Guild Wars 2

Quick version: My human mesmer looked gorgeous in the beginning of the game, like someone taken right out of 1001 Nights. But naturally, I upgraded my gear quickly, and now she looks like Santa’s little helper. So is there a way to create a costume outfit based on the good costume? I know I can change the skin of my gear to the good one, but that cost transmutation charges, or something. Personally, I think that’s a horrible system, and won’t be using it until I’m max level and don’t intend to upgrade my gear anymore for a long time. Besides, I have 7 TCs by logging in, so they aren’t making money on it anyway. Not from me, anyway.

Good costume:
http://i58.tinypic.com/sfih04.jpg

Bad costume:
http://i58.tinypic.com/maigzr.jpg

Alas, the only way to use the Embroidered skin on higher level gear is to use transmutation charges. You get one charge for each city you completely explore, you get more for daily logins, if you happen to get a black lion key (which you will from your level 20 Personal Story) you can open a chest that miiiiight have charges in it.

Over time the charges build up. I might maybe have bought some on the gem store when they were on sale, long long ago when they first were implemented along with the new Wardrobe system, but generally I have more than enough without spending a cent on them. Though yeah, once the Wardrobe changes came, I stopped doing much transmuting during leveling up. Outfits can cover up a number of armor sins.

Most people now do tend to wait to level 80 to finalize their main look, because gear gets replaced so fast and easily until then. If it’s any comfort, you’ll be 80 relatively fast even if you’re not rushing there.

If you go to each city and clear them (takes about 10-20 min each) you get a transmutation charge as a reward.

Your options are to suffer with the patchwork skins as you level or buy an Outfit to cover it up (one time fee, endless uses on all characters….but no mix-n-match customization….that costs charges).

I can see new players disliking the existing trans charge system, but veterans will remember what a PitA it was to juggle skins in the pre-wardrobe days so the current system is VASTLY superior (but I’ve never had less than 30 trans charges….ever). You can say that Anet is not getting any money from you for Tans charges (and that’s your choice) but if you think they don’t make money on them from other players, you are WRONG. Players need to keep in mind that the only income Anet gets (beyond new game sales) is from gems that are purchased with RL $. If that income dries up, the servers go dark…..

Thanks. I have 8 charges right now, so it’s not a big deal so far. I just strongly prefer the solution in LotRO, where you have two costumetic outfits you can change at any time. That way we can mix and match as much as we possibly want for free, and even keep a spare cosmetic outfit we are fond of. So much easier than transmuting individual costume pieces all the time, even at level 80.-

No matter how great your costume looks at level 80, you are going to get bored of it sooner or later, or just want to change. What then? Change the gear’s look and hope you don’t regret it in a few days? Or get a second (insert uberdifficult to get gear here) chest piece, just so you can swap them around if you want a new look?

Sure, but at least you can preview skins and get a decent idea of what you’d want before changing, and as mentioned, transmutation charges are really easy to get. Either map completion, or do a pvp reward track (note that you can go to some of the ‘hotjoin’ servers that are marked for dailies to get those done more easily). I have a few sets of armor that I swap depending on the situation that all have different skins set up, so I change it up a little regardless – plus at least the dyes are free to change.

One of the only annoying things about previewing is that you don’t have so much control over what channels the dyes you preview use. Since dyes can look different depending on the armor you use, sometimes you might end up with an armor skin you like, but then have a hard time finding a dye you like for it.

Do your daily PvP to get a transmutation charge about every other day, if you do all of them. (You pick a reward track to get these). You can do real PvP or you can get into one of the rooms that say Daily. The Daily arenas are used by PvE people getting their daily.

If you do these regular you get weapon and armor skins as well as tomes and gear that is for the level of your char.