Armour looks like World of Warcraft armour

Can we get some more realistic classic looking armor in the final game? I noticed the armor looks very fantasy/World of Warcraft-ish, not like traditional UO.

 

I thought they looked really good this time around. Maybe I missed something.

 

I think the only armor i dislike is the epic armor.

Ad my favorite (except the helm) is the augmented plate armor

 

They are not anywhere close to being done with the character and equipment graphics. In a recent post, Darkstarr made it clear that the SotA team has added artists with the focus of improving character models and such. It sounds like they really want to tweak the visuals to get them up to speed. If you ask me, they have already come a long way since earlier alpha releases! If you think anything looks rough now, I wish you could go back to R1 and see what it looked like then lol.

Btw, you mentioned armor doesn't look like traditional UO. This game isn't UO, nor is it meant to be a UO clone.

Here is Darkstarrs post regarding visuals:

Visual Improvements: We really want to improve the quality of our visuals to a point that we feel competitive with modern games. To that end we are allocating time each release for some ongoing work. Here is just a short list of some of the things we are working on for Release 6 in the area of visual improvements:
- Lighting Fine-Tuning: With the switch to the new lighting model, we now have to retune our lighting levels across the board. Tuning and balancing the brightest day and the darkest night takes some time. It is a careful dance to get a strong contrast between well lit areas and dark shadows. We want light sources to mean something in underground areas and at night so they will be dark. This means having a torch and/or light spell handy is a really good thing. We also introduced tone mapping in R4 which is a technique that simulates your eye irising back and forth. This technique also requires careful tuning to get the brightening and lightening just right. Tune it too bright and we obviate the need for any light sources, tune it too dark and you won’t even notice it.
- We went through about a bazillion different parameters over the last few weeks trying to get to that “just right” spot. Just yesterday, we hit on a combination of bloom with tone mapping that we think is going to get us the closest we have come yet. You can see the initial results in this build of this new combination. I think we are way closer but there is still work to do here.
- Shaders: Right now we use very simple specular and bump mapping shaders. We are going to investigate some other shader types including Relief and Detail that might create more details in our textures.
- Research into these new shader types ultimately led to a dead end but in the process we discovered and fixed some issues with how we were doing bump mapping on our terrain.
- Characters: We have several efforts in progress including getting our skin shader happy with the new lighting, polishing movement and combat animations, and fixing wearables sorting issues. After we get those issues sorted we can move on to making hair better but we are waiting for our transition to Unity 5 for that so we can take advantage of some new features there.
- We made some good progress here and got the skin happy with our new lighting, but we still think we can take it further. We also decided we need to completely replace the character heads because we felt they were just not attractive enough. This replacement is now being tested so they may or may not make it in during R6.
- Environment Art: For performance optimization we had originally kept the number of triangles in our buildings, walls, dungeons to an absolute minimum. Recent performance analysis suggests we are not bound by this constraint so we are going back through and adding geometry to some assets so that they will look better in lighting. For Release 6 we are focusing on Dungeon and Castle Walls to make them not be such flat planes.

 

While I'd prefer armour a little more grounded in reality it is definitely not anything close to the Warcraft aesthetic (thankfully). It'd need much bigger (often spikey) pauldrons, garish colours, more neon baubles, and exposed midriffs for that.

 

I think there should be some + for almost Buck Naked...
If you ever saw me buck naked, you'd understand the shock value of that
~Time Lord~

 

My favorite armor xD:



as you can see, the helmet color doesnt match the rest of the armor, and also i think the boots are a little too wide for my taste

PS: And to be fair, here is how i looked in R1

 

As a realist style lover, I think the neck needs a bit more armor. But your right about the GoGo Boots. I can live with those, but seem a bit wide.
~Time Lord~

 

That was another odd thing - the armour usually seems to have a more metallic look about it in the paperdoll compared to when you are running around.

 

Welcome to the forums, and I totally dis-agree, it does not resemble WoW in any way... UO (tm) is copy written material, so don't count on any copies here...

 

Agreed the armor is not completely realistic but it is no where near what WoW armor looks like.

 

Yeah I like the iron plate set except for those boots and especially the helm.

 

I guess i'm overreacting a little bit, it is early.

 

Knightman,

It's best to scream these things out as loud as possible and early, because if Portalarium is currently working on it, it saves time from having to re-visit any old forgotten or unspoken issue.
In that first pic of the Evolved SotA Armor, it's looking better all around except they did change the neck protection that is seen in the Earlier SotA Armor pic.
"The armor has a very open area in the most vital spot that needs protection"...
Maybe they just haven't created the gorget yet?....
~Time Lord~

 

Do you even play WoW???



Wasn't even close to World of Warcraft...but I wish it was...

 

And if you zoom in on the armours I really appreciate the amount of detail that has been put into them. Streaks and rub marks in the leather, scratches on the plate mail.

 

Just wish the cloaks would stop bleeding into the back of the character

 

Nice Oversized boots. Redue please

 

You have grieves fitted tight to legs over armored shoes not boots or your ankle would not have any movement.

 

I kind of agree with the OP. Don't consider the graphical rendering of the textures or the lighting and reflections, consider the design and asthetic.

WoW armor tends to over do it with embelishments, like too many spikes, or things just look overdone. I think its just because after making thousands of different ones, it gets harder and harder to make something look more powerful and unique, so the designers go overboard. I personally prefer simple, subtle, lean, realistic. I think in real life, in a time when armor was made for a purpose, the design choices reflected those needs. When you start to just add stuff here and there, stuff that doesn't really serve a use but just looks cool, like lots of spikes, or extra bulk, instead of making it feel bigger and more menacing, it ends up seeming bloated, empty, gimmicky, or like its made of cardboard. There is something cool about a really solid looking metal chest plate, that just looks simple and metal, with some grit.

Most of what I have worn in SotA so far has been pretty pleasing, with a majority of the simpler basic items looking solid. There are definitely some straight up WoW uglies though, mostly with the more unique looking mage type armors. The colors are somewhat cartoony, which is really just a choice of color palette. I would be more frugal with the magentas, purples, and highly saturated colors, but maybe thats just me. But mainly its the shape of them, just the overdesign of some things, too many little frills and embelishments. Like in that image, why have one shoulder pad point outward? But thats a bad example, I actually really like that set in the pic, minus the one shoulder pad.

I have faith in the skills of the art team, but the influence of wow is strong, and we must say why it looks ridiculous, and why it looks gimmicky, or they might not even know that we don't like it. WoW is a pretty popular game, so it might be safe to assume people like those spikes. So, unless we complain about too many spikes, we might get spikes everywhere.