Amanita

I took a look at the Rulu-Shin while fighting them the other night- For the most part, their costumes are made of things we have, such as the valkyrie kilt, boots I've seen in the costume editor, and a few other recognizable pieces. However, I also saw some unique gauntlets, chest details, back parts, and some other things.
While I'm not clamoring for those parts like the withheld CoT stuff, they would be welcome additions to the costume creator.

Misie, I love that sword! Let's hope the one we're getting looks as cool.

I didn't think this powerset had even been tested yet, let alone was anywhere close to being released. Not that I would complain if there's been some sort of closed beta testing and it's ready to roll

I'm maxing out the height slider for mine. I saw that, and at first it took me a second to figure out what the guy was holding. But when I enlarged the screenshot and looked at it, I was all like "OMG, WANT!"

Seriously, I can't wait to get this. And I can't wait to see the vanguard version either.

Yeah, that's what pees me off about the CoT set too. The list of excluded pieces seems awfully arbitrary for clipping to be the sole concern. Surely the armored gauntlets couldn't clip worse than the ones we already have? As for the color issue, the thorn casters wear those gauntlets in a two-tone color scheme compatible with what we players use. Or some minor element like the straps could be left as one color (like some steampunk parts), while the gauntlet (and tights underneath) are able to be tinted one color, with the trim being another.
And how exactly would the hat clip any worse than the hood, or any of the other hats we've got? And why can't we have that nice short capelet?
I said before this was released that I would rather wait for those pieces to be ported over to the female and huge models, or for any other needed adjustments to be made, so we players could enjoy them. But nooo..We got what feels like a half-a$$ed rush job, with a weak explanation to try and justify it, and no reassurance that anything will be done, aside from letting us twist in the wind. No additions coming later, no supplement packs, nothing.

We've also been asking for a version of the warrior belt that could be worn with things other than robes ever since it came out, but that too, has never been implemented. For shame.

As for the CoT's all spandex look, that was the result of beta testing, or so I have read- at the time those poor screen shots were taken with a camera phone, all of the CoT's parts were not in the game yet. The basic tights and a few other bits had been finished, but the skirts and other pieces were still under construction, hence those poor mages running around in tights, being the brunt of "Stupid sexy mage" jokes. The robes were always meant to be there, they just weren't finished at the time.

Yeah, 5 years of subscription time sounds sweet, but I have hair down to my waist, and having it cut short is just NOT an option for me. Seriously, I've never had a short haircut that I didn't have to fight with in order to get it to look good, or that didn't look awful on me. And if I won, I really wouldn't want to have to wear a wig for the next few years while my hair grew out again. And thanks to my work (Security), I can't have a "silly" hairstyle either- no strange mohawks or weedwhacker jobs allowed.

So this whole haircut thing is a real dealbreaker for me. Unless we're allowed to opt out, or can opt just to have a couple of inches of dead ends taken off.

I feel kind of like a hypocrite for buying the pack, but I am still hoping that more will be added to it, and that somebody really IS reading this and taking notes.
As for the gauntlets, surely they could have worked out texturing that works with our 2 color choices. Surely they could have taken some more time and proliferated more pieces to female and huge. Surely they could have modified the hat so we could use it, considering what an iconic piece it is.
I would have been willing to wait for all of these, for the sake of having a better pack. I'm sure a lot of players would have. But instead it got rushed out with as little as possible, and some pretty strange lines drawn as to what was excluded or not. And we have no way of knowing if this very unpopular decision will ever be revisited, or if we're stuck with this.

Yeah, I really hope the rednames/marketing/whoever will reconsider and release some more of these parts, or modify them a bit so we can use them. It's not that it's a bad set, far from it! I've made some sweet combos with the CoT skirt and Samurai breastplate. But the real problem is that of all the parts made, there is just far too little of it available to us.

The new CoT NPC costumes are IMHO, pretty damn cool. Too bad we were teased with all of those lovely parts, then palmed off with so little.

I couldn't resist, I had a little fun. Mind you, this guy fails at replicating the real energy mages, since he lacks the high collar, gauntlets, and capelet, not to mention the coat tails. But here you have it, Stupid Sexy Mage!



full size image here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/3121754...n/photostream/

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If part of the issue was porting the lt. and boss pieces over to the female and huge models, I was willing to wait for that to happen. I was willing to wait, so that this pack could be as cool as possible, offering as much value as possible, so it would be on par with what the rest of the costume packs give us for the same amount of money. I'm sure a lot of the other people here expressing disappointment would have been willing to wait too, for something that wasn't rushed. Wait, so that the male parts we all were gushing over could be ported to the other body types. Wait, so maybe more pieces could be adjusted for the player models, so perhaps clipping wouldn't be as bad. We would be willing to wait, so this pack could be made as cool as possible. But no. They gave us the lowest of the low-hanging fruit just to rush it out the door. Come on, even most of the female minions get the skirt with the buttcape, surely that can't be any worse for clipping than the steampunk skirt we already have, why was that withheld?
We're not upset because the costumes are bad. Far from it- Lots of us love the look of the costume set and want as much of it as possible. We're just upset that of all the cool things dangled in our face with the premise that NPC parts will be made available to players, we got so very little of it, and were charged as much as the most detailed of packs

Seriously, rednames. If you want to salvage this mess and make a lot of people happy, either give us a lot more of these missing pieces, even if you have to warn us that those long skirts will clip with a lot of boot options, or that the gloves were made for use with tights, and will probably clip with robes or baggy tops, and let us work things out for ourselves..
Or- go back to the drawing board and do some adjusting on those pieces so clipping won't be as bad, even if it takes longer to get them out to us.

Either way, it will make a lot of us upset folks much happier, and will more than likely result in a lot more sales.

Well, not just "no pope hat, no sale". I've heard several people saying how sucky it is that the pack was so thin, that the coolest bits (pope hat included) were not in it.
Admittedly, I've made some cool outfits with it, but I wish there were more things to play with- a lot more things. I always mix and match it with a lot of other stuff- ascension, celestial, barbarian, samurai, etc.

Usually when a new costume pack is released, I see people all over the place wearing it. People grab it right away and go to town outfitting themselves. However with this one, I haven't seen too many other people wearing it at all. I guess there's quite a few people who were dead serious when they said "No pope hat, no sale!"

It's a cool costume set to be sure..but we players get entirely too little of it- I suspect that's part of the turnoff.

I don't think so, but surely tweaking those costume pieces so they will fit females shouldn't be that hard.

Yeah, if those costume pieces aren't made for the female yet, than convert them and give them to us, darn it! I said in another thread that I would happily wait a bit longer to have this bundle if it meant porting over all the parts to the female and huge figures, instead of taking a rushed job.

So the long skirt would clip with bulky boots? The women's steampunk skirt already does to some degree. Therefore, I don't use the bulky boots when wearing that costume piece, problem solved. Same thing for the CoT skirt. So the tails on the hat would clip with chest details? Then shorten those front tails as was done with the hood. So the long skirt will look funny with the MA powerset? My MA scrapper can switch to the alternate animations for that one costume slot where he is using that piece.

I don't know why the gloves would be a chest detail, that seems kind of strange, especially when we've already got even more elaborate gloves in game, like ascension and celestial.

That is awesome! Some of my skyscraper-incarnate characters might love to have that tall hat, I'm sure I could color it to resemble metal and glass.
And that skirt- need I say more?
Now, how did those pieces play when mix and matched with things from other sets? That seems to be the excuse here- "Oh, these things clip with other pieces so you can't have them, neener neener!"

Seriously, EVERY lieutenant or boss costume piece clips so horribly that we can't have it? Even if some of them do, they can't cherry pick the ones that don't have that problem and give them to us?

I hope some of us are right, and this is all just a marketing ploy to get us to buy another pack, as opposed to withholding everything above floor-scraping minion parts from us arbitrarily.

Nah, I suspect that it's some lame-*** policy where we only get the minion-level NPC parts while the NPCs get the lion's share of the goodies (of course they don't come out and tell us this), or some sort of marketing horsepoop.

Yeah, this^. As much as I wish they would quit holding to the "clipping" party line, and give these parts retroactively to anyone who bought the bundle, I would rather drop some more points on a "CoT II" bundle than not have these parts at all.

But seeing how EVERY SINGLE piece (even gauntlets no more extreme than ones we have now) that those above minion level get was arbitrarily withheld, I suspect that this is more marketing horsedook, and clipping is a convenient excuse. Otherwise, if clipping was really the only excuse, surely we would have had a smattering of the other parts from various classes thrown in.
Now, if every single damn piece made for anyone lieutenant or higher really does clip something awful with anything else not of the CoT set and can't be mix-and matched at all, well that's just bad design, no matter how cool it looks.

Yeah, they really teased us with this one. Showed us a bunch of really cool looking stuff, then said "Oh, you can't have it now, insert excuse here!"
I don't think clipping was the REAL reason why they gave us so little. As others have said, surely the gauntlets we wanted are no more problematic in regards to clipping than things like ascension, which we can play with already. And even if the gauntlets DO clip with jacket, robe, or baggy shirt sleeves, then shouldn't we decide if it looks okay to us or not?
I've used some gauntlet and boot options that clipped somewhat with baggy shirts and tucked in pants, if I decided that the clipping was acceptable (Perhaps it looked like the fabric of the shirt or garment was hanging over the top of the boot or glove). Likewise, I've also declined to use some combos because the clipping didn't look as good, either finding a new boot or glove style, or using a tight top or bottom instead. Either way I still got a costume that looked awesome.

Like I said, somehow clipping isn't the whole story, I'm guessing. If it were the ONLY reason why things were being held back, with the goal of giving us as much as humanly possible, I'm sure we would have seen a sampling of parts all through the minion/lieutenant/boss range given to us- this pack would not have felt so skimpy. We would have probably gotten the armored gauntlets, and maybe even that funny wing-like back detail on the bosses- since selecting it would preclude using capes or other back details, what would THAT clip with? And surely we would have had at least the minion skirt with coattails.
But instead, we get ONLY the most basic parts for the minions. I mean, come on. Even most of the minions get those buttcape skirts. Why this "Minion parts ONLY for players" foolishness? If we wanna RP a CoT or PPD boss, why can't we have the parts? To say nothing of the original creations that could be made using those pieces!

So yeah, either this is a smokescreen for an unspoken "Minion parts ONLY for players" policy (which is total crap, see Samuel Tow's earlier post), or it's Marketing BS- They intend to sell supplements to the booster down the road, a "lieutenant" pack" and "Boss Pack" at some later date.
As for the pope hat, I would have expected to see that listed under hats, or possibly even hoods, either way precluding picking a hairstyle that would clip- that thing does seem to be part hood after all, it makes sense that it would cover the player's hair completely.

Yeah, how badly could THOSE clip with other parts? Some of our other gauntlets are far chunkier than the CoT styles, and they gave those to us without lame excuses!

BTW, did they ever tell us why we couldn't have the IDF armour with the lights down the spine? That was the one piece from the set I really wanted.

Sorry, I was referring to the high collared cape from the Magic pack. Unfortunately, we can't be trusted with the pretty one that the CoT get, even if the clipping issues would probably be about the same.

Yeah, color me very sad too. I'm sorry, but this CoT revamp and player conversion is one mammoth ****tease. You redesign NPCs, teasing us with the premise of making as many NPC items available as possible. You even come up with long robes (which we have wanted from the beginning) that work on the player rig. You come up with a skirt that includes a buttcape, another thing we really want.

And then out of 70 pieces, you palm us off with 12. And only the ones that the lowest of floor licking minions get. Charge us the same price for the most detailed booster packs (that included a crapload of pieces), but give us a set that's about as skimpy as Sinister. (which was made more as a cute little bonus than stand-alone booster)
And then raise "clipping" as a justification for withholding the parts we wanted most, even though many items in-game clip like crazy as-is, and were deemed good to go. Like our current high collar cape. Every shoulder piece in the game clips with it, but we still got it. And players still use shoulder pieces with it, finding combos where the clipping is acceptable.

Is the problem with giving us these long skirts somehow related to the extreme leg animations of Martial Arts? Why let that stop you? If we players are bothered, we can choose the alternate punchy MA animations for use with the long skirted costume. Or save that costume piece for non-kicking characters.

Come on, cut out the "for your own protection" business and let us have some fun here.
Either add these missing parts in to bring this booster up to par with the other sets we love such as Steampunk, Barbarian, and Magic, or release them in a CoT part II booster, but don't leave us out in the cold, shafted because the NPCs got all the coolest parts and we got the minion-crumbs. Again.

Yeah, Baltzam looks sweet! He would definately merit a second look in a costume contest that I was judging!

I was thinking about the possible issues concerning the long skirt- I imagine that martial arts+long skirt might have some issues, but you know what? There's always workarounds.

I've got a level 50+++ MA/Regen scrapper, who would LOVE the long Death Mage skirt as part of his "epic armor" costume, which currently uses a blend of Ascension and Samurai. So let's say that the Death Mage skirt clips with those big Ascension boots. I have two choices then- depending on how bad the clipping is, I might just suck it up and ignore it. Or if it really bothers me, I can just swap out the ascension boots for something sleeker, which might be a good design choice anyhow, seeing how busy the skirt already is. Either way, problem solved.

So I get the costume made, and find that the long skirt looks funny with those flashy kick animations. Again, I've got options. I can ignore the weirdness- my character only spends a second or two in those extreme poses anyhow. Or I can go back to the tailor and select the little-used martial arts alternate animation set, which is more punch based, for use with that specific costume. No crazy-legs animations anymore, problem with looking weird solved. Or I might decide to make an outfit just for roleplay and socializing, kind of a ceremonial kit, if you will, changing into a different costume for combat. Or the least likely, I can choose to leave the long skirt off of my MA scrapper altogether, and save it for the characters whose leg animations are not so extreme.

Either way, at least with the costume piece included I would have all these cool options, being able to decide for myself which of these is most acceptable. Please stop trying to protect us from ourselves with "clipping" as a lame excuse. As Baltzam's costume and my list of options attest, we don't need the foam padding and arbitrary withholding "for our own good".

In regards to Sam's question- how much are we missing? Are there more missing pieces?
Oh heck yes. Go look at the last thread I started, titled "What CoT pieces would you want", you can read it here:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=272366
I posted a picture showing all sorts of goodness- several varieties of skirt, an armoured glove (there was another style with huge spikes that I didn't post), and an awesome high collar/back detail. In regards to this last piece, it's freaking lame that they would withhold it on clipping grounds, considering how much the high collar and cape we already have don't play nice with most of the hairstyles and all the shoulder options in the game.
Heck, to further beat down the clipping excuse (that's what it is, a freaking excuse!), I actually DO use shoulder pieces with my high collar cape sometimes, having found some options where the amount of clipping is acceptable to me.