NPCs and Hair Styles in RPGs

[Korten12]

From Two Worlds 2 to Oblivion to Dragon Age: Origins (slightly 2). For some reason, many NPCs share the same hair style...

Why? I mean this may be nitpicking but why do in these games, important NPC's have the same hair style as regular NPCs (ones you speak to) and other imporant NPCs?

Anyone get annoyed by this? I assumed it has something to do with data space but still...

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

They all go to the same barber?

 

[MetaMop]

It bothers me more that created player characters often don't get any original hairstyles.

 

[loc978]

Easier to design that way. If they only have to make 20 hairstyles per gender, and can then spruce 'em up a little by changing the color or adding ribbons or something without actually chainging the base hairstyle...
Mind you, I suppose you could make certain hairstyles unique to one NPC, but if you have 20 or 30 important, voiced, quest-giving NPCs, that becomes a lot more work. Basically, when that's not part of the art team's design focus, that's what you get.

 

[mireko]

Elves.

[sub]It's the elves' fault.[/sub]

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I imagine it has something to do with budget and deadlines. They probably wanted to give all the important NPC's unique hairstyles, but that was probably relegated to near the bottom of the priority list during development, and as a result was probably one of the first things to go when deadlines started to loom.
And really, when I think about the factors that effect my enjoyment of a game, the NPC's hair is relatively insignificant.

 

[Vault101]

It bothers me more that created player characters often don't get any original hairstyles.

Yeah I really really wanted morigans hair for my charachter

but at least with dragon age its reall easy to create a really good looking charachter

 

[Korten12]

They all go to the same barber?

A barber that goes around to various universes and plagues them with similar hairs. NOOOO!

 

[Saelune]

Games just need to do better to make it atleast not be so obvious. Oddly, Morrowind NPCs seem way more varied than Oblivion NPCs, despite that Oblivion allows "alterations".

 

[Irridium]

Because it saves money.

If your on the PC, you could download some hair mods to spice things up. If your not on the PC... well I guess it sucks to be you

 

[Light 086]

It bothers me more that created player characters often don't get any original hairstyles.

Yeah I really really wanted morigans hair for my charachter

but at least with dragon age its reall easy to create a really good looking charachter

Good looking? Probably when you first create your character, however the in-game appearance of your character looks nothing like you made and the graphics don't help. This made me frustrated and sad

OT: I agree they need more hair styles and 'normal' ones at that, nothing crazy like JRPG's. More beards and 'staches please. I also hated how when you give your character facial hair (Dragon Age), and his cheeks get sucked inside his head. Anyone else notice this?