Missed Opportunities: Meaningful Sex Appeal

In last week’s post on gender-locking, I brought up the miniscule character traits of the Vindictus classes. The game’s story could only have improved if the classes were given the same depth and personality as the NPCs. It could have surpassed so many MMOs if it had gone this route, and could have turned their sexual character, Vella, into something more meaningful.

Vella, the sixth Vindictus character, was released a little over a month ago in North America and Australia. And when she was, there was a lot more skin on people’s screens than usual.

More so than any other female class in the game, Vella wears revealing armor that shows plenty of cleavage and thigh. This doesn’t come as a surprise to many gamers. Most MMOs showcase female characters this way, with their armor becoming more revealing as they level up, to the point where they’re wearing a metal bikini that somehow works better than chainmail.

This is one of the strongest armor sets for Vella.

So what’s my point?

My point goes back to the fact that Vindictus characters have slight hints at personality. When compared to the Evie character, Vella is far more open sexually. You can tell by her belly dance, her armor, her seductive smile when waving, and the rest of her animations. Evie, on the other hand, is bubblier and more sexually reserved – provided her player lets her put on pants.

Evie, wearing high-level armor. Still shows off her body, but not nearly as much.

So why is there a difference between the two? What’s the story? At the moment, there is none. Vella is simply a fan-service character, showing off her body more than either Evie or Fiona. But what if she wasn’t? What if she actually had a story to her?

If Vindictus had fleshed-out character stories, Vella could have been a meaningful character, rather than a piece of eye candy. The game could have told a story about how she grew up, what the culture of her home country was like, what her past relationships were, how she views sexuality.

She’d still be eye candy, no question, but I’ll take purposeful eye candy over blatant pandering any day.

Mini-series: Gender-Locking – Part One

For the past few years, I’ve noticed a trend in free-to-play MMOs. No, not the trend to be like World of Warcraft; a different trend. A few free MMOs I’ve looked at – Vindictus, Dragon Nest, Lunia – have their character classes gender-locked, meaning you can’t choose to play as a male or a female character. So if the healing class is female, and you want to be the healer, you’ll have to play a female.

Eir, the Healer Princess from Lunia

Some gamers take issue with gender-locking, but for a free MMO, it makes sense why a developer would do this. It’s a money-saver. With gender-locked classes, the developer doesn’t need to put in a complex character creation system.

Those systems are expensive, especially since many gamers expect character creation systems to be on the same level as Guild Wars 2 or Skyrim. Rather than compete and fight an impossible battle, the developer gender-locks.

A smart developer will use this limitation to their advantage and tell character stories with the gender-locked classes. They’ll give the classes their own personalities and backstories and use that as a way to engage the player and connect them with their character.

Dragon Nest is a good example of how this idea works. Every class in the game has his/her own storyline and personality. For example: The Tinkerer comes from an apocalyptic future, and views the plot from a history perspective, already knowing – for the most part – what happens and when.

Dragon Nest Tinkerer

Although the character stories of Dragon Nest don’t have much presence in the overall game – with only a few missions ever hinting at them – they still provide a different experience for players and take advantage of gender-lock.

But not every gender-locked game follows this approach or uses its full potential for storytelling. Some make an effort and fall short, and miss out on a chance to turn their good game into a great one. Prime example: Vindictus, which I’ll be talking about in Part Two.