Do realistic and idealized character/attire designs have to be at odds?

[Shagger]

Wait a minute @m76, I thought you didn't like playing games with character nude or at an "underwear" level of dress (Mature individuals can take such images without getting so prudish because we are psychologically able to detach the nude form from sex, but that's beside the point.), so why on earth would you advocate for Mortal Kombat characters to show more skin? This shit doesn't affect the gameplay either way, so it doesn't change the game. So there was, according to you (without reliable links you've proven nothing, btw) some social/political motivations with the creative design of the characters. So. Fucking. What. That doesn't change the fact it's still thier creative liberty. It doesn't stop you enjoying the game. In fact, if you statement about not enjoying games with partial nudity is true, it should help you, so why complain? Nothing you say makes any sense and you contradict yourself all the time.

 

When you make the comparison between the outfits in Mortal Kombat and fighters in MMA, you don't show any pictures to prove you point. It's plain to see why. Given that this is what a female fighter (Jade) in MK looked like in MK9;

 

 

And this is how a female MMA fighter dresses for the a UFC fight.

 

 

Come on! you can't seriously be implying that's the same? I mean, are you blind?

 

The closet thing I've ever seen to someone wearing an outfit like that in combat sports was WWE star Zelina Vega's cosplay of Jade, and she didn't even wear this outfit in a wrestling ring, it was only for a PA and photo shoot.

 

 

This shoot was clearly meant to be sexy and there is nothing wrong with that, that's the point of the outfit. Just because the character is made of pixels and not flesh and blood doesn't change the purpose in outfit's design. I don't know what planet you're living on, but it's obviously not on earth.

Edited September 27, 2021 by Shagger

[m76]

11 minutes ago, Shagger said:

Wait a minute @m76, I thought you didn't like playing games with character nude or at an "underwear" level of dress (Mature individuals can take such images without getting so prudish because we are psychologically able to detach the nude form from sex, but that's beside the point.),

I already stated it's not about me, yet you keep trying to make this about me. Funny that you try to defend one developers decision to fully cover women. While at the same time saying I'm immature for not wanting to run around naked in RPGs. Then that would make fully covering women even more immature. At least I Don't discriminate between genders, because I'm just as uncomfortable running around naked with a male character as a female. Don't try to make it about sex, I'm not uncomfortable playing games with nude characters because I'm prudish about sex. It is you, Shagger who again conflates sex appeal with nudism, not me.

11 minutes ago, Shagger said:

so why on earth would you advocate for Mortal Kombat characters to show more skin?

They deliberately made a change that they knew their fanbase would dislike, I'm advocating against that and the dishonesty  the sexism and the disrespect surrounding it.
And no I would not want characters to wear nothing in MK either. Do you think the only two options are butt naked or full chador with nothing in between?

11 minutes ago, Shagger said:

This shit doesn't affect the gameplay either way, so it doesn't change the game.

We've been through this. Of course it changes the game, characters visual appearance is a huge impact on how you perceive them.  For example multiple RPGs has evil characters that are represented as either good looking men, or women. And because of the fact that they have sex appeal players become reluctant to punish them or remove them from their parties. So appearance does matter, even beyond the superficial function of eyecandy.

11 minutes ago, Shagger said:

So there was, according to you (without reliable links you've proven nothing, btw)

Those are direct quotes from the horses mouth, what else do you want?  I'd never lie to progress an agenda. Because to me truth and fairness are the most important values. If you are going to accuse me of lying or making shit up you'd better stop talking to me right now.

11 minutes ago, Shagger said:

some social/political motivations with the creative design of the characters. So. Fucking. What.

So fucking what? LOL. You have been going around denying that this is going on, which was the central point of your constant mockery of me, and now when confronted with reality all you have to say is so fucking what?

11 minutes ago, Shagger said:

That doesn't change the fact it's still thier creative liberty. It doesn't stop you enjoying the game. In fact, if you statement about not enjoying games with partial nudity is true, it should help you, so why complain? Nothing you say makes any sense and you contradict yourself all the time.

It doesn't stop me from enjoying the game, although it slightly diminishes the experience when a game eradicates all sex appeal. The point is if they decide to use the game as a political platform I'm going to show my disapproval of that by refraining from giving them my money.  They are free to put as much messaging and virtue signalling as they want in their game, and I'm free to chose not to buy it then. I'm also free to voice my disapproval of their ways by exercising my freedom of speech. 

11 minutes ago, Shagger said:

 

When you make the comparison between the outfits in Mortal Kombat and fighters in MMA, you don't show any pictures to prove you point. It's plain to see why. Given that this is what a female fighter (Jade) in MK looked like in MK9;

 

 

 

And this is how a female MMA fighter dresses for the a UFC fight.

 

 

Come on! you can't seriously be implying that's the same? I mean, are you blind?

Hey mr strawman here we go again. I never said it was the same, I brought up mma fighting because the designer argued you wouldn't want to show skin for a fight. No other reason.

11 minutes ago, Shagger said:

 

The closet thing I've ever seen to someone wearing an outfit like that in combat sports was WWE star Zelina Vega's cosplay of Jade, and she didn't even wear this outfit in a wrestling ring, it was only for a PA and photo shoot.

 

 

This shoot was clearly meant to be sexy and there is nothing wrong with that, that's the point of the outfit. Just because the character is made of pixels and not flesh and blood doesn't change the purpose in outfit's design. I don't know what planet you're living on, but it's obviously not on earth.

You hit the nail on the head. The purpose of the outfits in MK was to be sexy, nothing less, nothing more. Nobody expected any realism from a game where you can break the opponents back, burn them alive, or impale them and they keep on fighting like nothing has happened.

[Shagger]

@m76

 

So the design of the outfits in MK9 were meant to be sexy. That's fair. That the creative liberty of the dev's, and like I've said that's something I'd advocate for. So if the dev's take a different approach in later games, why can not that not as creative liberty as well? No, it has to the work of the booby police spoiling you fun in name of, god forbid, "feminism". That's ultimately the problem I have with your stance. You can't pick and choose when a developer has and does not the right to creative liberty just because you don't like the choice they made. It would obviously never be a "political" choice when you like it. That's why you, along all the other man-babies that always complain about this, are hypocrites. Stop lying about supporting a developers right to make thier own creative choices, because you obviously don't support that at all. 

[Crazycrab]

36 minutes ago, m76 said:

Those are direct quotes from the horses mouth, what else do you want?  I'd never lie to progress an agenda. Because to me truth and fairness are the most important values. If you are going to accuse me of lying or making shit up you'd better stop talking to me right now.

 

The reason why you should post links to your sources is because we need to see them for ourselves. When we can do that we can see the whole thing in context and come to our own conclusion about how credible it is.  In this case it might only part of what they said, or it might be hear say.  I'm not saying it's any of those but it you posted a link to the entire interview then I'd KNOW it wasn't.

 

Look at my earlier post, I included links to articles, videos and images to support my points.  So when I said that Hideo Kojima made a statement in response to the pushback that they got with Quiet's character design you don't need to take my word for it.  I actually give the link to an article containing his statements.  When I state what their "reasoning" as to why Quiet's outfit was the way it is I didn't just quote or paraphrase.  I actually show you the moment in game when Ocelot explains it.  You see what I mean?

[Shagger]

23 minutes ago, Crazycrab said:

 

The reason why you should post links to your sources is because we need to see them for ourselves. When we can do that we can see the whole thing in context and come to our own conclusion about how credible it is.  In this case it might only part of what they said, or it might be hear say.  I'm not saying it's any of those but it you posted a link to the entire interview then I'd KNOW it wasn't.

 

Look at my earlier post, I included links to articles, videos and images to support my points.  So when I said that Hideo Kojima made a statement in response to the pushback that they got with Quiet's character design you don't need to take my word for it.  I actually give the link to an article containing his statements.  When I state what their "reasoning" as to why Quiet's outfit was the way it is I didn't just quote or paraphrase.  I actually show you the moment in game when Ocelot explains it.  You see what I mean?

 

He doesn't have to appraise the credibility of his sources and prove they aren't a madman's ramblings, remember who were talking about here;

 

 

[Reality vs Adventure]

3 hours ago, m76 said:

Mortal Kombat was actually very progressive as it completely ignores traditional gender roles and put men and women as equals in the ring, but now this guy comes along and says we must cover up the female characters. Which is actual sexism imho, discrimination towards women, and what they are allowed to wear. A page from the book of Islam, demanding women to be fully covered up lest they use their feminine wiles on men.

Woah, that's a very political accusation there. So do you really think that there is a conspiracy to turn women into Islam skin phobes fully covered head to toe? And covering them up is discrimination and uncovering them isn't? Why is desexualizing a character a political decision, and sexualizing the character isn’t? 

3 hours ago, m76 said:

There were several interviews where they mention "oversexualized" and how they are toning it down. For example here is a quote from Resident Evil 3 remake's art director:

The original design of Jill Valentine was clearly going for sex appeal, that was not the right direction. This is a very strong character, and it is a character that's going through a lot of adversity, so we wanted to home in on that and make sure that there's a certain level of believability in what she's wearing

So this person thinks, that a female character can only believably be strong if her sexual appeal is toned down and her body is fully covered up. The characters never set out to go zombie hunting in sexy skimpy clothes, that would be stupid. They are wearing whatever they happened to wear when the outbreak started, so in that sense any clothing is believable. Again realism is used as an excuse here to cover up the characters, when clearly it is not the real reason.

Or here is the ominous MK11 quote from the art director:

“Our design is just getting more mature and respectful. You’re not going to wear a bikini to a fight. You’re not going to be showing so much skin. I think it’s just what the game is about: You’re going in to fight for your life, and you’re not going to be wearing such scantily clad items. I’m sure that will disappoint some fans. We don’t have bathing suit fighters, and I think that’s fine. If people are disappointed, I don’t regret making that change by any means.”

This is just wrong on so many levels. First off if anyone saw a real MMA fight the fighters wear very little tight fitting clothing both male and female, because baggy clothes restrict movement, and the opponent can grab a hold of the clothing which would be another disadvantage. So the realism argument falls on its face immediately. Even if we disregard that the male fighters have much more revealing costumes in the game. But even worse is the mature and respectful part, which implies that all fans of series up to this point were immature.

In RE3 remake and MK11 I don’t see any clear political motivation in those quotes for their decisions; they simply exercised their creative freedom. In the case of MK11 though, I think that is a good example of what you have been saying, but I think you put too much emphasis on woke as their motive and making it seem all political. Why is having a change of heart on what sexy is, or strong is, or what real is for women, a political wokeness? Part of creativity is trying to get some kind of message across; and that could be an emphasis on character w/o sexual distraction which could cheapen the dramatic approach of a story. Imagine Ellie in a thong the whole time in TLOU 2. It would take away from the believability of everything. And what if a game started off with sexiness which at the time helped sell; then as the game progressed years later, the developers decided to get more serious about the story and characters and dressed them up more 'believable?' Is that woke or political? That creative freedom gets caught in the crossfire of activism and opposition. 

But that was their own decision to want something different in MK11. They actually became hypocritical doing it. This is very shallow on their part and is also what I coin the term ‘out of touch syndrome.’ And this syndrome is what I think you get angry about, which is not always political or woke, but they try to make a change for something they believe to be a better style and hurt themselves in the process, offend fans, offend culturally sensitive groups, just downright offend the whole spectrum. 

[Shagger]

18 hours ago, Reality vs Adventure said:

Woah, that's a very political accusation there. So do you really think that there is a conspiracy to turn women into Islam skin phobes fully covered head to toe? And covering them up is discrimination and uncovering them isn't? Why is desexualizing a character a political decision, and sexualizing the character isn’t? 

In RE3 remake and MK11 I don’t see any clear political motivation in those quotes for their decisions; they simply exercised their creative freedom. In the case of MK11 though, I think that is a good example of what you have been saying, but I think you put too much emphasis on woke as their motive and making it seem all political. Why is having a change of heart on what sexy is, or strong is, or what real is for women, a political wokeness? Part of creativity is trying to get some kind of message across; and that could be an emphasis on character w/o sexual distraction which could cheapen the dramatic approach of a story. Imagine Ellie in a thong the whole time in TLOU 2. It would take away from the believability of everything. And what if a game started off with sexiness which at the time helped sell; then as the game progressed years later, the developers decided to get more serious about the story and characters and dressed them up more 'believable?' Is that woke or political? That creative freedom gets caught in the crossfire of activism and opposition. 

But that was their own decision to want something different in MK11. They actually became hypocritical doing it. This is very shallow on their part and is also what I coin the term ‘out of touch syndrome.’ And this syndrome is what I think you get angry about, which is not always political or woke, but they try to make a change for something they believe to be a better style and hurt themselves in the process, offend fans, offend culturally sensitive groups, just downright offend the whole spectrum. 

 

This here is exactly what I'm talking about. They way that our friend @m76 here picks and chooses what he counts a political stifling and what counts as creative freedom is based entirely of his own, self centred desires and expectations. To recognise it as a developers creative liberty only when you yourself like it is the hypocrisy that I've been going on about. Like it or not, it's down to the creators to decide what creative direction they go and why they go there. Even if a change in direction is made to purposefully be more inclusive, express a sentiment on a real world discussion be or be more politically correct, that's thier purgative. And like you said, it works both ways. It if can only be a political decision to make a character less sexualised, it must be a political decision to make a character more sexualised, you can't have one without the other. Social politics is either it's a factor in every creative decision whether you approve of the idea or not, or it's simply the dev's employing thier rights to creative freedom every time. You can't have it both ways @m76, either you support creative liberty, or you don't.

Edited September 28, 2021 by Shagger

[Heatman]

17 hours ago, Shagger said:

 

He doesn't have to appraise the credibility of his sources and prove they aren't a madman's ramblings, remember who were talking about here;

 

 

A gaming Jesus Christ as one of our dedicated members! My lord we are going for a Thanksgiving this coming Sunday 😂. You guys are quite hilarious with this already.