Feedback:User/Ineluki/Armor and Role Playing

Today's blog-post talked a lot about armor and giving players the freedom to express themselves through it, instead of making the armor a mirror of your stats. I love the idea but see some issues.

GW1 was a fun, action-oriented game. Nothing where you would take the world too seriously. GW2 is different in that orientation. It is already marketed as more RP-centered with the tag-line “it's your story”. This requires immersion in the world. Taking the world serious however, is made a lot harder by the illogical conventions imported from the world of MMOs – especially made visible in the topic of armor.

Examples:
 * Fur, clothing designed for shielding from the cold, does not mix well with free bellies. It can have narrow free parts for free movement, though. Also: women are known to get cold more easily.
 * The magician's guild ordering all females to wear no more than 100 grams of cloth at all time, and their male members to wear at least 3kg of it is surely not part of the world lore.

In addition: role-playing is about identity. Clothes are a big part of our identity. Clothing that is strongly pre-defined by the gender takes away a lot of freedom. And freedom is the most important issue, after all. This is no black-and-white world and I hope the world of GW2 isn't either - cause that would be boring indeed.

Suggested solutions:
 * If armor isn't all done yet, focus on minorities in the designs, things that are still rare to find, and balance them out as best as possible.
 * If new armor is still to be designed, think twice why it is that way. And the answer should not include the marketing department.
 * Allowing to cross-dress will most likely be impossible from a programmer's point of view, but if it was possible (it is, in some rpgs) then it would be an ultimate solution to freedom without implementing additional designs.
 * Do not bind looks too tightly to classes, but make it possible, if players want to express themselves like that.
 * Armor that can be linked to a place (i.e. a dungeon) is not a bad thing. Players like to wear those as open badges, expressing the: “I mastered this”-sentiment. Do note remove these connections.
 * an outfit-system as known from LotRO might solve some issues with little effort

Roleplaying begins with immersion and ends when players find borders they cannot overcome.