On Costume pieces and what-nots.

aetharburn

I'm sure you've noticed that, in the past couple of months, we got a lot of new unlockable costume pieces. Usually, this would be an awesome thing, BUT..

Almost all of them are chained to the Metal material. I've but one question? WHY?
Why must you torture me with the awesomeness of the Dragon Chest when none of my toons can use it without looking like Edward Cullen whenever they visit Canada or the Powerhouse? What's the point of that?

Now, on a serious note, it'd be AMAZING if your could add Cloth/Leather textures to all sets in the game, but I know that's.. well, improbable, so I'm going to limit my "request" to the Dragon armor (Speaking of, what's with the silver-ish glint? >.>), the Steel Commando, Superconductor and MAAYBE Steampunk?

It'd really mean a lot to us Tailor junkies and, despite knowing next to nothing about game design, I'm sure retexturing can't be that hard.. can it? I 'unno.

Just to lure you, I'm gonna throw in this as bait: For an MMO that claims to have "complete customization", you sure do limit the Tailor in some ways.

crusader3025

Strictly speaking, it isn't difficult. . . as far as actually re-doing an already existing texture map to make a new "material". Making a completely new texture is a bit time consuming, as the unwrapping of the UV's needs to be done carefully, as to not have any seams where the base model shows through. (Or, if they hid geometry, make the seams see-through).

Implementing it, however, is the difficult part. (You have to make sure, in the download for the costume, the textures are saved to the proper location with a proper, unique name - "DragonArmorBracer_Material_2" for example -, make sure the tailor, among other things, knows where that texture is in order to load it properly. If you don't get it right, you get the issue with the Hi-Pan Hat and the Dragon Armor Helm, with the former replacing the latter in the tailor. . . and the Dragon Armor Helm showing up as normal head-wear under Heads and Hairs when you re-unlock itl. There more, that's just the gist of it).

A "Dull Metal" or "Leather" material would have been awesome with the Dragon Armor set. . . I'd have used the belt on a character at one point, but watching metal flex like it's made of rubber just wasn't doing it for me. And that friggen brightness on the metal makes it not fit with any of the other sets without looking out of place, or just drawing more attention to itself rather than the whole ensemble you made - probably explains why it isn't used that often. . .

I wouldn't want additional material-type textures for every costume in game, but there's a LOT that could use additional love in that department - the Dragon Armor set as mentioned. I'd love to see the hexagonal pattern added to the Blaster Large Bracers and Blaster Quad (even though I don't have the latter).