Designs - Costumes, Characters and Weapons

pion01 · May 2013

It's come up before, but I've got 3 friends who have brought up it up since OB in real life (i.e. not forums).

Seriously, we need some design love.

I get Cryptic/PWE needs to milk us for clothes and dye, I really do, but man, make us look good, give us some variation.

Massively wrote:

Massively: One concern we've seen is that compared to Cryptic's other titles, Neverwinter's character creation options -- especially the visuals -- seem limited. That was surprising to us, since it's one of the strengths that we associate with Cryptic. Will there be more visual options added?

Andy Velasquez: That's certainly one of the things we're hearing a lot. It's a weird transition for us because Cryptic's other titles weren't nearly as item-driven as Neverwinter is. That's something we had to be super-conscious of when we went into it. One of our legacies as a studio is that we have really robust character creation, so we wanted to go in and add a lot of options, but we didn't want to devalue that feeling when you get that next sword or armor piece. We couldn't find a way to make Champions Online's endless character creation options work well with the thousands and thousands of items in Neverwinter.

That being said, I do concede that we could do better in terms of offering more hair and color and eyebrows and all of that other stuff. That's probably something we'll get to as we continually do more updates -- more hairstyles for this race or more horn variations for the Tieflings, etc.

That's all well and good, but all those thousands and thousands of items only have like 3 different models. These are not the same thing. +1 Stabbing does not make it a different model.

Now, I get you guys are trying to get a return on investment here, and new models probably aren't money-makers, just like they weren't in CO, and probably in STO, but then what exactly are you guys expecting us to dye? Repeatedly? For Abnormally high cost?

And yes, having 3 different types of hair is weak sauce, but you know what would be more awesome? If the sliders you've already provided actually did something. I know, this might cause some problems with the clipping, but again, you've only got like 3 different models to check..... But again, that aside, why have 3 different models that look so darn similar that players have to literally switch back and forth between them to notice any difference at all?

Or at least sell us some more stuff. Wedding set? Really? For $30?

I'm not saying don't price gouge us, go balls out nuts on that, but man, give us some cool ****. Nightmare mount? Cool. Flaming bird? Cool. Dire Wolf? Cool. Honey Badger? Coolest thing ever.

Doo-doo brown bland armor that all looks the same and forgettable oversized toothpicks? As my friend put it, "i only play mmos to look cool."

This -

should be your starting point. Seriously, I'll pay $30 right now to unlock that as a weapon skin for my rogue. And then let me dye it. With bright, vibrant colors, not 15 washed out shades of brown. And let me by some auras and glows and shiznit for it.

Jeez, even our forums are doo-doo brown, drab and boring.....

Man, I'm getting a little depressed....

xxviimb · May 2013

Agreed, I want to look bad-*** while hurling my ice balls!!

astazia · May 2013

I'm honestly really confused by all these complaints. The character art and armor models are one of the high points of the game for me. I also play games to look cool, and all my characters look cool by level 10 and only get better from there. If there armors weren't so good in this game I might not even still be playing, some of the other stuff is a little meh for me. My level 24 GF looks awesome, I would not be upset if she used her current armor model for the rest of her life, but I already know there's even better stuff since I've seen it.

kiralyn · May 2013

astazia wrote: »

I'm honestly really confused by all these complaints. The character art and armor models are one of the high points of the game for me. I also play games to look cool, and all my characters look cool by level 10 and only get better from there. If there armors weren't so good in this game I might not even still be playing, some of the other stuff is a little meh for me. My level 24 GF looks awesome, I would not be upset if she used her current armor model for the rest of her life, but I already know there's even better stuff since I've seen it.

Eh. My rogue has had the same basic armor model for around 20 levels now. Minor variations (cutout on the left, cutout on the right, cutout both sides, add a skirt, and a leg pad), but still it's all the same armor. Compared to Star Trek, where can just go to the tailor and mix-n-match a couple dozen different tops with ten different bottoms, and then colorize them.... and then buy & earn dozens of more pieces? And yeah - total free-form costuming doesn't work as well for a loot-based fantasy game - but other games have multiple armor models in each level bracket. And then more variants for boss drops/etc.
(edit: of course, there are also games with even less variation. But those games suck

)

One way they could have done it, combining loot with the STO/CO costuming - start each character with a basic set of armor costume parts - and then whenever you get loot with some new feature, you unlock new style options. So a newbie character can't bling themselves out in Uber Raider Armor O' Doom until they loot some, and getting new loot still can give you a new "look".

astazia · May 2013

There's the common mainline armors that just upgrade piece by piece as you level, which is something I actually love. Adding that one shoulder pad, then that one skirt, and those hip pads, it's a really cool way to show character progression. Then there's alternate armor styles in each zone. In the Tower district you have a whole bunch of orc/tribal style pieces you can find for each class (whole sets) that look completely different than the main armor line, and in the next zone, Blackdagger Ruins, there are pirate/bandit style pieces. These aren't useful for very long but you can apply their style to your mainline set pieces if you want.

kiralyn · May 2013

astazia wrote: »

but you can apply their style to your mainline set pieces if you want.

It is nice that they included an appearance-transfer system right off the bat. Of course, with how quickly you seem to trade armors, paying several thousand AD for that appearance feels a bit painful.

astazia · May 2013

Ya, very true. I don't think that's something that should cost AD. People should be paying AD/Zen for special one of a kind armor appearances, not (also) spending it to transfer those styles to their gear.

pion01 · May 2013

astazia wrote: »

I'm honestly really confused by all these complaints. The character art and armor models are one of the high points of the game for me. I also play games to look cool, and all my characters look cool by level 10 and only get better from there. If there armors weren't so good in this game I might not even still be playing, some of the other stuff is a little meh for me. My level 24 GF looks awesome, I would not be upset if she used her current armor model for the rest of her life, but I already know there's even better stuff since I've seen it.

astazia · May 2013

pion01 wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVaWYYlOfGU (16:50 is especially awesome)

Funny enough, that's not at all Cryptic at 16:50, pure Paragon Studios (RIP).

pion01 wrote: »

I propose a trade - CO gets the NW content devs for a little while, and NW gets the CO costume guys.

I'd be ecstatic if that happened, but you might be a little disappointed. CO currently has like one dev, some guy just churning out vehicles, that's it (slight exaggeration). NW already stole all their devs. There haven't been any new costumes or powers in that game for ages. PW is so done with the game they didn't even give NW founders a CO bonus. I'd love if it could borrow the NW devs and get some new stuff.

Anyway I think the NW armors blow all that stuff away in terms of quality. Certainly not quantity, but I'd much rather have a few really amazing pieces than a ton of lower-quality do-it-yourself pieces thrown at us. I wouldn't want to see any of what you just linked in NW. Also keep in mind almost everything you did link was added to CO after it came out, only the "knight" set was in the game from the start, they are still calling NW a beta so eventually we might have that kind of variety (hopefully all stuff that fits the world though).

bioshrike · May 2013

Shameless plug: These are various costumes that I created for my characters over at CO, to give you a point of comparison...

http://co-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=215881

pion01 · May 2013

astazia wrote: »

Funny enough, that's not at all Cryptic at 16:50, pure Paragon Studios (RIP).

Yeah, I know, but that was really the best video I could find of the creator that wasn't straight up clones or naked chicks.

I'd be ecstatic if that happened, but you might be a little disappointed. CO currently has like one dev, some guy just churning out vehicles, that's it (slight exaggeration). NW already stole all their devs. There haven't been any new costumes or powers in that game for ages. PW is so done with the game they didn't even give NW founders a CO bonus. I'd love if it could borrow the NW devs and get some new stuff.

Anyway I think the NW armors blow all that stuff away in terms of quality. Certainly not quantity, but I'd much rather have a few really amazing pieces than a ton of lower-quality do-it-yourself pieces thrown at us. I wouldn't want to see any of what you just linked in NW. Also keep in mind almost everything you did link was added to CO after it came out, only the "knight" set was in the game from the start, they are still calling NW a beta so eventually we might have that kind of variety (hopefully all stuff that fits the world though).

Nah, I'd be fine with NW only getting one dev if CO got all theirs back lol. And yeah, a lot of that was added after the game came out, but a lot was already in production, like the samurai set, etc., but regardless, that's the stuff that was in the store; only a fraction of what was in game.

gyloir · May 2013

I'd just be hpapy if they made dyes more reasonably priced (IE 15 bucks lets you get all dyes unlimited uses for x time).

ravisana · August 2013

oddly enough I'm happy as long as my armor is symmetrical. thats actually one of the main reasons I stopped playing eve online xD. no symmetrical ships. I like the clothes, they fit in with dnd lore in general. where as wow armor is just like would crush you to death or fall off designs. I think people would complain less if they could transmute gear from other classes. like a control wizard wearing a rouge hat. but even one color different from dyes makes you stand out. and i think the events they are so fond of making give people shiny stuff to wear

Designs - Costumes, Characters and Weapons

Comments