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Apologies if someone has come up with this idea (I don't think it's terribly revolutionary). I did a quick search and some stuff in this forum and couldn't find an immediate post.
edit: here being that i know its already available in d2 to some degree. But it's not done right. They really need to plan more ahead with something as big as tackling an alternate art drop system. Having alternate art on rings is not what I'm talking about. And don't get testy if I'm not up to snuff on my d2 references. It's been a good couple years since I played!
My idea would be to offer multiple artworks for uniques, or super uniques etc. Any difference in looks essentially.
Personally I think it would be a decent idea to adopt essentially what is a Magic:The Gathering way of distribution of items. Obviously from the classics (card set and Diablo1) we have commons, uncommons and rares. Which are essentially White, Rare and Gold items. Lately M:TG has brought in Mythic Rares which are one step above rare.
They also have Foils and Alternate art. Foils are essentially shiny reprints of a random card (could be anything from common to mythic rare) and are highly desirable in the card game. Also during special events or other such promotions some cards get alternate artwork which can also (depending on the card) be desirable.
One of my issues from d2 was that after such a long period of time everyone has now just looked the same. It's not good enough anymore to offer different looking (and functioning) weapons. Or adding dye's (in some games). Or changing the colour with a gem, or glowing your character if you have a complete set.
Players will ultimately demand more unique looks. But if EVERYONE desires a certain type of item for its properties, then the character looks will go stale. Unless that item has different models to choose from when it's created.
You could even go so far as to have a "foil"(or special) version of say, a breastplate, that has a much smaller % chance to drop as. To further increase the tradeability and desirability. In magic, sometimes it feels good to pull a foil card from a pack even if that card is just your basic mountain.
To me the only downside I see of implementing something like this would be production time/costs. No doubt there is a full team of people working this very minute pumping out pieces of armor and weapons on a daily basis. But with a proper planning strategy and bringing in say a team of entry-mid level artists to do the menial equipment and leave the talent and veteran artists to really go to town on alternate work. This could also be worked in as downloadable content. Which won't necessarily bring back old players who quit over time. But could keep things fresh.
I also don't think that this would skew the market in some way. Because people's tastes vary not every alternate artwork is going to be desired. Especially if they (for the most part) have an even chance to drop. If there was 4 versions of the unique, 3 of them had 33% chance and one awesome looking one had a 3% chance to drop then it would be reasonable to think that most artworks would be worth equally. But I see nothing wrong with 1 or 2 variations here and there of certain uniques increasing the price of things. Also because the stats are the same across the named unique you could technically still BENEFIT from the stats the item gets you. And then that gives you a drive to find the one that fits with your taste or your style of character.
The end result being that we as players can get back to what we like to do; Customizing characters that look different while still using the best possible equipment for the job at hand. It won't solve the issue 100% because over time (10+ years) everyone will have whatever they deem as the coolest looking piece of equipment. But at least people's tastes are different and there will still be some variation.
Anyways sorry for the long response, I just tried to justify myself with some examples and such. And again, apologies if this is a repeat idea. Thoughts?
This depends entirely on how much time the artists get to spend on armor. If they have separate artists for different things (monsters, environments, weapons, armor, etc.), this would be nice. If they have a generic set of artists for everything, I'd rather not have this take priority over other things.
This is the 21st century and they need to start putting in the effort to do this sort of thing. I'd be happy if they just made unique breast plates look different from normal/magic/rare breast plates and so on. Just changing the color is cheap and easy. And boring.
Animating too many extra 3d pieces would be too costly I think. But I think it would not take up too much memory space to have many different artworks for the same item as long as it's for trade screen and inventory screen purposes. That is, just a 2d picture. I don't see why they can't design and store thousands of simple flat pictures of things. When I played Baulder's Gate I was repulsed by how few chr portraits there were to choose from. They're just flat, motionless little pictures for god sakes; what's the problem? Why aren't there more of them?
Hell, if it's just a matter of drawing them, there are people who would gladly volunteer their artwork for the cause.
One idea I have: make all silks of the victor look the same, except one that spawns with all perfect mods which gets an awesome looking image. It would speed up trades a bit, not having to look up what range of numbers are on the item and not having to scan everything in the trade screen. You jsut see it's pefrect by it's different look.
You're suggesting the Diablo equivalent of Shinies from the Pokemon games. Very rarely, you would find a pokemon of a different color, like Orange instead of brown.
On another note, I heard of this one MMO (can't remember the name, but fantasy and realistic graphics) where if you like the look of an item, but find a better one, you can keep the look and change the stats. To be honest, I don't think that would work in D3, because telling a character's strength by their items is a long time tradition, not to mention I can see PKs disguising themselves.
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