Anyone else writing character bios already?

[Starwing]

I'm really looking forward to the release of XCOM 2 and I've been writing a lot of character bios so I'll be well prepared when the game launches. With all the new customization options and the character pool, I'm excited to role play my soldiers more than ever before. I'll be giving my troops their own strengths and weaknesses, and they'll have their own views on things like religion, tradition, and warfare.

Character bios are a small touch, but I think it's going to make a huge difference in how I feel about each individual soldier. It could even make me more or less forgiving of a panic situation than I would be if all soldiers had the same personality (as in EU/EW).

[Hawk Firestorm]

Just waiting for the 'Chicks with guns' etc mods to arrive. lol

[DEADPOO]

Wow. Some people are really getting into this, like its a tabletop rpg.

Me? I'm just thinking about the composition of my 'Away Team' so as to best maximize tactics. Like I definitely want a Ranger, 1 Specialist, and 2 Snipers in my send offs.

[Drakos]

Oh! Me, Me!
I absolutely adored doing so for EU/EW (and I'll gladly link you those if you wish^^), and I already have the ghost of an idea for my new squad!
Although I can't really say I'm 100% happy with it but eh, still got two months to iron them out...
So then:

Tanya couldn't help but marvel at how something as stupidly mundane as pull-up could help her empty her head as well as it did. Then again when you were as dead inside as she was, things like that probably came easier than to most normal people. Or whatever qualified as 'normal' in this screwed cluster-♥♥♥♥ that passed for reality these days.
She'd lost her count somewhere past fifty, sweat slicking her ebony lock against her dusky skin and making her toned musculature glisten in the dull overhead light of the training room.
She and her 'team', i.e. the other bastards besides her crazy enough to actually volunteer for an ACTUAL suicide mission had gotten back the day before. Honestly, did the shell-shocked relics that pretended at playing 'command' really expect her to believe some popsicle from 20 years ago to actually be worth what they expended to get her out? So what if they'd been the Commander of the original X-COM? They'd LOST the War, last she checked.
Frankly she suspected the only reason they'd actually bothered was because Bradford couldn't handle being in charge so he ran to bring back his good old boss as quickly as he could.
Fine. See if she cared. If she were still capable of giving a ♥♥♥♥ about anything anymore. Aside from cleaving as many Advent bastards limb from limb before she finally bit it.
She saw they looks tossed her way. The distrust that she'd leave them to die without remorse, the disgust that she could be so callous when the need for solidarity was higher than ever.
♥♥♥♥ them.
She'd seen her friends from her old unit vaporised by plasma fire right in front of her. She'd watched as her family, parents, husband, children were all ripped from her one after the other in one night as what she would later know as a Viper chased her through the streets of Sao Paolo, out of ammo, her daughter's blood still dripping from it's fangs.
She'd only lived by the blessing that the corpse of a fallen soldier she had tripped over still had it's machete strapped to it. A team of the 'new' X-COM found her there, kneeling amoung death. Said she could help make sure that this never happens again to anyone else.
She'd seen it happen more time than she could count. These meatsacks practicing their aiming in front of her were just more fodder for the grinder. But hey, maybe they could clog the machine long enough for the Advent to choke a little. Speaking of which, one of the slightly-competent grunts she'd seen around, Pietro Murrel she thinks, was aiming down sights next to a partner of his.
"Hey big guy." She drawled out. He turned. His skin was lighter than hers, chestnut hair shading hazel eyes, with a matching full beard below. Pretty built too, for whatever that was worth agaisnt magnet rounds. "Here's a tip. When you see the enemy comming at you, spin to your left 90 degrees and pull the trigger. Don't think, believe me it's quicker for everyone."
He frowned in confusion, but humoured her. Ending up pointing his rifle at his fellow soldier.
A second passed, then another, before his expression darkened something thunderous. He laid down his rifle, then quicker than she would have given him credit for, he crossed the space between them and slugged her square in the face.
She flew away from the bar, tumbling ass over head once before she rolled to her feet on reflex, guard raising out of habit as blood leaked from her nose.
"What? Better good old fashioned bullets than whatever eviscerating abomination the Advent eggheads cook up next. And you can bet you and me would be a damn sight more merciful about it too. Let 'em sleep gently, eh?"
He didn't strike again, instead he rammed into her with rib-bruising tackle, crushing her guard and flooring her on her back. Knees trapping her arms and fist in her hair, he didn't so much shout at her than growled.
"I'd heard about it from damn near everyone, but ♥♥♥♥ if I hadn't realised just HOW MUCH of a screw-loose ♥♥♥♥♥ you are, Corera."
She shrugged. "Give it a week, tops. We can all compare how loose our screw are then, assuming any are actually still here, naturally. I'm not holding my breath. Speaking of which Murrel, mind getting off of me, or at least get to tearing my clothes of and rutting my like mutts already?"
The next instant, her ears rung and her eyes faced the wall as her right cheek groaned in protest.
"Give me one good reason why we all shouldn't just toss your ass to the Chrysalids next chance we get."
"A) Because then you'd be just like me right then and there, and B) I'd love to see you walking corpses try, hotshot."
A pause in the air, then he rose off her.
"You're right, I'm nothing like you. I actually give a damn about anything other than myself. And I actually intend to live through this war and get on with a life, a real one. I don't imagine many people will show upt to your funeral service next week, Corera."
And with that, he stormed off. Tanya didn't bother getting up for a while longer. She just laid the bruised side of her face against the cold floor as she tsked. "Arrogant Idiot, as if I even give a damn about myself."

...Ok, that wasn't even as positive as what I was hoping for.
But then, this isn't exactly the most optimistic of positions most people could find themselves in, especially after what Tanya's been through. Remember, in this timeline, XCOM got curbstomped before they even achieved Carapace armor or laser weapons, and got slaughtered. So imagine for any sort of people still fighting after that, without even a symbol of hope or strenght to rally behind...
And yes, you would be 100% right in saying she'd hardly be the only one to have suffered in the new X-COM forces, let alone the rest of the world. But really, if you were in her position, are you really going to sit there and tell me you'd really give a damn about anyone's else's pain?
I guess we can only pray that Tanya can find some direction for herself, even if it is only revenge. But even that is still better than dead, or worse, dead inside.

[Starwing]

That's a lot of text for sure :) I have just been writing a paragraph for each soldier, to describe their major personality characteristics and attitudes--for the in-game Bio section on the solders' character sheets. I've got 20 bios prepared so far, but I don't know how many troops we'll typically recruit through the course of a playthrough in XCOM 2.

[Mojo Amok]

I've been writing down some goofy names, but I didn't realize that we'd have an actual Bio spot until the last wave of videos.

I haven't done it yet, but I will.

[Fastdash]

I don't know the limit of how muc you can write in the bios yet, so I haven't started.

[Starwing]

Originally posted by Nadey:

I've been doing it but am only writing about a paragraph also for each soldier of mine (I don't want too much to read if we can export them to other people's games or have our friends play with them.) I love coming up with their names, backstory, date of birth, basing their looks off of certain characters or actors (ect.) It's going to be traumatic when one of my soldiers dies though and I have spent all this time tweaking and editing their biographies and character background to my liking but that's XCOM for you. :3

I'm excited for the customization options the most.

Yeah, I think a paragraph is best, so that the most important details are available at a glance. I haven't named all of my characters yet, or selected their country of origin (because I didn't catch all the options and will decide all those things when I get my hands on the game), but those details never need to be in the bio anyways.

I've included things that will help me role play the character--things that effect how the character is likely to react at an Advent church, or in a shanty town, or perhaps how they interact with their squadmates and/or superiors, etc.

Then if I'm playing a character who is deeply religious and is sent to an Advent church site, that character is going to be more aggressive and especially keen to destroy the environment--as compared to a character that is not religious. Likewise, if I have a character who seeks praise and approval from their peers, that soldier might be more prone to doing crazy, extremely dangerous things just to impress everybody.

Originally posted by Qwerty:

I don't know the limit of how muc you can write in the bios yet, so I haven't started.

I don't know the length of the text field either, but after reading some of the bios in the video previews, I think I can fit about three average sentences in there?

[SievertChaser]

I generally didn't go in this far. But I'll let their guns and the RNG write their biographies.

[kknd]

Assuming we have 500 charicters to work with:
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Hector Delgado: During the original war, the first mission XCOM attempted set the tone for the war. Of the four soldiers sent, only Hector came back, and as a broken man. Never cleared for combat before XCOM was canceled, Hector was not targeted by ADVENT until recently. This was a mistake, as he has actual formal training.

An 'Stalker' Ho: China was one of the major contributors to the original XCOM project, which did not make their government particularly well liked by ADVENT. When the Chinese army was disbanded, some soldiers never reported in for disarmament. The continual losses of ADVENT patrol members in her home village was attributed to An accurately, until a full sweep and clear forced her into fleeing.

Emmanuelle 'Socks' Bernard: France's police forces SWAT operated after the ADVENT governmental change. But one can only hunt down people you are sympathetic to for so long. Fleeing her home country and a duty she no longer believes in, she escaped in a crate of socks and has never lived it down.

Erica Hall: Canada was hardly damaged in the invasion, though its tiny military was disproportionately harmed. The final class of military cadets never officially graduated when the nation was 're-bordered' by ADVENT. The prospect of staying in the now ADVENT military and being stationed far from home didn't appeal to Erica. Unfortunately ADVENT wasn't asking for membership, forcing her on the run.

Annette Durand: Some people want to fight ADVENT, others don't have a choise. Annette is one of the latter and has never understood why. After years of running, she is tired of fleeing and ready to fight. XCOM is the symbol that draws people like her into the fight.

Kari 'Nix' Johnson: Sweden has been the center of an 'anti-terrorist' campaign for the last three years, trying to track down and ferret out the cell of resistance there which caught our attention. The truth is there is no cell, just Kari and lots of careful prep work before an attack.

Alica Ravenshaw: XCOM had vetted many soldiers for recruitment to replace losses before it was shut down, including members of PMCs. PMC's that were co-opted or hunted to extinction during ADVENT's seizure of power. The records from XCOM's recruitment intentions included Sorain, Alica's mother. When she learned that was why the resistance contacted her, she jumped at the chance to take her place. Seeing your mother bleed out in-front of you at the age of ten tends to motivate a person.
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So yeah, some fun with Annette especially. All of these are legacy names from my most beloved XCOM squad, now with an explantion. It makes for an intresting mix of 'old guns' and 'new blood'.

I fit these into the 'about one paragraph' we have examples of, though Alica's might need to have a sentence cut. if the limit is actually 250 charicters... that would suck. 500 seems to work nicely though.

[Baddamobs]

I've more got just frame-works of ideas but I'll most likely actually get some written down after the new year.

(There's going to be at least one super scarred but happy-go-lucky type, who's idea is that a war is best fought by not letting your friends know how sh** scared you are, and there's going to be at one sibling duo, and if one dies...well, the other loses a lot of their spark)

[Starwing]

Originally posted by kknd:

*trimmed*

Annette Durand: Some people want to fight ADVENT, others don't have a choise. Annette is one of the latter and has never understood why. After years of running, she is tired of fleeing and ready to fight. XCOM is the symbol that draws people like her into the fight.

*trimmed*
-------------
So yeah, some fun with Annette especially. All of these are legacy names from my most beloved XCOM squad, now with an explantion. It makes for an intresting mix of 'old guns' and 'new blood'.

I fit these into the 'about one paragraph' we have examples of, though Alica's might need to have a sentence cut. if the limit is actually 250 charicters... that would suck. 500 seems to work nicely though.:raven:

I'm waiting to find out if the 5th class has anything to do with Psi abilities before I plan out Annette and another favourite from EU. I would love if we could use 500 characters for the bios! The ones I've seen in previews looked about 250 characters or even less :( I have no way of knowing if that was the maximum, or just something short and sweet for randomly generated characters.

[HekaDooM]

Yeah you can feel good about copy pasting the reams of text you've written into a character bio, which has no bearing on the character whatsoever.

So, will you reapply your lore to another soldier in the event of an untimely death or save scum away from that eventuality?

[Baddamobs]

Originally posted by HekaDooM:

Yeah you can feel good about copy pasting the reams of text you've written into a character bio, which has no bearing on the character whatsoever.

The characters you make in your own head have a lot more emotional attachment then any other kind of character ever will; I'd consider that a fairly important bearing.

[Mojo Amok]

Originally posted by HekaDooM:

So, will you reapply your lore to another soldier in the event of an untimely death or save scum away from that eventuality?

You can export your custom troops to the character pool and they'll randomly rotate into future campaigns (you can do this with scientists, engineers and villains as well; oh, you can also load other people's exported characters into your pool).

The deeper character customization wouldn't really make sense without the pool feature as it'd be a major time sink.

[Saroodai]

Good Idea .. I will start wraiting ..