Fallen Earth's females get a more feminine facelift
by Tracey John 
Sep 23rd 2009 at 5:00PM
Filed under: Sci-fi, Fallen Earth, Interviews
According to developer Fallen Earth LLC, players thought that the female characters in the post-apocalyptic MMO, which just launched yesterday, should have physiological qualities typically associated with women.
"Fallen Earth has never been about the sexiness of its females," said product manager Jessica Orr, "but after some comments from fans and a hard look at the female faces, we decided some changes were in order."
That meant having the game's artist, Chris Allen, make adjustments to the facial models in order to differentiate the females more from the male character models. The changes, implemented in a recent patch, included removing "excess skin" from under the chins, raising the cheekbones, softening the jawline, thinning the bridge of the noses and tweaking the shape and placement of the eyebrows.
Allen also raised the corners of the mouth to make the women have "less of a scowl and more of a neutral expression," Orr said. The result is what Fallen Earth LLC sees as "more feminine models that steer clear of the characteristic 'babes,'" allowing players to focus more on the game itself.
Orr also answered a few more questions regarding the look of the female models and provided us with more comparison shots below. What do you think of the changes?
What kind of feedback, specifically, did users give on the female character models?
Some of our testers told us that they would like to see more differentiation between the male and female facial features. They expressed that they didn't see very much difference in some of the models and that they would like to see more customization in that area.
Was the feedback from mostly males or a mix of both genders?
The feedback was actually offered from both genders. We had also heard that many people appreciated the fact that we didn't put an emphasis on the sexuality of the female characters to the point of making them unrealistic. Keeping both sets of comments in mind, our job was to improve the femininity of the female characters somewhat without sacrificing the elements of realism and individuality we'd worked to achieve.
Do you think the women look less or more like real women? And do you think it matters if the characters look realistic or not?
The women look more like real women in that the facial features and structures are more feminine. While Fallen Earth is a game and we can take some liberties with creating characters, it was important for us to create models of characters that players can identify with, since all players come into the game as humanoids.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Chimpo said on 5:06PM 9-23-2009
ugly chicks need love to
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Arkanaloth said on 5:19PM 9-23-2009
Honestly none of those character models, before or after, are going to be winning any digital beauty contests, however, the "before" models were just bad presentations of the human face.
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Madeleen said on 5:21PM 9-23-2009
There was absolutely nothing wrong with the models beforehand. They were faces with character.
The after models are generic characters that can be seen every day on Renderosity. All of them now look the same.
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HouseDecados said on 5:37PM 9-23-2009
I had 4 characters already built before this change. Two of them look significantly better, one is neutral and one, though the face looks good, it's not what I envisioned with the char and will be rerolling it. Fortunately this character is only in the tutorial so it's not like I'll be loosing anything.
All in all.. mostly a positive change. I don't think at all that they look 'all the same' in the least.
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Wisdomandlore said on 6:04PM 9-23-2009
"The changes, implemented in a recent patch, included removing "excess skin" from under the chins"
Interesting. Many women (though not all) naturally have that "excess skin." It's why you can't see women's adam's apple.
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Enig said on 7:23PM 9-23-2009
Guess they want to identify the post-apocalyptic traps!
Mutant freaks...
CindyL said on 6:52PM 9-23-2009
I personally have never had that much skin under my chin, my grand mother though does....
Sally said on 10:44PM 9-23-2009
Actually, the amount of neck fat/skin has nothing to do with the size of the Adam's apple and whether it is visible or not. It has to do with male hormones.
Males have a larger larynx than females do, which accounts for the deeper voices..
Mewmew said on 12:39PM 9-24-2009
I have no excess skin at all under my neck, and there is no adam's apple visible at all. Most women just don't have an adam's apple big enough to see that's why you don't see it, it's not because we have droopy skin hanging down under our chins... I'd be offended at that but it's just your ignorance (which isn't an insult, it's that you're not educated about the reality of why most female's don't have a visible apple).
Anyway, I thought my character was rather pretty in Fallen Earth before. They didn't all look as bad as the character shots are showing, the creator was very detailed and you could work them around to be pretty if you altered it a lot. I haven't got my pay to play copy of Fallen Earth yet and am not in the early start program (I was in the beta) so I haven't played with the new models to see if I'd like them or not. I don't like most of the new pictures, they look too generic and like every other game, but you can edit them a lot when creating.
Funny, and realistic thing in the game you can always change your hairstyle for free. I hate in games where you are locked to one hairstyle, it makes little sense. In Fallen Earth you can change it whenever you want which was nice.
TommyB said on 6:09PM 9-23-2009
Post-apocalyptic hotties ftw! :D
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Macabre said on 6:27PM 9-23-2009
I dunno... they probably don't get to shower much...
CindyL said on 6:39PM 9-23-2009
YES!!!!!!!!! thank you FE devs I was one of those annoying testers who complained about the female faces in beta. I just couldn't see myself playing with the avatars we were given even though I really enjoyed this game.
I may pick this up now. ^_^ I love the more feminine look, one of those things a few of us were lamenting about is exactly what Jennifer stated, we couldn't identify with the too strong features of all the faces available.
It would have been nice if they had kept the original faces though as what was asked was more a few more delicate faces to choose from not a complete overhaul....
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C said on 6:56PM 9-23-2009
It's like ugly got hit by an ugly stick, then that stick got hit by an ugly bus.
Not since Oblivion have I seen such horribly ugly character faces. Do all the faces in the game resemble butt and/or animal?
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UltimateQ said on 4:15AM 9-24-2009
Down voted? I thought that was kind of hilarious. People with no sense of humor :(
Archipelagos said on 7:22PM 9-23-2009
Ridiculous but not wholly surprising. This is the MMO community after all.
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Atnor said on 7:30PM 9-23-2009
Nice. I like the changes, looks like an improvement to me.
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Sean said on 7:53PM 9-23-2009
I find the original face models much more appealing overall. They have a genuine character to them. Looking at many of them, I have a sense of the lives behind these faces.
The new models look like soulless barbie dolls by comparison. Maybe somewhere in between is the sweet spot, at least for me. It is a bit disconcerting to see the developers make such a substantial change to the character models that seems to clash with the post-apocalyptic aesthetic in the service of contemporary, Western ideals of femininity.
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vine said on 9:30PM 9-23-2009
"Fallen Earth has never been about the sexiness of its females,"
Are you kidding me? I think Jessica Orr needs to let go of the women's rights Boom Stick and look a the demographic that's playing the game: guys. Guys like looking at attractive women. Hot chicks > more sales.
Some nice improvements in the facial models, but that first girl is definitely home on the couch with a rom-com and a bag of doritos, no date for joo!
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Skypp said on 4:45AM 9-24-2009
Didn't they release a trailer about the 3 B's and one of them being Babes? lol
Jersey said on 9:42PM 9-23-2009
females do look better but, I think the environment and scenery can use a face lift.
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