Gehenna.3625

It's pretty and it's boring...so pretty boring.

I know that sounds like a joke and I wish it was. I've been enjoying GW1 one though for the last while.

> @"Eday.4850" said:

> Right now, we are in The Icebrood Saga in the story. But all good stuff have an ends and Anet just showed us a fanart that looks like we will go to Cantha in the next extension. Despite the fact that I'm bored to see that the future extension will be AGAIN human focused, I asked myself a question :

>

> If Cantha is the pinacle of GW1 fanatics... What would come after that ? The End ? (I hope not in my opinion)

In GW1 we had 3 expansions of note and GW2 will have its third with this one. Both GW1 and GW2 have had an expansion on the existing tyria map (HoT and EotN), a desert expansion and upcoming, a cantha expansion.

So what's next after that? GW3 of course.

> @"Vayne.8563" said:

> > @"Gehenna.3625" said:

> > > @"Jackeroo Sundown.7526" said:

> > > > @"Gehenna.3625" said:

> > > > > @"Jackeroo Sundown.7526" said:

> > > > > I'll never understand people that go out of their way to pester other people from doing what they wanna do if they're not harming anyone. There's a ton of content, just go do that. We're just people trying to have fun.

> > > > That usually happens when people are bored, just like in real life. I guess people get bored in this game enough to have time to troll RP'ers. I don't get it either, but that's what seems to be the issue a lot of the time.

> > > >

> > >

> > > Seems to be waiting for PvP queues to pop sometimes. It's just annoying as all hell and I wish I didn't have to deal with them.

> > I agree. As Vayne underlined not everybody is like that but there are enough people who either enjoy trolling just for the sake of it or who are just bored for whatever reason and then chat becomes their activity. It's typical that people pick on something they think is weird or doesn't make sense to them and I guess that's why RP'ers get a lot of it.

>

> I think the thought process is backwards. It's not that people who are bored grief. It's people who are the types of people who grief are people who are bored easily. I mean I'm guessing most griefers are teenagers and from my experience, teenagers get bored faster than I do. Certainly I was more likely to grief as a teenager than I would be now. Same with my kids. They were basically kittens as teenagers, but they grew out of it. They were also always saying they were bored back then.

Try not to argue against arguments I didn't make. You seem to read absolutes in my comments that aren't there and then try to counter them, so essentially you're arguing with yourself of the topic. It's kinda funny really.

I just empathize with the OP because I get his frustration and people being bored does contribute to the amount of occurences of this and RP'ers seem to be prime targets as it is. Beyond that it's all you.

In a way I think there is too much content in the sense of it being quantity over quality. There is a shortage in quality content but way too much disposable content. Also the high repetition content is worth mentioning because it also leads to people being burnt out on specific content more easily.

> @"Jackeroo Sundown.7526" said:

> > @"Gehenna.3625" said:

> > > @"Jackeroo Sundown.7526" said:

> > > I'll never understand people that go out of their way to pester other people from doing what they wanna do if they're not harming anyone. There's a ton of content, just go do that. We're just people trying to have fun.

> > That usually happens when people are bored, just like in real life. I guess people get bored in this game enough to have time to troll RP'ers. I don't get it either, but that's what seems to be the issue a lot of the time.

> >

>

> Seems to be waiting for PvP queues to pop sometimes. It's just annoying as all hell and I wish I didn't have to deal with them.

I agree. As Vayne underlined not everybody is like that but there are enough people who either enjoy trolling just for the sake of it or who are just bored for whatever reason and then chat becomes their activity. It's typical that people pick on something they think is weird or doesn't make sense to them and I guess that's why RP'ers get a lot of it.

> @"Vayne.8563" said:

> > @"Gehenna.3625" said:

> > > @"Jackeroo Sundown.7526" said:

> > > I'll never understand people that go out of their way to pester other people from doing what they wanna do if they're not harming anyone. There's a ton of content, just go do that. We're just people trying to have fun.

> > That usually happens when people are bored, just like in real life. I guess people get bored in this game enough to have time to troll RP'ers. I don't get it either, but that's what seems to be the issue a lot of the time.

> >

>

> Trolls don't need to be bored to troll. And I've been bored in games and have never done it.

Don't take it to be so black and white, I did say a lot of the time after all. There are always exceptions but it's simply true that boredom often does lead to negative behavior. Not for everybody and not all the time, but often enough.

> @"Jackeroo Sundown.7526" said:

> I'll never understand people that go out of their way to pester other people from doing what they wanna do if they're not harming anyone. There's a ton of content, just go do that. We're just people trying to have fun.

That usually happens when people are bored, just like in real life. I guess people get bored in this game enough to have time to troll RP'ers. I don't get it either, but that's what seems to be the issue a lot of the time.

> @"vesica tempestas.1563" said:

> > @"battledrone.8315" said:

> > > @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> > > I think some of your 'facts' are misinformed.

> > > Heart of Thorns was not an abject failure. There are just as many Devs at ArenaNet now as there were before Heart of Thorns. Leveling isn't a 'slog', and I've not seen many, if any, posts from new players stating it is.

> > >

> > > Birthday Gifts for only 1 character? Yeah, that will go over well.

> > >

> > > You want to sell the Elite Specializations that come free with expansion purchase? Again, I don't see that being very popular.

> > >

> > > I'd like to see the data that confirms new players don't make alts.

> >

> > if hot did so well, they would prolly had made more like that. it was the worst maps i have ever played in my 18y of mmo gaming.

> > and that was even AFTER the nerfs. didnt take long before i quit the story, and i suffered through several metas to unlock gliding.

> > it had ONE good thing, the guitar playing frog...GG anet

> >

>

> Interesting, I think hot maps are the best mmo maps I've played in 40 years, it's horses for courses however. If hot done so badly they would not have invested in another expansion, but they did, except pof was a flat map structure totally unlike hot, no expansion to be seen since then.

Well I don't think we've had MMOs for 40 years but I get your point. However, HoT maps are complex and are tough to go through without mounts for a lot of players. You may like them a lot but for a lot of casual players they are hell. I found them rather confusing and annoying but got more appreciation for them later on. Still don't like all of them though. Tangled Depths I think it is (the one after Auric Basin) I still don't enjoy at all. However, that's opinions. What isn't a matter of opinion is the revenue. And though HoT did increase revenue temporarily it didn't raise it after the peak of the box sales was done. PoF did actually raise the regular revenue after the box sale peak was done. And as such PoF was a lot more successful than HoT.

People did initially buy HoT but a lot of people were turned off by it. So the other person was right in saying that HoT wasn't that successful. Mind you, I do think it added a lot to the game but it wasn't casual friendly at all. And PoF was much more casual friendly and much more successful. The revenue numbers show it because after the initial peak of the PoF sales the quarterly revenue was higher than before that peak, something that HoT didn't achieve.

As for not getting any expansions after, that has more to do with ArenaNet themselves. It's clear from interviews that ArenaNet doesn't really like to do expansions. And after PoF gave them the success they needed they started all types of new initiatives for other games and put GW2 on a LS schedule. This backfired for them. GW2 revenue is now lower than ever but last year also NcSoft cut their staff by 35% and cancelled some of these new initiatives. Now we get Sagas as a sort of LS+ chapters because they hope this will be enough because they still don't really want to do an expansion. They won't until NcSoft tells em again to do it and NcSoft may get to a point if revenue stays down that they will. In the meantime ArenaNet seems to be trying anything they can possibly think of to avoid making an expansion. I think it's a mistake but then for all we know they're working on a mobile game (cause they are working on something) and hope that will be their new cash cow and then they keep GW2 going as is cause it won't be their main product anymore.

But don't make the assumption that we didn't have another expansion because PoF failed to deliver. We didn't get another because it DID deliver and they thought they could put their attention elsewhere. The revenue numbers show the success and interviews and the NcSoft intervention cutting staff by 35% and shutting down some ArenaNet projects are the reasons I say this.

> @"Tyranni.9780" said:

> Ok, As a new player I'm trying really hard here to get a handle on what's in store for me if/when I ever make it to the higher levels.

>

> Am I understanding this right? It seems that the words "casual" and "open world" have a different meaning here than in other games? The game is promoted as being casual in the open world, (and players have assured me that min/maxing & power gaming isn't a requirement). It's what attracted me to this game and I'm finding it's somewhat true in the newbie 1-15 areas but even there it's almost too much at times and starts getting tedious after a while. In the 15-25 areas, which I've just started getting into, even more-so.

GW2 is a game that has a particularly hard time deciding what it is. Min/maxing is not required but it does make a helluva difference. So with a casual build you can generally beat the content in the Open World but it might take you 10 seconds to kill a mob that others smash down in two hits.

So if you don't want the maps to be tedious and feel like a drag then a casual build won't do unless you're a very patient person. It does get a lot better when you get mounts but that's the latest expansion and when I went through that the first time it was terribly tedious till I got the mounts sorted. Luckily the mounts are account unlocks so then all your other or subsequent characters will automatically have them. Of course with the aggro range being what it is, it can still be annoying when you get pulled off your mount.

Some people say that you can learn to dodge mobs and how to get through them or passed them efficiently. This is generally true but does require some effort on your part. The problem I have there is that even though I've gotten pretty good at that now, it takes an active effort to do so and I still can't find many places where I can just stand and look around, take some screenshots and generally taking in the scenery before moving on. Patrolling mobs, high respawn rates and moving events all add to the aggro range issue.

It seems the game aims to constantly keep you on your toes. It creates sort of a hypervigilance which is normally a topic that falls under mental illness topics. Not to say the game creates mental illness but I do put question marks at this idea that the game assumes you're a person with a short attention span that needs to be kept busy at all times...cause that's what it does feel like.

The game itself has casual elements and non-casual elements and doesn't really separate them properly. For example, character builds (min/maxing) is actually rather complex in this game. The solution tends to be that people copy builds from websites and learn to use them. But if you look at it yourself without that, it's very tricky to figure what works best and what gear, stats etc. to combine it with. It's weird because the content itself doesn't require this complexity but they put it in anyway.

Now have raided quite a bit in other games. So I wouldn't normally be a casual player but in this game I have chosen to be a casual player because structured group content here doesn't interest me. This is down to the combat mechanics, character builds, encounter mechanics of boss fights and such. So I play this game in doses. Since I was a raider before I have an edge on the casual player but by playing content as a casual player I'm fine. Just get a bit bored after a while and then take a break.

For you as a new player I can only be honest and say that it won't get better until you're level 80 and have mounts. You can then equip better gear and have mounts with more speed, flying, jumping etc. so you can get over terrain more easily and dodge enemies. You'll have to learn ways to avoid the tedium or you'll have to go the min/max way to make combat a breeze instead of a chore. But that's not the casual way. The result is that open world is generally too easy for non-casuals and annoyingly tedious for casuals. It would be nice if they were able to do things in a way to have the best of both worlds but so far their attempts have created something that isn't really working that well for either group. Map completion makes it a bit better cause at least you have something to shoot for. But this game, in spite of being casual oriented, isn't actually as casual as you would expect.

Particularly in the last few years a game like SWTOR is much more casual than this game. One reason is the better mob spacing and lower aggro ranges as well as having a taxi system on maps and mounts that you can get at lower levels (20-25ish and you can buy an item to get them sooner) right away. Doesn't mean that everything's perfect there either and it's not a fantasy setting but star wars but as far as catering to casual players is concerned, that game is definitely more casual than this one. Didn't use to be but it has been for some years now.

GW2 is just an odd mix in that sense and I feel is too focused on annoying players than just letting them do their thing and that can get annoying.

Unfortunately, in spite of having lots of classes and specs, this game tends to want you to be a glass cannon. I've never seen this addition of a downed state as a great idea to begin with but that's what we have. The penalty is reminiscent of the one you got in GW1 when dying and being ressed giving you a -15% each time and you had to clear away with killing stuff. That prevented endless slog fests particularly in HM, where if I remember right having your whole party on -60% was a wipe and resulted in a reset of the map. So for example with Vanquishing in HM. The game just decided you weren't ready for the content if you died that often and it made sense really.

In GW2 you can also clear it with killing mobs or resetting yourself. Not a big deal but yeah, if you go down a lot in WvW and not get any kills to clear the debuff then you will keep stacking it. It can be bad luck or "you're not doing it right". Mind you, I think WvW is a bit of a mess as it is with the aoe gimmick builds ruling the sieges. These builds have all of the advantages and none of the disadvantages it seems and add in the stealth snipers that can one shot people from stealth and the perma-evaders and it becomes a very gimmicky situation all around. That's why I only do it every so often (aside from WvW still being the same old maps for a long time).

All in all I think the downed penalty is fair though and I think the causes of why you are downed a lot are the real issue. Some of that could be down to yourself, some of it to how the game is set up. I'll make no judgment on the balance between the two but that's where I think you need to look for solutions.

> @"Randulf.7614" said:

> They said in a magazine interview not too long g ago it was not something they prioritised when deciding what needing adding

Yeah they're too busy working on stuff people don't ask for.

GW2 seems to've been made for people with short attention spans that need to be constantly stimulated and yes a lot of it is about the superficial looks and shiny stuff.

I suppose the idea is that if you can distract people enough you don't have to build the world properly and in a logical way. So I get your point, but I don't expect this to change. That would require a level of depth in the world building that I don't think they are interested in doing.

> @"Tommo Chocolate.5870" said:

> > @"Gehenna.3625" said:

> > > @"Tommo Chocolate.5870" said:

> > > I wonder which specific outfit(s) the OP is interested in. Most people in this thread, on both sides of the argument, seem to think this is about cross-dressing, but I don't think that's necessarily the case.

> > Well, in my (perhaps simplistic) definition, cross-dressing is when someone wears clothing that are considered meant for the opposite gender. So when someone wants to put a female version on a male character that is cross-dressing in my mind. The reason why someone wants to do that is not part of my definition however.

> >

> > As for your example of armor sets, I have to disagree with you. Things like bare shoulders, showing cleavage (bra-like tops), more flowery themes and exposed hips are definitely more associated with female dress styles. So I'll give you Rox's armor set but the rest are definitely feminine in the female versions. I mean sure, Asura and Charr but most people will be looking at the human, norn and sylvari ones and there the differences are generally very clear between them.

>

> Sure, I did say "little or nothing". Perhaps I wasn't being specific enough. Take the Shadow Assassin outfit, for example. If I had just seen the female version, I'd expect the male version to look pretty similar, just without as much exposed skin (and I suppose without the flowers, which I'll admit I hadn't spotted before). But instead the male version is an almost completely different (although thematically related) design. And the same goes for the other outfits I listed - there are significant differences in the designs that aren't related to masculinity/femininity.

Ahh I see what you mean. Yeah some of the design work is so different that it could've been a different armor set entirely.

> @"Rauderi.8706" said:

> If this is a PvP thing, it should go in the relevant section.

Nah if it's a PvP thing, it should go in the irrelevant section. :p

> @"Frostfang.5109" said:

> And another helmet that forces charr to chop off their horns - WHY do u keep doing that!!!

Somebody at the ArenaNet office made a joke about horny helmets and ever since nobody is allowed to let horns show through helmets. True story :p

> @"Tommo Chocolate.5870" said:

> I wonder which specific outfit(s) the OP is interested in. Most people in this thread, on both sides of the argument, seem to think this is about cross-dressing, but I don't think that's necessarily the case.

Well, in my (perhaps simplistic) definition, cross-dressing is when someone wears clothing that are considered meant for the opposite gender. So when someone wants to put a female version on a male character that is cross-dressing in my mind. The reason why someone wants to do that is not part of my definition however.

As for your example of armor sets, I have to disagree with you. Things like bare shoulders, showing cleavage (bra-like tops), more flowery themes and exposed hips are definitely more associated with female dress styles. So I'll give you Rox's armor set but the rest are definitely feminine in the female versions. I mean sure, Asura and Charr but most people will be looking at the human, norn and sylvari ones and there the differences are generally very clear between them.

You're right though with regards to the OP. There's very little information in the original post.

They already sort of removed levels by giving us knowledge tomes and birthday presents, but I do get what you mean. Even when the game was just out I was bored to tears with leveling to 80. It's one of the worst leveling experiences I've had in any game I played. There are two main issues I see with leveling in GW2.

First of all they should still have made the first 10-20 levels at least go faster. Because it's slowish right from the start it doesn't have the momentum you're used to and there's a LOT of levels still to do after. That means there's a drag that sets in much earlier that in other MMOs I usually experience around level 40-ish.

Secondly, I hate levels for the sake of levels. To me gaining levels should mean something more than just another level but rather the feeling that you can do something new or add something significant. In GW2 they have enough character development for 30-35 levels tops but spread it out over 80 levels. That means 45 levels just for the sake of adding levels and that's just boring. So the game still has that slump around level 35 and then it's a drag till 80.

I just made some characters, quit for a few years and then had b-day presents and tomes that I could use on new characters. I never level a toon anymore through gameplay. I just made a character last week. Insta-60 with a b-day level boost and 20 tomes and done. Well it's annoying still cause you have to do each level individually still and get a bunch of rewards that are useless and can't be vendored so you have to destroy those things and it's annoying but still better than going through the levels.

I do not think it's a good idea to take things away from players. So if people want to level through the whole thing, let them. And the map completion is something I do enjoy doing so I don't want to miss out on that.

Also for new players I get the annoyance of the leveling process as I experienced it also that way but at the same time if you let people skip it for a new player then there is a learning phase that you also skip and that's not necessarily good. So I'm a bit on the fence on letting new players go to 80 instantly. I think it would be better if they simply give people an item they can equip like an amulet that gives extra xp so the leveling goes a lot faster. That way people have the choice to use it or not.

A QoL improvement I wouldn't mind is if B-day present level boosts applied those levels instantly bypassing having to accept each level one by one and just taking out the useless rewards up to maybe level 60.

> @"Shadowmoon.7986" said:

> This is the only benefit for legendary armor and you want to take it away.

This is true by itself but is also indicative of a larger issue. For me it was a mistake to make legendary items as tedious and expensive to get as they are. I understand putting in extra effort for something cool but legendary stuff is the epitomy of a negative balance in cost versus benefit. Especially because this game is casual oriented which also tends to mean that a lot of people play a lot of characters.

So with those realities in mind, I would've made much more sense to make legendary stuff a lot less hard to get so that it becomes something that people can do more often for all of their characters. Most people don't have the time or interest in the current set up. This also means that if they were to change the difficulty (or rather tedium) of gettling legendary stuff, a lot of other people will get ticked off who have put in the effort of getting legendary items so far. That means they can't really change it.

Also there should've been more legendary skins but because they are such a big investment they blocked that road as well.

What that leaves is looking at ascended armor and the cost involved there. I think that ascended armor should be easier to craft in fact. The trinkets are easy to get with the daily zones and their currencies. Crafting ascended gear is actually the baseline for crafting really because exotic gear is just so easy to get and also there the crafting costs are way off balance, especially for certain sets like say celestial ones because of gated materials.

In my view it makes sense to make crafting easier because it means people have an easier time making more sets...which also keeps them busy and the people who do the harder content like raids and high level fractals don't have an issue. Sure, more casual players don't need ascended gear but at the same time, what else are you gonna do with crafting? Exotic stuff is so cheap and easy to find it's not worth it.

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> The same way I'd interpret seeing a Human Male as Commander in trailers?

> You say, "mostly", but I'm guessing the 4 LWS1 missions aren't Charr-centric. So, that's 2 Missions vs. 4 Missions.

>

> But, you may be correct. We will find out in a couple of weeks.

>

> I'm not fond of Charr animations either, but as long as I play a Profession I'm comfortable with, it doesn't matter that much (to me).

Well the human male is just the default because people can choose race/gender etc. themselves. This doesn't feel the same to me especially because it's 5 different ones that are named. I fear that it's going to be like that one mission where you had to play a certain character and got a fixed skill set.

But you're right, we won't know till we get an official answer or the content drops :)

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> Are you sure it's playing with Charr characters? I mean, other than when we actually play Ryland?

well the first half of the trailer shows 5 Charr characters that, under their name, each list 5 weapons to unlock of a different type, including Ryland. How would you interpret that?

I don't play Charr characters because I don't have a connection with them. Don't wanna play them, but now the new content is about playing different Charr characters mostly. First of all it's content I can't play with my own characters but I also have to play them with Charr characters which I don't want to do anyway. I'll have to carefully check the rewards to make sure I really want them and then just suck it up I guess, if I really want any of those skins but I'm not a fan of this approach.

> @"Llethander.3972" said:

> > @"Gehenna.3625" said:

> > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > There’s plenty of “no enemy space” on all of the maps.

> > No there's not.

> > > @"Llethander.3972" said:

> > > I don't mind it. Feels more realistic.

> > There is nothing realistic about mob spacing and aggro ranges in MMOs. If it feels realistic to you then that's your personal illusion...mind you, that's fair enough, but other people are more concerned with how tedious some things are and for those people, myself included, less tedium is more important than increased realism. It's fantasy game after all and if it's realism you want, we should also start discussing the range on longbows and rifles etc.

> >

> > And that's an extremely important point for this topic because if you want the aggro range bigger for realism, then surely ranged weapons should have a much more realistic range as well. Just for comparison, longbows have an effective range of about 180 meters / 200 yards in real life. In GW2 it's about 9 times the range of the range of melee weapons. For example the longbow is 1200 units and an axe 130. That puts the longbow range around 18 meters / 20 yards.

> >

> > Really, preferences will differ but to me I'll do almost anything to avoid combat while traveling because it's just boring, makes everything take longer and doesn't really have any benefits. That and its repetitiousness makes it all highly tedious for me and therefore not fun.

> >

>

> I meant it feels more realistic in that if I can see the enemy they can see me. They're my enemy. Of course they're going to try to kill me.

Sure, but my point is that they can see you from much farther as you can and you'd normally pull half the map if you want to really make it realistic. And of course realistically ranged weapons should shoot much farther as well but they don't. So for me increased aggro should realistically also come with a range increase for ranged weapons.

> Still doesn't bother me.

Which is fair enough of course, but it does annoy others, myself included, because of what it really represents...not realism but just making things take longer for players in a way that's annoying because it's repetitive, boring and unrewarding.

> @"AgentMoore.9453" said:

> > @"Gehenna.3625" said:

> > Besides, where's your proof that a lot of people want this? Do you have data to support that?

>

> I never made such a claim, only that we don't have access to information that would prove a majority or minority among players of GW2 on either side of the issue and therefore posters should not act as though they know such things definitively or use that to push their opinions as fact.

You didn't but your response did imply it. The thing is that there needs to be a big enough group of players who are willing to pay for it. So if this is to be done, then there should be evidence from market research or other games that proves that this is a viable strategy.

> > @"Gehenna.3625" said:

> > As a general rule I think it's fair to assume that if it's easy and can make them good money, they will do it.

>

> That seems like a logical stance, but it hasn't always been the path this company takes. Often, they'll do double work or provide something unrequested instead of something easier or more frequently requested by players. Even if everyone on the forum was asking for gendered outfit availability across the board, there's a good chance we'd never get it based on past experience (or that we _would_ get it, but in a cursed form - looking at you, pegasus).

>

> It isn't that they never listen to feedback or adjust the game by popular demand, but several large-scale features and game changes over the last two years have fallen short and caused noticeable division and disruption in the player base. I don't know what their process is for game design, and I do not claim to. I know only what I observe.

Fair comment, though I still insist that if it's doable and makes them money it's certainly likely they will do it. A lot of people ask for things that they believe would be profitable or easy to do but are in fact not. So I think quoting past requests not being honored is not really a valid argument.

> > I mean how many MMOs are there where male characters can wear feminine clothing and this is successful for them?

> The first one I can think of is probably Second Life, but this also assumes all MMOs design their clothing with the same kind of variation by gender that we've seen in this one, and can therefore have their fashion-to-success ratios charted similarly. Because clothing designs vary so much from game to game, it's hard to tell whether they're profiting off of gendered clothing or whether their clothing design doesn't vary enough for it to matter between genders.

Second Life is a tricky one because it's an entirely different set-up and not like MMOs in general. It's more a social thing than story and combat driven as far as I know. That also attracts a completely different type of audience I would think.

> I only play this MMO, however, so my knowledge of pixelated fashion is mostly Tyria-oriented; sorry about that. I had dreams of becoming part of the Wider Web Fashion Police, but the academy process is brutal.

hehe, kudos for that comment.

> At the end of the day, I don't think any sociological elements are the reason for GW2's gender-locked styles, they just coded for males and females because it was easy, called it a day, and then buried it under several metric tons of spaghetti code. Even if they wanted to unlock fashion (or armor weights for that matter), there's a good chance they couldn't based on messy code alone. Making two outfits per gender (which is what you'd be doing if you unlocked them) is cost prohibitive; the more likely solution would be what others have suggested, future outfits and armors that match better between the genders and don't have such massive differences between them.

>

> People seem very threatened by the idea of a woman wearing pants or a man in a skirt or kilt, but so long as a little bit of everything is present in the game, I see nothing wrong with discussing or requesting more fashion options, which is what the whole gender thing boils down to.

The coding for male and female is easy because that's what most players are. So it's efficient from a business point of view because you make two variants and cover 90% percent or more of what the player base wants. I of course don't know the exact numbers but business tends to be about catering to the larger groups because it means your resources are spent more effectively. That means that minorities will often not get a lot of attention because of the simple business equation that it's the same amount of work for a small or niche player group. And it's not just for gender things. It's for everything.

There are definitely people who feel threatened by cross-dressing and that's a shame. Personally I have no issue with it even though I'm a middle-aged white male ;) But I just look at the business aspect of it. And that's where a company needs to use their resources effectively. Now any company will have a vision and will do some things just for the sake of doing them and not always just to make extra money...but mostly that's where it's at because your business does need to survive.

And it's good that minorities of whatever kind get more recognition in our society but as a minority you are always outside the efficiency scope. Some things are easier, so we have all kinds of skin colours for example and you can give your male character a feminine name or vice versa but creating outfits may have more cost associated with it as I suspect...and then it's not so easy for them to invest into that because it will not make them money. And yeah sadly they also have to take into account that they will lose players if they are too progressive too quickly. Change is hard for people after all.

It's not an easy topic but I have a number of things about me that always made me the odd one out. Not comparing it to anyone but a simple example could be that I listen to Heavy Metal music. In my country you basically never hear that on the radio. I could get upset about that and request that they change but they will lose listeners if they do. Also if you have an office job where the radio is on, you're screwed and have to listen to pop music all day even though I can't stand it. I mean many companies will not hire you when you have long hair as a guy. That's just a quick example of how being different than the norm can put you outside of something. And it's really tricky but it's therefore also tricky for ArenaNet or any other company to balance these things and generally money wins.

I also play SWTOR off and on and there they have a bit more leeway. I'll give you a couple of examples:

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/swtor-xoxanns-armor-set-star-cluster-nightlife-pack-male.jpg

http://www.bandedehoufs.net/BDH%20index_fichiers/SWTOR/last_handmaiden_male_854x480.jpg

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/swtor-visas-marrs-armor-set-trackers-bounty-pack-male.jpg

But I've played that game a lot and even though it's out there, there are not that many players I've run into that actually make such choices. However, I never make the assumption that what is done in one game can be done as easily as in other games because of the way the character models are set up and all the other stuff involved in creating outfits. So for me if ArenaNet is willing to do this...great. However, I don't expect it because of the reasons I mentioned. That's the short of it I guess :)

> @"AgentMoore.9453" said:

> > @"sevenDEADLY.5281" said:

> > Some quick research shows that roughly 4.5% of the US population and 6% in the EU identify as LGBTQ oriented.

>

> That is not game data. Additionally, LGBTQ is a separate issue from fashion, so I'm not sure why you're making them out to be mutually exclusive.

You're clutching at straws here. LGBTQ does have a strong link with fashion. Now I agree they're not mutually exclusive but that doesn't mean that a lot of people across the board are interested in this and want to spend money on it.

Besides, where's your proof that a lot of people want this? Do you have data to support that?

And do you really think that after all these years nobody thought about this at ArenaNet to see whether or not this could be something they could make money with? Can you really seriously say that this never crossed their minds?

As a general rule I think it's fair to assume that if it's easy and can make them good money, they will do it. If they haven't, there's reasons for it. I get that some people want it, but it's not a realistic request in my view. Now if ArenaNet wants to show some goodwill in that respect that's cool but I think they realise that if they do people will ask for more and goodwill can only go so far.

I mean how many MMOs are there where male characters can wear feminine clothing and this is successful for them? I don't know any but maybe you do. But in an age where companies can score big brownie points in social media with such things and it still not happening, might just mean that the market for it just isn't big enough. You may not like it, but all things considered it's more likely to be true than untrue.