Playing D&D years ago we got to pick our race/class/gender/ etc. Is that not the norm? When a player starts D&D are they told they will play a 57 year-old middle eastern female cleric named "Verellia"?
This is news to me.
Say you wanted to be an bard and you pick an Orc... well you get the picture it just doesn't quite work.
Well these are the two extremes- clealry it doesnt have to be one of these. I shouldnt have to play as Verellia, nor should I be able to be a giant pink elephant that flies. Character Customization is a balance that gives a player limited control over thier appearance, while still conforming to the game in question. An example of the extremes would be say Zelda, where you play as a named character with a set identity and appearance (link) for the lack of customization, and say Saints Row 3- where you can play as an astronaut in clownshoes or whatever esle you can think of. A good example of a balance is world of warcraft: you can't be an Orc Paladin, but you can alter your character's appearance, name them slightly alter their skin color and facial features, as well as hair styles, colors, and of course gender. They still allow skinny female warriors wielding weapons and armor thousands of times outside of what should be possible, even considering in game lore, simply for the sake of player preference (and political reasons). Some suspension of disbelief is ok to allow for customization, while other cases aren't worth it ("do people really need to have afro's on their orcs?")
The case of diablo 3 is that it is closer to the "lack of customization" extreme. With only your hero's name and gender being selectable (and to a lesser extent, armor dyes). I would have prefered Diablo 3 been more away from this extreme and allowed a bit more freedom in character creation.
Jay Wilson mentioned that at first they did have character customization, but took it out because:
#1. The customization wasn't very visible when wearing armor, so it was a waste of time.
#2. It became a time barrier to hitting "Start" and start playing.
I get the whole "I need to change how I look" but how often are you going to stare all teenage girl like at your character in the face? What happens if you put a helmet on then what? I'm not sure if a don't show helmet option is available. I don't know much about the "witch doctor culture" but I've never heard of a white one.
1. As much as I like, I don't see how it concerns you as to what I look at and how often.
2. The "dont show helm" option is invisble dye - usable on all types of armor to make them transparent.
3. It's a fantasy world. Theres nothing that holds them to saying a certain race is tied to a certain culture - espcially regarding what exists in real world culture. Have you ever heard of any Western European sects of Shaolin Monks? Clearly the culture they are taking from is eastern in orgin and visual appeal (see yin-yangs, orange sash robes, etc.) but has been made to portray anglo-saxxon men and women. There is even a direct blue comment on this talking about how they wanted to give each class and its lore alittle bit of twist. For barbarian they made him old with white hair instead of younger man more in his prime. For monk it was to make the appearance western rather than eastern. Saying it doesn't make sense that a different race be a WD is a bit trite in this instance.
EDIT: the comment from blizzard came from the GDC lecture on art in D3. It was linked to in a news story here if you want to find it. About an hour long but it was very interesting and informative if you get the opportunity.
@Karsen, Would you prefer a version of Diablo 3 where all the characters are white? Personally, I wish each of the characters carried a briefcase, since I can't relate to carrying a sword to work.
I would prefer a version of diablo 3 where I can customize the skin color, hair color & length, body type, and gender to that of my personal preference, rather than having race/gender locked to a specific class (thankfully we at least have gotten a choice of gender).
I belive all people should be able to make their hero look as similar (or different) to themselves as they would like. It is, after all, an action ROLE playing game.
Ever heard of sims?
The characters are locked I believe due to the general background. White witch doctor? No... Things are locked for a reason and as far as I understand there's more than enough specification in there.
You also forgot D&D... things are locked for a reason its called lore, you know something that's in role playing games! Such a concept indeed! A hillbilly witch docotor just wouldn't make sense "Joe Bob the voodoo trailer pimp will throw explosive moonshine at you instead of toads..."
Playing D&D years ago we got to pick our race/class/gender/ etc. Is that not the norm? When a player starts D&D are they told they will play a 57 year-old middle eastern female cleric named "Verellia"?
I would prefer a version of diablo 3 where I can customize the skin color, hair color & length, body type, and gender to that of my personal preference, rather than having race/gender locked to a specific class (thankfully we at least have gotten a choice of gender).
I belive all people should be able to make their hero look as similar (or different) to themselves as they would like. It is, after all, an action ROLE playing game.
I can't argue with that. I can only assume that DIII's architecture makes customizable character models technically untenable for how Blizzard wants to handle graphics.
Their given reason was that due to armor and the camera angle and distance, that it was a significant amount of development time for a feature that seemed to offer very little benefit. I disagree on some grounds (mainly that I will most likely play with invisible ink on my helms so I can see my guys face as I find it much more natural), but I can certainly understand how it ended on the development backburner in favor of other things.
@Karsen, Would you prefer a version of Diablo 3 where all the characters are white? Personally, I wish each of the characters carried a briefcase, since I can't relate to carrying a sword to work.
I would prefer a version of diablo 3 where I can customize the skin color, hair color & length, body type, and gender to that of my personal preference, rather than having race/gender locked to a specific class (thankfully we at least have gotten a choice of gender).
I belive all people should be able to make their hero look as similar (or different) to themselves as they would like. It is, after all, an action ROLE playing game.
Ever heard of sims?
The characters are locked I believe due to the general background. White witch doctor? No... Things are locked for a reason and as far as I understand there's more than enough specification in there.
While respect your opinion that "The Sims" is the only game or genre of game that should have character customization, I do not share it.
Character customization is a commonly sought after component of RPGs and will appear on the list of design goals for every game where players characters interact with one another. I appreciate your belief that it is superfluous, I humbly disagree. I find it brash to assume there is no desire among the gaming community for character customization- disagreeing with it is one thing, but denouncing it's existence is difficult to come to terms with when there are common instances of it being highly desired in many games- so much so that many developers are taking the customization once commonly offered and monetizing it via DLC on the grounds that you take, aka "it doesnt affect gameplay". And people spend the extra money for it- so clearly it is desired by a measureable extent.
Torchlight 2 will let you customize the looks of your character. /shrug
@Karsen, Would you prefer a version of Diablo 3 where all the characters are white? Personally, I wish each of the characters carried a briefcase, since I can't relate to carrying a sword to work.
I would prefer a version of diablo 3 where I can customize the skin color, hair color & length, body type, and gender to that of my personal preference, rather than having race/gender locked to a specific class (thankfully we at least have gotten a choice of gender).
I belive all people should be able to make their hero look as similar (or different) to themselves as they would like. It is, after all, an action ROLE playing game.
But I just can't get over it, they're just so damn silly! Rain of frogs, flaming bats and dancing around the bonfire. I just can't make myself roll one or even want to see one in my teams! They're just completely uncool!
If by "silly," you mean awesome. Rain of Frogs (and Locust Swarm) harks back to when some disgruntled almighties really stuck it to the enemies of their chosen people. Flaming bats. Flaming bats are uncool? Flaming -- freaking -- bats.
I will stand by the statement that warriors, barbarians, or knight-variety fighters are always the most boring. This time around, we have Governor Schwarzenegger wielding his sharpened brass section. To be fair, I'll play one, eventually. Possibly even before I play the assassin's creed acrobat, but I have no idea how people can see the class with the most monosyllabic abilities as more interesting than the spiritual successor (literally) to the necromancer. In fact, take out the barb, bring back the necro instead, and I will be a happier man. (I would say the WD is a clear integration of WoW warlock concepts with the DII necromancer; both great classes, being integrated to make another great class.)
Though my monk will probably be leveled up more quickly since I will be playing him in a group, my WD will be my main character for soloing.
The styling of the hero is just to far out there to allow me to enjoy my power fantasy role playing. I like to see my self as the hero I'm playing (like most gamers- at least on some level) and it's hard to relate to an aging black tribal doctor who uses toads and blowdarts, as an early twenties white american. Plus, I find the animations lanky and goofy, and the constant "booga-booga!" emotes annoying at best.
I'm not sure I really want to address this one... except certainly to point out that "[t]he styling of the hero is just too far out there," for someone of stated demographics to hit with straight English grammar, apparently. That, and that the Diablo sorcerer was black, and the DII paladin was black (though I really hated the paladin for play style and conceptual reasons.) Also, I think one might want to consider openly describing relating to a character such as this as difficult when the alternatives are an Asian with magic powers, Schwarzenegger on steroids (which are also taking steroids), or in general, in a game made by people who expect you to relate to elves, wolves, cows, goblins, aliens, pudgy green dudes, and zombies (though perhaps DIII is not quite intended for the same demographic as WoW.)
While I, personally, have no problem relating to characters of any size, shape, or variety (perhaps a little to muscle-bound axe-jockeys), I can see that, being a late-twenties black American, some others of my demographic might want to see a little representation and not have a choice of white, white, white, and Asian (though I'm pleased George Takei can be represented too... though perhaps a little disappointed that he doesn't do the related voice-over.)
This is an open discussion on a fan forum, I'm not submitting an article for peer review. I find asserting ad-hominems to be significantly more offensive to an open discussion than a minor grammatical error. I also find it interesting that English is the official language of the US now - would you mind citing a source that implies you cannot be american if English isn't your native language? I grew up speaking engligh, but my parents did not and it's not the primary language in our household. I was unaware this fact means my opinions or input is invalid.
EDIT: removed a misplaced apostraphe since I know any errant symbols would render the entirety of the post unreadable to you.
I normally play the warlock or the otherwise "dark caster" archtype class in most games where its an option. I love playing casters in general as a matter of preference, and I fine the dark caster classes typically have more interesting and innovative game mechanics compared to the traditional mage class that acompanies it.
That said, I wont be playing the WD in Diablo3- at least not as my first hero or my main.
The styling of the hero is just to far out there to allow me to enjoy my power fantasy role playing. I like to see my self as the hero I'm playing (like most gamers- at least on some level) and it's hard to relate to an aging black tribal doctor who uses toads and blowdarts, as an early twenties white american. Plus, I find the animations lanky and goofy, and the constant "booga-booga!" emotes annoying at best.
That left me the Wizard and the DH as classes to start with. It was very close and thankfully playing beta since march or so really helped me feel out the two classes. I'll be starting as a Demon hunter as I vastly prefer the dual resource system and increased tendancy toward kiting compared to the static regeneration of the Wizard's arcane power and focus on AoE and cooldowns.
It's really different for everyone though, depending almost exclusively on their playstyle preference and aesthetic preference.
EDIT: it might be worth mentioning that the WD is the only class I VASTLY prefer the female model to the male model. The female monk I find is also slightly preferable to the male monk.
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The case of diablo 3 is that it is closer to the "lack of customization" extreme. With only your hero's name and gender being selectable (and to a lesser extent, armor dyes). I would have prefered Diablo 3 been more away from this extreme and allowed a bit more freedom in character creation.
I know this.
I said it in post #47 in this topic.
1. As much as I like, I don't see how it concerns you as to what I look at and how often.
2. The "dont show helm" option is invisble dye - usable on all types of armor to make them transparent.
3. It's a fantasy world. Theres nothing that holds them to saying a certain race is tied to a certain culture - espcially regarding what exists in real world culture. Have you ever heard of any Western European sects of Shaolin Monks? Clearly the culture they are taking from is eastern in orgin and visual appeal (see yin-yangs, orange sash robes, etc.) but has been made to portray anglo-saxxon men and women. There is even a direct blue comment on this talking about how they wanted to give each class and its lore alittle bit of twist. For barbarian they made him old with white hair instead of younger man more in his prime. For monk it was to make the appearance western rather than eastern. Saying it doesn't make sense that a different race be a WD is a bit trite in this instance.
EDIT: the comment from blizzard came from the GDC lecture on art in D3. It was linked to in a news story here if you want to find it. About an hour long but it was very interesting and informative if you get the opportunity.
Playing D&D years ago we got to pick our race/class/gender/ etc. Is that not the norm? When a player starts D&D are they told they will play a 57 year-old middle eastern female cleric named "Verellia"?
This is news to me.
Their given reason was that due to armor and the camera angle and distance, that it was a significant amount of development time for a feature that seemed to offer very little benefit. I disagree on some grounds (mainly that I will most likely play with invisible ink on my helms so I can see my guys face as I find it much more natural), but I can certainly understand how it ended on the development backburner in favor of other things.
While respect your opinion that "The Sims" is the only game or genre of game that should have character customization, I do not share it.
Character customization is a commonly sought after component of RPGs and will appear on the list of design goals for every game where players characters interact with one another. I appreciate your belief that it is superfluous, I humbly disagree. I find it brash to assume there is no desire among the gaming community for character customization- disagreeing with it is one thing, but denouncing it's existence is difficult to come to terms with when there are common instances of it being highly desired in many games- so much so that many developers are taking the customization once commonly offered and monetizing it via DLC on the grounds that you take, aka "it doesnt affect gameplay". And people spend the extra money for it- so clearly it is desired by a measureable extent.
Torchlight 2 will let you customize the looks of your character. /shrug
I would prefer a version of diablo 3 where I can customize the skin color, hair color & length, body type, and gender to that of my personal preference, rather than having race/gender locked to a specific class (thankfully we at least have gotten a choice of gender).
I belive all people should be able to make their hero look as similar (or different) to themselves as they would like. It is, after all, an action ROLE playing game.
This is an open discussion on a fan forum, I'm not submitting an article for peer review. I find asserting ad-hominems to be significantly more offensive to an open discussion than a minor grammatical error. I also find it interesting that English is the official language of the US now - would you mind citing a source that implies you cannot be american if English isn't your native language? I grew up speaking engligh, but my parents did not and it's not the primary language in our household. I was unaware this fact means my opinions or input is invalid.
EDIT: removed a misplaced apostraphe since I know any errant symbols would render the entirety of the post unreadable to you.
That said, I wont be playing the WD in Diablo3- at least not as my first hero or my main.
The styling of the hero is just to far out there to allow me to enjoy my power fantasy role playing. I like to see my self as the hero I'm playing (like most gamers- at least on some level) and it's hard to relate to an aging black tribal doctor who uses toads and blowdarts, as an early twenties white american. Plus, I find the animations lanky and goofy, and the constant "booga-booga!" emotes annoying at best.
That left me the Wizard and the DH as classes to start with. It was very close and thankfully playing beta since march or so really helped me feel out the two classes. I'll be starting as a Demon hunter as I vastly prefer the dual resource system and increased tendancy toward kiting compared to the static regeneration of the Wizard's arcane power and focus on AoE and cooldowns.
It's really different for everyone though, depending almost exclusively on their playstyle preference and aesthetic preference.
EDIT: it might be worth mentioning that the WD is the only class I VASTLY prefer the female model to the male model. The female monk I find is also slightly preferable to the male monk.