I like people buying costume pieces I don't have

Looking around the game I am amazed at how many characters have costume bits that didn't exist 2 years ago. What I also noticed was that the characters are more diverse. I like golden age costumes that look like something other then spandex with a pattern on it. And most costumes these days seem to have some odd bits sticking out here and there.

And I noticed that I enjoy seeing characters with stuff I don't have - celestial back piece, the elemental stuff from the random packs, gunslinger pieces, that new asian armor, etc.

Even if I cannot use the stuff on my characters, the added variety and coolness of the costume pieces enhances my enjoyment of the game.

Y'know, costume-wise, in all the time I've been playing (feb 2005) i've run across an unintentional near-duplicate costume on someone else... oh, once, maybe twice. And I don't just mean "of my own." Even when costume sets come out, people seem to like mixing them in with the other bits to see what they can come up with.

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One of the many aspects of this game that has largely set it above every other MMO for me was the absurd diversity of costumes.

I had played Guild Wars a bit before CoH... and I remember one day spending some time dying my outfit, and after spending a good while on it, I was walking through the town and... I still looked exactly the same as every other member of my class.

In CoH... I don't think I've ever noticed somebody with a duplicate costume (not counting a super team or two that did so intentionally because it would make them stand out so much). It's wonderful

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Yeah, that's one of the things that drives me nuts in other games. You finally get a look you want - and you have to change it in a level or two because, well, the armor's no longer any good, or you finally have a weapon that'll do more than tickle whatever you're fighting...

A few games "kind of" have ways around this. Aion does (or used to) have, besides dyes, a way of "skinning" one item with another - so you'd see people in dresses or holiday outfits with insanely high armor ratings/speed boosts/etc. TOR, if you're lucky enough to find "orange" (moddable) armor/weapons/etc. that have the look you want, will let you keep replacing the mods (to a point) to keep upgrading the ratings, which seems a decent, but limited, compromise system. But you still end up looking very similar.

Still think COH's way of just separating the two (looks vs effectiveness) entirely, and just enhancing powers on their own, is far, far superior.

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It's like none of you have seen the multiple of belly shirt/skirt/baggy socks look that seems to be popular (and I fully admit to useing )

But generally, yes agreed! CoH's costume creator makes all other games terrible for me!

"What the?! I look like everyone else?! I only have a couple of faces to choose from?! No body sliders?!"

I recently started playing another rather new MMO, and I made two characters, and I was all "They look alike"

Should never limit the look of an outfit to the point of going for the best outfit with the best stats, UNLESS there is a way to alter it from the start.

I remember when City of Japanese Schoolgirls came out (Issue 4). Today's lack of similarity is the result of the collective 7 plus years of added costume parts. Since Freedom how may costume sets have they added? CoT, CoL, Barbarian, Halloween, Elemental Order, Fire/Ice, Gunslinger, Imperial Dynasty, Olympian Guard, Imperial Defense, Celestial, Pocket D, plus account wide unlocks on Vanguard, Roman, Spring Fling, Winter Event pieces (I know I'm forgetting some). We haven't had this many costume pieces added over this short of time since CoV went live.

It's no wonder we rarely run into our unintentional doppelgangers anymore.

I think this is the problem that our competition run into well the most recent competition anyway.

They tied appearance to stats which made making a costume when starting out very, very limited, people couldn't design the hero they wanted and you had to wait until certain levels to get the costume items you actually wanted anyway (ok so why do I have to be near the level cap to wear a Baron Samedi style tophat?).

That and you had to fit into 'the universe'. CoH by comparrison is more Gold or Silver age, where genres collide, everything from pulp noir to far future sci-fi collides.

I totally agree with all the posters here. The CC has ruined me for other MMO's!

But I think at it's best, the CC isn't just about making nifty costumes (even though it does that). Costumes can tell you far more about a character than a bio can. A bio is about "stuff" (history, whys and hows), but a good costume really tells you who the character "is".

And like the OP, I have to say, I just LOVE watching the parade of costumes lately!

Remember when the Enforcer set came out and you'd see so many Enforcers running around?

But I agree, I hate going to other MMOs, looking at the character creator and going "This is it?" I've seen so horribly dressed characters it's made my eyes bleed, and so many well dressed characters that I'd be down right jealous. I love that we have that level of diversity and creativity.

The costume editor was the first thing that sold me on the game and that was long before it is what it is now. Being able to make just about anything (with new pieces being added frequently) continues to result in me having little to no interest in any other MMO.

Well done, devs, well done.

I probably spend more time in the CC than playing the game Some of the costumes people come up with are awesome, especially when combining unrelated sets. All we need now is moar costumes!

I saw some weird glowing cracks/fissures cossie set I'd never seen before last night. I assume it's one of the Tier 9 sets or something? Person had it coloured as Ice (white with light blue glowing fissures)

Parts of it would make a lovely base for some of my characters.

Aye that's the the fire & Ice tier 9 VIP costume.

There's also a Mecha costume coming for tier 9 VIPs but I haven't seen any pictures of it (they were posted but were taken down as the team throught they need some work doing and Zwill kindly asked people not to post the pics since they weren't ready for show) apparently it is very Gundam/Virtual On style though.

CoH has pretty much ruined the rest of the MMO genre for me, but especially in the case of character creation. Even the absolute vanilla character freebie character creator is completely nuts.

Though I am a bit disappointed in CoH's face selection and options after Fallout New Vegas and Saint's Row The Third. :P I've never really liked any of the main faces, I end up covering em up with accessories, helmets etc. Usually in games like the above I just randomise all the sliders til I come up with a face I like, and I know it's almost definitely unique. Doesn't have to be perfect, since no real person is.

One time I ran into my character's apparent counterpart in WW. I was in white and blue, he was red and black, I wore a cape, he wore a trench coat, I was Broadsword, he was Katana, but we had about the same face and hairdo and general style. It was very bizarre.