I'd like to see some newly designed characters in new ff games. The characters look too much alike in some games (see my post in the thread "Can the characters stop looking alike" posted by "Isman11" by me: eikofan69). I think Square should put a Character designing thing on their website, and you can send it in and the creators of FF games can pick their favorites! I think thated be the best. LIke, if you're a guy, you can make a girl and you can change her hair color, eye color, face all together, shirt, pants, shoes, boob size, etc. And if you're a girl, you can make a guy and do the same thing as the girls (except for boob size) ;) . But anyway, wouldn't that be awesome????

you're only presenting them with their options - for a character designer, they're already going to have created the different "parts", you're just mixing and matching them, and it might involve fans more in the design process, but, let's face it, most fans are going to design cheap Sephiroth knock-off's, and square would probably need certaint characters to look a certain way depending on different elements of the game. fan-designed characters probably aren't going to blend into the game world as well as ones mad by the people who made the world, and have the entirety of the game in mind from the start.

imo!

You cannot design characters for a game without knowing the story. Like Duo said, most fans would try and create a supposedly cool, sexy villain or, worse, people like you would try and live out their childish sexual fantasies. Without knowing the story, and the world, and the setting of the game, you CANNOT create a useful character.
Story, plot, characters, are too much interconnected. It would only work for an online RPG with everyone creating their own avatar.

I seem to have started off on the wrong foot, cuz you seem to not like me very much, Tokiko :(.
I don't have childish, sexual fantasies. I'm just new to forums, and don't know very good thread subjects. I guess I also don't realize the importance of character appeareance (I mean ff game characters).

Tokiko, I see your point, but I think eiko has a good idea. If the publishers needed someone like Zidane to be designed, they could only let you choose his hair, shirt color, appropriate shirt styles, etc. That way, the developers would have control over the outcome, while giving the masses the opportunity to change small details. Also, I don't think Tokiko was trying to be insulting, he was just being a bit blunt in his reply.

I think it's a decent idea, but I don't see it working out very well. Like Duo said, a lot of people would just wind up designing Cloud and Sephiroth clones, and the like.

I do agree that it would be nice to see more variety in character design though. It's not just Final Fantasy games- a lot of characters in rpgs tend to look alike.

It'd be interesting to see Square bring in someone who'd never worked on an rpg before to do the character design. Get a fresh perspective and such.

Thing is, you can invent character designs and chances are they've been done before.

Like the wheelchair bound psycho-villian who is bitter at the world for the sole reason that he was crippled by an ancient warrior, and seeks to turn the world upside down in revenge. Okay, I dunno WHERE that character's been done before, but someone must've done it.

I can live with the character designs in terms of appearance. It's the personality which is important, and there aren't that many characters who are the same in personality.

Mentalchaos128, while being blunt, I was also being surprisingly female. :(

Anyway, do you really think that it'd be worth the trouble to just let gamers vote which colour the hero's shirt will have? Frankly, I think that programmers have more important things to do.

For the International Version of FFX-2, there was a competition that asked fans to create new dress spheres. Stuff like this can easily be integrated in a game, as some sort of extra.
A competition to design items, maybe, weapons? could be okay.

Character design of the main characters, I'd leave to those that know the game. And liek Bahamut_ZERO said, there are more important things that just a character's outward appearance. Characters have personalities, background stories, and these are way more important than their hair colour or shirt. And a character's background cannot be developed by one who doesn't know the game's world and plot.
And maybe, just maybe, the clothes a character would wear or would not wear, also depend on the game's story and setting. Maybe a character is the member of some sort of religion, and wears clothes identifying him as one, even though the majority of players would like him to wear a long black trenchcoat and cool dark sunglasses. ;)

when you make a rpg, story or other things of the sort you dont instantly run to the drawing board and draw up some random charactors to build a story around. after the story/script is written then you draw the charactors because you know the charactors presonalaties and trates. if square got random fans to create charactors for the future final fantasys then theyll end up with miss macth charactors that dont fit into the story line at all creating total chaos.

Portquel, I like that idea too. The fans sending ideas as to how they want the latest characters to look like. But I also agree to what Tokiko said that u cannot create a character without first knowing the story. But it's still a nice idea. In ffx-2 international+last mission, a kid (8 y/o i think) designed the two new dresspheres (psychic and festival goer) for the characters..so maybe, the staff could consider getting the fans' opinions.