Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General What happened to Elves?

I would think it appropriate if, in the same vein, the stereotypical tree-hugging attitude has been twisted into a fondness for pitcher plants, sundews, and the like.

I fucking LOVE the elves in this game. They are an incredibly creative and fresh take on a classic fantasy race. Everything about them is terrific. I'd hate to see anything changed just to appease people with shallow tastes that want to see the same designs iterated over and over and over again.

In something like a classic fantasy DnD setting, elves have been among my least favorite races. In D:OS2, elves are by far my favorite race.

Keep up the good work Larian, don't listen to the swine

I personaly adore this version! No more stereotypically overly beautiful and exotic elves that exist only as eye-candy with random cliche'd culture traits. The look and lore for elves in this game is seriously awesome.

It would be easy to find sonourous negatives to explain the love for the new elves, in a similar manner as the design-defenders frequently speak negatively about the people who don't like it.

Instead I simply say that I like the design of the body and clothing but not the bork-like appearance of the skin.

I am lazy, so I copy what I wrote in Steam forums:

"I am sorry, but elves in this game look absolutely awful in my eyes, though I am fine them eating people. I am not huge fan of stereotypes either, but in this case I would take any elf stereotype over this. Because they wear human face and skin it makes things even worse, they look like some weird mutants created by chernobyl radiation. If their color would be somehing other than human or they had scales or fur or something that they didnt look at all like humans I would be fine with them, though I wish there would be one skin option for elf that makes them look like same than in game cover art.

Speaking about cover art its compeletely misleading considering how elves look like ingame, why?

I was going to play elf in this game (based on cover art), but my choice was human after I saw there is no elf model that I could tolerate through game, its unlikely my party has elf either. Yeah yeah, I am hardcore elf-racist...

I apologize my harsh words from artist that created elves for Original Sin 2, they just don't match my taste at all, majority seem to like them though."

I don't want to take anything away from those who like this design, so I would hope there would be few or even one skin option that is closer to cover art elf. I know this will never happen and my only hope are mods. I just want to play with character that I can look at through whole game, then again I played Nier through too and liked it and in that main character was hit with the ugly stick...twice, though how MC looked bothered me in that one too.

Anyway if cover art would have been closer to ingame look it would have been unlikely that I would have been writing about OS2 elves ugliness in any forums.

All the games I've played thus far, MMO or otherwise, have had a different Elven designs.. some look awful, and others look good. I'd say for this game, they are ok.

That is the first thing I thought, a little variation on the standard Elf take. It's a special breed of elf... Next. Lots of different human types in the real, fantasy human type too narrow.

They look bad.

Call it opinion, call it aesthetic. It's bad.

"Original" and "different" isn't always better, and you shouldn't force racial aesthetic on your player base. For a game that thrives on elements such as feasibility and semi-realism, nothing about the armor makes sense. Are we growing it? Are we incapable of dressing in a manner similar to the other races?

In a world where standing near a fire may dry me, or a puddle of water can conduct electricity, i'm supposed to be alright with the fact that an armor chest piece I just looted from a human corpse looks like a bark tube top on my elf?

You severely limit the potential for individual expression when you force things like this.

Bare in mind that this is just a gripe about armor itself.

That's not even covering that fact that across the board male elves have less customization options than literally any other race in the game.

For every person whining about not getting their Tolkein aesthetic, you've got some sycophant jumping down their throat screaming about how much better this "fresh" and "different" take on the elves adds to the flavor of the game.

Most everything about the elf race seems ham-fisted and poorly thought out.

Only thing I don't like about the elves is that Sebille looks nothing like theload screen/site banner picture. If what we have is what they were going for, the artists should of made her look similar in game.

They remind me a bit of the elves (Sylvari) in Guild Wars 2. In fact, look at the armor on this female elf: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/races/sylvari/ O.o

Anyway, I'm probably so used to other elf types (night elf, blood elf, drow, etc.) that these non-sunshine elves are ok to me

I actually like how Sylvari looks, I wish elves here would be at least half as good looking as them.

The elves in Divinity: Original Sin 2 are truly amazing because they look feral and magical at the same time. Unlike with BioWare and their "re-make" of the elves for Dragon Age 2 it's quite clear that Larian Studios actually managed to "pull it off".

Then we have Bethesda Softworks and their take on elves and especially looking on their "Dunmer" for Skyrim, wow, it's really something special.

Not to go around in circles here, but of all the elves I ever played in fantasy games I like the elves in Divinity: Original Sin 2 the most.

To be honest I am little bit shocked that I seem to be in minority with this. I know beauty is in eye of beholder, but as I said before to me elves here look absolutely hideous to my eye and when you play with character that you have to look through game you want it look something you like to watch or at least tolerate.

I really wish I could see elves like those who like them because then I could enjoy the game more, but I just can't. It just like someones favourite food make you gag, you know that person loves it, but to you it tastes terrible and you can't help it.

In this case where there seem to be disturbing things behind elves this time (cannibalism) I think it would have been much more interesting if elves would still look beautiful, now they look the part and you can easily believe they eat people.

I think sylvari is fine example that you can make species unique without making them ugly. Only thing elven about these new elves are pointy ears, without ears you could not even recognize them as elves, at least I sure could not.

I think I put game on hold for awhile, and no, this is not "change elves back or I don't ever play this game again!!!" hold, I just want to wait and see if someone makes mod that "fixes" elves for me (hmm, maybe this kind of is "change elves back!!!" hold...?), though seeing how many people likes new elves I am worried that there never be a mod. Mods or not I still play the game at some point, it seems far too good to pass and I loved first Original Sin.

To think the Divine "romanced" one of these in Divine Divinity.


lol

Wow the elves in the pic look 10000000 times better than the elves in divinity original sin 2. Maybe we will see a mod with these design from the pic in DOS2 in the future

Are you dense on purpose? That's not the point the OP is making.

If Larian is so "creative" how come they aren't able to come off with a creative name for this new race they created and instead call them generically "elves". Your comment is a contradiction, hilariously hypocritical for that is what you accuse others of doing.

And let's not forget all those creative "tr-ents", "mithral" armors, "dark elves", "halflings" etc.


Nothing wrong with creative design but calling them an already established name makes as much sense as calling turtles - humans. Turtles are not humans. Invent your own goddamn name.

It is particularly stupid that you call Germans names here, but German folklore is the reason Tolkien's laywers aren't all over the place.

Like 2015, Tolkien Lawyers Target “Hobbit House” With Copyright Threats

I think you mean Germanic as opposed to German?

Old Norse and Danish folklore were the only ones who almost exclusively depicted elves as being *more* beautiful than man.

Elves were rarely portrayed as being beautiful in German folklore until the 1700's. Which was when they became romanticized in literature, in both Germany and England. Even then elves were more often than not synonymous with fairies before and after the view of them had changed. Both were mostly portrayed as having the peak of beauty standards for people ( aka humans) at that time, just with pointed ears, wings and of various shapes and sizes. Instead having a beauty unobtainable by humans (thus a different beauty standard loosely based off the ones used for humans), including pointed ears. Which is more akin to Tolkien's interpretation of Elves, who are closer to Old Norse folklore. There are several Germanic countries where elves were portrayed as horrid, spreading disease and killing or stealing livestock in their folklore.

The point being that elves have gone through very many iterations in Germanic culture before Tolkien published any of his work. Tolkien's interpretation has certainly become a standard in the fantasy genre that is often referenced in design.

However, to act as if different interpretations of folklore pre-existing Tolkien's work aren't allowed to use the name elf (even though Tolkien had originally adopted the german words Elb and Elben until they didn't stick with his audience) is kind of childish. It's fine if you don't like Larian's design choices. Lashing out at someone (whether they were being an ass or not) and presenting your contradictory opinion as factual adds nothing to the conversation. There is nothing to be given or gained in this thread by acting like a brat.

It's not so much how the elves look for me, but more so how their armor looks. Most look like they got slapped with a Salad and called it a day. Not a fan. But there are some armor that looks like normal plate on them. Few and far between though.

Modders, do your thing!

whatever the history is, the name 'elves' causes certain expectations, if your interpretation does not fit those expectations, there will always be quite some amount of unhappy people. Inventing a new name would seperate them better from typical elf expectations and also make them more unique.

There is difference using unknown interpretation from Germanic folklore as base than using widely known and accepted interpretation.