Throughout the game I have been ever impressed by some of the designs of the weapons and armor. I personally, like others I know, would purchase weapon replicas if they were made by Franklin Mint or someone that match those in the game - esp. some of the swords, axes and maces.

However, the design of the shields has left me stunned - Why would they put handles on them like trashcan lids. Most shields that I have or have used always had a main handle at 2:00 (not the center) and if its a buckler - another arm strap at 7 or 8:00. I'm curious why all the shields would have a "handle" like it was designed in the game and would love to here why that choice was made.

Many shield designs have only one handle.

This struck me as odd too, especially when leather straps are usually used in their construction and they never leave your arm. I suppose my shield arm is like steel now from carrying around my big ass Imperial shield.

Well if you look at the design of many shields in the early medieval age most of them had handels that were small so the user only had to use his hand and thus it would be much more maneuverable than a later design of shield that used you forearm to hold it. Many of the more Germanic and Scandinavian designs follow the simple hand holding style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdHo-1jbX1A&feature=relmfu


The Video talks a lot about what i said.

And I thought it was stupid. I have been educated

probably for animation purposes. anything other than one handle and anything other than the center of a concave shape would clip like crazy. and consider that the 1-handed and 1-handed with shield animations are all the same, so the shield position was probably adjusted to make it look "right"; otherwise the one-handed animation might look weird.

Yah I have several with one handle but none with a trashcan style solid lid in the center like almost all shields in the game. It just struck me as odd. I have used several with the handle just off center and a leather strap but none solid like those. If it was solid and someone hit it - the impact would make me probably loose my grip of it - but what do I know.

Yes.

I agree!

I'm half expecting Oscar from sesame street to 'pop' over the top of my shield at any moment and ask me what the letter of day is. Funnily enough, in one of the dungeons the lighting is quite green, so imagine my surprise when a frost troll popped up all green. I was like "Oh it's you Oscar...wtf you hitting me for man, you're like an example to set for kids!....oohhhh".

It's just so they don't need to tweak the animations for each shield. It'd be also a lot harder to mod.

This guy is GENIUS. Like Zero Punctuation for real life. Thanks.

He's really not a genius.

While he's quite clearly right on many issues, on just as many you see him speculating and applying reasoning to rumours rather than providing research. For example, just because he can argue that something may have worked better in one way, it doesn't necessarily equate to that definitively being the case in historical usage. The sword on back video is a good example of this; while he's right that drawing a sword from your back is generally less convenient and less safe, he had previously said that it couldn't be done, before somebody pointed out that it could if you didn't deliberately ignore the obvious way of doing it.

Plus, zero punctuation is hardly a font of unbiased knowledge. Yahtzee is fun to listen to, but anyone who actually bases any decisions at all on his reviews should be lobotomised.