Feathery antennae are typical of male moths so Moth Mage is likely assigned male at birth. Dem thighs tho. Gems of War needs more thigh highs and less cleavage.
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I’m a dev so idk how much my opinion counts but as a woman, this game doesn’t offend me, and plenty do when the only female characters I can play are scantily clad for battle even when I’m playing a tank class.
Lady Ironbeard is bae
PS. boobs on animals still weirds me out.
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Upcoming troop. The devs are listening to our feedback and are giving us ugly girls! (Sorry, Goblette.)
Especially when those animals aren’t even mammalian.
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I mean speaking frankly here and meaning to not kinkshame:
Once I accept the premise of bipedal anthropomorphic creatures, there’s only one logical place the mammary glands go. Bovines make a strong case for an exception due to having a very species-specific version, but they’re also not really my thing.
At the same time, this is a very “screw you, don’t tell me how my fantasies should work” scenario so I’m just arguing my case with no expectation of establishing a “right”. You do you when it comes to your fantasy artwork preferences.
And, incidentally, I feel like games that focus on eye candy gain better validation if they focus on a broad range of preferences. When it feels like more than one “ideal {biological gendered} body type” is represented with roughly equal distributions, then I think it’s worth saying, “This art is meant to be attractive and if you prefer ‘tame’ art this isn’t your place.”
Whether I agree that kind of statement is a good idea, I respect things that make the statement loud and clear. To me, a key factor of making it ethically OK to present stuff that may be offensive to some is making it clear you intend to make a space where that “offensive” content is allowed. One local establishment called “THE LANDING STRIP” (and I say it in capital letters because the radio ads are very loud) has events like “THE STRIP-N-SLIDE”) and I think once you’re being that obvious about your intents, it’s invalid to assert, “I went into the club and had NO CLUE it was that kind of place!”
I guess I got started because I wanted to assert that “Are people offended?” and “Should people be offended?” are two separate questions, and only one has an objective answer. It felt like this thread was fishing for “Should people be offended?” and that’s not a question we can answer with logic. In general I think people who are offended are playing games that aren’t Gems of War, and it’s OK for GoW to say “We are going to use art common to fantasy tropes and that often involves unrealistic and exaggerated sex characteristics” as long as GoW is comfortable saying it.
It’s when a game says, “We’re all-inclusive and respectful so check out how every character’s butt is at the bottom of a wasp waist and has an optical illusion where no matter what angle you view it from it’s facing you” that things get weird. Again, I mean, they’re openly stating they have a preference, but trying to weasel out of that by saying “it’s inclusive”. GoW isn’t doing that kind of slimy behavior. I think its tone is more likely to say, “She’s wearing that armor because she’s not expecting to be stabbed in the chest.”
And it’s OK to say that, so long as you own it!
So, in short:
- It’s OK to like art with attractive physical features.
- You are the only person who gets to define “attractive” for you.
- Nobody gets to define “attractive” for someone else.
- But we, as a society, know some people are very uncomfortable with certain kinds of art.
- It is OK for a game to choose to use art that might offend some people.
- But the game has an obligation to make it really obvious this is intentional and not accidental.
- I think GoW is fulfilling its ethical obligations here.
- It’s OK to argue it is ethically wrong no matter what, there are some valid cases to build.
- But you won’t get a lot of traction here, and there are better ways to fight the system than focusing on a single F2P game.
- The word “dilemma” exists because we accept there are some situations where there is a valid and logical reason both sides of a polarized issue are ethical.
- In these cases, we as adults have to take a deep breath, decide what we agree with, and be OK with the notion that some people will refuse to be our friends for our views.
- Example: I disagree with, but respect, George W Bush because even though I think his decisions were wrong, I feel like he owns what he did and argues he either still believes in it or at least believes he made the right decision at the time. I cannot respect a limp noodle like Donald Trump, whose current opinion is always guided by, “What can I say that will make you happy?” He believes in nothing, and only accepts his own decisions if people are clapping for him.
- In these cases, we as adults have to take a deep breath, decide what we agree with, and be OK with the notion that some people will refuse to be our friends for our views.
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The name gave the pop-culture reference away. Still, definitely a chuckle from me (and shows how “old” I am, that I immediately recognized the reference).
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I’m not offended by any of the art. It’s just that, as a woman with severe body dysmorphia (that is, I hate my body), the art can trigger me sometimes and make me really depressed.
It’s gotten better since I’ve started playing and also because no one uses Atlanta.
So my original comment wasn’t meant to offend anyone, it was an honest question about whether more diverse body types (and skin tones, but I didn’t want to open that can of worms on these forums, especially considering the climate here lately) could be considered attractive enough for troop art. I think limiting it to pinched waist and DDDs is really minimalizing to the extremely attractive body types women can have and falls short in the same way comic books do. Don’t get me wrong, I love comic books and I love the art in these troop cards, I would just love them more if they took a more progressive attitude toward the “allowable” body types for women (and I usually do when I find a good comic that does so). I love the weirder art and I love the art we have. It’s just as attractive to me to see a bigger waist and smaller chest as it is to see what we have currently as the only body type and I thought I wasn’t the only one so I brought it up here as a place to discuss. I feel like some people might have misread my intentions like this here.
As to this, skimming my original post to pick that sentence out and missing the point entirely so you could argue for internet clout, I like the current art as well. Obviously I do, otherwise I wouldn’t have started playing. As well as the mechanics being fun, the art was a huge draw for me. I grew up a huge fantasy dork and I’ll die a huge fantasy dork. I’m just saying if there are going to be cat monsters like Umenath with huge tits, draw them with 8 pairs of huge tits since it’s some kind of cat and not human. Draw bigger bulges on the dudes since the point is to make it fantasy sexy art and make an echidna creature with 4 different bulges. I don’t care, I just want more diversity for men and women and if the frame of every female…creature? card art is going to be huge tits, I don’t think it’s out of line to say more men should be framed with their huge bulges in the center of the screen. It’s not a matter of “the vapors” to say there can be more diverse body types and it shouldn’t be alienating or emasculating to have more men drawn in a “fantasy sexy” way either. For every guy lost to thicker waists and more bikini briefs on men with huge ol’ dicks, I would imagine another guy (or two) would join. It’s not prudish to say women can be sexy without being drawn with pinched waists and huge tits. I get that I left my original two statements intentionally vague on a personal standpoint (these forums can be a bit caustic, again, especially lately) but finding the one statement I made that could be interpreted a certain way so you could jump in with that reply to a misinterpretation of a vaguely worded single sentence is pretty self-indulgent.
I honestly just wanted a dialogue among the players here about what could be attractive and why it was so one-sided as far as the “sexy” art goes. Would it really be so emasculating to have a huge bulge framed the way the huge cat-tits were to the men here? Would your sense of self as a person be removed if there were trans women and men and more NB in the art? Would the community think it was “icky” to have anatomically correct animal creatures the same way you think it’s for some reason sexy to have huge tits on cats? I love the responses I’ve seen and the art linked, some of these have made me legitimately laugh. I love the fact that Kafka jumped in to distance themself from the animal boobs as well, despite nobody buying it. Ironbeard is bae, I think Gemhammer personally is creepy and reminds me of loli art. Slap a beard on that thing, yeesh.
As to Slypenslyde, I appreciate your insight. Forums are usually trash places filled with trolls and this one isn’t exempt from some ugly speech. But honestly, if this isn’t a place where I can open a dialogue about things I think are important or interesting to me, why show up here at all? I don’t have any stake here and if it turns into a toxic sludge pile of a forum I can just move on to the next place or just find something else to fill my time. I just got Animal Crossing so that’s a pretty strong candidate. Sometimes it just surprises me when people say something positive and insightful and I have my day brightened a bit. Also,it gives me a good idea of who to ignore when they jump into a forum with their chud-iness and try to explain to me why a game only needs one ideal of beauty to be valid or how I’m overreacting by bringing up something I find to be an interesting topic. To each their own, but I already know a few posters to skim over when a discussion starts and I don’t mind adding to that list.
I didn’t expect an echo chamber when I made the post and I’m always interested when people feel like there is something else happening and why, even if I don’t agree with it, as long as that information can be delivered respectfully and thoughtfully, differences in opinions are what makes conversation interesting!
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OK this thread turned out better than I expected it would, this makes me happy.
There are a lot of garbage people out there, but this thread has good ones.
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Just a fun fact: Our Art Director is a woman. I asked her for her opinion on this discussion and she said she likes the sexy Gems of War women because she likes the characters to resemble her.
JOKING.
I hope you all enjoy my 1 liner contributions to the intelligent lengthy discussion you’re all having. I’m very helpful. Much discuss.
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I enjoy these thread when they are productive and dismantle ways of thinking with civility and understanding. Noice. Noice noice noice.
I personally enjoy the art in Gems of War, and am a strong advocate in house for more sexy men. I also love that we show a diverse range of body types in the game, and that we now have more female troops in game with more realistic armour, to slowly balance out the titty armour. Which also has its place, namely in video games and chain-mail bikinis worn at renaissance fairs.
(As a little side note, @Megaqwerty, I also suffer from body dysmorphia. I’m sorry to hear that it can trigger you. I’ve never been particularly triggered by 2D, but I sympathise. Unfortunately it is a very common staple of video games, so I hope that it gets easier for you over time so you can enjoy playing a wider range of games safely.)
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That is a debate that has been coming back regularly for quite a long time…
I can’t choose any answer in the poll because none suits me.
I would like the game to treat more equally male and female troops. It has been totally unequal until now.
It has absolutely nothing to do with being prudish or puritan. It is purely a question of the game being sexist.
Either it is a family game and there is no reason why most of the female troops, even felines or insects, should have boobs and be half naked. Or the artists want to add a touch of sexy and then male and female troops should be equally sexy.
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I’d say they aren’t aiming for a family friendly G rating since they added the violent art found on Crazed Troll. My guess is that they aim for something close to PG-13.
I’d agree that the ratio of sexy male or nonbinary art to sexy female art is severely lopsided.
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I’d be interested to see the range and sum of male/nb troops considered sexy by the GoW community!
I’m curious what troops people would consider nonbinary. The only one I can think of is Moth Mage.
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…
Moth Mage is almost guaranteed to be intended to be female as the only indication she isn’t is her antennae, which is much more easily explained by the artist not being familiar with moth anatomy. Regardless, Moth Mage’s art kinda makes me wish I were a lamp.
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“Find them, out them, label them”. And so it begins.
The inhabitants of Krystara already face oppression on a daily basis. Who are we to judge them? I say enough with the labels.
I have read the arguments of the “Thought Police”, and they would seem like wisdom, but for the warning in my heart. Yes, I plagiarise, but so does the Fool of April, @Slypenslyde, who parrots the words of division. Free yourself from hate. We are all capable of good and evil.
I am here to unite all of Krystara under one banner, where we might be able to have discussions free from labels and bullying; where we are all free to go into a museum, such as one I once visited, and view a can of feces, and determine for ouselves: “Is this art?”
Chunky’s Raiders, coming soon to a platform near you. For the Horde.
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Stan Lady Ironbeard
I would like to live in a world where the gender or skin color is as important as eye or hair color.
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I’m sorry, but what does any of that have to do with my question?
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I think he thought it’d be funny to copy some paragraphs from a book and edit them to the circumstances. I’m not sure if he thought through the ramifications of making a “being non-heteronormative makes you a charlatan who only seeks to cause discord” statement in this of all threads.
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