What a female orc wants
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Jan 9th 2007 at 3:00PM
Every other week, someone complains about the amount of skinny, sexy, half-naked women in World of Warcraft. And in every complaint, someone responds that the males are held to the same unrealistic beauty standard. But, as Natassha reveals, there's actually quite a lack of eye candy for the ladies in WoW compared to the guys. Humans look like gorillas, dwarfs are ugly, gnomes are short, night elves have disturbing eyes, tauren scratch themselves, trolls slouch, orcs don't look like they could hold up a conversation, and undead ... well, we don't need to elaborate about undead.
Most of the races are very muscle-bound, and the main one that wasn't (Blood Elves) got extra muscles after people complained they looked too effeminate. "It is quite confusing that so many guys think a lack of huge muscles is homosexual," Sparklegirl wrote about the Blood Elf male controversy. "Not only that, but are concerned about homosexuality so often." Any attempt to get a race of males that don't look absolutely stupid in robes is derided as "gay" by a large segment of the WoW forumgoing population.
I hadn't spent much time thinking about the attractiveness of in-game characters, since I usually play Horde-side females, but I've noticed that whenever I try to start a male character I get annoyed or bored at character creation. The only race where the males look better than the females, in my opinion, is tauren -- and the tauren scratch themselves every few seconds, even when they're about to face a dragon. Even the blood elf males aren't particularly cute. My attempt to create an attractive blood elf male resulted in this, which just reminded me that I really need to finish X-Men Legends II. And alliance-side .... well, this is the best I could do.
But after thinking about it, don't most people try to pick characters that could be considered attractive? Most female undead, orcs and trolls in-game use the same "pretty" faces. Most male undead don't have their jaw half hanging off, and most human males use some sort of facial hair to cover up that weird cleft palate clean-shaven human males tend to get. Very few dwarves, of both sexes, use the gray and white skin options. Heck, even male orcs tend to pick the least wrinkled and horrible-looking face.
Is it important to you that your character looks attractive? Should there be more customizable appearance options at the character creation screen? Or, as one of the priests in my guild suggested, should WoW take your picture so ugly people can't hide behind cute characters?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Blood Elves
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Unkle Jan 9th 2007 3:26PM
Screw that.
I mainly play horde, and ugly is the win.
My only alliance character has received numberous comments about being the most ugly character anyone has ever seen.
synack Jan 9th 2007 3:33PM
In short, yes. An attractive character is one of my top priorities. I always roll females and I am a male.
Why?
If I'm going to be staring at my character's rear end for days on end, I want it to be pleasing to the eye.
Male tush, female tush? Easy decision.
Sideshow Jan 9th 2007 3:45PM
Actually, when I pick one, I try to find the most evil-looking one I can. I could care less that they look "pleasing."
Rayze Jan 9th 2007 3:40PM
Personally, I could care less about my toon being attractive...fact is, I got the next ugliest face before the dropped-off-jaw look lol. However, let the records state that I did go for broke and got a cool purple mohawk =)
UD rule.
michel Jan 9th 2007 3:33PM
screw that. I'm simply sick of typical ugly "beauty" of medias and empty people.
Troll has Style and Tauren are Massive. they don't care about being ugly movie star.
jpc Jan 9th 2007 3:55PM
My hot, sexy, human chick can kick your big ugly Tauren/UD/Orc/Troll ass! - and look good doing it :P
I'm grinding honor for GM chest and shoulders so that I can have a matching set throughout the BC even though my prophecy shoulders are almost as good as the GM ones and I really only need to upgrade my prophecy chest which doesn't do any damage, ha!
What they really need is some caster items that aren't robes or to figure out how to make the males look good in the robes. I guess it's like you say, that's why they make them look so burley, so they can pull-off wearing robes...
Noroth Jan 9th 2007 4:35PM
Personally, in regards to the female eye candy part, I was quite sad when they gorillafied the male Beef Elves. I was hoping to finally have a skinny little male avatar to run around with, and given that the Silvermoon City NPC guards are still of the skinny variety, why not have a character creation screen option as to whether you want to be a man-ape with pointed ears or fit nicely into the magic-addict role in your robes?
I've found the male undead to be the best option for an 'attractive' male avatar for the moment.
In regards to character creation options, while the slightest bit off-topic since it's not actually about attractiveness, I often listen to the various NPC voices and wish Blizzard had paid those voice actors to say just a few more lines each so we could choose which voice we wanted to use amongst 2-3 options. So Orcs, for example, could have that crazy deep voice, or the more human-esque one.
Zotiko Jan 9th 2007 4:30PM
IMO - for the most part the forum posts thus far do not represent the WoW population. According to the census website http://www.warcraftrealms.com, posted earilier, it appears that the majority of the population either wants their char to look good, or be really, really ugly. The most popular races were Night Elves, Humans, and Undead by far. IMO nelfs are the best looking race in the game, and since I am a married man and don't play with one hand in my pants I always roll a clean cut male char.
Anyway, video games (especially MMORPG's) present a way to project our ideal selves. If not, then we choose a char that represents a personality we would have fun emulating. I think they objectify men and women, on purpose in fact, so that we can be what we normally cannot be.
With that, I'll re-open the forums to all those ppl who want to call me gay using 1337. (ain't the net great?)
Kahja Jan 9th 2007 4:45PM
As a person that rolls primarily gnomes, and a person of a less than stellar tan I always pick the whitest skin available. I think it fits the gnome better anyways.
My main wears a robe and he's proud of it.
Sylythn Jan 9th 2007 4:47PM
I am a proud jawless purple-spike-haired undead male! Gruesome for the win!
As for the blood elves...I want my emaciated crack addicts back dammit - I hate the buffed males...I'm gonna end up the brunt of every joke because of my female blood elf pally - all cause the guys look like humans with pointy ears.
Burgdorn Jan 9th 2007 4:48PM
Your stress a touch subject in gaming communties such as this. This is Technically an MMORPG, in that vain the most important difference in races is to look at the Dimorphism present in each race. In essence to try and make them slightly fit in the world. The problem attractiveness is often on the player's side of the equation.
Think about it, would an orc really consider himself ugly if raised by his own people, I make this point because Thrall considered himself ugly being only use to humans for a period of his life. So the factor of consider the Horde Ugly is chiefly based on our preconception of beauty. To that extent Blizzard has always made a select few faces that carry a more exceptable visual asthetic to them for the general populace.
In general though both races groups probably consider themselves generally good looking. As for feminine figures it would best say that they are trying to do as they normally would in society and be as good looking as they felt they could in their race. I mention normally because not all women want to look proper and succumb to a man's sense of beauty. To stand straight, to remain agile, and we can assume their are no steriods available so pumping up like males is out of the question.
Even Dwarven women, who generally didn't shave as recent as the second war, have shaved their beards in order to remain attractive to the other races of women, and yes it is well known that dwarven men were very attracted to the smoother women of Human and Elven races.
As a player mysefl I try to pick my characters in what I see as a look I prefer for the race, I generally as a rule don't consider a race ugly as I'm certain no race would depress themselves because of our standards toward appearance.
As for the issue with males vs female, both are exploited to show the general "wants" of the opposite sexes. Female a slender for their races and generally always have good proportions. Men are beefed up and attribute to a strong masculine shape, broad shoulders and all.
I think the fact is that, men are a bit easier to please then women. Think about it, get a female with generally well considered attractive features and it is very unlikely that a man would turn her down. Get a sexually attractive male with fine broad shoulders and good muscle ton and not every woman will consider him attractive.
jason dunn Jan 9th 2007 10:07PM
im a younger guy that rolled a NE female as my main. mostly because night elf is the only druid race, and the males dance like michael jackson.
i gotta say that its good to have a female character though because you end up looking at it for so much time.
i usually try and base my character's appearance on their class. my druid has green hair and skin with marks on it, warrior is a middle aged man with a mean face and rough tanned skin, mage an intelligent looking old man gnome, and hunter is a dwarf that looks like a hermit.
Ryan D. Jan 9th 2007 7:17PM
*snap snap*
These are pixelated avatars. Ease up, cats and kittens!
When I'm playing, I'm more concerned with everything that isn't "me" and to that end, I'm really not into getting turned on by.. cartoons.
When one is creating something that is meant to appeal to a wide array of people, it's difficult not to inflect upon one's creation some part of their own aesthetic.
It could be worse. Anyone really wanna see a female Tauren bouncing around with those new DoA physics?
Didn't think so.
finality Jan 9th 2007 11:00PM
Mixed bag for me. I don't usually think of my avatar as "me". I think of it as a doll I control rather than an alter ego. So I can like a "pretty" doll or a monstrous one. Usually it's to fit the "mood" of the character (combination of class and name and style I have in mind for them).
This wasn't true of my first toon. He was my first MMO char and will probably always be the "me" in game. But then I was really excited to roll a male tauren because I really liked their look. Didn't know about their chaffing problem, but I'll live.
Anyway, the look of the humany races (i.e. ones that look like us) are... interesting... The women are very "girly" (with the orcs on the tough chick side and the NEs on the anime side). But the guys are either stooped (undead and troll) or rectilinear blocky(humans, orcs, NEs). Don't really count gnomes, dwarves and tauren as human looking (or, rather, their look is more defined by fantasy tropes). As a guy I don't mind being blocky looking, but still, they seem to really have only 2 "models", blocky or stooped. A few more styles would really break up the look of groups.
So, guess women don't go for the blocky or stooped types, huh? That is too bad as I'm all for equal opportunity eye candy. Hope the new races offer a little more visual fun ;-)
Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch Jan 9th 2007 7:38PM
FEATURE REQUEST
Let all races chose skinny, buff, or beerbellied profiles. That way us abusers can properly reprezent.
Thanks.
Ariel Jan 9th 2007 8:42PM
It actually used to bug me that most of the female trolls I see use that same, semi-pretty face. You know, the one that seems to be growling the least out of all the choices. So when I made my troll, I was sure to pick one of the mean looking faces, just to remind people that not all female trolls are identical. Overall, when I make my characters, I don't really think about making them look as attractive as possible; rather, I like making them look unique. I'd rather play a gnome with hot-pink hair than an ordinary-looking human any day.
Shalkis Jan 10th 2007 2:51AM
Actually, one of the books, the Last Guardian, touched upon the subject of beauty among the races. Garona, the half-orc comments that humans only see the brutishness of an orc in her, and orcs only see the weakness of non-orc (human or Draenei, take your pick) in her. Beauty _is_ in the eye of the beholder.
As for my characters.. their visual appearance completely depends on the personality of the character. My first male Forsaken priest was a standard-issue emo. Brooding, but not particularly ugly. Then I learned to experiment a bit. I have a zealot female troll mage, a Forsaken priestess that looks like she screamed her eyes out, two elderly hunters (tauren male and orc female), a scarred orc warrior and many more.
Garab Jan 10th 2007 5:24AM
I have always played Orc, Shaman and warrior, and never found the ugly in any way, orcs are orcs, they are big and muscular, but now I was thinking of creating an BE caster, and the old male type was perfect, now when they are big and muscular (like everyone else) I'm considering creating a female, jsut because I dont like the way robes looks on NE/humans.
the automator Jan 10th 2007 1:43PM
btw,
what is sillier?
gnome with plate or orc with cloth?
Kazzaam Jan 10th 2007 4:05PM
Gnomes are silly. Orcs are fierce. Even in robes.
For me, I tend to choose the prettier toons because I have to look at them, and I think it makes it easier to make friends with others.
On the other hand, my sexy female Nelf attracts some unwanted attention, so it's not always an advantage. (Why are guys so attracted to big ears?)