Goblin Squad Member
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I played UO for years, and one of the things that struck me about it is how easy it was to have a unique looking character despite the very limited graphical tech used, it seems to be something lacking in more modern games- despite sometimes offering some great sliders for appearance in some games, everyone ends up looking the same due to few hues and even less variety in models for clothing and armor pieces- and that's WITH a costume slot, those without you're essentially condemned to wear what fits your stats.
I often find I am inspired to play a character first by an image in my head of how they look, then work out their abilities and personality after,only to find the option I need isn't there! Sometimes it's just a lack of colour choices or hairstyle or build, but to me appearance options are important. It annoys me trying to create a wiry swordsman with long pale brown hair and light brown eyes to find I have to have the build of the Incredible Hulk, have blonde hair and green eyes as the only options, and that my light blade option is the size of pony.
I think vanguard: saga of heroes and Star Wars galaxies did a great job with customization of body, and TERA has a clever system where long hair gets tied up or back if it conflicts with collars or other clipping issues (but lacks greatly in other customization)
But an idea did just occur to me for clothing options.
What if we open up texture and model options for cosmetic items is opened up to player submission? There would have to be a degree of moderating to ensure we don't get inappropriate or anachronistic content, but it could be an option- TERA allows guild logos to be uploaded, second life allows pretty much everything to be player made, but that's a little different. This may deserve it's own post for discussion, but I'll throw it in anyway here!
Apologies if this makes little sense, I wrote it on the way home and my mind probably wandered greatly.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Don't expect any players submitted anything until the game is more or less polished, and well after the release.
What we know is that part of your appearance will be dictated by what skills you are taking and what badges you are earning. You won't be able to do something like a bone-thin greatsword user.
Don't expect super detailed customization, the more detail, the higher the server and client load, and this game is setting up to have large scale battles.
I'm pushing for super basic customization, and heavy environmental/action related changes, others are pushing for super detail from the start. GW hasn't given a detailed description yet.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think my initial point ( that I never end up making) was that if you provide a good mix and match set of items to start with, as well as a distinct set of hairstyles, even if you don't have that many, if you give lots of colour options you can go a long way to giving people a lot of choice like uo, without having to flood it with thousands of new models.
On my player content idea- if they are essentially just cosmetic reskins on costume pieces, you could always have that layer turn off when there's too many people around so that when there are large battles it reverts to the base in game items and doesn't have to load all that extra stuff.
It also works for hairstyles since mostly you'd expect helms to be covering those layers anyway.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Totally agree, I hope there is a huge array of wearable items, the ability to mix and match as desired (or even layer pieces), and perhaps even the ability to customize pieces of clothing and armor.
And this is all in addition to your previously mentioned hair styles and lore appropriate colors and tattoos.
I would actually prefer all of this require getting in-game as opposed to at character creation. Let players be tailors/barbers/tattooists and allow them to make money off our desire to be unique.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I support all of these ideas :p
I was also thinking with player added models/textures (if they are viable at some point, I know it's no sort of priority) if the submitter then gets the item as an in game recipe, then they could sell copies of their recipes to other tailors/barbers etc, or be the only seller of their own designs. But that's an idea for a post polish game :p still, if the supporting mechanics can be worked in at this early stage...