Hey guys, couple of comments about camera lock and gender choices:
WRT the camera, I am in agreement that an unlocked camera is an awesome thing. I would love to have that option. Unfortunately when we created AL, we built it to be specifically viewed from one direction. This means that many buildings and props do not have a back face, and when the camera is spun around, things look very strange. The art bar is so high on this title that the decision was made to not allow the camera to rotate because, from certain angles, the game looks broken. Please believe me that I have been on an internal crusade to make it happen, but in the end the decision was made to not allow it in the interest of a beautiful and uniform visual experience.
Gender choices are restricted for a different reason. We went with such strong silhouettes because we really wanted to differentiate the feel of the roles. Each class has specific, and highly stylized models and animations, as opposed to SL, where everything shares the same model and animation set. For us to pull off a female warrior in AL, it would be a completely different body type, different animation set (women do not move like men, as we all know), and different armors at the least. This is what we call in the biz, a "multiplier".
I hope this explains some of the choices that may seem arbitrary to you, and thank you very much for the continued discussion of how we can make this game better for everyone.
- g
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