character creation disk dissapointing

ElElyon

anyone else get really dissapointed at the character creation disks? I was not impressed at all, the customization seemed extremely limited.
but honestly this doesnt really affect my excitement for the game, Im just saying that I expected a lot more.
what did you think of it?

vmoped

Ya i agree, after SWG, the EQ2 character creation pales in comparison.  I really wanted to play a fat gnome merchant =/.  Ah well, guess an ogre will do!  I'm still excited about the game.

alerum

i wasnt impressed with the character creation disk either. i did however have fun looking at all the goofy hairstyles.

This cold dark and tormented hell is all i'll ever know so when you get to heaven may the devil be your judge.

~Flogging Molly~

iddmitri

character cuztomization will lag the game. it will make almost imposible to play on 56k. I totally disagree with the idea of customizing the characters in such games as EQ2, WoW, DnL etc. If you think it is a good idea then you are wrong beacause it is still future with all these slow modems it is almost imposible to play games with such customization of your character. Also it will slow down your PC in very populated areas such as Stormwind and actually if everybody from the server will meet at the same place your PC would just crash. Ofcourse it is not likely to happen but keep it in mind.

∙name: EViLD0G
∙clan: [EXE]
∙playing: WoW, EQ, SIMS, AC, AC2, DAoC, FFXI, AW, RS
∙planning: WoW, EQ2, GW, DnL

p00ka

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Originally posted by dmitri84
character cuztomization will lag the game. it will make almost imposible to play on 56k. I totally disagree with the idea of customizing the characters in such games as EQ2, WoW, DnL etc. If you think it is a good idea then you are wrong beacause it is still future with all these slow modems it is almost imposible to play games with such customization of your character. Also it will slow down your PC in very populated areas such as Stormwind and actually if everybody from the server will meet at the same place your PC would just crash. Ofcourse it is not likely to happen but keep it in mind.

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Wrong. Customization has an insignificant impact on the bandwidth requirements of the game. The customization information is transfered between the server and you once per entity in a given area. As people zone in or zone out, a few bytes worth of information is streamed to your client. So, if a 56k modem can transfer 5-7 thousand bytes per second, explain to me how that will affect your performance? Assuming that customization data is (rather conservatively) around 10 bytes per character, 100 people could zone in every second at a cost of less than 1k per second (or 8kbps.)

Furthermore, the geometry and textures are the same per character model, except for a finite number of hair and armor styles. So, since your machine already has the same content no matter the position of the eye brows, or tilt of the eyes, it's a matter of just rendering the information with certain distortions applied to the character geometry - a relatively trivial operation. The time it takes to render 100 character models with identical geometry, vs. 100 people of slightly varying geometry is the same, provided that there is enough video memory for the engine to utilize.

As for what will slow down your game in highly populated areas, that has everything to do with the number of polygons on the screen at a given time - and has nothing whatsoever to do with customization. If your PC crashes in polygon-intensive areas, then perhaps you should be playing a less graphically intense game. Might I suggest WoW - it doesn't seem to suffer from problems such as high polygon count and detailed character models.

-pooka

aeric67

Actually, if variations to the face are analog, it's more likely one byte per slider bar. That gives 256 different slider positions, and that is even probably too many variations. Still, with about two dozen sliders, that's 24 bytes per person or less.

In practice, however, even with 24 bytes of info for facial customization per character (plus the customizations of the armor they are wearing and such), that all wouldn't be downloaded to the client as soon as that character zones in. That would be terribly inefficient. Only the macro information would be sent to you first when they are at a distance (assuming you can see them), like race, height, body size, general colors and shapes, etc. As they got closer, more information would be sent to you, and level of detail on the polygons would increase. Only when they are standing in front of you would you see them in all their customized glory and detail.

Shatter

Yes i was a little disapointed. When i first started playing CoH i could spend hours just customizing new chars. The only way that you will be able to tell eatchother aprt will be from the hairstyles it seems.

_______________________
Shatter Soulich
Necromancer

aeric67

Character creation was the main reason I bought CoH at first. I made a character on a friend's account and immediately rushed out to Best Buy at 8:55pm (they closed at 9:00) and picked up a copy right away. We played the game for eight hours straight that night.

Siolenas

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Originally posted by p00ka





Originally posted by dmitri84
character cuztomization will lag the game. it will make almost imposible to play on 56k. I totally disagree with the idea of customizing the characters in such games as EQ2, WoW, DnL etc. If you think it is a good idea then you are wrong beacause it is still future with all these slow modems it is almost imposible to play games with such customization of your character. Also it will slow down your PC in very populated areas such as Stormwind and actually if everybody from the server will meet at the same place your PC would just crash. Ofcourse it is not likely to happen but keep it in mind.



Wrong on many accounts.  The charecters overall file size does not change with adjusting appearnce. For Proof create two different looking chars, customize them anyway you want and see for yourself.
Secondly, Dial-up is not the way of the business. American Business Burea this year said by the year 2007 75% of the 2.5 million people using the internet will have at least broadband. So Sony deciding to write software based on Dial-up would only be hurting there company
Infact, One of the major problems with FFXI was that it limited your connection speed to 56k.   For people who actually want to run faster connections to prevent lag, it should be there option not the option of the company
Also, Microsoft Gaming Studios reconized that Broadband will be the market future, thus only alllowing Xbox Live to be Broadband or greater compatible.

Wrong. Customization has an insignificant impact on the bandwidth requirements of the game. The customization information is transfered between the server and you once per entity in a given area. As people zone in or zone out, a few bytes worth of information is streamed to your client. So, if a 56k modem can transfer 5-7 thousand bytes per second, explain to me how that will affect your performance? Assuming that customization data is (rather conservatively) around 10 bytes per character, 100 people could zone in every second at a cost of less than 1k per second (or 8kbps.)

Furthermore, the geometry and textures are the same per character model, except for a finite number of hair and armor styles. So, since your machine already has the same content no matter the position of the eye brows, or tilt of the eyes, it's a matter of just rendering the information with certain distortions applied to the character geometry - a relatively trivial operation. The time it takes to render 100 character models with identical geometry, vs. 100 people of slightly varying geometry is the same, provided that there is enough video memory for the engine to utilize.

As for what will slow down your game in highly populated areas, that has everything to do with the number of polygons on the screen at a given time - and has nothing whatsoever to do with customization. If your PC crashes in polygon-intensive areas, then perhaps you should be playing a less graphically intense game. Might I suggest WoW - it doesn't seem to suffer from problems such as high polygon count and detailed character models.

-pooka

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Scampers

newbinator

I was very impressed by the EQ2 character creation disk.

iddmitri

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Originally posted by Shatter
Yes i was a little disapointed. When i first started playing CoH i could spend hours just customizing new chars. The only way that you will be able to tell eatchother aprt will be from the hairstyles it seems._______________________
Shatter Soulich
Necromancer

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I didnt play CoH, you are saying they made superb character customization. Is it lags in the game with all these differences between characters? If no where I can read about their customization system? thanks.

∙name: EViLD0G
∙clan: [EXE]
∙playing: WoW, EQ, SIMS, AC, AC2, DAoC, FFXI, AW, RS
∙planning: WoW, EQ2, GW, DnL

ElElyon

I never had CoH lag on me, there was a bug or something that kicked you off saying something abou the map. but I have never lagged in that game.
CoH has by far the best character creation in any game I have seen. Even better than Star Wars I think.

Sacfed

I wish I played any game online that didn't lag at times.  I don't know how many times I got killed by some mobs Lag Cannon.

Customization didn't have as much to do with lag. It had to do with not having 400 lb killer gnomes destroying the feeling of the game.

EQ2 is not about having fun, its serious stuff. (some) People dress up like there characters while they play, and say things like aye lass and 'tis (ROFL)

P4-3.0HT 800Mhz, RAID0 120's, 1Gb Dual 400Mhz,Toshiba 8X DVD+-,ASUS P4P800 DLX, ATI 9800PRO, 500watt PS.
Made by Me in Victoria,BC. Canada

aeric67

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I didnt play CoH, you are saying they made superb character customization. Is it lags in the game with all these differences between characters? If no where I can read about their customization system? thanks.

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Definitely superb. I had a full roster of alts it was so fun. Long term gameplay wasn't so fun for me, but I think I got my money's worth out of it. Was very fun until level 20, then missions started getting old and task forces became real tedious.