I'm not a fan of customizing the appearance with camos, but if you are going to allow customizing the appearance then at least do it right or don't do it all. Let people custom paint every square inch of their titan, their pilot and their gun. If they want to spend weeks working on a detailed custom paint job that makes them happy, then let them do that, otherwise what's the point? Why would I want a prebuilt camo where 1000 other people could have the same thing? What's custom about that? I also wanted to build on how that could be done and what it could lead to for adding an entire new dimension to this game and could actually create a source of part-time income for some. If you stored all of the customizations in files stored ONLY on the user's computer who created them (I know it's not a valid extension, but going to use .def meaning definition for sake of example). So the user would have these files on their computer (could perhaps even extend for each specific item): Pilot.def Titan.def Weapon.def You would then have a graphics editor that would be part of the game, but used while out of the game, and any changes you make would get stored in those files. If you wanted to have multiple different looks you could just save multiple copies of those files. Here's how it could add another dimension and make some people some money. Perhaps someone could say, "I'm willing to pay someone to design me a Batman-themed titan paint job". Or an artist might just spend all day creating paint jobs he thinks people might like and then have a website where he could sell them. I think this would really add another dimension to the community surrounding the game. My point is if you can't make it completely custom then it's not custom so what's the point? Do it right or don't waste resources on it at all.
With all the supplement solicitation taking up the top slots as well as the focus shifting to looking forward to TF3 now, just wanted to revive some potentially applicable threads that might warrant more discussion at this time. I still believe we should be able to customize every inch of our weapons, pilots and titans.
#1 No game studio is going to let some random graphics editor make money off of their game. #2 I think full customization would be really cool as well but it isn't plausible with the current generation of systems I don't think. Not if you want a steady, fast, fluid 60fps multiplayer game. What other game does that? I just think that's too many variables that would cause the game to play poorly.
Thanks for the feedback Ik0n. #1 - See, I think a game studio has to keep a bigger picture here. I think it is short-sighted to say we refuse to let individuals make money by creating and selling graphics, because if it builds another layer to your community and attracts a bunch of people that would not have otherwise been interested, you are probably going to end up selling more actual copies of your game and building more shelf life for the longevity of your game going into the future. Just to be clear also, I meant Respawn would provide the graphics editor with the game. It would not be an external company providing the graphics editor. User, such as us, could then go into the editor inside the game and customize our own stuff or create stuff to sell and even try to fulfill requests, but it would all be done from the editor that is part of the game. #2 - I see your point, but I think the technology is getting closer to where this would be possible. I believe someone had even mentioned to me somewhere that some of the "Need For Speed" games had already done this. Plus, some of the camos that were already in TF2 were pretty complicated as nauseating as they were.