i'd have to disagree with roxianna a bit, just on the fact that i think having a huge customization for your fantasy life would kind of be cool, meaning u can make he/she/it look exactly how u want, big, thin, large, skinny, short or tall. But completely agree on all acting like humans. And to be fair, in my fantasy mmo i would want to create something so disturbed that ppl would say it looks beautiful or else it would eat them

In my fantasy world, I want my fantasy look. That's what part of the fun is, for me anyway. If I want reality, I'll go stand in front of the bathroom mirror.

SWG (suck) and CoH stand out for the level of character customization. I posit that even the most hardcore PvP'er wants a high level of character customization (you hear that GW?)

While I understand the complaint and I'd love to see a variety of body types in an MMO WoW simply didn't have the technical resources to enable that. Also note that while WoW's women are still idealized they are quite a bit more realistic than you will see in most games. The human female model is often called chunky and fat just because she's built with a human anatomy in mind. Elven women are very narrow, but then, elves are supposed to be like that, and as far as the Draenei the male is the failure in that race. They made them bulky because they wanted the Draenei to feel heroic to the Alliance plebs, and that's our image of a hero thanks to the comic book industry. WoW's lore and the old concept art of the Eredar (their ancestral race) and Draenei show both sexes tall, thin, and well toned.

Honestly I think WoW's the wrong game to pick on in that regard. Clothing on the other hand you could complain about, except that there are clothing items available to both sexes which are extremely skimpy and revealing. It's just that nobody chooses to wear them on their male characters. Look for any set of leg armor called "woolies" or "loincloth" for an example.

Finally note that beauty is, in fact, to some extent objective as we're discovering more and more. Symmetry, proportion, sexual features and visible signs of good health such as muscle tone, skin tone, and posture affect us on a much deeper level than personal preference. People who don't comply with instinctual standards would like that to not be true, but it is. Modern entertainment and media sometimes takes those standards to extremes and we can of course be psychologically distorted but we will always gravitate toward that common ground.

It was an interesting read, but in games I still want to be a 6' dark skinned amazon with bleach blond hair, enormous boobs and a chain mail bikini. Seriously, the ideal body types and symmetry are all about what strikes us as good breeding material. This is extremely hard wired. Yes, we could totally break free and create fantasy avatars that in no way resemble humans, but they just would not be as fun. Plus, we'd still act like humans while in their guise.

I found this to be a very interesting read.