Fashion Clothing: Let players customize their character like other FF heros/heroines
One of the things I enjoy most about FFXIV is the ability to find cool outfits for my character. However, a lot of the outfits seem a little too uniform like the npcs and less mercenary-like. They should be ragtag and customized like 99% of all Final Fantasy heroes/heroines (e.g. Cloud's 1 shoulder guard, Rikku's accessories, Zidane's cuffs, Tidus' sports uniform etc).
They all reflect the individual character and show his/her background somewhat. Unfortunately, there isn't much customizing with clothes to make our characters look very unique.
Fashionable characters with fashionable clothing is a Final Fantasy's trademark!
See, in FF games, you always buy mage gear, bulky armor and whatnot, but the only thing that shows is how Tetsuya Nomura or the other designers designed the character to look like, save the equipped weapon. I think FFXIV players should have this option (similar to displaying head gear or not).
So here's my proposal:
I request that Square integrate outward fashion clothing that we can buy that will help "create" our character. Each city, dungeons and camps will have their own style: grid=woodland, limsa=pirate/buccaneer, uldah=variety/desert/wealthy clothes, future beach city=beach clothes, Garlean empire=empire fashions really different, etc! There are so many options. Now the cities wouldn't be bound to only having these, but they'd be the primary items and like FF, you'd get new ones occasionally.
Now how will this work?
In the follow picture, http://i.min.us/ie7Ai.png my character now has two sets of options. The top shows the armor that you'd normally have in an FF game, but the bottom is sort of what the character would wear OVER those clothes, essentially. This is what is visible. Now, if my character doesn't have any cool boots equipped on the bottom section, the ones in the armor section will show through unless I type /display feet off etc.
These clothes would be fashion clothing and would have little to none status enhancement. Maybe treat them like underwear without effects. They are purchasable, tradeable, and sellable. Doing this would make each character more unique and have that "hero/heroine look" to them. They won't replace the need for cool-looking armor, but they may enhance those rare items so you don't have 1,000 buccaneers running around. Maybe even have aesthetic clothing that goes nicely with the AF/NM gear or whatever.
Underground Mercenary Market/Shop
Also, it would be great to be able to buy military armor, mercenary gear etc. Maybe even have an underground mercenary guild where you can buy special gear/weapons that normal NPCs wouldn't sell. Kind of like a black market for special items. You'd need to complete quests or get to a certain rank within your other guilds before being introduced to this mercenary guild.