Character Personalisation and the Community

This is going to sound weird but my honours years project is about character design and popularity with the community of players. Basically I'm trying to figure out why people like certain characters and why people like customising their characters.

Just wanted to ask various gamers on forums about why they like customising or not customising their characters. Do you spend lots of time and gil to get that perfect set or just gloss over it without paying any attention and just roll with whatever you have on. Also if you like an npc why? Is it appearance, personality, the voice acting etc?

Feel free to add in any more details if you want.

Sorry if this is in the wrong section, feel free to move it and thanks for answering.

I like tweaking my main character (female roegadyn) a lot. Her hairstyle changes almost monthly depending on my mood, but her colours stay the same: pale pink and white. At the same time I have a male miqo'te alt that has stayed the exact same since I created him. I suppose males are easier to be satisfied with than females. x')

I spent a lot of time (and some gil as well) gathering materials to craft myself several gear pieces, augmentations, dyes and glamour prisms. I like having different outfits for each class and several roleplaying outfits. I also dislike running into lookalikes, so if there's a day when I see a lot of female roes with the same hairstyle as me, I stomp to the inn room for a change. Same applies for outfits, I try my best to be unique, even if it might be a lost cause.

My favourite NPC is Skaetswys from the Kobold beast tribe line, a sassy Maelstrom soldier who acts all tough, but is a softie inside.

Even though I don't speak a word of French, I have the voice acting chosen as French as I couldn't handle the flat tone of the English voice acting. Merlwyb, Nanamo, Livia, Alphinaud and Gaius all have amazing voices. Livia is my favourite deceased NPC just for the scene when she raids the Scions' HQ. That voice. That commanding presence. Awesome!

Some people view their char as an extension of themselves, play dress up/plastic surgery to fit their mood, to be what they want to be.

Some people view their char as a separate entity, as like another person. You grow to like/love them for who they are and not for them to change to fit for you.

I still got my 2 free fantasias and only used the aesthetician once to get a new hairstyle.

I like Human styled characters and I'm a thigh guy so F. Highlander. I am constantly second guessing myself even though I know that I have a nice looking character in comparison to a lot of Highlanders out there. This is mainly because of the hair choices and the poor glamour options available in game.

Would you guys like it if the glamour system didnt restrict class armour (mages in heavy armour), didn't restrict level and you could dye more sections of the armour?

Curious because I know people have mixed opinions on this and it could impact on some gameplay aspects, not being able to distinguish classes etc. Also for things like staffs do you think it would make sense for them to allow whm and blm to use each others staff skins?

I think I'd be happier if there were just more clothing options in general. The racial specific items come to mind. There is a lot of potential there and it really forces you to play 1 race just for glamour options *cough cough Miqo'te*. I love the Highlander for instance but the Miqo'te loincloth goes amazing with some shoes I've picked out so I'm constantly contemplating going to Miqo'te. They also get the hair option that I like which isn't available to any other race. It's all very restrictive and as an Aesthetically driven player I feel that being able to enjoy the way I look in game is more important than any content.

Honestly with the class specific AF sets I'm okay with those being for the class. They have a deeply rooted history in the Final Fantasy series and while it would be neat to wear a PLD set on a WHM for example I think just the Hempen sets and the racial starter outfits alone with the non AF/Myth sets should be cross-race.

Was more thinking for the cross class glamour things like the vanya robes and scylla robes so not things that are job gear, just everything else :)

I have a few alts, and some of those I've switched up the appearance on (only once have I use a Fantasia, and that was to change a voice that made me cringe once I heard the full laugh), but my main has never even changed hairstyle and definetly not haircolour. So far there's no hair that matches the one she has, and I'm very pleased with her look. Nevermind that her race is one of the most played, I'm not trying to be the rarest of the rare there, all I want is to be happy with what I'm looking at every day. It was visually painful, having to wait until 50 to start glamouring.

I too am a very aesthetically driven player, and I can spend hours picking the right shade of dye for my outfits. As for the outfits, I find the game sadly restricting both when it comes to the items themselves and the glamour system. Because the glamour system is tied to specific items, you can't have different looks for all jobs once you get beyond the gear that is for one job only. I would love it if you could have a look for each of the two tank, healer or caster jobs. Tanks are the ones that currently have the most items available to them for glamour, since they can glamour any tank, melee AND magic user gear of all levels, as long as it isn't job- or race-specific, while magic users don't have access to most non-magic user things. It would be great to have access to the other races' hempen- or race-outfits, and I know a few people (including myself) who'd enjoy mixing it up with crafting or gathering gear!

Ideally, in my eyes, all of these restrictions would be removed when it comes to glamour. Diversity is the spice of life, and the more options people have, the more creative they can be.

If there absolutely HAS to be some kind of restriction, I'm happy if it just remains as the weapon. That's plenty to distinguish what job someone is. (But I would agree with some who've wanted to be able to have a bare-fist look for their Pugilist/Monk, however that would be within one class/job.)


Edit: And YES to being able to dye more gear. There are so many things that are red or have red details, and that just doesn't go with my skintone. Non-dyable gear makes me Q.Q

I adore customizing my character. It literally took me two hours on the creation screen to finally settle on a design! Creating the character personality and weaving in elements of your own is something I look out for in a good RPG/game. In the creation aspect of the game, I like how wide the net is.

Normally in an MMO, I am also very obsessed over my cosmetic wares. SWTOR is a game in particular in which the clothes and style are extremely important in molding the character personality and traits. For FFXIV though, I have been rather slow in this area. I think it is mostly because the glamor system just fees to restricted in many ways (In terms of verity and price). Cosmetics should be a simple and fordable aspect of the game, I think. To be fair, I very much doubt I would change how my character really looked anyway at this moment in time. I mean, look at that hat? It is beautiful! :D

As for NPC, I adore Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn for many reasons. I love strong, female characters and she certainly is that. Her style is great and works well, what with the white skin and black clothing. I also thing there is a good amount of depth to her personality. In the Leviathan patch, there is a wonderful scene with her and Y'shtola (Another great character) where they debate, and it ends up being a wonderful character moment for them both. Her voice actress is fantastic too, encompassing her personality well.

I hope this answer your questions! :)

Since we play in 3rd person, I like having a character that I can look at for hours upon hours upon hours and not feel bored.
A unique personal flair is a must, but at the same time she's made to MY tastes.
No big hooters, no "fifty shades of pale" skin tone...
I guess in a way I design my characters to be the ideal I want for myself...but not what I myself want to be.

It's quite simple. The character is an avatar of yourself in the digital world. So you want to look unique and represent your ideal self. In the real world you can't change yourself but in a digital have you can.

I wish I was better at customizing my character's appearance. Ideally, I'd like to use a real life headshot of myself & just tweek it a little.

I'll customize my gear when I have the free time.

As for NPC's, the appeal to me is less about the surface details & more about the character & how they fit in the story. I like Thancred because he's roguish, like Merlwyb because she's strong, in-charge & will more than likely shoot you. I like Alphinaud because he's young, smart, driven to purpose & also caring. I like Cid, because what's a Final Fantasy game without Cid?

Back during the beta phase of 1.0 I actually posted a topic that showed images of about ten different character designs, outlining my thought process as I moved from one to the next, ultimately leading to my final decision for my character for when the game launched. Needless to say I spent quite a lot of hours trying to craft the ideal character design to represent a part of myself. Much of that decision making had some back story behind it. Despite my character undergoing further changes since then I have always felt very satisfied with the appearance I had created for myself. I especially enjoy feeling a sense of uniqueness. It's extremely rare for me to encounter another character who looks even remotely similar, but even if I did run into someone with the same look it still wouldn't bother me because in my eyes my character is still special.

In terms of equipment, while I won't go as far as to spend hundreds of thousands of gil on gear to use for glamour, I'm not at all content with wearing some random mishmash of equipment. Once I have an outfit established I'll immediately glamour any new equipment back to my chosen gear piece. If I find something new that I like I won't use it until I've obtained a full set that will work with it. For lower level classes, while I usually won't bother to glamour equipment (as I'll just get something new a few levels later) I will often at least dye the gear to my preferred color.

As for the class restrictions with glamour, I wouldn't say that I'm strongly for or against it, but what does bother me is that the system prevents different jobs from using different outfits if they share equipment. I would absolutely love it if I could give each job that I use its own unique style without having to wear completely different sets.

And lastly, about any NPC that I like, for me it's Kan-E-Senna. Incredibly wise, calm, and thoughtful. I have nothing bad to say about her.

I'm a customizing fiend.

One thing I normally do with characters is try to make them look similar to myself IRL(thus always male). To put "myself" in the game. Clearly I don't mean their race, since I don't have cat ears. I mean I make their hair, eyes, etc the same. Sometimes I go wild and just do whatever though.

When it comes to clothing my character, I tend to switch around once a month, unless I magically find just the right outfit. I can't really explain what the right outfit is, besides it being a mix of a masculine and feminine style. I'm one of those infamous people who enjoy bishie's. I don't spend much on my outfit because I tend to craft my own stuff, get someone to craft it or earn it. For example, right now, I'm wearing a PvP set because I like the black belts(the PvE version has brown belts) and darker purple secondary color.

Although I love lalafell because they remind me of leprechaun and other mythical beings that look similar. They're plain adorable and hilarious if you RP them as being evil. Also I've played other MMO's with chibi style character so I'm very comfortable with their look. Only reason I'm playing male miqo'te (besides the fact that they're sexy beasts, both in appearance and lore) and not a lala is because I'm tired of male lala hairstyles. I only sorta like one of the hairstyles they have, but it looks 100x better on male miqo'te's. I will probably switch back to lala when they get a new, GOOD hairstyle.

When it comes to NPCs, I tend not to care. At least none so far in this game interests me besides that crazy elezen in the main storyline. I don't even remember his name. All I remember is he made me laugh and that's important.

Not sure if I stayed completely on topic because I rambled. lol

I spend stupid amounts of gil and time getting the right stylish set of gear to wear if I don't lost too many stats.
I personally game for two reasons though.
To wreck shit and to accomplish. I always strive to be top dog at everything I do I was raised this way.
As far as making my character, always thought a small chick with a big ass weapon was insanely sexy. I mean lets be serious it's hard to find good quality psycho chicks in real life these days. Anyway i'm a perv so I spend downtime staring at my character trying to figure out how to make her more appealing. I think if I wasn't into gaming in that form I would have dumped FFXIV a long ass time ago. In a way I guess you can call it my RP element. Everyone has one and this is mine. Crafting a appealing chick with a big sword to wreck people for my personal pleasure.

Interesting thread OP +1 My avi is the complete opposite of me :) female for start and she has much better taste in clothes than myself lol. I am a artist/designer at heart and I like the stuff I have to look good and match, cars, décor and especially mmo chars. No matter what class or what level gear my avi wears I have to make the tones compliment each other. I'm a guy but I'm fond of Coco Chanels' eye for color or lack there of, pastels, black and white or earth tones. Never been a big fan of bright flamboyant colors. I can't wait to get my whm to 50, I love the pointy white and black cloak and the staff with wings :)

I definitely created a character that would be a bit of an underdog, because everyone wants the good guy to win. I like short races, I'm under 5'6", other games I like dwarves, it's just my preference having the little guy be the bad ass. I spent time refining my character and relate to him as an extension of me.

And yes, I'd love some arm and leg armor for my SCH, who doesn't want a bit of protection from the baddies who go after the soft casters?

Having a good color pallet, gear that complements the body type are good for physical design.

Character wise, having someone who is bold, clear, and understanding is a good general draw. Least from what I observe.
Also, not taking oneself too seriously.

My character is mostly the same as when I created her. The biggest change is I changed her hair from its original style to the Lightning hair, and changed it from green with pink highlights to purple with blue highlights. I'm pretty certain I'll stick with that. On glamours, the cost of some of the cooler things (augmented AF for example) is prohibitive so my glamours tend to be more commonly available outfits, which makes me less unique but I don't really care as long as I look good. :P But I wish that glamours could be set to job crystals, since tanks, healers, and casters share armor. I'd love to be able to set up different glamours for all nine jobs.

I pick characters that I think aren't going to look like anyone else, and ones that have a few similar characteristics to the RL version of me.

I spent 200k-300k on glamour my 8 jobs to look different from each other.i even dye 8 different shade color to all of them .. All this mention i didin't count my doh/dol yet ...
Anyway,i can't believe i spent 1 hour just to change hairstyle and color.i mean its like "how long couild it takes ? 5 min ?" but thing is ...
Even i tried my new looks over and over its just not the "right" combination for my character .. But in the end i go with default hair style with default color .. Black .. Simple is the best i think ...

A total of 5 days of tweeking and playing with the character creator during Beta, netted me the perfect Marik most people see in my screenies and avatar. I generally try to project and emulate myself into a character I create when playing MMO's such as these. Aside from TERA this is the 2nd time I've had a tough time going back and forth between two races.

I normally tend to stay towards the human side of characters (unless like in Aion, it's nothing but winged angels, then I just customize it to look as human and like me as possible.), but I always hate that I'm too "scared" to try and create something outside of the "norm human" type. I really love Elezen in this game, and was able to successfully project a piece of me onto an Elezen. For over a year now, I've been going back and forth between Hyur and Elezen, trying to figure out which Marik is the perfect Marik for me.

Vanity wise, I'm constantly updating my vanity, spending what ever amount it takes, to show off my unique tastes and style. When I do finally find the PREFECT outfit, I leave it at that, even leave the colors alone. I don't change my hair often, because most short/messy/spiky types are usually my persona, and there are only a few of those on here for Hyur/Elezen.

Overall it's just my personal tastes, style, and the ability to be most like my real life self, I try to emulate and create when making characters online.

It wasn't hard for me to figure out how I wanted Najara. I knew it was either to going to be a tanned white male hyur(who looked absolutely fabulouth), with a cute heart on his face, short height and a side bang to make him look just like my ex boyfriend

Or I was going to model her after my cousin, who I've always admired for being extremely really tall(over six feet tall), thin gorgeous, and black. I don't think she's much of a warrior though so I tried to toughen Najara up as much as I could for the world of Eorzea. I think it makes her really stand out.

All I knew when I started the game was that I wanted to be a Miqo'te, because I've always loved the cat-ears style when it comes up in anime or whatever. But when I went to create a female Miqo'te, I was really unimpressed by the facial and hairstyle options. They all felt really bland and just not my taste. Then I got to the voices, and ughhhhh. I scrapped the female Miqo'te and decided I'd try a male character even though I'm a girl and normally play female characters.

I'm kind of glad I ended up creating a character who is so different from me, because it really lets me experience the game in a different way. Instead of feeling like I'm just viewing an avatar of myself, I get to have a whole little backstory for the character and imagine him having a very different personality from myself. It's fun thinking about how my character's reactions to stuff in the game might be different from the way I'd react. (It's also hilarious to hear the things guys say in party chat when they think there are no ladies present. >___> )

I'm also really happy with the way the character customization worked out. I kind of just picked randomly based on what I thought looked good at the time, but particularly seeing how there're so many pale-skinned PCs and NPCs, it's nice not to feel like a clone. I've never felt the need to use even my one free fantasia. :D

I'm not really one for vanity. I don't really want my character to be stuck wearing hideous things, but I'd rather save my gil for more useful stuff, so I mostly just wear the best gear I have at the moment, whatever it is. I wish I had the gil to look awesome all the time, but then again, it's not like there are a massive number of great vanity items in this game anyway. *shrug*

I spent a great deal of attention on my character appearances to the point of glamouring almost everything down to my rings and earrings to get a look I like. Sometimes you get some wonderful compliments on the outfit you've assembled and I'm especially proud of my outfit used for Bard.

For me, I just like anything and everything that's cute. I'm not a fan of the brutish, spiky armors or the giant plate metal so everything needs a softer touch. The dragoon armor was the most offensive to my little eyes (why expose the midriff so), so it had to be glamored immediately upon obtaining it. My white mage adorns a lovely smock and crescent moon bottoms for added adorable. I even glamor jewelry when 'cuter' options are available, like the heart choker from the Valentines quests.

Sadly, on a Lalafell most of the rings look like knuckle-dusters so there doesn't seem to be any nice options for making them prettier. Shame too, as I'd have killed for a modest diamond ring.

Lots people think Roe is strong and ugly, I see my Deli as a softy big puppy. I'll in some certain mask when I playing Deli. He <3 food, sharing, /clap to all kinda things and super cheerful. It's not exactly me, it's a mask for FFXIV this game in general. I use the similar mask for my alt who is a M. kitty.

He has to have that lion hair and that black nose tip as many animals have. I will hardly change the race or even the hair style, unless the new lizard race has Deli's lion hair and puppy nose tip too... tail is one other important factor too.....

For voice over, I <3 FFXI and FFXIV's setting that don't let your main char talk or say anything. I hated so much when I found out my GW2 midget is a serious jerk with a cranky teekager boy voice. During alpha, I spent soooooo many time to just pick up the voice pack. I have to have a nice battle shout (some are too weird) a happy /cheer and best /happy. this voice pack 2 is very good on these. however, the /furious sux... it's more like "huh!?" than GRAAAGH!

for clothing choice, I generally like to put lots layers of clothes on. So, these open chest in general I tried to avoid (however Snow's jacket is just amazing :O ). I hate to be shinny, so I tried to get rid of any of these glowing weapons and armors.

For initial choice of character it's a balance of abilities and appearance.

Then I make it look how I would like to be, but haven't really much patience with this part because I want to get into the game.

After that, I like to constantly upgrade the gear for the stats and appearance, but if a gear level looks silly I'll skip it until the next gear level.

I designed this character ages ago. It's hard for me to give an explanation about it without sounding weird. The Wallace family, most of them, are red haired. However, their eyes have a mystical green colour that represents their divine affinity. Most of their family members are warriors, knights, paladins. Lucille is Cyrus' daughter. She's is a reflection of a big side of my personality. Some drawings I made...

Lucille in Ragnarok Online:

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/20...ce-d30y386.jpg

Lucille in Cloud Nine:

Ignore the typo.
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...rusWallace.png

Lucille killing Goku:

http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/i/20...ce-d30y3pk.jpg

An unfinished Lucille drawing from Ragnarok Online as well.

http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/g...aQueriendo.jpg

I picked the highlander sub-race because they look more strong. My character is not, by any means, a princess-like girl. Brave and fierce, strong and proud.

Appearance and aesthetics are very important in fictional settings (fantasy and sci-fi stress it quite a bit).

I'm sort of stuck as I am because I do like the way my character looks, and since he is based on my tarutaru from FFXI there wasn't much I would do to change his look. The fact I'm not a fan of most of the lalafell hairstyles doesn't really help. That said, my characters are not so much an extension of myself, instead being extensions of ideas I've had for characters. Not the type to RP a character but I will write notes and stories centered on characters I've created.

I wish the glamour system would be simpler so we could change outfit more often and not have to hunt for countless prisms for a single set change... And I also think that anyone who have a specific class lvled should be able to glamour the gear for that class, even if he's on a different class... It even makes more sense because not being able to wear a shirt you otherwise could wear if only you changed class - is weird lol

My character is my baby and I want her to be beautiful and cute. And I want everyone to adore her.

Character customization is paramount to me.
I want to feel pleased when I look at my own characters. I want to experience moments where I just stand around and turn the camera to check my character out for a bit.

The glamour system is way too restrictive. It needs to be available before 50, it needs to allow more variety in armours/clothing articles, and it needs to be less of a gil sink that makes you feel guilty for using up a prism on one piece of gear. Also, gender-restrictions need to go, we're not in the 1950s anymore.

I don't have one single favourite NPC... this game has too many awesome ones. (I'm lying there is no such thing as 'too many'.) Voice can play an important role in how well I receive an NPC (Y'shtola is a prime example of a somewhat bland character greatly enhanced by great voice acting), but there are also unvoiced NPCs I am very fond... for example Ratata, the Miniature Marauder. What most of them have in common is that they have their own stories, completely independent from my character or the current plot point, presented or at least hinted at. They have a life beyond the main plot.

Character customization is important to me and starts right when I create the character.

Being used to the likes of Skyrim (or even - blegh - ESO...), I feel the character customization here is lacking.

It feels a bit basic when compared to some other games/mmo's out there.

In essence, if you see too many people running about looking like a twin (which happens here and I'm not talking about clothes), there's too little customization.

On top of it, for some reason that I'm not sure of, to get clothes customized you have to basically sell your soul or something... and get level 50 because... Yoshi seems to think no one below that level wants to get rid of those idiotic tin can helm+armors that some guy came up with or get rid of the forced cowls. (I personally skip those armors and hope they burn in hell).

I think clothes/armor customization should come at level 25-30... around the same time you get your companion chocobo.

And then you have all this "please be a master crafter to make <insert useless, glamour item>" or whatever... for the next dyes you have to be what? 99 star crafter?

All this to say: customization is important and this game is too limited and too gated in it.

I love character creation but this game is too limited for me to really care, in every game though all my characters have dark skin and green hair because from Emeralda Kasim to Ryofu Housen(Ikkitousen) that is my favorite combination, and my character looks like a old man because old man Monks are awesome. I have been fortunate enough not to run into any clones of myself though at least I also prefer to dye all my outfits red or purple depending on my mood.

Thanks for the responses guys and sorry for the lack of replies (and necro). I was also wondering if you guys thought that the way we design our character is based on current fashion trends or culture or just for fun?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ignnis

I was also wondering if you guys thought that the way we design our character is based on current fashion trends or culture or just for fun?

---

I can't say I follow IRL fashion. I simply put gear pieces together as they fit. It's surprisingly difficult to make an outfit for my female roegadyn, because I want to keep her feminine, but her broad-ish shoulders make it difficult to look dainty. Chest pieces like the leatherworker chest and the low level disciplines of war shirts are out of the question.

Even though I pretty much made my roe reflect myself IRL (pink hair+green eyes) or how I wish I'd look like (snow white skin, tall), I don't dress her at all the way I dress IRL. She wears pale pastel colours; white, pink, light blue, light green etc. while I wear black, black and some more black.

I don't follow fashion trends in real life, so if I happen to imitate one it's purely coincidental. I just try out different looks and pick what I think looks nice on my characters. Sometimes my ideas look better in my head then they turn out when my character is wearing them, though. The fact that a lot of stuff I want for glamour falls from dungeons where most of the time you get crafting mats makes it hard to put together the glamour I'd really like, too, so sometimes I have to settle. For example, we're well past 2.2 but I've still yet to get the Shikaree doublet or Hussar chest.