Guild Wars 2

Body shapes and faces aside, why are customization options not explicitly tied to the character’s sex (things like hair styles, tattoos, horns, etc.) locked to male or female characters?

I made a topic before about adopting a unisex policy for Charr — one which could easily be replicated across the Asura as well, seeing as they follow the same mechanism for armor display — but after some thought, I’ve elected to recreate it in a broader scope.

What I’m asking for is why don’t we allow anyone to use either male or female customization options when creating, re-styling, or giving their character a makeover?

Considering we’re all playing digital avatars with their own fantasy lives in a make-believe game world, there hardly seems reason to stop us from representing ourselves and our characters as we see fit.

(I can also promise you my guardian’s golden locks would look positively ravishing were they even longer!)

So why not? Let the ladies enjoy some shorter and lighter cuts from time to time, and let the gents grow it out a bit. Considering that two races don’t even use the visual cues of armor to denote gender, it seems pretty silly to maintain a strict dichotomy with hair and other features.

TL;DR: I want to use style options available to a gender my character isn’t and after speaking with other players, have found that many do, too. No, I don’t want to change gender to use it; my character is happy as they are.

Cause the shape of the female head is not the same as the shape of the male head, especially with norn. Meaning they can’t just copy over the hairstyles for the males to the females, they’d have to adjust them to fit the female head shape, and vice-versa. The time it takes to do that could just as well be used to create entirely new hairstyles, which they are doing now.

I rather have hairstyles specifically made for my characters instead of poorly copy-pasted hairstyles that don’t entirely fit my characters.

It’s not like the males and females have entirely different hairstyles. For most of the hairstyles available to male, the females have something similar available and vice-versa.

Because it takes, work and money to do that and this is a free game. And yea I am sure a few people would pick more girly looking hair on a male there are already a loot of long hair options and the number of players that would take the already existing long hair options to a whole new level of adding bows and stuff like that is small. So its a waste of time for anet to do that plus some of the girl styles would look ridiculous on a male character.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

[…] they’d have to adjust them to fit the female head shape, and vice-versa. The time it takes to do that could just as well be used to create entirely new hairstyles, which they are doing now.

Goodness, as though the technologies of having mappable bone structures that allow us to dynamically change the size and shape of the head and facial features (that themselves can cause things like the scalp, forehead, and even temples to change drastically) do not exist! Surely they must have developed 1000+ variations of each hairstyle to explicitly fit the shape of all these combinations of head and face sliders! I suppose the hair styles that move and bob too must have a dozen or so different shapes to provide the illusion of motion, as most certainly they too are entirely static!

Warlord.9074:

Because it takes, work and money to do that and this is a free game.

By the six, you’re right! A game we’ve paid for and will continue to do so while ArenaNet monetizes on Cash Shop items that are only available through transactions of real money. And let’s not forget that expansion that’s coming out or all the Living Story content they gave us.

Their interest is in selling the game and keeping us buying things. If that means needing a Makeover Kit to swap between gendered customizations, so be it.

Simply put, there are more pressing matters to attend to.

bob.5680:

Simply put, there are more pressing matters to attend to.

I see your dissenting opinion and raise you Lion’s Arch, Kessex Hills, Gendarran Fields, Divinity’s Reach, and all of the other left-over Living Story Season 1 content that has yet to be cleaned up, removed, addressed, or otherwise looked at.

Though maybe this coming Halloween we’ll get something new. Or perhaps some extra Fractals. Or additional dungeon paths. Or more upgrades to PvP and WvW. Or have animations and starting content returned to us.

Come on, argue at little harder than that.

Sorry, not worth arguing over to me. I really don’t care. Good luck with this.

fluffdragon.1523:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

[…] they’d have to adjust them to fit the female head shape, and vice-versa. The time it takes to do that could just as well be used to create entirely new hairstyles, which they are doing now.

Goodness, as though the technologies of having mappable bone structures that allow us to dynamically change the size and shape of the head and facial features (that themselves can cause things like the scalp, forehead, and even temples to change drastically) do not exist! Surely they must have developed 1000+ variations of each hairstyle to explicitly fit the shape of all these combinations of head and face sliders! I suppose the hair styles that move and bob too must have a dozen or so different shapes to provide the illusion of motion, as most certainly they too are entirely static!

You don’t know what you’re talking about. Being able the scale your head and therefor scale the hairstyle with it is entirely different from having to accommodate for the fundamentally different shapes of the skulls between male and female.

Scaling your head bigger, wider or longer is merely a matter of changing a variable number. No matter how much you customize your male or female character, he/she will always have the same base-shape for her skull, which means the hairstyles made for that shape will always fit as long as you scale the hairstyle with it. Changing the fundamental shape of the skull means having to change the hairstyle itself beyond simply changing a variable number.

fluffdragon.1523:

bob.5680:

Simply put, there are more pressing matters to attend to.

I see your dissenting opinion and raise you Lion’s Arch, Kessex Hills, Gendarran Fields, Divinity’s Reach, and all of the other left-over Living Story Season 1 content that has yet to be cleaned up, removed, addressed, or otherwise looked at.

What’s that about “cleaning up” maps? As far as I’m aware, the only map problem is LA being empty during personal story episodes and that’s getting fixed before the expansion. Care to explain?
And I don’t see how you’re arguing against his opinion by offering evidence for his argument?

LucosTheDutch.4819:

fluffdragon.1523:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

[…] they’d have to adjust them to fit the female head shape, and vice-versa. The time it takes to do that could just as well be used to create entirely new hairstyles, which they are doing now.

Goodness, as though the technologies of having mappable bone structures that allow us to dynamically change the size and shape of the head and facial features (that themselves can cause things like the scalp, forehead, and even temples to change drastically) do not exist! Surely they must have developed 1000+ variations of each hairstyle to explicitly fit the shape of all these combinations of head and face sliders! I suppose the hair styles that move and bob too must have a dozen or so different shapes to provide the illusion of motion, as most certainly they too are entirely static!

You don’t know what you’re talking about. Being able the scale your head and therefor scale the hairstyle with it is entirely different than having to accommodate for the fundamentally different shapes of the skulls between male and female.

Welcome to blend shapes and morph targets! Using these allows you to take a skeleton and animate it in hardware through the use of programmable shaders, thus letting you skin a mesh. It’s how we handle lip-sync in speech, fluid and cloth animations, and a bunch of other things.

http://antongerdelan.net/opengl/blend_shapes.html

The people that want this is minuscule so it won’t happen and it’s pretty weird you want this tbh

RoRo.8270:

The people that want this is minuscule so it won’t happen and it’s pretty weird you want this tbh

Yeah wow, jeez, like Iron forbid we might just happen to like a certain hairstyle only available on male Charr but have a female Charr character and think to ourselves, “why not go all the way while we’re at it and let everyone have some fun?”

I mean, wow. Who would ever have different desires or think of other players, amirite?

bob.5680:

Sorry, not worth arguing over to me. I really don’t care. Good luck with this.

Thank you! May your own requests be fruitful as well.

(Though I must question why you ever cared enough to comment in the first place.)

Just offering up what is the most likely reason why it won’t ever be done by Anet is all.

I would definitely have preferred some of the male Charr horns on my female Charr. Also having more options, whether or not some people would appreciate them is never wrong.

fluffdragon.1523:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

fluffdragon.1523:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

[…] they’d have to adjust them to fit the female head shape, and vice-versa. The time it takes to do that could just as well be used to create entirely new hairstyles, which they are doing now.

Goodness, as though the technologies of having mappable bone structures that allow us to dynamically change the size and shape of the head and facial features (that themselves can cause things like the scalp, forehead, and even temples to change drastically) do not exist! Surely they must have developed 1000+ variations of each hairstyle to explicitly fit the shape of all these combinations of head and face sliders! I suppose the hair styles that move and bob too must have a dozen or so different shapes to provide the illusion of motion, as most certainly they too are entirely static!

You don’t know what you’re talking about. Being able the scale your head and therefor scale the hairstyle with it is entirely different than having to accommodate for the fundamentally different shapes of the skulls between male and female.

Welcome to blend shapes and morph targets! Using these allows you to take a skeleton and animate it in hardware through the use of programmable shaders, thus letting you skin a mesh. It’s how we handle lip-sync in speech, fluid and cloth animations, and a bunch of other things.

http://antongerdelan.net/opengl/blend_shapes.html

Blend shapes would not be useful here, as you have to model each shape separately, so it’s not going to save you any work. It even says so in the link you posted.

Like I said, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

(PS: I’m a freelance 3D artist myself who studied 3D visual effects and I’m currently studying game art & development, I’ll be getting my Masters degree next year if everything goes well.)

If you’re going to ask to remove things that give the different sexes flavor and uniqueness, why not ask for the ability to wear armor across both sexes also? Considering we’re all playing digital avatars with their own fantasy lives in a make-believe game world, there hardly seems reason to stop us from representing ourselves and our characters as we see fit.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If you’re going to ask to remove things that give the different sexes flavor and uniqueness, why not ask for the ability to wear armor across both sexes also? Considering we’re all playing digital avatars with their own fantasy lives in a make-believe game world, there hardly seems reason to stop us from representing ourselves and our characters as we see fit.

There are some reasons to stop us from representing ourselves and our characters as we see fit. I for one would not want to play a game were you’re not sure if the person (avatar) in front of you is supposed to be a man or a woman. I think many people feel that way and that is the reason why they prevent us from representing ourselves and our characters as we see fit.

I wouldn’t mind if Anet unified some of the armors between male and female (I vastly prefer the male version of the Phalanx Warplate armor and I wish I could wear that version of my female toons as well) but I don’t want to see cross-dressing being a thing in GW2. If you want that stuff go play Fable or something.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If you’re going to ask to remove things that give the different sexes flavor and uniqueness, why not ask for the ability to wear armor across both sexes also? Considering we’re all playing digital avatars with their own fantasy lives in a make-believe game world, there hardly seems reason to stop us from representing ourselves and our characters as we see fit.

There are some reasons to stop us from representing ourselves and our characters as we see fit. I for one would not want to play a game were you’re not sure if the person (avatar) in front of you is supposed to be a man or a woman. I think many people feel that way and that is the reason why they prevent us from representing ourselves and our characters as we see fit.

I wouldn’t mind if Anet unified some of the armors between male and female (I vastly prefer the male version of the Phalanx Warplate armor and I wish I could wear that version of my female toons as well) but I don’t want to see cross-dressing being a thing in GW2. If you want that stuff go play Fable or something.

You mean like women wearing pants? That’s actually cross dressing. Are you against that? It wasn’t too long ago that women wearing pants were viewed with the same general distaste as men wearing female clothing. In fact, it was considered an abomination and against God. Literally.

In other words, it’s all what your culture tells you is acceptable.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If you’re going to ask to remove things that give the different sexes flavor and uniqueness, why not ask for the ability to wear armor across both sexes also? Considering we’re all playing digital avatars with their own fantasy lives in a make-believe game world, there hardly seems reason to stop us from representing ourselves and our characters as we see fit.

There are some reasons to stop us from representing ourselves and our characters as we see fit. I for one would not want to play a game were you’re not sure if the person (avatar) in front of you is supposed to be a man or a woman. I think many people feel that way and that is the reason why they prevent us from representing ourselves and our characters as we see fit.

I wouldn’t mind if Anet unified some of the armors between male and female (I vastly prefer the male version of the Phalanx Warplate armor and I wish I could wear that version of my female toons as well) but I don’t want to see cross-dressing being a thing in GW2. If you want that stuff go play Fable or something.

You mean like women wearing pants? That’s actually cross dressing. Are you against that? It wasn’t too long ago that women wearing pants were viewed with the same general distaste as men wearing female clothing. In fact, it was considered an abomination and against God. Literally.

In other words, it’s all what your culture tells you is acceptable.

Women wearing pants isn’t cross dressing and never was. Women wearing pants used to be seen as inappropriate, but it was never cross-dressing, considering the fact that women’s pants are different from men’s pants. It would only be cross-dressing if the woman would buy a pair of men’s jeans and wear that, or a man wearing a pair of women’s jeans.

Just like men wearing skirts isn’t cross-dressing either, as long as it’s a men’s skirt they’re wearing and not a women’s skirt. Ever heard of the kilt? It’s the most manly thing ever and it’s a skirt.

Culture has jack to do with this. My culture doesn’t tell me anything. I’m smart and independent enough to make my own decisions on what I find acceptable and what I don’t find acceptable.

While I’m not inherently against cross-dressers, it’s not something I’d like to see in GW2. For the same reason I don’t want to see clown outfits in GW2 even though I have nothing against clowns.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If you’re going to ask to remove things that give the different sexes flavor and uniqueness, why not ask for the ability to wear armor across both sexes also? Considering we’re all playing digital avatars with their own fantasy lives in a make-believe game world, there hardly seems reason to stop us from representing ourselves and our characters as we see fit.

There are some reasons to stop us from representing ourselves and our characters as we see fit. I for one would not want to play a game were you’re not sure if the person (avatar) in front of you is supposed to be a man or a woman. I think many people feel that way and that is the reason why they prevent us from representing ourselves and our characters as we see fit.

I wouldn’t mind if Anet unified some of the armors between male and female (I vastly prefer the male version of the Phalanx Warplate armor and I wish I could wear that version of my female toons as well) but I don’t want to see cross-dressing being a thing in GW2. If you want that stuff go play Fable or something.

You mean like women wearing pants? That’s actually cross dressing. Are you against that? It wasn’t too long ago that women wearing pants were viewed with the same general distaste as men wearing female clothing. In fact, it was considered an abomination and against God. Literally.

In other words, it’s all what your culture tells you is acceptable.

Women wearing pants isn’t cross dressing and never was. Women wearing pants used to be seen as inappropriate, but it was never cross-dressing, considering the fact that women’s pants are different from men’s pants. It would only be cross-dressing if the woman would buy a pair of men’s jeans and wear that, or a man wearing a pair of women’s jeans.

Just like men wearing skirts isn’t cross-dressing either, as long as it’s a men’s skirt they’re wearing and not a women’s skirt. Ever heard of the kilt? It’s the most manly thing ever and it’s a skirt.

Culture has jack to do with this. My culture doesn’t tell me anything. I’m smart and independent enough to make my own decisions on what I find acceptable and what I don’t find acceptable.

While I’m not inherently against cross-dressers, it’s not something I’d like to see in GW2. For the same reason I don’t want to see clown outfits in GW2 even though I have nothing against clowns.

Actually is was cross dressing. The original pants were men’s pants of course, obviously, as there were no pants made for women, and the women were seen as trying to be like men. Pants were most emphatically seen as an article of men’s clothing, just as dresses are women’s. The Bible also condemned women for wearing male attire (pants).

It’s very much culture related.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_wearing_trousers_in_the_Western_world_after_1900
“In 1919, Luisa Capetillo challenged the mainstream society by becoming the first woman in Puerto Rico to wear trousers in public. Capetillo was sent to jail for what was then considered to be a “crime”, but, the judge later dropped the charges against her.

Women were not allowed to wear trousers on the U.S. Senate floor until 1993. In 1993, Senators Barbara Mikulski and Carol Moseley Braun wore trousers onto the floor in defiance of the rule, and female support staff followed soon after, with the rule being amended later that year by Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Martha Pope to allow women to wear trousers on the floor so long as they also wore a jacket."

I’m female and I remember when they first allowed us females to wear pants in school. They couldn’t be jeans or regular pants. We had to wear pantsuits, a pants and tunic like combination as jeans were too masculine for us girls to wear.

They should do it for hair stylez~ a lot of the Sylvari hair styles are unisex anyways and are still genderlocked for some reason..

I’ma +1 this, if only for fluffdragon’s posts being awesome.

I would say this isn’t something that’s going to happen because let’s be honest here – there are more relevant things to do with developer resources.
I understand your plight OP – on paper it sounds good but the very very very small portion of the player base that this would affect isn’t worth spending the time and resources it would take to do it.

You’d be better off fixing bugs, clipping issues or creating new content.

Simply put – with limited time and resources you want to get the most bang for your buck when you work on something.
Your suggestion doesn’t even come close to a good investment to return benefit.

Why not allow asura to have charr haircuts?

For better or worse, the game is designed to offer different looks for each gender of each race, different armor skins for each race, and different armor skins for each weight of armor.

It’s fine to want a truly neutral aesthetic for gender, race, or class. I can’t imagine, however, that it’s worth ANet’s time to invest in this. You are probably more likely to get results by requesting this sort of thing from publishers of games not yet released.

Oh great, more political correctness infecting our video games. No thanks. Look how many identities Facebook added. Are you willing to have the devs waste their time on adding all these other identities too? Where does it stop?

99% of players aren’t androgynous, and the 1% would be trolling with ridiculous looking characters. Just look at Aion and you’ll know what i mean.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

(PS: I’m a freelance 3D artist myself who studied 3D visual effects and I’m currently studying game art & development, I’ll be getting my Masters degree next year if everything goes well.)

Please continue to wave your “credentials” around. It’s truly so very inspiring.

I’m still amazed you haven’t caught on to how the very faces and “skulls” in the game you’re talking about even work.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If you’re going to ask to remove things that give the different sexes flavor and uniqueness, why not ask for the ability to wear armor across both sexes also?

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Why not allow asura to have charr haircuts?

I see we’ll need to adjust the trajectory on the Cattlepult to get this one to hit you two squarely between the eyes. Looks live we’ve got it a few dozen clicks too high right now.

nexxe.7081:

Oh great, more political correctness infecting our video games.

You’re a very special kind of bookah, but since it was inevitable that someone was going to drag all that in here, I might as well say it:

This is, has been, and always will be about my vanity as a player in a game built by a company that has monetized our vanity.

That aside, if you’re so terribly threatened by people not fitting your preconceived molds for them, perhaps the internet (or outside at all) isn’t quite the place for you?

Harper.4173:

You’d be better off fixing bugs, clipping issues or creating new content.

Simply put – with limited time and resources you want to get the most bang for your buck when you work on something.

Indeed! In fact, ANet is so dedicated to fixing bugs, clipping errors, and introducing new content that just about nothing has been done about misaligned and mishappen hitboxes on numerous objects, animation problems on multi-input, armor clipping on charr everything, a load of heavy and light armor just trying to become a defense singularity, and the Silverwastes and Dry Top being about the only fundamentally “new” content we’ve seen in months!

Yes, tell me more about this buck-banging.

that aside …

To Doggie.3184, Kal Spiro.9745, and Jelle.2807: thank you for taking the time to read the OP and chime in. Your input is invaluable.

I’d definitely support more variety among hairstyles, but believe somewhat firmly in gender locking for GW2. That sort of androgyny would better suit a more mature, grittier game world.

fluffdragon.1523:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Why not allow asura to have charr haircuts?

I see we’ll need to adjust the trajectory on the Cattlepult to get this one to hit you two squarely between the eyes. Looks live we’ve got it a few dozen clicks too high right now.

When you consider that Norn and humans, which are 2 separate species just as an Asuran is a different species, have at least one hairstyle that is identical to both and one female Asuran hairstyle is pigtails, then why object to hairstyles across species lines?

It’s hair. It can be cut and styled. How does species matter?

fluffdragon.1523:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

(PS: I’m a freelance 3D artist myself who studied 3D visual effects and I’m currently studying game art & development, I’ll be getting my Masters degree next year if everything goes well.)

Please continue to wave your “credentials” around. It’s truly so very inspiring.

I’m still amazed you haven’t caught on to how the very faces and “skulls” in the game you’re talking about even work.

At least I have some credentials?

I know exactly how the faces and skulls work on this game and that’s why I know that you can’t simply put a hairstyle designed for the skull of a male norn on the skull of a female norn with the click of a button. You’d have to alter the hairstyle or in the worst case, completely rebuild it.

Considering the fact that artists in this line of work get paid $50,- per hour on average (at least that’s what I get paid and many of my colleagues too), “simply removing the gender-lock” is gonna be a very costly undertaking. That is time and money Anet could better spend elsewhere.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If you’re going to ask to remove things that give the different sexes flavor and uniqueness, why not ask for the ability to wear armor across both sexes also? Considering we’re all playing digital avatars with their own fantasy lives in a make-believe game world, there hardly seems reason to stop us from representing ourselves and our characters as we see fit.

Mmmm … pants … oh wait males have to wear dresses for light armor as well.

OP Needs to stop being so condescending towards others if he/she wants this thread to go anywhere good.

No comment on the hairstyles, but Charr horns can’t be gender-unlocked because they actually are supposed to look different for males and females.

Look at the range of options for females and males – male horns tend to be larger and curve forward, while female horns are mostly smaller and swept back. The only female exception I can think of is the Rox horns, which have always looked wrong to me. And look at the way they connect to the head – males have a serious brow ridge where the main pair of horns connects, while the females don’t have that at all, and in fact their main pair of horns emerges much farther back on the skull. Putting male horns on a female skull, or vice-versa, would not only remove one of the main gender distinctions, it simply wouldn’t work without a lot of remodeling.

Baolun.8316:

Look at the range of options for females and males – male horns tend to be larger and curve forward, while female horns are mostly smaller and swept back. The only female exception I can think of is the Rox horns, which have always looked wrong to me. And look at the way they connect to the head – males have a serious brow ridge where the main pair of horns connects, while the females don’t have that at all, and in fact their main pair of horns emerges much farther back on the skull. Putting male horns on a female skull, or vice-versa, would not only remove one of the main gender distinctions, it simply wouldn’t work without a lot of remodeling.

Yeah, there are definite differences between female and male charr models. The female charr have smaller teeth and lower jaws, and yes, generally speaking, the horns tend to be smaller on females. Also, female charr tails have longer fur on almost the entire length of the tail; the male charr tails just have the long tuft of fur at the very end of the tail.

fluffdragon.1523:

Indeed! In fact, ANet is so dedicated to fixing bugs, clipping errors, and introducing new content that just about nothing has been done about misaligned and mishappen hitboxes on numerous objects, animation problems on multi-input, armor clipping on charr everything, a load of heavy and light armor just trying to become a defense singularity, and the Silverwastes and Dry Top being about the only fundamentally “new” content we’ve seen in months!

Yes, tell me more about this buck-banging.

Precisely – they’re already far behind on important things that would be relevant for the majority of the community.
The situation is pretty bad as it is – I don’t see how wasting MORE resources in extremely niche directions helps anything.

Baolun.8316:

No comment on the hairstyles, but Charr horns can’t be gender-unlocked because they actually are supposed to look different for males and females.

Look at the range of options for females and males – male horns tend to be larger and curve forward, while female horns are mostly smaller and swept back. The only female exception I can think of is the Rox horns, which have always looked wrong to me. And look at the way they connect to the head – males have a serious brow ridge where the main pair of horns connects, while the females don’t have that at all, and in fact their main pair of horns emerges much farther back on the skull. Putting male horns on a female skull, or vice-versa, would not only remove one of the main gender distinctions, it simply wouldn’t work without a lot of remodeling.

You’re right. And this is also the case for humans and norn, though the difference in the shape of the skull between males and females is more noticeable with the norn than with the humans.

On top of that I think the vast majority of us (lets say 95% of the playerbase, if not more) would agree that gender-swapping hairstyles would look just downright awful and silly. I don’t want gender-bending and cross-dressing in GW2 and neither does Anet. It wouldn’t fit the aesthetics of the game.

If you want to do gender-bending and cross-dressing, go play Fable or Saints Row or other silly games that allow you to do that sort of stuff.

fluffdragon.1523:

By the six, you’re right! A game we’ve paid for and will continue to do so while ArenaNet monetizes on Cash Shop items that are only available through transactions of real money.

Well, you say that, but if you make enough gold in game you can buy gems with it to buy stuff…

Pretty sure that is what quite a lot of people are doing and at least partly why at least some of them are so determined to continue maximising things like dungeon speedrun efficiency.

So, if you’re still buying all your stuff with real life money, you may be one of the relatively few, at this stage, who still are and you will, almost certainly, be effectively subsidising people who aren’t.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Women wearing pants isn’t cross dressing and never was. Women wearing pants used to be seen as inappropriate, but it was never cross-dressing, considering the fact that women’s pants are different from men’s pants. It would only be cross-dressing if the woman would buy a pair of men’s jeans and wear that, or a man wearing a pair of women’s jeans.

I know it’s ridiculous, but many people did see it as cross-dressing, in the 1930s, or whatever.

They viewed it in the same kind of way as if (non-kilt) skirts had been made for (and worn by) men.

We’re just so used to it, now, that we no longer realise that.

The OPs suggestion is sensible. More options would be better, and a little androgyny never hurt anyone.

And yes, the allocation of resources is a concern, but that is true for any suggestion made, ever. And no matter where you allocate those resources, there will always be someone saying that those resources would be better spent somewhere else.

No one (including the OP) is claiming that this is such a high priority that work on everything else should be dropped, but it’s certainly something that could be considered.

Theres already enough fluff incomming with the cashshop, which has nothing to do with the guildwars lore and world. I’m not a fan of changing this game into a dressup -makeup contest (ala the Sims). Theres already to many of that now. In my opinion no go. More beards and mature faces with character for the human mans would be nice, they are much to clean (not manly) right now.

Warlord.9074:

Because it takes, work and money to do that and this is a free game. And yea I am sure a few people would pick more girly looking hair on a male there are already a loot of long hair options and the number of players that would take the already existing long hair options to a whole new level of adding bows and stuff like that is small. So its a waste of time for anet to do that plus some of the girl styles would look ridiculous on a male character.

……..GW2 is by definition not a free game. The kitten are you on?

@Lucos you did well in explaining what you could. People that have worked on game engines know the limitations on what you can do or not.

Yes anet can do the mix of gender things but it would take 3 to 4 years to do, and will have to pay a sum over 2 to 3 million for the making all of it.

Art is expensive even in the 3d world try looking up models and there prices. You would be surprised of how much a 1000+ polygon tree can cost. More then a game its self.

I’ve always felt that these things should be based on what race you choose so that it better reflects the culture. Sylvari, while many have started following the dichotomy of humans, tend to be androgynous according to lore. So why do they follow the male and female armor and body features? Asura sexes are supposed to be hard to tell apart because they don’t have many/noticeable natural differences. Humans should have those huge differences because they have stricter societal rules about what they wear and how they look- like in real life.
It would be more immersive to me if there were things like this in the game.

fluffdragon.1523:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

[…] they’d have to adjust them to fit the female head shape, and vice-versa. The time it takes to do that could just as well be used to create entirely new hairstyles, which they are doing now.

Goodness, as though the technologies of having mappable bone structures that allow us to dynamically change the size and shape of the head and facial features (that themselves can cause things like the scalp, forehead, and even temples to change drastically) do not exist! Surely they must have developed 1000+ variations of each hairstyle to explicitly fit the shape of all these combinations of head and face sliders! I suppose the hair styles that move and bob too must have a dozen or so different shapes to provide the illusion of motion, as most certainly they too are entirely static!

Warlord.9074:

Because it takes, work and money to do that and this is a free game.

By the six, you’re right! A game we’ve paid for and will continue to do so while ArenaNet monetizes on Cash Shop items that are only available through transactions of real money. And let’s not forget that expansion that’s coming out or all the Living Story content they gave us.

Their interest is in selling the game and keeping us buying things. If that means needing a Makeover Kit to swap between gendered customizations, so be it.

Do you know anything about character rigging? Please do some research before you pretend matching parts of one model to another is somehow simple because a magical computer system might exist.

For the record I am a 3D animation student about to graduate next year. I know a hell of a lot about Maya and the technical aspects of 3D modeling and animation. If you have any questions I would be happy to answer when I get home later.

For example, you talk about facial sliders which create variation. That is accomplished by something called a Deformer, or a Blend Shape. It is not built for the purpose of fitting (for example) hairs to a head. They are strictly to control facial expressions (in the context of the face. Deformers can be used for many things, but they are not magical “fit-it” buttons. They require skill and knowledge.). The hairs themselves must be fit to the top of the skull which doesn’t deform. A Deformer might be used on the hair itself to emulate swish and movement while the character moves, governed by a script, or simply animated tediously.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

fluffdragon.1523:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

(PS: I’m a freelance 3D artist myself who studied 3D visual effects and I’m currently studying game art & development, I’ll be getting my Masters degree next year if everything goes well.)

Please continue to wave your “credentials” around. It’s truly so very inspiring.

I’m still amazed you haven’t caught on to how the very faces and “skulls” in the game you’re talking about even work.

At least I have some credentials?

I know exactly how the faces and skulls work on this game and that’s why I know that you can’t simply put a hairstyle designed for the skull of a male norn on the skull of a female norn with the click of a button. You’d have to alter the hairstyle or in the worst case, completely rebuild it.

Considering the fact that artists in this line of work get paid $50,- per hour on average (at least that’s what I get paid and many of my colleagues too), “simply removing the gender-lock” is gonna be a very costly undertaking. That is time and money Anet could better spend elsewhere.

I feel your pain right now Lucos…

@fluff dragon

You aren’t winning any points by treating 3D artists with experience like dirt… Intuition alone is not sufficient to understand how 3D systems work. You shouldn’t dismiss those who have more knowledge about a particular subject. 3D modeling, rigging, and animation are full time careers for these folks. They aren’t throwing you armchair comments about a hobby. This is their livelyhood.

Having access to the gear horns on my male charr engie would be pretty boss.