Another Game Survey... Greatly Appreciated
Sorry to spam you guys with another survey, I'd just be extremely thankful for another fill-ins as its in aid of me writing my dissertation about the effects of character builders on game play. Only a few questions to answer.
Questionnaire: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/55KP8YF
Pint on me for all who answer...
Thanks.![:\](https://polycount.com/plugins/emojiextender/emoji/twitter/confused.png ":\")
Questionnaire: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/55KP8YF
Pint on me for all who answer...
Thanks.
Replies
But to be honest you'd get far more useful responses if you phrased it in a question instead of a survey.
I do not think this is a question of "this or that". If its a single player game, then character customization is not really important to me at all. But if its a MMORPG then its a must.
Any other multiplayer genre like FPS/RTS then I'd say its not as important, but nice to have (like tf2 hats).
Well the survey is more to get a basic opinion rather than to base my dissertation on the analysis of the results.
People don't like answering a question to in depth so I've basically been instructed to do a survey to get a variety of responses to back up case studies on such games as single players and mmorpg's etc. so the dissertation isn't 100% biased from my opinion on things. For example Mass Effect is a single player game has a large section of customisation, but is their much point to it.
Which one is better? I like them both, done well. I don't really enjoy Mass Effect (or its sequel), but I also don't think character customization has anything to do with it, as I think that part is kind of fun. Perhaps however it is the adjacent lack of "character" Shepard has. The game seems to revolve too much around its fictional universe and plot to have such a blurry main character.
But, uh, really I have no idea why I don't like Mass Effect. Maybe it was all just too spoiled for me; person I live with loves the series and I could not, having already seen most of it, enjoy playing the game myself.
I do think that if the "main plot" were less apparent I'd enjoy it more. Character customization (and thereby an 'everyman' main character) almost demands a sandbox-style gaming environment for me.
By the way you have been asking the wrong questions IMO where the verity of people would choose different characters and spend less time editing their character(s)
Good model of the character is not important if you have a good storyline. (big example..world of warcraft)
RTS: have small models so it is not necessary to create good models for it but people would do that anyways just to be accurate and precise animation and feel of the game. Though; environment model should be good.
PVP RTS style: neither the character and the environment should be good but fairly modeled. Because the character is small and people would pay less attention to the environment and more to their goal. Which is, killing the opponent.
PVP FPS: I've seen the games like Soldiers front and CS (not the source) had awsome ratings of players. Yet they dont have a good environment but enough details in it for defination. As long as the balance is good, it doesnt really matter. Another example would be..WarRock
Alot of people do not choose their own gender for their characters because mostly guys would love to role a female....
Just stating this.
Yozora and ZacD make some valid points. You probably need to narrow down the games you're asking about. Since your survey seems to be about the strength of stories, and the customization of characters, you might also want to clarify whether you refer to online or single-player games, as i believe most MMO's allow for avatar customization.
On the topic of character customization in, say western versus Japanese/asian RPGs, you'll see some clear cut trends and traditions. With JRPGs usually being about a special snowflake, and WRPGs making the snowflake personal for you.
WRPGs with its choice of hero or heroine can somewhat appeal to a wider audience imo, and a good, solid main plot that is malleable at points to fit the custom snowflake in makes a good game too. Mass effect, or Jade empire, as well as Oblivion serve as good examples to how they break down the story in the game.:)
- It's going to make a story difference of some sort (like the character's gender in games like Star Wars:KOTOR and its sequel)
- The customization is minor, such as alternate outfits or color schemes in a fighting game.
- The player character has no distinct personality, but it's a third person game, so I'm going to be looking at him/her for the whole game.
- The customization is at least partially an indication of gameplay choices I've made (such as different types of armor or weapons)
- It's a multiplayer game and other players can see my character while playing.
The level of customization available that I like to see is, in the above list, in ascending order. In the last case, I consider support for fully user-generated customizations, made outside the game by fans, pretty important for any multiplayer game that doesn't require a specific character style to be playable (arena combat games like UT and Q3A for instance). And in the ones that do require a certain style (class-based games like TF2, for instance) I still like to see a lot of options for customization as much as possible. Even something as small as the custom sprays in Valve games makes multiplayer a little more enjoyable.
I think really I ment to match your replies to the later questions in response to which game you played the most, I should of made that clearer. (the greatness of surveymonkey allows me to do this).
Does it not feel like in a lot of these games now though that your making part of the story while playing the rest? For example in ME would it not allow a stronger story and maybe even stronger immersion if they just designed and build on a a single character. You are called Shepard through-out anyway which killed it for me a bit.
Yea i've found this too, females tend to just play females aswell, but that also seems because females tend to try to make themselves in editors (from my research so far...) but that could be because they tend to sway towards games such as The Sims.
No, not "most". Just play WoW or any other popular mmo and you'd see that actually "most" people choose their own genders.
There are however a lot of people who do choose gender based on looks but they certainly aren't the majority.
I myself choose whatever looks best. It depends on the art rather than the gender.
fly_soup's list of "rules" are quite true for me as well when it comes to character customization in games.
Oh, you need an extra 'o' in here: "I find most character editors to complicated"
Thats why I said most people, not the majority. In your words "Alot," but not the majority. Practically you disagreed with me in one statement and agreed with me on the same thing in your second statement.
I do play wow and I just said that based on my assumption.
Alot of people would also customize their character based on the class they pick thats why I said his questions are very limited to certain boundries. Or wrong.
I hope it helps him though. =\
do let us know the results
Most and majority mean the same thing in this context... if you say "most people", it means the majority of people.
And then you did it again, "most" people don't customize their character based on class, instead its based on stats, bonuses or looks.
The class is a limitation forced onto the player, not allowing them to wear other class restricted items and forcing a range of pre-determined sets onto the player.
I've never seen someone wear something because "they're a shaman". Most people equip it because of the stats or bonuses it provides, some people equip things for looks.
But then again I always play on PVP servers for any MMO. I'd imagine the mentality to be vastly different for people who play on roleplay servers - where class may actually affect the items they wear (like oh I'm a shaman, I need to find something with skulls on it... or a druid refusing to equip anything made of non-natural materials - or maybe just opting to go naked)
I know for a fact that Roleplayers are in the minority just by looking at the server lists, so however they think about character customization, it cant be used to describe what "most" players would think.
@ Rick - He was also missing "puzzle" as a genre, but at least added a "other" box to put whatever you want.
But anyways.
"A lot of people." I'll edit my posts shortly. Thanks.
EDIT: I wasnt talking about gear-wear to begin with. I was talking about the class only. "A LOT" of people would pick the race and gender that suits the class. For example: Female Gnome (with 2 pink pony-tails) as a mage or warrior. Male Gnome as a warlock or rogue. Female Night Elf as druid. Draenei (doesnt matter which gender because both almost look the same, espacially the chest part) as Shammy. Human Male Pally. Dwarf Male Warrior/Pally, and so on.
And lucky I did add that other box because you guys have added about 10 more things to the list lol.
I know the questionnaire isn't perfect but I've had a great response so far with some interesting results. The discussion on here is helping me out a tonne too. So thanks a bunch guys. :poly121:
Oh on a separate note you guys might know, see in games like APB and Fallout where theres quite a vast ability of customisation, how involved is the character artist and/or concept artist? Is it they just make a basic model and the programmer does the work of changing proportions etc or would the artist quickly made say a fat guy with that body type, thin guy, musclely guy etc? Just curious about the work flow involved.
I fail to see where you draw your conclusions from... when you think "warrior" you instinctively think "female gnome with 2 pink pony tails"?
This is a impossible argument to prove (from your side) unless you go and gather all the statistics for every warrior in all the wow servers and the numbers for the female gnomes are substantially greater than the other race/genders.
If its not substantially greater then you might as well say night elf warrior, gnome mage, etc... you know, it doesnt actually matter because it's a pointless argument.
Plus you just contradicted yourself by putting warrior in both female gnome AND male dwarf. And then again with the human/dwarf pally. Your argument is meant to prove that the class affects the player's choice in race/gender... all it really proves is that Blizzard has implemented a set of class/race combinations that forces the player to pick the race based on class.
Oh and even if you did get those statistics, it still wouldnt prove your point anyway unless you made a survey asking whether the choice in class affected their choice in gender/race, and whether that choice was theirs or whether it was enforced upon by the game designers (for example in WoW if you choose druid, you're gonna have to choose night elf/tauren as race - until the next expansion at least).
And then add in these questions;
why did you choose this race?
(1) for the racial bonuses
(2) for looks
(3) because there was no other choice
(4) for variety (the player may already have some other characters that are other races)
(5) no particular reason, just chose whatever
(6) because it suited the class I chose
why did you choose this gender?
(1) because its the same gender as myself (the player)
(2) for looks
(3) for fun (maybe they wanna act like a girl/boy, or maybe its a roleplayer)
(4) for variety (the player may already have another character that is the opposite gender)
(5) no particular reason, just chose whatever
(6) because it suited the class I chose
I'm willing to bet that most people would not pick (6) for either question. But I'd love to be proved wrong as well.
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001369.php
Class/Race discussion here. I dont know if this chart will help you in any case but oh well.
http://www.sk-gaming.com/content/15534-Most_Popular_PvP_Races__Genders
Cant believe this topic wasnt discussed anywhere in wow. =\
My apologies to Yozora for any offense. But I'd like to conclude this off topic discussion and stay on topic which is OT's survey.
Thanks and regards!!
Well I know I added "Fighting games", I am interested in knowing what the other 9 are. Care to share?:)
(hope people dont mind me posting these, they are anonymous anyway)
So Ive got - adventure, Platformer, Action, Sandbox games, hack and slash, Side-Scroller, fighting games, FPS RPG, Role Playing Strategy, Puzzle, Immersive nonlinear computer RPGs.
Few of those could be mixed and matched I guess.
58 male to 3 female responses so far, polycount needs more females lol.
Games industry could use more chicks >.>