I'm still feeling awfully silly running around in my set of Outland greens and blues. And I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who thinks my character's appearance has taken a turn for the worst since leveling past 60. Even Drysc has chimed in on the topic, telling us......leveling items are almost always go to look more or less "plain". We want the end-game items to really stand out, both in ability/power and the way they look. The items you had at 60 were the end-game items, they were the best of the best and their look really showed that visually just running around the city. As you're leveling again you may be finding better gear than what you had, but it's not the uber end-game gear, and so it sort of has a plain look to match.
Of course, I don't think that my complaint is over the fact that the gear looks "plain" -- in fact, I think "plain" would be a major improvement over what I'm wearing now. And while all of us want the incredible end-game gear to look, well, incredible, that doesn't seem like a great reason to make the rest of the gear in the game look awful, or just as bad -- boring and recycled. With most of the sights in Outland making me want to gape in wonder, the fact that my character would look about the same (perhaps better -- I don't recall low level greens being this jarringly colored) if I went and geared myself with the best that Elwynn Forest had to offer is a little disappointing.
How could the current system be improved? Read on for some thoughts.
The suggestion of armor dyes comes up again in this thread -- and while I think it's a great idea that would solve a number of player complaints about the aesthetics of gear design, Blizzard has never really smiled on the proposal. Way back in December 2005, Caydiem told us...
...the "easiest" way to implement this would be to shift all armor to a greyscale and allow application of a single color. Except... doing that causes either dark colors to look washed out (such as red appearing dingy pink) or light colors to look dim and dirty. Pure white? Pure black? Can't happen, not without almost completely removing the detail on the texture. All the multicolored bits would be gone. And that's something we don't want to do; the textures of the game provide much of the liveliness in the art style of the game. If we want to do dyes right, it's a far greater task that would require special attention to each and every piece of armor in the game, creating maps to define where the dye would and would not apply, etc. in addition to making sure the colors would be the vibrant and strong shades we've come to know from Warcraft. It's not a simple thing to implement by any means, and there are no plans to do so at this time.
And more recently (November 2006), Drysc told us...
...as far as customizing specific armor we would probably move to something that allows you to choose from color variants for some items long before we allowed actual free-form dying. That's just my take on it right at this moment, but of course anything is subject to change.... Like I said we definitely love giving players choices and the ability to customize, and that's only going to increase as we go, but dyes aren't currently something we're considering for any future types of customization.
None of this give me much hope for my current character -- though it sort of encourages me to finish the grind to 70 as fast as humanly possible, so I can start looking at my character (an investment of so much time and effort!) again without wanting to cry.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
2-08-2007 @ 2:27PM
Zuuler said...
Run instances and start gathering blues. They look much better than the greens. I picked up a robe in Underbog from the last boss. Its a lot better looking, and so far I haven't seen anyone else wearing it. Its also a socketed item too, so I spent some time at the AH and got some really good stats.
I am sure that before I hit 70, some green will probably drop that is better than the blue i got from underbog, so it will be back to the ugly.
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2-08-2007 @ 2:35PM
Sam said...
Whats the deal with that Blizzard? I've been seeing a lot of lvl 60-70 players running around town that look like they could just as well be lvl 20-40.
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2-08-2007 @ 2:44PM
John Laur said...
OTOH there is some new pre-endgame models such as the Voidaxe that look absolutely incredible. The other weapon rewards from Circle of Blood all use Naxxramas weapon models too, so saying that there isn't good looking pre-endgame stuff is probably overgeneralizing.
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2-08-2007 @ 2:46PM
multikast said...
why do people get so hung up on this stuff? sure, i want my gear to look cool, but if one item has better stats, you better believe that i will not think twice about replacing an item. i have no problems running around in mis-matched gear that has great stats.
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2-08-2007 @ 2:55PM
Dave said...
Armor dyes would be neat, but I'd prefer for all non-endgame armor to be of a basic and uninteresting look by nature, non customizeable.
Then, when you get to the endgame instead of having everyone running around in the exact same colored pieces of gear, allow people to customize their set pieces with a set of predefined colors. Let them be rep based vendor purchases or whatever for certain colors, tailor made other colors, and let people just go to town having their own unique things.
It's great that Blizzard thinks their stuff looks awesome... but really at the point when the majority of people are running around in a full set of the same thing, what actually differentiates one T3 Warrior from the next other than their tabbard they may or may not wear?
One of the most fun things in UO I thought, was the ability to put on items you could color yourself on top of your actual gear. Special dyes were available, and all sorts of things that made it where your character could actually look unique rather than the same thing from everyone else. It was a nice touch, but something I doubt we'll ever see.
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2-08-2007 @ 3:11PM
Monigote said...
@5 Nice Idea... but you're right... blizz prob wont add that anytime soon
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2-08-2007 @ 3:17PM
Sylythn said...
I wouldn't mind the look of the low-level stuff if there was a decent shot at getting matching pieces. But I've got a gold tunic, yellow cloak, blue shoulders, grey track pants, purple gloves and a red/orange staff. That doesn't look good!
At least I'm still styling in my cool purple ranger hat, there's a green that looks good! :)
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2-08-2007 @ 3:58PM
Buford said...
I've been a little disappointed in this lately... I just wish there was some new and interesting non-tier armor out there. I'm not really into dying... it was nice in DAoC but I can see why Blizzard doesn't want to do the same thing, I do think it would ruin the look somewhat. But yeah my Outland outfit is technicolor, though I'm only 61 so I don't completely know what's out there. I'm more disappointed that it all seems to be reused textures/models.
Those Tier 4/5 sets look so cool and I'll know I'll never see them. I'm a casual player and despite playing for 2 years, once a week, I never even completed Dungeon Set 1. I know pathetic. Thinking about playing for the next year with the current armors isn't thrilling... maybe I'll get be able to get Dungeon Set 3 this time. But I digress. QQ.
Anyway, I hope they can add in some new interesting stuff in some patches over the next year.
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2-08-2007 @ 4:05PM
Rudi said...
I wish we could get (either as a guild or pvp award) a tunic/robe that would go over all of our gear and hide it. I really miss that from UO (especially since my gnome is now running around with a goldweave tunic, some weird green pants (with gold thread) and a wolf-head hat...).
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2-08-2007 @ 4:09PM
Matt said...
I got Robe of the Crimson Order, http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31297, and my character (a mage) looks great now. It's a random drop, but I got lucky, and a hunter basically gave it to me for 15g (he got 2 in Netherstorm, and I told him I'd be willing to buy one right away, and he cut me a deal.)
Lucky me.
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2-08-2007 @ 4:11PM
EMS said...
I could not have expressed it, with my priest wearing neon spandex (like biking shorts) it's obvious that the skins designers are reliving their glory days of the 80s. I'm just waiting to pick up a spuds mckinzey cloak of obnoxiousness or maybe a swatch wrist guard or two. Then again, I’m not a role playing server so it really makes no difference what my toon is wearing as long as I’m keeping you alive. :)
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2-08-2007 @ 4:13PM
Halicante said...
My mage looks more like a pirate with the recolored Netherwind helm that is a shadowmoon quest reward, green and purple pants, red and blue shirt, and purple and blue gloves and boots.
The helm really does look like a pirate hat though. Yaaaaaar.
My friends crack up every time i meet them somewhere for something. I'd love to replace the stuff, but my gear does not seem to be dropping at all in the instances I'm running. =(
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2-08-2007 @ 4:20PM
tladb said...
In many cases it is worse because not only is the gear poor to look at but the models and colours are just recycled from 10-40 gear which is just lazy.
Its one thing to look like a clown but another to look like a low level clown
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2-08-2007 @ 6:47PM
FadedReality said...
My helm right now is http://www.wowhead.com/?item=25974 and I'm loving it since I also just got the Black War Wolf. I sympathize in that the next (slight) upgrade is in the form of a quest reward that would put me back to having my show helm clicked off. a rather boring bright green hood and I'm not even wearing a robe. I guess since I'm in shadowform all the time it doesn't make all that big of a difference, but I would like to look awesome even when I'm not running around shapeshifted.
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2-08-2007 @ 9:40PM
Laukidh said...
I'll be very happy when I come across something to let my warlock stop wearing the bright green and purple robe I'm currently wearing... I'm just glad that I have a big yellow cloak to hide behind.
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2-09-2007 @ 2:56AM
Krianna said...
Plain? My mage has a purple chest with gold trim at the neck, and purple gloves with gold trim because of my wrist guards; she also has black thigh-high legwarmers (yay, trolls....) and a brilliant yellow cape with yellow-gold trim. How is that plain? Oh, and a purple cowboy hat. I can hide the cape, if I wanted, but I think it offsets the trim.
Oh, and my staff is a blue metal rod with a crystal at the end, which has four crystals circling the larger one. (Is that enough of a status symbol for those horrified that they'll be mistaken for low levels?)
I'm a seven foot tall blue woman with a Mohawk and fangs; I think I can survive some colorful stuff that doesn't quite match.
(However.... that stuff from WC on my Taurin Druid? Bought a pink shirt ASAP to make it clash less with my fur.)
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2-09-2007 @ 7:50AM
Undying said...
I'm a Priest and my robe covers my pants, most of my shoes and my gloves. I remove the display of my back and headpiece, so the only other "visible" armor is my shoulders. Sadly they don't match my robe, but it's not too bad. I like to look good, and I would sacrifice a few stats on armor I loot to have a good-looking gear...
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2-09-2007 @ 10:15AM
Pougen (ER) said...
Depending on the toon, I will sacrifice quality for a decent look (I'm on a roleplaying server - I prefer not to look like a clown). When it comes time to go on a difficult quest or in an instance, however, I don't care what I look like if I have to survive.
Somehow, I get the impression Blizzard didn't think the whole CONSISTENCY thing through in terms of gear. And of course, they make money when people grind through to the end game for the best stuff.
Maybe my next character's name will be BOZO and I will try to get the most ridiculous combination of gear together to make a point.
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2-12-2007 @ 5:59PM
Bland said...
Roll a shadow priest!
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2-28-2007 @ 1:00PM
Wraithblaze said...
Alright, ive seen some good but some horrible comments. Remember when being level 60 meant something? i do, but it means NOTHING now. remember that tier 3 warrior you saw around IF? yeah, hes questing for greens to replace it right next to the kid who just hit 60. you are nothing but a peon if your not level 70. Am i 70? no. but im getting there. All my blue and green gear looks cool, but it looks as if i raided 16 different closets without remembering what i got at the last one. the gear is good and well, but were all clowns out around here. Just suck it up and at 70 you can get some great looking stuff. until then da da dada da da da da daaa daaa (cue circus music).
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