LORD GOD, TAKE THESE EYES SO THAT I MIGHT NO LONGER SEE SUCH AS THIS [Author: lum]

Wow.

I have to confess some things first:

1) I have NOT read the enitre thread. I stopped at page 22 and glossed over the last page.

2) I canNOT see what the big deal is. (Don’t jump on me immediately for dismissing your concern!)

Ok, that second one will induce some controversy. Here’s what I mean.

I understand Leitgardis’ original post, its entire intent, and her feelings about the dress’ addition into her safe environment.

I do NOT agree with it.

I play almost exclusively female characters. Yes. It’s true. I just happen to LIKE women more than men. Playing a female character is NOT some bizarre manifestation of some latent homosexuality, nor some cry of need for a mother I never knew or any such nonsense. I just like women better than I like men. (Sorry guys!)

So from the get-go when dresses were requested by women because they wanted an option to look more feminine at times, I complied. It was a side project, and it took some time, but last month, we had some time, so we did it. I didn’t do the textures, Mike Sheidow did. And he did a great job. However, most of the art team were present during its many stages. We resisted any suggestion of adding “enhancements” to the current design. We made sure it was tasteful.

Let me tell you the history of the dress requests. It had little or nothing to do with bumpfuzzling. Yes, some vocal females (who I happen to KNOW are real feamles (R U a grrl IRL? – YES!) did spend the better part of this year requesting them, but the request goes back. Way back.

To the first wedding I ever attended in Dereth. During a very small Beta, two players got married, and several dev characters attended. The bride’s biggest lament on her happy occasion was that she didn’t have a dress to wear.

I took that to heart. (Yes, the player was female.)

So we designed four dresses. We did three conservative dresses for the women who, while wanting to look female and feminine, did NOT want to look overtly sexual. Then we tossed one in for those who did.

And let me make this clear. THERE ARE THOSE WHO DID!

To eliminate this choice from them made no sense to me, just to ensure that the women playing who did NOT want to be taunted were secure in their non-sexual roles. Please. Go ahead and continue to be secure in your non-sexual roles by not wearing that particular dress.

Let me also say this: I have been harrassed by morons in AC. Yes. I have. I play a female, and have had several people say inappropriate things to me. BEFORE the dress.

We added a wonderful @squelch option to eliminate that kind of harrassment.

If a player seems to think that this kind of behavior will get worse if she’s wearing that dress, do not wear the dress. I think that’s pretty simple, while not dismissing your concerns outright.

Somewhere recently it a great quote came to my eyes “A Puritan is someone who has a deadly fear that somewhere, someone is having fun.” Sorry, but the anti-dress argument seems to be puritanism at its height, if you accept this definition.

If you are not personally being gawked at by some hormonally over-sufficient male, someone else may be. We had better put a stop to that.

No.

What you do is choose not to partake. Let the others fend for themselves. They’re adults after all, aren’t they? (Well, perhaps not, but they are as capable of using @squelch as you are.)

This “tempest in a D-Cup” as my colleague so humorously put it — you really should get to know this guy, he’s a hoot! — will blow over.

I also highly suspect that BECAUSE of this thread and its uproar, more people in-game are now more likely to approach someone in that dress and say “Hey, nice tits.” I seriously do. Because they know they will be upsetting someone. Those people exist. Sad but true. Any hint of controversy brings them out. And this is one STINKER of a controversy – over nothing.

I have not polled all the women at Turbine about the dress. There are around nine women here. Of them, only one I know has seen the dress doesn’t like it. I have not yet discussed it at length with her, but of the ones who have seen it, every one of them likes the dress. All are somewhat taken aback at its reaction.

Some feel that by “hiding” the dress and handing out only one color (red — uh-oh!) we were trying to pull a fast one. Not true. We intended to more widely distribute it.

I’ve heard quotes like “I LIKE the three dresses, I just don’t see the need for the fourth.” Well some do. Hell, I like all four. My character usually wears the Sho dress, as she’s Sho, and it looks very nice on her. But she pulls out the red one at times. And she’s looking for someone who will dye it green for her.

The way leather crafters work we can’t have a dress made to the color of the one handed in. The crafter can only hand back ONE color at the moment. However Eri, the lead designer of AC, wanted to put these dresses in shops alongside the other ones. Which is probably what will happen.

I kind of liked the need to pro-actively alter the dress myself. Like passing in your old Olthoi Helm for the new one, it gave you a bit of something to DO to get this version. It lent a kind of exclusive air. But I also want all colors available, especially the white one for weddings. We seem to have a few of those.

So how the dress will be distributed is not yet fully decided, but it WILL be distributed. Why? BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE THEM.

I have publicly stated that this is NOT the thin edge of some slippery slope/wedge. I will not be adding chain-mail cast-iron g-strings any time soon. Not while I’m the lead artist.

AC was designed from the ground up to be a game that is friendly to women. We actively seek that under-represented market. Yes. We do. We did NOT do so by just wrapping it in a pink box. (Which seems to work wonders for Mattel)

As an aside, let me bring up Pac Man. Not a game played by a lot of women. But guess what those clever programmers and designers did? THey added a BOW to the head, with lipstick, and called it Mrs. Pac Man, (adding some game features as is the norm for the “next version” of any game) and suddenly it’s the most popular video game among women in history to that point. The fact is that more female players will play a role that is overtly feminine.

That said, the dress was NOT a marketing ploy to attract more women, or to piss off “feminazis”. It was not a move AGAINST our female players.

The inclusion of the dress was another step FOR women. Not against them. WOMEN want this dress. For every leering testosterone-overcharged idiot who makes a snide comment about this dress, I’m willing to bet there are far more females who will gladly wear it and smile. IF they want to. For those who don’t, there are three other stlyes that are more conservative.

What I object to, Lietgardis, is your seeming “Me me me” attitude. “I like choice, but only ones pre-approved by me.”

Am I putting words in your mouth? Yeah. But I’m simply paraphrasing your argument as I see it. And as others are apparently seeing it. Your original intent is lost within your reasoning and follow-ups. As I stated before, I fully undersand your original intent, but your words have belied it. There seems to be something far more deep and emotional about this dress that distresses you, not just the fact that you think it’s going to pollute your safe environment.

Why is this thread so long? Because every time you jump in to defend your position, you (and your handful of vocal supporters) simply restate your original argument, adding nothing, but getting more and more upset about it. And people enjoy getting your goat. THey see you are stubbornly unwavering in your resolve, and are just bating you.

And you
h
ave shown that you cannot support your argument in a way that will sway the other side. At which point you are simply dogging the issue, and getting ever-more frustrated.

To you we have somehow made AC something less than it was. Au contraire! We have ADDED something to it.

This dress is far from offensive in any way. I have shown it to as many people as I can. With perhaps one exception, everyone loves it. I love it. I was in-game last night, and five female characters were wearing it. Not the others, though they had them on-hand, as we did a bit of a fashion show, showing each other the various colors we had found, but when it came down to the end, we were all wearing the red low-cut dress. Why?

BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE IT! I heard nothing but praise for it in a crowd of perhaps thirty people. And not one leering comment.

I think the dress is worthy of discussion. In the same way the heaume was. However, it is certainly not worthy of some of the posts that appeared here. I’m actually rather shocked that we received space on the LUM site. I check occasionally for news here, but rarely does AC show up.

I guess we must be doing something right, if the only news is about a tasteful (yes!) dress.

I’m not here to defend myself or Turbine. There is no need. We responded to a long-standing request from many many players, ourselves included, and I am extremely satisfied with the overall response it got.

When you make a change that can be seen by this many people, I expect not only to get many different types of responses, but EVERY SINGLE TYPE of response possible. That’s just how it is with large groups.

But I have to say this one took me aback somewhat.

The low-cut dress was a little bit of nothing that took about two minutes of Sean Huxter’s time. We thought it’d be a fun addition. Instead we get this accusation leveled at us that we’re all in the thrall of a small Discussions board clique that moved on from the issue months ago.

Frankly, I find the assertion offensive, ridiculous, and an unwarranted attack on some very smart, hardworking, and dedicated people.

I am going to break it down, Reader Rabbit style:

• I do not like the red dress.
• I am disappointed that it went in to the game, it feels very unnecessarily sexual in light of the very feminine Kireth gowns. Yes folks, showing half your breasts is generally considered sexual.
• I do not want the dress removed, since it would be unfair to those who already got one.
• I do wish it had not gone in originally, but such is life.
• I firmly believe that Turbine will not add such racy things in the future, because the people asking for them (a small minority or a large minority, it depends on who you ask) got what they wanted, and no longer need to be pleased.
• I am not mad at Turbine. At all. I appreciate their efforts, even if I consider it a poor choice of things to add.

Um, Lietgardis…..people have a right to choose a clothing style that you might not personally choose yourself. It was good of Turbine to listen to players, and it was good of them to give players a choice of clothing styles.

The “against the dress” people are just whiners who have nothing to do but find *something* to bitch at. I bet they’ve been following AC for months to find something to rant about. And this is it? C’mon!

I’m sorry your feelings are hurt and that you’re disappointed. Life tends to present the same challenges to us over and again untiul we get it right. Fortunately this is your privilege, but maybe also you are failing a recurring life challenge as well.

I wish you’d dig a little deeper into the ramifications of an AC that is only “decent”. Exploring the motives of people who behave badly is focusing on the wrong part of th

e problem. One simply forces them to live with the consequences – only real change, real growth, comes from inside.

Actually my personal opinion is that this entire thread is more click whoring to take advantage of the new banner ads.

The real definition of maturity remains: learning when to clench your jaw and walk away. Insisting that we have the right to impose our will on trivial, even just by being a Disappointed Moderator on a Popular Industry Chat Site, is precisely the best way to lock in society’s ills.

Oh you aren’t using your bully pulpit to effect change? Oh, you are “just disappointed”? Liet, genuinely mature people clench their jaw and walkaway when they are “disappointed”. They don’t run to their employer and use their employer’s facilities to organize a “we’re disappointed too but in a nice way” gang.

I’ve watched you and Arc just plummet into the yellow journalism hole several times recently. Lum somehow manages to present genuine controversy without sounding petty in the process. Myschyf often does as well even if she too has had her moments, and LoH often comes across like Myschyf which adds a nice symmetry to things.

And Hedron bless his heart has managed to provoke significant discussion without once pointing at boobies and snickering about how mature HE is because HE’s not fixated on silly immature things like boobies (teehee boobies “oh I’m so disappointed!” teehee boobies)…

Uh huh… yeah I’m disappointed too.

Will a sexy red skirt automatically start this trend in AC, I would venture to say probably not… Is the red dress a good thing, I suppose it has it’s uses. Will it effect Liet’s gameplay, probably not. Does it lessen the community, barely (if at all). So you would ask me, and rightfully so, why bitch about it if it only effects the person wearing it (if it even effects them)?

Two reasons :

Because it should be bitched about.

To keep it from going any further. As long as it is only a dress with a lower bust line, it doesn’t change much about the game. The problem becomes the direction in which it takes the game. Lower bust line today, Xena armor tomorrow. It’s a large jump, but it could happen with a few lesser jumps in between the two.

Women are more than just breasts, and saying that feminity, or even sexuality boils down to cleavage is stupid, and a very simple answer to a very complex question. Being a mature, intelligent, strong woman does not mean that I get off on flashing my breasts to “prove” my power, which seems to be the type of feminism you are branding as “real”.

You’ve also completely missed the point of the article, at least how I saw it.

This industry is sexist, it does pander to the “lowest common denominator” (which I may note is not all men, or even all teenage boys, but a concept the game designers have of the typical “teenage boy”) and frankly as a woman gamer, it’s hard not to notice the fact that all women characters are good for, by and large, is to spread their legs, show off their gigantic breasts, and sell products. It’s offensive. I can see how the author would feel that Turbine was “selling out” in this dress.

I am freakin tired of having to discuss women’s sexuality all the time in the context of the computer game industry. I want to just play a game, damnit, I don’t want to have it thrown in my face what certain men and women think women are all about. It isn’t that I’m too “fragile” to handle the situation, it’s just that I don’t want to, and I get more upset the more I see it. I’m sure more men would understand if it was THEIR bodies and THEIR worth boiled down to their genitals in 95% of the games they played.

I don’t want to have to “hide” as a male character, and frankly, I think that it is ludicrous that this poster even hinted that was the answer to harassment. So it is MY fault that other people react to the sexist image of my character, some flaw in me that keeps me playing a female character (I’d like to note that women almost always choose female characters while men choose 50/50. I would tend to think that reason is because we identify more with our character on the screen)? I think it is more the fault of the developers for creating an environment that brings out these kinds of comments, and the immature players who react to them. I should not suffer for it.

Additionally, this site frequently refers to Tweety in positive tones… and Tweety’s most recent rant makes reference to *gasp* Oral Sex, kind of more risquee than a low cut dress?

I’m sorry, this article and it’s follow up clarification smacks of hypocrisy in many ways.

A RP story with some extreme graphic detail shouldn’t be touched since it occured on an outside forum (and for the record, I was pissed enough at Verant over that and other things to quit EQ), but god forbid a dress that shows cleavage… which is NOT REQUIRED APPARAL is somehow horrid?

What I find pathetic is that I expected Lum’s attitude to be more like everyone else’s ins

tead of his weak ass, noncommital comment. This used to be a rant site but it’s quickly becoming a whine site.