I'm curious why EQ devs have never allowed players here to customize their appearance to where they might appear to be wearing some of the unique armor sets, helms, robes, and such, that already exist in the game. We can certainly obtain and equip some of the actual items, but I'm meaning why hasn't the Hero's Forge (or any other $tore option that I'm aware of) clone the appearance for the character to reflect appropriately?
a) They do not want to release unique gear as ornaments. b) Appearances/ornaments are not dynamic, the graphic is hardcoded as part of the item data. There is a lot of work they have to do to create the recipe, create the item, create the attachment points, attach the graphic, etc when they make an ornament. What everone wants and thinks devs can just slap into the game is the EQ2 style system which isn't remotely supported by the EQ1 code.
Maybe I wasn't being clear, but what I was actually wanting was more of something that already exists. They did all of this with the epic ornaments available, as well as any number of weapon ornaments that exists. Or were you meaning that armor ornaments would be different?
TBH I am confused also as to what you mean. If you wear the cloth armor you can adopt the look of many things in the game and you can mix and match HF. Could you give an example?
In the case of epic ornaments, they can only be obtained/used by the class for that epic. Theres already been 2 rounds of weapon ornaments from player request, and at the top of they told us they would not release ornaments for weapons they considered "unique". All ornaments are a manual effort, doesnt matter where they come from or how they are used. No matter what theres a lot of back end work having to create the item, make the attachment points, and attach the graphic to it. This is the reason theres not a whole lot more and are only released sporatically. The EQ graphics system is not dynamic, theres no possible way to add a dynamic system (like in EQ2 you can grab the appearance of any other item) because the graphics are a part of the item data itself and not a separate thing you can just grab and slap on another item. Yes, ornaments exist but they take a lot of work to set up, no they cant make a user customizable system because the code base is not dynamic.
@Soulbanshee: Thank you for the detailed explanation. Now that I'm thinking of it, too, it could very well be that armor and robes would work differently than the weapon ornaments, too. Perhaps not, but I didn't expect to hear that things like this wouldn't be considered, regardless of any profit to be had. @CatPaws: I had hoped that it wouldn't be an insurmountable task to allow characters to appear as though they were wearing certain armor sets, robes, and weapons that they had obtained, but wouldn't normally equip. The paladin armor set of Ro is one example of an armor set that's metallic tint isn't available through with normal dyeing. A good number of armor sets that have those metallic tints aren't going to be available without actually equipping the armor pieces. There's an illusion trick that works to appear as if wearing any certain robe, but there are quite a few robes that have different looks to them, too.
Im sure the margins on ornaments is so slim the investment to entirely recode a system to make this work would not have the returns to make it worthwhile. They have also already mentioned that in the past when there has been a lot of interest generated in something, it does not translate into sales. Despite there being multiple asks over the years along this line, it doesnt guarantee that those players would end up buying into that system.
You can try this, if you're using 'new models'. Illusion trick: -put on items you want look of. -cast illusion on self. -put on items you want stats of. -drop illusion. Note: doesn't work on weapon appearance.
theyre too busy creating copy and paste versions that get uglier each expac now. heros forge hasnt been decent in a few years now with the occasional set actually looking nice.
At this point I would guess that they have recouped the cost of Heros Forge and at this point my suggestion to DB would be to reduce the price significantly. Say down to 10 dollars. I think a lot more folks would get it for alts at that point and it would create a bigger market for armor ornaments. But I could be wrong.
