@galactic-geek said in Cosmetics/Weapons:
Basically, instead of creating a reskin of an existing model, like the Admiral set for example, I was thinking of user-made content that was wholly unique and original, but still meeting Rare's strict guidelines of fitting with the theme and/or lore of the Sea, kind of like the costumes.
This is something I'm all for. Letting the community make their own entire unique sets, in a game all about experiences with other players, and telling your pirates story just seems to fit really well. Of course, we can't have people just adding anything, but how the Steam workshop currently handles it solves that issue (For those not familiar, users can submit items, and if those items recieve enough positive sentiment from the community, those items are then brought to the devs attention, where the final vote happens.)
I didn't even realize that you were strictly sticking to just the hulls and sails.
I kept to the hulls and sails as since they only require texture changes, it would be simple enough for Rare to help the community by giving people the default files. From those files, it is fairly simple to make a new texture with something like Photoshop, or even Paintdotnet. With something like completely unique sets, Rare can only help so much. Rare's default models will only help people keep their works to scale.
Another "issue" that unique models pose is keeping in line with SoT's artstyle. There was a really good GDC talk about this ages ago, but realistically you can only get so close to replicating an artstyle. I'm sure there are peopel that could do it, but without someway of limiting this you could have the submissions overflown with models that look out of place.
Also, unique models could blur the line between fairness in things like cannon ironsights, or how much screen space the EoR or Blunder take up. I'm sure they would find a way around this problem, most likely just not giving approval to any models they consider unfair.
I'm not against unique models, I just think opening them up to the entire community could cause slight annoyances for whoever has to verify the submissions. If the privilege to submit custom models was locked behind some requirement, i.e. if you have created a set amount of approved sail/hull/flag cosmetics, then that might help ensure good quility work is coming through.
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