Argument Modular character design is better than predefined races.
Rationale
Forcing a high-fantasy RPG/MMO style of predefined races on a sandbox game is the wrong idea. Sandbox players want highly customizable avatars. Sandboxes are a balance between restriction and freedom, and “races” are a restriction where there should be freedom.
So what does that look like, exactly?
When you create your character, you get to choose from a variety of modular elements. You start with a base body and then go from there – do you want fur, feathers, scales, or stony skin? What about horns? Wings? Long tail, short tail, or no tail? What color hair? What style eyes? Do you want claws or no claws?
Providing a number of choices across enough variables will give players the feeling of total control over their character’s appearance.
If it’s a sandbox, why should you have to choose between an owlman or a lizardman? Why can’t you be both??
Well, it’s sandboxy, but there is a set world, personally I’d like the Devs to work on making smooth designs for each race than make an odd but large assortment of parts. Yes I’d like to customize my character to a fair degree, but my monkey turtle should look like a monkey turtle person, not have the option to make him look like an eagle raptor, because his race is monkey turtle.
I would love the old way of races in Oort, cuz on that way the devs can add lore to each one. having many opions may be cool for creating or adjusting reasons , but the races should be fixed. May be they add some choices like “what did your character trained most in youth?” or “are you a hard guy, a sneaky one or a smart dude?”. On that way you also could add some attributes on creation without leaving the races.
I roughly know about Spore, and this is what I have been thinking too. Although the art style of Spore is different or rather roundly than what I try to anticipate while seeing a lot of content in this community. Still this does not mean that Oort would not need such a system, or that it wouldn’t enhance the gaming experience. Morphologic limb connections. Morphologic mutation into the next tier, or shrinking the char. More I can’t speculate atm.
Like james already said, the problem with a creator like in spore is that it would consume a mass of development time and money. The producer behind spore was a big player with lots of ressources and people way different to wonderstruck. But I think it may be possible through a “lego system” like: Chose your head, torso, arms and legs and then chose if you want to have a tail or not". Each part may give you some altered attributes or boni. I think that sound more realistic.
What happens to race attributes when you start mixing and matching parts? Do you get a mix of attributes? because if that’s the case you would see people doing less customization and more finding of the ideal mix of parts. I also dont believe that most people could handle mixing and matching of parts- we would see some hideous looking creations, and I want oort to be pretty.
I would be in favor of a modular system, but only within the confines of each race. That way you can have a fair amount of variation in a race, so people can stay individual, but you wouldn’t have the issue of ugly frankenstein models galavanting around. I’m thinking of @Nyuudles character art in this case- Lots of different variations to pick within a single race.
no thank you, if they didnt do specific racials then it might not have been a problem, but they plan for racials to be quite impactful.
i want to customize my character to my liking with sliders, lots of hair styles, haircolors and so on forth, but ultimately if i pick a cat then i shouldnt be able to look like an eagle, you cannot bind any kind of lore to the system you described. also as was mentioned what about stats? if you would get all then you could create insanely overpowered characters by only using strength parts and the entire character creation will become pure min/maxing
No, I think they should do away with “race attributes” entirely. In other words, it makes no difference what your character looks like, everyone starts on the same page, then you build up your character by exercising different skills, etc.
And like @meteoriteman said – you can absolutely still have race-specific lore. It’s just that it’s been a few hundred years, and you’ve got some hybrids.
As for Spore, that’s waaaay too advanced. I’m talking more along the lines of like, LittleBigPlanet or ModNation, in the sense that there’s a universal base, and you add bits and pieces to it to build whatever character you like (except in this case, it’s more or less permanent once you’ve finished).
Edit: And by “do away with,” I mean “find another way.” Having permanent special attributes is cool. I just want to be able to create my character however I want, and not be forced to choose a lizardman just because I want permanent waterbreathing. Find a different way! Create avatar first, choose special ability second?
Still not, i love customization to no end, i do. but there should not be some weird and ugly hybrids running around, you cannot just say they are a mix of the r aces because generally different races cannot mate. they also seem highly up on doing racials and having races gives more sense in an RP meaning.
i would like to pick 1 of the 6 races and then customize that to my liking, if i pick my cat race then i could look completely unique but just by glancing at me people would see that i was that race.
If they could pull of a thing were the hybrids are not horrendously ugly i would be cool with combination races else i really think that they should keep away.
If an elf and a dwarf can mate, So can a hobbit and a centaur. In fact, certain halflings are hybrids of other races. So yeah, you CAN totally have different breeds. And you can make a character creator system that would allow for non-frankestein models. I mean, freedom is one thing but allowing you to put wings in your but and tails on your head is something else. What I mean to say is, for now, let’s hope for say 3 main races, and be able to mix’em up, so that the results don’t end up horrible and scary. Spore’s creature creator is a long-shot, but a skyrim-styled one sucks harder. I want to have a cat’s face but a bird’s wings. Why can’t I?
While I like the idea of having full customization options, I think the feel of this game would be that much better by having character creation be race specific and not being a mad scientist with a turtle’s head, a mole’s arms, eagle legs and a dragon’s butt.
Like the lore might focus on the ancients and their destroyers, but having specific races means your people can have a real background too.
How about being one race and have the possibility to add one or two traits from another race if you really want to be a hybrid?
Would work better if there were very little race specific attributes.
I’d prefer for there to be ≈10 races, each with hard-coded bonuses that would impact gameplay. However, I wouldn’t mind customization, i.e. different feather colors and beak shapes for a bird race, scale colors/patterns/type for a reptile race, fur patterns and horn shapes for the goat master race, and so on.
I think fewer races with a richer background would be better then to much races. Think of Guild Wars 2 where you have “only” 5 races, but each has it’s own cities, kinds of talking, rituals, stories, legends and heroes. I would love to see Oort as a game where the lore about the races and their own style of talking, literature and ways of living would be so deep that you literaly can write books about each race if you want
