Character Creation in Elite: Dangerous

[OneViGOR]

There have been mentions of commander/character creation before, but no details have been given (and quite rightly so, at this stage). I imagine in the iteration of Elite, the appearance of your commander is a lot more important than before, especially when it comes to walking around in space stations.

My question to you is, in a character creation screen, what would you like to see and what options would you like to be available?

Personally I think some games have gone a bit overboard with the amount of options that no-one's really going to notice. Skyrim is a good example of this. I would prefer a level of customisation more akin to Star Wars: The Old Republic. It would probably be easier to implement as well.

In terms of appearance choices, we definitely need a Michael Brookes beard! What do you guys think?

 

[Kerrash]

Tough to say, a lot of people like customization; I however am not that bothered. Given the choice I would probably go for "generic male 1"

 

[Andrew Sayers]

My question to you is, in a character creation screen, what would you like to see and what options would you like to be available?

I actually think this is quite a tricky question. Part of the beauty of the previous games is how you're thrust immediately into the action and don't even learn your character's default name for a long while. IMHO, that really makes it you exploring the universe, because there's nobody else there for it to be.

Obviously that won't fly nowadays. Aside from anything else, they need a unique commander name for multiplayer purposes. I guess I don't mind what's there so long as the defaults are generated procedurally from your character name.

 

[Hamerstein]

It's a good question and not one I'd really thought about as it won't really matter til we can do EVA in an expansion. At this point I'd be more interested in ship appearance than pilot. Not sure if they'd bother using resources on it for the initial release, more like something that would be added with the expansion, though I've no doubt they'll design the core game with a mind to easy implementation.

 

[Jenner]

I may be in the minority, but I really get involved with detailed character creators! It doesn't even matter if you don't get to see much of them in-game. The few times I rolled new chars in EVE I spent waaaaaay too much time in the character creator getting my commander just so. And that matters diddly squat in EVE!

So yeah... I'm all for a detailed, feature rich character creator. It makes sense given the first person component that is coming.

 

[Cosmo Bozo]

Im a big fan of character customisation....comes from being a long time RPG player.
They are going to have to make a huge range of people and outfits anyway in order for the walking around expansion to be believable...so they might as well make them playable

 

[Mobius]

I like EVE Online charactor creation, as it also acts as your avatar. some mean looking charactors on there.

 

[izzy]

Im a big fan of character customisation....comes from being a long time RPG player.
They are going to have to make a huge range of people and outfits anyway in order for the walking around expansion to be believable...so they might as well make them playable

There is no customisation of commander in Elite ...
But I'm a big fan of RPG too and it could be a good feature

 

[Oss133]

Can't wait to see what Maximum Face looks like in E: D.

 

[Slawkenbergius]

The way you build your character in Dark Souls is pretty cool. The initial creation screen is a bit lame, but it's the kind of gear you use that really determines your appearance. Although you could entirely base what you wear on the associated stats, it's hard not to be swayed by appearance. I'll happily trade a few defence points, or some extra weight, to wear something that fits my outfit better. The Catarina armour is pretty good stats wise, but looks very silly, especially with my Crimson Robe.

Although I wouldn't be that keen on having character stats and levelling up in Elite, having some stats attached to the clothes we wear would be a really good idea, in my opinion. There's a Skyrim mod which adds 'warmth' as a stat for clothes, so you can no longer wear a leather bikini in the snow...

Basically, rather than having one outfit that toons wear forever, I'd like to see people wearing clothes suitable to their current activity, and more generally their lifestyle. A pirate would wear an ammo-belt, and if they're visiting an ice-planet, some silver longjohns.

 

[Jenner]

There's a Skyrim mod which adds 'warmth' as a stat for clothes, so you can no longer wear a leather bikini in the snow...

I dunno, I think my enjoyment would decrease if I couldn't play Skyrim that way. And I do.

 

[OneViGOR]

The way you build your character in Dark Souls is pretty cool. The initial creation screen is a bit lame, but it's the kind of gear you use that really determines your appearance. Although you could entirely base what you wear on the associated stats, it's hard not to be swayed by appearance. I'll happily trade a few defence points, or some extra weight, to wear something that fits my outfit better. The Catarina armour is pretty good stats wise, but looks very silly, especially with my Crimson Robe.

Although I wouldn't be that keen on having character stats and levelling up in Elite, having some stats attached to the clothes we wear would be a really good idea, in my opinion. There's a Skyrim mod which adds 'warmth' as a stat for clothes, so you can no longer wear a leather bikini in the snow...

Basically, rather than having one outfit that toons wear forever, I'd like to see people wearing clothes suitable to their current activity, and more generally their lifestyle. A pirate would wear an ammo-belt, and if they're visiting an ice-planet, some silver longjohns.

I was thinking more in terms of your characters body and stature, rather than clothing. I agree with you though, on the clothing front.

 

[jedt]

don't care what it looks like..... as long as it works.

 

[Slawkenbergius]

I was thinking more in terms of your characters body and stature, rather than clothing. I agree with you though, on the clothing front.

Yeah, that part of it has always interested me a bit less if I'm honest. I've said somewhere else that I'd like to see different (human) races well catered for, and realistic body types, rather the 95% muscle or 85% bosom stuff you get in a lot of games...

There was an interesting snippet about Call of Duty recently, where they said that female characters had to be made the same height as male characters, because if they were smaller they'd provide a smaller target, and everyone would end up playing as a woman. Depending on the mechanics of the walking about section of Elite, it may be that the low-g super-tall humans and the high-g short and stocky humans are out of bounds, and we'll all be restricted to Earth normal body types.

 

[Cosmo Bozo]

There is no customisation of commander in Elite ...
)

The ship is the character in the original...if you look at it like that there is customisation...
You can get out of the ship in E;D (after the expansion) so it needs to be in, clones everywhere won't work.
Looking at the zoo tycoon video from a few weeks back, and the variety of people in the zoo, I think they will do it pretty well.

Wildly different sized characters could make animations where you interact with a fixed size object look a bit off.. so I guess there has to be limits there, but some small variation would be nice

 

[Andrew Sayers]

For sake of argument, let's assume a significant number of people get Oculus Rift or TrackIR-type gizmos. Let's also assume these devices feed head-look information back to the game. Frontier could send that information over the network to show other people what your avatar is looking at.

Or more precisely, it could let players make eye contact.

So if you roll up an opposite-sex character, you can experience what it's like for real people to look at you as that sex. Or if you roll up a character with a substantially different height to your own, you can see what it's like to see more foreheads or more nose hairs than you're used to. If Frontier can find an excuse to put commanders in wheelchairs now and then, you might even experience the weird dehumanising sensation of not quite being acknowledged by the person you pass in the corridor.

If we get that in the walking about expansion, character creation would become the doorway to Mr. Benn levels of play.

 

[Erimus Kamzel]

Since your character is effectively immortal and will be with you for however long you play the game for I think its important to take character creation seriously when you're on that screen for the first time.

I remember the early days of EVE when people constantly posted threads moaning that their character looked silly because it was something they just haphazardly threw together to skip the creation process asap and get into the game. They moaned and moaned and moaned at CCP to add a feature where those who where fed up with the way they looked could go redo their characters appearance. And CCP obliged. And charged them £10 for the privileged

 

[Oddball]

My question to you is, in a character creation screen, what would you like to see and what options would you like to be available?

This is a more in-depth question than some people think.

There was a recent news letter that described the appearance of Alien species and that some would not be able to visit other worlds if the other worlds were much bigger due to the increase in gravity that it creates. This also affects us a pilots too and would limit the number of places we could actually go to.

O.K. this won't be an issue at the first release but when landing on planets becomes available it could create huge problems for us.

Now if the character creation mechanism allowed us to adjust our mass and appearance, this would allow us to visit more places. But it is hardly realistic is it? I mean you are not small and 8 stone one minute and then tall and 15 stone the next.

I suspect that when we go to systems with extremely large planets (2+ earth masses), we will only be able to dock at space stations that are orbiting the planet.

May be someone at FD can elaborate on this a little.....

 

[Cosmo Bozo]

Since your character is effectively immortal and will be with you for however long you play the game for I think its important to take character creation seriously when you're on that screen for the first time.

I remember the early days of EVE when people constantly posted threads moaning that their character looked silly because it was something they just haphazardly threw together to skip the creation process asap and get into the game. They moaned and moaned and moaned at CCP to add a feature where those who where fed up with the way they looked could go redo their characters appearance. And CCP obliged. And charged them £10 for the privileged

I think you should be able to go back and change it....you have to live with your character for a long time and it could get annoying if you want to change...saints row lets you start again at plastic surgeons..I'm not sure about chargingto do so though...that seems a bit off...though there is the opportunity to sell vanity items (tattoos etc....)

If you were completely changing, gender, age and everything then you could always say your character had left their ship to a relative...

Star citizen is going to have you making a new character if your pilot dies.

This is a more in-depth question than some people think.

There was a recent news letter that described the appearance of Alien species and that some would not be able to visit other worlds if the other worlds were much bigger due to the increase in gravity that it creates. This also affects us a pilots too and would limit the number of places we could actually go to.

O.K. this won't be an issue at the first release but when landing on planets becomes available it could create huge problems for us.

Now if the character creation mechanism allowed us to adjust our mass and appearance, this would allow us to visit more places. But it is hardly realistic is it? I mean you are not small and 8 stone one minute and then tall and 15 stone the next.

There could be exoskeletons or similar to help out if the gravity is strong (within reason)




Other things to consider

Long hair can spread out like an afro in zero G, though there might be hair products to counter this...

Women would be very careful about wearing skirts in zero G

Scotsmen would be doubly careful about wearing kilts in zero G

 

[Kerrash]

...

Long hair can spread out like an afro in zero G, though there might be hair products to counter this...

Women would be very careful about wearing skirts in zero G

Scotsmen would be doubly careful about wearing kilts in zero G

That's why we should all wear onesies and gel our hair in the future