Armor and Dreams

[Voular]

Just a bit on the whole Gage Gritshaw/running around naked thing for newbies and veterans alike.  To me, someone like this would be the biggest pile of immersion breaking crap I've ever seen.  No offense to the player, but, if you didn't wish up and asked to be heat stroked and sunbaked dead in a few hours of running around in the harshest desert environment we can imagine, well,  you did poorly.  And so did staff for not doing it to you.

Exposure kills in the desert.  Even if you have little to no armor, you will most definitely want head to toe clothing.  And yes, all those delves who run around with next to nothing on all the time fill me with a similar disappointment.  Its one thing for someone in a city to move from shade point to shade point with skin revealed, but if you're spending a day+ in the wastes half naked or 90% naked, you're dead.

As for the armor part itself:  new players will find it advantageous to wear as much armor as is reasonable by noting what their messaging says with the 'stat' command.  And if you want to wear little or no armor, wear little to no armor!  Just make sure you've clothes on.

Yeah. No.

They would have coded that in. There is a thirst code, a stamina draining code from walking around, wearing more clothes/armor helps with various things. But anyone who lives in a planet with a red sky and a giant sun is going to be able to adapt. We can all agree on that. And presuming what the staff/players should or shouldn't do is bad form.

[FantasyWriter]

Many Aboriginal and Sans tribals would disagree that sparse clothing and desert life to not go hand in hand.

[Scarecrow]

I'm not sure I agree with the agility thing. The best bet is someone with good armor, and an average but not shitty agility. If you go to fight like conan in a loincloth, and rely on dodging/parry/block, all it takes is one mistake and you'll get nailed, hard. People with armor get to make mistakes and live.

[RogueGunslinger]

I'm not sure I agree with the agility thing. The best bet is someone with good armor, and an average but not shitty agility. If you go to fight like conan in a loincloth, and rely on dodging/parry/block, all it takes is one mistake and you'll get nailed, hard. People with armor get to make mistakes and live.

Eh, I really have to disagree to an extent. If it's a big enough hit to fuck you up, it's going to fuck you up no matter what. There a point where armor gets really diminishing returns around creature's/pc's that can regularly deal 20-25 dmg. If you're going to fight an elf though, damn is armor impressive and helpful.

[Harmless]

I like that there are strong opinions on both sides of this question. I think it speaks to the joys of Arma's combat system. The truth is both are viable, they are strategies that work well in some but not all situations.

[Desertman]

People throw fireballs from their hands and fight dinosaurs with bone swords and win. Let's not play the realism card just because some people have concepts that don't include wearing giant insect shells on their bodies in the desert and obsidian breastplates.

I mean, because lulz.

[Kryos]

Well, as I said, its my opinion.  Also, in fact:  Armageddon has a lot of abstractions regarding physical behaviors.  Wounds, and more so 'physical harm' are all abstracted into damage to your hp, mv, and stun totals.  There are very few coded means of punishing any sort of behavior that seems unlikely.  I could repeatedly jump off a fall room down to 1 hp, sleep for 5 rl minuts, and then motor around with no one ever being able to tell I was hurt.  I can stay in the desert for a whole rl day, never finding shelter, never sleeping, never resting:  so long as I have enough water.

Thus, its put on players to respect the environment and things that happen to them.   With all that in mind:  running around mostly naked to do things in a harsh desert world =  immersion breaking on the highest level.  For me.

As for the aboriginals who walk around with little clothing:  they don't do so in the times of day that = certain death in a desert.  I've seen them in forest, rain forest, plains and so on.  But even the badass African lion killing plains stalking people wear a whole hell of a lot of skin covering garb.  That Iranian man in the news recently for smoking dung and grebbing for a living?  Covered head to toe in clothing.  So on, and so forth.

Annnnnnnd, since I was partially responsible for the tangent, back on topic:

Even against enemies that hit for 20+ hp damage, armor can be the different between life and death.  And has been for my PCs at times. 

[RogueGunslinger]

I'll just leave this here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o

Oh hey, look, they're wearing hardly any clothes. Now it doesn't have to break your immersion, knowing it can be done in real life.

[Desertman]

Thus, its put on players to respect the environment and things that happen to them.   With all that in mind:  running around mostly naked to do things in a harsh desert world =  immersion breaking on the highest level.  For me.

Running around throwing fireballs and fighting giant insects and dinosaurs with bone swords while wearing obsidian breastplates in the middle of a desert is immersion breaking for me...well...no it isn't actually, because I realize this is Zalanthas, and not Earth.

Thus, it is put on the players to understand this isn't Earth, and it is Zalanthas, and the people and the environments in question can only extremely loosely be held up to the limited standards of real life people and environments.

But, that is just my opinion.  

[Inks]

More unrealistic wearing heavy armour all the time. I agree with desertman on this.
It's ridiculous as anything to say being nearly naked in the desert is unrealistic. So much so that I believe you're trolling sir.

[Kronibas]

It's way easier to poke holes in a character or a character's actions than it is to shape one who stands out vividly to others, years later.

It is extremely easy to be a critic on Armageddon... for players /and/ staff.  We all need to be careful about poking too many holes.  It's an admittedly flawed fantasy world, not there is a such a thing as a perfect fantasy world, so sacrifices in reason, science, and more common sense aspects often fall to the wayside, with imagination and fun taking precedence.

Often times, I feel as though people, myself included, are far too often victims of a marked lack of imagination in a game whose success is couched firmly IN imagination.

The only time I have ever lost karma, I still maintain, comes from a lack of imagination on that staff member's part, as what I was punished for, if written in a narrative format instead of limited expression though the code, would have made a lot more sense.  Whatever, though. 

Don't be afraid to use your imagination in big ways on this game, because that's the ONLY reason it's been as successful as it has: strong, inspired imagination.

[Bogre]

The most important answer to this question hasn't been mentioned yet:

wear what your character would wear.

If this means that your character wears full plate, do it. If you are a tribal and wear sandcloth wrap-pants then do it. Some of my most fun characters to play didn't wear heavy armor, and who ran around in smocks/ragged wraps of cloth.

Someone a while ago posted about his loincloth-wearing-desert elf who would dominate the known with his chipped obsidian dagger wielded in his off hand.

Go for broke.

[FantasyWriter]

The most important answer to this question hasn't been mentioned yet:

wear what your character would wear.

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[senseofeven]

Alright Armers!

I have another question pertaining to armor. Are crafters able to build customized kind?

How much impossible can we make possible in this world here, too?

[Cutthroat]

People with their armorcrafting skill at "master" level can mastercraft pieces of armor. That is armor with the crafting recipe, description, and other aspects of the item determined by the player. Typically only characters with the merchant guild and some special extended subguilds can attain master rank in most crafts. For other crafts, it works the same way - being able to make unique weapons, furniture, etc. There is a time limit on how many you can submit though, to ensure you roleplay the design process (and more practically, to give staff time to set up the item). There's more info on mastercrafting in its helpfile.

[Saellyn]

IIRC it's one month per mastercraft, so that staff can get everything setup and so you can go through the entire process like Cutthroat said. Sometimes it may take longer than a month to get setup - in that situation, I think the best policy is to just wait until it's setup, and during that setup process continually revise and prepare your next mastercraft. Mastercrafts are just that - you want to take your time with them. Make them look good, make them beautiful, ugly, make them look like a sloppy pile of fecal matter if you want.

Just because it's a "master" craft, doesn't mean it's a masterful work. It could be a big pile of crap - and you could even roleplay that yourself, that your characters design process could gradually become more and more complex the more things he designs all on his own. Nothing stops you from using your imagination with a mastercraft, within reason.