The humble goth

An energetic speaker I once heard was talking about the importance of finding your identity. He was talking about different fads that people become part of in order to have some sort of identity. He then mentioned a conversation he had with a group of gothics one day in the Queen Street Mall.

Him: So, why do you all dress like that?
Goths: Because... we want to be different.
Him: But you all look the same!

Perhaps this sort of behaviour is also exhibited in the area of customisation of player avatars in video games. People want to have a character they can identify with, but some way of making them theirs. For example, in Guild Wars, every player will buy all the different robes to try and make themselves more and more unique online. But the problem is, for high levelled characters, if you want to have the best stats and attacks, you pretty much have to use the "optimal configuration" as determined by the game gurus. And there your avatar is taken from being an active representation of you in-game to simply just reflecting your play style.

This is an interesting challenge to try and genuinely address. Then the issue of symmetry arises. How can you allow players optimal customisation without compromising symmetry, or balance?

Guitar Hero does this with a list of extensive guitars and costumes to choose from. These items, however, have no bearing on the actual gameplay - they are purely visceral. Then again, this isn't all that interesting. What's the point of customisation if all it is is to make the character look pretty?

I guess this is sort of bearing on an earlier idea I had to create a unique army in a strategy game, yet this is more related to an individual avatar in a game like an RPG. At present, developers are hard-pressed to come up with different skills which are very unique, yet still remain truly fun and balanced with other skills in the game.

Or perhaps it could be done by giving each player a specific role or variant critical path or...

Even then, how do you do that without making it boring? And by still maintaining balance?

Perhaps the best system that does this well is real life. Each player (person) has their own unique skillset, their own critical path and try to find their identity. However, one of the main reasons people play video games is for fantasy fulfillment, to do things they can't in real life.

...What a challenge. Maybe this is why developers haven't strayed off the familiar paths. Or maybe they can't? This may be worth having a look at.

Oh, and it would seem I have picked the correct topic for my thesis.