greek gods. I dont think that is much better... In games both men and women are often perfect stereotypes and not like normal people at all... But its not the real world. Its fantasy. I dont think its makes much diffeence if you are a man or a women. Some guy with a pot belly and tiny muscles will not feel much better if he looks at those "greek god" perfect men in the games.

Games are designed that way. Perfect sexy men and women. But you escape from reality when you are in a virtual world .Perhaps the character should look like what you would like to be. Or what you want to be in that virtual world.

I don't think you'll find that most women consider the overmuscled men of video games to be sexy. There's an audience for whom that's certainly true, but I'm pretty sure it's not enough to argue that it's done for the benefit of women. It serves the male player's power fantasies, not the female player's sex drive. i.e. Most of these games offer characters that are ‘perfect’ only from the expected average male player's perspective.

That said, Guild Wars 2's character creation does better than usual at offering both power-fantasy bodies and ladyboner bodies, I think.

Based on my experience I think a lot of women think a muscular fitness guy is sexy. But a lot of women think other qualitys are much more important. Typically if they want short term fun the fitness guy will be intersting. But if they want someting more serious they will focus on other qualitys. I mean they would perhaps not want to get involved long term with a guy like that just becouse he looks like a greek god. But if it was short term fun it would be interesting.

Men and women are not that different really. Physical attraction is physical attraction. But I think women will perhaps think more and focus on other things if it is a potential serious relation ship. And a man will more often be able to ignore what really should be more important qualitys if he can get a sexy woman. But often he will regret that later.

But if we talk about characters in games I think its often the same for women and men. I believe most women think a "greek god" is sexy. But few think its enough long term or even very important long term.

I live in a city where 13 year olds prance around in tights, exposing their whale tails... so I can't help but chuckle whenever one of these threads pops up.

The majoirty of us like boobies. get over it and don't be so frigid. more sex in video games i say for both male and females. the human body is amazing in it's design. don't be so uptight OP it's not like your saving a life or anything by ranting about naked people in a video game.

Like a prostitute... What a nonsence.. I dont think that at all. Most of nowadays games are a lot worse.

Originally posted by Meowhead

I was playing with a female friend of mine, and while she liked the starter armor as an elementalist...

... as the game went onwards, she got cranky that it started covering her up and she didn't have much choice about that if she wanted to keep up with good stats (Either that or buy a TON of transmutation stones to keep pace).

So uh... I guess I'd vote undersexualized, since I KNOW she's a girl, and I have no idea about the rest of you, no matter what you claim.

So 100% of women wish it was sexier and showed off cleavage more consistently.

(To anybody who thinks this argument is absurd, no more absurd than many of the other 'I speak for all women/men' type posts I've seen around here.  At least I explained my methodology. :) )

Indeed. That's been my experience as well. Women like women that look good. Regardless of what that means for feminists. In fact, in my experience women's taste in 'other women' tend to vary about as much as men do. What I mean is, what my female friends & my girlfriend seem to think 'looks good' tends to mimic most male friends I have in some regard. And, not to sound insensitive, but some women also like to look slutty. There's always been that joke of 'good guy/girl in the streets, bad guy/girl in the sheets'. Some people like to play the 'naughty' role, whether male or female. It just manifests a bit different depending on gender.

I don't think this game gets anywhere near as sexualized as say TERA, and I would argue that TERA is probably the extreme when it comes to sexualized women in an MMO. What's important is that GW2 offers a wide range of clothes for male & female, and gives players the freedom to choose where in that range they want to be. Many of the armors do get more covered, rather than revealed. However you can pick and choose what look you want via transmutation.

And Meowhead, I would say that this argument is slightly more absurd than other 'I speak for all women' posts, in that I don't think the OP is, in fact, a woman. Maybe it's just me, but I think that when it comes to such large, generalized classifications, a member of that group should be the one speaking, and not someone else. I certainly don't speak for other woman, because I know I'm not one. You girls can pick your own battles =P (and generally do)

Patch 1.01 notes:

"We've noticed an imbalance in the sex appeal exhibited between the two genders in game.   To compensate, all male package sizes have been increased by 3x and a large assortment of loin cloth based styles have been added to vendors."

The starting Scholar (light) armors are about the skimpiest I've seen in GW2, but it doesn't take long to get into clothing that offers more cover.

Here is the first crafted light female armor:

This is the armor I had aquired via play by the mid to late 20s, I believe:

The poll missed out an option - conservative dress should be an option. I know it means more work for the graphics designer but it's only common sense. This shouldn't be a debate at all, some people are more conservative or prudish than others.

I suppose it does bring up the question of people getting trolled if they wear too much or too little if there is ARE options, but at the root of it people should be allowed to choose to dress how they want and if other people can't deal with it, it's their problem. Personally I find the models attractive but not an incitement to riot, in real life it owuld be much more difficult otodress like that, but that's part of the fun of a vitual avatar, no woman character is in danger of getting raped, it's not in the game mechanics, hot blooded tbh (pathetic) guys who can't handle pixellated flesh can find their kicks elsewhere on the internet, no need to froth at the mouth, it's the 21st century -_-.

Way too many uptight people in this thread.  It's the reason that most western MMO art is usually terrible while eastern find beauty and show it off.  I do draw the line with the Elin in TERA though.  That is just creapy.  As long as the models look age appropriate, i see no problem with skimpy, but I'm obviously a man and superficial.

I applaud Anet for being a western company and breaking the mold of ugliness. 

Originally posted by Nlite

The poll missed out an option - conservative dress should be an option. I know it means more work for the graphics designer but it's only common sense. This shouldn't be a debate at all, some people are more conservative or prudish than others.

I suppose it does bring up the question of people getting trolled if they wear too much or too little if there is ARE options, but at the root of it people should be allowed to choose to dress how they want and if other people can't deal with it, it's their problem. Personally I find the models attractive but not an incitement to riot, in real life it owuld be much more difficult otodress like that, but that's part of the fun of a vitual avatar, no woman character is in danger of getting raped, it's not in the game mechanics, hot blooded tbh (pathetic) guys who can't handle pixellated flesh can find their kicks elsewhere on the internet, no need to froth at the mouth, it's the 21st century -_-.

I don't want to bump this thread but I had to respond.

It is an option, there are a great deal of more conservative clothing pieces for male and female characters. Guild Wars 2 is actually great in this regard, there's a great deal of variety, and I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that there isn't a terrific range of armor options in this regard.

You can see some examples here.

Originally posted by Nlite

The poll missed out an option - conservative dress should be an option. I know it means more work for the graphics designer but it's only common sense. This shouldn't be a debate at all, some people are more conservative or prudish than others.

I suppose it does bring up the question of people getting trolled if they wear too much or too little if there is ARE options, but at the root of it people should be allowed to choose to dress how they want and if other people can't deal with it, it's their problem. Personally I find the models attractive but not an incitement to riot, in real life it owuld be much more difficult otodress like that, but that's part of the fun of a vitual avatar, no woman character is in danger of getting raped, it's not in the game mechanics, hot blooded tbh (pathetic) guys who can't handle pixellated flesh can find their kicks elsewhere on the internet, no need to froth at the mouth, it's the 21st century -_-.

I'd hope the second image in my post above would be conservative enough for you. Transmutation Stones allow you to pair a look with stats from another item, so once you have access to an outfit you find acceptable, you can maintain the look while upgrading your stats.

Let me clarify, I wasn't complaning about the way the women are dressed, I'm merely speculating that some people, male and female would like to play a female toon that isn't wearing skimpy clothing. Admittedly I didn't look much past the starting clothes for cloth ligh armor classes.

Great, now anyone who didn't want to be forced into promoting the headline "GUILD WARS 2 IS SEXIST, HURR" has to. Excellent.

I'll just repost my OP from that thread. 

Oh, look, another thread claiming that Guild Wars 2 forces women to "look like prostitutes". I get that this is a somewhat subjective thing, but I can't be the only one who actually thinks Guild Wars 2 is fairly progressive in this regard. I'm saying this as a feminist, and someone who finds oversexualization a real problem. But some perspective, please.

Is there plenty of sexy or revealing armor? Yes. But a few points need to be made here:

• Both male and female characters are offered a lot of choice. The choice is not made for us female players whether or not we have to wear skimpy armor or dress like we are going to church. We get to decide, and get plenty of variety and levels of skimpiness with which to find a comfortable niche. People arguing both for skimpy armors and for covered up armor miss this point. We ought to be able to decide for ourselves, not have the zealots or the prudes decide for us. 
• Plenty of women, myself included, actually want to dress our characters in skimpy armor. That's why it's nice that there's a variety, and why it's often just as insulting for players to complain about "oversexualization".
• Sexiness isn't sexualization, or even oversexualization. There's a nuance here that is missed 99% of the time by people on both sides of the argument. This is oversexualization: basing character and armor design off of what is sexually appealing, with no regard for what female players will feel comfortable in, no regard for even basic realism. Oversexualization is designing things to be sexy at the level of pornography, for the express purpose of titilation or appeal to deprived young men. Etc etc. Sexy, looking good, etc, are not "oversexualization". Many women enjoy looking good or looking sexy, just as men do. 

Originally posted by Bubbaganoosh

Let me clarify, I wasn't complaning about the way the women are dressed, I'm merely speculating that some people, male and female would like to play a female toon that isn't wearing skimpy clothing. Admittedly I didn't look much past the starting clothes for cloth ligh armor classes.

Here is an image of all the light armor sets for female characters found in the Beta, as you can see there are armors of all types, so no, the armors in GW2 are not oversexualized, you can't say that if you only saw a little portion of the choices available.

Agreed.

I'm a man, I think about sex like every 2 seconds or something crazy like that.  Half the reason I play videogames is to STOP thinking about sex for a little while.  I don't need half naked chicks with super jiggle physics running around reminding me that instead of leveling my character I could be doing the no pants dance.