I'm a barbarian shaman on Firiona Vie, and I have a basic human female journeyman healer merc. I hired and dismissed a few mercs, until I had one with an appearance that I want to stick with. I've also renamed my merc with an amnesia potion. I understand from FAQs that merc appearance should persist until dismissed, but my merc resets whenever I log out, always discarding my chosen appearance and reverting to the same default look each time. I don't believe this is supposed to happen - so how can I keep the same appearance for my merc that will persist thru logout?
This has happened with every merc I've had. Not on the first logout, but eventually I'll zone & they'll switch to the one default look. From asking around, this seems to be fairly common.
Thanks for the feedback, nice to know I'm not alone. I've been doing a few experiments with various characters and paying attention to the appearance resets, and it seems to happen consistently on the first zone change or logout after I ding a level. Presumably that's the point a merc is updated with new weapons and armor (and this update at each level evidently results in hair appearance reverting to default as well). This being the case, I guess at level 100 a newly hired merc should stay looking the same then... Incidentally, my account default (on all characters) for a human female journeyman healer seems to be brown shoulder length hair. I don't see many other female human mercs around - does anyone have a different default merc appearance, or is this standard across all accounts?
I guess screenshots need to be hosted somewhere... But in the meantime, I've seen a few other folks around with the default brown haired human female merc too, so I assume the issue is universal - at least for this race and gender (as to other races, I don't know). And as such, it's easily replicated: Create a new barb shaman, and simply hire an appropriate merc in the tutorial (with blonde, white, or some other hair color and style). Then take a minute to level up - and hey presto, the next time you log or zone, your merc's blonde ponytail (or whatever) will be straight back to the default brown shoulder length hair.
Just a few additional notes about this problem: The face your merc has always stays the same, even when their hair reverts back to default. Unless you have a Froglok or Vah Shir - their face is their color. This bug only works with tank and healer mercs too; the rogue and wizard mercs seem to have a preset look and that's all you ever get from them.
I would like to note, that I experience this mercenary appearance change as well. -2014/07/27- Barbarian tank mercenary. Choose blonde hair, with double braid. After logging out, or achieving a level, the mercenary reverts to spikey cropped hair. I spent over 100 platinum to achieve the mercenary look I wished to have, along with spending real monies on a mercenary amnesia potion, please look into this matter for us. Brian S.
I feel foolish. I must be missing something. I always assumed that the appearance of a merc when purchased was simply what it looked like. I didn't know it was possible to change it. How is that done?
You have to keep dismissing/rehiring your merc till you get the one with the appearance you want, there's no way to change the appearance of a merc after you've hired it. This problem has existed for years, sometimes a merc would retain it's appearance for a few days but eventually it would revert to the default setting. IIRC the default is the appearance of the merc liason for that race and ALL races would revert to default except froglok.
It happens all the time with me and barbarian tank mercs. It doesn't matter what he looks like when I hire one, his hair eventually turns green. even if he's bald, he'll soon grow hair and it will be green. before (right after I hired this one): http://s836.photobucket.com/user/Weidlen/media/EQ000006.png.html after (level 6 in the tutorial. not sure when it changed): http://s836.photobucket.com/user/Weidlen/media/EQ000007.png.html It happens to any barbarian merc I hire on any account no matter the level. And Jezzie, in this case the default appearance obviously isn't the appearance of the barbarian mercenary liaison in PoK: http://s836.photobucket.com/user/Weidlen/media/EQ000008.png.html It's not the one on Halas either: http://s836.photobucket.com/user/Weidlen/media/EQ000009.png.html It hasn't always been like that either. Last year I had a barbarian tank merc who started out with red hair. It stayed red for quite a few levels, then turned brown and he had a pony tail.
I didn't have a problem with green haired mercs until after SOE decided that the appearances of the NPC's were old fashioned and changed them to what they consider more modern looks. The red haired merc I had last year may very well have reverted back to the default of the liaison when it turned brown and he got a pony tail.
Maybe it's a new bug, it was certainly happening 4 years ago and the common theme was that mercs reverted to the look of the liason officer. It didn't seem to affect everybody though! posted Aug 2010:- "It's happened to me too. One of my female Barbarian mercs started out with long gray hair, another with gray pigtails, another as a redhead with pigtails. All of them eventaully changed to the long haired brunette style of the liason after zoning or gating. I never even got to make any Pippi Longstocking jokes." It seemed be true of Drakkin and Dwarf too. I just use /claim mercs now but it did used to bug me (It appears the female barb liason now has long white hair too, didn't used to be that way)
