Originally Posted by BelligerentGnu

I think you're maybe doing a little forest-for-treesing yourself here, Morello. True, until this point LoL hasn't had a mermaid-style champ - but it *does* have Rengar, Hecarim, Cassiopeia, Warwick, Nasus, Renekton, Udyr, Twitch and Wukong. Anthropomorphic champs aren't that unusual. More to the point, while Ironstylus may or may not have been talking about overall silouhette variation, this thread and others like it are talking about a specific kind of variation - the presence of markers of sexualization in a champion.

There's something I think of as the Halloween phenomenon - that is, a number of champions look like they purchased a sexy-[blank] costume rather than going fully with their concept. Zyra, for example, could have looked something more like this - http://bit.ly/107EFE2 - and Elise's human form suffers the same issue, although transforming into a giant spider makes up for a lot. Nami I think is on the lower end of this scale, but isn't without troubles. Despite the fact that in some ways she's a very monstrous champ, she still has a human skin coloured torso (reinforcing the woman-in-a-mermaid-suit look), an hourglass figure, and a heavy visual emphasis on her boobs. (its less a matter of size, though thats a factor, than of framing)

Diana proved that a female champ doesn't need to be sexual to be badass or attractive (I'll repeat what I said at the time - you guys really knocked it out of the park with her.) And as for male champs, I'd point out Singed and Swain as good examples of the kind of variety we're looking for in female champs. One is old and walks with a cane; the other is tall, skinny and lanky.

I guess it boils down to this. A lot of the time it feels like Riot's 'default setting' for female champion design is "variant on sexy woman." All we're really seeking is a default setting of "variant on woman" - which will sometimes be sexy, and sometimes more like Singed/Swain, but will most often be more like Diana, or Leona, or Katniss from The Hunger Games, or Korra from Avatar.

Originally Posted by Drozzi

Which part?
The voice or the body?
Just curious.

Originally Posted by Darkscape1

Elise: I went ahead and read her lore and as I expected Elise’s seductive manor is in fact very important to her character, something which has been ignored by the majority of those preaching against Riot’s artists. Let me quote the first line, “Vicious and elegant, Elise’s charismatic grace lures the innocent and greedy alike to her web of deceit. While her victims may discover her true intentions, no one has ever lived to reveal what secrets lie behind her enigmatic guise”. I wouldn’t even call this innuendo, its more like softcore horrotica. Some spider’s use smells to attract their prey to their web; If she is trying to attract the greatest prey of them all, man, then what better way than to attract them the easiest way of all, in a seductive manor. My second point is also supported by her lore. She is not some super evolved spider/woman, she is the result of transformation through dark worship. No one said she was a ‘triple D cup hotty’ before the transformation but maybe her dark god granted her these feature as a reward for service. Finally, people have been saying she should be scary cause she is a spider. What’s scarier, a giant spider in the distance or a woman that invites you in for some tea and then turns into a spider when your back is turned.

Originally Posted by Morello

The voice, though the concept art is just that - concept art. It was the first drawing of her, not the final.

Originally Posted by Darkscape1

Elise: I went ahead and read her lore and as I expected Elise’s seductive manor is in fact very important to her character, something which has been ignored by the majority of those preaching against Riot’s artists. Let me quote the first line, “Vicious and elegant, Elise’s charismatic grace lures the innocent and greedy alike to her web of deceit. While her victims may discover her true intentions, no one has ever lived to reveal what secrets lie behind her enigmatic guise”. I wouldn’t even call this innuendo, its more like softcore horrotica. Some spider’s use smells to attract their prey to their web; If she is trying to attract the greatest prey of them all, man, then what better way than to attract them the easiest way of all, in a seductive manor.

Originally Posted by Morello

No, it means some people have a very vocal opinion and want to express it until it is resolve to their personal satisfaction. That may or may not align with what is right for our game and our players.

Excuse me for a moment, I need to speak very candidly about this issue and I may be representing my personal (as opposed to Riot) views here;

Correct me if I'm wrong, but IronStylus has essentially mentioned that they're looking at fixing things like similar silhouettes and other shape-language that lessens variety - but while keeping a stylistic consistency to League of Legends. This character has a fish for a body, but you're so over-focused on the breasts issue that you can't see the forest for the trees. Therefore, this issue is not in the interest of the player-base from this perspective, but instead is a crusade of some social morality angle that doesn't have anything to do with game development.

All of the male characters (that we're happy with...) have strong musculature and other traditionally powerful, male features. All of our females have identifiable femininity in their forums, and that is played up or down based on the archetype. Nami is one of the better-received champion sneak peeks we've seen, so players enjoy it, and accomplishes variety from a lot of angles.

For context, did you know Miss Fortune is the most popular character among female League players? Sona is #2 - something that is appealing to the eye is more aspirational and has a higher "cool quotient" than things that are not - even without hormones in the equation (unless their cool is based on an opposing feature (Kog'Maw, for example)).

We want to offer variety, and earlier this year we talked a lot about improving that. A mermaid is pretty varied when compared to other female champions, and if it has breasts, or not isn't something I think is a focal point of things that actually matter - especially when we do have strong female characters like Diana, Leona or Riven.

The art team's thoughts as a whole may deviate from what I just posted (they know more about forms and shape language than I by miles), but if we do provide variety, and we do provide good alternatives to exposed characters, then from a holistic standpoint, I'd call that successful. If some people want to talk about the philosophic nature of how portrayal of gender in society effects video games, I'm not terribly interested in that conversation - I want to make what people like.

Originally Posted by Ginga

I personally like the adorable naive feel her current voice gives off. While some people may hate it, we don't know how many there are compared to those who either like it or is fine with it.

Originally Posted by Gixia

My problem isn't the voice itself, so much as it is that the voice and her appearance don't seem to match. Her voice is childlike and spunky, whereas her appearance is more mature and refined.

Originally Posted by Cryswar

I don't see how Swain is an "unappealing archetype" when he's mysterious, intelligent, and a total badass. The lore stuff was doing a great job of helping show his cleverness before it went bottom up, and I think he's one of the coolest champs in the League, even if his playstyle itself really isn't my thing.