by Kathdys » Thu Nov 27, 2014 10:22 pm
Yeah, I was just going to say... Being able to judge the character of someone you meet by noting their iconic gear is vital. Power-gamers are going to have the best stat-boosting items. Necromancer's cloaks are your signal to flee in terror. And of course, there's the one most basic and essential purpose of clothing in the history of civilization: Being able to see how rich or poor someone is, at a glance.
I think all this is essential; even though mix-and-matching the best gear there is for you to wear mechanically can make you look like a garish clown, that's not a bug, it's a feature. It lets everyone know who you are and what your priorities are just by looking at you. If you had more refined tastes, you'd wear a more tasteful outfit even if it had inferior statistics, and as a result, other people would be able to see that you were more refined and tasteful (or at least not be able to see how loaded you were.) It works out pretty well.
I'm all in favour of more status symbols. There's a lot of item slots that have little competition, still, like the belt which has only one option (which is a cosmetic one). Has there been a war over a hat yet? If a war hasn't been fought over a hat yet, that's on the to-do list.