Thread: More realistic, not-over-the-top, weapon skins...

I think it would be great to just release the new legendary weapons without giant horse heads on them, some weird parry elements or looking like some ceremonial weapon!
The weapons are for use, and the shall look so!
I just wish for normal, nice and clean skins of all those LI's, so that I can identify with my character and my weapons. Just let it look like real weapons, please. For the sake of the role-playing...
They did a great job with the Isengard cosemtics/armour, I really liked most of the designs!

I really like the models of the old shadow of angmar-wepaons.
My favorite staff is the runed yew-staff and the old lebethron and blackashbows for my hunter. They look great. Beautiful but not-over-the-top.

So yes I support this suggestion.

I'd pay good TP for an equipment equivalent of the wardrobe.

fully agreed with OP.

Please keep weapon and armor skins realistic.

It's so easy. Just take medieval equipment as reference (or Lotro weapons/armor of the low level area). With a little research you will find a huge variety of appearance, even many exotic ones. Or, if this is too much work, just take the movie as reference, which draws its superb atmosphere for a large part of the intentially used down-to-earth equipment.

I agree. There isn't and shouldn't be a need for funky, crazy, over the top WoW style weapons.

I agree. The SoA weapons were lovely.

Pretty much all of the LI skins have been ugly & horrible.

My LM still has a nice collection of Staffs handy should cosmetic weapons ever be introduced.

The best idea would be a weapon cosmetic system. What a customer wants for a weapon look is highly variable. I suspect with 10,000 customers, you get 10,000 different answers. There are going to be folks that like the Butterfly on a Stick for the Lore Master. Or a horse head on something.

I don't think the recent weapon skins have been bad at all.

Of course it's rather hard to tell because they're all covered in glowing plasma. If they toned that down alone it would do wonders for 'realism'.

Originally Posted by Bohegar

fully agreed with OP.

Please keep weapon and armor skins realistic.

It's so easy. Just take medieval equipment as reference (or Lotro weapons/armor of the low level area). With a little research you will find a huge variety of appearance, even many exotic ones. Or, if this is too much work, just take the movie as reference, which draws its superb atmosphere for a large part of the intentially used down-to-earth equipment.

Couldnt say it better, 100% agree

I am all for realistic weapons and armor. I really liked the old SoA ones and the Isengard armors look nice too. More of that, less of the flashy high-fantasy stuff!

This will probably end up like the suggestion's we had over at CM's website in Europe when a few of us wrote about a 5 page in-depth system for allowing the crafter to customise their weapons, pre-moria LI's. We then modified so that it would cover LI's too. It was pretty much ignored by Dev input even when we copied it to the US side. Frankly, they don't care about that type of system (Skins in this case rather then crafter controlled creation) as it's far too much work for very little gain (In Store sales for example). A cosmetic weapon system presents all manner of issue's, for example new checks in ettenmoor's code to stop showing cosmetic weapons. They already said that weapon's work on an entirely different system to armour (As do shield's which are counted as weapon's in their system). So how much code they could recycle could be an issue too as if they need to scratch build fresh code, it's even more unlikely to come in to existence, especially any time soon with the team working on RoR and other, yet to be revealed projects.

Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE, a cosmetic weapon system, or a new component to weapon crafting which allows a player to assign their on hilts, blades etc to crafted weapons. I really would.

My initial post was not aimed at some new cosmetics system, but at the creation of all the new in-progress weapons skins to look more authentic and less WoW.

But with that cosmetics system, I would suggest if we're talking about that, it could work like this:

- enhanced armour system, added a few slots (one for each type of weapon)
- so you got new slots per armour set: sword, two-handed sword, longbow, corssbow, staff, shield,...
- you can use any weapon you are able to equip to the corresponding slot of that armour set
- the devs would just have to introduce checks for "if cosmetic weapon used" und display that instead, but not change animations and stuff...


Are there any precise information about what exactly would be so hard about such change? I mean, why exactly does the weapon system cause so much problems regarding cosmetics?


Oh, and please, besides of this, discuss the original topic again. It was about how the actual weapons look like. And less "legendary glow" or even none would also be a great change!

Originally Posted by Kongas

I'd pay good TP for an equipment equivalent of the wardrobe.

Oh me too. This would be a dream come true.

Originally Posted by Arphindiel

My initial post was not aimed at some new cosmetics system, but at the creation of all the new in-progress weapons skins to look more authentic and less WoW.



Oh, and please, besides of this, discuss the original topic again. It was about how the actual weapons look like. And less "legendary glow" or even none would also be a great change!

I've wanted this for a really long time. The movies portrayed just how I want my LIs to look. Non flashy and functional.

Cosmetic shields wont happen ...
http://www.lotrolife.com/news_full/l...c_shields/556/

As for the legendary item looks: Maybe there will be a feature that allows us to copy the skin from one weapon to another.
It would certainly get some fresh air into some of the old instances for item-skin hunting reasons.

I just dont want my 2 handed great sword to look like a lightsaber anymore :/

I often wonder if the original devs are still working on this game. I remember back when it was in development, they took great pride in the fact that the armour and weapons DID look realistic. They took great pains to research the look of the gear, and in the case of the elvish and dwarvish gear, to make it look distinctive yet usable.

Today, everything looks like it came straight from WoW or Warhammer or something. Far, far too fanciful (note, that's not the same as fancy). Too many hooks and points and things that would be completely impractical in combat.

Remember the KISS rule, devs!

Maybe instead of being single-output recipes, Turbine could convert the LI's into multiple-output ones with the only change between them being the weapon skin. It could even just be recycling some of the better late SoA weapons and early LI skins (*cough* bows without the butt ugly axe blade *cough*).

And while we're on the topic... can we PLEASE get the bloody bow turned 90 degrees so the inside of the curve faces down? Removing those butt-ugly axe blades was a huge step up but if a hunter uses a quiver the bow still pokes through it. That or drop the quiver location a few units on the back so that at least the bow is sitting ON it instead of IN it. ><

How can you even see the skin with all that damn ugly glowing, pulsating light over the beautiful artwork of the legendary weapon? Before they do anything with the artwork, remove (or allow the removal) of that foolish glow.

Originally Posted by ETSubmariner

How can you even see the skin with all that damn ugly glowing, pulsating light over the beautiful artwork of the legendary weapon? Before they do anything with the artwork, remove (or allow the removal) of that foolish glow.

Yep i'm thinking the same.

Always crossing my fingers for cosmetic weapons (they would make so much money in the store with this, if that's their motivation). But at the very least I'd like them to get rid of or tone down that damn ugly Saran wrap effect on LIs we've been complaining about for three years now. Part of the reason why the SoA weapons look better is because they're not covered in that hideous plastic effect. You can actually see their detail.

Another thread on this topic: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...e-Weapons-Glow

People probably have different opinions and it's all a matter of taste, but personally, I'd love to see the removal of LI skins completely. What in Middle-earth is wrong with a bow that looks like a bow, instead of something that looks like it's been attacked by an electric neon jellyfish?

I agree. It doesn't need to be overly ornate. Elegance is simplicity sometimes.

P.S. Seriously, what is with that big... axe blade... on the front of some bows? What would you do, hit somebody with your bow?

I would love to see this. I like the FA 59-60 from Moria.

Originally Posted by Nyrion

I don't think the recent weapon skins have been bad at all.

Of course it's rather hard to tell because they're all covered in glowing plasma. If they toned that down alone it would do wonders for 'realism'.

Agreed. Just give me a graphics option to turn off all of that glowy particle-effect nonsense (without turning off a broad swath of nice graphics effects in the rest of the game), and I'll be quite pleased.

One of the reasons game developers offer for not allowing that sort of thing is that they believe it's important for the owner of the equipment to get to define how it looks, for them and for others who look at it. My advice: toss that particular bad idea into the circular file. I'm not playing the game so Dillweed Imsohot can flash his glowy weapons in my face, or so he and I can "compare notes" on what he has equipped without any differences. It's what I see on my own monitor that counts, just like it's what I hear from my headphones that counts. If I want to turn off player music, I will. And if I want to tone down the graphics on your weapons (and mine), I should be able to do that too.

Originally Posted by Tiamo

I often wonder if the original devs are still working on this game.

A lot of them are, but some of the imperatives are going to change over time. One example of this was their desire to take the game to China - wanting to appeal to that market would almost certainly drive them to make some changes to PvP, graphical style, etc. Now that China has fallen through, perhaps that pressure is lower again (although trying to get more mass market appeal in the transition to F2P would also push them in that direction).

Khafar

Originally Posted by Nyrion

I don't think the recent weapon skins have been bad at all.

Of course it's rather hard to tell because they're all covered in glowing plasma. If they toned that down alone it would do wonders for 'realism'.

This! I detest this effect. Please allow me to turn it off.

I just don't want to see anymore of the half eaten pop tart warden shields. I haven't seen a single example of a real shield used by soldiers that had a giant hole in it for their spears to slide through. I don't mind the round shields but a square shield with a round hole is ridiculous.

Originally Posted by gelleg

I just don't want to see anymore of the half eaten pop tart warden shields. I haven't seen a single example of a real shield used by soldiers that had a giant hole in it for their spears to slide through. I don't mind the round shields but a square shield with a round hole is ridiculous.

Actually, shields with the corner chopped off like that were not uncommon, though they were actually intended more for mounted use.

only example I could find was used by knights and were intended for use with lances not spears.

Originally Posted by gelleg

only example I could find was used by knights and were intended for use with lances not spears.

Right. That's what I was referring to.

while i do agree to a point i do believe that over the top has a place in lore when it comes to swords. yes remove the plasma look thats ########. however if u read the books which i hope many of us have done many swords glowed at the approach of certain enemies particularly in the hobbit( sting with orcs, glamdring i believe was goblins, and the sword that thorin took cant remember what enemy caused it to glow). so yes while parts of your post i agree with to a point over the top has a place in lore just not the flowy plasma look.

It would be interesting if for example a weapon with title 'orc slayer' would glow only when you are in fight with at least one orc. Similarly for the rest of weapons.

Or at least only in fight.

Originally Posted by Tuczniak

It would be interesting if for example a weapon with title 'orc slayer' would glow only when you are in fight with at least one orc. Similarly for the rest of weapons.

Or at least only in fight.

This effect was in game back in SoA and survived through MoM/SoM at least. My bow would get a blue haze when close to orcs for example. This seems entirely appropriate if you think of weapons like Sting and I quite liked it. Y'know I honestly can't recall if this effect still exists or if it was ditched - haven't had a slayer title on my bow for a while.

Originally Posted by Telaron70

This effect was in game back in SoA and survived through MoM/SoM at least. My bow would get a blue haze when close to orcs for example. This seems entirely appropriate if you think of weapons like Sting and I quite liked it. Y'know I honestly can't recall if this effect still exists or if it was ditched - haven't had a slayer title on my bow for a while.

It still exists. Most weapons that do extra damage against a particular foe will glow when that foe is near.

Originally Posted by gunnut88

so yes while parts of your post i agree with to a point over the top has a place in lore just not the flowy plasma look.

So there are thousands and thousands of players (characters) out there in virtual middle earth and you think that EVERYONE owns some absolutely rare epic weapons which mankind hasn't seen for long times and which are just myths?

No, your role is NOT epic! You are NOT a dragon slayer or shi* like that, you are just a normal person who supports the fellowship very indirectly, mostly not knowing what he's doing!
It would be very unlogical if everyone would have such a great weapon, because, thinks about it, it wouldn't be great anymore, if everyone has one!

I agree with you that it does not make sence that every player has some weapon that noone has heard of except in legends. But what i do not agree with is the idea that over the top (with limits has I have said I dont like the flowy plasma look) has no place in Tolkien lore. To say otherwise is to throw every book of Tolkiens out the window and say he was wrong.

Let's then come to the conclusion that everyone would be very happy if the overlay effect would be possible to disable.

And that the weapons design is okay as is with limits and eventually a little more alternation.

Originally Posted by Nyrion

I don't think the recent weapon skins have been bad at all.

Of course it's rather hard to tell because they're all covered in glowing plasma. If they toned that down alone it would do wonders for 'realism'.

Agree to 100%