The agony of choice: Character customization

[Jeivar]

Don't you guys face this problem too in games with extensive character customization? I'm finally going to play Saint's Row 3 next week when I get a PC that can actually run it properly, but the options are so detailed.

First I made a muscular, pointy-eared, red eyed, grey-skinned vampire lady with bloody tears and blood on her lips, and that sultry American voice.

Yesterday I made a badass scarred albino lady with a Russian voice.

Both combos are great, and so are many, many others I could come up with. I kind of feel like I'm going to have a hard time being satisfied and actually starting the game.
"Oh, but it would also be cool to..." haunts me at the start of every game with a detailed creation system. Sound familiar? :smallsmile:

(yes, I know SR allows plastic surgery, but I'm talking in general)

[Kudaku]

I know you touched on this in your post, but as far as I know every single part of your character (from hair to clothing to tattoos to gender) can be changed in-game. You can literally start off with your vampire Boss and swap to the russian Boss mid-game!

All part of the hilarity that is Saint's Row :smallbiggrin:

[Sylthia]

I've had a few games where I'd spend an hour or two trying to get my character just right.

[Avilan the Grey]

I've had a few games where I'd spend an hour or two trying to get my character just right.

Really? An hour or two?

Noob. :smallwink:

I spent what? About two days IRL time to settle on my first Skyrim character... And don't get me started on my first Shepard.

[Mono Vertigo]

I remember City of Villains (and by extension City of Heroes). They did not help my character customization addiction at all.
Played Champions Online afterwards mostly because it allowed me to do the same; I haven't spend that long playing the game itself. Skyrim doesn't even need to be mentioned, everybody spends half their day on customizing the damn character.
Praise the gods my laptop is getting old.
(Once it dies and I have to buy another, newer laptop though, the relapse will reach biblical proportions. I know it.)

[Ogremindes]

I remember City of Villains (and by extension City of Heroes). They did not help my character customization addiction at all.
Played Champions Online afterwards mostly because it allowed me to do the same; I haven't spend that long playing the game itself.

I'm approaching 1000 hours on Champions in no small part due to the Character Creator (and also controller support, half-arsed as is is). Something about spending all that of time on the appearance generates a story and personality in my head, which makes the character fun to play, even through the same-old content. ...huh, I'm roleplaying by myself in an MMO.

[Cespenar]

I spent what? About two days IRL time to settle on my first Skyrim character... And don't get me started on my first Shepard.

Mine were:

For Skyrim, I think about 15 minutes, finally settling on one of the premade types for a Breton.

For Shepard, 2 minutes? Picked the #1 preset, I think? Marine-type guy?

Yeah, this thread is probably not for me.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

There's so much tweaking you could do, I never know what to do. It's hard to find inspiration. Especially with something as highly customizable as, say, Mount & Blade.

If it's high-complexity, I look for a randomizer and keep hitting it until an interesting face pops out at me. Then I tweak.

[MLai]

When the character (face) customization is rich, it's basically its own game. Barbie for geeks I guess.
The character creation subforum for Dragon Age was quite fun and lively. I made some great creations (and look forward to doing the same for ME games once I install them from Steam finally). Should I post them here to show off?

[Sylthia]

Sometimes, I wish there were just some sites that had a free place to make avatars to the degree of customizability that many of these games have. I've seen a few, but none of them have the exact thing I was looking for.

[shadowxknight]

I have a similar issue when leveling my characters in RPGs. How should I build him? What if the good equipment I find late game doesn't match with how I built my character? Cognitive dissonance results in us enjoying our choice less when too many options are presented.

[Sylthia]

To build on my earlier comment, I do a lot of writing, and I'd like to have some illustrations of my characters, but I'm a really lousy drawer. This way, I'd be able to have some pictures of my characters.

[Winter_Wolf]

When I had Sims 3 installed, I did exactly two things with it: building lots, and fiddling with custom body sliders and skins. I did a lot of body shop stuff, but would have done even more if I'd had more options to play with. But for games that I actually intend to play, I spend all of 10 minutes deciding what's "good enough". Especially if I'm spending most of my time in first person mode. Some games (mostly older D&D titles) I did spend a long time hemming and hawwing, but it was essentially a case of, "which of these looks the least terrible?"

[Sylthia]

I think I tend to take longer when there's a slider, rather than a pre-set list of options, especially when it's hard to decide how one decision will affect the character as a whole, like cheek height and stuff.

[HamHam]

I spent a not insignificant amount of time on character creation for all 8 of my Guild Wars 2 characters. Especially the Sylvari and Norn ones because they get lots of unique bits that can make them look radically different.

[MLai]

Let's see them. This should totally be an image thread.:smalltongue:

[ryuplaneswalker]

I remember City of Villains (and by extension City of Heroes). They did not help my character customization addiction at all.
Played Champions Online afterwards mostly because it allowed me to do the same; I haven't spend that long playing the game itself. Skyrim doesn't even need to be mentioned, everybody spends half their day on customizing the damn character.
Praise the gods my laptop is getting old.
(Once it dies and I have to buy another, newer laptop though, the relapse will reach biblical proportions. I know it.)

I played City of Heroes as well, dear god that game had so many options for character creation..I had over 70 characters across various servers by the time the game ended.

Up to and Including A seagull Themed hero, A villain built around the concept of "A scottish bar owner directing an unending soccer riot by giving them free booze." and "A guy who ate radioactive icecream and got turned into a chocolate golem with the ability to manipulate cold" OH! and a robotic french snowman built by santa claus to punish the "really" naughty list people, who had a gun that shot bullets made of ice"

[MLai]

Up to and Including A seagull Themed hero, A villain built around the concept of "A scottish bar owner directing an unending soccer riot by giving them free booze." and "A guy who ate radioactive icecream and got turned into a chocolate golem with the ability to manipulate cold" OH! and a robotic french snowman built by santa claus to punish the "really" naughty list people, who had a gun that shot bullets made of ice"
You know what these sound like? Super-criminals from the Inspector Clouseau cartoons. :smallsmile:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/190/1204246077_1.jpg

[ryuplaneswalker]

That or some of the lesser known silver age characters :P

and say what you want, Frosty Ze Gunman and The Rocky Road Warrior were awesome.

Edit : Also all of those except the Scottsman were Heroes. For some reason I generally have a habit of making Heroes silly but awesome, and Villains more serious.