I'm maybe missing your point here. I understand that was changed. The reason for them originally identifying the two PC's as male and female was most likely there for a pivotal reason.
Originally they had specific and very different back-stories. When that was changed, there was no reason to not allow character customization.
My point was that the only change that people complained about was altering the bikini armour on the cover art.
I'm just saying in my opinion I would have liked to see where their original ideas would have taken them.
I'm curious about that myself, and hope Larian goes into a little detail about the original plot and why it was changed at some point.
I never made the claim that character design was the defining aspect of the game.
No, but the change to the bikini armour in the cover art (not even the game itself) was the thing you were arguing they should have stuck to their guns about, and held true to their vision.
I find it weird you claim character design was never a "vision".
By 'vision' in quotes I meant it was never -the- defining vision of the game, the thing that everything else revolves around and which can never be changed. If you want to casually use vision to mean the way the game is represented, then the cover art should be no more immune to change as any other aspect of the game.
If you look at concept art for games and animated movies, etc, some of it is close to the final version, some of it is not. Stuff evolves. Just because something is cover art does not make it somehow sacred. It has no moral or ethical characteristics.
Balancing changes and some mechanical changes don't all necessarily affect the vision of where you want to take a player in a game or story.
So why does cover are effect the vision of the game enough to have (what seems like) millions of posts about, and yet altering the actual story has a grand total of no complaints about Larian changing their artistic vision, etc?
It's not always okay to change everything else.
Of all the people complaining about changes to the cover art or that anyone would even ask for an option to change the female footwear, you are the only person I've see that has shown even the slightest interest in any change that didn't involve bikini armour cover art or high heels.
when everyone throws a fit when changes happen to mechanics.
No, the only game related change anyone accused Larian of some kind of ethical failing over was the cover art (a couple people made similar comments about the alpha/beta being Steam only), and the only thing people heatedly objected to the possibility of adding an option to change was high heels. Some people complained that the game was turn based or that it had an isometric camera, but there was no fit over any changes to mechanics or huge topics about how Larian shouldn't change something.
I feel like changing the art affects the original vision of the world they're creating.
And what if the art didn't accurately represent the original vision they were creating? The female wasn't stuck with bikini armour in the game, as shown in the cover art. The characters were equal in the game, unlike how the cover art portrayed them.
