(WoW) Well Okay Then...
I have mentioned before how Blizzard has stood by their silhouette theory, giving tactical value to the look of a character and being able to judge what they are at a glance. This has been behind the look of the races (making sure no two are too similar) and armor for years. Well... it looks like that's going out the window.
The great and terrible thing about online-dependent games, and MMOs in particular, is that things can change. It can be a graphical update and new quests (yay!) or a change in the way abilities work that shatter some play styles (boo.. or yay sometimes). What you buy on release day may only vaguely resemble what you have to play years later, just ask players of Star Wars Galaxies.
It appears the folks at Blizzard have finally decided to opt for customization over easily-identifiable visuals, as it's just come out that a new Transmogrification option in-game will (once released) allow people to convert items to the appearance of other items of that type. It's a model change rather than a palette swap (like GW dyes), and there are limitations. The conversion seems to need to retain the same item type/class, but that's still a lot of potential options to choose from, and some of the earlier tier sets are sure to be popular. From what I've read, it seems a little unclear as yet whether you need to actually have the item you're going for in appearance (possibly tucked away in the new void storage they're adding too). Even so, that's interesting... I'll actually have to ("get to," technically) decide what look I want to go for. Revolutionary thought, that.
Oh, and they've also just instituted changes to threat that are supposed to make tanks struggle less initially in a move toward making tanking more active. We'll see how that goes.
That's two out of three things in the recent little glimpse of patch 4.3. I wonder if "arcane reforging" is actually anything new. Edit: Okay, I feel a little silly. I guess current reforing is done by "arcane reforger" NPCs, so there's actually nothing new there.
Tangentially, it makes me wonder about other games. Diablo 3 is set to require an online connection. At a glance, that can mostly serve for lobby and auction house support, but... if you have to connect to central servers, it would be relatively simple to enforce certain updates or changes, too.
The great and terrible thing about online-dependent games, and MMOs in particular, is that things can change. It can be a graphical update and new quests (yay!) or a change in the way abilities work that shatter some play styles (boo.. or yay sometimes). What you buy on release day may only vaguely resemble what you have to play years later, just ask players of Star Wars Galaxies.
It appears the folks at Blizzard have finally decided to opt for customization over easily-identifiable visuals, as it's just come out that a new Transmogrification option in-game will (once released) allow people to convert items to the appearance of other items of that type. It's a model change rather than a palette swap (like GW dyes), and there are limitations. The conversion seems to need to retain the same item type/class, but that's still a lot of potential options to choose from, and some of the earlier tier sets are sure to be popular. From what I've read, it seems a little unclear as yet whether you need to actually have the item you're going for in appearance (possibly tucked away in the new void storage they're adding too). Even so, that's interesting... I'll actually have to ("get to," technically) decide what look I want to go for. Revolutionary thought, that.
Oh, and they've also just instituted changes to threat that are supposed to make tanks struggle less initially in a move toward making tanking more active. We'll see how that goes.
That's two out of three things in the recent little glimpse of patch 4.3. I wonder if "arcane reforging" is actually anything new. Edit: Okay, I feel a little silly. I guess current reforing is done by "arcane reforger" NPCs, so there's actually nothing new there.
Tangentially, it makes me wonder about other games. Diablo 3 is set to require an online connection. At a glance, that can mostly serve for lobby and auction house support, but... if you have to connect to central servers, it would be relatively simple to enforce certain updates or changes, too.
That transmogrification option sounds exactly like what they're doing in GW2. You like the look of your sword, but you've found a sword with better stats? Swap the stats to your favourite sword. Good idea.
ReplyDeleteGW1 was all about costumes and your look. The stats you wanted were obtained from runes (Or by salvaging them off other things) and then you dyed the pieces you got to add a touch of customized appearance. What I did not like was a lack of "dressing room" like what we have in WoW, a way to preview what armor will look like on your character before you put it on.
ReplyDelete