IMO: the SOGA faces look great, but. the body models are WAY out of proportion, like they haven't eaten in weeks. the only problem with soga, is the lack of customization, besides hair of course they all look almost the same, but the faces do look much better. I agree with what Dhvyse000 said. and hope thats how it will be. I would also like to see more face types. and some body controls. i should be shorter or taller, not scale bigger or smaller. their should be muscle mass sliders. 80 year old looking mages shouldn't look like body builders. unless thats what your looking for.the normal model's faces look like the are made from wax, or clay. and some of them look like they where hit with the ugly stick. which is mostly a good thing for some characters. normal models make a better evil warlock. while the SOGA models look better on a valiant good paladin . imo. we need more choices in general. most all normal models look like bitter old, weathered war heroes which is ok. but i would love to see them right next to the up and coming young hero. Then again, i could go on for hours on how the game could be better. but the truth is, EQ2 has one of the best character customization systems in any mmo. i really have to complement sony, as hard as that is to say. they have a really great game here. and need to work too keep it great. IMO: this is still the best mmorpg in the world. P.S. Why does it add " /> after all my smilies? and i have to go in and remove them
The Sarnak body looks pretty similar on all as far as i can tell from released stuff, so i wouldn't bet on increased (body)customization altough this would be really nice.
Wether you prefer the old models or the soga models isnt really the issue IMO...personally, why in the world do you even care about how your character looks, if the people who are looking at it, can `change` it to what THEY like....if i make my character in SOGA because thats how i want him to look...you shouldnt be able to CHANGE it....it makes absolutely NO sense to me, why you have to create your character once the way you like it, and then again, to make it `decent looking` for the people that dont want to look at the one you made ><...personally i hate the old models with a passion, BUT if you make your character in that model....there shouldnt be an option for me to override that and look at what i want to...what is the point of wasting your time customizing your look, when it MIGHT get seen and might not...just plain silly.
If they(other players) want they can make your character look like a washed out pink low polygon creature anyway.
I personally would prefer them to trash the models all together and re-create them from scratch, making truly wonderful models like we all know they can. I personally would like it if the models were all 1 set, with a major amount of customization. As someone in my early 20s, I would love to have a human character (for example) that could look around my age... not to mention not be utterly BEEF-CAKE. Right now we get to choose between claymation and anime-inspired. So... great lol... neither really fits that well in the game scenery I think. And its always weird to have SOGA on and hear a human speak... his voice matches with the original models, but is SOOOO off with SOGA lol. Options I'd like to see... 1) Skinny-medium built-muscular 2) Young (early 20s look) - Middle aged - elderly (Gotta have our gray haired wizards right?) 3) Eyebrows matching haircolor (Revolutionary idea here...) 4) MAJOR breast reduction for females (Some models look like they'd break in half if they bend over) 5) More accessories (Piercings, tatoos, glasses... some already in, but I want more lol) Overall, I want to see other people's character how they want to be seen... but also want mine to be seen how I create him/her. I like some soga models and some original models, but cannot say I love either! I like the idea of being able to make a character look like an old knight, or a young thief, a skinny, non-muscular spell caster, a raging hulk of beef-cake warrior... and other such things. the models are OK right now... but if a game comes out looking better, I'd probably jump ship... Im shallow... my character's appearance is what truly keeps me coming back to the game lol.
Romero@Mistmoore wrote: Sliders for appearance are easy enough. City of Heros/Villains introduced them well after the launch of those games, and they only served to make the game more unique (although CoH/CoV are rather lacking in the depth that EQ2 possesses). 1. Build slider - easily done, although more likely is the ability is to choose a 'base build' (thin, average, muscular) and modify it further from that point. 2. Age - well, we sort of have that already...although it could be further diversified along the same lines as build (i.e. 'young', 'adult', and 'elderly', with further modifications after that). And do you do it for all races? Elves, for example, are stereotypically 'forever youthful' in Norrath, for example...how would you adjust it for racial considerations? 3. Eyebrows...amen, brother. This has always annoyed me. Granted, there are times when exceptions exist (people like me, for example, who have gone prematurely grey, but the eyebrows are still the same color as in their youth), but they should be just that. Let the player choose whether they want off-kilter colors for hair/eyebrows. 4. Major breast reduction for...which females? To be honest, save for ogres and barbarians, the bust sizes all look rather average to me. SOE is not going to do across-the-board mastectomies simply to satisfy the people who don't like big boobs. Add to that the fact that what you see is not always what you get - even form-fitted armor has to 'appear' bigger to accommodate the flesh underneath it. Regardless, this is also easily solved with a slider. That way, those who want an outrageously endowed elf lass can have one, and those who want a flat-chested barbarian woman can have one. Everyone gets their cake and can eat it, too. 5. More accessories...absolutely. Add to this list...wigs. That's the only way I'd ever play an Erudite. I don't care if it's as simple as a bad William Shatner-esque toupee', but I want any Erudite I make to look like something other than a Roswell alien. Better yet, just give them some hair options. And I want beards for fullblood elven men brought back, like they had in EQ1...that has always irritated the <BLEEP> out of me, the fact I could not give my fury a beard. It was that which prompted my wife to comment that he looked like he should be making toys at the North Pole. And I'd also like to give him a pair of those gnomish sunglasses...I mean, he's a druid, so he's out in the sun a lot...eye protection is absolutely essential to the modern Norrathian treehugger.
Risingmyst@The Bazaar wrote: I am sorry but I cannot accept beards on any full blooded elf. If you know your elf lore, they are FAIR skinned. They arent suppoed to have beards!!!!
Risingmyst@The Bazaar wrote: Ummm...lore of...what? Before the Shattering, full-blood elves did indeed have facial hair. How do I know this? Because in EQ1, my very first character was a Koada'Dal with... ...wait for it... ...a beard! That's right, Norrath aficionados, elves with a Fu Manchu and goatee. It's there, on their face, in your face, and... ...wait for it... ...official! That's all the 'elf lore' I need right there.
The high elf lady-boys can't be seen with a beard, it will ruin the illusion! The High Elf Fun just don't stop! "Is it a man... or a woman with very small breasts?"
AudioMechaniK wrote: The point is, if everyone could set it so players only viewed their character as SOGA or Original, then the graphics engine would have to load BOTH SETS of models simultaneously as opposed to the single set comprised of what ever mix of SOGA and Original you have selected. Some of the most resource intensive components of the game are the character models. That's why your performance decreases with more players on the screen. Forcing everyone's computers to load 66(fae, arasai,troll, kerran, iksar, and ratonga have no SOGA model) character models as opposed 36 is asking an awful lot of people's machines as well as the game's graphics engine. Adding Sarnak to the mix makes it even worse.
Alexander@Guk wrote: We already have, ratongas, kerrans,iksar,sarnak*,froglok and trolls, why not a wolf race to balance it out? and did you even LOOK at the image?!
Minoru@Permafrost wrote: yeah we have plenty of anthropomorphic animals no thank you lol Vanguard has that though...man are they creepy...little human bodies with a wolf head pasted on /shudder. The wolf race makes no sense though there are no...wolf people in the EQ world. Maybe gnolls(alkthough theyd be silly to play)... or i guess something new but, do we really need more animal people?
Sashtan@Mistmoore wrote: Oh please... how many times have they taken a previous race and beefed them up, made them look pretty [I cannot control my vocabulary] cool, and stuck em in the game for players to use. It happened to the Kerra->Vah shir->eq2 Kerrans. It happened to the frogloks... they got seriously beefed up by mith marr. it's happening now too, beefing up the sarnak and making them appealing. I would -love- a wolf race that makes those dogbutt sniffing gnolls look like pansies. that link to the deviant art pic is a perfect example.
Sarnak models are appealing? Errr ok... Frankly none of the "beast" races appeal to me but that's just me. Then again I'm restrictive in I only like elf/fae type races. But whatever makes people happy. Now I'd still like to play a 4 armed race but that would be unfair in that it could use a 2hander in one set of arms and two one handers in the other set... They could create a new race that are nothing but floating monoliths. Ok maybe not.
This news makes me a sad panda =(. I've grown accustomed to the way my main toon looks. She has looked that way since day two after launch and she's dead sexy. (High elf female- regular models). If they change anything about the way my character looks it better be absolutely amazing looking because half the fun for me is being pretty. If they change the models too much I just won't feel like "Gwendyln" anymore =(. I'm taking Maya animation in school right now and I've learned that the skeleton is basically just that, a skeleton. If you render a plain skeleton nothing even shows up. So it's possible to completely change the skeleton but keep the flesh and skin of the character exactly the same. I hope that's the plan.
Playing a dwarf, the old models weren't exactly appealing (small shoulders and looking like he's a few months pregnant). The alternate models were even more horrific. I for one would welcome a change.
As an Iksar, the plight of the softskins' models has never affected me, but I too would appreciate improvements. Our animations/models have some issues (like my tail becoming a tapeworm tucked between my legs when I put on a cloak - but then, our tails have been an issue since launch, 3 years now - or the fact that I have a chest the size of a Volkswagen and shoulders like a quarterback with a head comparatively the size of a grapefruit, rather than a more lithe figure as befits a reptile, but that's another topic). I look forward to seeing how this pans out. GwenRelentless wrote: Heh, I'm in my second year of studies with XSI, which works similarly - the skeleton is invisible, but affects everything it's attached to. So the same skeleton can be rigged to multiple models with only minor tweaks (ideally) (I think). It's also a freaking chore to set up (at least as a student - these guys do have way more experience with this crap than I do), hence why these new rigs are taking so long. Just curious, does maya CTD just when you remember you've been working for over an hour without saving like XSI does?
