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What's up with the Character Creation in SOTNW?
Vehuel
Member Posts: 112
When I first saw this game...I kinda fell in love with it, simply because of its innovation (like controlling up to 3 characters). But then after looking at hundreds of trailers and game videos, I noticed something. All the characters look ALIKE!!!
I was like OMG, no! I wanted to buy this game so bad. But if you can only change a character's costume and not their face or hairstyle...then I may reconsider and stick with Warcrack (and wait for RO2). I won't feel comfortable playing a character that looks exactly like someone else's.
I just want to hear other ppl's opinions on SOTNW's character creation compared to other MMOs.
Currently Playing: 3ds Max 2009
Played and Loved: World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Warhammer Online
Best F2P MMO: Requiem Bloodymare
Want to Play: Aion (See Teaser), DCuniverseOnline (awesome gameplay videos)
Comments
like most asian mmorpgs character customization sucks...
That's where their Item Mall comes in... cosmetic changes to your character.
- CaesarsGhost
Lead Gameplay and Gameworld Designer for a yet unnamed MMO Title.
"When people tell me designing a game is easy, I try to get them to design a board game. Most people don't last 5 minutes, the rest rarely last more then a day. The final few realize it's neither fun nor easy."
Welcome to the world that is Korean MMOs. SOTNW has some pretty addictive gameplay and makes it really pleasant to level up multiple characters.
Agree, looking like everyone else does take some of the in-character/roleplay/whatever feel out of games. Besides, is SoTNW really that innovative? In Guild Wars you can control more than 3 characters at once and also customize them in GW: Nightfall.
Most of the Asian 3d MMOs are like this. The play style is different and game play definately takes the lead to character appearances.
The item mall thing is usually something you see in the "Free to Play" games. I find it odd that it is in a Pay to Play game like SotNW. Yes, yes, I know it is free to level 20 but after that there is a monthly charge so I consider it a trial period for a pay to play game.
There are some pretty neat gameplay features that I saw while I was in Beta for this and the fast action is fun but for some reason it did not hold my attention long.
Item mall + subscirption = phail
Yeah, the guys in the game look more girly than me. o_O
-- Brede
I agree.
Currently Playing: 3ds Max 2009
Played and Loved: World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Warhammer Online
Best F2P MMO: Requiem Bloodymare
Want to Play: Aion (See Teaser), DCuniverseOnline (awesome gameplay videos)
Well ofcourse we could take out the 3 - different character system and take out the clan sieges, but hey, at least we can add customization then!
the game can have hundreds of characters on screen, because of the lack of customization. its one or the other. I don't want my gameplay features to be removed just because of "Customization". If you want "Customization", then go play Everquest 2 some more, SOE is glad to scrap some features for Customization.
for the person why is trying to compare it to GW: Play the game and educate yourself, you'll probably start to realise how rediculous that comment is.
GL: Um... no. I'm not going to argue this point too much with you unless you have some code time samples, but I will state that your argument doesn't hold water. The current bus protocals blow away your argument on the grounds of faster clock speed and larger throughput, simply put.
-- Brede
Um yeah, like "Warcrack" is the epitome of character customization.
Actually it does hold water,. Why do you think games like Lineage 2 and RF online have such little customization? Because they offer such massive sieges that have hundreds of characters on screen. In fact, go play a game like Star Wars Galaxies or Everquest 2 on an average computer (No, not everyone has a high end computer) and go collect the amount of characters you will find in a game like L2 or SotNW. I can guarentee you your FPS will drop below 15. Even in this day, People still have to turn down graphic settings in Lineage 2 during sieges, 4 years after its release. A computer can't load that many characters on screen with deep customization, its that simple.
SotNW had plenty of events during beta, and even with only 50 people around (Thats 150 characters on screen, not including the hundreds of mobs) and my FPS dropped significantly. I don't even want to know what my FPS would be like with customization.
I don't like SOTNW customization. It robs all the armor changes throughout the game and makes you stuck in the same look until much later in the game. Also it wasn't optimized and just an added piece that was never intended to be there. So it also gives you a little spike everytime you run into a person because of it.
GE really showed me why customization is overrated. You just lose so much with customization. Like Gameloading said. The amount of people on screen. Try playing EQ2 or Vanguard when 1000 characters are on the screen at the same time. You can't. This is because of how large character data becomes. You need digits for all those sliders. Then when you hit a place with many people, all those people need the character data sent to them and vice versa. Its a huge waste of bandwidth. The reason why GE can host so many characters on screen at the same time is because of how small the character data is.
You also miss out on detailed texture painting. When you add customization you have to make the textures more and more modular. Like for skin tone, you won't be able to vary the skin hue because it has to be monotone or it would look funky with different skin colors. Same applies for hair. Also you need to take out scaring, beauty marks and the forth. Then to morph the facial parameters you need more polies. Thats one beautiful thing about GE. No look is ugly, its all well painted with varying hues like a real person. It also only uses 2 textures per character instead of like 4~8. Its alot more effecient.
However, the real customization comes in late game. They keep adding more and more costumes that change your look. Also there are 34 recruitable characters with soon to be 2 looks each in addition to the 6 you can make at the start with around 5~10.
No, what makes games really slow is the rasterization process applied to lighting. Basically, rasterizers are not designed to handle light, thus they're doing double time to make convincing lighting of scenes. Dynamic lighting is just coming into its own in the last two years. Read any book about OGRE or any rendering engine to know why. Otherwise, I consider you to be up there with the Timecube guy.
-- Brede
I was going to comment on Attis post but it's just a waste of time. Maybe he/she is under the impression we all own super computers. Just ask people who have played any MMO with massive pvp sieges and combat grounds.
Edit: Actually just read Gameloading's post just below yours. Maybe then you'll finally "get it". I just had to laugh at your 24 vs 24 comment. Come back when you get in battles involving more then 2 small guilds having a pissing contest. If 24 vs 24 is your idea of massive you've obviously never played a half way decent PvP game. You probably should have checked out games like AO, DAOC, Shadowbane, RFO, and many others.
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
They were created with a logical art team, nor a good development team in general. Look, dude, name the code sample time, please. Or please stand down.
In fact, go play a game like Star Wars Galaxies or Everquest 2 on an average computer (No, not everyone has a high end computer) and go collect the amount of characters you will find in a game like L2 or SotNW. I have a crappy PC, and SWG pre-NGE in rebel/imperial fights (24v24) never lagged me.
Because the game doesn't take advantage of new bus instructions? No wonder.
Okay, can you name me one data structure that handles pathing? Why I ask this question, because if you know anything about computer science and programming then you'll know it. Otherwise, everything you just stated up to now is hooey.No, what makes games really slow is the rasterization process applied to lighting. Basically, rasterizers are not designed to handle light, thus they're doing double time to make convincing lighting of scenes. Dynamic lighting is just coming into its own in the last two years. Read any book about OGRE or any rendering engine to know why. Otherwise, I consider you to be up there with the Timecube guy.
-- Brede
" They were created with a logical art team, nor a good development team in general. Look, dude, name the code sample time, please. Or please stand down."
Congratulations, you just claimed that NCsoft, arguebly next to blizzard the biggest MMO developer in history, has a bad development team, even though Lineage 2 had rediculous low system requirements for the time, yet had outstanding graphic effects.
In fact, go play a game like Star Wars Galaxies or Everquest 2 on an average computer (No, not everyone has a high end computer) and go collect the amount of characters you will find in a game like L2 or SotNW. I have a crappy PC, and SWG pre-NGE in rebel/imperial fights (24v24) never lagged me.
What part of "collect the amount of characters you will find in a game like L2 or SotNW" did you not understand? I'm not talking about SWG's 24 vs 24 battles, I'm talking about Lineage 2's 240 vs 240 alliance battles that happen on a regular basis during castle sieges.
Your lighting arguement holds no candle either, since you can turn off the lighting in the games. The reason the FPS will drop is because the loading of the character textures. If the Lighting was the problem, then there would be slowdown during the entire game, not just when a lot of characters start to gather. the more cutomization, the more different textures need to be loaded, hence the slowdown. This is actually very basic knowledge and I'm surprised you didn't know this.
Wow, there's some good arguements here.
But it doesn't change the fact that all your characters look alike. I'm the type of person that likes to stand out and be unique (like I always have). I hate copying ppl, so looking like other ppl is pretty lame (in the game and in real life). Even in Warcrack, I haven't found a player who looks just like me (face & hair combo). And I think Warcrack doesn't have that big of character customization. I know SOTNW is a good game, but like stated earlier by a few ppl...
It ruins my drive to even touch the game. But who knows. Depending on how much money I have...I may try it out. Although, I do think having too many characters on one screen can get really messy and frustrating.
Currently Playing: 3ds Max 2009
Played and Loved: World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Warhammer Online
Best F2P MMO: Requiem Bloodymare
Want to Play: Aion (See Teaser), DCuniverseOnline (awesome gameplay videos)
its more like a single player with RTS elements
Currently waiting for - Perfect World English, Age of Conan
How to play Perfect World in english
Currently messing with - Requiem Online
TBH, I'd rather play a game where I had a "pretty" character that looked like everyone else, than a game with tons of customization options but ugly as hell characters (and many, if not all, of the games I've played that allow deep customization have ugly characters.) Of course, having only one option is very harsh as well (such as some free games). L2 was a good compromise for me, with beautiful characters. They could have had a few more options, but I'd gladly give up deep customization for the quality of the characters' appearance.
Attis, you keep trying to make yourself sound like you're some kind of brilliant gaming designer, but so far gameloading makes a lot more sense than you do. Why is it that at a siege, with 500+ people all on the same field, fps slows to a crawl... but in a dungeon, surrounded by tons of mobs, fps is normal? If it were lighting, like gameloading said, fps would be crappy everywhere. Or if it were a matter of rendering lighting on characters/mobs, again, you would see fps drop in dungeons or areas with many mobs. However, that's not the case. FPS only drops when you have massive amounts of PCs gathering in one spot (either in siege or in town... anyone from L2 OB/C1 remember Gludio?) I'm not a game designer, nor do I claim to be, but gameloading seems to be offering more rational explanations than you.
Anyway, to the OP, I would suggest giving the game a try regardless of customization. It could be a great game you would really enjoy. And like L2, they may eventually add more customization options (L2 added more faces/hair styles/hair colors, as well as hair accessories and masks.) If it's not a good enough game to hold your interest despite the way your character looks, then I'm willing to bet that you'd eventually loose interest in it anyway, even if it had tons of customization options.
I read an article just the other day about eastern vs western mmo's. There was a small section mentioning how the american SotNW publisher asked the original designer to allow more customization, but he just gave him a "blank stare" and said he wouldn't do it, as it would "make the game look ugly". It wasn't something he felt was important to the game design at all.
I don't think the eastern market are that focused on visual individuality, and SotNW is an asian game translated for the western market. You won't have much luck trying to tell them "it sucks" and that they need to change it.
Personally I don't really mind either way. Individuality is important, but how my character looks is only a small part of that. I think judging a game entirely by it's character generator is a bit shortsighted.
It's a fact, dude. Maybe if you were a programmer or even a hardware designer you might have a case to argue against me on this point, but pulling the so-called authority of NCsoft isn't even valid. By your reasoning, Microsoft is the best development company in world history since their products are used everywhere (pirated and non).
Um no, because you haven't shown me a single bit of simple code that would allow me or anyone else versed in Big-O notation to see if it would be a problem. And the fact you haven't provided said code for how textures are referenced makes me wonder if you grasp the problems developers deal with in regards to actual development of system 'sensative' software.Um no, textures are easy to handle so long as you have a decent bus on your motherboard. Basically, it's a matter of throughtput, not a matter of clock speed. That's why we moved from PCI, to AGP, and finally to PCIe (and who knows what's next on the race to make the fastest bus or the "fattest pipe" ...). The fact you ignore the most essential components to fast computers, makes me wonder if you even know what a bus is on a computer or know what a north/south bridge is. In essence, I question your knowledge of computers. Do you understand that when you have a decent motherboard, you can handle a myriad of textures on the fly? Or are you one of those ignorant folks that think big version numbers some how equal "faster puters?"
-- Brede
Yeah, it is pretty odd to judge a game that way. Just goes to show you how I am in real life. lol, but you have a good point.
It is cheaper than others like Warcrack, Everquest, and FFXI. I will try it out and hope for the best, thnx.
Currently Playing: 3ds Max 2009
Played and Loved: World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Warhammer Online
Best F2P MMO: Requiem Bloodymare
Want to Play: Aion (See Teaser), DCuniverseOnline (awesome gameplay videos)
So back to the point of this argument. You can have a nearly wide array of customizations, you just have to accept a couple of new provisos.
1) Your scene manager must be able to reference "default models" for those who have decided to turn off customization of models.
2) Your scene manager must also be able to use a data framework like COLLADA (or YAML or XML) to handle the customizations.
We're not talking about giving players direct control through creating new textures on the fly (that are not optimized), but rather logically possible formations of existing models and textures to produce a genuine individually crafted avatar (within reason).
So, does that explain it for you?
And all the other stuff you said... It has nothing to do with what I was posting about. Please stick to the topic.
-- Brede
Actually I think what we are arguing about is more basic. However, it is true that they use more simplified lighting in Sword of the New World. Its only been rescently in games that they would put in dynamic lighting and many instances of lighting for each light source. Usually you would simplify it depending on the needs of a scene. Like only use a couple global lights and necessary lights to give the suggestion and mood of a scene. The method I mentioned before is whats in Sword of the New World, while many more modern games light per source.
What the real point is extraneous calculations that the processer/GPU have to calculate, and the excess data a server sends. I'll put it on a comparative term. So you have Perfect World coming out with around 50 different sliders to effect a persons look. Thats 50 additional items a renderer has to digest in order to render a single character per frame in addition to other basic character information for around 60 items. Now take SotNW, it has 7 different items including basic character information it must digest through the renderer. Thats around 8 times more calculations that Perfect World will have to do then SotNW every instance a characters geometry is referenced which could be multiple times per frame. When you are adding in many many more characters per frame, the amount of calculations skyrocket. This is the main reason SotNW can host many more characters on screen at the same time. GE can host even more because of its complete lack of initial customization.
Similarly bandwidth can skyrocket too. The server may be sending out very very small files, but the files are smaller in SotNW. When you get many instances of characters the server has to send out [n(n-1)] packets. When you are speaking on the scale of n being 1000, the size of the file may be small but it adds up.
The real basis of this argument has to do more with numbers and volume then it does with the renderer. If you treat all renders as processing lighting info and texture data the same. It comes straight down to the amount of calculations the processer has the calculate in order for a character to be displayed.
Customization isn't going to sink this game, as i mentioned its the horrible payment system. There won't be any changes in the western versions because all the western publishers want to do is milk the game for every penny it is worth without doing much of anything . This is the case with all asian games translated to the west. In fact translation is the only thing that is usually done and many of the times very badly. Western publishers don't even bother bringing expansions over to the west most of the time for free to play games.