The Faceless game

[SurrenderOrHAHA]

Trying to think of any other modern (big budget) game/title that features zero human faces. The only body you see in ED is your own in the cockpit (except your face of course), and then not a face in the entire galaxy.
Any other recent faceless games that come to mind?

 

[The Brigadier]

I was thinking about this the other day too. Its really starting to bother me actually. You could be forgiven for thinking there were no humans in existence in the Elite galaxy. Aside from a robotic faceless body in the cockpit of course.

Star trekking humans would be real characters, and yet we have none

Its coming I think (hopefully). Its just a bit too mechanised at present.

 

[Quarrel]

I never even thought about it to be honest, now I can't stop. At the moment I can't think of another faceless game. I am sure there are games like that around . . .

 

[Xious]

Hmmm didn't really think about it.... don't really see where it matters though. I can't help but not care.

 

[Privata]

But elite dangerous has a small budget. and is it not better that they take there time and make the humans good for when there ready instead of... what rebirth did? (yes XBTF X2-3 faces were bad but they were also charming)

 

[Kaeldian]

Turn on the debug camera in flight, fly it to your cockpit - THERE'S NOBODY THERE

Really messes with a guy's mind when you saw your own hands seconds ago....

 

[Sanderson]

Tetris?

78

 

[Armour]

Faces are overrated.

 

[AsukaZ]

Turn on the debug camera in flight, fly it to your cockpit - THERE'S NOBODY THERE

Really messes with a guy's mind when you saw your own hands seconds ago....

Ha yeah maybe, but what would really mess with your mind is to see that the pilot doesn't have a head!

 

[Caylo]

There's tons of "faceless" games out there. One I used to play frequently was MechWarrior Online, which is very close in how it represents a detailed cockpit and lets you see the pilot's body - and that's that. At least Elite lets me pick the pilot's gender.

The keyword here is patience. We know that more detailed representations of the player characters are coming, as they are part of leaving our seats and walking around on our ships and on the stations, which would include meeting other players, pardon the pun, face-to-face. This is a feature of a planned expansion for later. Am I missing the small face icons from Elite II in comms? You betcha. But as much as I would see an EVE-style face generator for my character, I understand it might not really make a lot of sense to expend development hours on an improvised bandaid that will be rendered defunct as soon as they deploy the real thing. Might as well spend this man- and womanpower on other aspects of the game that will be here to stay for good.

 

[Xaraman]

I actually like the fact that the game is faceless.

It just drives the point home that you are on your own in the galaxy. You make your own destiny.

However, I do believe that when you go to remote camera it should at least show a character flying the ship. Even if it just shows the same generic, asexual avatar for everyone (remlock suit, mask) it would be better than seeing no one piloting a ship.

 

[ADCKnight]

Many older car racing games never had any drivers in the seats, many first person games too, but mostly older gamers, newer tech lead to more art assets.

E D will eventually have faces when they make the "Walk around the station/cockpit/planet/etc Expansion"

 

[Sim Maker]

This is one of the things I love about the game..........I imagine it is "me" in the cockpit....I am playing Me........not some Blonde American dude, or a Russian sounding Gangster or other character from someone elses imagination...
.
Ok, I know this is not quite what the OP was talking about........humans and aliens here and there would be cool for sure......
.
I was reading a post from an 84er, talking about the old sinlge player game and how it would be cool to do something like that with Dangerous.........and I had a funny vision..........the story of Luke, farm boy on a desert planet, who rises to great challenges and takes his shot at the Death Star............and then I imagined 400,000 people trying to do the same "Single player" game, all racing down the Trench together in "open".....lol.............er...I think I need some spleep

 

[Tryst]

If FD has the ability to walk around in stations and interact in open with others in stations at some point, they are going to have to allow us to create faces for our pilots. That should prove interesting.

It's unlikely on the budget that FD have but I would really like to see voice communication in stations between players and lip synch software running so it looks like our pilots are actually speaking.

 

[Arubeto]

May I point you to one thread I started some time ago to specifically pick up this topic:

NPCs with Faces​

There are numerous very sophisticated character modeling tools from various games out there that could be utilised by FD for automatic character model and face creation for NPCs. The best two are those from Black Dessert and Eve: Online, IMHO:

Black Desert:

[video=youtube;4TP4L1vHfpk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TP4L1vHfpk[/video]


Eve: Online character creator:

[video=youtube;yo9L8d-5x20]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo9L8d-5x20[/video]

Since we will definitely need character models once the first person add-ons for walking around ships, stations and planets will be released, my bet is that FD is waiting with the release of any visual representation of persons until then to have enough time to do it right - it's a huge amount of work, I guess, so I understand they want to take the time they need to get it right.

 

[Sanderson]

I don't expect any kind of "face" in ED (in regards to players) other than a helmet visor, ever. Major tier 1 NPCs? Maybe someday.

The first, and most significant, judge of character by humans is based on how they look, followed by how they sound. FD needs to put a face and a voice to the major characters in the game, say the Emperor for example, if they really want us players to be invested in them. Either that or a novel familiarising us with them.

 

[Xaraman]

Since we will definitely need character models once the first person add-ons for walking around ships, stations and planets will be released,

Says who?

This could be accomplished by simply having a generic char with a remlock suit and a mask. The difference between male and female could be accomplished by just adding male/female physiology. All you'd need to distinguish players is an icon with their name above their head.

I would actually prefer this as it highlights the fact that you are not important, nor are you unique in the galaxy. Remember, in the ED galaxy, life is cheap. Other games try to make you out as the "chosen one" in their lore. This doesn't happen with ED and I applaud it.

 

[Kyokushin]

True. We need faces and female commanders (there are a lot of girls playing).

We need it!

... and Aliens. Wee need to see them! Not only read about them


I gave a Mass Effect 3 because in my opioni this is how it should be done.

We need to see more personalized and living world.

 

[DidierDrbois]

Trying to think of any other modern (big budget) game/title that features zero human faces. The only body you see in ED is your own in the cockpit (except your face of course), and then not a face in the entire galaxy.
Any other recent faceless games that come to mind?

Gran Turismo 4. Incidentally, a game I've played the longest of all games I've ever played in the last 25 years. That is, until Elite Dangerous came about. For the umpteenth time, yes I know, I need professional help.

 

[Xaraman]

True. We need faces and female commanders (there are a lot of girls playing).

We need it!
...snip...

... and Aliens. Wee need to see them! Not only read about them

...snip...

I gave a Mass Effect 3 because in my opioni this is how it should be done.

We need to see more personalized and living world.

No thank you.

This sort of system only serves the narcissism of the player and that is not something ED is about.

As someone said earlier, doing this to NPCs may have actual value to the game. But for PCs, it's just wasting valuable dev hours that could be spent working on the actual game.

Remember; in ED you are unimportant and common. You are not the space messiah, therefore you don't deserve a handsome/beautiful/unique avatar