Boob plates are way worse than not wearing any armor at all. If you tripped/fell off your horse/took a light hit from a blunt weapon, your ribs would be crushed and you'd probably be suffocated to death.

Wait, Dark Souls 2 has boob plate? Like for fucking real?
I don't give two shits about mocapping a woman running, but that's... ugh, no.

I'm confused... how are breast plates different from regular-ass chest armor? Is the only difference the shape? Or are you discussing the difference between "plate" and "armor"?

Not breastplate, boob plate. It's a common trope. Look it up.

If concept art is to be believed. It was posted here I think.

I knew about the concept art, but there was a lot of stuff in that batch that likely never made it into the final game. They were talking about videos from the beta now...

As I've said earlier, it's done to emphasize femininity in a video game-y fashion (something that throws practicality out of the window by default). Which means there's a purpose to that emphasis, i.e. the person donning the boob plate is a character of some importance, whose femininity is key, as well as - considering they could have done (and actually did before) way worse with the representation of female characters than a mere boob plate - her martial prowess.

That's the theory, at least. We shall wait and see how things turn out in the end, and if the boob plate is included just because, I'd cry foul with you guys. I'd rather give them the benefit of the doubt at the moment.

P.S: Totally forgot to mention the new (well, can hardly call it new since western RPGs had something similar in ages, but whatever), revamped inventory system. It is awesome.

So there isn't actual evidence that it's in the game? It's not in the video? I don't want to spoil myself too much by watching all that footage.
And sorry but "emphasizing feminity" is not a good reason to include boob plate ever. If you want to make armour look feminine there are many ways to do that. I could rant for ages about that but it's exhausting so instead I'll just talk about something positive....

Cosmic Star Heroine Kickstarter!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/159 ... pc-mac-ps4
This is basically the Phantasy Star 5 (it's not, but close enough) I've been waiting for since the mid-90's. Influenced by Phantasy Star, Chrono Trigger and Suikoden, it's a classic Japanese-style RPG taking cues from the best era (late 16-bit to early 32-bit). Made by the same devs as Cthulhu Saves the World and Breath of Death VII but it's not a parody this time. Plus it features a cool-looking non-sexual female protag, what's not to like?

No, the beta footage is entirely boob plate free, and inhumanist was referring solely to the concept art I posted some time ago (the link is now down, by the way, so it kinda makes me question how genuine it was in the first place). But if you're afraid of spoilers (and there aren't any of those in the videos I provided; the setting is pretty neutral/generic and context free - Dark Souls has a similar one, which I'll name if you want me to, and all the text (which includes and probably not limited to the options menu, item descriptions and stats) is in Japanese, so all you can gather from it are some UI and core gameplay tweaks and how a couple of enemies and some armor sets look), why did you opt into the beta?

Also, I wasn't talking about "making the armor more feminine", but rather punctuating the femininity of its wearer. Not unlike, say, a dress, or any other woman-specific clothing. And I can't help but notice how passionate are you about your disdain to boob plates. Care to share why, or is it part of the exhausting territory?

Because they look fucking ridiculous and would kill their wearers, perhaps?

Seems reason enough to lobby against them to me at least.

Oh, okay, I understand now. Shapely armor for which the blows end up being diverted to the center of the chest.

So nerds all over the internet have raging hard on's because Valve trademarked the Half Life 3 name.

Plus the whole concept of "boob plate" is just kind of silly, in a serious setting. It's like a woman is ready for battle, about to fight for her life, but she ALSO has to look sexy? Isn't the violent action enough excitement on its own? Why does it have to be mixed with boobs? It'd be like emphasizing Hamlet's taut, sexy ass during his famous angsty monologs.

If it's something like Mortal Kombat that isn't meant to be serious at all that's fine, but if you're meant to be taking the action seriously, why the fuck do we need to be reminded that the women have boobs?

I didn't opt into the beta. I was interested at first, but NA players are apparently hand-picked by From or Namco, and I wasn't selected. I decided that if I had a chance to play the beta, I would, and if not, I'd rather go in as blindly as possible when it comes out, so I am trying to resist the urge to watch footage.


That can be done without stupid shit like boob plate. Is there any doubt of the feminity of these warriors?

But the real question is why is it necessary to "punctuate the feminity" of the wearer? See, this woman has no visible sign to distinguish her from her father, who wears the same funny-looking armour:

Yet we know she's a woman the moment you talk to her. The voice is enough, we don't even need to see her face.


People already explained why, but basically; it's sexist and objectifying, it looks completely stupid, it has zero practical value and many impractical problems, it has no place in any non-parody fantasy art, and even if you want to make a dashing, good looking female knight, it's not remotely necessary.

Hell, look at IRL kendo armour... here is a fight between a woman and a man, they both wear the same armour:

Now can we come back to plugging this game and talking about how neat it looks?

Late coming into this thread, but to tell the truth, I'm a bit of an old-schooler when it comes to gaming.

I know games have got much better and flashier, but..... well recently I revisited my old copy of Phantasy Star IV with fond nostalgia......

Wish they'd remake that one!!

Impractical sexy armor for women? Such a cliche. Shamless plug, but y'all should support this board game my friend is making about female warriors skipping the pervy blacksmiths and killing monsters to use their flesh to make their own practical armor.

Promo video:


How to play:


Gen Con preview video too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_ezxC5RB-0

Kickstarter coming soon.

Started playing the 2010 Medal of Honor that came with the Humble Origin Bundle I bought a while ago. Pretty much exactly in the hyper-scripted modern Call of Duty realm. One thing I do like about it is that the cinematic bits where they take control away from you are much more limited than in CoD and the individual segments tend to last much longer. So instead of giving you a couple minutes in a cool gunner chair or something, it'll be an extended mission, which is appreciated.

That said, there's definitely a coat or two of polish missing from this thing. Sometimes the "right" (read: only) way to do something is pretty fucking obscure; during one stealth mission where I was provided with silenced weapons I was supposed to be marking some targets for air strikes while moving through a village while avoiding detection. However, the first encounter was a huge bitch. I died probably seven or eight times, trying to figure out why these guys were kicking my ass so thoroughly, before I figured out you aren't even supposed to kill anyone. These was never really indicated anywhere and was really poorly conveyed as an objective. Worse yet are blatant bugs; I banged my head against one segment where I was supposed to suppress a machinegun nest with my SAW for nearly an hour before I gave up and Googled it, only to find out that it's just broken (i.e. if you die once and restart from the checkpoint, the suppression mechanic fails to ever engage so the mission will never advance unless you quit the game and start that mission over from the beginning).

It was also a PITA to actually get the game to work via Steam. Damn you, EA!

Edit: aaaaaaaaaaaand I just beat it. That campaign was like 4 hours long tops.

I love these old war FPS games but that MoH is very poor compared to most of it's peers in that era. I purchased the humble bundle as well and got reminded why I had such an opinion. Bugs aside, it just isn't that fun either :/

Here's where my real life example comes into play - wearing a dress or jeans and T-shirt doesn't make the proverbial you any more or less of a female, but wearing a dress simply punctuates it (i.e. it's like a non verbal way of saying "the person wearing this dress is definitely a woman"). Boob plate is pretty much the same.


The answer lies in your question once you restate it - it is not necessary to punctuate the femininity of the wearer; the femininity of the wearer is punctuated because it is necessary (i.e. the character's femininity plays a key role), and in the case of that dreaded concept art of Dark Souls 2 (I'm being specific just because I trust From to know better) the boob plate is supposed to represent (again, in theory) both the character's femininity and mortal prowess, because they could do worse than that had it only been a piece of fan service (more on that later).

As a derivative of that last point - you know why these Dark Souls characters' femininity isn't punctuated? Because IT IS NOT IMPORTANT. These characters are all avatars made by the same application you use to create yours, and are completely inconsequential and interchangeable (a good proof of that would be that you can play the entire game without interacting with any of them and be none the wiser). But when it comes to key female characters? Well hello there, Morisette sisters of Chaos and Mrs. "Amazing chest ahead". And it's not like there's any good reason for that from what I can see other than a distinction from their other siblings. So it's kinda perplexing for me to see the amount of fuss the boob plate generates while these arguably more problematic instances are completely ignored.



It definitely looks cool. And any any game that has "minimal grinding/brisk pacing that respects your time" in its pitch is worth supporting IMO.

What the hell? You still insist on boob plate being necessary to establish the femininity of these characters despite me giving examples of female warriors in non-stupid armour that are still very obviously and non-ambiguously female.... at this point I'm starting to think you're playing Devil's Advocate just to be cute. And what's with this obsession on bringing up dresses? They aren't women dressing up all girly, they're women gearing up for battle.

Quelaag and Gwynevere are absolutely irrelevant to the discussion of armour design for female warriors.

Also:
lol?

And you still insist on separating words from the sentences and the overarching context they were put in. First of all, I insist on nothing. I suggest an interpretation of how can a boob plate be used as a device, I repeat - a device (not the device!), IN THE PARTICULAR CASE OF DARK SOULS II (because I can't vouch for the rest). Never did I advocate for either their necessity nor their ubiquity (or even being the best solution, for that matter), or question the device's potential to offend/irritate. Also, I'm sincerely surprised by how many times I had to restate that we're talking about video games here, where everything is a device, an allegory that often defeats sense as you know it, practical or otherwise (thus rendering the issue of practicality virtually moot). Dresses are also an allegory. Look that up.

Now that (hopefully) my point received its due disambiguation - no, Gwynevere and Queelag have nothing to do with the discussion of armor design that YOU'RE having, but has everything to do with said device:: you DID cite sexism/objectification as one of the reasons for hating boob plates; I gave you these characters as an illustration how the particular developers of the particular game series can do way worse in that particular regard (and I'm not trying to deliberately annoy here, just to preemptively eliminate any grounds for false interpretations), so when something as relatively mild as a boob plate comes up in the concept art, I think it's pretty appropriate to give them the benefit of the doubt that there's a reason why the character looks the way she does (assuming the art was genuine and the character will make it to the final game).

But hell, even if you want to keep it on the literal level and talk armor design, I can't say your examples are that good. The only good ones out of these are the porcelain knight and the third one; the rest are either completely ambiguous (the fire keeper), unambiguous for similar reasons (the girl with the scythe, who doesn't wear a boob plate, I'd give you that, but I can't see why a skin tight overall is considered a better substitute), or unclear (the rest of the lot; had they all wore helmets, concealed their long hair and you weren't familiar with them - could you still tell they're female at a glance?).

And I meant MARTIAL prowess and you know that. What was it even good for? Anyway, all of this begins to slip into the unnecessarily confrontational water, so a swift change of subject is due I think!

...99 Levels to Hell. A poor man's Spelunky with shoot em up mechanic tacked on top. I do find this game enjoyable based on the gameplay alone (and I didn't care for Spelunky at all), despite the clunky and somewhat amateurish presentation and mechanics. Also, the game has a quite confusing lack of tone, with cartoony elements appearing alongside darker ones without any sense of cohesiveness. The soundtrack is the most peculiar of the bunch, but anything other than the bog standard orchestral/chiptune score is welcome as far as I'm concerned.

A demo is available here, and if it wins you over - it's currently on a PWYW offer on IndieGameStand for the next 16+ hours. Consider giving it a vote on Steam Greenlight as well.

This is getting unfathomably stupid. Sure, Chris Lightfellow wore a helmet to conceal her face I wouldn't necessarily know... except that she doesn't, so the player knows she's a woman instantly, voilà, done. And the others are all very very feminine looking even with a helmet on, WTF.

So you "don't question the device's potential to offend/irritate", yet are still arguing about this, because....? Yeah, I was right, playing Devil's Advocate just to be cute. Good grief.


Oh really? I don't think that word thinks what you think it means.


No, I didn't. And it makes possibly even less sense. Boob plate does not "represent martial prowess", in fact, it does the opposite, basically saying "lol see I'm wearing stupid impractical armour because I'm a girl tee-hee~ at least you know I'm a girly feminine girl~". (More like, designers being idiots than intentionally making their female warriors look stupid, but it doesn't matter if it's intentional or not.)

Regarding Quelaag and Gwynevere, I'm not a fan of their sexy design and find it somewhat fanservicy compared to the more mature Demon's Souls that avoided this trope, but there's a difference between having a sexy or even sexualized character in a certain context (a seductive chaos witch who got corrupted and mutated by dark magic, a giant motherly goddess of the sun), and having sexy/sexualized characters who are in a context of combat, where sexiness is completely inappropriate, and which is why I refused to address your insipid derail. I suggest you read failsafeman's post again because clearly you don't get it.

Speaking of Dark Souls...

I'm jumping back in after taking a 2-month Borderlands 2 break. Where I last left off I was trying to decide whether to tackle the Tomb of Giants, Anor Londo or the Artorias stuff. I think I was working on taking Siff down because I had gotten tired of trying to run across the AL ramparts while those guards knock you off with the damn longbows...Maybe I'll give that another shot when I start up again.

Haha, funny enough, I just played the mission in the Borderlands 2 Tiny Tina DLC that's a Dark Souls homage.

I didn't realize you could leave Anor Londo without the Lordvessel.

Anyways, sprint upwards with your shield up and then as quickly as possible to the right. When you reach the knight on the right the one on the left can't hit you anymore. Be prepared to get shot in the back on the way though if you're unlucky. Hated that section. Probably the most pointlessly cruel piece of leveldesign in the whole game.

Hm. Unfathomably stupid might be an understatement here, but hell, at least here's something we might agree upon, albeit for different reasons.

I GET what failsafeman said. I GET what YOU say and where you're coming from. It is YOU who doesn't get what I say. It is you who fails to realize that life isn't black and white (or, for that matter, "Morrigan's point of view" and "everyone else's moronic mumbling"), and that certain subjects warrant for different (different! not opposing!) takes on them. It is YOU who simply refuses (and I really have no other explanation for that; there's no way someone would be as incorrigibly literal as you are, even in a non eye-to-eye communication) to read things in context and rather skim to it and scribble your knee-jerk reactions into one gloriously impertinent response and then accuse ME of insipid derailment. Luckily though, your last paragraph actually proves quite workable, so I'll use that to clarify my position and hopefully you'd realize how far what I'm actually saying from what you're convinced I'm saying for unknown reasons and we could lay this fucking embarrassment of a miscommunication to rest:

There is absolutely no place for sexy/sexualized characters in a context of combat. I've never, NEVER said - or intended to say, or thought, or believed - otherwise. However, you would agree that there IS a place to represent female in context of combat in general, right (a rhetorical yes/no question, I know your full answer to it)? And I'm sure you'd agree that From Software are usually a kickass development studio that does a good job of portraying characters, yet you'd also agree they're also prone to sexualizing some characters (cue Quelaag and Gwynevere; so much for an insipid derail) and you're not a fan of that.

This was all you so far, now I chime in - here's a bit of concept art, of questionable authenticity by the way, that depicts a character with a boob plate. Crude, impractical... I know. I agree. However, if the developers' intent was indeed to sexualize that character, aren't there more questionable and revealing ways to do that? Because these folks sure showed precedents of that... then... what if it wasn't their intent? Maybe it's just their way to identify a combatant as a female - not a sex object, not even a sexy female, but simply a female (cue the allegory with dresses, or whatever generic and interchangeable female-specific bit of clothing you'd rather me obsess about more - I'm pretty sure you'd agree with the following phrased-so-for-the-sake-of-simplicity-alone-and-with-no-disrespect-to-minorities-and-PC statement that not all women wear dresses, yet all dress-wearers are woman? Same basic line of thought applies here) - due to some bit of context we don't know yet?

Now - and I can't stress it enough - a boob plate is a silly, crude, impractical way of identifying a woman as such in a combat situation. It's a lazy way out, and there are - and should be more - better alternatives around, and there's certainly no lack in creative minds to come up with something that fits the bill without being objectionable. I also don't think there's even a need in such identification UNLESS THERE'S A PROPER CONTEXT TO THAT, and if eventually there would be none in the final game - I'll wholeheartedly join your outcry. But at the same time - these guys that made these games you love? Give them some credit, and don't shut down in your (rightful in most other cases) convictions just because there *might* be a boob plate involved. Fair enough?

Here's the thing though, you keep saying IF, IF, IF. There is no IF. There is no good reason to ever include boob plate in a serious game (and I'd say Dark Souls is serious enough, as far as arms & armor are concerned). As you said, if you want to make a character read FEMALE from a distance, say if she's wearing a helm so you can't see her face/hair, there are better ways to do that too. Voice, slimmer build with wider hips/narrower shoulders, perhaps even (to skirt a cliche) a floral motif or more feminine color scheme in the armor. Certainly something more intelligent and subtle than slapping boobs on them.

At the same time, there was actual historical MALE boob plate armor, so if we're not talking medieval European style stuff (by which time they understood the reasons why it was a bad idea), it's not necessarily so ridiculous:

Weren't those only for very high ranking military officials? At least Asterix taught me thus. How much close combat did they even engage in while wearing that stuff? Probably those things were mostly for show since it looks uncomfortable and impractical as hell.

Well Asterix went up against the Romans in the time of Julius Caesar, whereas what I linked was a Greek hoplite cuirass, so there's a few hundred years' difference there. As for whether they engaged in close combat, they were front-line troops, though it should be noted that only the relatively rich hoplites could afford those (they typically were responsible for their own equipment, as were knights).

So I read a bit into this:

Nothing definite here. I just can't imagine any melee infantrist in his right mind wearing a muscle cuirass in combat. Not one like the one in the picture at least.

Why not? Psychological warfare was as big a part of warfare back then as it is now. There are plenty of historical examples of somewhat impractical but badass-looking armor made to impress or intimidate the foe.

Maybe the purpose of boob-plate is to make the opposing women feel insecure about their own boobs.

Nah, the purpose of boob-plate is to give the opposing guys boners.

Then, unless they have boner plate, their boners have no room and restrict their fighting! Genius!

The funniest thing is that he seems to agree with it, yet still staunchly says "but it's still one way to show it's a woman! even if it's a bad one! and therefore.... uh.... agree with me! about something!". What a waste of time.

And one more thing: I asked if the beta showed this type of armour because someone else brought it up and I didn't know they were referencing the old concept art. I myself already stated long ago that a lot of concept art don't make it into the final game (FFS the initial concept art showed some sort of pixie woman wearing something that looked like a tutu, how likely is THAT to make it into Dark fucking Souls?). I was always talking about the general concept, not Dark Souls 2 itself.

Then you always were talking NOT to me, since I clarified in pretty much every single post that I was talking about Dark Souls 2 specifically, how did you not pick that up? I'm not even "qualified" to speak about this in general terms since I haven't played any games with them.

And I don't "seem" to agree, I agree. But you did manage to look past your gut reaction to the Quelaag/Gwynevere designs and into the underlying context and symbolism (and, alternatively, looking into the symbolism didn't invalidate your initial resentment towards the presentation). It is possible to pull off the same thing here - and this is where my entire point begins and ends. And it sure did read as if it was a make or break thing for you in watching the footage/playing the demo, so if you say I misread it - fine, I probably did. That settles it.

And to confuse you guys some more - I agree that there are no "ifs". Outcome doesn't always justify its means, certainly not in this case. I never meant to imply that the fact that there might be a deeper reasoning invalidates the outcry, and I'd actually like the outcry to continue regardless of context, albeit in more productive outlets than this thread (because I certainly hope that talking about it here amounts to preaching to the choir). Also, not all points are made to be agreed with - some are made to be internalized and hopefully provoke a fruitful discussion, especially when the subject is a game that's not released yet. And no, not in a "playing devil's advocate to be cute" (which is an admittedly eloquent, yet mildly verbose way of saying "troll") way. I've seriously lost count of the hoops you jumped through to come to that diagnosis, given I did warn at some point in time about this conversation getting unnecessarily confrontational.

I do like an unexpected awesome release.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/235800/

...it's Audiosurf 2, with early access on Steam. Might have to get me some of that, although I kinda think it looks a bit too hectic and like the cool simplicity of the original is gone.

Where's my damn Dark Souls II beta invite!? This giving it to random people thing is the dumbest thing ever... It's going to be given to people who probably won't even play it or totally suck at it

Pretty cool Humble Weekly Sale going on right now for Nordic Games. $6 gets you Arcania, Darksiders II, that Painkiller Remake/Sequel thing, Spellforce 2, Red Faction: Armageddon, Supreme Commander, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, The Guild 2, and something called Neighbors from Hell. Plus they'll probably add more to it later.