And... I'm a bit irritated again

[Edited/Updated 25 Feb]

Okay, so, this week is Guild Wars 2 norn week. The Monday article is basically about a) norn aren't just big humans and b) here's some things that might make you want to play one.

The picture included was, of course, full of boob:

"Samus is a Girl"

I was skimming through TV Tropes list of tropes and came across Samus is a Girl (warning: link clicking can lead to sudden loss of time). It's one I knew about already, but I was already thinking about gender issues thanks to a book I was reading that was set in the 50s-70s time period following the career of a woman, which had a lot of focus on how hard it was for her to convince people she was competent and/or should be promoted, simply because she didn't have a Y chromosone. (Yes, this is related to gaming.... read on.)

I ought to be excited...

They've released more information on Guild Wars 2—some details on how combat is going to work, and some information on the first class. I ought to be excited, because I've been looking forward to this, but sadly, I'm not.

And it's for what I'm sure some people would consider a really stupid reason, which is this: the first class they released information on is a revamp of the Elementalist from the first game, and (much like the Elementalists in the first game), the human female is only wearing clothing by the loosest definition of the word "clothing".

And if that's what the human female soft armor is going to look like, I'm not going to be playing a human female soft-armor class. Especially when the male Elementalist shown is covered from head to toe, it irritates me when the woman's outfit is a bra and what from the back looks like a long skirt but from the front looks like a loin cloth.

I realize this is only one piece of armor, and I should wait and find out more, but it really, really taints the good information for me when the publicity for the game focuses on boobs. The human race stills show women in heavy armor that covers virtually nothing it ought to, and this is just more of the same, and it's really turning me off.

Magical Skin

Here's something that makes my favorite hobby sometimes annoying: For the last 10-15 years, there have been hundreds of magazine articles, newsgroup posts, letters to the editor, and blog posts about how women who game are turned off by the way female characters are generally modeled, animated, and dressed. And yet there's been little to no change in this... and, in fact, in some ways, it's gotten worse. Better graphics and better physics brought us jiggle physics, which naturally were applied immediately to breasts. And it brought us more realistics body modeling, which led to increased breast focus and scoliosis swayed backs that emphasize the ass.