New news, Glamour, Hardware, and 2.2

[Naunet]

FFXIV only has the sub fee though so SE doesn't actually lose any money when you spend it elsewhere unless you unsub!

 

Oh don't tempt me. >_> I love my rp (and my friends) too much, though!

 

ExKage said everything else.

[Xydane Vale]

So the Glamour system is pretty much like WoW's gear transmogrification? That is just awesome!

[Sounsyy]

It's not smart consumership.

I think I may go toss $5 at Rift because dang this glamour thing is annoying me.

 

Hehe. Sorry, thought this was ironic. Couldn't help myself. ;P

[Naunet]

It's not smart consumership.

I think I may go toss $5 at Rift because dang this glamour thing is annoying me.

 

Hehe. Sorry, thought this was ironic. Couldn't help myself. ;P

 

Why? I approve of what Trion does, thus they get my money.

[Lost River]

So the Glamour system is pretty much like WoW's gear transmogrification? That is just awesome!

 

From the looks of it; just like transmogrificaton with the need to use a crystal to do it instead of solely gil.

 

I personally do not mind it whatsoever as they chose to go that route to keep class confusion down. I would have preferred a RIFT way in terms of mix-match whatever armor set you want, but I can live with these choices.

 

As for TERA; from that, it was all spend -real money- to do such a thing, well more so now than ever as it's now free to play.

 

WoW's transmog is solid and keeps to limitations of the class.

 

RIFT's vanity set is solid as well and offers more variety in choice; it also focuses on the fluidity of the soul system (makes sense).

 

So, FFXIV is copying WoW in this regard, it isn't what all RPers want, but it may can change in the future. As for weapons changing types? If it wasn't a cosmetic skin, it wouldn't work due to the animations that are typed to jobs for weapon types. Imagine healing with a sword as if it was a two-hand staff? You'd reach up and grab the blade due to how the animation rigs the skeleton of the weapon.

 

So, in favor of the glamour system? I am; it isn't what I wanted (I wanted more of a RIFT way), but being with the transmog system from WoW? I'm fine with that too.

[Austratus]

Imagine healing with a sword as if it was a two-hand staff? You'd reach up and grab the blade due to how the animation rigs the skeleton of the weapon.

Brings something to mind...

 

http://youtu.be/mL0zWuQXh1E

[Kailia]

Alright! So I am going to weigh in on what I see of this system and my thoughts. From the looks of it the prisms are a catalyst.

 

Also note in one screenshot on the preview page, the dragoon is wearing armor that is repaired by armorers, and putting for glamour, an item that is repaired by leatherworkers. So the prism needed to do the glamour for that, has to be made by a leatherworker and rank 5 to work with the level 50 armor.

 

This means, no white mages running around looking like paladins, and no paladins running around looking like black mages. I can live with it. Overall, this system is way way better than World of Warcraft's transmogrification system.

 

That system, you could only mog leather to leather. And even then, you could only mog green or higher items. In this game, there is no such restrictions. You can glamour white, pink, green, blue, whatever color items, no limitations. And you can turn plate armor to look like leather or cloth.

 

As long as your current class/job can equip the item, it is glamourable. It also has a restriction of gear slots. So if your chest item prevents you from wearing a head piece, then you can only glamour something that does the same.

 

Overall, I love this system! I only wish there were moccasins wearable by casters still available. There was 1 moccasins item that was any class, the weathered moccasins, but there's no way to get them now sadly.

 

This game is not Tera, nor should it ever be Tera. If you love that system, great. But I for one am glad they are using a much more original system based off a system we already know, Melding. I've already got my adventuring outfit all picked out!

[Naunet]

In this game, there is no such restrictions. You can glamour white, pink, green, blue, whatever color items, no limitations. And you can turn plate armor to look like leather or cloth.

 

This is actually incorrect if you are anything but a plate-wearer. Cloth-wearing classes/jobs will only be able to glamour cloth.

[Kailia]

 

In this game, there is no such restrictions. You can glamour white, pink, green, blue, whatever color items, no limitations. And you can turn plate armor to look like leather or cloth.

 

This is actually incorrect if you are anything but a plate-wearer. Cloth-wearing classes/jobs will only be able to glamour cloth.

 

Not quite true. There's a number of leather recipes that are for all classes. Granted there are fewer leather clothes one can wear, but we aren't limited to just cloth. I think the system is good though regardless. My character is a spell caster, she's not strong enough to wear the heavier armors. Light clothing is perfect for her.

 

Again, I wish there were moccasins that casters could wear, however I did find some leather boots I will be glamouring for my adventuring outfit. The only restriction imposed, which I agree with, is "If you can equip it as your current class or job, then it is glamourable". It's a completely fair restriction. I knew when I decided K'ailia is nothing but a caster, that her outfits would have limitations. I can handle that.

[Melkire]

Reading through this thread again, I get the feeling that some people are under the impression that the vanity system is geared towards roleplayers or that Square-Enix somehow has them in mind.

 

It's not. They don't. This is blatantly obvious when you examine how they've set up glamours.

 

If the system had been designed with roleplayers as the primary or even a secondary audience, we wouldn't be seeing any of these restrictions or limitations. We'd be able to capture a particular appearance and apply it to ourselves regardless of what we'd actually be wearing. No level requirements, no class requirements, no mandatory "prism" items, none of that.

 

Instead, if we take a closer look, we find:

 

 

1. Glamours are top-down. To have the widest variety of appearances at your disposal, you have to be level 50. From this is inferred that the intent was to give those at end-game the most options.

 

2. The number one complaint you'll find re: aesthetics at iLvl 50+, right after "I can't dye this particular set of gear", is "I look like everyone else". This dude's in myth/Allagan, that dude's in myth/Allagan, this girl's in myth/Allagan, etc. Glamours are clearly intended to feed that "I'm a special snowflake and I should look unique" ego. See: Yoshi's demonstration of a Lala swapping out an Allagan Tunic for a Crimson Vest.

 

3. From that follows that, with glamours in place, end-game players will have more of a reason to DR / dive into lower level dungeons more frequently for a particular piece of gear they're after (e.g. aetherial pieces that differ slightly from base gear in appearance can't be bought or crafted). More players in more queues = more activity.

 

4. Breaking vanity down so that it's by-piece and by-level-range means more for crafters to do, which means more to gather/purchase, all of which means more activity. It's so DoH and DoL have something else to do. Why else (other than code-imposed limitations) would they not allow us to capture our appearance as sets rather than pieces?

 

 

tl;dr: Roleplayers are a tertiary audience for this system. The goal seems to be to stir up player activity from end-game players who otherwise squat in Mor Dhona / Wineport and only log in once a week. That this vanity system benefits RP is only icing on the cake. To think otherwise is a delusion that we'd best be rid of ASAP.

 

I don't expect enough of an outcry from the community for level restrictions to change; outside of roleplayers, for which alts are more common, few will care about being dressed in high-level gear from level 1 (yes, even when leveling their other classes). I do expect the community to get Square to eventually allow DoM the breadth of aesthetic options that plate-wearers will have, as that's a more universal cause that people can get behind.

[Naunet]

A potential loophole was brought up on the forums that I'm keeping my fingers crossed about. The restriction is that you can't glamour a look that is unequippable by your current class/job. However, if all functions as it appears, we might be able to simply switch to say, WAR, right click on that Allagan Tunic of Healing, glamour, and pick a plat item that is technically equippable by the current job. Then all you'd have to do is switch back to WHM and bam, you'd have cloth glamoured into plate.

 

This loophole is only really useful if you don't have to be currently wearing the gear in order to glamour it, though, which seems unlikely, considering you don't have to be wearing the gear to access any of the other submenu options such as repairs.

 

As for the above: I don't think anyone here has any illusion that the vanity system was implement explicitly for roleplayers. I don't think any MMO, except maybe LotRO, has implemented their vanity systems explicitly for roleplayers. TERA was about the least RP friendly game I've ever played. Trion has done things for roleplayers in the past (e.g. the wedding system), but wardrobes were not one of those things. Everyone loves being able to wear what they want, not just roleplayers, so that's kind of a moot argument.

[Kage]

Honestly I really wanted to just be a snowman or reindeer lala forever. Smacking things or burning them up... >_> <_< >_> <_

[No Longer Exists]

It -is- a masterstroke, because it continues to evolve rather than simply hand out perfection. I understand some of you don't agree and that's acceptable. I've no real stake in it so anger washes right off me. I'm simply enjoying the game for what it is, rather than stressing out over what it isn't. 8-)

 

Under this logic a restaurant handing you a sandwich filled with poo is also a master stroke because the chef sandwich-making will evolve until he does something actually eateable. Even though there are a dozen other restaurants who hand perfectly eateable sandwiches from the beginning of their sandwich-making.

I cannot accept this logic, but to each one their own, as they say.

 

If you wonder why I stay in this restaurant, it's because the salads are very, very good.

 

 

Mixing metaphors. That's all. It's also not helping the situation.

In the entertainment industry, you don't tell the singer what to sing. You don't tell the writer what to put in their script. The service industry caters to the customer. The entertainment industry does not.

[Naunet]

An MMO is a service, just as Netflix and Hulu and paid LJ and Enjin accounts and other subscription services are... well, services.

[synaesthetic]

Indeed. MMOs are definitely services. They are built like services, billed like services and even marketed like services! When a new patch or expansion comes out, all the devs can talk about is all the new features they've added. They aren't talking about artistic vision or thematic import; they're talking about new hairstyles, new dungeons, new gear, new UI elements, etc.

 

Which is basically the equivalent of Netflix coming out with a new software update that allows high-resolution audio, then announcing that they've added 4K videos to the 2014 release lineup.

 

MMOs are not art and furthermore they cannot be art by definition. They are a service; an entertainment service that have far, far more in common with Netflix, Hulu, Spotify and Pandora than they do to art games like Journey, ICO, Shadow of the Colossus or Okami.

[Clover]

I believe that the service FFXIV offers is still very good (in fact, I haven't played better MMORPG than this one, or that offers as many details for RPers like this one does). The glamour system's limitations aren't really such, for everyone can get to lv50. It's an added motivation to level up, and MMORPGs will naturally want you to play the game. Perhaps they also want for armours to keep a certain degree of charisma; if an armour is supposed to be a symbol of being powerful (in this case, max level), I think it's very fine to keep things that way.

 

tl;dr: I don't think wearing armour related to your level is a big issue, or a reason to hate the company (?_?) They aren't asking for anything impossible either; just level up! It's great that we're getting a glamour system.

[synaesthetic]

I believe that the service FFXIV offers is still very good (in fact, I haven't played better MMORPG than this one, or that offers as many details for RPers like this one does). The glamour system's limitations aren't really such, for everyone can get to lv50. It's an added motivation to level up, and MMORPGs will naturally want you to play the game. Perhaps they also want for armours to keep a certain degree of charisma; if an armour is supposed to be a symbol of being powerful (in this case, max level), I think it's very fine to keep things that way.

 

tl;dr: I don't think wearing armour related to your level is a big issue, or a reason to hate the company (?_?) They aren't asking for anything impossible either; just level up! It's great that we're getting a glamour system.

 

It's still an arbitrary restriction, however this is arguably the more minor gripe. The real big stupid one is that it's restricted to only what your class can equip. That's silly. It tremendously limits the possible outfits we can construct, especially for Disciples of Magic. Tanks will be able to use basically everything and the casters will get to use nothing but cloth.

 

This also leaves out the extremely attractive DoH artifact armor sets, which are all varied and interesting and could easily be used to create some really visually striking outfits when combined with other sets from other armor types.

 

There's absolutely no logical reason whatsoever to limit the costuming system this way. It's totally and completely arbitrary. There are no technical issues that would cause this limit, since all races can play all classes and they all share the same animations, anyway. This limit is just as ridiculous as the inability to dye most dungeon sets and all artifact sets.

[Clover]

It's still an arbitrary restriction, however this is arguably the more minor gripe. The real big stupid one is that it's restricted to only what your class can equip. That's silly. It tremendously limits the possible outfits we can construct, especially for Disciples of Magic. Tanks will be able to use basically everything and the casters will get to use nothing but cloth.

This isn't a restriction I personally mind either. Every single game has it, there are always some armour pieces that can only be worn by a class and not by another, which encourages people to level multiple characters (and I think that's the point). At least in FFXIV you can level multiple classes with the same character, so you can actually wear every single piece of cloth of you put a bit of effort into it. And I think that's the key word here, effort; if you want something, you have to work for it. Again, they aren't asking for something impossible, as leveling is not difficult at all.

 

So yes, in the end, your character can wear any piece you want. Just get the level and class needed, it's simple as that. Working for a goal is one of the main points in MMORPGs, after all; you can't expect the game to give you everything without putting a minimum of effort into it.

[synaesthetic]

This isn't a restriction I personally mind either. Every single game has it, there are always some armour pieces that can only be worn by a class and not by another, which encourages people to level multiple characters (and I think that's the point). At least in FFXIV you can level multiple classes with the same character, so you can actually wear every single piece of cloth of you put a bit of effort into it. And I think that's the key word here, effort; if you want something, you have to work for it. Again, they aren't asking for something impossible, as leveling is not difficult at all.

 

So yes, in the end, your character can wear any piece you want. Just get the level and class needed, it's simple as that. Working for a goal is one of the main points in MMORPGs, after all; you can't expect the game to give you everything without putting a minimum of effort into it.

 

Every single game most certainly does not have this limitation. RIFT allows you to use any piece of gear, regardless of level or whether you can equip it or not, in the wardrobe tab. SWTOR has Adaptive Armor, which changes its armor class (but not its appearance) to the heaviest one that your particular class can use, allowing tank-Jedi to wear mage-Jedi robes and vice versa. DCUO doesn't have this restriction, either, allowing you to use the appearance of any item you've obtained during your playtime, whether you still have it or not.

 

So no, I cannot wear any piece I want. Because I want to wear the Alchemist lab coat while fighting Twintania as a summoner. Because I want to combine the Foestriker body and armored boots and gauntlets on black mage to make a battle-wizard outfit. Because I want to mix and match sets to make more outfits so I don't look like a clone of every other goddamned black mage or summoner or scholar or warrior or bard.

 

As it stands, all that this glamour system, with its ridiculous limitations, is going to allow me to do is to make sure my sets match even when I'm using pieces from multiple sets. All it'll really let me do is get rid of that ugly BLM robe. It won't let me get crazy creative with outfits, farming dungeons left and right for pieces, leveling crafting jobs to get their AF, buying lots and lots of various bits of gear from crafters (isn't this the entire point of the glamour system? to help crafters?), playing around with the system to take loads of screenshots while burning through glamour prisms at a rate best described as scary--all the while funneling gil toward crafters who are desperate for any sort of relevance.

 

I won't be doing any of that. I'll maybe buy a handful of them, get rid of that horrible face-hiding BLM robe and sort out my outfit so it's not mismatched. Then I probably won't use any more until I get new gear. Imagine how much of my gil I would have redistributed to crafters if they had not totally hobbled and utterly crippled this system.

[Clover]

Well, all the games I've played have those restrictions, at least (Mabinogi:Heroes, Tera, and if I remember well, GW2 too. Bless Online has confirmed to also be class restricted). I'm sorry you can't combine certain items, but I'm sure there are other items you can like as well @x@

 

Sometimes, you have to adhere to certain rules. In this case, I find it very normal that the armours which represent each class can't be combined, for each class is like a character on their own.

[Kage]

As it is, the only benefit to the Glamor system is that I can PVP or PVE my end-game or dungeon things in the lower level gear that aren't fugly while not gimping my stats.

 

I would -love- a lot of the ideas of how to change your look if it wasn't so restricted. I can understand the decision but it doesn't mean I can't wish they'd give me the chance to not look like every caster in the game with a crimson vest or like every other tank out there.

 

As it is, it's just as if I equipped a gear set without the stats being gimped.

[synaesthetic]

I can't understand the restriction at all. It's completely arbitrary and stupid. :frustrated:

 

I can understand the restriction for the combination pieces; that's probably a technical issue in which if you tried to remodel only one slot of the darklight cowl, the cowl isn't actually two separate poly models so it would simply not work.

 

But the level requirement is silly. I already earned my royal vest. I got it from doing CT on scholar. Why can't I mog my random CNJ outfit to look like it? That's just ridiculous. The equip limitation is even dumber. We're still going to look like clones, just instead of everyone looking exactly alike, there will just be groups of clones.

[Sounsyy]

May not get to equip every piece you wanted to, but there's going to be a lot more gear released specifically for vanity purposes. 2.2 New Emotes & Vanity Gear

 

So maybe in the future there will be heavier armors for mage classes. Will have to wait and see. They're always going to be adding new and fancier looking gear. The old gear will probably stay inaccessible because it was designed and released with PVE in mind, not vanity. But with vanity specific gear, I'm sure a lot more combinations will pop up, with outfits more similar to stuff we see on NPCs, around town, or akin to the crafter AF than what is currently in game.

[synaesthetic]

Square-Enix: Over-complicating and restricting MMO fluff systems that should be simple, unrestricted and fun since 2002.

Let's not even get started on the proposed marriage system...

 

Let's face it. Squee hates fun.

 

*feels the urge to buy something from RIFT's cash shop rising*

 

Edit: If Squee is restricting things in order to make crafting more relevant by giving unrestricted, statless level 1 vanity versions of existing and future armor sets, I'm fine with that. What I'm not fine with is that they will probably wait six months to do it. It should be part of this patch, especially since the art assets already exist.

[Melodia]

I'm relatively new to these forums, and appreciate all opinions and ideas, but I am surprised at the level of vitriol toward some folks' posts and toward the company in general. It's a game. And it's clothing. I have seen folks combine and make outstanding outfits with the existing stuff, without the glamour system. Soooo......why is everyone so angry?

 

I am confused. :dazed: