Clothing/Armor in gaming.

[Dragonbums]

For me personally it's not the titilation armor that gets me.
It's the fact the player is often given no CHOICE over whether he/she wants that kind of skimpy armor in the first place. Me personally, I like bulky heavy armor that covers everything.
I look like a badass, and is one of the high points that I give to Elder Scrolls.
However on that rare occasion the skimpy armor looks so nice, that I simply have to wear it around.

The setting and the rules also matter in a sense too.

If a game is crazy magic anything goes imagination abounds kind of game, I could care less if the characters male or female are naked.
Who fucking care? I can climb up trees.

On the other hand you have games that are grounded in a lot of realism.
Things that can kill a normal person in real life can kill your character in game.
So with that in mind it makes absolutely no fucking sense that the males are wearing armor appropriate for the life style, and the woman look more and more like exotic dancers. And again, they give you no choice in the matter.

 

[skywolfblue]

I think the stats/bonuses should be divorced from the aesthetic. People should be able to chose both how they want to play, and what they want to wear. Rather then have to suffer an ugly set they don't like just because it's say, the only one with stats for a hunter class, or severely gimp their play by wearing the suit that looks nice, but doesn't have their specific playstyles stats.

so it's entirely plausible to have magicians casting spells, dragons flying about, ogres, goblins, darkspawn, and all kinds of unrealistic and sometimes inhuman creatures, elves, dwarfs, and whatever else people come up with, dudes who grab a sword and go up against a giant one eyed laser shooting lizard, or hell have some dude that shouts random words suddenly be a master magician who can jump on a griffons back that takes him through the sky in an epic battle he then falls from the sky lands face first on the ground takes a potion and is back in top fighting shape... BUT, the minute a girl puts on a thong and calls it armor it breaks the realism in the game?!?!

/Seconded.

Fantasy games aren't suppose to be about realism.
Who cares how realistic an armor set is, so long as it LOOKS good.
And I'll admit, some chainmail Bikini's look damn fine.