Today, I’ll be discussing the specifics of the armor appearance changes
as discussed in the last producer’s letter.  After much deliberation
about how to give players new appearances without imposing them on all
players, we’re  introducing a system that gives everyone the freedom to
choose how they wish to look without compromising their character’s
power.

This new system introduces Appearance Slots, a brand new concept to Warhammer Online.  Appearance Slots allow you to apply a specific look of armor to anything that you are currently wearing without needing to swap the item out and alter your stats.  This means that if you prefer the stats of Tyrant and the art of Sovereign, you can apply the art of your Sovereign piece to your Tyrant piece.  The system saves the art to the worn piece of armor, which means (in this example) you do not need to hold onto the Sovereign piece once applied.  You can discard it, or you can keep it in your bank to reapply the appearance again later.  Additionally, un-equipping the Tyrant piece will not cause the appearance to reset.  It will remain applied until you overwrite it with another appearance or manually reset the appearance.  In light of the fact that we do not want players to use this system solely to confuse the opposing realm in RvR, the appearance you apply to your equipment can only be seen by players of your own realm.  Players of the opposing realm will see the equipment as if no alternate appearance has been applied to it.

In order to apply an appearance to a piece of armor, you must first be wearing that piece in your normal equipment slot.  There is a new checkbox on the paper doll window titled ‘Appearance.’  Checking this box flips the equipment slots over to display the appearance slots.  Uncheck it to return to your equipment slots.  All slots that are not eligible to receive appearances will be grayed out (more on eligibility later).  Going back to the previous example, equip your Tyrant armor in the equipment slot and then drag the Sovereign piece into the corresponding appearance slot.  This will save the Sovereign art to the Tyrant piece without moving the item from your inventory, allowing you to do what you wish with the Sovereign item.  If you wish to remove the appearance, simply right click the item in the appearance slot to reset the art on the Tyrant piece.  Once applied, hovering your mouse over the appearance slot will display the name of the applied item.  Switching back to the normal equipment slots and hovering over the Tyrant item will display a tooltip that shows the normal item tooltip with text that reads “Alternate appearance applied” and the name of the applied item.

In terms of how dyes work, the dye will always be applied to and will always display from the item that is in your normal equipment slot.  This means that if you apply a Green Sovereign piece to your existing Black Tyrant piece, the armor will look like a Black Sovereign piece.  The piece will need to be dyed Green after the art from Sovereign has been applied if you wish it to retain its color.

There is a small set of rules that determine whether or not an item can be used in this new appearance system:

  • Only items for the following slots can be adjusted: Helm, Shoulders, Back, Body, Gloves, Belt, Boots, Main Hand, Off Hand, and Ranged.
  • In order to apply the appearance of one item to the next, you must be able to use the items and they must match the type and slot of the item you’re trying to apply it to.
  • Last but not least, both items involved must either be Bind on Equip or Bind on Pickup.
    • If you utilize a Bind on Equip item, it will bind to you (providing a confirmation box).

As a method of feedback, if the item is a valid item it will display tooltip text that reads “Alternate appearance available.”

It’s also important to note that since we have decided to introduce this completely customizable option for all players to adjust their appearance, we have made the decision to not alter the appearances of existing armor sets in game. All of the previewed art that you saw for the new sets are available in the world already, now the challenge of finding those individual pieces lies ahead!

Ultimately, our goal is to allow you the freedom to appear as you desire without feeling hampered by our decisions as to where to apply the art.  Happy dressing!