EVE Blog Banter #1 – Going For A Stroll Through EVE

Does My Bum Look Big In This?

Concept art of an Amarr of the Khanid faction

When a game such as EVE, which previous to Ambulation dealt only with ships and their exteriors, introduces full body avatars, someone needs to design the clothes those avatars wear. Granted, we’re all naked in our pods, but we wouldn’t want to walk down the main boulevard of a station off Tash-Murkon Prime wearing nothing but the goo we spend most of our time in. We are starship pilots, the cream of New Eden society, and our clothing should reflect that.

CCP have hired professional fashion designers to design the clothing for our new bodies, but I for one would love the opportunity to design my own outfit. Hopefully CCP will have built such a wide range of options for clothing, and allowed different items from a variety of outfits to be mixed and matched, that we’ll never meet anyone wearing exactly the same clothes as us. Theres nothing worse than turning up at a party wearing exactly the same outfit as another party-goer (or so I’m told, not being a woman I don’t really understand such neuroses).

Ambulation, having its origins in the question of how to get more girls to play EVE, should allow players to  design their own clothing from scratch and sell those designs in a nice little boutique. This, of course, is not going to happen (Yet™), and we’ll have to make do with the mix and match options for the time being, I just hope there are plenty of them.

This Is My Body.

The level of flexibility allowed for in Ambulation’s avatar creation suite is yet to be seen, but there looks to be a wide variety of options available when we choose our corporeal form. This aspect of Ambulation is even more important than clothing in my opinion (but then I’m male, if it’s not actively trying to crawl away from me and doesn’t smell too bad I’ll wear it to a wedding). Your clothes you can change, your body is something you’re stuck with. Though not as stuck as you might think.

Ambulation should allow you to have a body less generic than this one.

Other options for commercial enterprises in Ambulation include tattoo parlours (custom tattoos? I think not) and cosmetic surgeons. Want an extra ear in the middle of your forehead? Its yours. Eyes in the palms of your hands? Eeww, but ok. Now I’m not saying that these things will be available, just that cosmetic surgery and other body modification will be. It will cost you though and frankly I have more important things to spend my hard earned ISK on. So choosing a body that your happy with from the outset is important and having as wide a variety of options in that regard is essential if we don’t want to look like a load of clones. (You know what I mean, pedants will be ostracised).

I would respectfully suggest to CCP that they try something like EA did with the Spore Creature Creator, release the tool with which you create your avatar a while before Ambulation actually drops to give people a chance to fiddle with it and find out what it can do. This will give people a chance to settle on a look that suits them and not be stuck with something which they’ve thrown together on release simply so they can get into the game.

I’m assuming of course that the avatar creator will be forced on people when they first log in after the Ambulation update. This would be unfair and people would rush through it in order to get on with their daily EVE lives, possibly ending up with an avatar which they have no attachment to or sympathy with. (Personally I hate my main’s portrait and relish the chance to redesign good old Jmarr’s face, ugly bugger that he is.)

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