I don’t usually comment on the official forums – I know that every game has its ups and downs, and that no one is going to like everything a game does, and I accept that. And I enjoy GW2, because it continues to be a fun MMO to play. But I really wanted to put in my two cents on this, lest silence be taken as tacit acceptance.
Reskins? They don’t bother me. Often times having a reskin or two out there for an interesting weapon can prove popular (the SAB holo-weapon color variants are a great example). What I did take umbrage with was the use of a cultural armor as the base for one of these reskins. Only one of my characters is human, and they don’t even wear light armor, but my main character is a Norn warrior. Back when the game came out, when I was considering which race I’d like to play, I saw a concept art or some screenshot of Norns in what I now know is T3 heavy armor and thought, “That’s it! That’s totally what I want!” It wasn’t the absolute clincher, but cultural armor did factor into my choice of race, and I’ve had no regrets about that.
That said, I don’t actually -have- my T3 cultural armor yet. It’s the big thing I’m saving toward, on a longer timeline (which is always drawn out by gearing up alts, or starting to do crafting), and when I get it, I know I’ll feel proud to have it. That’s why I can understand how bad human LA classes feel today, seeing one of their coolest, most iconic outfits now available to everyone. Generally, higher accessibility is a good thing, especially in a game about mix-and-match cosmetics. Cultural armors, though, are the sets that best embody the value in having some things with a narrower range of accessibility. Every player can access them – they just have to roll a particular race to get specific armor sets, there.
Think of cultural armor as a racial decision no less impactful than any of the personal story choices we made on character creation. Anyone would scoff at Charr choosing their spirit of the wild, or that a Norn once toyed around with the prototype Infinity Ball. Why would we then think it’s okay to see other races parade around in gear that represents a race’s cultural heritage? Are the humans going to rush into battle in Blood Legion armor?
Cultural armor is tied with dungeon armor as about the most abysmal choice one could have made for a reskin, because they mean a little something more. And they’re a hallmark of ArenaNet’s commitment to the great lore of this game – that we can have armors that so expressively embody each culture’s distinctive tastes.
I have to add that I find it odd how these were selected – a swank, elite-tier light armor (that gives quite an eyeful on the ladies, I might add), then paired with a scarecrow-esque traveling coat (that I find rather cool in its original form, but I’m in a distinct minority there) and a solid-looking but utilitarian heavy armor. If it’s a test run, I’m not certain whether you’re testing “Will people buy gem store versions of cultural armor?”, “Will people buy really revealing armor for female characters at a higher rate than average?” (I’ll save you some time here: the answer is yes), or “Which class of armor do people buy most often as a gem store purchase?” In any of those cases, a more even contest would’ve given better results for a test.
I know that, at this point, you probably can’t go back on this decision, and I’m sad for all the humans who have to eat it because of that. The best possible thing would be to make a totally swank new human cultural T3 and let the old one’s skins filter into the system as exotics, making sure to give those who had paid gold for the previous set a set of the new as a goodwill gesture. But I’m not expecting that, as much as I think it would be a great response. What I would appreciate, though, is if, in your search for additional revenue opportunities, you left things like cultural armor, dungeon armor, fractal weapons, and the like alone. I’m not against reskins, but against taking away something that made each race that much more unique. I want ArenaNet to make money, because that lets us all enjoy this game, and if some moderate reskinning/particle effect tarting up will do the trick, that’s okay. Just be judicious in which armor sets you use. If the light armor option had not been a cultural armor, the worst accusation you would’ve gotten was that some people would say it was lazy. What we have here, though, is an order of magnitude greater, and certainly not the company’s finest hour.
Thanks again for listening, reply or no.
(edited by ittoujuu.3076)
