(05-06-2014, 06:33 PM)Ildur Wrote: The cartoons that inspire Wildstar art style do not always treat their characters as soldiers, either, so I don't know where you are trying to go with that. Wildstar isn't trying to be realistic either.Well, I was saying (poorly) that it's less about characters being realistic or playing to an archetype like "soldiers" and more about simply having a diversity of options and styles.
(05-06-2014, 06:11 PM)Naunet Wrote: Only three of those are MMOs, but really... Four or five games with extensive body customization is not anywhere close to a significant number. The vast majority of MMOs don't offer body shapes that diverge from standard female and male beauty. That's not to say they shouldn't, just that they don't.You know, I didn't even mention Soul Calibur IV & V (yes, even fighting games can have strong character creation), APB, Champions Online, the (now defunct) City of Heroes/Villains, or any number of other games that I've likely never played or heard of that follow the same line of thought. Some get closer than others but they're still noteworthy in terms of how much attention they got purely for their character creation.
Champions and the Soul Calibur games in particular continue to impress me with the sheer variety of what you can build with them, even if they have some technical problems and odd limitations. I still wonder sometimes why not more games let you build your entire outfit out of parts that you collect. Clipping aside, which is always going to be a problem regardless, there's a lot of potential in simply giving the players more tools to control their looks.
(05-06-2014, 06:11 PM)Naunet Wrote: Also, body sliders means a lot of work for the modeling/art team fitting all the armors to every possible slider point so that there isn't terrible clipping. Preset body types are much easier to work with from a time invested vs. payout perspective, and I'm okay with that. Just gimme a bust and height slider (as well as one for muscle definition, which wouldn't alter the body as it conforms to gear at all and is thus very simple), combined with some different body types and I'm good!This is a fair point, but also an overstated one. Both PSO2 and Blade & Soul have an absolutely absurd variety of outfits despite a ridiculous bevy of available sliders, though granted both games also had insanely long development times and large budgets (not to mention all their outfits are one-piece) so I don't know if it's realistic for other developers to follow their example.
Regardless, I would be okay with what you said. I'm not THAT particular. I just prefer to have the options there rather than not.
(05-06-2014, 06:29 PM)Flickering Ember Wrote: I don't need a massive character creation tool to be happy. I was happy with WoW's, actually. The difference between Wildstar and WoW is that there is no real variety between races, IMO, while the races from WoW are clearly very different from each other. A game does not need thorough character creation but what is there should be generally likeable and not feel alienating to its audiences.ÂProblem with WoW, at least in my case, is that none of the races actually appeal to me. This could simply be an art style issue (as noted previously), but I would posit that a stronger character creation tool would allow me to get into the game more easily. As it is, none of the races appeal to me so there's literally nothing I can do about that with the given tools.
If there aren't a lot of character options then the options the creator does have should count and allow for variety. A small creator that offers only more of the same doesn't feel like a character creator.
