Character Creation Options!

[Phenidate]

I'd like it if they had an barber shop where you can change hair style/color and other characteristics for a gil fee and to prevent people from spam changing their looks have a timer on it like guild leves or something like that. I'm against real money fee to change hair color/style/charateristics but I think a real money fee would be good for changing race.

Not sure why the ability to make changes should be time limited, or how that would have any negative impact on game play.

I do agree that a barbershop should be implemented (doubly so if there are plans to add previously unavailable options), and that accessing its services should cost gil, NOT real currency.
Race changes I would even say should be handled with in game currency. Granted its accepted that such a drastic cosmetic change cost IRL money, but its barely any different from changing your hairstyle or model height from the stand point of the system. (Granted, I'm not for race changes. We have multiple character slots for a reason, even if they for some odd ball reason charge us more for each slot)

The only games I know of which charge for cosmetic changes to the character model (aside from race changes) are of the 'free to play' variety. The kind of game who's business model revolves around generating the need for these chages by strictly limiting character options, and offering premium choices with the incentive of individualizing your avatar from the sea of repetitious faces. If I am paying a monthly fee for a game, I expect any services of a 'cosmetic nature' added to the game be included in this fee. Its part of the game I am playing, that I paid for up front and continue to pay for to fund its maintenance and future development. Everyone who plays such games should be afforded these options as such.

Granted, in the case of FFXIV there is a chance it could transition to a free to play like many recent MMOs have. If such a thing should happen, I would expect at the least that current players who purchased the game be given 'premium access' considering that we already paid the for the regular or collectors edition of the game.

[Enthy]

Not sure why the ability to make changes should be time limited, or how that would have any negative impact on game play.

I do agree that a barbershop should be implemented (doubly so if there are plans to add previously unavailable options), and that accessing its services should cost gil, NOT real currency.
Race changes I would even say should be handled with in game currency.

I agree that it would be very nice if SE would allow us to change everything about our characters even race/gender any time we feel like it for a gil fee. but I'm sure they'll feel the need to put some sort of restrictions. The restrictions said in my original post, in my opinion would be acceptable.

[Abriael]

I agree that it would be very nice if SE would allow us to change everything about our characters even race/gender any time we feel like it for a gil fee. but I'm sure they'll feel the need to put some sort of restrictions. The restrictions said in my original post, in my opinion would be acceptable.

No, thanks, seriously, no race/gender changes. That goes a tad too far.

By the way, I seriously doubt that sliders will be ever implemented. The FFXIV character creation is composite, meaning that it's not based on mesh deformation, it composes selectable elements in order to create different results.

Turning character creations from composition-based to mesh deformation-based wouldn't be a transformation, but a complete redesign. They simply would have to scrap the whole character creation implementation and make a new one.
Thing that, by the way, would inevitably and automaticly change the looks of the characters already present in game, because there's simply no way for an engine to recalcolate with sufficent precision all the deformations necessary to reproduce perfectly a predefined mesh.

Considering that the vast majority of results obtained by a deformation-based character design are actually unviable (ugly, deformed, simply bad looking, even with restricted sliders), it's much more efficent (and wastes much less resources that are better used elsewhere) to add more options to the current system.

The only slider I'd consider would be an age slider that would overlay a texture and a normal map to simulate skin aging, and that doesn't require deformation.

[Soukyuu]

By the way, I seriously doubt that sliders will be ever implemented. The FFXIV character creation is composite, meaning that it's not based on mesh deformation, it composes selectable elements in order to create different results.

I don't think it's composite, it wasn't in alpha. At least when it came to adjusting height. Also when you select a different face, the body model for female characters gets deformed.

If SE are going as far as re-using armor models (with different textures/blend-able parts) to save resources, I really doubt they would load a different model for each character template - that would be a waste of resources.

[Yucie]

More options is always better. Who cares if someone wants to make their female hyur or miq'ote look less like a brick on both sides? This game could do with some varied proportions. More hairstyles, colors, scars, and tattoos too.

If this game does indeed add female rogaedyn and male miq'ote to the mix then SE had better implement some kind of race-change-editor thingy, so I can change to whatever race I want at that time. It's not fair to add new things people are clamoring for and leave the rest of us who want new hair, faces, and things in the dust.

+1 to paid race change service. I'd do it; I'm sick of my emo-looking hyur girl.

[Enthy]

No, thanks, seriously, no race/gender changes. That goes a tad too far.

By the way, I seriously doubt that sliders will be ever implemented. The FFXIV character creation is composite, meaning that it's not based on mesh deformation, it composes selectable elements in order to create different results.

Turning character creations from composition-based to mesh deformation-based wouldn't be a transformation, but a complete redesign. They simply would have to scrap the whole character creation implementation and make a new one.
Thing that, by the way, would inevitably and automaticly change the looks of the characters already present in game, because there's simply no way for an engine to recalcolate with sufficent precision all the deformations necessary to reproduce perfectly a predefined mesh.

Considering that the vast majority of results obtained by a deformation-based character design are actually unviable (ugly, deformed, simply bad looking, even with restricted sliders), it's much more efficent (and wastes much less resources that are better used elsewhere) to add more options to the current system.

The only slider I'd consider would be an age slider that would overlay a texture and a normal map to simulate skin aging, and that doesn't require deformation.

I don't think you read my original post in this thread. I think sliders are a bad idea too. As for race/gender change... why not? whats it to you? If you don't want to you don't have to. personally, i don't plan to race/gender change. but i think people that would like to should be allowed to. ....But seriously, why would that bother you?

[Dreamer]

I don't think you read my original post in this thread. I think sliders are a bad idea too. As for race/gender change... why not? whats it to you? If you don't want to you don't have to. personally, i don't plan to race/gender change. but i think people that would like to should be allowed to. ....But seriously, why would that bother you?

Having used sliders in both City of Heroes and Aion, I much prefer sliders. The tricky part is that you have to be very careful in regards to the limits, height especially. I was annoyed to no end by the hordes of midgets that populated Aion, something that could have been fixed very easily with a minimum height requirement ('You must be at least this tall --> to ride this ride!').

The horrible part is that even if you don't look at the sliders, both of these games STILL have far more options that we do.There are at least 40 hair options in Aion, and slightly more for City of Heroes. Presets and face styles are the same - more than 10x what we see in FFXIV. This simply shouldn't be the case, considering the fact that SE has FAR more resources at their disposal than NCSoft.

I would be for allowing race/gender changes if for no other reason that reducing the number of catgirls running around the game currently. ^-^

[Soukyuu]

The horrible part is that even if you don't look at the sliders, both of these games STILL have far more options that we do.There are at least 40 hair options in Aion, and slightly more for City of Heroes. Presets and face styles are the same - more than 10x what we see in FFXIV. This simply shouldn't be the case, considering the fact that SE has FAR more resources at their disposal than NCSoft.

Same for Perfect World, a FREE game. Game content aside, it still has the most impressive character creation system I saw so far (even more in-depth than the one of Aion).

[Cairdeas]

Same for Perfect World, a FREE game. Game content aside, it still has the most impressive character creation system I saw so far (even more in-depth than the one of Aion).

Did you try APB? The only Good thing about APB was the character creation.