Well for the first time created a character on guild wars 2 on the stress test, nice choice of variables to personalize the character but I was hoping for a bit more.

Being an older player im thinking it would have been nice to characture (spelling??) the character similar to myself, slightly stocky with a bit of a belly (blessing from real ales ; D ) and slightly older so would be nice to make a character similar to myself, maybe a few more options to indivdualise the characters would be good.,,, what do you guys n gals think?

Apologies about the grammer an spellin just had six pints of hobgoblin English real ale..... Hic........ u starin at me pint.... hic.....

In general, I'm actually really pleased with the character creation. I think there are a good amount of options, and the sliders are just limited enough to keep people from making abominations (I'm looking at you, Aion), but still enough of a change to make the character look unique. If there was one addition I would like to see though, it would be more options in body shape. I agree that we should be able to make our dude fatter if we wanted to, rather than thin, average, or slightly muscular.

They keep the body variations within a fairly limited bracket to keep the armour from clipping/causing issues. It's a compromise I'm more than willing to make if it means crazier looking armour that always looks right.

As far as the rest of the creator, I think it's a fantastic balance between being able to really customize your look and not seeing ridiculous characters running around. I have only two major gripes: not enough Asura hairstyles, and the Norn female hairstyles share too much in common with the Human female styles--it makes both races seem nearly identical without the drastic body size difference that the males have.

Now that makes a lot of sense project, and it wasnt meant as a gripe just an observation. I think to be honest it would be great to make a character who looked at least in some ways like myself, but cant complain there are still plenty of options to personalize your avatar.

Still would love to shove a beer belly on my aged balding human thief lol.. Hic

@Malaiki said:

...it would have been nice to characture (spelling??) the character similar to myself, slightly stocky with a bit of a belly (blessing from real ales ; D ) and slightly older so would be nice to make a character similar to myself, maybe a few more options to indivdualise the characters would be good.,,, what do you guys n gals think?

Dude! You have no idea how much I agree with you!

Humans are way too pretty in GW2 - I want to make the "tired old sergeant" or "retired cop" looking guy, but I can't unless each happened to be a part time super model with buff abs.

They said there would be more options for all of the races than what we have in the Betas for launch, which is why I have only complained about it periodically - but it doesn't look like those features will make the cut atm : (

The first character I made, I tried to do a rough looking, haggard human and I managed to do well with the face but I do agree that the body options are a bit lacking. Plus, the one voice for each race is a bit annoying but it's understandable.

I actually quite like the restrictions they have, it stops people from being able to create totally immersion breaking, ridiculous looking characters.

Some body sliders would have been nice for a bit more variety though and I really think there should have been a facial detail option, so you could have scars or freckles, etc., over the face you pick.

@selfconfessedcynic said:

@Malaiki said:

...it would have been nice to characture (spelling??) the character similar to myself, slightly stocky with a bit of a belly (blessing from real ales ; D ) and slightly older so would be nice to make a character similar to myself, maybe a few more options to indivdualise the characters would be good.,,, what do you guys n gals think?

Dude! You have no idea how much I agree with you!

Humans are way too pretty in GW2 - I want to make the "tired old sergeant" or "retired cop" looking guy, but I can't unless each happened to be a part time super model with buff abs.

They said there would be more options for all of the races than what we have in the Betas for launch, which is why I have only complained about it periodically - but it doesn't look like those features will make the cut atm :

Well we still have a great game but would love to have been the old balding overweight thief slappin a cow for a killing blow on ya face annoyin type dude but i can live with young good looking buff type like everyone else : p

Bizzarely (7 pints of hobgob now spellin worse) my oild wow character was a rogue and for the laugh was half hoping I could make a WoW looking type human rogue for GW2 for a laugh, seeing as they all looked the same, maybe its just me who would find it funny or could I just be missing that 80's style flowin locks.. Long live Micahel Bolton.... Hic

I haven't spent much time in the human character creator, but my hopes pretty much end at "can make an elderly-looking person" (for those who want it, my human isn't going to be very old).

I wish there were more beard options. Right now you can be scruffy or bushy, nothing in-between.

I had a lot of fun making a man very feminine and a woman very masculine. It was an afternoon well spent.

Yeah, one of my only complaints is that all the faces seem too "pretty".

@GnomeonFire: I don't know, the Clint Eastwood face and the Jeremy Renner face are pretty hard-cut.

@selfconfessedcynic said:

They said there would be more options for all of the races than what we have in the Betas for launch, which is why I have only complained about it periodically - but it doesn't look like those features will make the cut atm : (

What?! Well shit, all my fussing over screenshots may very well end up being useless then. I suppose despite that, I really do hope there are more options at launch. Echoing already mentioned sentiment, a lot of the current characters options are just too pretty pretty.

@chrisauel: Agreed! It's basically either just weekend stubble or rustic mountain man. Would have been nice to have a more moderate beard length. Oh well, rustic mountain man it is!

I want to make my characters to be even more prettier.

@project343 said:

They keep the body variations within a fairly limited bracket to keep the armour from clipping/causing issues. It's a compromise I'm more than willing to make if it means crazier looking armour that always looks right.

As far as the rest of the creator, I think it's a fantastic balance between being able to really customize your look and not seeing ridiculous characters running around. I have only two major gripes: not enough Asura hairstyles, and the Norn female hairstyles share too much in common with the Human female styles--it makes both races seem nearly identical without the drastic body size difference that the males have.

Hm, I'm not so sure about that. Have you ever played Aion? I haven't encountered too many clipping issues and you can tweak the hell out of your body. Everything appears to scale correctly.

Anyways, I know a lot of people are against (it at least seems that way) extremely robust character creators, but that's one of my bigger gripes with the game at the moment. It's not bad, but it's not robust enough for my liking. I'd rather put up with the occasional monstrosity, or midget sporting an afro if it means I can create a more unique looking character. The more I can adjust, the more "attached" I am to the character, the more enjoyable the experience is for me. Oh well.

@Malaiki said:

Well for the first time created a character on guild wars 2 on the stress test, nice choice of variables to personalize the character but I was hoping for a bit more.

Being an older player im thinking it would have been nice to characture (spelling??) the character similar to myself, slightly stocky with a bit of a belly (blessing from real ales ; D ) and slightly older so would be nice to make a character similar to myself, maybe a few more options to indivdualise the characters would be good.,,, what do you guys n gals think?

Apologies about the grammer an spellin just had six pints of hobgoblin English real ale..... Hic........ u starin at me pint.... hic.....

Yep, I agree the character creation is a bit limited for a game of this proportion...But that's ok with me since you can create very hot chicks in humans. I will play male character with other races but my human characters somehow always end up being hot chicks...^_^

I am also quite surprised to see they did not add a whole lot of customization accessible in the gem store...I thought this would be a gold mine for them considering the number of fashion victims in MMOs ( I would probably pay a bit a money just to get a cool look off the gem store...)

@HumanoidTyphoon said:

Hm, I'm not so sure about that. Have you ever played Aion? I haven't encountered too many clipping issues and you can tweak the hell out of your body. Everything appears to scale correctly.

Anyways, I know a lot of people are against (it at least seems that way) extremely robust character creators, but that's one of my bigger gripes with the game at the moment. It's not bad, but it's not robust enough for my liking. I'd rather put up with the occasional monstrosity, or midget sporting an afro if it means I can create a more unique looking character. The more I can adjust, the more "attached" I am to the character, the more enjoyable the experience is for me. Oh well.

Well, Aion, from what I understand, has the most robust character creator in the genre. GW2's character creator is leagues beyond the standard and keeps races looking consistent.

I was going to make a new thread for this, but it's character creation stuff, so here's as good a place as any. A redditor put a bunch of work into creating images of all the major character creation options in the game. It doesn't have the sliders, hair/eye colors, or anything like that. But it does outline all the body types, faces, body markings/tattoos, and other major physical options. Just figured I'd share it with all of you here. Just a quick warning: the images are huge files.

You can make some rounder looking norn, if that's the look you're going for, or you can do like I did BWE3 and make an asuran abomination with a nose like Gonzo, ears like a mogwai, tiny beady hollow looking eyes that were so far apart they were almost on the side of it's head, then a bulbous, clown-like, hot pink afro. Topped it all off with sickly looking mottled skin and named him Mick Romnnee. Got quite a bit of attention from that, especially in charr lands lol.