Good News Everyone!

[Roxas65]

It's different for roleplayers who pick and choose sets, I suppose. The vast majority of people who play WoW are just using whichever armor they have that's best at the moment. And a huge majority of that is, well, ridiculous.

That said, I've never met anyone who was actually offended by these things. But it is just silly, and it's always been a target of mockery.

The only problem I ever had doing that was that the mismatched armor made me look like a walking coral reef.


Anyways, sexism and things related is the new taboo in video games, so to speak. Media always try to make a villain out of video games and they keep using that which is most effective at the time and overblow it. It used to be violence, but sexism is more topical right now.

Media all around keep making a big deal out of skimpy female characters, but the truth is that it has improved a lot the last couple of years, especially in western games.

Can it get better? Well yeah, obviously, but credit where credit is due.

[Xigo]

*Peers at Roxas' signature*

[Roxas65]

Like I said, Western games are getting good at it. Eastern games are as bad as ever.

[Krent]

Some of the comments in that article are pretty damn misogynistic. I hate the nerd community because every time someone even tries to have a discussion on gender expression in video games, we get all these salty ass man-babbie neckbeards rushing in to mansplain how "this isn't a problem" and "not ALL men gamers buy into this."

Also some of the comments here on COTH are...troublesome.

... You know, I've only skim-scammed through the article, as I couldn't really care. However, what irks me is that, for the male and female Night Elf comparison, they're not even wearing the same armor. I mean, I could toss a girl in some T15 Warrior armor and a guy in the Aboriginal set, loincloth at all, and make the same counter argument.

Actually those are the same armor pieces. I can't recall the exact name, but the red piece for guys fully covers 'em up, where as when you put it on a woman it suddenly becomes boob-plated midriff. The leggings also don't fully cover up female leggings for some reason. Of course, the shoulderpads and belts are different, but that isn't the point.

The point is that there are many, many armor pieces in the game that inexplicably transform into something else depending on the gender of the wearer. Dudes get fully covered up armor that makes them look all big and buff. Gals get boob-cleavage and bare midriffs that somehow, despite being made out of metal, still provides more jiggles than a Hooters Jump Roping competition.

And that's a problem. It's objectifying and sexist and gross and we should do better.

Can't recall the last time I've actually seen a gal mocked because of their gender on Retail. More often than naught the women I know kicked more ass than the men. But, I'm glad to see they are making an effort to adjust none the less. Perhaps we'll see a nice, new batch of mixed lore characters that are a bit more 3-dimensional than Varian and Garrosh.

That part of the article is focused more on how female players are treated, rather than lore. And having just gotten out of playing FFXIV for almost a year, and having many years of retail WoW under my belt, I can safely say that the article is spot on with how many females are harassed in psychotic degrees.

I've seen it. Dudes are hella creepy. Like, really creepy. If they're not begging for pictures, they're exploding in rage and making all sorts of psychotic misogynistic comments. It's to the point where most women I know say it's just easier and safer to pretend to be a guy.

And that's just fucking sad, people. That's a problem. A REAL problem. A problem we should be addressing and working on. C'mon, people, we can be better than that.

While I can't say with good conscious that I haven't seen some examples of skimpy armor in recent expansions, I will say that Blizz is sure as hell a lot better about it than they were in Vanilla.

I see your point Corzilla, but this is basically the first time I've seen anything even remotely like that for WoW whereas most other MMOs literally shove it down your throat no matter what equipment you're wearing. It might be there, but it's not as prominent.

Really, the only RPGs I've seen where it's basically not present at all is Skyrim, Dragon's Dogma and Dragon Age.

And that's the thing. WoW has been going strong for a decade. Back in vanilla, it was like every MMO where skimpy Boob-Mail armor was the default, rather than the exception. Look at some of the early Tier armors and dungeon blues to see. I remember that quite well. It was until WotLK that more diversified armor became available. And that's what the article is commenting on; WoW devs are recognizing that their old approach to armor magically transforming depending on gender is gross, sexist, and archaic, and now they're working on it. And that's a good thing.

And saying "well, it isn't TERA!" is like telling someone suffering from gonorrhea "well, at least it isn't cancer!" It doesn't excuse anything.

I don't get it... Mocking someone's virtual character in a virtual fantasy world for the visual representation of an armor. That's just plain childish and stupid, but what's more stupid is actually taking it to heart and causing a hysterical uproar over it.

Like, OMG, get over it, it's a game. Behavior like this and an uproar is exactly what trolls want and by causing uproars over this you are feeding the trolls. This kind of ultra-feminist stupidity is caused by weak and socially underdevelopped individuals and it is exactly the reason why a lot of men (usually boys ages 8-15, no offense as I mean not ALL) mock female gamers and question their skill.

That aside, less skimpy armor would be great.

Typed from phone, sorry. :|

This kind of ultra-feminist stupidity is caused by weak and socially underdevelopped individuals and it is exactly the reason why a lot of men (usually boys ages 8-15, no offense as I mean not ALL) mock female gamers and question their skill.

This kind of ultra-feminist stupidity is caused by weak and socially underdevelopped individuals

This kind of ultra-feminist stupidity is caused by weak and socially underdevelopped individuals

This kind of ultra-feminist stupidity is caused by weak and socially underdevelopped individuals

Spoiler:

I honestly laughed at the stupidity of that article. It's a load of BS, trying to make WoW sound bad. Anyone who knows WoW, knows most of this junk isn't true. I'm like.. What skimpy outfits? Oh, do you mean the ones you have to scrap around for? The armor sets you have to actually look up and pursue to get? Like honestly, looking at the tier sets and everything... WoW actually has more armor that covers most of the body, but they're REALLY gaudy looking. There's not really a huge amount of super skimpy outfits.. They're trying to make it sound there's a lot more than there really is. My best guess it's made as a "point" in the article is because people "commonly" wear the skimpy sets and that's just stretching it. Plus the pictures trying to back up the article don't even help.

As for the bashing on women part, everyone targets each other. Everyone has dealt with trolls and the alike at least ONCE while playing WoW, or any MMO for that matter. I honestly would rather be reading/hearing something about how the community needs to get its act together towards each other. Why does it always have to be "women" to be in the argument? Everyone gets pushed and shoved around, not just women.. And it's not really surprising to me that some people get run off retail, like if you make yourself known, you're going to get targeted. You either deal with it or not. It's stressful, but that's only if you let it really get to you.

Because the psychotic levels of misogynistic "trolling" is a universal constant in video games. No matter the game, genre, or community, there are ALWAYS creeper neckbeard dudes asking for nudes or doing stalker shit, and the fact that we just casually accept that is bad. Saying that we should just "deal with it" and accept it is part of the problem. It's why it's so pervasive; we accept it.

I mean, I'll just say this. I know women who have had to file restraining orders and police reports because of dudes they've met with in MMO's. Women who have been stalked and had shit mailed to their home address. Not just one woman. Or two. Or three, four, or five, but six.

We shouldn't accept it. Not this, nor any of the racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc etc etc that is so normal in the online video gaming world. The fact that it is "normal" and par the course is disturbing in of itself.

Here's a good video that sums it up: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/v...6-Not-Okay



Anyway, all in all, this is a great article. It's good to see that Blizzard is wising up and admitting that it needs shaping up. That's great news. Hope more companies follow suit.

Seriously, the nerd community needs some real fixin'.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Actually those are the same armor pieces. I can't recall the exact name, but the red piece for guys fully covers 'em up, where as when you put it on a woman it suddenly becomes boob-plated midriff. The leggings also don't fully cover up female leggings for some reason. Of course, the shoulderpads and belts are different, but that isn't the point.

No, actually, they're not. I promise. Here, I actually went into WoW Model viewer and tracked down the pants and chests. I even included the items themselves so, if you don't believe me, you can do it yourself.





I don't really care about the rest of your post, as it's obvious that we disagree on a lot of things and I don't want to drum up a shitstorm, but there you have it. They weren't the same pieces.

EDIT: Actually, I'd also like to remind everyone of the respect rule. I've already got bad butterflies in my stomach, so I might as well get that out while I can.

[Krent]

No, actually, they're not. I promise. Here, I actually went into WoW Model viewer and tracked down the pants and chests. I even included the items themselves so, if you don't believe me, you can do it yourself.





I don't really care about the rest of your post, as it's obvious that we disagree on a lot of things and I don't want to drum up a shitstorm, but there you have it. They weren't the same pieces.

EDIT: Actually, I'd also like to remind everyone of the respect rule. I've already got bad butterflies in my stomach, so I might as well get that out while I can.

My mistake. The armor sets look really similar and I haven't been in game for awhile. I got it confused with all the other red armor sets that look dramatically different on a woman than they do a male.

Still, the point stands; WoW has this weird phenomenom where armor becomes completely different depending on the gender of the avatar. Case in point, here is how the items on the nelf girl look on a nelf dude.



There wouldn't be any problem if those same items also dressed the dude up in a skimpy g-string and bare midriff. But it doesn't. Same items. Different appearances. Double standard. Problem.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Yea, I agree. However, the pants were released in 2004 and the shirt in 2006, so I don't really think that they're worth fighting over. Put any other company in Blizz's shoes. If they had some guy make a sexist comment back in 2006, eight years ago, while primarily appealing to a demographic that laughed at the joke, would you then hold that against them eight years later?

[Grakor456]

While I can't say with good conscious that I haven't seen some examples of skimpy armor in recent expansions, I will say that Blizz is sure as hell a lot better about it than they were in Vanilla.

Yeah, this is a criticism that I'd level at Vanilla WoW than the current one, since most of the more suspect armor pieces come from Vanilla. Not to mention that more recent WoW expansions (at least Cataclysm when I last played) the game encouraged you to keep tabards on for rep benefits in dungeons, so even with the most revealing armor your average character would, at most, be showing a bit of thigh. Nothing too terrible there.

That said...

The point is that there are many, many armor pieces in the game that inexplicably transform into something else depending on the gender of the wearer. Dudes get fully covered up armor that makes them look all big and buff. Gals get boob-cleavage and bare midriffs that somehow, despite being made out of metal, still provides more jiggles than a Hooters Jump Roping competition.

And that's a problem. It's objectifying and sexist and gross and we should do better.

I feel that this is missing something...notably, that being "big and buff" is our society's common standard for male attractiveness, out here in the west. While I do think the armors that magically transform into bikinis on women are a bit suspect, I'm not blind to the reasons why this is the case, and I don't believe that it's entirely a hatred or sexualization of women. Let's be frank: in many cases, the men of Warcraft are also sexualized, with the big muscles and manly features. It's just that society's views of what makes an attractive man and what makes an attractive woman are two totally different things. For that matter, men in skimpy armor aren't even seen as inherently sexualized: usually, if you're looking at a male in a loincloth and harness, it's because he's going for the barbarian look, not some attempt to be sexy beefcake.

Having been more recently exposed to LARP and what folks do when they are responsible for their own costumes, I can also say that skimpy female armor isn't universally loathed by women. I've seen a number of them who happily embrace the idea of sexy costumes and wear them purely because they enjoy them. More power to them, I suppose.

Ultimately, my point of view is that sexy and conservative clothing are both cool and have their own place with their own fans. The trick is allowing for both possibilities and not forcing them on players. And hey! We have transmog, so that's possible. I'd personally prefer that the "sexy" armors were more evenly balanced between the genders, but that's me.

[Krent]

Yea, I agree. However, the pants were released in 2004 and the shirt in 2006, so I don't really think that they're worth fighting over. Put any other company in Blizz's shoes. If they had some guy make a sexist comment back in 2006, eight years ago, while primarily appealing to a demographic that laughed at the joke, would you then hold that against them eight years later?

It really depends on the comment. And if the guy was still actively part of the company and in charge of creating content. And if, in the eight years between then and now, if he ever any apology and effort to address his behavior. It could be an issue of some concern. Now, would I boycott all Blizzard products for the rest of forever over that? No. But raising the issue and saying "yo Blizz dis is messed up mang y u still lettin' dat dood make content" is valid.

And again, like I said in my post...I mentioned that WoW is an old, old, game. It's been going for a little over a decade now. The magical-gender-flipper armor used to be the norm up until the expansions started rolling out. Emphasis on the "used to." Somewhere around WotLK, Blizz wised up. And now they're admitting to it.

No one is calling for these items to be banned or deleted from the game. Hell, one solution would be to just add skimpy armor for dudes--I'm sure a lot of gamers would love that. People just wanna raise awareness of the issue, explain why it is a problem, and work with it in the future.

[Esthrunil]

I'm just going to say that if (primarily straight) men were the primary demographic for WoW in its earlier days and games like this, it makes me wonder why we assume that the over-muscled character type is considered a form of sexualization.

[Grakor456]

I'm just going to say that if (primarily straight) men were the primary demographic for WoW in its earlier days and games like this, it makes me wonder why we assume that the over-muscled character type is considered a form of sexualization.

Why would it not? Denying this possibility assumes that straight men have no interest in how "attractive" their character looks. Yet, arguing that straight men are completely blind to measures of attractiveness of their own gender is a bit silly. Just because they're not looking at their own character in sexual manner doesn't mean that they don't care if their character is considered attractive by others. To flip this, what do straight women who enjoy dressing their characters sexily get out of it otherwise?

[Esthrunil]

Why would it not? Denying this possibility assumes that straight men have no interest in how "attractive" their character looks. Yet, arguing that straight men are completely blind to measures of attractiveness of their own gender is a bit silly. Just because they're not looking at their own character in sexual manner doesn't mean that they don't care if their character is considered attractive by others. To flip this, what do straight women who enjoy dressing their characters sexily get out of it otherwise?

I get what you're saying, but what I'm saying is that the essence behind the muscle-bound character is that it's primarily a marketing ploy toward these male players, just as the sexualized female. They're assuming that men want to be big and strong, and that these same men want to have scantily clad women around them. It amounts to a sort of attempt to appeal to this power fantasy that they think their demographic has, rather than a sexual fantasy.

The thing that makes this sort of annoying for many women is that this set-up treats women as if their power fantasy lies in being scantily clad and attractive. For some women I'm certain it does, but having it as an option not because our needs matter to these companies but because our needs sort of coincide with the needs of what they think their major demographic is just feels kind of insulting, to a degree.

Regardless, the whole narrative behind this thing is actually kind of insulting toward both sides no matter how you cut it.

[Krent]

While I can't say with good conscious that I haven't seen some examples of skimpy armor in recent expansions, I will say that Blizz is sure as hell a lot better about it than they were in Vanilla.

Yeah, this is a criticism that I'd level at Vanilla WoW than the current one, since most of the more suspect armor pieces come from Vanilla. Not to mention that more recent WoW expansions (at least Cataclysm when I last played) the game encouraged you to keep tabards on for rep benefits in dungeons, so even with the most revealing armor your average character would, at most, be showing a bit of thigh. Nothing too terrible there.

That said...

The point is that there are many, many armor pieces in the game that inexplicably transform into something else depending on the gender of the wearer. Dudes get fully covered up armor that makes them look all big and buff. Gals get boob-cleavage and bare midriffs that somehow, despite being made out of metal, still provides more jiggles than a Hooters Jump Roping competition.

And that's a problem. It's objectifying and sexist and gross and we should do better.

I feel that this is missing something...notably, that being "big and buff" is our society's common standard for male attractiveness, out here in the west. While I do think the armors that magically transform into bikinis on women are a bit suspect, I'm not blind to the reasons why this is the case, and I don't believe that it's entirely a hatred or sexualization of women. Let's be frank: in many cases, the men of Warcraft are also sexualized, with the big muscles and manly features. It's just that society's views of what makes an attractive man and what makes an attractive woman are two totally different things. For that matter, men in skimpy armor aren't even seen as inherently sexualized: usually, if you're looking at a male in a loincloth and harness, it's because he's going for the barbarian look, not some attempt to be sexy beefcake.

Having been more recently exposed to LARP and what folks do when they are responsible for their own costumes, I can also say that skimpy female armor isn't universally loathed by women. I've seen a number of them who happily embrace the idea of sexy costumes and wear them purely because they enjoy them. More power to them, I suppose.

Ultimately, my point of view is that sexy and conservative clothing are both cool and have their own place with their own fans. The trick is allowing for both possibilities and not forcing them on players. And hey! We have transmog, so that's possible. I'd personally prefer that the "sexy" armors were more evenly balanced between the genders, but that's me.

It's important to understand that, in regards to the gender representation in WoW (and for the larger part, all of gaming), there is a very distinct difference between sexualization and idealization. And it's one distinction I see a lot of gamers confuse, and otherwise not understand fully.

Idealization of the form is nothing new in art. Take a look at all of them delicious naked man sculptures in the renaissance; they're idealized forms of the male physique. They were made to be celebrated, revered, aspired to; active models for men to pursue. Certainly, there were homo-erotic elements to them, as many of the artists themselves were bi or homosexual ( I've always believed Michaelangelo's "David" was modeled after his favorite boyfriend). But the key difference was that they were ideals, active models of representation that individuals in the society would want to be rather than have.

Sexualization comes from when a gender or gender representation is constructed in a way to have. As there were many naked male statues popping up (often in more ways than one AMIRITE BADDA-BING!), there were many naked paintings of women. The key difference is the representation, poses, and construction (the earlier parantheticals were about erections). Naked women were made to be seen and consumed, rather than cherished and aspired (see, statues are hard, and popping up is often associated with erectile function. Hence the joke.). Sure, there were women who looked at Titian's girls and said "man, I wanna work to have a rockin' body like that," aspiring to those forms, but at the end of the day those paintings--and subsequently, the women they represented--were made to be consumed, and owned (boners are funny, is what I'm trying to say.).

To sum it up, the naked ladies were made for the dudes to oggle at. The naked dudes were also made for the dudes. Power fantasies for them to aspire.

And the dynamic is still the same, amplified with video game's ability to actually have a player take control of the digital avatar.

The reason why the armor in Vanilla WoW is sexualized for women, is because the only reason why the armor was designed that way is because it appeals to hetero dudes. The men and their matching armor are also designed to appeal to hetero dudes as a means of asserting dominance, agency, and power in their digital realm. Big armor makes dudes look strong. It makes them big, imposing, and badass--a testament to their prowess in combat. Where as the armor for women just transforms them into a jokey Ser Boobmail of Bikiniton. It's laughably impractical--why would a warrior purposefully expose parts of their vital organs? Because dudes want it, that's why. It serves no other purpose but to titilate, where as the construction of male armor serves multiple other purposes.

In short, the girls are designed for guys. And the guys are also designed for guys. The fact that some non-hetero guys and gals find the big dudes sexually enticing is just an unforeseen bonus.

It's kind of like mainstream lesbian porn. Y'know, how it's really not made for lesbians, but more for men? It's like that. Of course, it doesn't prevent some lesbians from enjoying it, it's just a thing that has the interests of one demographic over the other. Same thing can be said of Yaoi (geared and tailored more for straight women over gay men).

If the male avatars were designed to be more appealing to hetero female gamers, I'd suspect we'd see more Bishounnen type pretty boys in tight revealing leather. From my limited experience, the standard of male beauty in the modern age is more geared towards Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, and Robert Pattinson than it is the hulk'o'muscles we see in WoW.

The point is--the men in WoW are idealized, the women are mostly sexualized. And I put an emphasis on "mostly" because, as people have been keen to point out, it's been getting better over the years.

[Etmosril]

Really now? Has the new expansion eliminated armor transmog or something? Because I swear this shouldn't be an issue. Furthermore, why're people complaining about this now in a setting which had immodest "armor" from the very beginning? (See what I mean?) The whole thing smacks of bandwagoning.

Idea: give the expansion both reasonable and unreasonable armors. Transmog exists, so why not use it?

[Grakor456]

It's important to understand that, in regards to the gender representation in WoW (and for the larger part, all of gaming), there is a very distinct difference between sexualization and idealization. <snip>

I had this long ramble about intent, gender differences, and cultural views on them, but ultimately I found that delving too deeply into this will just lead to arguments over the merits/flaws of modern feminism. That's not really an argument I want to get into on this forum, so I'll just go with this:

Spoiler:

Muscularity is a sexualized quality on men. Fabio made a whole career out of it, after all. In many ways, I personally see the buffing up of men in art as the rough equivalent of making a woman with abnormally large breasts: it's the over-emphasis of a characteristic deemed attractive by modern society. That'll work for some people, and for others it won't, and that goes for both genders. Is all of this in WoW ultimately aimed at men? Sure, I'll go with that, but I don't think that ultimately changes the end result, which sexualizes both genders.