Why are outfits gender locked?

[xenon.3264]

as far as i do not want this forum to start a flame on gender and as far as i would hate to see a bear male norn dressed with a female human light outfit, i would really love to let my female characters to use some male equip. so much exposed meat. i mean i'm ok with it but sometimes it would be fun to have something which is not red sonia's bikini chainmail .

 

 

[TheLadyOfTheRings.9148]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

 

> Those that appear the same are still 2 completely different versions made to fit completely different models. I never said they can't do that, only that they'd need to create 2 new pieces of outfit/armor for all the old ones. Plus split any future outfits in two.

 

Then I'm not sure we're using the same definition for 'version'. I understand and agree with the rest you said.

 

[Blue Triangle.7589]

> @"Teratus.2859" said:

> Model/Body type differences pretty much.

>

> They would have to make a male and female outfit version for every race and gender to do this, effectively doubling the workload for every outfit.

 

Or... or... follow me here... They could just make **one** outfit and make it fit male and female character models! That would be even less work than making different male and female versions like they do now!

[Etria.3642]

> @"Blue Triangle.7589" said:

> > @"Teratus.2859" said:

> > Model/Body type differences pretty much.

> >

> > They would have to make a male and female outfit version for every race and gender to do this, effectively doubling the workload for every outfit.

>

> Or... or... follow me here... They could just make **one** outfit and make it fit male and female character models! That would be even less work than making different male and female versions like they do now!

 

Fairly sure it would be the exact same amount of work. Say you have an outfit like the noble count one for a human. Currently that is one suit for a male and one dress for a female. If they release a tuxedo(one thing that would fit on both male and female) they STILL have to design a human male version, and a human female version.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

> @"Blue Triangle.7589" said:

> > @"Teratus.2859" said:

> > Model/Body type differences pretty much.

> >

> > They would have to make a male and female outfit version for every race and gender to do this, effectively doubling the workload for every outfit.

>

> Or... or... follow me here... They could just make **one** outfit and make it fit male and female character models! That would be even less work than making different male and female versions like they do now!

 

Its still mostly the same amount of work on the back end, they'd only LOOK the same. I'd also argue that it'd be unpopular with the majority of the player base to not have **any** variety between the genders' outfits, especially the female players (at least from what I've observed talking to female guildmates over the years). As I said before, clothing has been gendered forever, and it quite probably always will be. This isn't a bad thing.

[Ultramex.1506]

> @"Blue Triangle.7589" said:

> > @"Teratus.2859" said:

> > Model/Body type differences pretty much.

> >

> > They would have to make a male and female outfit version for every race and gender to do this, effectively doubling the workload for every outfit.

>

> Or... or... follow me here... They could just make **one** outfit and make it fit male and female character models! That would be even less work than making different male and female versions like they do now!

 

Or........play Charr or Asura, they fit your needs perfectly, most outfits have no gender variation for Them, good luck in convince everyone to agee with Norn/Sylvari and most importantly Human, you have higher chances getting precursor drop than this

[Anput.4620]

Why can't female asuras have nice things, like, at all?

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Blue Triangle.7589" said:

> Or... or... follow me here... They could just make **one** outfit and make it fit male and female character models! That would be even less work than making different male and female versions like they do now!

 

They already do this on outfits/armors that it makes sense to do so. Sure there are items available on one gender that would look good on the other but do we really want a bridal gown for a male character? I think it would be a waste of developer time/resources to create one.

[PseudoNewb.5468]

The game doesn't have, eherm, the right boo... body fitting technology. Considering that there are no body sliders, your character creation is based on a limited set of body types, and even then, some body types are broken for some armor pieces... This game just doesn't seem like it could do this very well. It would end up being very broken if they tried to do this.

[msalakka.4653]

> @"Blue Triangle.7589" said:

> > @"Teratus.2859" said:

> > Model/Body type differences pretty much.

> >

> > They would have to make a male and female outfit version for every race and gender to do this, effectively doubling the workload for every outfit.

>

> Or... or... follow me here... They could just make **one** outfit and make it fit male and female character models! That would be even less work than making different male and female versions like they do now!

 

Asura don't even need different versions; the females aren't exactly "top-heavy."

[Mortifer.2946]

Here we go again =)

[Kienda.4187]

My view is this isn’t the biggest concern. We can already make very feminine looking male characters or run around as hot pink angels if we choose.

 

For the very few who would want their male Charr in a wedding dress, this isn’t a priority for ANet.

 

No offence, but ANet is in the money making game. Their best business model is create content for the masses rather than serving the small few who would care for this feature. And as some above have explained, it’s not that simple to implement.

 

Their best bet would be to make more new skins to sell rather than revamping old ones.

[LaGranse.8652]

> @"Towatha.4671" said:

> Why can't I choose to wear the 'female' version of an outfit on a 'male' character?

 

The male and the female characters (even if they are the same race) have different skeletons. An outfit/skin made for one skeleton cannot be attached to a different skeleton without breaking/looking horrible.

 

For your wish ANet would need to put in double the amount of work than they do now when making the outfit for, I can only speculate, an option a minority of players would be willing to pay extra for.

 

[coso.9173]

> @"LaGranse.8652" said:

> > @"Towatha.4671" said:

> > Why can't I choose to wear the 'female' version of an outfit on a 'male' character?

>

> The male and the female characters (even if they are the same race) have different skeletons. An outfit/skin made for one skeleton cannot be attached to a different skeleton without breaking/looking horrible.

>

> For your wish ANet would need to put in double the amount of work than they do now when making the outfit for, I can only speculate, an option a minority of players would be willing to pay extra for.

>

 

Just to clarify, It's not double the work. Since now they have to not only make 2 separate outfits, 1 for each gender, but also design 2 of them.

So it would be less work than now, they would have to only fit an already created design to another skeleton and body shape.

[Gehenna.3625]

> @"Towatha.4671" said:

> > @"Teratus.2859" said:

> > Model/Body type differences pretty much.

> >

> > They would have to make a male and female outfit version for every race and gender to do this, effectively doubling the workload for every outfit.

>

> Doesn't this mean you're getting 2 outfits for the price of one? Bargain! Surely that'll increase sales?

Since they are the only company being able to sell in this market (since it's their game), they have a monopoly. So they don't have to fight for market share within the GW2 economy. This means that they do not have to push sales for the point of market share. So increasing sales is only useful if it results in more profit.

Also it's a simple point that most people do not want to cross dress their characters. Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with people wanting to do this but for a company to put resources into something, there has to be a profit potential. And then consider also the well-known fact that the most played characters are fhuman females.

 

So if they wanted to double their design work for a small increase in sales then they would be shooting themselves in the foot financially. It would be considered a poor use of resources. And I do say small increase because I don't think that a whole lot of people are interested in this. And what would also happen is that once they cross that bridge, people will want them to apply this retro-actively to existing sets. So then that's a lot of extra work for little to no gain.

 

I am all for diversity but for a company doing something has to make economic sense. That means that if something caters to a minority, it might not be wise to invest into unless that minority is willing to pay for it. We haven't got housing in this game for example. If they had the idea it would make them loads of money without spending too many resources, we would've had it. But we don't. It's always about cost vs benefit and as much as I can't or don't blame you for asking, I fear that the argument of increased sales is not a valid argument.

 

Simply put, if it costs 10K to make another version of a skin and they sell 1000 more at say 8 bucks then they lose 2K on it. They have more sales, but results in a net loss. The numbers are made up of course but that's the sort of thing that companies have to think about.

 

Same thing goes for raids...they said that only a small amount of players do raids and they introduced strike missions as a stepping stone towards raids. They said this and I think this means that if successful they might continue to do raids but if not more people start doing raids, it may no longer be viable for them to create more raids in the future. So that's the same principle. Cost vs benefit.

[Dami.5046]

They should make all outfits Gender neutral and be done. gah. :/

[The Greyhawk.9107]

> @"Dami.5046" said:

> They should make all outfits Gender neutral and be done. gah. :/

 

Why? As more than a few of us have mentioned...repeatedly...it really wouldn't be that much less work on the back end to make all the outfits look the same, plus most people like some variety between the looks of the genders.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"coso.9173" said:

> Just to clarify, It's not double the work. Since now they have to not only make 2 separate outfits, 1 for each gender, but also design 2 of them.

> So it would be less work than now, they would have to only fit an already created design to another skeleton and body shape.

 

Read the OP. They want the male version to be wearable on females and the female version on males. So 4 outfits/armors total.

[Liewec.2896]

> @"Towatha.4671" said:

> > @"Teratus.2859" said:

> > Model/Body type differences pretty much.

> >

> > They would have to make a male and female outfit version for every race and gender to do this, effectively doubling the workload for every outfit.

>

> Doesn't this mean you're getting 2 outfits for the price of one? Bargain! Surely that'll increase sales?

 

Double the work for Anet yep,

but only a very small percentage of people

(sorry if assuming your species offends you!)

Would even want to crossdress their characters,

Most people want their men to look manly

and their female chars to look feminine.

 

So it's double the work to satisfy a niche minority.

[aspirine.6852]

> @"Dami.5046" said:

> They should make all outfits Gender neutral and be done. gah. :/

 

Nah, people wanting to wear female outfits just need to make a female char. You know the one thing that is already possible.

[AgentMoore.9453]

> Other Posters said:

 

> it'd be unpopular with the majority of the player base to not have any variety between the genders' outfits, especially the female players

 

> most people like some variety between the looks of the genders

 

> only a very small percentage of people

 

> Most people want their men to look manly

 

> and their female chars to look feminine.

 

> niche minority.

 

Show your work. Clearly you have access to game data to be able to proclaim those things as fact, right?

 

Feel however you want about gender and clothes, but don't try to speak for others and isolate people by telling them they're part of a tiny group just because you disagree with them. The OP is asking why they can't wear both versions of an outfit on both genders; the core answer is game limitations, everything else is just noise intended to divide and hurt people.

 

 

 

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

The rigging between male and female meshes doesn't have to be different.

Yes there are gender specific differences, but rigging goes to the bone skeleton. (see Blender Skeleton Rigging Models) and it is exchangable.

 

As an example of visual obvious differences is the chest area.

Yet, some of the female models have a ehm how to say decently... rather modest chest, while some male models have a quite muscular chest. Making the differences in those area's between these 2, less than a modest and a chesty female.

Furthermore, Female body styles actually shows that the chest isn't important. The exact same top fits all models.

Most tops and shirts are baked on, and therefor are not stuck to a single body type.

 

Go into character select, or use a Total Make-over Kit, and change body shape with armor on... you'll see.

 

So technically it isn't as difficult as some might think. And a lot can be exchanged if done properly

 

Now if Arenanet does use completely different skeletons for male and female, that would be a good argument, yet it doesn't make sense to me.

The more elements you use that can be exchanged between genders or race, the cheaper and easier it is, to design new armor for them.

I even think that the norn, sylvari and human share their skeleton, cause that would make perfect sense for the workflow and therefor the bottom line.

 

I have no personal interest in cross dressing ingame. (although I have no problem with it, nor think that in this day and age it's niche)

I started using female characters for a whole different reason: I find most male armor and outfits kinda bleh.

Look at 20 different chest skins for lets say a light armored male human, and compare the choices to female light armored... it's huge.

 

I wouldn't use female clothing on a male myself, but I would love more variety for the male armor.

[sevenDEADLY.5281]

> @"AgentMoore.9453" said:

 

> Show your work. Clearly you have access to game data to be able to proclaim those things as fact, right?

>

> Feel however you want about gender and clothes, but don't try to speak for others and isolate people by telling them they're part of a tiny group just because you disagree with them. The OP is asking why they can't wear both versions of an outfit on both genders; the core answer is game limitations, everything else is just noise intended to divide and hurt people.

 

Some quick research shows that roughly 4.5% of the US population and 6% in the EU identify as LGBTQ oriented. Saying he doesn't speak for others also applies to you, and the facts are that such a small percentage of population does qualify technically as niche. Any person that is part of a group always overestimates that group's size because they surround themselves with it. But numbers don't lie. So doubling your workload to cater to 4.5% to 6% of a population is unfortunately unrealistic.

[AgentMoore.9453]

> @"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.

 

> @"sevenDEADLY.5281" said:

>Saying he doesn't speak for others also applies to you

 

Thank you, I'm well aware. I make an effort to preface many of my posts with 'I think' 'In my opinion' and 'It seems to me' in order to make this more clear.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Tuna Bandit.3786" said:

> Yes there are gender specific differences, but rigging goes to the bone skeleton. (see Blender Skeleton Rigging Models) and it is exchangable.

 

Males and females use completely different skeleton poses, not completely different skeletons. The bones of the skeletons should be the same, but the pose is completely different this means animations between the two not compatible. And since Guild Wars 2 uses animations to move clothing (skirts for example) this would mean creating two sets of animations anyway. Male and female characters cannot use animations of the other, same goes with armor/outfits with animated parts, which is almost all of them as they need to bend somehow.

 

Also, the meshes are completely different and it's not the chest that is the problem. The shoulders are different, the male shoulders are "square", the female not so much. The arms on the males are gigantic, female ones are slim. This will cause tremendous poke-through and let me tell you that fixing poke through in armor isn't a very easy process.