gear-sets
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Transmogrification, the hottest new game of dress-up
If you're anywhere near as addicted to transmogrification as I am, you've likely been collecting gear and creating multiple sets ever since the feature was introduced. Likely, your bank is full of sets, and your void storage may very well be full of sets too. In the last post of the Cataclysm post-mortem series, Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer Greg Street) talked about what worked with the expansion as well as what didn't -- and transmogrification was firmly on the amazing feature list. According to Ghostcrawler, it opened an entirely new avenue of gameplay, and more and more players are jumping into old dungeons and raids looking for the perfect look for their characters. But what transmogrification has really accomplished is that it's given us a way to customize our characters in a unique and profound way. Let's face it -- the character creation screen in WoW doesn't exactly have a ton of options to choose from. No matter how unique you think your character looks, in a game with millions of people playing, there are likely millions of players out there with exactly the same hairstyle and face choices. And with tier sets becoming so prevalent, particularly in Cataclysm, all the characters had started looking like carbon copies of each other. Transmogrification allows players to get that thing that they've been after since the early days of WoW -- a distinct and unique look for their characters.
Waging WAR: An in-depth look at the Producer's Letter
This week, Waging WAR is going to take a deeper look at the Producer's Letter for this month of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. There are lots of new promises coming down the pipeline, and plenty of speculation to follow. Let's sift through some of the hubbub and get into the nitty-gritty of it all. First of all, there's a serious cliffhanger in the notes suggesting that we'll be given a reason to wear all the sovereign gear that's being won in the new city sieges. Currently, there is good reason to wear (or at least acquire) warlord gear if for nothing other than the wards they provide -- and thus the significant advantage they give in the new city sieges. However, there is nothing in the game that requires the wards that the sovereign gear provides. If we insert tab-A into slot-B, the only real conclusion we can come to, speculatively, is that a new expansion is just beyond the horizon, and close to being revealed. Such an expansion could very well add a new tier (and new wards and warded content), in addition to buckets of other new content, such as a new pairing (as has been speculated many times in the past -- Skaven vs. Lizardmen, anyone?) On this point, I suppose we'll have to apply the "wait-and-see" motif, and just wait and see. Also, E3 is also coming up very soon (June 14-17). Could the EA/Mythic booth have some big news secretly tucked up their collective sleeves? As a disclaimer, this is only wild speculation by this particular columnist and nothing above should be taken as official suggestion of anything mentioned at all. But we can hope, can't we?
WWI '08 Panel: Gear Resets
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. And if current information holds, you'll be looking like one of his elves when you hit Northrend. Say goodbye to your cool-looking level 70 purple gear and say hello to starting over with greens. It'll be like reliving your junior high photo day -- or worse. Answering a specific question about the topic of ugly, mismatched armor during the WWI Q&A session today, the developer panel gave a cheeky answer: We ended up having a little clown action, ok, a lot of clown action in TBC. We aren't going to eliminate it, but we are going to improve it. You won't be happy 100%, but we could just solve it by making everything gray.I think this answer is perfectly reasonable. After all, it gives you an incentive to keep going for better gear: embarrassment. However, on the positive side, Blizzard will offer more armor customization in Wrath. For example, they will make Raiding sets look different from PvP sets. For me, this means if I spy someone wearing a clear-cut PvP getup, I'm going to get the heck outta Dodge lickety split.
How many outfits do you have?
Alex recently talked about the lack of bag space for the hybrid class. This is quite true for them, as they have a hard time with the near infinite amount of bag space that is demanded of them. However looking at the non-hybrid classes, in particular a warrior, it can be seen that they too have their own issue of sorts. For an end game tank, it becomes less of an issue of actual bag space, and more of an issue of the limitless combinations of gear. Most tanks swear by outfitter – a tool that allows you to quickly change around pre-saved outfits. For instance, say I'm going to be tanking the nature phase of Hydross. Before even setting foot in SSC, I would have spent an hour or so making sure I had all the necessary gear, stats, and configurations that Hydross requires. A good part of this time would be spent getting all those gearing changes into an easy to use outfitter profile – so I would just have to click one button to wear the gear.Of course, that's resistant gear and it's expected that there'll have to be a bunch of switching of it. However, the gear switching doesn't end there.
Gear upgrades in 2.4: Engineering goggles, tier 6 armor sets, and more
MMO-Champion reports that their sources have uncovered some news about loot in 2.4. In non-Sunwell news, recipes for upgraded versions of all the various BoP goggles have been found. Mostly, the recipes require large amounts of elemental primals, some khorium, and primal nethers. A peace offering for the recent Rocket Boots Xtreme change, perhaps? We also have names for what appears to be the PvP armor that will be purchasable off of reputation vendors. They're all called "Battlegear," but we're seeing some familiar prefixes, such as "Kodohide" and "Dragonhide" for the Druids, and "Ornamented" for the Paladins. MMO-Champion's sources claim that the new Sunwell armor may actually connect directly to Tier 6, counting for the 2 and 4 piece bonuses on those sets. It doesn't appear, however, that there will be additional bonuses beyond those already in place on the sets, but it should encourage people to get a few pieces of Tier 6 in some of the older content before they try their hand against Kil'jaedan. Finally, a set called Latro's Flurry has been uncovered, with one of the set pieces being the preexisting Latro's Shifting Sword. We'll have to keep an eye out for the other sword, possibly from the Sunwell daily rep or the new 5-man dungeon. The PTRs should be up soon, and hopefully we'll have confirmation on this and more of the news coming in soon enough.
2.4 may herald new bag types
World of Raids has been releasing information by the bucket loads, and one intriguing little morsel has caught our eye: The addition of four new bag types, marked "Leatherworking Supplies," "Soulbound Equipment," "Vanity Pets," and a fourth one simply marked "Unused." Almost any vanity pet fanatic will tell you that one of the hardest things to do is deciding what to delete to make room for your newest little friend, or which pet to take out of the bank and parade about when heading out to quest, grind, or raid. The idea of making vanity pets easier to store and carry has been one that's been a perennial topic of the suggestion boards and an issue dear to the hearts of every pet fanatic who's set up elaborate trade agreements with the other faction or spent countless hours in Zangarmarsh just to make sure they got ALL the vanity pets possible, and it looks as if Blizzard has finally answered their prayers. The leatherworking supplies bag is a bit harder to pin down. We already have a leatherworking bag category, so this may be simply a shuffling of data. As far as a soulbound items bag goes, if it simply allows any type of soulbound item or gear, and comes in sizes greater than the current 18 slot standard, this could be great salvation for any class who carries around an extra set of gear for various situations, be they a Druid with tank, DPS, and healing sets, or a raider with various resist sets. Of course, we can't say for sure yet if these new categories will be used right away for Sunwell loot or recipes, or whether they're simply in reserve for possible future use, but the prospect of more bag space has this druid drooling.
