We’ve often poked gentle fun at World of Warcraft for its tendency to feature oversized shoulder armor on characters — sometimes to the point where it has eclipsed the 1980s in terms of over-padding. But the truth is that a lot of MMOs enjoy turning our characters’ shoulders into aircraft landing strips or mobile trophy displays.
Big shoulders are in, apparently. I guess it makes some sense from a visual standpoint: It’s a very noticeable part of the body that can be used for excessive ornamentation. However, it might be too much, too. I’ve gotten in the habit of disabling shoulder armor from many of my characters’ cosmetic outfits to give them a more slim and natural look.
What are your feelings on MMO shoulder armor? Too much? Not too much enough?
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I’m used to BDO, and not having much by way of shoulder armor – so it kind of bothers me to come back to WoW and have my character’s transmog completely overwhelmed by shoulders 5x the scale of the rest of the gear (except the boots, which for some reason, are huge at the top?). I hate when they clip through the hair, too.
GW2 isn’t too bad, on the other hand, at least for cloth wearers. A lot of the female armors are a bit more dainty in the shoulder region… however, they have their own issues with butt flaps, especially for leather armor.
When playing SWTOR as a Sith, your shoulders should look like a jet airplane.
I miss my Jedi’s fan head. hahaha
Oh yes. I remember the fan head well. Lol. And there pin cushion gloves to match.
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What ? Everyone knows that shoulders are the part of the body that needs the most protection. This is where your heart and all your soft inner organs reside, just ask any doctor .. well some doctors .. ok it’s a guy named Steve on utub. Also putting a lot of weight on your shoulders makes your balance really good, such that it is easier to swing that sword twice the size of your body.
Head protection is not needed either, as hair has the highest armor class in any game, together with high heels and exposed bosoms.
Recently City of Heroes Homecoming allows asymmetrical shoulders, which presents a lot of interesting looks. Added kittens and pandas to male and huge models. I use both a lot.
I mean, you could leave “shoulder” off the headline and I would still be saying yes.
Kind of a weird question. Depends on the game and the item. Some are awful, some aren’t. If the design looks good, I don’t mind if the shoulders are big.
Err…yes? >.<
What do those things you use as characters even look like with big shoulder armor? And can we laugh about it?
Without it, a lot more freer for one…
Awesome pics. BnS certainly does have its moments.
…and for the most part, sans-shoulder pads for one. The point I was trying to make for those while posting ’em. :)
On the other hand, my biggest complaint with BnS is with the breeze factor of many of their outfits. As for example, has that towel dropped off on one of your toons yet during a heated combat exchange? /monkaS >.<
I loved how my female character’s dress ‘flounced’ on GW2, and was constantly jumping up and down/bouncing around to trigger the animation.
Never played BnS tho.
I personally would prefer more realism in games…where if you get hit with a massive shoulder cleave, it can crack your shoulderpads, and eventually destroy them… but I also prefer stuff like for example car destruction in GTA and other stuff like that, that can progress…in San Andreas I used to try all kinds of things to see what limits I could push (For example driving on two wheels, of a car with 4.) by doing jumps/flips/etc..to see how much of a beating the cars could take before they exploded. To see whether it showed incremental damage taken on the vehicle.
That’s the kind of thing that could be used to ‘money sink’…with repairs, but most people hate mechanics like that…
But remember, always make sure you carry your towel… /awfulmoviereference
Meant the goblins or whatever it is you use from WoW.
I was also kinda making a joke about how people mock small-folk, and whether that’s OK to chuckle about. (As it’s offensive to some actual RL people.).
But that’s interesting to see no shoulder armor on a game. One of the games I played for a long time had a spot on inventory for shoulder armor, but never had any while I played, and when they did add it they made it require participation in server raid fights/bosses to earn them, so only a select few could gain them. It was essentially a prestige-show-off feature.
I think the designers were looking for one more armor slot for users to have to fill, and “shoulderpads” was all they could came up with. I wish they’d gone with socks or something.
Way past too much. It’s beyond stupid in WoW, and SWTOR upped the ante by having shoulder armor that is bigger, less practical and also *not optional* because it’s not a separate piece that can be hidden. Want that Vader-look chestpiece for your Sith but hate the winged surfboards stuck to the shoulders with Q-tips? Too bad, package deal.
Charr in Guild Wars 2 get a special mention for frequently getting stupidly oversized *metal* shoulder pieces that look like they should easily weigh more than most other *characters.* But at least that game allows you to hide them.
I think I actually found a Vader style chest without ugly shoulders on there, cape included. I can’t recall though. It was mid 40’s range though, so you have to get it at that specific level. The armor at the beginning had iterations as you went up…most people probably don’t even notice nowadays because they level through so fast…but if you go slow like I did…you really notice it. They slowly added a visual element here or there each level to the armors…