RC said:
Actually, I don't have any problem with these characters at all (although Fran looks like she'd take some time getting dressed in the morning ).
Hehehe, one tidbit of interesting information: according to the game, her race is described as having naturally pointed, high-heeled, so high-heeled shoes are actually MORE comfy for them than our human clodhoppers.
Of course, FF12 is a fairly grounded game as far as final fantasies go....working with old kingdoms and Shakespearean themes. The characters reflect that.
thx surround sound said:
KM, thanks alot for burning out my retna with those images. YES I can easily see WOTC going in that feminized direction. You guys have to remember, WOTC is into this for the buck. They'll drop you 3Eers just as fast as TSR dropped us 1Eers when 2E came out. And the numbers of players won't matter, what their focusing on is the buyers who spend the most money. If there are 1 million active players, but only 10,000 buy 80% of whats released (you know the sort, they have a closet full of everything WOTC has ever printed....probably 5-10K worth) then guess what, your going to have to adapt to what those 10,000 addicts want; and if that means transgender flakes as heroes, so be it. If it happens, it'll be ironic.
You seem to completely ignore the fact that there's NOTHING WRONG with liking a character who is more svelte than beefcake. Heck, elves have looked half-androgynous since D&D began, and have been very popular, in part, because of that. People like sleek, silky, and smooth. This is why Legolas gets to surf on his sheild and Gimli gets dwarf-tossed. Legolas is sleek, silky, and smooth. And Gimli is loud, clumsy, and onery.
The Conan archetype is out the door, too. Rippling muscles and exposed man-chest have gone the way of Kevin Sorbo and the California Beach Meatheads. Their place is on the inside covers of harlequin romance, not really in the imaignations of the kids that WotC is trying to hook.
What's in the imagination of those kids? Legolas (sleek elf ninja). Harry Potter (awkward but powerful nerd-man-boy). Ash and Pikachu ("average high school kid on adventures" and his adorable pet). Ichigo from BLEACH (dresses in flowing black robes and wields a six-foot hunk of metal that represents his inner psyche...realistic? Piffle). Aragorn (scruffy rogue who fights with destiny and throws torches!). Frodo and Sam (plucky homosexual midgets on an impossible quest invovling a ring and some great evil). Aang from AVATAR (little bald kid who masters the elements and rides a flying bison through Vaguely Asian World). Naruto Uzumaki (lazy ninja student with determination instead of talent).
So what will the art of the future game look like? Take a bit of the old school, add a jolt of anime, probably kick around some asian symbology, put cute animals in various places...get a lot of black ink for the dark clouds and the brooding cliffs, and have fun impressionist-style.
I'm actually surprised so many people here even know about these old 70s and early 80s modules, never mind considering them to be thier all time favorite cover art (and you can't say its nostalgia when many of them weren't even alive when they were published).
Check out the average age here, sometime.

There's a lot of grognards who started, at their latest, back in 2e. Part of the reson is because this site came out of a site that posted updates when 3e was first coming out...there's not a whole lot of people here who have had exposure to ony 3e, or 3e first. Being alive when they're published doesn't matter...taking them off the family bookshelf when your older brother baught them with his part-time job money and marvelling at the fantastic creatures by the half-light of your bedroom lamp when you were supposed to be going to sleep is what matters. We don't really have people here that have had that experience with 3e art. Talk to some of these folks' kids in 10 years.

I'm *positive* people here had that experience with 1e or 2e art. And I think that's a LOT of what makes them so magical.
Armor spikes are nothing new, after all. I mean, check out that Otis pic...shoulder pads on the lady, *wings* on the helmet?! How impractical was THAT?! (what, did they make him go faster?

) Why is he wearing a skirt? Wouldn't that leave his legs exposed? How is that flame attatched to that...is that a torch? Why is the water actually opaque green jell-o? And why is the dragon languidly raising his head? Wouldn't it make more sense for it just to dart out from underneath? Certainly that would make the stabbitty that Mr. Wingface is about to give a bit less likely...or were green jell-o dragons also tactically retarded in BD&D?
I mean, I'm usually very generous about art. I really don't mind the piece.
But given that, or this:
or this:
or this:
.....I'll go with the ones that don't have green jell-o water.
