A challenge I face and I'm sure many others face when starting a new game is what should my character look like?
We all want to get started in game and begin leveling but do we spend enough time deciding on the right looks for our characters? I've made characters before where I have just jumped straight in and gone with the defaults making a not so attractive toon for myself to play, the adrenaline to get going took over the responsibility I had to make the perfect persona for myself.
The thought processes going through my head when starting a new character all resolve around end game. At the end of the day I am going to be playing this character for 100s of hours so it has to be perfect for me when geared up in the top end gear.
The first thing I do is research into which race is going to give me the best stats for my chosen class or which is balanced enough to allow me to customize stat allocation to my advantage. I search for images of the race in high end armour both as a female and a male to give me a good idea of what I will look like in the future and make sure I watch videos and test both sexes to see what the animations are like. The last thing you want is to make the perfect looking character and see them enter combat for the first time looking like a flailing badger with a huge axe. One final thought I always have in the back of my mind is that my character has to fit in when in a crowd, I'm not a loud person and don't want to steal the limelight with my 9ft, bright purple haired Monk in yellow Armour.
Me, I want to be boring, I want to play a human based character and I want to play a male. All through my gaming career I've played human male characters and I can't find it in me to change now. I personally don't want to be playing a Lalafell standing knee tall against a Roegadyn or being head and shoulders above a Hyur. Thankfully for me the starting stats for a Hyur Midlanders are great for my chosen class the Monk.
One feature in MMOs which is a bit of a bonus for the undecided among us is the Barber shops. Allowing us to swap and change our hair styles for some in game currency give us that extra life line if 1 month down the line you decide you need a change without having to start from scratch.
In times of need I lean on my Son for help, I asked Ted to assist me on creating my Hyur character and these are the suggestions he came up with, he told me I:
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| Kids know best ey! |
So after taking all of Teds points on board I switched, swapped and changed my characters looks so much that I only managed to level to 15 in the Beta Phase 3 stages. I went from spiky brown hair to flat blonde hair, from being stupidly tall to ever so small. I tried different colour eyes, tattoos and scars and found myself going back to same looks time and time over. The looks of my real life self...with a better body and better hair of course!
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| Na naa! Boring old Hyur Male me! |
