Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-86.46.22.35-20130403153709/@comment-24760016-20150704173603

64.33.250.214 wrote: TheGentlemanGhost wrote: How could Kojima suddenly add an important custom character...? I don't understand this kind of thinking...he'd do it the same way he suddenly added Skull Face and Diamond Dogs out of no where. Even Ocelot's character is still out of place since he's no where to be found in MG1 & MG2 which come after these events in TPP. So I don't see how continiunity is an issue in the slightest, the story can go in so many directions on top of the fact that Kojima is constantly adding new charcters on the fly with new installments set in the past or present world of MGS.

Doesn't MGO only allow facial customization for the physical appearance (I never got to play it)? I know GTA online is that way though. It's not exactly a big mystery there, in a lot of cases the body type is ignored in customization.

So you believe this is a returning character. But you believe it's somehow only possible for this character to call himself by another name or alias if he's returning, yet it's somehow unfathomable to do this if it's a custom character...? lol this doesn't make sense, how does it rule out "Ishmael" being a custom character? Either way, it's a false name given by a character to keep his true identity hidden, what's the difference then???

There's a lot of secrets Kojima is still keeping about the game that could be good information and he already has kept the secret of this thing that can only be done in games this long, whether it's the Ishmael theory or not. He hasn't even confirmed what countries in Africa the game is set in. There's a lot of general info that's left unknown still. Again, it's not too unbelievable that he'd keep a feature that let's us fight along side of Big Boss (the most iconic/infamous character in MGS) while having us possibly effect the storyline as "Ishmael" a secret. Ocelot and Diamond Dogs are main characters, which is completely different. This isn't like adding a custom character to a franchise like Mario, where the plot and continuity are paper thin. The burden would be on people who write and read this Wikia site, to make sense of how a character's appearance can drastically change from game to game and still be canon. About the only way you could make that make sense is if Ishmael were Decoy Octopus.

Let's go back to Moby Dick. Ishmael in Moby Dick was the narrator and a main character, not the reader. If you were to make Ishmael the player, it'd basically butcher that whole reference. Ahab and Ishmael aren't just Moby Dick characters, they're also Bible characters. Kojima has been naming major MGS characters after Bible characters. Liquid (Eli), Solid (David), Big Boss (John/Ahab), Major Zero (David), Ocelot/Adamska (Adam), Eva (Eve). Naming a custom player character after an important Biblical figure doesn't really fit with that trend.

I wouldn't call it unfathomable if you couldn't change a character's name. But in most cases, games that let you customize your character usually allow you to name them. In some cases, you're given the option to name characters even when you can't customize them. Examples of this are old RPGs like Final Fantasy VIII. You could name Squall "Emo Kid" if you wanted.

Again, I don't see why Kojima would need to not demo a customization feature at e3. Especially when there are features in Phantom Pain shown at e3 that have not been done in other games to the same extent, like the Buddy System and Mother Base building. There are many games where you can customize not only the head, but body as well. To name a few: Final Fantasy XIV, Destiny, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Dragon Dogma, Skyrim, Fallout, Soul Calibur.

Kojima has kept characters and plot info a secret, but not so much gameplay. We've seen hours of footage to give us an idea of the game's core mechanics. There could be other locations, but the main ones are Africa and Afghanistan. We don't need to see a potentially plot-spoiling excursion to Outer Heaven. Some of the preview footage showed us options to customize Big Boss and Support Buddies. Why reveal that customization, and not even tease character customization which has similarly been done in games before?

How often will Ishmael be in scenes with Big Boss for customization to be a big deal? Support Buddies can fight alongside Big Boss, but are primarily optional characters. You can miss them in the game, and they don't appear to have any dialogue pertinent to the plot. Ishmael on the other hand has been shown to talk and reveal exposition. You're turning anthills into mountains if you really think them putting a custom character in the game is such an obsticle to put into canon. It's seriously no different than them adding Quiet or Skull Face into TPP, it's new character and that's about it. They are both playing some key roles yet we NEVER heard of them until now, what really makes a custom character any different???

I'm very aware of Kojima using Biblical references for names but the previews have stated that their are multiple Moby Dick references. Besides Ishmael, him calling BB Ahab, the whale, and knowing Kojima called his fake studio Moby Dick, the helicopter is apparently called Pequod. So I think it's pretty safe to say the he's going for intentional Moby Dick references.

There's also A LOT he's kept secret with game-play, but Ishmael is just as much story as game-play and he's had the previewers keep quiet about him. It's pretty much all proven that he's keeping the customization secret since multiple journalist have removed their references to it.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this but it's also confirmed that we will be able to play as our DD soldiers on missions instead of BB. So if Ishmael is a part of DD and our custom character, then we can also choose to deploy and play as him in missions. Used differently from buddies. I'm assuming that's how the GZ characters we extracted and transfer over into TPP are used as as well. But I wouldn't down play the buddies, them seem VERY vital judging from the previews. People took Kojima's "they don't effect the main story" quote all wrong imo. It didn't mean they don't offer anything relevent it just meant the game will end the same no matter what. But we've seen multiple cut scenes with Quiet involved, so I'd assume they definitely can add to the story.