Females and the reverse armor rule

[Kiyumi]

I don't think Aion is going the same route as L2. o.O Not sure where you are seeing the more revealing outfits at higher levels.. Aion's outfits seem to be pretty tasteful in the amount of skin they show (not like L2's blatant sex appeal). For instance, I've seen that NcSoft has kindly added short shorts underneath female skirts so that the whole world doesn't see their underwear. And armor such as the Elyos' chainmail, completely covers the female characters from head to toe which is a pretty big change from L2 since there was no such thing as full body armor.

[AznKenshin]

Originally Posted by Yame

I just wanted to throw my opinion out there regarding this issue and maybe hear what other people have to say:

As a female player, I abhor the reverse armor rule in MMOs. I imagine most of you know what I'm talking about, but for those who don't what I am referring to it is the tendency of armor to cover less and less as it goes up in level. This of course seems to apply almost solely to female characters if it occurs at all.

This is relevant here because looking at NCsoft's previous work in this area (*cough, cough* Lineage), I see exactly what I wouldn't want in a game. Just to be clear, I'm talking about playing a character that has to fight mobs while wearing next to nothing: some high heels, a thong, fishnets and some nipple tassels. With Aion, at first I saw no reason to fear, as the female armors did not look too far from their male counterparts (although I would prefer that they looked the same, like in WoW). But I'm seeing that as higher levels open up, some more... "showy" female armors are showing up. I hope that this isn't a trend that will continue, and that Aion will choose the integrity of real armor over these sorts of overt sexuality.

At least armor graphics will be customizable in Aion, where you can choose to use the looks of a previous piece with the stats of a new piece if you don't like the looks of the new one, so this isn't a game breaker. Still though, I'd be disappointed to see Aion go on L2's path in this respect.



(BTW, just to put things into context, I'm not saying this as some prude feminist. I <3 hawt chix and I am very much used to baring my own midriff and dealing with other women baring theirs IRL, but I think that having to go into battle half-naked in an MMO ruins immersion and flat out makes no sense unless you look at it from a very sexist perspective)

I agree with you to the highest degree. Aside from a couple games such as Guild Wars, having "reverse armor" as a female character levels up is simply annoying to me. In fact, it's one of the reasons why I often choose to play a male cahracter.

Thank you for pointing that out to the members here at AionSource.

[Koji]

Sex sells. FIN.

[RiGoRmOrTiS]

Originally Posted by Koji

Sex sells. FIN.

Yup. and the game is aimed at the male market. regardless of what people might want us to think. want to play in a game world designed for a primarily male audience? then you need to accept this sort of stuff at the end of the day.

[Koji]

Wouldnt say its aimed at Males with all the pretty graphics and angel wings and all that but it's just a fact of life.

[Cynthe]

Heh it's fantasy, what's a little skin? *innocent look* I'm sorry I don't have any strong arguments, I don't mind either way. As long as there is diversity in armors, unlike FFXI where you were wearing the same thing for a long time with no option to color it even. though I will say this FFXI had imaginative armors that made sense for a certain class to wear and even the level of skin showing was relative to the class, even if it wasn't completely realistic. Too much realism wouldn't be fun anyway.

Originally Posted by RiGoRmOrTiS

Yup. and the game is aimed at the male market. regardless of what people might want us to think. want to play in a game world designed for a primarily male audience? then you need to accept this sort of stuff at the end of the day.

I take slight offense to this statement, I was thinking this game was targeting gamers...

[Koji]

What you mean. Women have plate mail stomaches in RL. Everyone knows that.

[Silent]

Originally Posted by Cynthe

I take slight offense to this statement, I was thinking this game was targeting gamers...

I think .. he meant that the game IS aimed for gamers but the majority of gamers are male players [ just a guessing here]
But its true in most games female chars to tend to loose their armor parts :P its about time some1 brought this up.

Probbaly the best idea is that ARE eye candy armors in the game but theres also equivalent armor with is more conservative.

[RiGoRmOrTiS]

Originally Posted by Cynthe

I take slight offense to this statement, I was thinking this game was targeting gamers...

No offense intended., it's just a fact of life. The majority of gamers are male. "for profit" organisations will always tailor things towards their biggest market regardless of what their PR departments try to spin. There is no point in trying to make it “totally” uni-gender; they will just lose additional sales from their main demographic, more than they could ever hope to gain from the fairer sex. There simply aren’t enough female’s gamers for them to change their stance on that.

[Koji]

Someone is bound to find a survey now on how the male/female MMO players are roughly even in ratio. FPS and RTS are hugely biased towards male though, i know that for a fact.

[Disrupter]

I tend to not care that females created entirely of pixels fight evil in bikinis. Beats New Jersey.

Suck the fantasy out of Fantasy RPG and thats what you have. Jersey.

[Typecast]

Originally Posted by Koji

Someone is bound to find a survey now on how the male/female MMO players are roughly even in ratio. FPS and RTS are hugely biased towards male though, i know that for a fact.

I highly doubt that the ratio is roughly even though.

I think its more like 70/30 male/female

[RiGoRmOrTiS]

Originally Posted by Typecast

I highly doubt that the ratio is roughly even though.

I think its more like 70/30 male/female

if your really lucky with your survey perhaps... in reality I bet it leans even more to male than female.

[Cynthe]

Originally Posted by Disrupter

Suck the fantasy out of Fantasy RPG and thats what you have. Jersey.

Love it ^^

As for female/male thing, who cares, soon enough it won't matter. Like Koji said it depends which spectrum of gaming you're coming from... From EQ2 here lately, lots of women there. /shrug LotrO also has a nice population of girls too.

[Absentity]

Maybe I'm not thinking this through completely, but from my understanding, anybody who's already interested in Aion wouldn't necessarily change their mind on playing it just because the "reverse armor rule" was implemented or not. Yes, we know "sex sells," but just about the only way to use online games like Aion as a sexual allure to consumers would be in advertisements. Ads can just display CG or NPCs that are depicted sexually, not necessarily characters. Honestly, how many people would pay for an online game just because there are skimpy characters? Obviously, content deemed offensive can turn people off, and that would negatively impact sales. I would doubt that companies use skimpy high-level armor as a selling tool.