260 réponses à ce sujet

[tmp7704]

I think that may be because beauty is allegedly subjective but subjective ideals of beauty owe a lot to what you are socialized to find attractive.

It's not "allegedly". If it was objective with no personal component to it, there'd be no different social norms of what makes one beautiful to begin with, nevermind plethora of individual opinions on the subject disagreeing with these norms to various degree.

[Ieldra]

That is why I created this thread, to see what other people's take were but they completely missed it. People assume that because I do not want to create a super model, that I want to create someone who is ugly. Why does it have to be those two extremes? Why can I not just create a female who does not look like a super model, but yet is still VERY attractive? I am not a superficial person and I believe that it will be the personality and drive behind my Inquisitors that makes them who they are, not CC sliders to make them fall in a spectrum of "This is what ideal beauty is.....".
 
I just think people are missing the point of this thread. It isn't about wanting to create ugly people, but about creating women characters who aren't overly sexualized and a bit grounded, attractive/beautiful, but not like they were purposely created to represent some ideal western view of beauty and attractiveness.

I understand you all right, but I think you're making a problem where none exists. You also come across as complaining about people who want their characters to not look normal, as if a normal look was anything normal in a story where everything else about your character is exceptional.

I also think you misinterpret other players. We all want our characters to look unique, that most of all, and "everyday normal" is not perceived as unique. That's why people's characters tend to be a little extreme, either on the attractiveness or the badass side.

In general, there is a tendency to subscribe to the idea that physical attractiveness is not important. That is a delusion. We might not want it to be important because it would mean admitting how naturally unequal we are, but it nonetheless is. Less in some situations, more in others, but it's almost never irrelevant. When we create characters, we intuitively recognize that and make characters to have a visual impact. Beauty is not the only way to make a character have visual impact, but it's one important way to do it.

In that light, would you please explain why you consider "I want my character to look as attractive as possible" to be a less valid approach to character creation than "I want my character to look somewhat medium attractive" or "I want my character to look unexceptional".

[aetheldod]

Well ... I like what you would call the super model type of beauty because I do find it atractive and no is not social engeneering or whatever you wish to call it , but genuine appreciation for that type of beauty. Also find really hot when women wear eyeliners , so sue me if I like that too. I find that liking this things being offensive to most of you because of the current "political correctness" or what ever movement or social manipulation to be as hypocrital as when people were forced to like the supermodel aestethic.

 

The one thing tho ... I really like my character to have scars because I in real life have a some huge scars in my body (ie I have one in my belly which is more than 20 cm long and about 1 cm wide ... so it is quite the sight to see    ) so in a way that makes them more relatable to me in a weird way so maybe the bit that some imperfections makes them more real is a common ground for all of us.

 

Errr.... sorry if I come out rude with the political correctness bit.

[TheRevanchist]

So basically she was Jack?

 

Basically, but since I made her in ME1, years before ME2 was a thing, she was Jack before Jack.

[bazzybond]

Spoiler

Not all supermodels are conventionally attractive

[Azaron Nightblade]

No way. My femInquisitor will be fiiiiine. 

Sera deserves only the best.

[DMaster2]

What is the problem if people want to play as beautiful girls? I did that and i will do so in DAI when i'll make my female playthrough, trying to make her as good looking (for me) as possible. For people that have different ideas there is a huge CC that will suit every taste.

[Beerfish]

I only date super models in real life so I have to make an inquis, male or female that is amazingly gorgeous cause good looking people only date good looking people, unless the bad looking person has gobs of gold, malachite or elfroot.

[Tielis]

LOL The female Dalish elf in that first advisor reveal stream was pretty butt ugly.

[Tootles FTW]

No thanks.  I enjoy looking at attractive people, so even if I make my baseline face consist of "average" features (and lets be honest, "average" is entirely subjective) I will employ the numerous makeup options to make her exceptional.  

Kinda like what many girls do with our real-life faces, I'd wager.  Gawd I love makeup.

[BullionRouge]

It's not "allegedly". If it was objective with no personal component to it, there'd be no different social norms of what makes one beautiful to begin with, nevermind plethora of individual opinions on the subject disagreeing with these norms to various degree.

The point she was making was not between objective and subjective. The point she was making is that it is as much cultural/social as it is "personal". 

 

The implication being: your personal standards of beauty are heavily influenced by what your socialization conditioned you to believe is beautiful or attractive. The more varied it is, the more varied your criteria becomes. 

 

I kind of agree. I grew up in a specific region of the rural United States where golden haired, blue eyed girl next door types were the very apex of desirability, and if I hadn't gotten away to college and been exposed to other ethnicities and aesthetic types, I'd have probably still believed that only blue eyed blonds could truly be beautiful. 

[tmp7704]

The point she was making was not between objective and subjective. The point she was making is that it is as much cultural/social as it is "personal".

You're right; re-reading that post your interpretation makes more sense, and I tend to agree with this view, so no argument from me regarding it.

[KBomb]

I understand you all right, but I think you're making a problem where none exists. You also come across as complaining about people who want their characters to not look normal, as if a normal look was anything normal in a story where everything else about your character is exceptional.

I also think you misinterpret other players. We all want our characters to look unique, that most of all, and "everyday normal" is not perceived as unique. That's why people's characters tend to be a little extreme, either on the attractiveness or the badass side.

In general, there is a tendency to subscribe to the idea that physical attractiveness is not important. That is a delusion. We might not want it to be important because it would mean admitting how naturally unequal we are, but it nonetheless is. Less in some situations, more in others, but it's almost never irrelevant. When we create characters, we intuitively recognize that and make characters to have a visual impact. Beauty is not the only way to make a character have visual impact, but it's one important way to do it.

In that light, would you please explain why you consider "I want my character to look as attractive as possible" to be a less valid approach to character creation than "I want my character to look somewhat medium attractive" or "I want my character to look unexceptional".

Very well said.

[JMan240]

In regards to the OP, I don't really think anyone playing seriously makes ugly characters of either gender. I wouldn't call any of the characters I've created "Maxim" super-model gorgeous, male or female, but I made them all good looking. I don't really get what the OP is railing about, like people have some crazy standards of beauty for just the female characters. Yo, have you looked at the male Shepard lately? Dude is straight out of the pages of GQ. Our society does it to both binary genders. There's no reason for A&F to put shirtless dudes outside their stores, but they do it anyways. We're obsessed with attractive people, and it's been part of the human condition forever.

[KBomb]

+100

You hit the nail straight on the head and no, you are not missing the point of this thread but rather totally on point, it is just that you explained it in a far more intellectual way than I. My point is that you can still be attractive but yet not look like some super model. By judging by the post in this thread, mainly coming from women, it appears that by being "normal" looking is not attractive and thus because they are "normal" looking in real life, i.e. not attractive, they want to create someone who is attractive in their games, perhaps their ideal beauty?

Maybe it is because I am such an open minded guy but I always find those women who use little to NO makeup to be very attractive. For some weird reason, I am always turned off by those women who always use makeup in an excessive manner. To me to tells me that they value their looks more than anything while those women who do not wear makeup are comfortable with who they are naturally and do not need to wear makeup to appear within the guidelines of what mainstream beauty is, as you described in your post.

That is why I created this thread, to see what other people's take were but they completely missed it. People assume that because I do not want to create a super model, that I want to create someone who is ugly. Why does it have to be those two extremes? Why can I not just create a female who does not look like a super model, but yet is still VERY attractive? I am not a superficial person and I believe that it will be the personality and drive behind my Inquisitors that makes them who they are, not CC sliders to make them fall in a spectrum of "This is what ideal beauty is.....".

I just think people are missing the point of this thread. It isn't about wanting to create ugly people, but about creating women characters who aren't overly sexualized and a bit grounded, attractive/beautiful, but not like they were purposely created to represent some ideal western view of beauty and attractiveness.

Also as a side note, it seems like many women here who consider themselves "normal" looking also does not consider themselves attractive, which is sad. Since when did being normal or average looking equate to being unattractive? Has society gotten that bad to where if a female does not look like some billboard model then she isn't attractive? Is this the shallow thinking of today?

No one is missing the point. They are telling you why they create appealing characters. Reading the post you just made, it comes off as though you want people to give you a pat on the back for realizing beauty comes in all flavors and you reflect that in your PC. I think most people intelligent people have already figured out that beauty isn't just one binary feature. They know it, but they have spent $60+ on an entertainment device and assume they can create a character which appeals to them for whatever reason without having to have someone on the Internet telling them how socially conditioned and wrong they are.

You make characters based on personality instead of being "sexualized". Well, okay? So? I don't think anyone is missing your point, they just don't see why you would care about what they do in a CC.

I make characters that appeal to me. In Saints Row 2, my girl had tattoos all over her body and piercings all over her face and a shaved ponytail. She was beautiful to me. My Shepard, Cousland and Hawke all wore make-up and looked rather smoldering while kicking ass--and might I point out, they did it just as efficiently as your "non-traditionally, non-sexualized" characters did.

In short: I make my characters beautiful because I can. I do what I want to in my game. Furthermore; don't sit in judgement of anyone on their views of beauty, especially after you wanted to kill a character because you felt his head was too small.

[MetalGear312]

I'm still salty the my dwarf femquisitor can't have a beard...

I hear that there might be a patch for that. Also, word on the street is that you can spring up from holes in the ground, and that your a natural sprinter; it would make you very dangerous from a short distance.

[Star fury]

I like supermodel female protagonists, you could see average looking women everyday, one reason why games exist is escapism.

[Salaya]

(...)

 

 I want to try to be less mainstream and more unique. 

 

And you want to play Dragon Age Inquisition despite this? I mean, if there is anything out there as mainstream and mass-indulgent as super-model female custom PCs in games, that's DA:I.

[sylvanaerie]

I made one warden as absolutely drop dead gorgeous as I could--the CE female.  More than one person remarks on her beauty and I wanted the roleplay/dialogue to fit the character.  Other characters I made as pretty as I could to fit my own idea of their personality.  

My 'canon warden', a Surana mage, had a row of freckles over her nose (which I found cute) but in my RP for her, she hated.  In the Tower she'd never been exposed to sunlight and felt it was a serious flaw.  For her hair I chose a wild, over the shoulders almost puffy look that resembled nothing more than a dark red mop.  Something I found lovely and free, she found annoying and untameable.  I chose beautiful armors and robes for her to wear which she felt were 'dusty and travelworn'.  She wore no makeup but eyeliner and I imagined she was lovely, but it was when she smiled, that her true personality was revealed, and that was what made her beautiful.  Kind of hard to RP a character whose face rarely showed any emotion at all, but I still managed to.  And part of that RP was tied to how she looked.  But sometimes, no matter what you do, their 'voice' comes through loud and clear.  She had some serious body issues.

 

My Daylen Amell had a 'jesus' hairdo, parted in the middle, falling in small waves to his shoulders and a very calm, handsome, peaceful look to his face.  He was my most gentle warden, a spirit healer who genuinely tried to help Jowan, was horrified at the outcome of that, both in the Circle and in Redcliffe and did all he could to rectify that.  He was so traumatized by the events of the Joining, it affected my roleplay for him through most of the game.  He tried to save everyone he could after that, and took being a warden very seriously.

 

More than just making characters beautiful, I try to match their appearance to their personality (or try to anyway).  A lot more thought goes into it than you'd think if you just saw images.

[Killdren88]

Another issues where there is no real issue. You can make your inquisitor look anyway you want. And it's really not your say how people plan to make their Inquisitors look like. And if you call people shallow for not making their Inquisitor they way yyou think they should be, then you seem to miss the point of a Fantasy game.

[Majestic Jazz]

there is a tendency to subscribe to the idea that physical attractiveness is not important. That is a delusion. We might not want it to be important because it would mean admitting how naturally unequal we are, but it nonetheless is.".

See, that is where you are wrong. Physical attractiveness is not the end all be all for me. There have bee. Many times where I gravitated towards the female who is supposedly "less attractive" over the female who appears to be the "gem".

Yes, once upon a time I was all about the looks, but as I matures and experienced women sexually, emotionally, and intellectually, looks became less and less relevant.

[Star fury]

And you want to play Dragon Age Inquisition despite this? I mean, if there is anything out there as mainstream and mass-indulgent as super-model female custom PCs in games, that's DA:I.

Don't make your inquisitors beautiful, problem solved.

[Scerene]

i have done my fair share of "homework" in regards to facial proportions, beauty and features that are considered attractive and so on. Based on this ive come to the conlusion, that there are infact certain ratios and facial proportions that are universally considered more attractive than others. They have done studies where they placed about a 20 or so female faces, with varying degrees of beauty on a photo, their skin was greyed out and hair and other things were also taken out of the equation. The scientist who conducted this research traveled across the world, even places that do not have contact with modern society and technology. even those that do not have access to modern technology or have contact with modern "western" beauty ideals, all agreed at which place from most attractive to least these female faces belonged. The most attractive females had larger eyes and fuller lips, with more "average" proportions, and average in this context pertains to certain ratios in the face, the distance between eyes, nose etc that are considered "pleasant" or "undeviating" to the human eye.

 

Quite frankly it makes my stomach turn when people pull out phony ass progressive bs to make themselves sound all progressive and nice. Every single dude ive met and the people ive interacted with reveal themselves to be equally shallow, when called out on it the biggest excuse being that they cant help themselves because they are biologically built to have those preferences so it doesnt make them shallow. like wtf? doesnt matter why you are shallow ******, youre still shallow. Every guy ive met still reacts very favorably to a conventionally pretty face, despite what they say or how much progressive new age bs they pull out of their ass, to sound all deep and intellectual. Women also typically agree which women are attractive around them.

All that being said there are cultural aspects to it, for instance some countries theres the whole neck elongating thing. but the females who have highly attractive faces, will still be more attractive than the average woman no matter what social beauty ideals their culture adheres to. In our society skinny is in, but certain female faces are more attractive to a larger group of peope than others even if they are both attached to a skinny womans body.

 

Personally in video games, i like making characters that are beautiful,because why not? i think its fun and i enjoy seeing my beautiful char interact with the world they are in.

[Salaya]

Don't make your inquisitors beautiful, problem solved.

 

In spanish we have a saying: "Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda", meaning something like: no matter how beatiful you present something, at the end it is what it is.

 

Jokes aside, I understand the OP, ahem, dilemma. But I like to create female/male PCs as beatiful as I could.

[JohnstonMR]

This OP really seems like concern-trolling to me.  "Oh no! The BORING people want to make characters that are ATTRACTIVE!"  

Meh. Make what you want, don't worry about what others want in their games.  Who gives a crap?