Should MMO players be able to freely choose the appearence of their characters, or should they have to earn it?

Warhammer Online has piqued my interest, and I'll post a longer commentary on it tomorrow probably. But first, one particular minor feature caught me eye and brought back some memories of a discussion I had online with a friend recently.

It came about when EQ2 implemented 'appearence slots' in its inventory, which allowed a player to equip one set of armour for stats and another set of armour for appearence. I'm told that LOTRO has the same system, though I've not played it so I can't personally vouch for that. Essentially, it means I can equip the Badass Platemail of Face Shattering for its amazing stats, and then equip the Flowing Robes of Beauty in the 'appearence' slot and my character loks like he's wearing the robes, with no sign at all of the platemail. I had rather mixed feelings about this for several reasons, and I'm still not sure I've decided on whether I think it's a good idea to allow this. I'm going to examine some of the arguments on either side here.

First, there's the gameplay element. You obviously can't let players wear ANY armour in the 'appearence' slots, because you can't have a Warrior who looks like a mage. Not only does it makes no sense that someone's able to hide plate armour under cloth robes, but it's game unbalancing in PvP. When I was playing my WoW rogue, I would deal with a Warrior and a Mage differently in the battlegrounds (namely by leaving the former well alone and sticking a dagger in the back of the latter). The visual recognition of classes by their appearence is a vital part of PvP, and to muddy the waters unfairly weights the game towards the classes that don't have external markers to their identity - ie, no pets, no stealth, no obvious buffs etc.

WoW's epic gear is famed for the subtlety of its appearence.

Thankfully, EQ2 limited gear in the appearence slots to gear that your class can use, which is fair enough. It also used to have a limitation that you couldn't put armour of a lighter type than you had in your normal armour slots in your appearence slot, intended to solve the problem mentioned above. This meant that you couldn't wear robes over chainmail, for example, though I'm not entirely sure if that restriction is still in place or not. Presumably LOTRO also has similar restrictions, because I doubt the players would be too happy otherwise.

Lets set aside the game balance for now, as it's not really what I'm interested in discussing. What was more of a concern to me is that it somewhat devalued the achievements of the more hardcore players. When I was playing in WoW as my rogue, when I hit level 60 I quickly got my grubby mitts on my full Shadowcraft set, and it made me proud. I could stroll around Ironforge, and people knew that I was a level 60 with a respectable level of gear, because everyone knew what Shadowcraft looked like. When I started raiding and got my Nightslayer stuff, most players knew what that looked like too, so they could take one look at me and know that I was a high-level raider and I got correspondingly more respect. As your avatar's appearence is essentially the only representation of your achievements in-game, it struck me as a bit off to suddenly let everyone customise their appearence. I thought that players should have to EARN a good appearence.

I wasn't, of course, saying that all rogues irrespective of ability would automatically be able to look like they were wearing Nightslayer. I knew that if I wore the stuff, people would still identify me as a high-end player. But once everyone started customising their appearences to their likings, even the low-end players could look really cool, which diluted the prestige of my appearence somewhat. Snobbery, I suppose, not wanting to lose the status I felt I'd earned. But then status is what a lot of players play for, to be the best and to impress other people.

Yeah, there are people who have worked long and hard to earn this.

The other side of the coin is represented by a couple of arguments. Firstly (and especially relevent to EQ2), sometimes it's needed. EQ2's armour is frankly horrendous. Sets of armour, especially crafted ones, often don't match up properly in appearence terms. Individual looted armour is usually even worse. And very few pieces look any good at all, either, including the high-end raid gear. A fully-geared up raider doesn't look any cooler than the normal players, indeed often they look like complete muppets. Raid gear in WoW is distinctive in all of its kaleidoscopic, skull-covered, flame-spewing glory, while EQ2's stuff is just the same models as all the crafted stuff, tinted a vaguely different colour. So sometimes appearence slots are needed.

The more general argument is simply that, well, why shouldn't people be able to customise their appearence? Often a set you're wearing for stats looks a bit rubbish, like if you happened to be wearing your fire resistance set, and mine was horribly mismatched because it was taken from half a dozen different sets. Plonking my Nightslayer set in my appearence slot would allow me to keep my dignity while not simulatenously being burned to cinders. So, this gives players a measure of protection against a moment of madness on the part of the modellers. It also allows players to role-play without sacrificing too much of their character's power.

Can you blame the EQ2 devs for putting in the appearence slot when the class armour looks like this?

Also, why should looking cool be limited only to the endgame players? Shouldn't players just be able to look how they want to look, while only the stats are affected by the choice of gear? There's something in it, no? Surely even an incompetent soldier can dress up in a General's uniform, or a Duke's armour (provided he can get his hands on it somehow)?

Personally, I don't think that holds too much water for me. Part of the enjoyment of MMORPGs for me is finding new gear and seeing your character develop in appearence. Choosing an appearence right at the start of the game and sticking with it right the way though would take much of that away for me. Happily, though, there's a third way which Warhammer Online will be introducing.

It's actually been borrowed from both EQ1 and Ultima Online, so it predates the current crop of MMORPGs and thus I'm surprised that it's not more common - armour dyes. If I have it down correctly, each piece of armour has a foreground and a background colour that can freely be changed to one of something like a hundred colours. I like this a lot. You'll find guilds all wearing the same colours, which is always really cool. People will actually be able to look how they want, but at the same time you'll be able to look at their gear and recognise it from the armour's model. Good middle way, I think.

Personally, I've got a lot to say for letting people customise their appearence to a large degree. I think it adds a lot to the role-playing aspect of the game in that it makes you attatched to your character, gives you an identity, makes you a little bit special (I don't mean role-playing in the sense where you actually think you're an elf). But you also need to carefully control the armour models. There's nothing wrong with low-levels players not being able to wear adorned armour, for example. Maybe mid-level characters are allowed to have inlaid armour. High-level characters can have inlaid, enameled armour with adornments. That way you'll still be able to see what level a character is, and the high-end people can look more impressive than the low-end people and everyone can keep their individuality. I expect it to be a huge success in WAR, and I expect it to be much more common in the future.