Character Creation in Elite: Dangerous

Moritasgus

Moritasgus
To be honest at a guess i would imagine no... Not at launch maybe an expansion.
Seems like a waste of time for something that won't be used in game at least in the beginning.
I think they will hope that ship customisation (name/paint/etc) will be enough to keep people happy and feeling individual.
 

Ekar

Ekar
For me Elite is about heading out into the unknown, not heading into the bathroom to stare at your own virtual reflection in a mirror. The effort required seems just a bit too narcissistic, more suited to an over the shoulder or 3rd person perspective game, which I don't think Elite will be. I'd much prefer the ship as avatar approach, with a few more options to aesthetically customise things there... main reason being that humans always look dorky in games anyway.

Of course, the humans will come- I hope it's tastefully done. You could always make an argument that in the future- people could look like anything. Fashion would be totally up for grabs. In games people always want to mimic the iconic film characters of the day. I don't want to walk into a bar and feel like I've walked into a pop sci-fi convention in full cosplay mode, with blue catwomen, robed jedis and the like. That stuff is all fine, but also out of context.

I'd say keep the dress toned down to general standards outlined in the various factions. That way we'd be able to see from just looking, who's aligned to where. And if you don't belong to any faction- blue jeans and white t-shirt! (jk)

Just one persons opinion.
 

Ekar

Ekar
On the other hand I did kind of miss in the beginning the ingame portraits as characters get in contact. That's kind of a space sim staple.

Another thought... Imagine if the controls determining character appearance were taken from the player and the game controlled your appearance instead, based around the kinds of things/missions etc you took on in the game. You could start out fresh faced and innocent, but after a few 'kill the civilians because I don't want them getting any ideas' missions, you started to look like a dead eyed badass? Or if you were generally helpful and kind, you would look that way in the game? That could be kind of interesting and it would keep you playing the game, rather than managing a character. (the devs gave me 400 billion star systems to explore and I'm just sitting here, colouring my hair).
 
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LeadSponge

L
OneViGOR said:
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?
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Personally, I'm very fond of the way Eve does avatar creation, and just having some sort of portrait would be cool for me. Something that makes it a bit more personal.
 

SlickReed

SlickReed
Character customization would be awesome in Elite. I think it was frontier 2 that had mission givers faces? This would also add to such a great game ED is turning out to be.
 

A Space Ostrich

A
The character creation from Saints Row is still my favourite, and I couldn't tell you how many times I've played a game and wished for that level of character customization. I'd pay for a five or ten dollar expansion that added just Saints Row 3/4 level character customization.
 

A Space Ostrich

A
An answer we can all agree on.

Having read over a lot of the comments, I can see that the general consensus is that character customisation will be important when we can walk around, but is less so before then, so here is what I propose.

At launch, at the very least, we can upload a moderator vetted image to use as an avatar (the artsy types like myself can draw our commanders, or other players commanders), and have that avatar show up in chat and at stations or scans. The ideal way to keep immersion in this avatar only state is to have all characters in full body suits, as we do now.

During the development of the update that allows for walking around in stations, a not insignificant amount of time must be set aside for more robust character creation, I am of the opinion that we should not bother with height due to all the massive problems that brings, though if the developers are willing, every bit helps.
 

Joe Spivey

Joe Spivey
Mobius said:
I like EVE Online charactor creation, as it also acts as your avatar. some mean looking charactors on there.
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Admittedly I haven't seen too many EVE avatars but most of the ones I have look like derivatives of the Matrix characters. Not saying that is a bad thing, just a bit samey. And again, I haven't seen THAT many of them so maybe there is a short pot-bellied balding guy in there somewhere.
 

Bird Man

Bird Man
The more detailed and the more options; the better. Character creation in a game like this is super-important because you want to feel immersed in the experience and walking around and seeing someone just like you in every group of 20 really destroys that sense of uniqueness. "Destiny" made this mistake. You need to have sliders to be able to tweak pretty much everything. If it's all presets, it will really limit the amount of possibilities.

Also being able to change your look mid-game is a must. This is the year 3300 isn't it? People will probably be able to swap bodies by then. But yeah, no shortcuts on character creation/customization please.
 

Zahg

Zahg
I would like to see something like Makehuman in here, literally everything adjustable with sliders. That way I can actually make my avatar look like me. :D
 

Espege

Espege
Jenner said:
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! :D

So yeah... I'm all for a detailed, feature rich character creator. It makes sense given the first person component that is coming.
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Agreed, I love that RPG element cause I really like to get into character, which I can't do if I just click random face...
 

Zhang

Zhang
izzy said:
There is no customisation of commander in Elite ...
...
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And thank gawd for that! This is no arr pee gee! Everything I see is thru my own eyes and it is me in the game world. In that same sense I would not want to see weird fantasy chars with garish aesthetics when I interact with others, if everyone was limited to a choice of uniforms (depicting factions) and wearing helmets/visored so we don't see tiger eyes beards or pink hair that'd be perfect. Let's leave some stuff for the imagination.
 
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