Pigeonholing Hairstyles

Pigeonholing Hairstyles

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Posted by: Sir Arthur.8905

Sir Arthur.8905

Everyone won’t run into this problem personally, but if you want to get an idea, go into the character creator, go human, then male. If you are making a black guy for example, you have 2 options: bald cut or fat crap looking dreds (crap looking irl, not attacking the dev’s ability to recreate it’s tackiness in game) that are made from teasing straight hair into knots, which is not how a black person’s hair would ever lock, it is also an OLD skin from GW1 that looks thrown in last minute or we had the same tacky concept in 1, or it was just impossible to make?) If you don’t go with either of those 2 options, you have to make a black guy who looks like Katt Williams, because ALL other human male options, including both sets that were added, have straight, silky, non-ethnic hair. http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.430750!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/alg-katt-williams-jpg.jpg

Now, look through the Norn, and the Asura, and even now the Charr creator, and you will find various hairstyles, tons of different dreds, one in particular on the female norn, is thin long dreds, exactly how mine and most of American black people’s look. Beyond dreds, you see braids, cornrows, and other ethnic or “natural” styles. So this is not a case of not being able to make them, it is just that they make it a racial thing and make humans a race that has none.

I have a bigger issue with this, as Krytans, which is what most of humanity on Tyria is right now, are descended from Elonians, the ethnic humans of Tyria, who had all of these styles, as well as dark skin which is still present to this day. In GW1 it made sense on the original continent because it was a very European culture that later saw expansions into other places that had ethnic hair, but in GW2, where ALL of humanity lives together, dark skin still exists, but not a single curl in anyone’s hair? When I made myself for example, the best I could do was make a mixed version of myself, unless I made a norn.

Just a bit insulting to have your hair irl be something that only exists on crazy looking creatures or giant tribal brutes in a modern game. I’m not saying the hair they have doesn’t look awesome, it’s just that it is 100% Pigeonholing.

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Posted by: Egon Vidar.9125

Egon Vidar.9125

My male human ele is black (I’m not irl, I’m white, if it matters) and he’s a faithful recreation of my Krytan GW1 Prophecies character, which had.. a limited facial and hair selection, honestly. So he has very dark skin, straight hair, and anglo bone structure. No problems in the character creator with this, which lead me to believe it would be fairly easy to create non-caucasian characters in GW2.

Then I tried to make a second engineer, a black woman. I envisioned an Elonian with dreadlocks, dark skin, and the appropriate corresponding bone structure. I had spent over an hour in the character creator and only got as far as the attached second image when I just gave up. The hair had a bit of curl but just wasn’t what I wanted at all, and I absolutely had to obsess over the face sliders to get that far. I wanted to create a woman who looked more like Danai Gurira in The Walking Dead than what I wound up with. She’s a gorgeous woman and I’d just really like to have a character that resembles her at least a little, but it was impossible.

Meanwhile, my Asura ranger has nice cornrows and as soon as I get a hair kit I’m switching him over to the new dreadlocks.. wtf. Why aren’t these human options, too? It’s very unfortunate, I would love to have more humans (I’m an altaholic) but my only real option is “super white barbie/ken doll.” The humans also conform hard to western standards of beauty aesthetics, have you ever tried to make a human, male or female, with a hooked beak of a nose? It’s pretty much impossible.

Suffice to say that I’m very sorry and I hope this changes soon. When I saw that just about every race aside from human got dreads, I felt immensely let down. I can’t imagine how disappointed you must feel.

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Posted by: Draknar.5748

Draknar.5748

I will agree this seems like an oversight. I would love more urban options for humans as well.

I won’t stop because I can’t stop.

It’s a medical condition, they say its terminal….

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Posted by: Saint.5647

Saint.5647

It would be nice to see some variety in the human faces in my opinion. There is no reason we can’t have more Canthan and Elonan faces available to choose from.

One True God
Fashion Forward!
Guild Wars Dinosaur

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Posted by: Sir Arthur.8905

Sir Arthur.8905

It would be nice to see some variety in the human faces in my opinion. There is no reason we can’t have more Canthan and Elonan faces available to choose from.

Absolutely, the last pack of faces was a disappointment as well. We have characters like Mai Trin, and Marjory, why no options for at least the Canthan ones, let alone the Elonian? Maybe they would feel awkward putting them in as a pack lol. I suppose it is fairly easy to offend if they did it the wrong way, but with all of the customizable options, there is plenty of wiggle room. Rather that, than to not have any choice at all.

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Posted by: Sir Arthur.8905

Sir Arthur.8905

My male human ele is black (I’m not irl, I’m white, if it matters) and he’s a faithful recreation of my Krytan GW1 Prophecies character, which had.. a limited facial and hair selection, honestly. So he has very dark skin, straight hair, and anglo bone structure. No problems in the character creator with this, which lead me to believe it would be fairly easy to create non-caucasian characters in GW2.

Then I tried to make a second engineer, a black woman. I envisioned an Elonian with dreadlocks, dark skin, and the appropriate corresponding bone structure. I had spent over an hour in the character creator and only got as far as the attached second image when I just gave up. The hair had a bit of curl but just wasn’t what I wanted at all, and I absolutely had to obsess over the face sliders to get that far. I wanted to create a woman who looked more like Danai Gurira in The Walking Dead than what I wound up with. She’s a gorgeous woman and I’d just really like to have a character that resembles her at least a little, but it was impossible.

Meanwhile, my Asura ranger has nice cornrows and as soon as I get a hair kit I’m switching him over to the new dreadlocks.. wtf. Why aren’t these human options, too? It’s very unfortunate, I would love to have more humans (I’m an altaholic) but my only real option is “super white barbie/ken doll.” The humans also conform hard to western standards of beauty aesthetics, have you ever tried to make a human, male or female, with a hooked beak of a nose? It’s pretty much impossible.

Suffice to say that I’m very sorry and I hope this changes soon. When I saw that just about every race aside from human got dreads, I felt immensely let down. I can’t imagine how disappointed you must feel.

She still looks awesome! Just it would be amazing to make Michonne lol so I know what you mean.

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Posted by: Sir Arthur.8905

Sir Arthur.8905

And I understand the type of place Divinity’s Reach is, so I’m not asking for nappy dreds, I think styles like these would not be out of place there at all:

Male:
Brandon Jay McLaren for example, would not be a norn. But throughout his career, from power rangers to graceland, hes always had neat dreds. http://www.celebs101.com/gallery/Brandon_Jay_McLaren/476062/Brandon_Jay_McLaren_Picture.jpg
or even this random dude, this would be awesome, as they are as thin as mine
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/ff/30/32/ff303234630f5361d2d1e403026a14ba.jpg
or this random guy, who has them wavy from being braided: http://thirstyroots.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Long-Black-Dreads.jpg
or even shorter like this: http://loccessories.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mens-Dreadlock-Styles_med.png

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Posted by: Saint.5647

Saint.5647

Indeed. The current faces are rather disappointing. For one, there is little variety; they all look very ‘Anglo’ to me. I liked having my characters all look unique from another in GW1. I enjoyed armor collecting a lot and liked having characters of different genders and ethnicities . I realize not everyone really cares about this, but it would be nice to see some more variety.

Another thing is that even among the ‘Anglo’ faces, it seems like only 3-4 of them see mass use. A large portion are very awkward, especially for males.

One True God
Fashion Forward!
Guild Wars Dinosaur

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Posted by: Frotee.2634

Frotee.2634

Agreed – not only are most of the human faces shockingly similar (all very barbie-like, VERY young looking due to large eyes set pretty low in the facial structure) and caucasian, but the hair…well, it IS all very straight, shiny and ‘stylish’ (from a Euro/Anglo point of view).
I was pretty disappointed upon release to find that my favourite faces from the beta were not included.
More diversity, please!

Polka will never die

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Posted by: Sir Arthur.8905

Sir Arthur.8905

Indeed. The current faces are rather disappointing. For one, there is little variety; they all look very ‘Anglo’ to me. I liked having my characters all look unique from another in GW1. I enjoyed armor collecting a lot and liked having characters of different genders and ethnicities . I realize not everyone really cares about this, but it would be nice to see some more variety.

Another thing is that even among the ‘Anglo’ faces, it seems like only 3-4 of them see mass use. A large portion are very awkward, especially for males.

LOL especially the cherub looking one and the sunken forehead one from the newer set. super awkward