Suggestion talk:20090814 Starting Clothes Selection

Starting Clothes

Timestamp: Degree7 21:57, 8 August 2009 (BST)

Type: Clothes

Scope: Starting characters

Description: Okay, here's another suggestion that I hopefully think might go down better under discussion than my rifle one. I'm not too sure if this has been discussed before though. Anyway.... My idea was that when you create a new character and have chosen the class and name and password and all that, it also gives you the option to choose the clothes you start out with. After all, it would only make sense that you would get to wear the military clothing when you pick a military class, instead of having to travel all the way to a fort if you want to acquire them. This would negate the effect of encountering a soldier who's wearing a fireman's helmet or a lab coat, and would add some realism to the game. This is just something that has always irked me at times. The options on what clothes you want to wear would take place when you first pick your class and character, with the little drop down clothing menus. Obviously, if you picked to be a firemen, you wouldn't be able to choose a doctor's apparel or a policeman's unless you go to a hospital or police station, where you can still change your clothes.

Discussion (Starting Clothes)

Firemen start in fire stations and are therefore limited to only picking fireman clothing at first. Same for doctors and police in their respective locations. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 11:51, 11 August 2009 (BST)

Ditto; it's not like it's hard to just get Free Running and stroll on over to a FD, PD, or Hospital, and we don't want to give people rare fort/mansion-wear wherever they go just because they picked a certain starting class. Lelouch vi Britannia is helping make Ridleybank green_ and gives Achievements 15:28, 11 August 2009 (BST)

I do agree with the military personnel starting off with army clothes by default, although by precedence, everyone starts off naked and there's no real need to change the rules for one classes' benefit. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 15:35, 11 August 2009 (BST)

I think this is a good idea. It would improve the flavor and role-playing merits of the consumer, military and zombie classes. If the other classes can already start out by choosing the type of clothing appropriate to their clothing, why not give everyone the option? How about this for the starting selections of clothing:

• Cop, Firefighter, Lab Assistant and Doctors all select their clothing from the type of building they start in.
• Consumers select from Mall clothes (no Mall shirts)
• Military selects from Fort clothes (no dog tags)
• Zombies select from Tower clothes (all clothes start out torn and tattered)

--_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 02:08, 12 August 2009 (BST)

As it is, fort clothes are relatively rare or at least specialized items that can only be obtained from a functioning fort in survivor hands; letting anyone who starts out as a military class get it for free kind of removes the significance and uniqueness of these items... Lelouch vi Britannia is helping make Ridleybank green_ and gives Achievements 02:26, 12 August 2009 (BST)

It's not like clothes are even mandatory or serve a purpose. But I don't see how they can be considered specialized items as they offer no benefits. Also, this suggestion is not only limited to one class, as civilians also lack the ability to choose any consumer based clothes from the start. To me, regulating the clothing would kind of straighten out the realism of the game out a bit, but wouldn't negate the effect of people still being able to come up with wacky combinations of clothes that they can identify themselves with.--Degree7 11:07, 12 August 2009 (BST)

Why do we really need selecting? If your a firefighter, you start with "firefighter" related clothes.--Pesatyel 03:20, 12 August 2009 (BST)

I'm pretty "meh" with pointless flavour suggestions, but if you have to put this suggestion up, I'd suggest that the classes get generic <class specific> clothing. If you want to choose your clothing, just go to the buildings, it's not that difficult. It would be good for zombies, to save them having to get a revive to put something on, although I'm not sure what type of clothing a corpse should start off with. This may require new users to nominate a sex, so they get either skirts or trousers? -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 13:55 12 August 2009 (BST)

I think Giles Sednik outlined his idea for it pretty well. You wouldn't need to pick a gender, as no matter what clothes you choose, you can still fill out your character description and describe whether your a male or a female. But the problem with traveling to the buildings is a lot of players start out really far away from the forts and it's usually quite risky to travel about five suburbs across while still having to stop in a VSB building if you don't have free running.--Degree7 21:22, 12 August 2009 (BST)

...That's the point; the clothes are difficult to get, and therefore meaningful. Furthermore, at the end of the day, what problem with Urban Dead does this address? If you're just adding complexity for the sake of complexity, it's not likely to go well. Lelouch vi Britannia is helping make Ridleybank green_ and gives Achievements 21:36, 12 August 2009 (BST)

Look, it's not like choosing clothes from a drop down menu is complicated. It just adds flavour. I don't think people would have issues over military classes wearing their respective clothes, it just makes sense. It's not as if military clothing is rare or unique anyway. And this idea wouldn't be restricted to military either, but for zombies and consumers as well.--Degree7 01:59, 13 August 2009 (BST)

The only thing that really makes clothes even slightly interesting, is that you have to find out where the ones you want are located, and then go and find a building that is in survivor hands to get them -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 02:17 13 August 2009 (BST)

I'd have to disagree. I'd imagine beginning players would be quite excited to be able to pick their clothes at the start. It would cement a sense of identity in their character if they picked military, zed, or consumer and could pick their apparel to boot.--Degree7 06:17, 13 August 2009 (BST)

To answer your question Lelouch, the problem with Urban Dead this addresses is the clothing inequity between starting classes. Right now only certain random classes start out with access to the type of clothing appropriate for their character. So if you chose consumer, zombie or military, you're getting screwed (in a very minor way). But flavor is flavorful baby.

Also, as boxy pointed out, there is some interest and pride in unique clothing items. That's why dog tags and mall shirts would still only be available by finding the right building. This retains the pride of wearing "unique" apparel.--_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 06:23, 13 August 2009 (BST)

Seems you're better at explaining this than I am, Giles.--Degree7 07:55, 13 August 2009 (BST)

so basically... when you start out as a military type, you can choose to have military clothes or normal clothes? if that isn't the case, then I don't like the idea as it makes it harder to identify trenchcoaters (who have recently infected shuttlebank with a disease far worse then zombification... they call it stupidity...) --Crazy Hobo Man 06:28, 15 August 2009 (BST)

No. As I already mentioned, a military type would not chose "regular" clothes. They would choose from Fort Barracks clothing. <<< Click the link there to see what clothes are available in a fort barrack. Read my earlier post for full details.--_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 22:22, 15 August 2009 (BST)

I assume some randomization should be included in order to keep the idea hunting down and picking out your clothes an important part of clothing. Zombies could get something like a torn body bag and a toe tag, a hospital gown, or gender specific clothing. --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 00:33, 19 August 2009 (BST)

While I do like your idea about randomization, it doesn't really fit with the way this suggestion has been conceived and worded. To address your concern about hunting down just the right pair of clothing, I feel this change would still allow for that. Not everyone is going to want to just look like a generic doctor or a cop, so people will still want to move from building to building picking out the perfect outfit. Consumers will have the greatest degree of initial freedom, but it's a weak role-playing class to start out with, so they would be appropriately rewarding with the greatest degree of role-playing freedom with their apparel.

So, sadly, there would be no randomization with this. But I hope you can see where I'm coming from. If this changes your vote I understand and respect your decision.--_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 02:26, 22 August 2009 (BST)

Gender Selection

This was one Keep/Change vote: "As above. The problem with randomly assigned clothing would be you could wind up getting a skirt when you don't want one. Better to pick your options or choose to go naked instead. Degree7 04:15, 15 August 2009 (BST)"

What if you selected your gender beforehand and so it knows not to accidentally give you a skirt? --Brainguard 15:47, 21 August 2009 (BST)

That's a different suggestion itself. Gender is irrelevant to UD beyond roleplaying. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 16:02, 21 August 2009 (BST)

I could be wrong here, but I believe that the buildings themselves have a selection of gender specific clothing. For example, Towers have both skirts and pants. Also Malls have a selection of womens and mens clothing. Military personnel wouldn't wear a skirt and neither would a doctor or presumably a NecroTech employee (in fact they just wear lab coats, tee hee). So i think the suggestion already allows for some gender variety without making players click a box.--_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 02:21, 22 August 2009 (BST)