Windy Weather

All the MMOs I’m playing are providing ways that separate how you look from the Stats of your gear. People want to dress up, Either for the current holiday, or in keeping with their character self image.

Wow added “Transmogrification” which changes gear to look like other gear. And of course then began providing “Templates” which were stat-less gear either for $$ or for achievements.

GW2 added a similar way to change the look of gear. Every piece of gear that you own locks that look into your whole account so you can modify any like piece of gear to have that look. And you can mix and match pieces of gear.

Tera had a scheme similar to Wow’s Transmog, but removed it and now has Costumes which are special templates that are overlays for your entire armor set or weapon. No mixing and matching with armor pieces for this scheme. Costumes, both weapons and armor, are purchased with points from Achievements, like the Battlegrounds [aka Arenas], with “Fashion Coupons” that are farmed from large monsters, or purchased in the store.

Tera and GW2 both provide these Costumes. GW2, it seems, cannot make up their minds about whether to have transmute or costumes. They have both. Costumes are primarily obtained from the store and cover up all your armor. Weapon and armor skins are obtained as achievements or in the store.

Here’s a particularly silly example of a costume for Wintera. An Elin dressed up in a snow suit. Don’t get me started on all the swimsuit costumes for both male and female characters. You get the idea. There’s even an achievement, in both Wow and Tera for killing a Boss in a swimsuit. Of course any costume will do to get the achievement. Continue reading “Tera – Fashion? Where are we going?”

Another way to get great fashions, if you like black, is Battlegrounds. I’ve been doing the Corsair Stronghold over and over to get costumes. To get a costume, you need 7000 points, which you can get in about 3 long days of work in the Corsair Stronghold. Starting at level 30 you can queue for the battlegrounds. I’ve tried the Kumasylam, and you may like that one. The Corsair Stronghold is sort of Storm the Castle kind of event where each team of 20 toons alternatively tries to storm and defend the castle. Each run takes 10-25 minutes and gives you from 150-500 points depending on Lose or Win. And once a day you can do the Pirate Daily quest, which gives good loot and 200 points.

So as it turns out it doesn’t take that long to get your 7000 points, and along the way you’ll get a couple levels, and maybe a couple of hundred Gold in loot mailed to you for your wins.

But don’t take it very seriously, because you are going to die enough to get the Black Death achievement for dying 100 times and the “Death Eater” title.

Continue reading “Tera – Battlegrounds for Fashions”

We have discussed the templates previously available with Fed Bills, and the removal of the template system from Tera in previous posts. I’ve not been playing Tera for a while and there have been some updates. Back in April there was an event for about a month where you could obtain Luxury Fashion Coupons. We were each given 20, but it took 200-500 to purchase anything useful. I still have some of those coupons, but the event is over.

Update 16 Dec 2014: As of the Fate of Arun update, it is no longer viable to get Fashion Coupons with low level toons. The drop rate has apparently been reduced to 10-20% of it’s previous number, so rather than working 3 days for 400 coupons with Basilisks or Nagas in Celestial Hills, it now takes much longer. I’ve given up farming Fashion Coupons. You get 5 coupons for doing completing a dungeon with Instance Match, but that will take far too long to get 200-500 coupons for a nice fashion.

Sometime over the summer [2013 date not certain] a new type of Fashion Coupon was created. This time, the event continues. We are going to discuss my experience trying to farm these coupons and show some of the many costumes you can obtain. There are literally 100s of armor designs and one weapon for each class. Many of the armor designs are not very interesting since they are actually just low level armor that each of us have played in the game. But if you want to “Dress Down” and look like a lower level player, then these are interesting.

Some of the designs are quite interesting and some appear to be unique. But first let’s talk about how to get and use these new Fashion Coupons.

Updated 18 Nov. See Below.
Continue reading “Tera – Fashion Coupons for Gear Costumes”