One of the things I happen to enjoy very much with AoC is the fact that I can identify different players by looking at their characters face. I like going around looking at other players characters, and especially their faces.

Since I cannot get myself to go to sleep now in the middle of the night, I decided to go around the main cities and take pictures of random people standing around.
It might have been a silly thing to do, but I'm sure showing off one of the qualities with this game (the character creation) isn't that a bad idea =)
 

I particularly liked the look of the assassin (top left, yes his face is mostly covered ^^) and the red haired cimmerian on the bottom third right.

What do you think about the character looks in AoC?

I know this definitely one of the things many people appreciate. I have read stories on the official AoC forums of where people have tried to make a face as much as possible like their own and subsequently been recognized by their friends or students in game. Funny. 

The top left one is badass

Definitely a cut above the rest when it comes to character creation, also in terms of actual aesthetics.

I like the red haired Cimmerian best.

There is certainly a lot of diversification in character looks in the game.

I think I've seen that first face on Americas Most Wanted: Terrorists

They did a pretty good job with character animation. While some faces look kinda "dead", others look very realistic.

--- Off topic ---

Too bad itemization was not done with same care. Equipment are just too generic and bland. They really should have used more colors so that you could more easily recognize your friends by the way they look.

Originally posted by Deadman87

What do you think about the character looks in AoC?

Not as good as they seem to be.  If you really want to show off customization, and put it to a test, might I suggest grouping faces by ethnicity and gender.  e.g. put a bunch of different stygian woman next to eachother, to compare.

Also consider that each race/gender has a choice of maybe 8(?) faces to pick from.  Put different characters next to eachother, who chose the same base facial texture, and then how different do they really look?

It's especially noticable for female characters, because there's usually one good looking choice, one ok looking choice, and a bunch of middle-aged choices, which most players shy away from.  So players pick the same base texture, and end up looking the same, because the customization details don't make as much difference as they seem to.  It's really about which face template you start with.

  i think they did a good job with the facial features, but it can be improved a lot, that's good tho, as otherwise we would ahve reached a point where it would be almost imposible to find noticeable improvements in future games.  They need to improve the itmeisation to match this level of detail and customization properly, hopefully this will be addressed in a good way next patch, they ahve increased the amount of different possible looks, but when you have a world as detailed as it is, with characters that have much more customization in their face than what we were used, you kinda need to have as much if not more gear looks customization options, to match it as a whole.

IT does have some amazing character creation. Lets not exagerate, its not better than all mmorpgs out there but its better than most. There are a few games which have character creation as a main selling point which really allow you to customize hard core.

Perfect world

phantasy star universe

Pirates of the Burning Sea

Runes of Magic

These are some games that have simply amazing character customization. But this game does have better customization than games like FFXI, EQ, WoW or D&D online.

Originally posted by Vhaln

Originally posted by Deadman87

What do you think about the character looks in AoC?

 

Not as good as they seem to be.  If you really want to show off customization, and put it to a test, might I suggest grouping faces by ethnicity and gender.  e.g. put a bunch of different stygian woman next to eachother, to compare.

Also consider that each race/gender has a choice of maybe 8(?) faces to pick from.  Put different characters next to eachother, who chose the same base facial texture, and then how different do they really look?

It's especially noticable for female characters, because there's usually one good looking choice, one ok looking choice, and a bunch of middle-aged choices, which most players shy away from.  So players pick the same base texture, and end up looking the same, because the customization details don't make as much difference as they seem to.  It's really about which face template you start with.

 

Vhalen, perhaps you didn't pay attention in the character creation area, but there are any number of infinate faces possible. Sure, if you go with the pre made ones then yes, it is limited, but if you start with one and tweak the details, you can make it your own.

AoC in my opinion has the best character models of any mmo out there, bar none.

Worst in my opinion is SoE for EQ2. My god, whoever designed the female eye sets should go back to finger painting.

Originally posted by Kungaloosh1

Originally posted by Vhaln

Originally posted by Deadman87

What do you think about the character looks in AoC?

 

Not as good as they seem to be.  If you really want to show off customization, and put it to a test, might I suggest grouping faces by ethnicity and gender.  e.g. put a bunch of different stygian woman next to eachother, to compare.

Also consider that each race/gender has a choice of maybe 8(?) faces to pick from.  Put different characters next to eachother, who chose the same base facial texture, and then how different do they really look?

It's especially noticable for female characters, because there's usually one good looking choice, one ok looking choice, and a bunch of middle-aged choices, which most players shy away from.  So players pick the same base texture, and end up looking the same, because the customization details don't make as much difference as they seem to.  It's really about which face template you start with.

 

 

Vhaln, perhaps you didn't pay attention in the character creation area, but there are any number of infinate faces possible. Sure, if you go with the pre made ones then yes, it is limited, but if you start with one and tweak the details, you can make it your own.

 

No, I definately payed attention, I'm the sort to tweak everything.  I'm very picky.  Still, maybe I am wrong - just put it to the test I suggested.

Originally posted by Vhaln

Originally posted by Kungaloosh1

Originally posted by Vhaln

Originally posted by Deadman87

What do you think about the character looks in AoC?

 

Not as good as they seem to be.  If you really want to show off customization, and put it to a test, might I suggest grouping faces by ethnicity and gender.  e.g. put a bunch of different stygian woman next to eachother, to compare.

Also consider that each race/gender has a choice of maybe 8(?) faces to pick from.  Put different characters next to eachother, who chose the same base facial texture, and then how different do they really look?

It's especially noticable for female characters, because there's usually one good looking choice, one ok looking choice, and a bunch of middle-aged choices, which most players shy away from.  So players pick the same base texture, and end up looking the same, because the customization details don't make as much difference as they seem to.  It's really about which face template you start with.

 

 

Vhaln, perhaps you didn't pay attention in the character creation area, but there are any number of infinate faces possible. Sure, if you go with the pre made ones then yes, it is limited, but if you start with one and tweak the details, you can make it your own.

 

 

No, I definately payed attention, I'm the sort to tweak everything.  I'm very picky.  Still, maybe I am wrong - just put it to the test I suggested.

You're not wrong at all and I'm going to log in a take few shots to prove it in a min. When the game was in open beta some people were trying to see if there would be more customization as again what Funcom had hinted at promised more then what they delivered. A lot of people were seriously disappointed with how little you can change the templates. Especially if you look at earlier demos of the game, they seemed to have changed the models or decided to limit them.

Like what happened to this model? www.youtube.com/watch

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Originally posted by Vhaln

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Originally posted by Deadman87

What do you think about the character looks in AoC?

---

 
Not as good as they seem to be.  If you really want to show off customization, and put it to a test, might I suggest grouping faces by ethnicity and gender.  e.g. put a bunch of different stygian woman next to eachother, to compare.
Also consider that each race/gender has a choice of maybe 8(?) faces to pick from.  Put different characters next to eachother, who chose the same base facial texture, and then how different do they really look?
It's especially noticable for female characters, because there's usually one good looking choice, one ok looking choice, and a bunch of middle-aged choices, which most players shy away from.  So players pick the same base texture, and end up looking the same, because the customization details don't make as much difference as they seem to.  It's really about which face template you start with.
 

---

I have seen a lot of players choosing the "pretty female" face and then tweaking it to their liking.
The male characters on the other hand has a much wider variety of faces that are beeing used by players. Perhaps because players are actually trying to get their character to look like themselves, much like I did.

A solution to this "problem" would be that Funcom were to make more pretty female face templates.
 

Here is the cimmerian male template "charming", with two different characteristics.

AoC is where I learned not to particpate in beta. In beta the range of change for the char customization sliders were so much wider. Skin tones had a wider range as well.  They threw most of that out for some reason for launch so as good as AoC chars look, to me its still a disappointment.

Lesson learned: For games you're enthusiastic about, don't play beta!

AoC's character customization was a big let down for a 'nex gen' title, and certainly nothing to brag about.

I think most were hoping for something closer to this.

www.youtube.com/watch

Originally posted by Unfinished

AoC's character customization was a big let down for a 'nex gen' title, and certainly nothing to brag about.

So when compared to fellow next gen game Warhammer, you consider it a big letdown and nothing to brag about?

Or what were you exactly comparing it against? Some asian mmo that was/has yet to come out?

 It's not that the character creation is BAD. It is pretty great actually, it's just not at the level some of us were hoping and expecting. But the graphics of the game kind of make up for the lack of choices.

I'd love to see a barber shop with more hair choices in the future and tattoos, more female faces would rock but I don't really ever expect that to happen.

Originally posted by Deadman87

One of the things I happen to enjoy very much with AoC is the fact that I can identify different players by looking at their characters face. I like going around looking at other players characters, and especially their faces.

Since I cannot get myself to go to sleep now in the middle of the night, I decided to go around the main cities and take pictures of random people standing around.

It might have been a silly thing to do, but I'm sure showing off one of the qualities with this game (the character creation) isn't that a bad idea =)
 

I particularly liked the look of the assassin (top left, yes his face is mostly covered ^^) and the red haired cimmerian on the bottom third right.

What do you think about the character looks in AoC?

StarWarsGalaxies and Second Life especially had appeal when it came to character customization in the past. I certainly won't mistake AoC for SL, but if you don't accept the defaults there is a number of ways to slide your toon into something new. My only gripe of AoC vs SWG is the weight factor, SWG allowed for some really heavy characters, all rebel of course. The race factor of SWG could also play in here, but the AoC lore didn't support it, so (shrug).

Originally posted by Cynthe

 It's not that the character creation is BAD. It is pretty great actually, it's just not at the level some of us were hoping and expecting. But the graphics of the game kind of make up for the lack of choices.

I'd love to see a barber shop with more hair choices in the future and tattoos, more female faces would rock but I don't really ever expect that to happen.

I understand what you mean, seeing as I too was disappointed by the limited customization that was presented (this was at a time where I were still beeing naive to the hype of gaming companies). At least I get my characters to look like how I want them to, and avoid struggling with ending up with butt ugly 'looks like they have been curbstomped repeatedly' characters (like my first time trying out the oblivion face gen).

More character customization will probably be only tweaked for now and not appear until the expansion if I were to guess.

Originally posted by Deadman87

Originally posted by Unfinished

AoC's character customization was a big let down for a 'nex gen' title, and certainly nothing to brag about.

 

So when compared to fellow next gen game Warhammer, you consider it a big letdown and nothing to brag about?

Or what were you exactly comparing it against? Some asian mmo that was/has yet to come out?

Compare, comapre, compare .. i think it is possible to judge this feature on it's individual merit alone, the over-all templates types are super narrow.

If you must have something to measure against, City of Heros has a ton more flexibility / variation / individual slider adjustments for Toon customization than AoC. AoC barely went past the depth of the SWG character variables. it's not impressive and had wider parameters in beta ... makes you wonder why they cut that much of it.

BTW I don't get why the AoC Fans keep pointing at Warhammer, isn't it a big mistake to keep comparing themselves to the other huge MMO failure of 2008 when trying to make any kind of case? And last I heard Warhammer kept a lot more of their subs than AoC managed to.

P.S. APB is hardly an Asian Grinder .... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APB_(video_game) , maybe google next time before spouting off. The IP is not my cup of tea, but I am guessing their are more than enough fans to have this title do well.

Originally posted by Deadman87

 

 
The template of each face can be generously modified, but your point stands and it is true.

 

I have seen a lot of players choosing the "pretty female" face and then tweaking it to their liking.
The male characters on the other hand has a much wider variety of faces that are beeing used by players. Perhaps because players are actually trying to get their character to look like themselves, much like I did.

A solution to this "problem" would be that Funcom were to make more pretty female face templates.
 

Also, males have the facial hair option, and females don't get anything that might compare, like a makeup/jewelry option in its place.   I think facial hair on males adds a much wider variety of looks, while hiding the similarity of the faces underneath.  Makeup, in addition to the regular detail options, could do the same for females.  Also, females have less tattoo choices, for some reason.

Re: comparing to WAR - terrible comparison, because WAR is terrible in many ways, not the least of which being character customization.  AOC is ok, and ok is way better than terrible.  I just think it gets a little overhyped, and would like to see a bit more to it.

AoC's character customization isn't close to being the end-all, but it's pretty good to the point that I have a lot of attachment to my character because of it.  I took a screenshot back when I was in Tortage because I couldn't get over the likeness it had to my uncle.  I attempted to make my face as close as possible(long face, certain jaw/chin shape, brow, big nose, sunken eyes, etc), then added some good facial hair to give it more character, and as soon as I did that it suddenly my guy looked like my uncle. 

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/8982/uncle.jpg

I thought it was pretty cool.  It actually makes a lot of sense because all of the guys in my family look a lot alike, their most signifying feature for each one of us is the hair, myself being the only one clean-shaven.  But I digress.

It's fairly easy to get a 'likeness', but it won't be *you* at all. I don't care that much though, seeing as you get to end up with characters that look pretty damned decent and (if you want it) intimidating and masculine.

I was almost disappointed when I didn't see a comparison picture of your uncle, lol

AoC character creation is alright, the main problem is that the slider range is rather minimal that you can't really manipulate some of the more oversized faces into something better proportioned, control is so limited that you can't customize out of the basic facial template. Skin colour is limited, we could definately do with a larger selection and have hair options usable by all races. This is all stuff they can give us easily and would really open character creation up.