Grimzkhul
08-18-2008, 10:13 PM
The does and don’ts of customization in a videogame.
First off I would like to apologize in advance for any grammar or spelling mistake that will occur, I’m not the best writer in the world sadly!
So here goes,
We have all seen the wonders of customization at play, giving too much freedom can spell disaster to a game and too little customization and your players will have no sense of identity. Note that this text comes from a “regular Joe” who’s basically just using common sense as a point of reference for my points of argument.
Let’s all take our fanboy shirts off for a minute here and then let’s take off our geek pants. I know it’s hard not to hide in those in times of need but we need to have a grown up talk and it seems that everyone goes nuts when it comes to talking seriously.
First on the plate: Custom races.
Alright, after the Spore Creature creator release fiasco who in their right mind would release a tool that will let you create your own playable race? In theory it sounds nice, custom part to stick unto humanoid forms and then pick some bonuses and the race’s name. In practice it gives birth to hundreds of people making bad sex jokes and the such.
We’ve seen what happens when you give people too much freedom and it’s not pretty, don’t give them enough freedom and then you have lack of depth which to be honest isn’t any better!
I don’t know about you, but its one man’s opinion here that maybe instead of focusing on giving the players a tool where you’re able to create a mediocre race, Cryptic should focus on giving the players a great customization tool for set races. I know it’s everyone’s fantasy to play as 8 of 30 the newly re-adapted Borg but quite frankly I would find it tiring to run into bland looking characters.
Those of you who are not new to the MMO world will know what I’m talking about here; out of the dozens of options to customize you character presented to you in most MMO’s only a few stand out of the crowd. Only a few will actually look any good, making most characters clones of each other.
I think you get my drift. In short my point is:
No online community is mature enough yet to receive a tool that allows them such freedom (without serious moderation at the expense of developing time on other maybe more important features) and that I rather have alot of great looking options for set races rather than a few bland options spread across hundreds of possible looks for custom-races.
This is the conclusion of my first point I hope you’ve enjoyed my “ranting”. I’ll be back with more points to bring to the table, meanwhile feel free to discuss. I’m open to the opinions of others!
First off I would like to apologize in advance for any grammar or spelling mistake that will occur, I’m not the best writer in the world sadly!
So here goes,
We have all seen the wonders of customization at play, giving too much freedom can spell disaster to a game and too little customization and your players will have no sense of identity. Note that this text comes from a “regular Joe” who’s basically just using common sense as a point of reference for my points of argument.
Let’s all take our fanboy shirts off for a minute here and then let’s take off our geek pants. I know it’s hard not to hide in those in times of need but we need to have a grown up talk and it seems that everyone goes nuts when it comes to talking seriously.
First on the plate: Custom races.
Alright, after the Spore Creature creator release fiasco who in their right mind would release a tool that will let you create your own playable race? In theory it sounds nice, custom part to stick unto humanoid forms and then pick some bonuses and the race’s name. In practice it gives birth to hundreds of people making bad sex jokes and the such.
We’ve seen what happens when you give people too much freedom and it’s not pretty, don’t give them enough freedom and then you have lack of depth which to be honest isn’t any better!
I don’t know about you, but its one man’s opinion here that maybe instead of focusing on giving the players a tool where you’re able to create a mediocre race, Cryptic should focus on giving the players a great customization tool for set races. I know it’s everyone’s fantasy to play as 8 of 30 the newly re-adapted Borg but quite frankly I would find it tiring to run into bland looking characters.
Those of you who are not new to the MMO world will know what I’m talking about here; out of the dozens of options to customize you character presented to you in most MMO’s only a few stand out of the crowd. Only a few will actually look any good, making most characters clones of each other.
I think you get my drift. In short my point is:
No online community is mature enough yet to receive a tool that allows them such freedom (without serious moderation at the expense of developing time on other maybe more important features) and that I rather have alot of great looking options for set races rather than a few bland options spread across hundreds of possible looks for custom-races.
This is the conclusion of my first point I hope you’ve enjoyed my “ranting”. I’ll be back with more points to bring to the table, meanwhile feel free to discuss. I’m open to the opinions of others!