I haven’t played Rift yet but I assume it’s the same as other games in that the other place you see your character in detail from the front is when you enter the world. Where you say “this is who I will play”.

I think having so many options really lets people customize their characters more fully without feeling like they are just cookie cuttered. (it’s a word…I swear!). Even if you won’t see your character from the front often, it’s still nice to know the make up is there.

Because of the makeup, I actually decided to make a strict…role play character. Pale skin, dark hair, and dark makeup. She’s my little emo girl and her speciality is lock/necro/pyro.

Sure, going into battle with full makeup on is not realistic, but really, neither are extraplanar rifts of pure evil.

I’m happy with my little whimsy =)

This is how you know it’s a cosmetic tattoo.

Honestly, I check out character faces every so often, especially in the WoW AH. I think they do more (eyes moving, etc) than they did during vanilla. ??

I’ll keep an eye on it

For me, I size up all chargen to Aion and CO; which, I admit, is pretty unfair(I could make my Perfect MMO Dude in Aion. :p) Those generators were SO stupidly involved, it would be like comparing a garage band’s first demo with Iron Maiden in terms of everything, including production value(the demo might be damn good but yeah.) For me, Rift’s chargen offers just enough options to NOT be enough. Like, I can change the face-but only so much, where in Aion/CO I could play *anything* from my Giant Taloned Alucard to a midget Ali G. The Bahmi males could REALLY use some more hair designs(as could all the people-yes, hair is a big thing I think for many). I wish you could adjust body types a bit as well(the height thing is cool though, offers a bit of adjustment there.) You can adjust the nose and mouth enough for it to NOT really change the character’s appearance by much.

I managed to make a cool looking Kelari warrior dude, which I’m happy about(they are nicely muscular, like a gymnast), but I think(and left feedback :p) that the generator could actually use some more variety.

YMMV, of course.

Ironyca has a great point: while we focus on other-facing appearance bits, we need lots of cosmetic attention on hair, cloaks, and other things on the backs of our characters.

I’ve read studies of what players want in their 3rd person avatars, and hair is really crucial.
It makes sense, hair is something the player looks at themselves (from behind, unlike make up) and it’s also a visually prominent identifier.

I’d rather have amazing hair myself, than amazing make up, it’s too much of a tiny detail that no one will notice anyways.