Welcome to the Create-a-Hero Symposium! This thread is dedicated to talking about one of the neatest features of Elemental:WoM - the Sovereign Creator. The Sovereign Creator is a really important part of Elemental: WoM, at least to me. It allows you to build a personal hero that you can connect with far better than the default heroes. There's nothing like conquering a fantasy world with your own fantasy-world alter-ego. However, neat as the Sovereign Creator is, there is certainly room for improvement. The purpose of this thread is to start a discussion about how exactly the Sovereign Creator can be improved. I've got a few ideas, hopefully you've got some too, and together we can improve this enjoyable feature of Elemental:WoM.

First, I'd like to talk about the Create-A-Sovereign creator itself. There are definitely a lot of ways to improve the creator. It goes without saying that design options (clothing, hairstyles, etc.) are desperately needed. I'm probably not the most creative on that front. Maybe other people have some ideas for those. But one thing I would suggest is that clothing and facial features no longer be tied to specific races/factions. Tying in specific clothes with specific groups doesn't provide much of anything and only limits the amount of customization we can achieve. Why, just a bit ago, I found the perfect set of clothing in the "Mancer" category, but also wanted facial hair, which Mancers don't have. I can see some unique features belonging to the Fallen, but combining the Men, Mancers, Ironeers, etc. into one "Human" category would, I think, be a good thing for the Sovereign Creator.

Another idea that I think would be really nice would be to expand the Sovereign creator into a Hero creator as well. I would like to create heroes that roam the world of Elemental, with various levels of experience, weaponry, and etc. I'm aware that you can create your own heroes by playing with the game coding, but it would be far simpler if there was an option, in the Forge perhaps, to create a hero.

Speaking of which, the Forge seems like a great place to expand on the Create-a-Hero concept. It would be really neat if we could use the Forge to download other people's created Sovereigns, Heroes, and Nations. Also, perhaps the Forge could be used to create different kinds of clothing, armor, and weapons for your sovereign/hero to use. Perhaps one could start with a very basic item, like a shirt or a cloak or a cape or a sword, and from there customize the patterns and/or effects until it fits your own unique design. I don't know how feasible this is from a technical standpoint, but if the Forge can create tiles and particle effects, I'd bet it could do something with clothing, armor, and weapons.

One of the things that really bothers me about the C-A-S is the "Trading Card" and how limited it can be. For example, let's say I want to create a wizard named Radagast. I tweak Radagast's design until I'm quite pleased and adjust his stats until I'm satisfied I have the perfect wizard warlord. Now all I need to do is create the "Trading Card." Now here's the problem. In my scenario, the perfect Radagast picture ought to include him clutching a magical staff. But diverting points away from critical stats just to get a wooden stick for Radagast to wield is obviously not feasible. So you're stuck with a picture of Radagast triumphantly holding his hand in mid-air, as if he has an invisible staff. I would propose that the trading card portraits add "props" that can be used to spice up the pictures. That way, my character can hold a staff or a magical sword in his portrait without having to actually invest in those things. Plus, the props could include other things that don't really appear in-game, but would add character all the same. For example, a Merchant could be holding a bag of money, or a scholar studying a book, or a mage conjuring a wisp of flame. Those little touches could really brighten up and individualize heroes' portraits.

What about Create-a-Heroes in-game? In the character creator, we put a lot of work into getting the feel of our heroes just right. We debate about which hairstyle fits best, and which combination of shirt and vest has just the right feel to it. But the vast majority of that work gets shafted once we actually get in game and we start buying armor for our hero. Hairstyle is meaningless once you buy that leather helmet, and that plate-mail armor will wipe out your carefully colored wardrobe. Half-way through the game, your armored hero will look like every other swordsman on the map. The only way to keep your original design is to ignore the real game by foregoing armor, which is absurd. So, how can we combat the mid-game loss of identity? One simple idea would be to enable coloring of your armor. So, if I started the game with a green and yellow-themed heroine, I can keep the color scheme going throughout the game even as I'm upgrading the character. Another simple idea would be to offer multiple designs for the same piece of armor. That way, I can keep two heroes looking distinct even if I need to upgrade them both to heavy plate armor.

But say I want a hero who fights with long, flowing hair or a brown leather cloak, and I want that hero to be just as viable as any other hero? After all, this is a fantasy game, and fantasy hereos aren't often marching around in iron plate mail. Merely changing the color or style of the helmet won't work - I need a way to fight without the helmet at all. Fortunately, Elemental isn't the first game to have these kinds of issues. I used to play Lord of the Rings Online, and they had an ingenious method of solving a very similiar dilemma. In LoTRO, your character had two different "armor sets," the actual armor, and the wardrobe. On the actual armor set, pure practicality was in mind. Your character could equip armor as ugly or boring as possible, so long as it gave you the stat increases you were after. But this armor, if you so chose, was invisible. In the outfit section, you would equip armor and clothing that others would see. Using that system, you were able to get the best of both worlds. You could tweak out the design of your character as you liked without having to worry about it affecting your character's stats. I think E:WoM could use something similar. I could equip that awesome helmet of +5 HP, while hiding it in the outfit section to keep my hero's distinct bald head noticable. Or I could keep that cool shirt and vest combination even as I begin to invest in leather armor.

So what do you think about the Create-a-Hero? How do you think it can be improved? I'm looking forward to your comments.