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In this week's Guild Wars 2 column, resident cartoonist David North takes a look at the process of character creation and personalization in ArenaNet's upcoming blockbuster. See what he has to say and leave a comment or two if you agree or not.
The health bar now showed zero HP; we knew we had defeated the boss. We went to tell the tale of our great battle so that we might receive gifts of powerful items and praise. I received a great set of armor. It was both great in power, and had the look that would strike fear into my enemies. After putting the armor on, I began to strut around the capital city to show off my prize. But my spirits dropped, as everyone around me also had the same armor that I was wearing. I suddenly lost a huge connection with my character.
Read the rest of David North's Guild Wars 2: The Quest for Looking Good.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Comments
Its simple really.
You can never have "enough" character customization. The closest game to even nearly reach a "enough" place is All Points Bulletin. But even it, needs more.
There will never be enough.
I think this is why a lot of games don't even bothering trying. (World of Warcraft)
Still i would have 'those trying' over 'those do not try at all'.
^^Don't you think that Aion possibly offered too much customization?
The main reason why I stopped playing Aion. So many differences in shapes, sizes that it turned me off from the game. People no longer looked like poeple, rather deformed monsters.
can never have enough, people should be able to make their characters any way you want. ive been a long time player of city of heroes and that game has the best customization ive ever seen in a game and they still dont have enough. so the more the better and they need to keep adding to it over time. my only problem with the transmute stones is those are gonna be real money transactions at least that was the last i heard on the plan for these stones, charge you real money. which in and of itself isnt so much a bad thing for a game that does not have a sub fee, what i dont want is for them to make all their armor sets that drop from monsters look crappy just so people will buy these stones. I dont mind cash shops, i just hate it when the game design forces you to spend money in the cash shop just to enjoy the game.
Well, apparantly the technology used to customize your character's appearance in GW2 is borrowed from Aion, although with restrictions this time.
Edit: To the poster above me: It has now been confirmed that you can acquire Transmutation Stones with ingame currency.
"A Transmutation Stone is a single use[1] item which allows players to combine two weapons or pieces of armor, gaining a desired aesthetic look from one piece, and a desired set of statistical modifiers from the other. They will be available for purchase through the in-game store and through gameplay through the use of karma."
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Transmutation_Stone
I wouldn't say "too much", just that some of the choices were pretty bad.
It helps if the character you still makes looks like one of his race. Just look on humans, we differ a lot so there are loads of possibilities without making the character look like a joke.
But unfortunately, many humans still look like a joke.
Oh, how wonderful it is to be an Alot. : )
That is indeed great news.
This looks pretty good to me but we'll have to wait for the exact details we'll get from gamescom.
^We won't know what it's really like until somebody clicks the "Build" and "Face options" tabs.
I personally would just like to be able to make a fat person with a big belly. Not too big but big enough so everyone knows he's fat not just "big". The reason I'd like this? Just for fun really, role-playing a fat person and telling everyone how I'm going to run them down with my belly and then actually doing it would be hilarious.
This is not a game.
Nawp. The sliders are great, but it's been obvious since the "boob slider" way back in CoH that some people will always push the extreme ranges of those sliders. DDD's everywhere!
Fortunately, it's a relatively short-lived phenomenon. After the first few months, players begin to see than you're not being a rugged individualist by pushing the sliders to min or max, when 69949940 other players also had the same idea.
The boobs in CoH returned (mostly) to more normal sizes within a couple of months.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Close this post and put it up again after gamescon, because by then we should know more about the character customisation (The character itselfves and not the armor)
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I like a lot of customization within certain parameters, e.g., humans should look like humans, else you'll end up with a game filled with immersion-breaking monstrosities. I hated Aion for that reason (and other reasons). It was like visiting a carnival freak show.
Personally, I also think naming conventions should have players choose both a standard, lore-correct name (from a large predetermined list) and also a personal, customized name, and then allow players the option to display the name type they prefer (or both, I suppose). That way, when you enter a town or join a group, the names of the other players display as either "lore-correct" or "personalized"; one reason I avoid towns in MMOs now is because of the stupid immersion-breaking names people sometimes give their characters.
As for character customization, I think Cryptic did well in STO: you could create a character from a given race and modify it a great deal, but it would still look human, klingon, vulcan, or whatever. I imagine GW2 will do something similar.
I too am into the light RP thing and would like to make a fatter female character. It would just be more fun to play than the bone creatures we're usually given. I mean....they make me feel like....well....how do you roleplay an anorexic or bulemic character? It's just in poor taste (no pun intended). I'd rather roleplay a chubby girl. "Regular size" is boring and too thin is just....too thin.
Let's here it for pleasantly plump! lol w00t
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
I fear it's not going to happen, but:
Quote:
CDA: Will it be possible to enhance our weapons by adding some specific visual effects to them, say putting flames onto a sword?
EF: Like adding flames? Yes, you'll see modifications that add such effects on the weapons. And if it's an upgrade, it always has beneficial game effect in addition to changing appearance.
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=824315&postcount=32
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/gw2-interview-with-martin-kerstein-t19669.html
Your prayers have been answered
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Best part about the dye system though is that the dyes are permanently unlocked, and can be used at any time, syrupy having to buy anything.
One of the thing i always waited for in all the rpg games i played, single player or mmo alike it the fact i could keep the armor and weapon skin that i like. GW2 finaly give me this oportunity. teh transmute stone will work on weapon too i hope, are they?
There's nothing new in this article as far as the features he's hyping up..
Other mmorpgs have done it before, and it doesn't sound like character creation comes close to ones like Perfect World or the like anyways..
The hype machine/advertising machine is strong with guild wars 2 on here, but come on..
One of the main reasons I'm interested in GW2 is the character customization. Aion to date has the best character creator I've seen. Hopefully GW2 will follow suit.
No bitchers.
True that. This was a pretty useless article.
Though to ease up a bit, he wasn't hyping the system as much as telling us what he wanted.