Men, women, and appeal

mercuriciodide

I haven't looked yet to see if the new complexion changes for males are significant in terms of what I'm writing about or not, but I doubt it.

Male faces are too haggard. The exaggerated wrinkles and cheekbones are fine for middle-aged men, but not everyone wants to play that type of character. Youthful male faces are difficult or impossible to make because of the automatic brown beard stubble, wrinkles/pitting, and so forth.

Add a youthful complexion option. Look at this face. It is not deeply pitted or wrinkled, especially in the cheek area.

Another problem is the "identical guy" syndrome where so many characters look like the same guy -- facially. Randomize the facial features for new characters so people have to actually make an effort to customize.

It's beyond obvious that it's possible to make sexy women in this game. The level of sex appeal available for male characters is much more lacking. Women can have large TRIBBLE but male characters have flat crotches and not much curvature in the back. The curves are tied to the hip size which is not good. And, a lot of the new suits accentuate the ship of the backside but they are almost always disproportionately small. Most male characters in this game are big and muscular and the backsides that go with the characters are too small and look goofy as a result.

There needs to be a butt size slider. Women get a breast size slider.

Male lip size needs to not give men an ugly expression when expanded. Here is an example of someone with ample lips that don't have that ugly expression.

Human men need to be able to have larger eyes.

Here is an example of a face with large eyes, large lips, and none of the pitting/wrinkles STO wants to give men. Here is another... this is what a youthful complexion looks like.

The shape of the backside (when looked at straight on) for a lot of the new outfits is too angular (vertically) for the builds of most of the characters -- square it off more. The angular shape works fine for someone who is really slim, but looks unnatural for the bulkier builds that are so popular.

And, finally... give men an outfit that is as provocative as the Orion women's outfit. This isn't 1968 anymore.

senatorvreenak

Female orions have outfits that are canon for them, and male Orions have outfits that are canon for them as well.

mercuriciodide

senatorvreenak wrote: »

Female orions have outfits that are canon for them, and male Orions have outfits that are canon for them as well.

There are a lot of outfits in this game that are not canon. The canon excuse won't fly. This isn't 1968 and this isn't a TOS-themed game.

The devs made an outfit for a male dancer that is an approximation of the Orion outfit (still not at that level) already, too.

Plus, there was some male eye candy in TOS.



Besides that episode there are shirtless muscular young men in at least one episode as guards, maybe more.

senatorvreenak

1968? I was talking about the standards set in 2004. :rolleyes:

tpalelena

Yeah males need a waist slider that lets them have a bit wider hips.

A bodybuilder torso on a slender hip looks strange.

jodarkrider

This game has a problem of having nearly impossible to make muscular women, who aren't candy eye/sexy, and males, who can't even be made look sexy/provocative... I laughed at the irony.

centersolace

Also, it's almost impossible to make a decent fat person.

tpalelena

centersolace wrote: »

Also, it's almost impossible to make a decent fat person.

I have seen very realistic fat people, but you need to use the alien option.

jodarkrider

Well, the way it is now, very small variety of body-builds are supported... if you go astray from the 'classic' ones, the proportions will look sucky. I really dislike the unability to alter the respective waists for both males and females. Although by females it's the most apparent, how thin that thing is, if you want to make the char reasonably sized, and not overly tiny. Imo, adding the waist slider would solve these issues for both genders, and more builds would look much more natural... <.<

mercuriciodide

tpalelena wrote: »

Yeah males need a waist slider that lets them have a bit wider hips.

A bodybuilder torso on a slender hip looks strange.

There is already a waist slider. The problem is that there is no separate slider for the glutes. So, you get an old woman look on guys if you make the waist large in an effort to get some curvature.


Some of the recent uniforms do a better job of showing some curvature but the lack of a glutes size slider makes the look disproportionately small.

jodarkrider

mercuriciodide wrote: »

There is already a waist slider. The problem is that there is no separate slider for the glutes. So, you get an old woman look on guys if you make the waist large in an effort to get some curvature.


Some of the recent uniforms do a better job of showing some curvature but the lack of a glutes size slider makes the look disproportionately small.

There's hip slider. For both genders it only alters the butt size for most part, so don't get mistaken. There's no way to alter the middle part of the torso, the waist, at all. Stomach slider alters the belly, as in, how fat you are, so without ability to alter the thickness of waist, some configurations look really odd, with horribly thin waists <---- this mainly a female problem.

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jodarkrider

capnkirk4 wrote: »

Oh, FFS, don't start this again. Maybe there's some sort of Virtual Model MMO out there that would be a better fit for you. Have you checked?

"My ankles are too fat."

"My TRIBBLE are too big."

"Does this skirt make my bum look big?"

"This combadge is too gold, why can't I have a red one?"

The Housewives of STO.

People care about how their characters look like. It's roleplaying game. Get over it.

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jodarkrider

capnkirk4 wrote: »

I'm over it. I'm just trying to help you find a solution to your dilemma. I'm just putting forth the idea that if your primary focus is body sliders, and optimizing your toons so they look like real people, maybe a science fiction MMO that uses a three year old engine, that just pinches, pulls, and stretches a static image isn't a viable option. There have to be other choices out there that handily, fill that role. Why keep agonizing over it? It's masochistic. That's all I'm saying.

You know what is actually masochistic here? To come to *Art* forum of STO forum and agonize about people who want the aesthetics to be nicer. If you went to bug forums instead, helped to identify them, you'd be much more productive. That's all I am saying.

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mirrorseacat

capnkirk4 wrote: »

Oh, FFS, don't start this again. Maybe there's some sort of Virtual Model MMO out there that would be a better fit for you. Have you checked?

"My ankles are too fat."

"My TRIBBLE are too big."

"Does this skirt make my bum look big?"

"This combadge is too gold, why can't I have a red one?"

The Housewives of STO.

Oh so because we would like more options, perhaps a chance to customize more, (you know more options being better than fewer options) you feel the need to come into this thread with some amoeba-minded prattle for what reason?

How about if YOU and your tiny box of what is acceptable to ask for in a mmo go find some other thread that would be a better fit. Have you checked?

-Seacat

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jodarkrider

capnkirk4 wrote: »

Amoeba-minded prattle? Do amoebas even have minds? Seriously, check it out, it's free too.

http://virtual-fashion.en.softonic.com/

-Aircat

Didn't you say you'd not darken our doors anymore...? Just saying.

-NotaCatSorry

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mercuriciodide

jodarkrider wrote: »

You know what is actually masochistic here? To come to *Art* forum of STO forum and agonize about people who want the aesthetics to be nicer. If you went to bug forums instead, helped to identify them, you'd be much more productive. That's all I am saying.

thank you

There is so much superiority in comments both in the forum and in the chat you can cut it with a knife. But, a lot of the pushback comes when you dare to ask for some parity in terms of seductiveness.

jodarkrider wrote: »

This game has a problem of having nearly impossible to make muscular women, who aren't candy eye/sexy, and males, who can't even be made look sexy/provocative... I laughed at the irony.

The disparity is very apparent. I just saw another example today when I went in to brush the dust off my old Foundry project and looked again through the list of stock characters. Not a single one of them is a male who goes beyond slightly cute (and there is basically just one that can be called slightly cute and that's pushing it because his eyes are messed up) but there's a woman from Risa -- a trill -- with huge TRIBBLE and little clothing. The Risian male bartender looks totally unattractive... no comparison.

jodarkrider

mercuriciodide wrote: »

thank you

There is so much superiority in comments both in the forum and in the chat you can cut it with a knife. But, a lot of the pushback comes when you dare to ask for some parity in terms of seductiveness.

The disparity is very apparent. I just saw another example today when I went in to brush the dust off my old Foundry project and looked again through the list of stock characters. Not a single one of them is a male who goes beyond slightly cute (and there is basically just one that can be called slightly cute and that's pushing it because his eyes are messed up) but there's a woman from Risa -- a trill -- with huge TRIBBLE and little clothing. The Risian male bartender looks totally unattractive... no comparison.

Well, yes, people are too set on the seductive part of females. And beware, if you suggest that there could be a *choice* of not seductive female body (yes, a choice, so it's not like we'd be taking the seductive option from people). I swear, the female model I reworked from one game from 2003 looks better than most of these modern ones... and why? Because I did not sexualize her at all. When you put on loose clothes or heck, military uniform, they in fact cover TRIBBLE and all the curves (unless they are really oversized...) or unless they are purposefully shaped to religiously copy the female body shape. Problem here, in STO, is that *every* female costume does that. If they had some uniforms/costumes, which actually go over the body, and make it, that it hides the TRIBBLE and other assets, we'd even have less clipping issues.

Speaking of Foundry, the female changelings have female heads and male bodies. Gives a perfect illusion of loose clothes and uniform jackets actually going over body. If they gave me that option, I'd not blink an eye and use that body shape immediatelly.

jexsamx

So we've got threads about making women look like men and now about making men look like women.

Once again. "My tastes aren't being catered to" doesn't mean there's anything necessarily wrong or missing with the character creator. If you can't make a male you find attractive, that's not the game's problem, that's a personal problem. Stop expecting Cryptic to cater to you like your taste in men/women is somehow special.

And before anybody points to my sig/avi combo as marking me as a hypocrite, you're wrong. The be'veS costume piece is bugged; I'm asking for it to be fixed, not for new assets to be created just because I don't swoon over my Orion enough.

Which isn't to say I specifically think jodarkrider or mercuriciodide would call me a hypocrite, just that I'm fairly sure some forumgoer is going to be dumb enough to try to play that card without knowing what they're talking about.

jodarkrider

jexsamx wrote: »

So we've got threads about making women look like men and now about making men look like women.

Once again. "My tastes aren't being catered to" doesn't mean there's anything necessarily wrong or missing with the character creator. If you can't make a male you find attractive, that's not the game's problem, that's a personal problem. Stop expecting Cryptic to cater to you like your taste in men/women is somehow special.

And before anybody points to my sig/avi combo as marking me as a hypocrite, you're wrong. The be'veS costume piece is bugged; I'm asking for it to be fixed, not for new assets to be created just because I don't swoon over my Orion enough.

Which isn't to say I specifically think jodarkrider or mercuriciodide would call me a hypocrite, just that I'm fairly sure some forumgoer is going to be dumb enough to try to play that card without knowing what they're talking about.

It's not even making females looking like men. As an example, check these or these female uniforms in real life. There's nothing revealing the female shape, not in the way every uniform does in STO. Again, yes, there are costumes, which strictly copy the female body shape, but certainly, when you wear an uniform jackets, it simply is not what it currently looks like in STO. And I can find tons and tons of real life uniforms, which are nowhere as excessive as what we have in the game currently.

Also, everyone asks in this forum, to cater to their own tastes. Ie ship interiors and re-designs, caitians, other aesthetic changes. There's nothing wrong in requesting something, which would make the game look even more appealing to your tastes, especially if it's suggested as an optional choice, not forcing anyone to use it.

mercuriciodide

jexsamx wrote: »

So we've got threads about making women look like men and now about making men look like women.

Nope, although there are people who are androgynous and I don't see why they shouldn't be able to be made.

There are attractive men in reality and there are women who aren't sexy seductive kittens, too.

jexsamx wrote: »

Once again. "My tastes aren't being catered to" doesn't mean there's anything necessarily wrong or missing with the character creator. If you can't make a male you find attractive, that's not the game's problem, that's a personal problem. Stop expecting Cryptic to cater to you like your taste in men/women is somehow special.

Ad hominem fallacy.

jexsamx wrote: »

not for new assets to be created just because I don't swoon over my Orion enough.

The dancer outfit has already been created, so this is a bit of a false dilemma. It's also not necessary to mock people just because they aren't you and therefore don't possess your personal viewpoint about what's desirable and important.

jexsamx wrote: »

Which isn't to say I specifically think jodarkrider or mercuriciodide would call me a hypocrite, just that I'm fairly sure some forumgoer is going to be dumb enough to try to play that card without knowing what they're talking about.

Fascinating. You put words in our mouths so you can lecture us about them.

orangeitis

jodarkrider wrote: »

This game has a problem of having nearly impossible to make muscular women, who aren't candy eye/sexy

That implies that some don't find male-shaped females sexy...

jexsamx

mercuriciodide wrote: »

Ad hominem fallacy.

Appeal is largely subjective to start with, and that is clearly the basis of this thread.

jodarkrider

mercuriciodide wrote: »

Nope, although there are people who are androgynous and I don't see why they shouldn't be able to be made.

There are attractive men in reality and there are women who aren't sexy seductive kittens, too.

You sir truly get it. Wish we had more people like you on these forums..

hanover

mercuriciodide wrote: »

Nope, although there are people who are androgynous and I don't see why they shouldn't be able to be made.

Because not enough people care to make catering to you profitable enough. Just like in the real world, everyone reserves the right to not give a **** about your extra-special uniqueness.

starswordc

mercuriciodide wrote: »

Ad hominem fallacy.

Wrong. An argument that contains an insult is still an argument. It's only an ad hominem if the insult is the only thing there. There's a difference between saying "you're an idiot" and "you're an idiot and this is why: <cites evidence related to debate topic>".

That said, I agree with the rest of your post. One of the reasons I like female characters like Alyx Vance and FemShep is because they're not hypersexualized eye candy like 90% of the major female characters in video games these days.

mirrorseacat

hanover2 wrote: »

Because not enough people care to make catering to you profitable enough. Just like in the real world, everyone reserves the right to not give a **** about your extra-special uniqueness.

extra-special uniqueness? have you eyes in your skull?

there is a myriad of facial/body shaped forms, ect (including androgynous faces) that are not create-able by the human creator that a person can see if use the internet, watch television, go to a mall, have a job with other individuals...and yet you feel justified in insulting someone who wishes that these options were opened up in an online creator?


I really do not believe any excuse could be made for the current limits at least in the face, considering how far you can stretch and pull faces in the alien generator.

(also as an aside not directed to you...obviously one would have to be a dunce not to understand the obviousness of someone being amoeba-minded)

-Seacat (my former forum name, one derived from my initials c.c.a.t also used as an insult against me when i was younger)