Avatar creation and player's personal

iixviiiix

Lately i had interest in this topic , about personal behind that create PC in social game like MMO .

Basically , do PC show off the personal of it creator . Do you think that people can read the person behind avatar through the avatar ?

It's funny but after talks , it show that the mental of creation of PC is difference in singleplayer and MMOs

Dibdabs

I must have created 1,000+ game characters and I just click "random" for their appearance now.  I am not interested in how they look because I will almost never see their face in-game.

iixviiiix

Dibdabs said:

I must have created 1,000+ game characters and I just click "random" for their appearance now.  I am not interested in how they look because I will almost never see their face in-game.

lol , i doubt my number of avatar is over 100 ,

but you are random type ? is it one time random or multiple time random ? i mean , you just click random and create avatar , or do random multiple time until get the one you want ?

Rhiow-Darkstep

Character creation and naming is the first step to immersion. For some it may not be that important, but for me it can sometimes start me off on the wrong foot.  If I can't relate to my avatar, I am not 'in the game'.

Caffynated

I certainly think that your avatar can say something about you.

There are people like me who spend a lot of time customizing our characters to make them as beautiful as possible, looking for cosmetic wardrobe items to make sure we look pimp, etc. I find that people like this don't/can't enjoy ugliness. You rarely see us playing monster races like orcs, trolls or lizardmen.

Then there are those who play an absurd looking character either to stand out, make it clear that they don't take this seriously, or just for comedic effect. They are generally split between two personality types; the jokester who is always trying to be funny and the jackass who is always trying to ruin everyone else's good time.

Scot

It is an aspect of you rather than symbolic of you as that word so often used Avatar would imply. Even great actors find it nigh impossible to totally remove themselves from the roles they play, so I doubt any roleplayer can.

Dibdabs

iixviiiix said:

Dibdabs said:

I must have created 1,000+ game characters and I just click "random" for their appearance now.  I am not interested in how they look because I will almost never see their face in-game.

lol , i doubt my number of avatar is over 100 ,

but you are random type ? is it one time random or multiple time random ? i mean , you just click random and create avatar , or do random multiple time until get the one you want ?

I've played a great many online games since the late 90's and I checked through an old diary that I use for game account passwords.  There were just over 50 games listed and that will not be a complete list because it only goes back as far as 2007.  I like to try out all the classes I can, and I sometimes delete them and used what I have learnt to make a better-skilled character next time around.  If I get interested in a free to play game I sometimes have multiple accounts.  I admit 1000+ characters is something of a guesstimate but I don't think it will be too far off.

In the early days I would very likely have clicked "random" two or three times, but I haven't done so for years now.  Most character options are/were just skin tone, height, weight and hair colour variations on a pretty limited set of options.  It isn't long before you can't see the face and body because of the armour anyway.

Wizardry

I don't think we could gather much information just looking at an avatar ,however actually watching someone in the process,most definitely.
I watched a chick making her avatar the other day,it was one of the most painful experiences in my entire life.The whole time i wanted to say...your just going to cover up 90% of your player with gear,what are you doing !!.

I have watched enough videos and player creations in those videos to see a definitive trend.,Women fiddle with the sliders way more than guys.Guys tend to goof around like taking the boob sliders and sliding them to full/max ,goofy stuff like that or making their head super small or super big,very seldom do i see a guy going over his avatar with a fine tooth comb.
personality,well in case of those over exaggerated features,then yes i would gather a childish male,Forsen is famous for being goofy like that.

I go through the process very quickly,i am way more interested in meaningful changes,like racial differences and stats.A perfect example of meaning is often a tiny character can't see much walking through high grass  while a large character can easily see over obstacles.What color their hair is or the hairstyle  or eye color doesn't matter much to me.

rojoArcueid

I always take a long time to create my character because if i don't like it i delete it. I've taken up to an hour in some games, and i'm ok with that. I never roleplay in games so about 90% of my characters in mmorpgs are female based on someone i like (friends, musicians, historical figures, anime, books, viking mythology, other games, etc).

4507

This discussion makes me wonder whether family systems like that which CoE has planned will be received positively - if your offspring, which you'll play as your character at some point, can't be personally customized, will the people who rely on customization for their immersion have difficulty role playing?

AlBQuirky

I'm kind of "middle of the road" with my characters. I look at the options and try to get an avatar that is pleasing for me to look at. I won't spend hours doing it, though. I want to get into the game.

I also want to be able to relate to my character, so I rarely play beast or monster races. I have tried a lot of them out (EQ, WoW), but I find myself not making a connection with them, especially when most are portrayed as "evil."

If that says anything about my personality, I'm interested in hearing about it

Limnic

4507 said:

This discussion makes me wonder whether family systems like that which CoE has planned will be received positively - if your offspring, which you'll play as your character at some point, can't be personally customized, will the people who rely on customization for their immersion have difficulty role playing?

Think the opposite in that context.

The customization of the original character instigates the aesthetic, and the appearance of the offspring are, logically, derivative of the parent. That's about as roleplay as you can get when playing a lineage of characters.

I personally never tire of making custom characters, but when making a "family" like how you can link up your characters in SWTOR into a "lineage", I made sure to go through and make it so related characters would share common appearance traits between each-other.

As for the thread in general. I have always enjoyed customizing characters. I have a specific appearance I try to replicate in every game I play, and then I have a variety of alts that I ultimately make to fit the game setting and explore different ideas. I know it's not as common, but I tend to enjoy the xenotype races that have some novelty or flair to them.

How that interprets or relates to my personality in general, I'm sure there's some that you can pick up based on personal visual styling (like "judging a person by their shoes"), but behavior tends to have more weight in that regard still. 

Octagon7711

If I plan on playing a character for many many years, I want it to look a certain way.  Thank God for the games that have barber shops.  

I once had a bad experience with SWG in that Trandoshans couldn't use hats or boots so missed the added stats.  Till this day I usually go with humans because of that, but not always.

AlBQuirky

This topic also brings up a related question I've often wondered about: change in appearance.

Would players want to have an "aging mechanic" or "scarring mechanic?" You get hurt in a fight and you get a scar, or time actually passes and your avatar gets older with wrinkles and graying hair.

Anyone else think about this, or is this just an "AlBQuirky thing?"

kjempff

The point of a character in a mmo/rpg should be to play the role of someone else, not yourself. Some are able to roleplay something completely different than their rl personality, while others imagination can not go that far.
However much you try, I think your rl personality will always find its way to the pc. And turning it around, you can not conclude that players are assholes in rl just because they are in games, even if they are not roleplaying one.

Roleplaying is a great way to expand your perspective by trying to understand others, even if it is just a simplistic setup of a game, it still trains you in doing that. An in these echochamber times of social media and targeted google searches, we sure need the variety.

AlBQuirky

Gorwe said:

AlBQuirky said:

I'm kind of "middle of the road" with my characters. I look at the options and try to get an avatar that is pleasing for me to look at. I won't spend hours doing it, though. I want to get into the game.

I also want to be able to relate to my character, so I rarely play beast or monster races. I have tried a lot of them out (EQ, WoW), but I find myself not making a connection with them, especially when most are portrayed as "evil."

If that says anything about my personality, I'm interested in hearing about it

Can you do absolutely vile things in games(like SWTOR / Mass Effect and the like) or are you repulsed by just the very notion of them? If so, why?

I do not find any fun whatsoever in "being a dick", which is how most "evil characters" are portrayed. It's not "fun" for me to kick puppies, slap babies, steal from the poor, torture and all other assorted "evil activities" that games give a player. It's just not fun at all for me. Since I play games for fun, this kind of play is kind of counterproductive

I did, in SW:KotOR make Zaalbar kill Mission  (in the area just before the Star Forge) just to see what the "Evil Robes" were like. Once I had my info, I quit the game, deleted the save files, and took a long hot shower. That's the first and last "evil" action I've done willingly

Dibdabs

I'd really enjoy playing an actual evil character, where missions/quests featuring "good" and "bad" outcomes can be chosen. Burning a village and enslaving the population on behalf of an up-and-coming evil necromancer or warlord would be fun AND make a nice change.

Scot

AlBQuirky said:

This tropic also brings up a related question I've often wondered about: change in appearance.

Would players want to have an "aging mechanic" or "scarring mechanic?" You get hurt in a fight and you get a scar, or time actually passes and your avatar gets older with wrinkles and graying hair.

Anyone else think about this, or is this just an "AlBQuirky thing?"

While gaming is obsessed with graphics I am sure you have all noticed how young, fit and healthy our avatars usually are. In some MMOs you can start with say grey hair or get it later at a barbers. I think forcing that on players would not go down well. But yes it would make perfect sense.

Dibdabs

Gorwe said:

Dibdabs said:

I'd really enjoy playing an actual evil character, where missions/quests featuring "good" and "bad" outcomes can be chosen. Burning a village and enslaving the population on behalf of an up-and-coming evil necromancer or warlord would be fun AND make a nice change.

What I'd like is if the "Dark Side" choices weren't inherently self defeating. If there wasn't a "correct / light side" choice and a "moron edgelord" choice. But rather two(or more) equally valid choices. And it's not like that. Not even in Tyranny lol. The closest to that would be The Witcher series.

Definitely.  Everything is so boringly "good" all the time.  I don't want to clear the spiders from someone's cellar, I want to slaughter the owner, loot the place, infest the village with spiders and burn the village down when everyone's dead.  Just for a goddam change!!

I enjoyed playing the "evil" Sith character in SWtoR and the Death Knight in WoW, but after the intro quest they sadly became wimps and lost their appeal. 

Amathe

I definitely don't create characters who are like me. I create characters that I think are are fun and cool. It's part of the fantasy. 

Sovrath

iixviiiix said:

Lately i had interest in this topic , about personal behind that create PC in social game like MMO .

Basically , do PC show off the personal of it creator . Do you think that people can read the person behind avatar through the avatar ?

It's funny but after talks , it show that the mental of creation of PC is difference in singleplayer and MMOs

I don't know if a person can be "read" based on how they create an avatar.

Some people don't care and others care a lot. No way to tell except for those people whose avatars have a lot of detail and where it seems great care is taken. And even then you won't be able to "read the player." Just know that they care.

For me, I care a lot about an avatar's appearance and each one has a different story to tell.

AlBQuirky

Gorwe said:

AlBQuirky said:

Gorwe said:

AlBQuirky said:

I'm kind of "middle of the road" with my characters. I look at the options and try to get an avatar that is pleasing for me to look at. I won't spend hours doing it, though. I want to get into the game.

I also want to be able to relate to my character, so I rarely play beast or monster races. I have tried a lot of them out (EQ, WoW), but I find myself not making a connection with them, especially when most are portrayed as "evil."

If that says anything about my personality, I'm interested in hearing about it

Can you do absolutely vile things in games(like SWTOR / Mass Effect and the like) or are you repulsed by just the very notion of them? If so, why?

I do not find any fun whatsoever in "being a dick", which is how most "evil characters" are portrayed. It's not "fun" for me to kick puppies, slap babies, steal from the poor, torture and all other assorted "evil activities" that games give a player. It's just not fun at all for me. Since I play games for fun, this kind of play is kind of counterproductive

I did, in SW:KotOR make Zaalbar kill Mission  (in the area just before the Star Forge) just to see what the "Evil Robes" were like. Once I had my info, I quit the game, deleted the save files, and took a long hot shower. That's the first and last "evil" action I've done willingly

And there you have it. The same reason why you don't pick ugly, evil races. Because the very notion of being evil, even in a meaningless game, disgusts you. Yes?

Pretty much, yes.

I did chuckle when I read WoW's lore on The Horde's races. Every last one of them had some kind of mitigating circumstance that seemed to justify their choices

EQ had their beast races worship evil Deities (or atheists as any race could be).

Now, in Morrowind (my first TES game), I chose a Khajiit right off of the bat. I still have yet to play an Argonian, though

Dibdabs

Gorwe said:

I didn't exactly mean full on Bolton style evil...

I would LOVE that, personally.

Vermillion_Raventhal

I wish they gave more reason to wear regular clothes so it actually makes a difference that you took the time.  You run around fully decked in armor but doesn't matter.

Like town rules that restrict armor and weapons. Crafting gear be clothing and look the role.  Just some the small virtual world things lost single player gaming.

Sovrath

Vermillion_Raventhal said:

I wish they gave more reason to wear regular clothes so it actually makes a difference that you took the time.  You run around fully decked in armor but doesn't matter.

Like town rules that restrict armor and weapons. Crafting gear be clothing and look the role.  Just some the small virtual world things lost single player gaming.

I've had this idea as well. If you go into an establishment and you are armed to the teeth the npc's might have a different reaction to you in comparison to you going into a barracks or some such thing.

Xasapis

iixviiiix said:

Lately i had interest in this topic , about personal behind that create PC in social game like MMO .

Basically , do PC show off the personal of it creator . Do you think that people can read the person behind avatar through the avatar ?

It's funny but after talks , it show that the mental of creation of PC is difference in singleplayer and MMOs

I would say that more often than not, the in-game character is the opposite of what the actual person is.