I don't understand. Every few levels you can buy/find/craft armor with different look. You can transmutate your items to have look and armor you want. How is this possible that he have same stuff from frm lvl 16 to 56 while I changed my armor and weapon at least 2 times between lvl 15 and 30 and I never saw second guardian that looked like me ?

Still, you can never have enough armor models for any level. So it's not like I would not be happy if they add more :)

1-79, no look progession... lvl 80 OMG BADASS SKINS! :D

or do pvp.. pvp is about cosmetics..

I dont mind pve having less cosmetic changes till lvl 80, pve is not meant for showing off cosmetics at lower level anyway. Only pvp is made for that.

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by KhinRunite

Originally posted by Yamota
Op you need to use the cash shop. That is how the game is designed, to make you pay for things that are normally in the game if it was a sub. based game.

Leave the cash shop alone until it's actually worthy of getting bashed. There's barely anything exclusive to it that could help him with his "problem".

It is just a question of time. The game was just released but as time goes on they will be adding content, which otherwise would be put in the game, instead be put in the cash shop. What people dont understand is that having a cash shop fundamentally changes the game design from getting stuff in game by achievement/grind to opening your wallet.

Of course it does. Even with GW1 they designed the game around the payment model. The same could be said with subscription games, what with all the artificial downtimes that aims to prolong a player's stay in the game.

Instant travel? Bank access from crafting stations? Mail anywhere? Trading post anywhere (besides pickup)? Only 5 character slots? Locked inventory? Expandable bank slots? All these and more are influenced by the payment model. Mirror everything I said with a sub based game. There's the upside and downside to it.

Originally posted by Msenge

Originally posted by Yamota
Op you need to use the cash shop. That is how the game is designed, to make you pay for things that are normally in the game if it was a sub. based game.

Actually, no you don't.  There are a grand total of three armors available in the cash shop (one for each armor type).  There are lots of different aromor designs beyond dungeon rewards if you know where to look for them (i.e karma vendors, crafting, etc).  Though maybe not all are to your particular liking. 

You have no idea what you're talking about and are only here to crow out about how cash shops are the devil and subs are uber-awesome-rainbow-sparkle-time.

And what makes you so certain that Anet won't expand on cash shop in future and add more armors to it?

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Originally posted by Raekon

I can't see the pictures (either blocked because I'm currently at work or because they are indeed not working).

What I can say though is that there are indeed various types of armors one can wear and look different for any level.

In most cases people naturally are checking the stats, selling or salvaging a piece of armor with one that has less stats.

The difference however can already being seeing in the name of a armor.

If you as example always select to wear the acolytes armor as a elementalist (I'm one), you will always look the same.

If you however, switch the acolytes with a rampagers or invadors (WvsWvsW armor) or other ones (sorry I don't remember all names right now), then you will see that you can already have around 5 or more different looks which is even more than in other mmos.

Additionaly you have your civil clothes you can have on while in a city or anywhere as long as you stay outside of combat.

My suggestion:

- check the name of a new armorpiece

- wear it even if its lower stats to see how it looks on your character

- if you like it then use a basic transmutation stone and mix the stats and upgrades of your previous gear with the skin of the new one that had lower stats.

Voila! Now you have a new look but kept your old good stats in your armor. :)

Of course  its hard sometimes since many pieces are soulbound after you wear them.

You can try with white pieces once though.

This way you can see how they look on you and if you like it and wanna wear it then wear a higher one (blue? green? yellow?) after you found/bought/crafted one that suits your needs.

If you have the piece you can simply right click and select preview to shouw how your character look with that piece of armor.

Ack forgot to mention that because I only had it in mind when it comes to preview dyes. x_X

Thanks for the addition! :)

Originally posted by Volkon
There's a strange irony in this with MoP releasing today... in GW2 the OP complains about armors looking similar from 16 to 56, yet today so many pandamaniacs will begin the rat race once again with the goal of everyone looking the same at the end.

Why would everyone look the same in the end, they can transmog their gear - I'm rolling in Raid gear but transmog to my gear to that of a blue set from Wrath... just saying.

Originally posted by Volkon
There's a strange irony in this with MoP releasing today... in GW2 the OP complains about armors looking similar from 16 to 56, yet today so many pandamaniacs will begin the rat race once again with the goal of everyone looking the same at the end.

I don't know how it is ironic unless every person who posted in here is infact going to play MOP? i am an engi and i get total of 4 different looking gear options from lvl 1 to lvl 80. Would it hurt to get more variety? nope.

And nope i am not playing MOP.

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by KhinRunite

Originally posted by Yamota
Op you need to use the cash shop. That is how the game is designed, to make you pay for things that are normally in the game if it was a sub. based game.

Leave the cash shop alone until it's actually worthy of getting bashed. There's barely anything exclusive to it that could help him with his "problem".

It is just a question of time. The game was just released but as time goes on they will be adding content, which otherwise would be put in the game, instead be put in the cash shop. What people dont understand is that having a cash shop fundamentally changes the game design from getting stuff in game by achievement/grind to opening your wallet.

And still is everything they have on the item shop optional and definately not nessecary.

Most f2p and some p2p games are having mandatory things in their item shops that you need to have to be able to use some parts of the game or to be more powerful then others.

Additional costumes are on all item shops in any mmo to be found with the main difference that for a few mmos like GW2, Jade Dynasty and a few others they are purely cosmetic and due to that not really needed.

The game still offers many different types of armors and skins in game and even stuff that are on the item shop like the black lions trading company salvage kit, chests, keys, buffs, fun potions among others are either dropable in the game or gained by completing areas and achievements.

I'll go ahead and disagree. 

Not only is there a good deal of variety, the armor usually looks good as well. In a game like WOW, you do have good variety but most of the stuff just looks atrocious.

The only character I've felt no noticable visual change in armor through the levels was my Asura.

And that's only because he's too damn small for me to notice! :)

Originally posted by expresso

Originally posted by Volkon
There's a strange irony in this with MoP releasing today... in GW2 the OP complains about armors looking similar from 16 to 56, yet today so many pandamaniacs will begin the rat race once again with the goal of everyone looking the same at the end.

Why would everyone look the same in the end, they can transmog their gear - I'm rolling in Raid gear but transmog to my gear to that of a blue set from Wrath... just saying.

 Oh hell, I forgot they "borrowed" the transmog concept from GW2. My bad on that... I quit prior to Cataclysm so many memories are dated.

Originally posted by halflife25

Originally posted by Volkon
There's a strange irony in this with MoP releasing today... in GW2 the OP complains about armors looking similar from 16 to 56, yet today so many pandamaniacs will begin the rat race once again with the goal of everyone looking the same at the end.

I don't know how it is ironic unless every person who posted in here is infact going to play MOP? i am an engi and i get total of 4 different looking gear options from lvl 1 to lvl 80. Would it hurt to get more variety? nope.

And nope i am not playing MOP.

 More varieties along the way would be nice, and if I recall correctly you have a large numbers of varieties mainly from dungeon looks but that's a limited path there. The irony was just seeing the thread and today being mop-day.

Level 80 is when the most variety is there as I'm beginning to experience.

You know what they did right?TYhey used the exact same mesh and just retextured it lol.

That is pretty cheap effort man.I have actually lost track of all the corner cutting ANET did in this game.I knew it would be of F2p quality,even though many have been claiming a great looking game,they are merely looking at the surface and not the technical design.

OP is your graphic settings low,because that is a lot of detail fogged out at a rather short distance?The detail seems to remain for about 20 feet behind your player,then LOD drops right off.

Also are you sure the pics are not reversed?The level 16 gear looks better and actually has a bit of lighting to  make it look like some leather.The level 56 gear looks VERY cheap,basically no effort put in at all.This wouldn't make sense,only thing i coudl think of is,after the ygot you hooked that many levels they figure people might spend in cash shop if their gear doesn't look very good.

Originally posted by Wizardry

You know what they did right?TYhey used the exact same mesh and just retextured it lol.

That is pretty cheap effort man.I have actually lost track of all the corner cutting ANET did in this game.I knew it would be of F2p quality,even though many have been claiming a great looking game,they are merely looking at the surface and not the technical design.

OP is your graphic settings low,because that is a lot of detail fogged out at a rather short distance?The detail seems to remain for about 20 feet behind your player,then LOD drops right off.

Also are you sure the pics are not reversed?The level 16 gear looks better and actually has a bit of lighting to  make it look like some leather.The level 56 gear looks VERY cheap,basically no effort put in at all.This wouldn't make sense,only thing i coudl think of is,after the ygot you hooked that many levels they figure people might spend in cash shop if their gear doesn't look very good.

When you are creating additional costumes for a type of mesh you indeed use one basic mesh for each size to create the additional textures.

It's a normal method during the development of a game and has nothing to do with "f2p quality".

It is the same procedure for mmos as also offline games.

Creating a new model for every costume would be contraproductive and would cost extra time and money for no good reason at all.

If the new model might end up to be slightly different then the first one you would be facing additional problems aswell. 

So saying that ANet did that because its a "cheap effort" and that others wouldn't do it is beyond ridicoulos.

I know it because I'm a independent game developer for over 12 years myself.

Originally posted by TwoThreeFour
The question comes down to: should MMORPGs be allowed to re-use nearly identical clothing for different armor sets? I would prefer not on the principle of not wanting the content to be re-used in that manner; however,  I don't really give a damn about how my characters look inside the game so I don't pay attention to how much other AAA MMORPGs reuse their armor, could anyone else shred light on that particular aspect?

In GW2 additional to some other mmos you can also mix up pieces to gain a unique look you like even with gear that its of a higher level than your character by transmuting the skin of that armor to your actual one.

As example:

- I had a mixture of 3 sets, since I have all the rewards from GW1, I went into my hall of monuments, took the heritage skins and applied them to my whole armor.

Out of the 3 different types of masks and gloves I kept the heritage set the way it was (love the mask of it anyway).

Later one while in WvsWvsW, a yellow rampagers item with higher stats then my armor dropped for me (pants).

So I checked out its looks and saw that it fits well with my heritage look and makes me look even more unique so I merged both by keeping the look and stats but taking over the sigil I had in my previous armor.

So I currently wear a heritage mask, top, gloves, boots and the rampager pants.

If I wanted I could go like Acolytes mask, invaders top, heritage gloves, rampagers pants and cabalists boots.

No restrictions there!

So one has the following options:

- mix it up whichever way they want and make out of all these outfits a new one they prefer to have.

- transmute the looks of a certain piece into a other one

- keeping the set as it is

Additional to that one can dye all parts to the colors they want

Due to all this and the good amount of sets available one can indeed look unique and different.

Originally posted by Eir_S

Originally posted by Angier2758

Mods his gear to the original look to bash game......

 

*rolls eyes*

 

I have a caster and there are plenty of low level sets...

 

Hoelbrek(sp?) and cabalist look amazing... 

Well I'm glad he said something, because this thread is helping to dispell a myth that even I thought was true.

I don't know how to mod... If I ss shot my  my character screen, would that show you?

Am I the only one here who is aware there are various alternative sets you unlock as you progress through the levels?

You have a pretty standard set that stays about the same as you progress and upgrade to match your level. For example the basic crafted stuff that you discover with normal crafting mats, no rare mats, pruchased recipes, etc.

Then youve got the "karma" sets which you can both purchase some pieces directly off of heart NPCs for Karma, or buy the recipe for it and craft your own.

Certain types that only come as drops, not crafted or bought, also look different.

As an example. On my Ranger I have my crafted armor set that looks pretty much the same as all the other sets i crafted every 5 levels below it. But then I also have for him a complete Pirate set I bought on the TP.

If you keep using the same type of gear, such as crafting it every 5 levels, yeah its not going to change much. But there are a variety of sets out there, you just have to earnt hem in different ways. 

OMG you mean the story pieces have different looks ? I have been just breaking them down to components....I feel like kicking myself right now.....   

I cannot believe how stupid I have been I am about level 20 or so in the story line but 30 + in level since I am levelling 4 characters please tell the better looking ones are later.

I've had a lot of different looking gear so far... in fact I'v used my fair share of transmutation stones to keep older looks.

Just because it's not spoon-fed to you doesn't mean it's not there.