The New Look for Circle of Thorns

somebody actually had a brilliant but subtle idea to explain the change.

Appearing as combat foes in Cap Au Diable, Steel Canyon, Independence Port, Founders Falls, Imperial City, Rikti War Zone, and St. Martial is the new CoT enemy: Possessed Tailor.

Their weapons of choice: Dual Scissors.

Very cool looks. Vast improvement over the ones from the other thread.

Would like a little less glowing hot pink and a bit more red in the Boss belts. Personal bias against the color... but overall pretty neat.

It'll be interesting to see how the standard tiny Oranbegan hallway will look when full of a bunch of these. I'm envisioning a gigantic, painful, magical porcupine!

Much better looking now. The hidden faces on the bosses really works, and they feel much more mystical. They are still a bit too spiky for my tastes (Seriously, how does that Ruin Mage move without all the spikes getting hooked together?), but I can live with it. Really a huge improvement, thanks for listening to the feedback.

That is so much better than the first attempt, well done.

Very cool, especially the bosses.

Due to the "cultist" feel that robes originally gave the Thorn Wielders and Guardians, I still feel strong attachment to them. With that said, I think the concessions made on this pass of the revamp really take the Circle to another level. The Mages truly appear sinister enough to warrant a punch in the space one presumes could have at some point contained a face. Great work!

First off: Love the overall look and am beyond happy that the devs took feedback and incorporated it. I guess the main reason i hang around here in the first place.

Second: I really wish bosses were more epic. by that i mean i love that they are more stylish as shown but why not an aura (ghost aura for death for example). also not sure why you chose PINK for the death mage, maybe in orenbega pink represents death but around these parts it would make me laugh not cower in fear.

So the Circus of Thorns was what you were shooting for right? Seriously, this make over is terrible and completely lacks the Lovecraft flavor that the Circle once had.

I like the changes. They look like the sort of clothing a cult of pre-historic mages would wear. As others have noted they are a bit spiky but I actually like it. It gives them a somewhat armored mage-knight look which I think works well for them. While robes are traditional they aren't really practical for battle-field wear and those costumes do manage to capture the essence of what I tend to think a wizard army would wear.

EDIT: I particularly like the "Minion" model. The combination of the body armor and the long cloak works well as a sort of Ceremonial guard look. I can definitely imagine a pair of those flanking a doorway carrying pole-weapons of some description.

These definitely look as if they were designed for some other game, but they're fine designs. (For those who saw them, I rather preferred Blast_Chamber's.)

In my opinion, they don't capture the feel of a mystical cult that's a foe of superheroes. The costumes are too spiky, too garish in colors, and too busy, especially considering that these are "mooks" who appear in numbers, not characters we fight one-on-one. Rather, as TrueGentleman noted, they look like someone said, "Let's make a magic faction! That means 'fantasy game art!'"

All that said, this is certainly different from nearly everything else in the game, both PC- and NPC-wise, so I see players getting a lot of mileage out of it. Personally, I'm particularly happy to see the interesting and underused "coat tails" rig being used for something other than trenchcoats, Arachnos Widows, and formal tailcoats.

There are two great things about this revamp. First, the devs, through the OCR team, actually paid attention to player complaints, and they paid at the very least lip service to adjusting actual design to respond to them. Second, the players seem to like the designs. Customer loyalty crisis averted!

My hope is that the devs don't take this positive response as a cue to, say, put the Fifth Column in metallic, purple armor.

Just adding my voice as well saying that this is a vast improvement over the "space mages" we saw in the initial screenies.

Looking forward to those parts for my own toons

hmmmm.

Getting a real fantasy samurai look/essence from these shots. I like the costumes, of course...who wouldn't? I'm not sold yet on how these will play out in-game, however. I'm trying to imagine these guys wandering the corridors of Oranbega or ancient tombs---not getting the mass appeal <shrug>.

Still, the caliber of artwork/graphics is excellent.

Cal

Well that's certainly a significant improvement, thank you.

<_< Hey does anyone else think that the Death Mage kinda looks like No-Heart from the Carebear cartoons? (and don't get me wrong, No-Heart was the man, he hated caring)

Still too WH/WoW but tolerable.

*semi-off topic*

Q: How many Games Workshop employees does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Three. One to change it, one to wield the chainsaw and one to glue on the spiky bits.