True dat bro.

There are plenty of games that force you to play a "pretty" character, whether you want to or not. In fact, the large majority of em. Personally, I'm delighted at the lack of designer-imposed prettiness in Skyrim.

Game designers don't have a responsibility to cater to every aesthetic. They have a responsibility to pick a consistent vision that is appropriate to the gameworld, and stick with it.

Of course, for everybody who doesn't like it, there are mods... and I'm good with that Anyone who wants to can mod your game to make the characters pretty, and I can play a grizzled elderly female Bosmer as I like to do (and mod the hell out of whatever OTHER gameplay systems don't match my preferences )

This ^

The problem is the consistent vision of an ES game is supposed to be an open world where you can be what you want to be, look like you want to look with constraints being limited to races of the world and not a feel of the setting. What if your character is not from Skyrim he is 20 and just got here last week, why would he look like a worn down 30+ year old?

Well then you just shot yourself in the foot.
This discussion was about AGE, not how pretty you can make a character. I've seen plenty of pretty characters of the girls among the race screenshots, it's not hard to figure out you can make attractive males if you want to as well.

The whole thing is they won't look like under-aged children running around.
By removing all the wrinkles and dirt etc you obviously get pretty smooth features and then you can play around with facial features to make them symmetrical and so on.

Some of the women in the race screenshots looks to be young, I'd say some even look like 18 or so. This game is rated 15-17 in most countries. Also you need to understand they went with a realistic look and they don't let you make children characters.
If you want any other changes then you'd have to get it for PC since modding will make almost anything possible. There has been countless of "beauty" mods for Oblivion.

Also, pretty is in the eye of the beholder and a person can be pretty and attractive etc when a little older too.

So yet again this whole thread is about how someone wasn't able (their ineptitude I reckon) to make a younger character.
Wanting anime looking character's is not for this game, if someone wants to make those, but as I said with mods they probably could but SHOULD NOT ask for it for the vanilla game.

They are going for a certain look, deal with it.

I intend to play a young, male, Breton mage for my first playthrough. A healer, and a bit of a bookworm. I don't mind him looking a bit scruffy. He's going to spend a lot of his time in caves looking for rare books after all. I don't mind if he's not a stereotypical pretty boy. I can appreciate a range of facial features, after all, and I'm sure I'll think he's the cutest damn thing ever once I've played with him long enough to get attached.

However, I do expect him to look young, because that's part of the backstory I have for him. If I can't get him to look right, I'll be very disappointed. After all, I'll be playing on the 360 and there's no mods to save my roleplaying there.

And yet no one has asked for anime characters.. Just young and decent looking. So why do you keep bringing it up?

Use your head.
There ARE LIMITATIONS FOR WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH THE ORIGINAL GAME......

MODS can help you make characters that look different cause MODDERS MAKE IT SO.

I really couldn't care LESS what and how you will play like and if you have an OUNCE of reading comprehension I am strictly referring to that the game is designed a certain way and NO you can't expect Bethesda to cater to every single whim people have.
They follow a certain art direction and how they want the game to look.

The thread started as someone was inept at making a younger looking character, yet I've seen several young looking female ones, it is safe to assume you can get a fairly young looking male as well.
Then someone was talking about "Anime" looking characters and then it just went overboard, how on earth can anyone expect to have a look like that in VANILLA Skyrim, you couldn't in Oblivion either.
Mods were needed and then you have Sephiroth and all types of Japanese manga looking hair and faces etc.

This is WHY I love MODS for this game so you CAN have looks that is not normal in the game or change aspects to your own liking.

So no I am not telling people how to play the game, just that they can't expect VANILLA Skyrim to feature this in the character generator:
http://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Daily/2010/11-Nov/10/Dissidia%20Vaan/vaan--article_image.jpg

I guess they could do it if they went with female character and pretend it's a male gender ambiguous child like person.

Trololololol Just like you have the right to make any character you want, i have the right to feel what i want towards certain kind of characters. Everyone has their own tastes and i understand that, But if i don't like the idea of small Fuzzie Wuzzie Beibers or Backroom anime characters that weren't even good enough to get their own comic books, Nobody can stop me from my feelings on the matter.

Now if you were to play as a badass mudcrab warrior that slays dragons with it's Pincers and Burns giants with its leer, Then i may have a different perspective on things.

It's not a stereotype if it's true. I'd be willing to bet A LOT of money that AT LEAST 80% of the character mods made for Morrowind and Oblivion made new presets and the like look like anime characters.

I refer to this post of him/her making a reference to "someone" wanting to play an "Anime" Character and how it should be OK, which I am also fine with but NO ONE in their right mind could expect BGS to make that in their games character generator, this is not an JRPG and they have their own design and look to it.

THIS is what I was reacting and responding too and then saying you can probably MOD IT IN, if you wanted too play as an Anime character, do you get it now?



Honestly this is basically a person saying they want to create an Anime type pretty character.

What are you going off on?

I don't think anyone here said they want to play FF characters.

The problem is Bethesda DID try to cater to every whim for players. Why else would anyone want to play a grandma?

If 90% of the players would want to play a character between the ages of 20 and 30, then that's what 90% of the pre-sets should have looked like.

Wow, you have possible the worst reading comprehension skills in the world. The person was basically saying having a different personal taste is not bad, just to clue you in.

Read my post above yours then you see exactly what I'm talking about.

As for you going on and on about grandma age.
Oblivion let you play as a very old looking person as well.

Skyrim has any age from I'd say about early twenties ( I bet someone can make em look younger than that, some of the females already look younger) and up to about 60-70 of age.

So how can you be so ignorant to ask for the character generator to be able to create 15 year olds but not let older gamers have their older character? Hypocritical much!

Some I guess wouldn't mind making an old sorcerer for their role playing too ala Gandalf or Merlin or whatever.

I am only stating that you can't expect Bethesda to make characters look out of place in the world that look Manga or extremely young children or something, hell you're not allowed to kill children so it would be a catch 22 if they let you MAKE children which obviously can die in the game.
The game itself is mature rated and in NA alone that means 17+ in age to technically be allowed to play it. 15 in UK.

We can't expect every single detail to exist that pleases everyone at once, this is why YET AGAIN Mods are excellent, it does allow people to change the game.

About presets, they can't showcase how detailed their new facial features are if all the characters look like teenagers or early 20's, they have a variety in their screenshots and you can't honestly tell me that for example some of the women look pretty darn young.
At least a few look 18.

Also they want the game to be more gritty and it's set in darker Nordic Skyrim, hence they even have dirt textures and war face paint and scars etc.
Remove all of that and all wrinkles and no beard and long hair and make the eye's bigger and such and voila you have a very young looking player character.

Something that I'm curious about is can you rotate your character while in the creation screen mode so you can check out the hair style from the back? Anyone know?

You have got to be kidding me...

It LITERALLY SAY:

" How is WANTING an ANIME type character somehow bad".

It can't get any more clear than that.

Yes the person posted it as a general question, but it is clearly implied that the ability to make an Anime character SHOULD be possible for those who want it.

I reacted saying NO the Vanilla Skyrim is not designed for that, but MODS can let you have it or anything else they haven't included.

How hard is THAT to comprehend.

Different personal taste is one thing, but you can't expect it to be implemented, and that is the IMPLICATION in the posing of the question in the first place.

Also the person talks about making pretty looking characters, which is a completely SUBJECTIVE standpoint, what if other people think the presets ARE pretty.
Not to mention it is just PRESETS.

I know you could play an old person in OB, but would you? The characters in OB you could make younger. No I'm not saying 15 (where the heck did you get that?). And I am older (upper 40's) but I know for certain I'd let a younger man go tackle dragons if there's an option for it. Why would I want to play an old man, I already am one.

I don't know where you get 18 year olds out of any of those images. See the Nord link I posted earlier. The sad fact is that in Skyrim there appears to be 2 age groups, 12 years old, and 30-70 years old.

I am going to assume for the time being that any preset can be made younger by removing wrinkles or something and that (like you suggest) they are set that way just to show the possible choices). Otherwise I will most likely be waiting for some decent pre-set mods before really playing the game with a character I plan to RP.

There was an age slider and a complexion slider, not just one. (in oblivion).

@ Irindre, no but you can turn it to sides, up and down. Not from back as far as I know. There's not clear way of doing it, so if the option is there it's well hidden.

i tried to make several old wizard type characters....
didnt really pan out for me without the beard
so heres for old wizards in skyrim with beards!

You are right it can't be clearer, it is responding to a post that they interpreted as sneering at the idea of anime in general and claiming that young/good looking = people looking for anime. The post never asked for anime to be implemented, it just commented on the idea that people who like anime are somehow worse than the others. It then went on to describe their preference towards attractive people, the same person in later posts went out of their way to say they did not want an anime character just good looking and yet you continued to hammer away at the anime concept. Part of reading comprehension it to read the post they are responding to and their post in its entirety and not a single sentence so you can understand the context

Well, maybe they wanted the characters to look older this time? Some you can make to look in their twenties at least, I can see how you can make it so.

Well for those that can use mods they will have a fix for the "too old looking characters" after a while I bet. Console players might be SOL, don't know.

Making the statement I quoted means being able to make one in the game, if not then the question or posing of such question completely MOOT and incomprehensible.

" How is WANTING an ANIME type character somehow bad".

Take a look at the word WANTING, it does not say LIKE, it says WANT.
This is in regards to the game, IE , WANTING an anime type character, whether it is bad is subjective and not the point.
Since we are discussing Skyrim one would HAVE TO assume that the wanting in question relates to SKYRIM and how you WANT to make a character look like an Anime.
Yes the question was posed in a general manner, IE the person posing the question her/himself might not want Anime character but it was defending and saying others might WANT one.

So how does one go about getting that WANT taken care of, either Bethesda can make it possible with spiked hair and Final Fantasy style look etc.
This is where I come in and say Skyrim SHOULDN'T look like that, and BGS obviously made certain art directions for how they want the game to look including the characters.

I then go on to say that HOWEVER if you MOD the game you can probably make an Anime character, provided someone make mods that make it possible.

You have to read and understand the whole picture and it's relation to what I said as well.

Basically saying BGS can't cater to everyone and what they want and this is where MODS come in.

The person that posed the question wants to make "pretty" characters, define pretty, which is a completely subjective term/notion. I find that several of the female character presets are actually pretty, the men do look rugged cause I don't think BGS was going for male models ala Abercrombie when making a gritty Skyrim game.

That said I'm sure you can make an attractive looking male character as well, perhaps not a teenager in look but attractive nonetheless (subjective).


I can also say this to make it more clear:

"How is WANTING Ferrari's bad" and post it on the board for the next Need for Speed game.

How the hell can THAT not be construed as WANTING Ferrari's IN the game? Same thing goes for "How is WANTING Anime looking characters somehow bad".

Interchangeable, indeed.

I'm also a little dissapointed there's no RGB and age sliders. But nothing modders can't implement I think.

I for one would not mind playing as people with weird skin tones, eye and hair colors. It would just add to the already vast amount of customization offered.

And why some people in this thread seem so upset? It's a single player game, if someone you will never meet wants to play as whoever the hell they want, more power to them. The game is supposed to catter to as big an audience as possible.