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Facial Emotes
Merow
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
Hey folks, very first post here after lurking about creepily for a year or so. I scoured the forums for the facial emote category, and found a lot of RP related and emote related categories, but nothing that specifically talks about this. I would not think this level of intricacy would be a part of launch, but might be a nice thing to include down the road as I haven't seen it done well in an MMO.
My experience with MMORPGs is in the ESO/Warcraft realm, and then outside of that I have about 25 years playing the even nerdier MUD--and in playing those I realized a gap in most MMOs tends to be in how intricate the roleplay can get when limited by a visual medium rather than a textual one. While most MMOs will have the dancing and celebrating and insulting emotes, the use of those is somewhat limited in a sane and rational conversation. I don't often see people burst into spontaneous dance on the streets, or teabag their enemies after knocking them down.
While I understand that custom emotes will be a thing that can be used in the text box, visual facial emotes would be a huge help for conversational RP--which I think will be a huge part of this game. I think FF XIV has a small list of facial emotes that they use, so it's not an unheard of thing--but in that game they're over the top exaggerated. From PVP to Node politics to the economic systems and the inevitable merchant class that will rise from them, facial emotes will grease the wheels and make it more immersive.
By facial emotes I mean simple things: raising eyebrows, smiling, frowning, furrowing brows, cocking a head to the side, running a hand through your hair, gasping, so on and so forth. Nothing crazy, no blubbering or wild gesticulations. No full body heaves reminiscent of Regan MacNeil before she plasters the wall in the Exorcist. Nice, subtle, facial expressions that you can see when you're close to another player and looking at their face.
The list could probably be broken down to represent the core emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, mirth, whatever, and be kept relatively simple--but with the character creator as solid as it is, I think there's a lot of room to create a simple set of tools that will greatly enhance the core systems of the game and allow for better RP in this MMORPG.
Alright, that's it. Tear me apart.
My experience with MMORPGs is in the ESO/Warcraft realm, and then outside of that I have about 25 years playing the even nerdier MUD--and in playing those I realized a gap in most MMOs tends to be in how intricate the roleplay can get when limited by a visual medium rather than a textual one. While most MMOs will have the dancing and celebrating and insulting emotes, the use of those is somewhat limited in a sane and rational conversation. I don't often see people burst into spontaneous dance on the streets, or teabag their enemies after knocking them down.
While I understand that custom emotes will be a thing that can be used in the text box, visual facial emotes would be a huge help for conversational RP--which I think will be a huge part of this game. I think FF XIV has a small list of facial emotes that they use, so it's not an unheard of thing--but in that game they're over the top exaggerated. From PVP to Node politics to the economic systems and the inevitable merchant class that will rise from them, facial emotes will grease the wheels and make it more immersive.
By facial emotes I mean simple things: raising eyebrows, smiling, frowning, furrowing brows, cocking a head to the side, running a hand through your hair, gasping, so on and so forth. Nothing crazy, no blubbering or wild gesticulations. No full body heaves reminiscent of Regan MacNeil before she plasters the wall in the Exorcist. Nice, subtle, facial expressions that you can see when you're close to another player and looking at their face.
The list could probably be broken down to represent the core emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, mirth, whatever, and be kept relatively simple--but with the character creator as solid as it is, I think there's a lot of room to create a simple set of tools that will greatly enhance the core systems of the game and allow for better RP in this MMORPG.
Alright, that's it. Tear me apart.
2
Comments
Even adding to them later the same as the current cosmetic emotes.