Glowing weapons

[Rhianu]

I'm just trying to point out that XIV is stylisticly diffirent from WoW and in my opinion, does not lend itself well to glowing weapons.

Well obviously WoW and FFXIV have different artistic styles from one another. WoW is intended to look like a painting, which is a style that it actually captures very well, while FFXIV seems to be striving for hyper-realism as much as possible.

However, you are wrong to say that glowing things cannot fit in with a more realistic and lifelike art style. As I said several pages ago, a glow is nothing more than light, and there is no such thing as an art style in which light feels out of place or does not fit, not even a lifelike art style.

They have a diffirent style, a diffirent way of presenting and handling lore and characters. WoW is more like a Medival Fantasy or a Swords and Sorcery Fantasy (and that is NOT a bad thing at all). It's a more excited and energetic style of the Western RPGs they base it from (most spesifically the warhammer series). I am of the opinion that consitantly glowing magical weapons are better suited for games in the asthetic style of WoW.

Uh... FFXIV is a medieval fantasy with swords and sorcery just as much as WoW is. >_>

Besides, glowing weapons can fit into absolutely any style of fantasy game, regardless of setting or visual style. Saying that there is any such thing as any setting where glowing things don't fit is absurd. Hell, we already have the lantern shield, which looks awesome and totally fits in with FFXIV's art style, thus proving that glowing things can be perfectly at home in FFXIV.

Even FFXI had a shit-ton of glowing things all over the environments, not to mention all the summons and several bosses, too.

[Elexia]

There is however such a thing as too much glow and subtle glow. With XIV, things like latern shield or the rapier in XI recently added would do well.

Turning into a glow stick? Hell to the fuck no. xD

[Rhianu]

There is however such a thing as too much glow and subtle glow. With XIV, things like latern shield or the rapier in XI recently added would do well.

Turning into a glow stick? Hell to the fuck no. xD

I also said there needed to be variety. If every single weapon, shield, and plate of armor in the entire game looked like a glowstick, then yeah, that would probably be too much (unless you were making a Tron game, of course). However, if we have a bunch of weapons that don't glow at all, a bunch of others that glow subtly, and just a few that are glowsticks, that would be fine.

Having too many glowing weapons would take away from the specialness of having a weapon that glows, anyway. So if you want to say that their numbers should be limited, that's fine, but I still say there should be at least a few.

By the way, I feel I should point out that WoW has tons of gear that doesn't glow. In fact, a vast majority of WoW's equipment doesn't emit any light at all. Even in WoW, glowing weapons are really more the exception than the rule.

[kukurumei]

Glowing weapons didn't come from WoW. They won't be the first and won't be the last either. After all the "aura" of power is universal tool to show +1-ness.

Whether it's good? Who knows, it's sure is a cheap method though. Making some effects is a heck of a lot cheaper then produce an entirely new object.

[Elexia]

Yep.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/at...264533&thumb=1

Said glowing rapier in XI. So something of this or the lantern shield is as much glow as it should get. The stuff in WoW that does glow though, goes too far which is what I figure people want when they refer to glowing weapons/armor.

[Rhianu]

The stuff in WoW that does glow though, goes too far which is what I figure people want when they refer to glowing weapons/armor.

Well that right there is your problem: you shouldn't assume that people want any one particular thing. Like I said, variety is key.

Though personally I don't think there's anything wrong with WoW's artistic style. In fact, I think it's awesome. But at the same time WoW also has tons of variety. Not all of WoW's glowing equipment looks like it was from Tron. There's tons of variety in WoW's equipment and weapons, which is something that a lot of you don't seem to be aware of.

By the way, what is the name of this new rapier in FFXI? I haven't played FFXI in like over a year or so, and I'm kinda out of the loop with a lot of the more recent stuff that's been added to the game.

[Elexia]

Sagasinger.

[Gramul]

However, you are wrong to say that glowing things cannot fit in with a more realistic and lifelike art style. As I said several pages ago, a glow is nothing more than light, and there is no such thing as an art style in which light feels out of place or does not fit, not even a lifelike art style.

It's just my opinion.
As such it can neither be right nor wrong.

I'm still not convinced you're familiar with fantasy sub-genres, but as I said earlier, it doesn't really matter in this case.
That aside, I thought you might like to learn more about them so here are some links:

http://www.cuebon.com/ewriters/Fsubgenres.html
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Fantasy
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...ldid=318795990
(Note that the Wikipedia article is an older version of the page. I've linked it to make it easier because they decided to move all literary sub-genres to one page for whatever reason. Please enjoy.)

[Rhianu]

It's just my opinion.
As such it can neither be right nor wrong.

Maybe opinions can't be technically wrong, but they can certainly be biased, misinformed, and ignorant.

I'm still not convinced you're familiar with fantasy sub-genres, but as I said earlier, it doesn't really matter in this case.
That aside, I thought you might like to learn more about them so here are some links:

Genre is irrelevant, because what we're really talking about here is visual direction and artistic style, which is a totally different subject than genre.

EDIT: By the way, I looked through those links you provided, and not a single one of them said anything about glowing weapons, or that glowing things can only appear in certain genres. So good job on trying to shoehorn your own biased misconceptions into documents that really don't even mention your stance in the first place, let alone support it.

[Gracious]

Can a little glow really hurt that much ; ;? Just a little. Not too much. Why is everyone so scared of the glow <.>; It's like a NM or something reading some of these posts. Future NM "The Glow Monster!"