I recall in the last live stream Brad said something like not every piece will have a unique appearance (MMOs are just like that), but that they also want people to know what you're wearing by the look of it. So I'd say many pieces will have unique appearances, just not all of them, especially highly sought after gear.
An early development thing i would say. It looks like at the moment they are trying to showcase the fact that they have (and in my opinion) absolutely nailed the race looks to almost a perfect degree when comparing to the concept models they have on the website. To a degree i have not really seen in many other mmos ever. I think they are just going with that generic race armour look for the sake of ease of early development with a little bit of showing off too of how much they nailed it! :)
I'd say like everyone else has here that for sure we will see a wide variety of weapon and armour looks once we hit later stages of development!
I like that most pieces will have a unique appearance.
This brings up a question though. Appearence slots perhaps in the future ? It does not affect the toon , just the cosmetic visual of the toon since a person likes a specific look.
Xxar said:I like that most pieces will have a unique appearance.
This brings up a question though. Appearence slots perhaps in the future ? It does not affect the toon , just the cosmetic visual of the toon since a person likes a specific look.
Dont think Brad is a fan of appearence items, he likes players to know or be excited to find out what others are wearing when they see a uber piece of equipment run by. I am in agreeance but it is a disupted topic for sure!
Agree with no glamour/transmog. Save it for town where it belongs. Tired of being immersed in a raid fight then looking over and seeing some jackass in a clown suit. I realize that's overly tryhard but there are just times I want to honestly enjoy the fantasy of fighting a dragon without Cloudsephirothx69x in his bathing suit trying his best to prove how much of a jackass he is.
I just don't think they had a ton of items to show in the last stream. It seems like they created the loot that dropped just to show us. By the time the game is out, I'm sure you'll have all of your normal visible armor pieces changing depending on what you equip. I feel pretty confident that a piece of armor will look slightly different depending on which race is wearing it, also.
Iksar said:I do hope we still get racial flavoring when it comes to armors, so a grouping of players in bronze or ringmail don't all look the same/bland. But I understand if not.
The art on the Races page would seem to suggest this (racial flavoring), but it is art. Still, the Gnomes and Archai turned out to look just like the pictures even in armor, so hope is high.
Ozmani said:Iksar said:I do hope we still get racial flavoring when it comes to armors, so a grouping of players in bronze or ringmail don't all look the same/bland. But I understand if not.
The art on the Races page would seem to suggest this (racial flavoring), but it is art. Still, the Gnomes and Archai turned out to look just like the pictures even in armor, so hope is high.
Changing the appearance of gear based on what race is wearing it never made any sense to me. I actually really like that a piece of gear reflects the culture it originated from. Sure, you might look like a mismatched trainwreck, but it gives a visual indication of the variety of content you've experienced. That to me is interesting and important. It also gives that extra little incentive to consider your appearance when choosing your gear upgrades. I will admit to being just vain enough that if I find an item that is only slightly better than the one I already have but I either really like the look of the old one or cant stand the new one, I'll stick with what I already have.
The idea seems unlikely to me if for no other reason than because the devs would have to create multiple models/skins for every piece of gear to match every race, and in some cases sex. That's not only a ton of additional dev time, its also a ton more graphics information that have to be cached on your pc, consuming more memory and impacting performance.
There are some limits of course. Obviously I don't want to wear a woman's shaped breastplate on my male Crusader, for instance...
I believe it's actually easier for them to set up certain item graphics for each race and then code it so it appears as 'male plate graphic 1 with blue tint'. Obviously, I'm no programmer, but that's my understanding of how it worked. If they had it set up that way in EverQuest 20 years ago, I don't think it's going to tie up too many resources to do it now. I assume there will be much more variety in how armor pieces look in PRF than in EverQuest, but I definitely don't expect a breasplate to look the same on an ogre warrior as it would on a human. I guess you have to pick and choose your realism, here. Would an item change the way it looks based on who is wearing it? No. Would a human and an ogre ever be able to wear the same breastplate? No.
This is slightly paraphrased, but:
"With a MMO like Pantheon, there is going to be thousands if not tens of thousands of items. There can never be a 1:1 ratio between what you are wearing and how you look. That being said, there will be many that we fit in at launch and after launch. What you’re wearing does show off what you accomplish, how high level you are, what adventures you have gone on to inspire others. If we do allow any kind of cosmetic gear, it will probably be restricted so that people won’t be able to arbitrarily change the side of their Mithril Plate. We want people to recognize they have Mithril Plate on."
Source: Question/Answer from Pantheon Stream #3, timestamped
Shucklighter said:I believe it's actually easier for them to set up certain item graphics for each race and then code it so it appears as 'male plate graphic 1 with blue tint'. Obviously, I'm no programmer, but that's my understanding of how it worked. If they had it set up that way in EverQuest 20 years ago, I don't think it's going to tie up too many resources to do it now. I assume there will be much more variety in how armor pieces look in PRF than in EverQuest, but I definitely don't expect a breasplate to look the same on an ogre warrior as it would on a human. I guess you have to pick and choose your realism, here. Would an item change the way it looks based on who is wearing it? No. Would a human and an ogre ever be able to wear the same breastplate? No.
Put it this way; If an item were to look different based on which race equipped it....
Every gear item requires the entire art creation process.
(See my post in this thread: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5033/class-concept-art , Which is ridiculously long and a total waste of time to write, but I love this stuff.)
There's the Breastplate of Shuckasomthinoranother. It has a model and a skin for a male, and a model and a skin for a female. Possibly one skin for both, it would depend but... Artists have to create the model and the skin. That's 2 art assets that are created and added to the game client files.
Now imagine the Breastplate of Shuckasomthinoranother has a model each for Ogre male, and Dark Myr male, and Gnome male, and Archai male, and human male... etc.etc. And/or a skin for Ogre male, and Dark Myr male, and Gnome male, and Archai male, and human male... etc.etc. Artists have to create one model for each sex for every race, and possibly one skin for every sex/race as well.
So in the current Pantheon 9-race list, that'd be as many as 18 models and 18 skins. (In all likelyhood you could curb some duplicated effort thru modifications and not full on new art, but... )
Both the model and the skin are loaded to memory on your PC as you come within proximity of someone wearing it so that you don't get a hickup as it loads when you actually encounter it. If there's only one person in your proximity wearing the Breastplate of Shuckasomthinoranother only one model/skin is loaded to your PC's memory. But if you're running thru a capital city and there are dozens of people wearing that breastplate, the likelyhood of them being of many races increase dramatically, and if every race looks different in it each has to be loaded and the amount of your PC's required resources consumed increases to accomodate all of those models/skins loaded to memory accordingly.
Now extrapolate all that to hundreds of breastplates, and tens of thousands of combined items for every other viewable slot.
Yeah, I get what you are saying Feyshtey. I guess I'm just not expecting every item to have a unique graphic. I'm thinking along the lines of EverQuest too much, I guess. For example, Ethereal Mist Breastplate was just purple plate graphic for whatever race/sex was wearing it. That's the way I'm thinking, but instead of just one plate skin that gets tinted differently, I'm thinking there will be a handful. If every item has a unique look, then yes, I totally agree that it would be a bit ridiculous to have everything look different based on which race and sex is wearing it.
Feyshtey said:Now imagine the Breastplate of Shuckasomthinoranother has a model each for Ogre male, and Dark Myr male, and Gnome male, and Archai male, and human male... etc.etc. And/or a skin for Ogre male, and Dark Myr male, and Gnome male, and Archai male, and human male... etc.etc. Artists have to create one model for each sex for every race, and possibly one skin for every sex/race as well.
So in the current Pantheon 9-race list, that'd be as many as 18 models and 18 skins. (In all likelyhood you could curb some duplicated effort thru modifications and not full on new art, but... )
Both the model and the skin are loaded to memory on your PC as you come within proximity of someone wearing it so that you don't get a hickup as it loads when you actually encounter it. If there's only one person in your proximity wearing the Breastplate of Shuckasomthinoranother only one model/skin is loaded to your PC's memory. But if you're running thru a capital city and there are dozens of people wearing that breastplate, the likelyhood of them being of many races increase dramatically, and if every race looks different in it each has to be loaded and the amount of your PC's required resources consumed increases to accomodate all of those models/skins loaded to memory accordingly.
Now extrapolate all that to hundreds of breastplates, and tens of thousands of combined items for every other viewable slot.
I think it only works out if there are a good number of generic looking cloth/leather/chain/plate with just color tweaks. If all/most items/armors are unique then racial armor wouldn't work outside of limited sets. But in the even there is a good number of basic/generic armors then racial flavoring would go a long way. In the example of the market, and I could be totally off base here, but wouldn't the end result be nearly the exact same regardless of each race having flavor or generic armor? You'd still be loading up each persons combination of armor and even the generic armors would be different models due to different sizing needed per race?
Jimmayus said:Agree with no glamour/transmog. Save it for town where it belongs. Tired of being immersed in a raid fight then looking over and seeing some jackass in a clown suit. I realize that's overly tryhard but there are just times I want to honestly enjoy the fantasy of fighting a dragon without Cloudsephirothx69x in his bathing suit trying his best to prove how much of a jackass he is.
Total agreement here!
I do however like the idea that we can "costume" in town. No need for a cash shop. Make the "everyday or special" clothing patterns that can either drop from mobs or can be purchased with in-game gold from an npc.
Make it an off-shoot of tailoring or even a craft of its own. The same idea for dyes. Dyes and "costume crafting would only be for those wanting to change out of armor once back at the guild hall or home. This way you give foragers/ gatherers a lucrative past time. Dyes that retain a believability would only then be allowed on clothing pieces. No crazy neon colors! And if an appearance tab is too much to ask for, then make it so you must take off your armor to wear it.
Examples of this would be:
pants, shirts, dresses and special occasion attire. I am not interested in going to the tavern in my blood stained armor.
As far as the "battle" armor goes, my only request is that it represents the sex wearing it. " Brad, I had a very difficult time realizing your toon was female."
Best to you all,
Aviana
Iksar said:I do hope we still get racial flavoring when it comes to armors, so a grouping of players in bronze or ringmail don't all look the same/bland. But I understand if not.
Seconded. Not enough MMO's follow this route, and the only difference in armor between races would be size and scale. That's balderdash.
I absolutely loved the fact that, in EQ, if you wanted to know how armor would look on your character you had to dig around on websites and forums for pictures of your particular race wearing that particular armor. Bronze would look all golden and "plate-y" and shiny on a human, but a high elf would have some kind of weird skirt ....thing. Odd, but great.
In a living and breathing world, where each race has its own unique culture and idiosyncrasies, you would expect that culture to be reflected in the way they walk, talk, eat, dance, and of course, dress. One should be able to tell where you hail from simply by the cut of your armor.
This, of course, could only be within crafted armor sets. It may not make much sense to have the unique pieces from raids and such be suited to each individual race. Those would have more of a universal model because it simply wouldn't make a whole lot of sense otherwise. But for crafted? Racial all the way.
Iksar said:I do hope we still get racial flavoring when it comes to armors, so a grouping of players in bronze or ringmail don't all look the same/bland. But I understand if not.
I'd very much like this also. Racial differences in armor looks for the same pieces would give nice diversity, though then I suppose already the size of the races work towards that goal somewhat. For example an ogre is bound to look different in plate than an elf even if it is the same set. Maybe crafters could give the armor racial looks á la Elder Scrolls online?
I was so glad to see the mention of cosmetic armor in faq 4.8, though naturally I understand everything™ is still subject to change.
I'm actually hoping that the female and male stat armors (at least some of them) would not look so very different on males and females. I've grown a little bored of the fact that in many games out there when a male character wears for example plate armor it looks perfectly legit plate armor. Then a female character wears it and lo and behold, it's metal bikinis with so much exposed skin the enemy would have to be a sharp shooter to actually hit any armored parts! Thank you VR for the faq answer 4.4, the "not overly sexualized" mention especially made me very happy.
It'd be cool to go on adventuring (I tend to drift towards the plate wearing classes) and then at some point take the helmet off (I do hope for hide helmet cosmetic option or something along those lines... again, diversity <3) and people go: 'Oh so that's how you look like' or 'oh your char is not a dude' lol.
Not that it should matter what gender a character is, I just find that sort of a thing amusing. Blame my weird sense of humor ;).
If someone then wants to make certain their female character look adequately curvy and stuff, they could either opt for cosmetic armor or a set that provides the desired aesthetics :D. I love to dress up, very much so but if my female character is wearing plate then she shouldn't look like she's going on the beach to grab some tan instead.
It adds to the "realism" of it all imo. Fantasy realism lol. Anyhow, I'm just so tired of the feel in some (way too many) games where men are the serious warriors and females are there only to look pretty X)-. Vanguard did it right I think, even if it was too clunky :D.
Edit:
AvianaSummerwood said:As far as the "battle" armor goes, my only request is that it represents the sex wearing it. " Brad, I had a very difficult time realizing your toon was female."
Best to you all,
Aviana
Omg I just realized this, we're the exact opposite in opinion lol. I thought it was super cool that Brad's character was a combatant wearing armor first, and being a representative of a gender only second. So we are all different :D. I do hope there will be options for both schools of thinking however, the most important thing about a game is that one enjoys playing it after all! Visuals are a big part of that.
Some interesting discussion about racial armor going on here: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5913/racial-armour
Feyshtey said:Shucklighter said:I believe it's actually easier for them to set up certain item graphics for each race and then code it so it appears as 'male plate graphic 1 with blue tint'. Obviously, I'm no programmer, but that's my understanding of how it worked. If they had it set up that way in EverQuest 20 years ago, I don't think it's going to tie up too many resources to do it now. I assume there will be much more variety in how armor pieces look in PRF than in EverQuest, but I definitely don't expect a breasplate to look the same on an ogre warrior as it would on a human. I guess you have to pick and choose your realism, here. Would an item change the way it looks based on who is wearing it? No. Would a human and an ogre ever be able to wear the same breastplate? No.
Put it this way; If an item were to look different based on which race equipped it....
Every gear item requires the entire art creation process.
(See my post in this thread: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5033/class-concept-art , Which is ridiculously long and a total waste of time to write, but I love this stuff.)...
Now extrapolate all that to hundreds of breastplates, and tens of thousands of combined items for every other viewable slot.
I would think that they would create a mesh for types of armor on different race/gender models and then apply general or specific armor type textures to the meshes. Thus generally requiring only 1 or a small number of textures be created for any given item.
But yes for special looking items, there might be a specific Mesh/Texture combo per race/gender. It just wouldn't need to be like that for every single item.
IE: Every Race/Gender gets a mesh for a specific type of chest plate(Plate Chest 001) - and we have 10 Chest plate textures in the game, if we have 10 race/gender combos (20 meshes) then we can render 200 distinct but similar looks using 30 assets for 10 plate chest items, assuming that all 10 Races could even wear all 10 items.
Thus it should be possible to represent unique looks for 10000 specific items using around 1500 textures in a perfect world.
AvianaSummerwood said:Jimmayus said:Agree with no glamour/transmog. Save it for town where it belongs. Tired of being immersed in a raid fight then looking over and seeing some jackass in a clown suit. I realize that's overly tryhard but there are just times I want to honestly enjoy the fantasy of fighting a dragon without Cloudsephirothx69x in his bathing suit trying his best to prove how much of a jackass he is.
Total agreement here!
I do however like the idea that we can "costume" in town. No need for a cash shop. Make the "everyday or special" clothing patterns that can either drop from mobs or can be purchased with in-game gold from an npc.
Make it an off-shoot of tailoring or even a craft of its own. The same idea for dyes. Dyes and "costume crafting would only be for those wanting to change out of armor once back at the guild hall or home. This way you give foragers/ gatherers a lucrative past time. Dyes that retain a believability would only then be allowed on clothing pieces. No crazy neon colors! And if an appearance tab is too much to ask for, then make it so you must take off your armor to wear it.
Examples of this would be:
pants, shirts, dresses and special occasion attire. I am not interested in going to the tavern in my blood stained armor.
As far as the "battle" armor goes, my only request is that it represents the sex wearing it. " Brad, I had a very difficult time realizing your toon was female."
Best to you all,
Aviana
Realistically speaking you'd have a very hard time recognizing a woman wearing actual armor as well. A suit of plate or chain maille isn't very form flattering TBH.
Throw a helmet on and it becomes very difficult to differentiate gender on an armored opponent.
Though I understand what you are saying.
Jimmayus said:I realize that's overly tryhard but there are just times I want to honestly enjoy the fantasy of fighting a dragon without Cloudsephirothx69x in his bathing suit trying his best to prove how much of a jackass he is.
Totally reserving "Cloudsephirothx69x" before we go live.....