Character Customization - Shouldn't this be a given by now?

[zehydra]

There is what appears to be an alarming amount of people here who believe that the gamers should have a say in how games are made, it's like music fans demanding that a particular artist write music a certain way.

 

[Tiswas]

If it does have it. I'd rather see them perfect the character customisation by letting you make whoever or whatever you want. This was my problem with the likes of Fallout where you're really limited in what type of char design you can make.

 

[Mopbucket]

There is what appears to be an alarming amount of people here who believe that the gamers should have a say in how games are made, it's like music fans demanding that a particular artist write music a certain way.

I understand where you are coming from, I'd like to point out that no type of art is immune to judgment, and that's the way it ought to be. Especially for something like games- we ask for features because ultimately, we're paying for it. If a person commissioned a song, they should have some degree of creative input. The studio musicians may want to play something entirely different, but oh well. That's the nature of commercial art.

Anyway, many musicians do listen to their fans. I guess you'd call them sell-outs. In any case, artists of any nature still ultimately have the responsibility to create something good. I don't think anyone here is actually being unreasonably demanding, we're simply stating the chords we like.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

There's a very simple reason really.

Try warping into The Hollows or Millenium City or Bree with a slow GFX processor.

Now appear in Gotham. FAR FAR less lag.

While I do agree that Superhero games especially should have far more customizations, there are some things that over customization will do. Champions can't even keep it's graphic glitches tucked in, and DCUO can pull tricks like Venom instantly boosting you by 150%.

However, Designers should really understand that it's one of the most important parts of an MMO in creating your own avatar. How much customization do the Wii-Mi's have?

 

[Juk3n]

Character Creation should be the industry standard, and everytime a better system is invented by a developer, every other developer should be fined if they don't create a BETTER system than the previous one.

On the subject of industry standards..

For consoles; Dedicated screenshot button at the back of the pad.
-Lithium Ion as standard for controllers ala PS3, im looking at you microsoft and Piss..i mean Wii.
-A selection of head /face types for racing games, seriously, it looks retarded to see a racer with an identical driver in 8 different cars in the same race. (nfsHP)
-Full button customization, it is retarded that this is not implemented in every game. It should have been the standard from the 16bit era.
-There are more..

 

[zehydra]

There is what appears to be an alarming amount of people here who believe that the gamers should have a say in how games are made, it's like music fans demanding that a particular artist write music a certain way.

I understand where you are coming from, I'd like to point out that no type of art is immune to judgment, and that's the way it ought to be. Especially for something like games- we ask for features because ultimately, we're paying for it. If a person commissioned a song, they should have some degree of creative input. The studio musicians may want to play something entirely different, but oh well. That's the nature of commercial art.

Anyway, many musicians do listen to their fans. I guess you'd call them sell-outs. In any case, artists of any nature still ultimately have the responsibility to create something good. I don't think anyone here is actually being unreasonably demanding, we're simply stating the chords we like.

well put. But when you say that artists have a responsibility to create something good, do you mean what they call good, or what the typical fan calls good, or even what the hard-core, buys-all-their-songs fan calls good?

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Creating your own character (In my opinion) should be an industry standard by now.

Seconded.

Character creation (well, more like everything creation) is almost the entire point of spore, and I know that i've probably spent more time in Soul caliber 4's player editor then the actual game.

 

[Mopbucket]

There is what appears to be an alarming amount of people here who believe that the gamers should have a say in how games are made, it's like music fans demanding that a particular artist write music a certain way.

I understand where you are coming from, I'd like to point out that no type of art is immune to judgment, and that's the way it ought to be. Especially for something like games- we ask for features because ultimately, we're paying for it. If a person commissioned a song, they should have some degree of creative input. The studio musicians may want to play something entirely different, but oh well. That's the nature of commercial art.

Anyway, many musicians do listen to their fans. I guess you'd call them sell-outs. In any case, artists of any nature still ultimately have the responsibility to create something good. I don't think anyone here is actually being unreasonably demanding, we're simply stating the chords we like.

well put. But when you say that artists have a responsibility to create something good, do you mean what they call good, or what the typical fan calls good, or even what the hard-core, buys-all-their-songs fan calls good?

Well, I just mean they have discretion. The developer's metric of success might be total artistic integrity or it might mean selling a billion copies. Of course jamming in every feature anybody wants isn't realistic, and won't make a good game by anyone's standards, so they get to choose which critics to listen to, if any, and to what degree.

Like I said though, I understand your comment. Sometimes us gamers act a little too entitled at times. I just didn't think the discussion here was all that unreasonable.

 

[baddude1337]

The Ea sports game face is a pretty good thing IMO. It's great to actually have you running around as a player on your favorite team in Fifa 11.

Character customization should be a standard, and I wish some would allow a bit more in depth too. I'd love a tactical game where I modify a soldier down to how many mag pouches are on his vest.

 

[Dastardly]

There is what appears to be an alarming amount of people here who believe that the gamers should have a say in how games are made, it's like music fans demanding that a particular artist write music a certain way.

I can agree with that statement, especially as a musician myself. Sometimes giving the people what they want doesn't end well, because they don't really understand the implications of what they're asking for.

However, I think drawing the line is a little harder than you might think. Not all gamers are "gamers." That is to say, not all gamers are "purely-consumer, passive audience members." When that type of gamer makes demands, it's often unreasonable, like on MMO forums where a player wants to see such-and-such nerfed simply because they keep losing to a particular class/build/strategy.

Many gamers are more savvy players, and many dabble in game creation themselves. Simply because they are also consumers of videogames doesn't mean they are only consumers of video games. It might be that they, as informed and reasonable players, can have decent points. But how do we tell the difference?

Easy, by addressing the point being made rather than the person making the point. If the President says something stupid, it's still stupid. If an idiot says something correct, it's still correct. If a person is uninformed and unreasonable, that fact will come out while addressing that person's point, rather than discussing that person's qualifications. And even then, an idea that is "mostly bad" could still contain some kernel of wisdom that can be salvaged...

(As for me, I dabble in creating or adapting tabletop RPGs. Because of that slant on my gaming, I have a strong appreciation for player vision and player imagination in character creation. In a tabletop game with absolutely no computers involved, the player has infinite resources in which to imagine a character in as much (or as little) detail as they like. Translating that into any technological medium is going to impose limitations (even 100 different hairstyles is less than "infinite hairstyles"), but making these tools available to the player is a big part of getting them invested in your game.)

 

[Vivace-Vivian]

I like it but it shouldn't be in every game. We wouldn't get iconic characters like Kratos or Mario that way.

 

[Phoxinator]

Because not all games can be masterpieces like Saints Row 2.

 

[Wolfram23]

There's a lot of games I don't want to have to create my own character, RPGs included. But for the ones that I do, then yes I totally agree that it should be far more robust than we generally see.

 

[Dastardly]

Oblivion, fallout, dragon age, and plenty others your characters all look the same when wearing armor. Alot of fantasy mmo suffers from the same problems as well. Since everybody of the same race looks pretty much the exact same in the best armor whats the point in a diverse character creation.

I agree that's a problem. But I think the solution is to include a "hide armor" option, or provide situations in which the character is seen without the armor, or otherwise prevent these characters from looking so "same-y."

Now, in some of those games, you're not really creating a character. You're borrowing a character in an existing story. Those games aren't really the target of this topic, since it's understandable that you'd be a bit limited. The biggest culprit when it comes to lack of customization, though? MMOs. They are without excuse.

 

[Dastardly]

Well with mmos you have two routes you can take. You can have massive customization which iv been told aion had, or wows where you have minor customization but that doesnt matter since you never actually see it anyways. They would prefer to spend that development time on different armor sets rather then character customization. Your only ever going to really see one or the other not both.

Right, and WoW's system isn't "character creation." You're not creating a character. You're creating a bland, generic trophy case upon which you'll hang all your loot.

 

[GiantRaven]

No, it shouldn't. There are games where character customisation adds to the experience but there are also games where nothing is added at all. In third-person (Dragon Age, Mass Effect), sports (all the EA stuff, Tony Hawk's) and online (WoW yadda yadda) games, you (or others) can actually see your own character design, making the ability to do so actually worthwhile. In First-person games (Fallout, Oblivion), however, the face customisation option is completely arbitrary, adding almost nothing to the game unless you wander around in the absolutely terrible third-person view. I wouldn't bat an eyelid if the finer customisation was removed altogether.

So yeah, there are situations where it is and isn't appropriate in my book.

 

[Zechnophobe]

In any game for which you (ostensibly) create your own character, why is it that some games understand the importance of robust character customization, while others give you five or six hairstyles and a skin color slider?

For a case-in-point, compare the character creators for two recent MMOs--DCUO and Champions Online. There really is no comparison, in terms of variety--Champions stomps all over DCUO in this department. Why is that? Champions and COH/COV came out way before DCUO, and yet they didn't learn this lesson?

Your Character's Appearance
If this is truly going to be "your" character, you've probably got a vision of what that character looks like. It is the responsibility of the game, then, to give you enough options to create the best approximation of that vision you can get. It's more important than textures, particle effects, or anything else, because your character is the piece of artwork that you will spend the most time looking at throughout the entirety of the game.

If a game is going to allow you to create a character, a big part of the focus should be on getting you as many face/body shape, size, hair style, and color options as is practical. Some games, because of the combat animations and weapon models, have limits. This is understandable. But that should mean putting far more options in those areas that allow for them, to balance that limitation.

And Other Stuff, Too!
Okay, so you've got the suit, face, body, and hair you want. That means this is "your" character, right? Not quite. Plenty of games have tons of other options to allow you to adjust other properties of your character, and they work very well. Why not make these features standard?

- Stance/posture
- Body language/basic animations
- Voice*

*This one's tricky. It's obviously not practical in "fully-voiced" games, but in those types of games just remember that the player character isn't really being "created." It's just being rented. This is fine for games like Mass Effect, where you're playing an already-created character, but his really has no place in a player-character RPG or in an MMO (BioWare...)

In Summary
If you're going to allow players to create characters, you've got to include the options for them to do so. This should be a priority! The character model is the single most visible part of the game for your players. If you're not going to include enough options to truly create, consider just making a set of prefabricated characters and letting the player "borrow" one for the game. And also don't make that game an MMO.

It just isn't that easy though. Customization is based a lot on the engine. Consider the (hideous) gamebryo Engine (Oblivion). It let you create the horribly ugly person of your choice. You could maim that doll for as long as you wanted! When Fallout 3 came out, using the same engine, but knowing how hard it was to ACTUALLY customize well using it, they limited your options to a certain select few that actually looked good.

Then there are other limitations. MMO's for example often have to have a preset number of character models and shapes. Heterodox body and face shapes can be rather difficult to render on the fly, and so similarly they often have only a small set of them that you can choose from.

And then of course there is narrative. Sometimes the story of the game really should come first. A story based game (for example, Dragon Age 2) might make a very valid decision to remove obvious customization options so that the it achieves greater plot/player cohesion.