He gives a commercial at the beginning but that is the reality of You Tube anymore. The discussion is pretty good.
The conclusion is that form fitting fantasy armor would work just fine. He looks at the ridiculous cod pieces that were considered 'cool' at the time and makes a number of very good points.
~~~worth the watch. Devs and starving artists...I would love to hear your take on this.
[youtube]lBtvS5yhTA8[/youtube]
[img]https://i.postimg.cc/wBRXL49v/Untitled.jpg[/img]
—
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
Doesn't adress many of the criticisms of fantasy female armor like having a sculpted breastplate, or giant holes in the armor.
A breastplate sculpted after the female form would guide blades inwards to a weaker part of the armor than a more standard single domed breastplate. The dome shape of the breastplate is to help deflect blows away from the center of the plate.
Giant holes in the armor (like a lot of fantasy designs tend to have) hopefully speak for themselves.
Most of his argument, towards the end, seem to boil down to "Well, it's fantasy so it doesn't matter." Which leaves aside the whole issue of Male armor in fantasy making the man look like a walking tank vs. Female armor in fantasy being a chainmail bikini or a regular revealing outfit with just like, armored gauntlets and boots that inexplicably also have high heels.
Which is thankfully slowly changing and women in more modern fantasy stories, settings, or what have you are now more sensibly dressed for their apparent profession.
Also as it ties in here is male armor designed the way a lot of female armor is designed.
[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dv8heJWVsAAU2pb?format=png&name=900x900[/img]
As you can see it's very practical and covers all the vital areas.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
*groan*
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Honestly that's pretty awesome looking :p Would make a good light/energy mage.
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Yeah, the artist who did it is currently working on a Paladin armor with the same idea. Then they'll do a rogue. So I'm looking forward to it.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
If you watched the video he wasn't talking about the armor you pictured. He showed plate armor form fitted to the female form...no open holes nor anything like what you posted above.
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
Look at all the armor fitted with spikes. Just what you need to guide weapon hits to do the most damage. Fantasy armor is just that, fantasy. None of us know what the addition of magic to armor making does. The above armor might just fit in to a magic users requirements. And as far as super heroes go, That "armor" might just be projecting a force field around itself that stops even a plasma cannon.
[img]https://i.postimg.cc/wBRXL49v/Untitled.jpg[/img]
scene cut from the video.
THIS is the armor he was talking about, guys. Not the cutaway, but plate mail. He said this would work just fine.
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
And people don't really ever have much problem with something like that.
It's armor with huge boobs molded in it and armor that has giant gaping holes that is the problem.
I'd argue that that armor likely wouldn't be as strong in the breastplate as a more traditional style but it's fine, more or less.
Like this guy took the least objectionable fantasy plate armor he could find and went "see, there's nothing wrong with it!" Without assessing the absolutely god awful and impractical armor designs found in a ton of fantasy properties. It'd be like if I showed you a video of a well behaved lion and was like, "see, lions aren't dangerous! I don't see why anyone makes a big deal about them!" It's a video of a guy defending the cherry picked least egregious female armor he could find.
You'll quite often run into armor with like, a cleavage window, giant boobs molded on it, chain or plate mail bikinis, or armor with giant high heels. That is the type of female armor that people take umbrage with, not something like the picture youve shown.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
I can't think of many games that don't give you an option not to use a chain mail bikini. What it seems more of, is that people want to get rid of that option, rather than add options.
"Chain mail bikini doesn't make sense to me! Take it out of the game!"
Why limit the option?
Though...
https://io9.gizmodo.com/what-kind-of-armor-did-medieval-women-really-wear-1502779338
According to this article, women wearing plate was unheard of anyways, with the exception being Joan of Arc.
I try to find videos of women in full plate, couldn't find any, to see if they can maintain the same movement as men. Found one were she put it on, but she just stood there.
I can't think of many games that do! Especially other than MMOs
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Well, for every MMO I can think of with a chain mail bikini, they have a full armor option. I believe even TERA the most sexed up fantasy setting game has full armor options I memory serves. Though, to be fair with TERA, I believe the chain mail bikini options were sort of the point of the game, so when people complained about the lack of full armor in TERA, they were obviously missing the point of that game :p
Actually, that armor is very likely stronger than unformed armor. Most people dont have a problem with fantasy armor being a fantasy.Its a game, some people like things that you dont, some people like things that I dont. There is plenty of room for all of us in the game without going off on a crusade.
We need a superhero that builds bridges, to help people GET OVER STUFF.
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Need some group teleport :p
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I think too much is made of the ability of bridges to provide connections. Bridges are much more about getting over stuff.
[size=14]"The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths." - Pushkin[/size]
[size=14] "One piece of flair is all I need." - Sister Silicon[/size]
Could use a bit more of that too in this world!
"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle
You usually don't get the option to not be in some ridiculous impractical armor. Especially when leveling up. Iirc for a lot of the armor in WoW the female version is cleavage or navel exposing if not both. If memory serves one of the first armors if not the first armor for humans was a chainmail shirt, for men: t-shirt style covers all the vital organs, for women: chain mail sports bra. There's no other options for them yet and most of the armor for women follow this sort of trend.
I would love for a game to have a toggle between practical and impractical armor but if such a thing was implemented I'd want it for all playable avatars, not just female ones.
And yeah, women weating plate was pretty rare. That armor cost a fortune back then and Women were also pretty valuable to families. So combine that with the prohibitive cost and exatly how many noble families are going to fork over the cash to armor up their daughters and send them to war? And given the time period and the expected roles of women and you can definitely see why there aren't many examples of Ladies in plate armor.
Well made full plate usually weighed around 50-60lbs and didn't feel like that when it was worn as the weight was well distributed. There shouldn't be much loss of movement and given that I've seen men doing cartwheels and such in fullplate it stands to reason that a women could also, especially if said suit of armor was tailored to them.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
you obviously havent played wow much. 90% of its armor is "platemail burkha". In the BC expansion they made plate mail thongs, but at least some of that was for either sex. I have never played a game that didnt have armor burkha styles freely available. Skimpy armor is an aesthetic decision, based on the devs of those games deciding if they want their game to cater to a variety of customers. A lot of people dont want to play a game that lacks customization simply do satisfy someones puritanical obsession.
Armor is designed to protect against the most recent innovations in weaponry. The bowl shaped (or domed) breastplate was to combat the use of polearms and crossbows of the time by deflecting the blows. Before that time breastplates were designed to protect against cuts and to absorb the blows. Different times, different weapons and different armor.
This is largely irrelevant when discussing fantasy armor and weapons. Fantasy tends to be more anachronistic in nature and so the development of arms and armor becomes inconsistent in that works history. Even more so when you throw myth and magic into the mix. It's not uncommon to find a character wearing a greek muscle cuirass (or heroic cuirass look it up for classic boob armor) next to a knight in full plate armor.
The OP's video talks about historical attitudes of attractiveness having an effect on the armor of the time in relation to the theoretical concept of an attractive female aesthetic being applied to a fantasy setting's armor. He was very clearly not talking about the 'chainmail bikini' that some wish to focus on and the video even referenced a separate video he made about that subject multiple times. While I agree that some of the fan service armors in various media can be problematic the OP obviously wanted to discuss the specific concept of applying a more respectful modern idea of female beauty to this games armor designs.
A lot of armor in WoW leaves the stomach exposed but only for female characters.
I have no idea what you even mean by "Plate mail burkha" nor why you're quoting it like something that was already said.
Skimpy armor caters more towards men than not and WoW doesn't seem to have any/many skimpy armors for men. So by "cater to a wide variety of customers" you really mean "cater to a wide variety of men"
I don't really know what you mean by "puritanical obsession" nor do I think you can give any examples of people not playing a game because it didn't have skimpy armor.
Skimpy outfits, and even armor, is fine if it's available on all characters but more often than not the men get practical armor and the women get skimpy armor even when it's the exact same armor set.
The "It's just fantasy there could be magic involved" argument doesn't fly when it's not applied evenly. If they don't need to wear as much armor because magic why is it only the ladies this applies to? Why do they then decide to trapes through the frozen wastes wearing something that'd be chilly even in summer? Why isn't it sparse armor over clothing? The answer to all these questions is, as it has always been, because skimpy women appeal to men. And any lore based "justifications" for such a thing are to deflect from the fact that the devs just wanted to have women in skimpy outfits in the game.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
+1
Since you dont play wow, you wouldnt know much about any of their armors. There ARE some that are skimpy for men. There are a LOT of female armors that show zero skin. If that is what you want, you got it. In the original D&D, mages couldnt wear heavy armor, so they went for a more piece meal approach. In reality, most could not afford articulated plate, they went with a breastplate and helm or somesuch. And yes, this is an entertainment venue, not historical recreation. Young men are one of the main demographics and they do want to see scantily dressed attractive females. Its a business. Games that dont have at least a little of this do not do well.Millions of dollars spent on development and you want world of amish.
What makes you say I don't play WoW? I played it when Burning Crusade came out and again when Draenor came out and when Legion was released.
There are very few skimpy armors for men. I think the most I've seen is one that leaves the stomach exposed and some of the leather armor has short shorts. Do you have any examples of skimpy male armor in WoW?
I don't see what D&D and it's mages has to do with this topic, considering female warriors in that tended to look more like Red Sonja even long after the men stopped looking like Conan.
Could the reason that young men are one of the main demographics have to do with the sexualization of female avatars in the game? Would they not appeal to more women by having armor that sexualizes male avatars? I mean you say there's the option for female avatars to not be skimpy and there seems to be so few for men to -be- skimpy. Wouldn't it make far more business sense to appeal to both demographics?
And I don't know why you believe I want "World of Amish" considering that I've clearly advocated for skimpy male armor. Again, skimpy armor for females is fine as long as the same applies to the men in an equal amount. You either have everyone in practical armor or everyone in skimpy impractical armor. A mix of both is fine too as long as it's done equally to both sexes.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Let me know when you find videos of women from the 13th century wearing plate.
Charles Logan
www.cloganart.com
There was video in the 13th century?!
I think that's against the Yrilia Accords :p
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Agreed 100%.
The problem isn't that female characters [i]have[/i] skimpy armor. It's that armor for females is treated [i]differently[/i] than armor for males. Even a 50/50 split of practical vs sexy female armor comes across as biased when it's only a 90/10 split for males. If [i]both[/i] were 50/50 there wouldn't be a problem, because there's no bias in how the genders are treated.
Equal objectification for everyone! I say.
There's plenty of videos of men in full plate armor showing what could be done in it.
However, the question is, how would a woman handle the 50lbs of armor.
From what I've read, it's easier to haul around the 50lbs in a back pack than it was in full plate. The one video I could find where a woman wore it, she just said it was a little hard to breathe, as it was tight in the chest, but nothing she couldn't handle, which my take away was it was likely akin to wrong size bra issues.
Having both worn and carried steel armor, though never what's referred to as full plate, I can say that it definitely feels considerably lighter when properly worn than when carried in a pack, even a well-crafted pack with good weight distribution. My armor wasn't the best crafted or best fitted stuff in the world, so there was no way in hell I was ever going to do cartwheels, but I could run in it and fight for hours so long as I got to take occasional breaks.
The biggest problem I had with armor was heat, since steel and leather don't breath very well. I remember going to a practice in one of the coldest winters Phoenix ever had, actually below freezing, and then going topless for a good thirty minutes after the fighting was done, radiating enough heat that you could see it coming off of my skin as steam. Summer events were considerably harder in that respect, but plentiful water, shade when you could get it and we did alright.
Women fighters weren't common, but the ones I knew tended to wear traditional breastplates, coats-of-plates or brigandines like mine; I only ever once saw someone wearing anything you'd consider molded, and it was more subtle than the picture Cyclops posted above. Usually you'd know women fighters from their generally slimmer bodies and wider hips rather than the shape of their breastplates; some of the more muscular women you couldn't tell until she took off her helmet.
~ DariusWolfe
Errant, TNT, Vibrant and Fluxion on Liberty
I knew some women fighters with moulded chest protection, usually pressed aluminum. Hits to the chest were bad enough for the men, It must have been much more painful for the ladies. I used steel chest and belly protection for about 2 years because of a healing surgical wound on my belly. I got rid of it because of the weight. One consideration as to why people didnt use moulded armor...cost. It would take a master armorer a long time to make a custom moulded chest. $$$$ has made more gearing decisions than any other consideration.You were much more likely to see flutes added to the armor than moulding. They add a lot of strength to the armor. I knew only one fighter that used articulated plate ina any great amount, and that wasnt very nice in Texas summers.
Something to remember about wow, the designers vary from expansion to expansion. Bc had skimpy armor, Wotlk had very little. so while you look at it as a solid piece of work, there are a lot of different imputs as to what you see in it. They also tend to make one set of armor base and just reskin the hell out of it. During BC their customer base was heavily weighted towards teenage males. this has changed as time goes on. They are a business, the used to try to cater to what they saw as their bread and butter. They didnt really care if there wasnt parity between how many thongs each sex had, balancing classes was hard enough. How much time and money do you see developers putting into this sort of thing? Not a whole lot.
The art direction for WoW has definitely improved since it's original release and it has gotten better with female armor than it used to. You still see some suposed heavy armors for ladies with giant holes in them but less than in classic or BC.
Blizzard has a pretty long history of not being great at depicting women. But they're getting better at that slowly.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
That really sounds like it should read "...it has given me more of what I want to see with female armor" rather than "...it has gotten better" :p
No. Has gotten better with is accurate. Having female armor with giant holes in it is bad armor. It can look nice, sure, but armor it is not. Armor with giant holes in it is fetish wear.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
steel armor against something throwing lightning bolts is useless...fireballs. wearing steel against a lot of opponents in a fantasy setting would be suicide. We get it, you hate skimpy armor, others dont.
It doesnt matter if it isnt equal, as long as it sells subscriptions. That is the reason for making the game in the first place.
Steel armor can act as (at least partially) a faraday cage so the lightning goes around the person instead of through them, and the more "holes" there is in it the high possibility it has that it will arc through the person wearing it. A non-combustible "barrier" between you and a fireball is better than a combustible one. And in general it's not just steel armor but every type that is treated this way when in regards to male and female version.
On the other hand, armor that effectively only covers breasts and groin leaves you open to every possible attack, magical [b]and[/b] non-magical.
And wearing "only" leather or cloth armor would never be suicide?
I take by "a lot of opponents" you mean a lot of different types rather than a higher simultaneous number. Yes in certain situations steel armor can be a bad choice but I'm sure leather and cloth has such moments too, so in general I don't think there is any armor type/"tier" that is worse in general compared to the other types/"tiers".
It's not about hating skimpy armor it's about having equal options/visuals between male a female versions, how is that so hard for people to understand.
TL;DR: Skimpy armor only for ladies raises far too many questions and makes for incoherent world building.
I would rather have a wall of metal between me and both of those effects. Also fantasy armor isn't limited to just steel.
Also also. It's not just steel armor. It's steel plate over chainmail, over padded leather, over cloth.
A fireball in D&D is only hot enough to ignite flamable (unattended) objects in the fireball's area of effect, so using that as a metric realistically that fireball would likely do almost nothing to a well armored opponent. The same can't be said for the idiot that's got giant holes in the armor.
So in any sort of realistic sense armor with holes in is a bad idea.
Now one might say "well, what if it's magic armor?" And I'd answer "Why aren't the men taking advantage of this?" Given the option of lugging around a 50-100lbs suit of armor or lugging around what amounts to a couple of saucepan lids and some tin foil if both offer the same protection why would you ever choose the heavier armor?
But we get it. You just want to see scantily clad women. You are aware porn exists, right? Often for free? On the internet? Why do vidoegames need to be softcore porn for you? What, there's not enough scantily clad women for you on tv, in movies, in comercials, in magazines, and on the internet that you -need- them to also be in your video games?
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
And wouldn't you have a better chance to sell [i]more[/i] subscriptions if you appealed to both genders? Wouldn't the unbiased treatment of the genders with regard to objectification [i]help[/i] that goal? You think skimpy armor will bring in the male demographic? Fine. Good, even. Get those sales. But disproportionately objectifying female characters also has the potential to [i]dissuade[/i] female gamers from investing in your game, cutting you off from part of the market, and [i]losing[/i] possible sales.
If it were actually about marketing, you'd [i]want[/i] to appeal to a broader user base.
Ultimately this is how the debate always gets framed in the end.
"You hate ____."
No. We don't, and many of us certainly never said that we did (I in fact want [i]more[/i] skimpy armor, just for males to match what's available for players of female characters). It's just simpler to construct this type of strawman that can be easily dismissed, than to bother actually paying attention to what we're [i]really[/i] saying.
Exactly, so what I said is right. Some people are playing fantasy. You want to play realism.
Not to mention, if we were to go the accurate route, there wouldn't be many women in plate. :p
Appeal to both genders may or may not work.
This isn't to say, don't have options. However, how much of the player base is the one gender? Is it 50/50? Does it appeal to more of one gender over the other? Now, if going in either direction, will it lead to more subscriptions or less that what you would have?
So, no, it doesn't mean more chances for more subs, as there is mmos out there with a lack of revealing armor and they don't have more females because of it.
What?
When did I say I wanted realism? When did I say I wanted accuracy?
Armor with holes in it isn't armor same as a colander isn't a bowl. So in order for someone to get better with female armor they need to stop making it fetish wear and start making it armor.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Source? Got the numbers on that?
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
How do you know they wouldn't have less female players compared to now if they only had skimpy female armors?
From what I have read (can't find the sources now) having only skimpy armor for female toons is a "turn-off" for a significant amount of females so having the option for skimpy or not will lead to more [b]chances[/b] for subscriptions, but increased [b]chance[/b] for subscriptions does not necessarily guaranty more actual subs. All they can do is reduce the "never gonna play/sub it" pool of people.
I guess this whole thread depends on whether we're talking about heavy, metal armor
or, Heavy Metal Armor
Wait until you see the... nope, that would ruin the surprise.
That's not even armor when you zoom in.
The 80s was a bad time for posters -_-
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Tera actually to the very least had the Castanic race which had pretty skimpy armor for both genders.
Guild Wars 2 also kind of does it right. Some armor sets look completely different on both genders for some dumb reason as I would like if both gendered versions were use able while others are skimpy for both genders. Most of the heavy armor remains heavy on both genders barring the gladiator and barbarian like stuff. It's usually the leather armor and cloth wearers that get skimpier armors which it makes more sense with (Mesmers can also apparently make project their own armor out of their magic or something).
I think it depends on the context of the game setting too. In a superhero game were the costume can be literally anything and powers factor in more than practicality it won't matter to much if a illusion based hero was wearing skimpy armor because the armor can be an illusion in itself or whichever explanation you can come up with for heroes and villains. With a fantasy game though it can get a little bit more iffy.
I think were most of the criticism for skimpy armor comes from creators trying to deny the obvious fanservice and coming up with increasingly dumb reasons to justify the odd choice instead of just embracing it like other devs do and making the armor available for both genders while making the heavier more practical stuff also available.
Fantasy video game armor is designed for its aesthetics not practicality. Both male and female armor in most games are impractical or flat out unrealistic.
If a game wants to interject sex appeal in it's aesthetic design it will accentuate the masculinity of men and femininity of women. Comparing the skimpy outfits of women with the bulky outfits of men is not a 'one to one' comparison. What we find aesthetically attractive in women is different than what we find attractive in men (for the most part).
Most comparisons of bulky armor vs skimpy armor in games ignores the fact that different classes have different armor/clothing options. Comparing a female rogues clothing to a male knights armor is deceptive and manipulative.
Furthermore, current studies show that a sexually attractive avatar is not as detrimental to a females enjoyment of a game as has been implied. The major factors which affect a woman's enjoyment in a game is objectification (which is different than being sexually attractive), overly competitive gameplay, lack of meaningful/positive social interactions/dialogue, emphasis on violence and an enforcement of archaic gender roles. Obviously there are exceptions.
Here is a link to a bunch of studies: https://academic.oup.com/jcmc/article/11/4/910/4617707
Right, comparing different classes is somewhat unfair but most of the time it's using the same armor piece(s) used by the same class, or at least as close to it if gender locked classes.
More of the reason to make skimpy armor the same for both genders.
If by "we" you mean "men", then yes.
Women don't tend to find overly muscled or bulky men attractive. Someone like Dante (Devil May Cry) or Leon Kennedy (Resident Evil) is far more attractive to more women than someone with a build like your average wrestler. A swimmer's physique is more appealing than a body builder's. Granted this is on average as people's tastes tend to vary wildly even for one person.
Men's armor in video games is bulky and designed to make the men wearing it look or feel powerful, this is for men.
Women's armor in videogames is designed to be sexy, this is also for men.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Too bad the 2000 reboot was total garbage.
Other than the presence of the incomparable Michael Ironside's voice work... yeah
Wait until you see the... nope, that would ruin the surprise.
https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/
Going by this.
We can see high fantasy tends to have the bigger percentage of female gamers, with WoW actually on the low end, this puts TERA, B&S, FFXIV as likely being popular enough and it has skimpy armor if one chooses to wear it, if we stick to those percentages being pretty average.
Which is interesting as I recall something about a shooter game and female avatar and it makes me wonder, if that female avatar increased female players average for that game. :p
I'm more inclined to believe people just prefer good aesthetics and don't bother to comment on such things, and those that do, are likely a vocal minority.
"Look! I'm in ugly ass realistic armor!" doesn't seem likely to be sought after in my experience.
FF14 has a lot of mostly sensible armor, and a glamour system that allows players to look however they want. Also for at least some of the leather and cloth armors are skimpy for men, and a lot of the male fashion appeals to women, with it having deep neck lines or very open chest/stomach area. Also also it has a ton of cute anime boys, modern final fantasies have gained a lot of traction with female gamers partially due to them having cute boys in them.
And none of your examples show a game devoid of armored fetish wear. Just that women like fantasy games and fantasy games tend to/always have armored fetish wear. Which then begs the question are girls playing these games because of those elements or despite of those elements?
A lot of people will play a game with problems if there aren't any/many alternatives. I know when CoX went down I went to Champions Online and DCUO and neither of those games quite filled the void. Point is until there's a decent MMORPG that offers the stuff you want you'll have to take what you can get or not play at all.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Nope. Even this thread shows how the practice of overstating the argument is common. The OP posted a picture of a warrior type female armor and the first response was a skimpy armored spell caster type as opposition.
Again, the 'skimpy' aesthetic is not a one to one comparison between male or female avatars.
No, I mean we as in western culture. Magazines with the 'sexiest men/women' polls, beefcake/cheesecake calendars, popular media stars and so forth reflect the current general idea of attractiveness.
Men's armor in games is designed to accentuate the masculinity and female armor is designed to accentuate the femininity, for the most part. Some games do go overboard in one or both sides in their effort to accentuate those aspects, we tend to call these fan service games because they cater to a specific type of fan.
Simply saying sexy female armor is design 'by and for men' does a disservice to the actual issues of gender bias in games or the media in general. You are attacking a symptom of a larger problem.
I did like that about Tera, and Castanic were my preferred race when i played it.
Interestingly with GW2... just about the [i]only[/i] skimpy armor for males IS the heavy (gladiator/barbarian style) armors. There are almost no Light/Medium armor that show any skin at all (aside from perhaps having short sleeves). (The Norn racial armors often show skin on both genders, but they are of course exclusive to Norn.)
"Appeal to both genders to increase sales!"
Great advice. It worked so well for Battlefield 5, after all.
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The skimpy armored caster that was posted was male but the design it had was not far off of how some people design heavy armor for ladies. Also the artist is currently working on a Paladin in the same vein.
Like I really don't get what you mean by someone "overstating their argument" the point is and has always been that many games and other media design female armor to be sexy for men and do not design male armor to be sexy for women.
The skimpy aesthetic may not be a 1:1 comparison but you can still design armor for men to make it appeal to women much the same way as they designe female armor to appeal to men. Moreover if there's some "reason" in a game that women can wear basically nothing yet still have the same armor as their fully armored male counterparts then why does this not apply to men?
Ah yes, western culture. Like the great western games of *checks notes* TERA and all those Korean MMOs.
I have never heard anyone call any game a "fan service game"
Female armor is designed by men and for men, this is -because- of the larger issues of gender bias in the game media. I really don't feel that talking about a symptom of said larger problem is an issue on a thread that's main topic is the discussion of said issue. In fact most of my responses have at least hinted at the larger problems in the game industry and society as a whole.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Right, they keyword there being [b]OPTION[/b]. I was talking about games that have effectively only skimpy options for females. Having a reasonable amount of skimpy and them being almost always an explicit choice to wear is not the problem, it's when they effectively have no other option but skimpy. You are trying to argue against a point I never made.
Why are so many here thinking "we" are arguing against the "mere" existence of skimpy armors, we are not. We are arguing for a balance in options between skimpy and non-skimpy.
There are good and bad ways to do effectively anything. Just because they didn't get it right with BF5 does not mean that trying to appeal to both genders is never a good idea.
And that is why I said "[b]MOST[/b] of the time", not "every time". Besides, the first response takes it slightly out of context since the OP refers to a video that explicitly say he is not talking about fantasy armor in general but rather only plate and the real world viability of having it specifically formed for the female body. It looks like most has jumped on the word "fantasy armor" (in the skimpy sense) and it has snowballed from there without actually having taken the video into consideration.
It might have been a poor choice of words by Cyclops and Shadiversity having used "fantasy armor" since it's not so much about that but rather formfitting armor for either gender.
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The key word here is Option.
Now I wish I had the power to close this thread, I'm about to get cancer from reading all this.
It seems there's two sides here : the ones who want to keep skimpy armor for female characters, and the ones who want skimpy armor for both as an option. I agree with the latter. One point emerges : nobody is asking for the removal of skimpy armor for females, so one of the two sides is arguing against air and completely missing the point of the other side.
Call me the party crasher.
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You took the op's post, despite agreeing that his example was perfectly fine, as an invitation to rally against the worst examples of armor design. Your first response was 'look at how bad things can be'. The op was trying to discuss reasonable aesthetics and you immediately jumped on a soapbox going as far as you could to the other end of the spectrum. That's overstating.
Japan and Korea have a different concept of masculinity and femininity than the west and their aesthetics reflect this. You are trying to impose western morals on eastern art.
Google it.
Well that wasn't the main topic of discussion until you made it so. I know you have been hinting at the larger issue, but because you picked a thread that is only tangentially related to it you are stuck discussing the symptom. What's worse is much of what you are saying is unoriginal, unsubstantiated or vague. This is nothing more than rant.
I also said [b]MOST[/b] and then gave an example as evidence because without evidence a statement is just words. The truth is neither of our statements can be proven beyond doubt because there are just so many example that we could spend forever trading evidence. Just the memes alone would take years.
As for the use of the term 'fantasy armor', I suspect that Shadiversity used the word to entice view. Still, I agree that the op's comment was taken in a direction that was predictable and unfortunate.
No one is arguing to keep skimpy armor for women only.
But skimpy armor for both won't fix anything. Skimpy armor isn't the problem, it's the objectification of women, re-enforcement of archaic gender roles and immature online communities that are the real problem. And that discussion isn't one we should have on this games forums.
The thread topic is a discussion of real vs. Fantasy armor. The video more or less only states that women could wear plate (as it was) and if they did it'd likely only be slightly modified from what men wore. My first comment was that the video did not address the more egregious flaws of fantasy female armor, and went on to explain what I meant by those.
It's difficult to have a discussion about real vs. fantasy armor if most of said discussion is left out.
If this thread was just, "Hey look at this cool art" or if said art showed up on the costume suggestion thread nothing would have likely been said.
I honestly have no idea what you mean when you say I'm trying to impose my ethics onto art. I'm not sure how someone even does that. I know that I'm observing them through a western lense, is that what you mean? And for the most part, from my observations, from an eastern PoV masculinity and femininity is less what you look like and more how you act. Where as we in the west attribute it more to physical features, muscles and beards for men make them more manly for example.
I understood what you meant by fan service game, just had never heard a game described as one. And I googled it anyway and found only a few lists and nothing notable nor any hard definition.
The title of the thread is "A very good discussion of real vs fantasy female armor" I would think discussing real and or fantasy armor for females would fit right in here. And again, my first post was saying that the video did not address the main issues people have with fantasy female armor and went on to state what those main issues were. And the first handful of posts -were- about the video and it's contents or lack thereof. But threads grow and branch out, though we have been staying relatively on-topic.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
One game:
Scarlet Blade
[font=courier][color=#FF0000]Tech[/color][/font]
45 52 52 4F 52 3A 20 34 30 34 0D 0A 48 65 72 6F 20 6E 6F 74 20 66 6F 75 6E 64 21
Never heard of this game until now, Wikipedia has barely anything on it.
Released in the west by Aeria Games which doesn't surprise me.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
The game where it's whole theme was it's skimpy armor. That was it's selling point. It was the background behind the games story line. The avatars are artificial beings created to be piloted by the player, as the world was deadly to normal players.
Now, while the player was considered to be in their world (and not int he real world) it was even treated as if the player was a male.
They also released a male avatar later on.
That said, from a previous post, saying no one is trying to take away options.
No. People are trying to take away options.
Nope.
The video and OP clearly were discussing applying a reasonable western feminine aesthetic to female armor. The video even stated multiple times that this was not a discussion about the 'chainmail bikini' that you are rallying against and even directed you to another video he made on that very subject.
Furthermore the OP twice tried to re-clarify what he wished to discuss before abandoning the thread as a lost cause.
If you want to have a serious discussion about your cause then these are things you should be familiar with. What is acceptable in one culture may not be in another and by 'observing them through a western lens' you are in essence judging what is appropriate. This is applying your morals (not ethics) upon the art in an effort to have it change. We already impose western ethics (not morals) on any media that is imported from other cultures through our ratings systems.
And here is a link to a google search that shows the term 'fan service video games' is not limited to a few lists:
https://www.google.ca/search?q=fan+service+video+games&ei=H5U3XNm0IIXY0wLZx7yICQ&start=0&sa=N&ved=0ahUKEwiZwMH58ePfAhUF7FQKHdkjD5E4ChDx0wMIcg&biw=2731&bih=1316
And here is the hard definition of fan service for anyone who does not know what it means:
https://www.yourdictionary.com/fanservice
Earlier I posted a series of studies that show women do not have as much of an issue with sexy or revealing clothes in video games, mostly because that is a part of their power fantasy. The real issue's they find in games are an emphasis on violence, lack of meaningful/social interaction, objectification and re-enforcement of archaic gender roles.
Your comments like 'costumes designed by men for men' lead me to think you are actually upset at the objectification of women but lack the ability to properly convey that. I doubt anyone here would disagree that objectification is bad, but just the existence of skimpy clothing is not objectification.
Big ole *groan*
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What is the thread title again?
Also, I'm not rallying against anything. I stated multiple times I'm fine with the existance of skimpy armor provided it's applied evenly.
The first handful of things on that search are things like "top 10 fan service games" at least they are on my phone. Again. I understood what you meant just hadn't heard anyone use that term before.
I'm not judging what's appropriate. Again, the existance of skimpy armor is fine, just not when it's handed out unevenly. I'd say the same thing of a game where the women are walking tanks and the men run around in an armored cod piece and shoulder pads. To make a believable setting it needs internal consistency, it is not internally consistent for men to be heavily armored and women wearing bikinis and both of them having the same armor. Again, if it's through magic or some such that women can run around practically naked while still enjoying the benefits of armor then so should men.
Yeah, I took a look at that study you posted. Sexy/skimpy outfits aren't as much of an issue as opposed to how they're used or implemented which is usually over- and badly-. People like to dress up, but they like the option to. When most of a game's female armor is skimpy they don't have much of an option, this was a problem in early WoW as most of the armor for female characters had giant holes in it. The objectification of women in games (and media as a whole, honestly) is a problem, but the problem I bring up in this thread, and have repeatedly, is that skimpy armors should be applied evenly and also be an option. This is for internal consistency and also to avoid the objectification of anyone. To choose to dress skimpy or provocatively is empowering to be forced to do so is not.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Let the creator of said character decide how it's implemented.
I get annoyed by people running around in or with companions in a slave bikini in TOR, but that's more because it doesn't make sense to run around in it, unless it's Vette. However, I wouldn't want to take away the option and maybe some one is able to come up with some reason that just isn't as apparent as "They just want to go around in the bikini"
Implemented over and badly, though, I'm pretty sure it's all in the eye of the beholder, so that comment just may be wrong. Interesting, I'm sure, one could say, "You're so ugly." and people find that offensive, but if they do something, like dress up how they don't want people to dress up, it's okay to be offensive and instead, as is the case here, defend it as some sort of defense for others.
That's why you read beyond the title.
You have been judging what is appropriate from your first post. I suspect the only reason why you agree with the 'let everyone be skimpy' people is that you believe it to be a fair compromise. It's not and would only add to the issue. This is why you usually don't attack the symptoms of a larger problem. Doing so in most cases makes the problem worse.
There was more than one study on that page and links to a few more. And the study doesn't say anything about how many games feature objectification, it deals exclusively with how women respond to it. The bold part is you interjecting your own value judgement.
The 'make everyone equal' approach will not help anything. If something is a negative just spreading that negative around will not turn it into a positive. Just so I am clear, giving skimpy clothes to men will not stop the objectification of women in skimpy clothes.
Forced is probably not the word you want to use there. Did you want to amend that?
"Forced" is the right word, they just forgot a comma before "to be forced". "Forced", as in you have no choice.
[b]Codename :[/b] Doctor Plague
[b]Archetype :[/b] Ranger - Hunter
[b]Primary :[/b] Atrophic Blast (Diseases)
[b]Secondary :[/b] Illusion (Miasmas)
[b]Tertiary :[/b] Undecided
[b]Mastery :[/b] Eliminator
[b]Movement :[/b] Teleportation, Flight
That's not what forced means. And in the context of his use it has a much more sinister implication. I'm sure that is not what he meant so letting him re-evaluate his choice of words seems prudent.
"Forced" could be replaced by "imposed" as it has the same meaning in the sentence it was used in. But you know that.
[b]Codename :[/b] Doctor Plague
[b]Archetype :[/b] Ranger - Hunter
[b]Primary :[/b] Atrophic Blast (Diseases)
[b]Secondary :[/b] Illusion (Miasmas)
[b]Tertiary :[/b] Undecided
[b]Mastery :[/b] Eliminator
[b]Movement :[/b] Teleportation, Flight
I haven't been judging what's appropriate. I've stated what is bad armor and that's bad from the context that armor with giant holes in it or with giant high heels would hinder a warrior more than protect them. And how armor such as that can be bad if it disrupts the internal consistency of a setting. But I never claimed it was morally wrong or anything of that ilk.
So what would help the issue, Brain? Doing nothing hasn't done anything and taking away the option of skimpy armor wont help anything. What, do we police it so that only those who identify as female can make female avatars? There's always going to be objectification in media we might as well make it fair on both sides.
And no, forced is a good use. As the plague doctor icon person said a comma in there would make it read better.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
In the context of it's use here forced (and imposed) deal with an active and deliberate effort to coerce. The lack of choice in and of itself is not coercive. I want to be sure that he means to accuse developers of these games of being evil and not just misguided.
If you say so.
Things are being done. As more women identify themselves as gamers and make their desires known the industry is taking notice.
Studies like the ones I linked to are happening more and more which will provide the information needed to make progress.
Looking to other examples of oppressive cultural influences and the successful efforts to combat them can give new avenues to explore in this issue.
I have said this before but this is a complex problem and a simple solution will not fix it.To quote Taylor Swift:
'Band-Aids don't fix bullet holes'.
So you are saying that the developers are actively imposing a sexual role on it's female players? They aren't misguided, greedy, or uninformed? They are simply evil, twisting their mustaches while they say things like 'This will put those meddling women in their place'?
If that's what you are saying then again I say you are overstating your case.
So what would have been a better term to use in that situation?
The dictionary definition "limits" it's use to deliberate and intentional actions but more common usage also includes the more unintentional variants by removing (or not including from the start) options due to ignorance. Not sure where "these are your options, take it or leave it" is on the "threat" scale, even when not explicitly said.
Yeah, and more and more women are entering game development, too.
We're also seeing a rise in male characters that appeal to women.
But either way there should still be skimpy options for men available cause sometimes men might want to make their male characters look sexy.
I never said they were evil, that's you reading far too much into what I type. When all the options in a game are bad you either need to take the bad options or don't play neither of those are usually seen as good choices. If you offer a player no other choice but to do a certain thing you are forcing your players into certain actions. "There's no more solo quests now I have to team up with other people"
"The only way to continue this quest line is to do PvP"
"To continue playing I need to buy this thing"
"All these armor options look stupid but I need the statistical bonuses"
They could just not, and stop playing the game but then they're not players anymore.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
I thought the reason to give men skimpy clothes was for internal lore consistency? Or wait it was because it would stop objectification. No, it was to give women something to oggle. It doesn't matter.
What is attractive on men is different that what is attractive on women (for the most part). So the disparity will still be there and this argument will continue.
You're initial statement:
To [b]choose[/b] to dress skimpy or provocatively is empowering to be[b] forced[/b] to do so is not.
compares choice with an active effort to remove choice. It implies a malicious activity by the devs of those games, especially when you consider your previous statements.
I wanted to be sure before commenting on it because we have and are currently seeing push back from players and devs alike when it comes to the inclusiveness of female gamers.
Having choices is good, regardless. And the reasons are numerous. If an armor is skimpy on ladies it should be skimpy on men for internal consistency. It doesn't need to be skimpy in the same ways, but it should still be skimpy.
When you fail to include options for players you are forcing them to play a certain way to play at all. Having nothing but skimpy armor options is forcing any players wishing to play into those options. Also my statement wasn't about game devs specifically it was a general statement.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
I am surprised that no one has argued that this thread has been mis-titled and should be changed to better reflect its content.
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Ok, so there has been a follow-up video to the one in the OP, and just to make it explicit he is only talking about the RL practicalities of plate armor that emphasizes female form, a.k.a "boobplate", and the relative protection potential it would have against the armor that we have on record.
[youtube]6KHz0qWQA9I[/youtube]
He says "Ok" way too much.
Also he kinda says something counter to his original video. He says if they had female armor it'd eventually be shaped more like the wearer, more aesthetically pleasing, but then ignores the fact that the greeks had the muscle armor which didn't stick around. Which I assume would likely be because it wasn't as effective as the domed armor.
And the whole video took ten minutes to say "Yes, but not by much" which in a battlefield where any slight edge can be important I think he's downplaying that by quite a lot.
Also what are this guy's credentials?
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
He's an amateur enthusiast with a passion for the subject of medieval history. Go watch some of his other videos which can be quite informative on a variety of topics, even when you disagree with his conclusions.
He's got a whole slew of videos on what weapons would be best suited for use by (and against) a variety of fantasy races (orcs, elves, dwarves, fairies, angels, dragons, tauren, etc.) where he comes to some pretty interesting conclusions in each case. Lot of fun watching all of those.
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formed armor is a lot more time, work and skill intensive. Depending on how it is made it wouldnt necessarily be weaker. also, as time went along weapons changed, and armor changed with it.
Well, yeah, need the video to play out enough to get some revenue.
I think you're downplaying how much people may go for a bit of style over that slight edge.
Muscle armor may not have stuck around, due to being harder to make?
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