Character Customization Options

[Tool]

When it comes to creating a character in an RPG, I am one who spends upwards of an hour to make sure everyting is right. Mainly because in most games you are forced to keep your image for as long as you play. (and no I don't RP, I just give a damn about how my character looks )

Some people, however, could care less about what their actual character looks like and these people generally take 2-3 minutes to create their character or hit "randomize".

How advanced should character customization be? Should we have sliders that affect every detail of the characters body and facial features OR should it be simple choices with few options.

For example, the complexity of Oblivion (or the unreleased Age of Conan) or overly popular, choiceless World of Warcraft.

Yes, it will probably make the game lag a bit if all characters look different, but it definately adds to the game if you can make your character your own (for me at least).

Which would you rather have?

[Metal Wolf]

As much as I love slider bar and heavily customizable characters. Its been proven that almost all MMO players lack the artistic ability to produce anything more attractive than Sloth from the Goonies.

[no-one]

I does make a big deference because the character feels more like its yours. or even feels like its you.

I would hope for a balance for customization and still keep the lag low.

[Dagger]

Though fully customisable is obviously better for pure awesome reasons, I'd prefer a selection of premade features to reduce lag. To be honest, I wouldn't care if there was only one model per class/race, as it's not something that will affect gameplay.

[Ansgar]

for this to truely be a next gen MMO it needs to have full customability.....i really dont think lag will be an issue with todays machines and especially by 2009 and beyond.

[Dagger]

Originally Posted by Ansgar

for this to truely be a next gen MMO it needs to have full customability.....i really dont think lag will be an issue with todays machines and especially by 2009 and beyond.

It's not just about the machines, but the network connections. Unless there's some technique of saving each model specific attribute into a very small code, then full customization requires more loading per character. Haven't you ever noticed in MMOs that when the area is populated, it takes a while for all sprites to load in? Some can even get next to you without having loaded yet.

I don't really know much about these things as I've never been involved in them, but I would think that it's the main reason why MMOs are usually poorer in detail than all the single player RPGs that get out on the market.

[Rowanbael]

I've always taken some amount of pride in my character, so I would like to have full control over it's appearances. Lag out of consideration, of course. This is all theoretical, it will happen as it happens, so there's utterly no point in throwing network lag into the fray.

If the devs decide to go will full customization, then I'm sure they will either have a method of preventing this issue, or will take a look into it before actually end up deciding.

Nitpicking is for bitches.

[BlackOrc]

I don't think having a character creation system such as Oblivion's is efficient, or necessary. WoW's character creation and Oblivion's are on two different ends of the spectrum. I think something in between or 50% better than what WoW had should be great. Remember guys. The more resources spent on one area, the less used for another. You may have more faces and hair than you care for, but you won't get 3rd person perspective (WHICH WE WANT PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!).

[Frostkin]

Maybe making up for it with some sort of dye system would be okay, but having a complete facial structure system is overdoing it. No one will notice the difference imo. There could be a compromise though like a customizeable body structure, so u could make your character fat as hell like in AO :P

[hazardous]

im really hoping that this game has a great customization options. it makes it full like your in the game and it also gives it a new look. you wont see ur self walking around in real life so why in a game that is meant to be real...(well u know what i mean by real)

[Greenwolf]

Leaving the technical details to the devs, I think the more customizability the better.
If they can do it without lagging the game, great, if not, so be it.

One thing I've considered is the ability for the system to toggle customized avatar features dynamically. For instance, if you are in a crowded area, it would simply load a default racial avatar for everyone, along with their important visible gear. If it has the spare bandwidth, it would then adjust the avatars to look more and more like the player sees himself.

Alternatively, it could be tied to distance. Seeing a racial default at the horizon, which slowly resolves into the player at a few paces, and at point-blank range you can see details like scars and tattoos and such.


If possible I'd like to see at least some variation on height, build, and skin/hair tone. Perhaps hair style options (short/med/long/tied).
Preferably with some randomization done afterwards to break people up from being min/max/default height/build.

Next importance would be facial features. Either a large selection of defaults, or preferably a few sliders (like Mount and Blade, but perhaps fewer).

After this would be smaller details. Scars, tattoos, decorations, etc.
Decorations could even change ingame, like equipable items that show on your avatar. This could of course be toggleable or subject to above limitations.

[Osiris`Mooon]

I ask one thing of the devs in this game ,please for the love of god let me be able to play a true black skinned person with facial features that resemble a black person, not some sort of skin shader that does nothing but alter ones colour. Vanguard have done this and although i found that game incredibly boring ,this they done right.

The same can be said about Asian and Indian.

[Geraldine]

First of all they should focus on make large scale battles as smooth as possible so if that requires less options for character customization im ok with chars that look like other chars. But it always nice with with a unique feeling of ur char of course. Just dont make tall and skinny girls :S i cant stand them..

[Nehemia]

At least Unreal 3 should support full customization, so I'm all for it.
I hate seeing dozen similiar guys to my character, really.

[Erdamon]

It would be a shame to take a good MMORPG ideea with a great graphics engine like Unreal 3 and make a WoW based character development system.

Also, an Oblivion sort of system is not really to my liking. It's too complex for most people who just want to have a decent character that is different in some ways the others. It would be cool to introduce a small scale Oblivion character appearance system and combine it with a growth system like in Fable where your character can age etc.

[WarTimeHero]

It would be good to have a full customisation but in the end its not worth sacrificing gameplay to achieve that.

[Shrapnel]

Even though it's not entirely necessary I vote for full customization. Most people want to have their own personal touch to their character, but as I read in another thread, perhaps some predefined slider locations for those who are lazy or esthetically challenged. And allow for some kind of future modification even after creation. Perhaps not altering the facial structure again, but hairstyle and color.

[Wufiavelli]

They should have an array of sliders, but under general categories like face, body, hair they should have a next and back button that moves the sliders to save easy to use customization areas.

[ClownFoot]

I want to fully customize, but that would create more lag, meaning simpler would be better. I voted fully customizable anyway.

[Tool]

After watching the video again, I realized how good the orc or elf (not sure what it was) in the video looked in the face. I seriously doubt they are going to have only a few options to choose from. I guess we'll find out sometime in the near future.

[BlackOrc]

- Good customization to a certain extent.

- No full facial manipulation.

- Having some freedom in manipulating features would be a huge plus, but don't overdo it.

- Height and build should be customizable without overdoing it.

As said before, people don't really notice the subtle details at all. Make the customization feature give the player the sense their avatar is fairly unique without wasting too much time on a feature which isn't nearly as important as combat mechanics.

[Mouse Sidurien]

What I dont think I've ever seen is this:
Say 2 people choose to play the "Orc Race" and instead of them looking exactly the same without Equips or anything. If every single created character was different. I mean it would be "random" but with the essence of detailing and customizing that particular Character. That way their is an even greater sense of 'Unique'

[psyonix]

The more customization the better, however I do understand that customization can affect game performance if this game does in fact plan to be a huge persistent ongoing world. So I hope a harmonious balance can be acheived.

[Joszek]

I wonder how many players looks at their face while playing.
Especially at position of their eyebrows, size of ears, nose.
If MO is going to have only FPP view, and TPP only when riding on a mount, then full face customization is useless.

However, I'm against it. I'm for a bit more than simple char customisation (height, weight, with more hair style possibilities and 1-2 places for tatoos, rather than dozen of sliders).
You just can't make an orc female character to look like a top model.
It's meant to be ugly with big shaking booty ^^

As it goes about customization's influence into smooth gameplay, I've already talked about that in questions subforum.

[Greenwolf]

Well, you don't see your own face often, but you see everyone else's, and they see yours. It would be nice for everyone not to have the same 5 faces.

Originally Posted by Mouse Sidurien

What I dont think I've ever seen is this:
Say 2 people choose to play the "Orc Race" and instead of them looking exactly the same without Equips or anything. If every single created character was different. I mean it would be "random" but with the essence of detailing and customizing that particular Character. That way their is an even greater sense of 'Unique'

Now this gave me a wonderful idea.
What about doing character details client-side, and just attack a random seed to each player. The client then would only have to download one small value for each player, and would use it to determine that avatar's characteristics. This would solve the 'lag' problems, and graphicswise it could be tied in with other performance options to ensure high FPS.

[Tool]

Originally Posted by Joszek

I wonder how many players looks at their face while playing.
Especially at position of their eyebrows, size of ears, nose.
If MO is going to have only FPP view, and TPP only when riding on a mount, then full face customization is useless.

However, I'm against it. I'm for a bit more than simple char customisation (height, weight, with more hair style possibilities and 1-2 places for tatoos, rather than dozen of sliders).
You just can't make an orc female character to look like a top model.
It's meant to be ugly with big shaking booty ^^

As it goes about customization's influence into smooth gameplay, I've already talked about that in questions subforum.

I imagine there will be options to show/not show helms in this game. Being that it is first person, you will most likely be looking at other character's faces quite often so I do find it to be important. Also, for some (such as myself), it is very important how the character looks especially if you want him to represent yourself or someone/something you admire. As I metioned before I do not RP- never have, never will- but I do care very much about how my character looks and is represented in an RPG, especially an MMORPG. As for lag: lets just hope that the dev's can make it all work properly. However, I will play this game as long as it is a good game. Character customization will not be a "game-breaker" for me.

[losinglife]

more customization the better i say

[Alvin]

More customization is good. But only if the customization tool in itself is well done. It should look good when you change settings on how your char look. It means alot to be able to make a unique char that you can relate to over time.

[Zarquon]

Would you give up some of the customization options of it meant less lag, and a less system intensive game?
All those unique features could really add up in clan/guild warfare with hundreds of people clogging one small are being fought over.