The community has talked about armor on the ladies to death and frankly I'm tired of hearing about it. So let's talk about men's fashion! I recently read a thread on the FFXIV forums griping about men's fashion in the game and it reminded me that guys always seem to get reskinned t-shirts, jackets, jeans, and nothing else. This is a travesty! Men have bodies, too!
Do you want the guys showing some skin? (note: not while dead and naked and streaking through the fields trying to get gear back, more like as a fashion statement)
Men who enjoy fashionquest, what sort of designs would you like to see in an MMO?
Would designing men's armor for the heterosexual female gaze in a fantasy game change the look and feel of the armor significantly?
Men, would you want to wear armor the ladies consider sexy? Or would you only wear what you like for your own sake? (Are you a strong independent man who don't need no woman?)
And finally, would designing armor so ladies (and some men) get some masculine eye candy help or hurt the gamer base in this day and age?
Guys, this is for you! Ladies, remember to be respectful and don't spam with pictures of half-naked cowboys or Johnny Depp/Brad Pitt, we don't want to scare the lads off talking about muscular forearms or unbuttoned shirts. ;)
In all seriousness: Please note that I know this topic has a very high likelihood to explode into drama/pointless yelling and I will not object if the topic is abruptly closed or deleted. I do think it's a topic worth discussing, so I request that all who participate do so with respect towards others' experiences and views.
I'd prefer if they keep armor as realistic as possible in the sense that combat armors should cover most of the body, regardless of gender. No boob/bikini/midriff/bare chested armors (save for maybe monk). Perhaps some caster stuff could be more revealing at times I guess but it should be rare to see.
Cynwulf said:Armor was made to protect someone from weapons! Not to show skin....
This does not mean that armor has to be boring. Add fluting, etching, and figurative relief decorations and armor can become pieces of art as well as protective!
Filigree design on armor.. and suggestions for figurative relief decorations: lions, dragons..etc
I would personally like male and female armours to reflect one another, say for example a barbarian race/class or build, I would like to see both male and females lightly dressed in leathers or some such material (think conan the barbarian and Zula).
I would expect a female paladin/dire lord/warrior to be similairly covered as thier male counter part. :)
I personally expect light to heavy variations of plate/heavy armour (to which I think this topic is pandering to) light being a mail or weave, heavy being a plate, but bikiny being (obviously) no where in the discussion.
I've argued against boob plate in a practical/historical context in the past (being that it would most often deflect any blows by sword or spear point into the chest and vitals, penetrating the plate) (this obviously also applies to male pectoral armour, and abdominal armour :P)
we cant all have the impenetrable abs of steel Kratos has hehe xD.
Armour is supposed to cover and protect the body, not be sexy - that goes for female as well as male armour. The drama begins when developers ignore that in order to sell eye candy, often in the shape of scantily-clad, irrealistically voluptuous female characters. I understand why they do it, but still feel it shouldn't be encouraged. Maybe the best compromise would be to have armour be primarily designed for realistic protection, with cosmetic clothes more able to show off your pixels, provided of course that you have to choose one or the other, i.e. you can't just equip your plate mail and use a toggle to display a cosmetic outfit instead.
There were some awesome outfits in Ronal The Barbarian. Check it out ;^)
But seriously, I would like to see armour be realistic, effective and subtle... There's no harm in light armour being somewhat revealing or leather armour being nicely tight, but it's supposed to be practical for delving dungeons, no?
Also, if there are 'cosmetic' overrides, they need to be the same type as is being worn. Let's not have warriors look like they are jumping into combat in pajamas when they are actually in full plate...
If I make a dwarf enchanter he will absolutely try and be a gigolo. Fancy wrist watches, Sun glasses, Wide V dragon hide waistcoat and matching boots, leather pants and a shimmering silk shirt unlaced to the solar plexus and sleeves rolled halfway up his biceps. Of course the beard tends to get tangled in the chest hair, and sunscreen will be a must with his pale complexion.
In all seriousness though I also support there being as many visual options for each armor type with cloth having the most variation. Similar to some other games, having partial transparency layers on one piece of equipment to show other pieces can add a lot to style options. It would especially be cool if crafters could piece meal out partial designs on items to truly be equipment appearance designers.
I will try and think up the working bits and add it to my brainstorming player generated content thread. Be warned though that due to the massive difficulty of art skinning, clothing rigging, animation tracking, polygon count reduction, and VR just doesn't have a 50 artist team to generate equipment skins visual choices will likely be minimal for launch. The good thing though is that a constant stream of new skins could be possible after launch without effecting much of anything else.
Hmm Archai Monk or Dwarf enchanter for my starting character.
I'd like to see some nice tooled leather pieces and for the models to include a mix of leather and cloth materials. The BBC TV series "The Musketeers" did a really awesome job of costuming and creating realistic period outfits for the characters. Since we only have one chest slot, go for a layered appearance where a rogue, for example, is wearing a silk shirt under a leather jerkin. The silk shirts could be user customizable, while the jerkin would be the recognizable raid item which so many people want to see. Of course, some item models wouldn't be jerkins and would cover up most of the silk shirt. In general, for realistic armour, you need layers. You want strong, thick, stiff leather at key defensive points, with light flexible garments close to the body. Add cultural tooling designs to give racial or cultural flair.
A similar approach could be taken to caster robes. Leave the robe open at the front and let the player customize the shirt and possibly the pants. Use jewelry models for arms and forearms. This jewelry should appear over the sleeves of the robe.
I'm very curious how the Archai armour models are going to work. It would be a shame to completely cover up all those awesome chest markings.
I have been one really pushing for realistic armor. I hope that's the direction they go.
Overall, I just want the armor to fit into the context of the game better. If you are out adventuring, you’re going to be wearing full armor, not a boob bikini. If you are at a bar or a dancer or something then the context says it’s OK to wear something more casual.
Plate armor you wear should be the same for both male and female characters because they do not put “boob molds” in plate armor. Armor like leather, chain, cloth, etc. will outline the female body differently than male body because the armor material fits differently.
bigdogchris said:
Overall, I just want the armor to fit into the context of the game better. If you are out adventuring, you’re going to be wearing full armor
Is that true, though? I mean, I get what everyone is saying, but if the point is to be as realistic as possible, I would argue that while going out adventuring (walking and running everywhere!) it would make more sense to wear less. Nobody would willingly run around the world wearing X pounds of full plate armor.
Rather, I believe it would be a judicious picking and choosing of the pieces that protect the most vital organs. In which case, being able to customize the look of your clothes beneat the armor would come into play for the best aesthetic effect.
I feel like VR has an opportunity here. Realistic in the face of context doesn't necessarily have to mean boring.
Otherwise, yea, what everyone else said. I ain't slaying dragons while looking sexy - slaying dragons is sexy no matter what you're wearing. So make it look practical.
Tralyan said:Is that true, though? I mean, I get what everyone is saying, but if the point is to be as realistic as possible, I would argue that while going out adventuring (walking and running everywhere!) it would make more sense to wear less. Nobody would willingly run around the world wearing X pounds of full plate armor.
Rather, I believe it would be a judicious picking and choosing of the pieces that protect the most vital organs. In which case, being able to customize the look of your clothes beneat the armor would come into play for the best aesthetic effect.
I feel like VR has an opportunity here. Realistic in the face of context doesn't necessarily have to mean boring.
Otherwise, yea, what everyone else said. I ain't slaying dragons while looking sexy - slaying dragons is sexy no matter what you're wearing. So make it look practical.
That may be true of the real world (though soldiers in RL often carry 60-100 lbs of gear when going into potentially hostile territory) but in a dangerous world full of magic, humanoid creatures of all kinds, and other monsters/beasts, I would imagine adventurers wouldn't be traveling light for the most part when at a moments notice they could be attacked.
Iksar said:Tralyan said:Is that true, though? I mean, I get what everyone is saying, but if the point is to be as realistic as possible, I would argue that while going out adventuring (walking and running everywhere!) it would make more sense to wear less. Nobody would willingly run around the world wearing X pounds of full plate armor.
Rather, I believe it would be a judicious picking and choosing of the pieces that protect the most vital organs. In which case, being able to customize the look of your clothes beneat the armor would come into play for the best aesthetic effect.
I feel like VR has an opportunity here. Realistic in the face of context doesn't necessarily have to mean boring.
Otherwise, yea, what everyone else said. I ain't slaying dragons while looking sexy - slaying dragons is sexy no matter what you're wearing. So make it look practical.
That may be true of the real world (though soldiers in RL often carry 60-100 lbs of gear when going into potentially hostile territory) but in a dangerous world full of magic, humanoid creatures of all kinds, and other monsters/beasts, I would imagine adventurers wouldn't be traveling light for the most part when at a moments notice they could be attacked.
I thought these days soldiers often wear a horribly uncomfortable amount of body armour and often carry massive amounts of equipment on foot into combat. I know police regularly put on hot, uncomfortable and heavy stab vests when they might be in the slightest danger. In real life, people actually err on the side of caution when facing potential danger.
When that danger is frequent, likely and you intentionally go toward it, yeah, you would wear all the armor you can and you would be trained to endure it.
Having said that, "plate armor" *shouldn't* look like you are about to joust. RPGs do always tend to over do it with warriors/knights such that they look like they shouldn't be able to move, let alone fight hand-to-hand.
Gothic plate wieghed anywhere from 35 to 60 lbs and was well distributed over the entire body. Much easier to wear then a military pack today. A lighter chain hauberk would be more fatiguing then plate mainly because the weight of the hauberk is mostly carried by your shoulders. A belt was often worn and you would drape a bit of the chain over it to help with the weight distribution.
Some foot troops like the swiss kiels or the landsnecht might wear 3/4 plate which shed a bit of weight and gave them a bit more mobility.
I see no reason why an adventurer would not wear his armor. A man in properly fitted plate armor is highly agile, capable of jumping, mounting a horse, climbing a ladder, and able to run. A soldier today carries more weight (60-100lbs) which includes a pack, weapons, body armor.
Roman soldiers were required to be able to march 22 miles loaded with 45lbs of equipment in about 6 hours. In the united states army to get your expert infantry badge you need to be able to march 12 miles loaded with 70 lbs of equipment in 3 hours.
I can see people saying that their adventurer would be a thrill seeker and wouldn't care much about their personal safety. After all, these are people who have decided against being merchants, farmers, craftsmen, and not even the military suited their desires. If someone I knew did that, then I would say they had a deathwish going off into a world of unbelievable danger in pursuit of riches. I understand that some would like to dress up in conan-esque garb and I don't think it would be unreasonable for their character to do so. However, IF anything like that gets put into the game, then I think it should be represented by appropriate armor statistics. It would be absurd to have a couple of straps of leather provide anything but the smallest armor values.
That said, I'm not one of those people and I would be more than happy if everything equipable in the game was functional. I'm definitely going to be playing the game with the cosmetic toggle off if that's available.
I have to agree with all of you...no bunny slippers and pink tutus..and no sparkly barbie horses (looking at you Rift) lol I would like to see armor for both genders that reflect Pantheonesque lore..unique to Pantheon and something anyone would be proud to wear and show off (yes people like to do that ..hehehe)
While I prefer the side of realism in armor, I have to point out that all these arguments about females with exposed mid-riffs not being protected being made, while they are prefectly ok with the concept of a wooden stick shooting fireballs out of it. This is fantasy, a world of magic and the unexplainable, where people run endlessly without tiring, we magically port from location to location, we fight beasts that do not exist in our world, we have weapons and armor that give us strength, intelligence, resistance to disease, fire, cold. A world where a person with 80lbs of armor,and another 100lbs of backpacks, can swim effortlessly across miles of ocean.
Total Realism only works if you want to take the fantasy out of it. Maybe we should all revisit the bathroom thread. :)
Fulton said:While I prefer the side of realism in armor, I have to point out that all these arguments about females with exposed mid-riffs not being protected being made, while they are prefectly ok with the concept of a wooden stick shooting fireballs out of it. This is fantasy, a world of magic and the unexplainable, where people run endlessly without tiring, we magically port from location to location, we fight beasts that do not exist in our world, we have weapons and armor that give us strength, intelligence, resistance to disease, fire, cold. A world where a person with 80lbs of armor,and another 100lbs of backpacks, can swim effortlessly across miles of ocean.
Total Realism only works if you want to take the fantasy out of it.
And if women's belly buttons shot fireballs it would make sense to have them exposed. They don't and it doesn't.