Test Server Feedback

So, I managed to sneak onto Sisi last night about half an hour before scheduled downtime. Not enough time to run around looking at missiles and stuff, so I hopped into the character customization tool to take a peek at some of the stuff I'd heard was added. (I know the post is lacking images - I'm at work right now and can't log in to take screenshots. I'll be logging in when I get home so I'll try and get some then to show what I mean.)

Skintones
The first thing I noticed was that the new skintones weren't available - presumably because we hadn't been given recustomization tokens on Sisi. This is fine - I have a spare character slot on my primary account and I'll get a chance to look at them with it later. Seriphyn also brought up some issues with immersion elsewhere in the forum.

Clothing
The second thing I noticed was the new clothing options in the Outer, Top, Bottom and Feet categories. The first reaction I had was "YES, FINALLY!" So, after a bunch of poking around here's what I found in there for female avatars:
- Outer: In the list, you have NeX items first, then a set of new "strappy" outfits that have little necktie-like bits. Then there's the old default outer jackets, and then some more new things that are basically tight-fitting sleeves with popped-out collars. These are coupled with some other bits in the "Bottom" category.
- Top: Only one new item I saw, a black shirt with a red five-pointed star on it.
- Bottom: There's a few new items in here that are best described as latex body/skinsuits that go from the avatar's ankles up to just below her shoulders, in varying colors.
- Feet: There's a bunch of new shoes in the list. See the issues list below.

Issues

The first and most easily noticeable issue is that you can't switch back and forth between different clothing items just by clicking on the item anymore. In order to swap between, say, two 'bottom' items, one has to click on the X in the clothing picker to remove the item in question, then click on the new one to put it on. Annoying, but possible to work around it. A possibly related issue where you can cause the picker to get locked to mouse movement, causing it to scroll even though you're trying to interact with other parts of the screen. You can get it to stop moving around by clicking in the picker on something that isn't a clothing item, but it's really irritating.

The second issue is that shoes don't work at the moment. You can take off the shoes you have on already, but you can't put on any other pairs. You can't replace the shoes you took off either, without exiting the customization tool and reopening it.

A third issue that is specific to the new "Bottom" clothing: because of rules implemented to prevent us from running around in our underwear, we're required to have both a 'Bottom' and either a 'Top', 'Outer' or 'Mid' layer item in order to progress to the portrait-snapping phase - with, of course, the exception of certain 'Outer' clothing items that are effectively full outfits in their own right - some of the dresses from the NeX and the first set of new Outer clothing items come to mind.

This rule is only a problem because he new Bottom items cover everything that needs to be covered, but you can't progress to the portrait window just wearing one of them: even though they cover everything from your ankles up to just below the neckline (so no undergarments are visible), they're still classed as "Bottom" clothing and so you still need a "Top" or "Outer" to progress.

These particular garments look great on their own and meet the requirements of covering everything, so why must we couple them with something else? (To be fair, the matching sleeve-and-collar bits do look pretty good with them, but I'd rather just wear the bottom half with a nice matching pair of shoes. Just to be clear: I love the new clothing options. They're awesome and seem to fit in with the universe a bit better than some other items. But I don't want to have to wear a collar I don't care much for (not really a popped-collar fan, sorry - though they look fine as part of the style), or add a shirt that I feel detracts from the outfit as a whole, just to get a portrait taken.

Anyway. That's my thoughts so far on the character editor changes. Aside from those issues, absolutely loving the updates, and can't wait for more WiS stuff to come out of the pipeline. :)

Now we know why the patch was 970 MB

Also no fair stop teasing all the Aviator fans

This shouldn't have changed. I think it's because of the WIP, that they have put the character in some state it doesn't fully recover from. I'm about to check in a change that should fix the exceptions the WIP clothes are spamming, and it would be excellent if you could take a look tomorrow and check if this is still a problem if you don't select the WIP clothes.

You are right... it was supposed to be a gift for Japanese players, but I think some a shirt was made for that, so maybe it's not on TQ yet... but it exists

Can we have all the clothing unlocked for all the races now? It makes no sense and especially with the upcoming skin tone, hair color and blood line blending changes.

Okidoki, just checked on Sisi. Looks like it's mostly fixed - and the WIP shoes are now showing up as well. :3

You can freely change old clothing items back and forth as long as you don't have one of the WIP items actively on your avatar. If you have one of the WIP ones selected, you still need to either remove the item you want to swap out and select a new one, or remove all WIP items, at which point you can continue to change between existing items.

The odd issue with the clothing pickers scrolling around even when you're clicking on other stuff is still present - still not quite sure what triggers it, though.

I can confirm this. I've been having the same issues.

The new outfits look great though!!

Pleaze release these soonish.

Would love to wear something more scifi than a t-shirt and cargo pants in my scifi game. Not a huge dress up fan but the plain-ness of our avatars is disturbing sometimes.

Those do look awesome. Unfortunately, the character customization UI is already starting to break down due to item proliferation. It really doesn't make any sense from a UI design standpoint to show each recolor of a garment as a separate item. Not only is it hard to tell from the small icons what exact color a particular garment is, but it takes an awful lot of scrolling to go through all the available garments, and there is no easy way to tell at a glance which designs are available.

It would make a lot more sense if only the garment designs were displayed as discrete items. For example, instead of showing ten recolors of the same pair of boots, the item selection panel only showed that pair of boots in its default color. A player could choose a different color via a context menu, whether it be a popup, a slide-out panel, or a right-click menu.

It may also be a good idea to merge the NEX store and character customization. Players could be given the option of trying on different items, and buying them for AUR before moving on to the avatar/finalize stage. It is not always easy to justify sinking a month's subscription in ISK or cash on a virtual item that you can't even try on except by going to the test server. The idea is to separate a player from his cash as seamlessly as possible.

Not a fan of the art direction here, and while I know some people are, they should have to spend AUR (or LP?) because it doesn't really belong in the default set.

Everyone has between 5,000 and 7,500 AUR already from EVE Is Real, so that's not much to complain about.