Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
(In-game) Unlockable Customizations
While I'm sure some additional customization content will appear on the store at some point, it would also be nice to have rare and/or difficult to obtain unlockables, in-game. The example I gave on Twitter included questlines - perhaps with some cultural context - that ends with hairstyle or tattoo rewards. And of course, any new customization options should be easily set within a barbershop.
Gear Previews
Some MMO character creators allow you to view your created character within various gear options. It's often an optional setting or checkbox you have during the creation process (view character armor-less, with tier 1 armor, with tier 2 armor, etc.). This would be a fantastic way to show off some of the early and even end-game sets and how they might look on your character. Additionally, it would be an interesting way of previewing racial armor progression and how it looks on your character at different content tiers.
Alternate Hair (to reduce clipping)
This might take some explaining as not many games have done this. One of my biggest pet peeves in any RPG, really, is when a long hairstyle clips through various parts of the armor. Some games, such as TERA Online, got around this by alternating the chosen hairstyle when you equip an armor piece with, for example, a high collar or dramatic shoulder piece. It generally keeps the front of the hairstyle intact but ties up the backside to prevent or significantly reduce clipping. If I remember correctly, this option could also be toggled on or off in case you would prefer to keep your long hair down.
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I hope this helps! I'm excited to see such an advanced creator so early into development and can't wait to see how it evolves.
Blend Tool
I'm especially fond of the BLEND tool!! Such an innovative idea - and totally something I'd use with my own presets!
- have a question about this tool: presumably you can do preset-mommy and preset-daddy to make babies. Does this mean you'll have parallel mappings between genders? Will there be gender specific sliders? How would they function in the blend tool? (Crude example: daddy has a teenie crotch size, mommy has no crotch (I assume) does that mean baby joe is stuck with the one crotch size or can he outdo his father?).
>>> that said, I probably won't be making any babies myself. More likely I'll create 2 temporary presets of the same gender, just to splash out some ideas, then blend between them until I'm happy with the result. Still, might be worth considering for animal husbandry or if you're going to create NPC families.
UI Versatility
Can I also congratulate you on the VERSATILITY of this creator - it hits everything I need as a detailed character creator (the dots/plates!! YESS thankyou!!), but I can appreciate the user-friendly parts for people who don't want to think about their character for more than 10 minutes.
Drag-drop is a VERY nice touch! The UI for scaling/rotating is also really intuitive, nice job there.
I know Margaret mentioned the UI is still work-in-progress, but I want to affirm that the organization of the Menu Pane is a little confusing. (Also, if you want a posh word to match "bottom" for butt, use "privates" for crotch... or Willy? You know this could make for a hilarious poll. ((and then you can use the word "bosom" for the boob slider ahahaha)))
Colour Palette
Love the colour palettes you've given us here - there are enough options to make what I want - both rich and pale skin tones, and the milky iris options are good! At the same time, there's a healthy sense of humanness in the limits. Mad Props!
Model
The base model's pectoral muscles at 7:30 in the video are weird - it's oversized/sagging too much at that setting - but when Steven turned up the weight at 8:59 it looks more natural. Maybe reduce the prominence of the chest muscles when weight gets tuned below a certain point? That weight slider was really good though!
I really liked when Steven played with the lips - really clean job from what I can tell!
Hair
Mwah mwah mwah! C'est magnifique!
The MOUSTACHE/BEARD customization, hair colouring tools, hair length controls were FANTASTIC!
One issue: most of the hair looks frizzy and blow-dried - which is cool until it starts to look like Troll Doll hair. I think it's because dense human hair should have deeper shadows(?). Is it possible to have lumps of hair that you can shape? Can we move the parting?
So excited to see the direction this is heading in!!
Go team!
Also - regarding presets and an undo button: Could you do something similar to the way git respositories work? Have a master branch, but let us split off into a new branch to experiment, using the master branch as a checkpoint if we don't like where our experiment takes us? (I'd then put the master and the split branch into the Blend tool in order to merge).
EDIT:
A feature I'd like: dual tone iris! For example, my eyes are light brown in the centre, but dark olive around the edge. Could we have a little extra control on eye colours?
Reference:
For the creation system, I believe it would be a fantastic feature and piece of content to reward players by unlocking different hairstyles depending on nodes and the races who've developed those nodes.
For instance, let's say a Swamp-Node is developed into a City by Dwarves. A quest chain would be offered to players there to unlock a dwarven hairstyle that incorporates that node's aspects into their fashion. IE: It would have mud/clay with bark ornaments through the hair and beard. Another quick example would be an Elvish race developing an ocean node into a city, the hairstyle quest there would then incorporate fancy braids in conjunction with seashells, possibly. Or even allowing multiple hairstyles from each node to be unlocked over an extended period of time. Of course, these unlock would be permanent for accounts and could be displayed/available through the home instanced area.
Chain Example:
The quest chain could develop out as simple as an elder who's presenting the adventurer the opportunity to discover old lore and history of the area. This opportunity leads the player to find points of interest around the node, acquiring hints from enemies, and or well-placed hidden NPCs. This chain leaves you with a slab/parchment from a dead language. The way to solve this is a problem is through the library where if you talk to the correct NPC, they inform you that this is an essential artifact of a dead culture of the land. They then present you with an illustration of what their hairstyles were from that culture. This then would obviously unlock those styles for your character/account to have.
Update:
This type of thing could easily be extended toward body modifications, tattoos, and even weapon charms/furniture.
Can there be a "Go Back" and "Go Forward" button when clicking through the randomization button?
I can see myself get click-happy and pass up a cool looking character by accidentally pressing the randomize button too fast.
Also, can I randomize certain sections at a time? instead of the whole character at once.
1.) More hair colors, most which was shown was all natural. I need to have my character have purple hair
2.) More hair choices
3.) More scar, injury choices
4.) Body hair
5.) Sliders are great but would also have a choice to type in numbers
Ideas:
--I saw that you incorporated a "dot" system that allows you to alter/stretch/warp parts of the selected body. While doing this, it seemed that the changes were mirrored on both sides of the body. If possible, add a mode/checkbox/switch that disables mirroring (temporarily) while working on selected part. In my head, when I saw how customizable the dot system was, I imagined being able to create a character that maybe had been in an explosion and one of his legs/arms was much skinnier than the other.
--Along with this adding in a scar/burnt/frostbit/damaged skin patch, much like the cut scar/tattoo already incorporated. Depending on the race, possibly having other skin protrusions applicable. I.E. Pyrai have extra branches growing out of other parts of the skin, Dwarves have some rocks or stone skin patches, Orcs have moss or horns.
--As already said, the option to save and share work with others, in case people want to share builds for npc's.
--LOTS of options for Dwarven beards and jewelry therein. Jewelry in general too for other races, so Pyrai can put rings around/in their brantlers, and orcs in/on their teeth/horns. Vek also need lots of facial jewelry options, as such with shamans and tribal culture.
--For hair, an option to thicken or thin the density of hair.
--Ability to make toned/strong, chubby or thick, skinny or boney, or a mix of these. A lazy chubby orc would be funny to see, but it's kind of the standard to see a mix of strong and thick, or chubby and thick dwarves (they're big boned).
--It was mentioned during the first look that there will be an option to enable or disable "follow mouse cursor", so I don't think much needs to be said on that, other than I agree that would be a good idea.
Likes:
This would be a long list to name everything, but some of my highlights were,
--Adaptable tattoo's/scars, hair length, skin tone/complexion, widely varying randomization clicks, the dot system, and sectional body selection. Overall a really solid CC and something to be proud of.
Dislikes:
--Even while thinking, I could really only come up with 1 main thing I don't like, the burning to ash while switching characters. Although it is cool to see maybe a couple of times, for people who plan to spend any serious time in the creator making multiple characters/npcs, waiting for the animation to finish to swap characters would get slightly annoying. I know it only lasts 4 or 5 seconds, but after seeing it a couple times, just switch characters. A toggle to enable/disable that feature would be a good solution. I'm sure there are people who love it, but I was done watching it even after the preview that we saw.
A few things that I think could be added:
Hex codes
More hairstyle options: particularly more black hair styles, and longer "wizard" hair for males
Overweight/fat body options instead of just "thick" option. Nothing wrong with an adventurer with a paunchy belly!
The ability to customize each eye separately - like having only one milky-white eye. Particularly good when you have an old character and/or one with a scar near the eye.
More tattoo/scar options. Maybe add some piercings as well.
Undo/Redo button
Jewelry option
While I am not a fan of unnatural day-glo bright hair colors, it might be possible to add some "earthy" or muted colors like greens, blues, reds and purples. If not all the hair, maybe a stripe, or tips, or something like that without affecting the integrity of the over all look of the game.
ANyway, just a few thoughts. I look forward to seeing the customization options across all the races and genders.
[*] What do you like or dislike about the Character Creator we shared?
The CC looks very promising!! The amount of details you can put in is REALLY cool! The idea of drag and drop decals that are resizable kind of blew my mind (this is something I wish more MMO's would implement). Having this much customization already in an Alpha state is really really cool!
[*] What features would you like to see included in the future for the Character Creator?
Sliders for height, arm and leg lengths (within proportion). Lots of long hair style types (especially Viking like braiding). Idk how hard it would be to implement but being able to rotate character with QEWASD keys so I can rotate while my mouse does the adjustments. Idk if this is a thing but having, for instance, a lip type selection and then being able to use the finite adjustments for that lip type. (like having a more rounded area where the "cupid's bow" is).
[*] What areas of customization are important to you?
I REALLY like to make pretty characters. The more customization I have the better but without breaking the immersion of the world/lore.
Overall, being immersed as my character and really loving the way my character looks and feel plays a lot into how much I want to play. I'm really excited about how far AoC is with the CC and I can't wait to get my hands on it!!
- I think the burn effect when switching between races is very clean and feels unique. It pulls me in. Maybe a little bit quicker of an animation for convenience sake?
- I both liked and disliked how it was teased this CC could be used to help create the NPCs for the areas we create in the game. Can you give us more specific explanation with visual representation about what this is really capable of? Will we have our in game kids running around our freeholds and be able to design what our stall merchants / node guards will look like? So many questions… feels “fun!” but also very vague and “bait-y” at the same time.
What features would you like to see included in the future for the Character Creator?
- I agree with the comments requesting a number slot in addition to sliders for the more particular folks seeking specific looks rather than estimates
- It would be amazing for the age of the character to affect the stance of their body’s model… wrinkle slider also adding a slight slouch to the frame of their bones?
- I would love to see a greater number of presets of the different categories for each and every race / gender… I’m so deeply invested in having interactions with truly unique looking characters. Merely slight variations of a race’s style kills the experience of a character creator for me. I understand the limitations for races to keep them “in the world/lore”, but there’s sooo many ways to make any one race feel somewhat as diverse as the various races themselves. I also understand the “plates/grab-able dots” make room for countless possibilities. I just imagine walking in to a primarily Vek node, and wanting to see a WILD array of Vek character models… and that goes for every race.
What areas of customization are important to you?
- As a dwarf, beards, hair styles, and tattoos are EXTREMELY important to me and my kin. It is the most awkward feeling playing dwarves in other MMOs, and seeing a basic copy of your hair, facial hair, and tattoos all over the place. My point being, I believe every race should have at least 10 hairstyles and facial hair styles with an equally vast array of tattoo templates that thematically work for the race’s lore, but ESPECIALLY the dwarves. As an example, if the Dünir dwarves could have stone hair bands in various beards and hairstyles, but not ALL of them… maybe some inspired cuts/tattoos from Norse/Scotch/Irish cultures tied in as well, it would create a truly diverse and fulfilling node experience, especially in the larger nodes.
All in all, it’s incredible seeing the jump from Alpha 1 to this current display of the character creator. Without a full scope of the lore for the races and not all races / genders displayed though, it is verrrry difficult to give quality feedback… but these are some of the thoughts I’ve had!
The coin is a rite of passage. SO BE IT.
My first point is also not something that directly has a place in the character creator but is part of the character we could have.
I would like to mention Personalities as seen in Elder Scrolls Online. Could also work ingame via a collection system (as in eso) but I think it would be nice to have some basic personalities that would change your idle animation, they way the character stands, walks and runs.
Having options for bold, brave, postive, grumpy, sad, or similar personalities would be really nice.
Mages could summon books or scrolls, priests could get our their little book to preach, a fighter could clean the weapons, a tank repair or check his armour, a ranger repair an arrow and so on. Those a specific to classes but technically it does not have to be this way.
The option to have multiple tattoos and scars (and later surely piercings) is awesome, and I would like to see the numbers for possible tattoos go up. That is a tech thing I guess, so as many as possible would be appriciated. If you guys add sleeves and full body tattoos that would be awesome too. Creating our own sleeve with multiple small tattoos feels right, too. So go as high as possible with the number of body decoration.
An option to remove small parts of the body. Like teeth, parts of the ear, a finger or a toe. Verra is dangerous and many adventurerers left parts of their bodys behing.
What should never happen: tie stuff together. This nose and those ears belongt together stopped me from playing a goblin in WoW. So please dont do something like that.
I notices in New World that you could pick your pronouns in the character menu. I think many people would be happy to have an option like that.
That extends to the question if there will be a possibility to have trans characters. That would make many people happy to I think.
All in all the character creator really surpased all my expactations. I cant wait for the other races and gernders. Great job so far
Dünhold Discord
Dünhold Website
I just love how all of them look in their current state, at least the ones made by the devs so far. My one request as of now is that you make the character creator accessible and navigable to the non-artist-playerbase. Basically, try make the most simpleminded of us able to make characters that at least fit into the setting. In my experience games with extensive character creators tend to have a large part of the playerbase looking unproportioned and misshaped even though you can clearly see and assume the player who created it tried their best to make it look “good” or at least decent. To me too many of those characters darting about the in the cities breaks my immersion completely. I would like to ask you to create restrictions and/or guidelines that limit and help the non-artist part of players.
A massive selection of colors for anything you’d want to color sounds lovely, but perhaps keep us from going loose on the entire rgb-spectrum to the point where for example eye- or hair color shines through all your shaders etc. I’m all for blue hair, but you can’t expect the players to understand when a shade of a color no longer looks good with the armor or the world to the point where it breaks the immersion of others.
Make up in games tend to take a lot of work just to make it look like basic make up. As an example, blush rarely stick to the correct part of the cheek to begin with, even though you sometimes can move it around later. Help the players here!
If at all, just let us make arms and legs an inch or three longer or shorter.
View a headslider as something viable yet also understand how it can be used as a weapon of mass destruction.
Lighting and scaling in the CC properly revealing how your character will look in the world. Is the average height of NPCs of the same race in the world somewhere around the middle of the heigh bar and so on.
Height templates for every race to use as comparison so you don’t end up looking way bigger or way smaller than you expected compared to both other players but NPCs too.
Help the players with the option of using plenty of templates and presets to work from. “You want a broader nose? Here you go, now you may adjust it just a tad further for personal touch.”, “Here’s a selection of realistically proportional bodies, you may mix and match, but the hands will never hit the floor and the armpits will never make space for footballs.
1
* Different shapes and looks on the pupils example stars/glitter/galaxy/reptile.
* Be able to color the sclera (The white layer of the eye that covers most of the outside of the eyeball).
* Be able to change the sclera and pupil brightness. Like a slider.
* Eye reflection and iris light source.
* Be able to put multiple colours on the pupil. Like mixing 2- 3 colours.
* Change eye lash colour.
2
Colour wheel for both hair/eyes/eye lashes/nails. And be able to change brightness on them.
3
Different nail shapes from normal looks to claw look. I love what Margaret said about the nails in a live stream, something about nails having different marks on them. That would be nice :P
4
Undo button like 10 -20 step back. If i spend alot of time doing the characters face and then i try doing the nose for 30 min and i see the nose went to shit. i want to be able to undo some steps before the change.
5
Lenght: Display for us the lenght of the character when we decide the lenght of it like ur character is 173 cm atm. And perhaps also show how big our character is compared to the other races in game at max lenght.
Something like this pictures
6
Let us be able to hear the voice our character will be doing when in combat /laugh/scream etc. This helps alot especialy if there is different options we can chose from.
7
Would be nice to have an option in character creation where u can see ur character do different emotes like dance/laugh/angry and walk/run.
This would help alot to decide if i want to play the race since we will be able to create our character before launch. It would be really bad if i spent hours creating my character only to realise i hate the walking/running/combat animation xD.
And a option to see how our character holds or swings a weapon.
8
I would love to see stubb beard variation. Like this picture
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I love when u drag and reform the face and bodey of ur character like the nose it dosent turn blue even when u drag it, this allow me to see what i am doing xD
Other games the indicator allways stays blue while u form the nose or drag stuff and u cant see what u doing.
Black dessert online does this badly. In this video at 8:00 you can see what i mean.
I understand wanting to be competitive and unique with your own made systems but I feel like the longevity of it will fall flat since those are two separate communities (usually) that have a super preference for each. Looking at other MMORPGs which still stand strong. You have your PvE raid guilds and your PvP focused players doing things separately or in different schedules.... Forcing an open world boss raid to be a slaughter fest of 2 competing raid groups (or more) seems lack luster and counter intuitive of what PvE feels like modernly. I am sure in the start it will be fine but what happens when one group seemingly starts to steam roll the server? And late comers fall off or not part of that group? Does it impact and or kill NPE (new player experience) ? I think this approach/system needs to be SEVERELY looked into.
All this being said I am a long awaiting fan of this project and I want to see it succeed because I am craving something other than wow, but... wow delivers on those fronts (for me personally).
I want to see this be a success, you all are so passionate about this project and I look forward to each update.
Thanks."
With my comment I really wanted to address the mention of the PvP/PvE forced combination approach when steven was mentioning world boss tagging and stuff... I just feel it's merging two completely different types of game play choices and communities when it comes to an MMORPG.. which as I mentioned I fear would impact longevity and NPE (new player experience) as whole as the game goes on and people start having "mains" and solid guild or group.
Just some concerned fears as a very avid MMO player... (One that loves PvE and -loathes- PvP) Obviously my opinion is my own but where I wanna do world content and raids, and world bosses adn dungeons and progress.. I don't want to be attacked by over zealous PvP blood thirsty people since it will personally kill my experience and make me just log off and do something else. Bias as it may be I feel a fair share of others may share my mindset.
I look forward to the progress of this game.. I want to pre order so bad but too many quality of life concerns have me staying on the outside of the window looking in.
You all rock!
Thanks for your time.
Zeroyth.
For U.I
1. Option to change environment to test lighting and how the character will look in game
2. There's a subtle feature I think is nice in Lost Ark CC where the characters are stepping on a floor that matches their origin e.g. Striker on grass, gunslinger in an engine room with sparks etc.
3. Faster fade in/out (the burning effect)
4. A short intro animation for the character race when selected (not cinematic). By short I mean short, like 3-4 secs
5. Size chart of the diff races to see how the character compares as an option (blade and soul has something like this you can see for reference)
6. some emotes and in game armour/race costumes to preview. costumes may be religious robes, High spec Class armour, Race costume or Artisan workwear
7. Weather change option for the races that would be affected by it (e.g. Py'Rai) to preview
8. Option to save and open character pre-set in the CC menu
9. Option to zoom in really closely on facial features (like the Sims 4)
10. Opacity slider for Tattoo
11. Curious to know what the crotch slider is for; does it have any uses in game other than the obscene bulge I'm sure every single male character will have? If not, I'm not sure its necessary
For CC
1. the concept of Vek and Py'Rai feel different from the Dwarves and humans; The former feels stylized and the latter, more realistic. I absolutely love the Vek/Py'rai design and hope any changes will be in their favour
2. Option for Gold/jade Orc teeth implants (jewellery perhaps)
3. The beards don't feel natural on the skin, like it's glued on
4. Procedural features like freckles, moles and acne, controlled by a slider
5. Body hair also procedural (slider) and should adhere to hair type like curls/ straight hair etc
6. Makeup options (ceremonial ones too for the orcs, dwarves and elves)
Some other niche thoughts:
1. Temperament (brash, lively, reserved, serious etc); this would reflect in the character's idle pose and manner of speech to NPCs. Would really drive storytelling
2. Outfits bought in the cash shop or earned in game can replace pre-set outfits to try out when making new characters
That's all I can think of for now. I pray for success to everyone at Intrepid studio! Thank you
I am sure that the level of detail and options will expand greatly. Just this base creator is already better than any I have used. Since this is just the first look at the Alpha 2 creator, I can't even imagine how good the one for launch will be.
Even though it would be great to be able to upload images, everyone knows some people who would upload images that are bad, rude, or copyrighted. I would rather the team focus on making the game better than spending their time checking and advising that the pictures someone just uploaded are not allowed.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for making this great game.
I cannot wait until I can jump through the gateway from Sanctus and strike out into this amazing world.
Lat step undo as well especially as I saw some pretty twisted noses that looked a minefield to get the dot anchors to move back to a sensible location in all 3 dimensions.
Otherwise really excited to try this out (before release day saves so that char creation isn't going to get rushed on the day)
- Love the level of detail
- Love the way you guys are doing the tattos with scale/colour and placement.
- Love the look of the hair
- The scuplting feature looks great and easy to use.
- Wasn't super sold on the blend feature if we can only use the preset characters. If we can blend our own characters we've previously made it would be cool though. Also choosing what aspects to blend would be great. (take the physique from one, face from a multiple, stance from another etc)
What features would you like to see included in the future for the Character Creator?
- Would love to be able to upload custom tattoo images to use
- Would like a very large range of different types of beards
- Would like to see a "preview" in the creator of high end armor to see how visiable certain features might be with gear on. (Tattoos/Beards/Hair etc)
- Would like to see a way to customise the characters fighting stance or set of animations. For instance, if I play a melee character and the basic attack could be customised or a magic users casting animation in the same sense. Just gives players more individuality on the battlefield and that would be cool. Potential option for legendary "skins" or "animations" to be added from raid drops etc
What areas of customization are important to you?
- beards
- hair colours
- idle stance animations
- fighting animations
- realistic movement from features like hair or clothes.
Mayby somekind of ? tool, witch I can click and hover over to see what colour it is.
So my Ask/Feedback would be to consider how editing the character would work with a controller. I realize the complications that would come with this, but its my ask anyway.
These features do not add anything we need to the game, but will attract the wrong crowd.
The rest looks great!
Representation is so important! And I agree with you 100% Their character creator as it is now is already one of the best, but what will take it to the next level is a wide variety of unique hairstyles. As well as other unique options. piercings and etc.