An Avatar Is Just An Avatar — Or Is It?
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
I have been a video gamer for forty years now.
Wow, it feels weird to say that, even though it is true. My journey into games began as a very small child, long before video games were invented. My father was a very creative man, and games were his passion; he even created his own board games from scratch. He passed this love of gaming to all of his children, my brothers both play games as well. If dad was alive I could see him in front of a PS3 right now at almost ninety, playing a game — probably a war one or something to do with strategy, as those were his favorites.
Gaming has come a long way since its beginnings. Most of us are aware of this fact, though I find that some of the younger people in Home seem to believe that it was invented just recently the way they react when they hear my age. “What are you doing with a PS3?” is one of the regular ones I hear over and over.
How I began
Of all of the abilities that gaming has brought in since its inception, I find the creation of one’s own avatar to be the most entertaining and fascinating. Many games have set in stone avatars you need to use to play, like Tomb Raider for example; you are always Lara Croft. Or God of War, where you are Kratos. First-person-perspective games don’t really need avatar customization because you never see yourself, so avatar creation isn’t necessary.
But games like Skyrim and Final Fantasy XIV – A Realm Reborn give you great latitude in creating your own character to play with, and I love this ability. Then we have Home. Home has a wonderful avatar creation system, one of the best I have ever seen in any type of game. Our avatars even breathe, in case you hadn’t noticed. Though we are given a basic set of avatars to begin with, you can do a great deal with the default ones you start with.
All of this ability in Home to create our own image is freely given as a part of becoming a community member. You have a lot of choices for skin, hair and eye colors and you can adjust all of your base features such as nose, mouth, height, eyes and much more on a grid and make them uniquely your own. The system we have in Home is finer tuned that what you are given in a video game, there are far more options here.
How I ended up
Some people seem to be lazy when it comes to this part of being in Home. They wander around in default avatars, none of which can truly reflect their unique personality, because though it is only a digital picture representing you in the Home environment, it is also an extension of you. Just like real life, first impressions are important in Home, what people see when first meeting you will linger in their minds because your avatar is you to them, at least until they get to know you outside of that.
Creating an avatar is an important step in your foray into the Home scene, so if you are new to Home or have been here awhile without really putting effort into your avatar you should take the time to do this. It won’t take very long and it can be very rewarding and fun. There are some things that get overlooked in the avatar menu, like the way you can use the square button to bring up an advanced menu that will give you even more changes you can use for various parts of your creation.
You can also create avatars just for specific things you are doing in Home. I have done several different ones for working in Home machinima and for themed parties that I have at my club. The sky is the limit for what you can do with your virtual representation, and you can use your avatar to express your creative side.
There are gender options, of course, and some choose to use females even though they are males in real life. I think this may be for social reasons, as Home is still male dominated, though that is changing. Women are more social then men, so as they discover Home and tell their friends it is becoming more female, and the choices in clothing and other things is starting to reflect that. In fact women’s clothing is a big business in Home; we have more clothes than the men, I believe.
There are also some enhancements you can purchase now to make your avatar different. There are a lot of different hairstyles available from many different developers. My favorite one is the Beautiful Eyes you can get from Granzella which are used in your wardrobe accessories area and truly make your eyes much more vibrant. They even add eyelashes.
Take a guess. Who is she?
If you get a PlayStation Plus membership — and I highly recommend that you think about doing that — your options for avatar creation get even better. It gives you a color palette with a huge choice of colors for your hair and makeup as a female and for your hair color as a male. It also gives you a lot of free games in the PlayStation Store and access to X7 in Home, but that is a different subject.
So please consider taking the time to really put your personality into your avatar when you come into Home; after all, it is the you that is going to be seen by everyone. Though you can choose to look like your real life self or be totally different, that doesn’t really matter, what matters is that you took the time to do this and show those that you meet that you care about Home and all that it can be. An avatar is more than just an avatar.
November 2nd, 2013 by Burbie52 | 3 comments
Burbie52 is a 62 year-old published author and founder of the Grey Gamers group within Home. Born and raised in Michigan, she has lived there her entire life, with the exception of a twelve-year residency on the Big Island of Hawaii. She enjoys reading and writing, as well as video games, especially RPG's. She has one son in his twenties.
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I simply agree! Too many Home users don’t ever take their time out with their avatars and just run with “Type A” face and go with it.
I personally feel whichever gender you prefer on home, it IS you overall you’re representing. Kudos, Burbie!
I had so much fun getting my avatar just how I wanted it. In the beginning I took notes with pictures so if I messed up I could change back and this really helped my get it to just the way I wanted it.
I agree with you there are so many basic avatars out there and it’s a great way of telling how much a person cares about Home if they spent time on it. Like they really want to be part of Home.
Nice article Burbie!
;^) This sort of customization is something I think every videogame should have. Technology is so much more flexible now than it was ten or twenty years ago. Let’s see more user-configurable things like this…!