Incredibly disappointed by continued gender discrimination in Crown cosmetics.

Kiyakotari · March 2023

The new "Dragonfly Wing Lashes" cosmetic item has been released, and what do we find? Like so many other cosmetics, it's gender-locked. In this case to female characters only. Apparently men can't wear eyeshadow. Which is amusing, considering it's far less garish and more flattering than previous eyeshadow styles that have been released, yet those styles are perfectly fine for both male and female characters. The gender discrimination decisions in the cosmetics in this game seem completely arbitrary and nonsensical, and are particularly frustrating in light of the other way that the game world itself is inclusive of LGBTQ+ NPC's and storylines in the side quests and characters. I guess player-characters aren't allowed to deviate from the cistem, only NPC's.

tomofhyrule · March 2023

This has nothing to do with discrimination. It has everything to do with how the game was originally programmed versus the current social standings today.

See here for a further description: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/629103/why-are-there-female-and-male-adornments

The 'Dragonfly Wing Lashes' are an old cosmetic, first made available in 2017. At that point, ZOS was still making gendered cosmetics to fit one model or the other. It would be a VERY in-depth overhaul to change it at this point since the models aren't the same - it's not a matter of just marking a checkbox and making the other gender available (they did that for Short Mussed Wave, and predictably the forums were full of complaints that the female model's hair hovered about a centimeter from her forehead since the head shapes are different.

I don't know the exact technical details about ESO, but the single-player TES games had to have cosmetics that 1) contained meshes for each relevant race/gender and 2) had to be programmed to point to the correct one under the correct circumstances. In the case of ESO's older cosmetics, they're only set to have one mesh and point to one model, so the first thing that would need to happen is to reprogram them to contain multiple meshes and then to point to the correct one. That is not a trivial task - it's probably be easier to make a completely new item instead of trying to jury-rig all of that onto an old cosmetic.

In the past few years, ZOS has been very good about making their cosmetics have male, female, Argonian, and Khajiit morphs, but the older ones still have restrictions. While I'd love to see them be more forthcoming about adding new cosmetics that all races/genders could use, I understand that the older ones are pretty set in stone and changing them is more likely to introduce problems for a rather small benefit.

Amottica · March 2023

@tomofhyrule

Thanks for that info. While I admit I don’t know how things are designed behind what I see in game l realize that when we think something would be easy or simple we are probably far from accurate.

sharquez · March 2023

The ESO dev team has a demonstrable history of being very inclusive and progressive. One cosmetic not being available for both in game genders is not an act of prejudice.

Kiyakotari · March 2023

Obviously a single cosmetic does not discrimination make, and the game is indeed older. It's just that this is another example of the continuing trend of recycling old game content that doesn't fit their stated inclusion, rather than making new content that does. In addition, 2104 was not pre-LGBTQ+ people existing, nor was it "before we knew gender issues were a thing." Yes, these eyelashes were an older release, so I can somewhat understand the clipping and morphs argument, but to be fair, the Dragonfly Wing Eyelashes (and most of the other eyelashes) already have clipping and "why-is-that-mesh-visible" issues (on female models) so adjusting the positioning of how they anchor for a male model isn't necessarily beyond the realm of possibility. Or perhaps release new eyelashes, that look the same, but have been designed from scratch with both models in mind. Yes, it takes a bit more work for the art team, but it's better for the community. Additionally, There have been many, many requests for beards to be made available for the female characters. Designing new beards with the differences between female and male skeletons and morphs in mind would go a long way toward alleviating some of the perception of gender discrimination in the game. Yet, we do not see this happening.

sharquez · March 2023

These character models are upwards of 10 years old at this point, probably closer to 15 if we are talking about predevelopment stuff. Whatever the art team is working on is focused on new things going forward, not touching older content from over a decade ago. Taking into account business downsizing post covid and the fact that fixing non gambreaking issues when some any other persist means that this is not on their radar.

It's not about the LGBTQ crowd and its not about discrimination, its about practical implementation the money it will make and the resources to do so.

It's also about measuring your own expectations about what is reasonable to implement and not projecting a narrative that is hyperbolic. I would love a large scale character model overhaul myself for the game, I can't make certain characters that would have certain body types that I would identify more with or find aesthetically pleasing but I don't see their lack of inclusion as discrimination, because it isn't. This simply isn't a game that focuses on aesthetically pleasing or dynamic character creation. But there are other environments for that.

It boils down to this metaphor, You don't ask for a Gourmet Steak from a Mcdonalds.

Midohka · March 2023

I hope this conversation about the eyelashes will be the opening to some changes like the access to female/male dances coming from each gender we play, this kind of things. I was about to create a post to talk about the frustration to not have the eyelashes on my dunmer bc of his gender but I will just up this subject since everything has been said already.

Up it is then !

NotaDaedraWorshipper · March 2023

Midohka wrote: »

I was about to create a post to talk about the frustration to not have the eyelashes on my dunmer bc of his gender but I will just up this subject since everything has been said already.

Up it is then !

@midohka There is like 11 lashes/eye make-ups to the current date, and 8-9 of them are useable by both male and female characters. You can have lashes on your male dunmer. (Just have to hope ZOS doesn't take ages to return them to the crown store)

You can even obtain 1 pair right now in the Barbaric Beauty Pack, which has been in the store for ages.

What others have said, this is not some discrimination. These are like one of the first lashes we got and one of few that is not useable on male characters. Something that would be a lot of work to change on an old cosmetic and easier to just ignore and make new items which does not have these restrictions.

Araneae6537 · March 2023

I agree that it would be great to have more makeup, eyelashes, hairstyles, and adornments that aren’t tied to one gender. There are a number of eyelash options now, yes, most of them in crates, some of those very gaudy and weird looking (to my taste) and the ones from the Barbaric Beauty pack don’t always fit depending on race or eye positioning, not sure of the problem (when I tried to use them on a male Bosmer the lashes ended up floating in his eyes). So it is understandable that people are frustrated when there is an option they would like to use but cannot. Hopefully ZOS will continue to make more, even making older styles (and dances!) available to all characters.

All that said, I would also happily acknowledge that ESO is not only generally good about not having such restrictions, but better than most MMOs in this by far. Some games I “rage quit” before even trying because the ONLY options for male and female characters were clearly designed with only one audience in mind.

HedgeHugger · March 2023

Not just cosmetics, but the dances. I want my female Khajiits to be able to twirl like the boys.
The male characters seem to have better dances.

Stncold · March 2023

Gonna be an unpopular opinion ITT I'm sure but we need MORE gender locked stuff like this. Sometimes it's very obvious they tried to make something that works for both genders and it either looks bad on both or awful on one and good but not great on the other. Short mussed wave comes immediately to mind. Time will tell if this is just a one off thing or they learned their lesson on that matter and we'll get more stuff like this in the future. It comes as no surprise to me that like a lot of the older gender locked stuff these lashes look fantastic after being designed with just females in mind.

ZOS_Kevin · March 2023

Hi Everyone. We wanted to follow up on the conversation around gender-locked cosmetics. We currently do not gender-lock any new items and have not for the last few years. After hearing your feedback, we made that intentional change. We do have past items prior to the change that are gender-locked. The Dragonfly Wing Lashes are one of them.

We will also pass on your feedback regarding possibly getting older items like the Dragonfly Wing Lashes reviewed to be applied to any character, regardless of gender. Thanks for your feedback here regarding the Dragonfly Wing Lashes.

virtus753 · March 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi Everyone. We wanted to follow up on the conversation around gender-locked cosmetics. We currently do not gender-lock any new items and have not for the last few years. After hearing your feedback, we made that intentional change. We do have past items prior to the change that are gender-locked. The Dragonfly Wing Lashes are one of them.

We will also pass on your feedback regarding possibly getting older items like the Dragonfly Wing Lashes reviewed to be applied to any character, regardless of gender. Thanks for your feedback here regarding the Dragonfly Wing Lashes.

Thank you very much for the update.

Are the devs aware that dance emotes are also gender-locked, preventing us from using a good number on any given character? Is there a way we can get those separately available, e.g. /danceredguardmale and /danceredguardfemale? There is no reason I can see to discriminate by gender in terms of emotes any more than cosmetics. If anything, they should be easier to make universal, since there is no additional concern about head/face/body shapes.

ZOS_Kevin · March 2023

virtus753 wrote: »

Thank you very much for the update.

Are the devs aware that dance emotes are also gender-locked, preventing us from using a good number on any given character? Is there a way we can get those separately available, e.g. /danceredguardmale and /danceredguardfemale? There is no reason I can see to discriminate by gender in terms of emotes any more than cosmetics. If anything, they should be easier to make universal, since there is no additional concern about head/face/body shapes.

We will pass this feedback along as well. Not sure what that work looks like on the backend (just the messenger here

). But we'll pass on the ask and let the team evaluate the possibility.

virtus753 · March 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

Thank you very much for the update.

Are the devs aware that dance emotes are also gender-locked, preventing us from using a good number on any given character? Is there a way we can get those separately available, e.g. /danceredguardmale and /danceredguardfemale? There is no reason I can see to discriminate by gender in terms of emotes any more than cosmetics. If anything, they should be easier to make universal, since there is no additional concern about head/face/body shapes.

We will pass this feedback along as well. Not sure what that work looks like on the backend (just the messenger here ). But we'll pass on the ask and let the team evaluate the possibility.

Thank you so much! Really appreciate the communication.