Question about Appearances?

[E'irawen]

As far as like, how your character actually is, compared to what visual aid is available in game.

 

I don't really mean for armor or anything this time. It's actually specifically about hairstyle. I had design in my head with a female character of mine who is supposed to have ridiculously long hair. But I am fairly certain this sort of hair will never be available for my avatar of her.

 

How do you go about it for RP? Just kind of do the best you can, and hope someone's read your profile on the RPC?

[Rhostel]

I don't set my character appearance until I know what the model will look like. Sure, I get a general concept in my head so I know what to pick at character select, but I try to make my characters as WYSIWYG as possible at the outset. Of course, changes happen through the course of play, and when those have to be dealt with by making sure other players know, I do what I can there.

 

But yeah. This is why I'm having trouble arting up Rhostel at the moment.

[YesGood]

My old guild leader from another game used the closest hairstyle in game to what she wanted represented for her character in character (which was a crazy reverse-skunk thing with long wavy doo-dads) It's true for male miqo's you probably won't have long hair, so you might reference it and describe it more often in emotes than people who intend their character look exactly like their avatar.

 

The other option -might- have been to rp a female Miqo'te with hair like you want and specify that you're a male in character. I've seen it done a lot in wow where certain people felt male blood elves were STILL too beefy for their liking so they'd play a female and say it was male. Then there were people who wanted to be high elves (who have blue eyes) so they're roll a DK and say they were another class. Whatever you're more comfortable with, I think, and if people really don't understand your hair you can always direct them oocly to your wiki.

[Knave]

This is just from what I've seen/personal experience so I could be wrong! Everyone's different.

 

• Generally, most people seem to pick a hairstyle that is as close to what they envision for their character. I.e. Character A has long hair, they'll pick the longest hair style that is available.
   
  
• I've noticed some people tend to drop hints on their character's appearance if it's vastly different from their model. /em brushes their floor-length glorious locks over their shoulder. OR /em rubs the hideous, pus-filled scar covering half his face. Ew.
   
  
• Every so often a person will just whisper a link to a picture for a visual reference. This has only happened to me once or twice and has been when I had already been talking with them in whispers.
  

 

Personally, I do a combination of the first two! People tend to catch on pretty fast and usually they'll imagine the same thing you do (great minds think alike afterall~). But to answer your question, just do whatever you feel comfortable with. It is your character. I don't think anyone will mind and if they do just punch them cause it's not their character. :3

[Aysun]

This Knave guy, he is smart.

 

Talk to Eva, Selene, or Deirdre too if you are really curious how it goes for them. They all have very long hair on their characters IC but are restricted by the game.

[Folken]

I think hair is such a minor detail of a character that it's easy to make a small sacrifice when restricted with game options. If a hairstyle makes or breaks a character it's not a very decent character in my opinion.

 

Besides, it's easier for the player creating the character to simply accept possible hairstyles, then to go with whatever they want and thereby force every other player to either acknowledge or know about said detail. It's honestly more work than necessary.

 

And hell, I have reason to complain, as male lalafell got a grand number of 4 hairstyles to choose from. Less than any other race. Yet I made do with what I had.

[Deirdre]

Hair is important for image! Only a male would say otherwise!

 

<3 Shippu

 

^-^

[Eva]

I wouldn't necessarily say that the hairstyle "makes or breaks" the character, but it was a detail set before official launch of the game and given hairstyles at the time were somewhat restrictive. I don't go to great lengths to emote anything flowery about having very long hair or anything though. Generally, I would rather convey the character's mannerisms through emotes than her appearance. I don't think of it really as a major plot point either. But it is an attribute to the character so it is important to us. Short of someone saying, "Gosh Eva, your hair is short even though it's the longest hairstyle available for elezen women," I don't really see us having to clarify her appearance.

 

There are a couple other significant modifications from the actual character in-game appearance, but this is also downplayed to some extent. :blush:

 

Anyway my opinion of the topic would be - is it all right to deviate a bit from the character's appearance? Sure. I don't see why not. But to expect everyone to be aware of these specific differences and RP accordingly is probably expecting too much. But it's probably fair to say that the people in your LS or in other LS's with whom you RP most regularly will be aware of these differences and if it's enough to be a plot point for some reason than they will surely be willing to play along with that, I'd think.

 

Here's hoping that they give long hair options for the male characters too though~ :angel:

[E'irawen]

I know the hairstyles don't make the character. I guess I was just wondering because I don't want to have this character with super long hair or something, but be limited by the game options, and then have people assume how she looks IG is how she looks IC. That's all! 8]

 

Thanks for clearing it up for me though!

[Asyria]

And this is why I always wait to get into character creation to finalize my character's appearance!

[TheLastCandle]

This is one thing I liked about the in-game "Bio" feature in Lord of the Rings Online. Generally, roleplayers would use it to specify physical features instead of actually posting their characters' biographies for everyone to see. Various WoW add-ons had something similar. In either case, all it took was a glance at the character profile to get a more complete description of the character you were interacting with, which in many cases the actual character model couldn't convey.

 

Appearance may not "make or break" a character, but you can tell a lot about a character from their physical appearance and I have yet to encounter a truly "complete" character creator in any game. In RP, all of us use words to convey actions that we can't see our character perform via in-game emotes. I don't think it's much of a stretch to extend that to character appearance. Imagination is a mighty fine graphics engine.

[Momo]

I know this isn't as fun of a suggestion, but no one mentioned it.  If you want the character to have longer hair, but find that it is obviously sacrificed by the game's available hairstyles, I would maybe choose a braided style?  That way, maybe in posted RP, or in private context, one could still RP that a character has long hair, but in game, it is explained as to why that isn't apparent by your everyday appearance.  Just a little suggestion, hope it helps again!

[Rhio]

I think that we all accept, however tacitly, that what's available in the game is the best possible approximation of a character's appearance, not an absolute rendering of what he or she looks like. Technically, someone else could make a character that looks exactly like Rhio in-game but doesn't really match what she's meant to look like in terms of character. She, Aysun, and Alothia all had the same hairstyle in game terms, but I'm relatively certain that all three would look different if the development team could individually model everyone's hair perfectly.

 

Expecting other people to pick up on it before you've said anything is being hopelessly optimistic, but almost everyone seems to accept that we're dealing with the best approximation rather than a pixel-perfect reproduction.

[Ryanti]

 

 

Expecting other people to pick up on it before you've said anything is being hopelessly optimistic, but almost everyone seems to accept that we're dealing with the best approximation rather than a pixel-perfect reproduction.

 

That's pretty much the best you can do. My mission in-game is to aim towards approximation. I don't tend to gravitate towards not having a hairstyle until I actually get inside the game. It limits my creativity and what I can do.

 

My opinion differs from a few of you. For me, hairstyle is an incredibly useful tool for self expression. I tend to be careful with my character's hair, and I sculpt it as I would the features of his face, and the shape of his body. The difference is, one's hair is much more easily changed, so it's a much more common medium of expression.

 

I have Ryanti's hair the way it is because that's who he is. It gives you gut feeling of who he is, what kind of person he is, what kind of radiance his aura gives off. If I were to shave him bald, your impression of him would be completely different, if not heavily, then slightly, which makes a lot of different when you're trying to be precise and focused with your character design.

 

I also believe that promoting my character's image via artwork and vivid description and consistently providing that access to people is another way to attune others to your character's looks. For example, if you look at my avatar every day, chances are, when you imagine Ryanti, you imagine that hairstyle.

 

Once I start getting official sketches of Ryanti, it'll probably either be in my sig or my avatar. People tend to catch on to those kinds of looks.

 

Then once they are in-game, that perception doesn't change. One assumes someone would pick approximation when it came to hairstyles, and 'did what they can within the scope of the game'.