For the Love of Heraldry and Custom Uniforms!

[AJP]

Will there be custom heraldry and uniforms for this game? Using something like the Army Editor in the game 'Warhammer: Mark of Chaos' would be sooooooooooooooo cool, so no two armies in this MMORTS look exactly the same.

looks like this, for those who don't know: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...MOC-Editor.png

[Super Nova]

That pic looks F*c*ing cool that would be cool to have in the game

[Silent_Lamb]

Mark of Chaos got better treatment then all the 40K games. The army editor in that one was basically face paint delux. That would be an extremely cool feature, especially if you could through and tweak every unit. It would certainly allow for a better MMORTS experience seeing as we'll (hopefully) be facing off against hundreds of opponents, and seeing the same units over and over again may hurt the eyes a little.

[Darvin]

How do they ensure that two players do not have overly similar colour patterns? That's my biggest concern here; in all practical sense, player colours exist to differentiate which units belong to which player.

[The Witch King of Angmar]

Originally Posted by Darvin

How do they ensure that two players do not have overly similar colour patterns? That's my biggest concern here; in all practical sense, player colours exist to differentiate which units belong to which player.

Well my units would be rainbow and polka dot so I don't think anyone will copy it.

[AJP]

Originally Posted by Darvin

How do they ensure that two players do not have overly similar colour patterns? That's my biggest concern here; in all practical sense, player colours exist to differentiate which units belong to which player.

I'm not sure. I guess If the server detects that another player has a similar army scheme as the one you made, it might send you back to the editor(not during gameplay, of course. When starting or joining a game). Let's just hope people get original in their army designs, if this feature gets implemented.

[Darvin]

Colour contrast is a huge issue, and I don't trust an algorithm to solve it well enough.

When it comes to units, you need to be able to tell at a glance if that's your footsoldier or your enemy's footsoldier. That means their colours must be distinct. If one unit is red and black, and the other is black and red, that's no good; most people will need to double-take to make sure they have it right. Alternately, if only one player can be red, it's never ambiguous.

You also need to worry about colour confusion. It's not trivial to decide what constitutes a sufficiant difference between light blue and blue. It's even more difficult when you factor in people (like me) who are red-green colour blind; then you have two completely unrelated colours that are confuseable.

I'm reserved on this feature, as even one oversight and it could become a significant gameplay hinderance.

[WhiteHawk]

True, and since online I have read somewhere of the potential ability to fight a teammatch of 3 VS 3, the confusion would be even greater. There has to be a way to make you and your teammates seem similar yet distinguishable, and very different looking than your enemies.

If there was an editor, color management in team matches would be a pain in the ass to take care of.

[AJP]

Oh well, if the dev team decide to include such a feature, I'm sure they can work it out so it plays well. IMO, it just seems kind of bland to play an MMO RTS where possibly hundreds of people are playing at once and the only distinction between them is color. Maybe they can just have patterns. Like checkered uniforms, striped uniforms, zig zag uniforms, polka dots etc.

[Darvin]

Customizeable patterns are good as far as I'm concerned; I don't care if you decide on some combination of striped pants, checkered shirts, and solid-coloured shields, so long as your colours are not ambiguous next to another player.


Another issue with colours, however, is camouflage. There's a reason players weren't allowed to use the earth tones in ladder on Warcraft III.