A to Z 2016 : VANITY ITEMS

Today we talk about one of my favorite elements of The Division, which may seem a bit odd to some, vanity items. Vanity items are essentially aesthetic only and have absolutely no effect on actual gameplay whatsoever. In the game, these items come in the form of Apparel and Weapon Skins.

Apparel itself has the following categories: Hats | Jackets | Pants | Scarfs | Shirts | Shoes and then there is an Outfit Set selection. These selections offer you some freedom to customizing your agent.

Within each category there is a vast variety to choose from, though it is limited to how many pieces of apparel and weapon skins you've collected. There are many and I'm still attempting to collect them all! I'm sure it's a facet of the game they will continually add to.

The good news is, you can find vanity items just about everywhere! The most common of these methods will come from defeating enemies. It's been rumored that you can get Weapons Skins from helping civilians (like I did during the Beta) and/or Loot crates, but I've only found Apparel items in that fashion, and only from civilians, not crates. It seems most Weapon Skins drop from named NPCs. Sometimes they are even rewards for completing Missions and Incursions.

If hunting down these vanity items in the Open World or Dark Zone of New York City doesn't appeal to you, you may be relieved to find that your Base of Operations (BoO) has a decent ongoing rotating stock of both Apparel and Weapon Skins.

Once you unlock the Supply Line and Procurement Team sections of the BoO's Security Wing, you'll have access to even more vanity items. The Supply Line is a special Appearance Vendor that generally sells (for Division Credits) and stocks different Apparel and Weapon Skins every 24 hours. The Procurement Team, on the other hand, unlocks a Scavenger Crate where every so often (I forget the time frame, if it's not random) you can score some Apparel and/or gear.

Once hitting level 30, the Special Gear Vendor opens shop in the Tech Wing. There you can buy some fancier, harder to obtained Apparel, but it's going to cost you Phoenix Credits!

All of these avenues offer the opportunity to score some mad Apparel! Again, it's one of my favorite Loot types in the game. Sure, High-End items are great, but if I pick up a new jacket, some different jeans, or a hat I haven't seen before, I get psyched. Unless I'm in the Dark Zone. Then I panic and try to extract it ASAP before people go Rogue on me!

This pretty much sums up the situation (sorry, I can't recall who to credit this to):

As you can tell, I'm partial to purple (though I love grey), but I'm maybe willing to try out some different looks...

...Or not...

While there's a lot The Division offers in the way of vanity items, I would always welcome more. Some things I would like to see added are: Crafting vanity items and/or Gear Skins. I feel these additions, especially that latter one, would add even more customization, giving your agent the ability to stand out among the rest!

Do you have an obsession with vanity items in The Division? Do you have a favorite Apparel piece and/or Weapon Skin? If so, which? What changes and/or additions would you like to be seen made to the game's vanity item system?