Reincarnation & Character Customization Question

Azaron_Nightblade

One of the things that leaves me on the fence about this game is constant character death, which led me to thinking... will it be possible to customize your new character to look the same way as the one that just died? Or are you forced into adopting a whole new appearance each time? Not counting age of course. I mean their starting appearance.

Also, did they mention anywhere how long it takes a character to go through their lifespan? (Provided you're somewhat competent and don't die left and right :pleased: )

Vucar

Average lifespan for a pretty safe individual is something in the neighborhood of 10-14 months IRL, and thats many years in Elyria (Elyrians have longer lifespans than Earth Humans on average).

I believe your child's customization will be restricted by your genealogy. If you come from two pale skinned black-haired parents, you likely will have pale skin and black hair; as for things like face customization, I really dont know. I suspect you have some control over it, but i could be wrong.

SpottyGekko

Eh ?

You want your newly-sparked 18-year old character to look like the 87-year old one that just died ? o.0

(I'm assuming characters enter the game at 18-years of age, because anything younger will cause a giant sh1tstorm in the US media)

Azaron_Nightblade

SpottyGekko said:

Eh ?

You want your newly-sparked 18-year old character to look like the 87-year old one that just died ? o.0

(I'm assuming characters enter the game at 18-years of age, because anything younger will cause a giant sh1tstorm in the US media)

Nah, just the way that one started out originally. xD

Vucar said:

Average lifespan for a pretty safe individual is something in the neighborhood of 10-14 months IRL, and thats many years in Elyria (Elyrians have longer lifespans than Earth Humans on average).

I believe your child's customization will be restricted by your genealogy. If you come from two pale skinned black-haired parents, you likely will have pale skin and black hair; as for things like face customization, I really dont know. I suspect you have some control over it, but i could be wrong.

Cool, thanks. That sounds pretty reasonable. I do recall them saying something about children taking after their parents. (And the option to play as one of them on reincarnation)

Mendel

"He's got his father's eyes"

Here I was, thinking this thread was going to somehow devolve into a discussion of open looting.  Thank goodness I was wrong.

What about the first character a player makes?  Do they have appearance restraints based on the parents genetics?  (And will the parents appear in the game as NPCs?)

SpottyGekko

I've actually wondered how the game is going to deal with the concept of children.

Most MMO's completely avoid that little chestnut by just not having children in the game at all.

Quite a few Korean games have modified graphics around their "childlike" races when porting games to the NA/EU market. Many of them still attracted very negative comments on some forums.

Single-player games like Skyrim have children, but the vanilla game makes them unkillable. You have to use unauthorised mods to be able to butcher children.

Octagon7711

Sounds like Game of Thrones with the different houses.  

Vucar

Mendel said:

"He's got his father's eyes"

Here I was, thinking this thread was going to somehow devolve into a discussion of open looting.  Thank goodness I was wrong.

What about the first character a player makes?  Do they have appearance restraints based on the parents genetics?  (And will the parents appear in the game as NPCs?)

I think I read somewhere that you can decide precisely the characteristics of your very first character / family: "I want green eyes and blonde hair", etc. Then that sets the precedent for your bloodline. 

Again, i could be wrong, but that was my interpretation of what i've read / listened to.

Morwynn

There will be 'some' customization but genetics will take a big part. Where you might get a little more character customizaion with a 'ward of the state', it may still be somewhat limited. There will also be mutations such as white hair, yellow eyes, extra tall/short compared to your family, ect. but it won't be the norm. And please keep in mind you character will age at time goes on. So you start off as a child your character will end up a old man with wrinkles and a cane, so there is no need to crate a old man at the start. And yes, most players will start off as children for a short time so the US Media will have to get over the child labor laws, its just a game after all.

SpottyGekko

Morwynn said:

... So you start off as a child your character will end up a old man with wrinkles and a cane, so there is no need to crate a old man at the start. And yes, most players will start off as children for a short time so the US Media will have to get over the child labor laws, its just a game after all.

It's easy to brush things like this off, but do you really want to play a game that is "known" for being a "peadophile magnet" ? The popular media can very easily get hysterical, and people love to find fault with video games.

There's a reason why most games avoid depicting children. Images of children being killed with swords and spears makes many people uncomfortable. And don't even think of making it possible to undress the character model... children in underwear... controlled by actual players.... that's very risky territory...

Morwynn

So you want to take all children out of every game? Every game I have ever played had children in one form or another. Now controllable children is another matter. I really don't think you can take pervs out of the games no matter how hard you try, that is why many of the newer games have Boob Physics. I do agree that it is a gray area but I am not sure how much risk there is. I do know in CoE children can't be killed till 18 so that takes that off the table. And having your child character running around in underware for a month shows poor taste I doubt the game will get in go overboard and force all children to be born at age 18 in which they still can run around in their underware. Perhaps its only the Rag Doll that can fully underessed. We will have to wait and see what happens.

Kinadin

You start at 12 if you are a ward of the state, and have full character customization choices but no family to support you and no starting skills, but you have accelerated learning for a couple of weeks.  If you start with a family you start at 16 with some baseline skills based on what your family does. You also are limited in your character customization to sliders that make your features look more like your mother or your father.