SWG is the most underrated MMO out there. With their recent Producers Note, they are looking good, in more ways than one.
Coming early in the new year is an Appearance Tab. When I was playing SWG, this was one feature I was very excited about. Much like Everquest (2 I think) and LoTRO, SWG will now allow you to make your character look like you want, rather than be at the mercy of the stat'ed armor you need.
All of the armor with the nice stats still works the same, but it doesn't show. Instead you have a new tab where you can put what you want to be visible. There are still restrictions, so no Jedi's looking like they have armor and such.
Star Wars has such iconic armor, like the Storm trooper, that this system is badly needed. Before you could get Storm Trooper armor, but eventually better armor would come along. Now you can look like a Storm Trooper or Rebel pilot for as long as you like. Awesome.
This is one system I think should start to become standard. For the PvP types it may cause some issues, if they need to make decisions based on an opponents armor. I never have had to do this, maybe it is because I am a bit slow, but I imagine some people do. LoTRO does not show the appearance tab in the PvP area, so there are options.
I am not sure how this would go over in WAR. There are some very nice armor sets, I'm sure people would still like the look of them even if they are not optimal anymore. That would have to make the art folks happy as assets will get used more. However, WAR is much more PvP oriented than the other games, worth a discussion though. I think WoW would benefit from this system. There are some cool looking armors out there, it is a shame you have to ditch the entire look to get some stats.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
SWG, Looking Good.
5 comments:
It really is underrated. I went back to it in September last year and stayed most of a year... but while they made a lot of positive changes, the stuff I went back for (crafting, the new beast mastery thing) either weren't what they used to be or weren't good enough.
Shame, too -- though my loss is other players' gain, because what I love (sandboxing) is what most other players hate, and the sandbox aspect is being slowly but surely leached out of just about every game currently on the market.
I must be having a bitter morning. :P
I wish someone would take all the cool systems ( Housing, Beast Master, Crafting, Card Game, Space, Appearence, Collections and more) and make SWG 2 with modern graphics and a better PvE/PvP game.
I don't agree with you on the appearance thing. Part of the enjoyment fro me is the discovery of items as you level up in WAR. To see a new tier's set of armour develop as you level, or to find a pretty unique looking sword (as my guild just did) after killing a hero is really fun imo.
Appearance tabs will hopefully become a standard feature in MMOs from here on out. I use mine constantly in LOTRO. I even have an F2P that has them!
All the ones I've seen (including EQ2) disable cosmetics in a PvP situation so everyone can see what everyone is really wearing.
But yeah, my lore-master in LOTRO currently has (in my opinion) the most attractive light armour set in the game but it will be replaced as she gets closer to the new level cap, so as I start replacing it with pieces that have better stats but look uglier, I will move the good-looking set over to one of the cosmetic tabs.
@anthony: The appearance tab just lets you look how you want to look. You are not forced to use it, but if you find you really like how an armor set looks you can keep using it long after its stats have been passed.
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