This Is One of the Best Things About MMORPGs

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have been around for decades, and they make up some of the most profitable and oft-played games. There are tons of them — far more than casual gamers realize, and nearly all of them have one thing in common: you get to create your own character. After all, it wouldn’t be much of an MMORPG if you had to use some stock rogue or warrior without any means of modifying them to fit your interests. While MMORPGs aren’t the only games that allow for this sort of customization, it’s the genre that has mastered its application.

Character creation has been a core aspect of gaming going back decades, and it’s been a central feature of RPGs for most of the genre’s history. Because MMORPGs are an evolution of that long-established genre, it makes sense that they would push the envelope by offering a multitude of choices, and several games do so far better than others. Even the games that feature only minimal character creation tools tend to stand out against those that lack the mechanic entirely, and most players would agree that robust character creation is one of the best things about MMORPGs.

Character Creation Helps Make MMORPGs Spectacular

While you can hop into any good MMORPG and play whatever randomized character is presented to you, far more gamers enjoy creating something that’s entirely their own. If they didn’t, devs wouldn’t spend the time, money, and resources creating successively impressive character creation tools for their games. To that end, when most players fire up a new MMORPG or want to start over with a new character, it’s incredibly important to them that they look a certain way, so character customization and creation have become a serious priority for developers working on a new game or updating an older one.

Several games do this remarkably well, and one of the top contenders is Dungeons & Dragons Online. It makes sense that the OG tabletop RPG would emphasize character creation in its MMORPG, and it does so with aplomb. It takes all the character customization options from the pen-and-paper RPG and its expansions and digitizes them to allow widespread alteration of a player character. You choose your race and class, as is standard in D&D, but you also change your appearance in any way you like, and there are tons of options, elevating Dungeons & Dragons Online to become one of the best custom character creation games available.

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Another game that emphasizes character creation is the juggernaut of the genre, World of Warcraft. Since its release in 2004, the game’s character creation system has only improved, offering plenty of new options in terms of appearance, traits, and more. There are tons of race options and a plethora of cosmetic choices that ensure players remain loyal to the franchise, which has been chugging along with updates and tweaks for over 20 years. There are so many options, it’s almost mesmerizing, but ultimately, no game’s character creation system holds a candle to Black Desert Online.

MMORPGs Continue to Innovate Via Character Creation and Customization

Black Desert Online was released in 2016 and features a character creation tool that sets it apart from other MMORPGs. It’s as if the devs decided to do a master class in character creation options and unleashed it onto the world because the myriad of minute changes you can make to the character you’re creating is mind-boggling. You can adjust every aspect of the character’s physical features, from their shoulders to their height and everything else in between. For a game that’s now almost a decade old, that’s impressive. Given the development and fan appreciation of this core MMORPG element, it’s likely that more development will continue with options we cannot even fathom today.

Which MMORPG features your favorite character creation options? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!