:: Updated by Hannar @ 01/20/04 06:58 pm ::

15. Character Creation and Customization


Sat Aug 16, 2003 03:10 am
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=64345&highlight=#64345

Moorgard wrote:

That's a dark elf male, yes. Not a very distinct one, though. My DE character is *way* cooler than that. I made him look like a dark Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire with huge ears and a very thin, angular face. He's quite creepy, but the ladies love him. You're going to get a heck of a lot of choices of skin tones with races that show skin, and lots of fur possibilities for those that have it.

Sun Aug 24, 2003 01:46 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=71358&highlight=#71358

Moorgard wrote:

There will be a means to change certain aspects of your appearance after character creation, but you will not be able to completely abandon your starting looks. The Norrath of the future is not populated by plastic surgeons.

Sun Aug 24, 2003 01:52 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=71369&highlight=#71369

Moorgard wrote:

While such an app would be dandy and fun, creating it would take away precious cycles from the coders. For something so temporary, it's not a good use of resources. Besides, having interacted with you guys for a couple weeks now, I have a hard time believing that giving such a toy to most of you would really hold you over until release. I'd give it a week before you were asking for more again.

Tue Aug 26, 2003 04:47 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=73709&highlight=#73709

Moorgard wrote:

Kryogen wrote: I create a Human (Neutral) race, I choose Marr (Good) as my diety. You're assuming that you'll be choosing a deity.

08-26-2003 at 12:43 PM
http://www.eqlounge.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=19148#post19148

Moorgard wrote:

Bazrel wrote: well guess I just have decide right there on character selection screen then! All you decide on the character creation screen is your race and appearance. Inevitably, of course, there is an impact on your alignment right there, because some races are only good while others are only evil. We'll make that distinction clear. You will also be shown early on what your possible paths of progression will be, but you don't have to decide until you have moved through the first phase of the game (the Commoner levels). In other words, it won't be a case where you have to plan your whole life right away, though that option will be there for those who wish to do so. If you're a veteran player and know you want to create an Iksar monk right off the bat, then you can easily do that as well.

08-27-2003 at 03:55 PM
http://www.eqlounge.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=19159#post19159

Moorgard wrote:

Elyana of Lanys wrote: Zuksa usually when you create a character and log in, it starts you in your starting city, so I am pretty sure that neutral races who can start in either city will have a start city selection that pops up during character creation. Do not assume that our character creation works the same way that it does in EQ. When you create your character in EQ2 you pick your race, customize your features, and pick a name. That's it. Everything that happens from there on out is designed to bring you into the story of the world. It's pretty cool, and I don't want to spoil it quite yet.

Fri Sep 05, 2003 02:53 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=83726&highlight=#83726

Moorgard wrote:

Character creation isn't something you spend one minute doing and then forget about. The whole early part of the game involves learning about possible choices and showing you various paths. We'll make your options clear to you when you begin creating a character. I'm not going to spell everything out for you because I think the way we do it is really cool and I don't want to spoil your fun. Suffice it to say you won't be designing your character and then have to say a few levels later "Oh crap, I made a mistake and now can't do what I wanted." We intend to make your options crystal clear. Our character creation process is much, much different from that of EverQuest.

Fri Sep 05, 2003 03:12 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=83745&highlight=#83745

Moorgard wrote:

Zathrys wrote: I'm guessing at character creation you will pick your race, then you will pick a starting city... No, you will not. You will pick a race and a name, and customize your appearance. The rest happens as part of the game. You do not go from the character creation screen to zoning into one of the two cities. There is a middle step that explains things to you. I don't want to tell people to stop worrying about this, but... stop worrying about it. We understand the implications of our game design, and will make the repercussions of your choices abundantly clear to you. There will be no human shadowknights who are citizens of Qeynos. The design of our game prevents that from happening.

Wed Oct 01, 2003 01:48 am
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=102697&highlight=#102697

Moorgard wrote:

You'll be able to give dark skin tones (as well as many other colors that you see in the real world) to Humans. Most other races won't have as much flexibility in skin tones as Humans do.

Wed Oct 01, 2003 03:18 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=103135&highlight=#103135

Moorgard wrote:

The original intent was to allow for body customization, but when put into practice it didn't work as we had hoped. The issue is that some of our racial distinctions are quite subtle, and allowing too much customization effectively makes some of those distinctions meaningless. If you make a tall, burly Human and a short, thin Barbarian, you end up with too much overlap and a loss of the original concept of both races. The same could easily be said for Dwarves and Halflings, let alone the various Elves. Nor do we want pregnant Gnomes or anorexic Ogres. While we want people to have fun, we don't want one person's silliness to infringe on someone else's desire for serious gameplay. There's also the art issue to consider, in that distorting the basic skeleton of each race causes textures to stretch and potentially look unsightly. Our artists put an awful lot of work into making sure armor and clothing look terrific on each race, and allowing that to be twisted in a random fashion would negate that effort, or else require a lot of additional resources to be used in order to address visual issues. So we've taken body customization out, at least for now. If we can find a happy medium to allow its use while still keeping the proportions of the various races intact, maybe it will come into play down the road, but we're not giving any guarantees.

Wed Oct 01, 2003 07:10 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=103376&highlight=#103376

Moorgard wrote:

Loki_d20 wrote: Perhaps an option similar to DAoCs would be more befitting where you could choose from 3 heights and 3 widths for a single character model? The issue there is that we would in effect be tripling the number of models we would have to design and fit armor on. That would take a *lot* of time, because making items fit properly is far from trivial. Then you have to adust every motion-captured animation to each skeleton on a point-by-point basis, which again takes a heck of a lot of time. It's just not practical from a design standpoint, unfortunately.

Wed Oct 08, 2003 12:58 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=108686&highlight=#108686

Moorgard wrote:

This topic has already been discussed internally, and a decision was made. Normal servers will allow multiple characters. While you can feel free to discuss the merits of that decision, it's not something up for debate. We may introduce servers with special rulesets that limit you to one character, but that would happen down the road.

Sat Oct 18, 2003 12:56 am
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=118193&highlight=#118193

Moorgard wrote:

Artillis wrote: Aging your character for looks at character creation and with verious spell effects yes. Over time as you play, no. Heck isn't there a quote about this in the moorgard index? (don't feel like looking for it.) There isn't, but now there can be. Aging would not be something that happened as you played. It would be a choice you make at creation, and would affect your appearance only. "I'd love to go on that dragon raid, but I forgot my Geritol," doesn't sound very heroic to me.

10-21-2003 at 12:13 PM
http://www.eqlounge.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=29745#post29745

Moorgard wrote:

As I've said before, aging will be optional. We're not going to force anyone to become old and feeble.

Thu Nov 20, 2003 04:38 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=140691&highlight=#140691

Moorgard wrote:

You can customize chin width, length, and thickness.

Thu Nov 20, 2003 05:29 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=140766&highlight=#140766

Moorgard wrote:

Foxeye wrote: Do Kerran's get ear-choice like elves do? Yep.

01/05/04 06:24 PM
Stratics

Moorgard wrote:

And here I thought this thread was going to be about how to lose weight after the holidays. You do not align yourself to a deity at character creation.

1/23 11:23pm
http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=63129748&start=63155575

Moorgard wrote:

Your character will not age over time. However, there will be a slider control for age at character creation just like the other customization options. It varies the skin from smooth to weathered. So if you want a more mature look for your avatar, you can certainly accomplish that.

1/29 10:03pm
http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=63459584&start=63471286

Moorgard wrote:

Two characters with the same name on the same server is practically begging for a database meltdown. It's not going to happen. Besides, would you want someone who is a complete jerk to have the same name as you? Would you want to get nasty tells intended for him? Would you want to be LFG and be refused because of something another player had done? We will still have slash commands, including /tell. There are more elegant ways to accomplish many things, but some people prefer to type the commands.

Thu Feb 12, 2004 11:04 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=211249&highlight=#211249

Moorgard wrote:

Arcanevalor wrote: Correct me if im wrong, but is that a barb in the last picture or a human? A human. With a cat. As for the glasses, you will have several optional tints to choose from, including clear. I believe they're only for gnomes and ratongas.

2/20 8:54pm
http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=64668248&start=64679192

Moorgard wrote:

The design of the traditional RPG is heavily front loaded. You make a ton of decisions when you start the game, then really don't decide a lot about your character until much later in its life. Our goal with EQ2 is to invert the pyramid. Make character creation as straightforward as possible. Decide basic factors initially, then continue to make progressively more important decisions as you level up. We want the decisions you should really spend time thinking about to happen when you're better prepared to make them. Some are resistant to this notion because it goes against the traditional RPG formula. But the goal is to allow players to make smart decisions and fully understand their implications without having to read a manual or hint guide when running the game for the first time. When the day comes to make important decisions that allow you to individualize your character's abilities, you'll be able to do so with confidence rather than guesswork.

:: Updated by Hannar @ 07/03/04 04:09 pm ::

04-01-2004 09:52 AM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=27572#M27572

Moorgard wrote:

Some wood elves have markings they call "shrouds." It's body art mostly in greens and forest tones. They wear it in honor of the Faydark they hope one day to see again. Only certain races get piercings, and the kerra are one of them. There are several types and patterns to choose from.

04-05-2004 05:32 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=33730#M33730

Moorgard wrote:

At FanFaire we were showing that you can indeed change the color of the iksar scales. What wasn't hooked up yet was the addition of entirely different scale patterns that are also tintable. They were working during the week before the show, but got disabled at some point. Artists, coders, and designers were doing a ton of tuning work before FanFaire, so it's understandable that some things got switched around. At any rate, they'll be back in for E3.

04-08-2004 11:06 AM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=38620#M38620

Moorgard wrote:

1. If stats are hugely important to you, then yes, you might want to make a choice along those lines. 2. Correct. We intend for certain races to be better suited for certain roles. 3. Character creation isn't done yet. We wouldn't make people create and delete a series of characters just to see the stats. You will have the ability to see what you need to see in order to make an informed decision.

Tue Apr 13, 2004 12:07 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=256294&highlight=#256294

Moorgard wrote:

While I can understand that someone might want to make a left-handed character, coding it would not be a simple matter. You can't just flip a bit and designate which side of the body gets a certain animation. While we used motion capture for the majority of our animations, those files aren't just plug-and-play for all the character models. A great deal of keyframing work needs to be done to get all those animations working properly with the various skeletal structures. All that effort would have to be duplicated in order to properly make a left-handed character. Keep in mind that many things that sound like simple concepts in the real world take a lot of effort to pull off in game. The converse is also true, which is a big part of the reason why computers are so useful to us. But saying that a particular task should be simple doesn't make it so. This is one of those things that would be a wonderful idea if it could be done easily. But due to the amount of work involved it just isn't going to happen.

Wed Apr 14, 2004 11:49 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=257413&highlight=#257413

Moorgard wrote:

Vanguard wrote: Was pretty sure they said you would have the ability to try the 4 adventure archetypes before deciding which one you wanted. That could have changed though since no one really commented on that from Fan Fair. We ended up dropping the idea and just letting players pick an archetype outright. To give a real taste of how the archetypes function ended up taking a lot of effort for something the majority of players wouldn't even fully explore. The priest was especially problematic, since they spend most of their time healing and that's a pretty hard thing to simulate via quests. Instead we give you descriptions of the archetypes as soon as you get off the boat and have you make a choice then. We feel the archetypes are distinct and familiar enough that they should be easy to understand, even for those who haven't played this type of game before. Like I said, it would have been a neat thing to do, but the payoff didn't look like it was going to be worth the effort required. So we're just taking a more direct approach.

04-18-2004 08:52 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=51536#M51536

Moorgard wrote:

Body art in EverQuest II is just a visual distinction. Three races have the option, and each calls it something different: * barbarian - woad * wood elf - shroud * dwarf - stratum Erudites pick a rune pattern, but it's not quite the same thing.

05-23-2004 01:42 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=110912#M110912

Moorgard wrote:

Newest vague assessment: a bunch. This gets asked at least once a week, and we aren't giving a specific answer yet.

05-25-2004 12:17 AM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=113021#M113021

Moorgard wrote:

Raise the cheekbones, upturn the lips, curve the eyebrows, angle the eyes right... done.

05-27-2004 09:13 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=117305#M117305

Moorgard wrote:

Geniee wrote: Has anyone sen if we are getting any points at character creation for custumization purposes? You will not.

:: Updated by Hannar @ 07/03/04 10:00 pm ::

05-30-2004 11:52 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=art&message.id=124#M124

Moorgard wrote:

High elves have a very narrow range of skin color options. They range from pasty to not-quite-so-pasty.

05-31-2004 12:20 AM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=120823#M120823

Moorgard wrote:

You don't pick a religion, hence there can be no deity-specific items at this point.

06-01-2004 09:53 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=122348#M122348

Moorgard wrote:

This has been asked and answered before. Yes, you will have that functionality. We've had it in our launch pad for quite some time now.

06-02-2004 11:36 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=123446#M123446

Moorgard wrote:

We'll talk more about the preorder disc as we get closer to August, but we're not releasing many details right now.

06-11-2004 07:01 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=art&message.id=902#M902

Moorgard wrote:

Nope, no manes.

06-11-2004 07:05 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=art&message.id=903#M903

Moorgard wrote:

Sorry, we're not going to do this. We didn't want to add additional functionality to the character creation CD that wouldn't be useful in the final game. Plus, I think it's more fun if you don't see what your character will look like in different sets of armor until you can actually obtain them. But that's just me.

06-13-2004 08:25 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=132203#M132203

Moorgard wrote:

Please don't start new threads on topics already being discussed just so your post stands out more. In any case, the poster above is correct. We aren't really looking for compromise; our decision is not to give you points to spend on stats. A handful of points wouldn't be satisfying or significant anyway, and really wouldn't make the diehards happy.

06-15-2004 11:54 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=133835#M133835

Moorgard wrote:

From the time you submit your character name, everything takes place online. Everyone aboard the Far Journey (the ship) is in their own instanced zone on the servers. You'll be able to skip the ship and go to the island. After you pick an archetype and perform a couple simple steps, you can head to the city.

:: Updated by Hannar @ 07/04/04 08:12 am ::

06-19-2004 10:40 AM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=136344#M136344

Moorgard wrote:

The character creation disc saves data files that you can share with friends, load when the game comes out, etc. They're not pictures, they're actual data. Since we don't allow file attachments to messages on this forum for a variety of reasons, people would have to host files themselves and link to them. But yes, a board dedicated just to that is probably a good idea.

06-29-2004 08:55 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=art&message.id=2586#M2586

Moorgard wrote:

Humans, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and barbarians have an age slider. Elves and half elves maintain their youthful glow forever. The aging effect doesn't work on races with fur or non-human-like skin.

:: Updated by Hannar @ 07/12/04 05:18 pm ::

07-06-2004 11:14 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=art&message.id=3035#M3035

Moorgard wrote:

Ulrick28 wrote: The one thing that has to be realized is that different engines have different limitations and costs for various things. Very well said. Even when pushing the boundaries of hardware requirements with a game like EQ2, there are limitations. You make choices when you build the game where you spend the amount of memory you have available to do all the cool things you'd like to. We have tweaked the hair recently, introducing a new coloring system that blends highlights in a much more pleasing fashion as well as incorporating other changes that make it look better. Believe me, our artists would absolutely love to devote a lot more time to it, but whether they will be able to do so before release is uncertain. There's plenty of other stuff on the character team's plate, and despite how it comes off at times in screenshots the hair isn't horrible by any means. It's something that will only improve over time.

07-11-2004 03:22 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=art&message.id=3319#M3319

Moorgard wrote:

Indeed. I have my copy already, and I'm very excited by how it came out! It's cool to hold a box that says "EverQuest II" on it, even if it isn't the full game yet. We'll release more specifics on the preorder disc very soon.

:: Updated by Hannar @ 08/01/04 06:12 pm ::

07-25-2004 10:32 AM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=158317#M158317

Moorgard wrote:

Characters don't move freely from server to server. As in EQ, we don't want people to use server moves as a way to escape a bad reputation or to transfer gear from one server to another. It is logical to assume that we will add a fee-based character transfer system at some point. This allows players who have a good reason to move to do so without allowing it to become something that people do on a whim.

07-25-2004 10:49 AM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=158330#M158330

Moorgard wrote:

More than one. This isn't something we're likely to make a statement about until just before the game comes out.

07-25-2004 06:41 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=158570#M158570

Moorgard wrote:

This topic seems to be coming up a lot, so let me address some of these points. First, that "before" shot of the dark elf male is very dated. It's a still shot taken from a handheld camera movie of character creation. It shows very little detail. People forget how shiny those old skins were. If you looked at that character in detail, I think the reviews wouldn't be so glowing. They sure weren't back then. We're currently on what I would count as either the second or third generation of character skins, depending on which model you're talking about (there could well be more from before I joined the team, but it's hard to say because the differences are often subtle). The humans, for instance, have been pretty much the same up until the most recent skin revamp. Ditto for gnomes, halflings, dwarves, and barbarians. Elves have seen three major changes that I can recall. But even the most recent change is really only the skin itself plus the placement of a few bones. The underlying model has stayed pretty consistent, as have its technical details and requirements. What *has* changed from time to time--and this is probably what many people are reacting to--is the range in which features can be altered. This has varied from being extremely loose to the more tightly controlled range which you see in the Starter Kit. The greater the range you allow, the wider the variety in looks--and the greater the potential for problems. Because of the close proximity of a lot of the facial bones, allowing too great a variance in all of them can not only result in some very deformed features, but it can cause the bones to do odd things that cause visual errors such as broken vertices and gaps in the skin. This is one of those areas that will no doubt see tweaking before release. With the Starter Kit we wanted to play it safe, and thus sent it out with the features and ranges that we knew for sure were stable. I've already mentioned the dark elf male eyebrows being removed because we didn't think they worked well. Other subtractions--such as ogre beards and more iksar scale patterns--were removed from the Starter Kit because we found bugs that needed to be fixed. Certain hairstyles on a variety of races were omitted for the same reasons. These details will be fixed and added back in before the final game ships. Before I see another "How can you release a buggy character create disc???" post, please keep in mind that the Starter Kit is basically a free sampler of game-related material, of which the character creator is only a part. When the idea was proposed for this kit, our producers didn't want to change our whole development cycle just to make sure the character creation portion was 100% finished and polished. We went into this knowing that what we'd send out would be less than complete, but more than enough to provide the feeling of what was to come. I can't say I didn't expect our character creation to be put under a microscope like it has been, for the simple reason that it's all most of you have to see of the game. Of course you're going to examine the smallest details, just as you do with screenshots and gameplay movies. I appreciate the passion with which many of you are commenting on the Starter Kit. But there is no bait-and-switch here, no deception involved. We haven't released screenshots with higher-detail models that we have since replaced with simplified versions. We've changed the skins on most of them and have modified the customization ranges, but believe it or not these are by and large the same models we've had since the first screenshots were released. When omitted features are restored and further tweaking is done, I think a lot of the concerns that have been brought up will have been addressed. On the other hand, if you simply hate how a given model looks, I don't think customization ranges or additional features will do much to change your mind. There's no way to please everyone, no matter what we do. But despite the flaws and criticisms, I think the Starter Kit does exactly what we wanted it to do: it generates interest and discussion about the game. After all, the kit isn't just aimed at people who read message boards every day, but at the average person who strolls into their local electronics store and decides to see what the game is about. If you look at the kit from that perspective, I think it really hits the mark.

07-26-2004 12:42 AM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=158755#M158755

Moorgard wrote:

kevinjr wrote: Can we expect to see signifcantly more options and changes at release? Or is this a pretty fair representation of what the final product will offer? It depends on whether you consider things like I mentioned--ogre beards, iksar scales, some additional hairstyles--significant or not. I imagine iksar players would, but others might have a different opinion. There may be other details that change. Halfling and gnome skin tones, for example, have been given more options since the Starter Kit was finished. Our lead character artist mentioned to me the other day that human beards were cleaned up a bit and some new combinations added. I can't say for certain whether some of the other customization ranges will change, though they certainly could. What you aren't likely to see is any radical changes to the skins or hair. We're quite pleased with the skins after the recent revamp, so minor tweaks aside I wouldn't expect much different from what you have in the Starter Kit. I know our hair is probably the most-criticized aspect of the models, and looking at it under the microscope of character creation probably highlights its flaws. The character team did change the way the hair colors blended which helped give it a bit more natural appearance, but we're not going to change the fundamental way the hair looks. So to sum it up, there will be some more options and some tweaks, plus moods in game that will let you set facial expressions. While the latter isn't part of character creation per se, it does add another aspect to individualize your look. emachine wrote: "Graphical quality" will be the same across all cards that support the game engine's features. The only difference, with all options turned up on both computers, will be the speed at which the scene is rendered. And due to the relatively "simple" zone the engine renders during the CC process, both the cards in question can apparently render it just fine at full quality. That sums it up well. The options screen on the Starter Kit has a small fraction of what is available in the full game since you only see a very limited environment with a single character. If you turn the texture settings to maximum, that's the highest quality available, and it will look pretty much the same across video cards. Of course, the faster card is going to provide a speed advantage in actual gameplay. One of the biggest factors to improve the overall quality of the graphics is to increase the resolution in which you run the game. The details really stand out at 1600x1200, though of course it takes considerable horsepower to run at that resolution depending on your other settings.

:: Updated by Hannar @ 08/01/04 07:10 pm ::

07-26-2004 07:19 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=art&message.id=5338#M5338

Moorgard wrote:

It was something that took very little effort to implement and provides a little variation so that not everyone just off the boat has clothing the same color. The tints are intentionally muted because the rags you're rescued in aren't supposed to look very nice.