Despite appearances, the personage depicted above is not a fashion victim with more money than sense, a colour-blind circus barker, a tourist at the Venice carnival or an actor in an Elizabethan masque. No. It is, gods above help us, a young lady sporting the latest in LOTRO action wear for archers, namely the complete +30 radiance Hunter set which will drop from the Dol Guldur 12-man instance. Or, in other words, the mightiest and most advanced Hunter armour set to date.
What's that you said? She looks like an utter twit? I couldn't agree more. But that, nevertheless, is what Turbine's fashion designers have decreed for the winter '09 collections. Never mind that nobody in their right mind is going to want to be seen dead in a ditch wearing that clown suit. True, it does have the distinction of being the ugliest bit of LOTRO armour since those dreadful purple things some lunatic devised for the Ettenmoors, but still...
It remains a puzzle to me how the design team which came up with some of the most brilliant environments and landscapes I have ever seen in a computer game can be so amazingly lame where clothing and armour are concerned. What makes it worse is that they are obviously baffled by the whole concept of Hunters. They can just about fudge it with the heavies (give'em lots of plate mail, then add more bits on top of that) and with Lore-masters (robes, robes, robes), but it's quite obvious, looking at earlier efforts such as the Lady's Favour set from Dar Narbugud, that they don't have a clue what a Hunter might want to look like.
These hideous rococco creations might be just about tolerable if there was one plain, serviceable, campaign-style set of Hunter armour in the entire game which could at least be worn cosmetically. Something along the lines of plain boots, leather leggings and simple chain mail in muted earth colours would be nice - but there isn't. Lore-masters at least get a chance of acquiring the sober, unadorned, simple black Robe of Viisaus which is the reward for completing Vol I/Bk 13/Ch 4 ; judging by the number of these I've seen recently, there's a real demand out there for unfancy gear. But no, there's nothing like that in medium armour.
As for weapons - don't get me started on the neon glow, radioactive, three-sizes-too-large rejects from a drunken WoW design session we've been seeing lately...
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5 comments:
"they don't have a clue what a Hunter might want to look like"
Oh i dunno, my elven huntress is totally excited about the upcoming armour set, as well as the previous DN set, because it fits her style perfectly. Forum goers seem to mostly dislike the set looks, but I guess other people have different character concepts for their hunters.
"Something along the lines of plain boots, leather leggings and simple chain mail in muted earth colours would be nice - but there isn't."
I'm not sure about the chain shirt, but everything else you mention can be easily found in medium/light armour, most even from normal armour vendors. I've collected a rather nice set of "normal" clothing for my toons just by keeping an eye on vendors, random drops and AH, and I've seen people assemble some pretty creative combinations. Here's my 50-something captain just for example: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v314/Noanoa/sandyclothes.jpg (only gloves are heavy armour - I use the shirt&pants for many of my characters, and then add some variation with shoulders, hats and boots).
Luckily the skirmishes will give us some more outfit pieces, personally I'm looking forward to the new shirts that should be pretty cool to combine with all the different pants already in the game.
(long comment is loooong)
If you take off the utterly lame helmet it's not too bad. Pairing it with a hooded cloack helps.
Regardless, the armor designs in LoTRO are amazingly spotty for a game that is so pretty overall. Some are OK, many are simply hideous. And the helmet designs by and large seem like some kind of lame joke the developers are playing on us.
I don't know man. I like simple looking cosmetic outfits on my toons as well, but I don't think end-game raiding gear should look like levi's and a t-shirt.
That pic up there is..well...not the greatest but I don't think it looks that bad. Now if the champ set looks similar I will have a fit! :)
Back in the old MP days (before morons completely wrecked it) we used to have the daily 'Ugly Helmet Alert.' Some days it was hard to pick just one...
This isn't the ugliest. The Burglar's Silent Knife set is the ugliest. At least this one is form fitting. My Burglar set make me look like a chimney sweeper.
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