Cav's Place

If you look at the way characters look in fantasy games, and particularly in MMO games, you immediately notice that their gear seems designed to do pretty much anything but protect them! Now you may say that’s because it’s fantasy and anything goes, but I’m going to disagree. That excuse may work for fantasy art, where you have separate works that are mainly supposed to simply look good, but a game should make some sort of sense, even if it is fantasy, and as a result a character’s armor should look like it could actually protect them from blows instead of either just looking cool while getting in the way or, if the character is female, exposing certain physical assets in the best way possible!
The part about the female characters would spawn a whole discussion on its own when they are treated in that manner, as nothing more than sexual objects for straight male players to drool over, but I’ll probably leave it to others who are more directly affected by it to press the issue more thoroughly. What I will say right now, however, is that I do sometimes want to make a female character but the result tends to just be frustrating. Yes, I probably like some nice virtual boobs as much as the next guy, but on the one hand there’s something to be said about their size and general aspect and on the other, getting back to the purpose of this post, when I go into battle I want my character to actually look like a warrior who can take a few hits, not a camp follower wondering which side would it pay more to spread her legs for once it’s all over!

What game graphic designers need to understand is that a good game makes you at least really care about the characters you control, if not even identify yourself with them. And that goes even more for MMO games, because in those a character should be a representation of the player behind it. And I don’t think any of that is going to happen if said character looks like either a pompous fop or a prostitute or courtesan, even if a very classy one. Now of course gear should, if possible, look good as well, but it must look useful first and then, as the character obtains better and better items, the design should improve to incorporate elements meant to make it increasingly appealing, but only as long as it manages to still look useful even with them. Plus that I certainly think female characters can look good without being dressed as harlots as well…
When you have either characters that start by needing to prove themselves somehow or situations where all those who could possibly fight are quickly summoned to face a sudden and serious threat, which are the most common starting points of such games, the gear should reflect that. Level one armor should probably look more like what you saw Egyptians use when shit hit the fan in Tahrir Square, when they wore pots, garbage cans, plastic bottles wrapped in sticky tape or cardboard boxes stuffed with balls of paper as helmets, and pot lids or parts of car bodies as shields. Or like something I recall seeing in a comic some years ago, portraying just such a level one character with a barrel, with the top and bottom cut off and holes for the arms on the sides, acting as torso armor, some cans slid on the arms and a chamberpot worn as a helmet. And, of course, level one weapons should be equally makeshift and rudimentary.
Then, once the characters have proved their worth or the immediate threat is averted, as the case may be, and said characters are given some better gear to help them start taking the fight to the enemy, said gear should look like proper military gear but still be purely functional. You should see something that properly covers your body and gives you some degree of confidence that if you actually went into a battle wearing it you wouldn’t drop dead after the first hit. You shouldn’t see decorations, appendages on armor that would just get in the way or fancy robes that would just trip you up. And you most certainly shouldn’t see “armor” that exposes as much of the chest, and perhaps also abdomen, as possible! Yet those things are usually just what you do see in such games…
Once you get past that point and start making your way through the world, becoming stronger and stronger and performing glorious deed after glorious deed, the gear you’ll be able to find and equip should reflect that as well. It should stay functional, the armor clearly providing good protection for every part of your body and the weapons clearly being deadly but also reasonably easy, or at least possible, to wield, but purely aesthetic design elements should start being incorporated as well. Start with some nicer lines, some pretty colors, an emblem here or a pattern there, and then focus on improving this aspect more and more, ending up with some pieces that look utterly stunning but at the same time appear to remain very useful and efficient.

With this approach, players will actually notice the progression of their characters and it will all make sense. They will look like warriors, or whatever is appropriate for their chosen class, from the first moment to the last, but their deeds and their strength will be reflected in their appearance as time passes, with the stark contrast between their humble beginnings and their glorious apotheosis serving to enhance the feeling of accomplishment even more. They will look like the heroes who truly changed or, more often, saved the world instead of like the paramours or courtesans fighting for said heroes’ attention, and I’m applying this to male characters as well, though in a different way. It will create one more goal to work towards while at the same time making the whole work together even better. And, of course, going back to the other angle a part of this issue can be approached from, this should also make for plausible female characters the sight of which won’t offend a significant part of the women who could perhaps want to play them…