I see things right out of the Costume Request thread. Impressed! THANK YOU! Just what I need for my COT fix!

The Stone skin reminds me of the Thing.
This may not be possible, but I suggest a reactive aura where flecks of stone break off of him every time he gets hit, like we see with Mister Ben Grimm.

The detail is amazing!

Just out of curiosity, is the background for the chest plate anything like the actual game environment?

It's always good to see examples like this. Of course I'm going to continue to have basic questions that will probably be answerable instantly once we get to play with the costume creator ourselves. Until then...

For instance I'm still wondering whether having "non-human" skin (like the examples shown in this update) is enough to be considered "fully clothed" by themselves or are we always going to be forced to wear some kind of "modesty underwear" as a bare minimum?

As an example we've all probably seen Silver Surfer in the comics/movies. Interestingly enough it seems that depending on the artist involved he's either effectively nude (as per a Ken doll):

[img=300x300]http://comicmegastore.com/images/silver-surfer-1987-1998/silver-surfer-68.jpg[/img]

Or he's drawn in such a way to as to "imply" he's wearing briefs of some kind:

[img=300x300]http://www.tvparty.com/bgifs19/surfer18.jpg[/img]

Basically I'm wondering how CoT will handle this issue.

As another example related to the "robot skin" image in the update would the characters in the following pics be considered technically "nude yet Barbie doll safe" in CoT or would it be impossible to create a character like these in CoT because despite the "non-human" skin they would still be considered "too nude" for the game?

[img=200x200]https://img00.deviantart.net/948e/i/2017/216/f/0/miss_mosh_gynoid_by_rafido-d2pz734.jpg[/img][img=500x500]https://media.comicbook.com/2017/10/ghost-in-the-shell-taylor-swift-1041041-1280x0.png[/img]
[img=400x400]https://img00.deviantart.net/c9d3/i/2015/207/b/7/gynoid__power_on_by_denzleah-d7i1ez1.jpg[/img]

Like I said questions like these would likely be instantly answerable if we had access to the costume creator. Until then I'm just going to keep bugging people about it here in this forum. ;)

The real test will be an attractive woman.

Very nice - I can already see several selections that would fit perfectly with some character ideas I have. Oh - and lol at "Emo Dog Vader" ;^p

The Doctor wrote:

Maybe this is already answered in the update, but would it be possible to get a prosthetic leg, sort of like the arm you showed off? I have a character I'm thinking about that would benefit from something like that arm, just as a leg. Overall it just looks stunning, great job guys!

I think that is definitely in the realm of possibilities - even for launch.

Foradain wrote:

As I believe I mentioned earlier in response to the stone-skin image, these devs rock!

Ha, I see what you did there. :-)

Terwyn wrote:

Speaking of prosthetic limbs, after speaking to the person who fabricated the one we commissioned for our Anthem costume, I'm happy to say we may well put the Zip-Grip itself into the costume creator. He's already given his approval to the idea.

I'm pro-beefy metal arm(s), so bring'em on.

I see you've got some gas masks in there for me already....

Awesome teaser the costume sets looks pretty interesting

Was this the delayed announcement? Might just be me, but it feels a little underwhelming.

It's good work, but not much different than stuff we've seen before.

warlocc wrote:

Was this the delayed announcement? Might just be me, but it feels a little underwhelming.

I'm certain that it wasn't the [i]big[/i] one since this is just one that collects what they've posted here and elsewhere in terms of "reveals".

I love the different skin textures, but my question is will some of those also be available as costume piece textures? Looking at the stone skin, would love to also have that on costume pieces to make a living statue warrior.

blacke4dawn wrote:

Cooltastic wrote:

I love the different skin textures, but my question is will some of those also be available as costume piece textures? Looking at the stone skin, would love to also have that on costume pieces to make a living statue warrior.

Since these kinds of pictures/posts are to show of what options are actually available I'm going to go with a [i]Yes, they are[/i].

Cooltasic's question here was the same fundamental one I asked about earlier in the thread and many other times over the years here on this forum.

Basically there are two possibilities and I keep asking if [b]either[/b] will be accounted for:

A) Will "non-human skin" textures be enough to be considered "adequate clothing" if we want to create anything like a "living statue warrior", a Silver Surfer, a Human Torch, a Dark Phoenix or anything remotely similar. There are numerous examples of comic book characters who are effectively "naked" in the comic books but they are allowed to look that way because they are presumably made of stone, metal, fire or some other "non-human skin" material that arguably makes them categorized as being "not naked".

B) More in line with Cooltastic's question will we be able to apply specific "non-human skin" textures directly to specific clothing items so that for instance if I use "metal" skin for my dude I can also have him wear a "speedo" that could ALSO be colored that same exact "metal" skin so the net effect is that he's not strictly naked (he is in fact wearing the speedo) but he would still LOOK 100% metallic. Remember that for historical reference CoH specifically did NOT allow for this option because they were (rightly?) afraid of people running around appearing to be nude via wearing costume items colored with human skin tone colors. But if CoT allowed this for only NON-HUMAN textures/colors it should be fine as per countless comic books printed over the decades.

The main distinction between option A and B is that while a character under option A would technically be 100% nude (albeit with non-human skin textures) the character under option B could still be forced to have "clothes" on but have the option to have those clothes perfectly blend with other non-human skin textures.

Bottomline will CoT allow me to make something like a Silver Surfer or (because it's a T-for-Teen game) will the character creator force me to wear some kind of OBVIOUS clothing despite the non-human skin textures? This always seems like it'd be an easy enough "yes" or "no" type question but I've yet to get a clear answer from the Devs on this, which explains why I keep asking. ;)

TheInternetJanitor wrote:

Why does it matter if they are flesh toned colors if there is nothing there? They'd be a ken doll at worst. The devs aren't going to put in the effort to model and texture genitals just to have to hide them.

To be clear it wouldn't matter to me if they let players run around with otherwise "nude with normal human skin color/textures" because as you say we know for a fact that we are not getting anything in this game any more "anatomically correct" than a Ken/Barbie doll.

But we also know for a historical fact that one of the very first "nerfs" imposed on CoH was the removal of "human skin tones" from the color palette of the costume items so that people couldn't wear "flesh colored" clothing in CoH and appear to be "nude" that way. I suspect at the very least CoT will also adhere to that degree of prohibition.

My argument would be that comic books for decades have made obvious allowances for characters to be effectively "naked" as long as they were also clearly not sporting "normal human skin" textures. We've seen huge numbers of stone, metal, elemental, etc. type characters and I'd simply like to have the option to do the same thing in CoT.

TheInternetJanitor wrote:

I guess at a distance someone could look naked if you don't look too hard, but at that point you aren't going to see a (non flesh tone) speedo either.

Again being able to put "non-human skin" textures on costume items like a speedo or spandex bodysuit might be one way the Devs of this game could "compromise" between allowing strictly nude characters and ones that are still technically wearing clothing that just "coincidentally" matches up with their non-human skin texture. If that's the compromise the Devs of MWM would be willing to take that would be better than nothing in this regard.

The point is if they go with this "Option B" compromise they are going to have to allow costume items to have the same "non-human skin" texture/color choices they would allow for the actual skin of the characters and that was something they strictly PREVENTED in CoH from happening. The game would have to be made to be smart enough to know the difference between a "non-human tone/texture" versus a "standard human skin tone".

TheInternetJanitor wrote:

Interesting. I didn't realize CoH did that. I guess I never bothered to try it, my character designs tended to be very busy. I never really went for the spandex and skin look.

Yes it turns out one of the very first CoH "nerfs" (just weeks after the game launched) involved changes to the "costume color" palette. When the game first launched many of the "standard human skin tone" colors (tans and brown type colors) were available to apply to costume items. These colors were pretty much identical tone/shade wise to options in the "skin color palate". People instantly took advantage of that by creating "nude" characters who weren't strictly nude but were instead wearing clothing (typically skin tight spandex) that was colored the exact same color they used for their skin. Thus the "nerf" which removed those "standard human skin tones" from the costume palette; this was why there weren't any tan/beige/brown colors for costume items.

It was still technically possible to create such "nude" characters in CoH if you were willing to make your character's skin color be something that [b]wasn't[/b] a standard human skin color (like blue, purple or green) because apparently that was acceptable to the CoH Devs.

So the major difference between CoH and CoT is that CoH was limited to simply changing the "color" of a character's skin. Now in CoT we're going to have the ADDITIONAL option of being able to "texture" our skins with things like stone, metal or other obviously "non-human flesh" materials. I'm simply saying that even if CoT wants to continue preventing us from making literal Ken and Barbie dolls (with standard human flesh tones) they should let us make "nude" characters with the non-human skin textures/colors if for no other reason than that comic books have been allowing that for decades.

TheInternetJanitor wrote:

That seems fair.

Interesting additional/useless CoH historical trivia:

Back when CoH first introduced its costume save/load features the CoH Devs did not implement adequate "data validation" for the costume save files. What this meant in practical terms was that people could manually edit the save files (they were just flat text files) and load back [b]any[/b] RGB color values for their costume items they wanted. This proved that CoH was not strictly limited to the few dozen hardwired color choices the color palette GUIs offered but instead we could have theoretically had ANY color we wanted for ANY costume item!

As it turned out the fact that you could hack any colors you wanted quickly spread and was subsequently "hot fixed" within a couple of weeks after the save/load feature began beta testing. IIRC that "feature" never even made it to the live game servers before they nerfed the heck out of it. ;)

TheInternetJanitor wrote:

I wonder if we'll get skin/costume changing effects as part of power aesthetic options?

The main problem with "changing costume options" as a side effect of a power activation is that you're effectively allowing people to change their costumes as quickly as the power could be used/re-used. That would run completely counter to the "arbitrary 30 second costume change cooldown timer" that existed in CoH precisely to prevent people from switching their costumes "too often".

In case you were not aware CoH had an arbitrary 30 second cooldown timer for costume changes. The working theory for why that was needed was that if you were allowed to fire off multiple costume switches as fast as you could press the buttons on your keyboard you could potentially overwhelm the network message traffic being sent to all nearby players with huge amounts of "costume change messages" which would be a major source of griefing. The simplistically ham-fisted solution to that potential problem in CoH was to simply make players wait 30 seconds between each costume change.

Based on posts I've had with Tannim on the subject it's quite likely they are going to use a similar mechanic in CoT. I'm personally hoping they'll be able to make the time period much shorter (say 5 or 10 seconds instead of 30) but regardless of the period used in CoT it's safe to expect there -will- be some kind of timer for this.

Unfortunately this makes your idea of "hardwiring" costume-type changes into the actual activation of any power very problematic at best.

TheInternetJanitor wrote:

I know the old game had rock armor that added chunks of earth to your character rather than change your actual model/texture. With these metal/stone skins though I'm wondering if it would be possible for such an effect to be done more directly. Change the skin to stone or metal when the power is on.

Actually if you looked closely when you activated powers like the "rock armor" you're talking about I'm pretty sure the game just substituted a standardized generic "rock armor" body model for ALL characters; it didn't just dynamically "add" stuff to your unique character body model. That's how that power worked because the generic rock armor was hardwired into that power so everyone saw the exact same figure.

Wait, is that correct that we can't change costumes during combat? If so, that's a step backwards from the old game. I would have thought with the advancement of technology (especially bandwidth) over the years it would become less of a problem, not more of one. :-(

Cinnder wrote:

Wait, is that correct that we can't change costumes during combat? If so, that's a step backwards from the old game. I would have thought with the advancement of technology (especially bandwidth) over the years it would become less of a problem, not more of one. :-(

No this would not be a "step back" in capability - it would actually be a "works just like CoH did" situation.

CoH always let you change your costume any time you wanted, even in the middle of combat. The "trick" was that it always started a 30 second cooldown timer after ANY change regardless of when you changed your costume. You might not have been aware of that if you never really tried to toggle your costumes more often than that.

angelo.pampalone wrote:

Lothic wrote:

As Shadow Elusive just implied I think the "line" between power aesthetics and costume changes is the amount of network data that's involved that Shadow just mentioned.

Let's say for example we each have a character on the same team and your guy has a basic blast power. Now let's say you decided you wanted to make that blast power be purple in color. The amount of data it takes to "transmit" the fact that your power is purple to me so that I see your power as purple on my client is a much, much smaller amount of data than it would need to be for me to see that you've made even a "one item" costume change.

I doubt they'll have any way to transmit "partial costume changes" to individual players so it's going to have to be an all or nothing affair. Simply put seeing your purple power might only take an extra byte or two in a data message whereas a full costume change would likely requires a minimum of hundreds if not thousands of bytes of data per change. It's just not going to be "bandwidth efficient" to transmit power-based costume changes without severe limitations like the "costume timer" that's already been mentioned.

One possible solution could be to send to anyone in a zone all the costume info of everyone else in that zone when one enter a zone, so a costume change would have to broadcast only a tiny reference to some already sent data

Theoretically that could be done but imagine how much data that would be in total. If you had dozens of players in the zone each having 10+ costumes that might approach megabytes of worth of data constantly flying around as network overhead. What you're suggesting might be possible in some far-distant Star Trek like future but that would not likely be a practical solution for Earthly MMOs for years to come.

Shadow Elusive wrote:

Put another way, "How long are you willing to wait for a zone to load, measured in 10 minute increments." That's the situation the 'load all the possible costumes right away' idea would put you in.

To be clear it's not an intrinsically "bad" idea. It's just not a currently feasible one given the general state of technology in 2018. Perhaps this is the way these things might be handled in the future.

angelo.pampalone wrote:

Anyway my idea aside the devs surely are smarter than me on how manage network traffic between clients and/or server

Again what you're talking about here is not "bad" or "wrong". It's just not currently "feasible". That's the critical difference.

Trust me when I say if there was a way to make this game so that it did NOT need a costume change cooldown timer I would absolutely love that because I personally HATED the timer in CoH. But apparently from what Shadow has said here no one's come up with a better solution that accomplishes the same function/purpose that the simple timer does.

Personally I'm hoping that the Devs of CoT will be able to make a compromise and set that timer to only be 5 or 10 seconds long instead of 30. I honestly always thought 30 seconds was FAR TOO long and that 5 or 10 seconds would be long enough to serve the necessary purpose without being arbitrarily excessive.