Hobo Sacks: A Terrible Fashion Statement

#1 - Feb. 26, 2013, 9:50 p.m.

I’ll make this quick. I posted something similar to this thread months ago but I feel like now might be a better time for this to get noticed because of ANET’s great success in the plush backpacks.

Situation (Optional Read): So I’m walking down Lion’s Arch and the sylvari ladies are swooning (and some of the men). A little flex of that 3 inch circumference bicep and they go wild. That Nightmare Court Set shows how much of a bad-boy my sylvari is. I’m feeling a little kitteny so I decide to put on a little fire show for my amazed spectators so I slot my grenade kit. However, to my dismay, the hobo sack instantly drains all of my charisma. My 3 inch bicep reduces to a 1 inch instantly. My nightmare court gear instantly withers away to dust. The show was over before it even began. The once entranced sylvari ladies now walk over to the suave elementalist who displays a fire show so great, it nearly made a steam vegetable mix out of the audience. I log out, uninstall, drive over to ANET HQ, and dump 10 lbs of freshly steamed garden salad in front of their doors.
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Story Time over

-This game is based on cosmetics. Endgame is based on cosmetics. Dungeon armor serves only to provide cosmetics. People spend hours and hours on cosmetics.
-Engineers must wear hobo sacks and stow their weapons during parts of fights. Almost all engineers have at least 1 hobo sack in his/her utility slots.

- Hobo sacks are ugly. They cover the beautiful plush backpack items. My hobo sack doesn’t match my bad-boy Nightmare Court wardrobe.

Solution: 1. Allow cosmetic upgrades to hobo sacks available in the gem store (Maybe I can turn my cute quaggan backpack into a grenade bag?). 2. Allow us to use kits without having hobo sacks. 3. Let us display our stowed weapons while using grenades or a flamethrower, etc.
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Simplest and most efficient fix: Give us a toggle to hide or show hobo-sacks when we have a kit equipped. It’s probably an easy update, it is optional (so those who want to keep the hobo look can), and it will probably help sales for the new quaggan and charr backpacks.

Thanks.

(Edit: Added a story to the top for a more interesting time with the thread)

#203 - Aug. 2, 2013, 12:36 a.m.

Some pretty interesting ideas here. I was actually spit-balling some ideas on how to address this today. This has always been something that has bothered me, too.

For example:

Have kits respect the existing back item flag. If you have a back item and you want to show it, hide the kit. If you don’t have a back item or choose to hide it, always show the kit. Obviously this makes it a little harder than usual to tell what kit you are using, so:
- A nameplate icon similar to Elemental Attunements would be a good addition (I may add this regardless if we can get the art )
- Move the kit somewhere else on your body. I know, crazy right? For example, who doesn’t like a sweet fanny-pack?

Hopefully this finally gets resolved soon, and I’ll do what I can to see that happen. Keep in mind, as Colin mentioned before, that there are some pretty beefy projects going on that are consuming our engineering time. But that doesn’t exactly mean we can’t sneak stuff in here and there .

-Bill