Hoping for oriental design for armor and weapons?

[Guyviroth]

It seems that as WoW has progressed further and further along its path of dominance and with the release of newer expansions, gear sets etc they have only made their armor pieces bigger, broader, spikier and with more trimming and decors. Not to say that it's a bad thing but there has to be an end for it, right?

Now what I hope is that they take this philosophy away for the time being, and instead focus on more oriental works. Shogan armor, Kimono, feudal lord robes, anything from feudal japan and old chinese settings, y'know? I don't mind if they mix usual western medieval design into it, but as long as I can point out at a piece of clothing and say "Oh wow, that looks totally awesome for an asian theme", I'd find that an achievement.

What do you guys think?

[Kathranis]

They won't associate the pandaren with Japanese-inspired clothing because that would cause a backlash from the Chinese playerbase, as it did in Warcraft 3. There were already some complaints from Chinese players that the writing in the MoP teaser looked more like Japanese characters than Chinese ones -- and that's a written language that Blizzard made up, with no real world equivalent.

But yes, there will be clothing and armor with a Chinese theme. They already showed several new weapon models during the art panel at Blizzcon, but I can't seem to find the art slide.

Edit: Found it.

[iamthedevil]

Seeing as how this is a fantasy world created by Blizzard, a mix of Chinese and Japanese influence is more than merited.

[meifumado]

hmmmm, panda's, Asian themed everything...... Ya think?

[Butterland]

With Transmog, the more variety the better. I don't mind trying out any sort of new theme to see what works or not. If nothing fits me, I still have 2-3 transmog sets per char.

[meifumado]

oh those models look bad as well

[Baphomette]

Seeing as how this is a fantasy world created by Blizzard, a mix of Chinese and Japanese influence is more than merited.

Seeing as Blizzard's Chinese market is orders of magnitude larger than their Japanese, I would not expect them to try to appease both. There will be few or no Japanese designs.

[iamthedevil]

Seeing as Blizzard's Chinese market is orders of magnitude larger than their Japanese, I would not expect them to try to appease both. There will be few or no Japanese designs.

Once again... fantasy world, not real world.... does not need to be directly related to anything.

[Quenden]

oh those models look bad as well

'

Care to elaborate? They're very simple designs, but they certainly are not poorly constructed or use horrible textures.

I think we'll see the stereotypical Asian-inspired weapons, but armor I'm a bit iffy on. I'm VERY excited to see the intricate robes they come up with.

[Baphomette]

Once again... fantasy world, not real world.... does not need to be directly related to anything.

China (in the real world) has already gotten angry about pandas in Japanese armor (in fantasy world). So yes, they are related.

[BLSTMASTER]

I think they will definately look into multiple asian cultures (they fit pretty well together because they have a similar 'style' )
As said on another thread, I want korean hanbok themed cloth gear for my priest >.< (google hanbok for reference)

[Deleted]

China (in the real world) has already gotten angry about pandas in Japanese armor (in fantasy world). So yes, they are related.

I really doubt that young, chinese gamers actually cares. Older conservative maybe, but i highly doubt they even play the game. If i had to guess, i would suspect it's the same group of people that boycotts certain videogames(GTA comes to mind) or movies. It would be interesting if any chinese players could confirm this however.

[vian]

That blade, down to the right, looks like a chinese warsword : )

[Iandyan]

I'm somewhat surprised the company that made kung-fu panda isn't suing based on the trailer itself

[Thage]

I really doubt that young, chinese gamers actually cares. Older conservative maybe, but i highly doubt they even play the game. If i had to guess, i would suspect it's the same group of people that boycotts certain videogames(GTA comes to mind) or movies. It would be interesting if any chinese players could confirm this however.

The players in Warcraft 3 were offended, but the Chinese government shat a brick. Chinese-Japanese relations are still in the shitter over the Japanese occupation of mainland China in WWII, and the events that transpired therein (Nan King being the most infamous of those). The players, now, aren't really the main issue--the issue is that odds are, MoP will be banned in China until Blizzard releases a Chinese client replacing any Japanese equipment with Chinese or Western gear much like they did with exposed skeletons in Vanilla through Wrath.

[Kathranis]

Seeing as Blizzard's Chinese market is orders of magnitude larger than their Japanese, I would not expect them to try to appease both. There will be few or no Japanese designs.

Actually, there isn't even a Japanese version of the game. Blizzard's never released any of their games to the Japanese market.

And for those who don't get it, Japan commited major atrocities against the Chinese and Koreans during the Sino-Japanese wars and World War II, and the Japanse government still denies it, so there's a lot of tension and racism between those nations.

So, putting a panda (China's national symbol) in the clothing of a nation that commited horrific acts against their country, is very offensive to many Chinese people.

As I said before, there were even some Chinese players complaining about the Pandaren written language looking too much like Japanese kana (as oppose to Chinese hanzi). And the Pandaren written language is completely made up.

Blizzard's best bet, considering the game's popularity in mainland Asia, is to be culturally sensitive and not just create generic "oriental" designs which confuse the various cultures of Asia.

[Zoldor]

Those models are fairly ugly, almost as bad as the green quality gear and blue gear from wrath. Who knows maybe the designs will look better but something tells me most people are going to be mogging (is it a verb now) to Cata/wrath/BC/Vanilla gear. The asian themed gear is kindda dull and too stripped down for my taste. I like my Orc to be Orcish, not a minimalist. Then again I like Orcs from 40k as well in their gawdy I'll use anything as armor kind of mindset.

The sad part is we have to cater to the whims of people because it might be sort of offensive about a war that took place years ago, christ we make fun of Hitler and Jews all the time in the western world, but man those Chinese and their intense pride. Don't mix my culture do it my way or the highway attitude is worse than the American attitude of west is the best. The Irony of no exposed skeletons coming from the country that sells their executed prisoners to a German Artist to inject plastic into the bodies and use them as a display is almost palpable.

[Zortorai90]

Seeing as Blizzard's Chinese market is orders of magnitude larger than their Japanese, I would not expect them to try to appease both. There will be few or no Japanese designs.

Is WoW even still sold in China? I never heard of a Cata released for China, and I thought the Chinese distributor and Blizzard had a disagreement on business shit last year.

[BLSTMASTER]

Those models are fairly ugly, almost as bad as the green quality gear and blue gear from wrath. Who knows maybe the designs will look better but something tells me most people are going to be mogging (is it a verb now) to Cata/wrath/BC/Vanilla gear. The asian themed gear is kindda dull and too stripped down for my taste. I like my Orc to be Orcish, not a minimalist. Then again I like Orcs from 40k as well in their gawdy I'll use anything as armor kind of mindset.

The sad part is we have to cater to the whims of people because it might be sort of offensive about a war that took place years ago, christ we make fun of Hitler and Jews all the time in the western world, but man those Chinese and their intense pride. Don't mix my culture do it my way or the highway attitude is worse than the American attitude of west is the best. The Irony of no exposed skeletons coming from the country that sells their executed prisoners to a German Artist to inject plastic into the bodies and use them as a display is almost palpable.

I think most of them actually are the starter gear for pandarens (wandering isles) or leveling gear (85-90).

[Thage]

Is WoW even still sold in China? I never heard of a Cata released for China, and I thought the Chinese distributor and Blizzard had a disagreement on business shit last year.

They got a new distributor, and it was mentioned at Blizzcon '10 or '11 (don't recall exactly which) that for the first time ever, Chinese and Western players were tackling the same content.