Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Elves are not Elven - Tel-quessir feed back ;)

Perfect reply

Going back to the main topic of this thread: @Goldberry summarized perfectly what I wasn't being able to point out exactly why Elf faces were bothering me so much. They mostly look human. I think there are only two female Elf faces that fits the category nicely, and that is it. I remember actually going for a half-elf character because he looked more elven than elves, lol. So yeah, I absolutely agree with this thread.

On a side note, I saw you mention that there were few interactions based on your High-Elf race, I was wondering if that's because maybe when Larian made the "high-elf" subrace they meant only Moon elves, which are more common

Why are people complaining about beautiful women? We like to look at attractive people, we are a vain species, pretending otherwise is coping, the Men are just as attractive in this game so I don't see the arguement. It seems like people are less concerned with elves looking too human, and more concerned over half elves "looking better" than actual elves in their opinion, because they BOTH look pretty human. Video games should not serve as platforms to boost players own self esteem, there's people to talk to for that, they should look representitive of the artist direction. I honestly feel for these developers, because they're trying to portray their own artistic vision, while having to deal with the various people with their own personal issues who think the artist's work should cater to them specifically and be their own personal therapy so to speak, and when you have a bunch of different people wanting different things specifically catered to them, that direction gets lost, part of the reason these big AAA developers have been stumbling in this era of games is listening TOO much to player feedback, or atleast not the right kind of constructive feedback, rather they listen to the people who think they should make their game. Trying to make games for everyone, instead of the game they set out to make. "Why isn't this character this sexuality I wanted to romance that one!" "why does this character look this way, it should look like how I want". This not only damages characters in the development process, but the entire game as a whole. Anyway having more female developers =/= a better product, afterall more females at CD projekt red worked on Cyberpunk 2077 than they did on Witcher 3, and one of those games became one of the biggest rpg's of all time, the other, the biggest blunder since Fallout 76. So gender does not make a product good. Talent does, only talent

Apologies for the mini rant, but i'm just tired of this rhetoric, this rhetoric has already destroyed many of the AAA developers from Bioware to Bethesda to now CD Projekt and people insist on destroying the few we have left making quality games. Gamers need to get back to constructive criticisms, gaming mechanics, combat, writing etc etc and stop trying to turn the games into their own personal mod. Just play Skyrim instead and you can morph the entire game how you see fit LOL

But yes, most gamers are boys that's a fact, infact despite Ubisoft making Kassandra of Assassins Creed the canon character 80% of players still chose Alexios. And it was the same for Mass Effect and Commander Shepard, despite how hard they pushed femshep after 3. What does that tell you. Keep in mind here no one is saying girls aren't or can't be gamers, boys can play with barbies too. But the fact is, barbies are by and large sold to girls.

I completely agree with this. I'd also like to remind the people who brought up sexism to look at the media catering to women and tell me how often they see hot, shirtless guys fawning over a totally average female protagonist and how that's any different from games with a mostly male audience having their females look attractive. Games cater to their main demographics. Both sexes like eye candy, both have self insert protags, who cares? There are games out there with fat, covered up women where everything is pastel and no one is sexy if you want them but those games fail to bring in an audience for a reason.

No one is complaining about that. Please quote the complaint.


Your subjective opinion vs other peoples subjective opinion.


In a way. This is an RPG, character creator should have options, DIFFERENT options, not a lot of very similar ones.


True, gender of devs is completely irrelevant.


TBH, this topic is pretty constructive by OP, we just derailed it, sexism was a little side note. Elves in this game don't look elfy, it's not lore friendly.


Most of us just want equality tbh. If there are a lot of beautiful female faces, there should be as many beautiful male faces, if there are a lot of old male faces, there should be a lot of old female faces, if an armor shows buttcheeks it should show buttcheeks on males and females both, if an armor looks practical it should also look practical on both etc. Zero problems with sexy, so long as it is for both sexes in equal amount AND ( this is important ) exactly the same way.

100%, and even the super crazy tumblr-types would agree in secret, despite how much some push unnattractive people as ideal in their art and protest beauty, they don't actually believe that nor want those types and often times, desire people well above their own station. Before the tumblr nsfw ban almost every nsfw blog was of hot jock males LOL


There is nothing subjective about this, this is objectively handsome, just as brad pitt is objectively handsome, you can say he's not your personal taste, but you must acknowledge he is objectively beautiful. Beauty is not an opinion. Some people are objectively sexy, and others objectively repulsive. Attraction though, is subjective.

I wonder if the discussion of gender is helping @goldberry's cause? She's only made one thread to advocate for one issue and I want to see her succeed.

Seems like people want to discuss representation, gender and beauty standards -- which could be great fun. Perhaps someone could make a separate thread about that?

I was about to suggest the same thing. There is obviously need to discuss gender and sexism, it would be best to make a thread for that.


As for the original topic: I do agree, that the elves don't look that elvy.

Even if this were to be true, which it is not, but it is irrelevant to my next point: you don't find it ironic that you posted exactly the ONE face that OP also posted? The one face everyone picks, and it is not an elf face?

Except it's not. The preset used in OP is head 5 for the half high elf, aka the most baby faced and youngest looking of the half high elf presets. Which is exactly why I called OP out for it, using the most babyfaced preset in the roster to prove that half elves look more "delicate" and elven than the full elves. The preset in the photo above is head 1 for the half high elf and looks drastically older, and very much human, despite some claiming the half elves look "too elf" apparently, i'm like besides the ears, where? LOL

Fair enough, my bad. The face expression and the beard made me see the other face. I agree that all faces look human and should be slightly elvenized. That said you were talking about faces looking good while showing off half-elven faces, which are younger looking and more delicate than the elven ones, even if they all look human.

Complaining about beauty was not the purpose of this thread. The purpose was to discuss Elven feautures and/or the lack of them. Goldberry made her first post absolutely clear.

No harm done, anyway I agree with the first half of your post, although there already are half elf presets that look more elven, though limited choices, I feel they tried to diversify them, you have half elves like preset 1 looking closer to human, and then you have 2-3 (I believe) looking more angular and "pointy" (lol) like the full elves. Which honestly is how it should be. Mixed races don't all look the same, and some half elves should look closer to human and others closer to elven. We will no doubt get more presets with updates, but hopefully they don't compromise the ones they already have. I for one, love the head 1

That ! I agree and straight to what I meant to say. We are on the same page.


I sincerely apologize if I offended or planted some scary thought in your mind. I will remove my post if it's perceived that way. Refer to @Kadajko's comments and hopefully we are ok with that.

-> I agree that half-elves has better faces then the rest of the races - but that should be perceive as a constructive comment/feedback for the dev.
-> The point referring the armor (ref.: Kadajko's comment) should also be perceived as constructive feedback for the dev.
I think that's the best we can come up with before we all end-up on a zoom-call arguing about cosmetics.


OP, this thread is great because we are addressing few points that are interrelated (dotted-line) to one another within the same thread. This is to your credit.

-S

Thank youuuu


Well, no one here wants half elves changed if that's what you've gathered from the topic. They look just right.

The topic, again, is that DND has a lot of material on elves and Larian so far seems to have largely ignored it. Besides the trance animation when resting... They look, feel, and behave completely human. For example, If you switched Astarion's race for human, little besides his resting animation would have to be changed. This clearly demonstrates that Larian has no interest in portraying elves in a particularly elven way, writting and recording voice lines takes a lot more time and work, so that's a lost cause to me.

But adding a few face presets for them to have a more classic, dnd feel, is a lot easier and achievable

This thread is drifting, and not in a good direction. Please try to keep to the topic in the title.

We all know that thread drift occurs, but the question of sexism in gaming is probably too large and contentious to remain a simple diversion. Topics concerning sexism (and other 'isms) have a worrying habit of becoming confrontational and toxic. It is a legitimate area of discussion* but this is not the place.



*Do note that this particular area of the forum is for discussion of Larian's BG3 game and not the wider gaming hobby. The RPG Chat area is more suited for discussion about perceived sexism in gaming generally. Note though that even there any descent into toxicity will result in the usual measures being taken.

I apologize for previous offtop.

And on the topic, probably, such faces were added to the elves for a change, to please more players. For the same reason, all companions are bisexual. I don't see it as a big problem if Larian just adds more faces. Everyone plays as they want and by whom they want. They also have the biggest ears in the game, very hot.

"Biggest ears in the game, very hot" xD that's something I can agree with

I also think they should keep the old elf faces but add some new ones, yeah. As long as the new ones are more elven. Makes more sense & pleases (almost) everyone.

To add to the OP, I absolutely agree that there is an issue in the representation of the pure Elf races.

The OP perfectly documented the issue, and without some kind of upvote, I'll just say I agree with them.

Keep the better old faces (Or all of them. The assets are already made, might as well), add new ones that are authentic to moon/sun/wood elves, add meaningful racial dialogue between Elven PCs and NPCs as well as Drow NPCs. Even Dwarves and Elves have history that's fun and so very *typical* of fantasy - completely opposed societies and values, but an acknowledgement of the good in one another and often counting each other as allies in a crisis.

The game as it stands feels like a loosely adapted Faerun setting where a great many characters have been sanded down to accommodate a more generic and less geopolitically nuanced experience (Is that the right term?). It's not been uncommon to see Faerun played as cosmopolitan in my experience, especially in the case of player characters and who they're surrounded by, but I would like to see what makes Faerun itself retained, besides the pure visuals... which they didn't get quite right all across the board either, hence this thread. A good thing we're only in early access, eh?

Cultures and their differences from ours are an important and defining distinction of the setting that I adore seeing. I am not, as many here have put it, playing in a fantasy world to draw parallels with my real life. There can be relatability with something utterly alien so long as it's written well, and I still have confidence in Larian's writing team despite not really *feeling* the story so far.

(APPLAUSE)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well said, Vallis!