character creation screen, your input.

[sorudo]

for the last couple of months, MMO's have showed how a CCS can look like.
and with GW2 just around a year away, how detailed do you think the CCS should be?

IMO i think that the MMO perfect world is a good sample of how it should be, you can scale everything and create your own face.
that way, we don't have the current problem of having 20x the same necro and 40x the same warrior in the same town.

how detailed do you think it should be, for every detail a feature, or just enough to look unique?

[Inchino]

maybe not being able to scale everything as the camera system in gw is limited so you won't see their face much (may be different in gw2)

but perhaps being able to select eyes, eyebrows, hair, facial hair, face shape.

would give more variety :)

[an Sun]

God please not the perfect world.. you can create there such abomintions that it hurts to play this game.. I'm all for variety but within some limits.. Aion looks MUCH better that PW imo when it comes to character creation...

[A Horse Is A Horse]

I would like one common pool of faces, instead of a few for each profession.

Changing of eye color.

Ability to change the appearance later on if you get bored with it.

Ability to have tongues of fire bursting out of your eyes and fingertips (joking).

[Nikhera]

Similar to Vanguard or Perfect World, I want a button next to the character that says "Edit Character."

And with this button I can access the character creation screen and change their look at will.

It's a clean, simple solution to changing character appearance.

As for how well we can customize them, I'd like:

-a height slider, obviously.
-ability to pick eye colour (maybe make-up for girls?)
-more hair colour options, perhaps a colour wheel
-same for skin
-being able to change your build would be nice
-either adjusting facial features using sliders, or being able to pick nose/lips/eyes/eyebrows etc. from a sufficiently large pool.

And yes, I would very much like to look unique. ^^

[Shinigami God]

I think the main issue with GW's cloning problem is that we all choose from the same pool of armors, in addition to the fact that all characters of the same class/gender are physically more or less identical. Making the ability to customize armor completely as well as letting us choose the proportions of our characters are the only two I'm really hoping for.

[Bergil Sunfyre]

I have a few suggestions.

The first and by far the longest is, as some great mind already said, it would be nice if appearance and class were disassociated, at least to a degree. This would allow for greater customization, assuming that there was the same amount of faces, and would also allow for universal armors, a trend that is already beginning to appear in Eye of the North, and one which I strongly approve of, having played as assassin and being a person who finds tight clothes unaesthetic. Why should my ranger be the only person with a longcoat? In addition, if they do not do this, ArenaNet will be facing an impossible task.

(Note-math starts here. Feel free to skip a lot and take my word for it.)

We have 5 races in Guild wars two. Assuming that the current professions will be carried over semi-intact and all races will have men, women, and nothing else, that's five times two times ten professions. that comes out to 100 faces/hairstyles/armors times the number needed to allow for sufficient customization. If we assume that to be 20, that's at least two thousand (2000) skins total for faces,armors, hairstyles, and anything else simmilar they choose to add. I think that's asking a bit much. The number of possible face/hair/armor combinations (assuming no-one wears mixed suits of armor and they don't add in anything else similar) is hmmm...20 of each of those 2...that's 8000...100 such subsets...800,000 possible combinations.

Now, if appearance is independent of profession, all other assumptions still standing, we can do a few things. We could keep the "20 possibilities needed for customization" (IE the minimum amount of work with professions looking the same) and have a total of 200 armors, faces, and hairs, for a total of 80,000 possible combinations thereof.

Or we could keep the 2000 total for each variable (IE, theoretically the same amount of work as what I estimated above to be the bare minimum standard of different-looking professions). that gives us an impressive 200 of each variable for each race and gender, and 80,000,000 possible combinations.

or we can keep the 800,000 possible combinations (IE the same effect as the minimum amount of work with different-looking professions. Damn, cube roots). That gives us 43-ish hairs, armors, and faces for each race and gender,and a total of 430-ish of each variable counting everyone.

(Math is over. It gets interesting again here)

Another alternative might be to have three different appearances, one for "Heavy" professions (Warriors and Paragons, in the current profession system), one for the "swift" professions (Rangers, Assassins, Dervishes), and one for casters. Pleeeeeeease don't make me calculate that.

I have just conclusively proven that I am a pathetic nerd with no life whatsoever. Oh, and that it's a bad idea for professions in Guild Wars 2 to look different. If you got bored to death reading through my logic, I beg your forgiveness.

The other idea, and by far the shortest, is that rather then a dry "character creation screen", you could pick your "campaign" (IE, race.) then the beginning of the story, with some in-story questions (name, gender, voice-acting of choice, profession, etc.). Appearance could be done by looking in a mirror, having a portrait/ID done, or alternately also done in a semi-character creation screen along with gender. This would hopefully relieve the boredom of the Character creation screen, and make up for the time you wasted reading this incredibly long post.

Please accept my apologies.

[Tru Reptile]

I'm all for a deep create-a-character (changing height, width, body type, eye color, skin tone, hairstyle, hair color, etc.)

[Tom Nook]

how detailed do you think it should be, for every detail a feature, or just enough to look unique?

I'd like enough for characters to look unique.
But having said that, I don't want a similar interface to that of Oblivion.

I also think that any choices will be based upon racial characteristics, rather than profession this time around.

[Qin Li]

One of the features of GW that has continued to keep my interest is the beautiful renderings of the characters. In some ways, it's even better than Sims2. And that's saying a lot for a game whose main focus isn't character rendering.

The cost of having a completely unconstrained system where you can tweak everything from eyebrows to cheek bones is that it will take a toll on the client because nothing can be cached (not without taking up a lot of memory anyway).

The benefit is, of course, the uniqueness of each character. But when is it that you really pay attention to these little details? In outposts and towns when socializing, I suppose. I doubt many people (there may be some) would pay attention to the eye color of a teammate when storming Raisu Palace. And definitely not during PvP, I imagine.

So perhaps there should be two modes: a social mode and a war mode. The former will spend more cycles on rendering nuances of a character. The latter will round up/down a character to a nearest pre-rendered form. The exception is when you're zooming in and panning around yourself. Your own character will always be at full detail since your own character's look can be pre-rendered for a specific client. You'd just have to put up with waiting through those "Rendering features" and "Reticulating splines" type of messages when creating/editing characters and changing outfits ("armor" in GW lingo).

[iifa]

i am all for clones.
not everyone have expensive PC with crazy video card/ram.

..or fast internet connection.

[sorudo]

i hate to tell you iifa but, CCS's like perfect world don't take much pc power, and the textures are all already in your pc so a slow connection has nothing to do with it.

[Tru Reptile]

i am all for clones.
not everyone have expensive PC with crazy video card/ram.

..or fast internet connection.

You do realize that having a deep create-a-character really has nothing to do with having a good video card or fast internet connection, right?

The one currently in GW, weather people like to admit or not, is half-arsed even compared to games that are much older.

And yes, people should be able to edit their character and do so without having to do something silly like pay for it at an NPC.

[Gmr Leon]

Similar to Vanguard or Perfect World, I want a button next to the character that says "Edit Character."

I very much like that feature, but then I'm again I support being able to hide your name. In this way it gives a more immersing feel to the game, that and it lets you spread rumors or assassinate people without being known. Even if they do get a glimpse of you, just change your look. :grin:

[iifa]

i hate to tell you iifa but, CCS's like perfect world don't take much pc power, and the textures are all already in your pc so a slow connection has nothing to do with it.

textures are in PC..yes
but server have to send the datas to client telling you that what other 50 in town have on their face.

and as for Tru Reptile...
yes.. it does have to do with video card.
or why do you think there's graphic settings in options.


half arse or not..... you don't see those tweakable games being on the top of game charts...
if i am correct... WoW is half-arsed in your opinion.. since it only got a so many hair and faces to choose from...
not that i like wow, but it is a successful game.

[Tru Reptile]

and as for Tru Reptile...
yes.. it does have to do with video card.
or why do you think there's graphic settings in options.


half arse or not..... you don't see those tweakable games being on the top of game charts...
if i am correct... WoW is half-arsed in your opinion.. since it only got a so many hair and faces to choose from...
not that i like wow, but it is a successful game.

Like I said before, there are games that are much older than GW that have much better create-a-character options despite the fact that the hardware wasn't nearly as powerful as today's.

As far as games that have complex character customization not being in the top charts... that has to do with the game overall being poor. You might want to check sports games as there are some that did well while still having a deep create-a-character. PC games will always have graphic settings weather the game has deep character customization or not.

Also, I never said that GW or WoW was half-arsed... I said that the create-a-character in GW was.

[Tom Nook]

I very much like that feature, but then I'm again I support being able to hide your name. In this way it gives a more immersing feel to the game, that and it lets you spread rumors or assassinate people without being known. Even if they do get a glimpse of you, just change your look. :grin:

Bu..bu..how would I report you? :wink:

[Elfbowmaster]

I think this isnt really an issue anymore in GW2 since there are more races. Charr and Asura alle look the same no matter what colour eyes u pick. All asuran have big ears, all charr have agressive looks and they dont have haircuts.

Its the suit that determines your appearance. How often do you look at someones face? I only look at it when hes got rediculous hair colour for example.

Maybe tattoo, scars or piercing's would be a nice addition to the FCC.

Anyone ever played Oblivion from the elder scroll series? That game has a very huge FCC where u could adjust everything. It was terrible, it took more than an hour to finally get a decent face. Best to keep it simple.

[Saetre]

how detailed do you think it should be, for every detail a feature, or just enough to look unique?

I like detailed character customization, then I feel like my character is "original".

[sorudo]

textures are in PC..yes
but server have to send the datas to client telling you that what other 50 in town have on their face.

what's the differents between that and the current GW?
no matter how you turn it around, it exactly the same.
the server needs to send what armor, hair and face other characters have, but with settings low the low-end pc only "downloads" the low quality texture from the characters, making it easier for the computer to show the pictures.
the lower the quality the pictures are, the faster a computer can show them, and that's exactly what happens with low-end pc's with a low setting.:wink:

[iifa]

what's the differents between that and the current GW?
no matter how you turn it around, it exactly the same.
the server needs to send what armor, hair and face other characters have, but with settings low the low-end pc only "downloads" the low quality texture from the characters, making it easier for the computer to show the pictures.
the lower the quality the pictures are, the faster a computer can show them, and that's exactly what happens with low-end pc's with a low setting.:wink:

no.. it's different... when you have a different number for the distance of eyes, how wide shoulders are brow color, eye color, ...etc like PW,Aion.... there's defenetly more data pockets going through then haveing only 5 choices (skin,hair,face,hair color,heigh
you can test this by..... let's say... put tolls on your BW, such as mass uploading/torrent.... and then play GW.... go to kamadan...and see how long it takes for those models to actually start showing their armor/color/faces
...it probably wont work if you got T1/fiber tho..

showing on PC with low texture setting got nothing to do internet data transfer... it has to do with video ram.

and low setting probably tone down the ploygons on models..


besides.. what's there to look at in gw2...
mostly the only thing ppl will ever notice at a glace when passing by is hair style, skin color, and race....
everything else.. only those minor few ppl that are obsessed at their toons will stare at faces and every details

[sorudo]

uhmm, i think you gotta study the background of games better.
when you run a download program and then play GW, it takes just as much time as without it, and my laptop can prove it.
when you make a face, you don't download every peace of the face, you create the face and the whole is saved.
that way, it only needs to load 1 picture instead of 10 pictures, so it's still the same as in the current GW.
and btw, the only thing the server sends is "eye 4.021" " mouth 5.932" etc..
the rest is all up to the pc to correct it, and since it's one picture after the creation, this code the server sends is only as reference to let the client know what combo that face is.(to complicated to go all in detail)
low settings don't tone down poly, they done down GPU power.
so when a texture is suppose to bloom all over your character, it doesn't at all, even makes it ugly to make playing the game smoother.

the bottom line is, you're worrying about something non-existent, I've bin able to play perfect world with a boring old laptop and it still runs pretty good as long as i keep the settings low.
even with limewire on the background and ütorrent downloading the last bits, i still have no rubber banding in loading everything.
i think it's just the fear of not being able to know what to expect...

and about GW2, charrs are pretty big, so having so many horns, fur color, fur patterns and even body position makes the character unique.
heck, you never saw how GW is gonna look like, so how can you judge it that early.....

if you really don't care about how your characters look like, then i suppose you don't have any special armor and everything is just basic.
but because you don't care, doesn't mean others don't ether.
there are enough ppl who want a character look just right, RP-ing is, in fact, one of the main basis of PVE.
and since they confirmed that they want to make pvp bigger but have a PVE world where you can choose what you do, i think that they should give the player more choice then only how they play, but also with what they play and how they look.

[Kinlin]

All these options mentioned so far would be great, the more detailed the better. But at the bottom the the screen all I want is a simple random button for those that are inclined to be lazy, like myself. :grin: