Customizations, personality and control

 Over the years, the control a player has over their avatar has increased with each new game. Each of us plays games for our own reasons, and each of us have our own personal goals we set for ourselves. These personal goals will generally bleed through from game to game resurfacing in its own unique way depending on the game itself. However, this is a another topic all together. One thing that we all have in common is how our in game avatar looks. Modern day games have all but created a new goal for us in addition to our normal play styles: To have our character (avatar) fit our personality in one of many ways.

What was available in the past?

In the past our avatars look was determined by the game based on the type of class we chose. (Gauntlet, Diablo, Diablo 2)

However with the rise of more modern games, such as Dark Age of Camelot, EverQuest and even World of Warcraft) our ability to customize the look of our avatar has grown. We were first given the ability to select gender on our own (unlike Gauntlet and Diablo), to selecting a few options for hair or face.

Customizing an avatar now

In the recent past, we slowly gained the ability as gamers, to customize our characters so not every players avatar was a carbon copy of the other. Developers and newer technology allowed us to be able to start creating more personalized characters that fit our play styles.Games like Dark Age of Camelot, EverQuest and Lineage 2 were the first games to allowed to actually chose their appearance.

Dark Age of Camelot in 2001 and later City of Heroes in 2004, EverQuest2 in 2004,  actually gave us sliders for more character customization. This was the end of the pre-built avatar from the game, and the rise of character customization. You could actually change your characters height, jaw, chin, eyebrows and hair color. However, not all games had followed this path.

Over the last 10 years in depth customization has grown to almost limitless possibilities. It first started by allowing the players to select a hair or face model then select colour. Now, modern games (pc and some console games) even allow you to not only chose your face and hair style, but also shape it as well with a selection of sliders that increases the customization.  The only real thing that holds most developers back with customization options available is the limitations from tech: computers and internet connection speeds.

Game Styles

Many games have come out over the last ten years, and each has its own level of character customization. Why do these games vary so much? The main reason is the design of the game itself. What is the focus of the game? What is the developers main focus? These are only two things out of many aspects that determine the level of character customization.

As we have entered the 21st century, both technology and internet connections have improved a lot. This means a lot of game companies can now spend some of their focus on character customization for the players while not giving up on their game design. This is and should be the main focus for all game developers, their Design Vision.

RTS (Real Time Strategy) Games:

These games do not always allow as much avatar customization as most other types.There are a few RTS games that have broken that mold by allowing players to upload or chose a 2d image.As new(er) games come out or are updated we are slowly seeing the ability to have a custom avatar.

FPS (First Person Shooters) Games:

Many FPS  games have moved from the player clone syndrome to now allowing, at least, a limited amount of player customization for their avatars. These games do not allow as much avatar customization as most RPG games. However, FPS developers have started to give the limited ability to customize the looks via gear, colour and even model types. Giving players the option to select a face or body type has given a boost to most FPS games, even if it is limited. No longer are the days where all players look exactly alike no matter what gear they have on.

RPG (Role Play Games) Games:

RPG's have had the largest boost in character customization, giving the players a sense of almost unlimited customization. Over the years the amount that a player can customize their avatar has spread through most games. Even some of the older games have started adding in a limited amount of customization in their Game Updates. Sometimes, this has been new sliders, while other times it has been adding new models of hair, faces or body types to their game.

Who Customizes their character avatars?

Everyone from the hard core raider or PvPer to the hard core role players.. and everyone in between. Yet, the amount of customization that players put into their avatars do very greatly.

Most players whom focus on raiding or PvP do not generally customize their characters quite as much. Though they still do tend to derive a bit from the default settings.

Casual players, from what I have been told focus a bit more on the customization of their avatar. They like having a decent looking character that reflects their own personality.

While role players tend to focus more on the customization so it not only fits their personality, but the personality of their avatar as well.

The last two groups tend to vary from one side of the scale to the other. However, I know personally that even some of the more hard core raiders have fallen into the soft spot of customizing their characters. But over all, most everyone seems to like at least a little amount of customization.

Dark Relic Character Customization

Now for the answer you were looking for. Well, maybe not a total answer, but at least an insight on where we stand with character customizations.

With Dark Relic we are aiming for a good medium in our ability to customize the looks of your characters. Though we have to pay attention to our main goal of the game as well as performance.  With this in mind, we are hoping that you, the players will be happy with what we have planned and are currently working on.

The ability to chose your look is important, as we want to avoid that Clone Syndrome. Your character should be able to reflect your personality, or your characters personality. This is an RPG after all.

What do we have planned?

As stated already, our main focus is on game play and performance. A good looking character is not worth anything if the game is not fun to play or if it runs horribly on most computers.  So with that in mind, we are looking at how much we can allow in appearance customization of ones character. Yet, I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised.

Allowing players to not only select the race of their choice, but also nice set of hair styles, facial features and body size will help remove some of those clones. We will also be adding sliders and colour pickers for all of the above as well. Of course there will be limits based on the race you chose. However, just with this, you can have the ability to look as similar or as different from any other character out there.

In addition to this, you will also have a small selection of starting clothing to chose from, as well as colourize. The starting clothing will be the basic items you need to wear when you first enter the world. However, being able to select your shirt, pants, shoes and even your low end armor separately will give you the ability to not look like everyone else starting out. Each player can look different if they want.

Later on, you can continue your character look customization by unlocking additional physical appearance aspects in game. This can give you additional hair styles, tattoos or even battle scars.

We hope that we can bring you the best customization as possible, but also ask you, the player, to remember that we are looking to create a high end game with as little overhead for you. A good playing game with good performance always overrules a lot of the extras. However, I do believe that even if we have to sacrifice a lot of the avatar customizations, you will still be pleasantly surprised. Some things we just will not get rid of. (Hint: Starting clothing/armor). be not afraid.. we will not give an old run down boring system for your personal avatars.