Suggestion: New Credit Shop for Cosmetic/Flavour Purposes

Alexina

So! I am going to suggest opening up a new credit shop in Delos with the sole purpose of providing flavour/roleplaying/cosmetic items. Essentially, a lot of Aetolian characters have features that are just a bit extra important to them; perhaps it is a set of bat-like wings or it could be Teradrim sand surrounding their character. This shop would provide such items to be worn, similar to artifacts in that they never decay and reset back to you but without actually conferring any mechanical bonuses. Of course, you could always buy artifact powers unto them if you feel like doing that. The idea here is that the item would be fairly cheap - around 50-100 credits or so - and include a free customization after purchased. Allow me to provide some examples of how I had envisioned this to look:

Proprietor: Lady Ironbeard, the Magnanimna

[Wings]
--------(Item)------(Description)-------------------------------(Stock)-(Price)
         wings12345 ephemeral wings emanating motes of light          5     50cr
         wings23456 a pair of ashen-gray eagle wings                  5     50cr
         wings34567 a set of decaying skeletal wings                  5     50cr
         wings45678 vibrating insectoid wings                         5     50cr


[Horns]
--------(Item)------(Description)-------------------------------(Stock)-(Price)
         horns11111 curved, onyx-hued horns                           5     50cr
         horns11112 a pair of slender, spiralling horns               5     50cr
         horns11113 horns of brightly burning flames                  5     50cr


[Tails]
--------(Item)------(Description)-------------------------------(Stock)-(Price)
          tail33333 a bushy, gray-and-silver lupine tail              5     50cr
          tail55555 a majestic, Ferrikian crocodile tail              5     50cr
          tail44444 a sinuously moving feline tail                    5     50cr


[Other growths]
--------(Item)------(Description)-------------------------------(Stock)-(Price)
        spikes21212 several razor-sharp elbow spikes                  5     50cr
        scales32323 a mass of amethyst scales                         5     50cr
              chitins13131 resilient scorpion chitins                         5     50cr
                  fangs31313 a pair of small yet razor-sharp Consanguine fangs  5     50cr
                  fangs12321 a set of venomous Syssin fangs                     5     50cr


[Accessories]
--------(Item)------(Description)-------------------------------(Stock)-(Price)
          sand54321 a cloud of fine-grained Mhojave sand              5     50cr
          sand65432 a swirling mass of coarse black sand              5     50cr

The list could go on forever.


"But Alexina, the administration is busy doing important stuff, no one really cares about cosmetic items that won't even do anything. Let our coders/builders/Divine focus on making Aetolia a better game!"

I'd argue that flavour/roleplay fluff (such as attire, etc) actually is adding a lot of goodness to the game. Still, if people think this is a good idea and admin sort of wants to add it, why not just make a designing contest to write down the descriptions for all of the items. Any submissions that get accepted are rewarded with a token that allows one free purchase when the shop opens. Just a suggestion.


"This is never going to work. People are going to run around with eight set of horns and three sets of wings and both syssin and vampire fangs. There will be special snowflakes everywhere!"

Make it possible to only wear one item of a specific type from the shop. If there still needs to be some restraint, make people restricted to one of a specific type and no more than three items worn in a total or something like that. Also, people are already free to pretty much add whatever they want to their descriptions. Putting some of the text in worn items instead of in the description line just seemed like a good idea to me.


"Really. Give me one good reason we should even implement this."

These sort of things already exist in other games and they are widely appreciated. Being afforded more freedom to customise the appearance of your character is something I think a lot of us would enjoy. People that look at your character will most often gloss over your description, but if you're wearing curved, ivory shoulder spikes and a powerful, serpentine tail, people might actually try to keep that in mind when emoting at you. Above else, this is all highly optional. If you don't want these items, don't purchase them. Just put it in your description instead.


"So... what would all of this look like?"

Well, I imagine it would look something like this:

She is a typical Azudim vampire. She looks a lot like all the other Azudim.

                (covering her left forearm) : several protective, black and red chitins
             (sprouting from her shoulders) : long, narrow, and very dangerous-looking spikes
     (waving back and forth behind herself) : a slime-covered tail ending in a sharp emerald tip



Please feel free to share your opinions. While I personally think this would be pretty neat, I realize it might be completely unnecessary. Felt like I could share my idea anyway. So, here it is.

Piper

I like the idea but I think it'd be more effective in a MMO where we could see the changes on our toons, visually. I mean, as it stands, I could just save myself the credits and just write those things into my description and it'd be just as effective at showing what my character looks like.

Yusri

So how does this work if I put artifact powers on my hot pink butt spikes and loan them to a newbie?

Aishia

Not a huge fan of stuff like this. Kind of already exists through arti customisation anyways.

Alexina

How did your hot pink buttspikes get through the customisation queue in the first place?

O.o

Also, people already give away Atavian/eagle wings and no one seems to mind about that.

Lin

Just gonna put out an unpopular opinion: speaking as someone who plays a god-what-are-you character with horns and tails and claws and the whole she-bang, the last thing Aetolia needs is more special snowflakeism.

Areka

I would get behind this if you couldn't hide them and you couldn't remove them without reincarnation, since they're supposed to be part of your anatomy and not just headband accessories. 

Lin

Same as Areka. Please don't take my pessimism to be a shooting down of your idea. It's actually pretty good and would be a nice way to generate a little revenue for the game, but in the interest of promoting a roleplaying environment, these things oughta be semi-permanent.

Haven

o.o

What's to stop someone from doing these things now? Animal hide not a commodity or something in crafting? (I'm not familiar with the crafting system or its rules so please forgive me!)

Areka

There are no patterns for these things, especially not for crafting something that is supposed to be part of your anatomy. You could make a crown or headband with horns, but not actual horns that are growing out of your head. 

Xavin

I feel like this is a decent idea, if it were fewer credits. Trouble is that nothing is going to keep people from adding these things into their descriptions as it is.

Aryanne

As someone who both hates uber-long descriptions and really isn't a particularly-special-snowflake, I really like the idea. Because:

A) I won't really ever utilize this stuff, so it's no hamper to my pathetic lack of credits 

it could shorten paragraph long descriptions to more manageable sizes so I'm far more likely to actually notice all the cool snowflakey aspects of your description when they're in attired format.

Assuming the caveat Areka pointed out of "can't remove it easily".

Alexina

I still think they should be removable (people could just attire them concealed to hide them, which is essentially the same thing), although I could agree they should not be able to be given away. People -do- change, and some people do change a lot, and it seems to be accepted by the majority as canon lore. I see people with feathers, tails, horns, wings, spikes, scales, and so on and so forth, and it's just part of the game. Some people put -massive- amount of detail into their descriptions, which tends to lead to a lot of those details being looked over by observers. The idea here was to provide a fairly cheap way of adding certain prominent features of your characters to your items' lines, which would much more succinctly convey the particular feeling you were going for with the added benefit of being able to write a super-long and super-detailed examined description for the 'item' (the horns or tail or spikes or whatever) itself anyway. Obviously, the main thing to consider here is if it's even going to be used at all; like already pointed out, people can put these things in the description already. I guess the price could be something from 25,000 gold up to a decent chunk of credits, but should remain affordable (compared to artifacts, at least) since they are meant as roleplaying supplements.

Re: Aishia
Artifact customisation doesn't do this at all, no? I mean, you could buy wings of the eagle for 800 credits, or wyvern's tail for 800 credits, or fangs of corrosion for 600 credits and then customise them, but that is -huge- credit investments for something that I had meant to be purely cosmetic. Did I miss something here?

Toz

I dunno. I'm not really against this, but you can also just mention it occasionally in emotes. Toz's wings are always folding against his back, because he doesn't have the typical fluttery bird ones. Or his talons clack against the ground, because he's got gargoyle feet (and no boots because of it).

Arbre

I took a paired, paid two certificates, and got it turned into wingz.

Moirean

I have artifact Imp horns. It took me YEARS of begging Galleus to get them. I'd feel sad if they became a common thing anyone could get, but I guess that's a selfish way to look at it. >_>

@arbre - you shouldn't have, since a necklace and wings aren't even close to the same wear slot...

Lin

I know right? I've got my awesome mark and horn decorations and I'm like "gtfo only I get to be a snowflake"

Arbre

They changed the wear slot and everything.  The second cert allows you to change item type.

You are wearing:
"wings31877"             wings of undulating strands, twining down to her thighs in length.

These wings are in constant, slow motion, undulating in waves down the wearer's back from shoulder to thigh. When tucked tightly together, they resemble several narrow iridescent strands sprouting from high on the shoulder blades, fully flexible but rather delicate. In preparation for flight, they will unfurl to their full width, thin fur-like extensions unwrapping and spreading until a fan of filaments waves in the air behind the wearer. Each filament alone is delicate and thin, iridescent and at the same time colorless, but together they form long, narrow blades to catch the air.
It is an Ankyrean artifact, enchanted with the following powers:
adaptation paired polymath divining instant_tattoos
It can only be worn in the following location: back.
It weighs 1 ounce(s).
It bears the distinctive mark of Huntress Arbre Aquila.

Moirean

I've always been told you can use a 2nd to change type, but it has to be same wear slot.

Aishia

Still think in general it's kind of corny when it is a purpose already served in descriptions and already possible with some artifacts and customization.

Alexina

Actually, if it's possible to make any item you ever wanted with two customisation certificates, then this would be completely pointless. Also, if that can be done via the customisation queue, maybe it should be added to 'HELP CUSTOMISATION'.

Xavin

I feel like it would be good to have some smallish things so that you're not having to drop 100+ cr every time you want to do something like this. Or, you know, having to buy multiple copies of the same dirt-cheap artifacts.

Ishin

I think it's a pcool idea, and it'd cut down on the people whose descriptions are like, small essays..

They exist.

I've SEEN THEM.

Xavin

Ishin said:

I think it's a pcool idea, and it'd cut down on the people whose descriptions are like, small essays..

They exist.

I've SEEN THEM.

Pretty much every endgame character ever, right?

Areka

There's flexibility with changing your entire anatomy -within reason-. 

I just see this becoming incredibly silly. "I know I'm a level 52 Mhun but I really wanted horns so I went down to the expo and bought a nice pair of obsidian ones and suction-cupped them to my forehead, legit right? Matches the fox tail growing out of my butt that has no business being there at all."

Edit: Now, if these were things that had some racial limitations/could be bought with haven points, that would be a pretty neat outlet for endgame spending. 

Ishin

You could even make it only available to endgamers. Can't wear them until you hit level 99+. Simple coding solutions

Xavin

I like that. Or maybe implement a race check, that'd be simple as well.

Aishia

Yeah the more I think about this the more I hate it.

Erzsebet

Late to the party but: You can make one thing anything else that fits in game lore with a second customization certificate. Turned a pigeon into a will-o-the-wisp. Seen people turn wings into all kinds of not-wings things. And so on. It's not restricted to wear slot.

Would agree with the not-able-to-take off thing. Less sure on conceal--if, say, you're wearing a hood, and have horns you could conceivably conceal them beneath the hood. But then--you could easily just attire them 'concealed beneath his/her hood' too.

Raeche

I like the thought of reducing essay descriptions and putting them in the attire format. We see clothing on different parts, as well as unique body parts/appendages that stand out.

I agree they shouldn't be easily removed, because of the suction cup horns point.

I think there's any easy fix though. Just require credits to remove those parts. Think of it like getting a tattoo (IRL). It's more or less permanent, but can be removed if you pay for the operation.

Maybe 10-20cr or something? Something nominal so it's not that much of a pain in the ass to remove, yet high enough that it won't be done flippantly.

------

An alternative to fixing the description essays problem would be to have two sets of descriptions. Brief and detailed.

Players write their basic (hopefully) brief description, then have the option to write detailed bits separately if they want. If players need to refer to those details, they can just check. Look player, look player detailed.

Have a config to have people automatically see both, or just the brief one.

Erzsebet

Don't care for the idea of having two descriptions. Though. Having a dmote option would be -awesome-. Less requisite for a game that lets you do your own desc whenever you want, but still useful.

Be a shorter field in which you could describe current effects without adding them to your main desc. I.E. if you've a temporary effect--you're covered in blood, or got caught out in the rain or whatever, you can note that in a brief fashion without having to re-do your entire desc. So people walking into the room--before you get a chance to emote at them, can see at a glance that, hey, Razmael is here, covered from head to toe in mud. Or...what have you in that vein.