An important question regarding character customisation

[Rhobar V]

Now, I think that this topic can easily get pretty heated and misunderstood, so I will try to be as clear as possible.

Gothic's setting, Nameless Hero's background, and certain design choices make the game a perfect choice for some degree of character customisation.

By this I do not mean a barber mechanic, although that is also something that would be cool to have.

This kind of thing needs to be handled carefully as it can be very immersion breaking (so not in the style of Fallout or Skyrim. We do not need a plastic surgery simulator here).

Due to Nameless spending 2 months in a dungeon, there does not need to be a fully body menu, a face is enough.

Now, even creating a face can make the game less immersive in the sense that it can make the player view Nameless as their creation, and not as just another character.

My solution for this issue is a menu before the introductory cutscene plays that allows you to choose between a few premade faces of different ethnicities. Picture this: The OG Nameless takes up the left side of the screen, indicating that he is the default look, and on the right side there are 5-6 faces of a black, Asian, or Hispanic Nameless Hero.

I'm not a person of colour myself so I cannot really speak on this, but I'm pretty sure that giving persons of colour the option of playing as someone who looks a lot more like them would go a long way, especially since a white main character is the standard for videogames.

While needing to be carefully done, this isn't something that will affect the individual player and would cost little time when compared to what it can provide.

So if I may ask, can we expect something like this, and what do you others think of what I wrote.

P.S. Please do not rip me apart in the comments.

[PainkilleR]

I personally don't care about it, but it's just so... Useless. For the lack of a better word.

Would anyone actually want/bother to change the looks of the pre-defined main character? In a sense that, sure, you can change the appearance of Shepherd in Mass Effect, and the game actually has a pretty decent character editor with plenty of options, but... Have you seen many people playing the game with non-default looks?

Imagine if Sleeping Dogs "2" had a character editor (and a story that would give character creation some justification, like some cosmetic surgery after a face shot or something, idk), would you actually bother to give the main character a "non-Wei Shen" looks when you already know how Wei Shen looks in the first place?

[Rhobar V]

Originally posted by PainkilleR:

I personally don't care about it, but it's just so... Useless. For the lack of a better word.

Would anyone actually want/bother to change the looks of the pre-defined main character? In a sense that, sure, you can change the appearance of Shepherd in Mass Effect, and the game actually has a pretty decent character editor with plenty of options, but... Have you seen many people playing the game with non-default looks?

Imagine if Watch Dogs "2" had a character editor (and a story that would give character creation some justification), would you actually bother to give the main character a "non-Wei Shen" looks when you already know how Wei Shen looks in the first place?

I know that people do not really change that much in their characters, that is one of the reasons I suggested half a dozen presets. I specifically said that a large character creator isn't something that fits here.

[PainkilleR]

Originally posted by Rhobar V:

Originally posted by PainkilleR:

I personally don't care about it, but it's just so... Useless. For the lack of a better word.

Would anyone actually want/bother to change the looks of the pre-defined main character? In a sense that, sure, you can change the appearance of Shepherd in Mass Effect, and the game actually has a pretty decent character editor with plenty of options, but... Have you seen many people playing the game with non-default looks?

Imagine if Watch Dogs "2" had a character editor (and a story that would give character creation some justification), would you actually bother to give the main character a "non-Wei Shen" looks when you already know how Wei Shen looks in the first place?

I know that people do not really change that much in their characters, that is one of the reasons I suggested half a dozen presets. I specifically said that a large character creator isn't something that fits here.

Well, yeah, I get what you said in your OP, and as a fan of a Gothic series I personally wouldn't mind if other people had an option to play the game as they see fit, it's just that in my opinion it's... Once again - so useless.

[Jaro Krieg]

imagine spending 6 hours in the charakter-creator of Skyrim just to play it FPS with a helmet on all the time.


I'm all in for the Barbershop Option because the Nameless Hero grows a Beard between Intro and First Dialoge with Diego in the original. But doesn't Shave his head when joining the Sect.

I would also like to see more diffrent Bodytypes as everyone in the Colony has the same height.

Editing the Face: for a bigger game i would be all in for it. But Gothic was kind of a small adventure and i'm Ok with limiting customisation options for the sake of playability. Nameless Hero has a quite generic Face, and as Baldurs Gate 3 custom options showed us. the Majority of RPG players go with a generic protagonist and just want to start the game.

The Thing with Roleplay is, that you play the role of a diffrent charakter. If you want to self-insert yourself its not roleplay -> its powerplay and the player looses the focus of the narrative or limit his gameplay accidently.

[Rhobar V]

Originally posted by Jaro Krieg:

imagine spending 6 hours in the charakter-creator of Skyrim just to play it FPS with a helmet on all the time.


I'm all in for the Barbershop Option because the Nameless Hero grows a Beard between Intro and First Dialoge with Diego in the original. But doesn't Shave his head when joining the Sect.

I would also like to see more diffrent Bodytypes as everyone in the Colony has the same height.

Editing the Face: for a bigger game i would be all in for it. But Gothic was kind of a small adventure and i'm Ok with limiting customisation options for the sake of playability. Nameless Hero has a quite generic Face, and as Baldurs Gate 3 custom options showed us. the Majority of RPG players go with a generic protagonist and just want to start the game.

The Thing with Roleplay is, that you play the role of a diffrent charakter. If you want to self-insert yourself its not roleplay -> its powerplay and the player looses the focus of the narrative or limit his gameplay accidently.

Yeah, the generic faces are definitely the better option here.

[Rhobar V]

Originally posted by PainkilleR:

Originally posted by Rhobar V:

I know that people do not really change that much in their characters, that is one of the reasons I suggested half a dozen presets. I specifically said that a large character creator isn't something that fits here.

Well, yeah, I get what you said in your OP, and as a fan of a Gothic series I personally wouldn't mind if other people had an option to play the game as they see fit, it's just that in my opinion it's... Once again - so useless.

Useless as you think people wouldn't use it?

[n00wls]

My own nostalgia aside, I don't see much use in the CC cause it doesn't add much to the experience, so I'm kind of indifferent. But it definitely should be done carefully, if it really gets added.

Not only due to how it can possibly break immersion, but also given that it might push some people, who are already sceptical about the remake, away. The situation regarding people of color in media right now is a bit of a controversial topic, so it really needs careful handling.

With that in mind, I'm not sure whether devs should take such risk.

[Thats How We do action in Uganda]

Some small options for beard and hairstyle could be ok.