The new colors do cover a wide range of skin colors (not just white and black), and I really hope everyone can find a color they like.

When those colors were made, the artists made sure they covered the old default colors. The 9th color in the color wheel is olive.
The new colors do cover a wide range of skin colors (not just white and black), and I really hope everyone can find a color they like.

As of today, awesome bug has been turned into awesome feature... I doubt that it will go out in Inferno, and I don't know how it will enter the game, but the asset is in

Only thing I'm not going to be keen about is less subtle variation in the existing skin tones.


More variety is fine. But less subtlety isn't.

Yeah, on another note, CCP, please reconsider this skin tones business. At least delay its release for a while.

No problem at all, apology accepted
Anyways, shortly after I replied, the creative director came back and I asked him whether we would ever consider that. He said he wanted to give all bloodline access to all clothes at some point, but probably through the LP store or something like that (I don't know if he has discussed it with the art director, who may or may not agree). So there is no timeline on it, but there is at lest interest in doing it. I didn't ask about the hairstyle, but from my point of view, we will need to lift some restrictions if we put in racial blending (whether it's give you access to the hairstyle of the other bloodline or something else),
I hope that answers some of your questions somewhat... I'm not sure there is any better answers at this point.

He said he wanted to give all bloodline access to all clothes at some point, but probably through the LP store or something like that (I don't know if he has discussed it with the art director, who may or may not agree).

Oh my god. Clear eyeglasses.

CCP, I cannot express just much how much I love you right now.

Have my babies.

Wow, youre a nerd playing a character that looks like a total nerd..

The hair color restrictions have been lifted

Wow, youre a nerd playing a character that looks like a total nerd..

And?

Owned!

.....without eyelashes!

There is no collision detection between eyelashes and glasses, so the eyelashes are not rendered when wearing glasses else they would pierce through the "glass".

Anyway, IMHO, clear eyeglasses have no point in existing. I am sure that 23,000 year in the future correction glasses should have become obsolete in one way or another...

just so we are clear, when I talk about skintypes and skin tones, this is what I mean:
skintype = new skin colors
skin tone = old skin colors

We feel the current color skin tone range is too narrow and having to pick one of 6 skin tones that are pretty much the doesn't make that much sense. We want to allow characters of all bloodlines to use the new skintypes we created, and that range is pretty broad and the colors pretty evenly spread.
So if we wanted to have the old color also available, the options would be 20 for each bloodline, which is too much, and the color palette would just look weird with maybe 10 very white options(for Amarr), and then the rest.
Also, we want to move to use the new skintypes (behind the scenes they are totally different from the skin tones), but realize some people might not be happy to change colors so we are allowing people to keep their old skin tone until they actually apply a new skintype and save the character.

just so we are clear, when I talk about skintypes and skin tones, this is what I mean:
skintype = new skin colors
skin tone = old skin colors

We feel the current color skin tone range is too narrow and having to pick one of 6 skin tones that are pretty much the doesn't make that much sense. We want to allow characters of all bloodlines to use the new skintypes we created, and that range is pretty broad and the colors pretty evenly spread.
So if we wanted to have the old color also available, the options would be 20 for each bloodline, which is too much, and the color palette would just look weird with maybe 10 very white options(for Amarr), and then the rest.
Also, we want to move to use the new skintypes (behind the scenes they are totally different from the skin tones), but realize some people might not be happy to change colors so we are allowing people to keep their old skin tone until they actually apply a new skintype and save the character.

While I will agree that skin tones are diverse, it is the types that dictate how they will be.
Adding artificial limitations on how White / Black someone can be, would still produce edge-cases that don't look right and fall hard and deep into the Uncanny Valley.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_color
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albinos

Those are some good reads, if you guys haven't check them out already.
I have had a chance to study the Shader system employed for the Character system, which unfortunately doesn't really have the capability (due to how things are calculated) to achieve something that isn't pre-made. This said I would highly recommend that this changed as really the base skin-colour is generally down to the Sub-Surface Scatter, Reflection and Specular; the blend of these contribute to the final colour.

If you do simply stick with the current system though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Felix_von_Luschan_Skin_Color_Chart.JPG

That is probably the most important chart, those are base adjusted skin colours. What you want (generally speaking) is to make a Hue Palette with a larger range than that; but use it as the extremes... then Clamp to +/- 25% of the base value. This would prevent any weirdness.

I mean that is basically the least complicated solution that shouldn't take long to impliment as it would literally be a colour blend with a greyscale skin diffuse. Still I'd suggest looking in to creating the 6 Architypes (which really at 2, Cold and Warm climate variants for 3 base types) as this would provide a much larger range of diversity that wouldn't lead to edge-case weirdness.

Not to mention it would be easier to have the skin blend for colder, warmer evironments or being burnt. Should you want to expand on Incarna gameplay at a later date without having to make a work around for such things.