<as underwear>

[Miradus]

For pretty much as long as people wore clothes they wore underwear. Not all cultures, however. Desert cultures who were big on robes didn't. Neither did tribal types who wore any sort of skirt.

Pants were the key to having underwear. Once a society started wearing pants, they had underwear.

My non-archaeologist guess as to why that was ... because nobody likes visible skidmarks.

[QuillDipper]

A pair of heart-emblazoned boxers lie here, faintly stained.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

I would happily write up ten or so sets of underwear. I kind of wish I could write items for this game.

[Barsook]

I kind of wish I could write items for this game.

[RogueGunslinger]

You can, just become a mastercrafter. Mastercraft subguilds rock.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

I am _always_ mastercrafting, including when I play ranger/mercenary

[SaraD]

Just to correct some common misconceptions, humans have been using underwear to attract partners for a huge part of our history, essentially since the dawn of civilization (undergarments equivalent to a half-cup bra and thong are even referenced in the Enuma Elish, a truly ancient Sumerian tale). Where there is any form of civilization not artificially sexually repressed, there are cosmetics and lingere. Not merely for the practical benefits of undergarments, but explicitly for sexual attraction of mates. It was even a big issue in the church in the dark ages, about women using 'breast bags' to flaunt themselves, according to the church. I'm not just talking some strip of cloth or shift or something. We have actual artifacts from the period, of bras of different types of cut, colors and materials, based on what was available to the peasants and how stern the church was with them. The same applies to panties. There were significant variations in style, many of which we've found that weren't so modestly cut. How racy undergarments have historically been has always boiled down to "what materials and designs are available?" and "what is the naughtiest thing the church won't come down on me for?"

In the absence of suppression by external forces, human beings tend to quickly seize hold of any advantages they can get when attracting mates. It's kinda one of those genetically hard-wired things that takes an external force to prevent. (most frequently religious oriented prohibitions)

Edit: Also, Zalanthas's very open and encouraging attitudes toward sexual activity given the mortality rate means the need for an extremely high breeding rate to avoid depopulation. A mortality rate even compared to usual dark-age style settings which historically averaged 5-7 children, and the fact that in-world social expectations of sexual maturity in Zalanthas start much earlier than most settings, with first conception prior to the 1800's historically expected between the typical marriageable ages of 13-16 (again, when you don't live long, you start breeding young), makes promiscuity the norm rather than the exception, with male and female sluts prevalent rather than prudes.

In an environment like Zalanthas, short of public and frequently repeated prohibition by an authority figure of great power, I don't see any reasonable way for the culture to have -not- developed undergarments, both for practical reasons in cold or windy and sandy regions, only to see them develop in style further for purely -sexual- reasons. Even in cultures where it's suppressed the practice tends to prove extremely persistent as evidenced by the necessity of the church to innumerably repeat their discouragements over the course of -centuries- with commoners simply being sneakier about it to avoid censure. The lack of lingere in noble/merchant/etc wardrobes is quite frankly shocking and clashes extremely with the attitude and practical conditions of the setting.

In short, outside of cultures of Judaic-family religious influence, whores, getting -really- fucked up, and orgies were the norm for parties. And pre-industrial societies partied hard. I'm talking enough holiday and vacation days to account for up to 5 months of the year in some regions, and for the the rest of the year they worked at most eight hour days, only during the short harvest times going up to 16 hours a day in a 5-day week. So a huge portion of human attention was dedicated to nookie and things that make getting it easier. A pre-industrial sex-positive society not having any form of cosmetics and lingerie while it has whores and polyamory as it's standard sexual mores really really strains belief. Seriously. In most cultures high status or even common preindustrial woman, back to the dawn of civilization, have had the knowledge needed to either make or acquire at least some form of cosmetics or lingerie. Honestly, I'd consider the lack simply due to it being an uncoded element, rather than it not being present at all, given its near universal prevalence and how belief-straining its absence would be.

[SaraD]

oops, went to edit, accidentally quoted

[Lizzie]

Except this isn't pre-industrial earth. It's a fantasy world with a system created with integers and kilobits. And only people who a) take time to investigate whether or not pre-industrial earthlings wore underwear, and b) anyone who cares whether or not pre-industrial earthlings wore underwear, would care about whether or not fantasy elves wear underwear. And even most of them wouldn't care either because you can't compare fantasy elves to pre-industrial earthlings.

[SaraD]

Except this isn't pre-industrial earth. It's a fantasy world with a system created with integers and kilobits. And only people who a) take time to investigate whether or not pre-industrial earthlings wore underwear, and b) anyone who cares whether or not pre-industrial earthlings wore underwear, would care about whether or not fantasy elves wear underwear. And even most of them wouldn't care either because you can't compare fantasy elves to pre-industrial earthlings.

I wasn't talking about the elves. I was just indicating a basic human trend, which Zalanthas reflects in nearly -every other way-. So in the case of something that the designers simply forgot to include? I don't see any reason why we -shouldn't- simply expect them to exist even if they aren't expressed by code. Given it's a kind of persistent outcome of basic human behavior, I'd think that absent an actual reason it -shouldn't- be there, you should generally assume that basic human things remain present. So even if elves love commando, it's kinda an inherent thing for any human civilization that doesn't have something specifically suppressing it. It's the baseline, not the exception, so absent an explicit denial of their existence, occam's razor that however you wish.

And you really should have more interest in history. It has a lot of really fun and interesting things in it. It really gives you perspective on things.

[Lizzie]

I have plenty of interest in history. History of underwear-wearing, however, is not among that collective interest. This game isn't set up to be realistic. It's set up to be believable. It is believable that underwear can be considered "virtual" and up to the player to decide if his character is wearing it or not. There exists a "tdesc" function for players to add visible undergarments if they want to - I've seen a handful of that in the years since tdesc was coded in.

Furthermore, there are underwear items in the game - bras and girdles and stockings - and there are lose light-weight trousers that can be considered undergarments for someone wearing a codpiece or kilt or skirt or dress over them. Most players don't wear these garments at all, so obviously there isn't much a demand for more, or for anyone to code a whole new set of wear-slots just in case one of that handful happens to want to wear panties under their skirt.

[SaraD]

I have plenty of interest in history. History of underwear-wearing, however, is not among that collective interest. This game isn't set up to be realistic. It's set up to be believable. It is believable that underwear can be considered "virtual" and up to the player to decide if his character is wearing it or not. There exists a "tdesc" function for players to add visible undergarments if they want to - I've seen a handful of that in the years since tdesc was coded in.

Furthermore, there are underwear items in the game - bras and girdles and stockings - and there are lose light-weight trousers that can be considered undergarments for someone wearing a codpiece or kilt or skirt or dress over them. Most players don't wear these garments at all, so obviously there isn't much a demand for more, or for anyone to code a whole new set of wear-slots just in case one of that handful happens to want to wear panties under their skirt.

I agree that Tdesc is probably the best way to handle it. However, given a lot of experience with games with crafting systems that do include items like that, they tend to often be some of the highest demand of any non-combat item. Whether for men or women. So I think you might be a little inaccurate about the amount of appeal they have. We're mostly from the US here, which means we have the gradually fading religion-influenced cultural habit to pretend we don't like or are disinterested in sex, anything sexual, etc, while spending vast amounts of our time, energy and investment into exactly those things. Some players prefer cosmetic and social features that help with immersion over combat items, so there'll definitely be a market. It happens.

So while I do think TDesc is sufficient for it in the absence of code, I think it would still be really cool to see torso and lower body underlayers. Though it'd be inconvenient to have to change the slots for existing items that would otherwise go there.

As far as history goes, I think it's more important what daily life (which this topic is very much a part of) was like, the -experience- of history, rather than just lists of dates and wars. At least to me anyway. History is more fun when it lives and you can immerse yourself in it in as much detail as possible.

[Lizzie]

As I said, Sara - we already have a limited selection of underwear garments, and yet very very little interest by players in dressing their characters with them. It doesn't matter what your experience is in other games that have them. What matters is what players take interest here. And here - there just isn't all that much interest in it at all. If there were, these garments would be worn by more characters. Instead, they end up mostly on the Kadian NPC shop racks, and in peoples' closets. There are a few characters who wear them. But I have yet to see more than 10 characters in the entirety of the existence of tdesc, who have included them in their tdesc. And - at least 3 of those characters were played by the same player at different spots on the timeline.

It just seems time is better spent on improving things that people actually care about.

[Alesan]

The real problem with current underwear wearing is the fact that you can see every single wear slot a person is wearing as long as their cloak is open.

Some people will have sense enough to ignore that lacy pair of panties you're wearing around your waist while there are trousers on your legs and a tunic on your chest, but a lot will not. And it's incredibly jarring to be complimented on one's choice of undergarment when they shouldn't even be able to see it.

That being said, adding wear slots is no small thing. And I doubt it's going to happen for underwear.

[Miradus]

A lot of codework for something that's going to happen between only a few people in the (hopeful) privacy of their apartments.

You could code in urination and defecation needs and have it impact a much larger portion of the playerbase. (Not that it needs to be done.)

[SaraD]

I do have to agree with the impracticality of wearing it with currently available body slots, as well as the amount of effort that would go into coding it. It's why it's honestly something that I think TDesc can handle unless they ever have extra time on their hands to invest into minor detail work (ie, probably not any time soon).

[JackGibbons]

They may simply be unpopular since they're pretty useless now, taking up important wear slots and not being layered properly.  They might be a booming business if you could wear them under clothing items.

We do already have some code for this, e.g. a shoulder piece can be hidden by an 'over the shoulder' item. So it may not be as difficult as imagined to add a new slot. But I can agree it's not a priority.

[ChibiTama]

They may simply be unpopular since they're pretty useless now, taking up important wear slots and not being layered properly.  They might be a booming business if you could wear them under clothing items.

We do already have some code for this, e.g. a shoulder piece can be hidden by an 'over the shoulder' item. So it may not be as difficult as imagined to add a new slot. But I can agree it's not a priority.

It would definitely be a nice addition and could open a whole new slew of master craft items to be had!

[nauta]

I think slots under armour would be neat.  You could then remove that armour and still be wearing a linen shirt or a chest-wrap or whatever.  It might encourage people to stop wearing their armour at the bar!

That said, tdesc is the non-code solution here, and with underwear.

[Alesan]

I might be the only one, but I think using a tdesc for stating what kind of underwear you're wearing seems kind of silly. Especially for my above mentioned reason.

[SaraD]

I might be the only one, but I think using a tdesc for stating what kind of underwear you're wearing seems kind of silly. Especially for my above mentioned reason.

That is a problem, and makes it hard to adjust on the fly, and very inconvenient, given you have to swap it in and out as appropriate and it's not included in the list of anything else you're wearing. I definitely do have to contest the claims of disinterest amongst "most" Arm players. I think this thread is definitely evidence to the contrary. There's definitely demand for it.

[Alesan]

That all being said, if there was a wear slot for under-clothes that was properly layered, and could only take under-clothes type items, I'm sure I'd find reasons for at least some of my characters to wear them. Especially under armor. That shit makes sense.

[JackGibbons]

I think slots under armour would be neat.  You could then remove that armour and still be wearing a linen shirt or a chest-wrap or whatever.  It might encourage people to stop wearing their armour at the bar!

That said, tdesc is the non-code solution here, and with underwear.

That's more the tediousness of changing or setting up changing aliases plus the uncertainty of your expensive armor still being in your apartment when you go back to change into it, or the fear of getting ganked/having something come up while you're not in it, I think.

[Vwest]

I would like to see more wear (and underwear) locations.

I'd like to see look specific locations added, too, similar to how tattoos are, but able to be set at in the HoK or within the first three hours of creation. It'd be neat to look at someone's face, or hands, and see some personal flavor text.

More customization of PCs in general would be great and I'm cool with supporting it starting with underwear.

[Miradus]

>look groin