nubins

That depends on the time period and realism really, barbarians, in the fantasy sense of the word are often thought of as being conan like.. big and muscled. Plate armour was an extremely expensive set of gear, custom made to fit its owner. If it didnt fit properly, the interlocking plates would not work properly and it wouldn't move effectively. Also, if you tried to fit a breast plate made for a normal sized person on the the frame of a muscled giant.. its not gonna work too well. So for the barbarian to realistically be using plate armour, he would have to buy a set for himself from a civilised area.. not too easy for them to do. Also depends on the barbarians, wouldnt have done ghengis khans horse mounted archers much good to be packing heavy plate armour on them, too restrictive to use their bows. A lot of barbarian cultures were nomadic and need to move and fight quickly from horseback. The technology of crafting fine armour plate was not something easy to do when always on the move and without access to fixed forges, smelters and supplies of high quality ore. It was only in the late rennaissance period when the main european powers were able to fit out large numbers of soldiers with plate armour, as the technology to mass produce it had come around. Of course, the advent of relliable firearms then ended its effective use on the battlefield anyway.

I hate massive swords and think they look rediculous, so when it comes to weapons I'd like to see plenty that are based around realistic designs and weights. When it comes to armour.. well thats much more personal. I personally think that only having "realistic" armour would get quite dull. I thought a lot of the armours in Dragon Age were lifeless and they were trying to keep it real.. so to speak. I think realistic armours should be in the game and given equal status and power as unrealistic armours. Lots of people like high fantasy, lots of people like gritty realistic versions of fantasy. I think to choose one over the other, unless its completely necassary, is a mistake. I mentioned in another thread that I liked Dragons Dogma's armour system. You had boots, trousers, chest armour, chest clothing, helm and back pieces. You could mix and match them. They all had stats that were relative to what they were - heavy armour - heavy defense, clothes - little defence, but better agility etc. You could upgrade and enhance each piece and alter stats to a degree by collecting reagents and cash to do so. They had pieces that were sexy (clothing items, some leather strappy gear) and pieces that were entirely realistic. I prefer to see sexy armour in games, I found in DD that I was using combinations of sexy and realistic pieces to come up with something that i liked, didnt look like it would never work as armour in real world situations and was balanced in terms of its performance. This kinda thing, although my character was an archer so I was using cloth and leather combo pieces:

Chainmail bikini's get the vote from me, or at least the ability to craft sexy looking armour out of armour pieces like in Dragon's Dogma. Actually, i dont mind armour looking exactly as intended to be - full plate armour, but lighter armours can be mixed and matched to create a look you like on a character, with options that include sexy stuff. That way, those that dont like it, can craft something more to their taste without having to avoid any particular armour pieces and vice versa. Gold in barrels. A proper ending - as Dream said above, tired of pseudo religious, unclear desperate to avoid the cliche endings, they ruin your sense of investment of time in a game series if they dont draw up a proper, solid ending to it all. In other words.. i want there to be a point to it all.

The market is saturated with mmo's, they are all virutally the same with very little to differentiate them from the next one other than art style. If anything SWTOR proved that MMO's couldnt do narrative, because whilst it was good, it was still sub-par to a dedicated singleplayer game and it turned into a jack of all trades mmo that has failed to do what people expected of it and is now going free to play. The only fantasy mmo im gonna get excited about is one that is genuinely and completely different from the thousand others out there.. and I don't think that's too likely.

It is interesting that so many rpg games start off with young protaganists. Seems to be a slightly lazy/easy way of coming up with the "they are still developing, go level up!" and "not too much backstory please!" issues. Except you often meet old wizards. In films though.. the "ideal" action hero actor, is middle aged. Someone who is middle aged is believable at being tough, experienced and less likely to crack under pressure. Whilst not as energetic as late teens and early 20's, that doesn't matter because they get by on experience and allround toughness. Think Russell Crowe in Gladiator vs Orlando Bloom in Kingdom of Heaven and see who you think makes the better action persona So I would definitely like to see some middle aged characters.

The notion that mages wouldnt enchant guns because they might be used to kill them is somewhat silly. That's like saying blacksmish wouldnt make swords in case someone wanted to stab them with one. As soon as one mage did it, that would be it, an arms race because unless they all get involved they would be left behind. It's very unlikely that all the mages in the world would avoid doing it. I'm really pleased there are going to be firearms in the game. Early firearms add as much drama as magic - smoke, loud noises.. much more interesting than bows, in my opinion. I dont see there being balance issues - early pistols could not penetrate heavy armour, unless they were very lucky (they tested it on deadliest warrior, the only firearm they could get to penetrate a steel breast plate was a blunderbuss). So light armour is vulenrable.. but thats no different from crossbows and longbows and they fire faster. I suspect, if they are going for realism, they might go as primed one shot "Items" with substantial cooldowns and not as the main weapon of a character (pull your pistol and fire and point blank range instead of swinging your sword etc.).