[Kisai]

	Originally Posted by plotthickens To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Case in point. Exaggerated/supernormal = attractive; normal = unattractive.

Right. That's been the case for eons.


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Here we have freaky people with flat bodies, huge hands and eyes.

[Rudy]

	Originally Posted by plotthickens To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Case in point. Exaggerated/supernormal = attractive; normal = unattractive.

Your husband, at least insofar as you've described his musculature, is as far outside the norm as the newest Lara Croft; quite a bit farther, actually, I would argue, if he's leg-pressing all the weight the gym has. Would you be opposed to a male video game character with a similar physique to your husband? Perhaps the answer is yes, but I am curious.

[dungeonguy88]

Originally Posted by Uriel To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I think the absence of non-slutty females in fighting games are due to the fact that there aren't a lot of females who gravitate towards playing fighting games as there are with adventure games and RPGs. Fighting games are more testosterone laden thus catering more to a male audience. Also, there is a sort of schadenfreude when males use female characters to beat up on other males. I am going to destroy your "ego." I know that's how I felt when I was using female characters. I was thinking "You got your ass handed to you by a girl; how's it feel, bitch?!" After a bit of more looking, I found some decently clothed females in fighting games: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. and To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. from Samurai Showdown. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. from Street Fighter To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. from Marvel vs. Capcom 2 If you want an unorthodox "female" then I give you: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. : Goddess of the Sun (in wolf form) from Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 None of these females, regardless of how they are dressed, are normal in any sense of the word. Nor should they be; this is the world of video games. It is a fantasy world that has been dominated by a male audience for decades. Males are visual creatures and prefer to see pleasing characters regardless of what "normal" is in real life. Are you getting the impression that these video game characters are being held as what "normal" should be in real life?

Just to nitpick, Amaterasu, the Wolf from Okami, was largely depicted as androgynous or a sort of gender-interchangeable character in line with Japanese mythology...though I suppose the games leans towards a more feminine interpretation...huh, kind of up in there I suppose on whether it counts.

I will agree with you and other that fighting games tend to favor male audiences, with competitive twitch gameplay, and little in the way of stories usually. So I suppose it would naturally follow that characters would be idealized and sexualized, more so in the genre. I will say that personally, I usually choose my characters based on their fighting styles and whether or not I like their characters. Amusingly, when I have the option to customize the characters looks, I often end up putting more clothes on female characters.

[Deliberator]

The portrayal of men in video games is hardly realistic, I don't know why the portrayal of women ought to be. I say let the masses decide what they like in a female video game character, offensive/ridiculous though it may be to some.

[dungeonguy88]

	Originally Posted by Deliberator To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The portrayal of men in video games is hardly realistic, I don't know why the portrayal of women ought to be. I say let the masses decide what they like in a female video game character, offensive/ridiculous though it may be to some.

I suppose the best thing that can be said is there is enough variety in the industry to appeal to nearly any taste.

[Storm]

	Originally Posted by Uriel To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	None of these females, regardless of how they are dressed, are normal in any sense of the word. Nor should they be; this is the world of video games. It is a fantasy world that has been dominated by a male audience for decades. Males are visual creatures and prefer to see pleasing characters regardless of what "normal" is in real life.

There's an interesting implication you make here - which is that if the video game market were dominated by females, characters would be more realistic as opposed to visually appealing. I don't think that's true. I think you might see different visual appeals - although everyone can appreciate beautiful nature scenes - but the games wouldn't be drab or necessarily accurate portrayals of the world. Video games are art. They are a story you play along in. They are a fun distraction.


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they found that women prefer games like "Myst." A puzzle-solving game without time pressure or violence. Myst is a bit dated now, but its stunning visual scenes were a big selling point. Women also were turned off by the violence and sexual portrayals of women in video games. Note, they weren't turned off by the women being attractive, just how sexualized they were. Which might explain why less sexualized characters are emerging. Especially since 43% of the American video game market is now women.

Here's a scene from a game I've been meaning to play:

[HIDE="The Whispered World"]
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[/HIDE]

It's a beautiful game. The main character is a little blue cartoon elf creature.

[plotthickens]

	Originally Posted by Rudy To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Your husband, at least insofar as you've described his musculature, is as far outside the norm as the newest Lara Croft; quite a bit farther, actually, I would argue, if he's leg-pressing all the weight the gym has. Would you be opposed to a male video game character with a similar physique to your husband? Perhaps the answer is yes, but I am curious.

My BS doesn't look that far outside the norm. Hold on, let me find an equivalent...

[HIDE="Ah. Here. This is rather like his build"]

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[/HIDE]

He used to pursue bodybuilding, but his joints are too sturdy to give optimal visuals. So now he's a powerlifter (sorry, said bodybuilder before) and is starting to go easy on that, too. So no, no objection to my BS' build in games. No objection to the use of ridiculous elements at all, really -- but a great big huge "Damn that's dumb!" to people using supernormal stimuli as their everyday yardstick.

For example, Ronnie Coleman is widely recognized as one of the best (if not the best) bodybuilding of all time. 8 straight wins of the Mr. Olympia title.

[HIDE="Ronnie Coleman is a vascularized freak but in his offseason he is just another big guy"]

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[/HIDE]

And yet, put Big Ron next to something like this and our Mr. Olympia looks like a 98-lb weakling.

[HIDE="Yet more examples of supernormal stimuli"]

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[/HIDE]


So if the best musculature humans can produce, on his very best day, makes a middle-of-the-road superhero form, what does that say for those who use that sort of unrealistic expectation for daily life? Please note that I am not constraining my criticism to Gaming, but instead note that all forms of media in the US (with the very very rare exception) use supernormal stimuli habitually.

It's just that gaming uses it soooooo...

[HIDE="blatantly."]

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[/HIDE]

To me, it's like a movie that has a lot of flashy special effects, which hide the lack of original screenplay, character development, or original ideas.

[Vagrant]

	A puzzle-solving game without time pressure or violence.

I should point out that I would get the girls I dated and I've gotten my girlfriend into Portal
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and
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. Interestingly, I got my girlfriend to start playing Half Life 2 after she beat Portal, and she enjoys it.

Again, Valve is an amazing company.

	Please note that I am not constraining my criticism to Gaming, but instead note that all forms of media in the US (with the very very rare exception) use supernormal stimuli habitually. It's just that gaming uses it soooooo...

[hide=I hate to point this out, but gaming does it to males too.]
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Look at the freaking size of his arm.[/hide]

	To me, it's like a movie that has a lot of flashy special effects, which hide the lack of original screenplay, character development, or original ideas.

Uhh... yeah. There are video games like this too. Big surprise right?

The best games of all time are rewarded for their originality of story, unique gameplay elements, and "fun" of the game.
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will tell you that Valve games are among the highest rated of all time, which isn't surprising given their
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,
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, and means of storytelling. Bioware is also considered a great company as well for their RPG's.

[Persona]

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"Honestly, probably 35% of the reason I choose mai waifu over 3DPD whores is appearance. I fucking hate how 3D women look. Their ugly faces kill me, they look like pig creatures. Their nose is always too large and distracting, the amount of make up they wear to hide their pig disgustingness is disgusting itself, their faces are never truly symmetrical, honestly, their appearance is like the cherry on the shit sundae here. I find it rather shocking anyone can even half tolerate their bullshit. So to answer your question, no. Even if all 3DPDs acted like anime women, I would still prefer anime women."

If women in video games are 'on the sexier side of believable', then the shit otaku say is 'on the more disturbing side of believable'. Unfortunately.

---------- Post added 06-24-2011 at 04:14 AM ----------

As for me, I would like to have the option of creating a character who resembles me IRL: Tall, bony, small boobs, kind of a funny-shaped face. For this reason, I have had a soft spot for the Superhero genre as it allows a lot more customization than most games.

Here is what I've found:
City of Heroes
This game's graphics engine is pretty old, so it gets a free pass on the fact that making a character 'tall' just resizes the model, and 'bony' articulation isn't possible. Boobs CANNOT be made smaller than about the size of the character's head - I'm told this is because of the highly sexy costumes available and they don't want pedos making 12 year olds in bikinis like ordinary moms do in the southern States. Faces have pretty decent customization but you do have to choose from one of a bunch of preset skins, which is kind of annoying but it works.

Champions Online
The model is a LOT more tuneable in this one, so I can get most of the physique pretty close to mine. There's a 'musculature' slider which basically increases/decreases the strength of the 'muscle' normal map, so you can get a character from bodybuilder to smooth as glass. It doesn't replace it with an alternative so you end up looking matte which is REALLY dated; it's better to put a bit of muscle on so it looks like a game from the 21st century. In other words, no way to be bony. Boobs can be scaled up and down as much as you want (and puts a smaller, but still comically huge upper limit). The trouble is that the normal map for boobs DOESN'T scale with the size, so if you try to make them smaller than a cantaloupe you get a really bad-looking optical illusion. You can sort of cover it up with certain full-cover chest-slot pieces (a small minority of them), which is what I do, but it still looks awful if you examine it closely. Faces are pure comic book and surprisingly limited; despite the push, pull, stretch, eyes, helmets, etc. it still seems like every female (and every male for that matter) has the exact same face.

DC Universe Online
This one has a lot less options - you can be 'gargantuan', 'normal', or 'small' (teenager), and pick from about 5 different faces and 30 hairstyles. Even as a teen, you still have above average boobs.


I had a feeling I would make a post like this someday. I should have saved pictures
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As for Half-Life: I'm not a big fan of shooters (stereotypical puzzle/RPG/adventure gamer here pretty much :/) but I'm almost starting to want to play through it from hearing my friends talk about it. I bought Orange Box a long time ago so I could play Portal, so I wouldn't have to pirate it, and apparently they actually took a novelist's prototype for the story. The exposition is written on billboards around the game, so that if you're just playing through it to kill monsters you'll completely miss it but if you want the game to be like an interactive novel, there's plenty of intrigue to go along with it.

[Muse]

I think it depends on the genre/target audiance your looking at, because as female characters go i can find pretty much any type of female persona/body type in recent games. will talk about a few of my favorites.

[HIDE="Lyon"]
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[/HIDE]Tomboyish, protective, naive, honest, shy.
[HIDE="Miakis"]
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[/HIDE]Girly, flirtatious, outgoing, emotional.
[HIDE="Chris"]
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[/HIDE]Independent, strong, objective, intellectual, reflective, a devoted leader.

None of these girls have anything crazy going on physically, and have very different personalities. Granted, they are from the same series (though different games). So lets look at another game i like.

[HIDE="Hrist Valkyrie"]
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[/HIDE]The older sister. Loyal, Independent, Kind of evil. Some would call her mean, i call her tough. She doesn't value humans.


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:The middle sister. Cold, distant, and judgmental; but a secret romantic, and loves humans. Quite a bit of character development with her.

Nothing too crazy going on in the chest area. Lenneth and Hrist are a tad bit larger (and older), but Chris is also older and on the small side (and the only female main/leading character of her game). But then you look at a game like Magna Carta: Tears of blood. Giant breasts everywhere, even the men look somewhat girlish in figure. The artist of the game likes that sort of thing, and its his style for most of his art.

I don't think theres any real trend going on, even if we just look at mainstream games. Theres no doubt that sex sells, but even soul calibur has Talim (almost flat).

[jnoelle]

I'm not much of a gamer, but the stereotypical female armor seems pretty useless. Is protecting your nipples really more important than protecting your heart, lungs, and intestines?

[Persona]

	Originally Posted by Muse To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Nothing too crazy going on in the chest area. Lenneth and Hrist are a tad bit larger (and older), but Chris is also older and on the small side (and the only female main/leading character of her game).

Lenneth also has breast-cups, which is really stupid. The other 3 are wearing actual armour - that's really cool, and looks good on them, too.

	Originally Posted by jnoelle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I'm not much of a gamer, but the stereotypical female armor seems pretty useless. Is protecting your nipples really more important than protecting your heart, lungs, and intestines?

Well, are you protecting them from weapons which do the same amount of damage no matter what you're wearing, or are you protecting them from the player's lustful gaze?

[Muse]

	Originally Posted by jnoelle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I'm not much of a gamer, but the stereotypical female armor seems pretty useless. Is protecting your nipples really more important than protecting your heart, lungs, and intestines?

Thats not stereotypical though, thats more of a comedic exaggeration. You will find way more instances of mostly functional armor than the bikini armor your referring to.

Theres a similar armor exaggeration for men, depicting abs in the armor.

	Originally Posted by Persona To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Lenneth also has breast-cups, which is really stupid. The other 3 are wearing actual armour - that's really cool, and looks good on them, too.

While i agree that they look weird, Lenneths armor (the breast cups) is actually more strategically useful than chris's breast plate/cuirass. Chris's breast plate has a hollow spot in the middle, making the armor easier to crack with blunt force. Lenneth's armor is more form fitting, so her own chest reinforces the armor (no hollow spot). Tailored armor like Lenneth's would be more expensive though.

[Uriel]

Originally Posted by Storm To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. they found that women prefer games like "Myst." A puzzle-solving game without time pressure or violence. Myst is a bit dated now, but its stunning visual scenes were a big selling point. Women also were turned off by the violence and sexual portrayals of women in video games. Note, they weren't turned off by the women being attractive, just how sexualized they were. Which might explain why less sexualized characters are emerging. Especially since 43% of the American video game market is now women.

I'm pretty sure the violence and sexualized females you speak of come mostly from Fighting Games where the point really is violence, and where males are still the dominant audience, hence the sexualized female characters there. While it's true that a demographic of female gamers are growing overall, it is quite unlikely (I'm positing) for a female demographic to grow in the Fighting Games genre as much as it does in other genres, so I wouldn't expect any non-sexualized/realistic female characters to be appearing en masse in the Fighting Games genre any time soon. Fighting Games = Violence = Testosterone = Male Male Male

The games that attract a female audience, like you said, are more on the Adventure, Exploration, and Non-violence. If these genres want to attract the growing female audience, it is in their best interest to create characters that are completely non-human with non-human proportions in order to not turn off the potential female audience. Or if they were to create female characters, they should not be as sexualized (if at all) as they were before. The game designers should also know the difference between attractive and sexualized. To males they are the same thing, but that is not necessarily true for females.

Perhaps in order to gain a better understanding of what types of characters females want in their video games, a game could be developed where the gamer can create their own character whose physical appearance can be customized into even more detail such as waist size, hair color/length/type, bust size, height, weight, etc. That would make a fascinating study.

Do females prefer:
-male characters?
-female characters?
-macho / feminine / androgynous?
-tall / short?
-slim / healthy / heavy?
-non-humans ?
[HIDE="Which one would you create?"]
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Queen Brahne


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Ryu


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Amakusa


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Ivy


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Shuma Gorath
[/HIDE]

	Originally Posted by Muse To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	None of these girls have anything crazy going on physically, and have very different personalities.

Ahem, you forgot:
[HIDE="Lucretia Merces"]
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Where are her tits?![/HIDE]


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Wasn't she the Chief Strategist behind the Hero's army?
What do you think her MBTI is? INTJ? ENTJ?

[Muse]

	Originally Posted by Uriel To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Ahem, you forgot: [HIDE="Lucretia Merces"] To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Where are her tits?![/HIDE] To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Wasn't she the Chief Strategist behind the Hero's army? What do you think her MBTI is? INTJ? ENTJ?

Lucretia is great too
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and yes she was the chief strategist. It has been a while, but i actually think she might be an F.. Theres two scenes that come to mind to make me say that. One is the nature of her life while in captivity, and one is a rather moralistic/emotional thing she said to the Hero about going to war with Lyms army. I say she is probably INFJ, and Shu from Suikoden 2 would be the INTJ.

I think all these women are quite beautiful. The bikini armor and bursting tits thing just doesn't do it for me; but then again i don't play too many fighters etc.

I remember seeing a suit of armor on display in Windsor castle (that or buckingham, the place where the doomsday book is kept) in England, that actually had a Willy guard. I think it was a suit of armor for one of the old kings, maybe Henry. By Willy guard i mean it basically had a metallic finger looking object protruding out of the crotch. Pretty weird.

[Persona]

	Originally Posted by Muse To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Thats not stereotypical though, thats more of a comedic exaggeration. You will find way more instances of mostly functional armor than the bikini armor your referring to. Theres a similar armor exaggeration for men, depicting abs in the armor.

I'll admit, that's really silly too.

Originally Posted by Muse To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

While i agree that they look weird, Lenneths armor (the breast cups) is actually more strategically useful than chris's breast plate/cuirass. Chris's breast plate has a hollow spot in the middle, making the armor easier to crack with blunt force. Lenneth's armor is more form fitting, so her own chest reinforces the armor (no hollow spot). Tailored armor like Lenneth's would be more expensive though.

Really? Cracking it with blunt force? Boobs are not all that resilient, you know.

What about a slicing weapon. It will guide it right up into her face.

I remember an article about this. I can't seem to find it right now. Ugh.

[Muse]

	Originally Posted by Persona To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Really? Cracking it with blunt force? Boobs are not all that resilient, you know.

Ya. They used to make arrows with flat metallic points about the size of a nickel; sole purpose was to crack breast plates(keep in mind, metal quality wasn't great during this time). If you look closely you will usually find that the breast cup is a separate piece of metal. Better to lose the breast than the whole piece i guess.

	Originally Posted by Persona To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	What about a slicing weapon. It will guide it right up into her face.

.Ya, since shes not wearing a full suit of armor (her face, elbows, and legs have nothing) that could be an issue. Usually a helmet would fix this, and slicing weapons will just go for the joints in the armor where there is only mail (hence some armor having those weird circle things on the arm pits and stuff). Down side of all that is the weight. To be fair, she does have two floating shields, and two hands her sword. Pretty overpowered for a light swordy

	Originally Posted by Persona To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I remember an article about this. I can't seem to find it right now. Ugh.

I just remembered this stuff from some shows and museums, i always liked the ones where they explain the evolution of armor methods and weapons.

[Persona]

That's really neat, thanks for sharing. More to contribute to NERD TALK next time it comes up.

[Reddkatz]

But this doesn't apply to video games. Has anyone ever seen the booth babes at Comic Con? Models are paid to dress up hot and stand or sit at a booth. I've also heard it's slowly creeping into Dragon Con too. It's going to be this way because sex sells, it always does.

[Vagrant]

	Originally Posted by Reddkatz To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	But this doesn't apply to video games. Has anyone ever seen the booth babes at Comic Con? Models are paid to dress up hot and stand or sit at a booth. I've also heard it's slowly creeping into Dragon Con too. It's going to be this way because sex sells, it always does.

The question is, whose fault is that? People have been calling for an end to it, but it hasn't changed.

	I'm not much of a gamer, but the stereotypical female armor seems pretty useless. Is protecting your nipples really more important than protecting your heart, lungs, and intestines?

Here's a list of all the
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. The only character whose armor is consistently skimpy is the female elementalist, who also has the largest boobs.

	Theres a similar armor exaggeration for men, depicting abs in the armor.

The "
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" in Guild Wars is an example of this. Same for the
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.

[Muse]

[HIDE="Real Armor"]
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[/HIDE]the armor literally has abs and silver nipples. I guess they grew into it ahaha.

[Reddkatz]

	Originally Posted by Vagrant To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The question is, whose fault is that? People have been calling for an end to it, but it hasn't changed.

You have to tell people to stop having sex first, and well that has been tried before.

[Muse]

Hey models need work too*shrug*. Seeing the models dressed up at the event sounds pretty fun. Especially if they are cos-playing a character i like. [HIDE="Real"]
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[/HIDE][HIDE="Real"]
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[/HIDE]
I bought a flower from a model dressed up as aeris once. It was so cool. Friend dared me to ask.

[Lord Shadowbane]

	Originally Posted by thod To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	But the same is true for male character in games. They are always agile and muscular. They portray an image of the perfect male form and do likewise for the female. Nobody wants a fat slob as an avatar.

I'll note that I play the online MMORPG "Mabinogi" and my avatar /is/ a fat guy. I do this deliberately as your size has no in-game effects... and most people don't expect a fat guy to suddenly kill them in one or two hits with a massive sword. It's not exactly typical though and the overwhelming majority keeps their characters as fit as they can.

[Coralaisly]

I don't have that much of a problem with it. I find it amusing that the 'ideal' depicted is usually anatomically impossible for both men and women, but on the other hand, if you want reality, go outside and talk to someone instead of sitting at home nerding out (yes, yes, I know that's part of the gig as an INTJ) and reading too much into an artists fantasy.