More Variation in MMORPG Character Creation and Development Please
Why do so many Free MMORPGs have such piss poor character customization? My expectations for character customization have never been too high, but I constantly find myself having to lower my expectations every time I download a new free MMO. The last game I played was called ‘Chaos Online’ and the only form of character customization was the ability to select a character portrait which had absolutely no effect on my avatar’s actual graphical appearance in the game. So what does this mean? Well it means that I and every other ‘Warrior’ in ‘Chaos Online’ look identical. I don’t know about you, but seeing doppelgangers of myself isn’t my idea of an MMORPG. On top of that, players have no control over their characters gender, which is absurd. I mean, how much extra coding would it take to allow a player to pick their own dang gender?
To be fair, Chaos Online isn’t the only game that has terrible character customization. Games like WYD Global and Redstone also have lousy character creation options. I don’t expect free MMORPGs to have ‘Perfect World‘ like customization where players can create a truly unique character, but it would be nice to be able to change a few physical attributes, hair style, hair type and gender. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, but the option to personalize a character really adds a lot to the game, at least in my opinion.
Aside from actual character appearance, a lot of MMORPGs don’t feel as open ended enough with character development. I’d say about 90% of free MMORPGs have such limited character development options that practically all ‘warriors’ are built the same in terms of skills and stats just as all ‘mages’ are built in the same way. I guess the only way to fix this issue would be to have a larger variety of skills and fewer skill points, that way players would have to only select the skills that they ‘really want’ and the large variety of skills would ensure that no two players are built the same exact way.
