Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone

I am here to talk about character creation in Guild Wars 2!

There have been many debates over past months about GW2’s Character Creation. Some people expressed their concern about how it’s not extensive enough, while others shrugged and proclaimed it to be “just fine as it is”.

This is what I honestly think: It’s simply not good enough. It feels rushed, unfinished.

Let me tell you from my experience that now days, there are lot of free, as well as pay 2 play games that offer much more customization options then GW2: Phantasy Star Online, upcoming free game that offers a zillion more customization options then GW2. Then we have games like Aion, EVE online, Saint’s Row.

When I heard that GW2 will use Aion’s creator at it’s basis I didn’t expect it to be like Aion. I expected it to be hundred times BETTER.

The end result, compared to lot of games, is poor. You may argue that the game has beautiful world, character design and storyline, but the phrase ArenaNet used from the start is “This is MY story”. It doesn’t feel like that in GW2 when it comes to customization options. The story itself, on the other hand, plays off amazingly.

I will now sum up, in detail, what I think needs to be added, and what could have been done differently. I am not sure if I’m nitpicking or not, but this is how I and many people feel – things we mentioned months prior the release and nothing was added or changed.

One race at the time and what can be done/improved.

Charr:

- Currently Charr have less then 10 facial options for each gender. Considering you have created such a unique race, I do believe that the options are somehow lacking. The artistic direction you took with Charr is amazing, and thus they are my favorite race but there is so much more you could have done.
Charr females are more feline, while males are more monster-like. Since you took faces from several big cat species like lions, tigers and cheetah, consider this: There are over 50 different wild cat species in the world. Surely you can create more faces then just 8 for each gender!

- Lack of hairstyle and horn options: Perhaps my biggest grief with the Charr. Again, you took some horn designs from wild animals of our world but there is definitely more you can add. Horns from animals such as oryx, mountain goat or kudu would be a nice addition, instead of repeated pattern of broken horns and straight ones. An option to change the rotation of horns would be ideal as well.

- Please ad an option to change both pair of horns separately. I like how some horns look but if I increase their size, so will lower horns, and they just stick out like an ugly texture compared to the face. Thus i always end up using 1-2 horn shapes.

- Charr females are stuck with white tails – no matter what color you choose, you always get a white fluff. I wanted to make my Charr’s tail completely yellow but was unable to do so. Males have it better, their tales actually change according to fur color and pattern. An option to change the tail size would be a definite awesome bonus!

Sylvari:

- More faces: Again, as with Charr, Sylvari are amazing race. So much room to play with, so many new faces you can put in game. However, as with Charr, there needs to be more faces – more variety (although they certainly have bigger variety then humans)

- More “hairstyles”: Or should I say “plant-styles”. Sylvari are plants mimicking human form and as such, there are so many different plant and tree species in the world it’s impossible to count them all. There are so many combination of roots, trees, flowers, grass and leaves you could have added, yet you decided to limit yourselves on such a little number of variations. Not that they are not good, quite the contrary, they’re amazing (points to creativity for the mushroom head), but there simply needs to be more.

Asura:

- Lack of facial and hairstyle variety: This is my biggest problem with adorable, yet pompous little geniuses. The good news is that Asura are not suffering from variety; each face looks unique but there NEEDS to be more. And lot more hairstyles. There are many who expressed Asuran haircuts to be ugly, so they either go bald, or majority of people keeps using same hairstyles. Add ponytails, Mohawks, more braids!

Continuing because of post lentgh>

Norn:

- Severe lack of variety in facial department for the females. Norn are not savages, but a race of “dignified” mountain brutes. They like to boast, sing, kill bears before breakfast and compete how much Dolyaks have they eaten – so why did you choose to make all the females look like perfect polished supermodels? Compared to males, they look like they have never set one foot in battle, let alone bear some scars as a proof. There is one face with scars, and I chose that one because it seems most Norn-like.
I know that everybody likes seeing attractive people – however that can’t be the overwhelming majority of option, especially when it’s so stereotypically biased in Norn case. More brute and serious options for the females please, since you have done a good job with males providing both ugly and handsome.

- Hairstyles: Norn have GREAT hairstyles. Absolute fan. Now, add 10-20 more of those and make them available for humans and it will be an absolute win.

Humans:

- Faces, faces, faces: Yes – faces. Humans fall worst in my opinion. People have been complaining for months. Pointing out that humans look like supermodels. Too pretty. Too polished. Too perfect.
Why? Because humans are supposed to be the ultimate underdogs in GW2. Out of all human nations in Tyria, only Kryta still stands . They sound like they had it rough, especially after Charr beat them and Zhaitan drowned half of their homeland. I was expecting them to look more realistic, more scarred, more life-like. Even the human concept are you chose to put on the CC race selection screen is completely misleading, and all those concepts you have released prior to release have shown humans as anything BUT supermodel-type aesthetics you have chosen to implement. If this was your artistic choice from the beginning nobody can argue with that. However, I found your concepts to be very misleading in that point.
Add more rough faces. Female faces without or with less makeup. Male faces that are not from some Disney movie or fashion show.
Again, I understand that we like attractive heroes. But humans IMO, are hideous. Not even Aion has went so far in creating such westernized, or should I say, idealized forms of humans that only exist in dreams. This is fantasy maybe yes, but that doesn’t mean we should all be forced on 1 type of character aesthetic .

General problems with CC and how they can be worked on:

- Body slider: I was expecting this option on launch but my wish was not granted – and I’m definitely not alone. I chose the widest body type for my female Norn but her breasts are too large for my taste, so it feels very discouraging I can’t reduce their size. Nothing perverted about that – it’s one of the basic features that should have been implemented in the game. Some body types different just by the size of the waist.
Give us an option to change claw and tail length. Humans need to have option to reduce leg length – the proportions are ridiculous and anime-styled.

- Clipping issues and ugly textures: Many hairstyles and horn options are utterly glitchy and have very low-poly textures. It varies between faces. Some Norn faces have high-resolution textures, while some Charr faces have blurry faces with lots of clipping issues. Character models are not THAT impressive.

Scars, tattoos, makeup, freckles and other body addons MUST be a separate option.

I want to customize the face to the max and add separate makeup, and scars on it at my whim. In GW2, all faces come with pre-baked makeup and scar options. They should be separate textures. And why should only humans and Norn have them?
Let my Asura have a giant scar across his face, or let my Charr have scars on her.

Make-up for humans and Norn females is disappointing. While there is no doubt that many people like this, many more don’t. We simply do not wish to be stuck with supermodel looks. Nobody, not in real life, wears that much makeup – if I saw any of those female faces outside, I would be completely freaked out. And what is up with that one female face with cat-like eyes that looks like a demented goth queen?

Jokes aside, it IS an issue. I don’t wear make up in real life, and nobody said anything about that. That’s a female thing – and it’s optional in real life, it should be optional in game as well. Especially when virtually every other, more advanced game offer this.

The color of the lips should also be a separate option – the darker skin you choose, the redder they get. It is very, very off-putting.

Now that my fingers are officially dead, I would like to thank everyone who took their time to read this, be it a developer from Anet or a random player. Remember, your game is amazing, but this part – this most important part of our gameplay, our character – needs to feel more personalized.

1. new game.
2. Compared to almost every other game out there, it’s amazing.
3. probably more options in the future.

@ChaosKirin – That’s besides the point.

@CharrGirl This is a well thought out and compiled post – I agree on all points you bring out.

We had many, MANY threads with tons of posts in them about this (humans especially, and more face presets for other races) starting from the first CBT’s, yet, alas, anet does not seem to care about it. A huge minus in my book.

Lets hope that in the future Anet will address the character creation, and make it on par with the rest of the game. Maybe even an official response?

Kudos for posting this.

Sousuke.7268:

@ChaosKirin – That’s besides the point.

@CharrGirl This is a well thought out and compiled post – I agree on all points you bring out.

We had many, MANY threads with tons of posts in them about this (humans especially, and more face presets for other races) starting from the first CBT’s, yet, alas, anet does not seem to care about it. A huge minus in my book.

Lets hope that in the future Anet will address the character creation, and make it on par with the rest of the game. Maybe even an official response?

Kudos for posting this.

ANet’s busy ironing out bugs – the game only launched two weeks ago. Game-breaking bugs and server stability are more important than new faces and hairstyles, right now. It’s not that they ’don’t care’ – it’s that they’re busy. Give it time.

@ CharrGirl – I thank you for your post and ideas.. I read through and was glad to see someone posting about something interesting (at least in my opinion..). I often find myself dissatisfied with several games and their character creation options. I wanted to make a human and found zero hairstyles I liked.. and I usually at least am okay with ONE hairstyle option.. I ultimately chose to be a Female Sylvari mostly because I found that race to be most interesting and I liked the features the best.

I agree with your feelings on having the options be “too pretty” (male and female) – I am fine with games having “attractive” faces but I think there shouldn’t just be only those types of faces, just like I don’t agree with games that only ever give the option for huge breasts on females with way too skinny waists as well as only males with only overly muscular bodies. I actually was happy with the choices they gave me with Sylvari – they had some bigger body types as well as the slim physique with a reasonable smaller chest size/hips (which is the type I like for my characters).

I feel like every game lacks somewhat in the character creation and even if they don’t, it will feel as such because there are so many people with lots of different likes so it’s hard to please everyone.

I think they did a good job, and all I can hope is they add more to it with time.. This was a good topic though, fun to think of all the things they could do/change.. love hearing other people’s creative ideas!

One thing’s for sure: It’s not Aion or City of Heroes/Villains.

Yeah I gotta admit the CC was a pretty massive let down for me.

I know it’s a new game and they have their hands full at the moment, but this is the sort of stuff that should have been implemented before thekittenbetas even started.

There are games half a decade old that wipe the floor with GW2 when it comes to character creation, and that makes me decidedly sad.

My biggest issue is with the Asura as I typically play them (I have one human – that I don’t play).

There are simply not enough facial and hair options for this race. I wind up seeing clones all the time (thankfully not of myself as yet – except my own clones of course).

I hope they add more soon, because so far for me, it’s kind of a disappointment especially when I compare it to humans/norn who have so many more.

Yeah got to agree with most of that but in particular the human options. Just can’t make a human with the way they look at the moment. Males, there’s one face that looks like Clint Eastwood and the rest look like 16 year olds.

More old/middle aged faces, more beard styles (MEN grow beards, especially in medieval settings, not these little chinstraps, goatee etc. – I would say just give the Norn beard styles to humans but I guess they were kept separate for a reason, to distinguish the two).

I want to make a short, fat middle aged wizard not a little boy prancing around. Need an age slider and a weight slider or more faces/physiques to represent that.

I’m probably in the minority, but I think there’s more than enough character customization options, bordering on too many. I don’t want to have to worry about the width of the bridge of my nose for crying out loud.

I agree with the Norn females they’re pretty much taller humans apart from the cultural aspect. I think the reason they didn’t add many options in the character creator was probably because down the line they want to add a cosmetic feature in the cash shop whichh = profit for them

Can’t agree more, needed more options, especially for faces and hairstyles. Sad thing is, my characters are already made. These things should have been available at launch!

At the very least, if extra options are made available at a later date, I really, really hope there will be a “hairdresser” and “plastic surgeon/face wizard” to let you change your hair and facial features!

I should think that more options will be available over the course of the games life. Its 2 weeks old. Give this beautiful baby a chance to grow.

Unfinished compared to what exactly?

Just because it doesn’t have all the options you want (or I want), doesn’t mean it should be designated “unfinished”

TransparentlyOpaque.1824:

I should think that more options will be available over the course of the games life. Its 2 weeks old. Give this beautiful baby a chance to grow.

You would think that, as many would/should, HOWEVER, games like WoW have proven that age doesn’t mean a thing when it comes to character creation. They have a terrible character creator, their character models are horribly out of date (and they know this as they’ve acknowledged it) but yet no options have been added in the, oh 7 or so years it’s been out.

So while yes the game is 2 weeks old, I don’t think it’s too much to say even this early in, that there aren’t enough choices for faces/hair/etc.

/signed. I hope anet introduces more character customization options in the future. I deleted and re-created my ele about 3-4 times and I’m still not satisfied with the result. Not enough variation, too many overly pretty or “babyface” facial types.

ps. it should have been obvious which race i was referring to but its the humans. a race of barbie and ken dolls?

I’m satisfied, for now, but it is something that should be refined and expanded in the near future. The non-human races all need moe faces and I agree with the comments in the OP. The human faces? Yes, there should be more variety in textures to allow for some more older. weathered looks. The base faces would be ok, if there were more key slider options. There needs to be more ability to change the shapes of the faces. A simple thing that bothers me is the exclusion of a slider to adjust the width between the eyes and the height of the eyes on the face. Eye positioning is a key element of human facial recognition, but those options are absent here. (I had though it might have been for technical reasons, with the facial animations, but the Asura do allow adjusting the width between the eyes, so that goes out the window).

As to the idea that CC feels rushed, I think a number of the hair models prove that. Horrible clipping issues, poor simulated dynamics during movement and a couple of the long hair models for the human females have awful issues with the way the transparencies overlay segments at the back of the head.

Somehow the game does still manage to escape the issue that many recent games with sliders have had. In some games, no matter how many sliders, too many characters still end up looking alike. I’ve made a number of human females between beta and live and they all have looked different, even if they all invariably looked young and super attractive.

More options for the races that are lacking, a few more key sliders, fixes for clipping issues and other defects with the hair and some additional textures to allow a more weathered/aged look and things would be greatly improved.

Two words….

Cash….
Shop….

(I’m in!)

Humor.5763:

Two words….

Cash….
Shop….

(I’m in!)

I wanted to ad this in my OP but was already too tired – this could be it.

A way to earn money by adding new hairstyles/faces in cash shop. But this is a B2P game, not F2P, like Vindictus. They can get away with this, but not so sure for an expensive game like GW2. Some of us paid up to $250 for it, and don’t have will to spend on cash shop more then we should.

In Aion when they added new features, they provided us with free character appearance change tickets. Maybe here they will do that too?

I dislike the character creation too :/

Not enough faces to choose from – faces should be more presets than setting most of the actual shape anyway. Then the sliders should have a wider effect range with more sliders so you can actually customize the face and not just mildly adjust the face you chose before.

Body needs sliders instead of just “choose these”. Aion was so great in that
Height range should be bigger, more hairstyles needed too

And yeah its new and some things e.g. hairstyles I can see being added
I’m uncertain if they’ll change it to have more sliders and more body customization though…

I liked Aion’s sliders, you could actually change stuff with them
For anyone who didn’t see them:
http://www.kurl.de/aion

Some people might not care about as much as the character looks and yeah atm i’m enjoying the game greatly even though i’m not quite satisfied with how my char looks, but in the long run if i’m going to invest so much time into a character I would also want it to look nice

Asura are definitely sorely lacking in options for faces and hair. There’s only one option for an attractive (for lack of a better word) face and hair option. Sylvari could definitely use more of both as well. I understand that these were the last two races completed so I hope it was just a matter of running out of time and they will implement more.

I find adequate hair options is the most effective way to help your character stand out. Of all the things you change or tweak, the hair is the most obvious (given you aren’t wearing a helmet).

Just want to add that I absolutely LOVE this game and this is a small gripe among all the praise this game is due.

The only thing I’m missing in character creation would be an option to add individual details like scars etc. to any face.

That aside, it feels pretty finished and polished to me.
“Finished” does not equal “tons of options” in any way. May there be a little too few cusomization options for some people, compared to some (actually very few) other MMOs? Yeah, maybe. Does it feel unfinished in any way? Definitely not.

I didn’t like Aion’s CC at all, because you could create the weirdest freaks of nature with it. I’m very glad the GW2 CC doesn’t allow this.

Shyanmar.5936:

I didn’t like Aion’s CC at all, because you could create the weirdest freaks of nature with it. I’m very glad the GW2 CC doesn’t allow this.

And it allows for actual beauty rather than all the so-so characters I see :P

Whats wrong with “weird freaks of nature”? If people like their character that way, why not let them have it? One could call Charr freaks of nature because they’re big talking cats/wolfs or something ~

I am constantly rerolling my characters as it is. While I always welcome additional customisation options, I think it would be bad for me personally. Very, very bad.

Seriously, though, I envisage makeover packs in our futures.

Loki.5891:

Shyanmar.5936:

I didn’t like Aion’s CC at all, because you could create the weirdest freaks of nature with it. I’m very glad the GW2 CC doesn’t allow this.

And it allows for actual beauty rather than all the so-so characters I see :P

Whats wrong with “weird freaks of nature”? If people like their character that way, why not let them have it? One could call Charr freaks of nature because they’re big talking cats/wolfs or something ~

You ask what’s wrong with them? How about this and this ?
It’s just an incredible eyesore to see characters like this running around. It’s a dead-sure immersion breaker, for one thing, and it just completely messes up the art style of the game because the characters don’t fit into the world any more.

The charr are a defined race integrated into the art style of the game. That’s something very different.

Oh, and the GW2 CC does allow for actual beauty (by the way … eye of the beholder and all that … ). I’m completely happy with my characters and wouldn’t want them to look any other way, I could achieve the exact look I wanted every single time.

Shyanmar.5936:

Oh, and the GW2 CC does allow for actual beauty (by the way … eye of the beholder and all that … ). I’m completely happy with my characters and wouldn’t want them to look any other way, I could achieve the exact look I wanted every single time.

As you said, eye of the beholder :P
I dislike the faces and body options and most of the hairstyles~

Immersion Breaker – well we get Sunglasses & Co. in the ItemShop which people call Immersion breakers so I don’t see them caring about that too much?

And yeah it breaks the immersion of a perfect world where everyone looks roughly the same in the set boundaries? Well thats life, there are some people that look “odd”
I don’t see how it breaks immersion anyway? Unless of course the immersion was the beauty-world I mentioned.

A wider char creation allows for everyone to do what they want, someone might prefer a “weird” looking char, others some that suits their taste of beauty

For me height is too limited, face sliders are too limited, theres only 1 good face preset and 1-2 good hairstyle presets with about 1 so-so body presets xD

I would actually prefer more hair and facial hair styles all around. The selection right now is good. But one or two beautiful hair styles for female get used the most. All female faces look the same, so in essence I see the same looking females pass by me a million times a day.

I still think the dye and customizations are better than most MMO’s. But I would prefer more hairstyles. Nothing wrong with more options.

I agree 100 percent. The options are too limited and it is quite hard to identify with your toon if you cannot personalize them how you think he/she should look. e.g. Norn males are all fat giants and human males delicate weaklings. And of course only western faces. You can see in Aion that this request is in no way unrealistic. There you already have more than 50 faces and hair styles (even if some look just too weird for me).

And to those who say wait for future updates – This is one genre defining feature of a RPG and should have been fully developed from the start. Later you will probably have no more choice to customize your existing chars (or only for some form of money). Your friends will expect the familiar look of your char and you have your avatar and screenshot pics of them, so you won’t probably change them much in this case.

A pity!

Three words……City of Heroes. Best character creator ever….period.

I play an Asura and hate the hairstyles. Obviously a lot more do too, because you see a LOT of bald yoda things running around. I think there should be more choices for skin markings also. Its like there is the spotty one, the one with stripes on your head, and then the rest are just a variation of the same blotchy look on the face. They just don’t vary enough to be unique.

The problem with too much detail is that too many people either don’t have the patience or knowledgable enough to effectively use it. Creating a system for 5% of your market isn’t worth it. Personally I felt there was a little too many options in GW2 when it comes to the face. However, I do agree that I liked PSO body width, torso and legs had options better than the body types. but honestly you see more of your characters body the face.

Amusingly, I just came from a certain modern world MMO where the big complaint was players couldn’t get their characters good looking enough.

I’d wouldn’t say the CC is unfinished at all. In fact, there are some highly advanced features, such as being able to change facial characteristics (hair, eyes, nose, lips) and then going back see how it affects the template faces. But I’m all for more hair styles, body types, and face types. Why not? Particularly hair styles. That said, I am not big on giving players too much freedom to create their own personal Picassos. Cubism’s cool and all, but ….

CharrGirl.7896:

Humans:

- Faces, faces, faces: Yes – faces. Humans fall worst in my opinion. People have been complaining for months. Pointing out that humans look like supermodels. Too pretty. Too polished. Too perfect.

Humans are my favourite race in the game and I think they look great! Very happy with the level of customization. (Although my friend wants a ponytail for his necro badly)

Vaeyrune.6804:

CharrGirl.7896:

Humans:

- Faces, faces, faces: Yes – faces. Humans fall worst in my opinion. People have been complaining for months. Pointing out that humans look like supermodels. Too pretty. Too polished. Too perfect.

Humans are my favourite race in the game and I think they look great! Very happy with the level of customization. (Although my friend wants a ponytail for his necro badly)

She did not ask for removal of those options, but voiced concern about lack of variety. Nobody will remove those options from the game at this point

Vaeyrune.6804:

CharrGirl.7896:

Humans:

- Faces, faces, faces: Yes – faces. Humans fall worst in my opinion. People have been complaining for months. Pointing out that humans look like supermodels. Too pretty. Too polished. Too perfect.

Humans are my favourite race in the game and I think they look great! Very happy with the level of customization. (Although my friend wants a ponytail for his necro badly)

Well more options = more options for people that don’t like the current ones

and @City of Heroes: really? I found char customization horrible there Oo

Seriously, every character looks 16-20 years old, and way too clean for having slaughtered hundreds of things. Many NPCs look like they’re cosplaying pirates, guards, and merchants, because of their shiny clean clothes, and perfect skin.

I agree with the beginning character customization options. It’s in need of an upgrade. Another customization concern I have, that is loosely connected to this subject, is the customization of armor.

I just bought my first two pieces of tier 1 heavy armor today and I was less than happy (almost upset) at the color customization for the helm and gauntlets. One color, really? Is that all I have to work with in terms of looking nice while killing? These pieces are 30+ silver per item, what’s the downgrade in coloring option for? The whole set could look great with some personal touches but I guess I’ll have to mask it all with different armor styles.

I hope that doesn’t happen again.

The character creation seems pretty polished and detailed to me. The relative lack of facial types is compensated for by the ability to adjust the sliders for minute details. I thought the Sylvari character creation process was great – try that if you’re looking to make a stand-out character.

I agee 100%. Also..

“The color of the lips should also be a separate option – the darker skin you choose, the redder they get. It is very, very off-putting.”

This. I remade my GW1 Prophs Elementalist who has the darkest skintone option in that game. GW2s darkest skintone matches perfectly.. Except now his lips are bright peach/red. It looks horrible, like he’s wearing lipstick. All the dark skins have lips like that, it’s just awful, especially on a male character.

And my Charr’s face texture is blurry with a huge seam on the chin that makes half of his chin stark white while the rest is textured greyish. His base color is white, I’m not sure if it’s visible in the other colors or with a different head model. It can easily be seen from a distance.

I don’t care for the perfection, either. I actually prefer a bit of ugliness, it gives the face more personality. As it is, the humans and female norn look like barbie and ken dolls.

I do love this game a lot, but I really don’t care for some of the character appearance options at all. I’d kill for more hair color and styles for all races, too. And more sliders with a bit more extremes. It seems like I can never pull them quite far enough for the looks I want..

The only other MMO I’ve played is WoW, so while I’m sure there are “better” – this blows WoW out of the water and I have nothing to complain about.

I started a new game in Oblivion yesterday. That character creation is such a pain in the kittens compared to GW2. I haven’t played Skyrim for a while, so I don’t remember if it got improved there.

I’ve been playing RPGs for a while. I don’t think customization is that important when it comes to feeling attached to your character – it’s awesome to have it, but I got by just fine with the only “customization” being picking four different colours : hair, skin, and two for your armour. No hairstyles, no body-types, nothing. And I felt incredibly attached to that character. I wonder if “more custom” is just an excuse to skimp on emotional attachment in other ways – making you “invest” with sliders, instead of your actual character. You know how it’s not what’s on the outside that counts ?

And to be honest, I’d rather be artistically constrained in a game like this than have people given the ability to break the game.

Such a large OP for such a stupid matter.

The character creation is GREAT I’ll give you 100g to find another human who looks EXACTLY like mine.

Shyanmar.5936:

Loki.5891:

Shyanmar.5936:

I didn’t like Aion’s CC at all, because you could create the weirdest freaks of nature with it. I’m very glad the GW2 CC doesn’t allow this.

And it allows for actual beauty rather than all the so-so characters I see :P

Whats wrong with “weird freaks of nature”? If people like their character that way, why not let them have it? One could call Charr freaks of nature because they’re big talking cats/wolfs or something ~

You ask what’s wrong with them? How about this and this ?
It’s just an incredible eyesore to see characters like this running around. It’s a dead-sure immersion breaker, for one thing, and it just completely messes up the art style of the game because the characters don’t fit into the world any more.

The charr are a defined race integrated into the art style of the game. That’s something very different.

Oh, and the GW2 CC does allow for actual beauty (by the way … eye of the beholder and all that … ). I’m completely happy with my characters and wouldn’t want them to look any other way, I could achieve the exact look I wanted every single time.

and those are not even the worst I seen in Aion, what about the characters that have heads that are like 2 times the size of their bodies? THEN we talk outright disgusting

That said specially hair and face options i would like a LOT more, though i think body options as pretty good, for once i dont want to see those ugly characters you could make in Aion, and also giving too much freedom there would make you able to totally kitten up the races compared to eachother. I dont want to see giant Asuras runing around or tiny Norn’s after all

I only agree with a part of your post – the hairstyles are lackluster, to put it lightly, across the board. As for faces, you have a limited number of pre-designed templates, but don’t forget you then proceed to adjusting individual details, and it can result in drastic changes to your face It does feel a bit rushed out, or not finished, in a sence that there isn’t a uniform number for all options across all races. However, this is still more then a lot of games out there offer, and there is room for easy improvements, additions, and I’m fairly confident, more will come with time.

phantasy star online 2
the mmo which has the best character customization i’ve ever played
you don’t choose your face, you make it

so yeah comparing GW2 to PSO2 in char customization is just too much

GummiBear.2756:

Shyanmar.5936:

Loki.5891:

Shyanmar.5936:

I didn’t like Aion’s CC at all, because you could create the weirdest freaks of nature with it. I’m very glad the GW2 CC doesn’t allow this.

And it allows for actual beauty rather than all the so-so characters I see :P

Whats wrong with “weird freaks of nature”? If people like their character that way, why not let them have it? One could call Charr freaks of nature because they’re big talking cats/wolfs or something ~

You ask what’s wrong with them? How about this and this ?
It’s just an incredible eyesore to see characters like this running around. It’s a dead-sure immersion breaker, for one thing, and it just completely messes up the art style of the game because the characters don’t fit into the world any more.

The charr are a defined race integrated into the art style of the game. That’s something very different.

Oh, and the GW2 CC does allow for actual beauty (by the way … eye of the beholder and all that … ). I’m completely happy with my characters and wouldn’t want them to look any other way, I could achieve the exact look I wanted every single time.

and those are not even the worst I seen in Aion, what about the characters that have heads that are like 2 times the size of their bodies? THEN we talk outright disgusting

That said specially hair and face options i would like a LOT more, though i think body options as pretty good, for once i dont want to see those ugly characters you could make in Aion, and also giving too much freedom there would make you able to totally kitten up the races compared to eachother. I dont want to see giant Asuras runing around or tiny Norn’s after all

Then add some form of restriction just less than there is, maybe have a maximum head size to body ratio or whatever, would still make me able to make an actual good looking and somewaht shorter human instead of the so-so semi-somewhat-good-looking ones i can make atm

(yeah thats personal opinion @ how good they look, but thats the point, more freedom in creation = wider range of tastes covered)

You could still easily add restrictions (e.g. maximum head-to-body-size-ratio) that keep them realistic without restricting them as much as they are at the moment, not to mention the clone-army aspect if theres only 8 body styles to choose :P I’d like my character’s body to be somewhat unique and customized

Absolutely agree about the state of the character creator. You can make some nice looking characters, but if you don’t want someone who looks like a teenage boy or a supermodel girl then you’re severely limited; not to mention the selection of facial hair for Norn and humans alike is just awful. In GW1 I didn’t see any Norn incapable of growing a full beard, so why is there only one facial hair style for Norn which includes a beard and full moustache on the same face?

As for the human facial hair, once again I feel like we’ve been given a load of useless options. There’s only one option for a full beard, and it usually makes your character look like santa at best, a teenager in a bad disguise at worst.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this game. It just annoys me that an aspect which has been available from the first BWE has seen little to no change, and still has a depressingly small amount of options.

EDIT: on the subject of body styles, the physiques available for human males are also.. disappointing. There is no hope of making a ‘stocky’ character, as lowering a character’s height automatically scales them right down, meaning you can never have anything other than a ‘perfectly’ proportioned human.

I won’t agree that it feels unfinished, but I think your suggestions are pretty good. IMO, adding things to character creation and customization should be ongoing, always. Maybe in major content releases only but ANet should keep adding to it.

Just chiming in my opinion, OP if you disagree you disagree, no sense responding to each person who disagrees with you, it’s all a matter of opinion. I do agree there could be more options but here is my stance:

Character Creation was and still is sufficient for the game’s release. Now could they expand going forward? Sure, but lets fix the bugs and skill issues first. This isn’t a Barbie game, it’s a PvP game.

Naw it’s fine, norn yellow green eyes are clearly light blue hence the tool tip when you hover over the color. Actually I think ANet is color blind cause Ebony isn’t that grey and Cobalt isn’t the dull amongst other things…

Saving this to read in full later, but here is something I wrote about this 3 months ago on reddit: “people look at Aion’s CC and than show me pictures of the monster that could be created I am going to say something most people think is crazy you can have better customisation (even almost aion etc level) with out that all you need is limits you can set it so that the sliders aren’t as powerful, that if you move slider x one way to the extreme the slider y & z are limited etc. Yes not every one like CC but that is what presets are for.”