Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Most of the stuff I like about the system is fairly obvious and straightforward - use dyes on one of up to 3 slots to change the look of a piece.
I'm going to be going more into what I hate about the system than what I like, so hopefully we don't see more of it here.
Things I hate:
As for color limitations... honestly I'm fine with people being allowed to do up obnoxious color schemes if they want.
Yes it can be jarring or immersion-breaking to see at times for some people, but does it actually hurt anyone? Not really.
And some people have an actual practical reason for things like that at times. In ESO I've actually talked to quite a few people who make those "obnoxious neon" outfits because they're the tank or healer for a raid group and it makes them easier to find in the crowd, things like that. Not something I'd personally do, but to each their own.
-Avian Tulnar (topic video)
-Dwarf-to-tallest race heights for Tulnar
-Crows/ravens for Falconers
-AC:O & AC:V type aerial scouting for Falconer
I see some people don't want bright colours but I believe that is more so just their own taste. Some people might want a bright colour for smaller certain parts of their outfit for small details and such.
This.. this puts me through the wringer. I've seen everything from zero customization to full customization and imo, dyeing your gear is a relatively easy added level of customization that fuels the immersion/escapism factor.
ESO's dyeing system is my favorite of the types, but still leaves plenty to improve on. Their method of acquiring dyes through achievements and adventuring presents a great incentive to go out and do everything the world has to offer. Another great upside to this is it preserves the look and feel of each armor piece (or motif in that game) so you can still have a full set of daedric armor without having to be some full-metal black knight.
I think my biggest critique with this style is sometimes you want a shiny yellow, but you can't have a shiny yellow because that shiny yellow you progressed 6 quests, leveled through 2 zones, and 100%d a puzzle for isn't the shade of yellow you want. My proposed solution would be to have a selection of materials and a selection of colors to apply separately (with the exception of converting metal->wood, etc) in order to give your sheet-metal tower shield a rusting look, or your leather bag a glossy wet feeling.
Ultimately, I think a dye system needs that freedom of customization to be worth a glance, but the freedom shouldn't go as far as to encroach on others game immersion. AKA, no pink guy filthy frank men running around in bright pink skintight suits LOL
I'd prefer a traditional transmog system with the original models, that can only be used once you have reached max level.
I seem to be in the minority on this.
Long ago, just before Guild Wars 2 came out, there was a popular game called City of Heroes which I remember fondly, that did a very, very good job in terms of customization. Now a lot of current games will have dyes to their games for your clothing, or maybe even your weapons, but this one had an ability for you to dye your spells and abilities as well.
Now that might sound goofy at first, thinking as you could make your abilities 'bright pink' and look kind of ridiculous, but it actually opened the way for a lot of flavor. For instance, here I have a hydromancer in the game. He can blast water, easy.
But his character is more of a vampire-necromancer type. With their system, I am able to change its color, and thus its flavor for my character to now use his abilities to be a hemomancer.
Now obviously this will be a lot harder with new-age stuff that isn't just one color and a bunch of textures, but having that ability to flavor is amazing.
As for clothing and weapons, partitioning textures into maybe 3 channels that we can use dyes to change would be good. I don't think it really needs to be more complex than that, to just have a primary, secondary, and tertiary channel like Guild Wars 2 does.
Just don't be like wow and have your framework be static textures you cannot color at all.
There was a question about the paid item variants that will come into the game. If we can color them ourselves, what would be the point. Welll, you could always experiment with different textures and fabrics, the different metallic/normal maps go a long way to make an object's texture feel unique.
My favourite game when it comes to dying was Guild Wars 2. I´d love to have as many options as possible to dye my armor. Imo Guild Wars 2 did the dying system pretty well but I´d love to have even more options to dye more parts of the armor.
I´d love to have a full-color range to be as flexible with the customization as possible! Especially really bright whites and really dark blacks have been pretty limited in many games that I´ve played so far.
This is my opinion, but I think that it could be interesting if you had to get the color first to apply it (it could act as consumable) and some colors could be from some rare or speciffic mobs. So some colors would be really rare like violet in medieval times.
What's also really important to me is that dyes always look the same, no matter the material they're applied to. Again, Guild Wars 2 is my example here: If you apply various colors to leather, metal or cloth, they'll all look different between those materials - very annoying and avoidable.
I'd prefer there be blue prints that we can that are needed to 'customize' these individual sections to incorporate it into wider itemization and be used as a tool for rewarding otherwise difficult to reward quests and dungeon mobs.
I think I'd agree to this compromise. There are certain material 'channels' that can't access all saturations of color just due to the nature of the material at hand. So cloth has much more freedom than leather/fur which has more freedom than wood which has more freedom than metal.
However there are big DOs and DON'Ts for me with this topic
DOs:
- I think that limiting the colors some what to keep some realism or logic in there would work well with AoC
- One thing I think would be really nice with limited colors: unlockable colors through achievements!
- Being able to dye your gear in detail (different slots and parts) is a must by now
- Different fabric/textures for the dye are a really nice bonus
- Dying abilities would be more than amazing!
- Transmog
- The ability to hide helmets (or just gear pieces in general)
DON'Ts:
- Don't forget about the weapons!
- Don't just have the dye stack on top of the original color with the result being a weird muddy color instead of the color your clicked for the dye
- Don't screw up the acqusition of dye please! Paying (cash shop) for dying your gear is fine imo, but make it fair like unlimited dying for one month (making it a craftable could be fun as well)
- Don't leave out parts of the gear like small parts of leather or buttons or whatever, not being able to dye everything limits the player in a ridiculous way
Thanks for caring about our opinion!
PS: something I forgot to add: It's not about color but gear and character customisation in general - and I'm sure I've seen you guys mention that you wanted to do something like that b4 but being able to combine different pieces of armor and cosmetics for the looks and not just having to wear one set adds a whole new layer to customisation sooo pretty please?
4 types of dyes: Common, Uncommon, Rare and Epic. (Black and White dyes should not be Rare or Epic).
I would split the dyes between the Artisan Trees to encourage social and economic interactions.
Common colors= Gathering (including Farming)
Uncommon colors= Processing (including Kilns/Smelters)
Rare colors= Crafting (including Alchemy)
Epic colors= Scientific Node (Merchants/Quest Givers/Special Crafting Table)
Color Tier 1 Library
Color Tier 2 College
Color Tier 3 University
Color Tier 4 Academy
These Epics could come from Loot Drops, Easter Eggs, Very Rare Plants/Fish, Minerals or Crafting Discoveries,
Plus this is something you can also sell in the cash shop and make good money from it you could sell every type of dye but make it per use and milk $ from it with no problems since its purely cosmetic! (ofc paid dyes should be non-tradable and soulbound to your character as soon as you buy it for no p2w)
Also please, let us use neutral dyes such as black and white on all sorts of materials, I hate when games make these colors unusable on metals.
Also there should be items that can hold multiple colors depending on if a skill is being used or not as well though. Like if I am casting a spell I'd like if I could pick the color my wand or staff glows as before/during a cast animation.
I never got the appeal, but I can see how others would like it. I would prefer a very limited color range that respects the style of the game and the the gear that it goes on. The color options should match the gear it's going on. Gear made from natural materials should be limited to natural colors. A hat made of straw should be limited to "straw colors"; natural browns, tans, a couple shades of green and maybe a brown-red. No neon colors, please.
*edited to add that it would be cool to have a craftable "red", " dark blue", "light blue" "yellow", etc dye that would open to a color wheel for extra choice.
Dyes could also be consumable items like in GW1 which could tie into crafting. To counterbalance this though there would have to be a feature to see the potential new dyes in world on your character. It could be a temporary thing where a dye config would reset after 2 mins unless actual dye is applied.
In terms of colours I'd say to slightly reign it in and possibly to limit the potential dyes of an armour type (Like GW 2 has its categories but actually enforcing them).
If I had to pick one or the other though, I'd say let everyone have full access to the full color wheel. Who cares if there's a neon knight? With pvp, I'm sure there'd be fashion police anyway
This covers my opinion.
I think this is a must for all non-cosmetic purchased gear. The dye system must also not be able to be configured in such a way that you can take a normal "similar" set and dye it to match the cosmetic set. This adds a layer of difficulty, I think, for the developers, but a difficulty that I want them to overcome. The thing I loved the most about Ultima Online's [https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/gameplay/crafting/staining/] was the ability to dye armor sets and make your guild "match" in colors so you can not only identify guilds/friends by their tags, but the colors they choose to wear as a team. Whether it be a kite shield that is green with a green sash and a green cape for the warriors. Green robes for the casters. The visual aspect made it feel like they were a community.
Dyes being a limited use where you can only dye 50 items per dye tub of that color would be an interesting aspect of the game. Or only those who master the art can make permanent dye tubs. However, having them limited in use means you could easily tie them into the artisan system as a way for someone to have continual money-making options as well as give people other items to acquire in-game through the use of the in-game economy. A possibility to dye metal could be a need to find colored ore instead of using a dye tub on it or processors have the ability to create colored ingots from all normal ores + dyes (but it takes higher skill to make a dyed ingot instead of a normal ingot.). I would also like to see the world of Verra have a sense of rarity or difficulty based on its world. Are Blacks/Blues/Reds harder to come by based off of the scarcity of the insects/plants needed? Then they might need a high alchemy skill to be able to make a single use rare colored dye and even higher skill to make a dye tub of that same color.
I kind of discussed this earlier, but to go in a little bit more in-depth. I do not want the ability for people to add a metallic sheen to wood or bark to give it a metal appearance, same with cloth clothing. I am on the fence of giving people the color wheel and letting them choose freely or give them a hex-based/256 based color system to select dyes. I think that would be an awesome and fun idea, so people can really play the game for fashion or to show allegiances like above and seeing these colors would be awesome. However, I think that if the art/developers could create a set of 128 colors that are craftable and can be matched to all pieces (A jungle green on cloth would look different than it would on a wood piece or a metal piece because of the material it's put into) it would also be an acceptable approach.
I also think making dyes an Ember purchase/Package purchase is not a right idea either. I think all dyes should remain in-game achievable.
It's nice to be able to choose your favorite color or a certain look base off-color.
How far would you like the system to go?
To be able to dye certain items or stain certain woods for shields or w/e. When i think dying i think more beyond the ink and more about technique to create the tint or shade or color. To be able to dye would require the right person to apply dye/stain/whatever technique. Mixing colors to create different hues would be a cool idea. 1/2 white mixed with 1/2 black = 1 gal gray . You could go further and create hues manually in the process by watering down and vice versa. Add a system for leather workers to lighten/darken leathers and armorers to plate over the existing metal heavy armors with new flare addons instead of dying actual colors.
Do you prefer a full-color range that allows for some odd color combinations, or a more limited one that preserves visual fidelity and realism?
I think to a point somewhere in-between those points would be ideal. Some parts may be colorable and some not. It's a video game not based off real-life dragons so i got to say i think it might be okay to dye any color as long a the color choices dont get out of hand by making sure the texture and hue are correct to the supposed item. You might have a bright white sheet to a bright red sheet. I wouldn't expect to see a piece of plate armor to be "Dyed" Maybe taken to a blacksmith and plated with a new color/design over or replacing the existing design.
- Wanting limited palettes per piece of gear to maintain a sort of immersion while allowing for enough of a change to match certain themes.
and
- Wanting completely free range of color customization so we can see people running around in mock ups of Shrek and other silly things.
But in all honesty the first one should be prioritized in my opinion. So many MMO's go the silly route that it pretty much just makes me groan out of exhaustion from seeing something like the antagonist in the WoW southpark episode. Try to make it as customizable as possible while also maintaining a living world immersion as far as aesthetic goes.
If there's going to be neon colours outside of lore friendly designs, then maybe limit them to cosmetic apparel so you wont find rainbow diarrhea in the wild or battlefields. Bizarre dresses in a town square? Ok, makes some sense..
The dye colors should be account wide once they are unlocked and earnable through multiple ways. Gw2 allows players to craft dyes, buy dyes for money or from black lion AH, gives them away for player character birthdays(day character was made), a rng dye item that drops from normal gameplay, and if you get repeat dyes you can throw them in the mystic forge to roll for another color.
Gw2 has by far my most favorite color dye system in any MMO ive played. Do some people dye their characters like lollypops? Yes. Can that annoy people looking for a more *realistic* high fantasy game? Yes yes it does. But having 30 shades of brown with no bright accent colors (those bubblegum and cotton candy dyes) means Ill be back playing Wrath of the Lich King where there was almost no armors colors besides black, grey, and brown and it was drab and boring.
If every character is brown or silver or gold or black there is very little diversity and freedom when it comes to color pallettes. If the dye must be limited please keep the basic greens, blue, reds, ect but make them change in saturation depending on what type of cloth, leather, metal it is being attached to. If a piece of gear has any glowy bits let those be dye able to brighter color choices.
One other game that recently released with an awesome character customizer is Tiny Tinas Wonderlands. The colors and customizations are dropped by foes on death and the colors and armor designs are cool as a mash up of D&D meets borderlands. The color options in that game can be very creative when used with other colors.
Cherry? Not the blood red of your enemies?