Variety, variety & a little more variety

Before today I've spoken about my hopes for getting a lot of character variety into the game. That means HEAPS of really different faces for player characters to choose from (say, at least 20?) and those faces also being recycled across the NPCs to get them looking diverse as well. Not to mention, clothing variety. Sure, town guards and the like get a free pass on that as they're in uniform, but if I'm in a market with 25 civilian NPCs, let's see 25 different looking people. Nothing kills the mood more than being surrounded by identically faced, identically clothed people. Even subtle variation is great -- like if there's two similarly dressed guys, one's wearing a hat and one's not.

Earlier today I revisited the topic of variety again, this time in a thread about weapons. Basically, I quite like the concept of not going on a gear grind in SotA, and holding onto weapons longer, and getting a sense of history about them, rather than discarding them a few hours later for "something better". I think that's awesome, however, I don't want the lack of gear grind to mean the team can scrimp on how many weapon models end up in the game, ie: I still want to see as many weapons, sets of armour, shields, etc, created as though this WAS a gear grind. Because if we can build-in so much variety, we'll see people with greatly diverse sets of weapons and armour, which adds to the overall immersion. Even if it's just simple things, like making the same sword with different coloured jewels in its pommel; emerald, ruby, amber, etc. You suddenly have 5x or 10x the swords you started with. Cheap, fast and easy to do.

Really, I feel the #1 thing on my 'Dream List' is... well, variety. The game systems are what they are, and will be what they will be. Same for the maps. Same for the backstory. Same for the way the game will play. The one variable in it all... to me at least... seems to be variety. We need to get variety packed in there, every chance we get, so the game will have the best chance at being a living, breathing world. Because yes, I totally agree with RGs design philosophy in games, re: making stuff useable, and ensuring you can can into a room and pick up the cups on the table if you like; that is all great, immersive stuff. But it's absolutely shot down in flames if you go outside and there's three peasants who look alike... or you see a gathering of players and they're all wearing identical armour, with identical swords. I don't want to overstate it, but I think variety is the unsung hero of many great games.

Obviously this sort of stuff isn't noticed as much in a single player RPG, primarily because of the lack of other players. But once we're in a world with tons of other people, it needs variety, variety, variety, to be believed.

Your thoughts?

 

Oh I agree!

I'm sure there is much more to come in the ways of character customization etc...But, never bad to keep up the conversation on things that are important (to some of us )

I want more than 20 faces btw hehe...I want hundreds of ways to change my characters face and hair...maybe custom hair length, custom eyebrows, cheek bones etc...

Also, I hope to see eyeglasses, monocles, eyepatches, scars, missing eyes ...ah so many things

 

That's a real variable for me. If they do bring in more features than just changing the nose shape, the need for "heaps" of faces declines as you can, in theory, make what you want -- so long as you have the tools to do it.

But if we're sticking to just choosing the colour of our eyes and the shape of our nose, absolutely I want to see 20-plus different "off the shelf" faces. Combined with different hair, facial hair, noses, that should be the minimum.

 

I second Baldrith's raised bar. Let's have hundreds of ways of creating characters that stick out, characters to get attached to who are not the same as everyone else

 

I agree about variety. UO took some easy outs on this. If you have 5 types of armor, but can make them with 5 different types of ore, (or more colors for dyed items) then you get a quick expansion without additional graphics. SoR took it a bit further with 3 levels of patterns (the better costing more materials, but looking fancier and protecting more) with materials affecting color. Suddenly you go from having 3-4 types of armor to 100 with little in the way of graphic change.

I think as crafting develops more, we will see more variety. I don't know what types of ore we will see, but I hope more than iron. Capes, cloaks, hats, tabards etc. can add huge variety to otherwise similar characters.

 

That's a good example... same armour set, but in different colours. The cheapest way to suddenly raise the number of "looks" in the game, without hardly raising a finger. Similar to my suggestion about changing the jewel in the pommel of swords. Now, combine those sorts of "quick and dirty" fixes, with actually making, say, 10-20 different kinds of plate mail, or 30 different swords, and suddenly there's 100s, 1000s, of options. It's all about variety

 

Is that nose and ear hair I see growing out of Baldrith! I also would like to see more character customization

 

heck ya...my character has more hair than cousin IT

 

Haha, you guys!