I very much enjoyed your previous games and I'm very excited for BG3.
A trend I keep seeing in CRPGs is having female characters be drawn or modeled in a sexualized manner. I ask that you please refrain from doing that in BG3.
I'd really appreciate it if my female heroes could look as capable as my male heroes. Having female characters look sexualized decreases suspension of disbelief and immersion for me. I'm a dude in his 20s and contrary to popular belief having sexy babes in a game does not make it more appealing to me.
Thanks for hearing me out

Oh look, another one of "those" topics.
I for one enjoy the Human form. It is not about realism but about believeability.

Western RPGs never were sexualized to the point of not beeing believeable, not to mention it is an inherently unrealistic setting.

How about a different request from me: Please refrain from the modern WRPG genre convention of making all women ugly on purpose.

51-year-old woman here who may view bikini armour as being a bit daft but would quite like her protagonist to look quite feminine. And I admit I had a bit of a sad at Original Sin's high heels and handstand-after-climbing-a-ladder being canned.

The point is that its not one way or another.
You can make a character believeable and feminine.
Just because your characters look aesthetic doesnt mean you are a Korean MMORPG.
I personalyl detest the trend that modern western games have this obsession with uglyness. The last big budget RPG from the west that had aesthetically pelasing Humans was the Witcher 3.

Likewise, fantasy outfits for some reason all need to reflect game of thrones. Not actually realistic, brown, unaesthetic.
People need to stop equating beauty with something negative.

Or equating "realism" with something inhernetly superior, especialy if, like game of thrones, it is not actually realistic in any way.
One thing that always gets me as someone who dabbles in the visual arts, is the way scale is presented. There is a trend to a "realistic" scale rather than an idealized one.
and in the end, it just looks worse. Specifically with recent Bioware games, the scale seemed to have shifted from (realistic) 7.5 heads to 7 heads, for reasons i cannot point out.
Someone made a realy good infograph about that.

As for Heels, i personally think they work in the way Guild Wars or Witcher did it: Wizards can get away with blatantly impractical wear, once they hit melee they get molten instantly anyway, also they have a tendency of beeing vain.
On a melee character it has the tendency of making the animations look silly.
Unless you happen to be warhammer fantasy and have witch elves, in which case the blatant exagration is the whole point.

Either you are being naive or haven't been gaming. Most female characters on gaming since 2010 has been ruined by your kind. I said enough is enough you are not moral police and developers have been stupid meeting your demands ended up with bland and uninteresting characters design.

Meanwhile ignoring blood gore, fighting, killing have been part of gaming since the beginning. Pls leave and stop ruining games for your selfish hippocricy afraid being your child exposing to females.

We all know where this leads to. Larian let's not forget what happened to Divinity Origin Sins poster. And what changes you made to please these people. They certainly did not buy your games nor being your true fan.

cant believe im agreeing with you for once, but yeah, pretty much that.
I tried beeing more diplomatic about it. But realy, theres been a lot of censorship in gaming and it appears to come from a deep loathing for beauty itself.

Same. One of the things I despised about DAI and MEA. Where tf did this trench of making female characters look unattractive on purpose come from and why does it have to exist is effing beyond me.

Talking about this is dumb. Maybe OP was just trolling. I vote this thread be deleted.

to be fair, theres plenty of places that almost exclusiveley talk about this sort of thing.
I think it started with an obsession with realism, realism lead to the absurd believe that "real" people are ugly.

DAI was funny in a very specific way, only the women were ugly, the men all looked generic, but had very specific male model like features.
MEA was just created by people with no talent whatsoever, so i dont know if i should attribute it to malice or incompetence.
but with Anthem, you cant tell me it wasnt on purpose.

Also i dont think OP is trolling here, this is a very popular sentiment. A lot of people on certain Forums virtue signal about this all the time.
I guess its different here because people here played older CRPGs, where this wasnt the case at all.

I think this is one of those areas where it's probably a good idea to be open-minded and to debate things fairly. People can have valid concerns with some of this sort of stuff and not everyone is trying to play the SJW card. And in case anyone thinks it's aimed at them, I'm also thinking of my own inclination to get a bit shouty about this sort of thing so my comment is also a bit of a reminder to myself at least as much as anyone else. So I shall remain uncharacteristically unopinionated on some of the matters raised. Though Sera is still my bestie in spite of things including her fingernails-down-the-blackboard voice. Hmm, in spite of or because of...? She wouldn't have been half as interesting had she sounded... well, like anything else.

i think people tend to be wary because tolerance towards extreme opinions tends to lead to them inching furhter and further in their direction untill you got nowhere left to go.
Maybe im particularly biased against this because some communities ive been part of have been split because of those issues.

Well yeah, there is that. I'm somewhat loath to presume someone's intent because btdt and often found I was wrong (more than once... seems I was being a bit empirical about the contention du jour. Or perhaps just argumentative and stubborn) but I am aware that there's also a bit of a tendency for various classes of Flame Warrior to congregate around subjects like this. Or possibly coagulate, or congeal.

A lesson most lawmakers should learn.

Male characters in video games aren't sexualized? DO:S heroes particularly had pinky muscles bigger than my thighs.

This is a relevant subject and one I just discussed with a friend of mine who's gamed with me for decades. We Do miss the old style 'uber-feminine/masculine' characters we remember from the early days of gaming and can't understand where the current trend to make modern avatar artwork so unappealing came from. Whether it's agenda driven or not, maybe it might help to step back and ask one simple question - Why can't we have both?

It would require a little extra art direction, but if games were released with numerous options (both "sexualized" and "empowered") then everyone Should be able to select the character portrayals that will help them enjoy the game most?

Time to get past the 'my way or the highway' mentality, perhaps.

Did they?

Yeah well it's one of those areas in which gender equality doesn't work.

It actually does tho.
its mostly just seen in a wrong way.

The dogma ofthen goes sexualization vs power fantasy.
but that kind of disregards the fact that powerfull men are seen as attractive and attractive women are seen as powerfull.

Power and attractiveness are virtually the same thing in human perception. At least the apperance of power, not power in terms of money or political gravitas.

I'm a game developer FWIW, my intent when creating characters isn't unlike if I was a novelist or a film maker I imagine. I want them to be believable, and if appropriate heroes. It's hard to make an avatar heroic. With a screen actor it's easy, <insert famous actor> can get up there and convey so much that we easily see them as heroic, or whatever. But getting a bunch of pixels to look that way, when you have limited ability to voice (even with budget) that you have to overcompensate in other ways. Visual and music being the easiest. So yeah characters, male and female, exaggerate to try to reach the player. Women are curvy (e.g. Sebille in D:OS2) and men are muscular (Ifan). But I think Larian did it tastefully in this example, Sebille is pretty sexy visually and voice wise, but she's also a crazy powerful assassin, so she has strength too. And Ifan has a complex history behind him and is not just a muscle head, his origin story has a lot of emotion in it.

So meh, I don't get the modern obsession with trying to find fault in every characterization of women, or men for that matter which nobody seems to care about.

Its a purity spiral.
The problem with purity spirals is that while they might start well intentioned, they end up promoting the most extreme up their own arse version fo any given idea, because "purity" is gained from one upping one another in "the good thing".

For what its wroth, im personally sick of the "powerfull" thing aswell. Why? power is derived from how the player acts.
I think showing some weakness for once would actually lead to more interresting characters..

Playing Whorecraft, the video game ? Why not, only if male characters have the same kind of sexy armor.

Is there any compelling reason to have women be the only ones to have bikini chainmail (if anyone should have one) ?
Either do both or do none, I'd say.

I don't see any reason why there can't be ugly characters alongside pretty ones, boobplate alongside purely functional shit.

Just make it possible to use a custom portrait so I can add my Luis Royo art :D and everyone who want "realistic" art can have that as well : )

Also I have a huge collection of art for my table top gaming, functional and sexy armor can absolutley be done, without resorting to the stupid "Aim Here" Cleavage.

Barbarians should be like Conan or Red Sonja. Fighters should have functional armor. Monk, Sorc and Wizard could be naked if they wish to.

Well now I want to play a nudist sorcerer in my next game. "Dammit, Krashnark! Put some pants on!"

In most of the D&D-based games i´ve played, the agile characters wearing nothing more than a few magic trinkets always ended having far more AC than the fighters with 120kg or plates and steel so I am eager to see how outrageous AC is going to get my future monk wearing only magical thongs.


I am pretty sure that there must be a Skyrim mod for that. Maybe they can port it.

Which actually makes more sense. Like how DAO's armor and defense mechanics work. Heavy armor doesn't make you harder to hit; it reduces the damage you take instead. If someone is hard to hit, it should be the high-DEX, lightly-equipped rogue. You should be easier to hit the more you are bogged down with armor, unless you are inhumanly strong. I don't know of a game that actually makes your character easier to hit the heavier armor they are equipped with, though. One of the things that "sounds dumb" in a video game, but actually makes sense.

Agreed. There is a very good mod conversion for IWD2 that does exactly that: the heavy armor provides damage resistance and light armour provides high ac (as in high chances of evade damage).

The To-hit roll in D&D has always been abstracted to mean a "damaging hit". In D&D terms a person in heavy armor is getting hit, but often not hard enough or in the right place to cause any damage to get through.

AC is a mechanical abstraction, it can mean anything from a blow glancing off at your armor, the enemy missing you, you dodgign your enemy, you parrying your enemy, or you simply toughing through the hit.

Now theres another thing that especialy third edition DnD players constantly rage at if its brought up: HP are also an abstraction. You dont actually get 20 fleshwounds before a kobolds tiny spear to the ankle finally kills you.
HP basically represent plot armor and grit.

So warrior types are not harder to hit, just harder to take down (they have more HP) and agile combatants (Monks, duelists, rogues, etc most of the time they have 150% more AC than heavily armored characters) are more adept to dodge damage but can take less punishment. Makes sense if you put it that way.

I still prefer the DR- based armor system of DAO, gothic or the old tabletop games Exaltado or Vampire: Mascarade.

I agree 100%, they should look at Star Trek Onlines character/bridge officer customization options which in my option are the best in video games.

That includes STO boob sliders and sliders for other features, face and body and uniforms. You can even customize the appearance of their space ships.

You can have a young buxom super model character or an old character with a pot belly, eye patch, and a scar.

What about multiclass Barbarian Fighters or a Fighter Eldrich Knight that uses Mage Armour spell instead of actual Armour?

I want an enchanted chainmail bikini, and that is just for my male characters ;p on a more seriously note, without boob plate you can't tell the gender of the character at all.

Honestly screw realistic Armour, I like Armour that looks cool.

i think guild wars 2 had an interresting compromise there, they included both western RPG artists and asian RPG artists in their team, so they have a very strange but endearing mixture of different styles that still feel coherent.

It's DND has armour there ever been "sexy"? Personally, I prefer it that they offer more revealing light armour or just clothing for DEX classes. The only bikini armour from DNDn games I remember was worn by the half Dragon girl in Icewind Dale

thats because you assume we are talking about one extreme or another.
Just look at the character portraits of baldurs gate or the female armors in neverwinter nights and youll know what were talking about here.

The argument is not realy wether or not you like sexualized fantasy characters but wether or not artists should be allowed to create them.
Id like to remind you that Original Sin 1 had its cover art censored because of this issue.

And yet Original Sin 2 armour design was skimpier than ever before in the Divinity series, so I wouldn't worry about Larian becoming puritan all of sudden

well the black ring, the rest not so much.
Im not worrying about Larian, im worriyng about Western RPGs in general and also WOTC.

I dont consider myself an artist, but as someone who is into digital painting and character design, i get annoyed by how close minded and puritan the western fantasy scene has gotten

I did not expect to get so much hate for such a simple request. I don't visit game forums often, so when I came back today to check if there was a reply to my post I was surprised to see that it was at the very top of the page.

To the developers: please keep in mind that most of your fans, like me, do not write often on forums such as this. The people who voiced objection to my request may be the most vocal fans, and they seem to have very strong opinions on the sexualization of female characters in games. But I'm guessing they are a minority and that the vast majority of people who play your games share my opinion that characters in games are not there to satisfy our sexual desires. And we would prefer you ditch the boob plate and skimpy outfits in favor of more believable and more humanizing portrayals of female characters.

I would like to point out that the setting is not earth but a planet call Toril and only one race is humans. Can you really say what elves, halflings, orcs, teiflings, gnomes, and dwarves like to wear?

Its not hate. But theres a red flag already, classifying criticism of an invasive idea as hate is ridiculous.

And oh boy, here it goes. Oh yeah, you the silent majority. The silent majority who wants ugly characters. The silent majority who keeps not buyign any actual video games yet somehow, despite beeing oh so silent, constantly gets pandered to by western developers, who in turn keep going bankrupt because their games look amateurish as a result.

But since you already resorted to an ad hominem by claiming that my opinion is centered on satisfying my sexual desires: Ie: fapping to video games, why would i even listen to you.
Clearly youve got some insecurities to work on yourself. I for one create Art as a hobby and have an eye for aesthetics, you aperently do not.

The idea that what you are asking for is somehow more "Humanizing" shows your skewed perception of reality.
Most women are beautifull. I genuinly believe this, i have seen vastly more beautifull than ugly women in my life. Perhaps that is because i am from a central european country where people generally know how to dress well, are not overweight and know how to take care of themselves. But uglyness is not part of beeing human, beauty is.

TL;DR Go back to ResetEra

Yeah that's complete bunk. First of all we're talking about a video game. Second it's a fantasy game. This "silent majority" thing is demonstrably false were anyone to consider the backlash nearly every game that "censors", or intentionally creates ugly female characters (Andromeda, Inquisition) ends up receiving.

Humans are innately sexual as well. It's literally a part of evolution and a fact of every sentient species. The majority of humans (because it's literally in our reproductive drive and survival as a species) want sexy females/males (depending on sexuality). Even if we disregard the fact of evolution and biology, we still have the social sciences and societal norms. There's a reason that advertisements and media use sexualized and attractive females/males.

So if you're telling me otherwise, you're either 1.) Lying or 2.) an outlier.

Guys, be cool to each other. Different opinions are okay. We can have some quite interesting discussions about stuff, more so than we could if everyone was in agreement, but we can do so without getting irate. I'm currently very tired and trying to catch up on some sleep so please make sure I don't wake up with a sore head and find a bunch of people who teacher needs to give detention.

If I see unbelievably skimpy armor that doesn't even make sense I'll probably just chuckle and enjoy the game. As someone who has played enough video games and read enough mangas, to me the whole "skimpy armor" and "sexualized female chars" thing is more of a meme than anything. To me it's just funny. But I suppose some people *are* offended by such things, and they have the right to want to not have to deal with them.

Sometimes I'm just happy that I'm not offended or concerned by things such as this like some people. I can enjoy things more freely.

What *would* upset me is what they pulled with Inquisition. An entire cast of unattractive major female characters, except Morrigan and Leliana. Hell, if these two characters had not been established before this game, they probably would have been much less attractive, too. This is a stupid move and everyone knows it. I don't think this will be a concern when it's Larian doing this, though.

That makes me feel relieved!

who is that "we" there? you voice opinion on your "own". you don't represent anyone here. basically i don't have or need sexual desires from fantasy pixel games. if i need sexual desire i can find aplenty in real life.

first and foremost.. i prefer boob plate, chainmail bikini... whatever you name it. if larian is brave enough (history shows they are afraid of SJWs who don't play their games). larian.. if you take these people seriously about females need to look bland and armor needs "realism" in a game where you shoot fireball from your hand.. i'd think again about realism. these people who talks realism out of their...

i rest my case.

I'll rephrase an earlier suggestion I made that the game developers could provide additional art options to satisfy everyone.. If the resources are available I don't see how any reasonable person could object to one person playing a version with optional puritanical character art and another opting for one with a bawdier style. At the very least, previous games in this genre have offered the ability to customize character portraits; could something like this be a solution?

This is an interesting topic but it's become clear that a compromise may never be enough for some individuals who insist that game developers conform to their personal sensibilities or agenda. If any player is unhappy with one artistic rendering or another they should always feel welcome to voice that Opinion but should Not have the power to pressure game developers to cater to their whims or to generalize and belittle other players with an alternate viewpoint.

In the end Larian will make the game that they want to. I hope it will have the gameplay, roleplaying aspects, combat style, and art direction that I'm looking for, and if it meets most of those things then I'll definitely buy it. If not, I'll spend my entertainment $ elsewhere. I don't for a second believe that my one decision is going to make or break their profit margin nor do I believe I represent anyone other than myself when I voice what kind of game <I> am looking for.

So let's lose the dramatics and stick to making suggestions that Larian can use to help make a game that Everyone can enjoy.

It occurs to me that just like for Skyrim, NWN2, and Star Trek Online someone will do a NUDITY PATCH!

It occurs to me that just like for Skyrim, NWN2, and Star Trek Online someone will do a NUDITY PATCH!

Once you go pixel, er... Damn what rhythms with Pixel?

Well, for one I'm tired of constant sexualization and objectification of women in video games (if there is no sexualization of male characters).

Will that keep me from buying BG3 ? Probably not (combat gameplay may).
But do I want something plausible in terms of armor ? Yes.

And frankly, I think this is a lost battle for the people who absolutely want women to have sexy models.
Malady is gorgeous without having to see her bellybutton first.

PS : so, after Zandalor trunks do we get Zandalor thong (at first I wrote Zandalor thing ) as high level armor ?

genuinly asking, what sexualization and objectification?
In western RPGs to boot?
Which doesnt even get into the question wether or not these things are actually bad, or if this is just another parroted phrase.
As for men not beeing sexualized: kind of pointless. Women are not attracted to men beeing sexualized in the same way men like women to be sexualized, its a false equivalency.

On having options. Yes i think having options to go either way is probably what most sensible people actually want.
Its not like i am against having variety. The issue is with those people that are osmehow offended by one particular thing even beeing included.

ew, men. I encountered one the other day. Nasty, hairy, smelly creatures.

Apart from Lemmy, of course. Everyone fancies Lemmy.

Remember that Wizards/Hasbro has a hand in this, and they are quite PC, doubt they will let larian do whatever they want. Bikini mods will be the way to go. Im still hoping for the sexy + functional stuff and the naked wizards ofc.

Really? For changing the cover art, when there were other, valid reasons for doing so, and no in-game art was changed, including literal bikini armour (female orcs) and a character wearing only vines and leaves? In fact, the concept art for the later character was on the Kickstarter page all through most of that discussion (near the top, even, until a large update about stretch goals was added), and nobody objecting to the cover art mentioned it, and nobody claiming Larian 'caved in to censorship' ever explain if that was the case why nothing else was changed (and the original cover art continued to be used in other places).

Several people had issues with the design of the female elves in D:OS 2, though somehow not the equivalently designed male elves. This was noted by Larian, discussed briefly, and no changes were made.




Um... have you never seen the cover of a romance novel, or the lead characters in most romantic comedies? Have you never been in an office full of women when the hot delivery guy comes in? Woman can and do sexualize and objectify men (do I need a #notall?).
I know of a Scottish bar in Canada that had kilts as part of the uniforms, then had to switch back to pants, since women repeatedly would check out what the male servers were wearing underneath, despite signs requesting they not do so.

Not saying women dont objectify men.
Im saying that 1. objectification is not somethng terrible, its something normal and 2. what i meant is that if men were sexualized in the same way women are sexualized, most women would not be attracted to that.
Look at some steam romance novels, you got muscular dudes looking into the distance, or muscular dudes holding women, or muscular dudes riding horses.

Thats pretty much exactly the depiction men get in Fantasy media. It is however not considered "Sexualizing" men because it doesnt LOOk the same way as women are "sexualized".
But that is due to the fact that what is considered attractive in men has a tendency of beeing assertiveness, power and status. Which is ofthen called a "power fantasy".
Thats why i call it af alse equivalency. Men are sexualized in a way that is attractive to women, but that "doesnt count" since thats also a "power fantasy".
Ironically, from my expirience with women, physical attractiveness and beeing swooned over is a power fantasy for many women....

I'm all for equal opportunity sexiness.

But I don't buy into feminist theory of sexual objectification (95% of feminist theories), I have yet to confuse someone with a sofa or a toaster, or refrigerator, or a vibrator, or a fleshlight just because I'm attracted to either appearance. Although I'm willing to pretend I do if that is their fetish I guess.

Er, how about we don't go there. Let's stick to the subject of inappropriate armour.

No revealing armor? That is precisely why 20 cha bards use light armor.


Now in serious, I think the devs should go with whatever vision they have for the game, In the Internet era you are going to offend someone no matter what you do or don´t do.

As long as they don´t put swastikas or triple KKK as coats of arms I am ok.

It's not like sexualized armor is unrealistic.



I don't like armored bikinis because they're stupid. Boobplate is fine though, we probably would have had that in the real world if we'd had a society with a large number of women in the fighting nobility.

Sarmatian, Scythian (the origin of the myth of the Amazons)and greek Spartan woman historically participated in warfare, wearing almost nothing, even less than bikini armor (they do not even need it because, if you believe the chronicles, they cauterize their right breast to impede growth).

But we can also say that they lived in the Mediterranean, I do not see them fighting like that in a place like Icewind dale.

Scythian


Sarmatian



Not exactly next to nothing. Spartan women didn't actually fight, they helped dig defensive works and acted as supply and support. They did wear very short robes which scandalized the rest of the Greeks.


My comment about women not wearing armor was in the context of plate armor. None of the societies that used full plate had women warriors, though there were a few sets of armor made for specific women for ceremonial purposes.

I meant the quantity of armor, not the quantity of clothing. I agree with your statement and thx for the images.

Plate, full armor, chainmails will be very cumbersome to wear in hot mediterranean climates, in deserts and sand beaches. Look at the crusaders in holy land.

I so want this item in the game.

I know, right. It's ridiculous, over-the-top, and historically accurate. And that's one of the tame ones. There's examples that are longer, that curve up like a coat hook and even some that have a face sculpted into the tip.

It's hard to believe these haven't been used in a game yet.

It's hard to believe noone's yet brought this up..




https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Golden_Pantaloons


Or did I miss it?

It's still at the top of the page! XD
That's good, it means people are taking note of the issue.
Re dong armor: Those were made for kings and such to show off. Soldiers that needed practical armor wouldn't have them. Regardless of historical accuracy, it would be pretty funny to see such armor in a game.

Well if you want dong armor, we can have boob armor. End of thread.

Hey, at least it is not this thread in the RPG codex that is all about actually discussing boob sizes (They called it RTwB as is real time with b...s)

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...urs-gate-3-has-big-anime-tiddies.128033/

Which game does Larian want to sell like?

You make an excellent point, those who complain about chain mail bikinis make up a tiny part of the market. Also look at the successful fundraising for Subverse by FOW Studios and their RPG.

I must be dense, I don't see anything wrong with either of those costumes.

There is a bit of a difference with the appearance and animation in general, though...

I think the argument beeing made here is that Witcher (well, CDPR, you get my point) creates its characters without having any deliberate intent in mind, the female characters are ofthen beautifull (at least the young, plot related, magically gifted ones) and dressed in a good balance of fitting in with the setting and beeing beautifull.

Meanwhile Mass effect andromeda was generaly shat on for making its characters deliberatley ugly, to the point where the main female character used int he marketing, looked significantly less attractive than the voice actor whom the character was supposedly based on.
Much the same problem happend in the prior game of Bioware, Dragon Age Inquisition where all the female characters looked unattractive, while all the male character had male model faces.

Wiht mass effect andromeda, the effect is heightened by the game, allegedly, beeing made by a skeleton staff of bioware developers and a cadre of inexpirienced graduates, which leads to very janky and awkward looking animations, and overall bad looking designs, such as the eyes not having shadows and other such oversights.
It didnt help that there was then an Interview in which it was deflected that the bad animations were "deliberate" or something, i forgot what the exact wording was, but it was a pretty lame copout.

While attractiveness is largely subjective, I'm left wondering how come e.g. Sera was shown wearing make-up even in the fairly late promo stuff but before release it'd been removed. I added it back again but it seemed a bit incongruous. It's also curious how she looks quite similar to her voice actress only... well, something got lost in translation.

while attractiveness is certainly subjective,theres a few things that, lets say in the general western world is considered attractive.

For women it is ofthen large eyes, oval faces, femine hairstyles, a beautifull smile, a button nose.
Whats generaly not considered attractive are dumpy faces, wide noses, manly jaw lines or small beady eyes.

And you might say ok, maybe the developers didnt know any better, but then why do all the male characters have that generic male model look? with pronouned cheekbones, a pronounced jawline , masculin chins, straight noses (besides the dwarf, obviously) and beard stubble that was common at the time before hipstes became truly cool.

Its funny how conventional aestheitcs of western beauty were applied to one gender, while the female characters all went "unconventional", to say the least, i personally would only consider cassandra an attractive woman out of the party characters, and shes a quite masculine tomboy, while the only two truly conventionally attractive characters, are those two that come from the first dragon age game and had an established look already.


Theres also some more subtle things especialy in Mass Effect Andromeda.
I dont have the image anymore, but in mass effect 1 and 2 at least, the Human models had slightly exagrated proportions.
Generaly, the normal proportions of a Human are considered 7.5 heads / body height.
In short, if you stack 7.5 heads of the character, it should be about the height of the figure.

In Media, 8 heads are commonly used, this is kind of an "Idealized" image of the Human Body (super hero comics ofthen use 8.5 to realy exagrate proportions).
The older Mass Effect Models used idealized proportions for the Human models, kind of 8 heads tall.
While Andromeda had about 7 heads, making the Human models look stunted and Childlike looking in comparison to the athletic imposing figures usually used in idealized art.

Anohter strange one that makes you scratch your head is that Mass Effect Andromeda, on launch, didnt let you pick light skin colours during character creation, for no apparent reason. The lightest you could do was an obvious tan.
Its just strange stuff like that that realy makes you question the art design of that studio

EDIT: i actually found the image on Reddit, so you can see for yourself.
now, some people might make the argument that the image on the right is more realistic, i counter that, that realism is filtered through the lense of the Human brain, and that Unrealistic images can ofthen come closer to the "Feel" of the real thing, than a realistic depiction.

[img]http://external-preview.redd.it/r5s...a26d13e89c23f4fc9a91cc384931f12d2b56eb17[/img]

Mostly I agree, though it comes down to the complete look: sometimes when everything is idealised the result can be rather bland. And I often prefer shorter hair on other women but that's the subjective element, I suppose. In general terms I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying though.

Interesting picture. Actually now that I think about it, Shepard (male and female) always seemed unnaturally tall and heroic and were too exaggerated, but Andromeda went a bit too far the other way; indeed in that picture, if you look at where shorty's heels are he's only about 7 heads tall. Also at risk of opening a can of worms I recall that one of the developers was notoriously racist but I don't know if he had any influence over the choice of skin colours. I suspect it was more down to a lot of their team lacking experience and I think EA and/or Bioware had decided Andromeda was going to fail before it was even released so just left them to it rather than helping to give it some much-needed polish (which it gradually got anyway, albeit not quite enough).

Sales are the result of many different variables, the main one being *how good the game actually is*. I predict BG3 will be a good game and will sell well. The sexiness of its characters will probably play an insignificant role in how well it sells. You can find games with pixel graphics being loved for their good gameplay, mechanics or story and selling tons of copies as a result, and on the other hand you can find games with hot babes in bikinis rendered with near-realistic precision ending up making making no profit at all and being disliked by players.

I'd rather my characters, be they male or female, look badass rather than sexy. It won't make any difference sales-wise. And if done well you guys won't even notice it.

Badass and sexy are not opposits.
and most of the time, unsexy character dont actually look badass, but they look silly.
That partly comes from the fact that the Human brain is hardwired to apply positive traits to beautifull people...

That's not what people mean when they talk about sexualized armor. That armor at least has protective value. The actual sexualized male equivalent of that armor would consist ONLY of the codpiece and nothing else at all.

according to you.
You think a metal codpiece is particulary practical? while riding for example?
This is, at the very least, ont he level of the much dreaded "boobplate".

That's why I made the distinction between bikini armor and boob plate. The male equivalent to bikini armor is the fur loincloth / bare chest of the barbarian character. While I see boob plate as the female equivalent to dong armor. They're both fully protective suits of armor with exaggerated sexual characteristics molded into the outward appearance.

Really ? You really think comparing a well funded game by an experienced team to an underfunded one partly made by interns is relevant ?
Frankly, you amaze me.

Dragon Age 1 had an half-naked character that you could litteraly fuck 2 minutes after she joined your group (Morrigan, and no one complained) and you still think the problem is that people want ugly non sexualized characters.

Comparing a game by a Tripple A studio with a big publisher that has also one of the most famous names in RPG history, to the first Tripple A level game by a polish studio that among other things maks their money by selling outdated games in a steam competitor that doesnt even have DRM.

I mean, i dont know how on earth you want Bioware to look like the underdog here.

The entire point is: nobody wants ugly characters.
The shift in consciousness is new, its been pushed by a few very loud people that pretend to champion one cause or another.
and those western games that do it, somehow keep failing.
Its a truly a mystery

You keep equating "not sexualized" with "ugly".
These two are unrelated. You can find plenty of examples of sexualized characters that are also ugly. And you can find characters that are neither sexualized nor ugly just as well.

It's pointless to answer him. With this quote below you could already tell he lives in a parallel universe.

The good point being that he gave me inspiration for my new avatar. By the way, is there some moderation rules on avatars ?

He probably believes that Dragon Age and Mass Effect games (all of which are totally "SJW" and "snowflakes" friendly) sold really badly because of this.

It's new inasmuch realistic graphics are comparatively new. Even when studios end up with hideous characters it's not necessarily by design; e.g. Oblivion and its half human, half potato thing. And even then not everyone was hideous, though arguably a bit of a case of "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".

I suppose I'd also like to examine the cause and effect thing. Are studios deliberately making their female characters ugly or are a particular SJW fraternity latching on to games that messed up their aesthetics? I dunno really. Though I kinda sorta agreed with some stuff regarding Inquisition, not totally. I'm not sure the characters were deliberately ugly or not. I'm not attracted to guys so I can't really comment beyond "half of them look like Alistair from Oranges" though even I thought Blackwall looked hideous without the beard. And Solas and his big shiny head. And Cole who was literally that kid at school who perpetually had a cold and his arm in a sling.

On the other hand it also had Dorian, who was such a chap that even I fancied him. And Varric, I mean who could resist that chest rug?

But the female characters... well I kinda fancied Cassandra maybe because of her not totally convincing severity. Or maybe she just reminds me a bit of Lætitia Sadier from Stereolab. And Widdle. There's Morrigan and Leliana who are hard to include because they're from the original and started out as deliberate opposites but turned out to be "complicated". Maybe I'll just stick with Sera. Yeah, something didn't quite work out and it wasn't just the deliberately bad hair thing which I've done myself (okay, with kitchen scissors rather than a dagger but I do have a bunch of actual swords nearby... which I'm probably going to need to set about with a pan scourer because I haven't oiled them in years) but it's the personality, if not necessarily the personality delivered by the Derbyshire accent, but that has its own something or other.

No. I mean there's obvious stuff like if you post a picture of a willy or something I'll probably ban you, but other than that not really.

A nurse in a videogame




Also a nurse...



And yeah, also a nurse



A teacher



Also a teacher....



I think it is pretty obvious when you want to make a pleasant character for a videogame; and when you just want to sell flesh.

The latest Dragon Age sold terribly, especialy the DLC.
The latest mass effect sold terribly. It wasnt just because of this, but definitly part of this.

And yes, women are attracted to different things than men.
Women are, by large, attracted to physically powerfull men, if not, tell me why are there not more scrawny as fuck male strippers running around.
Why do you think movie protagonists tend to be buff with a square jaw line?

You can pretend its different all you want. Men and women consider other things sexy.

If you believe that women would fall over themselves if men were sexualized in the same way as women are, then its you whose living in bizarro world

Wrong Dragon Age Inquisition was a success https://www.pcgamer.com/dragon-age-inquisition-had-most-successful-launch-in-bioware-history/
I know facts are scary. If it was not successfull they wouldn't do Dragon Age 4.

I do not think I agree with that, sadly




Holy cow!

They´ve made a lot of DLC, they do not do that if you do not sell (look at ME:A. No, wait, do not look that thing).

The characters were pleasant, and it was an end for the story of DA (For Hawke at least) so it was not that bad; but whatever they are planning for the Da4 worries me. Solas was not really an interesting character for me, to be honest. They´ve should stick to Flemeth.


Sexualized or not, pretty or ugly, mostly depends on the character, too: A nurse in short skirt and fishnet stockings will be ok in a brothel, but it would be weird in a hospital.

I can only add my own experience to that but a bunch of friends who are long-time Bioware fans mostly loved Inquisition. I don't mean unconditionally, we have our own assorted gripes about this and that, but it seemed very popular with people who'd been gaming with them for a long while. But y'know, people said DA2 sucked too, but having replayed it comparatively recently I found it to be a much better game than its reputation suggests; and a much better game than I remembered myself as I'd certainly over-stated the problem the game being dominated by the "every fight is the same three waves of ridiculous abseiling ninjas", which was a valid moan but it actually didn't overshadow everything else. My other gripe about the lack of original locations was largely a fault of Oranges too, and significantly resolved in Inquisition. The Hinterlands remains one of my favourite videogame places.

And yeah, Solas as DA4's antagonist: I'm also not sure about that. But one of those friends is inexplicably fangirly about Solas so she'll be happy. Which I suppose brings us back to attractiveness: she likes him for his personality (I mean unless she has a secret thing for big shiny heads) but I suppose I'm more or less the same with Sera: it doesn't matter so much that she's less physically attractive than she could've been (though as I said, I did re-add the make-up they scrubbed off) but I liked her because she's a laugh.

"Oranges"? You mean Origins? Origins doesn't have any fantastic locales with breathtaking vistas, but it doesn't have the excessive copypasta and location recycling like DA2 does, either.


I can't stand Sera. Aside from her attitude, I swear, I don't understand what she's saying about 80% of the time. It's probably partly because English is not my first language, but the way Sera says things, her word choices, and all the metaphors and slang or whatever, make what she says almost pure gibberish to me. I had subtitles on all the time and hell, most of the time I couldn't even follow the subtitles for her dialogs while ignoring the VO altogether, because I struggled to understand the words that she uses. Sometimes it was hard for me to tell with certainty whether she was approving or disapproving, agreeing or disagreeing, because of the way she talks. Gosh. Every time I was about to talk to Sera I would be like "$&#@ me here we go again..."

Sexualized is a goofy word and entirely subjective.

I find it amusing, though it could be argued that I'm easily amused. Anyway, the point is that DA2 wasn't quite as bad as I remembered it, and that memory was largely because of my own incessant moaning about overuse of the same areas. True, Oranges wasn't as bad but it also wasn't great and I recall getting truly fed up with seeing the same Denerim back-street or random woodland clearing in Ferelden cropping up for the eleventy billionth time.


*shrug* People like different stuff, I guess. Perhaps I shouldn't be so quick to admit my personality's not that different to hers.

I feel slightly awkward commenting on the "not a first language" matter as my abilities with other languages are... well, frankly rather questionable. But as an Englishwoman myself, I found Sera to be very easy to comprehend compared to some accents where I've really struggled to figure out what they're talking about: sometimes I don't even get as far as the colloquialisms because I can't understand the words. You'd be forgiven for thinking that with the torrent of American stuff on British TV, by my age I'd know e.g. US accents inside-out but they often confound me. Okay, I could reasonably claim that I don't watch much telly, but the truth is that I'm just not good with accents, so the further it is from mine, the more perplexed I am.

I admit it's a combination of the accent and the way she expresses herself. Don't get me wrong though. IRL, I don't "hate" on folks like her, folks with a particular accent or way of talking. However, as she's a companion in a video game, it's a rather different story. I felt that "obligation" to interact with and involve her in my playthrough. I rushed past her dialogs, quests, and ignored her when I could, to spare myself the irritation, but then I'd feel like I was forced to miss out on parts of the game. So yeah, all these factors made me dislike Sera as a companion in a CRPG.

It´s a pity, she has hilarious banters with The Bull.
I kind of like all companions in general in DAI, besides Solas. I am not fond of the guy. No particular reason.

Dao2 was not that bad. The repetitive combat and the copypaste zones are a minus, but the companions and the replayability value was worth it. You could have different dialogs depending on the game you import, if your character is a mage or not, or your personality (Albeit I always end with the sassy one). The DLCs are more fun, especially the one with Felicia Day/Tallis.




I respectfully disagree.

Image of Ilya


Sexualized image of Ilya

How could anyone like Vivian.
Her writing was atrocious.
Specifically because no matter what dialogue option you chose, your character awlays dropped 20 IQ points, just so she could berate you.

That particulary pissed me off when i played a Tal Vashoth or whatever they were called PC and my character conveniently forgot somehting baout his own culture (that you couldnt previously know since that group wasnt heavily featured, i double checked) just so Vivian could berate you on it.

that stuff made me furious.
its one thing to have a character be knowledgable and haughty, its another thing when you offer up blatantly false dialogue options just so your character ends up looking like an idiot in comparison.
Threw me right out of it.

She kinda reminded me of Dayna off Blakes 7 (no apostrophe, they couldn't afford one, and the later crappy series minus Blake) in terms of look, voice and general demeanous. But was a much less likeable character in execution: in effect she was pretty much the female equivalent of Solas in that you needed to think carefully about what she wanted to hear rather than what you wanted to say.

Then again, people have described Sera in the same way. And I've just described myself as having a similar personality, so maybe that's why I got along with her okay.

It can be annoying, but having seen the counterpoint, I actually understand and appreciate that way of doing stuff. The point of view being that characters are their own thing with their own opinions and their own world views, and unless you're playing an arch manipulator, you're not going to please everybody all of the time. Or any of the time in some cases. And nor should you want to. I guess the problem is when your affinity with everybody gets hit because of one malcontent or someone you just don't get on with; but even then is it that different to the way stuff is IRL? Other people may not care for your nemesis but they will quickly tire of you arguing with them, so maybe not so unrealistic.

Although there's a lot to be said for the art of persuasion, speechcraft or whatever one wants to call it, I think it's unreasonable to consider it as an infallible, overriding mechanic because it's just unrealistic. I recall one discussion (it may have even been here, though I forget offhand) where someone asserted that a character who was persuasive enough should be able to get an unambiguously homosexual character like Sera or Dorian (or hetero like Cassandra, for that matter) to sleep with their PC because they're just so charming, and I was just left feeling that it doesn't work like that. I guess it's better to have characters who are irksome than a bland world full of people who can be talked around to any PoV by fairly basic means. Though I reserve the right to complain about it when it suits me.

Anyway, Vivian fails because there's only one Vyvyan.



Edit: handy link for the curious since the built-in player seems to have no sound.

My problem was not that she was unlikeable.
unlikeable characters are actually good. they add to the game, espcialy if they are a rival.

What i dont like about Viviane is not that shes annoying or bitchy, what i dont like about her is that whenever you are engaged in a conversation with her, your character is given the idiot ball so she can act high and mighty.
Especialy about things that for you, the player who comes from a modern society, are painfully obvious.

Ill give you another example than the vashoth one which also annoyed me to no end.
At some point in Vivians (vivane? Vivienne? whatever) Dialogue tree, she quizzes you about your opinion on Mages.

Funly enaugh this was AFTER you declared allegiance to the Templars or the mages, i personally liked that descsion because it specifically made you pick one.
it didnt give you a weasle out of it choice.
But that was deliberate, no matter what your character thought, he had to agree with one of those two factions, even if he thought htey were too extreme.

Now with Vivienne (i think that was how it was spelled), she asked you what you thought and you got, if i remember correctly, two dialogue choices.

>Go Wizards, muggles are basically idiots and there is literaly nothing wrong with letting a bunch of Nuclear Warhead tier Assholes walk around with any restrictions placed on them
and
>Templars arent even extreme enaugh, Wizards should basically be slaves and who needs em anyway

To which she replies something to the effect of "Well well dummy, i think that both are right, and that mages should be restricted but not as draconically"
And then to add insult to injury she goes on in the way of "thats not such a hard concept to grasp right?"

That made me angry. Yeah, tis the OBVIOUS answer, an answer the game didnt let me choose.
It deliberatley did not let me make that choice so this NPC could act smug.

Simply put, its terrible writing trying to make a Character look smart, without having the capacity of writing an actually smart character.
so the main character has to be dumbed down to Grugg level to make her look intelligent by comparison

Oh, yeah, the "choose a side, by which I mean be completely and utterly beholden to their every aspect and whim" annoys me no end, whether it's Vivienne or any other character or RL (the latter of which is pretty much why I've given up with politics and news: it sucks). Another notable transgression for me was the Tenpenny Tower fiasco in Fallout 3: I could tell from the outset that Roy Phillips was a complete and utter scrote but you were pretty much railroaded into following his cause otherwise you're castigated for being prejudiced. Literally, Three Dog broadcasts his disappointment for all three listeners to hear. That wasn't a "shades of grey" quest either, it was just annoying and stupid.

Far from the only example, just one that stuck in my mind.

And without checking, I believe the spelling is indeed Vivienne. The Young Ones character probably had the Vyvyan spelling because it looked angular and nasty.

o.O I do not really get that impression at all. In fact, I liked that Vivienne was one of the few that do not swoon over the main character because he/she is the big bad inquisitor. Also she flatly refuses your romantic advances if you are inclined to.
That conversation with Vivienne you refer to is not really like what you describe, you have three options, and she approves 2 of the three... maybe you chose the wrong one?
https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Vivienne/Approval

read the Magic is dangerous conversation.
Thats exactly what im talking about, it makes your character look like an idiot who doesnt know stuff about his own culture.

i dont care that she disaproves, i care how stupid your dialogue choices are to make her look smarter

I'm not particularly invested in this topic,not in one sense nor the other.

That said, let's point that people keep mixing different arguments.
While there are reasonable discussions to be made about good and terrible armor design, let's stress that any bitching about the "impracticality" is pointless and stupid to make unless the realism in a central point of the setting.
Bikini armors aren't a clever or cool design, but I'm fairly confident no one but a sparse minority of lunatics even gives a shit about their realism, because the general ideal, like with Berserkers and Barbarians fighting basically naked and cool ladies with battling in high heels, was to appeal to the "rule of cool", not to be realistic. Not to mention that at this point in time is basically a battle against a fictional enemy, since no one is even doing that shit anymore.

As we are on topic, I'll also take my chance to add my own bitching against something just as UGLY as bikini armors. In fact far far worse, because not even "cool", "sexy" or "hot": giant fucking pauldrons.
Please, le'ts make the world a better place: let's all sign a petition to get rid of these goddamn abominations.

Especially the ones with spikes. Who thought it would be a good idea to stab yourself in the ear every time you tilt your head?

pauldron core is dead at this point, nobody outside of warcraft and wahrammer 40k realy does it.

Rule of cool all the way!

Larian still does it, and it never stopped looking bad for a minute.
For how much I like DOS 2 even aesthetically, I would gladly do without human armors looking like fucking coal stoves and water boilers.