A token carried in the character's inventory, which can apply a complete appearance, henceforth referred to as outfit, to that character, with a single click.
Functionality
Creating an outfit
Creating a new outfit is done by activating the existing Appearance Changer item, selecting Save Outfit (new menu option), and then clicking on an Outfit Token in inventory. This saves all appearance settings for all currently worn apparel to the token, with a prompt to supply a name for the outfit.
When saving appearance settings to the token the following are saved for each item worn, including weapon(s) and shield.
- Category (Cloth, Heavy, BG by BG, etc.)
- Model number
- Colours (hue, brightness, and saturation for all three colour options)
- Accessories (shoulders, greaves, hip items, etc.)
- Colours for accessories
Applying an outfit
Applying an outfit is done by activating an Outfit Token in inventory. Doing so will apply all the saved appearance settings to each currently worn item, for which there is a recorded matching item slot. E.g. no changing the appearance of the helmet slot, if no helmet slot settings are saved on the Outfit Token.
Outfit Tokens
These are low-weight items (2 lbs?) carried in the character's inventory. There is no limit to how many tokens can be carried, except inventory space, and weight. Each Outfit Token can hold exactly one outfit, and an existing one may be overridden by a choosing it as the token to use when saving an outfit.
Outfit Tokens can be bought at Aelo, or similar merchants, for an appropriate gold cost. But can be used anywhere, as long as the character is out of combat.
What this adds to the server
Primarily this will be a quality of life improvement for players using lots of different outfits as part of the role play for their character.
Currently the only options are to carry several items on the character, which is not only impractical due to inventory space and weight, but may also be exceedingly costly due to the cost/rarity of certain items.
Or to spend minutes slogging through the Appearance Changer menus, adding and removing details, hoping to get everything equal to last time, and only doing so in a select few areas.
Similarly this will greatly aid RP focused around tailors / outfitters, who design and create custom outfits on-demand for other characters. Rather than supplying all the necessary values to their client OOCly, they can simply hand over the outfit. It is then a (much smaller) OOC action to save the new outfit to an Outfit Token. Changes and additions are also easier to manage for the same reasons.
For those part of a faction, and wishing to have a faction identity (e.g. uniforms) this will make it much easier to encourage members to actually wear said uniform. As described above, there are currently only two ways to change outfits, and both are time-consuming and prone to errors. Here the faction can simply provide the uniform items, and an Outfit Token to which the member saves the uniform, before handing the uniform items back over.
Anyone using the Disguise feature will more easily and consistently be able to maintain the appearance of a character, by naming an outfit after the name chosen when using the Disguise feature.
In short: It removes a lot of the frustration/faffing involved in switching between outfits.
Downsides
A small break from reality, as character's will be able to carry multiple outfits, where either weight or bulk would previously have made this impossible. This isn't much of an issue, however, seeing that this is already possible by using the Appearance Changer. The difference here being that the Outfit Token is useable everywhere, outside of combat, and does impose both a weight and gold cost.
Considerations
In the interest of keeping the feature fair for everyone, an Outfit Token shouldn't have a particularly large weight. Possibly it can wary sleightly based on the type of body armour worn (cloth, light, medium, heavy). But overall it should not be too restricted by encumbrance / allowable weight. Strength-focused characters already have a massive advantage when carrying loot from dungeons back to town; there is no need to extend that advantage (further) to RP as well.