(( they didnt downgrade the graphics engine... Some zones received major overhauls and certain armor sets were removed from what we saw in Alpha. But the same normal map and bump mapped textures remain the same... All they did was remove some of the dynamic lights from the areas which they featured from their demo-test areas. Eg. To properly view the full beauty of normals maps, you need special lighting conditions. If you play the game even on the highest settings, you wont see all of the great normal and bump mapped details unless you have a torch or light source equipped, and even then it wont look right depending on the lights placement.
Kendara@Valor wrote: Oh please NO! EQ1 did that and it was a nightmare. Giving gifts of armor to friends of a different race (or and alt) could really backfire when what was cool on you turns into sack-cloth-street-walker clothing on them. Equally bad was after spending a lot of time leveling a character only to find out the art team feels your race dresses like a clown re-enactment of little house on the prairie. Would you re-roll or suffer it while complaining on the forums?
If they did the racial armor thing, it would have to look the same wether worn by a Human or an Ogre. a Kilt should look like a kilt no matter who wears it same with a dress vs gender or male clothing (other then a bra function PG13 rating and all) Beware of Pink cross-dressing Ogres! lol
Zabjade wrote: Barring the fact that I do want male and female clothing to have separate graphics, I would have no objection to racial clothing if it did indeed have the same graphic for all races. It WOULD be nifty to be able to purchase barbarian kilts or outfits that could show off the racial tattoos of a barbarian that would incidentally also show off other racial tattoos, or evil dark elf plate or fancy high elf caster robes, etc. I think it would add a lot of welcome diversity to the game, and we KNOW we need some diversity in the armor designs by now! I'm still waiting to see what the "snap on" thingies are, but I confess I don't have a lot of hope now that they've abandoned the skeletal revamp. At the very least, they can start adding more diverse tinting to what we have ingame though and get some of those armor models off the npc's and into our hands. And at this point, having failed us pretty miserably on that account.....it's time to revisit the dye issue! Even if they allowed it only for crafted armors, or nothing above treasured, it would appease us somewhat to have that ability. And please don't trot out the tired old "I don't want to see ogres wearing pink" because, honey, you already can. In lovely pink outfits the devs themselves designed, like that gorgeous fabled pink scout armor for instance....I mean, all scouts want to stand up in fuschia and say LOOK AT ME OVER HERE when going in and out of stealth. Not to mention mages can actually CHOOSE to wear Blistered Strand in appearance if they want to represent the Tropicana Fruit Company or remind us that bananas are healthy for you. So let's not go there! I think most players honestly CAN do better if they wish and with appearance slots it's not like you aren't already out there with Santa tanking in August! I want my dyes I had in EQ1 for heaven's sake! It's perfectly possible, if not easy for them to code tinting in, as long as you don't mind the entire graphic being tinted the color of your choice, and I think we can live with that. That's what the option to RETURN IT TO NORMAL was always for. If the devs can't do what was promised, throw us a bone or two. Thank you!
Snowdonia@Runnyeye wrote: On that, we can agree. I can only assume SOE will show -something- off at the Fan Faire, so we'll at least have some idea what their newest solution is, now that they have abandoned the skeletal revamp we've been expecting for years.
xsikal wrote: Didn't they already "showed" something last year on Fan Faire ? So if they show something different or even the same this year, is there any reason to believe that they will really do something ? Sorry, but i have lost faith in that already long ago, and what we heared now is only the confirmation for me, that they simply have no active artists and engine programmer, or just some that only work to recolor some armor for new expansions.
Kendara@Valor wrote: Yeah, I am not saying that SOE showing us something at the fan faire means that we will ever actually benefit from it in-game. I would think the skeletal revamp (and the ~5 years of 'working on' new models in EQ1 without ever releasing them), had taught us all that lesson. However, it at least gives us something to discuss or debate. At the moment, all we really have is a general desire to have more variety in appearance, and a vaguely worded answer from SOE in the last dev chat as to what their next approach is going to be.
xsikal wrote: Based on how I parsed the wording on what they said on the dev chat. They are in the early stages of this latest version of doing something. Meaning nothing "Other then words" will be showen at Fan Faire on this issue, Maybe by next Fan Faire they will have faked something up but I doupt they will have something this year.
Wow. Does SOE even care about this game, or the people that play it? Did it really take them two years to figure out that it wouldn't work, or were they just holding it out like bait all this time?
Riliszkas@Splitpaw wrote: I'm certain it was bait. Now it is time to change bait since the other was lost. The new bait is called "snap ons" and surely that bait can last them two more years. Next years fan faire will show the first example of snap on and the folowing year just prior to fan faire they will tell us that snap ons didn't work out. SoE has always played their customers for dopes. Really has worked out well for them too. They have managed to go from a huge chunk of the market in EQ's heyday to merely a footnote today.
Qandor wrote: The Vanguard team has been able to come up with new models for the males and females of 19 races in just a few months. All of the models are being unveiled at fan faire. Everyone complained about how bad Vanguard's engine is, when it's really EQ2 that has the terrible design. Can't they get anything to work with this game? Will they ever try to revamp the engine? It's sad, really. EQ2's engine is just a big joke. "Built for future hardware" that never came to pass. They should have redone it when the problem came up.
if the sarnaks use the new skel system, then color me unimpressed. The sarnaks are badly animated, and low polly
Could it be a bait and switch? I guess. But I wouldn't be surprised if the whole "The software didn't work out" is just something that they are being told to tell us about it. I think we should get a better dev response than that at this point. Because honestly, as Lotus pointed out, the Sarnak USE the new skeleton. So the software has to work with the game, else we wouldn't have Sarnak. That is, unless, that also wasn't true either So what is it? And can we please get an explanation as to what these snap ons are, and what you mean by changing "Someone's sihlouette"?
FYI for the time being I've cancelled my accounts because they lied, strung people along, and used Lucasisms for shotty rationale. I've pretty much come to realise that SOE has no idea how to manage the game. This game is going to die a slow death unless something positive happens. The new expansion sounds blah. I'll be moving from the PW-My Servers to PW International when it goes live while I try to find something better. SOE has let me down and to all those that scoffed when I said "mythical skeletal revamp" or when I was impatient: I told you so. Small Print (I reserve the right to change my mind though.)
I'd be happy with more hair sytles... hair pieces or items... make up... etc. Id also be happy with the ability to change your race at least once.... along with being able to claim all past claimable items that may have been deleted or lost! Weeee. Oh,.... and I want to be able to reset my factions individually. (don't ask, cos I'm not sure lol)
Chayna wrote: My husband and I are in the PWI closed beta starting August 19th We are very excited about it. I am incredibly disappointed about the whole skeletal revamp, I was so looking forward to it. If I didn't have good friends still in the game I think I would probably cancel my account also. SOE really only seems to care about money and not about their customers, which is completely ridiculous when you think about it...sigh.
