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Wednesday 11 March 2015

The great hunt for a decent outfit


What is this? Scantily clad women featured on Ravalation? Is this some attempt to broaden my male readership or something? And why do these women not seem to stem from a certain galaxy far, far away? So many questions.

Yes, I am back at multi-gaming again. This weekend, an old LotRO kinnie informed Conrad and I about a limited time offer to buy Guild Wars 2 for 10 euros. I had not played the game before, but I remembered seeing all those beautiful screenshots on Lothirieth's blog. Especially the pretty armour stood out. So we bought the game and I created my mesmer Ravanel, because I thought that profession (read: class) would play the most like LotRO's lore-master, using a lot crowd-control.

The horror!

When I logged in for the first time, my character was wearing an outfit that was perfect for ...a certain type of employment. It seemed like we weren't the only ones taking the 10 euro offer, as more and more scarcely clothed females kept spawning (top picture). 

What are you going on about, Rav? See, they're not even wearing thongs!

This is what it looks like when Ravanel tries to dodge an attack by rolling over. Quite an interesting technique, eh? I was hopeful when a new chestpiece dropped from some mobs... but no, it looked exactly the same. And again. On top of that, being a mesmer seemed to involve waving your staff around, leaving a pink-purple-ish trail of butterflies. So I basically was a skimpy-looking fairy jumping around. This was an insult to Ravanel, wise scholar and lore-master of Lothlórien.

As I really didn't like the animations, I deleted Ravanel and rerolled as an elementalist... only to find she was wearing the same outfit. Then I got an idea, though.

Wait, we got a special legacy armour with this edition of the game. Surely that armour is less revealing, right?

Yeah, uhm... about that....

Are those... suspenders?

At this point I was really getting annoyed with the game, because I didn't like my characters. I know it doesn't make all that much sense, but if I don't enjoy what my characters look like it greatly influences my gaming experience in a negative way. After all, when running around on your characters you look at their butt all the time, and mine was showing way too well.

I surrender

As the skimpy clothing seemed to have to do with rolling a light armour class, I created a medium armour-wearing Norn instead, my hunter ranger (totally ranger) Ravereth. I got to pick a super hot braid and her armour looked nice right from the beginning. Meaning, I didn't get to see her underwear. It also seemed the Norn starter world was beautiful, with lots of wild nature and animals. I even got my own pet bear (LotRO lore-master, anyone?) I was sold.

The first thing Ravereth was told to do was to venture on a great hunt. But I felt I had already completed my own great hunt this evening.


Do you play Guild Wars too? I'm still very much a newbie. If you have any tips or want to hook up to show me around, I would love that.

25 comments :

  1. I haven't played Guild Wars 2 in a very, very long time. But I guess I should mention two things just in case you don't know it yet.

    First is that unlike in other MMOs there is no kill steal in Guild Wars 2. So feel free to attack away the mob someone else is wacking on. Both of you will get credit/loot for it and the mob dies faster.

    Reviving someone who is dead also don't require to be of a specific class so if you see someone in the ground do go click on them and bring them back to their feet. It gives warm fuzzy feelings for both of you. Other people will do the same to you if they see you around down in the floor.

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    1. I did find out about those things and I think they're very nice features. I really like how everything seems to be aimed at comparative gameplay rather than competitive gameplay in Guild Wars. Like crafting nodes that don't disappear when someone else took stuff from them. Now it's actually fun to run around and gather with friends. ^^

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    2. I agree about the cooperative gameplay. I wish that was the standard in MMOs, no the opposite. Although I know someone who doesn't like it much because she thinks it devalues the purpose of grouping.

      Anyway, I just mentioned those things because when I was actually playing I knew someone who didn't know about those stuff and kept getting annoyed when people attacked the same mob as hers. We had to tell her about it so she wouldn't see it as some kind of insult to her person.

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    3. Oops, *cooperative was of course what I was trying to type (I suck at typing at times), but luckily you got what I meant. I really do appreciate you pointing out these things. I can imagine her frustration not knowing that, as everyone helps out everyone all the time.

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  2. At least it only seems to be the Lightly-armoured classes that suffer having to wear those abominations. That said, a combination of the two outfits (keeping and drastically lengthening the skirt of the first and adding it to the second outfit - it would at least cover up those suspenders!) wouldn't be as bad, although of course still not 'perfect'.

    After seeing the 'thing' which is Light Armour, it's nice and actually pleasantly surprising to see that the Medium Armour is much more decent. Obviously it makes no sense to have and/or see revealing Heavy Armour, but to have two armour classes outclass one and for both to be decent and not-at-all revealing is still much better than having two or even all three be at the more revealing end of the scale.

    I do have to say that I feel a bit of a 'Lord of the Rings' vibe from the Ranger outfit, which is a good thing.

    I also agree with your point about character design playing a major part in your overall enjoyment of the game.

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    1. You're right, of course. It was just that having to look at that for the first 10 levels on my first characters was a bit painful. I hope I didn't whine too much, because I know it's going to be better from Lothirieth's blog. I managed to get nice trousers, though, so all is well for Ravanel now. As you said, the miniskirt part was the worst.

      That said, I really love the ranger as well. The Norn world gives me a 'Lord of the Rings' vibe, as well. :)

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  3. The starting light armor is somewhat bad, but you do quickly get armor that isn't so skimpy (country, magician, and student sets.. all are low level, and the embroidered set isn't too bad). And the other armor classes have their fair share of skimpyness too, though medium armor will be less so.. but you'll be overwhelmed with trenchcoats! But, they all have covered choices as well thankfully. It's all a bit difficult in the beginning though!

    Another option, if you're able, is to look into some of the outfits in the store. The Ancestral or Noble outfit are alright and once purchased unlock for your entire account so you can put it on any character of any level and not have to worry about having your armor change.

    And if you want to still give mesmer a go (which is sorta a difficult class to start out with I'd say), ditch the staff and get a greatsword! Or go sword/focus.

    Here's a quickly slapped together screenshot of my most played characters (and the ones who actually have their outfits sorted :P). From left to right, my elementalist, my necro (my original GW2 character that you saw) and my warrior. Some slight skimpyness with the two light armors but I feel like I've created stuff that's fairly respectable!

    http://imgur.com/2M2gIjp

    If you want, I can send you some low level non-skimpy stuff for your memser. :P Though looking on the trading post, you'd have to be at least level 6 in order to wear it (though it's really fast to get to that level.) You can add me as well if you want, if you ever have questions or need help: Lothirieth.3408

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    1. I love what your characters look like! The middle one is my favourite: I wish it was heavy armour. I would totally wear that on Haradwen and dye it gold and red. Oh, and I actually picked the same hairstyle as your necromancer for Ravanel initially. If only you could have more than 5 characters by default...

      I love your elementalist's outfit as well. The jacket is cute, but why doesn't she wear a shirt under it? *glances deadly at the developers* Sigh.

      Anyway, I added you to my friend list, although I haven't been able to catch you online yet. I've levelled up my elementalist (Ravanel) to 20 now as we speak (what can I say, exploring in Guild Wars is addictive), and I managed to craft some good-looking trousers for her. So now I'm all happy. I'm doing level 20 quests in level 10 gear but hey, all for fashion!

      If there is anything you could craft, it would be some heavy armour for my warrior that looks different from the starter's armour (something level 10-20ish), but I don't know if that exists. I haven't been able to find any so far. It's not something that bothers me hugely, though. Her armour doesn't look very good, but at least there's no undies showing up. ^^

      That said, I noticed that getting crafting ingredients can be somewhat of a pain in Guild Wars, so if it's hard then please don't bother with it and forget I mentioned it.

      I had already been wondering about all those mesmers running around with swords. So I guess DPS is just much better with them? Somehow I don't find swords fitting for my mesmer. Playing her has gotten better now she is of a higher level. The scepter seems at least doable (or at least, much better than staff for soloing normal landscape stuff). It's not really that I hated the profession, but it's more that the happy butterflies really didn't fit with my headcanon of Ravanel. My new mesmer is a happy plant, so that works better.

      Oh yeah, my name is Ravanel.3409.

      Thanks for all your tips!

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  4. Let's try to make that image a link.. one more time. -_-

    http://i.imgur.com/2M2gIjp.jpg

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    1. Blogspot disables hyperlinks in comments to prevent spam/malware. I copy/pasted the link, and your outfits are beautiful. :)

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    2. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. Blogspot comments are a bit archaic I fear. Rowan is right in that Blogspot disables hyperlinks, but... blog owners can set their blog to allow html. So I did enable hyperlinks for this blog, but you'll have to use html to let them show up.

      So here is your image link being an actual link: http://i.imgur.com/2M2gIjp.jpg.

      It would be even better if the picture would show in the comments yourself. Luckily it appears someone was as nice to write some javascript for that, but it does not seem to work for everyone. So let me try if it works below:

      [img]http://i.imgur.com/2M2gIjp.jpg[/img]

      In case the above doesn't work, I've also added some javascipt from someone else from here, which should make the following work:

      [im]http://i.imgur.com/2M2gIjp.jpg[/im]

      I'll add some guidance to posting links, images and videos (the latter two if I get them to work) to comments soon. That was already on my to-do list, but I forgot about it a bit.

      Feel free to experiment with links below.

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    3. Hahaha, well, they work, alright! Your characters are really shining on my blog now. xD

      I'm going to remove the second javascript now because having one is enough, so the second picture (with the im tag) won't show any more. But it's good to know it did work.

      It may be possible to set a max width for pictures in the comment section somewhere in my blog's code. That would obviously be a bit better. I'll look into that at some point, but it'll require me to dig deeper into html so that will be for later. :)

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    4. Big picture is big! And don't work too hard trying to figure all that out. I only posted that picture for your benefit to show that armor does get better! :P (Remember lowbie Lotro armor before the wardrobe?! :P )

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    5. Ohh yes, I remember that; SoA armour looked absolutely dreadful! Especially those hats were hilarious. I think looking ugly inspired me to level faster at the start. But at least there was absolutely no way those jute sacks showed your underwear. ^^

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  5. Awwww, come on, Rav, you mean you don't want the whole world to see your red undies when you dodge an attack!? I thought everyone wanted that! (Joking, of course) I must say, though, that I am impressed with the beauty of the graphics on GW2. I have never played the game seeing as how SWTOR is the only MMO that I have ever played (and only began playing because it is Star Wars themed). I wish you the best of luck in finding the kind of gear that you are looking for in GW2. The one thing that I did like about SWTOR was the fact that no matter what gender you choose, you start in the same garb as the rest of those in your class (at least as far as Imperial classes go-I assume it is the same on the Republic side). I look forward to seeing how things go in GW2 for you as you progress. You always have the most beautiful screenshots.

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    1. Shhh, I secretly *love* showing off my undies, but you know how it is... Conrad gets so jealous at all the attention! ;) (j/k)

      I'm really impressed by what the in-game world in Guild Wars looks like, too. Especially the Norn world looks enchantingly beautiful (Norns are a crossover giant-Viking like race). It reminds me a lot of running through virtual Middle-earth in Lord of the Rings Online. I'm a Star Wars fan, but I'm even more of a Tolkien fan. So that's probably why Guild Wars has been absorbing much of my time lately.

      None of the SWTOR original outfits or quest rewards are revealing. It's only when you go look for it on the GTN that you can find that kind of stuff, and it's all from the Cartel market. So it's always your own choice if you want to look slutty. That's something I appreciate about SWTOR. I actually was a big fan of the consular starter's outfit. I was gutted when I found out there wasn't a moddable version available!

      It's really cool to hear you like my pictures. I'll make sure to add plenty of then in my next post. :)

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  6. This is one of the elements I was always very partial about in gw2. So many of the outfits fall on either end of the grandmas clothing, or Mardi Gras performer scale. Their just wasn't enough interesting items in the middle their. There are a few nice outfits and combinations though, and I love how the dye system works as well.

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    1. I love the dye system as well. I just hope the perfect outfit for my character is somewhere out there. Meanwhile, I have something to look forward to. :)

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  7. Although I have a large beef with GW2 wardrobe, especially with light and heavy sets and gender dimorphism, it does get better.

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    1. Thanks, I have something to look forward then. :)

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  8. You definitely aren't the only one with this problem. :)

    Being able to mix and match skins from all levels of armor really helped. I eventually managed to find a cute but modest outfit for my elementalist. I use the top from http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magician_armor and the skirt/tights from http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cabalist_armor

    Here are some other options:
    http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Acolyte_armor
    http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Student_armor
    http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Devout_armor
    http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Seer_armor
    http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illustrious_armor_%28light%29
    http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dry_Bones_armor#Crafting - the bottom is fine, the top sort of works
    http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Radiant_armor - ditto

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    1. Thanks for dropping by and taking the time to look up all that armour! It took a while for your comment to show up because it got caught by the spam filter, oops. It's the first time that has happened, so sorry about that (I guess it was the combination of Anonymous comments and external links).

      I like the Acolyte, Devout and Radiant armour, although I'm not sure they would all fit Ravanel. I guess I'll just see what I'll run into. I once made the mistake of looking up light armour on the Black Lion trading post and ran into a lot of stuff on there that was much worse than the starter light armour! But I'm sure I'll find something eventually. I bet there's a lot of stuff you can barter or get from doing quests or dungeons that don't show of on the trading post.

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  9. You have a wardrobe system in GW2, so once you equip (or salvage) a piece of armor or a weapon, the look gets added. So once you have clothing with more coverage, it's shared for everyone. You do need a transmog stone to apply a new look to a piece of clothing, but you can easily get them for 100% exploration of each of the main racial cities plus Lion's Arch. Or you can buy some in the store, but I found running all alts through all cities kept me in transmog stones (you get more occasionally by leveling or exploring zones, I forget which).

    Check the AH - blue quality gear is extremely cheap, you can easily find a look that is more covered, especially since low-level crafted gear falls into that category for light armor.

    Also, visit all the racial capitals and check out the cultural armor, some of them are rather nice. You do need karma to buy them and they're level 35, 60 and 80, but pick out a nice one and save up for it. They are restricted to that race, tho (make sure to preview it on both genders, if you have 2 genders of one race... they're quite different - I'm miffed that I *can't* find extremely revealing armor for men).

    And: play charr or asura, they have much less-revealing clothing! Asura have awesome animations, and charr are one of the very few animal-like races I've seen in a game that are not just furry humans with stuff stuck on them. The females don't even have breasts *hearts* Slyvari mainly look human, but since they are essentially plants that mimic humans, and their underwear is plant stuff, I don't mind them showing more skin as much as I do humans/norns.

    Medium armor is the most covering, light is the most revealing, and heavy is mainly covered but has some sets that are half-naked.

    Mesmer are a fun class (tho quite squishy until you get the hang of them, so feel free to explore the game on a sturdier character first. I found ranger and guardian quite sturdy early-on), don't let the early skimpy armor drive you away.

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    1. Thanks for all the fashion advice! I did find out about the transmogation charges (is that what they were called?) and made sure to at least discover the capitals of each race I've been playing. I think I'll hold onto them for a bit, though, since there's a limited "free" supply of them. I'm sure I might run into nicer looking gear later on and don't want to spend them until I have a decent idea of what's available and what looks good on my character.

      Races
      I agree with your assessment of the Sylvari: since they are plants they just don't look sexy to me, no matter what they're wearing. So I'm fine with the light armour mine wears. The Charr and Asura race don't really appeal to me, though, I don't know why (I'm probably boring).

      Mesmer
      I rerolled my mesmer as a Sylvari, because I felt the animations fit that character better. It's probably not the fastest class to level with in landscape, but it has grown on me. I found I can solo about anything with the tools I have (e.g. the illusions and the whole array of CC). I'm quite accustomed of playing a mobile ranged class from playing my sorcerer healer in PvP in SWTOR (as you can imagine healers get picked on, so that's where the mobility kicks in), so it's something I can appreciate. That said, I can really enjoy my ranger and warrior as well, especially when I'm tired and just want to relax a bit.

      Revealing armour
      I'm not hugely against revealing armour in games (sorry if I raised that impression), but it did annoy me a bit that it was forced upon me in the form of a starter outfit. I like it best if the options for such clothing are equal for both genders. It looks like this is only the case for women, though, and for that I'm disappointed with Guild Wars. I once visited TERA and there the ridiculousness of the revealing outfits really cracked me up, especially since it was the same for dudes (gives women something fun to look at, too). ^^

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