The hilarious front line in the tragic war against ridiculous female armor
Tag: fantasy
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Yesterday – while looking with Icy through Heroes of Newerth’s art page, the endless depository of painfully generic, often plagiarized, and even more often super sexist and racist artwork – we found this fairy… thing and agreed she’s a perfect bingo material. And boy is she!
If not for her weird furry feet, she’d very likely get a bingo with high heels.
I stump for Magic the Gathering hard. I often feel like, in a sea of boring design and policies written by the Creepy Marketing Guy, Magic stands out as really trying to do better for inclusivity and diversity, even if it does stumble from time to time.
But this time, they REALLY stumbled.
Behold, from the recent Battlebond set… Royal Trooper!
… like… what the hell.
This is my first time doing one of these bingo cards, so if I missed one or didn’t interpret one properly, let me have it:
Now, the hilarious thing is, I passed this by my fiancee in case I missed one, and she said that the male version of this card was probably better. That sparked an idea, and lo and behold, there was an earlier version of this card:
…it’s also a woman, in MUCH BETTER ARMOUR… FORWARD, Wizards of the Coast. We’re supposed to go FORWARD. Yeesh…
Thanks for subsmission and the commentary! We learned not to have high expectations of Magic and Gathering’s illustrations. At best, they’re a mixed bag.
What the genre needs is more men like this: immaculately groomed in stylish, empowering outfits that let you know they’re both physically powerful, but also emotionally powerful due to their strong connection with their sexuality.
5th edition Dungeons and Dragons’ human outlander is one painfully generic archer design, scoring low on bingo mostly due to sheer lack of inventiveness.
Nonetheless, like quite a few official female warrior illustrations from that edition of D&D, biggest problem with her is that she looks almost legit, with some practical-looking shoes, pants and costume made of plausible materials… only to be ruined by nonsensical top, adorned with a pauldron, just as an added insult to the simulated practicality.
~Ozzie
The second most ridiculous thing about this pic is that its followed almost immediately by the rather awesome “Soldier” background’s illustration:
The most ridiculous thing about it is that it represents the “Outlander” background, which is supposed to represent an individual who has lived isolated from society out in the wilderness.
In a weird designer leather bra thing… apparently…
So Lady Kagami was the main antagonist of Tenchu 2… which was supposed to be an epic battle between ninja clans and rulers in Feudal Japan but somehow ended up with this as the major villain.
How seriously can you expect to take people take this kind of villain when facing off against a protagonist like this:
For those rushing to type that it’s an old game and doesn’t matter – it’s worth remembering what the final installment in core series was. Design aspects like this left unaddressed can kill otherwise unique and engaging properties.
The upcoming game seems to incorporate time travel so they can have massive, carefully crafted settings with nonsensical outfits. Honestly, it makes no sense, since the same press footage they’re releasing confirms… they know how to make sexy badass ladies. I mean, look at this babe:
If you’re not in lustlove you’re just not paying attention.
Of course, most of the current fuss is not over the zombie mode but rather over the lack of a single player campaign. Though personally, I’m glad we get this moment that I’m choosing to believe depicts a female character getting to meet the Creepy Marketing Guy responsible for this.
Ironically, despite this armor being the first “screenshot” image on Conan Exiles’ Steam page – I can’t find any evidence that it is or has ever actually been in the game. The reason why is not particularly clear. After all, this is “heavy armor”:
The part that is most amazing about it is that the lower half is covered in pants that seem far beyond the heavy armor but then have a nightmarish boobplate that seems to have been designed with zero considerations for protection.
It gets chafing nightmare because it seems that after adding a layer of padding under the metal… they decided that a bare steel chain strap will be fine.
This is doubly a shame because not only does a certain marketing strategy seem to impeding them giving a solid representation of the game but they’re also missing the opportunity to show the real empowerment in the game:
– wincenworks
Update: Apparently it is possible to recreate the outfit, but requires mixing and matching bits, @p75369 created the female version here and… well I’m sure you’ll be shocked the male version is different.