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Character customization


Timotheus

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I agree wityh wqewqe234 being able to choose your gender is a cool thing at least on the races where it makes sense ie normal humans, elves etc. Any additional customisation of appearance on top of that is a nice bonus, but not essential.

I also agree with tdraven that while it's nice to have some unique to class armour it'd be better if there was generals sets too (so you could get around the sack like dress that the inquisitor wears if you don't like it). Also if you are going to have pistol weapons/one handed staffs (which I think are a great) it would be great to have a way of duel weilding them (although I can see how it might make for a challenging ballancing act).

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I agree wityh wqewqe234 being able to choose your gender is a cool thing at least on the races where it makes sense ie normal humans, elves etc. Any additional customisation of appearance on top of that is a nice bonus, but not essential.

I also agree with tdraven that while it's nice to have some unique to class armour it'd be better if there was generals sets too (so you could get around the sack like dress that the inquisitor wears if you don't like it). Also if you are going to have pistol weapons/one handed staffs (which I think are a great) it would be great to have a way of duel weilding them (although I can see how it might make for a challenging ballancing act).

 

Welcome to the forum, Because......Well, just Because!

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While I agree that customization is hardly essential to ARPGs like Sacred 2, and I could care less about it when playing SP, there are times when it is needed. Just imagine playing multiplayer, 4 seraphims all identical on the same screen at the same time. How would you know which was which?

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Just imagine playing multiplayer, 4 seraphims all identical on the same screen at the same time. How would you know which was which?

The screen is always centered on your own character (ignoring the abomination that was the boss camera).

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  • 1 month later...
 

One issue with choosing gender is it requires a male and female version of all armor. I have collected all the armor variations for each character. There are 20 to 30 full armor variations for each. That comes out to be about 175 sets. So that would require an additional 175 to support genders. We are not talking recoloring them, but completely new designs.

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One issue with choosing gender is it requires a male and female version of all armor. I have collected all the armor variations for each character. There are 20 to 30 full armor variations for each. That comes out to be about 175 sets. So that would require an additional 175 to support genders. We are not talking recoloring them, but completely new designs.

 

More than that, I'm afraid. If you start messing with gender, you're going to wind up having to be ultra politically correct. That means including transgendered, transexuals, and the like as well. You just know there will likely be a market for that sort of thing as well. And if you don't, you know they'll be demanding equal representation and such.

Edited by wolfie2kX
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  • 3 weeks later...

Well I think character customizing is nice to have and even in Sacred 2 I'm fond enough of what they have now. My ice elf has light blue-isch skin and that with the blizzard set, makes it almost look like she isn't wearing anything *o* I like that you can color the hair to almost any color you'd like. But if you asked me is it necessary to have more character customizing? Not really, but if you have an connection with your character you are more likely to play more. but if they give more customizing then they have to make sure it looks good, this is the part where I'm going to be a girl about it. Because come on, some hair styles don't really look all that good, especially with the dryad's hairstyles, it already feels like she has the top of her head chopped off and some of the hairstyles don't make it better hehehe

 

Well anyway, someone said something about transsexuals and trans gendered things, well those would be nice, but isn't the TG already an it because it's a machine, and just because a male spoke for him doesn't mean it is a man hehehehe use your own imagination a bit XD

 

Anyway I personally have nothing against more character customizing, but I don't think being able to choose different genders is really necessary. But if they wanted to include a part being able to choose your gender, then I think the SW and HE are perfect for that. But well then you probably get that females are discriminated as inquisitors and then they have to make every class available as male or female with the exception of TG because that is most definitely an it XD And I wonder sometimes if the Seraphim are an all female race, I think so since I haven't seen a male one yet XD In the end this became more a ramble then really an opinion XD

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  • 1 month later...

In the backstory of Sacred 1, Sophia the Seraphim gave birth to a son. Whether he could be an actual Seraphim isn't really said as far as I know. Also Seraphims in Sacred seem to be more along the lines of of Valkyries of Viking Mythology so being all female makes sense.

Anyway the origins and truth of the Seraphim race is filled with contradictions and plenty of unanswered questions. I've been tempted to created a thread with some ideas I have about the winged race in an attempt to make heads and tails about them.

Have nothing against character customization. Has anyone colored the Shadow Warrior green and named him Hulk yet?

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"Sophia the Seraphim gave birth to a son. Whether he could be an actual Seraphim isn't really said as far as I know."

 

Thanks for the reminder, Graeystone. The book is one I found (and copied out) in a recent play through Sacred 1. The closing words of Stadalus, the Abbot of the Fortress Monastery of Icecreek Dale are:

 

"Only very few Seraphim are born nowadays and even Sophia has not given birth to a blessed girl, but to a boy - my son, Aarnum."

 

It seems to imply that seraphim were female only, male offspring were human (or whatever the male parent was, guess).

 

I really must go back and see if I can copy out all the books. The problem is that after the introduction of Underworld, the History books all got a bit crazy in their chronology (which is bad for a set of history books).

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  • 1 month later...

I think character customization is important. The game should not suffer for it, but it certainly is more that than the proverbial cherry on top to me. When I play a game, I like to immerse into it. For that, I need a character that I can really identify with and being able to customize a character really helps with that. I didn't put that much thought in S1 toons but when I started playing Guild Wars and made my first (and still my primary) toon, I put a lot of thought into it. What would I like to see me as if I were in that world? What did I liked playing in other games? As far as RPGs goes, Paladin usually is my preferred class (I played Diablo II almost exclusive on my Pal), but my first "toon" was a Rogue in Diablo I. So I stuck with the bow theme and choose a Ranger since there was no real Paladin class. Then I spend nearly 30 minutes coming up with a name. I like Tolkienesque names for my toons, but of course all the "real" Tolkien names were taken (I wanted to name her Luthien Tinuviel and was also angry the game wouldn't let me proper accentuate the vowels :P). In the end I had to settle for a "hybrid" name and so Melian Arfeiniel was born (yes, I prefer to play girls when I can choose a gender). I also put thought into her looks.

 

I missed that a lot in Sacred and Sacred 2. Of course the Seraphim was THE toon for me to play, being a Paladin type of girl, how could I pass on that? But I would have loved to customize her a bit, change her height, play around with her hair colour (sadly my toon was created in Sacred 2 and I wasn't able to customize her. I can change her hair colour in the command box when in game, but I have to do that every time) and such. It's not a feature that, when it's not there makes me say "OK, forget it, I'm not going to play this game", but it makes a game much more fun for me when it is there. I haven't put the same time and thought into my Sacred 2 toons as I did in my GW toons, mainly because I wasn't able to customize them anyway, so my seraphim now has the generic name "Fogelina" (also a name I've given to most of my Guild Wars mules which eventually became full fledged toons, kinda regret now not giving them a proper name, but I'm NOT deleting them since Guild Wars has the practice of handing out birthday rewards to toons).

 

Man, I've been blabbering again. So in short, character customization to me is important, almost a must, but only almost as it would not stop me from playing a game, but I can immerse myself more into a game if I can customize my toon slightly.

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Character customization:

Even one of the first RPG's, good old nethack, allowed character customization. Your character was a @, a D stood for a dragon, an o for an orc, an O for an ogre, an e for a flooding eye,...

 

Whenever I played a barbarian in nethack I changed from times to gothic font ;)

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Personally, I like character customization. Granted it tends to have zero impact on actual gameplay, and is more for aesthetic reasons than anything else.

 

Although where character customization really shines is in a multiplayer environment. When going through on single player, it doesn't matter if you're customised or not. Generally, you'll already stand apart from the NPCs and mobs regardless of what you look like, so in that aspect it is just that, purely aesthetic for no other reason.

In multiplayer, however, it helps to identify (even if just a little) between several characters of the same race/class. Granted armor and such usually is more noticeable than hair, skin colour, etc... (especially for characters who have hair underneath helmets, don't show much skin, etc...). But say a few characters were rocking the same armour sets, a little bit of individuality never went astray.

 

Also, as was mention previously I believe, spending any length of time at the beginning helps a player form a sort of 'bond' with their character, for lack of a better word.

 

As for gender changes, I'm all for it. No one ever said that the big beefy damager all have to be men, nor that the squishy characters are all girls. Obviously depending on certain character concepts, gender would be an issue (Seraphim, for example, or the Amazon from D2). So yes, unless there's a specific reason or backstory for characters to be locked to a gender, I say why not let the player decide if they're a boy or a girl, instead of having the choice made for you?

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  • 4 weeks later...

Simple answer is YES id like that.

 

PLS Note that this is only for cosmetic, so you can choose armor for the stats, bonuses, and all the nice stuff, but as a LOTRO player I like to have the opertunity to use armor pieces I find, and place them into a cosmetic slot, so you appear as a dark evil devil, but you might have a healing class wich is really very gentle and soft. Or simply you find for best stats, your breastplate just looks stupid, have the wrong glow, or what else it might be, you cna slot an armor piece into a chest cosmetic to finish of the look.

 

Ive read the entire topic and I understand some ppl are against it, but I think if you make it like that, it is completely up to the individual player if he/she wants to do it, if you dont like it, dont use it, and if you like me, like a bit of looks, we can do that as well.

 

This provided the characters have a decent size when wieved ingame, AND selection screen. If the graphics are as good, or better than Sacred 2 yerh sure im all for it. But I do think these things have to fit together.

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  • 3 months later...

Well this certainly is a currious theme for RPG's.

It is a curious fact too that once you give players options they just want more of them.

This can be either good or bad. The first case is what we'd call progress. The later are usually classed as trolls (pink SW seriously?).

 

As to the matter of character customisation there have been quite a few interessting points here.

Let's take a look at the skin/hairdo/whatnot except for armor. In games like Morrowind/Oblivion/Guild Wars as most of you know they are a key feature. While the TES-Games are SP only the immense detail that SP allows for at lower processing mean that we can see the last wrinkle in the face of our characters - those very characters that are we. That we want to be. The being saving the world (again.). Guild Wars had not so many details but it was still eating my proscessing power. It had however enough options skinwise that it was hard to meet someone that could be your siamese twin. Which enchances the perception of being the hero while playing on a literally massive scale. If I have to think of a ARPG example I'd probably pick Hellgate. Yeah I know the coding was terrible but that doesnt matter. You still had those options. Your customized face probably vanished behind a full helmet by level 5 for being a Templar/Marksmen and then you did look like - the rest - but you could put it down.

As for 2D examples I can't come up with one.

 

Now let's look at the armor. There are several interessting ways to solve this "problem".

Now the easiest way has been mentioned with Guild Wars - dye. Though in Guild Wars the people in the high end areas looked pretty much the same (all posing in black Core armor sets...) allowing you to dye armor gives you the opportunity to create a feeling that something fits. It was hard to combine different Ele sets into a consistent armor but for classes liek the Assassin that was pretty easy. Dyeing individual parts also created some very harlequin looking characters but those where the exception due to the prices on dye. A similar way has been gone by 10tacle when they made Hellgate. In Hellgate there is a simple options in the dropdown menu when selecting an equipped item to choose that item's colourscheme for your whole armor. Each item had a primary and secondary colour and you could simpley play around without having to worry. Really had something of camouflage which suits a game that play at around our time. The whole has been done for with dyekits that give statboni but that is not to be discussed here (horrible if you ask me).

The above examples are all 3D so let me get a 2D one (which is pretty close to the isotropic view you mainly have in Sacred 2). It's Spiral Knights. Now Spiral Knights has a rather chibi feel to the design but the armors dont look any less awesome. You do only have two items you can combine (helmet and actual armor for the whole rest) but that is enough. While the armor itself is not customizable and neither is your charcter (you can at no point unequip your armor, only replace it) you can equip a suit of armor over your actuall armor just for the looks. Which is a ptretty interessting concept. Bored of the furtrimmed cloak with smooth topped helmet? Simply equip an armor that looks like a real Knight or something that could be godzilla - or maybe even bomberman for good measure.

 

So what do we have else that we can customize?

CAs and Skills.

Sacred 2 had a rather unqiue way of handling your skill development by adding mods. Though there are mods that are considered nonplusultra (Enhancement-Enhancement-Accuracy now try to guess the CA) there are rather disputed CA mods which are pretty much left to ones personal taste (Battle Aura Gold mod anyone? I take the buff approach). Same with the Skills. You can make a pure dmg one aspect build. Or you can diversify - which then leads us back to the CAs but still.

 

Customization as I see it

Customization is an integral part of an RPG. It simply is. It has to be noticeable because one tries to stand out. It helps to identify yourself with a character which in turn keeps you playing longer (likely). It does however not make a game (see Brink the game) neither does it break a game (unless you dump all you money into the development of the charaterization, in which case you have earned seeing your project fail).

I think it's important that one can do change a character to ones wishes. It keeps me going. I probably would have finished all those FF parts I have if those chars wouldn't look so effete and like douchebags, but it doesn't even matter whether you wear plate mail or a robe.

 

For those that don't care about customization, well you don't. It's right that good mechanics are more important (see Hellgate) to keep a game running, to create a place for it in peoples collections, to keep them returning to it. But being able to customize that world to your liking certainly helps.

 

 

My keyboard has to answer for all grammatcal errrors and the late our for any content concerning incoherency (00:26 GMT+1).

If for some reason I haven't made sense at all I'll check back after I've slept.

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Back in the day when we played Zork and we were happy to have it, we didn't need no customizations. ;) There was one dungeon game that your character was a small stick figure... I suppose customization would have been what color of sticks it was made of.

 

Being a tad more serious... IMO customization is mostly eye candy. A game w/ the most awesome customization in the world will flop if game play and the story line suck.

 

As for gender and needing two versions of everything... do we really need 20 to 30 full sets of armor? I'd settle for 15 if it meant 15 male and 15 female.

 

As to armor covering up facial features and hair... I really, really, really like the option in Mythos to not display head gear.

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Being a tad more serious... IMO customization is mostly eye candy.

 

 

I remember the first couple of toons I made in Sacred 2, I agonized for seemingly long minutes deciding on what I wanted the toon to look like. Now, these days I'm so anxious to just try out the game play I usually just click through defaults. Though for games with high detail that you spend a tremendous amount of time on like an MMOrpg, I guess its' important to like what we're looking at.

 

I loved the way Requiem's skeleton/models looked, though it was one "type" per class.

 

:)

 

gogo

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Being a tad more serious... IMO customization is mostly eye candy. A game w/ the most awesome customization in the world will flop if game play and the story line suck.

Yeah, Sims must have sold really badly. Good thing they didn't waste any money on an expansion pack, or a sequel...

;)

 

Back in the day when we played Zork and we were happy to have it, we didn't need no customizations. ;) There was one dungeon game that your character was a small stick figure... I suppose customization would have been what color of sticks it was made of.

Eeee, wen aah were a yung 'un, ah used to 'ave to walk to school up 'ill. Both ways! Bay eck as lahk, them's yung 'uns doon't knor 'ow good they's got it!

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  • 2 months later...

Okay,

 

There is some talk starting on character customization, which Ice&Blood introduced in Sacred 2 if I'm not mistaken.

 

It always is one of those first things everyone starts raving about when a game comes out. Does it has customization? Can I change my character? Can I choose the color of his/her hair, face, eyes?

For a lot of people it seems CC is the next big thing, while I admit I couldn't care less. I find it hard to believe anyone would really be upset if they are not allowed to decide whether my character looks better in purple with a rainbow colored afro or in green, bald, and a mustache? Let's get back to Sacred. I mean, since it's an RPG with a looootttt of loot involved, there are plenty opportunities to choose your own look and most of the characterization fails the second you start wearing armor and stuff like that.

 

Look at it this way: The Diablo franchise has had fun games. Character customization pretty much stopped at creating a name for your toon. Same with S1, and Sacred 2 pre-Ice and Blood.

We all know those have proven to be pretty successful games (a bit of an understatement in the case of the Diablo franchise...), and Sacred 1 captured the hearts of many of our players here. Take that into your mind, picture yourself playing one of the mentioned games. Now explain this to me please. Did anyone, at any stage, really sat in front of their pc thinking: this game could be so much fun, but since there is no character customization it isn't worth playing?

 

In my opinion, character customization is one of those very last things a game needs. One of those cherries on top.

To stay with that metaphor: First a game needs a good base, some big lumps of gameplay ice-cream. Then it needs some good storytelling whipped cream. On top, we put the graphics syrup. And then, finally, you get to a lot of other things which in my mind are the cherries. Not everyone needs them, some don't eat them sort of speak. It's not vital to a game to be a success, or to feel like a good game.

 

In short: I couldn't care less for customization myself, and I'm wondering why others do so much.

Somebody enlighten me :)

I agree with you mate I loved the look of the battle mage, the dwarf and the temple guardian. Hey even the inquisitor and dark knight looked good. Once you start wearing armor it does not matter at all if you had a brown or pink t shirt and a white beard with light cut blue hair.

I really liked how they made all the sacred and diablo characters and im sure they will still look nice if deep silver followes the main style of the game so far.

I just hope, and I know I cant say this enough I want my battle mage back just the way he was, but with better graphics.

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