The Daily Grind: How important are character models to you?

We spend nearly all of our time staring at their backs, so you wouldn't think it would matter so much, but many gamers spend a significant amount of time on that character creation screen. The options for height, body type, skin tone, face shape, eye color, hairstyle and so on can seem endless. Details for eye, skin, and hair shades, as well as facial details like scars and piercings number in the hundreds in some games.

But in spite of the options at hand, the avatar is just a tool to get the job done, right? Your Paladin's hairstyle won't give him any sort of tactical advantage in battle, so those players who zoom right past the character creator and accept the randomly-generated avatar can get straight to killing. They're having just as much fun."

With so many options at your disposal, do you spend the required time getting your character's hair the perfect shade of red and experimenting with that facial scar to get it just so? Or do you skip the vanity part and get to the killing already?

Reader Comments (48)

My sister spends hours on the character creator, making sure that every facet is precisely how she intends. She hates having a character that doesn't look like she wants it to or isn't named like she wants it.

I'm a little more relaxed, but I still need to have a character that I like the looks of. I, as many of the others on here have done, have deleted a character after hours of gameplay because I just couldn't stand how they looked. Mass Effect leaps to mind - could never get my character in ME to look the same in-game as they did in the creator.

And I think it pays off, too. I created a character in Warhammer Online, and a friend came in and said "She looks ticked. She looks like someone just ****ed her and now she's going to go and kill that dude."

I think that made the forty five minutes or so I spent pouring over the various options well worth it. Because it gave my character a feel to her, a sort of personality, right from the get go.

It goes like this name then character model, after that is everything else.

An avatar is a representation of you in a virtual world. It's how other people see you, and how they identify you. I think that the vast majority would rather be remembered by a cool or pretty looking avatar rather than a clumpy and rushed one - It's an identity you carry through your entire online life in any particular virtual world.

On that basis alone i think it's important to spend some time in character creation to get the look just right. No one wants to be a non-descript clumpy lump of clay, except griefers.

I always try to make my characters... or at least my main character look like a fantasy representation of myself or what I may look like if I lived in that world. Except, you know, I always give myself big muscles if I'm a fighter class.

That said, most games do a pretty good job of character customization, but the ones that are simply bare bones really stick out as an annoyance. The Chronicles of Spellborn sticks out like a sore thumb in that area. I believe WoW needs an overhaul on some of the races. Specifically... the human males. What in gods name is up with their chins? If you play a male human in WoW and you don't have a beard, you look like an idiot. That's extremely restricting for something so simple and I'm rather shocked the older races haven't received a bit of a makeover. You'd figure they would since they keep downscaling the old races features. (Female human and dwarf come to mind)

While I don't think they make a game, they can sure as hell break one. I think it's more so the animations of the characters over actual graphic quality or anything like that.

That being said, I have rerolled countless times thanks to "Crap, I really don't like that hair style." =)

Has anyone seen the character creation in Dragonage? It's one of the best I've seen. My character almost looks exactly like me in real life (well, if I did steroids and worked out every day).

It's a huge part of game immersion. That's why Second Life (probably the best game in regards to custom character creation), even with gigantic lag and no game mechanics at all, still survives.

I find the more options I have the better. Afterall when I make a character I am moulding an idea of a persona into a visual representation. Thus the more sliders and tweaks I have the better. So what if I take ages to make a toon, I have to look at it and play it so I want to be able to enjoy it. Let those who don’t care press random, that’s fine, but for me I want all the sliders and if they are not there it is quite off putting. I wan’t to be able to make a fully unique character, not some clone.

I feel that most MMO’s don’t go far enough in allowing this. Champions is fun, it at least allows gear to be non asymmetric, you can have different gear on each arm/shoulder/leg etc.. which is really nice. I would like to see it go even further allowing us to change size/scale and look of limbs in a non asymmetric way. The more freedom to create a interesting in-depth character the more immersive the game will be for me. Thus it is essential.

I used to spend hours creating my avatar, but now, honestly, it's an afterthought, I give the dude, or dudette, a general look i like and I go in to the game. I mean most of the time you're looking at their backside anyways. No?

The Daily Grind: How important are character models to you?

Reader Comments (48)

Posted: Nov 13th 2009 2:32PM Archebus said

Posted: Nov 13th 2009 2:38PM Psychotic Storm said

Posted: Nov 13th 2009 3:00PM ChromeBallz said

Posted: Nov 13th 2009 3:26PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Nov 13th 2009 4:46PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Nov 13th 2009 9:43PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Nov 16th 2009 2:49AM Bezza said

Posted: Nov 16th 2009 3:50AM (Unverified) said

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