Hello there, my plump toothy fishies. A little question popped to my head upon the frightful release night of Neck Romancer:
Do you (still) have in-house 3D artists working on V2? If so, do you have anything against adding more unique veteran weapon skins now that the game size is drastically smaller?
Thing is, I can’t help but feel that nearly all ‘new’ veteran skins are just carbon copies of one or two template weapons, with zero variation in the weapon itself. Default Teal, Khorne Crimson, Bögenpurple and Myrmidia Orange all use existing skin configurations. Over and over again. Ad Infinitum.
Back in the Good Old Days™ we had no glowing runes yet reds were still sought after (partially) because they were always visually distinct from their mundane counterparts. Now, call me a vain old bastard, but I’d like to see that brought back at least partially.
How could this be done then?
First step is easy. Take a bunch of models that don’t yet have red versions and slap on some glowing elgi text in your texturing application of choice. Presto.
But to really make it worth players’ time, you could introduce a bunch of new color palettes to veteran weapons that don’t appear in regular versions. For instance, a sword could have more polished steel in the blade, and dyed leather wrappings. Myrmidia weapons could make use of more brass and copper instead of the regular steely hues. What I’m getting at here is, make the materials compliment the runes, instead of adding artificial value with RGB lights that feel disconnected from the design itself.
Figure A:
Yeah yeah copper blades aren't practical but it's elf stuff get over it
This is a recreation of Kerillian’s Draich of the Soul-Lost by Arnaud Delagrave. Bottom is my recolor I threw together in five minutes to make a point. Don’t you agree that a custom palette reserved only for a certain veteran skin would make it more appealing? Best thing is, FS already has all important things like low-poly models, baked maps and project files handy, so this could be done reasonably lickety spit. Some material switcheroo here, some mask tweaking there, and a little manual wear just in the right places.
Now, before you bring out the pitchforks, I do know that making actual Warhammer-worthy assets is not just a matter of drag-dropping materials. But just so that you know, it’s not impossible either. Turning a knob to change glow color is quite cost-effective, sure, but would it not be nice to give something extra for your little grind gremlins?
TL; DR:
Add more uniqueness for veteran weapon skins. Pls.
