Do chars have to look like Barbie/Ken?

Lets see...

Assassin body type.

Ranger / Warrior Body Type

Necromancer Body Type

Elementalist / Mesmer body type

Monk Body type

Ritualist Body type

Nope. Not all the same.

Some classes uses slightly modified proportions. They are not the same. Plus specific armors change the proportions also. Some armors give a bigger bustline, etc. The diversity WITHIN each class needs to increase however.

I agree that they are technically appropriate, but only in the males.
If my skinny little female warrior can manage that big-mofo hammer, why can't a nice lean guy do the job too? :P
I just find it annoying that I can make a passably attractive female in basically any class, but when I try to make nice-looking males... EPIC FAILURE

rofl, your friends won't buy GW because they can't dye their Male warriors underwear, haha

that just made me laugh

I agree some variety of options would be nice. Personally I like the characters as is but I'd be happy to have others make the characters they like. As to Oblivion, I agree it is ripe with options, BUT, all the option still lead to hideous human-beasts. My wife even complains about how awful they look and wonders if Bethesda dislikes women in general. She's not a game player but oblivion's women appal her.

To OP, how often do you take off your armor? In over a year, I have not taken off my armor at all. If I need to swap armor I just swap it, without taking it off.

Seriously it's a game.

And you don't have to wear skimpy outfits.

/signed

I think it is fair that most of the character options are very young and very pretty, as that is probably what most players want. But put in a few more faces that are older and/or uglier.

I'd love to be able to make other adjustment to the body type than simple scaling, but I guess that would be expensive to implement, and probably not worth it for a game like CORPG. But a few more faces should be cheap.

I didn't explain clearly. Sorry. I meant clothes to hide skin when chars wear skimpy armor, not when they weren't wearing armor at all. I like the look of the current underwear.

The idea came from WOW's undershirts. See, my husband plays a nightelf druid in WOW whose chest piece would show her stomach. He put a blue shirt under it to hide her skin (undershirts are an option in WOW). He just doesn't like looking at her belly button as she shoots moonbeam or whatever she does. She doesn't look much different. It seems like a simple option a few players like. (When I played a WOW female paladin I wished they had a leg tights option also, because the strongest leg armor I could find at one level looked like a thong bikini).

If such an option existed in GW, I might wear a white tank top under my paragon's top, just because I want her to look more like what I'd imagine a professional Sunspear to look like and less like a cheerleader showing off how tight her abs are. (Really, the fact that her tiny arms surely couldn't hold, much less harm things with her spears bothers me a little more. She looks so wimpy.) It's a minor deal, I love playing that character. Just an idea.

If I rolled a female warrior on Prophecies or Factions, I might like the option of wearing black tights under the leg armor, too, while she was in the starter set. Maybe. If I got tired of seeing her thighs before I could afford new sets. It seems like it wouldn't be expensive for the developers to incorporate such options.

The extreme example is the elementalist female starter armors in Nightfall. THey are just rediculous. I love magic, but... what is that holding up their boobs, a scarf? It would look silly with a shirt beneath it, but come on, it looks silly already. Faction and Prophecies elementalist starter sets are much nicer. For those who own Factions and Prophecies. I don't.

It's not a big deal. There are some very conservative armors, true. There are lots of options, true. The game is fun and looks aren't important, TRUE.

(By the way, what does OP stand for? Forgive my noobiness)

Original Post and Original Poster.

Please don't try to drag realism into this discussion; it's entirely irrelevant. This complaint is purely about cosmetics and our lack of options thereof, which, admittedly, is a very valid complaint.

Though I'll still never understand what's wrong with characters being paragons (not Paragons, mind you) of beauty.

I think that of all the possible criticisms of the game, character customizations has to be very far down on the list. Truly, there are more options available in Guild Wars than many of its competitors.

Comparing it to Oblivion or Morrowind isn't fair, those are single player games that can be modded. My Dark Elf Trickster has been running around nude for a long time now.

It strikes me as funny that in many ways, Guild Wars comes very close to being a strong RPG environment for serious RPG'er even though it was never trying to do that...

I do like the idea of under-armor clothing. I understand what you mean and I think it would be kinda cool.

I also agree that there should be more variety. My male paragon looks like such a... well, let's just say a pair of pants armor would do em some good. If you want to be a guy running around in a short skirt and bright white clothing, that's fine... but I don't think everybody who wants a male paragon should have to.

About facial hair.. that male mesmer one with the beard.. looks like he's from the village people. Same goes for the few nightfall bearded characters, Anet doesn't seem to get the beards right. I think the faces lack a certain variaty in the way of roles.
Instead of a smooth face, an older looking face, a face with a scar or some feature or a plain porcelein doll look (like the necro's in cantha), instead we'd need something halfway between expressions and stereotypes, like an arrogant looking face, a heroic looking face, a lombroso-type criminal face, a goofy harmless face etc. That would be a much richer and meaningfull way to expand on rpg characters in the future. Instead of ken's and barbies you'd still have an rpg world where men are men, and where women are models, like it has always been, and for a fantasy game probably always should be that way but the player characters would have.. character. Right now character traits are too much profession oriented. All monks have a vacant look, all necro's look sickly or creepy, all female mesmers look arrogant. This should be emphasised on more and spread out over all the professions more equally.

AMEN!!! (jk jk)

I know it would appeal to others to have more in depth character options, but you have to remember that Guild Wars is supposed to be somewhat of an Anti-Christ to WoW. If you want wow options go play it instead of this.


BUT I wouldn't mind the under Armor thing. Say I'm running the Beacons Perch -> Droks run and I need to take my chest armor off. I don't want my guy freezing his nipples off. I think something like a Japanese cloth wrap underneath would be cool. Yes it would kill a lot of the guys who make Female characters, strip them and dance around LA but it would be a cool idea.

My friend Courtney has noticed that with every progressing/new campaign, the female's "assets" seem to get bigger and bigger.

What part of the monk lifestyle is responsible for the man-boobs? :P

I would guess the intent is for under-armour clothing to be optional - so people can still make female characters and strip them if that's what floats their boat...

On the armour thing: There are two sides to this coin. On the 'realism' side: This is a world with magic, and since the nonelite top-AL sets are often identical in appearance to lower AL sets, it's probably a fair judgement that the protection afforded by various sets mostly comes from enchantments on the materials than the materials themselves (the difference in the latter simply being the difference between classes). From this, it's a reasonable conclusion to come to that the magical protection may cover more than the materials do - an Elementalist's or Ritualist's, ahem, chest piece may not physically cover her belly, but the magical protection on it might provide such protection anyway.

However, Ralli isn't asking for the scanty outfits to be abolished - just for more options, especially near the start. It doesn't really help much that there are more modest outfits later in the game if, to take the female Nightfall elementalist as an example, you have to put up with looking like an escapee from a harem for 75% of the game if you don't have the other chapters. Even if you only have one chapter, if you don't like the 'scanty' look, you shouldn't have to wait until the later stages of the game and pay the price for an elite armour set to get something that a woman could wear as everyday clothing without the likelihood of being labelled as promiscuous as a result.

Essentially, it's not just a question of the armour sets being available - it's a question of those same sets being available right from the start. In Nightfall, for some class/gender combinations (the female Elementalist being the worst case - it took me a month or so to be able to pick the difference without a side-by-side comparison, and if someone mixed the sets I'd probably only be able to tell by looking for the Sunspear insignia) the differences between the non-elite sets aren't really enough to present any real choice at all.

(Besides, from the eye candy aspect, I personally find women wearing proper, but attractive, clothing to be sexier anyway. Just doesn't seem like it'd be as special when the time does come when she'll take it off for you (or let you take it off for her) if she almost might as well not be wearing it in the first place... )

Is there a case other than the female eles in NF where there's no reasonable option? Because yeah, I don't understand why they did that...

Umm... has your friend looked at the female sin from Factions?

Ironically, I remember a lot of posts complaining about how the female sin looked "annorexic" at the time of the preview event, when really it was mostly prepubecent boys complaining about her flat chest.

Male Paragons - you can't get a set without a bare midriff until Consulate Docks, and probably the only set I'd consider taking a full set of rather than mixing and matching to get something that looks decent is the Vabbian set.

Females don't have any sets without the bare midriff, but in their case it looks more like they're just keeping their armour light rather than making them look like workers in the adult entertainment industry...

Also, a lot of people object to male Mesmers. I don't think they're that bad... that said, however, my own Mesmer primary is female.

And having been inspired by the person who posted while I was making the first draft of this one: Female Assassins also have few options early on that don't leave more bare skin than seems prudent for a profession that, theoretically at least, does most of her work through stealth. That's fairly easy to compensate for by mixing sets, though - combining an Imperial top with Seitung leggings, for instance.

Err, Shing Jea armor is pretty conservative for female assassins, Paragon sunspear armor doesn't look unreasonable to me either on males. Certainly neither case is anything compared to the belly dancer outfits for eles. The odd thing about that is that, as others have said, there's so little difference between the two sets.

i think u should be able to make more shady people ya know like u see those people who look dodgy but they arnt really bad people if u get to know them. but it would be awesome to see people with facial scars or if they wear no armour maybe u could get chest scars because in realy life well back then in some cultures scars would be like proof of strength or something

Now that's a whole bunch of stereotypes that's just plain misleading... For warriors, you're only talking about the wrestling types. You don't think martial artists, swashbucklers, pirates, fencers, knights, samurai, and more are warriors? If you look at the history, I doubt you'll find much warriors that are as bulky as what we have in GW.

Same thing goes for the other professions. If we want to talk about realism, then there's absolutely nothing to constrain body figure. Like Norgu, what's wrong with a fat actor (we have lots in Hollywood)? What's wrong with ugly actors (it's not like there aren't any)? Is it impossible for an artistic person who also happens to like athletics?

And most importantly, my Necromancer takes offence at being labelled an "emo". Necromancers are usually emotionless and insensitive if you want to talk about stereotypes... have no idea where you got that weird idea from.

Even the Shing Jea set has the low neckline. It's certainly far more conservative than most Elementalist outfits, but it hardly fits my view of the Assassin type that wants as little pale flesh exposed to reveal their presence as possible. And on the male Paragon Sunspear... Are we looking at the same armour set? That's the worst of the lot! It even has painted-on nipples!

Lol, if they dont play guildwars because they cant have beards or dye their underwear, they should be playing The Sims.

/signed

The body types in GW are very limited and disappointing.

Honestly, I tried, but I really couldn't give a shit about Gay Mesmers and Female's who don't wear much.

/signed to be able to make fat chicks that look like they work at mcdonalds.

You're not being serious? =)

None of the people I'm referring to would even roll a human bank character on WOW. One of my friends did, and she LOVES the Guild Wars humans but only owns a Mac with OSX so can't play. (This girl MIGHT enjoy the Sims, but would NEVER admit it. The Sims seems boring to me, but real life friends rag on me for being a Sims-type sissy because I do things like play GW.) These guys enjoy killing humans with Undead, Orcs and the ugliest Trolls they could roll.

My husband just told me that one reason he hates WOW/GW human females is because they look slutty and unprofessional. He said maybe those who roll WOW humans care more about being pretty than getting good at the game, his theory for why they're the easiest to kill.

I think my original post is confusing because my group of friends is so diverse. My point was more diversity and options would appeal to a more diverse population. What's ideal to some isn't ideal to everyone.

A related thread is here:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ht=la n+party

You hit the nail on the head. WoW does things that GW does not do, and visa versa. That's the way it goes. You'll probably not see an all encompasing game for a long time still. All online games cater to some certain specifics. GW is popular because it's not WoW, if you can't get over that, go play WoW, and come back here for PvP when your pride friends are offline.

Each online game out there caters to a certain market. Even Knight Online, for example, has a huge fan base, and it blows goatnuts(in my oninion).
Be happy you can dye your armor and that you have variable max armors/weapons. More than you get in a vast number of games that are still around and kicking.

If you're friends won't play a game with you based on the way a given character looks, well they don't sound like friends you need all that much, or like a game that you need to play all that much.

Your friend that bought a Mac, well, that's her fault, not GW.

I'd almost bet money your husband told you they look slutty just to get on your good side. He was afraid you'd see him just watching an ele dance, and get yelled at.(my sister is like that to her husband)

Oblivion is a single player game. GW is an online game. Adding in more details to character creation not only consumes more server resource, but also bandwidth required to play the game. Currently, the recommended connection for GW is already broadband connection. A few people can play on dial-up. If you're suggests are really added, that'll require double the bandwidth, or it'll take twice as long to load into a zone.

Personally I'm not that worried about how "barbie-ish" my characters look. I'll agree that many of the face/hair options in combination with certain armors make a character look like a barbie, but come on, this is a role-playing game.

You have to take into account that supposedly online games are MOSTLY a guy thing, and also are mostly targeted at a certain age range. Well most males in that age range would prefer an attractive or even slutty if you will, character. If they took the time into making all these cute make up options and stuff, then that would be great for girls who are into that, but I wouldn't want to even take the time to do that myself, I enjoy playing and killing bad dudes, I'm not horribly worried about if my eyeshadow matches my lip gloss kinda thing, because that is for REAL life, i worry about my make up when i go to classes in the morning, and guild wars is my time to not worry about that type of thing.

I agree that there is limited options, and it seems to get worse with each chapter, it would be great if they had more face/hair style options, and I also wish i could make my assassin gain a few pounds. But besides that I think everything is fine the way it is.

My husband is very honest, and likes the shape of the humans on WOW and GW both. My shape is kind of like the WOW females. He was referring to the armor.

"My husband just told me that one reason he hates WOW/GW human females is because they look slutty and unprofessional."

Hm, think out your posts a little better maybe?

Agreed -

it's fantasy not real life and making a fat character makes me wonder how she would deal with all the running around

New Skill

Heart attack - if enemy target is overweight and kites for 10 seconds or more they colapse and can not be healed or move for 2 minutes.


I want my characters to look nice and If i want real I can go for a walk

Personally...I like the "slutty" look of the GW females. My GF is probably going to switch to the Elona Ele Armor because we both like it so much.
As long as it doesn't step over the boundries and introduce nudity so I have to stop my kids from playing.

< ------ On the other hand, I made the ugliest male monk I could make just so I could be different. I agree that more choices is good.

A note about the fantasy Genre.

Go look at every cover of every fantasy book in a large book store. Romance books aren't the only ones that use cleavage/tight fitting clothing.

I think GW did better job than most games in using the archtypes established on those books, and ties in the armor/character per occupation very nicely.
You also have to consider, your character, as far as PvE goes, is the one hero, and there are rarely ugly/fat hero's, in any literature/movies.(I didn't say never, don't go fanatical and list references)

I didn't want to have to fall back on this, but some people are thick. I've heard it alot there will not be any major upgrades to existing chapters. Maybe the next chapter will have dyable underwear and jewelry an makeup and all that. They ain't fixin' nuthin' that ain't broke.(even then they're not fixing some of it)

So learn to live with it, move on, or find new friends that aren't so damned picky.

*
The only thing I miss is actual robes, but seeing the way capes move, I'm glad they didn't try robes.(not counting dervish armor here, I think it looks more like really heavy fabric than something a classic DnD mage would wear)

I think you hit the nail on the head, and my husband agrees. I love fantasy/science fiction, and maybe just choose to read authors who like using realistic characters. My husband laughed, maybe Aeon_Xin's point is GW is the slutty romance novel version of MMO's.

The more I think about it, the more I realize, I'm going back to WOW. Thanks.

/not signed

this is just a waste of an update, why not put HA back to 8v8 in stead of this

rage quit to WoW? Seems like we get these posts everyday, and I'm already getting used to it. You can go play WoW, just remember not to neglect your husband.

Also, this is to all people that make this kind of posts. Just because Anet read fansite forums, doesn't mean you can abuse it this way to get their attention and change the game the way YOU wanted.

No offense, but good riddance.
Now that she's gone mods, Lock/delete this topic?