Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General What is behind elf design?

I'm kinda in agreement with this. I really don't like the bug eyed look that they're going for here. That and no matter what armour you choose to put on Sebelle it all turns out skimpy. Puts me in mind of the Youtube videos "Epic NPC Man" where the male warrior gets a full plate and ringmaile when the female warrior gets a skimpy ringmaile bra.

Oh, and yes I did look at the male elves and yes, they are as skimpily dressed (and even went through the other races and some of the classes (especially the magic using classes) to find some of the in the same boat.)

I enjoy the fact that the Elves look alien and otherworldly. It helps sell the idea of them as a strange race of others, more in line with my idea of the "steal your babies in the night" Fae, rather than the typical "Aryan ideal perfect humans" they're usually portrayed as.

I only wish they had done the same with the Dwarves. Dwarves should be something terrifying you want to chase away at the point of a pitchfork, not some short Scottish soccer hooligan you'd want to have a pint with. Maybe they could be blue and spit venom.

Why? Because it's interesting. Elves and Dwarves as traditional fantasy tropes are so mind-numbingly boring.

That said, I have no vested interest in Larian lore or continuity, so I understand why some people would be more interested in keeping things familiar.

Saying race in the case of my post was used as slang to dictate the superficial physical differences between one genealogical group and another. The differences are minor and mostly superficial while there are more superficial difference's between and elf and human than between a black person and a white person or a Hispanic and an Asian; This is not a racist comment but it is in fact a truthful one saying that there is no difference between a black person eating a white person and a white person eating a black person is simply a fact both legally and politically correct in nature.

I don't know how you jump to it being racist as it is in fact racist to differentiate between people than to view them as the same; Just because they are superficially different which is in fact part of the very thing that leads to racism and social inequality to begin with.

I kind of wish Elves would at least act differently.

At least more distinctly then they do now.

Guys, the politics of the mostly superficial human concept of "race" and the idea of race in a fictional fantasy setting are an apples and oranges comparison.

Human beings are a single species.

The sapient creatures in this fictional reality are different *species* entirely, and it's no more "racist" to acknowledge their physiological differences, than to observe that a Wookie has the strength to rip a human's arms out of their socket when they lose at holochess. A Wookie is not a human being with minor superficial differences based on geographic ancestry. That thing could have 17 hearts and its brain in its butt for all we know.

Admittedly, this gets a bit murky when Bethesda classifies dark skinned humans as a different race alongside Orcs, Cat creatures and Lizard creatures, and makes their special ability to be "really good at athletics". That is, in fact, hilariously racist.

Well, they eat people. Thats pretty cool. I doubt most people would have found Legolas nearly as dreamy if one night he just decided to wolf down Pippin with a fine Chianti. It would have made him way more interesting, though.

Great! Except that



is how the series has portrayed them before.

Now admittedly Elves have only been in two games, one published in 2003, and the other was set about 10,000 years before D:OS 2, so in a sense they're both "very far away". It's not a big deal, just a thing which makes some whiny dumb morons (me) scratch their heads and go "err... that's quite a bit different than the portrayal from before."

The fact that they eat people is where it starts and ends...

They don't act differently because of it (outside offering bodyparts as rewards).

Would be neat if the fact that they are just a ball of other people's memories kind of popped up a bit more.

Elves are depicted as serious minded no-nonsense folks... who wear whimsical armor and weapons... Who eat people in gorey fashion. (and no one really cares oddly enough)

Yeah they hate humans... but everyone hates humans... and humans hate everyone else.

Overly rigid adherence to continuity is a drag. Was what came before really so interesting in itself, or was it just as likely a concession to available resources...i.e, cheaper to use the same mesh as humans?

Sometimes people get a chance to revisit something with different resources and a fresh vision. Think 1960s Klingons in Star Trek vs. the more developed and distinctly alien Klingons of the 80s. Would you really want to go back to the original just because it has a stricter adherence to continuity?

But like I said, I have no vested interest in this particular lore. If someone suggested retconning Captain Kirk into a thoughtful, tea-sipping diplomat instead of a manic, outer space sex cowboy, I would claw their eyes out. Thank god that hasn't happened. So I'm not unsympathetic to your position.

Personally I am not too disturbed by the elves

As I think I said earlier... Elves do not need to have only one culture.

BUT the game still MUST explain what happened.

Even Star Trek explained how these new Klingons developed (basically the old ones were created as spies)

An *eventual* explanation years later that nobody really needed.

Do they also need to explain why the characters had fewer polygons in their faces? We cant just sort of accept this as an evolution in resources and artistic vision?

No? Ok, cool. Just throwing that crazy talk out there.

Yes but do you know why they didn't need that explanation?

Because the Klingons didn't change... they got a cosmetic upgrade.

But even they explained something as small as that.

Elves suddenly transforming into Schizophrenic cannibals... is kind of a rather large change.

What? No. The Klingons got a *massive* overhaul to their lore, personalities and culture. They were originally just a simple cold war stereotype. By the end of the 80s they had a fully developed language for pete's sake.

But we're off topic now...

It's not that I'm unsympathetic to your position. There are certain IPs Im very protective of. Just suggesting that this might not be as important as your initial reaction leads you to believe.

Another thing that came to my mind on this is that they only speak in the Present Tense. Have they always been that way? If not, that's a neat little bit of flavor.

I did not mean to necro this thread however making other topic about this would have probably been useless.

At first I was a bit torn about elven design but now that I got more used to it I find it more acceptable, interesting and with it's own artistic value. However despite this, I would not mind if art department tried to create a mix between this design and traditional design we see in other games including at least one Divinity game. Which is other thing I'd like to adress.
Some people here pointed that both of these games are set in a Rivellon but several thousand years appart. However it's still same universe so this aspect might also be the reason, why some people take this change harder, than others. Also I'm not sure if I remember correctly but there is an elf in Divinity Original Sin 1 too, the one that gives you quest to kill orcish librarian. That one looks human ish too.
That said, someone here also wrote something about freedom of choice. So maybe, some sort of character creating system such as the one in Bethesda games should be tested. That would allow you to work with pre-modeled faces and bodies in some way, it might also encourage modders to support this game more, although I guess that implementing this would be quite a lot of work to do. It might be worth a try however.

Unfortunately you are mixing main-stream-pushed ideology with the science. Horse and donkey can inbreed although they are different races. However Zebra and horse cant inbreed. And there were many tries to do that. Can you imagine a stripped horse? Cool, want one. Althou close relatives, their gene collection is too far away, so we call it a specie for simplicity. Same with current population. When we get another 5 thousand years of evolution and keep nation genes (for example as Japans do), such a nation have a chance to evolve a way, that cant inbreed others. That is diversity.
As far as Elf are not only different species to humans but also different evolution root. So elf eating human is certainly not a cannibalism. As a shark eating human is not either.
I would prefer some distance from Elves to other lower species. You know, you like your dog and all the animals in zoo, right? That way, elves should handle those minors. Maby elves shoud need PetPal to talk with humans.

But Elves eat every meat, even other elves as far as you can tell. But it is less cannibalism than inheriting memories. ^^

What's wrong with the Elf design exactly ? I find their design to be perfect to how an Elf should look like.

Cause it's a complete 180 from how they've been portrayed within this games universe. They weren't barkskinned, leaf armor wearing people before. Nor were they cannibals to pass memories on.

Granted it's only the 1st chapter, but it really needs to be addressed as to how this change came about.

From what I've seen as the general consensus, people are kinda miffed about how the elves look. Probably too late to change now, so we'll have to make due.

I'm of the group that dislike the new look of the elves. Not a fan of the armor. Nature themed is okay, GW2 got it right.... sorta. But a fig leaf on the nether region and a cape doesn't scream protection to me.

Guess I'm jaded since I grew up with the classical Elves of Warhammer or D&D. With their badass looking racial armor and what not. Not getting badass from some fig leaf and twigs as armor. That's just me though.

I dunno, I dig the change from perfect, beautiful elf cliche to creepy, blood magicky elves. The armor definitely seems overly skimpy, and I could see the lack of continuity being irksome to long time fans. There's plenty of time and potential chaos and magical influence for elves to evolve of the centuries though. Perhaps one blood culty elven group conquered the rest. Could be some argument that overuse of source magic has changed elves (there's even a line from one of the prisoners that elves and dwarves should have changed their ways to stop the voidwoken, but that could also just be basic speciesism).

I think elven armor could be a nice mix of bones and nature elements (if it's not already like that). Lots of cool options there.