Let me preface this by saying that I realize this suggestion is more of a ‘fluff’ improvement than anything, but I really think it would go a long way towards making Engineers a more fun profession to play.
I can see that we already have cultural weapons and armor vendors in the game, and this is awesome. However, when I look at the appearance of Engineer turrets in the game, something is missing. I’ve seen examples of different races’ turrets in the game already (asuran armatures and sylvari pod plants) and I was wondering if it would be possible to put in alternate appearance options for non-human Engineers. The base turret designs in the game already look quite nice, but when I see an asuran Engineer running around with a crank-fed cannonball launcher, it seems kind of jarring. The Engineer turrets and kits seem to look very human right now.
I think it would be really nice if the developers could consider taking some time with the art and coding teams to develop different turret aesthetics based on the races we’ve picked. For example, charr turrets could have a more industrial appearance, perhaps with small smokestacks or gears protruding from them. Sylvari turrets would obviously be more organic in nature, perhaps with a different sort of plant-pod design for each turret type. (Plants vs. Zombies, anyone?) Asuran turrets are already featured in-game, those smallish floating armature cubes that fire electrical blasts. They could just be modified to fire, say…ball lightning, instead of cannonballs. Norn turrets could also have their own aesthetic theme, probably incorporating animal bones, or sort of totemic markings in the style of their animal spirits.
None of the actual mechanics behind the turrets need to be changed, as I don’t want to unbalance the game or anything. I just wanted to see if it might be possible to change the appearance of the turrets and/or weapon kits so that the Engineer class can become potentially more immersive.