Again, the sword would be clipping on the character either way as long its glued with magic on his back, regardless if it has a scabbard or not. But, I think we are actually agreeing here, because the reason why it clips isnt because of a scabbard, it is because a sword doesnt belong to the back, no matter if its a twohand or one hand sword.
But if I had to chose between scabbard and no scabbard and then I would always chose the scabbard. Also I didnt notice any clipping in the Witcher 2.
http://www.geforce.com/sites/default/files-world/screenshots/witcher-2/screenshot-4.jpg
http://static-1.nexusmods.com/15/mods/153/images/86-2-1307548806.jpg
I played the game. And I love it.
of course, the animations are a bit silly, but again, not because there is a scabbard but
swords simply dont belong on the back if you're expecting combat. I have a one-hand sword at home, it has a sling so I could use it from the shoulder/back, but it is so stupid, literaly impossible to draw it from the back. And it is not a very long sword!
I dont think a weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee bit more realism here cant really hurt the games now. But anyway.
Inquisition has one-handed swords, maces and axes, two-handed swords, maces and axes, shields, bows, a crossbow, single-blade daggers and double-blade daggers, and staves. And 8 character models with widely different armor designs per companion. To say that making believable scabbards for all of this, without causing major clipping issues, would be hard is a massive understatement. It's probably just not worth doing. They already went out of their way to provide a crapton of weapon and armor models, that's enough for me.
*shrugs* That's their job. That is what they get payed for. That's what game designers do. Making stuff. I am sure people also made that argument, that you can't fully voice characters! Its too expensive! It takes too much disk space! To many character models! Well, it still happened. At least with some games. So I don't see why a few more models would hurt a company like Bioware, or paying more attention to their design, the animations and yeah, making it more believable!
*le gasp*.
Even if its for 10 characters and 30-60 weapons, if you consider that a game like Dragon Age inquisition which is also no clue 3-4 times larger then Dragon Age origins has probably thousands of models already. Also, Skyrim made scabbards for almost all their one hand sword and they also thought about a way how to attach axes and daggers on your character. So it is possible.
By the way, if the clipping is such a big issue then it might be a very good sign that your armor and weapon designs start to become over the top. And this is not only true for Dragon Age. Now, this is of course more or less my preference, I can see why this is not really an issue in a game like world of warcraft, but I am not playing WoW and thus I am not complaining about their stupid and silly designs, it simply is for a different target audience, so it's O.K. in my book. But I am going out on a limb here and assume that Dragon Age Inquisition is going more in a direction that is closer to The Witcher then World of Warcraft trying to create a more believable and gritty/plausible setting. So if the armor makes such problems, then I feel the designers haven't been paying enough attention to realistic animations, and this is not only true for humans, but also beast races as well. You would be surprised how many times you can use real life as reference, even if you create such creatures like Dragons, Demons and such. They are afterall based on bones and muscles of which exist in the real world as well. When ever artists draw realistic Dinosaurs then they take references from real life animals like Lizards, Birds and the like.
I mean if some of THE most succesfull concept artists talks about it, then it must have some merit I guess. But I have feeling everyone will ignore that link anyway ... but yeah, just for the case someone wants to know where I am coming from, its there to check it out.
I am not saying that you cant or should not do some compromise, we are in a fantasy setting, not in history class, different settings require different approaches to the design, for example a movie like Conan is esthetically very different to a movie like Kingdom of Heaven, so there is a certain freedom in creativity here and I sure will not complain about teh fact taht Conan is not realistic, albeit! The movie is PLAUSIBLE. Granted, I am nitpicking, I am pedantic, I am an asshole! Right onw. Curse me! THROW ROCKS AT MEEEEEE. But, again, why cant the character hold the weapon in his hands, I mean it certainly works with their dicks, why has it to be glued on their back with magic glue.
It would even look more badass if they made it plausible and believable:
hmm, no magic glue for them it seems. Poor fellas! They have to carry their weapons in a realistic way!
No problem with that. Hence why I said earlier:
I know its a small detail. Most people probably will not even notice it. But ... for some reason this really, I mean REALLY bothers me A LOT(!) with role playing games.
