Female Armor Design - Spice it up! Don't be afraid.

Love this video:

https://youtu.be/MVIBdu3Fv-Y?si=a1oXFGgjrvo21P3j

I had this thought for sometime but Kaos and Lace have given me the energy to post about it. Hoping to make this a fun post but also generate conversation.

AoC female design (thus far) is very puritan. I don't know if they are trying not to offend people who outrage when females wear sexy/attractive sets in games. I will now attempt to reverse engineer AoC female armor design pillars:

1) Cover as much skin as possible.
a) If skin must be shown ensure its just the belly.
2) Make it as functional as possible despite this being a fantasy game.
3) When you finish your design, ask yourself, can I cover more skin?
4) Make the design resemble the male version as much as possible.
a) Copy paste the male armor and just add a boob armor plate to save time.

Here is a small excerpt of past designs:

Here are some future design ideas that fit this potential design philosophy

Jokes aside, I think there should be more variety that doesn't fit the androgynous design category. Seems there is a conscious choice to avoid anything deemed too "sexy". No this is not a coomer post. I think most female gamers prefer to have their characters look good, and the video above echo's that. I get the realism angle (in a fantasy game) in the designs but its incredibly boring.

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Otr

AoC will have a cosmetic store. I doubt they'll not try to create and sell nice armor.

Songcaller

Faimith wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Faimith wrote: »

In my opinion, I think it's good that the approach to armor for female characters is the same as for male characters. I'm thinking of Lord of the Rings, where the women are aware that it's not effective to only cover the breasts and groin area .

In MMORPGs, I exclusively play female characters and so far, I find the armor designs in AoC quite good.

I understand that some might want a bit more sexiness. My suggestion would be, like in real life, to have elegant outfits for both genders. These could possibly be shown instead of the worn armor. I believe there are MMORPGs where this is already possible. With today's wokeness, such decisions are certainly not as straightforward as they used to be.

When i see a post like this, it makes the creative die in me a little. Like are people really this boring.

People be like we need to not have gender anything armour and make it so its its the same armour men wear men wear. We also need to make it realistic like its real life, like you know that game....

Thank you for sharing your perspective. I think there might be a slight misunderstanding regarding my original point.

My intention was to emphasize that armor for both men and women should provide adequate protection, similar to what we see in 'Lord of the Rings.' At the same time, I believe game designers can still highlight feminine forms with armor designs, just without exposing skin unnecessarily.

My focus is on practicality and realism in protection while maintaining aesthetic appeal. I hope this clarifies my view a bit more.

You are aware that Eowyn wears male armour when she fights for Rohan. Most of the other females don't even fight lol.

Endowed

Agree.

1) let the artists make art. it makes everything better, even with the occasional hiccup or stubbed toe
2) critics be damned -- they'll survive and keep playing

Noaani

Individuated Soul wrote: »

Voxtrium wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Companies should not get involved in activism.

100% Nothing can kill a company faster.

Hopefully they continue to be of the same mind.

Creating variety designs doesn't make the company an activist. I don't think this is a good counterargument.

In your experience of that loud minority we are talking about here - do they tend to look at the over all picture of something before being loud, or do they hunt for the worst example of something and then start yelling about that?

Keep in mind, I am not talking about normal, reasonable people - I am specifically talking about that loud minority.

Dygz

I guess what's interesting to me is that Anie_Lace says in the video that she would like to see more skin - even if it's just side cut-outs on the leggings and sleeves.
But, that has me wondering in which era that was a thing.
I guess Athena was depicted in ancient times with bare arms and shoulders (and a cloth dress).

This weekend I watched a TV show that included the Shoshone Tribe in the 1880s.
All the women were fully covered, similar to what we see in the Ashes designs.
I'm pretty sure the same was true in the 1500s and 1700s.

Jamie Kaos says that he wants his Orcs (Ren'Kai?) to look like Barbarians.
But, the Ren'Kai are taking their cultural aesthetics from Japan/Asia of the 1500s/1600s.
Rather than from Roman Barbarian Gladiators circa 100 BC.

I think the Ashes team mostly has what we should expect for the time period(s) and cultures from which the artists are drawing their inspirations.

Aszkalon

Individuated Soul wrote: »

Spice it up! Don't be afraid

I will not be afraid to give my female Characters in case i should play any, practical looking Armor and making a great turn around "Boobie-Armors".

unknown

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Saabynator

Honestly, I like the "armor" look. A female running around in a plate bikini shows really low IQ. Your gonna get killed without armor on, moron - not to mention sunburned =P. I reallty dislike the sexual aspect of these games, noone comes to MMOs to get a wank.

unknown

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Mag7spy

Saabynator wrote: »

Honestly, I like the "armor" look. A female running around in a plate bikini shows really low IQ. Your gonna get killed without armor on, moron - not to mention sunburned =P. I reallty dislike the sexual aspect of these games, noone comes to MMOs to get a wank.

People be like characters in this world can only wear armour and not show any skin, and no culture ever shows skin in fantasy settings because its not realistic in a fantasy world.

I'll stick to enjoy different visuals and styles of people and cultures.

nanfoodle

I think showing a little skin and I mean a little is not game immersion breaking. For instance a Mage uses magic for defense. So the picture above would be fitting. Now if your going for a Barbarian RP look, again showing some skin is also fitting. They often went for speed over being a slow armored tank. Again this is IS place to draw these lines.

Aszkalon

Mag7spy wrote: »

No.

TheDarkSorcerer

I am all for more feminine female silhouettes without going eastern mmo style, where female characters are overly sexualized for no reason. And let's not introduce 6 inch stiletto heels in Ashes. A little kitten heel would be cute, or a boot with heel, but that's about it.

Aszkalon

No Boobie Armors.

Only practical looking Armors.

Saabynator

Mag7spy wrote: »

Saabynator wrote: »

Honestly, I like the "armor" look. A female running around in a plate bikini shows really low IQ. Your gonna get killed without armor on, moron - not to mention sunburned =P. I reallty dislike the sexual aspect of these games, noone comes to MMOs to get a wank.

People be like characters in this world can only wear armour and not show any skin, and no culture ever shows skin in fantasy settings because its not realistic in a fantasy world.

I'll stick to enjoy different visuals and styles of people and cultures.

No, people can show skin if they want to. I mean, it would be fine with social clothing or something. But wearing a steel bra as protection, thats dumb

Saabynator

nanfoodle wrote: »

I think showing a little skin and I mean a little is not game immersion breaking. For instance a Mage uses magic for defense. So the picture above would be fitting. Now if your going for a Barbarian RP look, again showing some skin is also fitting. They often went for speed over being a slow armored tank. Again this is IS place to draw these lines.

Thats a good way of putting it. Look at a series like GoT. Women who fight wear armor, it looks good. The Doth are barbarian like, and they look cool for their fighting style as well.

Mag7spy

TheDarkSorcerer wrote: »

I am all for more feminine female silhouettes without going eastern mmo style, where female characters are overly sexualized for no reason. And let's not introduce 6 inch stiletto heels in Ashes. A little kitten heel would be cute, or a boot with heel, but that's about it.

Hard no to this i want to have my armoured high heels

Mag7spy

People need to get that art is open and can work in a lot of ways, saying single elements as a restriction doesn't really help because you can always implement things in a interesting way.

I fully understand what people don't want in a skin bikini in eastern games and such but tis not really a good example. At some point you need to be able to trust the ART DIRECTOR at the studio to create the intended art direction of the IP. They aren't going to just throw random things in there just cause, and this is a western studio things are going to make more sense.

If you saw them putting in tons of budget for cleavage and ass jiggle, than sure you can be more concerned. That isn't he case in aoc.

unknown

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Legi

So, I am a bit late in this topic and I think this topic is not a 100% fit but too close to open my own topic.

I think the armors, male and female, arent looking very exciting. I especially noticed that when looking at the group pictures of the latest livestream. They are fine if these are low to mid level generic armor sets but they dont have a heroic look or anything in that sense.

I hope that there will be something more/better later on because those looks arent something i would strife for.

When it comes to female armors specifically I must say that I dont think metal bikinis as plate armor have a place in ashes and I hope that we wont see them. Those are pretty immersion breaking for me and look stupid even in a high fantasy setting.

Yet, imo sexy outfits still have a place in high fantasy. Examples would be:
Bards with short skirts and cleavage to enhance their performance.
Priests/Clerics of some deities might have some more revealing outfits (when they wear cloth armor).
Mages could wear dresses or the like.
Leather armor could be a bit revealing too.
Barbarians with only parts of their armor being metal.
..list could go on.
and yes even plate armor can have female aesthetics. for males we even had six packs and the like in our world without it being high fantasy. Why not have formfitted plate armor with waist and hips?

I dont think we can make an argument that all armor has to be practical and realistic, because if you want to be extremely realistic, then wearing anything but metal/plate would be stupid. A bard in cloth/leather getting hit by a 2h axe would mean instant death. Same with an archer hitting them with an arrow or three. Even if you say the close is enchanted to have a higher protection value. What about an axe to the face? Or does everyone have to wear a helmet or wrap some magic cloth around their face?

People are vain. In our world and everywhere else. They want to look good and the easiest way to do it is to dress nice. We dont want to completely disregard realism, but sacrificing aesthetics just for realism isnt something I want in an mmo. Same as me not wanting metal bikinis. If I cant make my character look good and if I role a Bard good means sexy too, then that is a big downside for ashes.

PS.: Ignore the loud minority. Catering to those will cost you more than the bad press could ever ruin. I mean, look at stellar blade. the loud minority was outraged about eves model being unrealistic and her outfits being to revealing.. and yet it sold very well because the silent majority are their customers. customers that wont argue with the loud minority because they couldnt care less about some activist trying to destroy their hobby. Companies are seeing what happens when they only listen to the loud minorities which arent their customers in the first place. They create shitty products noone cares about and they lose money.

PPS.: Oh and what is this btw? Just no breastplate or is this an actual armor set? Cant wait to see the female version KEKW.

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