Lateana@The Bazaar wrote: I think i want to sign this one To much testosterone in the development. How many female deccision makers do work in the raid and endgame department for SOE ? I also wanted to add that EQ2 has not only lots of females playing it, but also many 40+ people playing it. Means, mature females and males. I do not think the boob size is the problem, its the ongoing WOWification of what once was a good game with excellent potential. I think this time i ll buy the expansion late. Maybe in march. I ll wait and read here and listen to guild members and then decide.
Emily "Domino" Taylor wrote: I found those statistics kind of funny... BTW 95% of statistics are made up and/or unreliable.
Foolsfolly wrote: I came over from Aion just two weeks ago. Been there since their open beta in June. Based off voices in vent, I have never played a game with such a high percentage of women. I suspect is was because the game was very beautiful in terms of both scenery and costuming. The armor really was spectacularly detailed and beautiful. I spoke with many women about it and most there said that they enjoyed playing the game because it was fun and they got to wear stuff that was actually feminine and pretty. Frilly dresses and that sort of thing. I understand that not all women are like that. Some like the subdued or manish looking stuff. Some like the racy, sexy stuff. But some simply like the girly stuff or the elegant stuff. There are all types. But what I think keeps a lot of women out of these games is the tendency of western games toward either the manish look or the racy look. It is either bordering on pornographic type classic Conan sexy, bikini and bondage look or it it is the frumpy man armor, joan of arc look with just barely enough curve to make you wonder what gender that person is. A truly feminine look is actually pretty rare. This third category would appeal to a portion, just a portion, but I suspect a large portion of the female demographic that gets left out. As for boobs, Aion had two sliders that affected it. Chest and Torso. Torso was the size of the ribcage. If you maxed both out it came out looking somewhat unnatural but most people is seemed, including the women, that made female toons made the torso smaller and the chest large but not maxed, 75%+ I would guess. My guess is that when you can be anything you want in female fantasy terms, most go for ample but not unrealistic. This also seems to be true in terms of what men want. Big boobs are attractive but fake is not and she still has to be otherwise healthy so fat doesn't work either. So lacking fake or fat you do have a realistic limit to attractive boob size. Any form of fantasy will tend to push that limit.
I was at the Austin Game Developer's Conference last fall because my husband teaches computer gaming at his college. I was very interested in Smedley's speech and got from it that micro transactions such as used in FreeRealms (and in EQ2) are the future of SOE, not big boobs. Unfortunately I also got the impression that SOE/Smedley were quite literally drooling over the subscription numbers for WoW and are hell-bent on figuring out what draws folks to WoW. It appears they think the PvP via Battlegrounds and big boobs are what draw young mlaes with lots of time on their hands and money to spend on games. I think they have missed the obvious answer. Every game store I enter has large WoW display and lots of boxes to buy. I have never seen an EQ2 display or for that matter even a box since EQ2 was introduced over five years ago. If I didn't already play it I would not know it existed. EQ2 holds a rather unique spot in the gaming marketplace. There really isn't anything out there with the same depth and visual appeal as EQ2. If I were in charge I would build on that player base and flood gaming stores and bookstores with large applealing displays (not just shots of big boobs either, lol).
Lateana@The Bazaar wrote: Displays are not the only thing. WoW lives from his hype. There a many paper magizines dedicated to WoW. Releasing special issues whenever WOW got an expansion. But in the end everyone just tries to milk the WoW phenomenon. WoW numbers decline. None of my hardcore WoW playing friends has an active subscription anymore. They left, because they felt like item ******. We have been playing Diablo2 hardcore mode together before WoW was released and all was about skill and improvisation. They fell for the Blizz hype, for some reasons god had mercy with me Another thing is, that item heavy gameplay is materialistic. No, not talking about politics/ethics. Its just that metarialism does not go well with a fantasy game. Its not about being mythed, but about being a hero or bandit that lives through his adventures. I have been happy when i defeated the god king and the water stoped to flow. The Zepter was just a small reward compared to achivement i made in my mind. And, btw., the Zepter was not as classdefining then an epic weapon. WoW is like pop music. EQ2 was a bit deeper in 2005. There is no law that says all music has to be pop music. This is where i think Smedley is wrong. Bussiness is not only making money, it is also about loving/liking his products, to be proud of his own work. Unfortunately SOE showed three times (SWG/VG/EQ2) that they do not care to much about the uniqueness of their products. Sometimes i think it doesnt matter how SOE makes money. They could sell shoe polish as well, as long as the profit is good. IMHO, thats a sad attitude for a company. In my opinion microtransactions are not the future. This is like those plastic toys the put into the bag at McDonalds. The future of a quality game is to deliver quality and then charge a bit more.
Elhonas@Antonia Bayle wrote: Using my partial quote and the response, that is totally off base, still makes me chuckle. And no, I don't think it's the same percentage of women at all, although with the rise in obesity, that is becoming more true. The only difference is that in the game the hefty boobs are all tacked onto models that are otherwise trim. And as I stated before, I have no problem with them in the game as long as I have options not to have my characters burdened with them. Also in some cases, like half-elves, the issue isn't so much the size as the posture where they sway their back and stick out their chests. Again, I wish they could just make it a stance for those that want that kind of thing. I really do get mixed messages as to who this game is targeted for.
I believe what we are really talking about here is choice. Most players, regardless of gender, prefer a high degree of customization for their characters. EQII does a pretty good job in terms of player races available. Where they still need more work is in clothing styles and in physical features, (breast size included). More hair styles, tattoos, scars, blemishes, age variations, body weight, etc. Other areas that could use a little more atttention are character annimations and armor models. When it comes to character customization, more is better. In my opinion, EQII is second-to-none in player housing customization. I would like to see the same attention paid to character customization.
Lateana@The Bazaar wrote: I made it a bit bigger to make it easier to read <hint> There is only one or two other reasons EQ2 isn't bigger. The economy/work, and the other two I won't mention here, but I think the obvious has been missed before.
Lateana@The Bazaar wrote: If Sony changed it's name to Blizzard, the subscription rates would skyrocket. That is the only reason that game became popular: Because it was made by the same company who made Starcraft and Diablo. Just look at Korea if you want an idea of how popular Starcraft is: They train you to become a professional player and make a living off of playing it. It sells 10 copies for every 1 copy of WoW or any other game!
I just had a horrible thought. I am on a server where we even have a character named "Moobs". Imagine the boob slider inadvertently applying to guys, so that you DO have man-boobs! Eeeeeekkkkk!
I am a female and I have mostly male toons. I have 1 female toon that always quests with my husband's toons because he doesn't like my male toons. My male toons I solo with. The reason why I have male toons is because I got harrassed way too many times playing a female toon in WoW and just got used to rolling male toons. I could care less if the lady toons have big chests or if the male toons have big...er...other things. I just want to be left alone when playing the game! And no one expects a woman to be playing male toons.
Eugam wrote: 100% agree! EQ2 keeps getting less and less attractive as a game for me the closer it gets to Warcraft.
Lateana@The Bazaar wrote: I think the battlegrounds are a mistake. If you try to focus on small group PvP or 1v1 PvP, people will be forever whining about balance between the characters. This kind of balance has a tendancy to run counter to PvE balance and you are forever stuck in a tug of war over which will win out. I think too much emphasis on PvP by way of battlegrounds will only dilute the focus on content an PvE balance in this game. Right now, I am really impressed with the amount of content, and the fact that you can do anything you want, that is change sides and match any race to any class. I hope they keep this up and don't get caught by the PvP trap. WoW is running out of steam and EQ2 still has so much existing lore potential to explore. If they just wait, improve the quality. Improve the playablity. keep adding content, cities and options they will do great. Improve the look. Improve the customization of characters would be a good idea. But if they simply try to imitate WoW, they will forever be one step behind the leader. Watch them, try to figure out why people like them, that is sensible. But don't follow them. For as badly as Warhammer failed, Paul Barnett had a great quote from a video interview of which I can only find a paraphrase now. ---World Of Warcraft is to MMOs what The Beatles are to music, Barnett said - WoW made prior MMOs irrelevant. But you can’t be The Beatles. If you try, he quipped, you will "...end up as the Monkees."--- He was annoying as anything but in this he was exactly right. If you try to be WoW your just going to end up looking stupid. Do your own thing. It has taking time but now who listens to the Beatles now? A few people do but mostly only aging hippies who are having trouble coming to grips with the fact that there favorite group is not longer the center of the universe. The 2000s was the decade of WoW. No doubt about it. Get over it. But don't try to imitate that which is already going out. Rather, take a clue from one of the newer games that came close. Aion looks good, plays great, lots of fun. Not enough content. Pushed out too soon. Sooooo, very "not enough content". If the Aion look and game play had the depth of content, cities, number of classes and races, housing, guild housing, etc, that EQ2 has it would have very possibly destroyed WoW. SOE has the know how, lore and cash to make it happen. But they need to learn to not follow like a bunch of scared little girls. They need to look at what is out there, figure out where it is all going and then get there before anyone else does.
I would also point out that not following also means not doing something different from what works simply because you want to be different. I am not saying that SOE should do the exact opposite as WoW for fear of being WoW like. Just don't do it simply because WoW does it. If it works do it. If it doesn't change it. Stop following and start leading.
Gennifer wrote: I don't think that happens much in this game... at least not to me... but that could be due to other reasons.
