“As players, we rarely look down on our own shoes, or even NPCs shoes,”

October 18, 2018 5:00 AM

Shoes for Virtual Feet: “People wear shoes. Well, most people do. The same applies to virtual humans, every character in videogames wear shoes of some sort. I wonder what they are wearing? I've been documenting shoes in videogames for a few months now. It's experimental, it's not a full documentation yet, only the ones I find interesting. Protagonist, supporting characters, enemies, NPCs, pedestrians, they are all included.” [via: Rock Paper Shotgun]
posted by Fizz (42 comments total)

Oh, they’re all size 34.
posted by pompomtom at 5:11 AM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

In the commentary for Gone Home one of the developers pointed out that the most obvious thing wrong with the house is that there aren't shoes piled everywhere like there would be if a real family live there, so actually the Greenbrier family does not wear shoes.
posted by Space Coyote at 5:40 AM on October 18, 2018 [4 favorites]

One type of game where you do notice the shoes: fighting games, since one's shoes spends a good amount of time in one's opponents' faces.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 5:58 AM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

The rebooted Wolfenstein games are filled with shoes, specifically Nazi boots, you spend a fair bit of time peeking under doors to see if the enemy is on the other side.
posted by Fizz at 6:04 AM on October 18, 2018 [4 favorites]

I feel like you could do an entire catalog solely on shoes in MMOs. Or Dark Souls. People take their fashion game seriously.
posted by koucha at 6:30 AM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

I feel like you could do an entire catalog solely on shoes in MMOs. Or Dark Souls.

Absolutely, I know when playing games like Black Desert Online or Diablo III, I spend far too long agonizing on colour choices and fashion and making sure all my gear matches and is decked out to the nines,
posted by Fizz at 6:52 AM on October 18, 2018 [3 favorites]

A) It is maddening to me that I can't click or hover to see what game the image is from.
B) WTF are those footbasket motherfuckers?
posted by Rock Steady at 7:01 AM on October 18, 2018 [4 favorites]

I feel like you could do an entire catalog solely on shoes in MMOs. Or Dark Souls. People take their fashion game seriously.

Not gonna lie, collecting transmog appearances is like 90% of what I do in WoW anymore. Leveling up? A lot of gear is level-restricted. Getting better gear to make my character more powerful? It makes getting more gear (and thus the associated appearances) easier. And so on.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:01 AM on October 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

There was a character creator toolset for Black Desert Online that was a stand-alone installation at one point. I'm not finding any active links but I recall that being a thing people were super into. There's something so pleasing about online fashion and customization.
posted by Fizz at 7:07 AM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Not gonna lie, collecting transmog appearances is like 90% of what I do in WoW anymore. Leveling up? A lot of gear is level-restricted. Getting better gear to make my character more powerful? It makes getting more gear (and thus the associated appearances) easier. And so on.

Fashion is the true endgame.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:25 AM on October 18, 2018 [5 favorites]

My goal is life is to have sneakers like Nathan Drake.
posted by adiabatic at 7:27 AM on October 18, 2018

Looks like this guy forgot to put on his virtual feet when he put on his virtual shoes.
posted by ejs at 7:39 AM on October 18, 2018 [5 favorites]

I think this Ghost Recon guy has his shoes on the wrong feet. Or his feet on the wrong legs.
posted by carmicha at 7:48 AM on October 18, 2018 [5 favorites]

Anecdote: 40 years ago when I was in school, one of my classmates was Ronald McDonald for appearances. We were pretty good friends and one day I asked if I could wear those giant red shoes (which were custom made in Italy...very nice!) to school. I wore my normal jeans and flannel and those big red shoes.

Only one person noticed all day! Not a lot of shoe fetish folks out there I guess?
posted by CrowGoat at 7:52 AM on October 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

I want a pair of Chell's Long Fall Boots.
posted by Ella Fynoe at 8:03 AM on October 18, 2018 [4 favorites]

I'm still annoyed that Khajiit and Argonians, both previously digitigrade species in The Elder Scrolls, have gone back to being plantigrade and wearing shoes. Not as annoyed as the whole "lizard people with boobs" thing -- but pretty annoyed.
posted by cage and aquarium at 8:11 AM on October 18, 2018 [6 favorites]

Wait, really? I didn't play one in Skyrim but had in Oblivion and Morrowind. Seems like typical Bethesda laziness combined with their ever-decreasing in player agency, creativity, or individuality.

I love this shoe project. I have a mess of screenshots for something similar I was trying to do for a while, compiling the "art" inside the art with screenshots of the different paintings, scupltures, installations, etc in videogames.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:16 AM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

I feel like you could do an entire catalog solely on shoes in MMOs. Or Dark Souls.

You could call it 'Dark Soles'.
posted by misteraitch at 8:17 AM on October 18, 2018 [10 favorites]

like 10% of the joy in the splatoon games is picking out just the right fresh kicks for you squid kid.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:19 AM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Not super-impressed with the presentation - basically, 'here's a bunch of shoes!' - but it does make you think about the work put into these games. I mean, I guess they hire shoe/fashion historians who know what people were wearing in various times and places throughout human history and then those people have to work with designers who have degrees and whatnot in software engineering and together they arrive at the finished project. And then that little team has to work with the overall project team to get them all integrated into the game. And that's just the shoes! Pretty amazing.
posted by Phreesh at 8:24 AM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

I guess this is as good a place as any to share my own project, it's in the same vein. Only my focus is not shoes but fingers/hands from anime. jazzhands.xyz I have no idea why I'm doing it.
posted by Fizz at 8:31 AM on October 18, 2018 [4 favorites]

I really doubt shoe historians enter into it. Designers Google "Roman centurion" or "18th century peasant"and go from there.
posted by Meatbomb at 8:39 AM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Meatbomb, from my contract experience with a certain high profile developer I wouldn't be surprised if they did hire consultants like this but I don't know either way. Historians are absolutely consulted in a more general way on story, visuals, accents, etc like they would be for a blockbuster movie.
posted by Evstar at 9:04 AM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

The first time I actually took the time to stop and notice shoes was in Half-Life 2. I don't know that they did anything special, but it was the first time I said to myself "oh, different characters actually have different shoes on, rather than just BOOT.mdl."
posted by Krazor at 9:05 AM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

yeah it’s important to get details like that right — really increases the immersiveness of the play experience. And, like, let me tell you, if I’m playing a game set in 1958 and an NPC is wearing a Selectric typewriter that wasn’t even released until 1961 on their feet, it takes me out of the game altogether.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:18 AM on October 18, 2018 [3 favorites]

Look - My Bloody Valentine hasn't done anything worth listening to in a decade. Shoegaze is soooo over.
posted by cyclotronboy at 9:22 AM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

The rebooted Wolfenstein games are filled with shoes,

I saw what you did there...
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:41 AM on October 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: What are those footbasket motherfuckers
posted by q*ben at 9:45 AM on October 18, 2018

A friend and I decided to relive our high school days by playing Final Fantasy III/VI on the SNES (Classic). We started a new game and he immediately remarked at how slow we were walking around in Narshe and it wouldn't be until the third town (South Figaro) that we would have a chance to purchase the fabled Sprint Shoes, which doubled our walking speed on town and other non-overworld maps.

Thinking from how RPGs are in 2018, where walking speed can be adjusted in the settings or simply by holding a button while moving forward, the shoes are such a weird design choice (I think in later FF's and the remake of FFVI they would fix this). I can see no reason why to deny players the initial ability to walk around town faster, and then requiring them to buy a piece of equipment to do so. And finally to add further insult, having the player to equip the shoes as a relic on one of your party members (that denies that slot for a more important relic). Early in the game when relics are rare, it's not much trouble to leave the shoes on a party member for a while. But later in the game you gain more and more powerful relics you end up having to always remember to swap Sprint Shoes for a better relic before big battles. Oh, and you'll probably end up with a couple of extra pairs, because the story sometimes has the parties split up and the perspective of the story shifts from one party member to another.

Now that I've written all that, it's actually a little gross how the Sprint Shoes can be worn by up to 14 different pairs of feet during the game.
posted by FJT at 9:45 AM on October 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm still annoyed that Khajiit and Argonians, both previously digitigrade species in The Elder Scrolls, have gone back to being plantigrade and wearing shoes.

Blame player expectations around animation fidelity. You can't mocap a digitigrade biped, because there aren't any. The alternative would be simply not having beast race player characters.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:57 AM on October 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

g-g-g-g-ghost!
posted by ckape at 10:00 AM on October 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

“You can't mocap a digitigrade biped, because there aren't any”

Surely there’s a way.
posted by adamrice at 10:41 AM on October 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

"Blame player expectations around animation fidelity."

Uhh... it's a Bethesda game. There's no animation fidelity to begin with. They only begrudgingly agreed to animate anything, for a long time they were just going to have everyone in T-pose and just move the models around and use your imagination to fill in the details.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:45 AM on October 18, 2018 [6 favorites]

MetaFilter: I have no idea why I'm doing it.
posted by homunculus at 10:46 AM on October 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

These boots from Skyrim are my favorite. Whenever I roll up a magic-y character that I want to eventually enchant clothing for, i make sure to get a pair of those boots. I wish those boots existed in RL. They're really nice shoes.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 11:11 AM on October 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm a huge fan of Star Wars Dress-up Simulator (a.k.a. Star Wars The Old Republic). I'm not currently playing but I often think about the toons I have there and maybe picking it back up to get more outfits, swing my lightsabre, and shoot my blasters.
posted by snwod at 12:10 PM on October 18, 2018

My goal is life is to have sneakers like Nathan Drake.

or his whole outfit, seriously what kinda clothes last through bullets and fights and all that?
posted by numaner at 1:10 PM on October 18, 2018

Fashion is the true endgame.

could not be more true. I always put that off until I've spent money on everything else actually useful. working my way through Almost A Hero right now and while I really really want the bonus outfits the gems are better spent on more scraps.
posted by numaner at 1:12 PM on October 18, 2018

There was a missed opportunity to title this post, "Oh my god, shoes."
posted by Quackles at 1:45 PM on October 18, 2018 [5 favorites]

Oh, I totally get that it's too hard to render; I don't seriously hold it against the developers. I am the last Bethesda fan standing, after all, even though their games are a crashy mess. If anything, I assumed players complained about not being able to equip as much game-breaking gear.

It's in the same back-of-the-brain itch area as overthinking how much items weigh. Being a biology pedant gives me something to think about while I sort through my inventory for the ten millionth time.
posted by cage and aquarium at 1:51 PM on October 18, 2018

> "like 10% of the joy in the splatoon games is picking out just the right fresh kicks for you squid kid."

Really, how could you leave them out? Look at those shoes, nearly every one is boring and sensible and brown. I bet they don't even have cool soles. Now take a look at these .
posted by lucidium at 4:47 AM on October 19, 2018

That was a little disappointing without commentary. I was hoping to learn something about shoes or videogames. Some gorgeous stuff though.
posted by arcticwoman at 12:01 PM on October 19, 2018