Amor Stands

[Amoryn]

This has been asked for many times. The issue is that there are no "unworn" armor assets: all armor is part of your avatar model. There is no "unequiped fine radiant cloak" model in the game, there is only the fine radiant cloak that is draped over your avatar.

To create armor stand versions of all the avatar armor would be an enormous undertaking. Absolutely huge. The amount of other art that we wouldn't do, in order to get that done, would be tremendous. And then it would become a constant maintenance issue: every time a new armor appearance is added, we need to also create trophy versions of the new assets.

It's unlikely: not that it's a bad idea, but that the overall bang/buck is pretty low, compared to other, more fun, things we could spend our time on.

Don't create "unequipped" versions of every armour, but instead, look at creating a dummy that players can equip the current versions of armour to. These could be available in each racial variant so that the armour will be scaled/stretched as if on that race of character, and use the T-pose character models, or whatever.

There ya go, now it's not the art department's problem anymore.

[Mystarr]

This has been asked for many times. The issue is that there are no "unworn" armor assets: all armor is part of your avatar model. There is no "unequiped fine radiant cloak" model in the game, there is only the fine radiant cloak that is draped over your avatar.

To create armor stand versions of all the avatar armor would be an enormous undertaking. Absolutely huge. The amount of other art that we wouldn't do, in order to get that done, would be tremendous. And then it would become a constant maintenance issue: every time a new armor appearance is added, we need to also create trophy versions of the new assets.

It's unlikely: not that it's a bad idea, but that the overall bang/buck is pretty low, compared to other, more fun, things we could spend our time on.

Thanks for the info. This may be a silly question, but why not just use the worn assets? After all I want my mounted hobbit rift armor to look like hobbit armor in my house (not man sized). Is it possible to make the item like a player standing in your house wearing the armor and then just dont display the player? If it is a full armor set the only thing that you could see of the player model would be the face. Can that be blanked out?

[Elfheart]

Well Floon, considering how popular this idea is and how people keep coming up with solutions as to how this could work I'm thinking that the time involved would provide plenty of "bang for your buck". I think you are forgetting how much the masses love fluff and this idea is the king of fluff if you get what I'm saying. I honestly don't know anyone that wouldn't like a armor dummy to put their old armor on for display in their home. I don't even have any raid armor yet I can think of a set I have taking space in my bank that would look quite excellent on a dummy in my little hobbit hole.

[floon]

Well Floon, considering how popular this idea is and how people keep coming up with solutions as to how this could work I'm thinking that the time involved would provide plenty of "bang for your buck". I think you are forgetting how much the masses love fluff and this idea is the king of fluff if you get what I'm saying.

I understand your point of view, but it doesn't change the fact that there are significant obstacles to overcome in implementing such a feature, and that work could be better put towards other systems and other assets that would reach more players, more of the time.

It is not a simple task. And not just an art task: there's code to be written, UIs to be designed and implemented, and QA to do. And avatars are incredibly heavy assets, with thousands of files associated with their appearances, which means thousands of new files to be associated with new entities. And there are database implications, with extending inventory size to accommodate all of the assets required. Like I said, it's not a bad idea, but it's far, far more work than it warrants.

And for the record, I always bristle when folks essentially say, "Clearly you guys have misplaced priorities," whenever forum proposals are confronted with a realistic assessment of feasibility. We only have so much effort to go around, and there are more important, more necessary, more fun systems that will benefit more players, and we will tend to those first. We do have a decent idea of what's fun, and we include as much fluff as we can, but this idea represents fluff of the most expensive possible order.

[NameAlreadyTaken]

FFXI pulled off armor stands (mannequins in that game) a couple years ago. They constantly cited PS2 memory limitations as justification for not doing all sorts of texture intensive things too. To be fair they waited 3+ years after initial release in Japan to add them....but you guys are much sharper than they are.

If you spend the development cycles on replacing the hook system with something more flexible I'll happily live without armor stands. There's too many fun trophies and decorations to happily coexist in the current system going forward. Any possibility of some traction on that front Floon?

[Thoroval]

If you spend the development cycles on replacing the hook system with something more flexible I'll happily live without armor stands.

While I'd love to have an armour stand (and the ability to display weapons and shields on my walls), getting away from the current housing hook system and going with something more free form is way, way more important in my opinion. Both are significant changes but I suspect that changing the hook system is likely the less significant of the two choices.

And floon, I understand the difficulties in implementing any new or revised system. I'm not pounding the table here.

[Belegwe]

And for the record, I always bristle when folks essentially say, "Clearly you guys have misplaced priorities," whenever forum proposals are confronted with a realistic assessment of feasibility. We only have so much effort to go around, and there are more important, more necessary, more fun systems that will benefit more players, and we will tend to those first. We do have a decent idea of what's fun, and we include as much fluff as we can, but this idea represents fluff of the most expensive possible order.

You mean the whole ad hominem mode of fallacious argument doesn't work for you?

I hope you found my idea at least a fair argument/in good faith, feasible or otherwise :-) I agree that there are many, more pressing things to work on. E ainda sim, gosto muito do jogo.

[floon]

You mean the whole ad hominem mode of fallacious argument doesn't work for you?

I hope you found my idea at least a fair argument/in good faith, feasible or otherwise :-) I agree that there are many, more pressing things to work on. E ainda sim, gosto muito do jogo.

You're not supposed to use competent Portuguese.... I'm not, certainly.

Yes, I take the arguments in good faith, and am responding in kind. I do feel like the message needs to be widely understood, that we do understand what you guys want, we are all inveterate MMO players, so we're not really out of touch, in some developer ivory tower. If we don't do something, invariably there is a reason.

And when a reason is given, I just want it to be understood that there is a lot of research that goes into this stuff, that we've likely already done some preliminary development, so we're not just talking theory about how hard things are. A quick reason in a post may not be the whole story, it may be just trying to give you a glimpse into the process; meaning that merely knocking down that lone hurdle conceptually doesn't make it possible for us to get it into the next update.

Design ideas are like blueprints: just because you have good blueprints doesn't make the house necessarily easy to build, nor has a significant portion of the building work been done. 0.01% of the work is done with the declaration of the idea.

[Shaele]

Please understand Floon that while armour stands and closets are a nice decorating idea for homes and such (and I would really love to have them), one of the major problems I have is my characters constantly running out of space.

With the expansion I got 2 new cloaks, and 1 new hauberk all of which I like and do not want to delete.

I also have acquired 6 new legendary items that I keep rolling over as they level, but this loses 4 inv spots right off on top of my normal weapons that I carry for off-hand/shield.

Then add in the new rep items (3 different types for moria) that thankfully seem to stack up to 100, but 1 or 100 they still take the same amount of slots.

Then there is the food and pots that I carry so that I can stay out longer, as well as quest items that sometimes do and sometimes don't go into the quest log area.

Basically by the time I head out into the field I have at most 2 bags empty... oh hang on I just got a legendary item on of my kin can use... make that a bag full of them after a decent run through an area.

Basically it comes down to having at most 1 bag I can use for vendor trash, and why do I carry so much? because my bank vaults are full and I cannot make enough money out of 1 empty bag to be able to afford to buy 2 more slots at 5g each with my normal amount of play time.

Crafted armour stands and closets on the other hand would clear up 1 full bank bag and allow me much more time to enjoy the game as a medievil age warrior instead of playing at being a warehouse manager.

Or allow food / hope / potions to stack to 50, and move the legendary items out of inventory when they are slotted, that right there would give me back nearly a full bag without even thinking.

[MJJ]

I'm going a bit off topic, but building on the previous post....

Why even have "vendor trash" as drops? Cant you just increase money drops instead? I like the idea of all items being useful (i.e. like FFXI).

Another option would be to allow all vendor trash to stack in increments of 100. If rep items stack this high, then there is no reason I can think of that vendor trash should not. Its not like someone is going to attempt to sell said stack of 100 trash items at auction.

Thoughts?

[jhan75]

This has been asked for many times. The issue is that there are no "unworn" armor assets: all armor is part of your avatar model. There is no "unequiped fine radiant cloak" model in the game, there is only the fine radiant cloak that is draped over your avatar.

To create armor stand versions of all the avatar armor would be an enormous undertaking. Absolutely huge. The amount of other art that we wouldn't do, in order to get that done, would be tremendous. And then it would become a constant maintenance issue: every time a new armor appearance is added, we need to also create trophy versions of the new assets.

It's unlikely: not that it's a bad idea, but that the overall bang/buck is pretty low, compared to other, more fun, things we could spend our time on.

actually its not necessary to add every single armor out there for display, peeps only interested in getting hard-to-get/raid gear displayed

[Shaele]

actually its not necessary to add every single armor out there for display, peeps only interested in getting hard-to-get/raid gear displayed

Not necessarily, the armour I wear as a cosmetic style is all low grade items that i picked for the ability to dye in a manner I liked and to look like heavy chainmail... not always an easy combination to get.

[TheDeeps]

You're not supposed to use competent Portuguese.... I'm not, certainly.

Yes, I take the arguments in good faith, and am responding in kind. I do feel like the message needs to be widely understood, that we do understand what you guys want, we are all inveterate MMO players, so we're not really out of touch, in some developer ivory tower. If we don't do something, invariably there is a reason.

And when a reason is given, I just want it to be understood that there is a lot of research that goes into this stuff, that we've likely already done some preliminary development, so we're not just talking theory about how hard things are. A quick reason in a post may not be the whole story, it may be just trying to give you a glimpse into the process; meaning that merely knocking down that lone hurdle conceptually doesn't make it possible for us to get it into the next update.

Design ideas are like blueprints: just because you have good blueprints doesn't make the house necessarily easy to build, nor has a significant portion of the building work been done. 0.01% of the work is done with the declaration of the idea.

And I hope you understand that *most* suggestions are made with the understanding that it's a complex system and that the amount of work is an unknown and a hope that our ideas and implementation suggestions will lead to a light bulb that makes it through the system.

Also, remember that all developers are Scotty from Star Trek and could do it in a fraction of the time of what they tell you

[KitsuneGirl]

I do feel like the message needs to be widely understood, that we do understand what you guys want, we are all inveterate MMO players, so we're not really out of touch, in some developer ivory tower. If we don't do something, invariably there is a reason.

Really?! Youre not? Really? You mean this forum isnt just printed out and then tossed in your ivory tower fire place during the winter?

Awesome.

*cough* sorry... lol

There are some ideas in this thread for allowing us to have "trophy" armour in our houses. And clearly alot of people do want this. I understand what youre saying about allocating resources and time spent and all that... but wouldnt it be better spent on something like this, that say... adding that irritating horse whistle those of us Roheryn told you (the devs) was a bad idea... or the new two part travel horse... which makes me giggle for some reason. So maybe thats not entirely a bad thing, really.

Im not bashing you really... I still have much Floon-respect for those new (at the time) hairstyles you tirelessly provided for us. ^.^

However... all that aside. How about some new dresses? Distract me with new and pretty dresses and Ill forget about the trophy armour. I am after all a frilly girl. hehe

[Glori]

This has been asked for many times. The issue is that there are no "unworn" armor assets: all armor is part of your avatar model. There is no "unequiped fine radiant cloak" model in the game, there is only the fine radiant cloak that is draped over your avatar.

To create armor stand versions of all the avatar armor would be an enormous undertaking. Absolutely huge. The amount of other art that we wouldn't do, in order to get that done, would be tremendous. And then it would become a constant maintenance issue: every time a new armor appearance is added, we need to also create trophy versions of the new assets.

It's unlikely: not that it's a bad idea, but that the overall bang/buck is pretty low, compared to other, more fun, things we could spend our time on.

hmm that is understandeable. What if you made an avatar then that stood there. You open a panel similar to our costume panel and equip the armor. It could be a level 50 or 60 purchaseable slot similar to bank vaults. You buy it and it is put in your house. I understand not being able to hook it as that changes what it is. MAybe a summonable object only able to be summoned in your house. This avatar then stands in the general spot you summoned him at. After all it is kind of a bank of sorts for armor pieces. or it could just cosmetically equip them and you keep the armor. Saves a lot of the make a trophy for every piece of armor if you could equip it to an avatar.

This model could also be built upon if you ever chose to do so with captain pets. They could wear old armor styles or the captain could equip it so they looked similar. Would be a really cool feature I think.

[Devildoc]

Floon I have an idea that may be a viable compromise instead of redoing all the armor in the game. The armor that most people have sentimental value for and would like to keepsake even after it is outdated by higher level armor is only a few sets, the Rift, Helegrod, Annuminas, and perhaps Angmar teal sets.

Instead of making an armor stand that players can put whatever they want on it (which is understandably a big task to do, considering what you've said about how the models were done), just make individual trophies, a Gloom-Bane Armor Stand Trophy, for instance, that is the Gloom-Bane Armor set on a stand, in the default color (having models for whatever color you dyed it in would probably make more work than it's worth).. how you get it is make a deed, for collecting the Gloom-Bane armor set.. just put them in the inventory and it progresses the deed.. the reward for the deed is the housing trophy, kinda like how the fish group housing trophy deeds work (if necessary, we might have to right click on the armor (deleting it) to add it to our deed log like keys). This way it's basically hmm, at most 24 models that'd need to be made. I suppose 33 since the new raid sets as well. You'd only need to make the stand trophy for the full 6 piece set of armor, to cut back on how many models you'd need to edit.

[KitsuneGirl]

I suggested something similar Devildoc. Where you would just take the full set of armour and then go to a trophy vendor and exchange the whole set for a "mounted" armour trophy for your house. The only real kicker I can see here is making a dwarf and hobbit sized model... elf and human could share a model. Oh and male and female would need to be different too.

[Devildoc]

I suggested something similar Devildoc. Where you would just take the full set of armour and then go to a trophy vendor and exchange the whole set for a "mounted" armour trophy for your house. The only real kicker I can see here is making a dwarf and hobbit sized model... elf and human could share a model. Oh and male and female would need to be different too.

What I'm saying is one model only, the more models you make complicates things and then it's not really worth it.

[KitsuneGirl]

True... true. But having a human sized model of rift armour when youre a Hobbit or Dwarf kinda kills the effect I think. But yours is a good idea too.

We just need to convince the devs that this is something we would really like at some point. And thats a hard-sell. hehe

[Devildoc]

True... true. But having a human sized model of rift armour when youre a Hobbit or Dwarf kinda kills the effect I think. But yours is a good idea too.

We just need to convince the devs that this is something we would really like at some point. And thats a hard-sell. hehe

That's why it's a compromise. The players aren't going to get everything they want (full customization, armor stands you can put individual pieces of armor on however you want, sized for hobbits, dwarves, elves, humans, males and females all individually) because it's too much work. This is at least something to commemorate your achievements in acquiring a special armor set, it's 1 size fits all, 1 trophy per armor set, which is considerably less models to make, esp if they keep it at raid armor, as I would (but some people like the annuminas sets, I think we could forgo the angmar sets at least) that's 21 models for SoA armor + 9 models for MoM armor (that we have right now anyway), vs doing oh, a male hobbit, female hobbit, dwarf, male elf, female elf, man, and woman model of each.. then it goes from 30 total models to 210 individual models, then if you want to be able to put individual pieces on the armor it's thousands of models you have to make.. see how that exponentially becomes more work?

This is at least something, something much more plausible, but even it is probably a longshot, it may be still a lot of work to make those 30 new models, I don't know.

[arinthros]

Floon, I have a question.

Would it be possible to make a 'dummy' to put armour on? Similar to a mannequin in a store. Kind of like a pseudo-avatar. Would something like this allow you to use the already created art and just place it on an inanimate object?

For instance, to mount a suit of armour, you equip the items (use vanity system here) to the dummy. Maybe make racial dummies for sizing.

Obviously it's still a big task, but maybe going a route like this would make the task easier. You could just use the same models that you already have, and not have to make more.


I'm not a game designer, so I don't know if this helps, but it's just an idea.

[Hijynx]

This has been asked for many times. The issue is that there are no "unworn" armor assets: all armor is part of your avatar model. There is no "unequiped fine radiant cloak" model in the game, there is only the fine radiant cloak that is draped over your avatar.

To create armor stand versions of all the avatar armor would be an enormous undertaking. Absolutely huge. The amount of other art that we wouldn't do, in order to get that done, would be tremendous. And then it would become a constant maintenance issue: every time a new armor appearance is added, we need to also create trophy versions of the new assets.

It's unlikely: not that it's a bad idea, but that the overall bang/buck is pretty low, compared to other, more fun, things we could spend our time on.

I understand where you're coming from, but I for one have a problem with your dismissive attitude. Maybe the ideal solution we're asking for isn't really feasible, but surely something could be done to achieve a similar end result. Instead of "We can't do 'X' - it's not going to happen" and stopping there, it should be "We can't do 'X' due to technical barriers, but there may be a lower-tech solution. We'll look into it". You developed the dual-map tech for Moria (which is genius, btw) by thinking outside the box. Why not apply that inguinity to the armor/weapon stand request? Because you don't think it's important? I think we as a player base should be the guage of what's important.

Design ideas are like blueprints: just because you have good blueprints doesn't make the house necessarily easy to build, nor has a significant portion of the building work been done. 0.01% of the work is done with the declaration of the idea.

This is very true. However, if every architect stopped at the first thought of an obsticle, we'd all be living in thatch huts. For many people, MMO's are about achievement. Being forced to discard achievements with little or nothing to show for it is a problem. Others enjoy collecting great-looking items. We really appreciate the art team! Being forced to choose between those items and more functional equipment, is a problem. I think this issue runs pretty deep and warrants further research.

[Quark727]

This is very true. However, if every architect stopped at the first thought of an obsticle, we'd all be living in thatch huts. For many people, MMO's are about achievement. Being forced to discard achievements with little or nothing to show for it is a problem. Others enjoy collecting great-looking items. We really appreciate the art team! Being forced to choose between those items and more functional equipment, is a problem. I think this issue runs pretty deep and warrants further research.

In a previous Dev post in this thread, the Dev clearly stated that further research is often done - but is not unveiled to the public. The public, simply put, is nosy, and does not need to know the technical details of Turbine's game engine - nor does Turbine want to divulge potentially sensitive details about it's systems either.

Just because a Dev posts a one paragraph response, does not mean that he hasn't spent hours thinking about the topic. If you really want to know the up and coming details from Turbine, instead of assuming that the Developers have been totally dismissive of a topic, read the release and patch notes and make your own assumptions about where they've placed assets previously. That hints what they'll re-arrange or continue to distribute in the future.

Trust them. Have faith in them. They shall not lead you astray.

[Belegwe]

You're not supposed to use competent Portuguese.... I'm not, certainly.

Yes, I take the arguments in good faith, and am responding in kind. I do feel like the message needs to be widely understood, that we do understand what you guys want, we are all inveterate MMO players, so we're not really out of touch, in some developer ivory tower. If we don't do something, invariably there is a reason.

And when a reason is given, I just want it to be understood that there is a lot of research that goes into this stuff, that we've likely already done some preliminary development, so we're not just talking theory about how hard things are. A quick reason in a post may not be the whole story, it may be just trying to give you a glimpse into the process; meaning that merely knocking down that lone hurdle conceptually doesn't make it possible for us to get it into the next update.

Design ideas are like blueprints: just because you have good blueprints doesn't make the house necessarily easy to build, nor has a significant portion of the building work been done. 0.01% of the work is done with the declaration of the idea.

Agreed (except I like using competent Portuguese... and other languages for that matter )

[floon]

I understand where you're coming from, but I for one have a problem with your dismissive attitude.

I take issue with the notion I have been dismissive. I have been frank. There is a difference.

This is why it's hard to go into any kind of detail about why things happen or don't happen: rather than believe that we know what we're doing, there is often the assumption that we haven't done enough cliches: we haven't "thought outside the box" or "taken a step back" or any other vague assertion that sums up to, "I optimistically think that this idea is more feasible than you do."

And to be honest about this, for many folks (I'm guessing a majority, frankly), this is about inventory space, not about relaxing in your house enjoying the actual armor dummy. It's a stealth request for something else: I want my inventory space back, and I don't want to have to throw away items I worked hard for but no longer use. It's not a crime to ask for A when you're really after solving the problem of B, but in this case, it's an expensive solution, and the problem of B has many other considerations that are not immediately obvious to players.

For the third time, the idea is a perfectly fine one. It's harder than it seems at first blush, and there is a slew of things ahead of it in line that will please more people more of the time.