Guild Wars 2

My problem with Norn females isn’t really that they are “too pretty”. It’s more an issue that they, to me, don’t really project the sense that they are half giants. The males look massive, whereas the females look like pretty normal (if fairly buff) human women.

The very first character I created in a beta weekend was a female Norn. They looked pretty cool and the Norn culture appealed to me. Sure, there’s the whole “raar we’re giants” thing going on, but I never really thought about it. I was, literally, shocked when I went to Divinity’s Reach and realized that my character was, like, 8’ tall. The Norn males look the part, but the females, imho, just doesn’t. You could scale the character models down to normal human sizes and they’d just be humans.

I’m not sure what exactly should be different about their character design, but I would have liked if they didn’t just look like human women scaled up 40%.

Slaunyeh.9852:

I was, literally, shocked when I went to Divinity’s Reach and realized that my character was, like, 8’ tall.

Yeah. It very easy to forget that you’re supposed to be a superhuman giant when you have the exact body type of a normal human female.

panzer.6034:

Slaunyeh.9852:

I was, literally, shocked when I went to Divinity’s Reach and realized that my character was, like, 8’ tall.

Yeah. It very easy to forget that you’re supposed to be a superhuman giant when you have the exact body type of a normal human female.

Yeah, but you are as such. You’re experiencing culture shock. Hoelbrak will make you feel fairly normal. Because you are, among norn.

Outside of there and perhaps the Black Citadel, you’re a towering mighty character and standing next to an average human or an asura will make that readily apparent.

Going to Divinity’s Reach will be a shock. Going to Rata Sum, you’d better watch your step. One of em’ down there warns you that she will eat your toes if you step on her!

Male or female, you make dwarves of the other races by virtue of who you are; a norn. On that note, I believe 8ft is fairly short for a norn.

The “average” for norn, even the women, is 9ft or so. That being comparable to how humans have an “average” height of 5ft… they can and do come bigger. Or shorter.

Meet Gina Carano. MMA Fighter, Actress and Norn female in her spare time. She’s not 8’ tall, but if you digitized her into GW2 and hit your slider, she would fit right in!

Also, someone mention Shot Put? Meet Nadine Broersen for the Netherlands! I rest my case.

Oh wait a few more…is what we had in mind?

Lastly returning to Shiverpeaks, my Norn Ranger…she looks pretty formidable. She does have the Anjolina lips, but personally there can never be anything wrong with Norn “Anjolina” lips!

As a woman, I don’t mind makeup on a norn female. But there should definitely be more natural looking options. I assume that not every warrior takes the time to put makeup on in the same way a woman in the real world doesn’t. (I’d like to note that some female athletes DO where make up, however. So a norn wearing makeup is not ridiculous or out of the question.)

A lot of the options seem a little too barbie, which is fine, if they actually offered more variety. They need to have more fierce and rugged options. They should definitely have faces that show their age like the male face options provide. NONE of the female face options show any real age difference or have wrinkles. That’s just ridiculous imo.

And scars should most definitely be a separate category and not just be available for one face. For all races and genders.

Darkhayle.2473:

NONE of the female face options show any real age difference or have wrinkles. That’s just ridiculous imo.

And scars should most definitely be a separate category and not just be available for one face. For all races and genders.

Maybe they’re trying to reinforce the fact that like Eir, older norn women still look young! I mean, Eir is sposedly not that young, Rytlock called her an old woman, so yea… old but still looking like that? Dang

Seriously though, YES to more options. Please. I will so buy another Total Make over kit and customize my norn warriorress again if they do! And yes, scars should be seperate and have variations too!

Comparing my norn to a mere human, I’d say: yes, there is definetely a difference. Ok, it’s just a NPC. The difference shrinks if I met tall humans oder even sylvari, but If you build your norn right, she looks like a norn compared to another race.

My female norn warrior has the scarred face, but exact the same body as my elementalist. I guess swinging greatswords in MMOs like little woodsticks is a general problem of realism. (Or maybe in games like Soul Calibur…)

And if talking about realism projected onto this game: Strength of an Asura Warrior compared to a Norn oder Charr? Just ridiculous, that they have the same dmg output, if you ask me, but I can understand that everyone wants to play the race he likes with a class he likes without drawbacks.

Personally I’d give my female warrior more flesh on the bones to lift that heavy hunk of iron, but I think I would be an exception. I even got a comment from a guildmate why I made such a man-like woman. I did the same in Aion with my gladiator and the people got irritated sometimes too.

I don’t get it why most people like extreme skinny girls/women in general, but whatever.

CETheLucid.3964:

panzer.6034:

Slaunyeh.9852:

I was, literally, shocked when I went to Divinity’s Reach and realized that my character was, like, 8’ tall.

Yeah. It very easy to forget that you’re supposed to be a superhuman giant when you have the exact body type of a normal human female.

Yeah, but you are as such. You’re experiencing culture shock. Hoelbrak will make you feel fairly normal. Because you are, among norn.

Outside of there and perhaps the Black Citadel, you’re a towering mighty character and standing next to an average human or an asura will make that readily apparent.

Yet I get culture shock in Hoelbrak when i stand next to a male norn since my max-sized female norn has normal human proportions and he inexplicably has 8x the body mass. Heck, i’ve stood next to human males in heavy armor that looked more bulky, despite being slightly shorter. When you look at a male norn standing alone, he looks like a massive beast, but when you see a female norn, she looks like a regular human.

ghtchill.7613:

Oh wait a few more…is what we had in mind?

I think we can go bigger!

panzer.6034:

Yet I get culture shock in Hoelbrak when i stand next to a male norn since my max-sized female norn has normal human proportions and he inexplicably has 8x the body mass. Heck, i’ve stood next to human males in heavy armor that looked more bulky, despite being slightly shorter. When you look at a male norn standing alone, he looks like a massive beast, but when you see a female norn, she looks like a regular human.

sidestream.8712:

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/77769/gw192.jpg

Oh. Okay. Can I live in your world?

CETheLucid.3964:

Oh. Okay. Can I live in your world?

Are you serious? If you saw that female norn standing alone, you’d never have any idea that she wasn’t human.

I don’t get the point of balancing the body mass between male und female. I mean, even She-Hulk is not remotely as bulky than her male counter part.

Male norns are just freaking huge. My elementalist is huge enough for my taste. My warrior could be a bit more bulky but whatever. Her limbs don’t look like beeing pumped up with steroids but natural developed muscles through trashing some mobs.

And what’s with that statement about athletics. Is it Greek Wars 2 we are playing with some dudes participating in olympics? – Hell no, so why post pictures of runners und the like?

The norn know only party and fighting, so I don’t see where the athletics come from.^^ Even most of the female NPCs are a more chubby, but the difference to maxed out body mass in character creation is not that high.

It’s not like I wouldn’t like to see this as an option. Hell yes, talking about more options in character creation,… count me in.

On the other hand: Do I ever see maxed out female norn? Very rarely… I bet, some people would eventually like it, but are afraid to show it, because society tells them, they would be weird.

Regarding my personal opinion: Arena Net did a good job. I love the deep voice and the presentation. I find it hard not to chose female norn for almost everything,…

@sidestream: i think some people are for the massive bulks in males (norn and Hulk :P ) and thus would like comparable bulk for females so as to make them look like there is similiarity in species or such. Some posts previously mentioned along this line if i recall. Among other things, its to distinguish them from humans or so some said, they’d rather not have norns as simpler large humans. ( i dont mind having large humans, so to speak, if you look at the kind of build u get for human females!)

Personally I’m not into bulky. Full stop. Male or Female. Its one of the reason I am less inclined for male norns. I’d always opt for more options, but if i had to choose, id always advocate for leaner aesthetics.

Well, if my norn takes a walk at Lions Arch, she is indeed a lot bigger than most of the other chars… even fellow norns (there are maybe some tall ones but not bulky), except charr and male norns and NPC female norns.
I even feel like beeing a hipster with my beefed up garment class norn.

So, if people would want to have even bigger female norns… why do I see so less maxed out female norn? I think, some people had something in mind, posted it here and a few answered or even bothered.
The Majority wouldn’t chose even the biggest norn available, so why make them even bigger?^^ Just for the record that the females COULD be nearly as big as the males, but only ten people out of a 10000 would build a character like that. Makes no sense to me.

I mean we could argue about biology of a fictional race whole day and night, but in the end, if the writer says it is like it is and a norn male is just a lot larger than a female, so be it, whatever the true reasons are.
After all, they want the people to play their game and if the majority want to play a little stereo type anime princess doll holding a broadsword, then what?^^

I give A-net a lot of credit for not making the mistake Tera did with their version of Sims Pornstar Edition despite the fact, that with some light armor sets, you are ready for the red light district of lions arch, if there was some. xD

EDIT: Personally I’d like to see maybe something more exaggerated muscular body to fit the warrior type wearing and wielding all that heavy iron stuff, but I can see, that people don’t want to play a game that makes too much sense but rather look at their ingame avatar, liking what they see. Maybe they are all magically infused to be strong enough to wield that heavy hammer or something like that. Imagination is the key, if reallity doesn’t fit in.

sidestream.8712:

The Majority wouldn’t chose even the biggest norn available, so why make them even bigger?^^ Just for the record that the females COULD be nearly as big as the males, but only ten people out of a 10000 would build a character like that. Makes no sense to me.

Ever look around the internet, or just deviant art, and see how many people really are fans of muscular women? I’m not convinced that in reality its any more niche than all the furries that are catered to in any number of games.

Yeah, there are all sorts of fans for everything. But they aren’t obviously playing GW2.^^

Like I said, I would like to have a more muscular warrior too. But I seriously doubt, that a lot of people would chose this option, because I very rarely even see characters with the biggest bulk currently available.

I wouldn’t stop anyone from programing. The opposite.

Here’s my female Norn hunter, I think I managed to avoid the ‘pretty’ look and get smouldering and sultry.

It’s always nice to see more options though

I can see the sultry a bit in how the camera has her. Good job.

I’d actually rather not look at ugly all day thanks

You want ugly models??? Are you crazy? Or maybe you have some kind of issue with your look…

aophts.9862:

You want ugly models??? Are you crazy? Or maybe you have some kind of issue with your look…

based on the title of the thread it would seem like it, but really, after all the reply the concern here is about choices. as i understand it, most people protesting on the matter dont mind if other ppl haf options to be…pretty. its just they want options to make theyre characters look more in line with what they perceive as the norn race.

GW2 has this awful anime-esque ever-so-slightly-fruit-cake-y look for all remotely human female models. At times it really annoys me to be quite honest but I knew what I was getting into well before beta so eeeehhh…

A few rough looking faces wouldn’t hurt at all. Not for human males, not for Norn women and not even for Asura females.

We need a foxxy-style afro, I tell you what!

Its interesting some people want a make norn like thickness for the norn women. I can say that when i am using the most buff male norn i dont feel like im in control of a giant, but of a midgit/dwarf. That is because my mind immediatly recognizes the characteristics of a human in a norn and tries to fill in the missing info when there is nothing to compare the height to. The problem with making norn women like this is that it would be harder and harder to distinguish between males and females. Search up the “uncanny valley” and realize a-net can do what they want with asura, sylvari and charr since they are much less human-like, but make norn human-like but have inhuman-like body proportions will make the character creepy, the wide norn males are an exception because our brains simply view them as human like midgets, but do that for females and you will find that they will look so much like their male counterparts, maybe with some boobs, that all other races will have dialogue like “There are norn females!? Arn’t they an all male race?” (see Gimli’s comment in lotr about dwarves.)

@arka: What exactly would be the problem with not always and immediately being able to tell a male character from a female in any situation? What would be the problem with female characters of any species looking “off” or “weird” or even “creepy” in some way, especially if the male characters do as well?

arka.8456:

Its interesting some people want a make norn like thickness for the norn women. I can say that when i am using the most buff male norn i dont feel like im in control of a giant, but of a midgit/dwarf. That is because my mind immediatly recognizes the characteristics of a human in a norn and tries to fill in the missing info when there is nothing to compare the height to.

I find this bizarre because their proportions are VERY different from a real life dwarf. IRL, dwarves have large heads in proportion to their shortened limbs. Norns’ heads, hands and feet are incredibly small compared to their body mass in contrast to a dwarf, making them practically anti-dwarf in head-to-body ratio.

Search up the “uncanny valley” and realize a-net can do what they want with asura, sylvari and charr since they are much less human-like, but make norn human-like but have inhuman-like body proportions will make the character creepy

Uncanny valley can’t ever apply to this game because the UV concept demands something looking very realistic, but not quite registering as such, and being creepy as a result. GW2’s somewhat cartoony and obviously unrealistic graphics won’t ever be naturalistic enough to evoke an “uncanny valley” scenario (i’ve never seen a screen of a human, in game, and thought it was anything close to a photo). It’s like trying to claim that Elmer Fudd, Charlie Brown or some other cartoon character falls in the UV; these sorts of examples don’t apply because they never come close to even registering as remotely real-looking in the first place.

the wide norn males are an exception because our brains simply view them as human like midgets, but do that for females and you will find that they will look so much like their male counterparts, maybe with some boobs, that all other races will have dialogue like “There are norn females!? Arn’t they an all male race?” (see Gimli’s comment in lotr about dwarves.)

I can’t tell you’re joking or if you really believe this. I don’t think anyone is saying they just want them to look like males with boobs….at all. You can make big, curvy, muscular women with exaggerated female proportions and they would have completely different silhouettes from the big males.

Chadramar.8156:

@arka: What exactly would be the problem with not always and immediately being able to tell a male character from a female in any situation? What would be the problem with female characters of any species looking “off” or “weird” or even “creepy” in some way, especially if the male characters do as well?

Because you would get situations like with the asura and charr where gender has very little impact on how the character looks, only how your character sounds. Adding a very wide body type for norn females would necessitate a different set of armor skins for them, as they would be more similar to norn males, thus making the current armors visually awkward. While i have nothing against a-net adding this, they have previously stated that the reason that they don’t release many armor skins is because they need to make sure that the armors look good on every race and every body type, adding a body type that is vastly different for any other for the races gender would increase the resources needed to make an armor set prompting them to release even fewer armor sets.

Basically, were they to add a female norn hulk body type, they would need to retroactively create armor skins for that body for each availible armor set. So about 9 cultural + about 111 general armor sets. Even if they didnt reskin the look, a-net would have to fix every single bug that comes along with increasing the skeleton of the norn female. As with anything there would also be forum rage about how a lot of dev time is spent on something with very little gain for the greater population.

arka.8456:

Because you would get situations like with the asura and charr where gender has very little impact on how the character looks, only how your character sounds.

Again: why would that be a problem? What does it matter? Why erase all the diversity that exists in people of any gender and allow only a very narrow, unrealistic and frankly often problematic subset of female presentation?

The charr absolutely rock in no small part BECAUSE for once here’s a “beast race” in which the females aren’t cutesy-wutesy big-titted anime masturbation fodder and only the males are allowed to actually look bestial and kickarse. That species is proof that Anet can do it right.

Making a very wide body type for norn females would necessitate a different set of armor skins for them, as they would be more similar to norn males, thus making the current armors visually awkward.

That’s the devs’ own kitten problem then for creating the inane gendered armor system to begin with, instead of having items look the same on both male and female characters.

While i have nothing against a-net adding this, they have previously stated that the reason that they don’t release many armor skins is because they need to make sure that the armors look good on every race and every body type,

Really? Heh, I wonder if whoever is responsible for adapting skins for use with charr characters didn’t get that memo, given all the sheer amount of tail clipping and texture distortion going on there.

Chadramar.8156:

Again: why would that be a problem? What does it matter? Why erase all the diversity that exists in people of any gender and allow only a very narrow, unrealistic and frankly often problematic subset of female presentation?

The charr absolutely rock in no small part BECAUSE for once here’s a “beast race” in which the females aren’t cutesy-wutesy big-titted anime masturbation fodder and only the males are allowed to actually look bestial and kickarse. That species is proof that Anet can do it right.

That’s the devs’ own kitten problem then for creating the inane gendered armor system to begin with, instead of having items look the same on both male and female characters.

Really? Heh, I wonder if whoever is responsible for adapting skins for use with charr characters didn’t get that memo, given all the sheer amount of tail clipping and texture distortion going on there.

And being a buff alpha male isn’t a very narrow, unrealistic representation of males in games? Every single male body type is either fit to be a model, or a a pro wrestler. Being all inclusive is very time consuming, thus a-net has to exclude representing countless minorities’ interests in order to actually develop the game. You have to make trade-offs, content that is accessible to all, and content for a select few and it’s obvious what a-net is choosing.

The point of the charr you made is good, it is an example to show that even with the time they had, a-net still couldn’t develop kick-kitten skins for the charr without cutting corners in order to stay in budget.

My opinion is simply that it is not worth the cost.

arka.8456:

The point of the charr you made is good, it is an example to show that even with the time they had, a-net still couldn’t develop kick-kitten skins for the charr without cutting corners in order to stay in budget.

My opinion is simply that it is not worth the cost.

I’d disagree on that part.
Changing just the model of the character has been proven a small enough task for even a freelancer modeler to do over a weekend or week, provided the right tools and access to the files.

I do not buy the clipping issues either. The game has so many clipping issues already; on male characters as well; that I would not believe that clipping alone would ever be a reason enough for A-net to decide not to create model Y.

Male characters could definitely do with a greater variety of options, both in this game and overall, as well. There’s no doubt that stereotypical “masculinity” is restrictive and toxic, just as stereotypical “femininity” is. But male characters already have a wider “allowed” range than female characters do, and at least they are meant as a power fantasy, not as a kitten aid. :/

I’d agree with Arka. People largely don’t choose the biggest body options for the women, as it is. If it isn’t used, why pull resources away from something else that is used?

any game development features a finite number of resources (even games that ship “when they’re ready”) so any feature you add is always added at the expense of something else.

http://guildwars2.pl/about_lore_and_mechanics_with_eric_flannum_guildwarspl_exclusive,a545

So, whether it only takes a weekend or a day, that is still paying somebody for that weekend or day to work on something that will be little used. Making it not worth the cost.

The only female race I play in GW2 is norn, explicitely. Other female characters are too kitten ugly, and the human version comes straight out of some asian anime concept(and I hate that).

The norn female has nice body proportions, a decent, lovely face and actually decent hairstyles(brown hair, green hairband 24/7).

kitten I’m a sucker for their aesthetics….

there are plenty of ugly faces. but i want to hug the norn female modeller/animator/texturer at Anet. it can look exquisitely good : } and it’s a fine piece of work. in fact nearly all the models and animations for different races are great. charr is great too. the only thing that really bugs me is the vision for the sylvari release female and her uff pain sound….i almost shed tears to see that taken away from her so callously and violently…

Id love to make norn look like in this picture haha! Looks like tough lady. But anyway, I am quite happy how norn turned out. I wonder though why there isnt big female norn body as option like some NPCs but oh well.

Don’t forget that even in IRL, males and females have much different body types (unless they’re obese, then they start to look the same).

I’m fine with how my Norn looks. It’s a nice bit of fantasy and they certainly made them the most rugged of females (sans a few Charr faces).

VictorTroska.3725:

Id love to make norn look like in this picture haha! Looks like tough lady. But anyway, I am quite happy how norn turned out. I wonder though why there isnt big female norn body as option like some NPCs but oh well.

I check out that artist’s deviant art page all the time. Now HE draws some real norn women.

Well, you can’t do them less sexy http://imgur.com/a/JoBtY#0

I think the Norn females are fine the way they are. I actually would have liked some different bodytype options too but, for the purpose of my character the one I chose worked out. Mine is a Necro, so I figured she wouldn’t be quite so bulky since she’s not swinging around a massive sword or anything. But for people who make a warrioress, I can definitely understand why they’d want a bulkier, or more muscular bodytype.

As for the faces… ehh, I think they are the best out of the humanoid races. I couldn’t stand the human female options for both body and face because well… it was just a bit too much. There was no real in-between. Your girl either looked unattractive or like a Barbiedoll/Anime reject. Which is why I ultimately rolled a Sylvari for my main (Mesmer) since they had slim/petite options (and generally I like my main to somewhat resemble myself in some way).

I think if any of them need more work it’s the human females. With very little differences in the bodytypes it doesn’t leave much for options. How would you make a stocky warrior or guardian human female? You just can’t, really. At least the Norn ladies have a good variety of bodytypes in that sense, though it would be nice to have more choices for all of them. I wanted to make a male Norn but, there just isn’t an option that I like for them. Bulky hulk-like characters isn’t attractive to me, as a female. Maybe some women like that but I’m not one of them. The male humans are okay but they have much the same problem the human females do- look very young and almost “jail-bait” lol. At least their bodytypes are attractive, for the most part. Though I’d still prefer a slim body kinda like the Sylvari males (but a little more to them than that).

tl;dr Just give us more options in faces and bodytypes and we’d call it good. Heck, I’d even like more hair options too. Definitely… I want more Norn hair that has some nice fringe around the face, to frame it nicely. Same for Sylvari too, more “long hair” options for them would be great…

It depends, if you know what you want and how to get it, it’s all basicaly down to anatomy study, true we need more facial options and hairstyles, mainly around eyes and lips

I’m confused. As far as I’m aware, there are sliders for facial features. You can make yourself look like a mutant if you wanted. As for body types, they seem consistent with that of a person who is very physically active. Even “stocky” male bodies are still very muscular without their clothing. I have not seen any “flabby” male body types either.

That said, I would not say any of the Human or Norn body proportions are true to life. But that is an allowance you’re expected to put up with in a game. It is the same with the limited choice of hairstykitten dy posture, voice, vocal expressions, etc. .

Lol, so much hate for Norn ladies, they want to be pretty too.

My first character was a female norn ranger. I have to agree they are too pretty looking but I mostly picked mine because of the background story of the race. Northern-mountain giant race sounded cool to me.

Am I tall enough?

I think the female norn are fine as they are. Unlike the female humans, who all look like they should still be at school.

In the thick of war, and I saw a cute doll face, no no no.
Best to avoid the face and let them cut you. Shield bash them away and find a guy to maim. Its the only humane thing to do.
Most norn male face options are baby faces which is really annoying.

Norn women are too bulky, also their voice sounds like they are imitating a man.

But that’s just my opinion.

I don’t find my Norn gal to be too bulky at all.