If you read into what Brad has said about equipment I think your answer is there. He wants to focus on having multiple sets of equipment for different situations. If you don't even look the same all of the time, I don't think you will look like everybody else. When talking about different race skeletons, he makes mention of wanting to have lots of armor models as a reason to hold off on non-humanoid races. Also, the travel aspect of the game suggests a more spread-out population, which will likely help diversify armor...
It's all just guesses for now, but I don't think this should be a problem. As for style? I don't know. I haven't seen any plate yet
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