So I'm somewhat new to the game and I was looking through the broker to check out the armor for the levels to come for my Paladin. What I saw shocked and disappointed me. I noticed that for every part of the body (leg, shoulder, etc.) there are a whopping TWO armor models for each. The only difference between them is there are three or four color changes. Did SOE really think this was acceptable? I mean come on, two armor designs total? I don't mean to compare this to WoW, but that game had hundreds of completely different armor types for each armor type (plate, cloth, etc.). This almost feels like it has a production value that an 11 year old on allowance could produce. I don't mean this as trolling or bashing, or whatever, but it seemed crazy to me. Anyone else bothered by this?
Yeah, it's always been that way, and always been a bit of a downer. Just a pair of plate frameworks, with different paints jobs. Same with the other armour types though. Even the paint jobs on the armours get repeated. But, (da Dah DAHN) all that may change. In the now dim and distant past we were told the devs were working on a skeletal revamp. At the moment every item made needs to be modelled multiple times to fit each race/gender. With such a skeletal core in place, the work involved with making items would be severely reduced. From that, we, the community, have extrapolated wildly (desperately really). This skeletal revamp could lend itself to the easier creation of new and interesting armours. Possibly drawing upon related imagery (like furs from Everfrost, Lava designs from Solusek, etc). It could lend itself to the creation of additional emote animations (like racial dances). But we ain't heard anything about the skeletal revamp since it first got mentioned, so who knows eh.
Glad to see I'm not the only one. It really blows my mind that they though two different armors was enough in a game about customizing and advancing characters.
Qandor wrote: I really don't consider SoE 'getting away with it', it's more of people that are willing to tolerate it and continue to play which I'm sure it shows in there subscription numbers. I mean if it wasn't an issue, then why are they even considering a skeletal revamp if the original armor appearances where successful. With most MMO's I'm sure one of the major reasons people play is to have individuality in their armor appearances and not look like every one and their mother. Don't get me wrong, I think some of the armor looks have there place and there's nothing wrong with abit or rehashing with some new colors. But I think here it's just overly done. For me, it's hard to believe that this idea of generic armor models even got past the 'developer roundtable' when this game was in it's inception. /slapsforehead
Right now I'm not so worried about quantity. I'd rather see the quality improved. It's just a bit plain by today's standards. Anime style aside, Lineage 2 does some amazing things with armour and weapon textures. Heck, even LotRO has some nice looking stuff. Hopefully they'll start adding a bit more detail to armour after the fabled skeletal revamp.
you guys keep on talking about skeletal revamps. The DEVs have been discussing skeletal revamps since the first six months the game was released. The odds of skeletal revamps coming out soon is about the same as Brad McQuaid making a decent MMO. It's gonna be pretty freakin rare! If they ever do come out with a skeletal revamp, that does not mean they are going to direct their art department to create entirely new and different armor sets. I highly doubt it. Personally, I HATE the fact that finger wigglers only get 2 different robes and plate wearers get 2 different plates and so forth and so on. It truly sucks. You can only go so far with adding and embedding designes in the same template. Don't get me started with social clothing. We have one dress with 43,298 different color combinations. While I do like EQ2, the clothing/armor department has always been SEVERLY lacking
Kursa wrote: You are aware that piece of the Skeletal revamp are already in game right? First piece is the ablity of Human Males to use the Soga Hairstyles on thier standard model. Second piece is the entire Sarnak race, and if you take a look at the SAME piece of armor(especally the helms) on a Sarnak and compaire it to what you see on any other caractor model you can already see that they have new models in place for armor. Will SoE suddenly deploy thier art department into making 100s of unque armor designs for every race? Heck no, but what we will see is NEW armor, and the occational revamped armor geting meshes that are differant then what we currently see. Heck, they have already done stuff like this to a limited degree withing the hugly labor intensive current model design method, (see class hats, certain armor sets and the unque weopons outhier). Have they been working on it sence BETA(there where accually beta interviews that talked about the armor/model system they are working on), yes. Is it near completion FINALLY, yes, what does near mean? thier is a chance of it befor expaintion 5, but don't get your hopes of.
Nurvus wrote: Then you don't have your setting up high enough. EQ2 is the only MMO that I have played that you can accually see the fabric textures(the weave of the faberic) on the armor piece, or fairly elaberate ebosing on plate armor.
didn't they fire most of the art dept soon after launch? i'm also sure that for a long time the "art dept." consisted of one or just a few people.
Aquiline wrote: SOE hasn't been "Getting Away With It" per say, all one has to do is look at Blizzard's 'Nine Million' Subscribers. As to the idea of of it getting past the "developer roundtable" remember that when the game was launched, EQ2 was significantly straining most user's systems. So the art/dev team faced serious constraints on how many "objects & textures" they could put into the game. I do think that EQ2 has never recovered from that start, however I also sense that the skeletal revamp may end up being "mythical." But, I do hope that I am wrong.
ke'la wrote: The current armour can look decent with the settings turned up. I still think it looks plain and uninspired (or gaudy for some of the more "elaborate" pieces). I don't know, perhaps I'm just not a fan of the style. It's not a game-breaking issue for me, though.
Why wont they do something about that? Its been so long, and they fix this, and add that, but they ignore this one fact. I agree with the OP 100%. Something needs to be added, at LEAST 5 new designs for each armor type. And, like I have said in other posts, there also needs to be cultural diversity armor too, like asian, african and so on.
I know I'll catch some flak for saying this...but there are other armor styles for leather than the Gi and mold-to-body we currently have. Take a look at Vanguard- some of the leather armor for that game is awesome, some of the plate is also very impressive. Although there isn't much to say about cloth...that kinda sucks in VG. But yeah, I think they should get some inspiration for games like Vanguard for new armor styles.
