As far as I know, no mod fetches armory data for an enemy character and it is impossible to "inspect" them. High rated arena members will often log out in a "smurf" set, where you cannot glean their resilience or other important gearing decisions and use that information against them. Leveling items have a very distinctive graphic which shout "FOCUS ME" more so than health, which is the second biggest indicator in arena as to a viable target. For this reason players might choose to gem stam and hide cloak and hat display to make it look like they have more PvP gear than they do, or put a PvE item in a prominent slot and use resilience items so they look like a good target while being very difficult to kill.

You know, one would think that seeing your opponent's level and amount of HP would be enough of a rough indication of their power. I mean, it's not like people memorize what armor looks like and go "Oh, that guy's wearing T11 gloves and shoulders and the Conquest PvP helm, I better not mess with him." They're much more likely to say "Holy crap, LOOK HOW MUCH HEALTH THAT GUY HAS!!!"

I think it is also about getting appreciated for their work. Blizzard put alot of ressources in designing new armor sets and alot of that work would be wasted if the mayority of players would walk around with the looks of past tier sets.

You could say that would give blizzard a reasson to keep making better models, but lets face it that is an almost impossible feat. They have yet to design a armor set that for paladins that is better than T2. All classes by now have that one armor set where blizzard did a perfect job. And with perfect there is nothing to improve.

In PvP, I can tell when a player is wearing full vicious or bloodthirsty or if they're even in PvE gear.

It definitely plays a role on who I attack first. ;)

Personally as much as I'd love this feature I do think we'd have the problem of every person looking the same, for example every other Paladin would want to look like they're in full Judgement, all the Warlocks would be in.. Well atleast every Lock set looks badass.
Atleast it'd give a reason to run old content though.

Honestly, I think that reason is a lie. In WPvP and Battlegrounds items that completely transform your character are permissable and easily acquired.

Not to mention that they could restrict it so only your faction (or you) sees your 'vanity set'. Remember the old bug that made you appear as any race you wanted, but only to you? The tech seems to be there, at least in some form.

Sumadin-

A agree with you there, but , you get to the point where everyone is wearing nearly the exact same thing as everyone in their clas sor even armor type.

And while the devs do put a lot of time into makeing tier sets look good, they also put a lot of time into making armor sets that match or just happen to look good together. Why not let us show off some of that stuff?

Sincerely, I think the whole silhouette thing very nice in PvE when applied to mobs, but harmful for PvP. I see being forced to guess an opponent's capabilities as a very good thing in PvP; it adds a kind of uncertainty that seems sorely lacking in WoW's organized PvP.

And I sincerely think more uncertainty would make World PvP much better. Make gankers have to wonder if their target is a careless player in PvE gear or someone in full PvP gear ready for the action.

Allowing players to choose how their gear look should break the monotony of garb in the game. And even if almost everyone decided to dress identically (which I truly doubt would happen, from playing a couple games with appearance tabs), it would not matter to me, as long as I could dress differently. My reason for liking games with appearance tabs is not due to other players sporting a variety of garbs (though that happens too), but due to the fact I can look the way I want.

(BTW, I almost never like the appearance of high end gear. Too showy at best, blasted ugly at worst. Where I can, I create a unique garb out of parts of gearing gear.)

For me, the second best PvP "feature" of DCUO is the fact the player set their character appearance any way he wants from the gear pieces he owns. He can keep his lv1 look all the way to max level and maxed out PvP set.

I.e., if you go against someone that appears to be using the best PvP gear, you can be sure he is wearing it; but if you go against someone that appears to be wearing any other gear, you need to guess what kind of gear he is using. He could be in full PvE quest greens, or he could be in the best PvP gear, and you will often be unable to tell before combat starts. Taking the measure of your opponents during combat, to see who you need to focus, is part of the game.

If anyone is wondering, for me the best PvP feature of DCUO is the paper-scissors-rock nature of PvP combat; any move has a countermove, and the last patch made the countermove hit with the stats of the countered player, so a max level player being countered by a lv5 one will be hit as if another max level player had attacked. Bad PvPers could already be beaten by good lowbies, now it has become even easier; in DCUO, skill was already more important than gear or level, now it's more so :)

I cant imagine that spotting opponent gear level is the main reason for the gear uniformity. Blizzard has often said you have to make a development choice on where your priority is and they choose less customization and more content. Besides they allow druids to run the pvp field in a uniform appearance, you cant spot the gear level on a kitty.

Gear appearance has to reflect power because if it doesn't we end up with this:

"Vegeta, what does the scouter say about his item level?"
"It's -"

No. Not doing. Won't say it. Nuh uh. But you get the point.

Anybody else notice that no matter what ideas are proposed about appearance, there is a contingent of doom prophets who believe that finally, at long last, everyone in WoW will look identical? No matter what. Tier sets are going to make everyone look the same, and so are the more visually unified quest rewards from low-level areas in Cata, and the barbershop is going to make everyone walk around with the same hairdo, etc. Do people really think there's so little variance of opinion between twelve million people that the vast majority of them are all going to make the exact same stylistic choices?

I've known folks who, for PvP reasons, always bought the shoulders first for their PvP set, since those are the most visible piece of gear. Give someone on the battlefield that they'll be harder to kill and better equipped than you might be, for intimidation reasons.

Yeah, I think they're nuts too.