Guild Wars expansions: Trend of decreasing face / hair customization...

Hi,

This thread contains a lot of valuable feedback, and we'll definitely try to address the various concerns here. I wanted to share some information with you about faces and customization. Most importantly, we all need to keep in mind that the Nightfall World Preview Event was a Beta event, which means that what you saw was not final, and that what you viewed may not be the full menu of every single option that you'll be given when the game is released. The Art Team is working on more options and on general improvements of your existing options for you even now.

What this means, though, is that as we improve the options, and possibly expand them, a few of the faces that were offered during the WPE may change a bit. I think everyone's on board with the notion that it was a Beta, and I feel pretty sure that players will not freak out if there are changes, because they'll all realize that any changes are a result of either expanding (if possible) or improving what was on offer during the Beta. (Which is sort of what this thread is about. ) But do be aware that some modest changes to the faces may take place. Hopefully you'll like the little changes here and there. Maybe you'll find one that you like better. Keep in mind that if you find that you prefer another face or hairstyle after all, you have the option to delete and remake the character and you can retain the reserved name if you recreate within one hour. RP characters are reset to Level 1 prior to release, and their items and skills are wiped, so it's pretty much a clean slate if you wish to make changes.

We hope that you'll like the new, improved options at release!

I am in love with you. Have my children please.

I knew there had to be a decent roleplayer on these boards somewhere.

Thanks for explaining that to us.


Someone posted a very interesting suggestion, about letting people with different races being able to start out in different regions! Would it not be great if a Tyrian Necromancer could start out in Elonia, or a Elonian Monk could start out in Cantha, or a Canthan Warrior could start out in elonia?

Gaile,

Great to know you guys are paying attention to our concerns here, and excellent news that you are working on diversifying the options available some more.

Nice to see some official response to this. But, Gaile, you have only mentioned that current faces may change slightly--not that the amount of options expanded upon as this thread is complaining about. And the reason this is brought up before final Nightfall release is because we didn't see an improvement in this area between the Factions preview and Factions final--so it's safe to assume Nightfall is going the same route from the looks of the preview. And the best time to bring attention to this is during pre-sales when people are most vigilant. We are still hoping to see a system where all the face / hair options are unrestricted by chapter to create a larger mixing pot of character appearance options--and a way to change the appearance of exisitng characters without the silly need to delete the characters. Hopefully soon enough so that the Guild Wars game engine is still fresh and competitive, before the next generation of onlines games take over in the future, or even Guild Wars 2.

Well, remember what they say about "assume," now.

The first thing to know is that we're tracking choices all the time. We know what faces are chosen, which are not chosen, and we're going to use that data to help us bring you more highly-choose-able faces. That's why you have a beta event, to see what works, what needs fixing, what needs expanding and/or improving, and on and on. Beta events are a great proving ground for what we're doing, not only because they prove what we're doing, but because they provide us with information to do it better. Some of the faces will change a little, a few will change radically, to make them more desirable to players. If you think about it, making more of the faces really cool will in effect actually expand the options for popular faces without adding a single one. But in addition, yes, the art team is working on adding more.

As to the request to build a Canthan Warrior in Tyria, or a Elonian Necromancer in Cantha, I honestly do not think that will happen. But first, let me make sure that I understand what you're asking, so by way of doing that, let me explain philosophy: It's is the intention of the game designers that those who support the game have more options. That's fair, just, and appropriate, even if it's not what someone may want to hear. You have the maximum number of options by supporting Guild Wars with the purchase of all three campaigns. Those who do so can make any character from any game.

Now, is the point is that you want to make a complete freedom of choice as far as character "look" by being able to have any character start in any region? I do not think that that is the intention. Character appearance is tied to the region in which a character is "born." I do not believe that it is the intention of the team to have the Tyrian look with an Elonian birthplace, etc. I can ask about this, and certainly I will let you know if that is a possibility in the future. In the back of my mind, I'm not sure that it would be, since each campaign has a lot of advanced and advancing technology, so character creation is actually an evolutionary process. But I'm speaking casually here, and I can ask if any face/any birthplace will someday be as option.

And again, if the request is to give everyone who purchases any single campaign the opportunity to create any appearance from any of the three campaigns, well, I'm sure if you stop and think about it, that's just not good business, and we do have to think about things like that, particularly since we are not and will not be charging a monthly fee.

I assumed that the suggestion was for people who owned each Chapter, those choices would carry over to new Chapters as well.

So, if someone linked Prophecy and Nightfall, they could have the options of faces, hair, etc, from both Prophecy and Nightfall (no matter where they created the Character), but not Factions (since they didn't link Factions to their account). This would actually be another reason for people to want to buy each Chapter!

Now, I can see the artistic point of not having certain faces and skin tones from other Chapters, but perhaps at least the hair could carry over?

Another idea is to not limit the Faces and hair to a particular Profession at all, but allow all Professions to choose from a larger number of faces and hair. This would also decrease the amount of clones for a particular Profession, and at the very least, offer more possible combinations between faces and hair. That's another alternative I'd be happy with.

Again, thanks for reading Gaile, I know this is not a "huge" problem, but it's the little things that makes Guild Wars a great game!

Only thing i like to add is: Elementalist gets Afro hair and some other classes get Dreadlocks lol, i like mine pink.

Was really surpirsed when i saw the selection in the character creation screen.

yep, that's what i mean.

but the idea with restricting face / hair features based on born location takes away the fun and possibilities in character creation--especially in a fantasy game. i think color would indicate the born identity more than face / hair features [except for afros which is mainly african]. if you change the skin / hair color around in any of chapters, you can already get away with saying the character looks tyrian, canthan, elonian--all based on the color. plus we can already see tyrian, canthan, elonian characters running around in all 3 chapters! the face / hair style differences really aren't that major, so why limit the face / hair selection to born location and hinder the players' character creation experience? part of what made guild wars so revolutionary was its highly flexible and changable character skill / weapon options--and why it's a popular online pvp game. for a game this open ended in skill and weapon combinations, it sure isn't very open ended for character appearances. this is a fantasy game. let players openly choose and create their own races and human creatures that they truly want to play--without limitation [based on chapters added to the account]. look at other fantasy / sci-fi characters out there for a change. don't restrict guild wars players' characters to real life Earth features of caucasian, asian, middle eastern, african--then you can call guild wars a fantasy game.

What Gaile is saying, and I completely agree, is that if you want a Tyrian, Canthan, or Elonian look, then simply start your character in those respective areas. If you have all three games, then you have access to all faces/hair options, you're only limited to which starting area you'll end up in.

The starting areas are just a little push out the door. The rest of the continents are where it's really at, and that you'll have complete free reign with your new character. Tyria has the largest "starting area" since it not only encompasses Pre-Searing, but Ascalon and North Shiverpeaks, effectively. But there, you can get run if you're trying to get to a different continent.

What I think should be done is have some other special 'abilities' or 'features' that depend on your area of 'birth'. Basically, things like fighting style (for warriors/assassins), spellcasting animations, accents (during cutscenes), maybe even differences in the way spells look (like altered minion appearences), all being completely dependant on where your character's starting continent was.

If they really wanted to get detailed, they could also have quests be different depending on your birthplace, and how the NPC's interact with your character. Really give a sense of "you're a foreigner, and you know it".

My main concern here was about the male Paragon. I'm not worried about using faces from differing campaigns, because it's appropriate that characters have a regionality about them based on where they're from. I think it's a cool effect.

However, that doesn't mean that everyone from Elona has braids. Just give me one more hairstyle that's a bit different and I'll be happy! Please! I want the Beat It dance!

Thanks for the reply, though, Gaile. I always say that I have faith in Anet to make everything excellent, but I guess that in this one instance I got a bit worried since I have noticed that there did indeed some to be a trend as people had mentioned and, well, I want a Paragon dude

My guess is its because of the new "animated" faces.

It would take alot more to store information about an animated face, compared to a static one. So their is bound to be less faces in Nightfall.

Plus their probably just running out of ideas.

I agree though, that they should combine existing face and hairstyles with new ones on the creation menu and just build up the collection as they go.

That information already exists in the servers, so it wouldnt add to it.

They only issue would be amending the existing faces to move.

You're missing the point. The point is some players want more variety during the Character creation process.

I don't just want to make a Prophecy character, and then travel to Elonia. I can already do that.

I want the option to make an Elonian faced character in Prophecy, with Faction hair (since I own all three chapters).


And/Or getting rid of Profession specific choices would also help variety.

Very nice of you to ask.


A bit of a follow up question; Do Jeff Strain, Mike O'Brian and the other Anet guys read fan forums and play the game?

Do you think that community questions each friday will return? I miss that.



I love you gailie.

i dont want to be forced to make a prophecies character and then have to travel to elona. that's is just grinding work. i own both prophecies + factions. currently i've only made phrophecies characters, due to the lack of appearance options in factions--and i beat factions with the prophecies characters. i can not create a factions character that is on the same appeal level as my prophecies characters. not only does factions characters lack appearance options, but their quality isn't as good. plus the assassin run cycle animation looks very akward and amateurishly done. the ritualist faces all look to similar and unappealing and they all wear the same boring "grandma" dresses. overall, factions character creation was horrible compared to prophecies.

the main reason for mixing all face / hair options from all chapters that you own is to exponentially increase the character appearance combinations. and on a gameplay point of view, the current restrictive chapter limitations or face / hair options limits the enjoyment of the game, especially since you can already create characters in any chapater that can look like they come from tyria, cantha, elona based on skin / hair color.

as for the face animation of previous faces before nightfall, that is already done--since people will be using prophecies and factions characters in nightfall as well. their lips will have to move.

Alterations to the faces isn't really the concern of the OP nor the topic (despite the whole ethnocentrism/aesthetics derailment) of this thread, Gaile. It's the slowly narrowing selection we have available per chapter that is the problem.

If the cross-chapter faces won't happen (and if you already own the appropriate chapter I don't see why it shouldn't, but I've also learned that lots of things in game design defy common sense), then we need more options within the chapters. How many options do the Factions professions have for character faces and hairstyles compared to Prophecies? None have more than half, and Nightfall is even fewer. Obviously, this does not make the players happy, and rightfully so. In subsequent chapters, Factions and Nightfall included, we should at least have as many different faces and hairstyles to choose from as we had in Prophecies.

Alright, I agree with you about hair choices. I think all hair choices should be available. That only makes sense that anyone can have any hair choice they want. However, I still think it's prefectly fine to start your character in the continent the face is native to.

We identify each by our faces IRL, and when I see a Canthan face, I know automatically where that character was 'born'. I think it's nice, I think it promotes a sense of nationalism. The face is very important as it is a marker of where 'our families' came from.

who really cares where a character is actually born in the game? it doesn't matter where its actually born. if you see a character that looks caucasian, asian, middle eastern / african, you will automatically assume where they're from--regardless if it if was actually made from that expansion. there is no gameplay benefit to which continent where a character is actually made--other than the current appearance restriction which makes it seem like a benefit. it matters MUCH more to the majority of people to have a wide range of character appearance combinations.

...if guild wars actually planned well to restrict character appearances of caucasian, asian, middle eastern, african--they would have limited the skin and hair color choices in each chapter. but as it stands now, it's a fantasy game. so this last-minute restriction on ethnicities based on faces is worthless, and now only limits the possibilities in gameplay.

I feel that the only reason they didn't limit actual skin colors, is for cries of racial inbalances. I think every company has to worry about that when considering just about anything thanks to the absolute insanity that is racism.

what about racial imbalances in the face selection between chapters? the only main additional variation caucasians have over others is a few extra variety in colors of eye and hair. every Earth continent has people of significant and appealing face variations, too [of course certain variations can be distinct from other races]. lack of awareness of this partly due to caucasian people being presented more often in the media than any other race in caucasian countries. and the image of other races are often presented with stereotypical features, which leads to certain people to not be aware of these variations--which can range between quite different or quite similar to other races, depending on the individual. shouldn't guild wars consider that the limitations in expansion face / hair selection can be seen as a racial preference statement as well?

Then I suggest the Guild Wars Designers look closer at the choices you tracked.

The most well-known monk hair in Tyria is the Princess Leia hair....why.... It is the hair that is the least bald hair style of all the types available and it is not a short cut hair style.

Look at Factions, most of the hair styles chosen for Faction monks are the long hair styles.

Now why is it in Nightfall most of the Hair styles again are short short braided hair styles for female monks????? Now maybe we did not see all the styles going into the final release of Nightfall, but 90% of the styles are short braided ugly looking monk hair styles. And most people I know agree. And if you look around Guild Wars you will see most female monks do Not Choose the short short hair or bald head style. I am not saying you are not tracking but the Design Team is certainly is not making a wide variety of Hair Styles. They all look the same with a few minor changes in braiding style. Why not some long hair choices flowing hair, medium straight hair, long perm hair......there are lots of styles....maybe the Guild War Design Team needs to look at More Than the Short Braided Salon hair book, and really show variety in choices for both style, length, cut, and body of hair. Go to a real salon and see all the choices!!!! Nightfall hair is just limiting and only short braided hair for female monks.

I never said it was right. Nay, I said it was insane. Racism is almost solely focused on the color of one's skin. Facial properties are so unique that aside from some obvious differences (like eyes for Asians or noses/lips for Africans), you can't discern the race of an individual without skintone. These are the roots of racism.

This is only presented as a limitation to Anet when they create character creation choices. They want to be able to show obvious differences in characters between different nations, so that there is that sense of nationalism, I'm guessing. Unfortunately, as I said, they cannot show only certain skintones because of the limitations of anti-racism movements (caused first by racism). That is my point.

As much as I love options, and seemingly limitless options at that, I can understand this kind of vision. It encourages RP, IMO. But do you realize the outrage if we were only able to create Caucasian characters in Tyria, Asian characters in Cantha, and African characters in Elona?


I must disagree with you about the 'media' presenting only stereotypes. That may have been the case in the 70's, moreso in the 60's, and even moreso in the 50's, but certainly not today. Of course, then again, I usually only watch Discovery & History Channel, so I think I get a fair mix of all that is out there, even if I don't travel.

arcanemacabre:

i was only pointing out inconsistencies in the reasons behind the current racial limitations of the guild wars chapters. i wasn't criticizing your message.

I'm aware of that. I was backing Anet up. I'm saying there should be total racial limitations, skintone and all, but it can't be that way because of PC/anti-racism movements.

Of course, that's an extreme statement (I just made), but it's true. In all honesty, it really doesn't matter as much as it sounds. Regardless, point had to be made.

Gaile stated that the artists were working on faces, I believe she meant that they are both improving the existing faces and quite possibly adding new ones...

I caught that tidbit in another thread, about a chat someone had with her on Oct 2nd, you can find all of it in this thread :
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10054375

She meant they were working to add lipsynch to the existing faces.

As much as they need to expand the options for faces and hairstyles for the non-Prophecies chapters, I doubt it will happen.

People, let's quit derailing the topic. This is not about racial profiling or aesthetics or ethnocentrism. It's about the fact that the available choices for character creation are shrinking with each chapter, when at the very least we should have as many choices as we had in Prophecies.

Wrong, read her chat log. She explicitly states that the art team is working on improving current faces and adding new ones. Some of the faces that were seen in the Nightfall preview will be changed slightly and she recommends making a new character so you can choose from the revised selection.

http://img109.imageshack.us/my.php?i...061001bth9.jpg

SAVE THE UGLY!

I'm sorry, but the idea of Anet monitoring and "improving" faces really worries me. I don't really want to have to choose between 10 different styles of cheerleader pigtails, or 10 different shades of blonde.

There is a proportion of the population who will go with ugly (because it is unique) and see if it grows on us. Why? Well it all started with those monk buns. My first monk had them too. I didn't really have a story behind my monk, unlike my ele and mesmer, and so just went with what looked "cute". But I ran into that same "cute" four times before I reached the gates of Ascalon City in pre-searing. That didn't work for me, so I created a monk with the hair piled on her head. Finished the game with her, but got so sick of people calling her Lina (yes she was basically a clone of Lina, completely unintential I assure you, hadn't got to the desert when I created her) that I just couldn't stand it anymore. My ignore list was only so long. So then I remade again. I went with the half-bald-do. Omg, it's so fugly, you might say, but it grew on me, and my monk was unique. Like any true tale-spinner, I now have a story about how she came to be half-bald. Oh her tattoo is a lovely brown

My point is this. There are a lot of people ingame who like creating their characters to be unique. We've been able to do that so far because the general population has been repulsed by certain (usually) hair options. The "ugly" options do get used, and those of us who embrace them and give them a character of their own, would miss them greatly.

Well, if they're adding new faces, as our dear Gaile seems to say, then it looks like we can all chill out about this issue until Nightfall is released and see if that truly is the case.

If increased selection of facial appearance is important to many players, which it obviously is, then I'm confident that Anet will address the issue.

On a related note: why don't all the professions have the same list of hair color to choose from? For example, Paragon gets white hair, but Dervish does not; Necromancer gets green hair; Elementalist gets a very saturated wild color...

I mentioned that they weren't finished with the game about 2-3 pages back. And all I got was clueless responses.

People should know by now that beta software doesn't equal the finished product.

And yet, the Factions preview ended up displaying the same number of faces that were available at release.

I didn't see them claiming to be adding more faces, but let's say they did claim this. Given the previous track record, I'll believe it when I see it and not before.

you didnt seem to have paid attention to this area between releases

they just limit it to encourage you to buy every expansion...

Yep.

I have never considered a character I've created to be "born" in one place or another. The continent you choose to adventure on first seems completely unrelated to the character's birthplace. You're creating a character, not writing a history. If you want to claim that your character was born on this or that continent, I really don't want to step in your way.

Choosing the campaign your character starts out in should be the last choice you make, not your first. That means that when you're creating your character's appearance all the options from every campaign you own should be available to you. (And yes, opening up profession specific choices where technically feasible would be nice.)

There's probably a reason that the Factions team decided to make you choose your campaign first (ie, it was easier), but it's a kludgy solution. The rationalization that it represents a character being "born" in a particular place is pretty flimsy. It certainly doesn't address the real issue, which is people wanting to utilize the art assets from campaigns they own in an intuitive way.

btw: the voices for female paragons / dervishes are too distinctly african sounding--too low pitch and a bit rough. it would be best to use female voices for the 2 new professions that can pass for any race. go with a voice that's more neutral and less distinctly african. it would work better since not everyone creates an african looking paragon / dervish.

QFT (Quoted For Truth)

Also, IIRC, GWP used to give people the options of creating characters with green skin etc. I never used that myself, but I think it was refreshing to have those options.

I thought that this topic was about face/hair choices? Not preference in voice tone.