06-01-2010, 04:08 PM
HERE WE GO SUPER ESSAY TIME
I'm done with English so now I'll write something that I want to write about
More customization in general for online gaming
Sure, we've got the good ol' main character, and we've got a beautiful environment, but what fun is it if you don't have a nice, LIMITLESS customization powers? Now, I don't mean "use customization and oh hey you've changed your character completely!"; I don't want to customize a character that suits my needs on a single-player game where nobody will see it. I want the ability to customize a character and level and be able to show it off online. Some games are fine and all in their customization, but some are just *painfully* limited. What was cool about TH: American Wasteland for the 360 was that I could make a fully customized character that suited my wants. Sure, it was limited in some aspects, but being able to skate around as a Blue Man was just *awesome*. Then my friends and I picked up Project 8, and... welp, the customization sucked balls. You had defaults, and the most you can do is alter the clothing to an extent and you're done. Oh, and neither game took advantage of the skate park creators, which would have been fun to include (racing maps, crazy combo maps, whatever you wanted and it would own).
Now we look into a game like Halo 3. Now, I'm a sucker for this series, but the one thing that agitates me the most is the lack of being able to make whatever you want in Forge mode. But on this note, half of the game's fun relies on Forge mode creations, and you made due with the pure limitations that the maps give you. And usually, you had to abuse the game to make some of the structures that you want, and then you can create something totally badass (like F-Zero tracks [I shit you not] and statues and things of that nature). There really isn't much of a reason to limit a game like this, though. Games such as Far Cry 2 were able to make due with a 100% purely customizable maps, and literally *anything* was possible in that game. The same could be said with the source tools that you can get for free to make TF2/CS/GM/etc. maps as you see fit, although these tend to be hard as hell to use. Why not make something as simple as Halo 3's Forge and yet as powerful as Far Cry or the Source mods map makers?
Now let's get into characters. I mean, okay: you just got an online RPG, and you want to make a character that's "you". Most RPGs do well in this department, but the ones I've had experience with (Phantasy Star Universe, FFXIII, WoW) don't take full advantage of the ability to make a personalized character. I've played Phantasy Star Universe's demo for I don't even know how long, but you get a dozen many hair styles, a few face types, and three pairs of clothing to choose from. Needless to say, almost every character in the game looked the same as I ran by them, either in crowded Universe 2 hotspots or in missions, and although I made due with the Afro hairstyle (thankfully, the game was gracious enough to allow you to hue shift your hair all you want, so I ran around with a green afro), I would love to see some more variety than this (such as being able to adjust the hair/head without having to adjust the body). FFXIII just annoyed me with the fact that you only had a few models to choose from per race (even the humans, I understand that every other race looked the same either way), but there wasn't much you could do with your character to begin with. As for World of Warcraft... meh, I created a character on my brother's account, and it pretty much was an in-between with FFXIII and Phantasy Star. I wasn't fond of it either.
Now, I'll be honest here, I loved Amazing Island to death. I mean, I rented it and all, but I had an absolute *blast* playing it. Why? I could *literally* make any creature I wanted in there, and overall: it wasn't so hard to make things in that game. Hell, with all the things I could do in there, I could sit and play it for hours on end, despite the fact that the minigames were annoying to play. I loved it for the customization. Little Big Planet was on the right track with its level creators, but I didn't like it because it still had some limits to it despite boasting how its main objective is to "make your wildest imaginations a reality".
What would be the most ideal game for me? I want something with total customization, with absolutely no limits, and I want to be able to send my creations online for others to fiddle around with. I want something where you can do things as a group, and you can all sit back and enjoy everyone's creations. I want to be able to go as far as to write my own background music for the levels and maps I create, and I want to be able to get ratings for the things I make and learn how to improve in my designs. I want to be able to trek these levels with any character I want: be it something that I came up with, be it an existing game character, or be it something that isn't living at all. And I want it to be able to be done simply; no going into game code to figure out how to rig a model, no going into complicated wireframes to design levels, none of that kind of hardcore programming. I want to have easy access to pure creation tools and easier access to unleashing whatever is in my mind at the time.
I'd love to see more customization in games in general, but again: it's not worth customizing if you can't show it off to others. And I'd love to see the above addressed in future games (if not all of it, then at least *some* of it)
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I'm done with English so now I'll write something that I want to write about
More customization in general for online gaming
Sure, we've got the good ol' main character, and we've got a beautiful environment, but what fun is it if you don't have a nice, LIMITLESS customization powers? Now, I don't mean "use customization and oh hey you've changed your character completely!"; I don't want to customize a character that suits my needs on a single-player game where nobody will see it. I want the ability to customize a character and level and be able to show it off online. Some games are fine and all in their customization, but some are just *painfully* limited. What was cool about TH: American Wasteland for the 360 was that I could make a fully customized character that suited my wants. Sure, it was limited in some aspects, but being able to skate around as a Blue Man was just *awesome*. Then my friends and I picked up Project 8, and... welp, the customization sucked balls. You had defaults, and the most you can do is alter the clothing to an extent and you're done. Oh, and neither game took advantage of the skate park creators, which would have been fun to include (racing maps, crazy combo maps, whatever you wanted and it would own).
Now we look into a game like Halo 3. Now, I'm a sucker for this series, but the one thing that agitates me the most is the lack of being able to make whatever you want in Forge mode. But on this note, half of the game's fun relies on Forge mode creations, and you made due with the pure limitations that the maps give you. And usually, you had to abuse the game to make some of the structures that you want, and then you can create something totally badass (like F-Zero tracks [I shit you not] and statues and things of that nature). There really isn't much of a reason to limit a game like this, though. Games such as Far Cry 2 were able to make due with a 100% purely customizable maps, and literally *anything* was possible in that game. The same could be said with the source tools that you can get for free to make TF2/CS/GM/etc. maps as you see fit, although these tend to be hard as hell to use. Why not make something as simple as Halo 3's Forge and yet as powerful as Far Cry or the Source mods map makers?
Now let's get into characters. I mean, okay: you just got an online RPG, and you want to make a character that's "you". Most RPGs do well in this department, but the ones I've had experience with (Phantasy Star Universe, FFXIII, WoW) don't take full advantage of the ability to make a personalized character. I've played Phantasy Star Universe's demo for I don't even know how long, but you get a dozen many hair styles, a few face types, and three pairs of clothing to choose from. Needless to say, almost every character in the game looked the same as I ran by them, either in crowded Universe 2 hotspots or in missions, and although I made due with the Afro hairstyle (thankfully, the game was gracious enough to allow you to hue shift your hair all you want, so I ran around with a green afro), I would love to see some more variety than this (such as being able to adjust the hair/head without having to adjust the body). FFXIII just annoyed me with the fact that you only had a few models to choose from per race (even the humans, I understand that every other race looked the same either way), but there wasn't much you could do with your character to begin with. As for World of Warcraft... meh, I created a character on my brother's account, and it pretty much was an in-between with FFXIII and Phantasy Star. I wasn't fond of it either.
Now, I'll be honest here, I loved Amazing Island to death. I mean, I rented it and all, but I had an absolute *blast* playing it. Why? I could *literally* make any creature I wanted in there, and overall: it wasn't so hard to make things in that game. Hell, with all the things I could do in there, I could sit and play it for hours on end, despite the fact that the minigames were annoying to play. I loved it for the customization. Little Big Planet was on the right track with its level creators, but I didn't like it because it still had some limits to it despite boasting how its main objective is to "make your wildest imaginations a reality".
What would be the most ideal game for me? I want something with total customization, with absolutely no limits, and I want to be able to send my creations online for others to fiddle around with. I want something where you can do things as a group, and you can all sit back and enjoy everyone's creations. I want to be able to go as far as to write my own background music for the levels and maps I create, and I want to be able to get ratings for the things I make and learn how to improve in my designs. I want to be able to trek these levels with any character I want: be it something that I came up with, be it an existing game character, or be it something that isn't living at all. And I want it to be able to be done simply; no going into game code to figure out how to rig a model, no going into complicated wireframes to design levels, none of that kind of hardcore programming. I want to have easy access to pure creation tools and easier access to unleashing whatever is in my mind at the time.
I'd love to see more customization in games in general, but again: it's not worth customizing if you can't show it off to others. And I'd love to see the above addressed in future games (if not all of it, then at least *some* of it)
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