Named Characters or Character Creation?

[Lazzamore]

I'm working on an ORPG, and I am beginning work on the universe. But I'm trying to decide; would it be better for me to have the player choose from named characters, who would have well thought-out biographies, or allow players to create characters by deciding the race/class combination themselves and then the characters are named after the player.

I enjoy making characters, but I can't decide if that would be good or bad for my map. What do you think?

 

[Xonok]

Making fully customizable characters is several orders of magnitude harder to do well though. If you have a solid system that you want to use for this, you can go for it, but in most cases I would suggest premade classes. (This coming from a person that's a die-hard fan of customization)

 

[Ardenian]

I myself enjoy most of the times having a basic class, like Druid or Berserker, with the option to heavily customizable it,
like a Blood Rage Berserker or a High Sword Arts Berserker, like different talent trees you can pick different things from.

Completely pre-built heroes are very boring and I do not recommend to do so. At least some skill options should be included, in my opinion.
Some ORPG, like The World RPG, for example, don't give any option to change your character ( at least not via character creation), whereas other great maps like TKOK offer talent trees with which you can build your hero in a way you would like to play with him, having only a basic class to choose from, like Paladin. You can make him a damage dealer, a tank, an off-tank or a caster, for example

 

[cleavinghammer]

I'd say it depends on the amount of characterization they get.

For example, if the characters talk a lot, it breaks immersion very fast to see things like "I am [TehUltimaetDraginslaya64], paladin at your service!". If there is no dialogue, then having the players' names instead works fine. See for example Explore the Ruins for awesomely-done characterization of characters.

Class progression-wise, it adds replayability if there are several options (though obviously it's a lot more work), though personally I prefer games that let you get all available skills before the end, and have a final/bonus boss that requires all of them.

 

[Lazzamore]

Thank you guys for your opinions! I will have to think about this, but I do think I can come up with a good system and am up for it, so I think that's what I'll do.