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A very good discussion of real vs fantasy female armor

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warlocc
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Gotta remember that lots of

Gotta remember that lots of armor was almost more ceremonial than protective, too- intentionally sacrificing function for form.

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warlocc wrote:
warlocc wrote:

Gotta remember that lots of armor was almost more ceremonial than protective, too- intentionally sacrificing function for form.

I don't think people actually fought in ceremonial armor unless it was like, ceremonial jousting armor which tended to be like twice the weight of regular plate and offered a lot more protection.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

He says "Ok" way too much.

Also he kinda says something counter to his original video. He says if they had female armor it'd eventually be shaped more like the wearer, more aesthetically pleasing, but then ignores the fact that the greeks had the muscle armor which didn't stick around. Which I assume would likely be because it wasn't as effective as the domed armor.

And the whole video took ten minutes to say "Yes, but not by much" which in a battlefield where any slight edge can be important I think he's downplaying that by quite a lot.

Also what are this guy's credentials?

Well, yeah, need the video to play out enough to get some revenue.

I think you're downplaying how much people may go for a bit of style over that slight edge.

Muscle armor may not have stuck around, due to being harder to make?

most did not have a complete set of articulated armor, It would take a lot of labor to make muscle armor, plain unadorned armor would be much cheaper. Historically, a lot of the muscle armor was bronze, later armor was iron/steel. That is probably why it went out of style.

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So like I said, harder to

So like I said, harder to make. :)

I would guess it would be like body armor today, when it comes to be massed produced and wanting to protect your people for cheap, you're not going to make it fit perfectly or nicely for all.

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The muscle cuirass (front and

The muscle cuirass (front and back chest pieces) were more common in Greece and early ones are made of bronze. But their empire spanned from the bronze to iron age so there are examples of iron cuiasses. The muscle cuirass was actually easier to forge than other armor of the time because things like scale required both forging and assembly. The drawback of the muscle cuirass was that it had to be forged specifically for an individual so as troops needed to be replaced the armor either had to be reforged or replaced as well.
The simple molded cuirass fell out of use because warfare changed. Early battles were small affairs between city states, not nations, so only a small militia needed to be outfitted. When war evolved into engagements between nations the armor also evolved with it.
One thing to remember is that before the use of steel in war became prevalent, armor was not the primary defense in battle, the shield was, and even after it still remained a major tool of defense.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

So like I said, harder to make. :)

Harder to make = More expensive to make

Considering how EXPENSIVE plate armor got to be, the expense of crafting it can hardly be discounted as a factor for why molded armor became rare.


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OathboundOne wrote:
OathboundOne wrote:
Sleepymoth wrote:

Tera actually to the very least had the Castanic race which had pretty skimpy armor for both genders.

Guild Wars 2 also kind of does it right. Some armor sets look completely different on both genders for some dumb reason as I would like if both gendered versions were use able while others are skimpy for both genders. Most of the heavy armor remains heavy on both genders barring the gladiator and barbarian like stuff. It's usually the leather armor and cloth wearers that get skimpier armors which it makes more sense with (Mesmers can also apparently make project their own armor out of their magic or something).

I did like that about Tera, and Castanic were my preferred race when i played it.

Interestingly with GW2... just about the only skimpy armor for males IS the heavy (gladiator/barbarian style) armors. There are almost no Light/Medium armor that show any skin at all (aside from perhaps having short sleeves). (The Norn racial armors often show skin on both genders, but they are of course exclusive to Norn.)

This is kind of wrong. The Nightmare Court light armor and a lot of Path of Fire Armors expose more skin for both genders on light and medium armor.

I wish they would stop making the armors look different for both genders as sometimes the male characters have armor that I would like to put on my female character and vice versa. Its not solely a skimpy armor thing.

Superhero games are very flexible in regards to costume pieces though with the powers and what not.

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Flesh Forge wrote:
Flesh Forge wrote:

Lothic's chronic terrible behavior had nothing to do with that.

While this has been an interesting thread about the theoretical merits of "boobplate" and how it might apply to the side topics of "realistic vs. fantasy" armor and/or the objectification of the sexes I just tend to see this topic in the relatively narrow terms of how it applies to the types of costume items we're going to get in a superhero-oriented game.

As long a the Devs stick to their self-professed goal to make sure ALL costume items in the game will be available to both the male and female body models then the majority of this discussion here is effectively moot. The subjective determinations of whether any given item is "realistic" or exists only as some form of game-based "fanservice" can be left up to the individual. The only thing the Devs need to strive towards is providing as many individual options as possible that span the entire spectrum of qualities people may want.

For what it's worth I can see wanting to make multiple female characters of all different types in this game with some wearing "realistic" armor and others wearing "fantasy/fanservice" armor as I see fit. Some of these characters would be serious, no-nonsense warriors while others might be flirtatious bimbos or anything in-between. That choice should be mine and not censored/coerced based on what others think my characters ought to be limited to.

Bottomline we must remember CoT is going to be a superhero game not a medieval simulator. Armor (and costume items in general) can conform to what real world physics might demand of it but there's no requirement that any given item -must- conform to that standard.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Flesh Forge wrote:

Lothic's chronic terrible behavior had nothing to do with that.

You know, I never did agree with this characterization. Lothic can be counted on to have an opinion. That's all.

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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Flesh Forge wrote:

Lothic's chronic terrible behavior had nothing to do with that.

You know, I never did agree with this characterization. Lothic can be counted on to have an opinion. That's all.

I've always gotten the impression that Flesh Forge is the type of Dev that's (hopefully for us) way too busy to really waste any serious time surfing this forum. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that - as a pivotal Dev I'd like to think he's spending all his available time working on making this game rather than wasting any significant amount of time here with us.

The downside to that of course is that whenever he actually does decide to waste a few minutes reading/posting on this forum he only has a very tiny window of opportunity to make any lasting judgments about any of us. My working theory is that he made an unfortunate snap judgment about me based on reading a handful of my admittedly more "questionable" posts and decided I was some kind of overall "terrible person" based on that tiny subset...

Or maybe he's secretly read every post I've ever written on this forum over the years and he still hates my guts...

Frankly either scenario seems somewhat humorous to me at this point. ;)

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Nothing wrong with having

Nothing wrong with having ideas and being willing to argue for them Lothic. Where some people get frustrated is when you won't let go of that damn bone and tell people how wrong they for not giving you want you want.

You have had some great ides in the past and I look forward to more in the future. But, when a dev says no multiple times (Hell No! In at least one), just politely back off, please? Pretty please? I'll even send you a box of cookies if you let me know what port you are in (preferably American, I can do Philippine as I have family there).

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StellarAgent wrote:
StellarAgent wrote:

Nothing wrong with having ideas and being willing to argue for them Lothic. Where some people get frustrated is when you won't let go of that damn bone and tell people how wrong they for not giving you want you want.

You have had some great ides in the past and I look forward to more in the future. But, when a dev says no multiple times (Hell No! In at least one), just politely back off, please? Pretty please? I'll even send you a box of cookies if you let me know what port you are in (preferably American, I can do Philippine as I have family there).

Eh, you win some, you lose some. Sometimes it's good rhetorical exercise to take the "unpopular/losing" position and force people (like the Devs in this case) to adequately explain why "Hell No!" is their answer to issues that are otherwise decided purely arbitrarily on their part. Basically "because we said so" is not an adequate answer in all cases.

The Devs of CoH used to tell us "Hell no!" to things like Wings and Power Customization. Obviously certain features in CoT might take many years to implement assuming they ever happen at all. But those things will likely never happen if there's no one there to annoyingly whine about it. ;)

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To be fair, the CoH devs

To be fair, the CoH devs never said "hell no" to wings. They actually said "yes, but not right away." As for power customisation, that was a "maybe, if we have the time, resources, and ability, AND there's enough interest from the players."
They did say "no" to shield offense, dual crossbows, and size-changing powersets, though.

My 2 pence for this whole thing: in terms of superheroes, I think skimpy options are fine so long as they're fairly even across the board. Most women (especially gamers) prefer scantily-clad slender pretty male avatars over big macho male-power-fantasy dudes, and pretty or stylish outfits on female avatars over just running around in fetish gear/lingerie. (All generally speaking, of course.)

Personally, I'd prefer to play as a character dressed like Batwoman than one "dressed" like Vampirella. But I still like some midriff-exposing tops & thigh-high boots on some of my superheroes, too.
Gimme variety for both body categories, pleez.

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Mask-of-Many wrote:
Mask-of-Many wrote:

To be fair, the CoH devs never said "hell no" to wings. They actually said "yes, but not right away."

To be super-duper fair the "original-original" plan for wings in CoH was that they were only going to be doable as part of a completely separate character body model along the lines of the "Huge" body model. Basically having a "dude with wings" would have had to have been a hardwired choice at character creation and would not have been changeable. The relatively novel idea that they would ever be implemented as "optional costume items" was a definite "Hell no!" idea for at least the first year plus of the game.

Mask-of-Many wrote:

As for power customisation, that was a "maybe, if we have the time, resources, and ability, AND there's enough interest from the players."

Arguably you could still say Power Customization was a "Hell no!" for many years based on the simple premise there was never any guarantee they would ever have the "time, resources, ability AND enough interest from the players" to do it. This is precisely my point - just because certain features seem "effectively impossible now" doesn't mean they are actually impossible. Most of the time it's more a matter of the Devs setting their priorities to align with what players actually want.

Mask-of-Many wrote:

My 2 pence for this whole thing: in terms of superheroes, I think skimpy options are fine so long as they're fairly even across the board. Most women (especially gamers) prefer scantily-clad slender pretty male avatars over big macho male-power-fantasy dudes, and pretty or stylish outfits on female avatars over just running around in fetish gear/lingerie. (All generally speaking, of course.)

Personally, I'd prefer to play as a character dressed like Batwoman than one "dressed" like Vampirella. But I still like some midriff-exposing tops & thigh-high boots on some of my superheroes, too.
Gimme variety for both body categories, pleez.

Just to re-remind everyone the Devs of CoT have confirmed multiple times that they intend have NO gender locked costume items. This means that any costume item they offer (whether it be "practical" or "skimpy") will be available to both the male and female character models.

Also I'm hoping they will provide as wide a range of options as possible. Using your "Batwoman to Vampirella" scale I'm actually hoping we get enough options so that I can create BOTH Batwoman-clones AND Vampirella-clones which means CoT needs to provide both tasteful AND slutty costume options equally. That's ultimately the only way to be "fair" about it.

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Lothic is correct. CoH did

Lothic is correct. CoH did say Hell No to wings because at that time they didn't have anyone who knew how to pull it off. Same for the customization options late in the game. They didn't have anyone who knew how to do it. Some of the issues also came about from a dearth of piss-poor documentation on the part of some of the original coders.

Also, some of the things that Lothic had asked for and was told NO to, the devs had told him that internal discussions had taken place and decisions were made to not include them. It seems that Lothic took exception to those "arbitrary" decisions because he wasn't part of them? hhmm, one wonders

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StellarAgent wrote:
StellarAgent wrote:

Lothic is correct. CoH did say Hell No to wings because at that time they didn't have anyone who knew how to pull it off. Same for the customization options late in the game. They didn't have anyone who knew how to do it. Some of the issues also came about from a dearth of piss-poor documentation on the part of some of the original coders.

The key point is that a "Hell no!" verdict leveled against a potential game feature doesn't necessarily mean that feature would be intrinsically impossible to implement. It can also be used as a fuzzy way to describe a feature that "would be doable assuming the Devs wanted to adequately/properly prioritize it". Clearly if the Devs don't honestly "want" to tackle something head-on it's not going to get done regardless of how hard or easy it would be to do.

StellarAgent wrote:

Also, some of the things that Lothic had asked for and was told NO to, the devs had told him that internal discussions had taken place and decisions were made to not include them. It seems that Lothic took exception to those "arbitrary" decisions because he wasn't part of them? hhmm, one wonders

lol I don't take myself -that- seriously. I might talk a lot here but I don't pretend to be the "ultimate insider" that can twist the Devs to always do what I want 100% of the time. If I had that amount of influence here this would be MY game, not MWM's. ;)

I don't take "exception" to arbitrary decisions about this game because I don't have a seat inside the MWM Star Chamber. I take exception to obviously arbitrary decisions I don't care for precisely because they are arbitrary. If the Devs can't easily defend why these otherwise non-critical decisions are genuinely good/reasonable for the game they will be forced to reassess their priorities for the good of all of us, not just me. If the -only- reason the Devs have decided to do X, Y or Z is based solely on what -they- want without factoring in what the players want then that type decision is uniquely positioned to be aggressively questioned/scrutinized.

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Don't forget Lothoc that

Don't forget Lothoc that because we are still Alpha and in development that they are in a position that they CAN'T explain their reasons why.

We just have to be patient and bide our time. When the game is Live, then maybe we can delve into the why's and wherefore's of their current decision process.
Off the top of my head the biggest ones would be a lack of numbers and skills required to do some of what we want. And like you I want stuff that isn't going to happen in the near future. I'm just not willing to beat myself (and others) up for it.

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Patience is a bitch sometimes

Patience is a bitch sometimes. ????

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Patience once slapped me and

Patience once slapped me and called me a dumbass.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

just because certain features seem "effectively impossible now" doesn't mean they are actually impossible.

The problem is premature optimization "now" that effectively blocks off any of these nifty things from happening later, but the barrier to reaching them got raised higher in an effort to expedient "now" at the expense of "later" ... if you see what I mean.


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Uumm, okay. I think? Yeah.

Uumm, okay.

I think?

Yeah.

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Just because you think Shaft

Just because you think Shaft A will get you to Vein Au easier than Shaft B will get you to Vein Ag, and Vein Au is expected to get more profit even if the cost to access the two veins was equal, don't dump the tailings on top of Shaft B.

OK, it's not a great analogy, but it's mine. ^_^

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Foradain wrote:
Foradain wrote:

OK, it's not a great analogy, but it's mine. ^_^

That's a miner complaint, Foradain.

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:
Lothic wrote:

just because certain features seem "effectively impossible now" doesn't mean they are actually impossible.

The problem is premature optimization "now" that effectively blocks off any of these nifty things from happening later, but the barrier to reaching them got raised higher in an effort to expedient "now" at the expense of "later" ... if you see what I mean.

I'm no coder, but I'd think this is less severe with third party engines like Unreal, a custom engine can turn into a Gordian knot.


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I'm not familiar with Unreal

I'm not familiar with Unreal in specific, but there are pluses and minuses to using someone else's engine versus coding your own. Obviously a pre-existing engine saves you a lot of work, and is usually pretty well-developed and maintained, but it also introduces some of its own limitations that you have to work around. Even the most fully-developed engine, designed to support a variety of games can have some hard restrictions; The developers of XCOM (Unreal) talked a lot about how engine limitations made them have to do some workarounds for environment destruction that caused some weird in-game behaviors, as an example. On the flip side, a custom-built engine means all of the maintenance and bugs will be on the design team, but it also means they can build and modify the engine to do whatever they need it to. Unknown Worlds Games, when working on Natural Instinct II was originally building it in Source (the first game was an extensive Halflife Mod) and maybe halfway through scrapped the whole thing to rebuild it from scratch with their own engine.

So that's to say that I don't disagree, but nor do I agree; It's a nuanced decision with pros and cons on both sides.

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Not speaking overall, but I

Not speaking overall, but I tend to think having a lot of code out-of-box mitigates the spagetti code nightmare, not overall robustness.


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desviper wrote:
desviper wrote:

I tend to think having a lot of code out-of-box mitigates the spagetti code nightmare

You might think that ... but spaghetti code will ALWAYS be a hazard no matter what you do. It's why refactoring of existing code needs to be an ongoing concern and priority through EVERY development cycle.


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Gracious fan-service aside in

Gracious fan-service aside in a fantasy setting in which you need to quickly dodge, run, jump out of a giants foot range I'd utterly hate wearing plate or any other heavy armor. A He-Man, Red Sonja, Conan outfit + some protective magic trinkets would be far better for survival. Its even better against someone in just in parts of heavy armor ( https://youtu.be/D5FU0ZMRB_Q?t=35 :P ).

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ThatWeirdo wrote:
ThatWeirdo wrote:

Gracious fan-service aside in a fantasy setting in which you need to quickly dodge, run, jump out of a giants foot range I'd utterly hate wearing plate or any other heavy armor. A He-Man, Red Sonja, Conan outfit + some protective magic trinkets would be far better for survival. Its even better against someone in just in parts of heavy armor.

Yeah frankly when you factor in "magic" and/or "superhero powers" into a game situation like CoT then the idea of wearing armor simply becomes more of a personal fashion statement than a functional mechanism for personal protection.

The beauty of a superhero setting is that your characters are free to wear as much (so called "realistic") or as little (so called "fantasy") armor and still be able to justify why they're fully protected. I think this is the key point people forget when they say things like "fantasy armor is stupid because it would never work IRL". That's the WHOLE point - games like CoT are NOT real life.

For instance if Red Sonja wore the following "outfit" IRL to a real life medieval battle:

It's safe to say she would be likely be ripped to shreds (after being declared a witch but I digress). But because she's a FANTASY character in a FANTASY setting who's to say that little buckler on her right arm isn't a +20 shield vs all damage magic item? Why would she NEED to wear realistic armor with that kind of potential magical protection?

Now obviously people can still choose to object to the fact that she's 98% naked and that the -only- reason she's "dressed" like that is to appeal to sexist/horny men reading graphic novels. The whole "fan-service" topic is really a completely different issue from the "is the character's armor appropriate for the setting or not" issue. Unfortunately the two issues have typically been intermingled over time so it's hard to talk about one without confusing it with the other.

As I said earlier in this thread I'm looking forward to making multiple female characters in CoT. Some of them I envision would be completely "covered up" (like Batwoman) and others I suspect will be less so (like Vampirella). I'll let the character concept decide what is most "appropriate" for each of them in terms of fan-servicey-ness.

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Lothic][quote=ThatWeirdo
Lothic][quote=ThatWeirdo wrote:

Now obviously people can still choose to object to the fact that she's 98% naked and that the -only- reason she's "dressed" like that is to appeal to sexist/horny men reading graphic novels. The whole "fan-service" topic is really a completely different issue from the "is the character's armor appropriate for the setting or not" issue. Unfortunately the two issues have typically been intermingled over time so it's hard to talk about one without confusing it with the other.

As I said earlier in this thread I'm looking forward to making multiple female characters in CoT. Some of them I envision would be completely "covered up" (like Batwoman) and others I suspect will be less so (like Vampirella). I'll let the character concept decide what is most "appropriate" for each of them in terms of fan-servicey-ness.

For some reason the world of Athas (Dark Sun) comes to mind with characters dressing appropriately for the world they are in. Loved that D&D setting.

One problem is... By getting upset about fantasy characters dressed this way, we are only furthering the misconception that those specific locations are taboo. I will point out that I do not associate my breasts with sex. There are a lot of people who have a fetish for them, yes. But the body part itself has nothing to do with the act. Because of this I'm able to appreciate the whole image created, rather then narrowing down on the fact that, "she's fighting the Lich King with 80% of her body exposed, how has she not died of exposure yet!?" I'm strange.

The equality thing is less equal then it appears though.
I consider a bare chested man to be on par with a woman in a bikini top (or bra, or wrapped). This is a problem because it is not equal. A 'bare chested' top would have to always cover the female counter-part's chest. And a man in a bikini top (funny as it would be) does not strike the same feeling as a woman in a bikini top (or bra, or wrap). Which again, is not 'equal' unless the male version also has a wrap around his breasts. (Which defeats the purpose.)

I do commend them for planning to make styles the same on males as it is for females. But I consider that more 'realism' then 'equality'. A guy who wear's his girlfriend's dress isn't going to find himself in a snazzy pant-suit when he puts it on. (Maybe in his mind!) Okay now I wanna make a hero who gets his power's from his girlfriend's dress.

(While wearing his girlfriend's dress, Tod was bit by a radioactive flea while the dress was nibbled on by a radioactive moth. Now ever time he wears the garment, he becomes... Super Silk!

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There is that.

There is that.

What's your powers? Agility and invulnerability.

So armor would ruin the agility and be unneeded. :p

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Meanwhile, my female

Meanwhile, my female characters are Mostly-dressed. https://www.deviantart.com/fireheart5150/art/Astarte-5-566186423 is about as nude as it gets. (Her top leaves her flanks, hips to breasts, uncovered - under her coat.) She's a 'sorceress', so not likely to be confronted with weapons that armor would help with. Several of my characters DO have unclothed legs, under their skirts. Actually, my 'nudest' character is male.

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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

Meanwhile, my female characters are Mostly-dressed. https://www.deviantart.com/fireheart5150/art/Astarte-5-566186423 is about as nude as it gets. (Her top leaves her flanks, hips to breasts, uncovered - under her coat.) She's a 'sorceress', so not likely to be confronted with weapons that armor would help with. Several of my characters DO have unclothed legs, under their skirts. Actually, my 'nudest' character is male.

Whatever works for you is fine with me. I simply advocate for a game that will offer options spanning from burka to chainmail bikinis and pretty much anything within reason in-between. ;)

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The point in which the "it's

The point in which the "it's just fantasy" argument falls apart is when women are dressed like Red Sonja and men are encased head to toe in steel. Why isn't the argument for women to be dressed in practically nothing applied to men? And in a fantasy setting with magic trinkets is it assumed that a suit of full plate wont have various magical protections and/or be magically made a hell of a lot lighter?

It's just fantasy, so why does it seem inconceivable to people that then there can be warriors in suits of fullplate that weigh as much as regular clothes? Answer, because then they don't get to see half/mostly naked ladies. Just admit you like how it looks and don't bother trying to BS that "it makes sense actually" because it doesn't, it never does.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Whatever works for you is fine with me. I simply advocate for a game that will offer options spanning from burka to chainmail bikinis and pretty much anything within reason in-between. ;)

For the record, this is my position as well.

However, I can understand that some people get hung up on the semantics when something is called, by analogy, a "wall;" when very plainly it is an "open doorway," or a "window" at most.

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

The point in which the "it's just fantasy" argument falls apart is when women are dressed like Red Sonja and men are encased head to toe in steel. Why isn't the argument for women to be dressed in practically nothing applied to men? And in a fantasy setting with magic trinkets is it assumed that a suit of full plate wont have various magical protections and/or be magically made a hell of a lot lighter?

It's just fantasy, so why does it seem inconceivable to people that then there can be warriors in suits of fullplate that weigh as much as regular clothes? Answer, because then they don't get to see half/mostly naked ladies. Just admit you like how it looks and don't bother trying to BS that "it makes sense actually" because it doesn't, it never does.

I cant think of any game where females are required to dress skimpy yet males are forbidden. You can probably dig up some little known asian game but that will be pointless for this market The devs could put a lot of effort into making chain mail bikinis for men, but that would most likely be a pointless expenditure of resources. The devs can make skimpy and burkha level gear(and everything in between) for both sexes, that will satisfy most of their customers.
In a super hero setting it does make sense. If a brick makes an impenetrable forcefield millimeters from their skin, they are pretty much invulnerable. Wearing a spandex uniform would keep it close enough to the hero to keep it intact. A devisor could make powered armor from ultralite unobtanium and have it move fluidly and easily but still be invulnerable. One function of heavy armor is to absorb the kinetic force of an impact, ultrlite wont do that, so the designer will have to deal with that. A hero universe accounts for all of these problems and more, so a dress code is not necessary. It looks like your quest would be better served by looking at real life clothing injustices. Maybe you might petition congress to mandate unisex clothing.....

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

The point in which the "it's just fantasy" argument falls apart is when women are dressed like Red Sonja and men are encased head to toe in steel. Why isn't the argument for women to be dressed in practically nothing applied to men? And in a fantasy setting with magic trinkets is it assumed that a suit of full plate wont have various magical protections and/or be magically made a hell of a lot lighter?

It's just fantasy, so why does it seem inconceivable to people that then there can be warriors in suits of fullplate that weigh as much as regular clothes? Answer, because then they don't get to see half/mostly naked ladies.

So you're effectively blaming me for all the "chainmail bikini fan-service" that exists in the world? I know I have a lot to answer for on this forum but I don't think I'm -that- much of a criminal. ;)

For what it's worth I'd have no problem with a type of fantasy existing where the women wear head-to-toe steel and the men are in leather jock-straps. Not my fault that type of fantasy setting doesn't seem adequately represented in the various graphic novels. Then again if Sean Connery was man enough to do what he did in Zardoz I can live with it. *shrugs*

Project_Hero wrote:

Just admit you like how it looks and don't bother trying to BS that "it makes sense actually" because it doesn't, it never does.

I'll admit that for instance I like both Red Sonja in her chainmail bikini and Conan in his usually shirtless loin clothed attire because most of the time artists draw BOTH of those characters in an appealing, desirable way. They're BOTH usually depicted as powerful individuals that are sexy and kick much ass.

If you're really hung up about this issue for CoT simply remember that according to the Devs there will be no gender locked costume items in the game. It'll be up to the players to decide these things for themselves so if every 13 year old boy out there decides to only have their female characters in chainmail bikinis (or their equivalent) at least it won't be MWM's fault for "rigging" the system that way.

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I love all the arguing over

I love all the arguing over the simple fact that women want to look sexy and men want to look badass, and "fantasy" gives us plausible reasons to make any combination of the above work.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
ThatWeirdo wrote:

Gracious fan-service aside in a fantasy setting in which you need to quickly dodge, run, jump out of a giants foot range I'd utterly hate wearing plate or any other heavy armor. A He-Man, Red Sonja, Conan outfit + some protective magic trinkets would be far better for survival. Its even better against someone in just in parts of heavy armor.

Yeah frankly when you factor in "magic" and/or "superhero powers" into a game situation like CoT then the idea of wearing armor simply becomes more of a personal fashion statement than a functional mechanism for personal protection.

The beauty of a superhero setting is that your characters are free to wear as much (so called "realistic") or as little (so called "fantasy") armor and still be able to justify why they're fully protected. I think this is the key point people forget when they say things like "fantasy armor is stupid because it would never work IRL". That's the WHOLE point - games like CoT are NOT real life.

For instance if Red Sonja wore the following "outfit" IRL to a real life medieval battle:

It's safe to say she would be likely be ripped to shreds (after being declared a witch but I digress). But because she's a FANTASY character in a FANTASY setting who's to say that little buckler on her right arm isn't a +20 shield vs all damage magic item? Why would she NEED to wear realistic armor with that kind of potential magical protection?

Now obviously people can still choose to object to the fact that she's 98% naked and that the -only- reason she's "dressed" like that is to appeal to sexist/horny men reading graphic novels. The whole "fan-service" topic is really a completely different issue from the "is the character's armor appropriate for the setting or not" issue. Unfortunately the two issues have typically been intermingled over time so it's hard to talk about one without confusing it with the other.

As I said earlier in this thread I'm looking forward to making multiple female characters in CoT. Some of them I envision would be completely "covered up" (like Batwoman) and others I suspect will be less so (like Vampirella). I'll let the character concept decide what is most "appropriate" for each of them in terms of fan-servicey-ness.

Its save to say if actual anyone who magically appears in a IRL medieval battlefield he/she/it would be declared witch and shredded to bits even when wearing full plate armor. Well, probably not He-Man. He would stomp the ground to make everyone fall down and then leap away so he does not need to really hurt someone. Equally his Sis.

I talked about fantasy settings; I have no interest in a realistic medieval RPG. Would annoy me to hire NPCs just to get into armor or on a horse in said armor. Or not being able to run after some half naked red headed witch while wearing full plate and getting stabbed by her after I fell on the ground from exhaustion. ;)

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

So you're effectively blaming me for all the "chainmail bikini fan-service" that exists in the world? I know I have a lot to answer for on this forum but I don't think I'm -that- much of a criminal. ;)

No, I'm not blaming you for anything. It's a general statement. I honestly have no idea where you got the idea that I was blaming you for anything.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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warlocc wrote:
warlocc wrote:

I love all the arguing over the simple fact that women want to look sexy and men want to look badass, and "fantasy" gives us plausible reasons to make any combination of the above work.

Most of the time fantasy stuff is made by men so it's less that "women want to look sexy" and more "men want women to look sexy"

In fantasy women want to be badasses too. Sometimes sexy badasses but usually with being a sexy badass it's more of an attitude thing than wearing skimpy clothes. Especially if those clothes are supposed to protect you.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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ivanhedgehog wrote:
ivanhedgehog wrote:

I cant think of any game where females are required to dress skimpy yet males are forbidden. You can probably dig up some little known asian game but that will be pointless for this market The devs could put a lot of effort into making chain mail bikinis for men, but that would most likely be a pointless expenditure of resources. The devs can make skimpy and burkha level gear(and everything in between) for both sexes, that will satisfy most of their customers.
In a super hero setting it does make sense. If a brick makes an impenetrable forcefield millimeters from their skin, they are pretty much invulnerable. Wearing a spandex uniform would keep it close enough to the hero to keep it intact. A devisor could make powered armor from ultralite unobtanium and have it move fluidly and easily but still be invulnerable. One function of heavy armor is to absorb the kinetic force of an impact, ultrlite wont do that, so the designer will have to deal with that. A hero universe accounts for all of these problems and more, so a dress code is not necessary. It looks like your quest would be better served by looking at real life clothing injustices. Maybe you might petition congress to mandate unisex clothing.....

A bunch of early WoW armors were skimpy on female characters while being normal on men. So while not required to dress skimpy likely if they wanted the best armor they had to.

And who made the hero only have a few millimetre thick forcefield? Oh that's right, the same person who designed the costume. They could have had like an inch thick forcefield but then they wouldn't have to wear spandex.

I don't know why you think I'm on some sort of quest to do anything here. I am fine with skimpy options existing just don't BS the reasons why you want characters to be skimpy.

The author of My Hero Academia is a self admitted pervert. He likes sexy women. One of his characters dresses skimpy for the in universe reason that she pulls weapons from her skin. The actual reason she dresses skimpy is because the author likes to draw sexy women in skimpy outfits. There are numerous ways to make a charaxter with that powerset not dress super skimpy but the author -wants- to draw her in skimpy clothes.

You want them to be skimpy, that's fine, you don't need to make up some reason for it. Honestly making up excuses and reasons why "it's good, actually" or that "it's necessary, actually" makes me think that you think that it's wrong to just like characters that are dressed skimpy. Just embrace it "I know it's not realistic, or really makes sense, but I like the aesthetic of it." The thing you like can have problems and you can still like it. The thing you like doesn't need to be perfectly logically sound.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Lothic wrote:

So you're effectively blaming me for all the "chainmail bikini fan-service" that exists in the world? I know I have a lot to answer for on this forum but I don't think I'm -that- much of a criminal. ;)

No, I'm not blaming you for anything. It's a general statement. I honestly have no idea where you got the idea that I was blaming you for anything.

Oh well sometimes it seems everyone wants to blame me for everything bad that happens on this forum so perhaps I'm just becoming reflexively defensive. ;)

Project_Hero wrote:

I don't know why you think I'm on some sort of quest to do anything here. I am fine with skimpy options existing just don't BS the reasons why you want characters to be skimpy.

The author of My Hero Academia is a self admitted pervert. He likes sexy women. One of his characters dresses skimpy for the in universe reason that she pulls weapons from her skin. The actual reason she dresses skimpy is because the author likes to draw sexy women in skimpy outfits. There are numerous ways to make a character with that powerset not dress super skimpy but the author -wants- to draw her in skimpy clothes.

You want them to be skimpy, that's fine, you don't need to make up some reason for it. Honestly making up excuses and reasons why "it's good, actually" or that "it's necessary, actually" makes me think that you think that it's wrong to just like characters that are dressed skimpy. Just embrace it "I know it's not realistic, or really makes sense, but I like the aesthetic of it." The thing you like can have problems and you can still like it. The thing you like doesn't need to be perfectly logically sound.

I think we're actually on the same side of this issue but are simply talking about two slightly different aspects of it.

One of the main arguments used by the "anti-sexy fantasy female" people is that they claim the various versions of "chainmail bikinis" are impractical because they would never work IRL. My main rebuttal to that was the fact that they are "fantasy characters" to begin with means that real world armor/physics does not need to apply to them for all sorts of setting-specific reasons (e.g. magic). That was really my main point here.

To be clear I've never said that fantasy females must always be shown semi-nude in all cases. Sure I'll grant you that it may actually be hard to find examples where they aren't depicted that way. But at its best the fantasy genre can allow for both males and females to be shown with -any- amount of skin showing including none.

Now as to your point about whether or not it's even necessary to defend the core concept of the existence of "semi-naked sexy fantasy females" in the first place goes I think you're always going to be faced with direct (and legitimate) charges of overt sexism and inequality against it. You yourself seem to point out how games like WoW forced females to have the "skimpier" versions of armor so cases of systemic inequality do exist like it or not. Sadly you can't just "handwave" these things away as you seem to imply is possible.

I figure the best way to handle the "systemic inequality" issue (at least in computer games) is to do what CoT has promised to do - eliminate gender locked items. Again if you're going to be the type of person to make your female characters wear the skimpiest outfits "just because" then there's nothing MWM can do to stop you. But at least the critics will not have a leg to stand on when they try to make the argument that the game "forced" females to look that way without being able to make males look the same way.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Sileka][quote=Lothic wrote:
Sileka wrote:
Lothic wrote:

The whole "fan-service" topic is really a completely different issue from the "is the character's armor appropriate for the setting or not" issue. Unfortunately the two issues have typically been intermingled over time so it's hard to talk about one without confusing it with the other.

As I said earlier in this thread I'm looking forward to making multiple female characters in CoT. Some of them I envision would be completely "covered up" (like Batwoman) and others I suspect will be less so (like Vampirella). I'll let the character concept decide what is most "appropriate" for each of them in terms of fan-servicey-ness.

For some reason the world of Athas (Dark Sun) comes to mind with characters dressing appropriately for the world they are in. Loved that D&D setting.

Dark Sun was interesting but we ended up playing more with the Birthright setting. YMMV of course.

Sileka wrote:

One problem is... By getting upset about fantasy characters dressed this way, we are only furthering the misconception that those specific locations are taboo. I will point out that I do not associate my breasts with sex. There are a lot of people who have a fetish for them, yes. But the body part itself has nothing to do with the act. Because of this I'm able to appreciate the whole image created, rather then narrowing down on the fact that, "she's fighting the Lich King with 80% of her body exposed, how has she not died of exposure yet!?" I'm strange.

Far be it for me to dispute what anyone associates body-part-wise with sex but I suspect a majority of folks (at least in western cultures) would say the more a female's breasts are "exposed" the more sexually suggestive the situation is. This is why (especially in America) the mere natural act of breastfeeding a baby in public is often met with a semi-irrational level of angst and moral outrage. I don't make those rules - I'm simply stating the facts and those facts are why this becomes a "thing" that needs to be addressed in computer games. Personally I wish this wasn't such a "thing" but it is.

Sileka wrote:

The equality thing is less equal then it appears though.
I consider a bare chested man to be on par with a woman in a bikini top (or bra, or wrapped). This is a problem because it is not equal. A 'bare chested' top would have to always cover the female counter-part's chest. And a man in a bikini top (funny as it would be) does not strike the same feeling as a woman in a bikini top (or bra, or wrap). Which again, is not 'equal' unless the male version also has a wrap around his breasts. (Which defeats the purpose.)

I do commend them for planning to make styles the same on males as it is for females. But I consider that more 'realism' then 'equality'.

I figure that games need to start handling this issue of "costume inequality" in some form or fashion and the easiest place to start is with the elimination of gender locked costume items. I commend CoT for making this a goal of their game.

But as you say even if both males and females share 100% of the game's costume content it's still not going to be absolutely perfect. Because of societal norms and expectations IRL I suspect there will still have to be at least one critical exception to the "no gender lock" rule in CoT. That exception of course will be to allow males to be bare-chested.

I think if CoT can exist with that one critical exception then at least things will be on the right track here.

Sileka wrote:

A guy who wear's his girlfriend's dress isn't going to find himself in a snazzy pant-suit when he puts it on. (Maybe in his mind!) Okay now I wanna make a hero who gets his power's from his girlfriend's dress.

(While wearing his girlfriend's dress, Tod was bit by a radioactive flea while the dress was nibbled on by a radioactive moth. Now ever time he wears the garment, he becomes... Super Silk!

With this I pretty much got a mental image of Johnny Depp via his portrayal of Ed Wood and his "Glen or Glenda" shenanigans. :)

Coincidentally (perhaps ironically?) on another recent thread the issue of being able to set which body model you want to use for each costume slot has been discussed. If the game let us switch from one costume slot with the male body model to another costume slot with the female body model then your "transvestite" character concept here would be that much more feasible.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
ivanhedgehog wrote:

I cant think of any game where females are required to dress skimpy yet males are forbidden. You can probably dig up some little known asian game but that will be pointless for this market The devs could put a lot of effort into making chain mail bikinis for men, but that would most likely be a pointless expenditure of resources. The devs can make skimpy and burkha level gear(and everything in between) for both sexes, that will satisfy most of their customers.
In a super hero setting it does make sense. If a brick makes an impenetrable forcefield millimeters from their skin, they are pretty much invulnerable. Wearing a spandex uniform would keep it close enough to the hero to keep it intact. A devisor could make powered armor from ultralite unobtanium and have it move fluidly and easily but still be invulnerable. One function of heavy armor is to absorb the kinetic force of an impact, ultrlite wont do that, so the designer will have to deal with that. A hero universe accounts for all of these problems and more, so a dress code is not necessary. It looks like your quest would be better served by looking at real life clothing injustices. Maybe you might petition congress to mandate unisex clothing.....

A bunch of early WoW armors were skimpy on female characters while being normal on men. So while not required to dress skimpy likely if they wanted the best armor they had to.

And who made the hero only have a few millimetre thick forcefield? Oh that's right, the same person who designed the costume. They could have had like an inch thick forcefield but then they wouldn't have to wear spandex.

I don't know why you think I'm on some sort of quest to do anything here. I am fine with skimpy options existing just don't BS the reasons why you want characters to be skimpy.

The author of My Hero Academia is a self admitted pervert. He likes sexy women. One of his characters dresses skimpy for the in universe reason that she pulls weapons from her skin. The actual reason she dresses skimpy is because the author likes to draw sexy women in skimpy outfits. There are numerous ways to make a charaxter with that powerset not dress super skimpy but the author -wants- to draw her in skimpy clothes.

You want them to be skimpy, that's fine, you don't need to make up some reason for it. Honestly making up excuses and reasons why "it's good, actually" or that "it's necessary, actually" makes me think that you think that it's wrong to just like characters that are dressed skimpy. Just embrace it "I know it's not realistic, or really makes sense, but I like the aesthetic of it." The thing you like can have problems and you can still like it. The thing you like doesn't need to be perfectly logically sound.

so when WOW has 300 different armors and 3 of them are sexy for females you are being forced to use them somehow? Liking sexy women makes you a pervert? Beer commercials use attractive men AND women because that helps to sell their product. They dont use guys with beer bellies and women with some exrtra pounds wearing a bathrobe because that is not what a majority wants to see. They arent perverts, that is what society considers normal. That problem seems to be more on you. There doesnt have to be any reason why a character looks like it does other than the maker wanted it that way. Its a game, it isnt important. If you want to cure societies ills, try doing it where it will actually matter, in real life.

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I don't know if I would say

I don't know if I would say it's what society considers normal, but rather, no one wants to see a link between obesity and beer.

Same with soda companies. People don't want to be reminded that "Hey, this item you're buying will make you fat, as it's loaded with high fructose corn syrup."

However, I do agree, the games tend to have options, usually most, that have no "OMG! TO SEXY!" look to them.

Not to mention, if this is an issue with people, they may be playing the wrong game, as people go around in tights. :p

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Not to mention, if this is an issue with people, they may be playing the wrong game, as people go around in tights. :p

Now you've got me thinking of the semi-cheesy lyrics of the theme song for a certain superhero TV show made in the late 70s that happens to mention that particular costume item. ;)

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To Lothic:

To Lothic:

Most of the time when the impracticality of a fantasy lady's armor is brought up it's usually because it exists in a setting alongside male armor that covers everything and is very practical. If magical means of protection exist in a setting then every warrior should be dressed in a similar fashion if they have access to it. Even with access to magical means of protection there's no good in universe justification for wearing a chainmail bikini as opposed to... Any other sort of clothing (unless, I suppose, in the setting a woman's vital organs are all stored in their breasts and crotch).

There's only ever really claims of overt sexism when all/the majority of females in a work are sexualized be it through body type or what they wear. In something like early WoW pretty much all the female options for races were sexy, even for some of the more monsterous races the women of their races were made to be way more appealing than their male counterparts. Male nightelves are super tall and buff their women are slender and essentially pretty human women with long ears. Male Orcs are hunched over their women are just like, green, buff, human ladies. Troll men are gangly, huge tusked, and have huge tusks, troll females are just like tall, blue women with like, slightly longer couple of teeth. Couple that with their armors and robes for ladies often having exposed stomachs, deepneck lines, or otherwise being more revealing on a female model than the exact same clothing option on a male model you can easily see how one could view that as sexism. Having a single character in a work be sexy because you wanted to make someone sexy, not really sexism, especially if you have a bunch of other ladies of varying body types and such.

Like, as long as a creator isn't being sexist then there's usually no outcry of sexism. It's not sexist to have one or a few sexy women, it is to make all or most of them that way.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

To Lothic:

Most of the time when the impracticality of a fantasy lady's armor is brought up it's usually because it exists in a setting alongside male armor that covers everything and is very practical. If magical means of protection exist in a setting then every warrior should be dressed in a similar fashion if they have access to it. Even with access to magical means of protection there's no good in universe justification for wearing a chainmail bikini as opposed to... Any other sort of clothing (unless, I suppose, in the setting a woman's vital organs are all stored in their breasts and crotch).

There will always be examples of "fantasy settings" that are more overtly sexist than others given whatever metric for that you want to apply. But I would argue that your implied assertion that "everyone would want to wear plate armor regardless of any other consideration" is a bit presumptive on your part.

Sure if the fantasy setting you're talking about typically provides everyone suits of full plate armor then -maybe- your argument would carry some weight. But what if the fantasy setting in question establishes that EVERYONE (both males and females) exclusively wears relatively skimpy outfits? A super quick example off the top of my head is the Dothraki culture in Game of Thrones. Even though suits of full plate armor exist in the world they live in they remain culturally opposed to wearing metal armor. Now to be fair there doesn't seem to be many (any?) female Dothraki warriors but my reasonable guess would be that if they did exist they'd look closer to Red Sonja than Brienne of Tarth.

Bottomline the "rules" of every fantasy setting are established by their creators. If you want to say that a given creator is "sexist" if he/she forces all the women to dress one way (i.e. skimpily) and the men another that's fine. But I don't think we can really assume that in ANY POSSIBLE SITUATION IMAGINABLE that everyone in that setting is always going to prefer to be full-clothed or wear head-to-toe metal armor.

Project_Hero wrote:

There's only ever really claims of overt sexism when all/the majority of females in a work are sexualized be it through body type or what they wear. In something like early WoW pretty much all the female options for races were sexy, even for some of the more monsterous races the women of their races were made to be way more appealing than their male counterparts. Male nightelves are super tall and buff their women are slender and essentially pretty human women with long ears. Male Orcs are hunched over their women are just like, green, buff, human ladies. Troll men are gangly, huge tusked, and have huge tusks, troll females are just like tall, blue women with like, slightly longer couple of teeth. Couple that with their armors and robes for ladies often having exposed stomachs, deepneck lines, or otherwise being more revealing on a female model than the exact same clothing option on a male model you can easily see how one could view that as sexism.

I'd generally agree with this. As long as a "scenario" like a computer game forces each individual into mutually exclusive clothing choices based on sex that would seem obviously sexist in some form or fashion.

Project_Hero wrote:

Having a single character in a work be sexy because you wanted to make someone sexy, not really sexism, especially if you have a bunch of other ladies of varying body types and such.

Again I'd generally agree as long as it's internally consistent with the established setting. For instance if you consider Star Trek Voyager's "7 of 9" (played by Jeri Ryan) you might consider her standard appearance/outfit to be a "borderline" case of being a little "too sexy" for the venue:

But imagine (if you will) having her routinely run around the starship in a string bikini - I think even the most liberal among us would have to admit that would have gone a little too far in that context.

Project_Hero wrote:

Like, as long as a creator isn't being sexist then there's usually no outcry of sexism. It's not sexist to have one or a few sexy women, it is to make all or most of them that way.

As with all things it's usually a matter of degrees. We just need to be aware that everyone has different limits as to what they consider to be "over the line" where these things are concerned.

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So then, the chain mail

So then, the chain mail bikini isn't sexist, as not everyone goes around in it and the male counterpart goes around in even less protection than a chain mail bikini.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

So then, the chain mail bikini isn't sexist, as not everyone goes around in it and the male counterpart goes around in even less protection than a chain mail bikini.

An article of clothing is never sexist. It's It's use within a work and/or prominence in said work that can, however, make it a part of the sexism of the product as a whole.

What do you mean by "the male counterpart goes around in less"? Do you mean conan? The loin cloth? What are you even talking about?

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Brand X wrote:

So then, the chain mail bikini isn't sexist, as not everyone goes around in it and the male counterpart goes around in even less protection than a chain mail bikini.

An article of clothing is never sexist. It's It's use within a work and/or prominence in said work that can, however, make it a part of the sexism of the product as a whole.

What do you mean by "the male counterpart goes around in less"? Do you mean conan? The loin cloth? What are you even talking about?

Of course I meant Conan. Who else would be Sonja's counterpart?

He lacks protective armor.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Sure if the fantasy setting you're talking about typically provides everyone suits of full plate armor then -maybe- your argument would carry some weight. But what if the fantasy setting in question establishes that EVERYONE (both males and females) exclusively wears relatively skimpy outfits? A super quick example off the top of my head is the Dothraki culture in Game of Thrones. Even though suits of full plate armor exist in the world they live in they remain culturally opposed to wearing metal armor. Now to be fair there doesn't seem to be many (any?) female Dothraki warriors but my reasonable guess would be that if they did exist they'd look closer to Red Sonja than Brienne of Tarth.

Hypothetical Dothraki warrior women would probably wear the same sort of armor as the men which consists of a chest guard and shoulder pads or at the very least straps of hardened leather around soft spots such as the stomach.

Yes, closer to Red Sonja than Brienne of Tarth, but likely more armored than the former.

Yes, there are exceptions due to cultures, traditions, and setting dependant things (not a lot of iron, for example) but as a whole most wouldn't choose a chainmail bikini over any other sort of actual protection. Various leather armors, chain shirts, chainmail, breast plates, etc. Even in a setting with magical protections having some actual armor on makes sense in the case of magic failing, being disenchanted, or otherwise rendered inert.

What doesn't make sense and what doesn't work would be a warrior woman of westeros wearing a chain mail bikini of her own volition. Which is what we usually end up seeing with a lot of fantasy art, women in skimpy armor next to men in much more practical armor. If more practical armor exists it makes more sense that a warrior would wear practical armor. Unless they're suicidally over confident/arrogant or a complete fool.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Brand X wrote:

So then, the chain mail bikini isn't sexist, as not everyone goes around in it and the male counterpart goes around in even less protection than a chain mail bikini.

An article of clothing is never sexist. It's It's use within a work and/or prominence in said work that can, however, make it a part of the sexism of the product as a whole.

What do you mean by "the male counterpart goes around in less"? Do you mean conan? The loin cloth? What are you even talking about?

Maybe that Conan's "armor" is usually only made of leather/hide material. At least Red Sonja's outfit (what there is of it) is usually made of chain/scale mail.

Were you to bother to rate their typical outfits in terms of literal armor protection I assume you could say Red Sonja wins that fight, especially since her nipples are typically covered by at least one little bit of coin-sized metal. ;)

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In the cases of that, maybe

In the cases of that, maybe it's not sexist, but rather the fantasy setting isn't for you.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Brand X wrote:

So then, the chain mail bikini isn't sexist, as not everyone goes around in it and the male counterpart goes around in even less protection than a chain mail bikini.

An article of clothing is never sexist. It's It's use within a work and/or prominence in said work that can, however, make it a part of the sexism of the product as a whole.

What do you mean by "the male counterpart goes around in less"? Do you mean conan? The loin cloth? What are you even talking about?

Of course I meant Conan. Who else would be Sonja's counterpart?

He lacks protective armor.

Really?

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Yes. Really.

Yes. Really.

Even this one...

Isn't any better than a chain mail bra.

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... All of those are either

... All of those are either Arnold, or depictions of Conan based on Arnold's campy version of the character for the screen.

Conan wore armor when it was available to him in the books.

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Doesn't matter. It's a

Doesn't matter. It's a version of Conan.

Though, if we go by your comment...

...Sonja not in a chain mail bikini.

Therefore the cries about the chain mail bikini are now void. As she has been depicted in more.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Sure if the fantasy setting you're talking about typically provides everyone suits of full plate armor then -maybe- your argument would carry some weight. But what if the fantasy setting in question establishes that EVERYONE (both males and females) exclusively wears relatively skimpy outfits? A super quick example off the top of my head is the Dothraki culture in Game of Thrones. Even though suits of full plate armor exist in the world they live in they remain culturally opposed to wearing metal armor. Now to be fair there doesn't seem to be many (any?) female Dothraki warriors but my reasonable guess would be that if they did exist they'd look closer to Red Sonja than Brienne of Tarth.

Hypothetical Dothraki warrior women would probably wear the same sort of armor as the men which consists of a chest guard and shoulder pads or at the very least straps of hardened leather around soft spots such as the stomach.

Yes, closer to Red Sonja than Brienne of Tarth, but likely more armored than the former.

The key would be that it would be "culturally appropriate" for the Dothraki culture. If it had been established that male Dothraki warriors ONLY wore Conan-styled leather loincloths into battle I would assume their female counterparts would ONLY wear the female equivalent (a leather bikini perhaps).

Project_Hero wrote:

Yes, there are exceptions due to cultures, traditions, and setting dependant things (not a lot of iron, for example) but as a whole most wouldn't choose a chainmail bikini over any other sort of actual protection.

Again you're making the mistake of assuming that people in any fantasy setting would favor the "most protection" possible in combat.

What if the fantasy setting in question involved people who believed their gods would curse them if they showed "cowardice" in battle, in this case "cowardice" would equate to wearing ANY protective armor. Remember even in the real world there are historical examples (e.g. the British Celts) where warriors (both male and female I might add) would essentially fight nude just because it not only freaked out their opponents but it showed how brave they were to face their enemies like that.

Project_Hero wrote:

Various leather armors, chain shirts, chainmail, breast plates, etc. Even in a setting with magical protections having some actual armor on makes sense in the case of magic failing, being disenchanted, or otherwise rendered inert.

Again you're making assumptions that can't fairly be made in these contexts. What "makes sense to you" doesn't necessarily apply in all situations.

Project_Hero wrote:

What doesn't make sense and what doesn't work would be a warrior woman of westeros wearing a chain mail bikini of her own volition. Which is what we usually end up seeing with a lot of fantasy art, women in skimpy armor next to men in much more practical armor. If more practical armor exists it makes more sense that a warrior would wear practical armor.

The sartorial details of most "warrior women in Westeros" are clearly different than the typical norms of most "fantasy" examples. But even here I can cite you an example of Westerosi female warriors (the so-called "Sand Snakes") who clearly DON'T favor wearing the most protective armor available:

Ironically in this case the one in the middle that's wearing the "most protective" armor is essentially wearing a leather version of "boobplate". ;)

Project_Hero wrote:

Unless they're suicidally over confident/arrogant or a complete fool.

To be absolutely fair the Sand Snakes were in fact somewhat "over confident/arrogant" but they didn't uniformly die because they all chose to not wear the best armor possible. Case in point one of them was choked to death by Euron Greyjoy using her own whip against her.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

I don't know if I would say it's what society considers normal, but rather, no one wants to see a link between obesity and beer.

Same with soda companies. People don't want to be reminded that "Hey, this item you're buying will make you fat, as it's loaded with high fructose corn syrup."

However, I do agree, the games tend to have options, usually most, that have no "OMG! TO SEXY!" look to them.

Not to mention, if this is an issue with people, they may be playing the wrong game, as people go around in tights. :p

While I do personally prefer the traditional tights and flights superhero(ine) at least as my main character I would not rule out a Thor / Wonder Woman type high fantasy / sword and sorcery hero type later on.

Sometimes it does mix well:

IMAGE(https://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/9781401280215_p0_v2_s550x406.jpg)

Great read BTW

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Not saying they can't mix.

Not saying they can't mix. What I'm saying, is if you think this type of setting won't have unrealistic armor, you're in the wrong game.

Which, if we go realistic, those who talk about it, skip everything else.

Like, oh, hey, I can regenerate from every injury. I'm immortal. I also look great! I'm so gonna wear less and less.

Just look at some of the celebrities we have now. Not wearing much.

Let's look at the reactions of some of the people who don't know anything.

Jennifer Lawerence wears a dress for a photo shoot without a jacket and first reaction is "Sexist society" when it fact it was her choice and she wanted to show it off and was willing to go with the discomfort. Lots of people in this thread would've been in the "Sexism!" part of that without a thought.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Not saying they can't mix. What I'm saying, is if you think this type of setting won't have unrealistic armor, you're in the wrong game.

Which, if we go realistic, those who talk about it, skip everything else.

Like, oh, hey, I can regenerate from every injury. I'm immortal. I also look great! I'm so gonna wear less and less.

Just look at some of the celebrities we have now. Not wearing much.

Let's look at the reactions of some of the people who don't know anything.

Jennifer Lawerence wears a dress for a photo shoot without a jacket and first reaction is "Sexist society" when it fact it was her choice and she wanted to show it off and was willing to go with the discomfort. Lots of people in this thread would've been in the "Sexism!" part of that without a thought.

No one thinks this type of setting wont have any unrealistic armor. No one has claimed that. In fact except for you people were talking about sword and sorcery fantasy and not about super hero fiction.

What do celebrities have to do with anything? If you're comparing them to super heroes well... They don't regularly engage in combat.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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To Lothic:

To Lothic:

Creating justifications for a chain mail bikini doesn't make it's place anywhere more realistic nor more suitable.

Celts invented chainmail. And wore iron cuirasses, chain-wrought according to an excerpt from Diodorus Sirculus, Library of History, V-30. It does say that some did fight naked but this doesn't seem like it was common practice. Celts used armor if they could afford it.

Sand Snakes had armor. They just don't wear it 24/7. If they were planning to go into a battle they'd probably want to wear it.

Even their most arogant warrior who favors their agility wore armor.

Edit: and it seems that illustrations based more closely on the books had him in even heavier looking armor. Not sure if the same can be said for the Sand Snakes, however.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Not saying they can't mix. What I'm saying, is if you think this type of setting won't have unrealistic armor, you're in the wrong game.

Which, if we go realistic, those who talk about it, skip everything else.

Like, oh, hey, I can regenerate from every injury. I'm immortal. I also look great! I'm so gonna wear less and less.

Just look at some of the celebrities we have now. Not wearing much.

Let's look at the reactions of some of the people who don't know anything.

Jennifer Lawerence wears a dress for a photo shoot without a jacket and first reaction is "Sexist society" when it fact it was her choice and she wanted to show it off and was willing to go with the discomfort. Lots of people in this thread would've been in the "Sexism!" part of that without a thought.

No one thinks this type of setting wont have any unrealistic armor. No one has claimed that. In fact except for you people were talking about sword and sorcery fantasy and not about super hero fiction.

What do celebrities have to do with anything? If you're comparing them to super heroes well... They don't regularly engage in combat.

Same rules apply.

That's the problem.

Don't like the rules of that sword and sorcery setting. Don't play in it. In sword and sorcery you can do anything as well, because of that whole sorcery aspect.

Want to say the female warrior can kick ass in a chain mail bikini, then that works for your setting. Don't like that someone said it was okay in their setting? Don't play in it.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Even their most arogant warrior who favors their agility wore armor.

Edit: and it seems that illustrations based more closely on the books had him in even heavier looking armor. Not sure if the same can be said for the Sand Snakes, however.

That's not armor.

That's a leather shirt that will get sliced through by any blade.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Not saying they can't mix. What I'm saying, is if you think this type of setting won't have unrealistic armor, you're in the wrong game.

Which, if we go realistic, those who talk about it, skip everything else.

Like, oh, hey, I can regenerate from every injury. I'm immortal. I also look great! I'm so gonna wear less and less.

Just look at some of the celebrities we have now. Not wearing much.

Let's look at the reactions of some of the people who don't know anything.

Jennifer Lawerence wears a dress for a photo shoot without a jacket and first reaction is "Sexist society" when it fact it was her choice and she wanted to show it off and was willing to go with the discomfort. Lots of people in this thread would've been in the "Sexism!" part of that without a thought.

No one thinks this type of setting wont have any unrealistic armor. No one has claimed that. In fact except for you people were talking about sword and sorcery fantasy and not about super hero fiction.

What do celebrities have to do with anything? If you're comparing them to super heroes well... They don't regularly engage in combat.

Same rules apply.

That's the problem.

Don't like the rules of that sword and sorcery setting. Don't play in it. In sword and sorcery you can do anything as well, because of that whole sorcery aspect.

Want to say the female warrior can kick ass in a chain mail bikini, then that works for your setting. Don't like that someone said it was okay in their setting? Don't play in it.

What are you even talking about? What rules? And no in sword and sorcery you can't do anything. You can't, for example, pull out a ray gun and start vaporizing people. There's a thing called suspension of disbelief and there's many things that can break it. Magic doesn't just mean anything can happen now.

If you have a sword and sorcery setting and you introduce the concept that magic is a rare thing that takes multiple practitioners and a long ritual to do any spell then introduce a city full of flying lazer shooting wizards you have broken suspension of disbelief. People wont buy into the city of flying wizards because it's already been established that magic doesn't work that way.

Again setting and the rules in a setting matter. If better armor exists in a setting it becomes a hard sell for why a character chooses to be in a chainmail bikini. You introduce a female warrior who'll do anything to get an edge in a fight, then give them armor that has giant holes where her vitals are that character no longer makes sense. It's poor world building at that point.

Why does batman wear armor when he used to just wear tights? It makes more sense for him as a character -to- wear armor. Same with any sort of warrior woman. It makes -more- sense for them to want to be, you know, better warriors.

As for the Oberyn Martell picture... That's armor. It's leather armor. That will stop slashes from small blades pretty well. It might in reality -be- a leather shirt because of costume budgets and making something for an actor to move comfortably in but in the world it exists in it is armor.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Brand X wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Not saying they can't mix. What I'm saying, is if you think this type of setting won't have unrealistic armor, you're in the wrong game.

Which, if we go realistic, those who talk about it, skip everything else.

Like, oh, hey, I can regenerate from every injury. I'm immortal. I also look great! I'm so gonna wear less and less.

Just look at some of the celebrities we have now. Not wearing much.

Let's look at the reactions of some of the people who don't know anything.

Jennifer Lawerence wears a dress for a photo shoot without a jacket and first reaction is "Sexist society" when it fact it was her choice and she wanted to show it off and was willing to go with the discomfort. Lots of people in this thread would've been in the "Sexism!" part of that without a thought.

No one thinks this type of setting wont have any unrealistic armor. No one has claimed that. In fact except for you people were talking about sword and sorcery fantasy and not about super hero fiction.

What do celebrities have to do with anything? If you're comparing them to super heroes well... They don't regularly engage in combat.

Same rules apply.

That's the problem.

Don't like the rules of that sword and sorcery setting. Don't play in it. In sword and sorcery you can do anything as well, because of that whole sorcery aspect.

Want to say the female warrior can kick ass in a chain mail bikini, then that works for your setting. Don't like that someone said it was okay in their setting? Don't play in it.

What are you even talking about? What rules? And no in sword and sorcery you can't do anything. You can't, for example, pull out a ray gun and start vaporizing people. There's a thing called suspension of disbelief and there's many things that can break it. Magic doesn't just mean anything can happen now.

If you have a sword and sorcery setting and you introduce the concept that magic is a rare thing that takes multiple practitioners and a long ritual to do any spell then introduce a city full of flying lazer shooting wizards you have broken suspension of disbelief. People wont buy into the city of flying wizards because it's already been established that magic doesn't work that way.

Again setting and the rules in a setting matter. If better armor exists in a setting it becomes a hard sell for why a character chooses to be in a chainmail bikini. You introduce a female warrior who'll do anything to get an edge in a fight, then give them armor that has giant holes where her vitals are that character no longer makes sense. It's poor world building at that point.

Why does batman wear armor when he used to just wear tights? It makes more sense for him as a character -to- wear armor. Same with any sort of warrior woman. It makes -more- sense for them to want to be, you know, better warriors.

As for the Oberyn Martell picture... That's armor. It's leather armor. That will stop slashes from small blades pretty well. It might in reality -be- a leather shirt because of costume budgets and making something for an actor to move comfortably in but in the world it exists in it is armor.

No duh. Now you're just trying to pull anything out of a hat.

Sword & Sorcery settings means that YES in that setting one doesn't need to wear full plate or it could mean, NO. Sword & Sorcery setting can be anything the creator wants it to be. It's not a realistic setting.

Let's go with your realistic setting for sword and sorcery that you claim to love so much. Why isn't the mage in full plate? Why isn't the rogue going to battle in full plate? Those offer way more protection from someone going to try to stab them, than cloth or even leather clothes.

So, for a sword and sorcery setting, one can in fact, survive in a chain mail bikini, if the creator so chooses.

Warrior women...I think of the Amazons...old style sculptures/paintings of them, don't depict them in armor, but rather cloth.

Small blade will stab right through the leather. It won't stop the blunt force from a club as well as plate. But sure...let's go with "It'll stop a slash from a small blade." as the logical reason that it counts as armor. Or better yet, no, you know that leather shirt isn't armor. It's not going to stop many of the weapons as well as Plate would.

So why isn't he in plate?

As for Batman. It also makes more sense for him to get laughed out of the Justice League as being a real threat, but it gets accepted that he's there. :p

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Brand X wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Not saying they can't mix. What I'm saying, is if you think this type of setting won't have unrealistic armor, you're in the wrong game.

Which, if we go realistic, those who talk about it, skip everything else.

Like, oh, hey, I can regenerate from every injury. I'm immortal. I also look great! I'm so gonna wear less and less.

Just look at some of the celebrities we have now. Not wearing much.

Let's look at the reactions of some of the people who don't know anything.

Jennifer Lawerence wears a dress for a photo shoot without a jacket and first reaction is "Sexist society" when it fact it was her choice and she wanted to show it off and was willing to go with the discomfort. Lots of people in this thread would've been in the "Sexism!" part of that without a thought.

No one thinks this type of setting wont have any unrealistic armor. No one has claimed that. In fact except for you people were talking about sword and sorcery fantasy and not about super hero fiction.

What do celebrities have to do with anything? If you're comparing them to super heroes well... They don't regularly engage in combat.

Same rules apply.

That's the problem.

Don't like the rules of that sword and sorcery setting. Don't play in it. In sword and sorcery you can do anything as well, because of that whole sorcery aspect.

Want to say the female warrior can kick ass in a chain mail bikini, then that works for your setting. Don't like that someone said it was okay in their setting? Don't play in it.

What are you even talking about? What rules? And no in sword and sorcery you can't do anything. You can't, for example, pull out a ray gun and start vaporizing people. There's a thing called suspension of disbelief and there's many things that can break it. Magic doesn't just mean anything can happen now.

If you have a sword and sorcery setting and you introduce the concept that magic is a rare thing that takes multiple practitioners and a long ritual to do any spell then introduce a city full of flying lazer shooting wizards you have broken suspension of disbelief. People wont buy into the city of flying wizards because it's already been established that magic doesn't work that way.

Again setting and the rules in a setting matter. If better armor exists in a setting it becomes a hard sell for why a character chooses to be in a chainmail bikini. You introduce a female warrior who'll do anything to get an edge in a fight, then give them armor that has giant holes where her vitals are that character no longer makes sense. It's poor world building at that point.

Why does batman wear armor when he used to just wear tights? It makes more sense for him as a character -to- wear armor. Same with any sort of warrior woman. It makes -more- sense for them to want to be, you know, better warriors.

As for the Oberyn Martell picture... That's armor. It's leather armor. That will stop slashes from small blades pretty well. It might in reality -be- a leather shirt because of costume budgets and making something for an actor to move comfortably in but in the world it exists in it is armor.

Have you ever actually made or worn armor? You have no idea what you are talking about.

edit: also, the earliest chainmail found was persian from 359 bc.

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High, low or heroic fantasy?

High, low or heroic fantasy? There is also romantic fantasy but that's a different topic.

High fantasy, for the most part, is set in a well defined fictional world which follows an internal consistency. Lord of the Rings and to a lesser extent Game of Thrones are examples of High Fantasy. A chain mail bikini is unlikely to be worn as armor in this setting but you may find it as a fashion choice.

Low fantasy is, for simplicity sake, our world with fantastical elements included. Harry Potter, MCU and even ancient Greek mythology are examples of this. Because this is our world with some cool stuff added the inclination is to idealize it's protagonists and clothing/armor is designed functional but more appealing.

Heroic fantasy is the wild card of fantasy settings. It can be pretty much anything from our world to a fictional one. The defining feature of heroic fantasy is the characters involved. Anachronistic characters, even more idealized than in Low fantasy, populate the pages or dominate the screen of these depictions. Conan (books and comic), marvel comics, The DC cinematic universe, many RPG games like World of Warcraft or D&D... The list goes on. This type of fantasy is the least concerned with reality and the clothing represents that. In this setting if the armor looks cool then it works. In most cases the clothing of the character is shorthand for the characters personality, role or abilities.

The problem isn't what women wear in the comics, books, movies and games. It's how women are portrayed in the various media that is the real problem. Objectification by making women prizes to be won (or rescued). Archaic gender roles such as the character that needs protecting or being subservient to men in some fashion. Stereotypical hyper specific roles such as the seducer, shrew or nurturer.

When you have female characters that are nuanced, independent with their own goals then the clothing they wear is a reflection of that character's personality regardless if it is a chain mail bikini or a suit of full plate armor.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

No duh. Now you're just trying to pull anything out of a hat.

Sword & Sorcery settings means that YES in that setting one doesn't need to wear full plate or it could mean, NO. Sword & Sorcery setting can be anything the creator wants it to be. It's not a realistic setting.

Let's go with your realistic setting for sword and sorcery that you claim to love so much. Why isn't the mage in full plate? Why isn't the rogue going to battle in full plate? Those offer way more protection from someone going to try to stab them, than cloth or even leather clothes.

So, for a sword and sorcery setting, one can in fact, survive in a chain mail bikini, if the creator so chooses.

Warrior women...I think of the Amazons...old style sculptures/paintings of them, don't depict them in armor, but rather cloth.

Small blade will stab right through the leather. It won't stop the blunt force from a club as well as plate. But sure...let's go with "It'll stop a slash from a small blade." as the logical reason that it counts as armor. Or better yet, no, you know that leather shirt isn't armor. It's not going to stop many of the weapons as well as Plate would.

So why isn't he in plate?

As for Batman. It also makes more sense for him to get laughed out of the Justice League as being a real threat, but it gets accepted that he's there. :p

Usually in sword and sorcery settings mages don't wear armor for in universe reasons like armor messes with spellcasting somehow. Out of universe reasons it's because having a person in robes and usually another indicator like a staff can easily indicate to the viewer/reader that it's a magic user.

Full plate and other metal armors are believed to make a lot of noise when moving around (how true this is I have no idea) as such a rogue, or one who values stealth, would prefer lighter armor made of quieter materials when sneaking around.

Also wizards and rogues are generally depicted as physically weaker than warriors making heavier armors a more of a liability than an asset. This is likely also why you see a lot of women in chain bikini and men in full plate come to think of it.

Old school sculptures and art don't depict anyone wearing much of anything. Also do you have examples?

No, it wont stop mamy of the things that plate would. Which is why it's light armor. Likely he could have gotten himself better armor but the man was arrogant, overconfident, and angry.

As for Batman he makes as much sense in the Justice League as anyone else. He's shown himself as capable despite his handicap of not having powers and is one of the smartest people in the DC universe. It'd be dumb to not have him in the justice league at least in some sort of support role.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

No duh. Now you're just trying to pull anything out of a hat.

Sword & Sorcery settings means that YES in that setting one doesn't need to wear full plate or it could mean, NO. Sword & Sorcery setting can be anything the creator wants it to be. It's not a realistic setting.

Let's go with your realistic setting for sword and sorcery that you claim to love so much. Why isn't the mage in full plate? Why isn't the rogue going to battle in full plate? Those offer way more protection from someone going to try to stab them, than cloth or even leather clothes.

So, for a sword and sorcery setting, one can in fact, survive in a chain mail bikini, if the creator so chooses.

Warrior women...I think of the Amazons...old style sculptures/paintings of them, don't depict them in armor, but rather cloth.

Small blade will stab right through the leather. It won't stop the blunt force from a club as well as plate. But sure...let's go with "It'll stop a slash from a small blade." as the logical reason that it counts as armor. Or better yet, no, you know that leather shirt isn't armor. It's not going to stop many of the weapons as well as Plate would.

So why isn't he in plate?

As for Batman. It also makes more sense for him to get laughed out of the Justice League as being a real threat, but it gets accepted that he's there. :p

The "Amazons weren't depicted as wearing armor" thing is actually not a valid point of argument here, due to the fact that the ancient greeks depicted everyone nude or the next best thing to it, including their own soldiers, the soldiers of opposing armies, their heroes, and more, due to the fact that it was just the way it was done to glory in the human form. Their art isn't really a trustworthy source of information for... basically anything but storytelling, really :P

As for why people don't constantly go around in plate, why aren't you wearing some right now? Cost and comfort. The heaviest armor you're trained for is another matter from what you WANT to wear, and most everybody that could afford plate armor for a battlefield did, including some archers and basically all nobles, because it's the armor that means when a mace is coming for your noggin you won't get murdered outright.

You bring up a rogue wearing full plate, without identifying what a "rogue" means. Do you mean an assassin? In that case, they're trying to remain unnoticed, so silence and darkness are their bywords, and plate is highly noticable. Thieves? If they had the money for plate armor, they wouldn't be stealing. A pirate? They'll sink into the water if they wear heavy metal armor and fall off the ship, and there's a lot of heavy work to be done on a ship, which doesn't allow for bogging your body down with a ton of weight unless you're actively strength training. An evil courtesan or vizier? They're trying to not disturb the public functions they have to attend by being garbed for war.

Then you get into mages - thing is "battlemages" are a classic element of fantasy storytelling, and generally ARE wearing metal armor, while also being trained with weaponry to mix in with their spellcasting. That's not common because most mages in stories are either geeks that are thrust into the world of combat, or magic is so stupidly potent that anything that can get through it will ignore plate armor like tissue paper, and there's no opportunity in the timeframe of the story to sit the character down, get them experienced with wearing heavy armor, and then also commission a suit of full plate that will fit them, assuming they ever have the money to get such a thing.

also, you bring up "cloth and even leather" clothes. The way you phrased that means that you very likely fall into the same trap as most people in trusting DnD to tell you what's good armor and what isn't, because by and large, cloth armor gambesons (which were often worn under metal armor as an underarmor and extra layer of protection) could stop blades and blunt impacts on their own, oftentimes better than hardened leather. Gambesons were actually the armor of choice for people who couldn't afford metal armor because they'd stop an arrow at long distance or a blade at close distance from getting through, while being about as easy to wear as an overly thick winter coat. "Studded Leather" is similarly a crock, due to the fact that only the outer layer was made up of soft leather, while the "studs" were actually rivets holding the light leather cover over pieces of ringmail and small plates. This was called "Lamellar" armor, but "studded leather" somehow worked its way into the minds of writers as better armor than cloth gambesons for... whatever reason. Likely the same reason people think knights swords were superheavy.

That said, I do agree with you. Plot armor and storytelling is the be-all-end-all of fantasy storytelling, because how much you're wearing has no bearing on what you're capable of when the storyteller just wants to tell a story with a specific aesthetic. Given the choice between "high realism" for realistically designed armor and "pure fantasy" setups, I'll go for the semi-realistic stuff every time, but that doesn't make the super fantasy stuff any less valid just because it isn't real-world accurate. I don't expect every story to think through every little thing just because I'm a medieval weapons/armor nerd. Conan can go around as he likes in nothing but a leather belt if that's what works for him; I don't really care, as long as the storytelling is good, but I'll find the storytelling easier to swallow the fewer things are pushing on my suspension of disbelief. I feel that superhero stories are in the same boat; if you can get away with not wearing anything more than tights because you have a defensive power, great! I don't agree it's wise, since powers can fail, but providing that kind of explanation helps a lot.

Note, this isn't trying to spark an argument. I'm just here to clear the air regarding a few statements that were made erroneously or from a place of unwitting ignorance. While my opinions on fantasy armor are fairly clear (I strongly prefer realistic representations) it's by no means the only valid choice, and while I'm liable to pursue protective armor on my supers characters, I'm of the opinion that Superheroes are designed more on Flash than Substance. Flashy outfits, flashy powers, and the like are just more fun in a superhero setting than everybody getting murdered by the guy who can punch out a tank, or that guy with the bullets, armor notwithstanding. If everybody wore body armor because otherwise they'll die, that's not superheroes, that's just modern fiction with maybe some fantastical elements. It also makes it so that when someone DOES show up in actual body armor, it says things about them, rather than just being the natural assumption. That's good stuff.

... man this turned out way longer than I intended.

An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Creating justifications for a chain mail bikini doesn't make it's place anywhere more realistic nor more suitable.

I could easily say the same: Creating justifications for always wearing head-to-toe plate armor doesn't make its place anywhere more realistic nor more suitable. There are countless reasons why sensible warriors would NOT want to wear the kind of full armor you seem to think everyone should favor. As yet another Game of Thrones example I give you (in meme form):

This was of course in reference to the fact that Bronn beat a knight who was much more heavily armored than he was. In fact IIRC Bronn was even offered a shield during this fight and he rejected it for what turned out to be good reason because all a shield did for the knight was tire him out more quickly.

Stop trying to make the argument that fantasy characters would never chose to wear "unprotective clothing" based on your ASSUMPTION that they would always want something better regardless of any mitigating circumstances. Your core assumption here is flawed no matter how many times you repeat it.

Project_Hero wrote:

Celts invented chainmail. And wore iron cuirasses, chain-wrought according to an excerpt from Diodorus Sirculus, Library of History, V-30. It does say that some did fight naked but this doesn't seem like it was common practice. Celts used armor if they could afford it.

The point was there are plenty of real world historical examples of people choosing to go into battle specifically NOT equipped with the best armor they likely had available to them. People either wear or don't wear armor for various reasons; your continued reflexive assumption that everyone would ALWAYS want to wear the heaviest, best protective armor is just that, an assumption.

You need to stop making the mistake of assuming everyone would always want to do something even if that something seems to "make logical sense" to you. Clearly you are -not- taking all the critical factors into account.

Project_Hero wrote:

Sand Snakes had armor. They just don't wear it 24/7. If they were planning to go into a battle they'd probably want to wear it.

Yes but the Sand Snakes were also very well connected women working with the likes of Oberyn Martel and Ellaria Sand who could have probably afforded them the heaviest full plate armor Westeros could produce yet seemed to CHOOSE to wear relatively light leather cuirass type armor at best. Yet another break with your supposed "rule" that "all fantasy characters will opt to use the best armor available to them".

Project_Hero wrote:

Even their most arogant warrior who favors their agility wore armor.

Edit: and it seems that illustrations based more closely on the books had him in even heavier looking armor. Not sure if the same can be said for the Sand Snakes, however.

Well as Brand X pointed out calling what Oberyn's wearing here "armor" is incredibly generous, especially when compared to The Mountain's actual suit of plate armor shown in this pic. Unless we can assume that "leather vest(?)" is somehow like a +10 magical artifact I hardly think it could deflect a wasp sting much less anything actually deadly.

Beyond that I can once again cite the fact that Oberyn here is a very rich noble - surely he could have afforded a very impressive suit of field plate yet went with this very thin "snakeskin" affair probably more out of a sense of being fashionable than anything else.

In summary I'm not trying to claim all fantasy women should ALWAYS be forced to wear chain mail bikinis in exclusion of anything else. I'm also not trying to claim all fantasy women would NEVER want/need to wear more protective clothing if it were available to be worn. I'm simply stating that SOME fantasy women might wear chain mail bikinis (or their equivalent) simply because they actually WANT/LIKE to wear clothing like that. Your presumptive real world notions of "realism" or "suitability" simply don't matter in these cases of fantastical settings.

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Halae wrote:
Halae wrote:
Brand X wrote:

No duh. Now you're just trying to pull anything out of a hat.

Sword & Sorcery settings means that YES in that setting one doesn't need to wear full plate or it could mean, NO. Sword & Sorcery setting can be anything the creator wants it to be. It's not a realistic setting.

Let's go with your realistic setting for sword and sorcery that you claim to love so much. Why isn't the mage in full plate? Why isn't the rogue going to battle in full plate? Those offer way more protection from someone going to try to stab them, than cloth or even leather clothes.

So, for a sword and sorcery setting, one can in fact, survive in a chain mail bikini, if the creator so chooses.

Warrior women...I think of the Amazons...old style sculptures/paintings of them, don't depict them in armor, but rather cloth.

Small blade will stab right through the leather. It won't stop the blunt force from a club as well as plate. But sure...let's go with "It'll stop a slash from a small blade." as the logical reason that it counts as armor. Or better yet, no, you know that leather shirt isn't armor. It's not going to stop many of the weapons as well as Plate would.

So why isn't he in plate?

As for Batman. It also makes more sense for him to get laughed out of the Justice League as being a real threat, but it gets accepted that he's there. :p

The "Amazons weren't depicted as wearing armor" thing is actually not a valid point of argument here, due to the fact that the ancient greeks depicted everyone nude or the next best thing to it, including their own soldiers, the soldiers of opposing armies, their heroes, and more, due to the fact that it was just the way it was done to glory in the human form. Their art isn't really a trustworthy source of information for... basically anything but storytelling, really :P

As for why people don't constantly go around in plate, why aren't you wearing some right now? Cost and comfort. The heaviest armor you're trained for is another matter from what you WANT to wear, and most everybody that could afford plate armor for a battlefield did, including some archers and basically all nobles, because it's the armor that means when a mace is coming for your noggin you won't get murdered outright.

You bring up a rogue wearing full plate, without identifying what a "rogue" means. Do you mean an assassin? In that case, they're trying to remain unnoticed, so silence and darkness are their bywords, and plate is highly noticable. Thieves? If they had the money for plate armor, they wouldn't be stealing. A pirate? They'll sink into the water if they wear heavy metal armor and fall off the ship, and there's a lot of heavy work to be done on a ship, which doesn't allow for bogging your body down with a ton of weight unless you're actively strength training. An evil courtesan or vizier? They're trying to not disturb the public functions they have to attend by being garbed for war.

Then you get into mages - thing is "battlemages" are a classic element of fantasy storytelling, and generally ARE wearing metal armor, while also being trained with weaponry to mix in with their spellcasting. That's not common because most mages in stories are either geeks that are thrust into the world of combat, or magic is so stupidly potent that anything that can get through it will ignore plate armor like tissue paper, and there's no opportunity in the timeframe of the story to sit the character down, get them experienced with wearing heavy armor, and then also commission a suit of full plate that will fit them, assuming they ever have the money to get such a thing.

also, you bring up "cloth and even leather" clothes. The way you phrased that means that you very likely fall into the same trap as most people in trusting DnD to tell you what's good armor and what isn't, because by and large, cloth armor gambesons (which were often worn under metal armor as an underarmor and extra layer of protection) could stop blades and blunt impacts on their own, oftentimes better than hardened leather. Gambesons were actually the armor of choice for people who couldn't afford metal armor because they'd stop an arrow at long distance or a blade at close distance from getting through, while being about as easy to wear as an overly thick winter coat. "Studded Leather" is similarly a crock, due to the fact that only the outer layer was made up of soft leather, while the "studs" were actually rivets holding the light leather cover over pieces of ringmail and small plates. This was called "Lamellar" armor, but "studded leather" somehow worked its way into the minds of writers as better armor than cloth gambesons for... whatever reason. Likely the same reason people think knights swords were superheavy.

That said, I do agree with you. Plot armor and storytelling is the be-all-end-all of fantasy storytelling, because how much you're wearing has no bearing on what you're capable of when the storyteller just wants to tell a story with a specific aesthetic. Given the choice between "high realism" for realistically designed armor and "pure fantasy" setups, I'll go for the semi-realistic stuff every time, but that doesn't make the super fantasy stuff any less valid just because it isn't real-world accurate. I don't expect every story to think through every little thing just because I'm a medieval weapons/armor nerd. Conan can go around as he likes in nothing but a leather belt if that's what works for him; I don't really care, as long as the storytelling is good, but I'll find the storytelling easier to swallow the fewer things are pushing on my suspension of disbelief. I feel that superhero stories are in the same boat; if you can get away with not wearing anything more than tights because you have a defensive power, great! I don't agree it's wise, since powers can fail, but providing that kind of explanation helps a lot.

Note, this isn't trying to spark an argument. I'm just here to clear the air regarding a few statements that were made erroneously or from a place of unwitting ignorance. While my opinions on fantasy armor are fairly clear (I strongly prefer realistic representations) it's by no means the only valid choice, and while I'm liable to pursue protective armor on my supers characters, I'm of the opinion that Superheroes are designed more on Flash than Substance. Flashy outfits, flashy powers, and the like are just more fun in a superhero setting than everybody getting murdered by the guy who can punch out a tank, or that guy with the bullets, armor notwithstanding. If everybody wore body armor because otherwise they'll die, that's not superheroes, that's just modern fiction with maybe some fantastical elements. It also makes it so that when someone DOES show up in actual body armor, it says things about them, rather than just being the natural assumption. That's good stuff.

... man this turned out way longer than I intended.

It doesn't count as wearing just cloth, if you're wearing metal with it.

Not to mention, that Gambesons are not what are usually worn when one talks of fabric. And we go back to mages in cloth. People are willing to give it a go, because of some rule that makes no sense (can't cast magic in armor). However, let's say metal interrupts magic. That still leaves the better material of leather. Not to mention, if we go back to Gambesons, you're not seeing the mages in those. You're seeing them in bath robes.

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Bronn used tactics and smarts

Bronn used tactics and smarts to win the fight. And he also usually wears armor, in fact he is in that meme.

Seems he favors some protection over none. Given his station he likely couldn't afford plate so it would seem he got himself the best armor he could get.

Except in the celts example they specifically did use the best armor they had access to. The ones who couldn't afford armor decided that wearing no armor was pretty much the same as going into battle naked so what a story that would be regardless if they lived or died, and maybe it'd have a bit of shock value over wearing pants.

The ladies there don't look strong enough that they could wear heavy armor without it hindering them. So that is likely the strongest, lightest armor they can wear without it becoming a liability. Also them buffing up would make the surprise of them actually being capable warriors work a lot less and they wouldn't be able to get into a lot of places they otherwise would while looking like normal (non-combat capable) women.

Oberyn's leather could be over some form of chain, it's unknown. But likely that would fair better against attacks than his normal clothes.

I am also not saying that all fantasy women. But all fantasy warriors should. If their character wants to wear something like a chain mail bikini then it should then be part of their character. A warrior running around in a chain mail bikini while having access to better armor requires an explaination even if that explaination is just "I (the author/character) just like how it looks"

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

I am also not saying that all fantasy women. But all fantasy warriors should. If their character wants to wear something like a chain mail bikini then it should then be part of their character. A warrior running around in a chain mail bikini while having access to better armor requires an explaination even if that explaination is just "I (the author/character) just like how it looks"

Is this a reversal of your earlier position? Where you said this:

Project_Hero wrote:

Most of the time when the impracticality of a fantasy lady's armor is brought up it's usually because it exists in a setting alongside male armor that covers everything and is very practical. If magical means of protection exist in a setting then every warrior should be dressed in a similar fashion if they have access to it. Even with access to magical means of protection there's no good in universe justification for wearing a chainmail bikini as opposed to... Any other sort of clothing (unless, I suppose, in the setting a woman's vital organs are all stored in their breasts and crotch).

Honestly it's very difficult to understand what your point is because you seem to change it to suit your current argument.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Bronn used tactics and smarts to win the fight. And he also usually wears armor, in fact he is in that meme.

Seems he favors some protection over none. Given his station he likely couldn't afford plate so it would seem he got himself the best armor he could get.

Perhaps he couldn't afford plate at the beginning when he first meets Tyrion. But clearly he's gained a lot of money/influence over the course of the story. Why hasn't he upgraded his basic outfit/armor to match?

Project_Hero wrote:

Except in the celts example they specifically did use the best armor they had access to. The ones who couldn't afford armor decided that wearing no armor was pretty much the same as going into battle naked so what a story that would be regardless if they lived or died, and maybe it'd have a bit of shock value over wearing pants.

Once again you are ASSUMING all Celts throughout all of history ALWAYS wore the strongest, heaviest armor they could. How can you possibly continue to keep making these gross sweeping generalizations based on this reflexively simplistic notion of yours?

Project_Hero wrote:

The ladies there don't look strong enough that they could wear heavy armor without it hindering them. So that is likely the strongest, lightest armor they can wear without it becoming a liability. Also them buffing up would make the surprise of them actually being capable warriors work a lot less and they wouldn't be able to get into a lot of places they otherwise would while looking like normal (non-combat capable) women.

Finally you agree there are scenarios where a fantasy character is NOT going to reflexively wear head-to-toe armor just because "theoretically" it seems like it'd make the most sense to do so. Progress at least.

Project_Hero wrote:

Oberyn's leather could be over some form of chain, it's unknown. But likely that would fair better against attacks than his normal clothes.

Oh I suppose that leather he's wearing is probably more protective than say a silk shirt... but not by much judging by its apparent thickness. In any event there's no way he's wearing chain -under- that tight fitting vestment - you're just grasping at straws with this.

Project_Hero wrote:

I am also not saying that all fantasy women. But all fantasy warriors should. If their character wants to wear something like a chain mail bikini then it should then be part of their character. A warrior running around in a chain mail bikini while having access to better armor requires an explaination even if that explaination is just "I (the author/character) just like how it looks"

You say that "all fantasy warriors should wear full armor". Why? That seems to be the crux of your misconceptions here.

Is it because you can't wrap your head around the idea that "protection" can come in other forms? Why have you chosen to ASSUME that head-to-toe armor automatically equates to being a "better solution" for protection than wearing a chain mail bikini in a fantasy setting? That assumption might be true IN THE REAL WORLD but that's the point - we are NOT talking about the real world here. Ultimately this all seems to be a failure of imagination on your part.

I've already offered many possible "explanations" for the legitimacy of this kind of thing beyond the character simply deciding they like how they look wearing skimpy clothing. A fantasy setting allows for practically -anything- to be legitimate or reasonable within the context of the setting.

Magic for instance changes everything. Perhaps a female warrior is wearing a +50 bikini versus everything which would make it far more useful than any mere plate armor. Or (slightly more seriously) maybe the warrior in question is like Achilles and/or a demi-god who's otherwise nigh-invulnerable. Why the heck would anyone choose to wear full plate if no weapon can pierce their skin?

You've got to look past the relative limitations of the real world when you consider fantasy settings. Frankly it's trivially simple to come up with almost any "workable pretense" for why a chain mail bikini is a viable/acceptable option for a warrior in such settings.

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

I am also not saying that all fantasy women. But all fantasy warriors should. If their character wants to wear something like a chain mail bikini then it should then be part of their character. A warrior running around in a chain mail bikini while having access to better armor requires an explaination even if that explaination is just "I (the author/character) just like how it looks"

Is this a reversal of your earlier position? Where you said this:

Project_Hero wrote:

Most of the time when the impracticality of a fantasy lady's armor is brought up it's usually because it exists in a setting alongside male armor that covers everything and is very practical. If magical means of protection exist in a setting then every warrior should be dressed in a similar fashion if they have access to it. Even with access to magical means of protection there's no good in universe justification for wearing a chainmail bikini as opposed to... Any other sort of clothing (unless, I suppose, in the setting a woman's vital organs are all stored in their breasts and crotch).

Honestly it's very difficult to understand what your point is because you seem to change it to suit your current argument.

Yeah unfortunately he does tend to "evolve" his positions on things over time which makes arguing with him semi-pointless. Still I consider my back-n-forth with him as a sort of "verbal sparing" which does help to pass the time while I'm multi-tasking with other things. ;)

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Reading a thread with Lothic

Reading a thread with Lothic and Project Hero aguing is wonderful. It's like watching a wormhole inside a wormhole and the universe folding in on itself.

It may swallow us all, but what a ride.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Yeah unfortunately he does tend to "evolve" his positions on things over time which makes arguing with him semi-pointless. Still I consider my back-n-forth with him as a sort of "verbal sparing" which does help to pass the time while I'm multi-tasking with other things. ;)

I'm actually trying to understand what his point is. I'm not 100% convinced he is evolving his position in a revisionist manner, I think it's more he is unable to convey his thoughts completely.

If I was to wager a guess I think Hero is making multiple points all at once which obfuscate things. It seems like he is saying that he dislikes a lack of logical internal consistency of armor in fiction/art. He also dislikes over sexualization of females in the media, confusing it for sexism instead of objectification. He also finds an emphasis of a revealing aesthetic over a practicality in female armor design to be a result of men wanting to leer at half naked women. Most of all he finds most rationalizations (according to him) for the existence of sexy female armor to be dishonest and people should just admit they want to leer at sexy girls.

If I am correct then the inconsistency in his arguments is a result of him jumping back and forth between each of these points without making it clear which point he is focused on at a particular moment. Of course I'm probably wrong and Hero will post something that further confuses his position.

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The problem, here, seems to

The problem, here, seems to come from letting TV and artists define 'reality', when all they really want to do is make pretty pictures that other people will pay to look at. If they showed the true ugliness of reality, either nobody would want to look at it, or the Censors would ruin everything.

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Atama
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I never thought about it but

I never thought about it but in general my male characters in MMOs tend to dress in skimpier clothes than my female characters.

It’s not a conscious thing I do, it’s just how it ends up. And I’m a straight male who certainly enjoys scantily clad women for reasons most straight males do.

Maybe it’s because I know what effect an underdressed woman has on a man (being such a man), I prefer not to role play a woman in that position. Sheesh I’ve honestly never thought much about it. Generally I just make whatever character I feel like in that moment without being introspective about it.

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Atama wrote:
Atama wrote:

Generally I just make whatever character I feel like in that moment without being introspective about it.

And that's fine. Play what you enjoy playing.

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

I am also not saying that all fantasy women. But all fantasy warriors should. If their character wants to wear something like a chain mail bikini then it should then be part of their character. A warrior running around in a chain mail bikini while having access to better armor requires an explaination even if that explaination is just "I (the author/character) just like how it looks"

Is this a reversal of your earlier position? Where you said this:

Project_Hero wrote:

Most of the time when the impracticality of a fantasy lady's armor is brought up it's usually because it exists in a setting alongside male armor that covers everything and is very practical. If magical means of protection exist in a setting then every warrior should be dressed in a similar fashion if they have access to it. Even with access to magical means of protection there's no good in universe justification for wearing a chainmail bikini as opposed to... Any other sort of clothing (unless, I suppose, in the setting a woman's vital organs are all stored in their breasts and crotch).

Honestly it's very difficult to understand what your point is because you seem to change it to suit your current argument.

There is no -good- in universe justification for wearing a chain mail bikini. The only explaination for a character wearing a chain mail bikini is "I just like how it looks"

It's not a contradiction. The explaination isn't a good explaination and It's one that can't really be argued against. They like it. They (author or the character) know it's bad armor, but they like it.

And as for what my general point at the start of the whole thing was, I think I spelt it out a few times when I said things like "You can like it(meaning chainmail bikinis or other impractical armors), that's fine. Just don't make up bullshit reasons why it's good armor, actually."

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

There is no -good- in universe justification for wearing a chain mail bikini. The only explaination for a character wearing a chain mail bikini is "I just like how it looks"

I can think of reasons for the female use of revealing armor in a fantasy setting that are not simply 'I like how it looks'. Not justifications but actual reasons which would further the characters development.
If you cannot imagine a scenario then that is a failing of imagination.

Project_Hero wrote:

It's not a contradiction. The explaination isn't a good explaination and It's one that can't really be argued against. They like it. They (author or the character) know it's bad armor, but they like it.

As I explained earlier, in certain types of fiction the clothes a character wears is shorthand for the characters personality. This is especially true in visual media like comics, movies and art. It isn't just presenting an appealing image, it's also about conveying a characters personality.
It has nothing to do with the functionality of the armor, it is about defining a character.
This type of visual storytelling does get abused.... alot. But a blanket statement about the validity of its use is meaningless as an argument.

Project_Hero wrote:

And as for what my general point at the start of the whole thing was, I think I spelt it out a few times when I said things like "You can like it(meaning chainmail bikinis or other impractical armors), that's fine. Just don't make up bullshit reasons why it's good armor, actually."

You see the problem with getting up on a soapbox is you tend to miss the points others are making.
We are not saying it is a 'good armor' we are saying there are reasons why someone would choose to wear (or dress their characters in) less than ideal armor that go beyond horny fetishes.
If that's your entire point, that revealing armor is not 'good' armor then you are right. Others have told you this before and you keep repeating this argument so I'm not sure it will have an impact on you.

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About the only situation I

About the only situation I could see one wearing revealing armor would be to tantalize someone. There's no really good reason to decide to put it on before going into a battle, however. Possibly that it was enchanted in such a way that prohibits wearing anything -but- the armor, but then it's more of a joke than an actual tactical decision.

And yes, clothes do make a statement about the character, which is why revealing armor (without explanation) on a warrior is so baffling. Especially when it seems completely out of character for them to wear such a thing, usually because they're bad ass, no-nonsense warriors.

I don't recall anyone, other than you now, admitting said armor is bad armor. It has been "but what if..." From the start.

Yes, there can be reasons for a character to not wear their best armor, this is usually only temporary for some sort of plan or strategy.

There is no good reason for a warrior to go around in a chainmail bikini consistently when there are other better options available.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

About the only situation I could see one wearing revealing armor would be to tantalize someone. There's no really good reason to decide to put it on before going into a battle, however. Possibly that it was enchanted in such a way that prohibits wearing anything -but- the armor, but then it's more of a joke than an actual tactical decision.

And yes, clothes do make a statement about the character, which is why revealing armor (without explanation) on a warrior is so baffling. Especially when it seems completely out of character for them to wear such a thing, usually because they're bad ass, no-nonsense warriors.

I don't recall anyone, other than you now, admitting said armor is bad armor. It has been "but what if..." From the start.

Yes, there can be reasons for a character to not wear their best armor, this is usually only temporary for some sort of plan or strategy.

There is no good reason for a warrior to go around in a chainmail bikini consistently when there are other better options available.

do you make that same assumption when you see a woman wearing a miniskirt? They have so many other options. Assuming that they are deviant seductresses seems kind of extreme to me. They just might like the way they look wearing it.

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ivanhedgehog wrote:
ivanhedgehog wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Yes, there can be reasons for a character to not wear their best armor, this is usually only temporary for some sort of plan or strategy.

There is no good reason for a warrior to go around in a chainmail bikini consistently when there are other better options available.

do you make that same assumption when you see a woman wearing a miniskirt? They have so many other options. Assuming that they are deviant seductresses seems kind of extreme to me. They just might like the way they look wearing it.

Or, you know, the air-conditioning is broken. People might choose their accessories because of Environment. Or they're going clubbing, after the big brawl.

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Hey Project_Hero. I've been

Hey Project_Hero. I've been skimming through this thread and all you've proven is that your a SJW feminist. I mean really, complaining about skimpy clothing(only on females) in media. Even though men have been shown in just as skimpy attire(or complete lack of attire) plenty as well.

Your argument about more armor being better than less armor isn't a solid foundation to stand on I'm afraid. Haven't you ever heard the saying,"The best defense is a good offense?" Everyone know's the less restrictive armor/clothing you have will offer increased mobility, which means and skilled swordsman(IN THE NUDE) can beat a knight decked out in full heavy armor. If there's anything you should of learned from Game of Thrones and other medieval fantasy media, it's that a sword/arrow will still penetrate the best of armor. And this is just in a realistic setting. Why your bring this discussion to a fantasy/sci-fi superhero genre setting baffles me completely.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

About the only situation I could see one wearing revealing armor would be to tantalize someone. There's no really good reason to decide to put it on before going into a battle, however. Possibly that it was enchanted in such a way that prohibits wearing anything -but- the armor, but then it's more of a joke than an actual tactical decision.

How about someone who takes their skill in acrobatics/contortion and turns it into a combat style? Or a culture of people who were oppressed and could not wear armor by law. What about a cult of nature loving luddites who won't wear metal and refuse to wear animal skin? A race of humanoids that shun heavy covering because of their beliefs. Maybe an evil society that has bred a group of women for their beauty and prowess and made them gladiators for their amusement. A character who dresses provocatively to further their earnings on a job. Or a world where a pantheon of gods are at war and each must choose a champion with the fertility goddess requiring her champion to dress accordingly. Maybe the outfit is a uniform for an elite group of soldiers. A culture that prides beauty above all else. A recently discovered primitive people who regard armor with fear and superstition. How about a morphic race that cannot wear clothes let alone armor. A winged fae creature whose weaker physical strength means anything but light whispy clothing would hinder their ability to fly. Humanoid animal creatures whose natural camo abilities is ruined if they wear more than just loin cloth and belly t. Or maybe the world itself is so different that weapon technology has greatly surpassed armor innovation to the point where armor provides no benefit at all.

Each of these are plausible and revealing outfits would not be out of place on a battlefield in stories with these aspects. These stories could use these as plot points to explore the aspects of characters in less armor facing heavily armored foes, unusual skills in battle, strange beliefs or customs in relation to warfare, self or external imposed restrictions on a character's choice or a world where there is no defense against a foe but personal prowess.

This is not even going into stories that use revealing armor for parody purposes, morality lessons or cultural commentary.

I suppose this is where you take my examples and try and make them invalid.

Project_Hero wrote:

And yes, clothes do make a statement about the character, which is why revealing armor (without explanation) on a warrior is so baffling. Especially when it seems completely out of character for them to wear such a thing, usually because they're bad ass, no-nonsense warriors.

See when you say there is no reason for revealing armor other than the titillation of males you are ignoring any reason the creator has for including the revealing armor because of a predetermined bias on your part.

As an example if a comic depicts a young woman dressed in a very sexy outfit running down the street as she is chased by two men with evil intentions. She turns down an alley and finds a dead end. She begs her attackers to stop but they just laugh and begin their advance. Suddenly they both explode in flames and die screaming as the girls uncontrollable mutant pyro power manifests.

In that example you have dressed the girl in a vulnerable state in order to create a presupposition in the readers mind. You are to dread what is about to befall the young girl only to have it subverted as you understand she wasn't running because she was in danger it was because she didn't want to hurt others, even people as bad as her attackers.

Now transport that scenario to a fantasy setting. Picture a primitive warrior woman wearing a revealing animal skin outfit. She is attacked by orcs and for the first time ever she is overwhelmed and about to lose a fight. The orcs burst into flames. Confused at what happened she goes on a quest to find out why she has this power getting into trouble along the way.

Her outfit of skimpy animal skins is a shorthand for a tropical area primitive character. This being a comic, you cannot rely on facial features to identify individual characters which is why clothing becomes the main way a reader recognizes the character. So that outfit becomes the characters costume because the nature of the comic medium can become bogged down with constant efforts to identify the character. If everyone was to wear what you keep defining as the best armor, then characters would blend into one another requiring the author/artist to ensure each character is identified easily so as to not interrupt the flow of the story. This only becomes more pronounced when you have multiple artists/authors telling the stories.

In my second example you have a character who you can tell is a primitive by the outfit which leads you to conclude she isn't exactly worldly. She is a skilled warrior with magical powers and a badass but she is still a fish out of water in the more civilized areas which makes it understandable why she gets herself into trouble often. Her costume re-enforces her character traits without the need for constant supposition by the creator. Because of the episodic nature of comics the author can never be sure that the reader is not new to their story. Without shorthand tricks like a costume that implies a characters traits the author/artist would spend more time -re-explaining the characters traits each issue in an effort to bring new readers up to speed.

So there you go, reasons for the armor from a characters choice standpoint, reasons why a more revealing armor is chosen by creators (that isn't based on the assumption of horny old men), and reasons why the character does not upgrade their outfit from a creators standpoint (again not based on the assumption of horny men).

As a final note on this subject, genres such as fantasy use it's storytelling and imagery to provoke a variety of responses. If you only ever have one response to a type of imagery and refuse to look beyond the surface that is your choice but it is nothing more than a close minded reaction.

Project_Hero wrote:

I don't recall anyone, other than you now, admitting said armor is bad armor. It has been "but what if..." From the start.

Brand X, warlocc and lothic have all said the revealing armor is not as good as the hypothetical 'best' armor you keep insisting characters should wear. The 'but what if...' they bring up is to refute your narrow claim that no one would chose to wear less than the best.

Allow me to provide another 'but what if..' of my own.
Why doesn't Iron Man give each Avenger a suit during the climatic events of the first Avengers movie or during the Ultron final fight in Age of Ultron? It's been said multiple times that the Iron Man armor is the best armor in the world so why don't they all get their own suit?

Project_Hero wrote:

Yes, there can be reasons for a character to not wear their best armor, this is usually only temporary for some sort of plan or strategy.

There is no good reason for a warrior to go around in a chainmail bikini consistently when there are other better options available.

I have provided many in this post both from a character and creator standpoint. I hope you might start to see that there can be valid reasons for less than ideal sexy armor but as others have made similar points in the thread I am not betting on it.

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