character-creation
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Video of CCP artist's Ambulation presentation available
CCP character artist Ben Mathis gave a 30 minute presentation at the New York Comic Con last month. He talked mostly about the forthcoming Ambulation expansion, which will allow EVE Online players to leave their cockpits and walk around the interiors of space stations with customizable, 3D avatars. Ten Ton Hammer has a Flash video of the entire session.We saw some of the presented content at GDC earlier this year, but there's some new stuff in this video, too. As we've noted before, CCP isn't holding back; Ambulation is very technically impressive. It's ironic that EVE -- a game focused almost entirely on spaceships instead of face-to-face interactions -- might soon carry the most advanced avatar creation tools on the market.Players will be able to customize every thing from body fat to the materials from which their clothes are made. Female avatars will have makeup customization options so powerful that the differentiation between lip gloss and lip stick will be noticeable. New animation blending technology will enable realistic transitions between disparate facial expressions. Infinite morph points will be available when faces are molded, thanks to creative use of shaders. CCP's ambition is astonishing -- let's hope the reality lives up to the promise in the end.
Naming your AoC characters
So there you are, sitting at the AoC character creation screen. You've just installed the game, created your perfect character that you will be playing for the next few months or years, but now you stare blankly at the little box with the blinking cursor asking for your character name. Argh!Fret no more, my Hyborian friends. There is an easy way to create the perfect name for your AoC character without resorting to something like Chuknorissrulez or Ipwndurface. A simple, easy-to-use web-based name generator has been created around the infrastructure of the GE Name program. With proper permissions in place already, this generator can prove to be a valuable tool for those not as familiar with the Conan lore, yet eager to get started in the game.
The Gaming Iconoclast: Whither Shortcomings?
Many MMO aficionados cut their roleplaying teeth on one of the many pencil-and-paper titles that formed the early generation of multi-player gaming. In addition to rolling (and rolling, and rolling, and rolling) some dice to come up with their basic stats and traits, character generation involved a lot of "wet work" when it came time to acquire skills. Often, players would bargain with their Game Master to get special dispensation for pushing the envelope.Player: I want to run this adventure as a zombie elf with three arms.GM: Okay, but if you do that, none of the other characters will trust you. Also, you will spend 50% more on shirts and body armor. Still want to do it?Thus, the mechanic of trading character flaws for enhanced abilities was born. One of the hallmarks of tabletop gaming is this trade-off -- saddling yourself or your character with a shortcoming in order to obtain an advantage elsewhere, either as a skill, or a talent, or just another way to go about Min/Maxing. The huge number of available options in some games (Vampire: The Masquerade, for instance) ensures that any player, with only a few minutes' consideration, will have an almost absolutely unique character, fully their own creation.And yet, almost without exception, the online iterations we all enjoy seem to have omitted this altogether. We are an immense legion of perfectly-formed, mentally-stable, socially-adept übermensch. Even the so-called "ugly" races -- World of Warcraft's Forsaken or Tabula Rasa'sHybrids -- don't explore the depth and breadth of this concept too deeply. Racial traits and differentiation are the merest tip of this particular iceberg.Why does this rich milieu, this fecund ground of roleplay fodder and character diversity, languish? (And who left this thesaurus on my desk?)
Six reasons to be excited about Age of Conan
Everyone seems to be aware of one or two great features coming with Age of Conan, but we realized that not everybody has a complete view of some of the coolest ones -- which has led us to sort of a blind men and the elephant situation. So in an effort to give a more complete view of why Funcom's newest title looks exceedingly cool, we've gone and thought of six reasons to truly be excited about Age of Conan. Our barbarian urges are beginning to take over, so we'd better get to the good stuff before we run into the hills and slaughter a bear or something. Take a look by simply clicking the image above or the gallery link below.%Gallery-19114%
Huxley's character creation in action
We won't lie when we say Webzen's upcoming first-person MMO Huxley had dropped off our radar, and when new details came out about their Real Time Worlds developed All Points Bulletin (APB) we thought Huxley got the quiet ax. Well, while details are still light on the title we do know that the game is still slated to come out between now and the next leap year. However, the latest news comes to us from a Game Trailers user who swiped some footage of the character creation menus. In the video, the user goes through some of the various options available for those interested in creating a female warrior within Huxley, which is actually comes Stateside in 2009 for the PC and Xbox 360. We were joking about the leap year thing.[Thanks, Chris]
New hairstyle pictures for Lord of the Rings Online
As people who spend a lot of time in massively games, we always appreciate it when developers give us more customization options. Turbine went even further by giving players both a barbershop and two different sets of clothing for when they don't feel like hanging around taverns in their armor. As with any upcoming additions, the forums are filled with posters putting together all sorts of pictures for your viewing pleasure. Community response has been really good to this stuff, so hopefully we'll see even more hairs, clothes and other ways to further customize your character in future updates. The value of adding this stuff could be argued over, but at the end of the day we think it's always good to get some more variety into your massively games. Although we're still not sure if we want our hobbits to have long, flowing, curly locks or not. Apparently, all the cool hobbits are getting them now.
LotRO Outfit System and Barbershop details revealed
Lord of the Rings Online's next content patch, Book 12, is shaping up to be full of great additions to the game despite its lack of a new adventure area. Today the Turbine devs posted a new Dev Diary to explain more fully how they're going to implement two long-requested cosmetic features: the Outfit System and the Barbershop.At level 20, the Outfit system allows players to equip a second (and third!) set of gear. This gear doesn't provide any stat boosts or buffs, but will change the outward appearance of your avatar's equipment. This system will be disabled in PvMP to prevent players from tanks disguising their heavy plate with light cloth. New dresses, satchels and other non-combat equipment will also appear in the game with this patch.This is a great feature for a game where lore and roleplaying have such a large fanbase. Though not the first to do it (EverQuest II also has this feature), it's a welcome addition to the world of Middle-earth. If only Blizzard would get a clue and implement the same idea for those of us without armor sets. Looking like a clown at a kid's party with mismatched and garishly colored armor does not make one feel heroic.The Barbershop acts like the character creation screen. Want a new hairstyle? Regret coloring your toon's hair white? Need to add a scar to reflect winning a recent raid? Players will be able to do all this, plus a number of new hairstyles will be added.We're still am not convinced about the importance of facial features in game where you stare at the back of your character's head the whole time, but at least you can turn off helm/hood graphics so hair style and coloring choices still have impact.Book 12 just hit Roheryn, the Test server. We'll have a write up covering the notes shortly.
The Daily Grind: Best character creation
In all the games we've played, that's one thing we've often heard about. Many people from the earliest days, wanted ways of making themselves stand apart from the others. EverQuest introduced dyes to allow you to change your armor color, but many felt that wasn't enough. The community called for more and more ways to set themselves apart from the others in their MMO of choice. Some MMO makers have done a good job. Others, not so much. That said, this morning we wanted to ask what your favorite character creation in an MMO is? For me, personally, I'd have to say my top 2 would be: Second Life - You can control every single aspect of your avatar. This is, of course, why mine looks like Picasso's cubist rendition of someones really ugly little sister. (I can't figure that system out to save my life.) It is, unfortunately, the downside of having a system that customizable for people who aren't good at that kind of thing. Unless you get an artist or friend to hook you up, you'll always remain the ugly duckling in a land full of swans. City of Heroes (and more recently, City of Villains) which just seems so packed full of costume changes that it can take you an hour or more to even make a character the first time you sit down with that character generator. I still say it's the best mini-game ever. Add in veteran rewards like trench coats and capes at level 20, and it just gets better as you go along. Now I know I haven't touched on many other games, and I'm sure some people are sharpening their pitchforks now so they can tell me SL isn't a game. (Okay, it's a virtual world -- but it does have a character creator) So I leave it up to you. What are some of your favorites for character creation? Have you seen any that gave you highly powerful creation up front? Which ones have you spent hours in?
Character Creation: "I Have a Great Idea for a ..."
C8H10N402: it's the most widely-used psychoactive drug in the world, blocks adenosine - the chemical which regulates your energy metabolism - exhausts the adrenal glands, and can push your cortisol levels high enough that it runs the risk of shrinking the part of the brain necessary for memory. It's also the call sign for Caffeina, one of my newest characters on City of Heroes. The basics of character creation are pretty similar for everyone: first, I create a character concept, and then I play around with various outfits.Now comes the difficult part: picking a name, and testing out different power sets that seem to fit the concept. Occasionally I'll stumble upon a combination that works swimmingly from the get-go, but it usually takes a few builds to come up with a character that I feel fits the model I've built in my head. Occasionally, however, the concept is not able to be built out in a realistic manner, and I hold the character in abeyance, hoping that a future issue will supply power sets or costume options to make the character work.
Twelve handy links for EVE Online newbies
CrazyKinux has decided to help all those struggling to get a foothold in the complex EVE Online, by providing a list of links which will get you on your way. Originally there were 10 websites linked to, but the list has grown to 12.The featured sites range from the official player guide at EVE's homepage, to help with character creation, to various information-packed wikis, and even an EVE Online humor site. It can be extremely daunting to start up in EVE Online, as it is quite far removed from the standard MMO fare and also unforgiving of mistakes, so if you are thinking of trying the game then follow the link below and get bookmarking.
Weight loss program in Wrath of the Lich King?
While browsing the forums earlier today, I came across this strange yet thought-provoking question in a thread created by Laurelyn."I rerolled a BELF Pally and leveled her to 44, however after playing my trim little girl for a month or two I came back to my human paladin only to find the pally I once loved and saw as curvaceous now seems to me .. well significantly over weight. Will I have the opportunity to perhaps enroll her in a weight loss program when WotLK comes out?"While I don't think that the human female models in game are anything even remotely close to overweight, it is an interesting question. We've reported on the new ways that WotLK may change your character's appearance in the past. Wouldn't this qualify as just another way to alter your character's appearance?What do you think? Would you want to make your character more thin (or heavier) if you could?
What's in a name?
Last night over guild chat the subject of naming our characters arose. Someone asked exactly how we chose our character names. It's a pretty personal question, at least it is for me. Being a writer pretty much all my life, my player character names are mostly names from my writing. There are also those characters that have been created out of jokes, or as representations of their jobs like Donations. I've built character names out of thin air as well, mostly because I love character creation beyond all other things. Most of my characters' names are fantasy in nature since being a fantasy writer I tend to be a stickler on that sort of thing. But some of my characters have looser based names. My priest is named Mandie, for obvious reasons. My paladin I've called Vashlyra, which is a combination of my dogs' names. I once even had a gnome rogue named Runnt. Perhaps that is part of why I love creating new characters so much. I get to give them a name, and infuse them with personality and back story. Every new character is a chance to rewrite the story, and each name is so important to me. But I am just one player in millions. I know my guild mates choose names differently. We have one player whose characters are all named variations of the same word. We have another who picks all his names from the random name generator. And yes, we are a guild populated mostly by alts, if you must know, so there are plenty of characters to name. On the other hand, I have seen many, many names that I cannot stand. I have actually found a correlation between horrible players and those who named their characters by picking a cool word they like and tacking on the letter X at the end (CipherX, you know who you are.) On our server I have run into Linksys, Pallyman and my personal favorite Ooitsahamster. I have even seen some I cannot believe haven't been reported. Now while I am more of a name snob, I can see why people choose to have fun with their character's names. What I cannot see is playing a character with a ridiculous name until 70. How do you choose your character names? Is it something tied to characters you have always played, or do you close your eyes and hit 'random?' What makes you connect with a name, or do you have no connection to it at all?
Character Creation Management System
All of us have struggled with lag issues at some point or another in our Warcraft careers. Perhaps your server has a queue to log in, or perhaps you frequently end up stuck at the loading characters screen, but we've all had a chance to see what it's like. Blizzard has recently been coping with this by closing character creation on overcrowded servers, and while this seems like more of a stop-gap measure than a real solution, they've decided to expand the practice. Yesterday, community manager Eyonix announced an automated system that would close character creation (for players without existing characters on the server) when there's a login queue.
