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Check out the v.254 - Midnight Carnival - Ludibrium Patch Notes
here!
Remove the "gender" attribute from the game
Comments
I highly disagree. If you properly read over everything that has been said, this has nothing to do with what your lifestyle is, the current system is inconsistent and annoying for no real reason.
It affects neither. It's all about the aesthetics. Character customization.
For example, as you correctly observed in the post before that, Dragon Tail is a male hairstyle. But what if I want it on my female character? Is that so bad? Would it make her look too masculine?
There are too many items in the game like that, items that are gender-locked for no reason. Even the most conservative person would agree that it's perfectly normal and feminine for a woman to have long hair and wear it in a single braid on the back of her head.
Try to look at this picture while ignoring what you know of MapleStory styles. Maybe show it to someone who doesn't play Maple, and ask them, is this a boy or a girl?
Going over every single item and re-evaluating its gender assignment is way too tedious.
Removing the check for gender match would be much easier.
That's all I'm saying.
Think that's the point, personally never seen a guy rock a braid in real life. If I wasn't familiar with Maple, I would have assumed any guy with this hairstyle was a female character (and I think I actually remembering someone requesting this style to become available for female characters). Anyways, I'm not a fan of alt-left narratives either, but I don't see this suggestion as one because the avatar bases are identical. If the avatar bases were different and would have required alternations, even if minute, I would have disagreed because the effort would've cancelled out the benefit(s). Removing gender wouldn't make this game "queer", it would still be heteronormative because that's just the majority like you, who don't feel the need for this change. My main, and most of my alts, are mostly heteronormative and will likely remain that way. I'm personally in it for items that are gender locked, but should be neutral.
It was an innocent suggestion that became derailed by beliefs and/or politics. Removing gender would just make it easier for Nexon and release the duty of managing gender tags. The majority will continue to dress their characters in a heteronormative fashion, but the change would expand customization options for players overall. I agreed because, in my perspective, I see it as a win/win for both sides.
As far as determining which is guy and female, the facial expressions are really what differ. female hairstyles of male variants also differe, I.e the windcatcher hairstyle, or the white emo looking one. If this dragontail hair was female itd have less spikes and more curves in the detail. If you want a braid on a girl, there are braids from other styles, nexon usually offers the female or male counter part to a hairstyle if not they make other ones that have similar looks as to others.
If you already have a way to bypass this restriction in your gameplay, why move for a change gamewide?
well, like the admin said, it would be a hassle to remove everything from the game, but he said that theyll consider it for future items.
My thoughts exactly, it's a 2d universe. Aesthetics plays no real role in the gameplay. and i would include that suggestions like these dont improve the game play, id say the suggestions that should be taken into account are those that better the game or resolve obstacles servers face, for example theres a suggestion to add buff freezers in the reboot world, those are suggestions that affect the state if the game.
All for future items being more Gender neutral in general like Arwoo suggested on the first page though, no extra effort from Nexon and doesn't make a political statement.
Speaking of Reboot, do you know how Nexon makes money there?
They can't make money off anything that "affects gameplay" (except pets), so all they sell is aesthetics. Lots and lots of them. So while you may consider that part of the game unimportant, Nexon and the people who pay real-world money to make their pixels look just the way they want them to, do think aesthetics matter.
Also, suggestions are suggestions. Even if to you it doesn't seem like they should be putting effort into implementing it and putting the effort elsewhere, people are still allowed to suggest it and hope they do take it into account.
reboot isnt a server inherently for "making money" that server is inherently free to play
speaking against it is a way of saying there may be other things that can be addressed with priority
they may pay for nx but theyre not calling for gender reconstruction
According to a Nexon representative it absolutely would make a statement, which is what I believe should be avoided.
I don't think anyone has suggested that this thread isn't a suggestion and that people should not be free to make said suggestion, I'm not sure where you get that idea from and I apologize if I have in any way given you that impression. I would like to make it perfectly clear that people are of course welcome to make suggestions I don't agree with.
That's actually how it worked WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY back, and why my main is a "male" character. When I came out, I wanted to have a character that moreso reflected myself, but because of the way things were set up back then, my only option to do that was to create an entirely new account and give up on all the progress I had made on my original account.
So I was fairly happy when they started releasing more unisex outfits and started doing the April Fool's rotation (although it's been practically the same for the past 3 years now outside of 1-2 styles). The only issue I have right now is that there's a lot of stuff I like in the Surprise Style Box rotations, but I can't ever use them on my main because of the gender lock.
In the current political climate any significant content that challenged social norms will absolutely be seen as a political statement. Regardless of your opinion on the motivations of Nexon, there's multiple people on just this thread that would see it as a political statement.
Any statement made from the account of our CM is a statement on behalf of Nexon. With that said, I stated it was the opinion of a Nexon representative, not the opinion of Nexon. I did distinguish between the two. Which is exactly the point you're making now.
So to be clear, we both agree that the personal opinion of a Nexon representative is that the proposed content would challenge social norms. All we differ on is if content that significantly challenges social norms would be interpenetrated as a political statement. I'm not sure how you're going to convince me that myself and others on this thread don't interpret the potential update as a political statement. It is impossible to argue that something which has already been interpreted a certain way would not be interpreted that way.
That's entirely a strawman, you're debating a position I don't have and have never claimed. That is a logical fallacy and doesn't further your position. Please don't tell me what I think
I will add that the fact you've even bought the "trans community" into the discussion is exactly my point and what I think should be avoided. Even our discussion about a potential update has already turned political. Also, you do not speak for me and trans people are not a monolith who all think the same.
I've already covered that:
Please keep in mind that I have not disagreed with any one specific piece of gender locked content being made available to everyone, I'm sure there's specific examples we could agree on. That is however quite a bit different to a suggestion to eliminate gender completely. I do not believe that letting male characters have freckles would be seen as a political statement and would have no problem with such a suggestion.
I would understand Donald Trump is something rather controversial and I can see your opinions why you would be against it. We absolutely don't need to dig further than that and I would avoid as much as possible for a potential reason for thread-lock.
If there was any political statement, as a Canadian I would say we have the freedom to what we can wear as long as it doesn't break the Public Indecency laws. But that's not the point I'm making here.
In terms of gender restriction in game is ridiculous. In the real world the only restrictions are there is size and the norms set by society. People can judge you for what you wear but at the end of the day it's up to the said person what they want to do with their life. I honestly believe that we should either make all items gender neutral or having a complete bypass for item gender to be implemented.
Note: as long as I don't mention any names this topic is in the clear
Many private servers have many ways to counter this by either having a gender change option or completely bypassing or making all equipment gender neutral.
There are many benefits to Nexon implementing this such as more sales towards cosmetic NX clothes and Fusion Anvils. It may not improve something in terms of the power gap between the average and end-game, but it does affect the quality of life with the current massive restrictions of how each player wants to look. You simply just can't say, "this suggestion is invalid because this suggestion is more important". I can pretty much as well say, "well you already lived a life without Buff Freezers so obviously you can continue to do so". Sure you can backfire with, "game mechanics versus cosmetics", but that's not the point I'm trying to make here.
I believe all suggestions have an equal right to be reviewed and can only be shot down for a proper reason in relation to the suggestion. Turning all items gender neutral has nothing in common towards adding buff freezers into Reboot besides both being popular suggestions held up by the player community. In fact I believe we should respect both as options of suggestions, not shooting each other down to make one inferior to another.
Just saying, I DO SUPPORT Buff Freezers in Reboot, so please do not say the opposite, but that's going off-topic of this thread.
This is a game and I would much prefer people to "cosplay" or "dress down" to their full content. It has nothing to do about the impact of the real world but it has impact towards of us the players in the game. There's nothing political about gender restrictions but it is a barrier of the past MapleStory that many would prefer gone. Sure maybe there will be weird looks, but change here would make options more relaxed and more uniqueness in the community.
You cant parallel any private server to the official game as private servers are already illegal, any changes they make to the original content would fall under the illicitness of the action of creating a private server all together.
Non gender neutrality in the game or in terms of nx is how nexon makes money off the servers, a male wants male equips on his male character, open boxes until they get a male item likewise for female characters, projection in spending may decrease a small %
Private Servers are indeed illegal, but it shows that it can be possible. But the effort put into it is a complete different story. Whether Nexon will put effort into it is something else entirely.
Sure, making restrictions makes it harder for players to get items what they want and what they can use. But it decreases the overall purchase because such restrictions have been put into place. So if there's less restrictions there is a good chance people may purchase less, but there is a possibility that there are more people willing to buy because of that change. I don't think it's entirely true that all males wants all male items and vice versa. Some items for the one gender honestly looks like it's meant for the other, but that is user preference. And some items look like they're suppose to be gender neutral but it's not.
There's nothing benefiting from Nexon to not implement this change besides from the work needing to be done to have this suggestion into place.