Persephone Astrid's YarrJournal

Here’s another wallpaper-type screenie. This time, it’s an Ishkur and an Ishtar. Oh, the drones we could unleash on someone. . .

(Click image for 1680 x 1050 version.)

Whilst out flying spaceships with The Bastards earlier today, I snapped this nice close-up of my Ishkur being closely followed by a Thorax, and then cleaned up the image in GIMP to make it suitable for use as a wallpaper. I also grabbed some close-ups of the Ishkur flying in formation with an Ishtar, but they didn’t come out as nicely. *sad face*

(Click on the image to see the full-sized 1680×1050 version.)

There have been a number of complaints about the new avatar tools included in Incarna 1.1, and almost all of them are justified. Some complain that their tattoos are missing. Some complain that the clothing choices are limited. Some complain that all they can see of themselves in the editor is a disembodied and free-floating set of teeth, which obviously makes it impossible to make an avatar. Yet others complain that the interface is a bit fiddly and hard to understand. Like anything CCP puts out, the first go-around was not completely ready to go live. Fortunately for CCP, the players of EVE Online are a resourceful and rugged lot, used to working with less-than-ideal tools.

Even so, it is gratifying to see that CCP are paying attention to their customers, as it seems that getting an additional do-over on a bungled avatar requires merely that we ask them for one. I found myself in need of a do-over last night.

Late last night I got the urge to play with the avatar maker and to use my first free do-over (the one granted to everyone who had made an avatar in the time between the launch of 1.1.0 and 1.1.1, see this thread) to update my first attempt at an Incarna avatar. I don’t know what I was thinking at the time. I should have left it alone. The result looked great at 200×200 pixels, but when reduced to an in-game chat icon, it was terribad beyond belief. It didn’t even look like a human face. I was horrified at the notion of being saddled with such an icon for the rest of my career. It was so awful that I am not even going to reproduce it here in this blog.

I decided to test CCP’s willingness to work with the customers on this issue. I sent the following petition:

Hi there!

I just made a new portrait for the character Persephone Astrid, and while it looks GREAT at the large size, the chat window icon is TERRIBLE. It doesn’t even look like the same person– for that matter it doesn’t even look like any human being I have ever met or seen.

Could I beg a do-over? The small icon is unbearably bad. It would be embarrassing to me for all of time, and I would never get over the shame of having such an awful icon. My friends will mock me endlessly for it, and my enemies will not take me seriously. It is that bad.

Also, as an aside, the character creation screen REALLY should give the player a preview of how the avatar will look as an icon before they finalize the selection.

Thanks in advance,
P. Astrid

This morning I logged on and found that I had been granted the opportunity to re-make the avatar. Thank you CCP! That was fast, and painless, and very considerate of you. Cheers!

Eager to be free of the horrible second attempt, I immediately dove into the editor and made the third version of Persephone Astrid. (Persephone one is on the left, Persephone three is on the right.) Armed with the great advice in this thread on the EVE Online forums (“Tips and tricks on how to create your avatar”) I made a number of changes:

That’s it. I’m done adjusting the avatar. It may not be perfect, but at this point I think I could only make it worse with additional changes.

It’s common knowledge that a number of super-serious EVE Online players scorn the Incarna content, both the new avatars and the forthcoming ability to walk in stations and (presumably) have a number of station-based activities.

Despite the complaints of the super-serious, over the past three days the EVE Online playerbase has gone completely batshit with excitement for the new avatars. The forums are choked with avatar threads, and there’s already been a number of fan websites posted which use the portrait server to dish up before and after comparison photos of any player. There have been complaints, however: people are upset that there’s not more clothing and hairstyle options, or that their favorite backdrop has been omitted.

When the walking in stations portion of Incarna launches, it is going to be huge. Even if the number of possible activities are minimal at first, people are going to play the hell out of that content, and will hungrily ask for more. Space travel and combat won’t come to a halt, but there will be an obvious falloff in the number of ships in space at any given time.

I’ve seen this before. Another ship-based MMO that I have played for over five years introduced a number of shore-based games a few years ago, including Texas Hold ‘Em poker. The number of ships at sea fell precipitously when players discovered they could make far more money from fleecing each other at the poker tables than by going to sea and taking the money by force of arms, or by attacking PvE targets.

Walking in stations is going to be enormous. I’m predicting it right now.

The time has finally come to say goodbye to our goofy old low-res avatars. It’s time to make goofy new high-res avatars.

Earlier today I logged in and spent two hours fussing over the clothing choices in the avatar creation screen, trying different tops with different pants and shoes, cycling through all the tucking options, and so on; then I realized that all that will show in-game are the character’s head and shoulders. By the time walking in stations comes around, there will probably be all sorts of new clothing options to choose from anyway. In retrospect I feel a bit silly for having bothered.

So I focused my efforts above the bust, and the portrait over in the right-hand sidebar is the result. Farewell low-res Hitler-mustached Persephone in your preposterous Chinese space dress, and hello high-res Persephone in your casual space track jacket.

I didn’t want to completely re-do the character design, aside from hairstyle and clothing. (Especially the hairstyle. The old one looks like her hair was painted on with a 10 cm paintbrush.) My goal was to have the new avatar be recognizable as the same character, but upgraded and modernized a bit. Given the limitations of the new system that wasn’t completely possible, but I’m pleased with the result.

What did you do? Did you revamp your character completely, or did you use the old one as a jumping-off point? I’m curious to know.