Not quite sure what that means…
An Option for male / female with maybe different body types.
I don’t know if you have plans of using character portraits in any kind (showing on ladder, or in mp groups). In this case it would be cool if we could choose different faces (modeling faces completely would be champions league) and things like camera angle, facial expression and background, lighting and so on. I think of Eve Online I. that regard.
Yes, I’d like a “chubby hubby”-sized model for all classes please, that way I can accurately role play the character as an extension of myself (high Int, low Charisma/Str, plenty of, erm, padding to protect the internal organs from damage)…
IMO, apart from the voice & a character portrait, once you put gear on there’s precious little to say whether the character is male or female, especially if the screen has devolved into a pixel-soup of effects or a sub-1 FPS slideshow. But YMMV.
BAFTA diversity standards for game awards
There’s a link to the actual doc, but the gist of it is that games will be judged based purely on the diversity of its cast and the developer’s workplace instead of the game itself.
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They never said that games would be based purely on those criteria, though I’m sure the criteria would be used alongside whatever other criteria they use. Or they’ll use them in a gatekeeping role & any game that doesn’t meet them wouldn’t even get to be put up for a BAFTA.
I can see how you could apply them (or at least the first one, about the characters) to shooters, or games like Fortnite, where there is no storyline per se so there’s no characters (like there are in tv/films).
And of course they don’t concider Finance/Accounts to be an important enough function to be included in B2 but HR gets mentioned twice (HR & recruitment).
Mind you, I suspect that small/indie developers are unlikely to be able to meet the criteria anyway as it sounds as though they’re focussed a lot more on the corporate side of things.
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Most I’d expect currently from a game like this is gender choice, and 5-6 options of faces and hairs. Even just being able to swap genders at first would be a good start.
As the studio evolves however I’d expect being able to choose body size and allowing eyes, nose, ears, and mouth to be chosen independently.
It should be an incremental process as the game gets bigger and the studio gets bigger.
Sort of like how wow does things now vs how they’re planning to do it with their new expac.
I think something like bdo level of customization is nice but if it pulls resources from the actual game is unimportant and ultimately just fluff. Just a base level of customization is always nice.
Having a roadmap for character customization would be nice.
I get how that would be nice in an MMO or other game that had lots of in-game cutscenes where you can see your character, but how would you know that you’d changed any of those in an aRPG that, at best, shows this level of detail of the character’s face?
https://i.imgur.com/DCKI7x7.png
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I don’t think in any game, even mmos, you’d be looking at your characters in detail mid fight which is what you show in that picture there.
ARPGs can also definitely have cutscenes (see d4).
Also after grinding I do enjoy looking at how cool my character that I designed looks after putting in a lot of effort. It’s a part of the fun for me.
Even ignoring all of this, for me the MOST important part is to be able to be immersed in the game itself. When someone tells me “you’re playing this character that we designed and it won’t be any other way” it really kills my enjoyment. Being able to create my own character with its own backstory in my head really gives me a lot of enjoyment, which is why even the most minor customization is nice.
It is of my opinion that these types of things are where games get bogged down trying to appease “everyone and anyone” that just walks in the door.
ARPGs typically have gender-locked characters because of the time constraints to develop with no other intention in mind, using the rest of their valuable time to create the rest of the game, not to appease your political standpoint.
I hope they waste no efforts in even considering these types of requests as it would take away from the time spent on developing the actual gameplay or end game systems, which in turn, make the actual game; that is what keeps players playing, not whether or not they can somehow break social norms and choices within the character selection screen.
I hope the developers understand what I mean by this as gaming has changed for the worse, often wasting time to appease to these types of notions while the gameplay suffers drastically in terms of the released product.
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Honestly, just a new model and voice lines is about all I’d like, not asking much, I know it’s resources, but after release those would be appreciated.
Make the armour look the exact same, same rigging, same skeleton, just a different voice and pronouns and it’s pretty much done.
Woah, woah, woah. This is not helping your case. First, d1 and d2(made by the same company) were both critically acclaimed and beloved by all as the greatest arpgs of their time. Both were gender locked. D3 was an atrocious, outright failure on launch and for some time after(RoS turned the franchise around significantly, but it still does not hold a candle to d2). Its initially sales and “success” was absolutely attained due to the expectations of a d2 follow up and its rabid fanbase. It had unlocked genders. This choice had absolutely nothing to do with why it was received so poorly. They are completely unconnected.
Now that we’re off that, about the choice to have gender locked characters or not; personally I agree with the choice of gender locked characters but I don’t have strong feelings about it either way. D3 didn’t throw me off with it. But I will say it gave the selection identity and character in d1 and d2, I felt like I was that paladin of Zakarum on an epic journey and his story compelled me. In d3 you lost a bit of that. I played wizards(etc) of both genders and it had a large feeling of anonymity. I was 1 of thousands that walked this same path before, etc.
Actually D1 and D2 weren’t really made by the same company, D3 was a totally different Blizzard to D1 and D2 which was the reason for D3s extended failure sadly… Yes people seem to like it these days after it had a no mans sky type overhaul, but it imo is still a failure compared to the first two.
Yes, d1 and d2 was made by Blizzard North, a sub-division of Blizzard, and yes Blizzard has subsequently been bought out by Activi$ion years ago.
The point was that it was a failure, despite being by Blizzard, and in the same vein of logic(one thing not having to do with another), closed/open gendered had little to nothing to do with D3’s(and every other rpg’s) success and/or failures.
I could list 20 major issues off the top of my head for D3 before coming to the minor anomaly that is it having open gender choices. Severely inconsequential to the games overall community reception(and that’s an understatement), hence, its real fucking awkward to lead with “But Daddy D3 did it!”.
Just want to point out d3 is not the only arpg that does this
Torchlight, Titan Quest, and Grim Dawn all don’t have any gender locking. GGG also has hinted at removing gender locking with PoE 2.
Most people tend to praise gender locking as a method of ‘story telling’ or ‘depth of character’ when, in an ARPG, it’s most often used as a method of making good looking characters without the need to develop character customization and alternative looks for multiple objects and animations. A (huge) time and money saver.
While I agree that pre-made, story-driven characters do fill the ‘RPG’ role better/easier, your own character’s uncustomizability does not have to. That is entirely up to the person/people developing the story line. Many games, including critically acclaimed games such as Dragon Age, KOTOR, and Mass Effect to name a few, have allowed character customization while having a rich, in-depth, and captivating story line. Not everyone has to be Geralt of Rivia.
While this game’s systems and gameplay are rightfully a top priority, I would like to see options for character customization. Even if they are few.
Maybe, to start, you could spend more time on building alternative looks for items based on the current body types, and let them be the beginning pre-built choices of customization. I have no idea what that would take as far as resources; just throwing it out there as a possible starting point.
I’ll be real with my opinion. The gender of what ever class I pick has little of importance to me. I never once looked at a game, and said “Well if I can’t pick my gender, I won’t pick it up!” Is it a nice feature to have? Yes of course it is, being able to customize your “Hero” in your own image is always a step in the right direction, but it shouldn’t be your only deciding factor into a game. And it’s harder to do with story driven games, with re-creating new character model, cinematics , and voice lines. I’d rather have customization over my gear or my current character model, than gender. The ability to toggle off visuals of the helm, hair choices, or skin tone, skill abilities colors. I’d rather have control over the theme of my character. Not pushing down anyone’s opinion on the matter. I see that people clearly care a lot, and maybe it can be implemented into the game, down the road. But for now, I hate seeing these “If you don’t do this, I won’t play your game” Replies, be mature with your response and be open minded, think of both sides. This should be more of a “Hey when you guys get the game out, and starting making money, could we take a look into having more customization over our characters?” Not when they’re still trying to get their foot in the door, without proper funding. It’s a big risk and little reward, to push money into it. Versus completing the main story, and coming out with the new class, new masteries, balancing skills, and items.
TLDR: Picking Gender isn’t that important, this early in the game. Maybe down the road, when they have the proper funding to do so. Rather have customization over current character models or skills.
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gender locks is not make or break, but certainly a plus for me. I didn’t like it way back when in Diablo 2 and it was a welcome change in D3. But it didn’t keep me from playing them, nor did the change “force me” to go to D3 on relese.
My only gripe at the moment and maybe its coming soon, but when I choose which charcter (that have already been created and in the process of leveling), the gear I’m using doesn’t show when I select a character. Small gripe, but if I say have two Sentinels, one with a two-handed hammer and one with a sword and board, I’d like both of the models to be different in character selection. This is also not a make or break for me, but it is something that would be cosmetically nice
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If the body looks the exact same with Armour on regardless of the gender what is the point of even changing it, they might as well just let you choose your voice from the 4 already available and let you choose your pronoun (My Pronouns are Alpha and Omega btw and they had best include them if they go this route).
If you are saying that they just need to make a new body for every character, then resize every armour piece on every character to fit the new model then, re-voice every player character line from every class, then yeah sure hardly any work at all probably only take 5 seconds. I can’t wait to play as a topless female Primalist proudly displaying my female Pectorals nipple and all.
As a trans woman, yeah, I kinda care about it a bit.
Not everyone has strong feelings on it understandably, but I do, and even then I ain’t asking for much and not even as an immediate “demand” it’s a request that would be neat…but even that is asking too much for some…
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Would be nice if you could customise models