Petition To Expand Character Creator

[Iscah]

Another idea is allowing for interracial characters. F'lhaminn is clearly a mix between the Seekers of the Sun and Keepers of the Moon as seen by her name and eyes.

These aren't *really* interracial characters, at a character-creator level. F'lhaminn is 100% a Moonkeeper NPC model with a name that suggests the person F'lhaminn must be part-Sunseeker. There's nothing stopping a player from doing the exact same thing right now.

Hilda is a Midlander NPC (you can see it from her body size and emotes) who has been customised to have a unique face with pointed ears as part of it.

Essentially she's the inverse of some of the Garlean characters (eg. Nero, Lucia, Maxima) who are technically Elezen NPCs with modified faces and rounded ears.

[Raikai]

One thing they could add, and it wouldn't - necessarily - require a big overhaul is more options for faces, face paints, eyebrows, eye and mouth shapes.

Seriously, you can only go too far with just 4 face options.

But in an ideal world, we could have sliders.

[MsQi]

These aren't *really* interracial characters, at a character-creator level. F'lhaminn is 100% a Moonkeeper NPC model with a name that suggests the person F'lhaminn must be part-Sunseeker. There's nothing stopping a player from doing the exact same thing right now.

Hilda is a Midlander NPC (you can see it from her body size and emotes) who has been customised to have a unique face with pointed ears as part of it.

Essentially she's the inverse of some of the Garlean characters (eg. Nero, Lucia, Maxima) who are technically Elezen NPCs with modified faces and rounded ears.

You basically supported her point. F'lhaminn proves that from a lore standpoint there is mixing. Add to that the little girl I mentioned that is obviously a mixture. You can't currently put Elezen ears on a midlander nor vice versa. Thank you for your support.

[Iscah]

You basically supported her point. F'lhaminn proves that from a lore standpoint there is mixing. Add to that the little girl I mentioned that is obviously a mixture. You can't currently put Elezen ears on a midlander nor vice versa. Thank you for your support.

From a lore standpoint? Yes. But that doesn't add anything to the character creator other than stopping you from using the "generate random name" button. So I'm not sure how she is relevant to "ways they could expand the options". I see it as proof that they don't think they need to in this case.

Also I'm not 100% sure but I think there may be only one character model for child-Miqo'te, and it has the fangs? I haven't confirmed it myself, but it got brought up in the Lore forum when we were discussing the Moonfire Faire, and someone else said that they all have the fangs regardless of their clan. (We've seen a few other Sunseeker kids around, like T'kebbe in Idyllshire.)

Also yes, if they were able to add any kind of new options they could choose to implement "put elf ears on your Hyur". But for now, as far as I can tell, Hilda isn't anything special in terms of the NPC build - it is a standard Midlander model (as produced by the character creator) with a unique customised face (a developer-only extra feature, used for many major NPCs). I'm guessing that the ears are not an "option" for them, ie. something they turn on or off when building the character, it's just built into the custom face and overrides the default ears.

[MsQi]

From a lore standpoint? Yes. But that doesn't add anything to the character creator other than stopping you from using the "generate random name" button. So I'm not sure how she is relevant to "ways they could expand the options". I see it as proof that they don't think they need to in this case.

Also I'm not 100% sure but I think there may be only one character model for child-Miqo'te, and it has the fangs? I haven't confirmed it myself, but it got brought up in the Lore forum when we were discussing the Moonfire Faire, and someone else said that they all have the fangs regardless of their clan. (We've seen a few other Sunseeker kids around, like T'kebbe in Idyllshire.)

Also yes, if they were able to add any kind of new options they could choose to implement "put elf ears on your Hyur". But for now, as far as I can tell, Hilda isn't anything special in terms of the NPC build - it is a standard Midlander model (as produced by the character creator) with a unique customised face (a developer-only extra feature, used for many major NPCs). I'm guessing that the ears are not an "option" for them, ie. something they turn on or off when building the character, it's just built into the custom face and overrides the default ears.

You're not connecting the dots. these are not isolated things. The lore should support design choices and the design choices should support the lore.

You say Hilda isn't special then go on to say why she is.

[Iscah]

You're not connecting the dots. these are not isolated things. The lore should support design choices and the design choices should support the lore.

You say Hilda isn't special then go on to say why she is.

We're approaching it from different views. I'm saying Hilda is "not special" because she is one of many NPCs who have been customised in a way that is beyond the reach of players because (as far as I can tell) it uses a different method. Instead of being a "built face" in the creator, it's a unique face for just that character. The method is not special just for her. Her face includes modified ears but that doesn't mean they can simply give players access to the same option in the "face builder".

And it may well be a lore "design choice" that they don't want Hyur-Elezen mixed-race characters to be common. They haven't shown any other similar NPCs in all this time.


Also I'm not sure what you mean by these being "not isolated things". They are the rare occasions we can point out that a character seems to be mixed-race, and it is generally achieved in ways that are not linked to creating additional features in the character creator, although sometimes using methods 'beyond it' and inaccessible to players.

[MsQi]

We're approaching it from different views. I'm saying Hilda is "not special" because she is one of many NPCs who have been customised in a way that is beyond the reach of players because (as far as I can tell) it uses a different method. Instead of being a "built face" in the creator, it's a unique face for just that character. The method is not special just for her. Her face includes modified ears but that doesn't mean they can simply give players access to the same option in the "face builder".

Nothing is simply given. Everything requires work. That's life kid.

[Iscah]

Nothing is simply given. Everything requires work. That's life kid.

Work indeed - and they seem to be doing a lot of work within pre-existing bounds*. As I wrote earlier, I suspect in the case of the character creator, those bounds are how the game is set up to read the string of instructions describing a character's appearance, and changing it might mean altering huge amounts of code. All the existing NPC data needs to be able to refer back to it and find the instructions where they need to be. Everything that displays your character needs to read all the instructions.

As I wrote, I think there are ways they could insert extra options into the existing framework, but I don't believe they 'can' (or at least realistically would) undertake the massive overhaul required to change what data is stored about the character and how it is read.



* for another example of working within bounds: the glamour dresser. If it was as simple as implementing a straightforward glamour log and independent-of-gear "glamour slots", surely they would do that instead? But I don't think they can do that within the bounds of the character data, so had to find a way of applying glamours that would still produce a final result where the system expects to find the appearance instruction: attached to the gear itself, like it always did with prisms.

[Vahlnir]

Work indeed - and they seem to be doing a lot of work within pre-existing bounds*. As I wrote earlier, I suspect in the case of the character creator, those bounds are how the game is set up to read the string of instructions describing a character's appearance, and changing it might mean altering huge amounts of code. All the existing NPC data needs to be able to refer back to it and find the instructions where they need to be. Everything that displays your character needs to read all the instructions.

As I wrote, I think there are ways they could insert extra options into the existing framework, but I don't believe they 'can' (or at least realistically would) undertake the massive overhaul required to change what data is stored about the character and how it is read.



* for another example of working within bounds: the glamour dresser. If it was as simple as implementing a straightforward glamour log and independent-of-gear "glamour slots", surely they would do that instead? But I don't think they can do that within the bounds of the character data, so had to find a way of applying glamours that would still produce a final result where the system expects to find the appearance instruction: attached to the gear itself, like it always did with prisms.

So you mean...they might actually have to update the game to reflect player demands?

[Iscah]

So you mean...they might actually have to update the game to reflect player demands?

Technically I mean they would have to heavily update the game to reflect this particular player demand - and I don't think they will.

The system could be better but it is not terrible as it stands.

There are things I believe they could do within the bounds of the existing system to improve it.

At the same time there are other things I'd love to see happen, but don't expect - so I'll make do with what we've got.

It's so easy for us to sit here and say "wouldn't it be nice for them to add XYZ" and then have that turn to "it's just a simple request, just one new option, why won't they do it? Don't they care?" - when actually that one new option would be masses of work behind the scenes.

(And even if they were going to give us more options, I doubt that access to the 'unique face overlays' they use for NPCs would be one of them.)

Also, unless you're deliberately trying to make an unusual character, I suspect you're still going to end up with a lot of people making similar character designs regardless of how many extra options they give you. People will still gravitate towards particular choices, and if a lot of people are all independently creating the "best-looking" character they can, they may still come out looking the same.

(Though I also wonder if there is some element of "noticing characters that look like yours". I seem to notice a lot of red-haired Hyurs with my character's hairstyle. My alts are rarer character types, so I can't easily compare those.)


...and that is the end of my post limit, and I am not going to be doing that unsettling thing where people quote from a post lower down the page.