- Go forward for the Art of Nexus: Concepts blog.
Today starts the beginning of a multi-week arc highlighting concept art provided to the site by Carbine Studios, the developers of WildStar Online. How we'll run it is to pop some images into the current Art of Nexus blog; each week the blog is running, anyone who's interested can post questions relating to those pics that we'll then pass along to the developers!
The question-gathering will last for that week, and then answers will be posted the following week.
To start things off, we've posted below some of the armor concept art provided to us. As you can see, some of them are for your favorite class, some are by "role", and some are by type.
Espers are masters of the mind and who tap into powerful psychic energies to lash out and incapacitate enemies or strengthen and protect their friends.
Spellslingers are deadly and dangerous pistoleers, often found beyond the Fringe working as bounty hunters, bodyguards, and guns-for-hire.
Warriors are unstoppable juggernauts on the battlefield, using a combination of heavy weaponry, powerful armor and advanced technology to take care of business.
Answers[]
- Keep in mind Carbine can only answer a limited number of questions at a time!
Will rep vendors have cool looking armor, or is that reserved for raiders only? Will there be tiers of the same armor with different colors or special effects?
Rep vendors in future content will have access to some cool looking new armor, but it won't be on the same tier as our raid or endgame pvp gear. We don’t use color variants on our armors. The dye system allows players to color their gear any way they choose which kind of invalidates the appeal of simple color shifts. Instead we offer texture design variants with different patterns and details. These variants are used for different tiers.
Will belts ever be a separate slot and armor piece?
We played with the idea about making buckles a separate slot but it felt like too many items to juggle. So we probably won’t make that a separate slot anytime soon.
My favorite thing about the WoW armor was the particle effects, and glowing colors, especially on the shoulders. Can we expect to see that in WildStar?
Some of our high level armor and artifact weapons do have special effects to enhance the visuals. We wanted to keep it limited though because we have big plans for these in the future!
Was there any regional era armor style's that inspired you while designing the different class armor?
We tried to hit on certain iconic looks for the class armor. You can see some Eastern influences in the Stalker and some wild west in the Spellslinger but we really wanted it to feel like it was a part of this universe. Everything we design has to go through what we call the “WildStar Filter”. Nothing should be directly from the world we live in but it can have certain elements that feel familiar. I think players are going to have a blast finding which pieces fit their style or vibe. The Costuming system is about allowing players to have the freedom to wear what they like.
Did you look to different fighting styles and the armor they wear? Does it reflect in any of the class armor in game?
Absolutely. We wanted tank classes to look the part. DPS classes had to look threatening. We want players to recognize something about their class without having to look into the stats. In fact, before designing the armor, we laid out which classes had what play styles and how that would affect the design. We also have themes for the classes that were important to get across. Our ultimate goal though was to make sure the armor looks great and players would have a hard time choosing which pieces they want to wear.