character
Latest
Pixel artist releases free pack of gaming-related Minecraft character skins
Sure, you've created a working computer in Minecraft, or recreated a Mega Man game, but maybe you should spend a little time customizing the most important part of that blocky world: yourself. Pixel artist Gary Lucken, also known as Army of Trolls, has created a pack of 15 different Minecraft character skins featuring video game luminaries like Mario Link and Viewtiful Joe, plus Street Fighter's Ken and Ryu. The pack also has a few Star Wars characters in it, along with some Halloween and miscellaneous skins. Of course, given that Minecraft is basically a first-person game, you won't be able to tell what you look like, but we're sure everyone else on your server will appreciate seeing you bounding around as a Cactuar. The pack is a free download from Lucken's website -- just grab the skin you want and upload it right into Minecraft to use.
City of Heroes unveils a trailer for the next super booster
The sixth Super Booster for City of Heroes is coming, and it's going to be a very different experience from the previous boosters. The first five numbered boosters were very direct in their theme, with each one focusing on a different origin type. This time around, the pack is focusing on all five origins, with new capes and auras to show off just where your character comes from. It's dubbed the Origins Pack, and a trailer has just been released to show off all of the unique new effects players can enjoy. Embedded after the cut, the video features a quick walkthrough of the five new capes and 10 new auras added with the new pack, with the auras featuring intensely unique effects that suit each different origin. Each aura and cape has additional uses, as well -- it's hard to imagine that a Radiation-themed villain wouldn't want the Toxic Fumes or Atomic aura, just as an example. The pack is tentatively set to release on November 3rd, but until then, players can enjoy the trailer and start thinking about their next costume changes in City of Heroes.
iPad-equipped Quatto costume for Halloween
OK, this is a little weird, and a little gross, but if you're as big a fan of Total Recall as I am, you'll love it. One of the characters in that movie, named Quatto, actually lives in the stomach of another character, and rather than recreate the creepy effect with puppets or makeup, YouTube user minimatefactory just put some high resolution video of the character on his iPad, and then he strapped it to his shirt to wear around. The effect isn't completely realistic, of course (it looks like he's got a video screen on his stomach), but it is a clever Halloween costume, and clever goes a long way after a few drinks at a Halloween party. Just stay away from bobbing for apples -- you don't want the iPad getting wet or falling into someone's candy bag to take home. [via Cult of Mac]
Storyboard: Brother from another series
Some players and characters are nice enough to point out to you right away that they're not actually from around here. You know the ones -- the elves with long flowing blonde hair and names that imply some variation on legs and the non-presence of same are certainly a long-standing example. Of course, the people in question are rarely roleplaying, but that doesn't change the number of elven marksmen who are all the best in the world at hitting a target, never mind the "miss" result that pops up every so often when they nock their arrows. In fiction, they're called expys, short for exported characters. They're guest stars from elsewhere, and while most roleplayers have a name that's a bit more original than some variant on Legolas, they're no less common. After all, if you're inspired by a particularly good character and want to try playing him in a given environment, why wouldn't you just pick him up and transplant him? But there are good ways to do it and bad ways, just like there are far more ways to make dull and unlikable characters than interesting ones. So follow on past the break for a look at how to make your expy fall into the "interesting homage" camp rather than the "xx_Legolas_xx" camp.
Storyboard: Winner's circle
It's time for another rant here on Storyboard, or at least an animal that's in the same general family as the dreaded rant-beast. Considering that both this column and WoW Insider's resident RP columnist Michael Gray have been covering similar ground over the past few weeks, it seems only appropriate to dip back into the well of the tools that roleplayers need, deserve, and want. And while I had considered a different column, it occurred to me that I wanted to take a very different tack this week. The past couple ranty columns have both focused on what games are getting wrong and what we deserve that we're not getting. But generally speaking, I prefer to be positive instead of negative, and amidst all of my justifiable complaints, that was getting lost. So this week, we're going to look at five games that are doing pretty well at supporting roleplayers. My list is far from exhaustive, and it doesn't include every game I'm personally involved with at the moment -- Final Fantasy XIV isn't on there, for instance -- but it is a good snapshot of who's on Team RP.
Microsoft Silverlight girl hates spicy foods, has no nose
Meet Hikaru, a diminutive blonde that likes to sing, dance, and listen to music. By daytime, she's an anthropomorphic representation of Silverlight on Microsoft's Taiwanese portal, and by nighttime... well, she's still doing the same thing, it's a full time job, you know! We're just not really sure she's wearing the right outfit for the job -- it looks kinda breezy where she is.
Breakfast Topic: What's your story?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. I have a confession: I am not a roleplayer, yet I feel the need to create a backstory for every single one of my characters, from the mighty main to the lowly banker alt who sits comfortably in Stormwind. I do not really know why. Maybe it is the storyteller in me, the sheer boredom, or the 60 ounces or so of various energy drinks that keep me up at night, but I begin to imagine the details of my characters, even going so far as to create a web of connections between them, as if when I'm not playing, they are banded together, battling side by side as brothers and sisters in arms. A main example is my main and all the human alts I play on. There are only two at the moment, but a third shall arise, of the wolfish variety, come Cataclysm. Their story? All of them are brothers, my death knight being the eldest, a once-accomplished paladin who fell during the purging of Stratholme, being one of the very few against it. My main warrior is the middle child who was the least likely to accomplish anything of the three brothers but fought nonetheless as part of the Stormwind guard, before becoming a mercenary for hire. The newest addition will be a worgen rogue, the long-presumed-dead, sickly little brother who was astute in the arcane and was taken under tutelage of a sorcerer in Gilneas before being infected as a worgen. He will return instead as a quick and nimble character, one of the few worgen who likes his new form.
The Daily Grind: What do shelved characters think while they wait for us to love them again?
Did you see Toy Story 3? I didn't, but that's because I'm a grown man who's trying to cut down on the number of times that I cry in public. I'll wait for the DVD release, thank you very much, and curl up on my couch sobbing for computer-generated toys who have been somehow possessed with souls and are accompanied by a whimsical soundtrack. Anywhodiddle, the appeal of the Toy Story series is in flipping perspective and seeing the world through a toy's eyes instead of a child's. In a silly yet fun way, it's interesting to speculate on what a toy might think and do when we're not around. Likewise, we might wonder what our MMO toons think while they wait patiently on the character selection screen until we come around again. When we abandon a game for a long stretch of time -- or even forever -- it's not uncommon to feel a pang of guilt at the thought of a lonely avatar sitting there, hoping that we'll come back to join her in further adventures. Pardon for this somewhat whimsical Daily Grind topic today, but if MMO characters had a secret life of their own, what do you think they say and do as they wait for us to return?
Exploring Eberron: Rolling the right character for you
Who are you whippersnappers? Get off my lawn or I'll blast ye into kingdom come! Shoo! I mean, howdy! Sorry, I got a little startled there. We just found out this morning that Rubi, your faithful DDO columnist, was captured by a beholder and locked away in a level 20 dungeon. While the Massively DDO guild, OnedAwesome, faithfully levels up in a rescue attempt (every Wednesday night, 9pm eastern/8pm central!), I've been drafted to keep the column going until victory is assured. Considering that a vast majority of my personal DDO resume is confined to levels 1 through 10, I have a soft spot for the newbie experience. And seeing how many fledgling dungeoneers are flocking to DDO these days, I figured I'd go back to the beginning to walk new players through the first week of the game. For you veterans out there, this would be a great time to (a) point out how much I say is completely wrong, and (b) offer up your own tips and advice in the comments section. Today, let's start with one of the most vital decisions you'll ever make in the game: rolling a character. Hit the jump and let's hope for all 20s!
Cataclysm Beta: Updated user interface elements
Our friends at World of Raids are showing a preview of some slick changes coming to the user interface in Cataclysm. Some of the elements that have received an overhaul are: character panel leveling up spells and professions book trainers quests ... and more! Just be warned that there are going to be a few possible quest spoilers in here, so you may wish to skip over this if you want to remain unspoiled.
Bioware discuss SWTOR player ships, group gameplay and PvP at E3
Fans of Star Wars: The Old Republic have been spoiled at this year's E3, with new game trailers and talks on what we can expect from the game when it launches. Earlier today, we learned the surprising fact that each player would get his own starship and got a first glimpse of what lies ahead for SWTOR's PvP. At their latest presentation, Bioware have now confirmed that space exploration will be a part of the game, using a system very similar to that used by Mass Effect's Normandy. They went on to disclose two of the classes of ship players will be able to get in the game. Players siding with the Republic can get their hands on the Corellian Vanguard light corvette while Imperial players can get the Fury Class Imperial transport. Skip past the cut to watch this awesome video of SWTOR's ship interiors and find out what's in store for PvP and group gameplay.
Storyboard: Back me up, backstory
Welcome back for another edition of Storyboard, where after a couple of weeks in which we laid down ground rules we're ready to start in on the fine details. So it only makes sense to start at a point filled with fine details and yet often searingly inconvenient: backstory. Because we all know how beneficial backstory can be, how it can add depth and meaning and rich interaction to even the most innocent and trivial incident. A quest about killing boars can dredge up memories of hunting with a lost father, making one of the most obnoxious holdovers in MMO quests into something interesting. And yet it's a double-edged sword. Because not only is backstory time-consuming to come up with, much of it requires either events that can't be supported in the game's engine or work on details that never come up during actual play. So we're left with something that's a huge benefit, but also such a huge inconvenience that the occasional benefit is outweighed by the massive amount of work required beforehand. How can you work character backstory and get the benefits without the negatives?
Storyboard: Everybody starts somewhere
Welcome back to another edition of Storyboard! This week, and for the next couple of weeks, we're going to be talking about generating characters. It's a far cry from building characters in a pen-and-paper game, naturally -- MMOs don't tend to require you to make choices about things like specialization until you've been playing for some time, and the generation system isn't tremendously open. And we're not focused on working out the best possible stat combination in this column, anyway. We're concerned about the actual person behind the (eventual) Sword of Godslaying. So where to start? Let's just assume you're staring at a basic character creation screen and trying to figure out who you're going to be adopting as your newest persona. There are three basic starting points for developing a character that work in nearly every game, and they let you start off with a character who might not be fully realized, but certainly can feel that way. We'll look at each of them in turn today and focus on the specifics in the coming weeks.
The Daily Grind: Are you attached to your characters?
They're not real and we all know it. All your character is in an MMO, really, is just a little mobile indicator for what you're wearing and what you're doing. There's no need to spare them a second thought. Of course, there are games like Champions Online and City of Heroes which give you dizzying amounts of control over what they look like. Or Lord of the Rings Online and Final Fantasy XI that let you decorate your house. Or Star Trek Online letting you detail both what sort of ship you ride around in and who your co-workers are... All right, most of us put a little more thought into our characters than just mobile gear indicators. Roleplayers tend to get even more so, but even if you're avidly not into the RP scene, you can't help but form some connections. So how attached are you to yours? Do you spend a long time staring at the character creator? Do you play the same character transplanted into new settings? Or do you mostly just click through based on whatever looks cool and take what you get, even if it winds up being hideous?
The Mog Log: You've got questions, we've got deflections
It's time to kick off one of the features that we're hoping will become a regular standby on The Mog Log -- community questions and answers. It's a chance for you to all ask the questions about the game that you'd like answered, and a chance for me to shuffle awkwardly and stare at my feet. Kidding aside, if you have a Final Fantasy XI or Final Fantasy XIV question that you'd like answered, send them to me, and I'll happily answer them to the best of my ability. It's all the edification of research without the actual research part. We'll start with a question from Simon: "Are we sure about when the beta for FFXIV is going to start?" Nothing is certain, least of all what Square-Enix decides to do. Right now, they're content with not filling us in on the start date of beta, but they might very well share that tomorrow at VanaFest. On the flip side, they might hold on to that tidbit until after the stateside launch of Final Fantasy XIII, just to keep excitement up for the title. Keep your eyes peeled tomorrow, we should know then.
Breakfast Topic: The Personal Aesthetic
Recently, a commenter on a post mentioned that I use a similar screenshot for a lot of my The Care and Feeding of Warriors posts. I looked over it, and he was right: since I race changed to draenei, in fact, quite a few of the screenshots have been silhouetted, facing downwards shots that I often take just because I am playing my character and suddenlt stop and say "wow, that's cool" - I'm not a terribly sophisticated visual thinker (for that, I go to my wife, who has a landscape artist's eyes and a remarkable grasp of light and nuance) but I know what I like. One of the reasons I like playing draenei and tauren are connected to the classes I like to play: shamans, warriors and DK's are the only classes I've consistently gotten to max rank, and in all of those cases I tend to play large characters. When race change became available I agonized over it (silly as that is) even though I'd always said I'd go draenei because I'd grown so accustomed to the way my human character moved, and watching old avi files of Burning Crusade fights I'd tanked really brought it home to me. In changing my character's race, I've changed his silhouette, I've changed the way he swings a weapon, I've changed the way he looks in every aspect of the game. I don't do that spinning one handed smash when I tank anymore, it's much more of an arching, down-angled slash. My Shield Slam is different. Granted, I'm okay with that. But it got me thinking about why I choose the races I do and the classes I do.
Armory gets updated with a model viewer
The World of Warcraft armory page has just been updated with new features and tools! As stated on their updates page: Every character profile now has a 3D model viewer that displays the character in his or her currently equipped gear, and accurately displays the character's physical features, hairstyle, and helm/cloak display as they appear in-game. Mousing over the character model window brings up a control panel with the following controls Camera controls: To rotate the camera around a character, click and hold the left mouse button while moving the mouse left and right, or click the arrow buttons in the top left of the window. To zoom in and out, use the mouse wheel while hovering over the character window, or click the zoom buttons in the top left of the window. To move the character within the frame, right-click and drag the character in the window (or on the small square in the bottom left corner of the window). Animations: Each character has a selection of animations that they can perform. Use the arrows next to the animation's name to cycle through them. The available animations are determined by the character's class and currently equipped weapons. Capture pose: If you are logged in, you can set the default pose of any character on your account. Use the camera and animation controls to create a pose, then click the save icon to set it as the default. All visitors to the character's profile will then see the character in that pose. Play controls: The rewind, pause, and fast forward buttons allow you to fine-tune a pose for a character. Fullscreen mode: You can view the character in a fullscreen display against a selection of backgrounds. All controls will continue to function in fullscreen mode. Embed: You can embed a standalone, interactive version of the character's model viewer in a compatible website, such as a social networking site, guild website, or forum. Options: Extra options include selecting a background in fullscreen mode and toggling the display of a character's helm, cloak, or tabard. That's freakin' cool! I like the ability to embed the model viewer and the ability to stick a preset pose for people looking up your character is a plus.
Player rewards versus character rewards
Rewards have, more often than not, been things that make your character better. You complete a quest and you get a new piece of equipment, or access to a new area, or even just a nice handful of experience toward the next level. But we've recently talked a bit about how leveling, and progression by extension, can get rather tedious. Spinksville also talked about this, discussing the differences between player rewards and character rewards, with the former being general rewards that stick with the player and aren't contingent upon or related to power level. An excellent example is that of Klingons in Star Trek Online. The race has been a staple of the series ever since it began, and the Klingon Empire is one of the major political factions in the game... but it's not initially accessible to players. You have to complete a mission or reach Level 6 in order to unlock the option of playing a Klingon. Similarly, World of Warcraft gates its first hero class, the Death Knight, by requiring a level 55 character before one can be created. Player rewards contribue less to a sense of avatar progress, but they also help keep the power level slightly lower, as well as providing benefits that you can take with you, so to speak. On the other hand, they're vulnerable to feeling less like rewards because they're unrelated to the character who obtained them. We've all been well-versed in the endgame grind for gear acquisition, however, so the post's call for more player rewards might be a welcome change for many of us.
Armory updates with model viewer, character and calendar feeds
Blizzard has added some nice new features to the World of Warcraft Armory, including a few players have been asking for in the past. The most exciting change is something that doesn't seem to be working quite correctly yet -- they're including a Flash-based model viewer for characters that will let you see what a toon looks like without ever logging into the game. So says their updates page, but as of this writing, the whole system is going up and down, and we couldn't get it to work correctly on any of our PCs. Should be done soon, though. Other updates include character activity feeds -- there are now RSS buttons all over your profile that will let you track achievements, items, and other specific character information via RSS. And Blizzard has also built in calendar feeds that will let you output guild and player calendars to Outlook, Google Calendar, or other calendar applications. That means your out-of-game calendars will update automatically if your raidleader happens to change up the raiding schedule. And finally, character profiles have been redesigned and streamlined -- they look a little different with all of these new features. The date on all of these changes actually says January 1, 2010, so Blizzard may have implemented them a little early, but sooner or later we'll see these welcome changes all active on the Armory. Thanks to everyone who sent this in! Update: The Armory is offline for maintenance now. These changes were seen in action, so they're real, but as we say above, they're officially dated for January 1st. So they may not be in effect just yet.
All the World's a Stage: Anonymosity
All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles. Roleplaying is a journey of trust you take with strangers. You may now and then start out with a group of people you know in real life, but for the most part, the people you roleplay with have no idea who you really are, or why you are sitting here at the computer. You can tell them if you want to, but most people don't ask. Roleplayers tend to keep personal details private, and don't intrude on one another's space. Besides, other roleplayers don't necessarily care that much about who you "really are" either. They're there to get to know your character, not you as a person, unless your character first makes a very good impression and they decide that they actually want to be friends as real people. Even though you respect each other as people who share the same interest, there's still a distance between you which either (or both) of you may wish to maintain. And yet, the relationship you have is one of trust. It's not at all at the same level as a best friend of course, but you still have to trust one another in a very creative sense -- you rely on each other to create interesting things for your characters to share with one another. You're not just buying a shirt from a salesperson or holding the door for a passerby -- you're exchanging behavior and language in an unpredictable and totally interconnected way. Any little surprise a stranger brings to an interaction may completely alter the whole game session and stick in your mind as one of your most memorable gaming experiences. Roleplayers have to trust other roleplayers to help make those experiences positive, even without knowing anything at all about one another. Sometimes two characters can even become very close friends, even though the real people behind them do not.
