Now *this* is what I call a character creator

Yes we need jiggling and bouncing.

I too cast my vote for juggling and bouncing. I cling to the hope that part of super secret issue 20 will be some major costume creator update.

Sapph: See Miss Lauren in Independence Port and tell her that I sent you. She'll give you a 20% discount!

I wish I could use the face of my forum avatar on one of my characters.

That wasn't my point at all but enjoy your strawman.

What was your point then other than to be negative about it for negativity's sake?

I understand that when we're actually playing through the game in combat that even much of the detail we now have in character costuming is relatively pointless. Heck we don't even get to see the fronts of our own characters unless we take the time to turn ourselves around. But for people who actually like to do other things than combat 100% of the time the improvement of character detail will always at least be appreciated if not always a top priority.

I don't care if my last post to you about "customized eyebrows" or the like being an indicator of overall character quality improvement was a "strawman" or not. I'm old enough to have started playing computer games back when systems like the Atari 2600 was brand new so I'm always going to be in favor of ever increasing character detail in games like this, even if that detail starts to becomes so realistically trivial that it's hardly noticeable.

Things like "customized eyebrows" are eventually going to be in all games whether you use them or not so it's not really a matter of any particular set of Devs of any given game wasting time on it. Your original "point" was pretty much akin to someone who loved black-n-white TV saying that adding color to it would be pointless. The color might not be -necessary- but it certainly makes it better.

that would be full of win in my books - I'll blame you when it comes out and my hopes are dashed

Yeah, I remember when Maiden Canada mysteriously lost her nipples way back when. I never heard anyone complain about them, so I always wondered why they were nerfed.

Anyhow, I am also on the list of people who would be trapped in the charater creator for hours or even days if we had this sort of thing.

Never heard anyone complain about the "great nipple nerf"?
You must have not been too active on these forums back when it happened.

The nipple nerf was actually part of one of the very first patches to the game soon after it launched back in April 2004. It came with the nerf that prevented us from using "skintone" colors for costume items. Various naughty people were having way too much fun running around appearing to be nude. Oh my!

Technically speaking all they did to nerf nipples was to change the way the body model polygons were shaped so that the edges didn't poke out quite as much as they initially did. The Devs didn't really "cut" anything off as much as simply smoothed over the area to make what was there a little less obvious.

Ironically even though character graphics are finally getting to the point where they could easily be anatomically correct we will probably be stuck with having smooth "barbie doll" like bodies for the foreseeable future in games like these. The Devs are likely going to try to keep these kinds of things "G-rated" just to keep a handful of whiny parents from getting upset.

I agree that these graphics are now getting good enough to be in the Uncanny Valley. But I see it as a stepping stone towards the truly perfect representations we'll get in the longer term future. If we assume computer graphics will continue to improve over time there will be a point where they'll eventually move past the Uncanny Valley.

I'm willing to get creeped out for a while in order for things to eventually become more perfect.

Same. Their work, while not without interest, always leaves me with a "you're not welcome here!" vibe.

No, you misread. I was here right from the start. I said I "never heard anyone complain about them". Them being the nipples. I think most people were quite happy to have them, so I didn't understand removing them. I never heard objections to their inclusion in the game.

Complaints about their removal? Those I heard plenty of.

Ah yeah I guess I did misread what you said. Like you I never heard anyone complain about them being in the game from the start so I focused in on the only "complaining" I actually remembered which came from people upset that they were nerfed.

There were various rumors going around as to why the nips got nerfed. But I think it was related to what I was talking about in reference to the skintone color nerf. I suspect they got some angry responses from parents that they didn't want their kids playing a game that allowed "naughtiness" like simulated nudity. When the Devs nerfed the skintones I think nips got nerfed too as a related "anti-naughtiness" measure. Sadly I think the skintone thing drew "parent aggro" towards anything like it so the nip nerf was probably an overreaction on our Devs' part.

Ultimately it would be cool to eventually play a game like this with anatomically correct characters, but I think the chances of that ever happening in the "teen-rated" MMO genre is pretty much nil.

Foreshadow
Mirror Spirit.

I HATE Mirror Spirit, simply because her character model is beautiful. The ammount of detail, high def, high quality detail there is insane! And I want it! D=

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

/ agree

I love her and want a face as good as hers for my asian characters.

On top of my 75% discount? awesome!

Please note that I never said "improved graphics are always bad", which seems to be what you took my point to be. I'm just saying that as far as CoH goes, certain "improvements" like eyebrows and such would be a waste of time (IMO) because you almost never see that part of the character. I certainly would be in favor of some improvements, like giving us actual fingers instead of mittens for hands. I would LOVE for the body sliders to get a revamp, at least so we can know exactly what dimensions our characters are set to besides "slightly to the left of the center of the slider well wait maybe that is the center it's hard to tell anyway I'm going to move it to the right a bit and see what happens".

My point was that while character creation engine improvements are nice, I wouldn't want to see too many resources diverted to it for the sake of creating the most realistic character possible when those resources might be better spent on the graphics in other areas of the game -- at least for City of Heroes. And to echo what another poster or two have said, I personally find that level of detail to be too much when creating a character; I would be okay with face "presets" and then tweaking from there, but just giving me all those options and saying "go put it together yourself" paralyzes me.

I don't think we really need anatomically correct characters. You just know that people would be playing NakedMan and NakedWoman if they got the chance. Still, I had been somewhat impressed that they'd included nipples originally. They're certainly not needed in the game and I see enough bare breasts that I don't find them titillating in a game, but I'd been surprised that they had actually had them. It would be interesting to someday have "realistic" character bodies in a game without people turning it into something pervy.