Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Ok so the point is one a male character this would look fine. It's nice enough but this is not a feminine design. This is a female character model wearing mens armor. Now there is nothing wrong with that but some people don't want their female characters to wear male armor. It is ok to have sets that do this. But when you have a grand total of 4 sets out of a couple dozen with any distinction between male and female variants.
And how would it need to be tweaked to make it female armor??
Similar but has a difference slight style to go with the female body. Unlike the armor that is currently in AoC store which has no distinguishing style for the female characters.
One thing I do worry about, is with the heavy cosmetic shopping going on already, will this completely destroy the sense of progression in the early game?
cosmetics are bound to a certain item lv, based on how badass they look. People won't be able to use them on lv1. Plus they don't look that great. They said they will keep the best designs for actual ingame items.
Hmmm no, that doesn't seem to be the case.
From the wiki:
"Costumes (and pets) don't have a level restriction. Other cosmetics require an in-game item to be obtained first.[16][17]"
This sounds like when people say "boys wear blue, girls wear pink" conversation. You can still be feminine even in heavy armor you know. Showing skin or exposed tatas doesn't make you more femme or female than being "covered up". Let's expand our mindset here. You can still have developers create beautiful feminine silhouettes of heavy, medium and light armor without having organs exposed. It's outdated and ugly and belong in eastern mmo's.
I'm addressing just this one because I don't want to assume that OP @Sybil_Lanel or even the target of my question @Leiloni agree with you precisely.
Addressing just metal/heavy armor, full plate, or whatever. The image you linked fits what I know as the 'industry standard' for 'making this armor type apparently fit women'.
1. Heels.
2. Neck exposure even if the male armor is properly protective
3. Less bulky plate in general (my argument would be that the males have extra for no reason, if I had to give an opinion)
4. Hair, face and head all more exposed to 'soften', as I've heard it described.
I'm also seeing some 'removal of armor on thighs' but I don't think that's usually done.
I can say I know people who get upset at #4, they want their actual helmets to BE HELMETS.
Most games I play, #2 doesn't come up, that tends to be just art.
Heels is already a sticking point of this thread.
If you see other differences, let me know. I certainly won't complain about them. I'll complain even less if the player can choose either helmet style, and 'heels or no heels'. I'd also figure that if an armorset is supposed to be 'bulky plate' it probably could have a 'formfit plate' style, again for both.
Neck also seems like a place where a 'layer' could be added that would be relatively easy to toggle on and off.
As usual I have turned this into 'why my suggestion is good', so you can either ignore me or 'tell me why it's bad or not enough'.
I want our players, male and female, to be able to decide how much their plate armor covers their neck without it being gender-locked.
For the other people mentioned in this post, just noting again that I'm not assuming you agree with @Kreed here.
Most of the outfits I showed from Aion they're covered up and completely appropriate. I like the outfits because they're stylish, form-fitting, and flattering, while still looking like armor. I don't care about any "boys wear blue, girls wear pink" stuff. I'm just telling you what I like on my female toons as a woman myself. I like feminine, pretty, stylish, form-flattering outfits for my characters and I won't apologize for that.
Here I'll repost the pics for anyone who hasn't seen them yet -
The thighs are a bit ugly on this second one but the rest of the set is nice.
I also like to play gorgeous male with magic, so that flowy clothes feeling mixed with pants/shirt underneath for the more dexterous.
By covered up and appropriate, you mean from a PG 13 point of view? Sure. I agree with that. But none of those outfits are covered up and appropriate from a functional armor point of view. From that point of view, they just scream "stab me in the heart and throat, and slice my femoral arteries for an easy kill".
Look, I get it, you like the cutesy look we often see in Korean and Japanese games and anime and whatnot. Your preference is form over function for sure. And yeah, it's just a game, not a RL simulation, so we can magic the inadequacies of the armor away.
I'd rather not see that in the game for heavy armor at least, or any cosmetics that are applied to it. And to some extent for medium armor as well. My preference is that function should not be sacrificed for form. To me, that's much more interesting and cool to look at if they can also make the armor good looking. I think there is a real beauty in a well-designed piece of armor that both looks like it actually protects the wearer, while being ornate and intricate enough to also look epic. If the breastplate doesn't look like it can stop an arrow from piercing your heart it just looks stupid to me.
I also realize I am unlikely to get what I want in Ashes when it comes to this particular aspect. Too many cosmetics are out already that will break that I think. I am not saying your preference is "wrong" either @Leiloni , but I am going to push against it, because it goes directly against mine, and I would like to see them make more functional-looking armors, not less.
Writing this post reminded me of a video I recently saw.
Understanding how that V on the breast plate functions, and learning more about the details in general, made me go from thinking "that's a pretty basic breastplate" to "that's a really cool and awesome breastplate". Add some more ornamentation or engraving on it, and I can see that being a legendary breastplate in the game.
This month's cosmetic armor seem to be shooting for gender-neutral and non-European (Moorish/Islamic) armor, to me.
I would personally prefer to look like the lady on the left, but if some women prefer to look like the lady on the right - that's cool by me.
Feminine armor can be made without it being revealing or sexy right? Moreover, revealing clothing is not inherently feminine, so it can't really be used as a way to differentiate the femine armour from the male version which is what you lots are looking for. So what's with some of the negative rep to the female armour not being revealing enough? Practicality wise it wouldn't make sense either right?
Someone earlier said loose fitting armour, which makes more sense I think.
Now if this solely about cosmetics and not the armour then yh I understand, Practicality doesn't come into play here so I guess high heels would make sense to some extent.
As a female player on this topic. We want options.
I have friends who like looking sexy af and that's okay, I personally like my armor to cover my character's body.
Couldn't agree more, It generally feels uncomfortable discussing about it, besides obviously that quite a few mmorpg designs of the past have had female sets with heels and inappropriate head protection.
I'm a fan of making things uniformed and currently, with so many customization and race options we're going to be having players loads of different shapes and full armored, especially like in the example you've shown, no one will be able to grasp without knowing that character whether they are male or female.
The progressive audience is always very low, that does not mean I don't care about all players options and I feel they will be able to find a cosmetic design suitable, but having male and female body armors being the same size with exactly the same amount of structure by default is not displaying genders appropriately (why have it at all perhaps).
The average male, can comfortably carry more body weight than the average female, so I expect for there to be smaller parts, less purposefully menacing features and other ideas to relieve weight but I stress again, obviously, the female still requires appropriate head wear, thigh protection and no heels.
I always pick male as my avatar, but If I wanted to look more slender, radiant, beautiful and whatever appropriate words there are for the female figure, I would pick a female character and the opposite should be true for players who love the typical butch physique.
Hears to hoping intrepid wants to be different than these other mmos.
Thank you for letting me express my opinion.
I like that armor set.
It's actually only really the blue parts I don't like for that set. If I knew I could re-dye that into a different color, I would actually like it.
I mean as Gimli said, women are mistaken for men, so if we're going by LotR realistic fantasy (which it's clear that Ashe's is) then yeah, this is to be expected. Although in Tolkien's amazing story we didn't get much if any info on the history and feats of Dwarven women but I found Lineage 2's take on this to be a great fantasy choice.
Dwarves live for up to around 300 years and at the age of 30 they are still considered really young (65-75 for adulthood), which is why the achievements of a 32 year old Dwarven male slaying something significant was made legend.
It was clear the fantasy depiction of Lineage 2 with Dwarves was that male Dwarves, whatever age, do not lose their combat prowess, where as, the females had a time gate and I found it to be a great and more importantly, mass appealing interpretation of Tolkien's work.
Curious as to why the applause? the shades and the "excellent"?
Its a High-Fantasy Game. Let the People live to that Fantasy and give them Neutral, Feminine and Masculine Armor ... there are enough Sets to give the Player all of that.
So why discuss about it?
I mean there are comments about realism and stuff like ''Oh i cant image running in those Heels'' Tf. its a Fantasy Game. You throw Fireballs and Teleport around. Shoot Laserbeams as a Mage and you cant image Armor looking in a specific way ?
Just give us a wide variety of Sets and everyone will get something out of it.
My Girlfriend always plays as a Female Character with ''Sexy Armor'' because she likes to see the shape of her Characters Body.
Why hide it?
I say just do it like Final Fantasy XIV and give Female and Male Characters the same Opportunity to show a lot of Skin on their Sets AND Give us Sets that are completley Neutral.
Everyone is Happy.
Exactly this is fantasy so the idea that it needs to be "real" is already out the window. All we're asking for is choices. Some people are trying to gatekeep but really all we want is for everyone to be able to enjoy the way their character looks. As I illustrated in my Aion examples above, I'm ok with mostly or fully covered characters as long as the style looks nice and the armor actually fits my characters and is made for the female form and not merely a design made for a male and downsized.
I took a screenshot last night in WoW TBC Classic to illustrate the extreme, here. It's an old game with old graphics and I'm wearing a mishmash of unmatched leveling armor. Every piece here is either Mail or Plate armor and I'm still happy with the way it looks because it fits. You can see my character's body but she's still wearing armor. Same idea with Aion's armor. Obviously I'm hoping for higher quality and more attractive looks for Ashes, but you get the idea at least.
Are you sure it's not just that you don't like Dwarves, or maybe that you don't like heavy plate to begin with?
Once again I honestly can't see what it is you want changed here.
If this is just rehashing the overall discussion, then ignore me, but once again in reference to this specific set you have brought to the thread...
I really don't get it, I think it looks great. Would be even better if you could change the blue to be other tints, at which point it would become 'fantastic' to me.
Whereas if there were any significant difference between the two genders, again for THIS SET, I would find that to look silly and be annoyed that all the female Dwarf players who explicitly would want the set to be the same, would then not get what they want.
I continue to prefer that 'form fitting' vs 'bulky' is not a choice we make by character gender choice, but by the gear cosmetic itself.
Just ask Intrepid to make form fitting armor that you think fits female characters and then also have that be the same or extremely similar on male characters. Solved, right?
Guess what this looks like on Male characters...
What the hell are you even talking about.
So only fully covered or gender Neutral Armor types are ''Family friendly'' ?
Ok