The New Look for Circle of Thorns

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I don't recall anything about the Circle of Thorns ever being "goofy." As far as I can tell they're a pretty hardcore group of soul-stealing, kidnapping, power-hungry ancient mages, which is pretty cool. There are "goofy" villain groups in the game (Skulls, Freakshow, etc) and I was pretty happy with the Circle not being one of them. It certainly makes one of my character's backstories less meaningful when it turns out she was kidnapped by a hot pink wizard.

This is still a flamboyantly ridiculous "re-interpretation" of the Circle, and still a completely unnecessary change, and poorly executed on top.

This is pretty much what I meant in an earlier post here, or perhaps it was in the open beta feedback forum on these guys now that I've seen them ingame. They blur together too much when in a group.

Also I thought I saw similar designs before and found an image which I'll host to not steal bandwidth....Warhammer 40k.






Click for bigger image


None the less I want these outfits! and the damn carnie stuff we've been asking for for years which the new Carnival of War/Light has. Sashes & Face Masks to say the least

Warhammer pioneered the spiked 'n' staked pauldrons look. It's now become so common as to be generic, which makes it a shame to have this redesign dilute CoH's distinctive and creative art direction. By way of illustration, here are some examples from, variously, card games, RPGs, tabletop strategy, and tie-in movies. Although the CoT redesign is on the more elaborate end of this spectrum, they all have the same look and feel.








Despite the ostentatiousness of the CoT redesign, it still gets lost in the pack with all the other trend-followers of this style of fantasy art.

Lmao!

Funny I was thinking the exact same thing.

Pretty much these two right here. If I was 17 and it was the mid-ninties again then these would be cool. As is they're trying waaaay too hard and managing to look like every other "generic evil fantasy magic doer" in the process.

The Death Mage looks ridiculously over the top.

The unreasonable hatred of pink aside (it's only been "girly" in the last few decades), it's the Circle's BACKSTORY that was always serious and grim. Their attire, however, has never been so. Aside from the few robed minions, most of these guys ran around in funny hats, huge shoulders and long skirts. Most traditional "high mage" outfits are goofy, and that's the POINT. These are wizards. They don't dress for comfort and convenience and they certainly don't dress to impress. They dress in whatever way is appropriate to their arcane arts, and if that means huge hats, pointy shoulders and long robes, then that's just what they wear.

If being kidnapped by a hot pink wizard causes you to question your masculinity, then you are missing the point - irrespective of what they look like, these guys are the real deal. They've lived for 14 thousand years, they possess arcane knowledge and power unparalleled in the modern world and they have no respect for our laws, culture or traditions. If they want to dress in ridiculous hats, absurd shoulders or pink robes, then they are simply going to go ahead and do that because no-one can really stop them from doing it.

The Circle of Thorns have always been over-the-top in terms of looks but ridiculous in terms of appearance. A lot of magical factions in City of Heroes are. Or are we somehow considering men dressing as shamen and not wearing underwear, or men wearing ridiculous car grill helmets to be any less absurd?

What, really, changed about the CoT aside from the extra detail? They have the same hats, they have the same shoulders and they have very similar robes. The colours are loud, but no less so than before. The only truly significant change is the addition of a ton more detail, but that was kind of the point. And that, believe it or not, was the problem with "damn sexy energy mage" - he was too plain to qualify as a mage.

Nothing wrong with Warhammer 40 000. It's one of the most distinct franchises still in circulation and despite the myriad of copycats, the original is still head and shoulders above the rest if for no reason other than its audacity.

I firmly believe that just because something has been done before by other people, it doesn't mean that it can't be done WELL if you put an interesting spin on it. The new Circle do that quite well, I think.

I'm a European and I don't even want a Christmas tree for Christmas. I've been arguing up a storm against the overly complex character designer currently on Beta. I still love those Circle designs. They're ancient. They're arcane. It makes sense that their design would be overloaded with details, because of the complexities of their art. Yes, these no longer look quite like clothes. To this I say "meh." The CoT still have their hoods and their concealed faces, which is all the link I really wanted with them. If they no longer look like monks, that just fine, too.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Do you have any pics? I would like to see the actual models in-game as well.

And it's precisely because the redesign breaks so sharply with the CoT backstory that a significant portion of the boards have complained about it. As for the aesthetic angle, unless we're talking about the old Dungeons & Dragons artwork, you're reading "goofy" into your ideas about mages. Ancient Sumerian costumes, with their tall headgear and flowing robes, might seem "goofy" to modern eyes, but there's nothing funny about their human sacrifices.

Thanks for the in-game screenshot. The new CoT definitely clashes with the environment more than the old design ever did - they look like invaders from another game entirely. The Circle of Thorns could give the Nemesis Army a run for its money in the "out of place" category the way things are going.

While they may have pioneered it in gaming they have taken this kind of style from artists who were doing this way before warhammer was even born. Check out art by Rodney Matthews. His art is fantastic in that its very sleek, curvy and yet spiky too.

Even just smoothing down some of the extra sticky-out bits on the robes' skirt portions would do wonders. If those points just didn't defy gravity quite so much, it would look a lot better IMO - make it look like elaborately-embroidered cloth, instead of an armored tasset. As a cosplayer, I can conclusively say that Cloth Does Not Behave That Way. Metal does, and leather can if you're skilled enough with it, but metal and leather aren't the kinds of things that Circle mages make entire outfits of, are they? At least, they weren't before.

Also:
Looking out-of-place is part of what makes Nemesis Nemesis. It reinforces how completely out-there he is, and how heavily brainwashed he's gotten his solders. I LIKE that the Nemesis Army looks as if it were designed by Phil Foglio. Like the Circle's extravagant robes, the Nemesis Army's bold and jarringly anachronistic costumes are what define their visual identity. As I see it, the Army is what Nemesis brings out when he absolutely does want to be seen (as opposed to the Automatons being sent out when he wants to go unnoticed) and over the past century or so, the distinct and unchanged Nemesis Army uniforms are what civilians and governments have grown to fear. That the uniform remains (presumably) exactly what it was when Nemesis first came onto the scene reinforces the idea that Nemesis is so invincible and so able to bend others to his will that he doesn't need to adapt.

Hm. That Madness Mage looks like the Minister of Poo preaching to his Fecal Flock in
that shot. That doesn't look too close to the promo shot, yeah.

Kind-of looks more like the CoT got access to Stone Armor's power customization menu, and
just went with the first colors it gave them.