# Games where you  can alter your characters appearance.



## Jon-of-arc (Oct 6, 2012)

What do you go for?

Personally I try to make mine look as stupid as possible. Fat body, thin face, bulbous nose, psycho eyes, ginger mullet, blond monobrow, sticky out ears, and handlebar tache...

If youve got em, post pics.


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## Santino (Oct 6, 2012)

I try to make them look like me.


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## Maurice Picarda (Oct 6, 2012)

That would be very confusing if you and Jon-of-Arc were ever in an online head-to-head, then.


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## Numbers (Oct 6, 2012)

I've spent hours on the Fight Night series making all sorts of boxers, but my fav's are always crew cut white fellas with stubble and a little paunch.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 6, 2012)

I'm superserious (sort of) about that sort of thing and try to make characters I think look like they fit with the role they are playing, and also whose faces fit the voice work (if there is any).


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 6, 2012)

I am quite used to Second Life, so I find most MMOGs pretty disappointing for character customisation. My first reaction to WoW was "so, seriously, this is all the hair options I have? and I can't even change my body shape?"


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 6, 2012)

The character creator is one of the things I get most excited about when a new game comes out.


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## Firky (Oct 6, 2012)

My DayZ character is a woman who looks more like Laurence Fishburn.

My Fallout character is a woman who looked like Tank Girl.


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 6, 2012)

I think it's very important when it comes to differentiating between a game where you are expected to empathise with a character, and one where you just have a "toon". (If there's any character creation aspect at all, rather than playing a pre-defined role.) Particularly when it comes to MMOs - people will pay large sums simply to be individual in a social environment. Though they will also pay to be individual via DLC when it's just them there, too.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 6, 2012)

Oh yeah, the amount of money that gets spent on stuff to dress your avatar up in in mmos and the like is astonishing really. The only stuff I've ever bought outside of the game itself that has anything to do with appearance is armour and weapons dlc for single player games, where they will add better stats and make me harder to kill. But then, I think I'm a complete and utter curmudgeon when it comes to things like that.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 6, 2012)

You wanted pics? I've got millions. As I've said on here before, I get a little snap happy with screenshots.

My manShep (adept) from ME3






FemShep (vanguard) from ME3





Femshep (infiltrator) from ME3





I learned how to edit the raw save game info to give myself more options than they let you have in the cc


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 6, 2012)

Stabbity rogue in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning





Sneaky archer in Skyrim (with a hair mod)





Templar in The Secret World





Dragon in The Secret World


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 6, 2012)

Just a couple more, before you wish you never asked:

Bounty Hunter in SWTOR





Sith Warrior (probably one of the favourite characters I've ever played, in terms of her personality - totally grey zone)





Smuggler





Looking forward to going back to play it when it goes f2p soon.


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Oct 6, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I am quite used to Second Life, so I find most MMOGs pretty disappointing for character customisation. My first reaction to WoW was "so, seriously, this is all the hair options I have? and I can't even change my body shape?"


 
Out of curiosity: what's your character look like on SL?


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Oct 6, 2012)

I think my Saint's Row avatar looked something like this.


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## QueenOfGoths (Oct 6, 2012)

I tend to go for grizzled with a moustache and outrageous hair. Kind of like a Village People reject


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 6, 2012)

Johnny Canuck3 said:


> Out of curiosity: what's your character look like on SL?


I'm not saying, as it's quite identifiable! At least if you were there a few years ago, I've not been around for a while. Pretty much the opposite on every score from my RL appearance though - apart from skin colour actually, which I've wondered about at times.


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Oct 6, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I'm not saying, as it's quite identifiable! At least if you were there a few years ago, I've not been around for a while. Pretty much the opposite on every score from my RL appearance though - apart from skin colour actually, which I've wondered about at times.


 
Is it a human being?


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 6, 2012)

Johnny Canuck3 said:


> Is it a human being?


Yes, and I've kept the same avatar consistently for years. I just don't want to state it publicly, I don't need any more stalking from either side.


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## Firky (Oct 6, 2012)

I wonder what Jonathon Bishop would make of it all.


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 6, 2012)

Something ignorant and self-promoting?


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 6, 2012)

Johnny Canuck3 said:


> I think my Saint's Row avatar looked something like this.


 
This was mine:






Far more tasteful.


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## Epona (Oct 6, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> Sneaky archer in Skyrim (with a hair mod)


 
Which hair mod is that?  All the vanilla hairs are shit!  That looks awesome.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 6, 2012)

Epona said:


> Which hair mod is that? All the vanilla hairs are shit! That looks awesome.


 
Here you go: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/10168


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## Epona (Oct 6, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> Here you go: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/10168


 
Cheers, I've bookmarked that for my next character


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## Voley (Oct 6, 2012)

My Grand Theft Auto bloke was ace: morbidly obese, had a hideous afro and wore nothing but pants, flip-flops and one of these:





He looked fucking great in the cut away scenes when he was negotiating over life-and-death issues with Scarface-style gangsters. 

He was a real ladies man, too. I took one of the girls out on a date dressed like that and spent the whole time eating so many burgers I was sick while she sat in the car.

Then I took her to the car wash instead of a club.


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## Stigmata (Oct 6, 2012)

Finally started playing Skyrim. Here's my Nightblade type character:


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Oct 6, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> This was mine:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Mine had a shirt on too, actually.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 6, 2012)

Johnny Canuck3 said:


> Mine had a shirt on too, actually.


 
A big plastic boob shirt


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## Orang Utan (Oct 6, 2012)

I try to make myself as grotesque/ridiculous as possible


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 7, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> I try to make myself as grotesque/ridiculous as possible


Why?


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## Orang Utan (Oct 7, 2012)

It amuses me


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## Orang Utan (Oct 7, 2012)

Have you never wandered around in a pair of knickers and a cowboy hat in GTA?


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## Voley (Oct 7, 2012)

Me an all. I like seeing all the other characters being all serious around a half-naked freak wearing a gimp mask.


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## Orang Utan (Oct 7, 2012)

I think it's fallout where your can be naked with a ridiculous punk hairdo and you could also make yourself really ugly with a huge proboscis


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 7, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> It amuses me


Well, why does it amuse you?


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 7, 2012)

If you search for "Ugly Shepard" in google images, you'll see some glorious things.


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Oct 7, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> I try to make myself as grotesque/ridiculous as possible


 
The avatar is the window to the soul.


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## Orang Utan (Oct 7, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Well, why does it amuse you?


It's funny. i think it's the only way to do it and if you've never done it and are bemused at others doing it, then i want nothing to do with you. Hidebound miserabilist!


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## Epona (Oct 7, 2012)

Stigmata said:


> Finally started playing Skyrim. Here's my Nightblade type character:


 
That's actually not bad.  To my mind, 2011 is the year CRPG elves got hit with the ugly stick, but that one looks OK!


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 7, 2012)

Of course, there are the mods that alter the face textures and meshes, if you're into that level of aesthetic alteration in your skyrims, which makes it possible to create very attractive elves.


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## Voley (Oct 7, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> Of course, there are the mods that alter the face textures and meshes, if you're into that level of aesthetic alteration in your skyrims, which makes it possible to create very attractive elves.


Are you never tempted to create a grotesque monstrosity? You should've seen my bloke on PGA Golf. You wouldn't have let him roam the streets.


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 7, 2012)

I quite like how elves in Skyrim are slightly alien and often just that point over the edge into the Uncanny Valley.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 7, 2012)

NVP said:


> Are you never tempted to create a grotesque monstrosity? You should've seen my bloke on PGA Golf. You wouldn't have let him roam the streets.


 
No. I don't know why. I don't create the characters so they are meant to be idealised versions of me. So, it's not a way of me pretending I'm pretty or handsome or whatever  I guess there is some element of projection though. Hmm.


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## Voley (Oct 7, 2012)

I particularly like it when you can change their voices. Hearing the deep,gruff, half-speed voice of my golfer shouting 'Get in the hole!' was profoundly disturbing.


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## Epona (Oct 7, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I quite like how elves in Skyrim are slightly alien and often just that point over the edge into the Uncanny Valley.


I understand that, but the problem for me is that in previous TES games their features were not so exaggerated, and there was none of that weird Klingon-style brow/forehead stuff going on. I don't think it can be put down to simply having better graphics than a decade ago, it's a deliberate change in concept/art-style.

Even the Livin' In Oblivion guy had a hard time creating a truly hideous human character in Skyrim, yet it's all too easy to create a completely hideous mer, and very difficult to make one that looks anything like mer from previous games - everything has become stretched out and exaggerated.


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 7, 2012)

Epona said:


> I understand that, but the problem for me is that in previous TES games their features were not so exaggerated, and there was none of that weird Klingon-style brow/forehead stuff going on.  I don't think it can be put down to simply having better graphics than a decade ago, it's a deliberate change in concept/art-style.
> 
> Even the Livin' In Oblivion guy had a hard time creating a truly hideous human character in Skyrim, yet it's all too easy to create a completely hideous mer.


Actually I don't like the Klingon aspect either - it feels too derivative. (Also it looks like the funny foreheads that vampires have in Buffy, for no apparent reason.) But, if they are a different species, they should look alien in _some_ way - and there should be a continuum that moves towards the Orsimer.


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## Epona (Oct 7, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> and there should be a continuum that moves towards the Orsimer.


 
Why should there be a continuum? It's not evolution at work as we understand it in our world, Orcs were created/transformed into their current aspect when Boethiah defeated Trinimac, it was a magical/daedric transformation into their current form, not the Darwinian/genetic process that we recognise.


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 7, 2012)

Epona said:


> Why should there be a continuum? It's not evolution at work as we understand it in our world, Orcs were created/transformed into their current aspect when Boethiah defeated Trinimac, it was a magical/daedric transformation into their current form, not the Darwinian/genetic process that we recognise.


To emphasise the fact that overall they're not human. Why should orcs, specifically, be ugly in human terms?


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## Epona (Oct 7, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> To emphasise the fact that overall they're not human. Why should orcs, specifically, be ugly in human terms?


 
They aren't 'ugly' though (which is very subjective anyway), what they do have is a set of features that have largely been consistent over the last 3 games, although better rendered than in previous games and with more facial detail. Whereas if you look at other mer races, they have changed drastically in appearance/art-style from previous games.


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 7, 2012)

Epona said:


> They aren't 'ugly' though (which is very subjective anyway), what they do have is a set of features that have largely been consistent over the last 3 games, although better rendered than in previous games and with more facial detail. Whereas if you look at other mer races, they have changed drastically in appearance/art-style from previous games.


They are "ugly" in human terms though - which is why I approve of the change in appearance of other mer races to show a connection. You're right that they have definitely changed a lot.


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## Epona (Oct 7, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> They are "ugly" in human terms though - which is why I approve of the change in appearance of other mer races to show a connection. You're right that they have definitely changed a lot.


 
I don't know about that, (and I personally do not find Orcs ugly, that is a subjective judgment), as I said previously Orcs are a result of Daedric tampering (the followers of Trinimac were transformed into Orcs when Trinimac was defeated, Trinimac became Malacath, Orcs largely continue to follow Malacath) so I don't feel that the other mer races should be changed to form a line between them and the Orsimer, because we're not talking about a straightforward genetic link, but a daedric transformation. Going by your logic, Dunmer should resemble Chimer to show a path of descent, but again that was a magical transformation, there is no requirement in the game for a 'missing link' as it were, showing visible Chimer heritage - because the race exists due to magical transformation, not evolution.


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 7, 2012)

It's not so much an internal historical issue as a thematic one, and that's much more flexible. In the original TES games, elves looked like humans because they were more "classical" elves, there wasn't the deep history and mythology that there is now, it was just some fantasy game (I played it at the time). Everything was much more "standard fantasy". Now that the series has a stronger individual base and there is a whole history behind Orsimer I don't have an issue with appearances being retconned to reinforce that. Magical transformations can end up with anything, and I think it is stronger, thematically, to have them looking more similar to emphasise the fact that they are both inhuman.


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## Epona (Oct 7, 2012)

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on that one FM!  To me, 2011 is going to be the year that elves started to look like shit, with very alien and extreme features - and I'm not just talking about Skyrim.  I'd actually accept it more readily if it were just TES that had gone in that direction, but it wasn't the only franchise that made elves more extreme.


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 7, 2012)

Sure, I'm not claiming any sort of objective rightness here  It's more of an artistic decision over the course of a series, and that's going to be affected by whatever else is going on. I quite like it and I think it fits here, but I can see that other people might not.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 7, 2012)

I've always thought it was a bit pants that elves always end up just looking like pretty humans. But I can understand why you'd be miffed if you were invested in the lore of a game and wanted it to remain consistent.


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 7, 2012)

I really don't like elves at all  In fact I've never seen the need for different but equivalent species. They always just seem to end up being metaphors for racism in plots nowadays - and bad ones, because they _are_ actually genetically and behaviourally distinct.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 7, 2012)

Good point, actually. Fantasy is so entrenched in the Tolkien and D&D tradition now, I think it's a combination of them feeling comfortable with it knowing they're onto something people recognise and like, and being scared to create something completely different for fear of breaking the mould and getting it wrong.

Dammit, at this point I'd just be happy if they switched it all around a bit and had lithe, beautiful dwarves and coarse, drunken elves


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## Epona (Oct 7, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I really don't like elves at all  In fact I've never seen the need for different but equivalent species. They always just seem to end up being metaphors for racism in plots nowadays - and bad ones, because they _are_ actually genetically and behaviourally distinct.


 
Well in TES, Nord-Dunmer tensions especially have been hard-baked into the series and the lore for well over a decade, so it's not a new thing.  But I can't disagree, it seems to have become a trope representing racism/colonialism in many games these days and it's getting a bit tired now.  I expect it in TES, because it's been that way since the dawn of time so to speak, and even though it's a cliché, I'd be completely fucked off if they completely changed the existing lore - but when newer IPs also use it as their 'thing', it starts to get old quite rapidly.

One of my main complaints about fantasy gaming is that there don't seem to be many new ideas - but fuck having new ideas, because we can make clichés like dragons look really cool and people will buy that shit.  Don't get me wrong, I love Skyrim, but FFS Bethesda next time I want to go somewhere and see things that I can't get anywhere else, quit producing landscapes that I can see in real life, and get back to weird shit like Telvanni towers and daedric ruins and the like.  Give me something that is neither realistic, nor a fantasy cliché.


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 7, 2012)

We definitely don't disagree there. My heart sinks when I see town guards attacking you for touching the wrong thing in the market, or quests in an inn, or dragons, or cunning dwarves or magic rings or argh. I mean come _on_. This is something that I worry about with the movement back to "old school" RPGs as a reaction to modern RPGs lacking plot and depth - fine, but don't regress even further with clichés. A lot of the time I think the only way to get around this is to write my own damn games, and then it's hard to play them.


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## Stigmata (Oct 7, 2012)

I like the way the elves are done in TES, and especially the way they look in Skyrim. The wood elves looking a bit like apes on occasion is a very nice touch, as the lore has always been that they share their land with a race of apemen who never appear in the games.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Oct 7, 2012)

I tend to play girls.   dunno why.  this is my latest character    for guild wars


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