Paint a pretty picture

Customization is a big thing now a days...

Everyone wants to put their personal touch, their little flourish on something, and in video-games it isn't any different.  Almost any game you can choose now a days will come with some degree of customization.  In some it might be just picking a group affiliation, with aesthetic changes that may only be in color.  In others you can pick races, where statures and shapes are vastly different.  Or maybe you can choose your gear, make gear, or even dyes and colors.  In yet others you can go as far as to determine to the millimeter how high the cheek bones will sit.  All in all you better be ready.  With all the time you have already invested up to this point in your new gaming identity, the one most visual aspect of you is yet to be done... How will you look?

Male/Female, Human/monster/animal/other, tall/short, skinny/fat... scars... freckles... hair... It can be quite a ordeal.  I had a room mate once that literally spent over 4 hours getting the perfect face for a character using slider bars in a game.  Is that necessary, no... is it how you will do it, maybe.. but either way you should be prepared that there are options ahead.

Going back to a previous post one of the things to consider is why you are gaming.  Is this representation one of you?  or who you wish you were? or just the most bad-ass looking thing you could come up with?  Are you picking based on aesthetics or practicality?  Is this character going to look different then the last game, or are you going for the same thing?

I personally always shoot for a redheaded female in any game when possible.  I typically try to make them attractive, and "ladylike".  I do this as a representation of who I wish I were, a continuation of a virtual identity that I have created.  I sometimes will even make major choices such as race/class/ armor selection (all choices that have vastly sweeping game play impacts) based on what I think looks best.  It was every wow players worst nightmare when you got a wonderful new drop that looked just abysmal.  Did you want the stats, or did you want to not look like a walking circus?  That of course is assuming you are playing a game where you don't have to make some of the heavy choices before you start.  If you play Mass Effect, the you that you make in one game, will be the same you that you play in the next, and the one after that.  That means you might not want to skip over that character customization screen using the random features choice, because its a mug you will spend a long... long time looking at.  Here is a jump-off to a video showing just a small handful of the millions of different looks you can get using the class, and character creator modifications for Skyrim, all choices you make before you even get to get into playing the game.  Then you have Diablo 3, where the only customization you have is sex, and then the gear you wear, as well as dyes you can apply to it.  Then you can get into games like the Sims, and Second life, where customization is the name of the game!

Are You in Yet?

Okay looks like most people are able to log in now, lets talk about the next step, picking your play style.  You know your handle, we have a game in mind, but now you need to pick your character.  Many games in the RPG (Role Playing Game) genre as well as quite a few games in other genres will require you pick a distinct class/race/role/type.  While you can just go with what looks interesting and see how you like it, it is often good to realize first how you play games, so that you can minimize time spent playing the way you do not like.  This may or may not reflect how you operate in the real world.  For some virtual representations are just more extreme representations (the guy with anger issues that can let them all out), for others it can be a chance to be someone/something completely different (the quiet meek girl in the back of the room bashing in some skulls, or the fraternity bro tossing out epic heals).

So what you should do is first have a sit and think about why it is your gaming.  Is it for stress relief, to pass the time, to escape reality, for fun, to explore, for story-lines, or to be someone you are not.  Knowing this can be a great first step in picking your character.  For instance if its stress relief, venting anger, picking a passive healing type character might not be as rewarding as a big warrior/barbarian.  On the other hand if you are playing for story, intrigue, and or finesse, maybe a rougeish character or brooding mage would be more up your alley.  Some people want to be right in the middle of the action, some people want to "melt faces" from a safe distance, and you can't do any of that for long without the supportive healer types.  Here is a series that has you look at your real life through the lens of RPG's, which might help you figure out what kind of character you are in real life.  Think about whether its who you want to be online or not too!

An important note though is to even after you make your choice, somewhere down the road, experiment, you might be surprised what you like.  I started out playing video games liking the distant mage types, dark brooding, powerful and frail.  I have discovered however as much as an affinity as I may have to these types, that I enjoy playing archer/hunter type characters better, and even sometimes big beefy tanky ones.  As much as I may love reading about mages I just don't play them that well.

Error 37?

Speaking of creating the right character handle.  We have now seen the release of the much awaited Diablo 3.  There has been a incredible media storm surrounding the game, with much to talk about.  Some love it, some hate it, others have trouble trying to play it.  These issues have even made it as far as Conan Team Coco talks about Diablo III with a list of top error 37 messages.  Error 37 being an error that occurred due to to many people trying to log into the servers at once.  There were other error messages too, character creation, server authentications, etc.  But this was the most often seen and most dreaded.  37 meant you couldn't even get into the game to have the game fail.  Blizzard decided for the sake of authentication, keeping duped/hacked items down, and making a working auction house that playing even the single player would require logging in online.  Especially in line of the problems that many have faced logging during launch, I can see the frustrations.  I however for the sake of longevity of the game, will happily deal with this as opposed to players with hacked/duped items running around ruining game-play, making items worthless.