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[Column] Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Outfit Designer Won't Save Crafting
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In the recent Producer's Roadmap, Bruce Maclean dropped the news we'd known about for awhile, Star Wars: the Old Republic would have some kind of Outfit Designer. Coming in the spring with Game Update 3.2, it's supposed to be an 'awesome new feature'. Let's speculate as to how this new feature will work and how it will integrate with the existing crafting system.
Read more of Jean Prior's Star Wars: The Old Republic - The Outfit Designer Won't Save Crafting.
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Comments
Well my take on it:
there are now really craptom of various orange sets, crafted ones and cartel shop ones and they are easily available. And i have them almost all and account unlock.
The problem is: swapping your looks cost a lot. 800 - 900 k if you want new look. Removing high end mods and augments and augmenting new set. Thats why im not interested in aquiring any more armor sets or unlocking any more sets.
The most logical would be something like LOTRO, you have your basic set that you wear that has stats and cosmetic slots where you combine pieces for appearance. You dont really need wardrobe as collections take care of that part.
And youre wrong about crafted sets, they turned most into orange shells and some of them still look awesome (polyplast, elite ones...) and they do sell, its not much but i bet most of people like you dont even know about those, just pop to tor fashion. Also most schemtics for those are random drops so best bet to get them is GTN.
RIft added transmog before WOW. Just so you know.
As for the topic they can just easily create different tab called "outfit" and allows us to choose between showing gears from regular tab or outfit tab. F2P/Preferred can have only one outfit tab while Subscribers can have 2 or 3 and more can be bought from cartel market.
As for you worry about synthweaving and armormech, it has been suggested many times that schematics in these skills should be converted to orange moddable gears instead of unmoddable gears with stats. Frankly it would make the the professions more profitable and useful. Looks are really important for character customization and RP.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
not overly excited, probably going to be a CC sink for the F2P crowd.
I'm switching out mods and my characters have their outfits I'm going to keep.
I have worn the same armor on my main in PVE and PVP for 2 and a half years now, as long as I can keep what I am wearing and just play with the colors more easily than I will be super happy, even if it costs CC or a shit ton of credits.
What I'd like to be able to do is apply dyes to individual parts of my armor. Like instead of throwing a Primary and Secondary dye into a piece, I can have the control to dye a primary secondary and even tertiary part of each armor piece separate colors. So instead of having one dye slot per piece you'd have 3 (or more) So you wouldn't need to buy that rare Purple Primary/Black Secondary for 1.5mil off the GTN, all you'd need is a Purple and a Black and you could stick them in however you wanted. It would bring prices down while simultaneously make more uses for dyes so people would buy more. Instead of one dye being thrown into a chest piece and you're done, you could if you wanted (and many would) buy 3 dyes per piece.
Yep, I've mentioned this to the dev team as a suggestion at more than one cantina tour stop.
Pretty much agree.
To add to that, the devs have insisted several times, back before they caved and finally started doing dye and match chest options, that it would be a slight against the art department to allow people to choose their own colors, or modify the original colors of the gear.
They changed their tune, or course, but as you know, they did it via the cartel market, and putting the "match chest" option behind the sub.
However this new system works, you can bet it will be heavily gated and/or readily available via cash.
Not saying that they're an evil empire for being that way, it just means that a feature that I would very much like will still not convince me to play the game for more than a month at a time.
Finally, it really is pathetic:
LotRO has had cosmetic options since launch, and the multiple outfit option a few years later.
DCU online had a terrific system at launch.
GW2 has a pretty good system, available about a year after launch
Secret World: You bought it, you have it forever; doesn't take up inventory space.
I'm not sure if there's a AAA MMO made in the past few years that doesn't at least have dye and/or transmute systems.
But this high budget flagship of an MMO SWTOR takes 3 years to figure out that just maybe their players care about what their characters look like, and might want to keep a particular look or 3. Players had to fight tooth and nail just to get them to accept the fact that they might not want to have a blue chest, brown leggings, and yellow boots. Yes BW, I want to be the Trooper version of Tom Bombadil...
I suppose ya could write a character origin about how you're Voltron shrunk down to human size...?
I'm usually one to post in defense of SWTOR, but this issue is indefensible. We'll have to wait and see how the new system works.
They can't think of anything else to do ...
Just a bit more banter about the tail end of your article: when you dye overtop of a previous dye for gear, to you lose the ability to revert back to that color?
Because if so, then it's not the same as the lotro dye system. In the lotro system, you consume the dye when you use it on the piece, but you keep the dye option for that piece forever. of course, each piece you wear requires a bottle of dye in order to match. This gives the user flexibility and options while at the same time gives the Scholar profession a means to still make money on dyes. win/win.
We'll see what BW comes up with.
QFT....
I cancelled my sub for SWTOR and subbed to FFXIV because I was so sick of Bioware's and EA's nickel and dime tactics. I swear, every UI menu in SWTOR has something that relates to asking you to spend real cash. It absolutely and constantly destroys any possible immersion, not only that but for my $15 sub I get zero content updates unless it has to do with the cartel market (SWTOR's version of a cash shop) or unless it's a paid mini-content xpac.
Compare that to FFXIV... Huge updates with their patches, and I don't have to pay for them outside of my sub. They actually seem interested in listening to the community instead of trying to turn them off by orienting the whole game around a cash shop. Best MMORPG choice I ever made was canceling my SWTOR sub. It was a huge rip off, and I regret the large sum I spent in the cartel market, hoping beyond hope that my contribution would go to creating content updates that focused on something outside of the cartel market.
Smile
"What do you all think about this?" Pretty much what you do. TOR's current cosmetic system is fairly decent (true, not even close to LotRO's system, it was a great example for the column btw.), so I'm a bit clueless why is it on the roadmap at all?
The only reason seems valid enough, I think, is in your final question. "I suppose the final question is what will an Outfit Designer system actually add to the game other than another credit/CC sink?" Nothing other, CC sink it is
(not to mention, outfit designer in a game with sub-only Hide helmet, and Unify colour restrictions...
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It makes me sad that developers will spend their efforts on playing doll house.They SHOULD be creating content ideas,not texture slots to slap onto a player.Content like that is a 2-3 man effort and the game needs a TEAM effort.
I realize at this point they are not going to change crafting and the automated designed,too bad they really dumbed it down into something i would have zero interest in doing.So they failed me badly on crafting and i love crafting in games.
Content where is it?I don't want instance content nor red and green rooms ,nor do i want linear questing and no adding dialogue or some story to that linear questing will not help one bit.I want variation in content,what i do,how i play the game,it has none of that,unless i want to que into some instance,a big no thanks to that.I want open world content ideas,where EVERYONE can be involved.
Things like defend the cities from invasions,defend the npc's,have the Npc's join in the invading fights.I want to see NPC's moving around,not stationary clumps of 3 all the time just put in a way that you have to run into them and fight them.
I want there to be some hidden secret ideas,like perhaps you give a npc something they like,they will join you and fight beside you perhaps for a few hours.On that subject how about hiring mercenaries.Does anyone ever really remember any of the npc's you meet along the way?No they were simply a click away from the next npc with a marker over it's head,boring and meaningless other than to gain a level.
This team SERIOUSLY has no idea how to get outside their little box,they make KOTOR games,linear single player games.I would not trust Bioware to make a game for me,imo they are just not good enough or smart enough.When i ran through this game,it did not matter what zone i entered,it always felt the same,the same combat styles,the same combat,the same AI,th same clumps of 3 all on the same AI.That is just a really shallow effort.
My point is that allowing me to make a new outfit,has absolutely zero chance of getting me to come back and play this game,like ZERO.When i play a game i like to EARN everything,i want to know weather i crafted or fought to get an item,it was a challenge,it offers a sense of reward and satisfaction that a dumbed down system or cash shop idea cannot attain.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
This game need a costume creator. I hope they redo the interface. I hate the dot slider.
For RP? For unique look from player to player? What is the point of an online RPG if every player looks the same?
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
Free-to-play model headed for disaster, says Camelot Unchained dev......
F2P model have always been a disaster. It is not a news, day by day it will become even more gruesome and finally the term "free to play" will convert to "unlimited trial".
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
and who the hell cares about rift?
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
This new system has great potential to expand the monetization opportunities in the game, so obviously it will be prioritized. There's a far clearer ROI attached to the work that went into this as opposed to adding new "game play content".
but u can do that now thanks to orange shells and collections (so u dont even need to have the gear on u.
Match to chest was in beta and went live in game with patch 1.2, the first really big patch and content addition about 4-5 months after launch. So it didn't take forever and/or a bunch of griping. Also, at the time there was no f2p option, so everyone who played the game had it available.
I highly question your I usually post in defense of SWTOR statement if you are willing to be this wrong about what is in it yet still post anyway.
Stuff like this makes me very appreciative of how my mmo works.
I realy don't want to speculate. Well, that is I don't want to speculate how "awesome" it will be. Ofc it would be cool with an outfit designer where you could insert your jedi robe and remove shoulderpads (I cant help myself but to speculate) but if we could design our own outfit where would that leave the cartel market ? If it's an actual outfit designer I don't see it coming without a CC cost.
Basicly I'm expecting it so be somewhat linked to the cartel market, as I'm sure most people are.
Considering how much of the cosmetic stuff in game originates from the CM, I'm inclined to agree there.
Maybe it'll give us "costume" slots like City of Heroes had, in which case it wouldn't surprise me if a F2P account had one or two, and prefs and subs 3 - with the option to unlock more from the CM. Which is something I could live with.
My more cynical side however is inclined to believe it'll be something ridiculous like having to pay CC each time you want to save a custom look, or want to apply it. Or needing tokens from the CM similar to GW2's transmog system. (Just without the option of getting them from quests)
We'll have to wait and see. Hope for the best, but expect the worst.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/