The Secret World is, overall, doing a splendid job with clothing so far. All of the stat-bearing items you can equip are invisible trinkets, except for your weapons. Your appearance is solely decided by what you pick out of your character’s wardrobe. Of course, that freedom does lead to the occasional… ahem… fashion accident:
Despite appearance to the contrary, “XxXLegolarthasXxX” is not a hooker.
Note the juxtaposition: at the very moment I saw this individual with, let’s say, questionable choice of what to wear (or rather, what not to wear), another player in the chat box quotes Eddie Izzard. It’s not all doom and gloom!
This freedom has led to a lot of experimentation on my behalf.
For your run-of-the-mill zombie killing, I prefer a casual approach that emphasizes comfort and ease of movement over etiquette.
For some London strolling or to enter the exclusive Temple’s Club, something a bit sophisticated is in order. But not too dull, either.
If in doubt, I can always go with the dress uniform.
And finally, if I feel like it, there’s of course always plain silliness.
However, I notice that some options are woefully underrepresented. I’m at last done with Solomon Island, and my next area of operations will be Egypt. Naturally, I want some apparel that will fit the area’s climate. My first idea was to dress light. Above the waist, this is not a problem: there are enough options of T-shirts and tank tops available for both genders to equip all cast AND extras of Gone With The Wind with them. Not that you would want to do that. That would be silly. Though the mental image is amusing. There are also enough choices of jeans and cargo pants to go with the tops.
I will NOT wear these.
But when it comes to shorter types of trousers? You’re out of luck. There are exactly two choices for male characters at the moment, and one of them looks like it was conserved in time and last worn at a punk concert in the 80ies. And no pants is no option (literally, there is no in-game option to not wear any). So maybe I should go the other direction and shield myself from the sun. After all, full-length pants are in ample supply.
However, I run into another problem then. There are no brimmed hats in the game at the moment! I can get baseball caps, military caps, even something that remotely looks like a bandana… but no Stetsons, no Bowlers, no Panamas, no Homburgers. Shouldn’t London have its fair share of hatters? Worst of all, though, not even pith helmets! How can a proper, self-respecting gentleman go to Africa without a pith helmet? Funcom, this is something you clearly need to work on.
I think the clothing options in TSW are pathetic. Firstly, the gender restriction is downright unacceptable. If Funcom have personal issues that make them uncomfortable with cross-dressing they should get therapy, not take them out on paying customers. Even then, what kind of bizarro logic would lead them to ban women from wearing men’s trousers?
Of course it has nothing to do with that and everything to do with saving the costs of double-modelling. Cost-cutting also explains the plethora of identical items with a different tone or skin. It cannot, however, excuse the utterly dire styling. The entire collection appears to have been designed by a teenager on work experience.
The fashion potential for a contemporary-world-based MMO is off the scale. The fashions in TSW appear to have been chosen by a 20something male IT professional whose idea of high fashion is a T-Shirt with the logo of his favorite game on it, a pair of Mountain Dew-stained jeans and the baseball cap he stole off his kid brother when they were in high school. Oh, wait a minute…
As much as I would enjoy seeing a male character run around in a mini skirt… the first time… I’m not sure I’d go as far as you. Yes, there are probably clothing choices whose restriction is kinda silly. (I think I’ve seen gender-specific glasses? That just has to be some technical limitation.) But I didn’t feel too restricted in that respect, at least. I also agree that there is too much focus at the moment on “casual” fashion. Then again, I guess it makes sense that a majority wouldn’t go blast Zombies in their Sunday’s finest. So, in the end, I agree, but don’t come to the exact same conclusions.
I really hope they’ll look into diversifying the wardrobe. They probably will. After all, clothing items will be great cash shop items. Sadly, that might also mean, “free” clothing might be stuck at limited choices.
As I recall, Funcom created separate male and female models for character in AoC. If the same is true here, that explains (code-wise at least) why there is no cross-dressing allowed.
Of course, it has nothing to do with that or with any discomfort on Funcom’s part. The truth is that the majority of their paying customers would have discomfort with it, and to pay for the suggested “therapy,” they would have to drop their subscriptions first.