So... Let's talk Character Customization

ArchivedUser

So i just found out about this game and it looks pretty promising and interesting, but one thing I haven't seem anywhere is the mention of character customization... My question is how advanced with the character creation be? simple? medium? extremely advanced and detailed? perhaps like BDO(sorry for bringing another game into the forums but well, the game has the best character creation engine...)

ArchivedUser

I do believe I read/heard somewhere that they were planning on doing something similar to BDO. It makes sense, since it is one of the most extensive character creators out there. The game engine is top notch, so I see no reason why that should not reflect in how awesome / diverse we can make our characters look!

One thing that irritated me with BDO's CC was that certain sliders would have little to no effect. I know, concerning the body & hairstyles, that clipping can be an issue. I just hope that there is enough range within those sliders to create enough variety from one avatar to the next. For example... a short, pot-bellied dwarf or a tall, very muscular warrior or a voluptuous Amazonian type character. Oh yeah... and let's not forget a head size slider (shame on you, BDO...LOL).

ArchivedUser

@lsymfr I want to echo what Mandras said, I also recall listening to a Q&A about character customization that said it would be quite in-depth.

I remember the devs saying several times they don't want each character looking the same. This seems to be a priority for them.

There were also several backer rewards that included customization options--this indicates to me they have a very robust system in place.

I suppose the only limitation that might be imposed would be based on the engine. I admit I am pretty ignorant of the capabilities of Unreal4, but I have a feeling they will push this area to the max if they can based on my previous points.

Also, welcome to the community!

ArchivedUser

Unreal has been one of my favourite engines over the last few years and I think it's going to be great for a game of this scale. The sky really is the limit in terms of character customization and It'll boil down to where Intrepid want to draw the line in terms of what can and can't be customised.

ArchivedUser

The devs have made it clear several times now that the character creator will be to BDO-like if they had to compare it to anything. I'm so excited to create my character!

ArchivedUser

Warbacon said:

@lsymfr I want to echo what Mandras said, I also recall listening to a Q&A about character customization that said it would be quite in-depth.

I remember the devs saying several times they don't want each character looking the same. This seems to be a priority for them.

There were also several backer rewards that included customization options--this indicates to me they have a very robust system in place.

I suppose the only limitation that might be imposed would be based on the engine. I admit I am pretty ignorant of the capabilities of Unreal4, but I have a feeling they will push this area to the max if they can based on my previous points.

Also, welcome to the community!

Mandras said:

I do believe I read/heard somewhere that they were planning on doing something similar to BDO. It makes sense, since it is one of the most extensive character creators out there. The game engine is top notch, so I see no reason why that should not reflect in how awesome / diverse we can make our characters look!

One thing that irritated me with BDO's CC was that certain sliders would have little to no effect. I know, concerning the body & hairstyles, that clipping can be an issue. I just hope that there is enough range within those sliders to create enough variety from one avatar to the next. For example... a short, pot-bellied dwarf or a tall, a very muscular warrior or a voluptuous Amazonian type character. Oh yeah... and let's not forget a head size slider (shame on you, BDO...LOL).

Oh ok, sounds awesome , but yes, that is exactly my thought how in some MMO's all characters look literary the same, but yeah also that in BDO while it has a very good character creation, it still limits you to some stuff, like I would like to make my character tiny but it forces you to make them tall, etc... but well , now we just have to play the waiting game until this game is released, its a good thing they have the community involved since early on because that way we can voice our wants and don't wants and hopefully they can listen to them since its easier to make a change this early on than later on unlike other MMO's which we get to see in BETA where big changes are not possible. 

But thanks for the info

ArchivedUser

@Warbacon - Your username amuses me and I love it. I also appreciate what you said there. I'm not the OP, but holy biscuits do I love making characters! I'm very excited to hear that we'll have top notch character creation systems.

Plus... I mean... Unreal is pretty dang epic, especially the one they're using. All aboard the hype traaaaain.

ArchivedUser

I hope that the devs keep the character customization within limitations. I don't want people to be able to make their character models look goofy or wonky. No super long arms, huge heads, etc.

ArchivedUser

@Krojak Definitely. We don't need to look like our characters were made in ARK.

ArchivedUser

Krojak said:

I hope that the devs keep the character customization within limitations. I don't want people to be able to make their character models look goofy or wonky. No super long arms, huge heads, etc.

There is a 9th beast race introduced with the underrealm goal. That will be a hybrid of beast and existing ancestor races.

The main races though will have sliders within reasonable and sensible limits.

This has been confirmed in the twitch Q&A streams.

ArchivedUser

Rune_Relic said:

There is a 9th beast race introduced with the underrealm goal. That will be a hybrid of beast and existing ancestor races.

The main races though will have sliders within reasonable and sensible limits.

This has been confirmed in the twitch Q&A streams.

Good. Thank you for answering my worries.

ArchivedUser

One thing to keep in mind is that, even in BDO, you still had a lot of characters running around who looked like the "dafault" -- Valks with the red braids, so on and so forth. A large part of the reason for this is because there are some people who care far less about how their character looks and care far more about how "badazz" they can make that character. That can't ever be wholly eliminated, sadly.

One thing I do hope they don't do is go with the same types of armor per class, similar to the Sorc in BDO. Unless you bought her a skank-worthy outfit from the cash shop, she looked forever as though she were running around in a burlap sack. Or, if we are going to go with class-specific armor styles ... let's avoid the burlap sack look, shall we? Hmmm?

ArchivedUser

I'm excited if they implement the possibility of having full body tattoos *_* will look amazing - especially on dwarves
I still hope for some lady dwarf beards
From the KS streams I get the impression that we will have a character customisation preview like bdo which will be super amazing.
and starsigns

ArchivedUser

Isende said:

Or, if we are going to go with class-specific armor styles ... let's avoid the burlap sack look, shall we? Hmmm?

LOL!

Agreed. This undoubtedly was Money(Pearl) Pit(Abyss) shamelessly forcing players into their cash shop by creating / offering ugly in-game armors. I'm confident that Intrepid will not stoop so low. 

ArchivedUser

I like the creation options of BDO but wasn't a fan of the gender locking etc. As long as its open then I'm good!

ArchivedUser

dracdoc said:

I like the creation options of BDO but wasn't a fan of the gender locking etc. As long as its open then I'm good!

I agree, as much as BDO is very detailed there were certain limitatation that were often hell to get around, if you even could(i:e: western eyes).  I balk at calling it the best character creator I have ever seen.  

If I had a choice, I would want a character creator robust enough that I could make a young student mage as easily as a old wizened wizard.

ArchivedUser

I'm a huge fan of robust character creation engines as well. They have mentioned releasing a character designer before the actual launch of the game right? That'll be awesome, I'd gladly spend a few hours designing my avatar. 

ArchivedUser

A pre-launch character designer would be awesome indeed. If you're interested to see what the possibilities "could be" there are plenty of vids on YouTube which shows the potential unreal engine has with character creation.

ArchivedUser

unreal is glorious i would love to see a online character creator or something that we could play with for awhile before the game comes out

ArchivedUser

So.....ooooooooo.....looking forward to alpha/beta to see what we get

My one concern was BDOs character creation was so detailed, you either ended up with something decent, a little bizarre or downright ugly (just rubbish at sliders and thinking in 3D, I blame my genes)

And if you found some character you loved before launch, I got darn confused trying to work or how to input the files into the game that I have up. (Blame brain damage)

So, if we have access to character creation before launch, can there also be a foolproof idiots guide + simplicity to identify your settings (such add a 'list settings list', so even if you can't cope with identifying files you can still replicate your toon in game manually?

ArchivedUser

I think something like ESO for the body but have BDO for the face. This would also make the complex hair for characters pretty interesting such as Dwarves beards and Elves Hair.

ArchivedUser

AnduinKayvaan said:

I think something like ESO for the body but have BDO for the face. This would also make the complex hair for characters pretty interesting such as Dwarves beards and Elves Hair.

I would love to wax your beard just to hear you cry ^^

ArchivedUser

BDO provided their character creator, pre-launch. It is a great idea! Since customization has gotten so intricate these days (as the technology & software improves) you can easily spend hours tweaking a single avatar. Being able to create and save your avatars in advance, will allow us to jump right into the game at launch! :-D

ArchivedUser

Fingers crossed I can have a peg leg in this game!

ArchivedUser

@lsymfr
1:08:00 Character customization, will people be able to make super ugly characters?

Steven:
There are going to be three primary builds that character customizations are going to fall into and those three primary builds, while differ from each other to a good degree, players won't be able to deviate too far from that portrayal of the race. There will be definitely fine tuning that will highly customizable, special in regards to the face, but from a body standpoint you are not going to see an 8 foot(2.4meters) tall halfling so to speak.

Source: Discord QnA

Additionally, straight out the discord.

Steven-01/23/2017

@Fulldiver "How extensive/detailed will the character creation be?"

One thing I liked about BDO is their Character Creation. If I had to give a comparison, I would use BDO as an example of what our Character Creation is going for.

ArchivedUser

Hopefully a petite build of the elf or tulnar is being considered. I kinda wanted to go with someone short, after my foray into tall elf land.

ArchivedUser

Karthos said:

Fingers crossed I can have a peg leg in this game!

I raised a thread about prosthetics and peg legs... oddly folks seemed to think peg legs weren't immersive. *waves hands in confusion and wanders off to inspect flowers*

ArchivedUser

Megs said:

Karthos said:

Fingers crossed I can have a peg leg in this game!

I raised a thread about prosthetics and peg legs... oddly folks seemed to think peg legs weren't immersive. *waves hands in confusion and wanders off to inspect flowers*

I totally think Peg legs or metal limbs could be possible, I mean we do have Dwarfs. Now I am not sure how steam punk this game would go but if it did we could possibly have the dwarfs have metal hands or legs. I for one think a bad ass sword, hammer, or axe attachment for a hand would be pretty awesome.

ArchivedUser

AlistairDragonheart said:

unreal is glorious i would love to see a online character creator or something that we could play with for awhile before the game comes out

I've been a fan of the Unreal engine since I started playing Unreal Tournament in the late nineties. Man I'm old!

ArchivedUser

I am curious if Ashes will have a feature to customize your character after the character is playing in the live server such as Age of Conan or Elder Scrolls Online where you could change your hair styles, hair accessories or facial hair (i.e. grow a beard).  I only ask this since its appears reasonable to have those type of changes to your character similar on how in real life people changes their looks over time.  

Not that this is a pressing concept needed at launch, it would be nice for people for play one character for a long time to have options to change their looks a bit to keep their character from going stale.  I know tons of players in games like making these types of customization.

ArchivedUser

I sincerely hope that the character creator will outdo AoC and ESO. AoC was good for it's time but I wasn't that impressed with ESO at all. As one who invests a considerable amount of time getting THE beard correct ESO was limited if I put it mildly. Intrepid haven't specifically talked about the direct features of CC but if you would like a preview with a tedious link there's plenty of vids on YouTube showing what the possibilities are as far as character creation and the Unreal4 Engine is going to be.