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General: Community Spotlight: Customization
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Managing Editor Jon Wood returns this week to write a new Community Spotlight. This time, he's turning the focus onto the idea of the importance of character customization.
It's Wednesday, and I find myself once again compelled to drop in on one of the many conversations that our members are having in our forums. This time around, it was a thread called Character Customization created by Chrysos.
"I wonder how much dev time and money is put into making customer customization possible." He said, "personally, I don't get it. Outside of the time you spend creating your character and the time game reviewers spend waxing lyrical about it. What is the use of having 4 different things you can change to your cheeks (see the 2007 CES Conan preview).
"You recognize people in game from the name above their head not because their nose is slightly wider than the other dwarfs. I want to try to be unique in game as well but it seems to me that that is better achieved by being able to get distictive clothing and gear. Be honest how many times has anybody actually looked closely enough at another characters face to notice the subtle adjustements they made during character creation, those times that the face isn't obscured by some form of headwear anyway."
You can read the whole article here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Character customization doesn't bring that much to the game, but its the first thing people see when they start playing for the first time, and if its lacking, like in DDO, it gives a bad impression to players. So its important for that reason.
As we are at a point several years from the launch of swg, let alone the start of development for that game, there is little to no reason why we shouldnt expect as much if not more customization for our toons. Any game that comes down the pike with limited customization automatically loses a couple points from me because it tells me that the developers were lazy (and there are ALOT of lazy devs out there). it may only be frills and fluff on some levels, but if I start a game and within 30 minutes see 20 other people and npcs that look exactly like me I find it less engaging a gaming experience.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
A couple of facial feautres may not matter that much. In Everquest 2 (that I just recently started) I found that you can hardly see the facial features of the characters in the game (and still see anything else, at least).
But height and weight should be customizable. Sure, most players pick tall and skinny, but that just means if you pick short, fat, and bald, you'll have the most recognizable avatar in the game! How mad is he that he is losing his hair? So mad he can shoot fireballs! Bwahahaha!
In future releases such as the expected 2007 release of Conan, I believe I read it was 30ish options of customization? While that is a pretty cool thing that, if I play Conan i'll take full advantage of, but I have to agree... who is going to notice my incredibly subtle changes? Well... me of course. I wouldn't so much be doing it for other players; I'd be doing it for myself to get the exact look out of my avatar that I want.
Also in games that are currently out there, there is little emphasis put on custimization. To use WoW as an example, what little unique custimization of your characters facial features you applied at character creation are usually obscured by your choice of displaying your helm graphic. In EVE online customization is much more important. All you have to customize your character are the multitude of options to change your Avatar's image ... which is simply a head graphic consisting of nothing bigger than a forum board avatar.
I suspect that RPGers who come in to MMOs from the paper and pencil hobby understand the more visceral element of being able to visualize/describe your character.....in fact, even though WoW has a fairly decent range of customization options, I find it prety limiting; you can't have exceptionally fat, short, tall or unusual looking models, for example. But hell, even if no one else notices little facial details....I notice them, and it makes a difference to me when I design my character.
Oddly, I really like the range of customization in DDO, which someone else mentioned was limited.....am I missing something here? DDO seems to me to have the best range of options I've seen outside of SWG. I like Guild Wars, too, though it is more limited, it provides some real distinct looks.
While I found CoH to be too limiting to the predominantly solo style of play I like, I loved the customization in that game....I probably played it far longer than normal just to enjoy the range of characters I could create.
Something else: being able to customize stats and templates is very important to me, too. WoW fails in this respect, for example; all I get to customize are talents, later on, and gear. But in DDO, you can build your character just how you like it. And Guild Wars, I love the ultra-flexible design options for characters.
Current MMOs: Rift, GW2, Defiance
Blog: http://realmsofchirak.blogspot.com (old school tabletop gaming and more)
My first reaction was... character customization...who needs it? Then i recalled that during my current DAOC run I've gone back and changed several of my alts appearance...on more than one occasion. So I guess I do need it afterall. Thinking back to games that limit the choices of hair or face.... I don't like them that much... and I prefer all my characters to be as short as possible... (harder to hit in pvp, you know)
So.... thumbs up to customization.... gotta have it after all...
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I think the time spent in developing games like AoC and EQ2 in being able to have slightly fatter lips and slightly squintier eyes could be better spent on giving people far more armor sets and far more armor customization options.
Afterall, as soon as you put on a helmet, that 30 minutes you spent getting your nose just right, went right out the window.
WAR I think is doing it right. They're giving people a selection of faces and planning on spending the development time that isn't devoted to silly sliders on things that increase play experience like armor customization.
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I live to fight, and fight to live.
I think CoH had it right when it comes to how things should be handled in customization for armor and weapons, let the players choose how they want to look, not the stats.
Lets face it in a MMORPG you can have 50 different types of armor, but what it boils down to is what one has the best stats. Wouldn't it be nice if a game allowed a player to take a piece of equipement to a crafter, keep all the stats on the item but change its apperence to a different piece of armor.
And I need character customisation. The first thing I do when I start a new game, is turn off all character and npc names. As someone has already said, you can walk into a crowded cantina in SWG and immediately recognise friends and enemies on sight; names or no names above the heads. I think that's a testament to that game's customisability. Dang I miss SWG
Edit: to the person near the top of this thread that posted that the NGE removed image designer. It's not true. ID is still there, it's just bunched in with all the entertainment classes.
I never understoond the difference. If I wear a motorcycle jacket, I'm going to ride a motorcycle. If I'm going to put on my uniform, then I'm on my way to work. Why would you get sexy with no intention of having sex? You're just going to confuse everybody.
ANYWAY
You can think of character appearance customization as a form of creative art. In composition of any art, you have to be aware of how someone views your piece.
Say a painting for example:
The artist cannot controll the distance any viewer is going to be from his painting. This means that he has to work at it from (primarily) two levels: The overall composition must work for viewing at great distances. IE: it has to look good from far away, where the eye blurs all the details. [i]Inside[/i] of that composition, details must be provided to engage the eye while close up. IE, when you stand close to a painting, you might looses the effect of the overall composition, so you need elements that still attract the eye and lead it around.
In an MMO these rules still apply with slight modification (WoW used as the primary atmosphere in this example):
Consider that all your enemy is going to see as he moves in for PVP: your gear, telling him your class and possibly difficulty level. That is our most basic composition and should require the most attention.
Then you get what your guild mates see: more detail, your race becomes more important. (But often they just see your name in chat)
Finaly, the details of facial features realy only gets enjoyed by your close friends, an in-game gf, and you.
I'm often dissapointed when facial features are the only customisable feature of a character. That means everyone's gong to look the same, especially in the nooby area. Facial features can be left out of the process, it's so incosiquential. Most people are going to be recognizing me from 50 to 100 yards away; somewhere in the middle of my 3 examples. THIS should be paramount in the minds of game designers when it comes to such elements of a game. CoH did it right.
http://erickveil.com/
QFT
Sure tweaking the size of a cheekbone or nose is rather minor and wouldn't be missed but its the collection of all these things that a player first sees. If the devs put so much effort into customization, then surely the game must be great right?
As for Conan, keep in mind there are only humans to pick for race, so imo its even more important you have as many options as possible.
That said, I suppose I would rather have 40 different hair styles and 50 different colors for it, than high or low cheek bones.
I'm one of the suckers for customization... in my opinion, you can never have too much customization *nods* I cuold spend hours creating chars in SWG, dismissing them and create new ones....
The same in EVE (back when I played it) and CoH/ V. Not so much in WoW... that's pretty... well... boring springs to mind... but I love finding clothes around the place so that almost makes up for the lack of char customization. But only almost.
Buttom line - for me - is that it's my avatar (a representation of the Goddess (read 'lesser demon' :P) that is me) on the plane of existance I am choosing at the time. And I'd like it to represent me well *nods decisively* I don't really care if anybody else notices - though most of the people I play with probably would - but I would notice.
"So I contend that the player stories will always be more powerful than the scripted stories that we try to tell the players."
- Will Wright
I think the character customizations as far as facial features go are widely unnoticable because they are so small and even if you add intricacies such as nose length or curvature of eyebrows, no one is really gonna notice or care.
CoH stands out for customization because you customize parts that WILL be noticed, short or tall, skinny or voluptuous thighs, clothing, clothing, clothing. SWG was nice because of the clothing customizations... (lol I had 2 houses I used only as wardrobe storage for my master dancer)
EQ and EQ2 have so many costume/armor pieces that just don't show and in the high end game people start looking the same due to each having the "uberest" armor pieces.
Anarchy Online had their functional armor pieces as well as their social costume parts such as bikini's and high heels and sunglasses. Each one of those did have their unique look and showed unless it was covered by another piece. (cloaks, coats etc)
Having a completely customizable costume in CoH has a very high advantage because its easier to pick out team members that need healing or help, or to know immediately what they're doing and where they're at in a scuffle.
In SWG, my master dancer would dance in cantinas and lived off of tips easily because she stood out and looked differently than the other dancers, each trying to attract enough attention of the customers to get the best tips.
In short, I think clothing customizations have a much bigger impact than facial features.