Let's Be Honest: Lackluster Characters

Ravinsild

First of all: I have no clue where to post this...there isn't a suggestions forum nor is there a general discussion. So I put it here because this is my faction and it is in regards to the character you use.

Now to the point: I have played many MMOs, Aion, Tera, City of Heroes, Lord of the Rings: Online, WoW, Guild Wars 1 and perhaps a few others..

However World of Warcraft is the one I played longest since 2007..and I think I know a small piece of WHY they are so successful, that being they bring your character to life.

What do I mean by this? Well have you noticed that when you create your character in ESO you get a voice option that is utterly worthless? In WoW character customization is horrible, you get like 4 faces, 20 hairstyles, a couple of random trinkets like 4 horn types for tauren or 6 tusk types for trolls and that's basically it.

However when you do /flirt or /joke or /charge or even /taunt each character has cultural specific lines like 4 or 5 variants maybe more. Night Elves talk about nature in their jokes and flirts...Blood Elves play up that "pretty boy/girl" stereotype with haircuts and getting their nails done etc... Trolls play up on the tribal theme and so forth.

Even though every character SOUNDS EXACTLY THE SAME they feel ALIVE and part of the world! A troll joke is contextual to troll culture and ties in with the lore.

In addition with the new character models coming out WoW is giving each character facial expressions. When you do /fear they now actually look terrified. When you do /laugh they have joyful expressions. Even when they talk their mouths and faces are animated, and this started in 2011 with the Goblins and Worgen...then again when Mists came out with the Pandaren.

Now over to our favorite game here ESO. Does my character's face ever change? Does he ever look afraid? Does his face change other than the muppet flapping mouth when he talks, if that even happens AT ALL? Even when you do /yell in WoW they throw their hands into the air and look like they're shouting at someone far away.

In ESO does my character do ANYTHING? There is no /taunt or /flirt or /joke or anything to use one of the like 8 different voice options. Seriously, what was the point in having so many voices if they're never used except when screaming while you fall?

My character doesn't even effing feel like a Khajiit. In response dialogue my character doesn't refer to him in third person or "This one" and no NPC seems to recognize his race. Even if WoW's quests weren't voiced acted they at least had modifiers for #class or #race where it would insert that specific to YOU.

This is a modern MMO so why do the characters SUCK ASS? No facial animations for fear or smiling or anything, just static face. No options to use the voice that I picked. Bare bones characters and you don't even feel like a certain race. I love this game, honestly I do, but I am just really sad that this seems like such a big and missed opportunity and I'm not sure how they can even rectify it.

Does anyone else agree or disagree and why?

juic3

So basically.... you want better emotes? Give the game time to develops man, it just came out. WoW had 10 years to get to where it is now.

GreenPineapples

But there is /taunt, /flirt ... maybe not to what you want though

Ravinsild

Oh right, flirt is blowing a kiss if I remember correctly.

Yes I want better emotes with voice acting using the voice I picked for my character and I want facial expressions when talking and such. Like my character actually moving when I do /say and moving when I /yell

WoW had these animations and jokes 10 years ago even on their awful looking crappy characters.

Edit: If I am not mistaken ESO was in development 4 years ago also

aftershox

@Ravinsild Have patience friend. ESO has a ton of customization options, maybe there is a technical reason (3rd person perspective) why avatar facial animation doesn't exist for emotes.

Jonnymorrow

juic3 wrote: »

So basically.... you want better emotes? Give the game time to develops man, it just came out. WoW had 10 years to get to where it is now.

And it's still ***

Ravinsild

aftershox wrote: »

@Ravinsild Have patience friend. ESO has a ton of customization options, maybe there is a technical reason (3rd person perspective) why avatar facial animation doesn't exist for emotes.

While I understand Blizzard and Zenimax Online use entirely different game engines, WoW is literally only a 3rd person game. You CAN zoom in to first person in WoW if you want, but it is in no way practical.

I do love this game, but I think these little details would really take it to the next level in immersion and bringing you character to life.

Eldrenath

This is one of those things that comes down to tastes and preferences. For example, I have absolutely zero interest in emotes. I think I've done maybe one emote since the game launched. I don't know what the emotes in ESO look like and I don't care.

That's not to say that they shouldn't add more or improve them--I know other players like them and that's cool. But in my guild, we love the way the characters look. I think the options are great and am very happy with them. I couldn't care less about emotes or facial expressions. On my list of things I'd like to see improved these things are way, way down the list. Emotes, facial expressions, and toon voice do nothing for me in terms of immersion. All I care about is the little visual details that make the world feel real, storyline, and character appearance (and the crafting system allows for a lot of variation in appearance, I think).

But that's just my personal preference--and I know some disagree. I respect your opinion, but completely disagree. Emotes and voices do not make the game more immersive--they make it more immersive for certain people. I and most of my guildies I've talked to do not find characterization in any way lacking.

Ravinsild

Don't get me wrong, I love character creation. I like the sliders, the facial hair options, the adornments tab, all the different scars and body paint and such things.

I like the different sorts of faces like heroic, or soft or angular, I think the creation is in depth and thorough.

However in my opinion the characters lack cultural identity because they're all entirely silent protagonists that literally NEVER use the voice option you select.

I think just these small details will bring already great character customization to the very next level of awesome, and to me the character is #1 focus because that's the medium through which you interact with the world.

That said: I agree, there is quite a bit of work to do on the game. The Vampire and Werewolf trees are riddled with bugs as well as several Nightblade class interactions among many things. I'm not saying that this should be priority #1, just something to thing about.

Branbran

Ravinsild wrote: »

First of all: I have no clue where to post this...there isn't a suggestions forum nor is there a general discussion. So I put it here because this is my faction and it is in regards to the character you use.

Probably Customer Support. That's where most people post when they have something to complain about the game in general.

Yankee

Your suggestions are cool, maybe they can file them away to examine in a major patch down the road.

For now..... I will be happy when I can trust to role a second character without risk of losing my mains 100 bank slots and contents.

This game needs to walk before worrying about running.

cchin256b16_ESO

WoW doesn't have /lute or /flute. When an NPC is running through his long winded dialogue for the 6th time in a dungeon it's customary to type /lute to give him/her some epic background tunes.

cubansyrusb16_ESO

/lute ... enough said show that to WoW

MysticAura

Emotes aside.. I really would like npc's to recognize a characters race at the least. Or even for the character themselves to recognize their own race. I was kind of baffled when my wood-elf asked an npc if she'd have to be a wood-elf to join.. umm what?

Kokosnootje92

Well, when it comes to playing musical instruments, I really think there should be quests for that. Or tough dungeons, just to get those special instruments. The way it is now, everyone can play music without having done something for it!
And I agree with OP, but it doesn't has that much priority at the moment. I'd rather see some improvement in the downtime for maintenances. But as has been said by the old and wise Yankee: "This game needs to walk before worrying about running."

yodased

couple of things I am confused about:

1. You are upset because the 100s of emotes available in the game don't reference your specific race.
2. you are upset because the 100s of emotes available in the game don't reference your specific voice actor choice.
3. You are upset because the facial animations don't match during the 100s of emotes available in the game

Just want to make sure that this is actually what we are talking about before I comment further.

NordJitsu

/drunk

View facial animations.

Ravinsild

yodased wrote: »

couple of things I am confused about:

1. You are upset because the 100s of emotes available in the game don't reference your specific race.
2. you are upset because the 100s of emotes available in the game don't reference your specific voice actor choice.
3. You are upset because the facial animations don't match during the 100s of emotes available in the game

Just want to make sure that this is actually what we are talking about before I comment further.

For #1 sort of. I'm not sure there IS a /joke or /silly that I know if. If there were I would like it to be racially contextual. Obviously a Khajiit is going to find something funnier than say a Nord. Khajiit jokes may be about the two moons and such. Same with their flirts. An Argonians may be about slick scales and sun on their scales and stuff. It is very, very clear to me that each race has its own very distinct and unique culture. There is no race I've met where it's like "I am a generic human" or anything. Everyone has their cultures and traditions and belief systems and how they view the world. The Green Pact is a huge deal to Wood Elves. I'm sure there could be some witty jokes or flirts tied in to that. Meanwhile most other races have -no idea- what the green pact is. I saw a Khajiit getting death sentence threatened by a Wood Elf and talked to the Wood Elf and he's like "No you're right...most people probably don't know or understand."

For #2 yes: Because otherwise why pick a voice actor at all? Why have 10 different sounding voices if they're never used other than when falling and maybe in combat-ish. Might as well be like WoW where every troll sounds exactly the same, every Blood Elf sounds exactly the same. Wasted voice potential here.

#3 I am not upset per say, I'm just saying that having your character animated while talking in /say or doing /yell just like how people talk, moving their hands and such. Like the NPCs do when you talk to them. Just generally more animated to feel more alive other than just standing there like a lump in the world.

GoofyGoober88

If you role a Khajiit there is an add on called "Khajiit Speak" http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info157-KhajiitSpeak.html which makes your responses more Khajiit like.

Calaban

I could not care less.

Mishoniko

The PC does come off as wooden in his/her silent protagonist role, though this isn't unique to ESO per se. Not every player character is Link who moonlights as a mime in his off time. Its a conscious design choice on the part of the developers and how well it comes off depends on how NPCs interact with the character and whether they speak to the character or speak to the player.

On the flip side, having a voiced PC can disconnect the player from the character and can lead to players feeling like they are not in control, especially if they do not attach to the persona.

I have a bigger problem with the inability of NPCs to visually show emotion; sometimes you can catch them furrowing/unfurrowing their brows but the models don't show this well at all (they can't squint dynamically), and sometimes they have a happy mouth and sometimes a pouty mouth. Its worse for Khajiit/Argonians who have fixed mouth animations.

For all the pronunciation errors and duplicated voices, par for the course for a TES title, the voice actors do a passable to decent job expressing emotion with some exceptions. There's one male elf voice who is just reading from the script without any direction or emotion at all, and a female redguard voice overdoes it and butchers the pronunciation.

If anything the issues with the everyday actors highlight the contrast with the key NPCs (Razum-Dar, faction royalty, Mannimarco, Daedric Princes, etc.) who generally shine in their parts. Abnur Tharn in his genre-savvyness (and getting called out on it) and Sheogorath in full-on scenery-chewing mode are quite memorable.

GoofyGoober88 wrote: »

If you role a Khajiit there is an add on called "Khajiit Speak" http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info157-KhajiitSpeak.html which makes your responses more Khajiit like.

That. is. awesome. Installing right now.

/Also want addon that changes "Goodbye" to "I should go."
//"Khajiit should go"?

Ravinsild

Mishoniko wrote: »

The PC does come off as wooden in his/her silent protagonist role, though this isn't unique to ESO per se. Not every player character is Link who moonlights as a mime in his off time. Its a conscious design choice on the part of the developers and how well it comes off depends on how NPCs interact with the character and whether they speak to the character or speak to the player.

On the flip side, having a voiced PC can disconnect the player from the character and can lead to players feeling like they are not in control, especially if they do not attach to the persona.

I have a bigger problem with the inability of NPCs to visually show emotion; sometimes you can catch them furrowing/unfurrowing their brows but the models don't show this well at all (they can't squint dynamically), and sometimes they have a happy mouth and sometimes a pouty mouth. Its worse for Khajiit/Argonians who have fixed mouth animations.

For all the pronunciation errors and duplicated voices, par for the course for a TES title, the voice actors do a passable to decent job expressing emotion with some exceptions. There's one male elf voice who is just reading from the script without any direction or emotion at all, and a female redguard voice overdoes it and butchers the pronunciation.

If anything the issues with the everyday actors highlight the contrast with the key NPCs (Razum-Dar, faction royalty, Mannimarco, Daedric Princes, etc.) who generally shine in their parts. Abnur Tharn in his genre-savvyness (and getting called out on it) and Sheogorath in full-on scenery-chewing mode are quite memorable.

GoofyGoober88 wrote: »

If you role a Khajiit there is an add on called "Khajiit Speak" http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info157-KhajiitSpeak.html which makes your responses more Khajiit like.

That. is. awesome. Installing right now.

/Also want addon that changes "Goodbye" to "I should go."
//"Khajiit should go"?

This is echoing my sentiments strongly.

In addition the reason I would like the jokes and such is because it really helps the cultures come to life. In real life we joke about things in our culture: Our jokes, our comedy reflects our culture and holds a mirror up to it.

So do the jokes of the races in World of Warcraft which brings their cultures to life. Undead jokes are about what it's like to be dead saying things like, "I don't see color" for a punchline and "That was a real knee slapper...I skipped my knee cap right across the lake!"

It sort of brings life to this culture of death and being a sentient zombie so to speak.

I think that if there were voice acted and culturally relevant jokes for each race then it would really go that extra mile to absolutely bring this world to LIFE and make it feel like a 100% immersive experience with a character that feels responsive and realistic as opposed to silent wood man walking about barely doing or expressing anything in a generic fashion regardless of race or class.

Edit: This is not a "Let's make ESO like WoW". What this IS is a comparison with another developer that had great success in their world building. I would like to take that same concept of immersive world building and make Elder Scrolls Online the best Tamriel anyone has ever experienced with characters that feel alive and a part of the world they inhabit. That will take it just over the edge where you feel like your character was born and raised there, a citizen of Tamriel rather than a visitor wearing their skin(s).

I want Tamriel to spring to life in a vivid and inspiring, capturing way, more so than it already has. The Lorebooks are incredible, the active events like Dark Anchors and Molag Bal the main enemy speaking to you from "The Heavens"(?) and the NPC dialogue, the random events where you see some bandits like mugging someone as they plead for their life. All of these are perfect and done even better than World of Warcraft.

The game is phenomenal, but think of just how slightly much better it would be with such immersive character design. I really think most would take it for granted and would be blind to the actual impact, but overall would feel even more enriched and satisfied because of it.

S1D3FX

Calaban wrote: »

I could not care less.

darthbelanb14_ESO

TBH, this should be the very last thing on their minds. Too many things need fixed and balanced. This should be one of those "if the developer can get to it on his or her own time" things.

For me, these kinds of features are somewhat immersion breaking, useless, and adds nothing to the environment or gameplay. Really, the only emote I use is /playdead, because it's half comical.

darthbelanb14_ESO

Also, at some point those "conversations" will get annoying and repetitive. They don't seem alive when they say the same thing over and over and over, like robots.