Brink: What exactly is the point of visual character customization?

[Jamieson 90]

Why do you spend time in the morning making sure you look smart and presentable if you will only see yourself in the mirror? Simply because other people will see you and its the same in Brink only with your character.

It adds another layer to the gameplay, you can invest time into your character making them look as bad ass as you want and when you play with friends or clan mates they will recognise you, its the same for enemy players as well, "Shit its that guy again he's a good player i better stay away from him".

I think you can also customise the colour of your outfits? If you in a clan then this is awsome, not only do you get clan tags you can now have custom clan outfits to fit the colours of your clan. People will recognise your clan by the colours you wear etc, if you see a bunch of guys running around in black and red then you know they are working together.

It might not be a necessary feature but every year people expect games to become more advanced and to offer more features and thats what this does.

 

[Katana314]

The whole point is that it's for social benefit, ie "look at me".

You could make the same argument for real life; why would someone dress well if they see themselves in first-person?

(Still, it would be funny if a game provided extensive character customization in a singleplayer-only experience where you never see yourself, just as a joke)

Sort of like Oblivion or Fallout 3?

You definitely see yourself in those...especially in Fallout 3.

 

[ThreeKneeNick]

Yes, i kinda believe nobody cares for anyone's character but their own and that in some games character creation and customization is far too excessive, but i also believe that it's important how a game makes you feel whether others will appreciate it or not, so i support more customization.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Total Unique Characters (including minor tint variations and body types): 102,247,681,536,000,000

That's incredibly thick of them. How can you count a minor imperceptible change in skin tone or the shade of grey on your shoes as a "unique character"? I mean, maybe in the technical sense it is, but by that logic Oblivion or Fallout probably has a Quindecatrillion unique characters, because one might have a nose that's a tenth of a millimeter bigger than another guy. But they still end up all looking the same.

 

[Ranorak]

Because it's fun to customise a character?

 

[Auxiliary]

It is fun to customize your character. If I create a character in a RPG, MMO, Shooter and I am able to customize a character, I will spend bloody ages on it, simply because I like customizing it.