Guild Wars 2

Hey! well… first of all, i dont really speak english so well, but ill try bcause there is no movement in spanish forums… i dont like that… (please! try to understand my bad writing)

Second of all, i dont really know if this topic is well placed here… if its not, fell free to move it, and please do it… xD

Ok, lets get started…

I really like what you are doing (aNet) with wardrove, it sounds really good, is a very nice way for us to personalize our PJ. but… there is something that i never liked of this game… (dont misunderstandme i love every f*** part of this game).

First time I create my character, i tried to make it to look like me… is really simple, i like do that in every mmo that i play… at least 1 char must be like “the real me”. I’m not that hard, 1.80mts, 85kg., long hair, chain beard (i hope that you know what i mean with that, in spanish is “barba de candado”), human… xD…

Well “it” was done, desnt looked like me, but it was close, a little bit too much muscular
I guess.. but i said “nvm, its a fantasy game”….

I choose “fight without helmet” it is a warrior, must be affraid of nothing even a head shoot with an arrow…. “I dont need my head to kill my enemys, I just need my sword…”

That was ok, i like it, no helm… but then i saw it, there was a beautiful helmet i wanted to use it… but there was my surprise… when I equiped the helmet my hair was GONE! I was bald, it was horrible

This image is a very good example (not my character):
https://d37exe0a8qxg70.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/1575/Palaca.jpg

I bet there is a lot of you that dont like it, especially people with female characters, it is unsightly (“antiestético”, thats the word in spanish that i want to use, i dont know if is well used).

Well i have been playing since november 2012, now i have 6 characters, 5 at 80lv. 1 at 23:
2 male humans, 1 female human, 1 female sylvari, 1 male norn and 1 male Char.

Here is the biggest problem:

My female human, why she is a “problem” cuz there is a head equipment part that i like, but i like her hairstyle too…

this is: http://argos-soft.net/GW2/ImgA/locuti_2_1_10_0.png

Again, my char is blad! xD WHY! I dont want my female character (inspired in MY girl) to be bald! xD she looks awful…

This is her hairstyle: http://i62.tinypic.com/2lcwrqq.jpg (not the color)

ok, lets make a point of all this s**t i said:
- i’d like to fell free to use a helmet and not turn in to a bald…
- wouldn’t it be nice to see that helmet and that hairstyle at the same time?
- wouldn’t it be nice to see hair in that bald head that you have with that beautiful helmet?

i know, may be this wont be responded by anyone xD but now i know, that i cant do anything else to see hair in my T2 cultural helmet.

Thanks for read… I hope some mod read this and make somethig about thins in next 2 years… xD

edit: WTF! https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/29272/gw053.jpg

I’m not a game developer but I think the reason why characters get bald when they wear a helmet is to eliminate clipping issues… but that is just a guess ;P

My hair!

The baldness is definitely to avoid clipping. They could give your character a pixiecut by adding hair texture under hats but you won’t see your long hair under it unless you like hats being cut up by hair models.

There is a way around this, but it involves development time and assets I suspect ArenaNet aren’t willing to spend.
The idea would be to make individual helmet models with the underlying hair model models integrated.
I don’t know off the top of my head, but let’s say there are 30 different hairstyles for human females.
To make sure each hairstyle was accommodated without clipping would mean 30 models for one helmet.

This would increase a couple of things dramatically:
Modelling time. As a rough estimate, let’s say there are 30 hairstyles per gender, per race. That’s 60 models per race, with 5 races bringing that to 300 models per headpiece. Effectively, you’ll have increased time spent making art assets for headpieces alone by 30000%.
Asset count would also go up quite a lot more too. Essentially, where the engine is currently having to track 1 model per headpiece, the database would increase in size 300 fold using the rough estimate above. This requires a lot more storage and processor power per server.

Of course, there may be a more elegant way around this by precisely defining culling areas on headpiece models during creation, but not being privy to the way the engine or the ArenaNet modelling process operate, I can’t in all honesty say how easy or difficult this would be to implement. It’s more a question for the developers and artists.