Curse

Silent Coyote · Sep 23, 2006, 11:38 PM // 23:38

The faces aren't to bad, but some of the hair styles are just terrible, I feel sorry for anyone making a female monk in nightfall I really do. Maybe the lack of choice is a hint that finally the second most requested feature since the release of prophecies might finally be implemented - a hair stylist.

Lady Lozza · Sep 23, 2006, 11:44 PM // 23:44

TBH, Prophecies did not have "variety" it had "options", which are different. All the faces in Prophecies where typical of anglo-saxon origins and it fit the campaign. Now in Nightfall all the faces a typical (loosely) of Arabic and African origin.

I would love more options, but I would love more NEW options. Not the "options" of previous campaigns.

Reks · Sep 24, 2006, 01:05 AM // 01:05

I don't mind playing any race. It's just role-playing, after all. That said, my Elonian characters will be sporting their natural, darker skintones, to fit in with the environment. Looking at all the professions, I was very pleased with most of the faces and hairstyles. I think ANet's aiming for "quality over quantity," and it holds true for some classes, but not so for others.

I loved the female Paragons, for example. But, they screwed up with the male Paragons, IMO. I can recall from the first preview event, one youthful-looking face. Now, they all look old and angry, with bags under their eyes.

Still, one saving grace for me is that one-hairstyle that male Necros also have. That one's really nice.

Perth68 · Sep 24, 2006, 01:07 AM // 01:07

you shouldnt be limited to campaign specific options, I dont know why they limited it in the first place? but yes the lack of options makes me sad. Settling for looks feels much worse then being in infinite conundrum over which looks better. ( I think for that reason they should allow one to edit a character after creation so I wouldnt have to reroll when I finally decide I dont like the look of my character). I was making my dervish today and I really didnt like any of the hairstyles, I never had that problem in prophecies. Player customization is really important for online games, and skimping on it makes the game much worse even if it is to add other things elsewhere.

TsunamiZ · Sep 24, 2006, 08:54 AM // 08:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silent Coyote

Maybe the lack of choice is a hint that finally the second most requested feature since the release of prophecies might finally be implemented - a hair stylist.

...that is just wishful thinking

CrystalM · Sep 24, 2006, 09:00 AM // 09:00

The hair styles for the female monk and necro look bad. Lots of my friends agree. What is with the female monk with only short braided hair, and necro same old same old hair styles. Where is the variety, long hair styles, medium length hair styles, updos, why does guild wars keep limiting themselves to this short hair monk, wild hair necro restraints. Character customization and variety is of huge importance to many people. I feel sorry for anyone making a nightfall female monk with the nightfall hair styles, just plain ugly. And the necro same old same old. Let a real hair stylist who knows hair is not just short and can be styled in many ways. Wheres the longer hair styles. why the near baldness and short short hair, mix things up give variety in styles, not just one style as a base. Long hair, medium hair, short hair variety. Nightfall female monk hair is just plain ugly.

Lady Lozza · Sep 24, 2006, 09:04 AM // 09:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perth68

you shouldnt be limited to campaign specific options, I dont know why they limited it in the first place? but yes the lack of options makes me sad. Settling for looks feels much worse then being in infinite conundrum over which looks better. ( I think for that reason they should allow one to edit a character after creation so I wouldnt have to reroll when I finally decide I dont like the look of my character). I was making my dervish today and I really didnt like any of the hairstyles, I never had that problem in prophecies. Player customization is really important for online games, and skimping on it makes the game much worse even if it is to add other things elsewhere.

Note though, that many MMOs operate with expansions (needing the original game), not really the campaigns/chapters that GW is offering. IMHO it makes perfect sense for them to offer faces and skin tones that reflect the the civilisation they are drawing their inspiration from.

Note that in GW the place you start your character is effectively denoted their "land of birth". Once again I say that it is only sensible to offer predominently African/Arabic "seeming" faces and skin tones.

Re: What someone said somewhere about some arabs having lighter skins tones. I agree, certain regions do have lighter tones, but they are not the peachy tones of anglo-saxons. Yet the sole peachy tone offered is what I see walking around in the preview most often, usually with blonde hair. No I don't think these people are being racist, I think they are merely lacking in imagination for being unable to bring themselves to create a character that actually fits in with the region the devs have drawn their inspiration from. I also find it an interesting social commentary that the "hawtness" factor being reported in the screenshots section, also seems to be limited to anglo tones and faces, often crowned with blonde hair. Or maybe it's just that those of us happy to play along with the setting aren't so in love with our set of pixels that we have to post them every 5 minutes... Either way, it is an interesting look into the social climate of Guru members.

Cherrie · Sep 24, 2006, 09:26 AM // 09:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Traveller

I have to agree about new face / hair combinations. There's just less and less nice-looking ones and we'll see loads of clones, since there's also less to choose from.

You speak my mind.

And about the ammount of fair-skined Elonians - I agree, there won't be many dark-skinned characters (as well as there ain't many atm), becouse they simply look ugly in-game. The paragon picture shows a sexy ebon-skinned guy, but in-game tehy look LAME (apart from Koss, he's cute ^^). of course, thats my personal oppinion

Pevil Lihatuh · Sep 24, 2006, 02:15 PM // 14:15

I just wish they'd allow ALL the faces to be allowed no matter where you start your character. I generally don't like the Factions faces (nothing against Asians, I just like my chars to look like me, and I'm a blond english female). I found myself torn in Factions; to make my new chars that were of the core professions in Prophecies (where they look how I want them to but have played it through far too much) or in Factions (where I still haven't finished the game but they don't look how I want)

Heck if they really need to give an excuse for it, just make it to be like in real life; Tyrians migrated to Cantha and Elona and had families, and vice versa

Electric Sky · Sep 24, 2006, 03:13 PM // 15:13

wish we could mix and match the character faces/hairstyles from different chapters into one

Matix411 · Sep 24, 2006, 03:23 PM // 15:23

I don't mind the decrease, except that player variety plummets into the Abyss.
I found the Nightfall faces for the female characters to be quite appealing, for the most part. Some lacked, like the Mesmer faces.
Most of the guy faces I just found very unusual, albeit the new Warrior faces are much more toned and detailed (as are all the faces) but I just find that the faces in Prophecies are much more appealing. Although, half of those faces are also horridly rendered, and the faces in Factions aren't bad at all I found, especially the female faces, but the male choices in Factions are horrid.
They have to have some variety I guess, in Prophecies it was more 'true to life' in that there are the attractive, and the lesser attractive. However, to be more publicly oriented, ALL the faces can be considered 'attractive' and/or visually appealing to ALL people because everyone has different tastes when it comes down to what your character looks like. Albeit ... most people seem to pick the more attractive of the faces, and thus, the variety lessens, and so I think this is why ANet has decreased the choices.
I still think there should be more.
I don't like seeing 20 people in one town with the same face and hair as me.
That's the other thing, the HAIR choices are getting ridiculously ugly.
In all character creation, I think there's at least one, maybe two nice hairstyles for each character. WHY? If I saw that many people with the same hairstyle in my own home town, I'd off myself.

Cunning · Sep 24, 2006, 03:43 PM // 15:43

I agree that there are too few choices, but there's still a lot of possibilities.

What Guild Wars lacks is the ability to start with a small selection of templates and being able to "tweak" particular features. I can only assume that the designers don't want people to have too much control, in fear of everyone possibly making "unrealistic" looking characters.

There's also the problem of making sure the geography of the faces doesn't interfere with armor.

I'd like to see a choice between several basic templates of faces, with extra options for facial hair (just males), eye colour (blue, green, brown...) and lip shade (dark, medium, light, pink, purple...). Too many options and it will begin to get too complicated for what it's worth.

Remember, the smallest detail can be all that's needed to distinguish between two faces.

TsunamiZ · Sep 24, 2006, 06:48 PM // 18:48

it would be great to at least be able to mix and match appearances between all the chapters you own. you can do this with armor and weapons. why not also with faces and hair? since anet insists on giving so few appearance options in expansions, i think this issue warrants something to be done about mixing the choices.

KiyaKoreena · Sep 24, 2006, 07:08 PM // 19:08

I agree on the mix and match should be available. As you add in chapter keys you unlock the appropriate options from the hair/face pool. Everyone has the data anyways to be able to see them in the districts so just lock the ability to create a character with a chapters added ones if the person doesnt have the correct key.

Shadow · Sep 24, 2006, 07:27 PM // 19:27

Definitely need to add that. Not like it'd be hard either, consideirng I had a Tyrian warrior with a Nightfall hairstyle during pvp preview glitch. They probably don't want to make sure all the face/hair combos work, or add different skin tones for all the faces.

Matix411 · Sep 24, 2006, 09:40 PM // 21:40

/signed although this isn't a petition.
Good call.
I didn't even think about that.
And it's true; we're able to mix and match armors from all chapters, so why not just make a large template for the faces/hair etc. while creating characters, rather than having chapter specific features.
And don't anybody say that, "Oh, with new chapters, old chapters are never updated" and all that, this has nothing to do with updating previous chapters, it's simply combining a minor factor of ALL chapters for when we create characters for NEW chapters.

Solar_Takfar · Sep 24, 2006, 09:42 PM // 21:42

mmm. I agree with the decision to keep faces limited to birthplace. but I'm also distressed by the dwindling amount of options presented by campaigns. We should get at least 40-50 face selections for each class/race combo imo, not some 12 or so; all those pertaining to the appropriate ethnicity related to the location, with a slight amount of variation (ie my tyrian warrior has oriental features to him, but it's an exception, not the rule). Mod teams have been doing this kind of thing for games for years (vide morrowind and Neverwinter communities) using only spare time and resources.

One thing that I found somewhat strange (has been pointed by other posters, too) is that female NF faces don't look as "african" as male faces; especially the noses are too thin in almost all faces, whereas most males have broad noses. I'd like to see some more authentically negroid female faces, too (which are present in most NPCs, btw), if only to match the male faces available.

allience · Sep 24, 2006, 10:36 PM // 22:36

i'm very unhappy about the face/hairstyle choice of nightfall. i understand it's supposed to happen in africa, but giving us ONLY the option to make african looking chars if just plain stupid.
i'm not making a racist comment but i just feel that we should have the liberty to breate a char with ANY features. i remember in Prophecies u have ALL skin tones. i can chose from blinding white to pitch black. and also the face features have a nice variety! the Prophecies monk can look western, asian or black.
i'm very displeased what in Nightfall we are restricted to only 1 thing. i was also annoyed by this in factions but still, there was a bit more choice, more faces. i'm one unhappy customer but i'll still buy nightfall because i like some of the new skills.

Mr_T_bot · Sep 24, 2006, 10:37 PM // 22:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jetdoc

I am definitely disappointed in this - I like to create a "unique" facial look to my character, so that I don't find 15 copies of her long lost twin in a town.

Make a black character.
My character is the most unique in all of Elona.

Lady Lozza · Sep 25, 2006, 01:35 AM // 01:35

I completely disagree with being allowed to match faces and hair from previous chapters. If you want a prophecies character, start it in Ascalon.