Avatars

[die4me]

How many people let there members have avatars for there sites.
If you do do you let them upload there own or do you have preset ones for them to choose from?
Do you have avatars that show the current equipment that the user has or just a normal one?

[shoespeak]

I have always believed in a creating a strong community, and this just cannot be done with out letting users upload pictures. Usually one of these pictures serves as an avatar for the player in the forums, message system, etc. Although this is probably not true to the word 'avatar.'

For use in the game, often the representation of the player's character(s) are created by the system. You can choose if you want to give the player options or not (different clothing, skin color, etc.) but in the end the game creates the player's image, usually with the weapons and armor appearing on the player.

I think an important thing to take into consideration is how much information you want to display. If your weapons/armor have a lot of different stats, it may be better to have these pictured off to the side next to their data. If the equipment are just modifiers, it's probably okay to display them right on the page with a tooltip.

[Chris]

I don't let them. Reason is simple, my site is strictly family friendly, so I would end up disabling like half of them anyway Not to mention the hassle of checking them, lenghty discussions what is allowed and what not... No, thanks, not for me

But I think for tech forums (like this one) avatars are OK. Just not for entertainment sites where kids and adults play alike (because adults will be insulted and disgusted by the things uploaded by kids )

[codestryke]

How many people let there members have avatars for there sites.
If you do do you let them upload there own or do you have preset ones for them to choose from?
Do you have avatars that show the current equipment that the user has or just a normal one?

All our sites allow players to upload avatars, personally we thing it's a great community builder. In one game we actually had to add a graphics forum so players could produce and sell custom avatars for other players.

We let them upload there own. At one time we allowed linking but that caused a lot of problems when the link failed which then slowed are pages down.

We currently don't have any equipment pics or such. If we were to go that route I would look at a paper doll approach and let players submit them for approval.

[travo]

I plan on using a system similar to the symbol system on halo 2

All of the images will reside in a folder, and if a certain image has not yet been created, it will simply be put together with gd and aved to that folder.

[Fizzadar]

My game will have set-avatars, but I guess that's all to do with the nature of the game. Our site which is linked allows custom ones, people really like using them, I think they're important

[die4me]

well right now i am going with set avatars well only two one male and one female and as you equip them the avatar shows them with the new armor, weapon, shields, etc. I am using layering to do it though. Eventually i'll let them change hair eyes and so on.