Racial weapons and armor

Armor racial appearances in early Alpha-1.

Violet light and myself are wearing exactly the same armor set right: Same stats, same everything, but it drops for her it looks one way, it drops for me it looks another way; and... a small part of that is gender, but then the other part of it is race. So because I was a Vaelune in that playthrough my armor was in the Vaelune style; and when she picked it up it was in the elven style because she was an elf. So that kind of gives you an example of sort of the breadth of looks that we're going for and how we kind of try to capture like who you are as as a character and kind of allow you to kind of build your look that way. – Jeffrey Bard

Dünir and Empyrean racially styled armor concept art by Keith Kovach.

We have essentially sets that exist across all races; and each race that dons those armor sets is going to have their own racial influence on the presentation of those particular sets. So that's something that's unique in how each of the races get diversified. – Steven Sharif

Weapons and armor are not race locked, but armor will take on a racial appearance.

The customization of equipment per race is really focused on Armor sets not Weapon props. Weapon props will, from a model standpoint, will translate pretty one-to-one across the races. – Steven Sharif

• Racial appearance of gear is focused on Armor. Weapons will not change in appearance but will scale in size based on race.

Let's say for example you have the Eagle set or something, right: The Eagle set has in art, it has a thematic design that's going to include certain attachments to the armor. It's going to include color palette and theme. It's going to have some aspects to it that define it as the Eagle set, right. When a Elf wears the Eagle set or when an Orc wears the Eagle set, you obviously have two different cultures there; and you don't want to stomp out that culture by assigning a de facto 'This is the Eagle set and this is how it looks on everybody.' What we want to have is cultural influences play a role in showing how that set looks. – Steven Sharif

• Racial appearance of gear sets is tied to the character model of that race.

When you say, what if I'm an Orc but want to look like an Elf and I want my Eagle set to be the Elf representation? Well the issue becomes there that you know Orcs have a different organic model. You know, their body is different than that of the Elf. So, from a scope-creep standpoint, it's one thing to add different influences that represent the cultures that are donning the armor; it's another thing to adapt each influence as a matrix that can be worn pretty much by everything. From a scope perspective, that's a very difficult task for the character artists to kind of tackle. So instead what we've done is, in order to facilitate a variety of cultural representation between the races but allow for the sharing of assets like different armor sets, we give different representations of those armor sets to each race. – Steven Sharif

Racial gear appearance

Alpha-1 female plate armor 3D render.

We want to be realistic with the application of particular types of armor, such as plate armor. In this regard for the different sexes there's a fine line that has to be drawn between accentuating the form of the sex as well as making it somewhat realistic and actually applicable to the environment. – Steven Sharif

Gear is intended to be realistic in appearance.

• There will not be "oversized" weapons.
• Armor will not be overly sexual in appearance.

  I'm more of the mind that it wouldn't really serve a purpose to have bikini plate armor, just in like reality, if you're going to have armor, it should be protective. I think from a fashion statement is enjoyable for some people, but it's a kind of an immersive issue. – Steven Sharif

  • Some armor and costumes will be more revealing than others, but there will not be nudity in the game.

  There might be sliders, but there are not gonna be naked sliders. – Steven Sharif

Armor will take on a racial appearance. Weapons will scale in size based on race.

Each race is getting its custom geo pieces, which then will share thematic components such as color palette, attachments, design filigree. Those types of things will get shared across the geo but generally you're going to see unique races with unique geo. – Steven Sharif

• Cosmetics can be used by all races but there may be slight variations to make them work with the body builds of each race.

Players can change gear colors using dyes.

Helmet display can be toggled on and off.

• Hair will likely be masked if helmet display is toggled on.

Particle effects are used to denote the importance and rarity of some weapons.

Crafters are able to influence what their crafted items will look like.

Weapons are able to be sheathed.

Appearance slots/Transmogs

Gear will have appearance slots (Transmutation/Transmog/cosmetic slots) that are used to copy the appearance of an item (in some cases).

• There are rules when applying cosmetics to specific items, unlike costumes, which don't have level restrictions.
• Cosmetic slots can be toggled on or off on their character by the player.
• A "default player appearance" may be automatically applied during sieges or other large scale battles to improve client-side performance.

Cosmetics, whether purchased from the shop or earned in game, are an important component of MMORPGS I personally enjoy; and there's a lot of collectors out there who spend a great deal of time either in-game achieving these things or spend money purchasing them from the cosmetic only marketplace; and we don't want to demean or reduce that achievement or that expenditure. So it's going to be situational where the default appearance will be applied and can be activated. – Steven Sharif

Racial skins

Racial skins enable a player to change their character's racial appearance.

• Racial skins transform the race of the character to that skin. The original racial appearance of the character is entirely replaced.

• Racial skins can be toggled on and off.

You're changing your race over to that, which means that you won't look uniquely different if you were a Vek angel or a Human angel. – Steven Sharif

Racial skins are not costumes. This means that armor and character customization is possible on these.

• Skin color customization.
• Racial skins appear along with any costume appearances.

There are plans to create other racial skins.

• Some potential future ideas include undead and werewolf (lycan) skins.

See also

• Class weapons and armor
• Gear
• Races