And that's the truth.

I really like how the game plays -- I like the more realistic approach to combat; I like the world design and the mobs you face; I like the emphasis on guns; I like the modern setting; I like the quest design. But, at the end of the day, I've hated every character I created. And it's not like I'm wandering through the game world seeing a bunch of players who got it right. Nope -- every single option (for females) is flawed.

Want to get a girl who looks, say, like the Templar mascot from the box? Tough luck on that effort! Probably 75% of the female faces are inherently flawed; angular, man-like jaws, huge, protruding cheek bones -- it's like some kind of Stalin-era Communist Russian's wet dream. The remainder have other issues: pancake-flat foreheads, misshapen noses, etc.

One thing I detest about simplistic character creators is when there are certain 'ethnic' faces that cannot be believably turned otherwise. For example, in TSW female faces 1-2 are clearly intended to represent people of african descent. I'd argue that 8 (and probably 7) are asians. And don't mistake this for me being racist. Rather, I would prefer that all faces have the potentiality to represent any race -- you understand what I'm driving at? IE, if I want, say, face 4 to have a broad nose, that should be possible. If I want face 4 to look believably asian or black or middle eastern or eastern european, that should all be possible. I shouldn't pick a starter face and be like 'well, this is what the producers intended to represent as 'black,' and I wanted a white chick, so that entire face is elminated.' Design like that is not only stupid, it's actually kind of racist.

What's worse is, I could actually create characters I liked in TOR. And that game, I'd argue, was far, far less well designed than TSW (including the basic art style behind the character models themselves). Yet, I could put together a couple of different paper dolls I liked, and that was enough for me to slog through. It just goes to show prospective MMORPG makers: for a lot of people, having a character you enjoy looking at is ridiculously inportant. And, to add insult to injury with TSW, you can't adjust height, weight, muscles -- it's all the same. I just want to know why they thought this would cut it in a game released in 2012.

I liked the game too, the PvP killed it for me though, absolutely horrid.

Edit: And for the character creator, I agree, it's bad.

The character creator, especially for female characters, is a little flawed, I admit. You can create some truly horrid looking characters, but then again with a little effort I managed to create some quite good looking ones too. It's surprising what one small change can do to the look of a character when making it, like one of mine looked awful and I was about to scrap it when I just changed the eyes and suddenly went, "Ooh, that's nice.".

It certainly is a weird generator though, I'm hoping they get the revamp in sooner rather than later. Here's me hoping for some long hair.

I am thinking this was done with intent. They have plans for both hairdressers and "Anima fuelled plastic surgery" both promised by the end of August. I feel this sort of creates a very realistic approach to character generation, we all have something we are not completely happy about with our own bodies, and we have the option of plastic surgery (RL). Now, thanks to Funcom we will have it in an MMORPG as well. :)

I actually think this is a clever idea from the company to add another money sink into the game. I just hope it is something that is done really well, so it can be another feature that will blow people away. :)

I love this game,  it's a great foundation, I just hope they can keep up with adding new content each month. Did "Carter unleashed" yesterday as well as the "Hell and Bach investigative" mission, both great stories and well executed.

Would love for Funcom to add stuff like Player housing and other Sandbox features, but for now I have plenty to sink my teeth into with the missions.

Conlai "Darkmoor" MacGregor

Templar 

Originally posted by Humphrie

What's worse is, I could actually create characters I liked in TOR.

When TOR is used as a good example to highlight how bad your character creation is you know you're fucked.  

Originally posted by Connlai

I am thinking this was done with intent. They have plans for both hairdressers and "Anima fuelled plastic surgery" both promised by the end of August. I feel this sort of creates a very realistic approach to character generation, we all have something we are not completely happy about with our own bodies, and we have the option of plastic surgery (RL). Now, thanks to Funcom we will have it in an MMORPG as well. :)

I actually think this is a clever idea from the company to add another money sink into the game. I just hope it is something that is done really well, so it can be another feature that will blow people away. :)

I love this game,  it's a great foundation, I just hope they can keep up with adding new content each month. Did "Carter unleashed" yesterday as well as the "Hell and Bach investigative" mission, both great stories and well executed.

Would love for Funcom to add stuff like Player housing and other Sandbox features, but for now I have plenty to sink my teeth into with the missions.

 

Conlai "Darkmoor" MacGregor

Templar 

i've seen more attractive constipated chimpanzees at the local zoo than female characters in this game.

your character is suppose to be, somewhat  the tool to build the bridge between reality and that virtual world that the devs created for us.  if you can't get  a connection or at least a vague attachement with your character.  everything else becomes stale and won't be long before you quit the game.

this is exactly what happened to me.  i'm not saying you need a sophisticated perfect CC in game, alas Eve online.   even games with far worse more limited CC,  allow you to make a character you truly feel comfortable with.

i dont wanna sound pesimistic but i doubt any revamp would fix this.  

I have to agree with the OP. I got the email for the free weekend and downloaded the client again on Friday. Logged in, made a character ran around for a few minutes and logged off again. There was no change since Beta that I could see and it was a game breaker for me then.

I know the game should be about the gameplay and not eye candy but come on guys. It's 2012 and by now we have to accept that there are certain basic minimum standards that have to be met. For me TSW falls short in character creation. The models are FUGLY. The animations are poor. Things as basic as running and jumping animations are worse than games from 10 years ago. DAoC had better animations than TSW.

What make it even worse, IMO, is that we know Funcom are capable of better. Look at the char creation in AoC. Look at it's animations. Far superior to what we're seeing in TSW.

The standard of the models and animations in TSW just looks shoddy, like some third rate F2P game where you expect low quality because the game is free. It's a real shame because gameplay wise they have some great ideas, with the skill wheel and the way the quests work. For me though, that failure to meet an acceptable standard for the char models/animations just spoils the whole experience. How the hell am I supposed to immerse myself in a game where my char looks like a chimp and moves like marrionette on acid?

love PVE... but they fked PVP... after one month i finished every quest in game(watched every cutscene, read every dialog,etc... rly great story, even side missions was great), every dungeon.... what left? AP farm, purple farm, thats all :) PVP = 0, exploits(hi triple blaze, NO-LOS AR aoe spam, oh what about perma impair eruption,infinite fist consumers...etc.. ),bugs,imbalance everywhere

Aside from the Creators in AION & CoH I think pretty much all character creators in MMOs have been pretty dire, TSW being as it was trying to be a more "realised" depiction of a modern world suffers badly from a lack of character creator options though I think that's quite a weak reason to dismiss a game I understand some people feel this is very important.

Funcom are aware of the general dislike of the character creator right now & will be developing it further, they've already mentioned adding in "plastic surgery" type facilities & functions which I imagine is how, moving forward, future iterations of the character creator will be available to players, this I think is a good idea but I agree that it would have been better to have developed what's in place now to a higher standard of fidelity.

Originally posted by marganculos

love PVE... but they fked PVP... after one month i finished every quest in game(watched every cutscene, read every dialog,etc... rly great story, even side missions was great), every dungeon.... what left? AP farm, purple farm, thats all :) PVP = 0, exploits(hi triple blaze, NO-LOS AR aoe spam, oh what about perma impair eruption,infinite fist consumers...etc.. ),bugs,imbalance everywhere

From what I've read there will be a lot more development done in PvP it's important to the developers to improve it & make it a key feature of the game, what's there so far is a lacklustre but it has sound ideas behind it, the iteration just isn't up to scratch & isn't behaving the way it was expected to. Another case of players not behaving as anticipated, odd seeing they almost always find & exploit the path of least resistance (to their aims).

Originally posted by PieRad

I liked the game too, the PvP killed it for me though, absolutely horrid.

Edit: And for the character creator, I agree, it's bad.

 Havent experienced it yet but a real life friend told me the pvp in TSW was freakin awesome compared to most other games..

Originally posted by blackhawkzz
There improving character creation at the end of the month so I don't see what the problem is. And on character animations they are constantly improving them and lately alot of the higher skills just got revamped just because u base the animations on the early skills is quite shallow by most gamers.

The 'problem' is that they launched knowing that their character creation was shit.

This is their front window for their game... the customer's first experience with their product... and they were ok to go live with a sub par offering. That to me, as a customer, is a huge warning sign and very off putting. It shows a definite half arsed approach.

All the time the character creator was being built and tested no one at FC said, wait, this won't do. That, to me, is bewildering for an experienced dev making an AAA game.

So many care so much about this because many people connect with these games through their character, and having one they are not happy with seriously impacts on their enjoyment. For me personally it certainly gave me the impression that the game was rough around the edges and unfinished, putting me off investing more time into exploring it (and buying it).

If they had put more care and attention into the first contact experience they would have had a box sale and probably 1 month of sub off me. As it is, they got nothing.

Originally posted by Humphrie

And that's the truth.

 

I really like how the game plays -- I like the more realistic approach to combat; I like the world design and the mobs you face; I like the emphasis on guns; I like the modern setting; I like the quest design. But, at the end of the day, I've hated every character I created. And it's not like I'm wandering through the game world seeing a bunch of players who got it right. Nope -- every single option (for females) is flawed.

 

Want to get a girl who looks, say, like the Templar mascot from the box? Tough luck on that effort! Probably 75% of the female faces are inherently flawed; angular, man-like jaws, huge, protruding cheek bones -- it's like some kind of Stalin-era Communist Russian's wet dream. The remainder have other issues: pancake-flat foreheads, misshapen noses, etc.

 

One thing I detest about simplistic character creators is when there are certain 'ethnic' faces that cannot be believably turned otherwise. For example, in TSW female faces 1-2 are clearly intended to represent people of african descent. I'd argue that 8 (and probably 7) are asians. And don't mistake this for me being racist. Rather, I would prefer that all faces have the potentiality to represent any race -- you understand what I'm driving at? IE, if I want, say, face 4 to have a broad nose, that should be possible. If I want face 4 to look believably asian or black or middle eastern or eastern european, that should all be possible. I shouldn't pick a starter face and be like 'well, this is what the producers intended to represent as 'black,' and I wanted a white chick, so that entire face is elminated.' Design like that is not only stupid, it's actually kind of racist.

 

What's worse is, I could actually create characters I liked in TOR. And that game, I'd argue, was far, far less well designed than TSW (including the basic art style behind the character models themselves). Yet, I could put together a couple of different paper dolls I liked, and that was enough for me to slog through. It just goes to show prospective MMORPG makers: for a lot of people, having a character you enjoy looking at is ridiculously inportant. And, to add insult to injury with TSW, you can't adjust height, weight, muscles -- it's all the same. I just want to know why they thought this would cut it in a game released in 2012.

I understand where you are coming from in your post and found it very entertaining. I didn't find any ill-intent behind your words..

I felt this very way when I first started plaything TSW also, still do and will until it is changed. That change is in the works so we will see what Funcom can do to correct the issue. The haircuts aren't far behind in that department either. There's ONE that I would consider to be "black" and thats the close buzz cut (Fade).. Every other hairstyle "favors" those of caucasian or asian decent. It's quite funny what they put together..

Almost insulting ... lol..

Thankfully there's a new one in the works that should be out soon

mm the character creator is realy awful :(