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what king of a main character do you think is better? A charercter that you can create/customize any way you want or would it be better to have a pre made character that the player has very little control over.

custom character Pros. This is a kind of char you would create in elder scrolls series and other similar games. You can customize the character any way you want. you have complete control of what your character does wears, where they go and stuff. you can make up the chars personality and stuff.

cons: This kind of main character can be pretty dull so if you want gameplay top be a more immerse you have to use your imagination to give him a personality and voice (usually these kinds of characters do not have voices)otherwise it just feels like you are controlling a robot. In conversation sequences the game devs try to keep your personality neutral (or give you a few choices of good/evil responses). I usually find it difficult to pretend my characters personality and make up a back story. (its fun but it make me feel like a looser)

Pre made characters are the kind of chars with a predetermined personality, back story and look. The kind of a charecter you would find in many older RPGS like final fantasy.

pros: these main characters have a strong personality they feel more life like. They have a back story and are more interesting to play because you never know what will happen to the charecter or how will he/she react to certain circumstances and in general if the characters are written well you feel like all the characters are real people. They also make a storyline better.

cons while pre-made characters are very immerse, they come with a penalty of limited freedom because the character has their own personality. The characters usually work better in a linear type of a game. the customization for them is usually limited and it just might happen that even if the game has a good story the player may end up not liking the main character therefore refusing to play the game because of that.

that is the age old question. Me personally for some games i love being able to create my own personal character and i have a deep connection to it. But sometimes it's nice to be cloud, or sub zero, scorpion, mario the list goes on. I think it will depend on how you create the game and how the rest of your elements come to play.

the way i see it is this:

- only have a customizable character if there is plenty of stuff to customize them with. if you claim to have character customization, don't disappoint the player with only 4 choices in clothes, lol. a good example is Oblivion. you could customize what armor you wore on each part of the body, including custom enchantments and stuff.

- only have a pre-made, non-customizable character only if the character has a strong story. a good example of this is bioshock. you didn't need character customization because the story revolved around the player and a few other main characters. whereas, in Oblivion you had to define your character. there wasn't much of a story to tell you who you were(other than the main quest which just makes you a hero, but it is optional to complete anyway).

it seems like if i make a custom char i will not be able to have an awesome story

and if its a pre made character, the player will not have the freedom of gameplay. (i am very fond of freeform game play)

i think gothic made a very good job blending both of the aspects. Gothic had a very good storyline with the freeform gameplay but still not nearly as good as a final fantasy game.

Why Not? Craft your story around your MAIN Character allowing the Player to customize the characters appearance. If certain physical features are part of the story, than adlib the story based on the player's selections.

Just look at Mass Effect, the only things the story used was the sir name and male/female voices. Everything else was pretty much up to you.

In any non-linear game, I want to have the utmost control over who I'm playing and how they're leveled. That being said, it boils down to the instrinsic gameplay qualities of the title. If the story is fundamental to the player's progression, like in Metal Gear, then a pre-developed character with customization options can make a linear character design feel free-flowing. On the other hand, if the game's story comes secondary to gameplay, like in World of Warcraft, then building your character from the ground up is ideal. And naturally there are instances where the rules work oppositely... Fallout 1 and 2 have highly detailed stories, but the player is free to create their own characters and micro-manage stats. Grand Theft Auto is an entirely non-linear franchise of games where story is secondary to the quality of gameplay, but you're given a static character to explore with.

At the end of the day, I think it boils down to your own wants as a game designer. From a development perspective, would a custom character system integrate easily, and if not, what challenges would it present? Can you deliver the game's story through a custom character or is that character central to the events of the day?

And that's another good point worth mentioning... does the story revolve around the player's character? Are they superfluous in the grand scheme of things, an unpredicted wild card tossed into the deck through some hapenstance, or are they key to the start and end of the story? In other words, was the player thrust into the events of the day, or did the events of the day come into existence purely because the character did or said something? If the player's role is central to both the cause and the effect of the story, you might consider going with a static character with customizable options, whereas if this isn't the case, I say grant the player freedom in developing their character, bolstering your project's suspension of disbelief by thrusting the player into the game as themselves, rather than assuming the role of someone else.

i think i like a static character idea better.

its just that i noticed that if i am playing a premade char in a game i feel like i am playing an important role in the games story.

unlike when i play a custom character, i feel that i am just some random guy of no importance

I think there's a lot to be said of totally custom characters, if done well. If, for example, you are excellent with knives and stealth and can swim in acid, and you come across an island with an acid moat with lonely enemies patrolling the perimeter, I'd think "ooh, I'm gonna have a field day!" not just because the situation is ideal, but because it is ideal to my character, who I chose to make that way. It also adds a degree of freedom and the idea that you can make interesting, unbalanced characters which are harder but more rewarding and human.

But, if the story has your character as a central piece, and if your character's personality is vital to the story (as in, say, Metal Gear Solid) then you'd better stick with premade. I think Deus Ex did this well. You had a ton of options so you could customise gameplay as much as you wanted, but you were more or less locked on a linear story-path due to the fact that things happened to the character (rather than the character forging his own destiny). However, the fact that even small decisions would be picked up by the game (ie. if you went into the women's bathroom you'd be ticked off!) made the whole thing feel very coherent and give an illusion of freedom.