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From: candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: Character Creators
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2024 14:30:07 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: the-candyden-of-code
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Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com> wrote at 14:50 this Tuesday (GMT):
> On 7/1/2024 4:44 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> 
>> The hype train for the newest "Dragon Age" game is roaring down the
>> tracks. The latest is an article on GameInformer on how the game has
>> an incredibly robust character creation system, heads and shoulders
>> above anything they've done before. But I'm not here to talk about
>> "Dragon Age".
>> 
>> Rather, I'm here to question the importance (and wisdom of pouring so
>> many resources into developing) these character creation tools. I
>> mean, sure they're neat. There's a certain segment of the population
>> who likes nothing better than to use these tools to create convincing
>> duplicates of real people. ("Look, I created Keanu Reeves in
>> Skyrim!"). But creating these character creation tools isn't cheap in
>> manpower or time, and I have to wonder: does it really matter? Is that
>> segment of player so large as to balance out the expenditure used in
>> creating the tool? Because I suspect the vast bulk of players spend
>> ten or fifteen minutes tops with it -creating a character that looks
>> just vaguely close enough to their vision- before moving on the actual
>> meat of the game.
>> 
>> Sure, the character creation tool is usually just a front-end to the
>> same editor the developers (or a procedural generation algorithm) use
>> to manipulate faces for NPCs. So its not like they're making it from
>> scratch. Still, the question remains: is all that effort to create
>> such varied face technology really worth it? Do players /really/ care?
>> 
>> It just seems that with actual video-game technology stagnating
>> --games of today, tech-wise, are pretty much the same as games from
>> five years ago-- publishers are instead trying to differentiate their
>> games with the /appearance/ of new sophistication rather than actual
>> advances. But this fiddlyness comes with a cost, and with AAA games
>> /already/ costing over $100 million to make... maybe trim down on the
>> unimportant stuff? Or at least focus those limited resources on the
>> stuff that actually matters, like solid gameplay, good writing, and
>> clever level design?
>> 
>> Because no matter how good your character creation tool is, it's not
>> going to save your game if the rest of it sucks.
>
> I like them and I've spent hours making a character in the dark souls 
> games, never to see their face again after getting a helmet that covers 
> it I like, not to mention camera being stuck behind them so you don't 
> really see it even if you aren't wearing a face-covering helment. Some 
> games have options/mods to hide the helmets, which I think they could 
> really use.  Sometimes I make a pretty face, other times I make the 
> weirdest one I can possibly get with the creator.

I vaguely remember there was an rpg I liked where you could set the
appearance of armor/weapons/etc separate from stats, and there was an
option to have like a basic shirt too which was really funny

> I'm not going to hang my buying of a game on them, that's for sure. But 
> my enjoyment was affected on a couple.  I really wish Horizon had one, 
> instead I have to look at that woman that looks like a neanderthal 
> throwback, or she has some sort of genetic disorder.  She's definitely 
> got a bit of uncanny valley.  I don't particularly like being forced to 
> be that one guy in Death Stranding either.  Just a few options would be 
> fine by me, so I can pick something I like better.
>
> I'd certainly miss it in souls games when I want to make something weird 
> though.
>
> The only one I think it's really important in is generic superhero 
> games, If you can't design your suit which is all you'll be seeing, then 
> it really irks me (City of Heroes.)


Honestly, I'm fine with just having a few presets to pick from. Any
character creator I've used, I either leave it as default or hit random
a couple times.
-- 
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom