Larian Studios Forums Divinity General Discussion [PETITION] Bring back Lizards/Elves with exotic bodies ⚠️

Dear Larian, bring back lizards and elves with exotic bodies and exotic clothing style.
Don't make all the races looks humanized humanoids, like in Baldur's Gate 3!

And improve the faces! (humans, elves, lizards) They shouldn't be so ugly, It was impossible to create an attractive character in Divinity: Original Sin 2.

I really didn't like how your team made the Dragonborn with human body structures in Baldur's Gate 3, I expected something more similar to the lizards from Divinity: Original Sin 2.






I'm not sure, but this scene gives me the impression that the lizards now looks more humanized, like dragonborn. I don't like that:


Edit:
Were orcs also victims of humanization?

The trailer does not make Orcs look great either, with them also being very humanized.

Especially when you compare them to Divine Divinity and DOS1 concepts:

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/divinity2/images/4/4f/The_Giant_Orc_Concept_Art_%28Divine_Divinity%29.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20200129152202
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/divinity2/images/7/74/Orc_Concept_Art_%28Original_Sin%29.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20231019122124
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/divinity2/images/e/ef/Orc_Concept_Art_2_%28Original_Sin%29.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20231019122207
But of course, much of the issue comes down to workload.

Especially when they're using a lot of mocap for animations, which simply won't work well when used for non-human proportioned races given that mocap actors are typically humans.

But beyond that they'd have to factor in making items that fit all these different shape bodies. Which is a similar reason why body shape alterations are also limited (Not just in BG3 but across most games too).

Having an actual diverse racial line up does bring along this need for extra work to implement it. Hence the prevailing trend of humanizing everything. It's basically the exact same thing as Star Trek aliens all being just humans but with play-doh stuck to their head. It's just easier to do than to put in actual effort to say, rig up and use puppets (Like in Farscape for characters like Pilot or Dominar Rigel XIII) that will thus be less polished due to not being moved directly by a real person.

Also, while there is AI (Machine Learning, not the GenAI slop), it's still only great for simple actions. Like getting a multi-legged robot to walk around a map (As seen in Arc Raiders) rather than the more nuanced animations associated with an individual interacting with many differernt things.

This is not healthy man. ^

Yeah, they are going to do that. Those ugly faces and that art style isn't coming back (as far as evidence shows). DOS2 (or any latest game, as the previous games show) isn't a blueprint for everything divinity, and it shouldn't be.

I agree and think that DOS2 designs are fresh and outstanding.

A new Divinity game is a great opportunity to consolidate lore, I hope they do it in a creative manner rather then print humans with ears and short humans with beards and green humans with teeny tiny tusks. But I guess the generic human Tav meme is not a meme after all and public wants their human male protagonists. I feel this is the same type of public who consume soulslikes on a daily basis and never get tired of it.

I get you like this art style, and there is nothing wrong about that (and is unique for sure). But I don't care so much for it, in-fact it was the primary thing I did not like about the divinity series which I enjoyed otherwise. So, I will be happy to see them adopt the art style of elves and orcs around the interpretations of them from a century of literature. Been a fan of fantasy with elves from Tolkien, Witcher, countless fantasy series and games and the extreme deviation just pull me out of it. If they do it this way I'll still play it though assuming the game play is great as Larians creations, just don't care much for it.

I sort of think of this akin to being a Star Trek Fan. We all know what Vulcans look like. If a new sci-fi came out with "Vulcans" along the line of star trek that look entirely different I just don't think it will be accepted by fans. Same with any other genre where there are long defined. What I would be more interested in, is if they had proper elves but then had another race altogether introduced that actually is very alien in appearance. In my tiny brain (not claiming I'm anything other than a mouth breather) it just works just like I would prefer Vulcans look like Vulcans if adopted in variants of star trek.

But what the OP posted is what they look like in Divinity. So when you want Vulcans stay Vulcans as they were established you should also insist that the Lizards and Elves stay like in older Divinity titles instead of getting humanized.

Not really. I don't think you understood what I was saying as it was fairly clear. Divinity is new fantasy and did not establish elven lore. Elves (not so much lizards) have established lore in over 2,500 to 3000 years of fantasy literature depicted as divine, ageless and beautiful in Germanic, Norse and Celtic traditions. In modern literature in Tolkien, and others as mentioned nearly a century of established depictions in books, games, cinema. As stated, this was the one thing I did NOT like about Divinity previous editions. Just like the comment on Vulcans - Star Trek started the depiction of Vulcans, and with Elves it was not Divinity that invented them, it was Divinity that changed them to some alien looking thing.

The crux of it is that "Elves" are unique to their setting.

While Tolkien is the major reference used for modern fantasy writing, it is not the end-all-be-all.

Races exist uniquely in each setting. Sure, many tend to copy Tolkien's designs. But not all do.

In Divinity, elves are different to Tolkien's. They're much more elongated (Though technically, that is also how Tolkien depicts them too. Peter Jackson's film takes a lot of liberties with the source material, elves being just "Sexy humans with pointy ears" is one of them) and have different cultures. Especially in regards to death, with their trees and the whole "Obtaining memories through eating body parts" thing. The only thing Tolkien and Divinity elves really share is the whole "Created by a god to populate the world" backstory, which is more coincidental than anything (Divinity doesn't have the same subplot background regarding Eru Iluvatar and the Valar)

This means your comparison with Star Trek and Vulcans only makes sense if the media in question is based in the Star Trek universe and is specifically using their form of alien species of Vulcans from the planet Vulcan, the highly emotionally volatile race that uses meditation to quell emotion in order to maintain a logical clarity.

If someone is writing media for say... Harry Potter and they choose to have a race of "Vulcans" it doesn't mean they have to be at all similar to Star Trek's Vulcans simply due to them sharing a name. They can be completely different, because it's a different universe and so they're different races.

Speaking of Harry Potter... They are an example of elves being portrayed completely differently to Tolkien's. Them being short, impish creatures that have little to no hair and a penchant for trickery. Which is more akin to the many folklore depiction of "Elves" that predate Tolkien's life by many hundreds of years, let alone his work on the LotR/Silmarillion novels.

Which is a big thing for Tolkien's races. They are not unique. None of his creations are completely invented by him. He was inspired by many past works, including folklore (As well as his own religious views, hence the subplot of the Valar mirroring the angels and Lucifer of Christian lore). Where he picked up on one of many depictions of these races to use in his works. There is still many other depcitions of these races that existed before him that can be used as inspiration in the future. As well as many different interpretations made after him which can also be used as inspiration (Which has had an effect, for example, "Green Skinned Orcs" is not from Tolkien who's Orcs are brown/grey/black skinned - Green Orcs comes from places like Warhammer, Warcraft and Elder Scrolls and have become the modern staple in lieu of Tolkien's version)

Hence why these races get not only used, but also readapted. They're popular races from folklore. So they are what people tend to think about when creating fantasy stories. It's not that they're creating new LotR media set in Middle Earth, they're just using a generic fantasy race and then using a different take on them than Tolkien took.

Sure, sometimes creators come up with new names for more unique versions of the same idea (For example, Warhammer has Eldar and FFXIV has Elezen instead of "Elves") but it's not a requirement and is really only to add flavour to their universe (Which FFXIV does a lot of, including things like having "Popotos" instead of "Potatoes" functionally identical and close enough that they're recognizable but is something unique that adds a bit of flavour)

I agree, the races should be more unique in look and playstyle.

I really like the artwork of the original elves and lizards in DOS and would love to see it implemented. I'm tired of seeing elves as 'pretty humans with pointy ears ', I want a more unique feeling.