Hiya,

ive been curious about what the character design capabilities of SGW will be, i always like the opportunity of having a very unique looking character, i like the designs you can make with 'City of Villains/COV' and was slightly bummed at the looks available in 'World of Warcraft'.. even though the weapons and armour, etc made them look unique later on in the game...

Does anyone have any news/ideas about SGW character creation???

Sorry don't have any news yet about it. But I totally agree with you when it comes to character design and the games you've tried. CoH was great for customization of your character, never really saw two people that looked exactly a like. And yeah, when I tried WoW the character customization was the worst out of any MMO I've personally tried. Once you picked your race you had very minor options to pick from so everyone of that race looked basically the same which really hurt the game for me. You got to the point you had to try for some of the rarest items just so you didn't look like everybody else. Actually though I did read specifically for humans you can pick a country of origin where you come from and that gives you more options to choose, but wasn't sure what that meant other than maybe a patch on the arm. For asgard I believe their character diversity is going to go more towards their drones than their actual cosmetic look. All I can really say is, the character customization can't be as bad as WoW.

I was looking for another interview that had more details, but this one covers the original question. This is a quote from an interview on 12/2007

Once a character is created, will there be options to change the aesthetics on that character -things like hair, skin color, height, weight, etc.?

Our character creation process allows the player to get the overall look of his or her character where they want it without too much minutia. We are using a more modular approach as opposed to a taking one face type and sliding bars in order to tweak cheekbones and such.
Players will control what faces, hairstyles, tattoos, scars, facial hair and other details their character will have.
The big difference between us and other MMOs though is that for us players get to play around with standard creation paradigms but they get to use objects created with the Stargate Worlds ‘look’ assigned to them.
http://sgw.mmolecule.com/articles/article.mmo?id=5e0418a2-042f-4f08-95a3-f90939ec721c

I was hoping for much more customization, like COH and COV.

Well, I'm used to playing MMO's where yourt hair color and hat were the only things that would change about a player. In some ways, I prefer that. Promotes teamwork rather than individuality. I'm not too concerned with it, so long as I can make a cute archaeologist.

I actually was really disapointed with games like CoH and CoV when it came to character creation. Yeah at first you can make a really cool character but then that's it, they'll probably look exactly like that for the rest of the time you spend on the game. Yeah WOW's character creation is really shallow but their appearance is constantly shifting with new gear. So I'd rather see a constant evolution of your SGW character through getting new gear than be able to go very in depth at the start and then have it go unchanged from there.

Well to be fair in CoH/CoV you could get more costume slots so you could change your "look" whenever you want to and it won't effect your stats. Like in WoW you can't really make a unique character at all at the beginning but you can using armor later. But I believe the original poster was asking about character design/creation being more towards when you first create your toon than later on when you add in armor to make your character different. Most MMO's have a large amount of armor that can make your character look different late in the game but not many have a large amount of character creation options at the beginning of the game to differentiate yourself from others. With many, once you pick what race you are, you basically look like everybody else of the race you chose. But I agree that you still need a wide amount of armor/weapon options so you can be unique in that way too. More options for players to be unique in both ways can't hurt.

I know for a certainty that I never get my avatar / character exactly right the first pass, so I definately would appreciate the chance to do little tweaks some later on maybe days or weeks after the intial setup. In other games their are "skilled" people that do avatar fixes (beauty-mods) they usually make a lot of money providing this service. I wonder if this will be one of the possible skills that would or could be added later. Like doctor (plastic surgeon) combined with makeup artiist and hair dresser.

I personally would like to be able to change looks alot or whenever the mood requires a change. If this is not possible I'm sure I will get over it though. If I know no changes are allowed after the fact I will spend a lot of time getting it just so during startup phase ...

I would definitely like to see some individuality in the beginning when you create your character. I really don't like looking like everyone else like WOW or SWG, but on the other-hand having SGC personnel running around in pink miniskirts probably doesn't make it feel much like you are in the SG world, so for a bit of Stargate realism all of the human are going to look like SG1; this might be one good reason to become a Goa'uld, there should probably be some pretty unique costumes and looks.

Personaly, idc much bout creation/costumization. Of course noone likes to play a ridiculously fat and ugly toon that looks weak and stupid, but im more concerned bout my character skills and recognition/rank provided by rare and powerfull gear. I'd prefer to walk around with a badass jaffa snake headpiece than a face that have almost unnoticable face details that are supposed to rise me off the crew. Ok, yeah, it will proly be noticable details like beard, face tattoos and hair, but as i do IRL, id probably go with the most minimalist look; bald head, regular beard and thats it. The most basic looking satisfy me as long as the upgrades come along.

For my part, I think the look is important as some have said here. Because in the game when you and your guild are very good, gamers remember the name and the look of it (the symbol or te look of the character).
The look represent the personality of the gamer, his way to play.