Guild Wars 2

This is something that has bothered me since day 1 of the first BWE and i was hoping that it would get updated and changed, the Character creation process.
Building a new character feels massively lacking. Even after spending almost an hour on my characters face it doesnt look all that different then the preset stock face that I started with. Throughout leveling my character to 80 i noticed dozens upon dozens of people that look exactly like me. For a game that wants to emphasize uniqueness I wasnt finding myself all that… well, unique.

To start things off I’ll talk about the head design, instead of having several stock pre-made faces that we can choose and then “morph,” there should be stock features that we can choose from. The pre-made heads should be kept as a “quick use” but there should also be the option to choose between several different eye shapes, nose shapes, mouths, and different chin shapes in addition to all the morph options. So you would go through and choose each feature that you like to compile into your character. Basically just cut up the current pre made faces to be in different the different categories. This would help make the character feel more like its personal and add to the depth of the game.

Another point that I would like to make is that during character creation choosing your height is nothing but a rough estimate. You are given the outline of “tall person” and “short person” so you can only roughly guess where your in game height will be. What I suggest is add the greyed outline of “average asura height” and “average Norn height” this would give you a better understanding of where your height is in the game world.

A smaller topic of interest is the male Norn. Before launch of the Betas I had my heart set on playing a male Norn thief, that all changed the second I loaded into the character creation screen and saw the body types. While the female Norn look like sleek while battle hardened and look good as all classes, the Male body types when used for some classes fail. I expect them to be big, but not to be exclusively beef-cake like. Currently there is only 1 body type or male Norn that makes you look “fit” but even then it is still large and like your character gorged himself on doughnuts while he was fighting that giant ice worm. When playing as a thief you you can look rather ridiculous lumbering around. I suggest toning up the Norns just by a bit and add a new body type, the body type i had in mind is close to that of the Kodak.

I was oggling a vid of EVE character gen the other day. You could mix and match the features you wanted, highlight tiny parts of your face and modify them, move your features to create expressions, sigh! I love how my GW2 chars look, but yes… more variations in character creation would be so amazing. A revamp would sell a lot of Total Makeover Kits, too.

Tairiousrhoar.4235:

Currently there is only 1 body type or male Norn that makes you look “fit” and not like your character gorged himself on doughnuts while he was fighting that giant ice worm. I suggest toning up the Norns just by a bit to add a new body type that makes them look more like a counterpart to the females.

This is something the artists got right.
The Hollywood fantasy that you can look like Arnold with nothing but dedication is a lie. In order to have the bodytype of someone that can wrestle bears you must also put on fat in order to support that kind of muscle building. To reiterate: if someone puts on a lot of muscle without putting on any fat first, it implies steroid use.

Maybe you want to try a lore argument? I don’t think any evidence exists one way or another to say if they have any genetic compatibility with humans. We know they’re big, love alcohol and live in the cold.

The bodytypes of the male Norn is something that was well studied and done correctly. Sorry if the Norn don’t stand up to your south California bodybuilder nonsense.

mbh.8301:

The bodytypes of the male Norn is something that was well studied and done correctly. Sorry if the Norn don’t stand up to your south California bodybuilder nonsense.

That was quite a rude statement. I did not say to change all of the Norn body types, that was more of a “add too” I enjoy playing as a Norn warrior and being as big as I can. I simply meant to add one for the smaller class professions. The female Norn range from the skinny to big and its fitting, while the male is stuck to one general shape. The suggested body type that I’m talking about it closer to that of the Kodak.

mbh.8301:

Tairiousrhoar.4235:

Currently there is only 1 body type or male Norn that makes you look “fit” and not like your character gorged himself on doughnuts while he was fighting that giant ice worm. I suggest toning up the Norns just by a bit to add a new body type that makes them look more like a counterpart to the females.

This is something the artists got right.
The Hollywood fantasy that you can look like Arnold with nothing but dedication is a lie. In order to have the bodytype of someone that can wrestle bears you must also put on fat in order to support that kind of muscle building. To reiterate: if someone puts on a lot of muscle without putting on any fat first, it implies steroid use.

Maybe you want to try a lore argument? I don’t think any evidence exists one way or another to say if they have any genetic compatibility with humans. We know they’re big, love alcohol and live in the cold.

The bodytypes of the male Norn is something that was well studied and done correctly. Sorry if the Norn don’t stand up to your south California bodybuilder nonsense.

Did you even read the post? There’s nothing in here about people going from skinny to big. He just wants a wiry, athletic norn, in addition to his brawny buff ones, that are currently the only choice for a male norn.

OP, I agree. +1.

You guys want character customization? The best one ever is in APB reloaded. No other game can beat that yet.

I registered for the forum just for this thread. I have to say I’m pretty appalled at the amount of customisation you can do in GW2, simply because of the obvious time and effort making this game look absolutely beautiful, and then the obvious amount of customisation you’re extremely limited to. Why can’t we have something amazing like Rift, where you can change nearly everything about the body to make that perfect character? I understand the limited voice, simply because of how much dialogue there is, but the extremely limited customisation? That there are body types instead of sliders? This makes no sense in a game that’s a work of art as much as it is. It’s so limiting, and takes away so much from being involved in the game for so many of us. It just doesn’t make sense when everything else is so detailed.

I agree. About 90% of norn females is a morph of the one pretty face. The rest of the faces look OK to gross. Who wants to play as a 300lb obese sweaty librarian? There should be many attractive faces as a pre-set then you can adjust with sliders.

In regards to the body styles i agree there should be sliders for weight and muscle tone. I do think the current pre-set builds should be just that – a pre-set. I have a male norn, the only i dislike is his ape-like upright posture.

In regards to mbh.8301 steroid statement – you’re rediculous. This is a video game. Even if it did imply steroid use you’re not playing a human. You’re playing a different species of a humanoid.

Character creation is important. +1

So, have any of you placed Sims? I know it’s a bit of a weird transition, but you can customize just about everything. You pick specific eye shapes you want, and you can change them from there. I understand they’re two different types of games, but I’m guessing that’s the type of thing you’re looking for. And with Sims 4, it’s really user friendly. I think that would be a good comparison for what a lot of people would want for their character customization. Although, to be honest, I think too much can make your character look super weird. But I agree, there are just some things you want to change, but can’t, because it isn’t part of the face you want.