Customizing the weapon (the look)

I used the search and didn't find a topic like this, sorry if there is one.
Turns out there is, post #15 has link. Don't worry, mine still has a differnt idea to it.

When I first bought Guild Wars and read the manuel, I read about customizing weapons, at first I thought you would be able to customize the look of the weapon, I was thinking, WOW that would be awsome, but it turns out it just adds 20% to damage.

So I was thinking, why not have a different customizer to change the look? Maybe make the blade of a sword look like its made of bone? Pay the customizer, and a list of pre built parts made of bones comes up, look for blades, find one you like and add it. Or for a bow, add some ectos to give it a ghostly aura around it. This will not effect the economy for guild wars, maybe sligtly, but not much. I have listed a few ways to make this work but I think this example will do it.

Example:
We have our good 'ole Fellblade, we go to the customizer and want to give it a spiky look. We pay the customizer some spiked crests, and 2-5 difgfernt spike patterns will come up. We choose one, it gats added to the fellblade. The blade will look the same but have a few spikes comming out of it.

Or when adding a mod, even though they add the same thing (or not), will give a different look to your weapon? (Skins for mods?)
For example:

Firy Sword Hilt, it will set the blade on fire, similare to that of an FDS.
Icy Sword Hilt, It will give the blade a frozen look, frost or something like that, not the blue fire thing going on witht the IDS.
Bow Grip of Marksmenship, it will add a primitive scope to the bow, a guiding hole of some sort. It may be to small to notice, so anything else we come up with will do.

This isn't complete, so any additions or changes would be appreciated, thanks.

EDIT: added things from other posts.

hrm....if I understand you right, being able to more or less make weapon skins out of materials? Dunno, that could be a major hit to the economy, since some of the more expensive items are that price purely for the skin.

It is one of those things that would require some serious thought. As of right now, I'd choose to remain nuetral.

Yes I was thinking about that, how about that, lets say, when customizing the look of the weapon we have hundreds of choices for custom skins, we'll say that blade skins 1-10 are reserved for fellblades only, 25-35 for longswords only, etc.
Same would apply for other weapons as well.
Get what I'm trying to say?

This could be an interesting addition to GW. Maybe have the 20% enchanting grip look different from the +30 health grip etc.

Perhaps if you customize the skin. The weapon becomes customized to that account. Thus, making it untradable but still letting the account owner use the weapon on any of their characters.

I was thinking that it would work like usual, its only usable by the character that customized it, but that could work too. We'll see how others want it.
This applys to the merchant customization, not the mod one.

Yes.

Ah, that would prevent the problem. A set of skins for each weapon type, so to say, eh?

That could be nice, and would add a bit more individuality into the game, which would be good.

Like Car Modding on San Andreas - you couldnt make a banger look as good as a fully modded Bullet

maybe with this idea u could put rubies and saph's to good use..

being able to add gems to swords/armor/shields ect would be a nice touch

/signed, as long as ANet doesn't waste too much time on it.

Ooo, I want to put put streamers on the ends of my Mesmer weapons, so that it really like a ballet dance. ^_^

I like it. Give the un-needed materials a chance to shin. Since when did anyone go around selling Bones anyways? With upgrades that require bones to make your weapon more skullish and deadly looking (Which would be popular) Price of bones would go up.

/signed

I saw that in the manual and was similarly dissapointed. Would make a great addition in my opinion.

That was part of my master plan. >: )
Bones would go up and I would be able to sell my thousands of them, for a reasonable price of course.

But should they be able to be sold when customized this way?
To me, I don't really see the problem if you can.

P.S. That should be "shine".

I swear there was a topic about this a couple or more months ago...and it sounded very very similar to this. I'll see if I can find this in a bit.

Anyways, what I posted back then...Not only just use the crafting material, but also using collectors items. This would give them a use other then collectors. For example, you go to the Weaponsmith, you have 10 spiked crests with you and a long sword. The crafter mixes them and you get a very spikey long sword. Or maybe you dont want that many/big spikes? Only give him 5. You want your long sword to have spikes that are made from bones? Add 10 bones to the mix. Basically the amount of materials you add would dictate the look, as well as which ones you put. Perhaps to limit the possibilities, you make the maximum amount that could be added 20, and minimum 5.

Also, as this would be a good gold sink, you would pay the smith 5-15k. A cool weapon I can think of now would be giving him Obsidian Shards. Well its just a thought, Maybe too complicated for Guild Wars but that would be sick if they did it.

/signed w/all my hopes

EDIT: I found the post. Have a look to get more ideas. http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...zing+weapo ns

this sounds unbeleivably WICKED. I would definetely love this... especially for bows, which really need some spiffing up in my opinion. It would also make an effective and popular money sink, and it would give people even more of a sense of uniqueness since they'd be able to customize the weapon to THEM (within reasonable limits, of course). It would also tone down the "zomg rare skin rare skin buy buy omg rare skin" things, and just be like "selling this and that weapon, this price because of this mod", because the weapon would be customizable anyway. Depending on the coolness of the skins per weapon, prices may still go up for the weapons because they may include the materials needed for a specific "omg leet skin choice lolz lolz" type things.


/signed, PLEASE!!!

Now that is a leet idea!

Sounds like a nice and cool idea, BUT this would ruin the GW economy w/ SO many possible combos and stuff. Dunno, there would be just TOO many choices...Choices, choices, choices...

Ex:

Player 1: WTS Fellblade, 15^50, R8, Combo 3-9
Player 2: I'll buy lemme check the skin combo brb at merch
Player 1: k
Player 2: ew srry i mistook combo 3-9 for 4-9 srry, thats a hideous skin

What do you think dyes are for? They're not the best, but they do, even though everyone dyes their weps black, lol.

No such thing as too many choices. And there wouldnt be set combos etc...there would be too many to count. I think it would be more like this...

Player 1: WTS COOL LEET FELLBLADE 15^50 W/SPIKES SO leetzors
Player 2: Can i c?
Player 1: kkzors
Player 2: Cool ill buy how much?
Player 1: 100k 500ecto
Player 2: No thnx ill make my own

It would encourage people to make their own, and would be the ONE thing in this game that I would call "character progression" in the sense that it is the *only* thing that is almost uniquely yours.

Btw, dyes barely change anything on weapons. The only fully dyeable weapon I know is the Crimson Carapace Sheild. The rest either look really stuped when dyed (like a Defender) or only dye the hilt. Not to mention dyes dont make things unique, just different.

Now I'm sad that I didn't think of it first...

P.S. Can we add the signs from that topic to this one ?

I'd rather have a monsterous eye floating in place on my staff, that would look awsome, the all-seeing eye!

Bow definatly need the most change. I don't really see the difference between them, not counting storm bows.

Sorry, I'll try to be a little clearer with my ideas. Since the merchant customizer seems more popular, in my opinion the different mods giving different skins would be less of a problem, but anyway.

Lets say we have our fellblade, with its nice looking blade. When we customize it with bones, the look of the blade won't seriously change, but instead of it being made of metal, it will be bones. Or if we use the spikey example: We have our good 'ole fellblade again, we go to the customizer with our spiked crests. The fellblade looks the same, but now has a bunch of extra spikes comming out of the blade.

Now, I want to talk about my near ignored idea, the one with the mods giving a different look. An example of this would be:
Firey sword hilt = sets the blade on fire. (like FDS)
Icy sword hilt = gives the blade a frozen look (frost), not the blue fire thing they have going with the IDS
Bow Grip of Marksmenship = adds a primitive scope to the bow, just like a guiding hole, this may be too small to notice though.

I can think of all this stuff, that's where you guys and A-net comes in.

Thats a cool idea actually.

Barbed would be covered in razors XD

Hehe. that was actually my favorite part right there. Sundering could make the arrows fired look more... powerful.

Sundering sucks.. it does not deserve a skin.
Its not that, just.. how would you show it? Make the weapon pointier... once in a while?

Thank you lyra, I'm glad some one likes my mod idea...
You too Phoenix Avenger!

EDIT: Some kind of error...

100% agree with the idea, for a long time its been said that when in Guild Wars u feel like a clonem, and in a sense u are. There isnt anything u get, that someone else couldnt or indeed dosnt already have. Very original idea and it is (i think) what any game with an RPG ELEMENT should have. S far GW has None of these completley unique elements.. this one would be a good one, NAY, a great one ive wanted a red sash on the end of my sword for a very long time to resemble chinese shaolin swords i see in kung fu demos.

/signed!! and /signed again for anyone that dis-agree's.

Flamberge + 2 monstrous eyes + 2 rubbies for teh eveil demon eyed sword of teh doom!!

Sundering mod would make the weapon kinda glint, shinier.

At least thats my take on it.

/signed

this would be awesome

/signed

^_^

Even more so, particularly to certain shields, we could toss on our guild's emblem


Nothing like my warrior showing his "Coat of Arms" on his shield

/signed.

Guild Wars can't handle this as it stands, at least not to any significant extent... the weapons have skins, yes, but not mix-and-match parts of skins, never mind anything more intricate.

So, I suspect it would be a waste of time for ArenaNet to actually do this... we're probably past the point where substantial cosmetic changes to the game are warranted.