Why is armor so freaking ornate in fantasy?

[TheBr0kenOne]

Maybe they are going for the intimidation factor and society status.......but that's if this was real life. And real life is too real, so lets just have fun with it and stop complaining.

 

[Treblaine]

I think ornate armour is okay as long as:

1) It's restricted to important people. Fancy armour is a status symbol. If common soldiers could afford it, it would no longer be a status symbol and in fact no-one would wear it. Colourful uniforms are okay, as they serve a function, allowing units to be identified from a distance. If all soldiers are nobles, they can all wear ornate armour, but there can't be 50,000 of them.

2) It's not compulsory. Ornate armour was custom made, and those who got it could choose their own design. The player should therefore not be required to wear ridiculous looking armour just because they need the plusses late game. There should be some plain, high level armour. Ideally, it should be customisable, but since that adds a lot of work for the dev team, they don't have to.

3) Features that would clearly be detrimental to performance should not be included, unless the armour is strictly ceremonial. Big spikes would be a liability, some peasant would jam his pitchfork into them and the wearer would be unbalanced. And if a woman wants to be nigh indestructable while wearing very little, she must use magic or advanced technology. Pretending that a metal bikini could offer her real protection is just silly.

I suppose that is the problem with developing a virtual world versus a real world.

In a virtually created world, it is a lot of effort to create a deep and wonderful looking rendering method for exquisite metal armour with wonderful designs, it can take hundreds of hours of skilled labour with worthless resources: bits and bytes. But unlike a real work of armour once you have made it you can easily make an infinite number of copies.

So you have the situation where the artists work their butt off the make armour that they will artificially limit to only a few characters. How can a developer justify that to the publisher, they work so many hours on an armour only a few characters will wear?

How is this for an idea, bring in REAL customisation as Premium DLC in a kind of Free-to-play model though really it could be for any game:

So in the game you unlock the magic Super armour and it's pretty dull looking as it hasn't been polished (really, it has a basic specular model) but you can find designs in the game, and when you connect your game online a blacksmith opens up that can add a wonderful finish to your armour. What is really happening is REAL artists will take the polygon model of the in game armour and modify it to look fantastic with a new texture for a REAL FEE, the game publishers take a fee of course and approve all designs so the game doesn't end up full of trolls with swastika armour.

Now, they'll finish it according to a design that thousands of different players want, so it wouldn't quite be one customer per design, if you want a truly unique design then you will have to pay top dollar as you'll be getting the sole attention of one code-monkey/artist.

Now I know realistically armour has it's defensive properties because it is a hard and dense metal, but really these armour have their properties because they are imbued with magic, it is possible that such magic would make the armour also immune to scratching or being impeded by ludicrous tassels.

Though if the game was clever it wouldn't limit this to steel-armour that aids ability to take and absorb hits ideally there should be three areas of accoutrements:
-Armour, +toughness for dealing and absorbing impacts (cost to speed and magic)
-Robes, +magic attacks and + magical defences (cost to toughness and speed)
-Tattoos/war-paint, speed for dealing fast attacks and dodging (at cost to magic and toughness)

Tattoos/war paint would be for the barbarian, amazon, witch-doctor and and the more tribal kind of classes. Robes would be for druid, necromancer, vampire, kind of classes. Armour for Paladin, Knight, Centurion, etc. Obviously you have very limited options in both robes and armour and displaying tattoos. I suppose a paladin could have light armour and a magical cape.

I think it's apparent how much people will pay for their vanity, they are happy for statistical awards from being a good player. After all, I think it is too tenuous to disrupt game mechanics with individual player's wealth, but with vanity it clearly works quite well as TF2's hats show.

 

[Versuvius]

I don't want to fill this topic with 100% opinion based... OH SHIT I cant! Armor in fantasy is so freaking hideous 70% of the time. I mean in RPGs usually the weaker armor looks alright, and by alright i mean actually functional. But! The better it gets it starts to have more brighter colors , more freaky spikes and some times it just becomes a unbearable eyesore that resembles more some kind of art relief than a suit of armor. I mean for the most time its because the armor is made by elves and stuff and it should look different, but in most games its taken way too far!

Take skyrim for example: The first light armors are hide, studded hide, leather and scaled armor. These to me look good, and also look like LIGHT armor. But as soon as I get glass/elven/dragon armor start to realize that not only are they not visually appealing but there is nothing that looks LIGHT in them. They are just as heavy looking as the heavyarmors. (And i know they are supposed to be made from some special light material but my point still stands) Elderscrolls has had these atleast for 3 games now, so its understandable to a degree. But when most fantasygames are like this it makes me a very sad gamer. Dont know what started this trend but i know for sure that WOW atleast helped to make it mainstream.

So apart form my venting, What do you think? Do you like the "Complex" design of armor, or are you like me who likes them just a tad more simplistic looking?

EDIT: Removed the word realistic, because people grabbing that and calling me a retard.

Because Dwemmer take a great deal of pride and personalisation in armour and weapons, because elven armour is poncy and they make things as much ceremonial as anything else, orcish armour isn't ornate and is based on the samurai style, because Daedric armour is horribly warped hellspawned metal forged with the blood of Daedra. Iron armour is semi rusted and bashed up, leather, studded and hide is not ornate and Nord Steel has runes around the wrists and boots because thats what vikings do. Also Rule of Cool.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Bigger Spikier shinier armour symbolises aggressiveness, so it makes sense that when you reach the top levels, you look bad ass. I haven't actually seen the Skyrim armour yet so I can't say how stupid it really looks, but in Oblivion, I always thought glass armour was going too far, and assuming it is light armour, you wouldn't want to be wearing that when sneaking around certainly.

At the end of the day the developers can't please everyone, so if you hate something it's best to just grow up and deal with it.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Bigger Spikier shinier armour symbolises aggressiveness, so it makes sense that when you reach the top levels, you look bad ass. I haven't actually seen the Skyrim armour yet so I can't say how stupid it really looks, but in Oblivion, I always thought glass armour was going too far, and assuming it is light armour, you wouldn't want to be wearing that when sneaking around certainly.

At the end of the day the developers can't please everyone, so if you hate something it's best to just grow up and deal with it.

 

[ElPatron]

I say you overreacted because he specifically said "WOW atleast helped to make it mainstream" and you ignored the word "helped" in favor of spite. WoW is the most mainstream fantasy video game ever made, it most certainly helps establish what is popular in other fantasy games. That's how pop culture works. He wasn't insulting WoW at all.

Yet, he implied that something becoming mainstream is bad by itself. I thought that in The Escapist saying something like that would mean death by firing squad.

Anyway, in the same sentence he admitted to not understand the whole situation, so he basically threw a grenade at the air on the end of the original post - don't thread on me for throwing it back.


Anyway, "ugliness" is entirely subjective. The artists might not find it unattractive, and gamers/readers/LARPers agree with said artists. I am all for artistic freedom because I am not going to force my views on the game developers and fellow gamers.


Do I find them ugly? Some of them are. I think the FS2000 is ugly as sin yet I don't mind using it on a first person shooter.

 

[Ascarus]

i like the exotic armor look in fantasy games understanding that it would be completely dysfunctional in the real world.

WARRIOR: hey guys, check out how awesome i look! i can't see or move, but i bet i look pretty fucking cool!

that being said, the dwarven armor boots in skyrim look ridiculous.

 

[Treblaine]

I've always thought "armor" looks hideous in post apocalyptic settings. It's like everyone wears a mixture of leather fetish gear/Hot Topic/auto parts.
I mean look at this stuff!

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I don't know, look at these so called "failed states" where the life expectancy is in the mid-30's, they wear tattered clothes, things held together with patches and just straps for magazine/grenade pouches.

The Vietcong were known to wear sandals where the sole was made from cut-out section of a car tire. Probably if guns were rarer and impact weapons more common then use of tires as body armour would be far more common.

What should people wear after the complete collapse of society? Star Trek TNG uniforms? The textiles industry is huge and complex, without a very well functioning economy it quickly collapses and clothes of working people don't last long, in short order people WILL be left sifting through junk for attire. Boots or some sort of durable shoes would be in highest demand especially with pits of glass and metal everywhere.

PS: I don't know if you have EVER seen anything that could be accurately described as fetishistic but failing to cover your chest does not a fetish-costume make. OK, maybe Mad max 2's attire was verging on the fetish jsut for the unnecessarily exposed buttocks and so on.

 

[omicron1]

Conceptually, of course, dragon scales/bones should be extremely lightweight and fragile. Otherwise how's the thing going to fly without wings the size of the Burj Khalifa?

The dragon must also have some sort of lighter-than-air sac within its body, similar to a fish. I suspect it stores hydrogen in this sac, which would also allow it to breathe fire. Aside from internal organs and huge flight-powering muscles, this sac must take up at least half the size of its torso.

That said, there's no way dragon-based armor should weight that much. But there's also no way dragonbone should provide reasonable defense.

 

[bbad89]

I don't suppose you'd have played The Witcher? It's the latest game that's managed to get me addicted, and it's armor is very functional looking, while still looking quite nice, and pulling off that "adventurer" feel, at least for Geralt.