Wishful Thinking: Why Can't I Be A Southpaw?
Posted by 
iTZKooPA on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - 18 Comments Tags: character customization, handiness, left-handed, right-handed, southpaw, wishful thinking
iTZKooPA on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - 18 Comments Tags: character customization, handiness, left-handed, right-handed, southpaw, wishful thinking  I'd totally just stunlock him first. |
Gamers have been customizing their avatars for years, decades even. The first customization was very, very basic, picking a name. Over time developers have added all sorts of customizable options, down to Star Trek Online's promise of allowing us to create our own alien species. As if that universe doesn't have enough aliens in it already. Blizzard's character customization allows us to pick faces, hairstyles, skin tones and all that hubbub, but it never struck me as an incredibly deep system. Numerous RPGs and other MMOGs have offered a more granular approach, straight down to the color set of your gear and a wide variety of (useless) accessories. Yet, something has always been missing recently.
As far as the industry has come, I can't recall a single title by name that allows me to be left or right-handed. I know I have played a game that let me do this, perhaps one in the Quake series, but I can't remember specifically. My collection of gamer friends struggled to come up with anything other than vague memories (SiN, some older RPGs). It seems clear to me that a handful of older FPS and RPG titles allowed this, although many likely glossed over the option, or I simply did not care at the time. But, I care now.
FPS are fleeting titles, nothing sticks to the characters. In multiplayer you die constantly, and while series like Call of Duty and Battlefield allow you to rank-up and such, you aren't attached to your toon. In an RPG, one is more attached to the avatar. With a third-person RPG, one is constantly viewing the toon, seeing everything he/she does. You become attached, possibly even obsessed over the looks. Entire mods have been created to allow gamers to tweak appearances. This obsession is only multiplied in MMOGs, and for obvious reasons.
As deep and lengthy as an RPG can be, no title can stand up to the amount of time that we invest in our MMO characters. Along with the dedication, comes the intense social aspect that makes MMOGs so attractive. If I am going to be sinking days of time into my creation, shouldn't I be able to swing it like a southpaw?
I know this is an incredibly minute aspect of WoW, but a guy can dream, right? A fleeting aspiration at best. I don't even expect Blizzard to implement this aesthetic pleasure so late in the game, but they have done other things I did not foresee, such as the Paid Character Re-Customization service. Has anyone else ever wondered about this? Heck, can you name some other titles that have this choice? There has to be some relatively new titles that allows us to do this.
As for the other MMOG developers out there, you have yet another feature request.
Reader Comments (18)
nice post, would be quite a cool feature to add in, makes u really stand out from the crowd
I believe that the game 'Two Worlds' lets you play left or right handed, but i can't remember for sure due to the fact that i sold it to gamestop for the outrageous price of $10 for a basically brand new game.
oh, and i'm surprised nobody said FIRST!
kyrapt, i'm proud...
lol... thats quite.. interesting ^^ i'm left handed irl, and seeing my character that way would add a bit more to the 'this is me' feeling.. but i've never really thought of it :)
You missed a big one that is left handed by default: Counterstrike
I never really thought about the fact that I'm a lefty and I can't make my toons lefties. You bring up a valid point sir. :(
It would be simple to just allow you to choose what hand to equip a sword/shield/bow into and by association, the other hand becomes the offhand.
Thats interesting, Sneaky is right, in Counterstrike you are always left handed.
I believe in most FPS games you are holding the weapon in your left hand. If not all. It looks more natural I guess.
None of them give the choice though.
i am also left handed irl and have always said there should be a left handed option.
woudl be awesome to see that for us :)
I've been waiting for this feature since I started playing WoW. It'd be awesome to finally have it
Man I was just thinking about this today actually. I'm left handed and i also play a hunter. I know how to shoot a bow and my stupid night elf does it all wrong. All i have to say is that "everyone was born left-handed, til they sinned."
im pretty sure in diablo u could out your sword/mace/dagger, ect. in what ever hand u wanted.
Right handers are the best.
Bow before us.
First guy to say First!! =D JK JK....a few sports games let you pick which hand you wanted.
Nice post. My family is heavy on the left-handers, it is a strong gene with us. I know they would like it if there toons where left-handed just for the customization of the game. I don't see it making a huge impact on the game play. I have one cousin who does swordplay and everything is done right-handed. Still it would be a nice feature.
I would also like to see how many left-handers play the game. I know there is a good number of the worlds population that is left-handed.
My first MMO was Final Fantasy XI. It's been years since I stopped playing and picked up WoW but I distinctly remember a game that let me set my toon up as a lefty, maybe it was ffxi.
My favourate mmorpg is WoW but perfect world has the best charactor customization system of and mog
You can chose what hand you are in Madden
Wow... coincidentally I was talkin about this exact thing to a friend of mine on WoW a few days ago. Cool post