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In original AD&D all dwarves had facial hair, including women.

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I hear the are no dwarven women. That dwarves just spring from holes in the ground.


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A beard would be a terrific enhancement for my Beach Druid animal companion/familiar, a chariot-riding clam, who would then be called "Spartacus Clam-Whisker"

(yeah, I know ... I just couldn't cross the line of decency)

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When the full game releases I'll create a bearded darwen female warlock ^^

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The way I see it, less code (no if:female = disable beards) stuff so less potential bugs.

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Originally Posted by Some_Twerp753
The way I see it, less code (no if:female = disable beards) stuff so less potential bugs.

The way I see it, more works for graphic artists = more resources wasted.

Really, how many will actually create such characters? 0.1%? Oh well better stop the "hate speech".

Lumign #748180 31/12/20 11:46 AM
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Originally Posted by Lumign
Originally Posted by Some_Twerp753
The way I see it, less code (no if:female = disable beards) stuff so less potential bugs.

The way I see it, more works for graphic artists = more resources wasted.

Really, how many will actually create such characters? 0.1%? Oh well better stop the "hate speech".

The way I see it, it would be more work to remove the beards.

The fundamental art and animation work for the beards has already been done. It's not perfect (I have a character with a long beard that goes inside his chest), so more work is needed on beards. But I doubt that female models have such prominent breasts that it makes any difference compared to male models. So on both the animation work which has been done and which will be done, adding beards to female models is probably no more work. Now, given that the UI for adding a beard to females is already there, it would be more work to remove it.

It might be used by 1% or 0.01% of players, but I doubt the resources-spent-vs-audience-using-it is particularly relevant on this particular issue. (I think it is relevant on other things, like making 8 Origin Characters and very few companions, when few people will play more than 2-4 OC.)

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I enjoy playing a noble dwarven woman with a long, well-groomed beard. The thing is, though, the long beards in the game don't interact with the chest very well... they disappear directly through the boobs. I do get a chuckle out of that, but there has to be a decent way to improve the way hair and tentacles overlay with the character body and armor somehow.

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Originally Posted by Drath Malorn
Originally Posted by Lumign
Originally Posted by Some_Twerp753
The way I see it, less code (no if:female = disable beards) stuff so less potential bugs.

The way I see it, more works for graphic artists = more resources wasted.

Really, how many will actually create such characters? 0.1%? Oh well better stop the "hate speech".

The way I see it, it would be more work to remove the beards.

The fundamental art and animation work for the beards has already been done. It's not perfect (I have a character with a long beard that goes inside his chest), so more work is needed on beards. But I doubt that female models have such prominent breasts that it makes any difference compared to male models. So on both the animation work which has been done and which will be done, adding beards to female models is probably no more work. Now, given that the UI for adding a beard to females is already there, it would be more work to remove it.


I don't care about this general topic, but no, its defnitely more work to add beards to new faces than removing the option completely. You would only need to hide the part of the UI not even deactivating it. As someone who does character models for living, believe me the amount of work per face to add beards is significant - might be aliviated a bit if the engine can morph automatically assets to faces, but that's not a given - and in cases where its not a given its hours of work - each beard for each face needs to be morphed, skinned, exported and setup in the engine - not to mention if bugs/art direction force you to go back and change a beard.

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Originally Posted by Lumign
Really, how many will actually create such characters? 0.1%?

Yes, we shouldn't have character creation options at all, since most just created a generic Tav. And before you say it is a strawman, no, there is no golden middle. 0.1% here, 0.1% there, realize that there will come a time in a particular topic / question when you will be that 0.1% and will be ignored according to your own logic.

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Originally Posted by Kadajko
Originally Posted by Lumign
Really, how many will actually create such characters? 0.1%?

Yes, we shouldn't have character creation options at all, since most just created a generic Tav. And before you say it is a strawman, no, there is no golden middle. 0.1% here, 0.1% there, realize that there will come a time in a particular topic / question when you will be that 0.1% and will be ignored according to your own logic.

You do realize if you abide with all the 0.1% then nothing gets accomplished? There are infinite numbers of the 0.1%. You can’t please everyone.

I prefer no beards but it’s not a big deal for me if it’s included. But yes your argument is a strawman.

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Originally Posted by biomag
I don't care about this general topic, but no, its defnitely more work to add beards to new faces than removing the option completely. You would only need to hide the part of the UI not even deactivating it. As someone who does character models for living, believe me the amount of work per face to add beards is significant - might be aliviated a bit if the engine can morph automatically assets to faces, but that's not a given - and in cases where its not a given its hours of work - each beard for each face needs to be morphed, skinned, exported and setup in the engine - not to mention if bugs/art direction force you to go back and change a beard.

They're already there - so if it was extra work before it would still be just more extra work to remove them afterward.


Originally Posted by spectralhunter
You do realize if you abide with all the 0.1% then nothing gets accomplished? There are infinite numbers of the 0.1%. You can’t please everyone.

I prefer no beards but it’s not a big deal for me if it’s included. But yes your argument is a strawman.

By definition something got accomplished - and the key is getting .1%s in the right area as that can add up to large sums of sales. You want to avoid pleasing the .1% when there is conflict - i.e. when it means 99.9% are deprived of what they want. However, if it's extra options for people then that is the sort of thing that can get sales moving. If you add .1% of 2 million sales (which is what BG2 got), that's 2000 extra sales, which at $65 a pop means $130,000, which is probably much more than it costs to add something like beards on women.

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Originally Posted by VeronicaTash
Originally Posted by spectralhunter
You do realize if you abide with all the 0.1% then nothing gets accomplished? There are infinite numbers of the 0.1%. You can’t please everyone.

I prefer no beards but it’s not a big deal for me if it’s included. But yes your argument is a strawman.

By definition something got accomplished - and the key is getting .1%s in the right area as that can add up to large sums of sales. You want to avoid pleasing the .1% when there is conflict - i.e. when it means 99.9% are deprived of what they want. However, if it's extra options for people then that is the sort of thing that can get sales moving. If you add .1% of 2 million sales (which is what BG2 got), that's 2000 extra sales, which at $65 a pop means $130,000, which is probably much more than it costs to add something like beards on women.

^This + one of the key features of an RPG like this is choice, and even if only 0.1% will make a certain choice the other 99.9% get a contrasting choice to what they made. What is the point of having choice if you only include choices that everyone most likely will make?

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Originally Posted by VeronicaTash
By definition something got accomplished - and the key is getting .1%s in the right area as that can add up to large sums of sales. You want to avoid pleasing the .1% when there is conflict - i.e. when it means 99.9% are deprived of what they want. However, if it's extra options for people then that is the sort of thing that can get sales moving. If you add .1% of 2 million sales (which is what BG2 got), that's 2000 extra sales, which at $65 a pop means $130,000, which is probably much more than it costs to add something like beards on women.

Gee weren’t you the one that said art shouldn’t be about making the most money? Funny how things change.

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Originally Posted by Kadajko
^This + one of the key features of an RPG like this is choice, and even if only 0.1% will make a certain choice the other 99.9% get a contrasting choice to what they made. What is the point of having choice if you only include choices that everyone most likely will make?

Time. No studio has unlimited time and resources. Decisions have to be made to exclude some things in order to produce a product that appeals to a large audience at a reasonable time.

So yes some 0.1% of the population will be disappointed their pet customization is not included but hopefully the entirety of the game is good enough they will buy the game regardless. This isn’t an all or nothing choice.

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Originally Posted by spectralhunter
Gee weren’t you the one that said art shouldn’t be about making the most money? Funny how things change.

Just because capitalism perverts art doesn't mean that I am unaware of where it's interests lie.

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Originally Posted by VeronicaTash
Originally Posted by spectralhunter
Gee weren’t you the one that said art shouldn’t be about making the most money? Funny how things change.

Just because capitalism perverts art doesn't mean that I am unaware of where it's interests lie.

Then don’t use it as an argument if you use capitalism as an excuse to support your current position. Just saying, stay consistent.

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Originally Posted by spectralhunter
Then don’t use it as an argument if you use capitalism as an excuse to support your current position. Just saying, stay consistent.

The discussion was on all the work that was going into creating beards for women - that was a fiscal discussion so I replied in context to the conversation. That's how conversations work. Personally I found it cool that you could add beards for women, but I have no interest in doing so myself - but I have a more favorable view of the game for having the option even if I won't use it.

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All artists need resources to enable them to perform their art ... else they would soon starve and would then have to go back to bartending. Whether the patronage comes via capitalism, fascism, communism, or monarchy, the result is the same in that the sponsor's wishes will likely be represented in the works ... but not always! The story of Michaelangelo and the Sistine Chapel ceilng, including the struggles with Pope Julius II, is a great tale.

Now that I think of it, this theme could make an interesting side-quest in BG III, where perhaps a character who was originally thought to be a skilled sculptor was in reality a mage with mastery of a useful spell. Sort of a House of Wax scenario ... creepy and horrible! Ah, if only I could find a patron to support my developing writing skills.

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Originally Posted by VeronicaTash
Originally Posted by biomag
I don't care about this general topic, but no, its defnitely more work to add beards to new faces than removing the option completely. You would only need to hide the part of the UI not even deactivating it. As someone who does character models for living, believe me the amount of work per face to add beards is significant - might be aliviated a bit if the engine can morph automatically assets to faces, but that's not a given - and in cases where its not a given its hours of work - each beard for each face needs to be morphed, skinned, exported and setup in the engine - not to mention if bugs/art direction force you to go back and change a beard.

They're already there - so if it was extra work before it would still be just more extra work to remove them afterward.

That's assuming that neither new faces will be added nor new beards. While the beard selection is quite broad (it could use a couple more options), the head selection definitely isn't. Again - every new head needs every beard adjusted.

Removing them is telling the UI to use the elf's UI that doesn't have a beard selection. Probably 15-30min of work - less work than adding a single beard to a single face.

But I'm not arguing to remove them. Just setting the expectations correctly when it comes to workload. I absolutely don't care if females can use beards. If Larian has the time for it (or if they are lucky enough to have a fast morphing tool in their engine), why not? I would probably argue to add it for Elves as well before arguing to remove it (although its not cannon, but bearded female's ain't that common either I would say).

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