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The Elves Wear Prada - How Important Is Your Character's Appearance?
Amathe
Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630
To me, it's very important. I like games where I have lots of choices in the character creation stage. I must have made a million characters in City of Heroes just to see what they would look like. Most of them I never played lol.
As the game goes on, I like combinations of gear that I think make my character look cool. Of course, I usually end up wearing whatever items have the best stats, for survival reasons, but I always wish I could still pick cool looking stuff and be allowed to transfer the stats off something ugly and onto something better looking.
I liked in WoW that you can hide your helmet or your cloak, if it happened to be hideous. They should also let you hide your shoulder piece, because half the time WoW shoulders are just wrong.
SWG was cool because you could have street clothes made for you by a crafter.
Sadly, I fear I may be in the minority, as most people seem more to want clothes either for what they do, or as status symbols for what they have done.
What's funny to me are that most mmorpgs are really dress up games. You spend most of your time trying to get new clothes. Yet most people don't want to admit there is a fashion component to a game that revolves around clothing.
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Comments
Very, very important.
One of my favorite bits of LoTRO was the social clothing options (2 optional sets plus your armor) and the ability to show/hide your helm, cloak and shoes. Oh, and backpacks etc. to add to the adventurer feel.
I believe lots of customization is important. This is a character you're going to be progressing with over a great deal of time. So, yea, I think it is very important in keeping that sense of connection with your character. Otherwise, it just spoils the sense of personality and uniqueness customed to your direction in-game.
FYI - I think Wizard 101 is one of those games that has a system where you can transfer stats to other gear but I may be wrong.
I agree. I can't tell you how many times in WoW I'd wear a slightly less effective piece of armor on my shaman just because the 'upgrade' looked like complete and total garbage. I swear, half of their designers must be blind madmen with a sick sense of humor.
Initial character customization is important, but not nearly as much as post-creation (gear, whether practical or cosmetic) customization. To me at least.
I think Aion does this too. I prefer "appearance" slots for ease of use but they both still work.
Character apearance plays a big role for me, and I admit I like looking at the character. Especially since most MMOs are 3rd person, so the character is always in front of you as you play. I will always chose an item that has better stats over something cosmetic though as clothing can be changed later as I get better items. The general look of the character model itself is more important than the clothing to me.
I think both are very important as most games you won't see much of your actually character at later levels due to all the layers of armor.
Appearence is pretty huge. Looking pretty and different is great. Being able to change how you look, when you want, is a great thing. I loved that in LotrO. I loved dyes in GW.
You'd be surprised how many people stick with Aion over the chubby the female char models give. A lot.
I just seen a poster from these forums say they are addicted to Second Life when he clowned on another game for being "too much simulation, and not enough game"... that alone tells me he plays for the graphics. There's no other outcome that makes any sense with those words in play.
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Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
It's pretty important to me too. And it is one of key components of immersion. It doesn't take much either, just enough customization to give the player the illusion that they are a unique individual in that space. I like looking around and not seeing another me.
What I don't care for in most MMOs is exactly what you mentioned, clothes collecting. I like my characters to look a certain way. But what do you do when you've got the coolest outfit in the game but you level out of the look you want for your character?
You have to just suck it up and put on the Neon Pink Cod Peice of Ultimate Doom. But as soon as you do, you are no longer "in" the world because you no longer enjoy being your character. There are some people that really don't care that every character, of every class at the same level looks almost exactly the same. And it's particularly true when you start adding in helmets and things like that. But there were people in SWG who spent the same amount of money and time every month that all the other players did, but they created player content. And it was great going into a common area and seeing nobody who looked the same except the people that wanted to.
Then, a funny thing happens, you start recognizing players by there look, not by the big green tag floating over their head ... and you are part of the world instead of just leveling through it.
Character appearance is very important to me. Character creation in the superhero MMOs is far more enjoyable than the actual gameplay. I even find myself playing the toons whose looks I like the best more often, regardless of class.
Some upcoming MMOs are going to have some amazing character personalization options. APB is letting you design pretty much every aspect of your character's garb, tatoos, cars, even theme music. Sounds too cool, although how MMO-like it is is debatable.
Also, I just read that in The Secret World, you will be wearing 2 sets of gear, one for armor-like stats, and a second set for sheer appearance.....so what you look like won't be determined by what " armor" you have on.
I'm sure there are even more examples I am missing, but developers are well aware that we want attractive, distinctive, personalized avatars.
So important that in Warhammer, after dying my armor for the umpteenth time, I got the title "The vain".
I'll even reroll a character if I'm not happy with the appearance.
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Ha, this is exactly what happened to me in my short run in Aion.
Every class has it's onw unique idling pose (when you don't move) and I made tons of characters based on a look I wanted, only to have that look not suit the posture given when idle. I had to remake most of them because of it.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Appearance is very important to me. I like to look good. I take time and care to make myself look good in my real life, and I like games that give me a decent measure of control of my avatar's appearance. I do not like looking the same as every other character in the world. That is simply no fun.
With the level of technology we have today, it is not impossible or even very difficult to achieve a high level of uniqueness with regards to face and body composition. I also really enough clothing. I like systems in which the power of the gear I have the way I look with clothing are not necessarily connected. Both Guild Wars and LoTRO have decent systems for making that happen, though they obviously work very differently.
There is no reason not to have good customisation in a role playing game. I need to have a connection to my avatar, and that is a good way to get started from the very beginning.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
The first thing I look at before i decide to play a game for the long haul is what my charatere looks like and it's animations and spell efftects if they are bad I will quit the game no matter how many millions of people might play it I have to like what I am going to look at for the next maybe year or more. This is the main reason i play mostly female chars cause most mmos cammot make a cool looking male avatar if thier life depended on it. My character makes or breaks games for me.
Very important.
I don't think that anyone who plays MMOs isn't concerned with how their character looks. I think it's far more universal than being concerned with how a character performs. This thread is pretty much evidence of that.
And that's why when a game puts up an item mall, they focus on decorative items and appearence items.
To those who have been arguing, "I'm fine with item malls, just not for stat-enhancing loot," the big appeal never was--and never will be-- about your stat-enhancing loot. The people who buy or would buy that stuff is a small minority compared to the people who want their characters to look good.
Because when you get right down to it, ubergear is about as engaging and sexy as a good wrench. It's a good tool, but only an insanely technical minority would ever care about it. What is the tool good for? That's the question the RMT purveyors have answered.
It's to get all the "cool looking stuff," the "fun stuff," and the "stuff that makes your toon look good." In other words, all the stuff that's sold in the item stores now because too many of the hardcore powergamers made a big stink on the boards saying, "don't you dare sell the ub0rzsword'o'pwnage in deh itemz store!"
The thing about RMT games is that they really have no problem with letting you quest for your tools. Since the tools don't net the player anything cool, questing really doesn't accomplish the things the player really wants: the cool stuff.
So even if you get the ub0rsword'o'pwnage, you'll still be looking like a n00b, meaning that you'll be spending $$$ in the item store right alongside Mr. Visa and Ms. AMEX.
Insidious stuff, this RMT...
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its very important to me
id still be playing wow to this day and id gladly resub
if it had appearance slots like lotro or eq2
wow is a very polished and beautiful game
but i need to be able to wear what i like while keeping the stats of the best gear in my inventory
Guild Wars 2 is my religion
It's perhaps the most decisive factor in any mmo for me. I nearly always end up wearing what looks better over stats, unless the bonus is huge, or a must have.
Game's that have defined styles per class, like RFO, Cabal etc are a big big killer for me. In games such as CoX and CO i spend more time at the tailors than I do anything else! I remember how pleased I was to get a Omni armour suit item in AO back in the day, it would cover all armour with an Omni soldier armour look.
My character's appearance is pretty far down on my list of what I like in games.
But if given things like appearance slots, I do play around with his look.
All that said, people can't really see your character unless they take the time to zoom in. Aion is a good example of that. You have a thousand ways to customize your character in Aion, but sill everyone looks more or less the same in that game with size being the only factor that makes them stand out. I think it's because you can't see much detail in a game even if you're a short distance away from a toon.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
For me, character appearance is really important, I usually dont use a piece of equipment if I dont like how it looks. Lucky me, in the games i play more there are appearance system, in lotro and eq2. So you can equip a piece of equipment and show another one.
It's the only reason I'm interested in APB.
"It's better kicking ass if you look cool while doing it." Sun-Tzu The Art of War.
It's very important to me, it's the only real way you can express yourself in the game and make yourself different to others. In some ways customization is also one part of endgame, getting the stuff you really want and making your char look good.
Aion have a really good and working custom item tool, where you could upgrade / transfer a items stats and power to your old items. So if you found a great piece of armor that looks bad but have good stats, you could transfer the look of your old item to the new. Perfect! Unfortunately all the gear and items looked crap in Aion, like some Fairy on crack had designed them.
Lotro also introduced a great custom look tool, were you could wear 2nd set of items and only use their looks and not the stats. Again a really great way of allowing you to customize your toon.
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Played: FFXIV, WAR, Allods, Aion, AoC, DDO, EQ2, GW, Lotro, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard, WoW
Character appearence is huge to me, but that's probably because I roleplay. Personally I believe that if you can hide the appearence of gear, then it souldn't be in a slot. So it looks different then the rest of the pieces, or maybe it doesn't match up quite right. It is ignorant to think that in all of the wars and battles in history, every warrior's gear matched. For the most part in history, armor and weapons very seldom matched, unless it was a complete group of soldiers all wearing the same replicated outfit or armor set. I don't necesarily want everything to match perfect. That's a little boring to me. Then again, as I've said, I RP and a mismatched outfit can add far more character and visual story to your character's struggles than any perfect matched outfit. Even the greatest warriors in history never looked any different than thier inferiors. Achillies, Khan, Wallace, etc...all wore the exact same thing the guys three ranks down wore. If 100 people have the same exact gear as me in the same area, and it's becuause we all completed the same epic quest, Then I'll skip the quest and go find me some mismatched threads or armor so I have something to show for my "struggles". The matching set of shiny gold and silver plate is just for show in my opinion. I'd rather place it on a matle where it won't get scratched and wear the armor with the tatters and dents so everyone can see what I had to endure to get that +20 to strength sword or staff.
A tiny mind is a tidy mind...
I've been roleplaying less as I grow older, but even when I'm not roleplaying by definition, I place a great deal of importance on identifying with my character, and physicality just can't be dismissed from that.