Stronghold: Flag and cloak customization

[cleric Nemir]

Just thought it would be great if we could customize our Stronghold's flag and cloaks of our units rather than being presented with ones ingame.

 

I'm thinking something like standard medieval two-colored flag and unit cloak where we can select the two colors, plus one from a preset of symbols for the center of it both. Maybe a preset of flag/cloak types or something more ?

 

Thoughts?

[nikolokolus]

I think a little bit of cosmetic customization in an isometric, single-player, party-based RPG is a good thing, but at some point it just feels like people want to play dress-up.

 

What you're asking for fits in better in massively multiplayer game where thousands of people are trying to stand out or distinguish their avatar in some way from the crowd, but for a crowd funded game with a limited budget this feels like a lot of fluff - resources that can probably be spent in more meaningful ways.

 

So not to pee in your cheerios completely; there's nothing wrong with your request per se, but it's not something I care about at all and maybe I'm in the minority?

[Prometheus]

They said it's difficult to change the enviroment in P:E, because it's in 2D. So I think changing the flag wouldn't be easy to implement.

You can choose the primary and secondary colour of your character's armor, so maybe they could use the same system for your hirelings. But Hirelings seems to be more like mercenaries than soldiers. So the hirelings would still wear different armor, only the tintable colour would be the same. See quote below for more information about hirelings:

Individual upgrades come with folks to run them.

The exception are hirelings, who are the defenders of your stronghold. There's a standard list of "common" hirelings (e.g. Goldpact Knight, Rauatai Linebreaker) who fill common class roles and give differing levels of Security and Prestige to the stronghold. There are also guest hirelings and visitors who have much more dramatic effects. E.g. the Notorious War Criminal grants a huge bonus to Security but lowers the stronghold's Prestige and is a powerful fighter. He's also very expensive.

Edited November 10, 2013 by Prometheus

[cleric Nemir]

Yeah,I'm a nitpick. But I somehow feel that we should be presented with some marks that will display our troops as "ours", "ones that serve to that specific stronghold", you know? Like there were Greycloaks, but there we had just a section of the existing unit that serves to us and get referenced as "our", no Whitecloaks or Blackcloaks to call our own. And this is (I guess) an advanced version of the stronghold concept. We could still have a tailor or such that would allow us to have our own flags and colors.

 

Maybe it really is hard to do, I don't know, but societies have that trend, even in fantasy setting. It's not exactly new. That trend follows us throughout history, it remained in sports, jobs, military (specific unit marking). When you get a job as a guard, you are usually given something, a uniform,logo on a tagplate or cloth, etc. specific enough to mark you as one working for your employer,no? Atleast you are required the "black tuxedo guard" stereotype   . Trend,one of the oldest that remained up to this day. We all like it in one way or another. I like the black&white of my football (you call it soccer) team,and I wear it somewhere on me when they play to mark myself as one of theirs.

[JFSOCC]

Just steal the banner design tool from Guild Wars and I'll be very happy.

 

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Cape

Something along those lines

Edited November 10, 2013 by JFSOCC

[Lephys]

Crest! Crest! Crest!

 

*waits for everyone to join in the chanting.*

 

[Azmodan]

Totally would love something like this!

 

Having some ability to change your "team" colours (i.e. the major colours of your stronghold guards' paper dolls) would be great. I will take it a step further - there are melee, ranged and support roles - allowing the player to optionally choose the major colors of each "type" would be great!

Similarly, if you remember Crossroad keep in NWN2 - you upgraded the armour/weapons of your guards, and even back then that was reflected on their models.

 

And yes - flag colour with crest! Crest! Crest! Crest!

 

I completely agree with the idea that having additional visual cues to show that "this is mine" or the status and progress the player is making through these side-quests only enhances my buy-in as the player.

[Tauron]

Just steal the banner design tool from Guild Wars and I'll be very happy.

 

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Cape

Something along those lines

 

That would be sweet. If they dont add some similar customisation option, than hope game will be moddable to that degree we can change heraldy and such. Probably there will be more than few mods like that

[Marceror]

Just thought it would be great if we could customize our Stronghold's flag and cloaks of our units rather than being presented with ones ingame.

 

I'm thinking something like standard medieval two-colored flag and unit cloak where we can select the two colors, plus one from a preset of symbols for the center of it both. Maybe a preset of flag/cloak types or something more ?

 

Thoughts?

You should have the option to wear your cloak as well, not just your guards. Perhaps a more ornate version of it.

[bulldog]

Just steal the banner design tool from Guild Wars and I'll be very happy.

 

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Cape

Something along those lines

Yeah GW had some nice customization for their capes.  Not only could you change the symbol, and color but borders and even the shape of the cape.

[rjshae]

Yes, customization of the Stronghold's look and feel is a great way to make it feel like you actually own it. Just sayin'...

[WotanAnubis]

I don't much care for cape colour, but I really would like to have some kind of coat of arms to go with my Stronghold. Some kind of symbol to say "This is who I am and also this is all mine".

[Sad Panda]

They said it's difficult to change the enviroment in P:E, because it's in 2D. So I think changing the flag wouldn't be easy to implement.

Of course depends on the particulars of the system, but I wager they're talking about static environments, i.e. the background on which characters move, since they're all handcrafted (as opposed to rendered). Flags etc. could be placed as separate objects on top of the background, however, and could then in theory have the same customizability as characters, if such was implemented. Technically there's nothing particularly challenging about allowing a free choice of colour schemes -- as you said, this mechanism is already in place for character armours, so if the devs had the foresight of extending the functionality to other objects as well, it wouldn't even be any great amount of work.

[Macbeth]

It has already been confirmed that you can create custom character portraits like you could in BG, IWD and NWN1&2 and that is a fantastic feature because it can make your character and even your party all the more personal to you.

 

Perhaps something along those lines could work for flags/banners/capes as well? That it could go through the same pipeline I mean.