Name in the game. the extra mile!

[Nat3ski]

Apologies if this has already been implemented/ mentioned, i had a cursory glance with the search feature but drew a blank.

In short, i think it would be super awesome if those with the "name in the game" package could pick thier body type and hair colour and/or style. just a little extra personalisation hopefully without treading on the toes of the "face in the game" package.

I fear that my namesake prisoner would end up being some balding male of a large build and as such would not resemble me in the slightest. i would love for hime to vaguely resemble me visually without stumping up the vast amount for my face in the game.

Thoughts gentlemen?

[christopher1006]

People have started recently suggesting this and out of all of them I think my favorite idea would be that you can edit your prisoner and it will only affect your game since it's not like others will be able to point out that you have one hair color over the other and it still keeps true to the fact that they only gave you the name in game.

[Faracus]

I believe that the name in game will be given to a randomly generated sprite with randomly generated crimes.

[sirstevenknightarrowood]

The only reasons I could see IV adding a custom character feature or accepting info from "name in the game" peeps & implementing it into the game are: to please ~2200 (not including those who've upgraded to the $40 name in the game tier) people who supported them with $50, to possibly displease 51 people who supported them with $250, & to make the game more realistic by some measures and possibly less so by others.

So by the numbers its pleasing 45.5x more people who supported by 1 amount whilst possibly displeasing 1 group who supported by 5-6.25x more. Also, that doesn't take into account the degradation of the Polaroid & Warden tiers, who paid 500 & 1000 each which is 12.5 & 25x more support. The ratio of support is skewed towards the base pack purchasers which means a lot more people could upgrade before the deal ends and then they could please a huge amount of people by allowing them to be visually in the game to some extent as well as spiritually in the form of creative custom name & bios,..

BUT, a big ol' butt

I just don't see IV doing either of the methods of custom characters I mentioned at the start.
I think IV coming out with a custom character builder or accepting visual details to implement into "name in the game" tier purchasers characters/prisoners would undoubtedly put a little bit of a bad taste in the mouth of at least some significant proportion of the higher tier supporters. They dropped big dough into IV, and something tells me IV supporters are smart enough to actually care about giving that money to them [it's not some bs instictive brain-washed consumeristic purchase of an alpha for $250-1000], and even more important IV is smart enough to know that. I dunno maybe it just seems that way to me being on the bottom but that's the logic I've come to.

It seems it would also put all their tiers into a toss & tumble of value whereas, simply by allowing people to upgrade to a custom name & bio prisoner for only $10 still fits their tiers and the value stays relatively equalized because you most likely don't get the soundtrack, pdf artbook, and the previous IV games. I still haven't seen anything specifically saying you don't get any of those but I haven't seen anything telling me you do.

-----------------------------

I also don't see them being (very, if at all) opposed to a programming literate IV/Prison Architect fan building, what to me seems like could be, a pretty simple program to create custom prisoner skins.
So, until someone comes out with one on their own as a mod/separate utility to create & add custom skins (which this might be down the road anyways since in Alpha so much is changing it might be difficult to keep it up to date.?) it's either pay the difference to the Face in the Game (or higher) or wait & see if IV comes out with one.
[Or just accept what you've got, regardless of tier, which is access to play & test an awesome game, as well as active interaction (directly pretty much) with the awesome developer as they develop it, Meaning You, if you so desire, can have a say in the direction of the game.]

[sirstevenknightarrowood]

Excuse my excessive language, I've grown to be skeptical of everything I think I know & online in written form it can be annoyingly uncertain at times. <-- there it is there. It's not so bad in person with visual expression & my language machine a'rolling. {8^{J>

[sirstevenknightarrowood]

The real way that IV is supposed to please all 30-35 thousand of the lower tier purchasers is to release a good game. In the end, release a good game, that's all, not a perfect masterpiece. I don't expect that for $30 & I don't expect perfection from them or any small dev crew. I'm already happy so I don't even know why I'm talking :d

but really, I'm putting myself in the place of someone who spent $50 dollars now... nope
don't expect them to put me in the game. Would anybody be in any game for $50?
They could probably spend time building exactly what I have in my mind and it probably wouldn't be very difficult for them. Just because it's easy doesn't mean it's right. Let Chris stick to the joy of building his game & let a modder stick to the joy of modding the game to better suit his & others personal tastes/desires.
I already wrote up a bio and I haven't even purchased the upgrade.

I'm really looking forward to that imaginary custom skin builder/manager utility though.

[Parker22]

Good train of thought there, sir.

People are excited about getting their name in the game, or more, it is starting to distract a bit from the alpha. The focus has shifted from the game to us ...

[sirstevenknightarrowood]

Thanks. True, we are all excited regarding the game in general and it has obscured some of our perspectives a bit. The focus may have shifted to some degree, temporarily, towards the self but it will shift again. Stay active & aware and you'll see it all.

[lunaticneko]

I think it's not very expensive feature development-time wise, but still definitely a no during Alpha. However, if everyone is (I am being serious) going to chip in $5 or more for this feature, I think it's possible some time. Maybe as an add-on.

[sirstevenknightarrowood]

Right now at least the code being so open it is easy enough to mod the game to many extremes. That might e useful down the line but right now it isn't. Just do some research. You'll find what you seek.

[Nat3ski]

Id stump up an extra 5 bucks to choose a few options

1 hair colour black, blonde, brown ,ginger
2, hair length short mid, long
3 body type - Fat, built, slim.

i imagine it would be easy money for the devs and please a number of people. striking a balance between having a fully customized face and a named character that looks nothing like you!

the result? a named character that vaguely resembles you with generic hair and body type.

i would add that im happy for such a thing to be implemented much further down the line. More features are, naturally, more important.

[Azarath]

Well, currently you can just edit the save file to change prisoner attributes. Likely that post-alpha this will be prevented, due to the ability to cheat majorly via it, but if not, I'd say leave it out of the vanilla release, and let the community make mods for it. Win win, they don't irk the higher tiers while still allowing local customisation of prisoners.