Wargorged and Gender: an Idea.

[Ungood]

Warforged – gender Design and Planning.

The first thing to consider when looking at the Warforged as a race is that they were created, not born. They did not “grow up” and become adults into a world they belonged in, they acclimated to their surroundings after the purpose of their creation ended.

This when you consider that they developed a gender identity in this process, it stands to reason this did not spring from a void, it had to be a byproduct of interaction with gender specific species, like Humans, elves, dwarves, etc, etc.

So, my first point to bring forth is; What is gender to a war forged to begin with?



Now as best I can figure out, it would be wagered that their sexual identity is not really a feeling of being female or male themselves in the sexual sense or even physical sense, but an affiliation to the personality traits of the male or female of another species that have sexual identity. IE: They view themselves a kindred to that gender, if not actually that gender physically.

As far as Social stigma or interpersonal relationships go, I do not believe that a race like Warforge would care what their companions, friends view themselves as in the sense of sexual identity, as to them, there is no intrinsic difference between a male warforge or female one, beyond how they feel and view themselves. This is also why, I believe that in many ways they would be supportive of one another to get body modification if it makes them feel better about themselves or helps build their self identity as they are all trying to find their niche in this world now that the war is over.

However, I also believe that warforge as a whole are not into cosmetic changes that impede their ability to be fighters or combatants. But also, any cosmetic change they made to modify their body, would be done so to make them feel more kindred to the gender of the species they identify their own gender to.

In other words, if a Warforged Male viewed themselves to be like a “male” of the dwarven species, because that was where they “grew up” or acclimated, and thus that personality imprinted upon them, and that is how they view themselves, they might invest in making themselves shorter and stocker, or even try to find ways to fabricate a proxy beard to be more akin to what they feel the strongest rapport or to where they find their greatest acceptance, but these would be done to reflect their personal-self-image.

Equally so, Warforged that opt to remove themselves from the fleshbags would not have a gender nor would they want one, they would be gender netural embracing their warforged self, case in point, The Lord of Blades and it’s followers, are neither male nor female, they are warforged and such paltry concerns as gender are below them, meatling.

However, those are not the Warforged that opt to make a name for themselves in the shores of Korthos Island, and look to become heroes of Stormreach.

So, building on a little bit of history, it would be most commonly accepted that Warforged would have developed their sexual identity from interaction with their creators/controllers, which mainly consist of Humans, given they start out in a human fishing village.

But equally so, we not looking at rich or powerful already warforge, so any modification they made would need to be both minimal, and not impede their function to be a warforged.

With that, looking at the Warforged Images I could find, I started to look for patters of what seems to be signature traits of their body form and build. This is what I noticed.

A: Ghulra, this indentifies them, it is their name and who they are among their own people. This a very significant part of them as people and identity, and cannot be removed or modified.
B: Physical Attribute, Large Shoulders, mainly serves the point and purpose to put more moving mass on the key joint or pivot to make them stronger in this area.
C: Large Plated Forearms, mainly function like protective plates and means of defense.
D: Large legs, these provide the Warforged Heavy Lifting and Balance in a Fight
E: Large Feet, offers greater stability and ability to maintain their balance.

1: Chest plate, Protects for their central “Heart” and “Liver” runes, any design or pattern will do.
2: Codpiece, has no purpose beyond cosmetic.

As such, any modification that would take place , would first focus on sections 1 and 2 and they would be against too much revision to A through E. Unless the Warforged was opting to remove themselves from the function of fighting.

Another note, they seem to respect size, so they would not opt to go smaller or larger for males or females. Now, in the case of a female warforged, we would assess that they would simply make minor cosmetic changes to reflect what they find pretty or attractive about the species they feel kindred to, only for the purpose of feeling attractive about themselves not to attract another warforged.
Case in point:

However , the female in this picture has undergone major changes to her physical form, and would be a bit much for a starting or free model for anyone (While should be made available via TP). So I propose a simple alternative for a Male and Female Starting Model in DDO with other body forms open later in the store.
So what I propose is that we keep The standard Typical “Male” or Genderless Warforged (left). And add in a minor “new” female to reflect what would be cost effective changes that a Warforged could do (right).

As you can see, none of the functionally would be removed, just a minor change to the body to make them more affiliated to what a human female might look like, while working within the limits of what is pretty much cosmetic junk to a warforged to begin with.

So this is my suggestion. Thank you for reading this long drawn out post.

[Uska]

would be much more work than its worth as they would have to do more art and animations at least it seems so to me for something worth so little but there are a lot of other things they need to do first.

[Ungood]

would be much more work than its worth as they would have to do more art and animations at least it seems so to me for something worth so little but there are a lot of other things they need to do first.

There would not be any new animations or art done, just a revised model, in fact as I have shown, even the skin texture would not change. So I have no idea what your objection is.

[bigolbear]

Well its nice to see a well thought out post here, rather than just 'I wana play a girl robot'. Thankyou for taking the time to look at the warforge 'race' indepth.

As you say this is probably as simple as a slight modification to the waist hips and chest proportions. and if sone right wont even need reskinning, in the same way armour and robes fit anything from a halforc to a halfling. ITs actualy prety minor, but its important none the less.

I do think tho that there should be a 'more constructy' option along with these changes. Bear in mind the history of the warforge. Many of them are coming to stormreach out of the jungles of xendrik, straglers and mia's from the wars. Id expect those warforge to have neither male or female opinons or gender identitiy.

Id therefore maintian my opinon that warforge gender should be 'male, female, neither'. further more that chosen gender identity should have no impact at all physical appearance at character creation.

I feel all races should have the folowing 'sliders' to modify their appearance at character creation.

1. height
2. weight
3. shoulder width
4. weist width
5. hip width

TRs are allowed a further +-10% and +-20% for any aspect, just to make the tr halflings happy.

This should allow any thing from female looking warforge to obese dwarves to skinny horcs. Im loosely of the opinion that stats should modify these factors buts thats against the D&D ethos of men and women having equal potential at strength, con and dex.

Each race/sex would have default options for these sliders, and im totaly fine with the default being as the image you have suggested for female wf.

If this is too complex then simply a 'body type' selector for each race in the say way we have 'face' and 'nose' selectors.

Turbine would make money here by selling hearts of wood.

I also think that there is real posibilities for selling 'cosmetic' gear in the store.
Id suggest:
1. warforge boob job. (cosmetic armour skin)
2. warforge battle plating (cosmetic armour kit)
3. warforge bladesworn plating (cosmetic armour kit)
4. Fleshling skin hide (cosmetic armour kit)
5. strapon beard (cosmetic helm, available in different colours)


ADITIONAL STUFF: (all this is done to bring wf mele back to a competative lvl for end game, without enabling WF arcanes or FVS to dominate further)

Further to that, there are options for new body feats, I also feel that the lvl 1 warforge body feat should be free (it is in pen and paper) ie a warforge should get 1 body feat, 1 general feat and 0 to 1 class feats at creation.

Body feats should be:
1. composite (as now, the default free option)
2. adamantine (+ 2 dr/adamantine +10% damagemitigation)
3. mithril
4. irowood (for the druids)
5. crystaline (no ASF, no armour bonus)

And further WF only feats should be: (all of these are atleast based on pen and paper feats)
1. improved damage reduction: grants +1 dr/adamantine + 5% physical damage mitigation
2. (change)improved fortification: grants +100% fort - no negatives.
3. Construct essence: requires adamantine or mithril body + imp fort, grants +5 dr/adamantine, +25% physical damage mitigation + 4 profane bonus to STR and CON and +4 to intimidate, +50% repair amp, prevents all froms of positive energy healing, prevents all forms of arcane spell casting, prevents all forms of stat damage or drain.
4. battlefist: grants improved unarmed strike.
5. battlefist upgrade: grants flurry of blows, improved unarmed strike(d10)
6. Slam attack: doubles sheild bash damage (granted at lvl1 for free)
7. armour spikes: grants thorn guard, all sheild bash attacks deal +1d8 peircing.
8. silver/adamantine/coldiron/byeshk tracing(seperate feats): slam, unarmed and natural attacks bypass the apropriate DR.

and enhancement changes:

WF healers freind: 1/2/3/4 - costs 1 per lvl, adds 10% heal amp to a total of base 90% healing efficiency, reduces fortification by 5%
not compatable with.....
WF repair amp: 1/2/3/4 - costs 1 per lvl adds 10% repair amp to a total of base 140% repair efficiency, increases ASF by 5%

WF tactics: cost change to 1/2/3 points.

WF improved damage reduction: cost 1/2/3 grants +1 dr/adamantine 5% physical damage mitigation, increases ASF by 5%

WF Lord of blades FVS lvl 20 capstone: changes to: add +5 dr adamantine, or set DR to dr10/adamantine whichever is higher. sheild spell clicky becomes divine power clicky.

PALADIN/CLERIC/FVS lvl 6 enhancemnt 'bladesworn transformation' becomes a 'shroud' like pale master forms - 1 min cool down, 50 sp cost. This enhancement will provide all the benefits it always has and will continue to prevent divine healing - but not spell casting.

CHANGE TO 'RECONSTRUCT' SPELL: empower now effects it. the haste effect is removed and is replaced with 'cures all stat damage or drain' ie it works just like heal does but for arcanes.

[Uska]

There would not be any new animations or art done, just a revised model, in fact as I have shown, even the skin texture would not change. So I have no idea what your objection is.

Its pointless and wastes dev time better spent elsewhere in my opinion and adds zero to the game.

[bigolbear]

sort of kind of a derail.....to illustrate how complex the wf mind is - from their perspective.


Id like to tell you a story about some of my warforge.

Backstory:
His name is The Metal, he was a heavy assault model in the house wars. He got severe head wound and was disabled in an engagement and left for 'dead' in an old manufactory complex. A group of warforge scouts found him and revived him some time later when scouting the ruined complex for supplies. Said group of scouts were known as the obsidian knight Alpha recon squadren.

It is they that named it 'The Metal' Because as scouts every one of them was constructed with lighter composite plating, and were fascinated by such a heavy adamantine plated model.

As a recon team, Alpha squadren were operating behind enemy lines and as such the metal could not be returned to his unit. Over time The metal adapted to a scouts life, Despite the bulky plating it worked hard on developing ways to stay hidden, on sudden strike assaults, on developing its ranged combat techniques and ways to use the environment.

It (and at this point it was an IT) had no gender identity at all. It viewed itslef as a constructed warrior built and trained for assault - It also was aware it had learned additional skills that it was not 'supposed to possess' and this concerned it. It was woried if it was reunited with its unit that it would no longer fit it. It was unsure why the other warforge felt the need to give each other verbal names but could only surmise that the scout unit had had sufficient direct contact with its owners or their enemies and allies that identifying oneanother in ways understandable to flesh creatures had become second nature. It was concerned the scout unit it had been inadvertantly attached to was adapting its training, Upon the command 'Rush north' it knew it should charge the enemy comander, the squadren leader, sniper and mechanic however interpreted this command diferently and instead of charging they had taken to engaging the target from range, more worying tho was the squadrens demolitions model who would instead make a full attack with barage weaponry at clusters of soldiers in order to sow discontent and surpress enemy responce. Although the metal witnessed the effectiveness of these tactical adaptations it was nonetheless concerned, it seemd almost as if the scout unit was unwilling to die, themetal found this most perplexing as house cannith had always said death was not to be feared, it was merely a release from duty.

Some time later Upon entering a small fishing village raiding for supplies Alpha squadren discover the house wars were over, there was a treaty being signed. The unit dispersed at this point finding them selves 'free'. To the metal 'free' was a new concept, but the closest thought it had was when it was disabled. it simply stood sill. For 9 weeks it stood as a statue in the harbour mighty arms holding giant hammers lifeless, halfling trainees(children) had decorated it with flowers, a dog had taken to urinating against its leg. It was only when a young elf maiden approached and asked the question directly that the metal responded.

"why are you just standing there?" asked the elf.
"Because I have nothing to do" replied the metal.
"Good, come with me. me and my adventuring party are going to kill a necromancer"

Releived to be recieving orders once more the metal folowed the elf, and they slew the necromancer. The elf was suficiently impressed with the metals performance she asked the metal to become a part of her guild. The metal was unaware what guild was, and it was explained to him. To this day he refers to guilds as regiments, and parties as squdrens. The metal found he was given an equal share of all loot. This perplexed him, he had no need for coin. He was armed and trained. The regiment was initialy gratefull that he distributed his share amongst those who must buy food and shelter to survive but as time progressed it was carefuly explained to the metal that he should use his 'share' to purchase upgrades, and that he was given sufficient freedom to pick what upgrades suited him. This freedom once again concerned the metal, for a long time he simply horded his share. Eventualy he decided that he should attempt minimise incoming damage and maximise out going damage.

Its first visit to the market of stormreach was perplexing to say the least, it did not help that a human girl kept saying he was nice but could she get one in red, the metal did not understand the concept of humour. The metal purched magical weapons and docent upgrades but was unaware what acceptable prices were, When the regiments quartermaster heard of this she kindly insisted on outfitting the metal.

As time progressed and The metal engaged in more combat ops with its new regiment, it observed the following things.

Flesh creatures are comprised of multiple races and 2 sexes. Some of the races seem capable of producing trainees with others. The shorter races seemed better at physical combat, the taller races seemed more magicly adept, in general body mass roughly equated to hardiness. Each race had a set of trainees, smaller versions that develop over time into larger fully combat capable versions. Trainees seemed to be produced by 1 male and one female of usualy the same race spending time in a trainee workshop in which they also slept. The metal was impressed that Flesh creatures would be willing to work in the same location they slept. The females seemd to house a small portable creation forge. When It asked to observe the creation process of the trainees it was laughed at, but it did not understand why.

The Metal had started to notice that members of its regiment were refering to it as male. It was curious why this may be so it asked the quartermaster(female), whom the metal was aware had created multiple trainees with multiple males of various species and thus could be called an expert.

" your big, strong, agressive, reckless, and you dont like shopping" replied the quartermaster, who made a strange noise when replying the metal had heard was called 'giggling'. The metal did not understand the purpose of 'giggling'.

"are you asking me on a date?" asked the quartermaster? still giggling.

The metal did not understand the question but attempted to answer his superior officer as best he could. He simply listed verbatim the current date.

"ok tonght then, at the rusty nail" said the quartermaster, who ran off gigling to her self.

That was one very confusing and perplexing night for the metal, He is glad that he now understands Fleshies better because that could be important relevant combat information. He is glad that the quarter master deems him worthy of quality weapons. He has progressed to a role of squadren leader on occasion but he is uncomfortable in this role. He is still not sure of the exact process of creating trainees the way fleshies do but is now thinking that gigling may be involved some how and the attachment the quarter master gave him has a purpose similar to a plug, males it seems are there to provide power for the small creation forge.

He now refers to himself as male.

Hope you all enjoyed the read,

Once you've gone WAR, you'll never need MORE

some names/races changed to protect the guilty.

[Cauthey]

OP, was any of this post inspired by Metalbone's constant teasing of fleshies, and his mockery of the silly innuendo games they play to woo one another of the opposite sex?

[licho]

Signed up for more skinny warforged model, it dont have to be female (especially in mmo way) but if it dont look as bulwark that will be a profit. Maybe smth like that: Silver?

Beside that i will really like a reskin and more models for other races, especially for:
- Drow/Elven melee could have a little younger version without smoking/sleeping illness.
- Humans a model which is less a lumberjack (for wizzards, and witty rogues)
And the list goes on.

[Jay203]

is it just me or does the female version looks... creepy? XD

[Failedlegend]

Stuff

I agree..although construct essence is taken...need new name :P

[Ungood]

OP, was any of this post inspired by Metalbone's constant teasing of fleshies, and his mockery of the silly innuendo games they play to woo one another of the opposite sex?

Those I enjoy!

Actually, when I first made my namesake, I opted to go WF wizzy, but by level 8 I was clued in that I made them female by mistake when I was complaining that I "sounded like a girl" when I got hit and my guild mate said "I got some bad news for you bro"

Well, anyway, I opted to just deal with it rather then restart, and 12 levels later, I made 20th, and was quite happy there, and forgot all about the little gender goof, after all, such matters mean nothing to a warforged anyway.

Well recently I TRed my WF wizzy, and the Gender Lock into Female made me unhappy to say the least.

And if they gave at least some revision to the models so that we could tell if we were picking a female or a male, that would help a great deal, but at the same time I don't want to the Warforged become "Line Backers & Sex Bots" I like how they are very gender equal when it comes to kicking butt and taking names.

[Failedlegend]

Ok look I don't really care how they were originally created or whether the LoBs guys are all anti-sex.

We have an ENTIRE HOUSE of Artificers, No shortage of mechanics and hell in a pinch a whole house of Illusionists..scratch that we have MAGIC...permanent polymorph much?

How can you not justify WF getting modifications.

If YOU don't want the modifications...don't use them...I don't like playstyle of TWFers so I don't play em...doesn't mean I don't play DDO because they exist and I enjoy having them as party members as long as they pull their wait just like any other player.

Remember



Anyways I really feel like Bigolbears idea for various sliders (height, weight, shoulder width, waist width,hip width,etc.) and not just for warforged I want a short fat halfing Bard

Here's a few examples







This one I just thought was cool...can you say ArtificerMasterMaker/BarbarianRavager

[bigolbear]

awesome art, did u do them your self, or they from a source book. either way awesome.

[Ungood]

awesome art, did u do them your self, or they from a source book. either way awesome.

Most of those are fan art, and can be found by doing doing a Google Image Search for Warforged. Try it, I think you will find some amazing artwork there. That is what I did when I first started to look into Warforged.

Well its nice to see a well thought out post here, rather than just 'I wana play a girl robot'. Thankyou for taking the time to look at the warforge 'race' indepth.

As you say this is probably as simple as a slight modification to the waist hips and chest proportions. and if sone right wont even need reskinning, in the same way armour and robes fit anything from a halforc to a halfling. ITs actualy prety minor, but its important none the less.

I do think tho that there should be a 'more constructy' option along with these changes. Bear in mind the history of the warforge. Many of them are coming to stormreach out of the jungles of xendrik, straglers and mia's from the wars. Id expect those warforge to have neither male or female opinons or gender identitiy.

Id therefore maintian my opinon that warforge gender should be 'male, female, neither'. further more that chosen gender identity should have no impact at all physical appearance at character creation.

The model we have currently in the game is the Generic Model or Standard Military Warforged Body that House Cannith mass produced for War, as such it is a Genderless they ever were build.

As others have pointed out, men are very form follows function, so the standard military body, would be distinctly based off the human male, and it is. Revision from the generic model to make it some kind of "gender" would only be in a direction of cosmetic for the sake of the warforged to want to look how they feel.

In that regard, for a Warforged to be male no changes are required, to be genderless, again, no changes are required, however to be female, a revison to the body to add things like hips, breasts, or just an overall more curvaceous look, would be done for no other reason then the warforged would want to look physically how they feel mentally.

I feel all races should have the folowing 'sliders' to modify their appearance at character creation.

1. height
2. weight
3. shoulder width
4. weist width
5. hip width

TRs are allowed a further +-10% and +-20% for any aspect, just to make the tr halflings happy.

This should allow any thing from female looking warforge to obese dwarves to skinny horcs. Im loosely of the opinion that stats should modify these factors buts thats against the D&D ethos of men and women having equal potential at strength, con and dex.

Each race/sex would have default options for these sliders, and im totaly fine with the default being as the image you have suggested for female wf.

Have you played Istaria or Guild Wars? Because this idea is what they did when they first came out, also, Champions Online and City of Hero's does something similar (while still maintaining a heroic looking body). Secondlife also offered an amazing amount of body revision as well.

If this is too complex then simply a 'body type' selector for each race in the say way we have 'face' and 'nose' selectors.

I honestly have no idea. But, I do know that just adding in a few models took quite a bit of work by Turbine, and it seems even if we ask for more models they are not just pumping them out in the store to placate us and find a way to take our money, so I wager it is not as easy as it might sound to just revise the models and have them work as intended in the game. While if this is a graphic issue, UI, or something else, I have no idea to be honest.

So any idea I propose about this, I leave myself open that I have no idea how hard or easy it would be to implement into the game.

CHANGE TO 'RECONSTRUCT' SPELL: empower now effects it. the haste effect is removed and is replaced with 'cures all stat damage or drain' ie it works just like heal does but for arcanes.

Warforged can't be level drained, so that is moot, and "Empower Spell" does not work on Heal the spell.

[sebastianosmith]

I like this idea Ungood. While it would be a purely cosmetic change, I think it would add more to the game than it may subtract. I know my wife will not play a Warforged for this very reason.

Your idea of manipulating the current body model and the suggested changes are spot on. It would save considerable time as tweaking an existing model is far less arduous than making one from scratch. The animations would be identical and in need of no change for scaling. There are already Scout models in the game (Amalgam) if a change in body size would be more desirable.

I do agree with many others who have pointed out that Turbine has far more pressing matters than the addition female Warforged models. I would also like to point out to those people that working towards adding female Warforged a few updates down the road is certainly not an unreasonable request.

+1, Sir.

[Failedlegend]

awesome art, did u do them your self, or they from a source book. either way awesome.

Heh I wish my artistic talent is limited to painting Minis, minor sprite work and photoshop...I got them off Deviantart


Here's some sigs I made a while back

Have you played Istaria or Guild Wars? Because this idea is what they did when they first came out, also, Champions Online and City of Hero's does something similar (while still maintaining a heroic looking body). Secondlife also offered an amazing amount of body revision as well.

You missed the most important one...it's alot simpler (only has one bar) than the ones mentioned above but LOTRO is proof that Turbine can easily have a scaling character IN-Game without issue.

Side-note: I still don't get why they don't incorporate the cosmetic system from over there (instead of ours where we have to reapply any cosmetics every time we log in)

[Cauthey]

I feel all races should have the folowing 'sliders' to modify their appearance at character creation.

1. height
2. weight
3. shoulder width
4. weist width
5. hip width

I could support sliders. But, ONLY if they were extremely minor in their adjustment scales.

What I've witnessed in other MMOs where there are slider options is that every character ends up being sadly anorexic, or unrealistically and humorously overweight. I am not a fan of this.

Suffice to say, DDO's models are all pretty trim and fit. But, I don't think that any are really unrealistically so, especially considering the character that you make is an adventurer. Your character is going to be fit and athletic. Because if he/she/it is not, you're going to be one of the "I took an arrow in the knee" guys that don't adventure anymore.

What I would believe to be better better than sliders would be to have involuntary "sliders" based on your BASE ability score attributes:

• Higher STR: slightly broader shoulders, bigger arms, legs, and chest.
• Higher DEX: possibly a "weight" slider, and a high DEX would be the lowest setting, just above "too thin."
• Higher CON: slightly taller (except dwarves), stockier.
• Higher INT: <nothing>
• Higher WIS: perhaps less scarring? Not sure about this one. I wouldn't want my WIS dumped character to be the converse of this, and riddled with scars.
• Higher CHA: somewhat sharper features, brighter eyes.

Again - support for these "slider options" would all have to be very minor, and subdued to have my support. I would not stand for slider options that would make characters skin-n-bones or lard asses.

[Failedlegend]

Again - support for these "slider options" would all have to be very minor, and subdued to have my support. I would not stand for slider options that would make characters skin-n-bones or lard asses.

The great thing about sliders is you don't HAVE to do that...if other people do it's not your problem. Also if the sliders did that "Minor" amount it would be pointless

Besides I want my Halfling Bard to have a Mead belly :P

[Zyerz]

In the original Eberron campaign book, warforged dont have gender. Maily because they were built for battle and they cant have offspring. They can modify their voice and mannerisms to reflect one gender they feel near to. So yeah, I'd like to see feminine warforged around. Hehe.
Also, I get tired of my forgie being red all the time... It would be nice to be able to change that later on in the game.
On another note, id like to see some more detailed toon creation. Fat, skinny, tall, short, muscular, wimpy. You know, not have the same body build for the same race. There are fat npc's in the game... Just sayin'

^_^

[Cauthey]

The great thing about sliders is you don't HAVE to do that...if other people do it's not your problem.

Besides I want my Halfling Bard to have a Mead belly :P

Hmm. Perhaps I can put it another way...

When I first rolled a character, I was surprised and a little soured that body-type sliders were not available.

After playing for some period of time, I realized that the absence of sliders took the "extremes" out of the game, and I didn't have to look at them while loping about in the Marketplace. Instead, players spend customization energies in other places (armor, hats, gear, hair style, hair color, etc.). And, I can't really argue with that. Personally, I think that these customization options are far better than adding mead guts to the adventurers of Stormreach.