Goblin Squad Member
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The point of this is to communicate, through the appearance of your avatar, information that would be available in the much more sensory world your character is part of. For instance consider how to communicate smells, you make a visual cloud of stench...even though ideally the smell is not visible. Likewise, you can USUALLY tell a lot about a person by their appearance and the way they carry themselves (and other markers, such as smell and sound). MOST people are not trained/experiences in disguising this information. Therefore, it should be available to anyone...unless you have training in a disguise skill. The only way to make this information available to other players is to do it visually via markers on your avatar.
This has nothing to do with limiting customization. You can have just as much customization using this system. Imagine you design your "sliders" to choose slimness within +/-20% of your baseline...adding bulk via muscle (or the lack thereof) would still allow you to customize within +/-20% of your baseline, you would just have a different baseline. Putting training into the disguise skill might broaden these choices.
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People love to make assumtions and judgements based on what they see, but they are often mistaken. I do not think we should be encourageing such prejudice, instead we should allow free customization which not only makes people happier, but encourages people to look beyond what they see when making judgements about people.
Such implicit learning is applied to more then just the context it was learned in (AKA people who implicitly learn things in a game, such as judging others by appearence, will use what they learned anytime they judge someone, in or out of the game. Such is always true of implicit learnings because people are rarely aware of learning them, thus they are unable to shape their thinking to limit it to the game)
The only thing a person should be judged by is merit (which I classify as being made of three things, desicions, actions, and the ability with which those actions are carried out)
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I know quite well that we perceive and judge, I don't such should be encouraged however. Perhaps my asperger's give unique insight, but then again everyone knows the phrase "don't judge a book by the cover." We are different then animals by our ability to counter our own instincts, and though some instincts should be paid proper attention, this is one instinct I agree with countering.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It has never been character customization that has caused latency issues.
I'll mention it AGAIN that it doesn't matter if there is very little or a load of character customization options, that has no effect on latency. This isn't even just sandbox MMOs, I find this true for every MMO. It isn't the character customization that there is bandwidth issues, it's everything else, mostly AI and timing of things.
Character customization creates one initial lag spike, when many characters show up in range at once. IE say in WoW when you walk into a capital city, and characters slowly appear one by one, that time is based on how many details the game has to send on each character, which is a negligable fact when you are talking about seeing who all is around you in town, but could be life and death when you are trying to find out if that approaching army is 50 strong, or 2,000.
as far as AI causing lag... never the case, it can cause server delays etc... DDO is a great example of that, because DDO had collision and pathing in it's AI's, issues of players zerging low level instances, dragging dozens of enemies, each one trying to calculate out having to walk around each other (IE the calculations getting exponentially more complicated each enemy added), caused server issues, not lag directly and not localized (IE the dozen players zerging level 2 instances, created server hiccups that were only really noted in the level 18+ raids). As a result DDO implimented it's least popular feature called dungeon alert, where essentially if you had more than 8 or 9 enemies agro'd, they got more powerful, and had high chances of stunning you from a range.
But anyway, I digress, that isn't what would be called latency or lag, lag reffers to latency in the connection of data between the server and the game, the AI is entirely run on the server, The server locally processes what the enemy is doing, why, how etc... the only thing sent down the pipe is essentially "Orc move foward, orc swing, orc hits X for #". Actually the issues with lag in DDO were determined to be caused by the way damage was sent, players determined that bonus damage etc... were sent as seperate numbers, IE a sword with multiple damage proporties, sent down 8+2+8+1+5, having 6 people sending what amounts to 30 attacks every half second, the pipes for single instances just didn't handle that well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The point of this is to communicate, through the appearance of your avatar, information that would be available in the much more sensory world your character is part of.-snip-
This has nothing to do with limiting customization. You can have just as much customization using this system. Imagine you design your "sliders" to choose slimness within +/-20% of your baseline...adding bulk via muscle (or the lack thereof) would still allow you to customize within +/-20% of your baseline, you would just have a different baseline. Putting training into the disguise skill might broaden these choices.
I do agree, there are 2 things that I like about Ryan's idea earlier in the thread:
1) Appearance customization communicates the state of your avatar via such modifiers as skill-training.
2) Appearance customization via the above over time shows organic change to you the player of your avatar.
These are really cool I think as not only to the one player but including everyone else's avatar they combine to add coherence to the world.
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I don't see how this adds coherence.
Not that change is bad, but it seems to me like a somewhat bad idea, done for bad reasons.
If you want your character to look your stats, then go ahead and make it that way, but please let me make my character how I want as well.
It not like this feature adds realism or anything, it just takes advantage of, and forces, a bad habit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like to see GW break the mold of this over-customization that games have been allowing players. You should look like you live. When creating your character you should see a skeleton with a low opacity body overlay. You can only alter the skeleton. Then you pick ears, lips, nose eyebrows and body-hair distribution, and you are done.
As for your 'character sheet' or what ever GW calls it(The thing that has information about your charater). There should be nothing a player can do to edit it, it should function as a log of all their actions and a display of their skills. If there is a 'backstory' box it should be one of two options:
Option 1: It is not editable by the player and is an account of what they have done in the game. When you do something notable, the game writes in a line.
Option 2:
Let the player write stuff in, then the game automatically adds this after the player's entry:
"And then they were thrust into the River Kingdoms. A place they had never stepped foot in, or learned about. They had no money and simple clothes. All the knowledge they had gained, and influences of their prior travels faded into darkness to never be seen again."
After that, the stuff from Option 1.
I want the actions of the player with the character to be the primary factor in the appearance of the character. I want to be able to look at a character and effectively 'size them up'. If I see a bulky character, that should tell me that they use a lot of heavy weapons. If I see a twig, I should expect light weapons. If I see a robe, I should think, magic, or someone that is going to get cut down pretty easily.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I honestly admit I find it difficult to appreciate the position of free-form customization, so my arguments to persuade otherwise would frankly fail to be any good and I've said as much earlier in the thread. I don't wish to say the above is better because there a lot of subjectivity, but it fits my vision for a world where what you see makes sense with what you know eg: A male wizard, perhaps I can measure his experience by looking at how long he has grown his beard and how white it has become?! Or for a female wizard perhaps she has a similar marker of time (a marker to experience) such as tied-up raven, black hair with golden baubles jingling merrily amongst her long locks (you get the picture)? I like the idea that such characters show time and also ratio (fewer high level characters in the population?).
There's meaningful information in key indicators of what the character's history might be. That and looking at their axes that look like axes for example imo enhance the visual appeal of the avatar beyond the merely aesthetically enjoyable. I suppose creativity in creating an avatar that perhaps conforms to a unique vision or backstory is what freeform customization is appealing to? Would that be right?
Edit: Just read Valkenr's post: I like that starting position: From the skeleton and progressing from there.
Edit2: So I'm finding it not easy to talk-up the merits of free-form customization therefore I don't really understand the argument or value it as much perhaps. But looking at other mmorpgs and the realisation came to me that with free-form customisation a number of problems might emerge:
1. Ever increasing need for diversity for a unique look.
2. Because avatars can look like anything with body-sliders of height etc which is often divorced from their stats - to show more experience and power in an avatar the devs are only left with making equipment more impressive either by:
a) Bigger
b) Brighter
Which becomes a bit of an arms race where top level characters are all rolling around in Michael Jackson outfits and imo look hyper-special + they are seem to end up looking the same with such obvious enhancements? Would that be a fair assessment of problems of customization in other mmorpgs when it's free-form?
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Frankly you would be a fool for making assumptions about what weapon I use without looking at my weapons, I am 5'9" 130Lbs and have used a 50Lb Buster sword in real life to great effect and remained undefeated, so that was a skinny guy using a very heavy weapon, successfully.
Clearly you are fool to judge weapons by clothing and hair. (Not to mention I would stay clean shaven as a wizard.)
What you are asking for is for everyone to look stereotypical, which is not only boring, but it's also lacks romm for originality or style, and assumes that the majority will stick to following the stereotype characters, which this game is very open to breaking away from the stereotypes.
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Besides, how would you make a spell and sword guy look? Why? Why should I have to look like that if I think it's ugly?
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Goblin Squad Member
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But that's just what I'm attempting to drive at, albeit with horrendous examples (!): With experience playing the game you become more experienced at identifying these markers over a range of different avatars, more accurately that reliably inform on a lot of the character's actions and decisions they've taken while invisible to you, on likely skills and experiences. I find that if it's possible (with the ability to disguise) also fits with the idea of being able to divine alignment (a player's likely in-game ""morality"") ie it tells you they probably like to dabble in breaking a few laws, and more and worse and the opposite. I think that's an interesting game system and I think customization could take a leaf out of that book to become more interesting? I don't expect it to be a perfect marker system, but I think a closer fit would do. For eg in GW2 a Norn is a giant vs an Asura (sorta gnome sized) yet the physical bulk and muscle of the Norn is just visual flair, it has no baring on vital statistics for gameplay reasons of class and race balance. In such an event it's better to pick an Asura who might be less seen on screen by other players in pvp, especially if you wear drab browns and greens to match the pvp arena :P - so already small size is indicating sneaking whether Anet intended that or not.
One of the many things I liked in World of Warcraft was the character creation options, despite being rather plain nowadays.
I am not sure which game's character creation should be used as a basis for PFO, but seriously, there aren't too many bad options out there.
Just get one with lots of variety that's easy to manage.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like to see GW break the mold of this over-customization that games have been allowing players. You should look like you live. When creating your character you should see a skeleton with a low opacity body overlay. You can only alter the skeleton. Then you pick ears, lips, nose eyebrows and body-hair distribution, and you are done.
As for your 'character sheet' or what ever GW calls it(The thing that has information about your charater). There should be nothing a player can do to edit it, it should function as a log of all their actions and a display of their skills. If there is a 'backstory' box it should be one of two options:
Option 1: It is not editable by the player and is an account of what they have done in the game. When you do something notable, the game writes in a line.
Option 2:
Let the player write stuff in, then the game automatically adds this after the player's entry:
"And then they were thrust into the River Kingdoms. A place they had never stepped foot in, or learned about. They had no money and simple clothes. All the knowledge they had gained, and influences of their prior travels faded into darkness to never be seen again."
After that, the stuff from Option 1.I want the actions of the player with the character to be the primary factor in the appearance of the character. I want to be able to look at a character and effectively 'size them up'. If I see a bulky character, that should tell me that they use a lot of heavy weapons. If I see a twig, I should expect light weapons. If I see a robe, I should think, magic, or someone that is going to get cut down pretty easily.
This would be really cool. I think I played some single-player RPG that had this.
I also favor slider ranges based on stats or appearance changing based on changing stats/skills/abilities. To what extent is up to the devs
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Goblin Squad Member
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One of the many things I liked in World of Warcraft was the character creation options, despite being rather plain nowadays.
I am not sure which game's character creation should be used as a basis for PFO, but seriously, there aren't too many bad options out there.
Just get one with lots of variety that's easy to manage.
I agree, there's tons of character creation systems out there,
Though I'll admit the PSO2 character creation system seems to offer the most customization out of the ones I've looked at;Conan online, NWN 1 and 2, Dragon Age, Fallout 3, Phantasy Star Portable 1 and 2, Vindictus and a some I can remember at the moment.
Link to post pointing to trial version of PSO2 character creator.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think one thing that's important to keep in mind when considering the whole "Stats affect your appearance" thing is that it's not your Attributes that impact your appearance, it's your Merit Badges.
So, you can have a Character that looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime with a 3 Strength or an 18 Strength. And they'll (generally) both have to acquire the same in-game Merit Badges in order to achieve that appearance. It's just that the guy with the 18 Strength will be able to acquire those Merit Badges more quickly.
Although, the Character with the 18 Strength is also going to be better able to Resist the kinds of attacks that you resist with Strength.
For more information, read Your Pathfinder Online Character.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think one thing that's important to keep in mind when considering the whole "Stats affect your appearance" thing is that it's not your Attributes that impact your appearance, it's your Merit Badges.
So, you can have a Character that looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime with a 3 Strength or an 18 Strength. And they'll (generally) both have to acquire the same in-game Merit Badges in order to achieve that appearance. It's just that the guy with the 18 Strength will be able to acquire those Merit Badges more quickly.
Although, the Character with the 18 Strength is also going to be better able to Resist the kinds of attacks that you resist with Strength.
For more information, read Your Pathfinder Online Character.
For me that makes no sense.
A STR of 3 and look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, sorry it does not match at all.Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime is closer to a STR of 17 or 18.
If the Merit Badge gets you more buff and you have a STR of 3 and the challenge that does not even use STR, I call Bull crap.
But if the Merit Badges have stat requirements and challenges those stats of the character, then I'm more accepting of it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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For me that makes no sense.
A STR of 3 and look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, sorry it does not match at all.
Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime is closer to a STR of 17 or 18.If the Merit Badge gets you more buff and you have a STR of 3 and the challenge that does not even use STR, I call Bull crap.
But if the Merit Badges have stat requirements and challenges those stats of the character, then I'm more accepting of it.
We went over this pretty in depth in another topic, but at least per my understanding. In PFO (This is not how it works in P&P, I am aware, but per the descriptions of PFO this is how it works)
STR isn't your actual physical stregnth, it is your natural aptitude, in other words, you are born with it. Your str does not change as you level up.
Just like in real life, you take 2 kids, put them in the gym, have them do the same exercises. Child 1 gains huge musscle mass quickly from this. Child 2 gains muscles, but nowhere near the same rate as child one, despite identical training, one is more naturally addept at str than the other. Same thing for int, You take 2 kids, put them in the same chemistry class, one kid half way pays attention in class, gets straight a's, child 2, pays attention in class, hires a private tutor, drills himself for 3 hours after his tutor session, just to squeek out a B. Child 1 has high int, child 2 has low int. These aptitudes don't change, no matter how much extra child 2 does, he still has to work 3x harder to get the same result as child 1. The kids at the gym have the same issue on str...
In the end, they all have the same potential, they all can reach the same point, if in the int example child 1 got held back etc... he might eventually learn enough to get the same A's child 1 had, and with much more working out, the kid at the gym could lift the same weights as the other kid and gain just as much muscle mass, but it takes far longer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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For me that makes no sense.
A STR of 3 and look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, sorry it does not match at all.
Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime is closer to a STR of 17 or 18.If the Merit Badge gets you more buff and you have a STR of 3 and the challenge that does not even use STR, I call Bull crap.
But if the Merit Badges have stat requirements and challenges those stats of the character, then I'm more accepting of it.We went over this pretty in depth in another topic, but at least per my understanding. In PFO (This is not how it works in P&P, I am aware, but per the descriptions of PFO this is how it works)
STR isn't your actual physical strength, it is your natural aptitude, in other words, you are born with it. Your str does not change as you level up.
Just like in real life, you take 2 kids, put them in the gym, have them do the same exercises. Child 1 gains huge musscle mass quickly from this. Child 2 gains muscles, but nowhere near the same rate as child one, despite identical training, one is more naturally addept at str than the other. Same thing for int, You take 2 kids, put them in the same chemistry class, one kid half way pays attention in class, gets straight a's, child 2, pays attention in class, hires a private tutor, drills himself for 3 hours after his tutor session, just to squeek out a B. Child 1 has high int, child 2 has low int. These aptitudes don't change, no matter how much extra child 2 does, he still has to work 3x harder to get the same result as child 1. The kids at the gym have the same issue on str...
In the end, they all have the same potential, they all can reach the same point, if in the int example child 1 got held back etc... he might eventually learn enough to get the same A's child 1 had, and with much more working out, the kid at the gym could lift the same weights as the other kid and gain just as much muscle mass, but it takes far longer.
That encroaches on Sheldon's body types.
If stats don't change as you progress, it sounds like your no evolving as you progress, which does not sound realistic.
I know that you get training for skills over time,
why not use the stat and skills then as weights for determining certain physical parameters of your avatar.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Azure_Zero, I think I misspoke when I said it was based on "Merit Badges".
From Character Customization:
If something like this could be implemented, I think that what should happen is that when you gain a character ability that carries with it a potential visual appearance change you have options on how that change is implemented. So instead of using sliders at character creation, you get sliders throughout the character's life.
So, first off, it's obviously still being considered, and may not end up anything like this. Ryan was just offering his general thoughts on how he thinks it ought to work. None of the devs have followed up to clarify anything since then. I'll take that as an invitation to talk about what we'd like to see, and how we think it should work.
Taking Ryan's idea as a starting point, I would expect:
1. Sliders at Character Creation that give you a certain amount of freedom to build the character you want, with the range of the slider initially determined by the relevant Attribute(s).
2. The ability to go back at any time and modify those sliders, with the range of the slider determined by the relevant Attribute(s) and by any new relevant Attribute-related Abilities you've gained.
3. An automatic change to the character if the character was at the far end of the range, and the range was modified by a new Ability.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Azure_Zero, I think I misspoke when I said it was based on "Merit Badges".
From Character Customization:
If something like this could be implemented, I think that what should happen is that when you gain a character ability that carries with it a potential visual appearance change you have options on how that change is implemented. So instead of using sliders at character creation, you get sliders throughout the character's life.So, first off, it's obviously still being considered, and may not end up anything like this. Ryan was just offering his general thoughts on how he thinks it ought to work. None of the devs have followed up to clarify anything since then. I'll take that as an invitation to talk about what we'd like to see, and how we think it should work.
Taking Ryan's idea as a starting point, I would expect:
1. Sliders at Character Creation that give you a certain amount of freedom to build the character you want, with the range of the slider initially determined by the relevant Attribute(s).
2. The ability to go back at any time and modify those sliders, with the range of the slider determined by the relevant Attribute(s) and by any new relevant Attribute-related Abilities you've gained.
3. An automatic change to the character if the character was at the far end of the range, and the range was modified by a new Ability.
That sounds like something I can really agree with.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If stats don't change as you progress, it sounds like your no evolving as you progress, which does not sound realistic.
I think that Ryan is trying to separate what we think of as "stats" into Attributes and Abilities as separate things. At least, it helps me to think of it that way :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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If stats don't change as you progress, it sounds like your no evolving as you progress, which does not sound realistic.I think that Ryan is trying to separate what we think of as "stats" into Attributes and Abilities as separate things. At least, it helps me to think of it that way :)
That got me to a degree making me think on Sheldon's body types, where your body type numbers are fixed and influence the rate at which you build;
Muscle+Constitution (Meso),Fat+Social Nature (Endo), and
Intelligence+Perception (Ecto).
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Goblin Squad Member
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A good character creator is very important IMO. When a player can get their character looking right that helps them want to play the character more.
I have 3 requests:
1. A game that comes out in 2015 should have body sliders IMO. I really don't see how there could be any excuse to have 4 body types and that's it.
2. I also hope we get a full array on skin color options, even for non human races. Olive skinned elves, dark brown dwarves and half elves that have all the same options as humans.
3. Ugly options. GW2 has a beautiful creator, but you can't make an ugly female. There's like 1 option and it's not even ugly just old. Skyrim in another great creator but went a little bit too ugly.
I don't see much of a point to the whole stat based appearance. What is Yoda's DnD stat strength? I could have a gnome monk that looks like Yoda. Elves with superior strength aren't really muscular just stronger limbed like an oak tree. I know obese people who can do the split and skinny people who can't touch their toes. The charisma/comeliness dichotomy is as old as DnD.
It's a fantasy game, don't divert resources into something silly like that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Azure_Zero, I think I misspoke when I said it was based on "Merit Badges".
From Character Customization:
If something like this could be implemented, I think that what should happen is that when you gain a character ability that carries with it a potential visual appearance change you have options on how that change is implemented. So instead of using sliders at character creation, you get sliders throughout the character's life.So, first off, it's obviously still being considered, and may not end up anything like this. Ryan was just offering his general thoughts on how he thinks it ought to work. None of the devs have followed up to clarify anything since then. I'll take that as an invitation to talk about what we'd like to see, and how we think it should work.
Taking Ryan's idea as a starting point, I would expect:
1. Sliders at Character Creation that give you a certain amount of freedom to build the character you want, with the range of the slider initially determined by the relevant Attribute(s).
2. The ability to go back at any time and modify those sliders, with the range of the slider determined by the relevant Attribute(s) and by any new relevant Attribute-related Abilities you've gained.
3. An automatic change to the character if the character was at the far end of the range, and the range was modified by a new Ability.
Sounds good! +1
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Goblin Squad Member
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A good character creator is very important IMO. When a player can get their character looking right that helps them want to play the character more.
I have 3 requests:
1. A game that comes out in 2015 should have body sliders IMO. I really don't see how there could be any excuse to have 4 body types and that's it.
2. I also hope we get a full array on skin color options, even for non human races. Olive skinned elves, dark brown dwarves and half elves that have all the same options as humans.
3. Ugly options. GW2 has a beautiful creator, but you can't make an ugly female. There's like 1 option and it's not even ugly just old. Skyrim in another great creator but went a little bit too ugly.
avari3, I think you nailed a part that gets people to start and keep on going in that players do want to get the character looking just right.
1) Sliders are old news, Graphical Cartesian Planes for character editing is the way to go.
Another reference image
2)I semi agree on the full array of skin color options as I would like it to be lore friendly in color ranges.
3)about half the character creators I toyed with had few ugly options, And I'm fine with it.
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Idea that I had,
Have body sliders that set the range for how the stats affect your looks,
I.E. I set my weight to the superfly setting and then if I use heavy weapons and lots of strength stuff, my muscles will grow a bit and look more toned but I still remain skinny and won't ever look like Arnold.
So you might have,
Weight class (superfly weight to heavy weight)
Height class (short to tall, for your race)
Wrinkles (smooth to wrinkly)
Hair (very thin to thick hairy chest and arms)
Dwarfism (proportions of limbs to body)
Etc
Also I want see wider skin colors including impossible colors, tattoo options including bright/noticable colors, and possibly pure accessories like hairpins, braclets and such that don't comsume magic item slots (these in game after creation of course)
It would be interesting to have a halfling with pure ebony skin, hot pink hexagonal tattoos, and purple hair. Unrealistic but you could easily say magic is used to dye hair permanently, and make vivid tattoos, perhaps the ebony skin color is really a full body tattoo (there are same strange people who have tattooed scales covoring their entire body).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Instead of those sliders, I would want to see them linked to the character attributes, so if you have a high strength you get bigger quicker, high dexterity you slim down quicker.
Those halfling suggestions at the end are something that should be tied into skills. The starting character should be incredibly basic, then there should be sets of skill akin to the Image Designer in SWG for the more advanced customization.
If somebody wants to 'look cool' they should have to work for it, not be able to play with a bunch of sliders at character creation. Your character should have no tattoo's or piercings at creation, more things you have to seek out, and if you want to get a piercing, you have to make a constitution save to see if you get an infection.
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The idea is that a skinny person will stay skinny even if they get muscles and become strong. I, as a skinny person will never look like Arnold, no matter how much I train to lift, no matter how strong I become, I will never look that big.
And frankly we should be able to have tattoos and such because our characters existed prior to coming to the River Kingdoms, they have histories that predate us playing them.
I want to make my character and never again have to worry about my looks unless I reincarnate (if they even include that option). Which means being able to look cool to begin with, at least in regards to the non-equipment looks anyway.
I don't mind having options being after creation or even a few that are only after creation, but I should be able to start out as an awesome looking character, not a plain one. That awesomeness is part of the character therefore not having those looks is unfun, because it's never fun to play as a stupid peon.
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Goblin Squad Member
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avari3, I think you nailed a part that gets people to start and keep on going in that players do want to get the character looking just right.
1) Sliders are old news, Graphical Cartesian Planes for character editing is the way to go.
Another reference image2)I semi agree on the full array of skin color options as I would like it to be lore friendly in color ranges.
3)about half the character creators I toyed with had few ugly options, And I'm fine with it.
1. I just don't want to be forced into big/petite/fat/normal. Sliders are fine for me. I understand if the game doesn't have the ultimate latest, it is an MMO and there will be 10-15 races before it's all said and done.
2. NO! Full range on skin and hair color!. What lore are you protecting? Golarion's vanilla with vanilla sauce on vanilla cake lore? The best part of this game is that WE get to create it and that means we should be able to fill it with black skinned high elves or blonde orcs.
3. Just want to make sure this is one of those.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Avari 3
I would like to see things like skin tone and hair color fall in the realm of logic. Things like skin tone are based on geographic distribution of ancestor races. The game should not change the existing lore, just add more story to it. Each race should get the skin tones designated by the existing pathfinder lore.
And skin tone should change depending on where your character spends their time. yes, I want to see tan lines, or at least some full body tanning if you hang out in the sun.
I'm happy with the direction Ryan has hinted at. Perhaps limited options at first with more range/detail opening up as you earn badges. It would feel, to me, as if my character were growing in game, rather than "He's always been the same since he was a n00b." Armors, weapons, and vanity items will add distinction and change, but seeing your character evolve would be interesting to me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Avari 3
I would like to see things like skin tone and hair color fall in the realm of logic. Things like skin tone are based on geographic distribution of ancestor races. The game should not change the existing lore, just add more story to it. Each race should get the skin tones designated by the existing pathfinder lore.
And skin tone should change depending on where your character spends their time. yes, I want to see tan lines, or at least some full body tanning if you hang out in the sun.
I see no reason elves can't be "wooden brown" or olive green. The elves of the Mwangi expanse have every right to be darker shades. All of these races have been around for a long enough time to have different tones just like humans.
And anyways it's fantasy and we are getting the same Tolkien races as we always do at least let us customize them.
The only good thing about the Golarion setting is that everything fits in it so lets take advantage of that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hair and skin tones that aren't lore friendly should probably fall under Micro transactions. You can buy the ability to have an appearance that doesn't fit the setting.
Trust me you don't have to worry about there being too many Puerto Rican elves.
I play GW2 where the Norn race has tons of dark skin options but nobody plays them dark. Almost nobody. At the end of the day most players play their caucasions just like racist Tolkien made them But darker players like me-self like to have the option of a duskier skin.
This isn't middle earth, it's vanilla sauce Golarion, let us have darker shades please, it won't kill anybody.
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Hey, who's to say I don't have a touch gnome of gnome blood that gives me pink skin?
Oh, btw, magic, magic, and magic, with lots of time and history, and a world with so many holes it makes a sieve jealous. We can fill in those holes with whatever we like, so we should have the option of filling in those holes with what we want.
I'd like to see it stay in with the variances stated in the lore, but i'll second what Nihimon said:
Especially in the River Kingdoms, where people from all over will have been mixing for generations, it really does make sense to allow the broadest possible options.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@avari3 I'm talking about things like pink hair here, not normal human skin tones.
I fail to see anything wrong with pink or blue hair to be honest. Very few players actually use those options and it's never made sense that in a world where people shoot fireballs out their arses they can't figure out the magic of hair dye.
Gnomes at least are supposed to have pink and blue hair.
But I'm not really asking/expecting a free for all, just please give us dusky skin options for all races, even elves.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hey, who's to say I don't have a touch gnome of gnome blood that gives me pink skin?
Oh, btw, magic, magic, and magic, with lots of time and history, and a world with so many holes it makes a sieve jealous. We can fill in those holes with whatever we like, so we should have the option of filling in those holes with what we want.
Interesting, I have never heard of a half-gnome. Do you have lore precedence for gnomes being able to breed with the more mundane races?
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
@Avari 3
I would like to see things like skin tone and hair color fall in the realm of logic. Things like skin tone are based on geographic distribution of ancestor races. The game should not change the existing lore, just add more story to it. Each race should get the skin tones designated by the existing pathfinder lore.And skin tone should change depending on where your character spends their time. yes, I want to see tan lines, or at least some full body tanning if you hang out in the sun.
I have to agree with Valkenr, in that lore friendly ranges are a higher priority then full range.
Though I think adding tan lines would be asking to much at this point as it would require programming a tanning sub-system, and it'd put restrictions on armour and clothing designes.|
Goblin Squad Member
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Instead of those sliders, I would want to see them linked to the character attributes, so if you have a high strength you get bigger quicker, high dexterity you slim down quicker.
-snip- The starting character should be incredibly basic, then there should be sets of skill akin to the Image Designer in SWG for the more advanced customization.
If somebody wants to 'look cool' they should have to work for it, not be able to play with a bunch of sliders at character creation. Your character should have no tattoo's or piercings at creation, more things you have to seek out, and if you want to get a piercing, you have to make a constitution save to see if you get an infection.
I'm thinking in this direction even more now, that the player picks something of a "blank slate"; a non-descript base plan of a character. That way MORE of the external change of the character reflects the xp/experience/story/decisions of the player is even more pronounced/established over time.
GW2 recently had an event where players were paying for some shiny weapons that were rarely/randomly dropping and I wondered what would I value more: buying a rare shiny for my avatar to look nice or the gradual changes as a reflection of my game time and choices I remember making because they were tied to developing the character in some particular way, and piecing that all together? I find the latter compelling and different from most mmorpg customizations.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm totally on board with the character's experience gradually altering their appearance. However, it's important to realize that we're not starting our characters as infants, so we'll need sliders at Character Creation to indicate the experiences our characters have already had before they enter the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So when my str increases my biceps get bigger but when my Int increases I get...thicker spectacles?
I think you guys are talking about something that works in theory MUCH better than it really would in practice. Don't waste the designers' time with such nonsense they need to put like 10-15 customizable races in there and balance 17 classes with multi-class options and prestige classes to boot.
You want to get an eye patch because you were assassinated? Want a sun tan cause you've been working that desert outpost for a year? Micro transaction for you buddy!
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Goblin Squad Member
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...
I think you guys are talking about something that works in theory MUCH better than it really would in practice. Don't waste the designers' time with such nonsense they need to put like 10-15 customizable races in there and balance 17 classes with multi-class options and prestige classes to boot.You want to get an eye patch because you were assassinated? Want a sun tan cause you've been working that desert outpost for a year? Micro transaction for you buddy!
I don't think that level of customization will be avaible.
Right now they are only going with;
CORE RACES ONLY,
CORE BASE CLASSES ONLY.
So Unless your willing to pledge over $10K+ or more correct 100K+,
I don't think they'll have that number of races and classes before or at release.
I think the extra options you want will be Micro transactions,
and not the eye patch or sun tan.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Don't waste the designers' time with such nonsense...
It was actually Ryan's suggestion. See my quote of him above.
[Edit] Although Ryan did make a point of starting with "if this could be implemented". And I'm certainly not suggesting this kind of change to our characters in-game based on gained Abilities should take priority over adding in the rest of the Races that people really want to play...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Don't waste the designers' time with such nonsense
Actually there's an every-increasing demand for more details for a super character customization tool at the beginning of mmorpgs. I wonder if front loading so many choices in such detail to players before they start really is a good thing, at least for the average player?
It also means the devs don't have to present so many options if they take the above approach and players can tweek as they go along: Seems very efficient to me.
One idea was that someone dexterous in a rest animation might twiddle and spin some knives for eg, tell-tale signals of body & behavior & attire/equipment?