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Lack of character customization in MMORPGS
GilgaladTBH
Member Posts: 2
As a Gamer I feel that the area of complete characters customization is the last new thing any MMO creating company could do. The creators of the modern MMO (WoW, Guild Wars, EQ2...) are all to focused on making a balanced classing system for there games. This allows any player to pick up there games and create a character very near equal to all other characters out there. WoW makes it so that the ONLY way to make your character stand out is to get items different from the other players.(even though the strongest in the game are the epic sets, so if you want to be powerful you need to conform)
My level 60 mage on Kel Thuzad is almost the EXACT same as a 1000 other alliance mages there. Guild Wars is worse, the slight adjustments in skills and attribute points are the only way to make a "custom" character, seeing as all items and armors are near identical in look and power. balancing character class's and using the generic classing system makes games playable by both the "noob" gamer and the "Pro" gamer (I try not to use these terms to often) but this just creates more stagnation in the genres, games nowadays are basically remakes of there classic mother games give or take improvements in graphics and gameplay.
What the new MMORPG's need are interesting NEW classing systems where there are literally 100's of classes to choose from and by utilizing methods such as multi classing players would be able to create truly unique characters. balancing the end character classes (making all characters equal at end game) takes fate out of the character out of the hands of the player, games need to make the player responsible for the quality of there PC. Im not proposing a game thats for everybody, a game that takes away balanced end game characters is only for more hard core gamers and players who can effectively learn a complex game with complex concepts.
Thanks
Gilgalad,
The Benevolent Hand Guild
www.benevolenthand.org
Comments
I completely agree, Gil. I would say by far SWG had the most customization. Only because of the crafting (tailor) community. Tailors were a great money-making profession because people knew they could make a totally unique character.
In the first week of the game, I paid a tailor friend of mine 10k credits to make me a set of clothes. Which was A LOT of money that early in the game.
Meanwhile, other "traditional" games are built on the idea, built a character, level up, quest for items. SWG really broke that mold. It's sad that most MMO Devs are want to create games, and not worlds, like SWG.
P.S. Yes, I'm an SWG fanboy, but I quit because the gameplay stunk.
I think it will be good to use in MMORPG class system that was used in TES3:Morrowind-there are few basic classes,wich you can choose from if you are new to the game,and also you can combine skills to create your own class(but there is a problem with class names...).There must be more than about 30 skills,it's true.Due to this game will be hard to balance,but replayability will be very big.
P.S. You are right,Rendar,SWG is the world,not just a game(but the universe is bad for me)
Lebbb
I agree
Would be nice to see a game with literally 100+ classes and multi classing.
Or a game where there are no classes, you jsut stronger in the areas of magic or melee or what ever as you use them, so this way no one has a "Special" class or class item or anythign like that, I think that would be really cool to.
I think game creators get lazy when it comes to char creation customization, because its like we get 5 hairs, 5 eyes, 5 beards and theres a char, let me put on or make custom tatoos, give him a cut on his face like a scar, let me make him have multi colored eyes. I mean how am I to feel different when like say in wow when my char looks the same in appearance and armor/weapon.
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WoW
-Rhalon 85 B.E. rogue
-Rhalon 81 UD Mage
-Doneski 85 Orc death knight
"Everyones life has a beginning and an end, No one can change that."-Hiko
"If you wish to taste the ground, then feel free to attack."-Kenshin Himura
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GET CITY OF HEROES! I don't know if you've ever played it b4, but City of Heroes has the most character customization of any MMOG i think. You're not going to find many people that look the same because theres millions of combinations. Then again, I'm not exactly sure how good it is because its my older brothers game so i didnt get a chance to play it very often. City of Heroes is the best online game for making a character.
City of Villians is coming out in December too, this is going to be a HUGE change for CoH because that way you can pvp (god I feel like a nerd when I say that). If my parents computer wasn't so slow I would buy it!
CoH is indeed very nice.
The secret for many class and customisation is to divide every class in 2 parts and allow players to make the mix they want. Then you add more half class they can put together and you multiply the possibilities.
Get synergy bonus if the class are close enough (2 melee half make a much better melee character then a melee hybrid). CoH is doing a variation of what I said above, but they mostly forbid any non-synergy mix, only allowing strong mix (far less design, since they dont have to even create the synergy bonus). Someone would need to be able to be invulnerability/empath in my exemple...but in CoH that would be nearly impossible to rework, the ATs are basically taking all the synergy into account.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
This is what I loved about Star Wars Galaxies! The character customization is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G, yet MMOGs and upcomming MMOGs simply DO NOT want to do the same! Why? Cause it takes more effort... nuff'said.
WoW isn't THAT BAD! I can't really say I've ever encountered someone that wore the exact same armor as I from level 1 to 59. Then of course at level 60, EVERYONE looks the same cause of Epic Armor! But heck, I only wear my Beaststalker set (incomplete, missing helm) when raiding dungeons, but when I walk around casually I wear my full set of Engraved Armor cause not everyone wears that. There's lots of armor variety in WoW, so that's a plus. too bad the character customization at the beginning is just plain crap. I mean they offer about a dozen different faces for each race, but each race only has 1 to 3 GOOD looking faces. as if I'm gonna walk around with an ugly face
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Stealth - Ambush - Hemorrhage - Sinister Strike x2 - Cold Blood - Eviscerate - Vanish - Preparation - Cold Blood - Ambush - ... you're dead! :P
Yes, CoH has a wonderful character creation set up... you can definitely make yourself unique. Rumour has it, also, that there will eventually be bits of costumes you can unlock or find or quest for... there is a cape quest, at the moment. Unfortunately, for some, CoH is not a traditional fantasy MMORPG. A lot of people need the full package to keep up interest, such as crafting and loot. The PvP in CoH right now, is only Arena PvP and it's not very good. CoV will hopefully help the PvP situation.
CoH is the only MMO that I'm currently subscribed to as I find it to be very casual friendly and stress free. It's the first MMO I've played where I don't worry about money, phat lewt, leveling, etc. I'll probably stay subbed to it for those reasons even though I don't play it often. But my favouite genre is fantasy and I DO enjoy crafting and phat lewt. Unfortunately, I didn't care much for WoW after the first couple of months (although my husband still plays it every chance he gets) I'd LOVE to find a more traditional fantasy MMORPG that had all those things I've mentioned in a way I enjoy PLUS a character creation system equal to CoH. I'm not gonna hold my breath though! I've learned my lesson!
Asheron's Call.
SWG has a lot of character customization but alot of it's useless... In AC it's pretty much all useful.
Classes to choose from, or you can choose to train your own skills.
Armor can be dyed, so that you have your own team colors OR unique appearance.
Armor and Weapons can have their stats upgraded to your choosing by salvaging materials from items that you find. IE Iron from an Iron Dagger, when applied to your weapon adds +1 damage or brass added adds +1%Melee Defense(10 upgrades maximum.) you can even imbue the weapon to do more of a type of damage.
I think Asheron's call is the most reasonably customizeable game out there. I recomend it. especially if you are into PvP
Hi,
Sounds like you need to play Ultima Online. I've been playing for almost 6 years now. It has everything that you are looking for.
The New Expansion is coming out Aug 14th, you can preorder it.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Hero's Journey is an upcoming MMORPG with character customization that surpasses anything on the market, including city of heroes. Not only is it very cusomizable visually but technically. There are twelve classes, you pick two (similar to GW) and each class has their own skill tree. Now, not a whole lot has been stated on this topic, but the skill trees are supposed to be quite varied so that even someone with the same class as you could end up being completly different. But, not only are your characters looks cusomizable, you are also able to change almost every aspect of any article of clothing you come across. Add to this unique weapons and armor that actually have their own skill trees and gain abilities over time and player pets that are fully customizable in abilities and looks, and you have an unbelievable amount of options to make your character unique. One of the devs actually stated that even if you and a friend purposefully try to make matching characters it will be quite difficult. Lastly, heres a video from their booth at E3. It is about 12 minutes long I believe, and goes through the whole character creation process. The scary thing is they barely touch on most of the options and yet it still takes them a couple minutes to go over the basics of it. Its a german site but its easy enough to navigate, and youll need to register which takes all of 30 seconds (and no you dont need to activate the account through email).
http://gamona.de/index.php?sektion=downloads&dir=7150&file_id=1694
Joined - July 2004
AC1.
AC1 > CoH in customization.
The loot generation and skill system ins AC1 makes almost every character 100% unique.
Another Believer! AMEN!
I've been an MMO tourist for quite sometime... I left AC to try and find something different. But it's the same story, I get out there and I get into a game just to find out that there are 1000 clones of my character. I left WoW because the items... Sucked. There was no variance or real level of quality. In asheron's call loot drops off of almost any enemy(which makes SENSE because they must be holding a weapon or something to fight you), you pick up what's worth money or what's a good or better quality weapon. In WoW, you have a heart attack if something actually drops on the corpse... and when it does drop... it's exactly the same as every other version of it.
I came back to AC the other day, yeah, people have moved on. but... PvP is still a hell of a lot of fun, and there's always a difference between characters.
I used to really enjoy AC back in the day. I guess I'm spoiled now, though. I tried it again not so long ago and it just seems so out of date and compared to more recent mmos, it's rather ugly to look at. I'll admit to being spoiled by eye candy, but, in this day and age, I want it all.
I agree totally, very few MMORPGs have decent character customization.
CoH is exemplary in this regard. The most fun part of that game is making up a new character and building them in the editor. In most MMORPGs I have to start with what's available and then generate a character concept from that. In CoH I can make up pretty much whatever I feel like and approximate it with the character design system. With al the optional powers available, and customization of your powers with "slots" even two characters that have the same base power sets can play very differently. Bloody fantastic.
While neither is up to the standard set by CoH, SW and DAoC are also standouts in my mind.
SWG is very good with respect to customization. You can certainly get a huge variety of looks with any race. The flexibility in character design is also awesome. Want to be a dancing-robot engineer-fencer-space pilot? Go for it.
Another game that has good character customization is DAoC. There is only so much that you can do with the character editor when you start, but since you can dye every piece of armor in the game whatever color you like you can actually come up with a wide variety of appearances eventually. And the ability system has amazing variety, maybe too much (the designers seem to have trouble balancing it all). For example, a full fire-spec wizard plays very little like a full ice-spec wizard. There are also three different realms, each with their own set of classes for an amazing amount of variety overall.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
I'm with Orcc in that I have very high hopes for Hero's Journey. I'm a big fan of AC and all the options it allows you, but the actual design of your character's appearance isn't that great. Yes, you have a slider for eyes, nose and mouth where you can mix and match pre-rendered features, and yes you can choose from a fairly limited selection of hairstyles and colors, but I really don't think it comes anywhere near the level of customization available in SWG or CoH. Now, in terms of actual armor, stats, and skills, AC is at the top of the heap. To be fair, even its character appearance options were revolutionary back in the day, but that day has long since passed and the standards in that area have risen.
Now, with regard to limited appearance options being the result of developer laziness, that's just wrong. SWG's character creation is my favorite of any game I've played, but it comes at a cost. That cost is the amount of data that needs to be transmitted. The more complicated a character model is, the more information has to be sent. When there are a large number of people in a single area, each person's data has to be sent to every other person, which can result in a great deal of latency (remember the old Coronet starport?). Most games simply choose to prioritize performance over appearance (particularly games that integrate large-scale pvp), and that's understandable. As technology advances and broadband becomes the default method of web access in homes across the world (we're not there yet, despite what most gamers tend to think), I'm sure we'll see character appearance options improve as well.
Some people on here seem to think charachter customization is prevalent only in charachter appearance.
While I agree thats important--I want to have SKILL differences as well. On wow every mage is the same--even daoc was kinda bad about this. Every class is a cookie cutter build of there class.
Shadowbane was the only game I played where class build could be different with runes and spell choices.
I havent played Asherons Call but I will be soon--hook me up jaguar :P
DAoC has commonly accepted cookie cutter builds, usually about two per class (depending on the class). But there was nothing stopping you from doing something different. You could roll up a full Mind Ment if you wanted too, you'd be one of about six on all the servers.
The same goes for CoH, SWG, and even Shadowbane. Many players will just follow a recipe, maybe one player in ten that you meet has done something really unique. I mean for every dancing-smuggler-medic in SWG theres probably 100 "generic build # 4" bounty hunters. At some level it is the designers fault for not balancing the different options well enough (mind ment anyone?). But often it's just as much the communitie's fault for being sheep. For example, CoH is easy enough that pretty much any primary and secondary set can do just fine. But players flock to the generic established builds (How many fire tanks and regen / claws scrappers do you see when you run around? Conversley, how many guns/ anything blasters do you know?).
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
agreed
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