Female Barbarian

#1 - March 15, 2011, 5:25 p.m.

Q u o t e:
I get the feeling this will be by far the least played character overall, even the female WD is more appealing to me. Iit just doesn't feel right, at least for me, this mixture of feminine and muscle. Yet I still think this combination is doable. This cancelled Red-Sonja-remake e.g.

http://www.filmering.at/images/stories//gallery/redsonja2/RedSonja-Poster02.jpg
http://www.filmering.at/images/stories/gallery/redsonja2/RedSonja-Poster01.jpg

It has some brutal/wicked touch to it, which wouldnt be bad actually, at least a flavor of it's own. The current female barbarian seems like a clump of muscle-like valkyrie to me. A man trapped inside a woman's body.

I think this image depicts how a female barbarian could work:
http://www.comicsbulletin.com/news/images/0503/Red_Sonja_Land_cov.jpg

Bit of muscle, but female; yet not assassin-style, but melee.

It comes down to what Blizzard wants: having the class appealing to as many people possible or having a less appealing class just for "realism". Because I really don't think the current model is appealing to a whole lot.

What, the Female Barbarian seems a Valkyrie to you? That is just wrong...

/sarcasm

Kaivax

#9 - March 15, 2011, 6:46 p.m.

There is another big factor that determines what a character class model will look like.

Of course, it is important for every character class to look awesome, and the female barb is clearly designed to look imposing and capable.

What you may be overlooking is how model design must also support gameplay itself. The character has to be able to fit the armor, and look physically correct when wielding the weapons that barbarians will, or when performing her attacks, etc. She has to cast a silhouette that you can clearly differentiate from all of the other class models at a glance, or without even having to look. When any other player moves into your peripheral vision, we want you to be able to know exactly which class they are instantly.

We don’t set out to unnecessarily sex up our characters. This is Diablo, not the lingerie store.