(11-20-2014, 03:00 PM)Jancis Wrote: At the end of the day, what puts food on the table, what the customer wants. Even though numbers aren't the whole truth, they don't lie. Though it's fun to try to think up biological reasons and whatnot for the sake of imagination, in the end aesthetic appeal is a large selling point for the game in environment and models.Haha! Yes, well, it should be noted that pandering is okay in moderation - it's very, very easy to go way too far with it (*cough* TERA *coughcough*). It's also preferable if it's not completely one-sided like it usually is, as Bikini Armor Battle Damage rather ably highlights to the detriment of lazy artists everywhere.
Case in point. Lalalalala - just snagged it from lodestone
http://i.imgur.com/KIM1gjl.jpg
http://pyjamamoney.com/wp-content/upload...x16001.jpg
I should also note that I, as a player, should have options and choices and don't appreciate being forced into one thing or another. If the coliseum set were representative of all the armors in the game you can be sure I would be ticked off about it. Instead, the option was available as one of many and I chose to dress my character in this way; my character had no say in it whatsoever. She's a fictional construct entirely at the mercy of her creator.
...This is getting completely off-topic, but suffice it to say that I think there's a healthy middle ground for this sort of thing and that taking the low road is lazy and representative of a regressive mindset.
(11-20-2014, 03:52 PM)Edgar Wrote: Part of me understands this thread to an extent.Did... did someone try to suggest that? If someone did, I don't remember reading it.
The other part of me is having difficulty comprehending why boobs are a bad thing.
(11-20-2014, 04:32 PM)Mae Wrote: Basiaclly, yeah. We're a species that's (for the most part) hard-wired to be attracted to others who have the same basic bodily configuration, and to associate boobs with females and dangling-parts with males. As a selling point, SE would've had a harder time pulling in numbers if they had only given us characters that had androgynous bodies/faces and the only way to tell the differences between the sexes were (for example) skin/hide colours, plumage, horns and ridge patterns. Would they still have gotten players if they had done this? Yes, but the game itself wouldn't appeal to such a broad spectrum as it does, as there are people out there that will only play a human/the setting's human analogue (Hyur, for XIV).Well, I should say that I think it's quite possible to make a very attractive non-human race with a completely different form of gender dimorphism. As I said, the Iksar are a pretty good example for this (though the males are a bit too bulky in my mind), with no mammaries and a completely different facial structure for the females. I also like the Asura quite a bit, and while they do end up being difficult to tell apart for sex at times, I really don't think that works to their detriment at all.
And of course, FFXIV has the example of Lalafells, where you literally cannot tell the difference between a male and female character if they're wearing full armor (especially with a covering helmet on). Their appeal does not seem to suffer any for it.