Cosmetics and whatever happened to the Official Discussion thread feedback?

[Aelonwy]

I know, I know, I said I wasn't going to do anything more with the Illusionist's Garb but my OCD kicked in so I had to arrange it with the standard (and prettiest) mage collar and also with the padded armor collar and pauldrons. Now this is a little rough because I cannot remove the shoulder pieces and strappings from the image so I just placed the new accessories approximately over the original to give an idea of how it would appear.

Left is my red and violet version with the standard mage collar in dark purple, and right is the seagreen and coral version with the padded armor collar and pauldrons. Both could look quite nice, I think the standard mage collar is more feminine than the padded armor pieces, but either could solve any open-back issues for male mages in robes, assuming of course that a male would wish to wear such colors in the first place. I'm thinking a male svirfneblin with blue or green hair might look very striking in such an ensemble.

[scipiojedi]

I know, I know, I said I wasn't going to do anything more with the Illusionist's Garb but my OCD kicked in so I had to arrange it with the standard (and prettiest) mage collar and also with the padded armor collar and pauldrons. Now this is a little rough because I cannot remove the shoulder pieces and strappings from the image so I just placed the new accessories approximately over the original to give an idea of how it would appear.

Left is my red and violet version with the standard mage collar in dark purple, and right is the seagreen and coral version with the padded armor collar and pauldrons. Both could look quite nice, I think the standard mage collar is more feminine than the padded armor pieces, but either could solve any open-back issues for male mages in robes, assuming of course that a male would wish to wear such colors in the first place. I'm thinking a male svirfneblin with blue or green hair might look very striking in such an ensemble.

These are incredible! I want this RIGHT NOW! Devs make it so. Take my money I want to play dress up!

[Aelonwy]

I haven't had as much free time recently but this has been percolating in my brain for awhile so here goes - Cloth of the Faithful: Reimagined

From left to right: Leftmost is the original, next a cleaned up less dingy, less rusty version, next a Sovereign Host style, followed by a Teal scale armored variation, succeeded by royal violet dragonscale version, and ending with a purple variation with a dark violet and copper bodice. I tried but couldn't quite get the chain to have a gold sheen which might have looked better with the Sovereign Host style and the dark violet and copper bodice one. But I figure I'm doing this thread mostly for myself and possibly if they are looking to give the art devs some ideas, so perfection isn't necessary no matter how much my OCD screams at me.

[Aelonwy]

Alright these are not cosmetic equipment but new hair dyes I've been asking for, for years. But I think some pictures of exactly what I want might help.

So this first one is an example of hair colors that are already in game:

From left to right we have Thunder Seafoam (or very close to it, available for free on elves), then we have a dark green available on humans, then we have a dark blue-green available on elves... its the darkest selection in the same column as the seafoam on the appearance screen of the character creation process. I would like to purchase this color for other races as an exclusive hair dye call it King's Forest Green, or Druid's Deep Green or whatever. To be clear, its the hair color on the far right that I would like to have available to other races.


However this second one has been altered some:

So what I've done here is alter one hair color two ways, the center image is the original... its a hair dye called Slate (its my favorite) because its the closest to my favorite color. On the left Slate's saturation has been turned up by 15 degrees and lightened by 35 degrees. I would call this color Dreaming Dark Sky. On the far right Slate has again had the saturation turned up 15 degrees but nothing else, it is neither lighter nor darker than the original. This color I would call Underdark Violet. I would buy at least 3 of each of these dyes right away and probably end up purchasing more as I go through TRs.

Later I will add a blue variety I would like to see in game.

[noneill]

This one is really cool.

Clearly a variation of the above armor. I'm naming it Champion of the Sovereign Host. I'm pretty sure there are shields in the game with a symbol of the Sovereign Host but not much in the way of armor, which is odd because I'm pretty sure most people with non-iconic cleric/paladin/fvs choose Sovereign Host over Silver Flame perhaps a few go with the racial deities. All I did was adjust the colors of the armor detail, and tabard and add a sovereign host symbol.

[Aelonwy]

This one is really cool.

Thank you. I remember the first time I got Tourney Armor and was thoroughly disappointed it didn't look more like medieval tourney armor. Also greatly discouraged by anything labeled Gleaming or Shining in game.

[Aelonwy]

So this is my take on a pastel version of Royal Blue (the only blue hair dye I like). I would consider this Periwinkle Blue. Yes there are already 4 blues available from the store, none in game, they are Cerulean, Midnight, Sky and Royal. All but royal lean a little to the green, not that they are green just tinted less like true blues such as Royal. So I felt one more in that tone but pastel would be nice.

[HAL]

This is a combination of the Garments of Equilibrium and the Lesser whirlwind Armor (available only in the Test dojo of Lamania). I had to use a wiki image for the whirlwind upper pieces so they're a little blurry in comparison to the under armor. I adjusted the colors of both to look better together and settled on the dark blue versus a pale blue as being too washed out. If this were to become an actual item I think it would be cool if it came with a constant blur visual effect to indicate that its kindred with the wind. The actual Lesser Whirlwind armor has leg pieces but I couldn't reshape them to the legs on the outfit so gave them up as a lost cause even though it would have been nice to include them. It would also look better if I could have removed the golden tan breastpiece and arm guards but I have no way of re-creating whatever the cloth looks like underneath.

VERY nice - I would love to have this. Nice ideas in general in this thread (hint Turbine...).

[auntjobiska]

Saekee and a couple of others have requested a version of Ethereal Dragon Armor. There were two versions of ethereal dragons, the white ghostly one from Cannith Challenges and the more fiery-pink one of Mabar. I tried both and decided to go with the pink in order to differentiate from typical white dragon armor. I turned up saturation to get a little rainbow opalescent effects going, altered the hue and made several copies with various opacity and layered it all over a screen shot of the alt in her underwear. Hope it appeals to some.

I would really, really, really love this one. And the Cormyrian Green Dragon armour. Great Work!

AJ

[Aelonwy]

Wow this took a lot more effort than I thought it would. I took the channel I'd made from the previous file and tried filling it with a rainbow gradient tool and transparently layering that over "white" hair to make rainbow hair and it looked awful. Amateurish and awful - like clown wig awful. So I tried a couple different directions and finally decided that just wasn't going to look right. So then I made about a dozen different layers of hair, one for every 25 degrees of color difference or so and incised each layer to show the next layer. I really don't know what sort of programs and tools the devs use but this might be too ambitious for every hairstyle in-game. However, something like this should be available as a unique style for Aasimar.

If they could make it available for every hairstyle I'd be buying them though.

[Aelonwy]

VERY nice - I would love to have this. Nice ideas in general in this thread (hint Turbine...).

Thanks!

I would really, really, really love this one. And the Cormyrian Green Dragon armour. Great Work!

AJ

Thanks!

If you have any ideas about something in-game you'd like to see tweaked just send me message and I'll take a look.

[Amundir]

I have to say, this is one of the very few times that I've read a thread on this board and in its entirety thought, "Man, Turbine, hire this person."

[Aelonwy]

I have to say, this is one of the very few times that I've read a thread on this board and in its entirety thought, "Man, Turbine, hire this person."

Well, thank you, that's incredibly flattering. I'd have to say that would be one hellish commute from Texas to Boston.

[Saekee]

Wow this took a lot more effort than I thought it would. I took the channel I'd made from the previous file and tried filling it with a rainbow gradient tool and transparently layering that over "white" hair to make rainbow hair and it looked awful. Amateurish and awful - like clown wig awful. So I tried a couple different directions and finally decided that just wasn't going to look right. So then I made about a dozen different layers of hair, one for every 25 degrees of color difference or so and incised each layer to show the next layer. I really don't know what sort of programs and tools the devs use but this might be too ambitious for every hairstyle in-game. However, something like this should be available as a unique style for Aasimar.

If they could make it available for every hairstyle I'd be buying them though.

wow!

[Saekee]

I have to say, this is one of the very few times that I've read a thread on this board and in its entirety thought, "Man, Turbine, hire this person."

/signed
telecommute from TX

[Sunnie]

Bring back the Red Crest Outfit With Saffron Garb minus the Saffron Garb. I've seen it in the wiki, it used to be an armor kit. If you use invisibility the Saffron Garb become see through, so I know the old textures are still there.

normal version
http://i.imgur.com/CmJGjpi.jpg

see-through
http://i.imgur.com/ZYlCgyy.jpg


I tried using the button for [img] tags, and it gave me an error when I tried to link it to imgur, and then it uploaded an image somewhere and god knows where it went. Manually typing the [img] tags works fine however and adds the images to the post but they're pretty big and this forum has no spoilers so you get links instead. Anyway... BRING BACK ALL THE OLD ARMOR KITS AS COSMETIC GEAR. Thank you.

[Aelonwy]

Bring back the Red Crest Outfit With Saffron Garb minus the Saffron Garb. I've seen it in the wiki, it used to be an armor kit. If you use invisibility the Saffron Garb become see through, so I know the old textures are still there.

normal version
http://i.imgur.com/CmJGjpi.jpg

see-through
http://i.imgur.com/ZYlCgyy.jpg


I tried using the button for [img] tags, and it gave me an error when I tried to link it to imgur, and then it uploaded an image somewhere and god knows where it went. Manually typing the [img] tags works fine however and adds the images to the post but they're pretty big and this forum has no spoilers so you get links instead. Anyway... BRING BACK ALL THE OLD ARMOR KITS AS COSMETIC GEAR. Thank you.

I've been asking for years for them to convert the old Bound-to-item cosmetic kits into the new BTA glamored items. I finally got an answer on the most recent of Draculetta's DDO Players podcast. Essentially, they don't think there is enough profit to be made from converting them because apparently it takes more time/effort to do so then we think.

Regrettably, when they made choices for the original conversion I'm guessing they chose only the best sellers or the items that had the best price point for potential profit which excluded a lot of the more colorful items and most of the newest (at the time) cosmetic kits. I don't think they took into account the number of people that refused to purchase them at all because at the time they were basically one use items that cost more than some adventure packs. Had they been BTA from the start, I think their statistics and sales would have shown completely different results. I myself mostly bought the lowest cost Pale Lavender and Tan and only used them on already BTA items because of this issue.

All we can do is lobby for the return of these cosmetics. I think we'd have more luck though if we had pictures of the specific ones we'd like returned and got enough support from fellow players to show that there is interest and potential profit in doing so. Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures of the ones I'd like returned and because not enough people bought them when they were Bound-to-Item there aren't many players running around today with those cosmetics of whom to take screenshots.

The best idea I can come up with would be for Cordovan (or some other Turbine person) to take some screen shots of the various cosmetics no longer available and set up a poll where we could vote on what we most want to return. Then they could (maybe) convert the top 5 and if we purchase enough they might see that there is profit in converting more eventually.

Or they could use the art assets from those old cosmetics on new armors and make profit from mirrors.

[Aelonwy]

I've been thinking of this one for some time now. I scoured my screenshots and with a combination of Undermine and Into the Deep came up with this item. I altered an iron defender as well because I get an extra thrill when a collar (Thrall of the Fire Temple) or a docent (Shadowscale Docent) affects the arty pet with unique visuals. The base docent I used was a random gen, grey stone plate looking item, but something like Stone Exoskeleton could have been used just as well. My warforged has no body feats so composite plating.

Certainly there could be color variations of this docent, after all there are violet and green dragonshards, the darker violet crystals in Menechtarun, yellow siberys shards. But these icy blue crystals were the only good screenshots I had and I think as a concept it comes across well.

[Aelonwy]

Real simple, and inspired by sithhound, a Xoriat Orb:

[Aelonwy]

On the subject of orbs... now these took a lot of time because I was trying hard to mimic the special weapon visual effects in game on orbs which don't have special effects (but should) and of course there's the issues of background and the issues of some weapon visuals not really showing up very well, etc. etc.

From upper left to lower right we have: Sonic, Electric, Flames, Frost, Acid (not much to see really), Holy, Force, Chaos (original), Enhanced Chaos (cosmetic weapon effect), Evil.

And some further ideas for future named orbs... the D20 (because why the heck not?), the Dragon's Eye (not just some piddly psuedo-dragon trinket), Eladrin's Blessing, and the King's Ransom.

I will also make this post Taanus' Suggestion's Thread that got me thinking about orbs.