Soapbox: Looking good in RPG's

[Smiling-Jack]

Okay, I'm just going to stand up on this box I found and say something real quick.

I like leather armour, I like rusty greatswords, I like putting on a glass pauldron and a chitin pauldron, cause I like assymetricality. I also like making up words.

This is the second biggest reason I am bad at RPG's, it doesn't matter to me that I don't have all the bonuses I could have if I don't look bitchin' at the same time, and more often than not I don't like the best sword in the game, cause to be honest, I like the idea that even if they survive, they'll get tetanus. This is about the only thing that really stands out to me in Fable II, because armour doesn't exist, and also one of the main reasons I was slightly disappointed by Oblivion. You see, in Morrowind, you had (starting from the top, and also from memory):

hat, necklace, L/R pauldrons, breastplate, shirt, L/R gloves, L/R rings (never got why you couldn't wear ten, or more) belt, trousers, skirt, greaves, L/R boots.

Not all of these made a graphical difference, but made a slight personal one. I especially liked the fact you could wear the best greaves and boots money could buy, then cover them up with a skirt, and pretend you were robocop in plain clothes. In guild wars, you could toggle an option that made your helmet invisible, which I also liked. In dragon age, I used cured leather and an iron saw sword nearly all though the game, just because I looked awesome. I died. Alot.

There's also a realism angle to my argument, I mean, surely you could just smack a shirt on top of that chainmail? Or at least when you're spending a million credits you could get it the colour you want it? To be truly honest, will the expensive mace hurt any more than the cheap one?

Maybe it is just me, but I really don't like most "uber" weapons, the gaudy, shiny, gem infested monstrosity's that you can tell the designer spent most of his time on, even the mega evil weapons, black and spiky death traps don't often do it for me. I like random things. I like the rifle in Fallout, I like the dalish armour in Dragon age, I like the chitin pauldrons in Morrowind, and I like the clothing for the scout in KOTOR, and I will wear them, no matter how many times you make me die.

[Zevox]

Er, okay, good for you, I guess. Personally that's a point of view I don't imagine I'll ever understand. Especially since you said you like Dragon Age's Dalish Armor, whereas I find it to be the most ridiculous armor in the game - it's the most stripperific outfit in the game, and thus doesn't look like it provides much protection at all, which makes me question why anyone would design "armor" like that.

Zevox

[xp194]

Er, okay, good for you, I guess. Personally that's a point of view I don't imagine I'll ever understand. Especially since you said you like Dragon Age's Dalish Armor, whereas I find it to be the most ridiculous armor in the game - it's the most stripperific outfit in the game, and thus doesn't look like it provides much protection at all, which makes me question why anyone would design "armor" like that.

Zevox

Same goes for me and a lot of Oblivion's custom female 'armour.' In a few cases, the women would have better protection by wearing a swimsuit. Give me full plate armour anyday...

[Smiling-Jack]

To clarify, I was playing a male character.

But the fact you don't like it sort of is my point, we all like different things, and the chances are the thing you like most isn't going to be the best thing for your character. So yeah, vanity's a bitch.

[Zevox]

Dalish armor is plenty stripperific for males too. If there's one thing I can backhandedly compliment Dragon Age about with its armor, it's that they didn't differentiate between males and females much when handing out the stripperific outfits.

But perhaps I should clarify - when I said that I don't think that's a point of view that I'll ever understand, I meant that I really don't generally concern myself with what any given armor or weapon in the game looks like. Unless it seems so stupidly designed that it shouldn't be able to fulfill its function, like Dragon Age Dalish Armor or FF 8's gunblade, I generally won't even comment on the appearance. The degree to which appearance affects my choice of armor or weapon in an RPG is pretty well nil. Outside of my unwillingness to wear helmets that prevent you from seeing Sheperd's face in Mass Effect 2, I've never made it a criteria - and there it's a criteria because I want to see the face I spent so much time customizing, not because of the way the helmets look.

Zevox

[Dogmantra]

In guild wars, you could toggle an option that made your helmet invisible, which I also liked.

Guild Wars is really good about this. Not only does all armour for level 20s give you the same armour rating regardless of its cost, you can, as you said, hide your helmet. That was actually one of the things that kept me playing the game. In so many games, I sacrifice a helmet because I want to see my character's face and lose armour rating because of it. Of course, now I have two pairs of bitchin' glasses in that game, I don't use that function on my main. :smallsmile:

As I said recently in another thread: it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, as long as you look really cool doing it.

[742]

i think ME1 had the invisible-helmet option too; i dont know why any game wouldnt add it, or why ME2 took it out :smallmad:

especially dragon age; all rogue and wizard helmets looked goofy so my main and my wizard always went bare-headed into combat.

i liked the customization in morrowind but it got kinda tedious at times and oblivion was the dumbed-down version so it sorta makes sense that they did it there.

[Avilan the Grey]

Personally I am all for compromise. I definitely disagree with Shamus Young, when he wishes more games were like modern MMORPGs so that what you are equipping, and what you are wearing, are not the same thing. Personally I find it crucial that what you are wearing reflects your stats (no invisible power armor while my character looks like she is wearing a thong and nothing more).
I also like that you sometimes have to sacrifice the Min-Maxing for a better look (I usually never wear the stealth armor in FO3 unless absolutely necessary, since I don't like the look of it, for example), as long as it won't get you killed.

That said, I would like more options like "color your own armor" and things like that.

[Vitruviansquid]

I enjoy a couple of RPG's based on how they make you look.

I find the aesthetic appeal does not last to the endgame of any of those RPG's. For some reason, every RPG feels obligated to festoon your character with so much steel, crystal, and shiny bits that you look absolutely ridiculous at the end :smallmad:

[Smiling-Jack]

I do remember the GW thing with the top set armours, I liked that too. I also agree that "invisible power armour" is probably over the top, but there is always a compromise, like in GW, if they give us two options with the same stats, we are double as likely to actually like one of them.

P.S. Thanks for the discussion guys.

[Athaniar]

i think ME1 had the invisible-helmet option too; i dont know why any game wouldnt add it, or why ME2 took it out :smallmad:

Yes, that is one of the (few) things that the sequel does better than the original. Fortunately, my headshot-improving visor fits in non-combat situations as well, but if I want to use that death mask, I have to go around looking like Darth Vader (which is fine for my insane genocidal alt, but not for my more "normal" main).

[factotum]

Personally I am all for compromise. I definitely disagree with Shamus Young, when he wishes more games were like modern MMORPGs so that what you are equipping, and what you are wearing, are not the same thing.

The only modern MMORPG that I have experience with is World of Warcraft, and that definitely has your character wearing the same stuff as they have equipped, no matter how ridiculous the combo looks! I actually prefer small nods to realism like that--to my mind, your equipped items not appearing on your character is a throwback to pre-Diablo sprite games, and not something a modern 3D game should be doing. (Guess that's a long-winded way of saying I agree with you!).

[Zevox]

i think ME1 had the invisible-helmet option too; i dont know why any game wouldnt add it, or why ME2 took it out :smallmad:
ME1 wasn't an "invisible helmet" option, it was an option of whether or not to wear it at all. The helmet provided no statistical benefit at all, so the choice to wear it or not to wear as strictly aesthetic. Well, other than in areas without breathable atmosphere, where you were forced to wear it so your ability to survive there made sense.

Zevox

[Erloas]

I actually prefer small nods to realism like that--to my mind, your equipped items not appearing on your character is a throwback to pre-Diablo sprite games, and not something a modern 3D game should be doing. (Guess that's a long-winded way of saying I agree with you!).

Actually it is still a limiting factor now. A lot of that limiting factor is in development time though. People don't generally like games where there are only a dozen of each item for any given slot throughout a game but if you have 10 different item slots and 150 items for each thats 1500 items to create, store, and load. At 1500 items even if you could create each item in 2 hours (from concept, to modeling, to skinning is going to be longer then that, before any QA issues with clipping) thats pretty much a full years work for one person. Thats 3000 man-hours or 375 days at 8 hours a day. And thats just one single aspect of what needs to be made for a game.
In an MMO for instance where you can have 50 people on screen loading up 1000 different item models is a lot harder on the computer then loading up 30 different ones that are repeated many times across the 50 players.

You also have a lot of QA issues with an increasingly large number of items. Like with breastplate X and helmet F they clip through each other and look weird. And helmet D and chestplate H look find together but clip with shoulders A but not shoulders B.

If you have the shoulders and gloves built into the breastplate and the boots part of the leggings (at least on the model, they can be separate in the inventory) thats 2 items to design, load, and render instead of 5.

If you followed WAR's development at all (since they were one of the few to do fairly extensive videos of the development process) you could see all the trouble they had to go through to get their trophy system working. It was about a dozen different slots that could fit aesthetic only items to customize the characters.

[Dragor]

Smiling Jack, I'm totally with you. Luckily, it seems that more games are going the 'ridiculous amount of customisation' route (see the All Points Bulletin thread- shameless plug, I know) and even action games like Assassins Creed 2 are getting at least a mild customisation angle, with the ability to dye your clothes and pimping your villa out.

The more stuff I can change, mix and match, the better. I'm a little too hooked on how my character looks. I also totally agree on the hatred of stripperiffic outfits. I want my veteran, hard-boiled female merc to look just as a wall of iron as my male character, thanks. That being said, I didn't mind Morrigan's outfit as much as other people did when playing Dragon Age. It suited her: she knows she's good looking, and uses her looks to get what she wants.

So yes, I agree. I'm a vain gamer. I like to look cool while I'm doing my thing, or it's just very hard to get immersed. I don't want the game dictating what I should and shouldn't wear. But it's a fine line, and not one which developers think the majority of gamers really really want, I guess.

[Mando Knight]

Oddly, in Neverwinter Nights 2, the option to hide your headgear is itself hidden. You have to edit the encoded file that holds your saved character profile, then switch a certain 0 to a 1. It's the same amount of hacking as giving yourself an extra 10 in each stat, or adding a tail and wings to everyone. Tails and wings that don't necessarily match up to your character model. (What's that giant red snakey-thing that's like fifteen feet behind you? Oh, that's just my tail.)

[Smiling-Jack]

Mando: I died alot on NWN's because I loved the amount of clothes they gave you, most of the first merchants armour inventory was clothes, it was awesome. Of course if you wore any of them for more than the first portion of the game you got destroyed, but I persevered, it's one of the reasons I played druid. Also bear form.

Dragor: Yes, I agree with you agreeing with me.

Erloas: I see your point, but the amount of effort put into creating a full set of leather armour surely cannot be hugely more than making the component parts? Also it's not necessarily the amount of items in the game that I want to increase, it's the choice, like when you find the super awesome boots of speed that are totally lime green, I want to not be punished hugely for not wearing them. so I'm not asking for 150 Items for each slot, but that I can actually choose between them without being penalised for choosing the non-super armour. I realise this will rarely happen.

[Erloas]

In terms of design and art creation the difference between boots and leggings probably isn't that much different then having them combined, but in terms of programming the models and testing for clipping sorts of issues it is a lot more.

In terms of processing them in-game it is quite a bit more. Combined they will have fewer total polygons that are animated with fewer changes. They also have one mesh and one skin instead of 2 meshes and 2 skins, even if the singles are a little bigger. How big of an issue that is depends on how much processing power you have available and how many assets you have on screen. Which is one reason why generally the PC has a lot higher detail model and armor then NPCs. Having 30% more assets to process for the character(s) is ok if the character is only a smaller part of the total, but if it is a lot of what is on screen (as is the case of MMOs with dozens or hundreds of people on-screen at once) then that becomes a big issue.

Its not that it can't be done, it just leads to games with higher hardware requirements and cost more to make. Its detail and variety that is why games are approaching the $50-100 million mark to produce. Its the reason they take several years to produce and they want $60+ for so many games these days. It was a lot easier to produce games faster and cheaper when it was ok to use the same model 10-15 times during a game just changing the color and the size, increasing its level and calling it good.

To bring WAR up again, they also had the dying system in place, so you could change the color of almost every item to fit what you wanted your character to look like. The same base item with a dozen different primary and secondary color choices gave a lot of variety in look while having the same stats. What they, and most games do (at least if they use some randomly generated stats on items), is use the same model for many different items of the same type (ie leather, chain, plate) of the same level (5-10, 10-15, 15-20) so you can get different stats on the same look of items. From all accounts though the dye system was a PITA to get working well and looking good. (Its just too bad they designed so much of the game to be at cross-purpose with the core concepts of the game. IE the core concepts of the game is larger groups of people working together but so many other things were done to cater to solo play. Of course thats the problem I have with many MMOs any more)

[Smiling-Jack]

Wow, thank you for the constructive and unbridged explanation. I have definitely learned something today (also that learnt isn't a word), and I put that down to you.

[Grimlock]

I loved the Chitin helmet in Morrowind which hid your face and had sort of 'bug eye' goggles...just thought it looked really cool!

[Eldan]

Yeah, that thing was cool.

Actually, for many games, especially Fallout 3 and Oblivion, a few of the first things I downloaded were customization mods:
In Fallout, I have Weapon Modification, which also provides statistical benefits, but also things like Shoulder Pieces, ammo belts, hats, boots, glasses, bandanas and other various small items that just look cool together. My character played for 10 levels with the stealth armour, before I got bored of it and switched to the technically inferior outfit of Regulator Duster, Cowboy Hat, Goggles, Breathing Mask and ammo belt. It was just an outfit that seemed to fit the style more. And looked cool.

So far, I haven't really cared about outfits in Dragon Age. They all looked reasonably well, except for mage outfits, which all look stupid.

[potatocubed]

Just to throw a comment in here...

Everquest 2 has a system where you have two separate inventories: one for your equipment (stat boosts, etc.) and one for your appearance. It's the only game I've ever played that uses this system, and I don't really understand why.

[Eldan]

Well, especially in a multiplayer game, seeing what your opponent is wearing helps a lot in knowing what class he is, about how powerful and how stupidly dedicated in grinding for the +Awesome Shoulder Plates of Two Temple Statues Glued To Pavement Slabs

[Avilan the Grey]

In Fallout, I have Weapon Modification, which also provides statistical benefits, but also things like Shoulder Pieces, ammo belts, hats, boots, glasses, bandanas and other various small items that just look cool together.

I have the combination of Weapon Modification and Tailor Maid. Tailor Maid is a great mod but all details you find in it are free (you find them in different places) and this means some of them are just too good. That's why I have tried to nerf my gameplay with weight mods on stimpacks etc. All three characters look really good though. (Well my third one, Sheldon, looks a little bit dorky in his armored 101 outfit, but it's on purpose, he only cares for practicality, not looks :smallsmile: )

[Ellye]

I love me some Full Plate. Especially in female characters.
There's nothing more elegant and beautiful than a female character wearing a true Full Plate.

Sadly, the gaming market is still mostly aimed at teenager boys, so it's easier to see Chain Mail Bikini or "A Few Straps of Leather (Armor)" than to see even a half-plate. I don't mind those every once in a while, there's nothing wrong in looking sexy, but I'd rather they be the exception instead of almost being the norm.

But my major complain is against Power-Ranger-Looking armor. Green shoulders, purple gloves, yellow torso, blue boots, orange pants, white helm. That's more common in games in which each piece of armor changes the looks of your character, of course.

[Zovc]

Personally I am all for compromise. I definitely disagree with Shamus Young, when he wishes more games were like modern MMORPGs so that what you are equipping, and what you are wearing, are not the same thing. Personally I find it crucial that what you are wearing reflects your stats (no invisible power armor while my character looks like she is wearing a thong and nothing more).

Hero's Journey, a game that seems to have died in a fire, tried to make you and OP happy. Character creation was to include extensive clothing (/armor) customization. In the game, 'armor' would 'drop' in the form of Wyrs. Wyrs filled various slots and had differing effects. Effectively, you could look how you want and still have an 'armor system' at the same time.

I liked a lot of the game's design choices, but its gameplay did look kinda bad.

(This is probably the only remaining Hero's Journey source. (http://www.heroshall.com/))

[warty goblin]

I love me some Full Plate. Especially in female characters.
There's nothing more elegant and beautiful than a female character wearing a true Full Plate.

Sadly, the gaming market is still mostly aimed at teenager boys, so it's easier to see Chain Mail Bikini or "A Few Straps of Leather (Armor)" than to see even a half-plate. I don't mind those every once in a while, there's nothing wrong in looking sexy, but I'd rather they be the exception instead of almost being the norm..

I'm a bit confused by this. I've seen a reasonable number of photos of combat ready armor designed for women, and suffice to say with a close helmet most would easily pass for men. Not to say that a nicely made suit of armor isn't quite attractive - because it is - but I'm unsure what the femininity of its occupant has to do with it.

Although I quite agree on stripperific armor. Generally just very hard on the verisimilitude.

[Avilan the Grey]

Although I quite agree on stripperific armor. Generally just very hard on the verisimilitude.

Again though I am coming back to the fact that in for example a D&D based universe, stripperific armor does make sense!

Don't laugh, hear me out:

If you have armor spells that can be put on anything, it is actually plausible that the light leather armor you are wearing, that barely covers anything, still gives you adequate protection.
A chain mail bikini that gives the same protection as a bullet proof west? Completely plausible!

The same can be said about the far off future: Clothes generate force fields! :smallbiggrin:

The problem is when you have stripperific outfits in "historical" environments.

[Zevox]

There remains the question of why the nine hells you'd design armor like that - what self-respecting warrior would want to go around looking like a stripper, even if he or she could and still be protected? Not to mention the question of why wouldn't it be better to have actual armor plus the magic/shields, rather than just whatever strips of clothing the game assigns you. So it remains utterly stupid.

Plus not all such is at all implied to be magical - Dalish armor in Dragon Age, for instance, is among the weakest armor in the game, and not at all indicated to be magic. And yet someone apparently thought it should be used as armor anyway.

Zevox

[Avilan the Grey]

There remains the question of why the nine hells you'd design armor like that - what self-respecting warrior would want to go around looking like a stripper, even if he or she could and still be protected? Not to mention the question of why wouldn't it be better to have actual armor plus the magic/shields, rather than just whatever strips of clothing the game assigns you. So it remains utterly stupid.

Plus not all such is at all implied to be magical - Dalish armor in Dragon Age, for instance, is among the weakest armor in the game, and not at all indicated to be magic. And yet someone apparently thought it should be used as armor anyway.

Zevox

I actually don't see the problem. I don't want to go into an IRL discussion, but apart from other cultures and times actually having fully naked warriors, a different time and place might have a very different idea of modesty. Just look at how our culture has changed from Victorian times to Short-Shorts, tank tops etc.

And yes about the Dalish armor, I agree.

[WitchSlayer]

I often wear weaker armor in Mount and Blade because I really like the look, my favorite is a medium-heavy armor, the cuir bouilli, but in that game it's actually a legitimate choice because you move faster in lighter armor.