Everyone agrees that the more customization, the more fun it is to be unique in an MMORPG, but will we ever get to the point where there's just... too much?

In the course of evolution that MMORPGs have gone through, a number of significant features have been implemented and have proven to be so popular that they became inextricably tied to the MMO genre. Of course, these features don't need to be in an MMO in order for it to be a success, but the popularity of the feature itself can be tempting to copy or develop upon. Take, for example, when Mythic introduced "Realm versus Realm" combat in Dark Age of Camelot, and then followed up on this with more RvR goodness in Warhammer Online. Now we see games like EVE Online, Final Fantasy XI, Ragnarok Online, Planetside and even World of Warcraft employing various forms of RvR, where pre-set player factions fight against each other for territorial supremacy.

These days, however, RvR doesn't appear to be the great feature that's sweeping the MMO development world - it seems as though customization is where our latest games are heading. For example, EVE Online is all about customization, Final Fantasy XI has merit points, where players can choose three or four bonuses they want from a pool of ten choices and World of Warcraft's introduction of gems and runes allow players the opportunity to further customize their characters' abilities and capitalize upon their strengths and weaknesses. During this year in particular, character customization was ramped up even more with the launch of Champions Online and Aion, which feature two different 'styles' of customization; CO with its absolutely mind-boggling full character customization and freestyle power choices, and Aion with its incredibly deep aesthetic character creation system. On paper, it would seem that full range customization options like these are fantastic ways to let users feel 'unique' with their character, but is it all sunshine and happiness?

Unfortunately, character customization also comes with all sorts of pitfalls. For example, when characters are allowed to completely customize their character equipment looks, this often comes at the sacrifice of aesthetic motivation (I'll get back to this) when it comes to getting new gear, or, at worst, it inhibits PvP and makes everything extremely difficult to 'read.' You see, most games that are serious about PvP do try to make their character classes as 'recognizable' as possible. Tanks look like tanks, and squishy mages look like squishy mages, and they also have differing pieces of equipment that allow the opposition to distinguish between the two. In other games, however, this advantage is lost, and when the opposition-and you-are able to completely hide your 'class' and abilities, it can definitely make PvP a confusing affair. Have you ever seen a healer in the form of a massive behemoth, and a tank in the form of a dainty little schoolgirl? It's quite disconcerting.

I mentioned earlier that complete character aesthetic customization, including equipment, inhibits a big motivation when it comes to getting better gear-the looks. I can recall the times when I was most driven to play a game and work hard for a piece of gear, and for each of those times, I was much more focused on how the item looked, rather than what it did. The headset that I worked for at least two weeks for in Ragnarok Online merely offered a tiny defence bonus, but it looked so cool, or the full set of Dreamstate T3 Druid gear that I really wanted from Naxxramas - that had nothing to do with the stats or bonuses of the set, rather, I thought that it looked so amazing, I just really wanted to get it. It's really that gradual 'gearing up' process, aesthetically speaking, that gives MMORPGs a good amount of their charm, and character equipment customization outside of being able to dye items seems, to me, to take some of that charm away.

Moving further along this line of character aesthetics, there are also those who exploit these character creation systems to gain as many advantages as possible through a system intended for diversity. For example, one premier Aion PvP guild has, on the front of their website in huge letters, the stipulation that "all healers and casters need to make their character as small as possible, and all tanks must make their character as big as possible. No exceptions." If you didn't know, in Aion, players are able to make their characters about 3" tall, up to a maximum of about 7" to 8" tall. In this way, healers can, literally, hide in the lower body of a massive tank to elude their enemies. Of course, the team at Aion has taken steps, like normalizing hitboxes, to rectify this, but anything short of limiting the height restrictions to 5" to 7", will still leave Aion rife with master midget PvPers.

Finally, when games like Champions Online come out with absolutely full customization from the powers to the aesthetics, it becomes extremely difficult to prevent players from simply picking and choosing the most powerful abilities of the moment, and then dominating PvP until these abilities are nerfed. For example, the Mini-mines power in Munitions dealt an incredible amount of damage in an AoE around the caster, and PvPers would simply teleport around dropping mini-mines on unsuspecting targets, then hitting then repeatedly with a shotgun. Of course, the team at Cryptic has stayed on the ball, and they've taken the necessary steps to nerf this, but who's to say that players won't simply respec to a new powerful ability, until that gets changed? Don't get me wrong here, I do find that Champions Online has a good amount of charm with its complete character customization, and I spent a great deal of time building my power armour / electric themed hero, but I'm currently terrified to commit myself to any popular abilities, as there might be nerfs later on that force me to pay the exorbitant 'retcon' (CO's version of a respec) prices to become viable once more.

All in all, when it comes to character customization, it can't be something as simple as "pick and choose everything you want from anything," because there will always be players who exploit this to great effect. Part of the power gamer's success really stems from the fact that the general population usually does use these systems "as they were intended." Since I didn't happen to create that perfect midget healer in Aion, or I didn't pick Regeneration, Mini-mines and Teleport for PvP in Champions Online, I've found that, in a game where the team wants me to create my dream character, I've simply chosen wrong. Is that right?

Christopher "Pwyff" Tom
Editor
ZAM.com