The whole "appearance" thing...

[SINIBYTE]

I look at what game developers are doing, and I really can't believe we don't have even a modicum of character appearance customization in this game. I know it's beating a dead horse, but seriously.. look at what's going on in the gaming world...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc0ilSksWBQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uohxUbsiA1Y

What options do we get? A handlful of preformed character models, hats on/off, flourescent hair color.

Lame, Turbine, Lame.

These characters aren't in our imaginations anymore, they're on our screen, and they should look like what we envision them to be, like we did when we sat with a piece of paper and a handful of dice.

What's possible is amazing. What exists is not.

[systemstate]

Whoa! APB customization looks completely awesome. Very cool there.

[Fetchi]

This is exactly what I was talking about in this thread:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=255343

I hope we can do something along these lines for DDO or it will fall behind pretty fast.

[BangsLiekWhoa]

That APB video was amazing!

[systemstate]

Yeah, we definitely need more appearance options. Now that I've been here for more than a couple of months, things are really looking more and more "cookie cutter".

[Modinator0]

Whoa! APB customization looks completely awesome. Very cool there.
This... I had a beta invite to that game but never used it, wishing i had.

[Oathbound]

I hope we can do something along these lines for DDO or it will fall behind pretty fast.

Its already a 4 year old game. Just sayin...

[Fetchi]

Its already a 4 year old game. Just sayin...

This is true.

[Memnir]

The crazy amount of customization is one of the very few things APB got right. I did a fair degree of beta testing for APB, and loved the creation tools... but once ya got in the game, the allure wore off rapidly. Not saying there is a correlation - just commenting on the game itself.


But yes, DDO needs to step up the customization aspect double-quick. The hats were cool and all, but it's been about a year now and that is just about the only step that has been taken in terms of modifying the way our characters look. At the time, I hailed it as a good first step - but it seems like the Devs have stalled out after taking at first step. Will we ever see anything beyond headgear? I hope so, but faith wanes...

[kitsune_ko]

The new Final Fantasy does look pretty sweet. If I were more of a dedicated gamer, this would certainly be on my "To play" list. But then Squaresoft/Square Enix has always been at the front of gaming innovations.

Kind of depressing to think that there is this great level of character customization available in other games, and we cannot even get armor dyes despite obvious demand for it.

Which brings me back to a post I had made a while back that there seems to be a huge disconnect between the development team and the player base. We say "We want armor dyes", they hear "We want more hats please", We say, "More top end content please" they hear "Can we get another 5-7 quest chain? there are so few".

*sigh*


Kit

[FrancisP.Fancypants]

I've always wondered about the facial construction when you make a new character. Dwarves get glasses...but no one else? Nevermind that you can't normally seen them anyway.

Oh, but almost every race gets the three cliched scars.

Perhaps Turbine needs more artists..

[LordPiglet]

Its already a 4 year old game. Just sayin...

Games older then ddo have far greater customization though. I know of a 6 year old MMO that has had body scale sliders for a while.

Infact, they've added additional customization within the last year.

[synkos]

Old? How about Neverwinter Nights?

You could craft and change every single aspect of your armor/weapon/accessory easily..

The first thing I asked when I got to the harbor for the first time was "Is there a way to make cloaks visible?"

We had showrooms on the forums for our creations..

But I think it would require too much coding and Turbine is busy with other things. I would definately love to see bugs squashed prior to more aesthetics.

[zztophat]

To be fair, I would imagine the art staff currently has their hands full with half-orcs.

Adding a race to the game is a huge amount of work, from an art standpoint.

I'm hoping around update 8 there will be some more customization.

[Kirachan]

Actually, I'm not a big friend of too much customization, like in Mass Effect or Oblivion. Too many slider, too many ways to slightly adjust things means I will spend hours trying to figure out how to have my char look like I want, because there are a lot of ways for them to end up really ugly. I don't want to sit there adjusting the depth, shadow, angle, curve and shape of the eye, the visible amount of lid, the thickness and angle of the lashes etc. I feels like the designers didn't want to do their job, so now I'm stuck doing it myself.
I usually will just click random anyway till I find a face that looks decent, and be done with it.

I prefer the system games like DDO and Guild Wars have where I can choose from a number of options. It's just easier to have 10 completely different set of eyes that will all fit into the face, without having to design one yourself.
Of course it would be nice if the number of options could be extended sometimes, like they did for Guild Wars with every new Chapter, but I still don't have enough characters to be dissatisfies with my options yet.

[synkos]

Actually, I'm not a big friend of too much customization, like in Mass Effect or Oblivion. Too many slider, too many ways to slightly adjust things means I will spend hours trying to figure out how to have my char look like I want, because there are a lot of ways for them to end up really ugly. I don't want to sit there adjusting the depth, shadow, angle, curve and shape of the eye, the visible amount of lid, the thickness and angle of the lashes etc. I feels like the designers didn't want to do their job, so now I'm stuck doing it myself.
I usually will just click random anyway till I find a face that looks decent, and be done with it.
.

I think most people would agree with you on that, however there are some that wouldn't. I know that some people find it a game inside of a game (nfs:carbon's sculpt was the entire game for me).

But I think the basis of all this is not face/body sculpting, it's armor/weapon colors/design. Most of the time you don't see the actual character's face, especially with a helmet shown. I'd take complete armor/weapon customization over face customization any day. Give me 1 male/female model for each race but let me customize everything else.

[Kirachan]

Ah yes, that's another thing I thing Guild Wars did better.

In Guild Wars all weapons had names, like Bramble Sword, Shadow Blade, all with a unique look. So if you wanted a certain kind of weapon you know what you had to buy. Later you could even mod them with the kind of upgrades you liked, so it was relatively easy to get the weapon you wanted with the stats you wanted on them.
Armor would be bought at a armor vendor, and every kind of armor also had a unique look, could be colored using vials of ink, and could be upgraded with different mods.

In any case function and look was always separated, at least in the later chapters.
I do agree that something like that would be a welcome addition to DDO.

[AestorTheKnight]

In any case function and look was always separated, at least in the later chapters.


This is what DDO needs. A seperation between Form and Function.

At present, the Armour and Equipment looks available in DDO are average, but ok. But thats not really the BIG problem, the BIG problem is that we are NOT allowed to choose those armour and equipment appearances to suit our characters.

We the players are straight jacketed into wearing a specific armour and equipment due to its enchantments and abilities, and then its appearance is automatically decided for us, without any choice or say in the matter.
There is NO armour and equipment appearance customisation or choice in DDO.

For example, if you are a Wizard or Sorceror, you have THREE, yes only THREE real choices at End Game - Dragontouched Robe or Dragon Scale Robe or Regala of Phoenix. And they always look exactly the same, on you and on everyone else, and so all casters look the same at end game. This is just rubbish for a 4 year old MMO.

If your a Rogue, you will want Epic Kunderak Delving Suit, Dragontouched Leather or Dragontouched Robe, or Dragontouched Outfit, or Icy Raiment.

If your a Tank or a Healer, you will want Dragontouched Full Plate, or Breastplate, or Epic Kunderak Delving Suit, or Epic Vambrances of Inner Light, or maybe Epic Stonemeld Plate.

If your a Bard you will want Dragontouched Leather, or Epic Kunderak Delving Suit, or Epic Vulkoorim Fighting Leathers.

I'm not mentioning Elocators Habiliment here... oh yes I am... how many people do you see wearing it? Hundreds of people, and it looks lame on all of them...

Lets think about Shields. There are only like 4 or 5 decent shields at End-Game. Madstone Shield, Epic Kunderak Warding Shield, Lorriks Champion, Leviks Defender (Woot these 2 have exactly the same appearance! :D) and you guessed it Light and Darkness the shield EVERYONE (almost) uses. Maybe a Fanion or a Skyvault if your a Bard or Caster.

Ok on the question of Helmets, there are oh.... Minos Legens.... And.. err... Greensteel Helm... and Epic Helm or Moranon (Oh these last two helmets have exactly the same appearance! :D)

Whats that... 15 different armour, shield and helmet appearances at end game for a playerbase of over 1 million people. Woot, wicked... doh...

Sorry - no harm intended - but its rubbish. Thats all I have to say on the matter. :)

[AestorTheKnight]

These characters aren't in our imaginations anymore, they're on our screen, and they should look like what we envision them to be, like we did when we sat with a piece of paper and a handful of dice.

What's possible is amazing. What exists is not.

This - perfectly said, and +1! :)

[Thechemicals]

All games used to have an expiration date. Now you can play starcraft 1 on the internet with people still playing it. Its a 10+ year old game. MMO's are designed to give a more extended setting for players so even DDO will be around for a long long time. However, the majority of players in the future will go where the best deal and most fun is. DDO has laid a foundation for F2P option that will ripple onto new mmo's

[Renvar]

This is what DDO needs. A seperation between Form and Function.

At present, the Armour and Equipment looks available in DDO are average, but ok. But thats not really the BIG problem, the BIG problem is that we are NOT allowed to choose those armour and equipment appearances to suit our characters.

We the players are straight jacketed into wearing a specific armour and equipment due to its enchantments and abilities, and then its appearance is automatically decided for us, without any choice or say in the matter.
There is NO armour and equipment appearance customisation or choice in DDO.

For example, if you are a Wizard or Sorceror, you have THREE, yes only THREE real choices at End Game - Dragontouched Robe or Dragon Scale Robe or Regala of Phoenix. And they always look exactly the same, on you and on everyone else, and so all casters look the same at end game. This is just rubbish for a 4 year old MMO.

If your a Rogue, you will want Epic Kunderak Delving Suit, Dragontouched Leather or Dragontouched Robe, or Dragontouched Outfit, or Icy Raiment.

If your a Tank or a Healer, you will want Dragontouched Full Plate, or Breastplate, or Epic Kunderak Delving Suit, or Epic Vambrances of Inner Light, or maybe Epic Stonemeld Plate.

If your a Bard you will want Dragontouched Leather, or Epic Kunderak Delving Suit, or Epic Vulkoorim Fighting Leathers.

I'm not mentioning Elocators Habiliment here... oh yes I am... how many people do you see wearing it? Hundreds of people, and it looks lame on all of them...

Lets think about Shields. There are only like 4 or 5 decent shields at End-Game. Madstone Shield, Epic Kunderak Warding Shield, Lorriks Champion, Leviks Defender (Woot these 2 have exactly the same appearance! :D) and you guessed it Light and Darkness the shield EVERYONE (almost) uses. Maybe a Fanion or a Skyvault if your a Bard or Caster.

Ok on the question of Helmets, there are oh.... Minos Legens.... And.. err... Greensteel Helm... and Epic Helm or Moranon (Oh these last two helmets have exactly the same appearance! :D)

Whats that... 15 different armour, shield and helmet appearances at end game for a playerbase of over 1 million people. Woot, wicked... doh...

Sorry - no harm intended - but its rubbish. Thats all I have to say on the matter. :)

I'm ok with certain named loot having a specific appearance. Epic Red Dragonscale Armor for example. Or the Blue, white, black dragonscale armor. You shouldn't be changing the color on these. Now, since you are giving the scales to a craftsman to make, I would think there could be a handful of different options on the styling, though.

And greensteel should be completely customizable, since you are crafting it after all. Same with dragontouched armor.

Other named, unique gear, like minos helm, I can see an argument for some standardization. If you wearing the stormreaver's napkin, I doubt you went through his kitchen drawers to find the right pattern that matched your hair color. (Yes. I know cloaks are not actually visible, jsut making a joke) Or the helm of Mrorranan. Mroranan designed it. Not you. I can see where, from an RP standpoint, these items would be one design or only selectable from a smaller set of options. But it would be great to have 3-6 different styles and or colors for each.

For all other non-named, generic loot, though, you should absolultely be able to customize the style and the color.

And having cloaks visible or not would be awesome. But I can also see the challenge. Cloaks have to move appropriately when jumping, falling, running, etc. all other gear has no animation to it.

[AestorTheKnight]

Other named, unique gear, like minos helm, I can see an argument for some standardization.

I know what your saying. But this arguement for standardization of appearance of named loot, is utterly mute, and this is why.

If that argument holds, then Minos Legens is a unique, legendary helm. Unless of course Scarfur Deathhoof happened to be a Helm Craftsmen AND a Blood Donor for the thousands of Minos Legens running around Stormreach. Which of course he wasnt. There should only be one Minos Legens. If there was only one Minos Legens, then the argument for it having a unique and static appearance would be valid. But because there are literally thousands if not tens of thousands of them, that point is utterly unjustifiable, and paradoxical.

The argument for standardisation is an ideological sacred cow, that straight jackets players into looking the same, cos they are all wearing unique (there should be only one of them) named loots. The fact of hundreds of people wearing the same item, which is supposed to be unique, is a paradox, and it spoils the appearance of characters in DDO.

[rossiza]

Suggestion:

1. Get a Minos helm
2. Find the armor customiser vendor guy
3. Select new base look
4. Select new base colour
5. Pay vendor some plat
6. /showhelmet ON << yes ON is now an option

Shouldnt be too hard, everything has a model, so let the player pick a model for the item, Maybe you want a straw hat, or a demon mask looking thing..

That's basic customization solved, then just start adding more models, colours, textures etc as you can

[Smelt92]

i have to agree.... with bits of what most of you have said!

The APB video is truely awesome.... but I'm already an altoholic, so that level of customisation would see me spending more time in character generation than in game. This being said, I long to see a fat human cleric for example. Every charcter of the same race being the same height and weight annoys the hell out of me. I would be happy with a random roll for each caharcters height and weight, within parameters set by their race. Slider for these parameters would be better, and it wouldn't even need to be broken down into body parts just one slider for weight and one for height would be enough.

I have to agree with those that are saying that the customisable clothing is the most important though. It's not bad enough that every dwarf you meet is exactly the same height and weight but a huge proportion of then are wearing the clothes!

The thing about all this is, I'm sure that most of us would be happy with a much simpler system than shown on either of the video's the OP posted. As I said above, simple height weight sliders for body modification would be great. For clothes.... even if you had a system where if you bought a set of armour, or were given it as a reward, you got to pick from a selection of styles for that type. Not asking for any more styles than are already in the game either. Once the style is chosen, you then pick a colour theme for it.... again from a selection that can be previewed. Armour found in chests should have a random appearance from these selections too. You could then sell armour die in venders or the store (or both), and new armour designs can be added to the selection periodically. You could even take it to the level of having different designs unlocked by gaining favour with the different patrons. Each patron specialising in a different type of armour for example.

I am no coder, and nor am I an artist, but i would have thought that this type of change would satisfy most of your player base, with minimal coding and minimal, if any, new art work needed as all the armour designs proposed are already in the game.... you just need to beable to change colours and apply the effects to the armour. Of course the same goes for robes, outfits and helmets.... although maybe adding a few entirely new designs for robes and outfits would be nice and the ones we have now are all basically the same with different collars and belts showing on em.

And if you need any help with new designs for the proposed favour reward thing..... all i'm gonna say is chain mail bikinis and leather loin cloths!

[TheBroken_JPK]

Yea, but soon we'll be farming underwater. Oh, did I say farming? I meant fighting.

[Gremmlynn]

The new Final Fantasy does look pretty sweet. If I were more of a dedicated gamer, this would certainly be on my "To play" list. But then Squaresoft/Square Enix has always been at the front of gaming innovations.

Kind of depressing to think that there is this great level of character customization available in other games, and we cannot even get armor dyes despite obvious demand for it.

Which brings me back to a post I had made a while back that there seems to be a huge disconnect between the development team and the player base. We say "We want armor dyes", they hear "We want more hats please", We say, "More top end content please" they hear "Can we get another 5-7 quest chain? there are so few".

*sigh*


KitThis kind of makes me guess that armor dyes or the like really aren't that easy to add to this game. Adding hat's is probably just a lot easier than adding a graphics editing system that the engine and game code is willing to work with.

[Fetchi]

...that level of customisation would see me spending more time in character generation than in game...Every charcter of the same race being the same height and weight annoys the hell out of me...Slider for these parameters would be better, and it wouldn't even need to be broken down into body parts just one slider for weight and one for height would be enough...


On one hand you are saying too much customization would take away from gaming, and on the other hand you are saying that you want customization. Which one is it?

As far as an in-depth customization for character appearance, it wouldn't stop anyone from being in dungeons. Those that don't want to look like everyone else would spend more time with it, and those that don't care would not. What's not fun for you may be fun for someone else. I doubt many people would complain about having some fresh character model and gear looks, especially those players that have been around for a long time.

[gurugeorge]

It's already been said on the other thread: even if all Turbine did was give the very same "costume slot" functionality as their own other game, LOTRO, where you can can be showing a completely different (and even mix-matched) set of armour from the one that you're actually wearing that's giving you the stats, that would probably satisfy most people playing this game.

I remember in LOTRO there was an armour set I got at lvl 2 or something that I loved the look of, that I kept showing on my Loremaster nearly all the way to the cap, while benefitting from all the armour upgrades I was picking up along the way (the combination of which looked absolutely hideous :) ). And not only that, I also could show the hideous jumble of the real armour I was wearing if I wanted, AND there was even an extra "appearance slot" that I could use for "formal/courtly costumes" and the like.

Such a simple, genius solution Turbine - why can't we have it in DDO?

[AestorTheKnight]

It's already been said on the other thread: even if all Turbine did was give the very same "costume slot" functionality as their own other game, LOTRO, where you can can be showing a completely different (and even mix-matched) set of armour from the one that you're actually wearing that's giving you the stats, that would probably satisfy most people playing this game.

I remember in LOTRO there was an armour set I got at lvl 2 or something that I loved the look of, that I kept showing on my Loremaster nearly all the way to the cap, while benefitting from all the armour upgrades I was picking up along the way (the combination of which looked absolutely hideous :) ). And not only that, I also could show the hideous jumble of the real armour I was wearing if I wanted, AND there was even an extra "appearance slot" that I could use for "formal/courtly costumes" and the like.

Such a simple, genius solution Turbine - why can't we have it in DDO?

I also absolutely agree with this. :)

[SINIBYTE]

This kind of makes me guess that armor dyes or the like really aren't that easy to add to this game. Adding hat's is probably just a lot easier than adding a graphics editing system that the engine and game code is willing to work with.

We need a stone to breakdown things. You break down armor, you get a dye from that color armor. You apply the dye to your new armor, problem solved. The skin, texture, and color are all just digit flags in a database - you simply talk to an NPC, pay some plat, and voila your pink docent is now dark blue (item #1089274532 gets its Armor_ID_Color (whatever) changed from 17 to 23). The same could apply to which skin it is. Simply change the data in the field... It's REALLY not that difficult. Really... Really Turbine, I promise you, it won't hurt.

[Grendyll]

I would think a system like EQ2 would be quick and simple. Have a few additional inventory slots that are "appearance slots". The gear you put into them does not affect your stats in any way, it just applies the graphic skin. If the slot is empty, the item in the regular slot will "show through". That way we can look through the dozens of loot gen item appearances to find one we like and use it. It is not perfect but would be a good start. Then they can add unique looking items to the game with no real stats expecting us to put them into the appearance slots. If someone really wants to show off their uber red scale armor, they just leave the appearance slot empty. We would just need a body slot and head slot at this point, though it would be nice if they could add boots/gloves maybe someday.

[AestorTheKnight]

It's REALLY not that difficult. Really... Really Turbine, I promise you, it won't hurt.

Yep.... haha - been saying this for 8 months now. :)

[AestorTheKnight]

Sinnibyte - did you read my description of my encounter / conversations with DDO Europe GM's who changed the appearance of my armours for me? :)

[Fetchi]

At this point I would be happy with:

We hear you, we're working on it.

or

Our engine won't allow us to do it.

[Missing_Minds]

Extreme character customization, while nice, puts a MASSIVE load on your system. Why? because everyone has has different lengths, maps, etc. If you notice, most MMO games that have such great customizations, also don't have the most detailed of graphics. There in lies the trade off. It also means more data traffic from the server about each "character" running around.

DDO made the decision to have great looking graphics, and great looking animations. Whomever the manager was back then that made the decision on how to handle animations I hope got reprimanded for because that was a bone headed decision.

[SINIBYTE]

Sinnibyte - did you read my description of my encounter / conversations with DDO Europe GM's who changed the appearance of my armours for me? :)

I certaintly did. :)

[lobode]

Extreme character customization, while nice, puts a MASSIVE load on your system. Why? because everyone has has different lengths, maps, etc. If you notice, most MMO games that have such great customizations, also don't have the most detailed of graphics. There in lies the trade off. It also means more data traffic from the server about each "character" running around.

DDO made the decision to have great looking graphics, and great looking animations. Whomever the manager was back then that made the decision on how to handle animations I hope got reprimanded for because that was a bone headed decision.

Thats complete hogwash. For many reasons but the biggest being this game is not graphicly demanding. Second is we all have the ability to lower these settings. I prefer options as more options helps please larger audiences.

[Akrilus]

''Watch your thoughts, for they will become your words. Choose your words wisely, for they will become your actions. Understand your actions for they will become your habits. Study your habits, for they will define your character. Perfect your character for it will guide you to your destiny''.. -Ragm/Frog/Nanadia <The Lost Kings> Thalanis (Origional author ''Unknown'' ...Possibly a man named Frank Outlaw, founder of Bi-Lo Supermarkets located in South Carolina, U.S.A.)

last sentance of the quotesays it it all

[Bendictus]

Agreed, more customization would be most welcome.

Also, and this is not relegated to DDO by any means but seems to be prevalent in DnD based games - why can't we sheath weapons on our backs and/or sides? And why can't cloaks appear on the toon? Most, if not all, MMO's I have played (and most single player RPGS as well) have this functionality.

[AestorTheKnight]

Extreme character customization, while nice, puts a MASSIVE load on your system. Why? because everyone has has different lengths, maps, etc. If you notice, most MMO games that have such great customizations, also don't have the most detailed of graphics. There in lies the trade off. It also means more data traffic from the server about each "character" running around.

This is not true.

[Missing_Minds]

Thats complete hogwash. For many reasons but the biggest being this game is not graphicly demanding. Second is we all have the ability to lower these settings. I prefer options as more options helps please larger audiences.

Then tell me... how are the animations done in this game, emmm? Also, stick a whole lot of people around each other. Tell me your client doesn't slow down trying to render everything.


This is not true.

Prove it then and educate me.

[Oathbound]

Then tell me... how are the animations done in this game, emmm? Also, stick a whole lot of people around each other. Tell me your client doesn't slow down trying to render everything.


With a Radeon HD 5770, my client doesn't skip a beat. I don't know what you're complaining about....

lobode had a point. This game is not graphically demanding, nor is it overly resource intensive. Yet, it still looks pretty good, and it even goes so far to support dx10. That isn't too bad for a 4 year old game.

As far as I am concerned - those are all selling points.

[Missing_Minds]

With a Radeon HD 5770, my client doesn't skip a beat. I don't know what you're complaining about....

Do you watch your frame count? Does it *always* stay the same? I bet it doesn't.

Can you get a 5770 for everyone? The necessary power supply for it? Doubt that also.

Fact: the game is designed with many different systems in mind, NOT just high end ones. Just because yours can does not mean a different person's machine preforms at the same level.

I'm waiting on the other two unless you can do the explaining I'm waiting on. This is not a challenge to you. The others said I was wrong with nothing backing up their statement.

[quietkey0]

Do you watch your frame count? Does it *always* stay the same? I bet it doesn't.

Can you get a 5770 for everyone? The necessary power supply for it? Doubt that also.

Fact: the game is designed with many different systems in mind, NOT just high end ones. Just because yours can does not mean a different person's machine preforms at the same level.

I'm waiting on the other two unless you can do the explaining I'm waiting on. This is not a challenge to you. The others said I was wrong with nothing backing up their statement.


Not to butt in (as I butt in ;)), but isn't that the reason that the client allows you to increase or decrease the graphics settings? I play from two different computers, one with a good video card using the HiRes client, and one with a meh video card, using the StandardRes client. It's almost like two different games. If you do not have a computer/video card that is capable of running higher end graphics, then how would it affect you, or anyone else who doesn't have the hardware?

That's one of the great things about DDO...if you have sufficient hardware, it does look very nice. If you don't, it's still playable. I don't see why the OP's suggestion would make any difference to that.

[Oathbound]

Not to butt in (as I butt in ;)), but isn't that the reason that the client allows you to increase or decrease the graphics settings? I play from two different computers, one with a good video card using the HiRes client, and one with a meh video card, using the StandardRes client. It's almost like two different games. If you do not have a computer/video card that is capable of running higher end graphics, then how would it affect you, or anyone else who doesn't have the hardware?

That's one of the great things about DDO...if you have sufficient hardware, it does look very nice. If you don't, it's still playable. I don't see why the OP's suggestion would make any difference to that.

Thanks for making the point I was trying to make.

Ultimately, this is just an issue of adding additional textures to the game. Unless they are overly detailed compared to what currently exist in the game - I don't see how this would affect performance a bit. It wouldn't add additional load because the video card doesn't have to render more stuff.... just different stuff.

[AestorTheKnight]

I'm waiting on the other two unless you can do the explaining I'm waiting on. This is not a challenge to you. The others said I was wrong with nothing backing up their statement.

Ok - I am not a Computer Programmer. But I will try to explain this to you as clearly and as honestly as I can MissingMinds. :)

All Visual Data is stored Client Side. So you know when you insert the Dungeons and Dragons Online DVD into your DVD Drive or Download the Client from the Internet, and it spends 1/2 an hour installing the game into your Hard Drive and Operating System - all of the game models, meshes, UVmaps, skins, textures are loaded into your PC's Hard Drive.

when you boot the Client up, the client expands itself on to your Operating System, and functions at the forefront. The game data, at any given moment is being stored in your PC's RAM and processed by your GPU's RAM.

Now... lets take for example a relatively new Armour Appearance - the Red Dragon Full Plate.

when you downloaded Update 4 (Or 3, i cant recall which Update brought Epic von 6.) the Mesh / Texture / UV Map data was downloaded to your PC, your Client, and stored in your Harddrive.

Whenever you wander around Stormreach and you meet someone who is wearing a Red Dragon Full Plate, all that happens is that your client sents a short message to the server saying:

"Hello, I am Client #33666547 - I am @ X, Y. Z position - please tell me what visual data to load."

The server sends back a message to your client saying:

"Load X, Y, Z environment data, M, G, K mesh,texture and UVmap detail"

And your Client, your PC's RAM, GPU, RAM and Harddrive do all the work.

So basically to summarise and conclude - all the work processing Armour and Equipment appearances is done by yoru client and your PC;s RAM and GPU.

To the Server - The only difference between a very basic Character Model and Equipment and an exceedingly Complex Character Model and Equipment is:

"Client please draw = Mesh, Texture, UVMap #245636"

and

"Client please draw = Mesh, Texture, UVmap #25363637"

Make sense? :)

[GBantaR]

I look at what game developers are doing, and I really can't believe we don't have even a modicum of character appearance customization in this game. I know it's beating a dead horse, but seriously.. look at what's going on in the gaming world...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc0ilSksWBQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uohxUbsiA1Y

What options do we get? A handlful of preformed character models, hats on/off, flourescent hair color.

Lame, Turbine, Lame.

These characters aren't in our imaginations anymore, they're on our screen, and they should look like what we envision them to be, like we did when we sat with a piece of paper and a handful of dice.

What's possible is amazing. What exists is not.

Giraffe's Head

[Missing_Minds]

Not to butt in (as I butt in ;)), but isn't that the reason that the client allows you to increase or decrease the graphics settings?

It does, but in turn, specifically to DDO, do you know how the models and animations are done for this game? I know only what the devs have stated which means that some customizations that people want aren't going to happen. That level of detail? Forget it. Not possible. Now... if the budget were made, capes and boots should be a possibility, honestly, but you will probably be hard pressed to get more than that.

As other pointed out this game was released 4 years ago... How long was it in development before that? Calling a company lame knowing all of this just shows how much the Op either doesn't understand or isn't thinking.

What was the big graphics card back when DDO came out.... 7800 series or so I think it was, which means for their development it was probably the 6000 series as the top of the line. We sort of jumped forward sense then, no?

[Missing_Minds]

Make sense? :)

Now I want you to start to have the server send the rest of the data. eye color, hair color, armor graphic, weapon graphic, etc.

Now lets get more of what the op wants...
EVERYEONE has different dimentions It no longer is one size fits all. Now your client must recieve all of this additional data of height, leg height, arm lenght, bust, hips, waist, etc. That is the easy part. Now have the client draw this. Now get the next set of data for the next character. Now the next. Oh, they are moving, have the client start all that calculation now because each character is different dimensions with different meshes

Now to add in jumping, random buff graphics, AoE effects, etc. The client gets swamped as I stated.

Also to go along with my last post, when the game was created and there have been a few improvements done to the engine (the data base remained the same?) but only in the last year did we have Cuda and Physx (maybe Physx has been out as software for 2 years?) as a possibility to aid in calculations, but to my knowledge, ddo doesn't use it.

[GreenGurgler]

Aw guys, have no fear... I'm sure its coming to the Turbine store near you soon.


Just imagine.. you will be able to create any look you want with customizable hats, armor, facial expressions and much much more..


ALL FOR THE LOW LOW PRICE OF $3.99 per item!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :rolleyes:

Don't think I'm on to something? Look no further than the closest thing we have to item/looks customization (which is relativly new and most likely a dip the toe in the waters test items for Turbine) : hats and hairstyles.
Where can you get them both? IN THE STORE ONLY!!!


You know that if they release anything like this it WILL be a store bought item.
This is an example of whats wrong with the store. Things that should be in the game will be sold as options.

[7-day_Trial_Monkey]

This is exactly what I was talking about in this thread:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=255343

I hope we can do something along these lines for DDO or it will fall behind pretty fast.

I certainly don't see any value in the devs wasting their time on fluff like that.

Give me quests and loot.

I have no interest in playing dressup.

[LongshotBro]

This is what DDO needs. A seperation between Form and Function.

At present, the Armour and Equipment looks available in DDO are average, but ok. But thats not really the BIG problem, the BIG problem is that we are NOT allowed to choose those armour and equipment appearances to suit our characters.

We the players are straight jacketed into wearing a specific armour and equipment due to its enchantments and abilities, and then its appearance is automatically decided for us, without any choice or say in the matter.
There is NO armour and equipment appearance customisation or choice in DDO.

For example, if you are a Wizard or Sorceror, you have THREE, yes only THREE real choices at End Game - Dragontouched Robe or Dragon Scale Robe or Regala of Phoenix. And they always look exactly the same, on you and on everyone else, and so all casters look the same at end game. This is just rubbish for a 4 year old MMO.

If your a Rogue, you will want Epic Kunderak Delving Suit, Dragontouched Leather or Dragontouched Robe, or Dragontouched Outfit, or Icy Raiment.

If your a Tank or a Healer, you will want Dragontouched Full Plate, or Breastplate, or Epic Kunderak Delving Suit, or Epic Vambrances of Inner Light, or maybe Epic Stonemeld Plate.

If your a Bard you will want Dragontouched Leather, or Epic Kunderak Delving Suit, or Epic Vulkoorim Fighting Leathers.

I'm not mentioning Elocators Habiliment here... oh yes I am... how many people do you see wearing it? Hundreds of people, and it looks lame on all of them...

Lets think about Shields. There are only like 4 or 5 decent shields at End-Game. Madstone Shield, Epic Kunderak Warding Shield, Lorriks Champion, Leviks Defender (Woot these 2 have exactly the same appearance! :D) and you guessed it Light and Darkness the shield EVERYONE (almost) uses. Maybe a Fanion or a Skyvault if your a Bard or Caster.

Ok on the question of Helmets, there are oh.... Minos Legens.... And.. err... Greensteel Helm... and Epic Helm or Moranon (Oh these last two helmets have exactly the same appearance! :D)

Whats that... 15 different armour, shield and helmet appearances at end game for a playerbase of over 1 million people. Woot, wicked... doh...

Sorry - no harm intended - but its rubbish. Thats all I have to say on the matter. :)

i agree with the points well made. i'll go a step further and say that if standard best gear at the end is inevitable, as it often is in these situations, it can at least look exciting. for example, FFXI came out 8 years ago and even the lowbie gear looks cooler and more intricate than a lot of what i've seen in DDO.

[kitsune_ko]

I have to agree with the poster who said all graphics are client side. I remember back in my KAL days that one was able to modify your client data so that you could change the appearance (skins) of your equipment. Now I also remember testing this out with friends and while you could modify how the equipment looked on your client, to other clients the changed equipment always appeared to them in its original graphic format.

It would make sense for any MMORPG to have the users PC to do as much work as possible, including the storing and recalling of textures.

As to adding to the PC workload, it probably does at that, but seeing that Perfect world, Imagine Online and many other MMORPGs all seem to manage to include much more customization features then DDO does, and without dropping each clients framerate to 0, it must be feasable to implement and without adding that much more load on each client.


Kit

[Oathbound]

Now I want you to start to have the server send the rest of the data. eye color, hair color, armor graphic, weapon graphic, etc.


They aren't streaming real-time video. They are simply commands to load files which you already have loaded on your hard drive. The network traffic/communication involved have nothing to do with the textures presented on-screen. That's the point.

It works like this in pretty much ANY game you play nowadays. If any MMO tried to work the way you seem to think it does - all available bandwidth would be consumed pretty quickly.

[Missing_Minds]

They aren't streaming real-time video. They are simply commands to load files which you already have loaded on your hard drive. The network traffic/communication involved have nothing to do with the textures presented on-screen. That's the point.

It works like this in pretty much ANY game you play nowadays. If any MMO tried to work the way you seem to think it does - all available bandwidth would be consumed pretty quickly.

You are focusing on the data stream that I describe but you ignore the fact I'm focused on the client workload that is based off this stream. What did I say?


EVERYEONE has different dimentions It no longer is one size fits all. Now your client must recieve all of this additional data of height, leg height, arm lenght, bust, hips, waist, etc. That is the easy part

Meaning DUH, of course I know it is just a stream of small amounts of data, (esp if you consider some database queries/systems) but the thing is that tells the client how to structure everything up for each individual calculation instead of the same calculation done for everything. Everything is unique, and that is where the load comes into play that everyone else is claiming it does not.

[Oathbound]

Meaning DUH, of course I know it is just a stream of small amounts of data, but the thing is that tells the client how to structure everything up for each individual calculation instead of the same calculation done for everything. Everything is unique, and that is where the load comes into play that everyone else is claiming it does not.

LOL. Okay dude. Go develop something.

[Alabore]

Extreme character customization, while nice, puts a MASSIVE load on your system.

Yes.
I see your point.
I'd rather do without extreme detail myself, if my game slowed to a crawl, because of server and client-side lag.

But in Custom Appearance threads we are not specifically or solely advocating extreme customisation.
We are requesting a way to manually select skins and models for existing armours and weapons, from an existing palette of game resources, so they can better suit our tastes.

Server is already broadcasting appearance data: a few bytes for model type, a few bytes for hue and texture number - the rest resides on client-side.
It would not increase server load; you are already transmitting gear appearance bytes.
You would only switch a few bytes server-side, once, so item model #01 becomes #02.
Model browsing would be a client-side matter until you actually confirm appearance switch.

That would be light on resources; item appearance bytes get changed once, and you don't even have to layer extra appearance gimmicks to change it.

:)

[AestorTheKnight]

Extreme character customization, while nice, puts a MASSIVE load on your system...

No more than anything else. Sorry to put it to ya MissingMinds, but the idea that adding appearance customisaton to DDO would have any effect on performance is exactly the same as saying, dont develop new Modulles / Updates for DDO cos they will decrease performance. Its simply not true. :)

[Akrilus]

Sigh, another poor horse just done got beat to death buried, dug up, beat on some more, reburied, just to be dug up for another 3 pages this time beaten so bad it now looks like an unidentifiable slab of meat (I would post an attachment pic but im trying really really hard to keep this PG-ish rated).

[Kirachan]

I remember back in my KAL days that one was able to modify your client data so that you could change the appearance (skins) of your equipment. Now I also remember testing this out with friends and while you could modify how the equipment looked on your client, to other clients the changed equipment always appeared to them in its original graphic format.


Guild Wars has a similar tool. Wouldn't that be a thing to add to DDO, too? A tool to modify armor and weapon skins the way you like. People could change their gear to their hearts content, and no change for those who have slower machines or are just happy with the way things are.

[Gremmlynn]

Aw guys, have no fear... I'm sure its coming to the Turbine store near you soon.


Just imagine.. you will be able to create any look you want with customizable hats, armor, facial expressions and much much more..


ALL FOR THE LOW LOW PRICE OF $3.99 per item!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :rolleyes:

Don't think I'm on to something? Look no further than the closest thing we have to item/looks customization (which is relativly new and most likely a dip the toe in the waters test items for Turbine) : hats and hairstyles.
Where can you get them both? IN THE STORE ONLY!!!


You know that if they release anything like this it WILL be a store bought item.
This is an example of whats wrong with the store. Things that should be in the game will be sold as options.This is a good example of things that should be in the store. Extras that are in no why needed to play the game, but available to those who desire and can afford them. No different than a custom paint job or rims on a car. Neither has any effect on the cars function, but some like to use them to express their personal taste (and/or wealth).

[Missing_Minds]

No more than anything else. Sorry to put it to ya MissingMinds, but the idea that adding appearance customisaton to DDO would have any effect on performance is exactly the same as saying, dont develop new Modulles / Updates for DDO cos they will decrease performance. Its simply not true. :)

Keep believing that. M$ loves you for it. It is a fact that the customization the op wants would increase the load of the client by a fair bit. But perhaps I have to be more blunt.

Your frame rates would drop in non quests. In quests, you've only got 6 to 12 people. Yeah, you aren't going to have much of any issue there. Have fun running through the marketplace at 10 frames a second if not less, or make your way through a bar or pvp.

The OP also doesn't understand the design limitations of DDO. Sure, it is nice to want all of those things but I've already went though that in previous posts. Keep straight your own thoughts on customization separate from the op as it seems people are confusing them. It should be fairly simple to put in an equivalent LOTRO dressing room. Such that we can wear one armor but have a different one displayed. But it doesn't look like they are going to go that route given the current "hat" cosmetics we have. Which is sad as the LOTRO dressing rooms are very nice.

[Alabore]

It should be fairly simple to put in an equivalent LOTRO dressing room. Such that we can wear one armor but have a different one displayed. But it doesn't look like they are going to go that route given the current "hat" cosmetics we have. Which is sad as the LOTRO dressing rooms are very nice.
The way you put it, users should refrain from asking for any kind of customisation, because the way devs might implement it, it might actually be worse than no customisation at all.

...

Eh.

[Midarc]

If the Lotro dressing room works as I believe it does, then it'd be enough customisation for me at anyrate.

Even if it was reskinning objects as a one off action (like the phiarlan shields) it'd be enough for me.

Such a system would also allow for turbine to monetize the customisation too, as they would be able to sell basic versions of all armour types in the store, and possibly implement special armours exclusive to the store.
That way those who wanted the right look (or an exclusive look) immediately would use the store, and those of us who find an option in game we like could keep that option.

Any option that turbine eventually implements (and I really hope they do implement something soon...) will have to have a monetized option to rationalise the development time invested into it.
If it's a system that allows us to acheive the same results in game through effort, it's the better for all.

[Tygre]

House K gives ya bank space....

House P ?? gives ya closet space?

[AestorTheKnight]

have a monetized option to rationalise the development time invested into it.

Yeah its called keeping my Subscription :)

[THOTHdha]

I look at what game developers are doing, and I really can't believe we don't have even a modicum of character appearance customization in this game. I know it's beating a dead horse, but seriously.. look at what's going on in the gaming world...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc0ilSksWBQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uohxUbsiA1Y

What options do we get? A handlful of preformed character models, hats on/off, flourescent hair color.

Lame, Turbine, Lame.

These characters aren't in our imaginations anymore, they're on our screen, and they should look like what we envision them to be, like we did when we sat with a piece of paper and a handful of dice.

What's possible is amazing. What exists is not.


While I would love more character customization options, how do you expect to compare a game that's over 4 years old with a much reduced development staff to two games that are either still in pre-release or have been released very recently, and have *much* bigger budgets?

[AestorTheKnight]

While I would love more character customization options, how do you expect to compare a game that's over 4 years old with a much reduced development staff to two games that are either still in pre-release or have been released very recently, and have *much* bigger budgets?

Certainly both Final Fantasy and APB are cutting edge in terms of Character Appearance Customisation, and ofc it would be very difficult for Turbine to suddenly uproot the DDO Graphics Engine to try implement some of the things that are shown in those two game traillers. But that is not what people here are asking for with regards DDO.

What we are, and have been asking for - myself for the last 9 months, and others for the last 3 years - is some way to just have a choice in how our characters Armour, Shield, Helmet and Weapons look.

All I have really been asking for from the beggining is to be able to choose and apply the generic armour appearances to any armour, to for example to make my DT armour look like any generic armour in the game, according to my choice.

Believe me thats not hard to achieve with DDOs engine, and would not require a particularly substantial amount of development.

With those 2 Videos the OP was showing what is possible. He was aiming for the stars. Better to aim for the stars and fall short, than to have no aim at all. And if Turbine managed even a 1/4 of what is seen in those videos for DDO appearance customisation, im sure everyone here would be satisfied and greatful.

Whether that will ever happen remains to be seen...

[Fetchi]

While I would love more character customization options, how do you expect to compare a game that's over 4 years old with a much reduced development staff to two games that are either still in pre-release or have been released very recently, and have *much* bigger budgets?

/sarcasm on

Yeah, I can see a bunch of developers and executives sitting around a table:

I don't think we should implement anything new, I mean we are already 4 years old. Let's leave that to the new games that have bigger budgets.

Yeah, maybe if we don't change anything, we'll stay in business longer..

Pfft.

/sarcasm off

[Battlehawke]

Even in Asherons Call, you are able to customize your toons height and width at creation as well as the other generic stuff. And in the game you can dye your armor to pretty much any color you want. That's Turbines FISRT MMO and I think I started playing it around 12 years ago....... They CAN do it........ Appearently ....they don't want to..... Amazing that in one of their interviews they discussed how they were shocked at how unused the "toon customization" on the DDO store was....... I think TURBINE doesn't know that our customization is limited to .....eh....what is it?..... oh...yeah....it's limited to: HAIR!!!!!

Battlehawke

[AestorTheKnight]

Even in Asherons Call, you are able to customize your toons height and width at creation as well as the other generic stuff. And in the game you can dye your armor to pretty much any color you want. That's Turbines FISRT MMO

Crazy isnt. :)



oh...yeah....it's limited to: HAIR!!!!!

Battlehawke

Dont forget the HATS!! :D

[magnus1]

Now I want you to start to have the server send the rest of the data. eye color, hair color, armor graphic, weapon graphic, etc.

Now lets get more of what the op wants...
EVERYEONE has different dimentions It no longer is one size fits all. Now your client must recieve all of this additional data of height, leg height, arm lenght, bust, hips, waist, etc. That is the easy part. Now have the client draw this. Now get the next set of data for the next character. Now the next. Oh, they are moving, have the client start all that calculation now because each character is different dimensions with different meshes

Now to add in jumping, random buff graphics, AoE effects, etc. The client gets swamped as I stated.

Also to go along with my last post, when the game was created and there have been a few improvements done to the engine (the data base remained the same?) but only in the last year did we have Cuda and Physx (maybe Physx has been out as software for 2 years?) as a possibility to aid in calculations, but to my knowledge, ddo doesn't use it.


the mmo city if heroes has all this, dont see what the problem is here! that game gave you all the customizations the OP wants and more and hardly had any lag, especially not when 8-10 of you got together. its just a quality of life option, like the ah search function they have that ddo dosent. some mmo's offer a quality of life that the money grubbers will never offer. its too much work that they cant see a profit from
just saddens me!!!

[Adarro]

It's already been said on the other thread: even if all Turbine did was give the very same "costume slot" functionality as their own other game, LOTRO, where you can can be showing a completely different (and even mix-matched) set of armour from the one that you're actually wearing that's giving you the stats, that would probably satisfy most people playing this game.

I remember in LOTRO there was an armour set I got at lvl 2 or something that I loved the look of, that I kept showing on my Loremaster nearly all the way to the cap, while benefitting from all the armour upgrades I was picking up along the way (the combination of which looked absolutely hideous :) ). And not only that, I also could show the hideous jumble of the real armour I was wearing if I wanted, AND there was even an extra "appearance slot" that I could use for "formal/courtly costumes" and the like.

Such a simple, genius solution Turbine - why can't we have it in DDO?

This,
Also, you have 2 'costume only' outfits plus what you're actually wearing, so 3 looks at any given time...
I'm not a huge fan of needing to change my look completely every third day, but I did hit the barber shop there and store a few vanity things 'just cuz'.

[Homestarfan]

Sorry, but so /not signed. Why? It's pointless.

Do you know how hard it would be to make all that, and how long it would take? Instead of it, we could have 20 new dungeons, 2 new races and a new class. Ok, obviously we won't get exactly that, more likely 30 new quests over 2 mods, and half-orks, but I think the first example drives the point home better. Do you want pretty little characters, molded to your whims? Or do you want gameplay?

[Alabore]

Sorry, but so /not signed. Why? It's pointless.
...
Do you want pretty little characters, molded to your whims? Or do you want gameplay?
I would politely point out you might be missing the point there.

While the OP is asking for something not feasible, gear customisation as envisioned by other players wouldn't be that resource intensive.
What they are asking from devs is a rough and ready front end, not unlike character creation screens, so they can switch a couple bytes in equipment files, and tweak gear appearance.
Issue here might be, how can marketing guys work that into something that brings Turbine money?
That's an interesting question.

...

Now, broccoli or beholder, gameplay or pretty characters...
Maybe with a join date of 2006 you might have a different perspective.

Personally, I'm levelling several alts and slowly savouring the game as I casually meander to higher levels.
I am in no particular hurry to burn through contents - especially considering it takes a while for devs to create new packs - and sit at lvl 20 disappointed at the lack of suitable quests.

For me, being able to customise my alts so each one of them looks a bit different, is part of the gameplay.
Just because they'd like to look pretty, it does not mean they can't be as effective or deadly as the next vet char wearing rags.

;)

[AestorTheKnight]

Sorry, but so /not signed. Why? It's pointless.

So what your saying is, you dont thnk Turbine should do something to fix - this:

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/7061/dtarmoursquad1.jpg

And that you are perfectly happy with everyone looking like clones in uniform?

[thenalim]

This is a good example of things that should be in the store. Extras that are in no why needed to play the game, but available to those who desire and can afford them. No different than a custom paint job or rims on a car. Neither has any effect on the cars function, but some like to use them to express their personal taste (and/or wealth).

This.

[SINIBYTE]

So what your saying is, you dont thnk Turbine should do something to fix - this:

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/7061/dtarmoursquad1.jpg

And that you are perfectly happy with everyone looking like clones in uniform?

I started playing with my lowbie barbarian, and I realised that the game looks MUCH cooler at the low levels... everyone has random outfits and armors and weapons and helms... Such diversity in the low level game. Would be nice to see that again when I'm running through shroud... instead it's 12 people wearing DT/Icy/DS wielding GS with a minos on top...

Lowbies look cooler, even if it's just the random factor.

[AncientPlasma]

I agree man. Awesomeness at the lowlevels for the items in looks, it looks like clones in the higher levels.

[Missing_Minds]

I agree man. Awesomeness at the lowlevels for the items in looks, it looks like clones in the higher levels.

Add in the fact that some of the graphics used at low levels aren't even used at the high levels.

Randomly generated white robes for example.

[Missing_Minds]

The way you put it, users should refrain from asking for any kind of customisation, because the way devs might implement it, it might actually be worse than no customisation at all.

I would prefer it if users asked for things that are within reason. The op was not within reason let alone disparaging. What some of the others are asking for is reasonable and has been asked for before they started asking actually.

Dye changing I just don't see happening, honestly. DDO meshes for the graphics don't work the same way as they do in Lotro or CoH. The chance of ending up with something that looks like a corrupted graphics file is pretty high.

But the dressing room, something that is an old suggestion and I was part of the group suggesting such a long time ago, should be possible because while wearing one armor, telling the game to display this other armor that I have should be very possible.

[KristovK]

You know, you COULD do what I do, find a piece of armor/robe/whatever that you like the look of and keep it and wear it any time you aren't in a quest. I had a +2 fp long ago that was just amazing, purple and orange color scheme with a unique pattern on it, just looked awesome. It was so unique looking that I had people offering me +5 mith fp in trade for it, back when that was THE uber armor and harder to find then a vorpal in Waterworks, even though it was just plain +2 fp. I kept it and wore it all the time outside of quests until I accidently sold it by mistake(before we had the buyback option) and I was SO ****ed at myself about that.

I still do that, keep something around just because I love the look of it on which toon it fits best. A masterwork docent on my capped Forged monk, just because it's good looking. The Outfit..nothing else, just an Outfit, that my halfling monk carries around because it looks nice.

This is much like has been mentioned for the LOTRO option, showing something on the character instead of what's actually being worn, and that would be a nice function for Turbine to import over from LOTRO to DDO, if it's possible. Don't forget, just because Turbine created both engines doesn't mean they created them both to be the same.

[Mercules]

They could do "customization" in a more simple manner. For those slots that change your avatar's appearance(weapon/shield/helm/armor) you could put in an additional slot. Whatever is in your main slot determines your actual gear the the advantages it offers you. Whatever is placed in your second slot is the appearance of what shows up on your character, that is all it read off that item.

Now when you find that +1 Int +8 Move Silent helm you don't just throw it away, you actually try it on to find out if you like the looks of it. If you do, you keep it and put it into your appearance slot. When you finally find that +5 Mithral Full Plate you don't groan about it looking like white long underwear with a metal bib(not kidding!) and debating if one less AC on your AC Tank is worth it. Instead you equip that and then equip that awesome looking +1 Acid Guard of Command Full Plate you have been saving.


This doesn't hugely increase the load on the server or end client machines since all you are doing is swapping one graphic for another. It also appears they can do something similar since they have the hats in the store.

[Khurse]

Dye changing I just don't see happening, honestly. DDO meshes for the graphics don't work the same way as they do in Lotro or CoH. The chance of ending up with something that looks like a corrupted graphics file is pretty high.
.

How do you figure? Don't mean to sound rude,and I admit I'm not a programmer guy, but half (or more likely 90%+) of the armour in the game uses the same graphics as at least one other armour. I have the same sets of +5 MFP in white/blue/purple&black etc etc.
The dragonscale armour (not that it should be dyed) is exactly the same.

EQ with a far inferior graphics engine managed to do a RGB colour palate years ago

I don't believe the graphics engine is likely upgradable to change size/height, but the idea (to me anyway) that it can't possible change silverish DT to red/green or polka-dotted DT armour is ludicrous.

[Fetchi]

dp

[AestorTheKnight]

How do you figure? Don't mean to sound rude,and I admit I'm not a programmer guy, but half (or more likely 90%+) of the armour in the game uses the same graphics as at least one other armour. I have the same sets of +5 MFP in white/blue/purple&black etc etc.
The dragonscale armour (not that it should be dyed) is exactly the same.

EQ with a far inferior graphics engine managed to do a RGB colour palate years ago

I don't believe the graphics engine is likely upgradable to change size/height, but the idea (to me anyway) that it can't possible change silverish DT to red/green or polka-dotted DT armour is ludicrous.

Completely agree with you. :)

[Fetchi]

You know, you COULD do what I do, find a piece of armor/robe/whatever that you like the look of and keep it and wear it any time you aren't in a quest.


You try to join a shroud.

Leader MYDDOs you.

Leader: You are wearing +2 Full Plate you don't have uber gear Im scared we might fail.

You: I just wear it because it looks good, I have better armor for when I quest.

Leader: No, you are gimp.

/declined

:eek:

[AestorTheKnight]

They could do "customization" in a more simple manner. For those slots that change your avatar's appearance(weapon/shield/helm/armor) you could put in an additional slot. Whatever is in your main slot determines your actual gear the the advantages it offers you. Whatever is placed in your second slot is the appearance of what shows up on your character, that is all it read off that item.

Now when you find that +1 Int +8 Move Silent helm you don't just throw it away, you actually try it on to find out if you like the looks of it. If you do, you keep it and put it into your appearance slot. When you finally find that +5 Mithral Full Plate you don't groan about it looking like white long underwear with a metal bib(not kidding!) and debating if one less AC on your AC Tank is worth it. Instead you equip that and then equip that awesome looking +1 Acid Guard of Command Full Plate you have been saving.


This doesn't hugely increase the load on the server or end client machines since all you are doing is swapping one graphic for another. It also appears they can do something similar since they have the hats in the store.

I would definitely love to see this! :)

[KristovK]

You try to join a shroud.

Leader MYDDOs you.

Leader: You are wearing +2 Full Plate you don't have uber gear Im scared we might fail.

You: I just wear it because it looks good, I have better armor for when I quest.

Leader: No, you are gimp.

/declined

:eek:

Since that's never actually happened, I'll continue to not worry about it. So feel free to MyDDO my character and if you honestly think a lvl 20 Forged Monk with some min lvl 16-18 handwraps on ONLY has a masterwork docent, I don't want to be in a raid with you. WoW players are really messing up some of the game with that MyDDO thing, since it's not the gear, it's not the build, it's the PLAYER that matters in DDO. I've run with a Bard who can solo heal for Epic runs, but if you MyDDO that Bard, you'd have no clue she is capable of that. I've seen the MyDDO of some capped out players with tons of Epic gear, but when you actually run something with them, you are constantly asking yourself, 'How in Khyber did they get past level 1!'..(I looked em up on MyDDO AFTER the CharlieFrank they caused, just because I couldn't figure out how you can mess a character up THAT badly).

We can hope and push for Turbine to give us the functions they put in LOTRO concerning what you wear and what is shown, but since the 2 engines ARE different in the character model areas, there's no telling how difficult it could be to implement. However...with the addition of the hats that change the appearance of what you are actually wearing...it's possible at least, so that's a good sign. I'd LIKE to think they are starting off with simple things like the hats to see if there's actually a market for such things before they move up to the more complicated things like armor/robes/docents.

[SisAmethyst]

1. is it difficult to implement?

- I don't know the code but look at how you can change the color of your skin or natural armor of a Warforged, or the new hair color. Having just at least the ability to change the primary and secondary color of an armor would make probably most of us happy. So I doubt it would be that difficult, but well, I think the same of how to implement a simple text search to the auction house°.

2. do we need something like in FF?

- while it is awesome and cool to see what is possible and how games evolve and will progress,there is probably not YET an apparent need to rewrite the engine to support such a neat thing like they have.
However things change over time, and 20 years ago 20MB of Hard disk space was ok, today a single picture of your DigiCam may take up this space, tomorrow? Time runs fast in the Computer World and if you not evolve with it you will run out like the Floppy Disk did.
So I am pretty sure that Turbine already work towards things like this but those are elements that will take time to write and implement and even the development for FF took probably quite some time.

3. would it produce lag?

- Com'on you have lag in the market place? In most instances there are a maximum of 6 players that would have to send you the information of their armor and probably only one time at entering the instance. If this 12 color values (for a primary and secondary color) would already hook up your line and PC you should stop trying to play DDO on your iphone via cellphone connection :P

4. will it increase the system requirements for the graphic card to paint a armor in a different color?

- A modern graphic card is if at all more busy with calculations of shadows, reflexions, mirror and particle effects like then to just replace a hard coded color value of an armor with a variable one that was read at the beginning of the instance. that is nearly a zero overhead, the only one is that you would need 2 bytes more to store that variable and assuming you have 2GBytes of RAM that is 8.9E-12 (or a number with about 12 zeros after the punctuation) of your system resources ;)

° I can see an issue here as you have to take care that input from here and send to the server could not be used to hack into the system like hack attempts on websides.

[Irinis]

I'm ok with certain named loot having a specific appearance. Epic Red Dragonscale Armor for example. Or the Blue, white, black dragonscale armor. You shouldn't be changing the color on these. Now, since you are giving the scales to a craftsman to make, I would think there could be a handful of different options on the styling, though.

Actually it would be really nifty if you could choose the shading of the colour for your dragonscale armor. Some reds are more tomato and some have a hint of pink. Some blues are deep sky, ocean, or pale.

In an RP sense, maybe you collected light blue scales and turned those in, trading the darker ones to someone else. So if a dialog box came up with a range of colour choices on your dragonscale that'd be awesome.

[Fetchi]

Nah Kristov was just messing with you. Hopefully that would never happen. I hate MYDOO too. Dumbest thing ever put in the game. I wear lots of gear that I think just looks cool but has nothing really good to add to my build.

Was just being light-hearted. Go easy ;)

[KristovK]

Nah Kristov was just messing with you. Hopefully that would never happen. I hate MYDOO too. Dumbest thing ever put in the game. I wear lots of gear that I think just looks cool but has nothing really good to add to my build.

Was just being light-hearted. Go easy ;)

Ah, in that case, no worries and +1 to you :)

I HAVE seen people pull the MyDDO thing and it just..well...I can't say what it does to me here :) Like I said, I only look up someone's MyDDO if they truely puzzle me on how you can mess up a capped toon with epic gear...I mean, how do you GET to 20th, much less get Epic gear, if you can't play the game?

[Alabore]

I would prefer it if users asked for things that are within reason.

I would consider it an enthusiasm induced hyperbole.
Most users are aware of DDO's age and limitations - and I checked a couple of wikis and older posts before jumping on the customisation bandwagon.
I recall devs mentioning appearance customisation to be something they were working on.
There might be a few hard limits - such as being unable to pick individual plates in a given overmesh, but from what I could gather, some customisation is not technically impossible.

:)





Dye changing I just don't see happening, honestly. DDO meshes for the graphics don't work the same way as they do in Lotro or CoH. The chance of ending up with something that looks like a corrupted graphics file is pretty high.

It really depends on what we mean with "dye" customisation.
Textures seem to accept dye maps - the same texture comes in different colours; plate over-model textures come in blue, red, orange, gold and so on.

Applying textures to different models could be tricky - you would get corruption if coordinates did not match, but as long as you pick a different tint for the same texture, for its matching model, you shouldn't get any prob.

I am not sure they couldn't allow for a broader choice of textures, though.
A lot of house and NPC specific textures would look nice on PCs too.
And add some variety.
Size apart, NPC models seem to be more or less the same as PC ones.
There is room for implementing unused or underused textures as PC skins...

:rolleyes:





But the dressing room, something that is an old suggestion and I was part of the group suggesting such a long time ago, should be possible because while wearing one armor, telling the game to display this other armor that I have should be very possible.
Eh, perks of being a vet: most of what you read has been already said, reposted and beaten to death...

...

The dressing room would be a great idea.
I also noticed a distinct lack of external model viewers for DDO.

...

It is a bit of a pity: I genuinely think DDO's models are nice.
Maybe not in the same league as newer games - but compared to NWN2's, DDO's models manage to be lighter on the poly count and yet much nicer as a final render.
I must sincerely give kudos to DDO artists: the elven ladies look very nice.

...

C'mon, Turbine, give us a model viewer... I can't code to save my own sorry backside, don't make me beg - I'm a more or less grown man.
It would be so... embarrassing.

;)

[Missing_Minds]

I don't believe the graphics engine is likely upgradable to change size/height, but the idea (to me anyway) that it can't possible change silverish DT to red/green or polka-dotted DT armour is ludicrous.

They could and from what I've been able to gather, they've tried that on their own test builds. The results have been less than eye pleasing.

The sprite overlays we have here (they don't use a wireframe base setup, they use full blown animations) is apparently layered on occasion. Unlike Lotro, it isn't done sectionally, aka you done across the whole... mesh (is that the right term? While I am a programmer, I'm not a graphic programmer. Different set of skills) I've seen a few of the maps pulled from the files that players posted. Trying to change a few things on those would be a royal pain because they are custom done, not generically done. In Lotro it is done generically so that you could have one map and recolor it to get the different robes. In DDO you have a different map per robe color. The turn about is the details of the robe in DDO is much greater than Lotro.

Think of it as comparing a color by number book to Van Gogh's Sunflowers or Stary Night.

[Mercules]

So again we can't alter the graphic with a slider bar. We could, however, have entire swaps for the graphic.

Most armor is made up of underlayer and over layer. The over layer usually has various color options. Allow us to edit the base layer and select from various over layer options including the various options for color and we are not customizing the skins but instead using the same skins that are there, just getting to pick them instead of random abilities AND random looks.

My alternate of having Armor Slot give you stats and Appearance Armor Slot give you the model means that when you find that random item with the right stats and that random item with the right look, you can have both together. Who wouldn't want to pick some other breastplate graphic for their Breastplate of Destruction? :)

[Ranmaru2]

While I like customization with character details, having multiple models of the same armor having to be rendered, shadowed and reflected right (HiRes client) would start to become a big deal.

One example I'll use is Demon's Souls for the PS3. They have an option for online play that shows "phantoms" of other people who are in a different "dimension," so to speak, but passing by that spot at the same time. The problem is, if you're fighting two enemies and then a "phantom" comes by you, the game starts to lag up a little bit on the initial load of the "phantom" as the game needs to check what equipment the person currently has available and what they're doing and how to display that phantom based on the surroundings.

Now I had it yesterday where I had two phantoms on the screen at the same time since there were multiple people doing that same boss at the same time I was and it wasn't as bad (since they were wearing the same armors and such), but the initial load capacity for the phantoms was noticeable in certain areas of the game, especially with the massive amounts of loot and looks present in Demon's Souls (even at lower levels).

This isn't something I want happening every time I venture into town.

Sure my computer right now might have some equal processing power to a PS3, but I'd rather not see noticeable frame rate reductions from dye and differently placed/patterned pauldrons. Enough people in one instance or a place with a large amount of instances lags enough already (Hello devil invasion tent event, I'm looking at you!!!), so having to deal with this if they decided to have people all in one area again for an event would turn into the lagging hell that was the anniversary tent event.

[SINIBYTE]

I can see a few flags in regards to armor...

Underskin
Overskin
Mesh
Color
Race
Gender (possibly?)

There are likely data "tables" that contain each of the options, all with a cooresponding identification number.

Blue=0
Red=1
Green=2
Purple=3
etc (I'm making this only SLIGHTLY easier than it really is to implement)

So right now you have some red armor, you wish it was blue, simply change the value from 1 to 0 and voila - you have blue armor. As for implementing it in game, have an NPC, call him an armorsmith, he needs armor tokens, dye, sacrifical armor, whatever - you give it to him, he gives you the armor appearance you want. Sell tokens in the store for 50TPs, sell dyes in the store for 100TPs, make them lootable, let the stone of change break down the armors, whatever. Give the players what they want, create a TP sink for those that have them, give people a reason to want to buy TPs, give crafting a much needed boost, add another loot table for people to get excited about - it's freakin win/win for everyone.

It's not that difficult, it really isn't.

[Alabore]

Gents, I am not good at defusing potential flames.
No, really, somebody told me just that.
So I won't pretend I have any rank in Diplomacy.
I'll resort to reasoning - and I'll be keeping my ace - Bluff - up my sleeve for later...

:D

...

We might be speaking different quantities here.
If armour as a whole is not pre-made, but just made by different, randomly chosen, parts, server load would not increase significantly, if players had the option to choose which parts to wear.

Switch a couple bytes, pick the existing texture/mesh/model you want - from an existing spectrum of pre-built pre-existing models, and you wouldn't increase server load.
At least on randomly generated gear - since server has to broadcast appearance bytes for its parts anyway.
The point is allowing players to switch them so we can pick appearance, instead of just putting up with whatever game randomly generated for us.

There might be an issue with unique suits - since some have hard-coded appearance and changing that would radically change the suit itself.
But the rest, I don't really see an issue.

One of the unique suits they added for Under a Bit Top is a leather armour with padded vest over-model.
Devs can already mix and match armour - we would hope they would not do it if it broke servers down...

...

:rolleyes:

[Ranmaru2]

Yeah but imagine if there are 50 people per instance you're traveling through and you just so happen to spawn in a high density area like the wayward lobster and then teleport to a full portable hole for scrolls and then teleport to House Phiarlan and then go to the necropolis front area and then to the back area to do an abboty. That's 250 character mesh models that need to be registered and encoded if none of them had the same armor and later on you'll need to fetch the armor skin by running into some of those characters again. The more a computer has to fetch through, the slower it runs a protocol, especially when it has to make sure that the models are all meshing with the environmental effects in the proper way as everyone is moving around.

Now some of these cached armor models your computer may never see again, but still has in its library in the game. Unless the program dumps all models and then has to load them again fresh whenever you restart the game, thats more for the game to load client side just for logging on or keeping track of.

[Alabore]

Yeah but imagine if there are 50 people per instance.
...
That's 250 character mesh models that need to be registered and encoded if none of them had the same armor and later on you'll need to fetch the armor skin by running into some of those characters again.

That's assuming that random armour models would repeat themselves more often than user-picked armour models.

But since they are random, you are already forced to load that kind of info every time you swap zones.
Unless there were some kind of algorithm that made random armour not so random.

You would have a point if we were specifically speaking of a vet-only crowd with customised "unique" armour.
But random armour is just that.
Chances are, you would get LESS variation with users picking model parts, because some models would be more popular, thus more likely to stay in cache and reduce server load or at least keep it as it currently is.

We could point out DDO net code could be tweaked to cull out customised models during times of intense server load.
But, again, we would be back to square one.
Some would say, DDO is over 4 years old, it's gonna die, let it alone already.
And some would equally say, DDO is over 4 years old, it's about time devs implemented something new.

WoW devs did.
From what I could gather, earlier areas had labyrinthine architecture so players would never get to see too much distance scenery in a given place.
Newer areas got a more streamlined look to comply with newer, more powerful systems.

The underlying problem is, WoW is an industry giant.
DDO... was a gamble.
We'll see how devs, execs and marketing guys work it out.

:)

[ahpook]

They could do "customization" in a more simple manner. For those slots that change your avatar's appearance(weapon/shield/helm/armor) you could put in an additional slot. Whatever is in your main slot determines your actual gear the the advantages it offers you. Whatever is placed in your second slot is the appearance of what shows up on your character, that is all it read off that item.

Now when you find that +1 Int +8 Move Silent helm you don't just throw it away, you actually try it on to find out if you like the looks of it. If you do, you keep it and put it into your appearance slot. When you finally find that +5 Mithral Full Plate you don't groan about it looking like white long underwear with a metal bib(not kidding!) and debating if one less AC on your AC Tank is worth it. Instead you equip that and then equip that awesome looking +1 Acid Guard of Command Full Plate you have been saving.


This doesn't hugely increase the load on the server or end client machines since all you are doing is swapping one graphic for another. It also appears they can do something similar since they have the hats in the store.


While that could be done, Aestor has actually seen a permanent change to his armor by having a GM swap the looks of two armors. This "overwrite" method would be far superior to the "extra visual slot" and is what we should be asking for.

For us it allows us to have two helmets and by looking at our avatar we can see that they are wearing the Search helmet instead of Minos Legens. The visual slot overrides such visual cues. Those of us with 2 DT armors would be thankful.

For Turbine, they could charge a nominal TP fee for the catalyst that allows the swapping. This will turn the feature into possible profits thus allowing the feature to be paid for by the people that want it. I don't see a viable way to charge for using the visual slot which I guess could be a benefit to some people.

[SINIBYTE]

Yeah but imagine if there are 50 people per instance you're traveling through and you just so happen to spawn in a high density area like the wayward lobster and then teleport to a full portable hole for scrolls and then teleport to House Phiarlan and then go to the necropolis front area and then to the back area to do an abboty. That's 250 character mesh models that need to be registered and encoded if none of them had the same armor and later on you'll need to fetch the armor skin by running into some of those characters again. The more a computer has to fetch through, the slower it runs a protocol, especially when it has to make sure that the models are all meshing with the environmental effects in the proper way as everyone is moving around.

Now some of these cached armor models your computer may never see again, but still has in its library in the game. Unless the program dumps all models and then has to load them again fresh whenever you restart the game, thats more for the game to load client side just for logging on or keeping track of.

There wouldn't be new models - theyd all use the existing models... no new server load, just allow us to change our existing bits to other existing bits.

[AestorTheKnight]

I can see a few flags in regards to armor...

Underskin
Overskin
Mesh
Color
Race
Gender (possibly?)

There are likely data "tables" that contain each of the options, all with a cooresponding identification number.

Blue=0
Red=1
Green=2
Purple=3
etc (I'm making this only SLIGHTLY easier than it really is to implement)

So right now you have some red armor, you wish it was blue, simply change the value from 1 to 0 and voila - you have blue armor. As for implementing it in game, have an NPC, call him an armorsmith, he needs armor tokens, dye, sacrifical armor, whatever - you give it to him, he gives you the armor appearance you want. Sell tokens in the store for 50TPs, sell dyes in the store for 100TPs, make them lootable, let the stone of change break down the armors, whatever. Give the players what they want, create a TP sink for those that have them, give people a reason to want to buy TPs, give crafting a much needed boost, add another loot table for people to get excited about - it's freakin win/win for everyone.

It's not that difficult, it really isn't.

THIS - Perfectly and clearly said. :)

[Ranmaru2]

There wouldn't be new models - theyd all use the existing models... no new server load, just allow us to change our existing bits to other existing bits.

which creates a new armor model configuration...change a pauldron, a groin attachment, or even a thong on a warforged's docent and it's a new model that has to be saved to every computer that comes into contact with it.

Now I can't say whether the computer stores the models for future use, but if it doesn't, that's more saving and fetching your computer would have to do per character logged onto the servers per area visited per video card adjustment for that value. And if it does, it now has to look through an even bigger pre-fetch library to identify the exact configuration which could have changed since the last time you were online, as the person might have found a new gauntlet type they wanted to make their armor look temporarily "perfect."

[AestorTheKnight]

which creates a new armor model configuration...change a pauldron, a groin attachment, or even a thong on a warforged's docent and it's a new model that has to be saved to every computer that comes into contact with it.

Now I can't say whether the computer stores the models for future use, but if it doesn't, that's more saving and fetching your computer would have to do per character logged onto the servers per area visited per video card adjustment for that value. And if it does, it now has to look through an even bigger pre-fetch library to identify the exact configuration which could have changed since the last time you were online, as the person might have found a new gauntlet type they wanted to make their armor look temporarily "perfect."

I'm sorry but I think the notion that Armour / Equipment appearance customisation would impact Client or Server performance is just... not true.

For example. They added Bunny Hats, they added Ninja Masks, they added Phiarlan Shield. Did server crash, no of course not. Even with a 1000 new appearances, it wouldnt have any effect on performance. It simply doesnt work like that. :)

[Fenrisulven6]

For example. They added Bunny Hats, they added Ninja Masks, they added Phiarlan Shield. Did server crash, no of course not. Even with a 1000 new appearances, it wouldnt have any effect on performance. It simply doesnt work like that. :)

Add: "frost" and "icy burst" visual effects on weapons from Festival

[dcp101]

I'm sorry but I think the notion that Armour / Equipment appearance customisation would impact Client or Server performance is just... not true.

For example. They added Bunny Hats, they added Ninja Masks, they added Phiarlan Shield. Did server crash, no of course not. Even with a 1000 new appearances, it wouldnt have any effect on performance. It simply doesnt work like that. :)

I can't believe people are using that as an argument against customization. Really? Client impacting? Server impacting? It's not like this is a new service never done before in any game. I highly doubt (well maybe) the servers running DDO are your old duo Pentium IIs boxes and I highly doubt most client machines are running anything less than what the market is selling. No, the only thing holding this back is whether the devs behind this game have any incentive, initiative, and creativity to fully expand the feature.

[SINIBYTE]

I can see a few flags in regards to armor...

Underskin
Overskin
Mesh
Color
Race
Gender (possibly?)

There are likely data "tables" that contain each of the options, all with a cooresponding identification number.

Blue=0
Red=1
Green=2
Purple=3
etc (I'm making this only SLIGHTLY easier than it really is to implement)

So right now you have some red armor, you wish it was blue, simply change the value from 1 to 0 and voila - you have blue armor. As for implementing it in game, have an NPC, call him an armorsmith, he needs armor tokens, dye, sacrifical armor, whatever - you give it to him, he gives you the armor appearance you want. Sell tokens in the store for 50TPs, sell dyes in the store for 100TPs, make them lootable, let the stone of change break down the armors, whatever. Give the players what they want, create a TP sink for those that have them, give people a reason to want to buy TPs, give crafting a much needed boost, add another loot table for people to get excited about - it's freakin win/win for everyone.

It's not that difficult, it really isn't.


THIS - Perfectly and clearly said. :)

Most people don't realise there armor actually looks like [023689264782] on the server and all we request is the ability to change them from [023689264782] to [123780264782]. No additional server lag, client load, or anything of the sort... all we want would be to change our current graphic to another graphic that's already in the system.

[SINIBYTE]

which creates a new armor model configuration...change a pauldron, a groin attachment, or even a thong on a warforged's docent and it's a new model that has to be saved to every computer that comes into contact with it.

Now I can't say whether the computer stores the models for future use, but if it doesn't, that's more saving and fetching your computer would have to do per character logged onto the servers per area visited per video card adjustment for that value. And if it does, it now has to look through an even bigger pre-fetch library to identify the exact configuration which could have changed since the last time you were online, as the person might have found a new gauntlet type they wanted to make their armor look temporarily "perfect."

The only difference would be "fetching", as you say, a different numerical value than one that already exists. It would require no greater effort than some dev attention and time. And it's been proven that this is something people would pay for...

[Missing_Minds]

No, the only thing holding this back is whether the devs behind this game have any incentive, initiative, and creativity to fully expand the feature.

How about something more important than that. Budget.

[Arculea]

Well, it is sad that Turbine as able to implement a nice customization model for LotRO but didn´t include a similar thing for DDO.
(In LotRO you have slots with which you can override appearance, so for example looking like you wear a nice dress or a plate armor (without any real effect on your character, aside from the appearance), while in real you are wearing a leather armor (which determines your armor and any other effects you get) ... you also have other nice thing, like for example dyes, with which you can turn your armor pieces to another color )

Things like dyes for your clothes would also be the perfect thing to sell at the turbine store...
they don´t have any chance to break game balance, but surely will get bought by lots of players
(especially as you will have to buy themn for any new suit of armor anew)

[AestorTheKnight]

Most people don't realise there armor actually looks like [023689264782] on the server and all we request is the ability to change them from [023689264782] to [123780264782]. No additional server lag, client load, or anything of the sort... all we want would be to change our current graphic to another graphic that's already in the system.

THIS again :) Wonder if I can Pos Rep Sinnibyte now or if im still on TIMER for positive repping him last time lol :D

[SINIBYTE]

THIS again :) Wonder if I can Pos Rep Sinnibyte now or if im still on TIMER for positive repping him last time lol :D

heh, thanks. :)

They could toss an armorer in the House K armor shop, to facilitate it all.

[Alabore]

How about something more important than that. Budget.

Again, we're basically saying: "DDO is dying, why bother?".
If it is truly dying, there is no point in worrying about server load or dev priority: game is doomed and they'll pull the plug anyway.
If it is not dying, and new contents actually bring extra money, budget is no issue, and server [over]load could be addressed.

Either way, I'm fine.

:)

[LordPiglet]

With a Radeon HD 5770, my client doesn't skip a beat. I don't know what you're complaining about....

lobode had a point. This game is not graphically demanding, nor is it overly resource intensive. Yet, it still looks pretty good, and it even goes so far to support dx10. That isn't too bad for a 4 year old game.

As far as I am concerned - those are all selling points.

Even the HD version is so non-graphically intensive that it will install and run on my 128 mb nvida geforce 9200 (in my laptop). Heck, the game will kick a vista, windows 7 user out of Aero on launch. I realize they have to develop to remain compatable with lots of systems, but frankly, better top end graphics would make me happy. You know something that will actually partially utilize the card I have in my desktop. That's why a lot of games do have graphics options.

[Fetchi]

Myself as well as many others have asked for customization for so long, honesly I'm tired. Its been a good 4 years of asking.

At this point I would be happy with some fresh looking armor and weapon models. Besides Dragon Touched and Dragon Scale, and a a few other models, we've basically been looking at the same weapons and armor since the game started.