Seems they put a lot of effort in to penis and vagina swaping but not much thought in to char creation mechanics, larian missed the ball imo, they all patting em selves on the back for how inclusive they are, yet seem to have forgotten whats important to an actual game.
Get the stats right guys and even better add more ways to customise our stats
I would have much rather had 3/4 different ways to choose stats then all this effort in to genitals, i mean we dont have belts but we got an underwear slot
It all feels so strange.
Finding this lean in to sexuality and away from intresting game mechanics very frustrating
This is.the article im referring too, came with above video + extra
https://kotaku.com/baldurs-gate-3-character-creator-races-genitals-options-1850653066In a game with progression, stats are largely defined by progression - not the starting creator. It would be helpful if you could describe what those "3/4 different ways to choose stats" are. That said, I think the main issue you're talking about isn't stats, it's gear, and for that I would agree that the slots available are quite minimal... but somehow I doubt modeling genitalia was the reason for that. A studio can have different groups of people working on different things, after all - and generally the gear is going to conceal whatever's underneath. Also, unless I'm mistaken, we do actually have a belt slot.
Honestly that whole article reads like the interviewer came at the Larian dev with a ton of baggage and the Larian dev was a bit put off by it, just sort of nodding and smiling with "yes... we want our players to have options" and "yes, because of the way these product development cycles work, I could see a lack of inclusivity being baked in from the start because it's so hard to change later" and the article writer essentially veering into a blog about their baggage with a few bits of BG3 information put on top of it. It's very telling (and very Kotaku) that the "lack of 'black person' hair" cited doesn't mention that the primary reason it was not often included is the same technical reason that any highly curly hairstyle is harder to include: technical limitations of 3D graphics being most compatible with straight or lightly curved hair that can be approximated with layered translucent texture sheets of mostly parallel hair strands. The "all-inclusive" alternative - especially if you want the hair to not be frozen solid - is an impossibly taxing follicle simulation or a struggle to approximate one with POM (which is itself computationally taxing) or other shaders. It is legitimately only quite recently that hardware and rendering software has gotten to the point where it could give curly hair that doesn't... well, look like shit. Seriously, the earliest 3D game hairs were often a
solid part of the character's head geometry. Realistic curly hair is a significant technical challenge.
It doesn't really tell me anything about Larian or BG3 except that they seem to have set out to make a character creation system that they and their players would enjoy using, which I can't fault at all. Certainly doesn't seem like a "lean into sexuality" - any moreso than including sex scenes does - and definitely doesn't make me suspect that the character creation options were gained at the expense of "stat customization", since the latter is much, much less technically challenging and can be much more freely altered after release if it is felt to be lacking.
