Charr Character Design in Guild Wars 2
Last weekend I played the first Guild Wars 2 beta weekend. The forums were opened for a few days for people to make suggestions about how to improve the game - the forums are now closed, and you need to have bought a copy of the game to see them anyway - and someone suggested that the female Charr models need boobs. Otherwise they're just not feminine.
Cue six pages of players, self-identified as both male and female, telling them that no, one does not need breasts to be feminine, females of non-human species don't need to be designed to be 'attractive' by human standards, and how happy they were to be able to play a female character in an MMO that's not hugely sexualised.
Character artist Kristen Perry dropped into the thread, and quoted from an interview she gave earlier here.
Finally, there was the matter of the chest. It really didn’t make any sense to have boobs on a charr female, particularly with all the effort we took to make her sleek and fierce. We thought they should have no breasts at all or at least hide them under some fluffy fur. Above all else, we needed to be true to the race, of course! There was still some debate, however, so I gave them a choice: either be subtle and downplay the breasts (it wasn’t a point of the race, anyway) or go full-on realistic. Yes, that’s right -none or six!!
Guild Wars 2 isn't perfect of course. There's plenty of chainmail bikinis for those that want them (although you can apparently alter the armour so you don't have to look rediculous just because the stats are good), but the Asura race is also not very sexually dimorphic and I'm glad the playerbase is supporting Arenanet's design.
Cue six pages of players, self-identified as both male and female, telling them that no, one does not need breasts to be feminine, females of non-human species don't need to be designed to be 'attractive' by human standards, and how happy they were to be able to play a female character in an MMO that's not hugely sexualised.
Character artist Kristen Perry dropped into the thread, and quoted from an interview she gave earlier here.
Finally, there was the matter of the chest. It really didn’t make any sense to have boobs on a charr female, particularly with all the effort we took to make her sleek and fierce. We thought they should have no breasts at all or at least hide them under some fluffy fur. Above all else, we needed to be true to the race, of course! There was still some debate, however, so I gave them a choice: either be subtle and downplay the breasts (it wasn’t a point of the race, anyway) or go full-on realistic. Yes, that’s right -none or six!!
Guild Wars 2 isn't perfect of course. There's plenty of chainmail bikinis for those that want them (although you can apparently alter the armour so you don't have to look rediculous just because the stats are good), but the Asura race is also not very sexually dimorphic and I'm glad the playerbase is supporting Arenanet's design.