If you haven't looked at the new Skulls, please do.

Do you fine folks remember when the first pass of the Circle of Thorns revamp came out and people hated it?

If you do, please log in to Beta, go to Kings Row, and give your thoughts on the new Skulls. All of my in-game buddies and I have absolutely hated what's been done to them.

Why not just put some images up in here?

I feel the exact opposite. I love the new look of the Skulls, especially the new masks. And the inclusion of females as well as expanding their weapons and powers. But hey, doesn't matter. You're already beating the war drum here, trying to stir something up.

this thread is useless without pics.

If those clothes are "designer" then I'd love to see what isn't...

Yeah all those premiums ought to rush onto beta right now to give their input guy.

And.. I'm not seeing a problem. These guys look awesome.

I'm OK with most of it, but...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim -

I hate that hair, and these two look REALLY stupid. And there's something off about the mask on the latter picture. I don't like it either.

I like 'em. They look much more fitting with the rest of the universe now.

Only thing that doesn't get a pass from me is that male club hair. Ngghhhh.

The new Skulls look great - they've added some new shades of blue to go with their traditional black, gray and white, their masks now look properly like human skulls, and the whole revamp has really helped to move them away from looking like reskinned Hellions.

Plus, Hollywood-style Eastern European accents, the big increase in references to Slavic mythology and the subtle vampire vibe that the new named bosses give off really makes them into a unique gang now.

Kings Row is also a more brutal place now - there are a lot of spawns of the Skulls kicking PPD officers and members of the Lost on the ground, large-scale stand-offs between Skulls and the PPD, Skull knife fights, the Lost with kidnapped citizens, CoT with summoned Hordeling Lashers, and lots more homeless NPCs - the revamped spawns make the whole zone feel like the police have lost their grip.

Agreed. Need the pix. [EDIT: Okay, I see pix have now been posted, and the main problem is hair. lol]

I understand there's new female Skulls and I believe someone referenced a new Skulls mask, but I've not seen clear shots of these, or at least shots that illustrated why they were bad.

FWIW, while I do in general approve of adding females to some of the all-male foe groups, I think it is best if they're approached in a creative way and not just dropped in. I'm not fond of the Girlfriend from Hell toon that was added to the Hellions. For me, it's a one-off joke that was made into a standard mob character, which a type of practice I don't like.

What I prefer regarding gender representation for the Hellions and Skulls is to keep the non-combat Hellion and Skull girlfriends, with their inane dialogue, and then have a small number of custom, named NPCs that are females. I can see where low level groups like Hellions and Skulls might be mainly groups of grungy guys with the occasional exceptional female; that seems realistic to me.

In my AE arcs, I put forth Teardrop and the Bone Mama as exceptional female Skulls. They're both partial outsiders to the macho, Slavic death cult. While I'd not included any female Hellion characters, per se (I did some alternate reality ones), I would make them along the same lines: outsiders who were for some reason aligned with the Hellions without actually being in the ranks.

Now, if I WAS to include a female model in the ranks of the Hellions, I'd probably make her a standard Slicer, and not try to put women into a totally different power category, like the Girlfriend - unless they're exceedingly rare - because to me in most cases that doesn't make much sense. I realize the current Girlfriends from Hell are supposed to be a form of succubus, but in their presentation to the players they look too blatantly like the usual "here's new content associated with new game features, please enjoy" that are occasionally inserted into the game.

Anyway, that's my view on it.

As far as aesthetics go, the two hairdos are the worse offenders. If you were to change one hair only, the one that makes them look like j-pop musicians.

It doesn't help that the new hairdos clip with the masks.

I dunno i kinda like the revamp of the group.... and having now female skulls members is nice too.

I like the new look.

My question is why don't they keep the old and new? It gives more variety (kinda).

I wondered the same thing for the CoT. The old and new would have given us much more variety. The classic old look robes could have been the lower ranks and so on.

The new skulls look pretty much like the old skulls, with higher-res textures.

The COT (or even Family) revamps were significantly bigger changes.

One thing you lose with the hard Skull masks is personality. Granted, players rarely pause to look at their targets, and they rarely care what they look like, as so many see the game mainly as streams of reward numbers.

Also, while the founders of the Skulls are Slavic, my impression was that they'd be recruiting from a variety of ethnic groups in Paragon.