Xbox 360 - Avatars. How to make them standout from Mii's...

[Vorazan]

Problem: Now that Xbox 360 will be getting 3D avatars a la Mii's, there has to be something that makes them stand out and worthwhile. What can that be?

Flashback: Now take a look back at how people playing Halo 3 went nuts over the ability to modify their appearance by unlocking new armor pieces. Essentially, the armor pieces were rewards for certain achievements in the game.

Concept: Now lets think bigger. How about introducing a new reward system, combined with existing achievements, that awards the player Live Avatar Gear, say, shirts, pants, miscellaneous gear, based on their progress in the game.

Examples: If, say, a player has beaten Gears of War 2 on normal difficulty, he might get not only an achievement for it, but also a shirt for his Avatar with Gears of War 2 logo on it. Or, if a player performed 100 online kills, his avatar could be rewarded with a Lancer Rifle. Alternatively, if a player beaten Gears of War 2 on Insane, he might unlock a full Gears armor, or something equally unique. Of course, Avatar items should vary from game to the game. I don't think a single game should contain more than 5 Avatar items, in addition to 1000 standard gamerpoints.

Benefits: Encourages further development of Xbox Live gaming community by allowing users to create virtual representations of themselves using newly announced Xbox Avatars. Coupled with Xbox Live Gamercard, Xbox Live will offer to each subscriber a chance to fully customise their individual avatars on a whole new level, not offered by the competition.

 

[rapperwith1p]

My primary reaction from watching the introduction of the avatars is ugh useless and total ripoff of Miis. I agree with you op in that MS needs to find clever ways to implement avatars or it'll just be a ripoff of Miis and a waste of time.

I like your idea of game specific clothing etc and that would give players some incentive to actually mess around with the avatars but customization can only go so far. What the heck do you do with these things?

I vote for MS to implement something similar to Home for the 360.

 

[Psychotext]

What the heck do you do with these things?

Use them in the new XBL Primetime games. I guess there will be other games that support them too.

 

[ne0-reloaded]

Im interested to see if everyone clamoring over the possibilities of MS's avatar were saying how lame Home was. I'm guessing it's good they announced it first, but they should have gotten Home out a long time ago.

 

[Jerome36]

Im interested to see if everyone clamoring over the possibilities of MS's avatar were saying how lame Home was. I'm guessing it's good they announced it first, but they should have gotten Home out a long time ago.

I've read a lot of mixed views on it, but some people seem to be acting like the avatar is going to show up in all their games, and they HAVE to use it! It's actually kind of funny. As far as it goes, in relation to Home, this avatar thing isn't even close to what Sony has planned for Home (when it comes to the virtual world, interaction, etc.).

 

[Domingo]

I'm happy enough just having a single logo as an avatar rather than needing to have some sort of Mii representation.
I don't want people to have rewards for their avatars either. Then you're just going to have 500 people running around with "epic" avatars that look 90% the same. Screw that.
I'm happy with the XBL as-is, and I'd actually like to see both Nintendo and Sony make their systems closer to it rather than seeing MS start copying them.

 

[ne0-reloaded]

I've read a lot of mixed views on it, but some people seem to be acting like the avatar is going to show up in all their games, and they HAVE to use it! It's actually kind of funny. As far as it goes, in relation to Home, this avatar thing isn't even close to what Sony has planned for Home (when it comes to the virtual world, interaction, etc.).

I know it's not as large, but they got some good features that sony was trying to achieve in a shorter amount of time (especially since now the hype is new for it). Specifically the whole party theme of launching games and movies together. They 1 upped them something awful.

Microsoft's implementation needs to be pretty intuitive for it to help sell console.

I'm happy enough just having a single logo as an avatar rather than needing to have some sort of Mii representation.
I don't want people to have rewards for their avatars either. Then you're just going to have 500 people running around with "epic" avatars that look 90% the same. Screw that.
I'm happy with the XBL as-is, and I'd actually like to see both Nintendo and Sony make their systems closer to it rather than seeing MS start copying them.

You're going to have to get over the fact that gaming is strictly for the "hardcore," and God knows I hate that term. Each generation gaming is moving from a predominately male form of entertainment, to more of a family/social entertainment device. Look all that's happened this gen with the wii (low price, easy to pick up controller, cute avatars), ps3 (blu-ray for movies, psn store for digital distribution of movie trailers, home, PS Life), and MS (avatars, xbl arcade, xblm vidoeo). It's only going to focus more on broadening their user base above anything else.

 

[theNoid]

Im interested to see if everyone clamoring over the possibilities of MS's avatar were saying how lame Home was. I'm guessing it's good they announced it first, but they should have gotten Home out a long time ago.

And the Avatars are coming in the fall update. You can probably bet Home isn't coming until 09 and Sony is stomping around furious at the Home development team for taking so long.

I love the Avatars, and I love MS for putting RARE at the helm when developing these. Primtime looks cool along with everything else they showed. I am extremely pleased to own a 360 these days.

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Im interested to see if everyone clamoring over the possibilities of MS's avatar were saying how lame Home was. I'm guessing it's good they announced it first, but they should have gotten Home out a long time ago.

I absolutely think Home is the most ridiculous, gay-as-hell Second Life ripoff imaginable. I think the Avatars on 360 appear, so far, just higher detailed Mii's. However, I think that's superior to the awkward semi-realistic yet oh-so-second-life style of Home's characters. Mostly, though, I find all of them useless. The only plus I see to Mii's on Wii, for example, is that I always know which character has my save data. Other than that I could care less.

 

[Rash]

Just intrigued as i havent seen it anywhere, will his avatar thing be in the firmware update or will it be a seperate release to install on a hard drive? if its the latter core users/adopters might be pissed if they have to buy a 20gb 360 hard drive or if they arent available/being phased out a 60/120gb to get the avatar working.

 

[Psychotext]

Just intrigued as i havent seen it anywhere, will his avatar thing be in the firmware update or will it be a seperate release to install on a hard drive?

All in the firmware. The only thing that requires a HDD is xbox BC.

 

[Rash]

All in the firmware. The only thing that requires a HDD is xbox BC.

thats pretty impressive!

 

[larryBird44]

I think you bring up good points OP, but I can only think of one thing that could take it a step futher - AVATAR WARS!

It'd basically be a dice-roll match, but I think it'd be fun if you could challenge other players. It would make people want to improve their avatar and customize it for "cool" points. The more "cool" points the greater chance of winning, though certain types of apparel could give you luck points, hp, etc. so maybe a mini rpg would best describe it.