So, essentially fewer templates at more freedom to modify the existing ones? No thanks. Bethesda has already been burned by the face customization in Oblivion. Let's not repeat that same mistake. Templates > customization.

Bethesda does give players a good customization tool. It is called the Construction Set. And matter of fact, you don't even need to touch the CS to change colors or add decals to in-game items.

The people who, as you say, are blindly choosing quantity over quality, are aware that it is much easier to change colors and combine individual pieces of armor, or even alter the shape of existing individual pieces of armor, than creating a set of armor from scratch. For example, if you look at my Fallout 3, I have 68 distinct custom clothes/armors which I made by combining and/or altering parts of the original vanilla armors, and many of those have different textures to them, so I have about 110 unique looks in-game in addition to the vanilla armors/clothing, plus a few items like belts, bandannas around the neck, bandoleers, etc which can be used in-game as accessories on top of any armor/clothing...

Larger Selection of Armor and Weapons with Customization ! For console i won't be able to play it on pc

Ok, if you mean customizing the colors and sizes of what you're wearing over a number of things you can actually wear then I'll stick with my original vote.
This reminds me of Fable 1 and Fable 3 actually. In Fable 1 you had a large number of Role related costumes that represented what kind of fighting style you preferred. Fable 3 took those away but had a variety of renaissance style clothing. Both games let you dye your clothes but each Fable game gave less and less weapon and clothing variety for the player. Fable>Fable2>Fable3.

So if I had to pick between meshes vs textures I'd pick meshes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfNI0HRTBHk

Larger selection of armor / weapons

I'd rather have more weapons and Armor.

Lots of loot > Lots of customization

Loot is a reward. It's something new to discover, which is what TES is all about. More customization would be a poor trade-off for finding the same 5 suits of armor in every chest and barrel...

That said, basic customization, such as dying your clothes or armor different colors (which even Two Worlds 2 allows...) is long overdue, and should be able to be implemented without impacting the quantity of loot.

More items, less customizing. I already think there's way too much csutomizing :nod:

Sure, take "quality" and customizaton. Now you've got an entire game world filled with NPCs all wearing one of 4 different sets of equipment, except for the color, and it all looks like cookie-cutter sameness, because it is. Give me a larger selection of NON-LINEAR choices any time, where it's not an automatic no-brainer to just advance to the next step in the rat-race, and I'll be a lot happier than if I can have blue trim on my armor instead of yellow.

There are choices, and then there are "meaningless" choices. Games lately seem to get better and better at giving you the latter, while it's getting hard to find one with the former anymore.

Having fewer armor/weapon/clothing just for some customization like color/crest/texture? No thank you.

I prefer more armor and weapons. As long as I can choose my facial structure, customization isn't really a problem.

Wait, what's stopping more weapons with more customization?

This. OP, basic logic is basic and less stuff = less customization. Welcome to Reality.

Do you not comprehend what they could easily do to boypass this?

They ccould create a system whereby they take their customization options, where you have a basic "equipment" template, they have each material (Steel, leather, fur, glass, etc) then within ithis they give options to customize this armor, such as different colours for one layer, then different meshes on top, symbols, etc and then you can layer clothing over/under the armour.

For npc's they can simply take this system, have a random generator for npc's which allows them to have a LOT of variety of looks. So all the npc's that even are wearing the same "base" armour still look differnet from one another.

All you guys rely WAY too much on the modding tools, seriously. I'm surprised some of you wouldn't be happy if they just shipped it and let modders build the entire game and you bash people for wanting more.

1. Not everyone plays the pc version.
2. Mods take time
3. I'd like to get the game and have GOOD customization from teh start, not having to wait months for some good mods).

I will start off playing Skyrim on Xbox 360 (until I can afford a new PC) and I still say more variety is better than being able to customize a few templates. In Morrowind for example, we had so many armor types to choose from that we could mix styles and create a unique look for our character.

Edit: Nevermind.

Oh, ok.


More gear, thanks.

Just for appearance, if I had to choose I'd prefer a lot of different choices of equipment. It's easier to recolor an item than it is to make new models, and there's a good amount of chances to personalize your gear if there's a wide selection and the ability to wear a few pieces from different sets.

If the customization had effects on the item stats, it might be worth it though, like if when smithing a steel sword you could give it a straight blade or a curved one and that would do... something. Or if using different types of glass in your armor would change its elemental resistances along with its color.

The symbols could also double as enchantment runes that would show on the item. Then if you're an experienced mage you could look at an enemy's armor and know that they have fire resistance, and switch to ice or something.

... you know

I am pretty sure he comprehends what he is talking about. I am not sure you understand, though.
As far an NPC's random clothing/armor customization, Oblivion has a decent one, whereas the clothing/armor is broken down by shoes, pants, shirt, helmets, gloves: when the NPC is enabled, the engine randomly selects one item from each and clothes the NPC.

But, to pull off the feeling of great variety, you need many meshes and textures, not a few meshes with different colored textures. Look at a game like Dragon Age Origins. In-game, hey had a gazillion pieces of armor with a gazillion different names, but they all looked the same because they were based on the very same mesh. I counted (if I remember correctly) 6 unique full armor meshes. So everyone armored looked the same, other than a shade of color. Lots of them just had the same color and mesh, just a different name. Compare that to 25-28 unique armor meshes in the vanilla Oblivion. And that is just the armors.. clothing, Oblivion had about 50 different full clothing meshes. DAO, I remember it was less than 10.

It is simple math: if we take just full meshes of armor, each armor has 5 pieces (boots, greaves, cuirass, gauntlets, helmet)
DAO 5 x 6 = 30 pieces of armor, with about 279,000 possible unique combinations
OB 5 x 25 = 125 pieces of armor, with about 275,000,000 possible unique combinations

Clearly, Oblivion gives much more unique variety.

As for your 3 points
1. Not everyone plays the pc version.
Ok. Not everyone has big screen TVs, or Blu-Ray players, or drive sports cars. One either cannot afford it, in which case there's no choice, or one chooses not to get the better medium.
2. Mods take time
Depends on the mod. For example, it took me literally a minute to make the Brotherhood of Steel armor black instead of that ugly blue.
3. I'd like to get the game and have GOOD customization from teh start, not having to wait months for some good mods).
Most games start you with no equipment at all, just a set of clothes and maybe a weapon. NO game that I know of gives you full access to all possible customizations at the beginning of the game.

I guess you can say I rely on the construction set. Matter of fact, to me, and I am sure it is the same for other modders, having a construction set is part of the entertainment we get from the game, and some of us wouldn't be buying a game full retail if it weren't for the inclusion of a construction set. It is simply the difference between buying a game you are going to play once or twice and probably complain about content/meshes/textures, vs buying a game which not only you are going to play multiple times, but as you go along, you'll be able to alter the game in whichever way you see fit, which enhances the enjoyment of said game.

Problem is, I not only comprehend what they could do, I can understand the amount of work involved, and the results.

Unless you want a lot of of the NPCs wearing 30 different patterns of the same long-sleeve shirt with collar, or 12 different textures and colors of a tight-fitting armored vest (and call each color or texture a "material"), etc., there's only so much variation you can pull off with texture and color changes. MW and OB both used dozens of different clothing meshes, with variations on sleeves, collars, overall "billow", etc. As far as I can tell, the shirts, in MW at least, were nearly all unique. They could probably have done a few less meshes with a couple of different colors and texures of each, but any more than three of four versions and they start becoming too recognizable. As with most othere things in life and in games, some balance between the extremes is generally better than either extreme. Having layers is a totally seperate issue, and one I hope they bring back because of the character customization it allows you to pull off WITHOUT dedicated custom options.

For those of us who play on PC, the lack of variety is just as annoying as on console when the game is first released, although things eventually get better as mods become available. To me, having the Orange version of something instead of the Purple one is meaningless; I want REAL gameplay differences and reasonable variation that LOOKS like it should behave differently. Besides, the funky colors of a lot of modern video game items are just silly, in my opinion, when 99% of it would have been just bare metal or leather on the face of it. The one place where elaborate graphics SHOULD be used would be shields, which were often decorated with a unique and elaborate family crest or unit emblem, rarely the basic colors or symbols we get in games.

Kinda go hand in hand..if we have fewer armor with more customization then we have more...armor...but..more unique armor...uhhh...so either way it means more....

Return more equipment slots so there will be even more cusomizability then in Oblivion, retextures and meshwork left to modders, its one of most popular Moding Option.
No need 10 robes thats have only changes in texture, more unique look instead of cloning will be much better at last give them more details.

The problem is 200,000,000 of those possible combinations look awful. I'm still voting for more armor, though. I just hope the colors are a bit more subdued than in Oblivion. The pieces in Oblivion just did not fit as well as I hoped they would. I like to mix and match.