Customisation: Getting your glad rags on.

[Galletea]

Recently I've found very little in the gaming world that captures my interest. Well, other than Okamiden and Nintendogs 3D anyway. So I was perusing my games collection and I keep going back to a select few games, notably Saint's Row 2 and Tekken 6, and occasionally a bit of Fable 3.

One of the things these games have in common is character customisation. With Tekken 6 in particular I can spend ages playing through the scenario just to pick up items to dress the characters in, mostly resulting in some truly garish and bizarre combinations, which I then use to try and get the good stuff that matches. I've spent far too long in Fable 3 trying to mix and match my outfits and dying them different colours to make them pleasing to my eye, and I've spent a lot of time rearranging my face and wardrobe in Saint's Row 2.

Now this brings me to the point. I find it a lot of fun to dress my characters up and pick hairstyles. Sometimes this process takes me more time, and gives me more satisfaction than the game itself.

So I was wondering how much people enjoy customisation; more specifically whether you spend hours on it, and how much control you like to have. I personally don't care much for sliders, I'm happy with a selection of pre-sets and colours to choose from, but my costume has to look good. I'd ignore better stats if it was ugly.

 

[silver wolf009]

I have spent dozens of hours in the character customization room in Soul Calibur 4, but I have yet to come up with an outfit that wasn't good, that didn't look it. Proably coincidence I suppose.

 

[Gerdneek]

Yes I know what you mean. depends on the game and the level of choice i have really

 

[ELD3RGoD]

CC makes EVERY game better. RS:V2 is an awesome example. Spent hours upon hours of changing my soldier in that game.

 

[Littaly]

I keep thinking I care more for customization than I'm supposed to. If the game allows me to create a character I'm always concerned with how he/she looks and it starts to irritate me when I'm not offered enough options :-/

I've always been kind of curious on whether or not developers look at customization as something that gamers demand or not, in a lot of games it feels more like an afterthought than anything else.

 

[Daggedawg]

I have spent hours upon hours in the Creation mode in many of the Smackdown vs Raw games, making wrestlers based on other video game characters, anime characters, etc.

 

[Galletea]

I even spent a while customising Noble 6 in Reach, and I skipped most of the cutscenes so never saw him much anyway. Still it seemed kind of necessary to kit him out and paint him.

 

[VanQ]

The only games I ever spend much time customizing on are MMOs, mainly because there are actually other people around to see me. I rarely change my character's appearance afterwards as I like to stay true to my original character, I have a female Night Elf warrior in WoW that has had the same hair and face since 2004 and let me tell you, that's a pretty big deal. When the option to recustomise was released, nobody on my server looked the same after that. It really is a shame, I have fond memories of several guildies and I could easily tell one apart from the other before, then they just melded into the millions of other players.
I am greatly looking forward to Guild Wars 2 and Tera Online because the ability to customise in those games are off the charts, there are 10-20 minute videos on youtube to show of each single class/race/gender combination. That's a LOT of customising and I'm probably going to sink hours into my first character for both of these games.
Single player games though, I'm not so worried about, with the exception of fighters. I recently tried a bunch of colour combinations for Noel Vermillion and now have a favourite clolour palette that I always play with and honestly, I find I perform a lot better with a pink haired Noel than a Blonde Noel. I'm not sure why this is the case, maybe it's just more fun to play as an aesthetically appealing character.

 

[fates_puppet13]

fable 3 has very little character customisation
it was ok but nothing seemed to bothered by what i did


look at elder scrolls morrowind
now that is character customisation

 

[bubba145]

in fallout was my favorite but then again i normally wore combat armor. but every other game i try to wear tan or brown clothing better camouflage

 

[MercurySteam]

I like the look of Brinks customization. By why can we only play as males? I'm beginning to think that Gears 3 will be the only multiplayer-capable game where you can be female.

 

[mireko]

I like customization a lot. Those face sliders are annoying, no matter how hard I try there's always something wrong. Either the character looks funny from a certain angle, or there's a part of the face that looks odd in specific lighting, and I have to restart the game and do it all over again.

For the sake of my sanity, I try to stick to picking their clothes. Resonance of Fate did that pretty well.

 

[Valdsator]

I love character customization, it makes the game much more fun. But I don't think I like sliders too much. Often, when there are sliders, there's almost 100 of them. And, a lot of the time, changing one thing, changes another, and you go back and forth trying to make it perfect, and it just gets really annoying. Simple sliders I don't mind (size is a pretty important one, and a lot of games don't have that), but all of my Oblivion/Demon's Souls characters look ugly. :<

 

[Proton Packmule]

I'm beginning to think that Gears 3 will be the only multiplayer-capable game where you can be female.

RS-V2 has female avatars, though admittedly it's a little old.

It would be a nice option, but 1. many MP people would probably choose men in order to avoid looking like 'teh fagz', 2. it'd be more work (I can't say how much, but I'm sure it'd be significant) to integrate new character models (and this is my weakest point) and also 3. the press would probably love this headline;

"Online game FORCES CHILDREN to KILL WOMEN for POINTS!"

 

[Cheesus333]

Thread title made me think of the Stereophonics cover of Handbags & Gladrags. Ahh, what a lovely song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xkPJNgvWL8]

I love customisation, personally. I feel weirdly fulfilled when I've dressed my little doll of a character up in whatever I think looks coolest, funniest, sexiest or prettiest (depending on context). Probably some subconscious thing it appeals to, but that doesn't matter. The only important thing is that it makes a game more immersive for me to play, and I appreciate that.

EDIT: Oh, but what really annoys me is when they offer hairstyle options, but they're all either ridiculous, or just short and grizzled. My hair is not ridiculous, or short and grizzled. Unhappy faces ensue.

 

[Dizeazedkiller]

Character customisation is heaps of fun. I have Elder Scrolls Oblivion sitting in my room and every now and then i have the urge to play it, but i always start with a new character because with an rpg if i have a break of more than a few months i become disconnected from my character and its accomplishments. Anyway, every time i come back to Oblivion i spend up to a couple of hours making sure my skin tone is just the way i want it, that the hair is the way i want it and matches the facial features. Putting together time ive spent downloading customisation addons and actually creating characters on the game, I've actually spent more time on customisation than on playing the game itself.

Maybe its just because oblivion sucks the big one.

I also play little minecraft and even though it doesn't have a proper customisation feature i have downloaded mob texture packs and worked towards making a little jimmy urine player for my block-smashing adventures.

Its kind of annoying though. his face disappeared in the transfer from the file to the game >.<

 

[Wuffykins]

I do like customisation in games, but at times it does get my creative juices flowing just a wee bit too much.

Case in point: Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny for the PSP. Though the customisation options aren't the most extensive in comparison to other games, the create-a-fighter mode has me able to throw together an interesting mix of a character, to which my mind gave a back-story. Then I felt it necessary to add a supporting character, maybe a rival even, who also needed a hint of background as well.

Fast forward to a day later to find me having filled all sixteen character slots (it was sixteen, right?), most of the time listed in the save file making characters, with most of the actual gameplay time just unlocking new options to make more characters. While I've returned from the library after a hint of research of Joan of Arc and Roman military tactics to begin putting some notes down on the societal structure of the main factions in a massive story that's been added to the pile of things I'll hopefully get around to writing out.

The above tends to happen often with video games, and is also the main reason I just don't play wrestling games at all.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

I like the look of Brinks customization. By why can we only play as males? I'm beginning to think that Gears 3 will be the only multiplayer-capable game where you can be female.

Halo 3 and Reach had female Spartans and Elites. The female Spartans in Reach even have a unique character model. ODST let you play as Dare. You could also play as several different female characters in Bioshock 2 online and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Quake 3 had female models too.

Really, there have been plenty of female models in online gaming. Heck, Gears 3 won't even be the first game by Epic to have female characters. Unreal Tournament comes to mind.

 

[Galletea]

Now in saying this, occasionally customization can be at the detriment of the story being told. Sometimes it's better to give limited options, or none at all, if the story being told is formed around the main character. For Example. Imagine if God of War gave you the ability to customize your own character? It wouldn't work. Kratos is iconic in who he is and his appearance, it would be at the detriment of the story being told, and a lot of Kratos visual elements are key points of the story. Another example is Jedi Academy. This is a game thats not terrible, but suffers because it DID include customization. The game would have been better off not including it, and just giving the player a deep well crafted character to play with.

I totally agree with you here. I think that in a narrative that centres around the character, adding customisation would be detrimental to their impact on the narrative world. Kratos is the perfect example of this, designed specifically to convey his raw anger and power. Customising him would not work in that context.

Where the story doesn't centre around the central character, but rather places them in a scenario they have to work with, I would prefer to have some degree of customisation.
Take the Half-Life series. You play a mute thrust into the thick of it. Now I know some have argued that it makes you have more connection with the character, but that character's design is set. I can't really put myself in that character's place when I know that he is a beardy bespectacled mute man, while I'm an articulate woman with good eyesight and no knowledge of physics. Personally I think it would work better if either; Gordon had a voice and added something to the plot, or that he be customisable.

I like the look of Brinks customization. By why can we only play as males? I'm beginning to think that Gears 3 will be the only multiplayer-capable game where you can be female.

Well this is another interesting point. Is it important to be able to be either gender in a game? Personally it isn't something that bothers me, if the option is there then I'll have a look at it and see which set of options I like better. Often it's easier to make the girls look good than the guys but that is the only reason I really go for the female option, even though I'm a woman.

 

[Dectomax]

Character creation is a very overlooked part of games. If you can create a avatar that you can connect with your going to enjoy that game more.

I'm terrible for it! I've spent hours on Fallout 1, 2, Tactics and 3 and NV creating a unique character. The same goes for Morrowind and Oblivion. It's just an added level of depth that can make a game that much more enjoyable!