Males, and Females, being able to tell which is which Options

[Diddry]

I think that they should make it so that people can tell if a person is male or female without even clicking on them and if they are unspecified they should just keep it they way they look now. I have no idea why I think this i just think it would be kinda cool instead of the same old bodies of all the people.

[Arpha]

This has been suggested a million times..

[Youlanda]

And shot down.

[Talzhemir]

*
    Not shot down, but I explain why it's not an option.

Gendered Walkabout Shapes

[Reunion]

Well, dear Diddry, Arpha, and Youlanda, too,

I think you've been on furcadia long enough to recognize people's gender without clicking on them. =P

Enternal note: Reunion doesn't support "veteranity" at all.

Edited by Reunion on Apr 1, 1997, 10:32

[Ehvo Lu Shynn]

Yes, a furre named igna once explained how to do that. I think he said that if someone's name ends with an "A" then it's a female character, but if their name ends with an "O" it's a male character, and all other characters are unspecified.

At least, I think that's what he said... maybe someone should ask him again.















(*walks away chuckling*)

[Cassiel]

Hey, names don't always make it easy to tell which gender a person is.  Alot of people tend to get my gender wrong when they take an educated guess.

And what's with all the space at the end of your post?

[Ehvo Lu Shynn]

Yes, a furre named igna once explained how to do that. I think he said that if someone's name ends with an "A" then it's a female character, but if their name ends with an "O" it's a male character, and all other characters are unspecified.

At least, I think that's what he said... maybe someone should ask him again.






----------------------> (long pause to let the joke sink in...)








(*walks away chuckling*)

...*sigh*

[Cameo]

I agree with Cassiel. The theory on names ending with the appropriate “masculine” or “feminine” (similar to the Spanish language) ending is not in all cases necessarily logical. I’ve had problems in the past with this, as to a limited few my name seems entirely masculine depending on their native country. Even though Came-o ends with an o; I’m female.

This has been discussed in great detail in similar threads. Besides, you could always take a look at the specitag of the particular furre to partially discover their gender. Although, I do know that some furres play an unspecified character because they enjoy the portrait more -- or perhaps the "mysteriousness" of it.



This post has been edited by Cameo: Apr 30 2000, 04:00 AM

[Ehvo Lu Shynn]

UHm. I guess I should say this very clearly:

I was joking about the "A" and "O"

I said a male with a name ending with an "A"
had explained that to me, which was a joke

[Cameo]

I'm rather quick today.

[Neko Justice]

I have a suggestion for a way to implement genders that addresses the concerns in that FAQ you posted, Talz.  Unless you feel that being able to determine gender before you click on a furre would really make that big of a difference to Furcadia's current atmosphere, I urge you to consider this suggestion.

"If we were to go over to having females now, it would cost as much time as it takes to modify 400 frames of animation."

Instead of creating twice as many avatars, including wing and triwing versions of each species, why not just have the furc engine add the wings dynamically, the way it draws dragon fire and pheonix fire now.  This would require re-coding the way wings are drawn, and would change the way some of the avatars are stored.  Instead of this selection of avatars:

canine, musteline, equine, rodent, lupine,
wings canine, wings musteline, wings equine, wings rodent, wings  lupine,
triwings canine, triwings musteline, triwings equine, triwings rodent, triwings  lupine,
butterfly canine, butterfly musteline, butterfly equine, butterfly rodent, butterfly lupine,
Dragon, Pheonix, (22 total sets of animation frames)

You could have this:

male canine, male musteline, male equine, male rodent, male  lupine,
female canine, female musteline, female equine, female rodent, female  lupine,
androgynous canine, androgynous musteline, androgynous equine, androgynous rodent, androgynous lupine,
Male Dragon, Female Dragon, Androgynous Dragon,
Male Pheonix, Female Pheonix, Androgynous Pheonix,
Wings Animations, Triwings Animations, Butterfly Animations

(24 total sets of animation frames)

Now, I realize that some dreams already include avatar sets in their patches that rely on the existing setup of animation frames.  From the very begining, Furcadia has always tried it's darnedest to remain backwards-compatible (at least in my experience.)  In my personal opinion, this is a noble endevor and should be applauded.

But what if they didn't overwrite the old avatar system when they implemented the new one?  What if it were an OPTION that could be controlled via DS?

(5:200) Start Using Classic Avatars (default)
(5:201) Start Using Gender-specific Avatars with Dynamic Wings

And if there were male and female avatars, you could finally create DS commands that detect gender.  Mens and Womens restrooms are the first idea that springs to my mind, but I'm sure you could think of many other uses for gender-detection DS on your own.

All of the old maps would still work.  Everybody's character would still look the same, on the main maps.  Heck, you could even make the default male and female FSH files be copies of the old neutral avatars... then everything would look like old-fashioned furcadia... unless a dreamweaver wanted to hilight males and females in their own personal dream.

Some dreams would use the new feature to it's fullest, with custom male and female avatars.  Some would turn on the new avatars, so they could use genter-sensitive DS commands, but still use the default shapes.  But on the main maps, nobody would have to be harrassed about anything based on gender!  Well, okay, but the pervs would still have to click on them first to find out they were female, just as they would now.

And keep in mind, you wouldn't have to draw ANY new animation frames if you didn't implement genders on the world maps.  You'd have to edit out some pixels to get the base wing shapes, if you don't already have the original source files lying around, that is, and that's about it.

Now, the main drawback with my idea, and I acknowlage that it's a huge drawback, would be the ammount of time and effort that would have to go into creating the new set of wing animations by themselves, and more to the point, lots and lots of raw coding.  If the powers that be want to tell me they don't have time to implement a whole seperate avatar-displaying system, debug it, and provide support for editing the new FSH files, I will certianly understand.  

However, I would like it to be AT LEAST be acknowlaged that the idea I've outlined here WOULD address all of the problems described in this FAQ, and would FINALLY allow gender-detection in dreams and gender-specific custom avatars in select user-made patches, without requiring an excessive number of new animation frames, without breaking the old dreams or DS used by long-time furres, and without appreciably changing the social climate of Furcadia, except possibly within the confines of whatever dreams use a very provocative custom avatar patch.  

(And, incidently, this system, if implemented would also make it MUCH easier for people to include new varieties of wings in their dream's patch! )

I honestly don't expect anything to change any time soon.  But I at least want it known that the reasons given in that FAQ can be overcome, if enough time and effort could be devoted to the coding.

Thank you for your time and your consideration.

(EDIT: Sorry I forgot the lupines!  List of avatars updated! )



This post has been edited by Neko Justice: May 31 2000, 05:00 AM

[Ehvo Lu Shynn]

What an awful lot of effort and programming.

I think I've implied elsewhere that I consider the
current uni-avatar system very adequate, so I'll
try not to expound on that here, however...

...a few flaws:

-- you left lupine out of your lists

-- since character avatars are of different heights,
in the wings animation scenario the musteline
would need to have wings on its head while
equines would have wings on their butts.

Adjusting the position of the base avatars to compensate
for this wouldn't be much of an option, since that would
throw off their interactive height with objects.

Of course, in order to avoid the height difference problem,
there could be a whole lot of extra programming to
determine which species was being called, then graphicly
adjust the position of the wings (dynamic fbj?) and...

Ya know, your idea is interesting, but the current system
of avatar display is more code friendly to the programming
part of things in Furcadia I think. I for one would certainly
prefer to see programming time spent on many many other
things first, like the "user-defined channels", a true in-game
message system, PheonixSpeak, permament dreams, etc.

[Youlanda]

I wrote a whole thing on dynmaic wings in another sexed avatar post.

Even with the idea of "dynamic" wings, as they have been refered to, well... it's not going to get sexed avatars.

^.^ It would open up for more regular avatars and lesson overall work for graphicalness.

[Guest_Morpius_*]

Actually, I'd say that it wouldn't be that hard to make dynamic wings, if Furcadia was coded with extendability in mind (although I've no idea how Furcadia was coded). And they have added new layers in the past - for example, the "text" layer used for dream titles and the "animation" layer used for flames and breath.

And, I did hear that they were thinking of moving to a much more modular patch "database" type system, so I assume this and other things will happen. But that was hear'say.

[Rickets]

You can, if you recall, use the badges to tell someone's gender when they speak...

[Neko Justice]

Ya know, your idea is interesting, but the current system
of avatar display is more code friendly to the programming
part of things in Furcadia I think. I for one would certainly
prefer to see programming time spent on many many other
things first, like the "user-defined channels", a true in-game
message system, PheonixSpeak, permament dreams, etc.

Yes, of course they have better things to work on than implementing an extremely complicated idea, all to achieve an effect that they purposely removed from the system in the first place.  I understand that.  I just wanted to point out that it's possible.

I really didn't think my idea would change anything.  I only posted it so that the community and the masters of furcadia would know that the reasons stated in the FAQ can be addressed.  I mean, at the very least, Talzhemir ought to update the FAQ to include "Some guy once suggested a way around these problems, but it was ridiculously complicated and would take too long to code."



This post has been edited by Neko Justice: May 31 2000, 05:00 AM

[Ehvo Lu Shynn]

"Some guy once suggested a way around these problems, but it was ridiculously complicated and would take too long to code."

*chuckle*  

Well, but, there are many many things (in Furc and otherwise)
about which that could be said. IE, there are many things
that could be done/fixed with programming that would be
"ridiculously complicated " to code. (So, it seems irrelevant
to point out that 'some guy once suggested' such a thing.)

But, there's one issue that you persist to blandly overlook,
and that is... that to help prevent more obvious gender
harassment, gender avatars are not being considered.

Right now if someone has certain screen resolutions or a
spyglass, and knows how to pick up on the different gender
designs of the specitags... or if they click for the portrait...
then they can indirectly tell the gender. These are subtle
indicators, and IMO are adequate ways for gender to be
'displayed' in a non-incite-ful way.

But if you make avatars appear to be female
(hips and bosom) there would very likely be a
considerable increase in harassments of females.

Boys will be boys (and leches will be leches).

At any rate, I suggest you read this, section #34:

http://www.realtime.net/~pixel/a/#A34

[Guest_Iced Stallion_*]

ALrighty then! Lets all just give up on this male female thing, its simply NOT going to happen. I and others before me have faught this war and thrown countless options out to felorin and talzhemir. The thing is they are not ready to put in sex's because they prefer more species and options and the so called...DOWNLOAD time for things. Thats ridiculous really any dream over a 1MB is dumb as hell anyways, it use's big bunches of worthless patches. Reason's why your not seeing this sex's thing.
1.Download time on dreams.
2.Increased size on updates.
3. Talz and Fel feel its going to violate a 10 year olds mind O.O seeing adult immages that they see everyday.
4.THe Money it takes to make this stuff.
5.The Time.
6.Things that have a higher priority than sex's to them are first in action.
7.Talz And Fel would have a hard time determening what female and males to wear.. IE muscles and breast and clothing.
You have to just look below this post even to see a battle I attempted with a great idea.



This post has been edited by Iced Stallion: May 31 2000, 05:00 AM