Soooo... Dragon Age: Inquisition...

[Crni Vuk]

^
Very much this. I am a history buff. See, thing is when I am playing Baldurs Gate for example, then it really doesn't bother me, not even a second, because the design and art of the game is so abstract that is leaving enough room for your mind to run wild with you'r imagination. The characters usually run around with the weapons in their hands, there is no real difference between combat/non-combat stance, so you can always assume that the Ninja/Thief type character in your group is moving around like "thief" where the Paladin/knight is yeah, behaving like you expect it from a warrior.

This changes when you go with what I call "hyper-realism" with the visuals. Don't get me wrong! There is no doubt about the fact that games like Dragon Age Inquisition, the Witcher 3 or even Skyrim look beautiful, Skyrim looked at least great for its time, they have kick ass engines and we have awesome hardware today.I would not want to miss that. It's a great joy. But ... it also doesn't leave any room for imagination really. Your character and his armor have to be fully rendered, you can't just use the texture of a bed and say "its full of lice" like in Fallout 1/2, now you have to make a model for it and render it to look like a bed full of lice now compared to all the clean beds you saw before.

A non issue for most people maybe, but it is interesting that most concept art and particularly the illustrations out there, usually don't have characters with their weapons glued to their backs. Why? Yeah ... because its stupid.

 

[SnapSlav]

It's the suspension of disbelief. Once you know how an actual soldier would carry their two handed weapon, there's no going back.

When I was working on character designs for a graphic novel, this was a real bitch. It's bad enough that it bothers me ANYTIME I see a big fiery explosion in a movie when that's supposed to represent a grenade or C4 going off, and I know that's just not what that looks like. But it was particularly irritating when I was trying to design a character that could include all that "coolness" factor that you can reap from reading a page yet their weapons had to make sense. Having to design their weapon coverings to make any sort of sense cluttered up the design, but if I made it look more reductionist then it bothered my sense of practicality and killed my suspension of disbelief. There's cool, and then there's sensical, and rarely do the two intersect. =(

 

[Gnarles Bronson]

Watched that video and the guy was talking about how a great sword wasn't an everyday kind of thing, but only for the battlefield. So in reality you would probably have a horse and carriage carry a big stock of the things till you got where you were going. Video games are already operating outside of reality in using greatswords as everyday items, so carrying them on your back isn't that much of an additional stretch. Looks cooler than the way the guy is carrying it in the picture anyway, imo.

Totally with you on using the staffs as walking sticks though.

 

[Crni Vuk]

yes Bronson, but there is still no reason to use magic glue over scabbards. Clipping is not an argument. As long you keep that shit on your back, it will still clip trough the armor, if I had to chose between a sword with scabbard clipping trough armor or a sword without scappard clipping trough armor, then I would chose the option with the scabbard. Its not like you're loosing something here. Also, it really is just a bit more work for the animators. Does it really matter so much if your hero is holding his sword in his hand/over his shoulder or with magic glue on his back? You will face more combat then talking in RPGs like Dragonage anyway ...

 

[Ilosar]

yes Bronson, but there is still no reason to use magic glue over scabbards. Clipping is not an argument. As long you keep that shit on your back, it will still clip trough the armor, if I had to chose between a sword with scabbard clipping trough armor or a sword without scappard clipping trough armor, then I would chose the option with the scabbard. Its not like you're loosing something here. Also, it really is just a bit more work for the animators. Does it really matter so much if your hero is holding his sword in his hand/over his shoulder or with magic glue on his back? You will face more combat then talking in RPGs like Dragonage anyway ...

Not that much. A good third of the game is conversations, granted most of them are in hub areas but the game can get very talky.

And I imagine that, if it was easy, the animators would do it. Clipping on scabbards when you spend most of your time looking at the character's back would get very noticeable, very fast, and I suspect people would hate it more than the sticks to the back glue.

They could go the Dark Souls route. The greatswords there were held in a more realistic fashion. However, that game has no cutscenes. Full motion cutscenes where the character needs their hands would be impossible if they're holding a weapon.

 

[Crni Vuk]

And I will say this again it would be clipping anyway ...

would it be difficult in some cases to create scabbards? Sure! But that's why they are artists, animators, designers. Its simply their job to find a solution for issues like those. Some games can do it, and succesfull so. Assasins Creed, Sykrim, Witcher 2, and probably a few more. Hell even Oblivion had some.

Hell, almost everything is better then magic-glue.

And I think even fantasy settings are not immune to this kind of criticism.



*Edit
Of course, no ones demanding hyperrealism or to remove any kind of artistic freedom. But I feel that with just a few small changes here and there you can make already a big difference, as shown with the skyrim weapons, the design is pretty much still there, like the overall shape and material. But by making them less like paddles for example, you achieve a much more believable look. And in turn, this means you can create more believable items and avoid clipping issues by paying a bit more attention to the design and who's using it. - This also counts for over-the-top armor designs.

This really isn't coming from me! Some of the most successful concept artists and designers out there, like Feng Zhu, Scott Robertson and Syd Mead talk constantly about those things, like references and how to make your designs believable - hint it doesn't have to be realistic.

Believable designs for weapons somehow follow the same argument why you don't want to see bikini-armor in Skyrim/DragonAge/Witcher.

I think something like this in games can look just as awesome and beatifull.

Spoiler

Or keeping the weapon in the hands of the character, particularly two-hand weapons. It would not even be THAT (!) hard from the animations, no scabbard needed, no magic glue. Just keep it on the shoulder.

Spoiler

*nitpicking mode off*

 

[aenemic]

Finally been able to play after a cheap cpu upgrade.

Man, this game is a mess. Loving parts of it, face-palming over other parts. Most annoying is the blatant lie that this game in any way was built for PC first and foremost. Luckily I have an Xbox controller, otherwise I'd probably have given up by now.

The story is meh. Pretty ok-ish at some points, but overall I haven't felt this little invested in any BioWare game so far. Parts are even cringe-worthy. Like the singing in the camp. My god, that was awkward.

Combat is even more meh. I mostly just auto-attack, since that's all I need to do to win a fight. Never use tactical cam.

Crafting is interesting, but so far materials and schematics have been too limited to win over found loot.