So - what happened to capes?

Harper.4173 · October 6, 2017

@Panda.1967 said:
@Harper.4173 said:
@Panda.1967 said:We were told way back in the original beta that Capes were originally a planned feature, but due to issues with modeling capes on Charr they were scrapped. Traditional capes had major clipping issues with Charr, they tried doing a split cape design on Charr to resolve the issue, but decided that it didn't look as good as a full cape and figured people would be more disappointed with the shotty split capes than to just not have capes all together. And so capes got scrapped.

Yeah - a wonderful idea. Another wonderful idea would have been for capes to be a unique visual accessory that was race-specific. Humans get a standard cape. Norn get a tattered animal cape. Charr don't get a cape - they get something else. Asura don't get a cape - they get something else. Like a powerpack. Sylvari don't get a cape - they get something else. What do Charr and Sylvari get? I don't really know.

Is this discriminatory? Yes. But it's not like it isn't or wasn't in the game. At launch we had the cultural armor skins (which at the time were some of the most prestigious armor sets) and they were all race-specific. To this day I can't wear norn cultural on a human or the other way around.So could this have been such a huge issue?

I don't know why people keep thinking that there were issues with capes on Asura... they only ran into issues with Charr due to their shape. Asura still have the same general body structure as humans, and as a result capes worked just fine on them. The only real "issue" with capes on Asura would have been level of detail, since they are so much smaller than other races, there's not a whole lot of detail they could put into capes on Asura without them looking like a cluttered mess.

As for the different items for different races thing... again, they considered that, but decided it was better to not go forward with that idea after trying split capes on Charr. They made the guild banners and backpacks instead.

Now, it's been 5 years, they've had more practice with different things and surely by now they can make a cape work on Charr.

I just thought they wouldn't be very thematically appropriate. Since Asura are very tech-heavy. The only two races that I see wearing them thematically are humans and maybe Norn - with Norn using a sort of cape/ animal fur hybrid. I don't see capes fitting in with the other three races.

Dante.1763 · October 6, 2017

@Harper.4173 said:
@Dante.1763 said:> I cant say, it would depend on which software they are using, and how the models themselves are set up. Are they meant to be easily modifiable or not? i highly doubt they are, given how long theyve stated it takes to get a full set of armor out vs an outfit.

I would settle for colors and maybe a straight vs a tattered bottom part. What other modifications could you even add?

Obviously not to much, but GW1 did have a crap load of cape styles if i remember correctly(different bottoms).

Oglaf.1074 · October 6, 2017

Oh Norns do love capes/cloaks. A lot of the concept art heavily feature them wearing pelts, and the T3 heavy cultural armour even has one - sorta. It is just this tiny, teeny little flap hanging off of the back of it....

Dante.1763 · October 6, 2017

@Oglaf.1074 said:Oh Norns do love capes/cloaks. A lot of the concept art heavily feature them wearing pelts, and the T3 heavy cultural armour even has one - sorta. It is just this tiny, teeny little flap hanging off of the back of it....

I wouldnt mind having some kinda of pelts to wear(like the houndskin shoulders)...id love to have some of the cultural armor that norn have available on my charr, its well done.

Zoltreez.6435 · October 6, 2017

@Palador.2170 said:
@Harper.4173 said:GW1 had something unique-capes.As an old City of Heroes player, I'm going to laugh at this. Then cry a little.

Seriously, CoH figured out how to make capes work YEARS ago. And they looked pretty good, too. Yes, they only had three body types, but they had to fit a very wide range of animations, including poses that left you hunched over to run wire-art ninja style, or on all fours like a charr. The worst clipping you would get is when you would sit on a chair, which GW2 seems to have preemptively avoided anyway.

But... They did cause a hit to game performance. For the big raid of the game, it was suggested (by players) that everyone show up wearing a "raid costume" that lacked a cape or anything else that would cause a hit when rendered. Characters were limited to one cape effect each (the lower part of a CoH trenchcoat was a cape effect, for example) to reduce the strain they could cause.

So, what would you be willing to give up to get a cape? Perhaps you can't have a mini out if you have a cape, and they turn off in overly crowded areas?

Imagen WvW... 60 people spaming animations abilities overloading the servers causing lag... and THEN... it starts to animate the same stuff but with 60 people worth of freaking Cape physics..... the server would burn alive....

paintpixie.7398 · October 6, 2017

Whenever this topic comes up, I sit and wonder how anybody could actually want a cape in this game.When I think "cape", I immediately think of superheros from comic books. It seems so silly to me.Then I see some of the people running around Tyria with clashing colors, enormous wings, and gaudy glider skins and I am given my answer.Live and let live. If people want capes, give them capes.If we haven't developed the technology to create capes that don't clip, well...There are lots of things that clip in this game already. My weapons clip with my gear, my hair, etc.I'd settle for some pants, really.

Oglaf.1074 · October 6, 2017

@Dante.1763 said:
@Oglaf.1074 said:Oh Norns do love capes/cloaks. A lot of the concept art heavily feature them wearing pelts, and the T3 heavy cultural armour even has one - sorta. It is just this tiny, teeny little flap hanging off of the back of it....

I wouldnt mind having some kinda of pelts to wear(like the houndskin shoulders)...id love to have some of the cultural armor that norn have available on my charr, its well done.

I love the Houndskin sooo much to the point where I am seriously considering transmuting my heavy legendary shoulders with the look.

They're the closet thing you'll ever get to a pelt. We need more like it.

Rauderi.8706 · October 6, 2017

Q: Capes?A: There aren't any.[ObligatoryNoCapes.gif]

There's not even a point in them. You barely see your character model as it is. Add a cape and that's ALL you see.Except for the increasingly-WoWesque pauldrons.

darkkrus.7382 · October 6, 2017

"No Capes!"

             - Edna.

darkkrus.7382 · October 6, 2017

HaHa didn't notice that someone had already posted the Edna quote.

Illconceived Was Na.9781 · October 6, 2017

@"Omar Aschi Popp.7496" said:I think is reasonable to say that the capers are numerically similar if not more vocal than mounters.
And we got mounts.

We got mounts because ANet's been thinking about how to implement them for ages, perhaps independent of all the clamor.(Additionally, without counting, it's not reasonable to "say" that capers are numerically similar to mount-fans.)

Palador.2170 · October 6, 2017

@Harper.4173 said:I was of course trying to say unique when comparing to GW2. I guess I didn't say it in those words so I understand your point but I honestly don't think you could assume - in good faith - that I'm unaware that other games had capes before GW1. Do I seem that unintelligent? (not that you said that - but i'd pretty much have to be).GW2 already has culling technology. You can already dim down the effects of other players. In some modes you can even go as far as replacing their model with a standard generic one.So I don't think an option to "Hide all other players capes". We already have server architecture that hides minis when too many players are around. So if I had to choose - I'd lose the mini and wear the cape. And I couldn't care less if they turned off in crowded areas. Compromise is everything.

Ah, sorry. I guess I wasn't very clear in expressing my thoughts and why I mentioned CoH.

CoH not only had capes, but they faced and dealt with the problems that GW2 has with putting capes on charr. Both the "Ninja Run" and "Beast Run" powers gave the same problems due to how they posed the characters, "Ninja Run" even had the characters doing flips as they jumped. And the capes worked. Were they flawless? No, but they looked good. Even when doing flip kicks and spin kicks, they worked.

It frustrates me to see current games (not just GW2) struggle with issues older games solved years ago.

Tekoneiric.6817 · October 6, 2017

I'd love to see capes added. I'd also like to see shield skins usable as back pieces and the option to hide stowed weapons to avoid clipping. I love a lot of the shields in the game but rarely use them. Shields on the back look way better than those wings and banner back pieces.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gallery_of_shields

Harper.4173 · October 6, 2017

@Zoltreez.6435 said:
@Palador.2170 said:
@Harper.4173 said:GW1 had something unique-capes.As an old City of Heroes player, I'm going to laugh at this. Then cry a little.

Seriously, CoH figured out how to make capes work YEARS ago. And they looked pretty good, too. Yes, they only had three body types, but they had to fit a very wide range of animations, including poses that left you hunched over to run wire-art ninja style, or on all fours like a charr. The worst clipping you would get is when you would sit on a chair, which GW2 seems to have preemptively avoided anyway.

But... They did cause a hit to game performance. For the big raid of the game, it was suggested (by players) that everyone show up wearing a "raid costume" that lacked a cape or anything else that would cause a hit when rendered. Characters were limited to one cape effect each (the lower part of a CoH trenchcoat was a cape effect, for example) to reduce the strain they could cause.

So, what would you be willing to give up to get a cape? Perhaps you can't have a mini out if you have a cape, and they turn off in overly crowded areas?

Imagen WvW... 60 people spaming animations abilities overloading the servers causing lag... and THEN... it starts to animate the same stuff but with 60 people worth of freaking Cape physics..... the server would burn alive....

Dude we already have a fix for this. It's called "standard models" - you do that for enemies. Then you lower other character models for your allies. You have OPTIONS for this. The game already has them implemented.

Panda.1967 · October 6, 2017

@Palador.2170 said:
@Harper.4173 said:I was of course trying to say unique when comparing to GW2. I guess I didn't say it in those words so I understand your point but I honestly don't think you could assume - in good faith - that I'm unaware that other games had capes before GW1. Do I seem that unintelligent? (not that you said that - but i'd pretty much have to be).GW2 already has culling technology. You can already dim down the effects of other players. In some modes you can even go as far as replacing their model with a standard generic one.So I don't think an option to "Hide all other players capes". We already have server architecture that hides minis when too many players are around. So if I had to choose - I'd lose the mini and wear the cape. And I couldn't care less if they turned off in crowded areas. Compromise is everything.

Ah, sorry. I guess I wasn't very clear in expressing my thoughts and why I mentioned CoH.

CoH not only had capes, but they faced and dealt with the problems that GW2 has with putting capes on charr. Both the "Ninja Run" and "Beast Run" powers gave the same problems due to how they posed the characters, "Ninja Run" even had the characters doing flips as they jumped. And the capes worked. Were they flawless? No, but they looked good. Even when doing flip kicks and spin kicks, they worked.

It frustrates me to see current games (not just GW2) struggle with issues older games solved years ago.

A lot of the issues various games have with capes, ultimately come down to the physics engine. Not every game runs on the same game engine, nor do they all run the same physics engine, the processes for how things work are different. It can be very challenging to get collision detection to work properly with cloth physics in some games, while in others it's as simple as enabling a single property on the model. It just depends on what their game engine offers. GW2 and GW1 both run on a custom engine developed by ArenaNet and use Havok physics system. Havok is known to have some major collision detection issues, however, despite its issues it's one of the most popular physics engines in the industry. Having worked with Havok physics before, I can safely say it is NOT as simple as enabling a property on a model. There is quite a bit of complexity to getting proper collision detection with cloth physics on Havok, and preserving a model shape, such as the hunched back of a charr, within the cloth is a bit of a nightmare with Havok. A cape would either be overly static on Charr or spazzing out on their back constantly unless a large amount of time and effort were put into setting up the specific physics interactions required for them. It would take an extraordinary amount of time just to get the capes to work properly on that one race, while all other races would have no issues at all due to a more uniform humanoid body structure.

CoH however, ran on the Cryptic Engine, which included its own built in physics engine. The engine was built specifically for CoH, and later updated for Champions Online, StarTrek Online, and Neverwinter. Since the engine was specifically built for a superhero themed game in the first place, proper cape physics was at the top of the list for physics interactions.

Harper.4173 · October 6, 2017

@Rauderi.8706 said:Q: Capes?A: There aren't any.[ObligatoryNoCapes.gif]
There's not even a point in them. You barely see your character model as it is. Add a cape and that's ALL you see.Except for the increasingly-WoWesque pauldrons.

Really? A cape is a problem but Warbringer isn't?Don't hide behind "You can't see your character" - we already have backpieces in the game that obscure it more than any cape could. It doesn't add up.

Harper.4173 · October 6, 2017

@Tekoneiric.6817 said:I'd love to see capes added. I'd also like to see shield skins usable as back pieces and the option to hide stowed weapons to avoid clipping. I love a lot of the shields in the game but rarely use them. Shields on the back look way better than those wings and banner back pieces.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gallery_of_shields

Shields as backpieces would again be an awesome and worthwile addition. I mean - what better item to add on your back?

Harper.4173 · October 6, 2017

@Panda.1967 said:
@Palador.2170 said:
@Harper.4173 said:I was of course trying to say unique when comparing to GW2. I guess I didn't say it in those words so I understand your point but I honestly don't think you could assume - in good faith - that I'm unaware that other games had capes before GW1. Do I seem that unintelligent? (not that you said that - but i'd pretty much have to be).GW2 already has culling technology. You can already dim down the effects of other players. In some modes you can even go as far as replacing their model with a standard generic one.So I don't think an option to "Hide all other players capes". We already have server architecture that hides minis when too many players are around. So if I had to choose - I'd lose the mini and wear the cape. And I couldn't care less if they turned off in crowded areas. Compromise is everything.

Ah, sorry. I guess I wasn't very clear in expressing my thoughts and why I mentioned CoH.

CoH not only had capes, but they faced and dealt with the problems that GW2 has with putting capes on charr. Both the "Ninja Run" and "Beast Run" powers gave the same problems due to how they posed the characters, "Ninja Run" even had the characters doing flips as they jumped. And the capes worked. Were they flawless? No, but they looked good. Even when doing flip kicks and spin kicks, they worked.

It frustrates me to see current games (not just GW2) struggle with issues older games solved years ago.

A lot of the issues various games have with capes, ultimately come down to the physics engine. Not every game runs on the same game engine, nor do they all run the same physics engine, the processes for how things work are different. It can be very challenging to get collision detection to work properly with cloth physics in some games, while in others it's as simple as enabling a single property on the model. It just depends on what their game engine offers. GW2 and GW1 both run on a custom engine developed by ArenaNet and use Havok physics system. Havok is known to have some major collision detection issues, however, despite its issues it's one of the most popular physics engines in the industry. Having worked with Havok physics before, I can safely say it is NOT as simple as enabling a property on a model. There is quite a bit of complexity to getting proper collision detection with cloth physics on Havok, and preserving a model shape, such as the hunched back of a charr, within the cloth is a bit of a nightmare with Havok. A cape would either be overly static on Charr or spazzing out on their back constantly unless a large amount of time and effort were put into setting up the specific physics interactions required for them. It would take an extraordinary amount of time just to get the capes to work properly on that one race, while all other races would have no issues at all due to a more uniform humanoid body structure.

So give capes to the races that can wear them and give charr something else?If everyone should have everything I'm waiting for my T3 heavy norm cultural armor. If not - why not have capes for Humans/Norn/Sylvari/Asura and not have them for charr?

Rouven.7409 · October 6, 2017

The answer used to be that it's too hard.

http://www.tentonhammer.com/articles/guild-wars-2-exclusive-interview-colin-johanson

Most likely that is still the answer unless we use a new animation system now then 2 1/2 years ago.

Panda.1967 · October 6, 2017

@Harper.4173 said:
@Panda.1967 said:
@Palador.2170 said:
@Harper.4173 said:I was of course trying to say unique when comparing to GW2. I guess I didn't say it in those words so I understand your point but I honestly don't think you could assume - in good faith - that I'm unaware that other games had capes before GW1. Do I seem that unintelligent? (not that you said that - but i'd pretty much have to be).GW2 already has culling technology. You can already dim down the effects of other players. In some modes you can even go as far as replacing their model with a standard generic one.So I don't think an option to "Hide all other players capes". We already have server architecture that hides minis when too many players are around. So if I had to choose - I'd lose the mini and wear the cape. And I couldn't care less if they turned off in crowded areas. Compromise is everything.

Ah, sorry. I guess I wasn't very clear in expressing my thoughts and why I mentioned CoH.

CoH not only had capes, but they faced and dealt with the problems that GW2 has with putting capes on charr. Both the "Ninja Run" and "Beast Run" powers gave the same problems due to how they posed the characters, "Ninja Run" even had the characters doing flips as they jumped. And the capes worked. Were they flawless? No, but they looked good. Even when doing flip kicks and spin kicks, they worked.

It frustrates me to see current games (not just GW2) struggle with issues older games solved years ago.

A lot of the issues various games have with capes, ultimately come down to the physics engine. Not every game runs on the same game engine, nor do they all run the same physics engine, the processes for how things work are different. It can be very challenging to get collision detection to work properly with cloth physics in some games, while in others it's as simple as enabling a single property on the model. It just depends on what their game engine offers. GW2 and GW1 both run on a custom engine developed by ArenaNet and use Havok physics system. Havok is known to have some major collision detection issues, however, despite its issues it's one of the most popular physics engines in the industry. Having worked with Havok physics before, I can safely say it is NOT as simple as enabling a property on a model. There is quite a bit of complexity to getting proper collision detection with cloth physics on Havok, and preserving a model shape, such as the hunched back of a charr, within the cloth is a bit of a nightmare with Havok. A cape would either be overly static on Charr or spazzing out on their back constantly unless a large amount of time and effort were put into setting up the specific physics interactions required for them. It would take an extraordinary amount of time just to get the capes to work properly on that one race, while all other races would have no issues at all due to a more uniform humanoid body structure.

So give capes to the races that can wear them and give charr something else?If everyone should have everything I'm waiting for my T3 heavy norm cultural armor. If not - why not have capes for Humans/Norn/Sylvari/Asura and not have them for charr?

As I said in my earlier posts, they already tried a few alternate options for Charr, most of which looked bad, such as the Split Cape... the final option that they tried, banners, they decided to just keep for all races. There was a dev response to this very question way back as well. They ultimately decided that the only things that will be unique to a race will be Cultural Armors, all other gear WILL always be available to all races. This is something they will not waver on. The reason being, if they give something unique to Charr as a cape replacement, they will have 2 new issues on their hand. The first being that Charr players will continue to demand access to capes, and the second being that players will demand access to the Charr's alternative on other races. So, for that reason, they scrapped capes and gave everyone the banners that were going to be Charr exclusive when they made them.

TheNecrosanct.4028 · October 6, 2017

Capes are a hazard and a liability. Hasn't anyone seen The Incredibles? xD

Shanna.4762 · October 6, 2017

I've wanted capes forever. After acquiring the banners of ancient elona, I can tell there will be clipping problems if they ever do a standard cape because it'll clip with all the butt-capes they've put on outfits. That being said, if the clipping bothers you, you can just wear stuff that won't clip with it. When it comes to Charr, unfortunately they may require a special version of capes for themselves.

Nyel.1843 · October 6, 2017

Capes are a clipping nightmare. There is already too much stuff in GW2 that's clipping and looking horrible so no, we really don't need capes - capes are working when your races are looking very similar and don't have "special" bodies like Charr.

Harper.4173 · October 6, 2017

@Panda.1967 said:
@Harper.4173 said:
@Panda.1967 said:
@Palador.2170 said:
@Harper.4173 said:I was of course trying to say unique when comparing to GW2. I guess I didn't say it in those words so I understand your point but I honestly don't think you could assume - in good faith - that I'm unaware that other games had capes before GW1. Do I seem that unintelligent? (not that you said that - but i'd pretty much have to be).GW2 already has culling technology. You can already dim down the effects of other players. In some modes you can even go as far as replacing their model with a standard generic one.So I don't think an option to "Hide all other players capes". We already have server architecture that hides minis when too many players are around. So if I had to choose - I'd lose the mini and wear the cape. And I couldn't care less if they turned off in crowded areas. Compromise is everything.

Ah, sorry. I guess I wasn't very clear in expressing my thoughts and why I mentioned CoH.

CoH not only had capes, but they faced and dealt with the problems that GW2 has with putting capes on charr. Both the "Ninja Run" and "Beast Run" powers gave the same problems due to how they posed the characters, "Ninja Run" even had the characters doing flips as they jumped. And the capes worked. Were they flawless? No, but they looked good. Even when doing flip kicks and spin kicks, they worked.

It frustrates me to see current games (not just GW2) struggle with issues older games solved years ago.

A lot of the issues various games have with capes, ultimately come down to the physics engine. Not every game runs on the same game engine, nor do they all run the same physics engine, the processes for how things work are different. It can be very challenging to get collision detection to work properly with cloth physics in some games, while in others it's as simple as enabling a single property on the model. It just depends on what their game engine offers. GW2 and GW1 both run on a custom engine developed by ArenaNet and use Havok physics system. Havok is known to have some major collision detection issues, however, despite its issues it's one of the most popular physics engines in the industry. Having worked with Havok physics before, I can safely say it is NOT as simple as enabling a property on a model. There is quite a bit of complexity to getting proper collision detection with cloth physics on Havok, and preserving a model shape, such as the hunched back of a charr, within the cloth is a bit of a nightmare with Havok. A cape would either be overly static on Charr or spazzing out on their back constantly unless a large amount of time and effort were put into setting up the specific physics interactions required for them. It would take an extraordinary amount of time just to get the capes to work properly on that one race, while all other races would have no issues at all due to a more uniform humanoid body structure.

So give capes to the races that can wear them and give charr something else?If everyone should have everything I'm waiting for my T3 heavy norm cultural armor. If not - why not have capes for Humans/Norn/Sylvari/Asura and not have them for charr?

As I said in my earlier posts, they already tried a few alternate options for Charr, most of which looked bad, such as the Split Cape... the final option that they tried, banners, they decided to just keep for all races. There was a dev response to this very question way back as well. They ultimately decided that the only things that will be unique to a race will be Cultural Armors, all other gear WILL always be available to all races. This is something they will not waver on. The reason being, if they give something unique to Charr as a cape replacement, they will have 2 new issues on their hand. The first being that Charr players will continue to demand access to capes, and the second being that players will demand access to the Charr's alternative on other races. So, for that reason, they scrapped capes and gave everyone the banners that were going to be Charr exclusive when they made them.

By something else I mean something that WORKS for Charr. Like a new Charr-exclusive backpiece. Not a cape. Not a cape-like derrivative. Something that works for them.That's really upsetting - the cultural armor thing. First because there's no consistency. Second because there isn't more of it.And if Cultural armor are unique to every race - why can't capes be cultural backpieces?

I really don't buy the "these players will want access to that while the others will want access to the other thing". We've had cultural armor in the game since launch and I've rarely seen people complain or ask that another race's cultural armor be made available for their race.I see how they made this choice, I simply do not agree with it. It was a poor choice.

Dante.1763 · October 6, 2017

@Harper.4173 said:
@Panda.1967 said:
@Harper.4173 said:
@Panda.1967 said:
@Palador.2170 said:
@Harper.4173 said:I was of course trying to say unique when comparing to GW2. I guess I didn't say it in those words so I understand your point but I honestly don't think you could assume - in good faith - that I'm unaware that other games had capes before GW1. Do I seem that unintelligent? (not that you said that - but i'd pretty much have to be).GW2 already has culling technology. You can already dim down the effects of other players. In some modes you can even go as far as replacing their model with a standard generic one.So I don't think an option to "Hide all other players capes". We already have server architecture that hides minis when too many players are around. So if I had to choose - I'd lose the mini and wear the cape. And I couldn't care less if they turned off in crowded areas. Compromise is everything.