Sneak Peek: Wardrobe Revamp in 3.2

Something amazing is happening with Wardrobes in RIFT 3.2 and RiftGrate was able to get an early sneak peek at the system via a screenshot courtesy of Senior UI Artist Gingers.

Note: The following is a screenshot of some of the additions coming to the Wardrobe System slated for RIFT 3.2. The additions shown below are pre-alpha and heavily work-in-progress. Anything you see below can change.

3.2 Wardrobe Preview – Heavy WIP. Click image for larger view.

No details about the changes were provided by Gingers, but she did state that Trion’s Livestream will show off the new Wardrobe features, at a date yet to be determined.

For now, I’ve broken down the various changes with some speculation and/or further explanations below:

• Wardrobe Collection
• Dye Information
• Weapon Wardrobe

Wardrobe Collection

[Update 03.13.15: RIFT Livestream for 13th March 2015 confirms wardrobe collection is region-wide, and you collect styles by simply having the item in your inventory. More info here.]

The “Chest Selection” window to the right shows off a heap of chest pieces. This is most likely a Style Saver-type addition coming to RIFT on similar lines to Trove’s style-saving feature.

(Not sure what Trion will be calling this feature, but let’s call it ‘Wardrobe Collection’ for now).

Trove’s Style Saver

Basically in Trove you break down gear for an in-game currency as well as to save any wardrobe pieces you haven’t already collected. The model for the piece of gear (whether it be weapons or armor) is then saved to your Collections. You simply need to select the wardrobe item to display it over your current gear.

The advantage to this system is pretty clear – you save a huge amount of bag/bank space. Additionally, the grid allows you to see which wardrobe styles you are missing and it helps players who like to collect items to complete their collections. Another neat advantage is that if you are using the same model for multiple wardrobe sets, you won’t need multiples of the same item anymore.

By all accounts it’s a better system than the one that currently exists in RIFT.

RIFT’s Wardrobe Collection

Let’s analyse the Wardrobe Collection window a little further:

Top-Left Icons

The top-left icons are likely the original or previous model and the current preview/selection. You can choose whether to replace your current wardrobe model or not by clicking on the “x” icon. From the screenshot, the character is currently previewing the Rogue Hammerknell Fortress Chest piece.

‘Show Uncollected’ Checkbox

The ‘Show Uncollected’ checkbox clearly does just that, showing you wardrobe models you have not collected yet. This would be handy when you’re out hunting for new wardrobe models.

It will be interesting to see whether there will be a ‘Show Collected-only’ checkbox added in before the final version of this new feature is complete. How useful this will be depends on whether the models are currently sorted alphabetically or collected vs uncollected.

Search Bar

A search bar provides an easier way to find your favorite pieces.

Drop-down Menu

There’s a drop-down menu that probably has each gear slot as options. However, interestingly it says “All Chest” in the screenshot. Why not just “Chest” or “Chests”? Could the drop-down include stuff like “Level 60 Tier 1” or “Mathosia Open World” and be specific to the currently-selected wardrobe piece (in this case Chests)?

The drop-down menu being specific to the wardrobe piece you have selected does make sense since there’s probably quite a few models to go through and you’ll probably want some kind of filtering.

Perhaps there will even be a ‘Favorites’ option for models you’ve marked as being used often.

Scroll Bar

Notice the scroll bar. There seems to be a fair few chest models to choose from and perhaps this is an indication of how many wardrobe sets there are available at the moment.

Dye Information

Currently you don’t get any dye information on your gear so you have to have a good memory as to which dyes you used for a certain piece. The same applies when inspecting other players’ wardrobes.

The small boxes to the right of each wardrobe icon is clearly dye information. Hovering over each icon will probably tell you what the dye is with the first box being Primary and the second being Secondary.

• The Chest piece only has one box, and that perhaps indicates that this particular piece of gear only has the Primary dye option.
• With this addition, I’m guessing that the Inspect Wardrobe feature when viewing other players’ wardrobes will likely also tell you what dyes they are using.

It will be interesting to see whether dyes have become ‘collectible’ as well and whether or not you can just click on the dye box and select from a color swatch. That will have to be confirmed or denied by Trion at a later date though (probably during the Wardrobe Livestream).

[Update 03.13.15: RIFT Livestream for 13th March 2015 confirms dye system will be called “Dye Bucket System”, and dyes will be unlockable. Saved account-wide. More info here.]

Weapon Wardrobe

[Update 03.13.15: RIFT Livestream for 13th March 2015 confirms weapons will be part of the wardrobe collections system. No more Transmog Baubles! More info here.]

Now this is an interesting addition to the Wardrobe UI – weapon slots. Not sure if this is actually weapon wardrobe or something different, but I’ll be referring to it as “Weapon Wardrobe” for now.

I’ve confirmed with Gingers that the icons relate to the following, from top to bottom:

• Off-hand.
• Main hand.
• Shield
• 2-hand.
• Ranged.

This feature isn’t working yet, but when it does you will only see slots for weapons you can actually wield. For instance, Rogues cannot equip Shields, so the Shield icon will not display for them.

The chain link between slots is simply to show they are connected to each other. i.e. 1h+oh as opposed to 2-handed.

This could potentially be a fantastic addition to the Wardrobe System if you are allowed to have a different weapon wardrobe per wardrobe set.

Further Thoughts

The screenshot above shows a pre-alpha version of changes to the Wardrobe System coming to RIFT in 3.2; it is heavily work-in-progress so there’s a lot that can change between now and 3.2. However, thus far it seems there are some big improvements coming to the Wardrobe System.

With these three new wardrobe additions shown off in the teaser screenshot, some obvious questions come to mind:

[Update 03.13.15: With the latest livestream, I’ll answer my own questions below.]

• Do the weapon wardrobe slots use the Wardrobe Collection feature? [with recent information, this has been confirmed as a “yes”.]
• What happens to Transfiguration Baubles that used to change the look of a weapon? [not sure on the item itself, but they will not be used in the new system.]
• How will we collect wardrobe models? [By simply having an item in your inventory that hasn’t had its style added to the collection yet.]
• Will we need to use the Transfiguration Bauble or a new item to collect models from items we have? Or will we need to salvage/break items to collect their look? [Doesn’t look like we need anything other than the item in our inventory to collect it, according to information available right now. Archonix specifically stated they were doing away with the transmog system.]

More Info

Trion has answered a whole bunch of questions and provided further information on the Wardrobe System since the time of this post. Please check out this post here for a summary of information provided on 13th March 2015.

I’m sure you have other questions as well. We’ll probably find out more though when Gingers holds the Wardrobe Livestream on Trion’s Livestream channel. ETA is on 27th March 2015. As always I’ll have a Livestream Summary up for those who miss out.

For now, look forward to some major improvements coming to RIFT’s Wardrobe System!