Weapon Colors.

[Xel]

I'm almost positive that this has been brought up at least once before, but I can't seem to locate the topic with a simple search, and it's been awhile, so I'm putting it on paper again.

It's come to my attention that weapons on icons in CL have two colors dedicated to them, much in the same way that other clothes have their shading done.

Why don't we have some coloring going on? Seems to me like there is another jump of customization here that CL could have been capitalizing on for a long time, seeing as we already do the same with our outfits and such.

So, I'd suggest a few possible things.

First, have certain special weapons, like the bloodblade, fell, goss, and other more interesting or "special" weapons (like greatswords, being yellow/gold) have their own distinct colors. Like the bloodblade would be red, obviously. The Fell could be a light-grey, and the gossamer could have a tinge of green, or something along those lines (even if the colors don't completely match a given weapon, I think it would be a little more about the personality of it than making sense.) And I know that people would argue all day long about what colors to have on what weapons, but the idea is sound, I believe.

Second, I know that certain GM's have had a hankering to start adding wearable weapons. If this happens, perhaps the status of the weapon could be given via the color. I like this idea less, however, as it's not about customization, just how worn your weapon is at the time. (I don't much like the idea of weapons that wear, either, unless they have distinct advantages conferred upon them for said disadvantage.)

Third, simply allow coloring of weapons in a purely stylistic manner. Any weapon can have any color, and there might be a variety of ways to color them, such as quests, some special forging processes, whatever a creative GM thinks they can come up with. I'm hung up on this one, simply because I know people will want the infinite combinations of coloring and so forth, even though it might be the best route.

So, please vote, or put down some suggestions of your own, whatever. Just wanted it out there. I imagine these poll options should suffice.

-Xel

[Daimoth]

I voted number one because it makes most sense.

But three is cool in the ooc way.

As long as there's a way to change weapon colors I'm fine. This shade of blue is murder.

[Skirwan]

Every time the palette for a sprite changes the whole palette is re-transmitted to the client and the client needs to re-generate any cached representation of the sprite. When swappable clothing was first introduced, apparently folks at DT were concerned that this might be an issue, either because it could use too much bandwidth or because many people rapidly swapping clothing could cause problems for players with slow machines. This is why there are delays preventing you from rapidly changing clothes.

If DT still considers this restriction important, then they would probably not allow sprite colors to change when equipping weapons unless there were similar delays forced on equipping weapons.

That said, I'm not sure this is still an issue any more. Bandwidth is even less of an issue today than it was five(?) years ago, and we're only talking about 26 bytes plus the length of the character's name. And with 68k support finally lumbering towards extinction and a semi-official almost-supported Windows client floating around, I think most players have a computer capable of handling a re-palletizing a few sprites every frame.

[noivad]

I like the idea of different color weapons. I'm just not sure how best to implement it. I'd prefer wearable weapons that had a complex coloring coding like type, level and wear would affect the base class, that way people would have all kinds of colored weapons, just like everyone has different clothes these days.

Here's an idea:

Perhaps each weapon could have a base color chosen by the player it it's reasonable to have a color choice. Axe blades and sword blades would all be the same color, and be shinier (lighter) or darker based on wear, while their hilts and handles could be painted up wood the player just needs paint to choose. It would get darker and dirtier as time went on, and upkeep for appearances would be very, very low -- less than clothes.

Weapon Wear?
As far as actual weapon wear, well if it was introduced it should be inline with actual weapon wear: steel and wood and leather would last years, even in the most negligent hands, so it'd never disintegrate, but it could dull (which blacksmiths with minor training could resharpen very cheaply) or otherwise become less effective. We're talking about a few coins a month IC.

If the wood or leather or steel were to break -- and there would have to be previous levels of wear down to "very worn" first so the player has plenty of chances never to let their weapon break from neglect -- the player would get all the pieces and would just have to have them repaired by a blacksmith, woodworker or tailor. Maybe you'd need a log or wood, and maybe you'd need tailoring supplies, but it would be assumed all the steel was recoverable, unlike chains are sometimes (which I think is pretty stupid - or rather the chance of not recovering all the metal should be very, very, very low.)

That's a lot of work I know, but it's just an idea to go along with weapon color.

[Pun'isher]

As long as Pink is an option!

[Cinnamon]

Weapons colours are neat. I like option one.

Gear degradation is a different issue totally. If it's to be discussed it should get its own thread so I can behave poorly there.

[Connie Crete]

k, when I read tha first, it looked like I'd be havin a different icon fer carryin a notta axe as from an axe. Initially, havin specific colors fer which notta axe I had sounds neat, but I got kinda confused about what would be involved with that - it sounded like more'n jest colors.

Weapons what wears - bad. Shiny Dagger clucks is bad enough.

Paintin tha big axe. So I could have two big axes o different colors and sit and switch em (balance tax be damned) ta have a flashin weapon.. funny. What about my ubergoss? What about Del's rock candy? Would it be anythin held in tha right hand? So there's Lorikeet keelin rats (causn Ima so slow keelin tha munkies) and then she needs a Tyken -- does that change color when she disarms?

Would tha paintin o tha weapon cause it ta be 'sticky' tha way Fells was way back whenever, I dun fergotted?

[Connie Crete]

Oh ya, hijack alert - colored helmets befer colored weapons!

[Skirwan]

Oh ya, hijack alert - colored helmets befer colored weapons!

Secondary hijack alert - hats (fedoras!) for Zo before colored helmets!

[xepel]

We ended up with sorta like the first (except with -ites), and definitely the third. Weapon colorization is definitely a new form of "reward."

(Close?)