Originally Posted by poopinmymouth

What's way more terrifying than being falsely accused of rape, is being actually raped, which is something women have to deal with every single day of their lives in practically every country on earth. Ask the women in your lives if they ever worry about being sexually assaulted.

You *can* technically just run into a court and accuse someone of raping you,but the chance of them actually getting put in jail for doing it is astronomically low without an external force at play (like racism). So first: medical examination, which provides most of your evidence. You MUST do that in order to get treatment at a trauma or rape crisis center (and in many US states, you must pay for this rape-test-kit yourself). If you decline for any reason you lose most of your evidence and you throw your story into question, even if it's because you are traumatized and don't want to be touched on your genitals/anus/etc by a stranger after what's happened. Then you file charges. This is not as easy as it sounds. You need to provide physical evidence, details, name and places they might be. That's before you even get to court, there you will have your accusation ripped apart, your sexual history dug into, your story called into question. Oh and that's if you were conscious, black out drunk? choked out? hit over the head? too bad. no suspect, no charges.

Not to mention that less than 8% of accusations of rape are found to be false in a court of law, whereas something like 32% of false insurance claims are fake. Combined with the FBI's own reports that sexual assault is hugely under-reported in the US (and similar figures of under-reportage can be found for the UK and most countries).

On top of that, I'm not sure television or sensationalist shows like Cops are a good source of knowledge for forming an opinion on such an issue.

You act like women are the only people who are raped.

Originally Posted by Snacuum

Exactly what I kept thinking. The only thing I can think of is to "un-sexy" our women and then I wonder will that really work?

Then you aren't thinking hard enough. The idea is not to change only their visual appearance from sex doll to butter-troll, it's to change their personality so that it exists *at all*. They should have names, preferences and a history in your mind. They should exist as real people so that your design decisions reflect that instead of just trying to think how to get the perfect ass shape and narrow sexy waist. By all means do that as well, but if you are imagining her *as a full person with agency and a personality* not only will your design be stronger, but it will help you avoid a ton of pitfalls in making shallow lifeless fucktoys.

You can see this mentioned over and over and over at conceptart.org, or in any story writing class. Even if you aren't going to mention the character's backstory, you should have thought about it. Thinking up a short bio like:

What did his/her parents do?
What was his/her childhood like?
What are some defining moments of his/her adolescence that helped form them into the person they are today?
What is his/her favorite color?
How does he/she make their living?
What culture were they raised in?

By answering these questions, your character/vehicle/weapon will subconsciously take on more authenticity, and can even help you decide design choices you might have had to randomly grab out of a hat without otherwise writing this short bio.

There are a ton of physically sexy female characters that feminists (and gay men!) adore, because they are full people with agency. The annoying ones are those that have had thought put *only* into their sexual appeal and physical presentation. The idea isn't to subtract, but to add to.

Originally Posted by Goeddy

well you can turn this around a hundred times.
for example as a men you may end up beaten up by a couple of guys, just because they feel like it, or they like your jacket.
as a women getting raped... not so much. especialy in public places.

in my location there have been cases of men getting beaten to death for virtualy no reason.

This thread is starting to take a really weird "one-upping" path, lets try to get it back on topic. IE: related to games in some way. Polycount, not Rapecount.

Being raped, living in fear of raped, being falsely accused of rape, or living in fear of being falsely accused of rape - all are real and terrible issues. Putting them on a scale and weighing there "terribleness" against each other serves no purpose but to make everyone involved look like an insensitive jackass.

Originally Posted by poopinmymouth

Then you aren't thinking hard enough. The idea is not to change only their visual appearance from sex doll to butter-troll, it's to change their personality so that it exists *at all*. They should have names, preferences and a history in your mind. They should exist as real people so that your design decisions reflect that instead of just trying to think how to get the perfect ass shape and narrow sexy waist. By all means do that as well, but if you are imagining her *as a full person with agency and a personality* not only will your design be stronger, but it will help you avoid a ton of pitfalls in making shallow lifeless fucktoys.

You can see this mentioned over and over and over at conceptart.org, or in any story writing class. Even if you aren't going to mention the character's backstory, you should have thought about it. Thinking up a short bio like:

What did his/her parents do?
What was his/her childhood like?
What are some defining moments of his/her adolescence that helped form them into the person they are today?
What is his/her favorite color?
How does he/she make their living?
What culture were they raised in?

By answering these questions, your character/vehicle/weapon will subconsciously take on more authenticity, and can even help you decide design choices you might have had to randomly grab out of a hat without otherwise writing this short bio.

There are a ton of physically sexy female characters that feminists (and gay men!) adore, because they are full people with agency. The annoying ones are those that have had thought put *only* into their sexual appeal and physical presentation. The idea isn't to subtract, but to add to.

This. I can think of a few female characters that are physically sexy, but that have more depth than just that (Doctor Who comes to mind, and even Battlestar Galactica in some regards, despite Anita bashing it). You can also simplify the questions to the 5 W's:
Who? What? When? Where? Why? If any of the answers to the questions aren't "just because", it's a good start.

Originally Posted by poopinmymouth

Then you aren't thinking hard enough. The idea is not to change only their visual appearance from sex doll to butter-troll, it's to change their personality so that it exists *at all*. They should have names, preferences and a history in your mind. They should exist as real people so that your design decisions reflect that instead of just trying to think how to get the perfect ass shape and narrow sexy waist. By all means do that as well, but if you are imagining her *as a full person with agency and a personality* not only will your design be stronger, but it will help you avoid a ton of pitfalls in making shallow lifeless fucktoys.

You can see this mentioned over and over and over at conceptart.org, or in any story writing class. Even if you aren't going to mention the character's backstory, you should have thought about it. Thinking up a short bio like:

What did his/her parents do?
What was his/her childhood like?
What are some defining moments of his/her adolescence that helped form them into the person they are today?
What is his/her favorite color?
How does he/she make their living?
What culture were they raised in?

By answering these questions, your character/vehicle/weapon will subconsciously take on more authenticity, and can even help you decide design choices you might have had to randomly grab out of a hat without otherwise writing this short bio.

There are a ton of physically sexy female characters that feminists (and gay men!) adore, because they are full people with agency. The annoying ones are those that have had thought put *only* into their sexual appeal and physical presentation. The idea isn't to subtract, but to add to.

I just wanted to chime in here and say that this is an excellent response. You know I give you a lot of shit for posting in these political hot-button threads, so credit where credit is due.

I would love to see you expand on it even further, with various examples and imagery as how ones upbringing, or other specific preference would relate to the physical appearance of a character. I think this would be a great resource not only for overcoming cliches and tropes, but for character design in general. I'm not much of character artist myself so I wouldn't have much to contribute, but I'm sure you would get some good feedback from Pior, Haz, and the rest of the bad ass character artists here.

Originally Posted by EarthQuake

This thread is starting to take a really weird "one-upping" path, lets try to get it back on topic. IE: related to games in some way. Polycount, not Rapecount.

Being raped, living in fear of raped, being falsely accused of rape, or living in fear of being falsely accused of rape - all are real and terrible issues. Putting them on a scale and weighing there "terribleness" against each other serves no purpose but to make everyone involved look like an insensitive jackass.

You're right, it's too easy to get overly emotional about this and take personal offense/inadvertently attack each other. Sorry about contributing to the derail. I just felt like I should speak up from a female perspective since there aren't a lot of women in here. Let's segue back to video games.

Originally Posted by shoes

You're right, it's too easy to get overly emotional about this and take personal offense/inadvertently attack each other. Sorry about contributing to the derail. I just felt like I should speak up from a female perspective since there aren't a lot of women in here. Let's segue back to video games.

There's no need to apologize, I think its only natural to have that sort of response, I think the thing we all need to try to remember is that X issue doesn't need to be *worse* than Z issue to be valid.

You've made some great contributions to this thread and I think that simply getting a female perspective on the issue/general polycount stuff(not just this thread!) is hugely productive for polycount and the games industry at large.

why am I getting a feeling like this from the posts of a few individuals here?

Because you aren't listening, mithdia.

Obviously not all men are rapists. Few men are rapists! Relatively few men are even harmless creeps! You're twisting our argument into a bizarre extreme.

What me and shoes and ben are trying to say, I believe, is:

WOMEN HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS SHIT, however rare you think it is, its still something that every woman encounters. Even if she walked past 50 men every day and only one was a creep, that's still one too many.

I have to stop and explain to dudes I work with/hang out with that they're being assholes if they follow a woman just to check her out. But maybe thats just because I live in the south....

Originally Posted by poopinmymouth

Then you aren't thinking hard enough. The idea is not to change only their visual appearance from sex doll to butter-troll, it's to change their personality so that it exists *at all*. They should have names, preferences and a history in your mind. They should exist as real people so that your design decisions reflect that instead of just trying to think how to get the perfect ass shape and narrow sexy waist. By all means do that as well, but if you are imagining her *as a full person with agency and a personality* not only will your design be stronger, but it will help you avoid a ton of pitfalls in making shallow lifeless fucktoys.

You can see this mentioned over and over and over at conceptart.org, or in any story writing class. Even if you aren't going to mention the character's backstory, you should have thought about it. Thinking up a short bio like:

What did his/her parents do?
What was his/her childhood like?
What are some defining moments of his/her adolescence that helped form them into the person they are today?
What is his/her favorite color?
How does he/she make their living?
What culture were they raised in?

By answering these questions, your character/vehicle/weapon will subconsciously take on more authenticity, and can even help you decide design choices you might have had to randomly grab out of a hat without otherwise writing this short bio.

There are a ton of physically sexy female characters that feminists (and gay men!) adore, because they are full people with agency. The annoying ones are those that have had thought put *only* into their sexual appeal and physical presentation. The idea isn't to subtract, but to add to.

I have to agree completely with you here. However my ambivalence towards actually being able to "solve" the issue, even with this proactive stance is because it rests on hope. We all hope that people will notice and/or care that effort has been made, or if even that is done properly, as while society has made it simply so that women have gotten the short end, such sexism is woefully easy to do. On both sides at that, with it being so easy to make something terrible, and so easy to be offended (as has been demonstrated here).

Snacuum social change doesnt happen over night, it's not 'solved' with a bandaid. Its solved by MANY people over a LONG time doing their part to make it happen.

Originally Posted by Joseph Silverman

Snacuum social change doesnt happen over night, it's not 'solved' with a bandaid. Its solved by MANY people over a LONG time doing their part to make it happen.

I know I know, hence the ambivalence. I believe that the industry as whole is learning and already applying what we're talking about, and therefore the slow change is in action regardless to how much we argue about it here.

Not only that, but it won't be "solved." Social issues rarely are and simply tend to morph and change into a new set of problems introduced be the newer perspectives.

Originally Posted by Stormie

You act like women are the only people who are raped.

More men are actually raped in the United States than women:

Men Raped More Than Women In U.S.? - YouTube

this goes into much more detail about where those numbers come from

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archive...ar-than-women/

"
“sexual assault” is not always the same as “rape,” and includes a variety of behavior that wouldn’t meet the legal standard for rape. So it’s not clear that there are actually more rapes of men than women, or more rapes of prisoners than non-prisoners

“Inmates” also does not translate to “men.” There are a whole lot of women in jail, and female prisoners are twice as likely to experience inmate-on-inmate sexual assault (male inmates are slightly more likely to experience assault at the hands of prison staff). So again, not so obvious that more men than women experience sexual assault.

Seriously, enough with the one-upping rape shit. Get it back on topic or this thread will be closed/posts deleted without warning.

Originally Posted by arshlevon

this goes into much more detail about where those numbers come from

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archive...ar-than-women/

"
“sexual assault” is not always the same as “rape,” and includes a variety of behavior that wouldn’t meet the legal standard for rape. So it’s not clear that there are actually more rapes of men than women, or more rapes of prisoners than non-prisoners

“Inmates” also does not translate to “men.” There are a whole lot of women in jail, and female prisoners are twice as likely to experience inmate-on-inmate sexual assault (male inmates are slightly more likely to experience assault at the hands of prison staff). So again, not so obvious that more men than women experience sexual assault.

That's not exactly an unbiased source, being a feminist website. I'd like to see TYT's source, because the DoJ apparently did make a distinction between "rape" and "sexual abuse".

Honestly, this is why I can't take feminism seriously. The idea that mens rights issues' exist undermines the very core of feminism, the patriarchy. So if there are any mens rights issues', most feminists will stomp them out immediately and try to pretend like they don't exist. I don't like that. And that's why I'm against feminism... because I'm for absolute equality between the genders. Feminism is the idea that we can make both sexes equal by focusing solely on the issues of one of them.

Originally Posted by EarthQuake

Seriously, enough with the one-upping rape shit. Get it back on topic or this thread will be closed/posts deleted without warning.

Why not just move the posts into a new thread? Might be a good idea since this is a pretty interesting debate on a related, yet separate issue.

Edit: I apologize, I didn't read that this debate was already going on nor did I see your warning. Just saw the top post, and reacted to it.

Originally Posted by Aigik

Why not just move the posts into a new thread? Might be a good idea since this is a pretty interesting debate on a related, yet separate issue.

Because this is not rapecount, this is polycount. Any thread started to discuss rape, abortion, or any other flame-baiting hot-button political topic that has no relevance to polycount(art, games, etc) will be immediately closed.

Keep it on topic or go to a different website, certainly there are thousands on the internet where you can discuss such topics.

speaking of a topic relative or not to polycount, im sure there are alot more rape games out there than you might think, especially from the eastern part of the world, where people are not able to express thir feelings in usual ways because of lack of women. but ill doublt that the kind of artwork contained in said games is about to get posted here anyways

this is my opinion toward this issue.

I think she need to make video games,
I know some women actually create and design video games. and actually play it. she doesn't look like as one, she just observe it.
there is tons tons of tons video game that doesn't involve sexism, or sex appeal or discrimination against women.
If women actually spend some more time on playing games, make some blog about it, more than boys, I believe developers would looove to make games for girls if that happen.


I've been raised by a woman who are boss, leader, and know how to handle herself, actually making products , and avoid gossips. ohh she doesn't have master degree in social politics wut ... ;3

Originally Posted by arrangemonk

speaking of a topic relative or not to polycount, im sure there are alot more rape games out there than you might think, especially from the eastern part of the world, where people are not able to express thir feelings in usual ways because of lack of women.

there is girl game about stalking(and taking photo) men having sex.
also there are some eroge for girl. yaoi also quite common.

Originally Posted by poopinmymouth

Then you aren't thinking hard enough. The idea is not to change only their visual appearance from sex doll to butter-troll, it's to change their personality so that it exists *at all*. They should have names, preferences and a history in your mind. They should exist as real people so that your design decisions reflect that instead of just trying to think how to get the perfect ass shape and narrow sexy waist. By all means do that as well, but if you are imagining her *as a full person with agency and a personality* not only will your design be stronger, but it will help you avoid a ton of pitfalls in making shallow lifeless fucktoys.

You can see this mentioned over and over and over at conceptart.org, or in any story writing class. Even if you aren't going to mention the character's backstory, you should have thought about it. Thinking up a short bio like:

What did his/her parents do?
What was his/her childhood like?
What are some defining moments of his/her adolescence that helped form them into the person they are today?
What is his/her favorite color?
How does he/she make their living?
What culture were they raised in?

By answering these questions, your character/vehicle/weapon will subconsciously take on more authenticity, and can even help you decide design choices you might have had to randomly grab out of a hat without otherwise writing this short bio.

There are a ton of physically sexy female characters that feminists (and gay men!) adore, because they are full people with agency. The annoying ones are those that have had thought put *only* into their sexual appeal and physical presentation. The idea isn't to subtract, but to add to.

And back to this, so Ben your complaint isn't with artists but with writers then. Yeah sure we cane make the characters look real and have a history but if they are written by people with no care about non 2d characters then all is for not. I know as a env guy history is what were all about, giving spaces a lived in and not brand new feeling. But would it matter that we put all that art time in if you were say in a driving game where you were flying by at 200mph? No you wouldn't, just in the same way that you wouldn't notice all the love and history given to the characters that you "interact with". Gamer's don't like to be taken away from the action for very long so most all of that time has to be spent on moving the plot forward or some action event. So all your left with are NPC's that follow you around like puppies blabbing on about something causing the player to want to shut them up. Yes i do agree that we need more interesting characters, but when would we get the time to find out that they are deeper than a cardboard cut out?

@ Thegodzero, I think certain genres lend themselves to deeper characters better than others, just like they do for environments. You mentioned a lot of detail that gets lost going 200 mph, say in a racing game. But in a game like say Mass Effect, you get to appreciate the environments, just like you can appreciate characters with depth. Take Miranda for example. I won't spoil anything, but she's more than just a sex toy, she has depth to her that's made her who she is. RPG's are just more naturally inclined to providing that space for deeper characters. And maybe the character's depth doesn't have to be explicitly shown to the player in the game, it's just something to show the audience that the writers were thinking about it. I bring up Mass Effect again, since it's currently trending. Your team's depth only gets revealed if you talk to them and interact, otherwise they're just shells supporting Shepard (both male and female squad members mind you). So yes, I agree that it does come to the writers more than the artists, especially since the artists are making characters look more real and genuine. Give the audience the opportunity for depth rather than just not putting it there because some of them won't care, because some of them will and ultimately, it can create a better game experience, even for people who didn't initially want that depth.

Yes i do agree that we need more interesting characters, but when would we get the time to find out that they are deeper than a cardboard cut out?

Depends on the game really - Portal was structured in such a way that even tho the lead remained mute, her character felt very solid. I guess I am just trying to say that lengthy dialog does not equals good writing and solid characterization, and more often than not in games just like in movies the implied is stronger than the obviously stated when it comes to character buildup.

I would guess that lousy, useless dialogue and poor writing in games is likely happening in the case of projects where a writer is hired (or self-declared) to give the project higher production values, like in Heavy Rain - as opposed to the few gems where writing and gameplay are delightfully intertwined, like HL2, MGS, Megaman X, Super Metroid, and so on. This is where "the magic happens" when it comes to great game characters.

This is also why the main character in Braid is so painfully vapid - the books to collect where very "overwritten" and just slowed the game down to a crawl for no reason other than trying to be "deep'...

But it's also true that not all games need that. If there ever were playable female soldiers in a CoD multiplayer mode, I sure wouldn't want them to talk any more than the silent males...

Chell is the player, the player is Chell.

She's exactly what you make her out to be, that's why she's the ideal. She has just the same amount of 'sexy' as the recent Lara Croft, but how they're played is what makes the difference.

Originally Posted by eld

the recent Lara Croft

*Puts fingers in ears* LALALALA CAN'T HEAR YOU.