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Character Creation Screenshots
Kuzzle
Member Posts: 1,058
I don't know about others, but I like seeing character creation screenshots. I've seen a couple(More than with other games.), and that's cool, but I was wondering if I'd see any more? I mean, it's cool that I've seen as many as I have, I was just wondering if I'd see more. Basicly, what I mean is, I've seen one old clothing choosing type one, and like four ones centered on the face; Will we be seeing one with all the body sliders and stuff any time soon?
I don't know that this is enough to create a topic on, so I'll add a poll in, I guess...
Comments
(edited away everything)
Oh, and keep em screens coming! I want more interface screens, screenshots of the game WE will see, not just what's in the game 3d engine..
I voted for scenic screens. But I would like to qualify that.
To me scenic encompasses just about everything in the game world itself.
I like seeing the actual world architecture but with avatars included. Just like real world pictures I have never liked pictures that are just of scenery. I like that human touch to be included. It is way to impersonal just to see a beautiful building. I feel more connected to a place if there are people in the shot.
So a great scenic shot could also include a great battle being waged. Or could include an avatar buying from a vendor in front of a cool looking building. Or just hanging out by a lake or in a tavern.
Boy I never just answer a question do I?
Oh, also I prefer shots that people have hid all the on screen interfaces. Unless of course those are what they were trying to show in the first place.
I like the character creation screens the most overal.
But there was a screenshot that was featured in a magazine (cant remember exactly which ones) that had some hero's in a city bazar. Thats my favorite so far.
________________________
Zee
Simutronics GameMaster
Hero's Journey - Quests Team
http://www.herosjourney.net
Speaking of character creation screenshots, I have a major concern...
I know, I know. We have 30 different slider bars for the nose alone. But to me, this sounds empty and meaningless.
EQ2 had plenty of sliderbars, and everyone still looked the same. Heck, I had trouble telling humans and elves (half, wood, and high) apart.
I was reading a FAQ for another game (Vanguard maybe) and I saw something that really got my attention. They mentioned making your character look unique, and they mentioned exaggerations. That's when it hit me. The only way to make your character look unique is with a key feature, something that makes that character look like that character.
Initially in CoH, there were only two slider bars, yet everyone looked unique. In that game we were defined by our costumes. HJ also seems to have an emphasis on costumes, but it seems easier to change them. If we change our outfit, will we look like someone else?
The other big (maybe bigger) concern I have is the character faces. In every screenshot I've seen, all of the characters have the same deeply bored expression on their faces. That's the only word that fits it: bored. This would fall under emotes, but we're going to need moods. And that last part was not a suggestion. It was a demand. I'm being serious here. If everyone looks like that all the time, this game will be dreary. Seeing bored characters at all times will probably lead me to boredom myself, not to mention severely damage roleplaying whenever we can see anyone's face.
Finally, to get back on topic, I want to see more character creation screenshots. More specifically, I want to see tons of examples, showing tons of variety, and tons of contrast. I want to see at least 10 shots of different characters who look nothing alike, despite all being the same race and gender. I'm not expecting that, but it's what I want. Additionally, I want to see more variety in the Suwari. So far it looks like we can only change their color.
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
believe me, you won't be disappointed.
I highly doubt you'll see anyone that looks the same, unless it was done on purpose, or they just chose a pre-created one and didn't change it around. (I'll use them, but modify them to get more of what I want.. it's an easy starting point sometimes.
There are more options than you think..
HJ-Diviana
Hero's Journey GM
Hero's Journey Official Site
Hero's Hall
Sometimes I'll like some of the default options, but decide not to take them because all the people who "didn't care" took them.
Then again, if the crowd is anything like in CoH, anyone who even plays will make a unique character. I don't think I ever saw a default guy in CoH.
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
Sometimes I'll like some of the default options, but decide not to take them because all the people who "didn't care" took them.
Then again, if the crowd is anything like in CoH, anyone who even plays will make a unique character. I don't think I ever saw a default guy in CoH.
Currently there are a collection of pre-made characters available at character select but I'm not sure if those will be in the live game or not. Even if they are I'm sure you'll see most people using them as a starting point just like the random character thing you got in CoH/CoV.
I think CoH/CoV has the best character creator out there and, while I can't give details, I'll just say that the HJ character creation system makes theirs look like EQ 1's.
Sweet. I thought I must be, like, the only person who likes Character Creation Screenshots until I saw the poll. I can't believe it's winning.
If I had to ask for more screenshots of anything in particular other than character creation screenshots, it'd be Qwi. I mean, I don't remember if I've seen any... That kind of sucks, since it's the race I'm totally going with. For some reason, I always like to be short in games. Actually, that brings up a little questions I have, though it's probably already been answered...
Will there be sliders for individual features that aren't part of the face? Like, will you be able to adjust the size of the hands/feet and such? Or, you know, change the length of their limbs or something? Thank you.
(P. S. I saw a default looking character in CoH once. It really threw me...)
(Edit: Sorry, didn't realize how dumb that questions was... No need to answer...)
I've seen the sliders, and most of the videos I can get my hands on, but I've still got a question:
What are you hiding behind the "body" tab? I don't really care about 70 sliders for the face, because seeing a face while playing is tough unless you're just standing around, or admiring yourself before going into game.
But bodytype is everything. Height, weight, bodyfat... This difference between blended and unblended Eurasian and African features may be subtle on a 17 inch monitor.
Being a 5 foot tall ball o' flab or a 7 foot tall skinny rail is pretty obvious.
Will we be able to change bodytypes? Every character I've seen thus far has the same body-type: the women all weigh 90-120 lbs and then men are all 140-170, same heights (within races) etc.
Does anyone have shoulders in this game, or rippling biceps, or a beergut?
What are our body options gonna be, and will they be different for different races?
You showing off character creation stuff just twists the knife a little further, because you didn't show the one screen I wanted to see in this whole thing.
Help?
~G
Also, thanks to that statement, you're credibility has gone completely out the window. I always thought you HJ-GM's liked to exaggerate. Now I'm pretty sure of it.
This was something else I was trying to get at earlier. No one ever notices the details on your face. The only thing anyone sees is your body type. Most games will give you a slider bar for size but label it "height" instead. The difference between size and height is that size does not change your proportions. CoH first had it that way, but they've since added in more sliders to change the length of your legs to really make you look taller or shorter, not just bigger or smaller.For this to live up to what the GM's are claiming it to be, they'll need sliders that let you range yourself from Chuck Norris to Chris Farley and everything inbetween. Judging from the screenshots, they are nowhere close to attaining this.
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
My feeling is that the best customizations belong to Star Wars Galaxies, with CoH/CoV running a very close second. I have bought and rolled up many characters, as most of you have, and I've gone server-hopping on all the big MMOs to look at what players are doing with the vast set of options given them.
Most players I've encountered, given these tools, still roll up young, svelte bodies and spend a great deal of time customizing their faces. They then spend amazing amounts of time getting their outfits done because clothing is the most obvious way to determine who you are at a glance. While a tiny fragment of players roll up extreme body types, height doesn't vary too much in either of the games (unless you are a Wookiee). Other games like Lineage, WoW, D&DO and EQ2 don't offer enough customization to study.
Given the way most people choose to roll up their characters, the body types of gaunt and obese are not defining characteristics of a great customization system. Why, then, is it so important that =any= system (not just HJ's) be judged by the least-used features offered?
Agreed.
Extreme body types are hardly the test of good character customization.
~ Ancient Membership ~
Ive played both CoH and SWG, slyveria, and I guess I dont understand what you mean by everybody plays svelte characters.
CoH doesnt allow ANYONE to play fat characters. You can be a huge man, a muscular man, or a fit woman.
But within those extremes I see midgets and giants and skinny people and enormously muscled people. Their body sliders are probably the most used option.
Players put things ON their faces, but many run with a default face since most wear masks anyway. And Im not really asking for fewer face sliders I just want to know that there are body sliders, because I feel they make at least as much difference.
The vast majority of players DONT stick with the default height/weight settings.
Does costuming matter? Sure. It matters a lot.
Is body type part of the costuming? Yes.
When I played SWG (beta and launch) their sliders were biased. You could make a character with a pot belly but not a bowling-ball of a character. They had their shoulder-width settings practically unmodifiable, so there were clipping issues with the beer-gut look and with costuming.
They trapped you into playing those svelte characters if you didnt want glaring graphical issues and then promoted the fact that their slider-system was the best around. I don't necessarily blame them, because you have to get all the pretty costumes to fit over the character models. But I like the choice to be short and skinny instead of "same size as everyone else" in the modern age of gaming.
Now, one of the things I like about the look of Heros Journey is its attempt at realism in graphics in a fanastical setting. I don't want gross distortions of what real people would actually look like just to have the option.
But at least give us a more-or-less-muscle slider and a height slider. Like I said, every character shot Ive seen so far has the same body, at least within race and sex.
And its not even like WOW, where the tall, skinny guys are trolls and the huge muscular guys are taurens, a place where you pick your race to give you your desired physical shape.
Theres the slender humans, the slender Ilvari, the slender Ulvari, and the unknown Stoneborn.
I assume were getting some options in the body screen that we havent been shown, but Id just like to know at least some of what they might be because for me, body DOES matter.
~G
You hit on part of the issue with gross differences in body size and shape, the tearing of the textures. It's a technical issue that will, eventually, be overcome - there are a couple of companies that are doing some interesting things with creating 3D objects programatically in real time instead of using pre-built models but those are aways out and will require some serious hardware.
Fair enough.
That comment was my personal opinion but after re-reading my post I can see that maybe that wasn't as clear as it should have been. I still stand behind my opinion though. You may disagree with it when you see the character creation system but that won't change my view.
Creatures. There's lots of nice-looking scenery, but nice-looking avatars and monsters are rare. Even rarer are ones which look nice when they're moving.
I've just learned to be very skeptical after waiting for several MMORPG's to come and then watching them go.
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
Don't know that I agree with this. With the proper lore, and definition between characters, changing the overall look of your character is very important, and very defining. I play Saga of Ryzom, and there is great differentiation between races, and then beyond that, the way folks have built their bodies out varies greatly.
Although in SoR's case, a large player does not appear proportioned correctly. I would argue that although it is fun to create a detailed face, you have to get so close to someone to see it that it is not the defining characteristic. So why so much effort on face? Not that I mind. Like you yourself said, people customize their clothing because that defines them. That statement in itself would lend me to believe that body shape, sive, etc is very important.
I think lore and race can do a lot for this. If you make a very tall elf, they MUST be slim. And have the sliders control this type of thing.
I hope that the ear position (front,back, left, right), seperation, shape, etc are all configurable on the Suwari.
I really like how many of the folks in here are thinking.
I've been bored/annoyed with the slider-tastic customization we've been seeing in several games, while good body customization has been glossed over.
I will respectfully disagree with the person who said that body customization isn't important because everyone will pick the best looking body anyways. Not because I think folks won't try to look good, because most will, but because there is still so much variety in what people consider good looking. Anyone who thinks otherwise just isn't very observant about body types and personal taste. My sister will look at a guy, point out his hotness, and I'll yawn. I'll point out a guy I like, and she'll look at me funny.
No, I think what it comes down to is that body customization is more difficult to implement well than face customization. That's the entire case against it right there.
Right now there we have games that have claimed to have uberlific customization (EQ2, SWG, CoH, Oblivion), and games that claim that they'll blow what already exists out of the water (HJ, V:SoH). Not one of the existing games has impressed me. 'Cept maybe CoH (and gosh golly darn gee, they didn't have face sliders). While I like the HJ and V:SoH graphics I've seen so far, their faces actually have all looked pretty similar to me. I'm assuming that I just haven't seen the full power of the customization engine yet.
Mind you, I'm an amateur artist who has a fascination with facial expression and what makes one face different from another. I study faces around me constantly. So maybe I'm a hard sell.
But honestly...I'll believe grand claims of "most amazing customization yet" when I see it. Not only will I believe it, but I'll trumpet my joy to the heavens. Until then I'll just settle for games that don't offend my sense of aesthetics.
(That said, I do think HJ is doing a great thing with the outfit creation aspect. That's a smart idea.
Wouldn't work for games that are more "low fantasy" (ala Vanguard), but is a great idea for HJ.)
Actually... City of Heroes added in face sliders (along with several more body sliders). Since I'd already made my hero I didn't bother messing with any of the sliders (although I could have at the costume shop), but I did experiment with them a bit with new characters. They're simple, but nice. Just an x, y, and z for each part of the head, with about 10 different parts. There's no 30 nose sliders, just 3 for the nose. They worked for what you'd expect them to (and they had presets to show off variety, which were very different) but I never really payed attention to anyone's face. It was their costume and proportions that mattered.
I'm expecting costumes to be sweet in Hero's Journey, but hopefully the rest will be good, too.
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
And I have to respectfully disagree on the "allows for maximum configuration" aspect of Oblivion.
There were still many many aspects of facial geometry that it ignored. It was ambitious, but it still has a ways to go.
Speaking of screenshots, I find this one fascinating....
~ Ancient Membership ~