I don't know. I would have thought that MMs would be able to customize pets with the Architect Edition, but since nothing came from that for MMs... I dunno if they ever will be able to customize pets.
As it's been mentioned before, the devs won't give us that for one simple reason:
Pimp MMs.
You think I'm kidding? With the Magic pack, how many new MMs would you see with a pimp theme and nothing but women for pets? :/
Dumb people are why we can't have nice things.
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Er, that's not a real reason to leave it out. Just don't allow people to pick the female body type. Big deal.
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I guess the Lead MM female running around in slutty clothes and different "sexy" names for her thug pets is perfectly acceptable though. Which is exactly what I saw last night and have seen plenty of times before.
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Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
As it's been mentioned before, the devs won't give us that for one simple reason:
Pimp MMs. You think I'm kidding? With the Magic pack, how many new MMs would you see with a pimp theme and nothing but women for pets? :/ Dumb people are why we can't have nice things. |
I can't imagine that's the only reason -- if nothing else, it's pretty much irrelevant to, say, a bots/ mastermind. :P
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Not with the new Female Clockwork it's not. You underestimate the power of stupidity. How long would it take for RoboPimp or Cyberdaddy to appear?
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Originally Posted by seebs
I can't imagine that's the only reason -- if nothing else, it's pretty much irrelevant to, say, a bots/ mastermind. :P
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You know, the more I think about it, the more I want my bots/traps mastermind to TRY to be a pimp. For her perfectly ordinary robots which use the current skin.|
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
Not with the new Female Clockwork it's not. You underestimate the power of stupidity. How long would it take for RoboPimp or Cyberdaddy to appear?
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... The amazing thing is, it's actually mostly in-character.
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"Where's my hard drive? I SAID WHERE'S MY HARD DRIVE?! Don't make me delete your 'special' folder, son!" *ZAP* "See? You made me do that. You think I LIKE formatting you?"
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Originally Posted by seebs
You know, the more I think about it, the more I want my bots/traps mastermind to TRY to be a pimp. For her perfectly ordinary robots which use the current skin.
... The amazing thing is, it's actually mostly in-character. |
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"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
Pimp theming does not seem to be the limitation; all of the devs' answers have come down to this: The engine finds NPC customization to be problematic.
Why? It seems pets, along with granite stone armor and the forms for kheldians are very simplistic. They just use an NPC model in a library, and the system doesn't seem to be set up now to handle customization of the NPC library.
The thugs for masterminds, for instance, use differing models. Yet there's no way to make sure your arsonist always looks the same. It just doesn't specify.
That said, It's been taking a while for the next round of customization comes out. I very much hope that if they can solve the kheldian/granite issue, they can also give masterminds the ability to manage their troops' style to some extent.
I kind of want to make the Mercs/ look like PPD SWAT and stuff like that, though I'd prefer the ability to fully customize them.
I wasn't even thinking of female henchmen and all that it may imply. I'm just wondering if we can have different uniforms for the soldiers, different models for robots (all male :P), different gang organizations like hellions/skulls for thugs, etc.
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That's a common fallacy. There's certainly nothing that keeps male characters from dressing as pimps, female characters from "pimping out" mercenaries, etc. Nothing except for GM Moderation that is. Why would one method of making sexual content be any less actionable than others?|
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
As it's been mentioned before, the devs won't give us that for one simple reason:
Pimp MMs. You think I'm kidding? With the Magic pack, how many new MMs would you see with a pimp theme and nothing but women for pets? :/ Dumb people are why we can't have nice things. |
The actual reason this hasn't happened yet is because there are several technical hurdles that would need to be overcome. Sure, one can change the colors of certain NPC models in the Mission Architect, but:
- Would color customization in itself be enough?
- Would players also want to customize limbs and other costume parts? (Costume customization)
- How do we alter certain costume parts to work with certain skeletons (like MM Robot skeletons)? (Costume customization vs. non-standard skeletons)
- What sort of avatar pieces are allowed for Mercenary MMs? For Robot MMs? (Restricting parts for powerset them)
- What if I wanted to make all my robots look like fembots? What if I wanted to put my mercs in robot disguises? (players upset about "artificial costume restrictions")
- What if I want my bots to fire lasers from their eyes instead of their arms? (power customization on top of costume customization)
- What sor tof costume or effects happen when a thug is upgraded (power custimzation that is flexible with costume custumization which may or may not be locked into specific costume parts (see above))
- How do custom critters get saved, and how will other players see those same custom critters? (Database impact, server impact, impact on other clients)
Those are just a few of the technical problems I can think of off the top of my head. Certainly, some bits of existing tech can be used, but others, like getting certain costume bits to work with some pet skeletons and deciding which pieces can/ can't be used for certain MM primaries, are a bit more challenging.
Edit: Don't get me wrong, would love to see this too, but it might be tough to get into the game.
I think the thing is... Anything they allow will be less than "enough", but it'd be better than nothing.
On the other hand.
MMs are not exactly the majority of the player base. Added MM customization options could be fairly expensive and only a few people would care.
Honestly, I'd be happy with a two-color customization option on each power -- predefine how the two colors are used, and then just give us a slot (similar to the way that the various ammo types for DP have a "power slot" which you don't take as a power) which is a mule for the two-color selection, and let us look at the pet model and see how the two colors work on it. That'd be enough to eliminate the "I cannot tell these robots apart" problem.
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Not sure if ancedontal evidence means anything, but I have seen sooo very many heroic/rogue masterminds. They seem a popular AT, for now. Plus these requests keep coming. If they can figure out the tech, I'm sure the devs will try for pet customization.
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Originally Posted by seebs
I think the thing is... Anything they allow will be less than "enough", but it'd be better than nothing.
On the other hand. MMs are not exactly the majority of the player base. Added MM customization options could be fairly expensive and only a few people would care. |
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I hear what you're saying..I want this too. Not customizable pets per se, but the ability to "skin" the pets with existing NPCS. Kind of like an AOE halloween costume toggle.
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Originally Posted by Red Pirate Boggarts
Just wondering about this today. Will MMs get different skin options for their pets? Say, the option of having council/5th column or malta robot pet skins for robotics. Or Hellion/skulls /resistance skins for thugs. Maybe a longbow theme for mercs.
I've got my necro/dark MM at 50, and while I'm not really wanting a new skin for her creations, I do have a ninja/dark and thugs/traps that want some sort of skin customization for their minions. |
My level 50 Dominators:
Madame Mindbender 50 Mind/Energy
Fly Agaric 50 Plant/Thorn
Nate Nitro 50 Fire/Psi
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This. We have limited animation customization of some sets' individual powers through the use of alternate sets at creation (like martial arts' and super strength's alternate punch animations) so why not give us alternate pet sets?|
Originally Posted by RiverOcean
I hear what you're saying..I want this too. Not customizable pets per se, but the ability to "skin" the pets with existing NPCS. Kind of like an AOE halloween costume toggle.
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For example, Mercs could easily use Council or Malta sets just by swapping out henchmen with minion costumes using the same code as the costume toggle.
Ninjas could use Tsoo minions, using the Ancestor Spirit for the higher tier pet and corresponding minions for the other two tiers.
Thugs could use Hellions or - even easier - Trolls (with the supa troll for the Enforcer)
Demon Summoners could use CoT Behemoth and Behemoth Overlord Models.
Bots could use the old Praetorian clockwork models - or the new, for that matter.
Zombies could use.... well, there's the problem. What is the in-game equivalent of a lich or a grave knight that could be easily substituted?
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It's a technical limitation, as Obsidious said. Absolutely nothing to do with with pimp type MMs and I really have no idea with whom or how that whole drum line got started. Inappropriate content gets moderated by GMs and it would be no different with custom MM henchmen.
Right now the MM henchmen are pulled from a pool of NPCs in a library, as Obsidius said. One way I can pontificate they could get around this is to change it so that customized henchmen are saved in separate directories similar to the way custom NPCs are saved for the architect and saved in your account on NC's data servers. They are then pulled from that directory instead of the generic NPC library (which I imagine would require some degree of complicated changes). To make sure other players could see it, they transmit the data around servers in the same way all character costumes are shared. It would mean an increase in server load, but when are there gonna be enough custom MMs around for that to matter?
Of course this is probably all a matter of "easier said than done." I'd like to say they could have made this happen by now but I'm sure it's not very high on the priority list. I'd love it if they did, though.
About the best they could do with non-humanoid henchmen like bots and demons would be to make them colorable, and perhaps provide some alternate costume pieces for them. Different horns/claws/faces for Demons, different arms/legs/heads for Bots.
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Spectral demons.|
Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
Zombies could use.... well, there's the problem. What is the in-game equivalent of a lich or a grave knight that could be easily substituted?
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I don't buy the argument that these are minions from a file -- consider the random appearance of thugs. Clearly, every time I see a thugs MM, I'm getting given costume information for the thugs, somewhat customized -- arsonist always has fire pants, it seems.
Well, you can tint the fire around Hellfire Demonlings/Gargoyles ... so that's a start, right? 
;;;
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I have been wanting this for years.
I am happy enough with most of the Pets, but for the love of Romero can't we get those spiffy new zombies for our Tier One Necromancer pets?!
I find the Tier One zombies so blah ...
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I can't believe this one bit, if the Dev's are stupid enough to blame people making a Pimp, then don't allow people to do it! That to me sound like a loud of horse hay, but then again ive been waiting for other things and the same garbage comes up all the time. We can't because people would do this or that...whatever just make the game I pay for more fun... pretty simple! I'm getting pretty sick and tired of all the Nerf's, Lag, and Buggs in this game. Now we are supposed to pay for a dance and sport emote pack...good lord did someone from the government mule get a job with NCsoft? Also, dumb people are dumb people, the Dev's are why we can't seem to get better stuff!
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Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
As it's been mentioned before, the devs won't give us that for one simple reason:
Pimp MMs. You think I'm kidding? With the Magic pack, how many new MMs would you see with a pimp theme and nothing but women for pets? :/ Dumb people are why we can't have nice things. |
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It's true that some thugs are generated from costume parts and some are specific models (bots and necro, for example). As someone who's "talked with the game swine", I can attest to this.|
Originally Posted by seebs
Spectral demons.
I don't buy the argument that these are minions from a file -- consider the random appearance of thugs. Clearly, every time I see a thugs MM, I'm getting given costume information for the thugs, somewhat customized -- arsonist always has fire pants, it seems. |
However, the script for MMs is something completely different. For example, the script may call for pant style X, and when a thug is upgraded, it gets swapped out for pant style Y. I think this would be the hardest thing to customize - not only the appearance of thugs, but even more so, the appearance of upgraded thugs.
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Angry post is angry. o_O|
Originally Posted by Purge
I can't believe this one bit, if the Dev's are stupid enough to blame people making a Pimp, then don't allow people to do it! That to me sound like a loud of horse hay, but then again ive been waiting for other things and the same garbage comes up all the time. We can't because people would do this or that...whatever just make the game I pay for more fun... pretty simple! I'm getting pretty sick and tired of all the Nerf's, Lag, and Buggs in this game. Now we are supposed to pay for a dance and sport emote pack...good lord did someone from the government mule get a job with NCsoft? Also, dumb people are dumb people, the Dev's are why we can't seem to get better stuff!
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Look, I remember pretty specifically this exact discussion around the time I started. I can't look up the redname who said/agreed with it, but that was what I heard and it was agreed that dumb people are the issue. Things have changed, this I know. Just voicing what I remember. Calm yourself, sparky.
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"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
Okay, so we have murder, kidnapping, extortion, rampant drug use, demon worship, poison, etc. and those are fine and dandy. As are Dominatrices and her slave-bois. But Mac Daddy and his bimbos are offensive. People really need some perspective.
Just wondering about this today. Will MMs get different skin options for their pets? Say, the option of having council/5th column or malta robot pet skins for robotics. Or Hellion/skulls /resistance skins for thugs. Maybe a longbow theme for mercs.
I've got my necro/dark MM at 50, and while I'm not really wanting a new skin for her creations, I do have a ninja/dark and thugs/traps that want some sort of skin customization for their minions.