Armour & weapon designs - a plea (part II).

[Merlkir]

Some character models, mostly female ones where quite badly designed in BG

 

I liked how they were designed; boob plates and skimpy outfits (which is what you're referring to I'm guessing) are ubiquitous for a reason.

 

All the delicious sexism we can eat, hooray!

[Dream]

Some character models, mostly female ones where quite badly designed in BG

 

I liked how they were designed; boob plates and skimpy outfits (which is what you're referring to I'm guessing) are ubiquitous for a reason.

 

All the delicious sexism we can eat, hooray!

 

Skimpy dresses, heels, and pushup bras exist in the real world too; not all women want to look butch for equality's sake.

[TrashMan]

I don't recall huge pauldrons and skin-tight outfits. Wut you talking about?

The little guys walking around look pretty normal

 

 

Big pauldrons, skin tight thief outfits, and boob plates. Hell even the plate/chain is pretty damn form fitting.

 

Most look pretty normal.

And their actual in-game representation (not the inventory) looks normal.

Leather looks fine, chain looks fine (boob plate on the female chain? Why not? Chainmail isn't designed to deflect like plate anyway.)

 

 

 

I had great fun with super Mario but that doesn't make it immersive.

 

Not all people have the same treshold to Suspend Disbelief. If oyu cna get into things easily - great for you. Other people can't.

 

Since you CAN immerse yourself easily, that means you will immerse yourself regardless of how redicolous or unrealistic the world is. Sicne the opposite doesn't hold true, then it makes more sense to make the world more realistic if you want peopel to immerse themselves in it mroe easily..

 

So you want it to be made to appeal to the most people possible? I hear COD sells well.

 

Ironicly, given that you are the one who wants it to be dumbified in favor of "Rule of Cool"

[Tamerlane]

Some character models, mostly female ones where quite badly designed in BG

 

I liked how they were designed; boob plates and skimpy outfits (which is what you're referring to I'm guessing) are ubiquitous for a reason.

 

All the delicious sexism we can eat, hooray!

 

Skimpy dresses, heels, and pushup bras exist in the real world too; not all women want to look butch for equality's sake.

You realize we're talking about armour, yes?

 

Also, the following is loosely related to the topic at hand...

You can see a fair amount of detail. Proportionally, the characters are not particularly large, but even 1024x768 is much larger than BG, IWD, and PS:T were made to run at (640x480).

 

Torment's characters had a lot more detail than BG and IWD's. They were 96 pixels tall instead of BG/IWD's 64 pixels.

...

To see individual weapons [carried on the person]? It's certainly possible. XCOM characters are in the same ballpark of size on screen and you can see their weapons and (granted, oversized) grenades. Our exterior camera is also pitched up more than the BG/IWD/PST cameras so you see more of the side of the characters (more like Fallout 1/2).

Rope Kid should totally hire me to repeat things he says across the internet.

Edited November 17, 2012 by Tamerlane

[Dream]

Most look pretty normal.

And their actual in-game representation (not the inventory) looks normal.

Leather looks fine, chain looks fine (boob plate on the female chain? Why not? Chainmail isn't designed to deflect like plate anyway.)

 

If you're cool with P:E looking like BG then we have no argument.

 

Ironicly, given that you are the one who wants it to be dumbified in favor of "Rule of Cool"

 

Pretty much everything in fiction stems from the rule of cool. Hell, the very concept of magic came from some guy figuring "You know what; it'd be badass if I could shoot a fireball out of my fingers." Did it make sense when he thought that up? Not really, but it was awesome.

[Tamerlane]

Pretty much everything in fiction stems from the rule of cool. Hell, the very concept of magic came from some guy figuring "You know what; it'd be badass if I could shoot a fireball out of my fingers." Did it make sense when he thought that up? Not really, but it was awesome.

This... doesn't even remotely make sense.

 

The concept of magic - a broad god damn concept to begin with - existed first as a crude way of making sense of the universe for our understandably ignorant ancestors.

[Agelastos]

 

Pretty much everything in fiction stems from the rule of cool. Hell, the very concept of magic came from some guy figuring "You know what; it'd be badass if I could shoot a fireball out of my fingers." Did it make sense when he thought that up? Not really, but it was awesome.

 

I think you could really benefit from a crash course in cultural anthropology, because that was just... soooo wrong.

[Dream]

Pretty much everything in fiction stems from the rule of cool. Hell, the very concept of magic came from some guy figuring "You know what; it'd be badass if I could shoot a fireball out of my fingers." Did it make sense when he thought that up? Not really, but it was awesome.

 

I think you could really benefit from a crash course in cultural anthropology, because that was just... soooo wrong.

 

I was hardly referring to ancient cultures trying to explain away weather and death, or are you honestly going to tell me that all the spells ever used in D&D (and other fantasy settings) have some far reaching anthropological origin and were not just thought up by a guy going "this'd be cool."

Edited November 17, 2012 by Dream

[Agelastos]

Pretty much everything in fiction stems from the rule of cool. Hell, the very concept of magic came from some guy figuring "You know what; it'd be badass if I could shoot a fireball out of my fingers." Did it make sense when he thought that up? Not really, but it was awesome.

 

I think you could really benefit from a crash course in cultural anthropology, because that was just... soooo wrong.

 

I was hardly referring to ancient cultures trying to explain away weather and death, or are you honestly going to tell me that all the spells ever used in D&D (and other fantasy settings) have some far reaching anthropological origin and were not just thought up by a guy going "this'd be cool."

 

Then you should have phrased it differently.

[Dunedain]

I've always found it funny in RPGs how any plate armour will have molded breasts and slim waist only if equipped on a female PC. I don't know if armour was ever traditionally designed differently for male and female body shapes but it could be interesting to have armour for both gender types in the game. Nothing would prevent a PC from wearing either type but it could result in negative modifiers if wearing armour designed for the opposite gender.

 

Historically, plate-mail had several layers: a hell of padding, chain and then the plate on the exterior. After the padding, potentially, leather and chain, there would be absolutely no reason why the plate would need to fit breasts as they -- for the overwhelmingly vast majority of instances -- wouldn't make a difference.

Here's a realistic example which is chainmail (layers: padding and chain), not plate in which the breasts would be even less pronounced in:

 

Hopefully the weapons and armor in the game will be at least plausible in their appearance. You can have style and interesting designs without making them look silly. This one is an excellent example. Great painting, too, Justin Sweet is very good. =)

[Elerond]

Highlighting characters gender using oversexualisation. Like making platemail be boobplate on female characters, and actually functional looking on male character or wizard ropes look like good traveling ropes for male characters, but on female characters they look like coctail dresses from 20/21th centry. Is just something that average artists must relay to make female and male characters look differently especially today when you have lots of more pixel to use than 64. And oversexualising male characters is not any better idea or show anymore artistic talent.

 

Real arits can make women look femine and male look masculine in same functional looking outfit.

 

Oversexualisation work in same settings where it work in our world, partys, ball dances, advertaisment, bordels, miss/mister competitions, etc. Where you actually want to highlights your gender and those assests/attributes that our culture sees desireable and sexual.

 

And what is desireable in person has changed lot during ages even in western culture, for example during Renaissance period (where PE will be setting) plump women where seen more desireable and sexy than thin women.

 

Rule of cool, works fine until it starts to destroy basic funtionality of equipment. Of course setting can have overcooled equipment but they should have negative attributes gameplaywise compared to their more functionaly designed counterparts.

[Merlkir]

<historynazi> Historically there never was any "platemail". Or "chainmail", while we're at it. </historynazi>

 

Some character models, mostly female ones where quite badly designed in BG

 

I liked how they were designed; boob plates and skimpy outfits (which is what you're referring to I'm guessing) are ubiquitous for a reason.

 

All the delicious sexism we can eat, hooray!

 

Skimpy dresses, heels, and pushup bras exist in the real world too; not all women want to look butch for equality's sake.

 

Yeah. Let's give Forton a male thong then!

[Dream]

Highlighting characters gender using oversexualisation. Like making platemail be boobplate on female characters, and actually functional looking on male character or wizard ropes look like good traveling ropes for male characters, but on female characters they look like coctail dresses from 20/21th centry. Is just something that average artists must relay to make female and male characters look differently especially today when you have lots of more pixel to use than 64. And oversexualising male characters is not any better idea or show anymore artistic talent.

 

Real arits can make women look femine and male look masculine in same functional looking outfit.

 

Oversexualisation work in same settings where it work in our world, partys, ball dances, advertaisment, bordels, miss/mister competitions, etc. Where you actually want to highlights your gender and those assests/attributes that our culture sees desireable and sexual.

 

I guess Blizzard, DC, Marvel and pretty much everybody else under the sun hire only fake artists.

 

As for where oversexualization is "appropriate:" I didn't realize you were the spokesperson for the international feminist movement, but if you are then my bad; please tell us where it's okay for women to flaunt their assets. I'm sure women everywhere will appreciate some dude from Europe telling them where it's okay for them to dress provocatively.

 

Rule of cool, works fine until it starts to destroy basic funtionality of equipment. Of course setting can have overcooled equipment but they should have negative attributes gameplaywise compared to their more functionaly designed counterparts.

 

Actually it works fine until it doesn't. Where that point occurs is entirely depedent on a) the person and b) the person. You're obviously okay with some basic functionality being ignored since I'm pretty sure you have no problem with video games overlooking the thermal and electrical conductivities of certain metals when fighters in said metals face off against dragons and mages (hint: in the real world lightning and fire would **** your **** up if you're wearing metal).

 

Yeah. Let's give Forton a male thong then!

 

Go for it; I'd chuckle. Probably would make me more likely to use him, too.

Edited November 17, 2012 by Dream

[Elerond]

Dream it is not very nice to attack character of other conversationalists and mispresent what they have said to make your own point look better and make claims in their name what they have not made.

[Merlkir]

I guess Blizzard, DC, Marvel and pretty much everybody else under the sun hire only fake artists.

 

They hire artists who are ok with painting stuff like that if the money's good. Which is the case with huge companies like this. I suppose some of the artists enjoy it too, but I know many who wouldn't do it, not even for Blizzard. I also know some who would do it and think it's wrong, but still take the money.

 

Anyway, fact that it's being done doesn't make it alright. It doesn't say anything about the artists' artistic preference, stuff like that is decided and pushed for by the companies, not the artists.

 

Dream it is not very nice to attack character of other conversationalists and mispresent what they have said to make your own point look better and make claims in their name what they have not made.

 

Better get used to it, that's how he rolls.

Edited November 17, 2012 by Merlkir

[Monte Carlo]

This thread used to rock.

 

[Karranthain]

The games have been out for over a dozen years. If the fans truly despised the armor and weapon designs there'd have been more than the random forum thread here and there about the subject (hell, ME3 was only out for a few days before we found out how the fan base felt about that train wreck). The absence of complaining points to (but doesn't prove) that either people liked the designs or at best (for the realism argument) weren't bothered by them.

 

Torment And BG2 are universally praised games, so it's hardly surprising; besides, as you've said yourself, they've been around for a long while - and as a result, have been discussed to death already. Either way, it's not really a proof of anything - odds are that if someone liked those titles, they'd rather discuss the positives. How often is Torment's combat system discussed, for an instance? One way or another this is just conjecture, so it's not something I'd consider a viable argument.

 

Yea, I think we agreed back then. I doubt anyone actually wants ALL the armor to be improbable and over the top (hard to appreciate a fancy meal if that's all you eat), but at the same time having everything look virtually the same just shaded differently for varying metals would be a little boring. For me something in the middle like a mix of BG and PST would be ideal (and what this game was advertised as).

 

I'll have to disagree with the notion that you'd otherwise be forced to "having everything look virtually the same just shaded differently for varying metals would be a little boring". There's a wealth of examples in this thread that prove that assumption false, e.g. :

 

http://forums.obsidi...60#entry1263541

 

Even plate armour comes in many shapes - so it doesn't necessarily have to be adorned with skulls and spikes to look unique.

 

Case in point :

 

 

 

 

 

That said, I've mentioned being creative with historical source material, a good example has been posted in this topic : http://forums.obsidi...60#entry1278065.

 

This thread used to rock.

 

 

Don't worry, we'll start the third part soon

So you better get those pictures ready for the next edition

Edited November 17, 2012 by Karranthain

[Kore]

I like realistic armour, I agree with the majority of this thread there. One thing I disliked about the IE amour was the lack of diversity, I'd like to have armour inspired by various cultures, not just 14th century plate armour. I'd like to see spartan, roman legion, varangian, teutonic, russel crowe style gladiator, viking inspired armour, Van Helsing etc. That way I can play dress up a lot without it losing realism.

[Dream]

Dream it is not very nice to attack character of other conversationalists and mispresent what they have said to make your own point look better and make claims in their name what they have not made.

 

How did I misrepresent you, pray tell?

 

I guess Blizzard, DC, Marvel and pretty much everybody else under the sun hire only fake artists.

They hire artists who are ok with painting stuff like that if the money's good. Which is the case with huge companies like this. I suppose some of the artists enjoy it too, but I know many who wouldn't do it, not even for Blizzard. I also know some who would do it and think it's wrong, but still take the money.

 

Anyway, fact that it's being done doesn't make it alright. It doesn't say anything about the artists' artistic preference, stuff like that is decided and pushed for by the companies, not the artists.

 

Yes, those evil corporations doing evil stuff just to be evil. Perhaps Obsidian should take a page out of Blizzard's book and then maybe they'd sell more games (and be able to hire an actual QA department). Reality is sex sells and if I were the kind of prudish person who was annoyed by it (I'm not) I'd suffer through it for the extra sales it'd bring. Oh and before you jump in with "well, why don't they just go all the way then?" It's because there's a pretty big gap between putting boob plates in a game and hiring TERA's armor designers.

 

Case in point :

 

Those first two would look very similar on a 1 inch avatar. The last one's rather legit though, but the pauldrons seem a bit too big to be "realistic."

Edited November 17, 2012 by Dream

[Karranthain]

Those first two would look very similar on a 1 inch avatar. The last one's rather legit though, but the pauldrons seem a bit too big to be "realistic."

 

The characters will be bigger than in the IE games :

 

You can see a fair amount of detail. Proportionally, the characters are not particularly large, but even 1024x768 is much larger than BG, IWD, and PS:T were made to run at (640x480). Torment's characters had a lot more detail than BG and IWD's. They were 96 pixels tall instead of BG/IWD's 64 pixels. ... To see individual weapons [carried on the person]? It's certainly possible. XCOM characters are in the same ballpark of size on screen and you can see their weapons and (granted, oversized) grenades. Our exterior camera is also pitched up more than the BG/IWD/PST cameras so you see more of the side of the characters (more like Fallout 1/2).

 

source : http://forums.obsidi...60#entry1278397

 

In any case, I think it'd be perfectly possible to have more than a few types of a full plate - and when you take other armour types into consideration (chain, cloth, leather, lamellar etc.) you end up with more than enough visual variety between them. Add some fantasy elements to the mix and there's even more.

Edited November 17, 2012 by Karranthain

[Elerond]

Dream it is not very nice to attack character of other conversationalists and mispresent what they have said to make your own point look better and make claims in their name what they have not made.

 

How did I misrepresent you, pray tell?

 

For example you gave impression that I have said that blizzard, dc, bioware and etc. companies that have oversexualised female character have average artist when I argued agaist your point that female characters look butch if they aren't oversexualised, using claim that if artist knows what s/he does s/he can make female characters look femine and male characters to look masculine even if they have same outfit and only average artist must relay on oversexualisation to do same.

 

Of course artist don't decide how games will look, but they only try to follow instructions from producers and publishers that try to make product to sell as much as possible.

 

And when I pledged to this project I hoped that we can avoid such compromises that marketing department wants.

[Dream]

Dream it is not very nice to attack character of other conversationalists and mispresent what they have said to make your own point look better and make claims in their name what they have not made.

 

How did I misrepresent you, pray tell?

 

For example you gave impression that I have said that blizzard, dc, bioware and etc. companies that have oversexualised female character have average artist when I argued agaist your point that female characters look butch if they aren't oversexualised, using claim that if artist knows what s/he does s/he can make female characters look femine and male characters to look masculine even if they have same outfit and only average artist must relay on oversexualisation to do same.

 

Of course artist don't decide how games will look, but they only try to follow instructions from producers and publishers that try to make product to sell as much as possible.

 

And when I pledged to this project I hoped that we can avoid such compromises that marketing department wants.

 

But Blizzard, DC, etc. do have highly sexualized female characters (I'm pretty sure Kerrigan and Batgirl don't have to wear skintight outfits to do battle). I suppose then, based on what you said, the people who designed those characters were ****ty artists since they were incapable of making them look feminine without those outfits, right? Or maybe, just maybe, an artist can "know what she's doing" without restricting herself to your rigid idea of what good art is (you know, 'cause art is subjective and all).

 

As for marketing; that department exists for a reason because at the end of the day you do actually need to sell your product.

Edited November 17, 2012 by Dream

[Tamerlane]

Kerrigan's appearance has been roundly mocked by many Starcraft fans, yes. Many comic book artists are also ****ing terrible.

[Dream]

Kerrigan's appearance has been roundly mocked by many Starcraft fans, yes. Many comic book artists are also ****ing terrible.

 

You're totally right man; what the hell are those companies thinking? Clearly what they're doing is not working, and they should design characters the way you and Elerond want so they can finally stop working for pennies and make some real money.

 

I mean, those artists are so terrible that no one could possibly like that stuff, right?

Edited November 17, 2012 by Dream

[Merlkir]

I guess Blizzard, DC, Marvel and pretty much everybody else under the sun hire only fake artists.

They hire artists who are ok with painting stuff like that if the money's good. Which is the case with huge companies like this. I suppose some of the artists enjoy it too, but I know many who wouldn't do it, not even for Blizzard. I also know some who would do it and think it's wrong, but still take the money.

 

Anyway, fact that it's being done doesn't make it alright. It doesn't say anything about the artists' artistic preference, stuff like that is decided and pushed for by the companies, not the artists.

 

Yes, those evil corporations doing evil stuff just to be evil. Perhaps Obsidian should take a page out of Blizzard's book and then maybe they'd sell more games (and be able to hire an actual QA department). Reality is sex sells and if I were the kind of prudish person who was annoyed by it (I'm not) I'd suffer through it for the extra sales it'd bring. Oh and before you jump in with "well, why don't they just go all the way then?" It's because there's a pretty big gap between putting boob plates in a game and hiring TERA's armor designers.

 

Riiiiiight, keep up with the strawmen. Oh wait, I don't know what that means, I forgot.

 

Anyway, evil? Did I mention evil? I was saying JUST that, these companies sell sex. It's not that they're evil, they sell what the majority is buying. Then again, the majority ****ing sucks, which is why Modern Warfare and other garbage are so successful.

 

I thought we kickstarted this game for Obsidian, because we hoped they'd do things differently. Ah well, I'm just being a feminazi. We want the game to sell better, so bring on the boobplates!

 

BTW: Blizzard and Marvel both suck hard. Blizzard hasn't made a good game since Diablo II and maybe even that is a stretch. The whole superhero comics industry is just laughably bad, with very very few exceptions. But nah, Amurrhica business good! Feminazi bad! It makes a ton of money, so it MUST BE RIGHT! LET'S DO IT TOO!

 

You know, the fact so many humans buy this **** is just sad, it's nothing to celebrate. Sexism, your ridiculous rule of cool, you got it all, man. Helluva guy.

 

edit: ERMAGHERD! Rob Liefeld is the perfect example. :D That guy is rich, he's swimming in money and he's popular. And there's no good explanation for this, other than "People are sometimes dumb.". He's not a good artist. He's pretty bad. And still.

 

I know, I know, sour grapes, sure.

 

No kidding. What we're exploring isn't an artist we don't like. We argue about that. Bill will like one guy and I'll like another, but generally we don't wish ill on the guys nor do we hope for their gainful unemployment. We're exploring something so abstruse and offensive that our Mortal Kombat-ridden childhood comes back to uppercut off our level heads three times and rip out our spine. In that sentence, "spine" is meant to represent "holy **** what is wrong with ****ing Rob Liefeld."

 

So many times this.

Edited November 17, 2012 by Merlkir