Newsletter Discussion: Form Over Function?

Are you a min-maxer or a fasionista?

For this week's Newsletter Discussion, we want to know:

Have you ever worn a piece of gear for its looks, even though it hurt your character's performance?

Remember, you can view past issues of the newsletter and sign-up for future emails here. Now, express yourself in the comment thread!

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Absoulutly. I have three hats in my inventory at all times, I can wear the looks like just out for the weekend, or the nerdy straw hat, and my armour one that najoman made me.. so its about looks part of the time, but when the fights on, I switch real fast...lol..

ALWAYS!! Remember its better to Die looking good then to win looking like you just quit your job as a clown in the local circus with your mismatched clothing!

Damn straight. I have no idea what a min-maxer or fasionista are, but in the professional circles, we call it roleplaying. Armor is only appropriate when in combat. My LotRO hobbit dons his Bounder hat in town. My WoW troll voodoo priest wears a voodoo mask and wicthdocter's beads, and only changes to more potent gear when facing a matching or stronger adversary. And note that doing so has and will never hurt my characters' performance, quite the opposite.

The form is not always in conflict with function... A well polished plate armour with a nice helmet gives respect, style, sex-appeal (probably a medieval parallell to latex) as well as very good protection. It suits any occation, lounging in the town square, visiting the temple or abolishing undeads.
Go Paladins !

Function generally comes before form for me, though I do care a little about looks. In EQ, it was easy, as the robe covered everything. In FFXI, I only cared about always wearing a beret or no hat at all and never wearing a subligar. In LotRO, I had a similar fixation on a wide-rimmed hat or none at all.

It all depends on the situation. If it's for casual town-treading or crafting, then looks matter, if it's combat, then function takes over. Dieing looking good might be fun, but I prefer surviving with less appealing looks.

Depends on the game, but I mostly go for form over function.

Long before outfits (book 12) were available in LOTRO for example I was decking my characters out in armour pieces etc.. that looked good as opposed to gave the best bonuses.

For example, my Elven hunter still has gloves he gained at 1st level because they look nice, and he's level 20 now and those gloves could have been replaced with 3 or 4 times the armour bonus with stat modifiers several time over.. but the replacements just dont look as good, and so I keep the originals (elven gauntlets), fortunately the game is good enough to allow these kinds of choices without it being totally crippling to your character :)

form over function where possible I say, but then i am a roleplayer not a twink :)

I finally reached level 60 woot woot, and darn if the new threads I got in some radiance run with my kinship dont look like dum Kulots.. any girls out there remember those. or had a mom that made you wear them like mine, they sucked then, and they suck ingame. any good tailors in Middle Earth, that can make them look differant.lol.. I havent been on here in a while, cause I couldnt get in. some silly me, couldnt remember the password or my email I signed up with. but dang. here we are agian..... Just wanting to YELL...... HI EVERYONE...
come play on vilya server and let me be your body guard.....