wei yau

I'll add my support to the strategy. It makes sense to me and I've no issues with it. In fact, making the costumes available for sale benefits the most people. The weapons would affect only those characters with the requisite powersets.

I think it's a good compromise. Especially in light of the Vanguard Pack, now that was a boon for me since I find farming Vanguard merits to be much more tiresome than the ITF.

Where you see Asian-oriented, I see holiday-oriented. It just happens to be an Asian holiday. And, of course, my point was never that the Imperial Dynasty was not Asian-oriented, but only that I disputed your claim that NCSoft's Korean-ownership is the reason for the creation of this set.

I see no mountain here, only contesting your intimation that ethnicity was a factor, whereas another holiday-based costume set would have been a simple enough reason.

It might not need it, but it would have strengthened your weak position.

My larger point, which I would have thought would be clear to someone with your keen insight, is that if your arbitrary Asian rationale had any merit, then there would be a much greater Asian influence in the game. It's not like NCSoft hasn't always been Korean-owned.

Yet, despite the Robes (which are clearly a remnant of the abandoned "City of Hero" effort) and Martial Arts (which was a "Natural" origins based pack), I see little of what might be considered an obvious Asian influence.

And you base all this on concept art being revealed. We don't even have a release date, other than Soon (TM) on Beta. Yet, you are able to divine priorities from the preview alone.

As for lining it up with Chinese New Year, Zwii has already said it would not be out in time or the holiday. But, being inspired by the holiday is a completely different than explanation than your arbitrary Asian reason. Unless you are also claiming that the Halloween Pack came about due to a classic movie monster being a major shareholder in NCSoft.

All you've done is trigger the "More armor pieces again? I want more super hero stuff!" complaint.

If that were the case, I would have expected the Imperial Dynasty to have come out a long time ago, certainly before Gunslinger, Halloween, Steampunk, Valkyrie, IDF, etc. etc.

Your simple explanation seems more knee-jerk than reality-based.

I certainly don't feel the need to defend my comic book credentials, but I get your point. However, in that laundry list of more "comic book like" genres, the majority are "way out there", hence my response.

Frankly, I don't see how what I bolded above is any more "comic book" than the Imperial Dynasty costume set. To be fair, I'm not even sure what "comic book" means whenever this argument is brought up against certain costume sets.

There is a long, storied and varied tradition of Chinese martial arts comic books, in which the Imperial Dynasty sets would fit perfectly. Are these not part of your definition of comic books?

I can see why people use "comic books" rather than "superheroes" because they don't want to limit their argument to just spandex tights. However, it is for that very reason that more "comic book" like is ultimately meaningless, since it encompasses just about any theme or origin you want for your character.

I'm sorry, I can't help but feel that the whole "more comic book like" argument is little more than "I don't care for this particular genre, I like these others better". That's perfectly valid and I've shared that feeling myself, but it's not the same as claiming that the costume in question is not very comic book like.

Speaking for myself, I've got two dozen alts based on the Chinese Zodiac. The Imperial Dynasty set is what I've been waiting for!

Yeah, I wonder if this has anything to do with the requirement to manually upgrade to VIP Account in Beta.