Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General The first thing you see in the game

I'm not sure that repeatedly calling people "pricks" is necessarily the most effective way of making your point. The discussion has been fairly civil so far and it would be nice to keep it that way.

You're telling us how opinion works and that we are attacking OP and literally the beginning of your next paragraph is: I completely agree with him.
Kinda shows where you're coming from. Lots of people are disagreeing with you at once and you feel a little frustrated, I totally understand, but we are not attacking anyone here. If you want forums where people attack and yell at each other you should see forums of other games! :p
This here is still very civilised, we might be disagreeing, but it's a healthy discussion.

Go complain on the Witcher series developers' forum then. Sorry for being rude.
I don't have a problem with visual portrayal, neither does my girlfriend.
All IMO.

TBH my "pricks" comment was mainly reserved to the few who which really attacked the OP (with things like "Another one? Goddamn away with your identity politics already." or "Like clockwork. The point-and-shriek crowd will always find something to complain about, especially since Larian have been shown to be susceptible to this kind of pressure in the past", "Oh god, here we go..." - is that a helpful discussion?), and it is carried over from the other post where people got REALLY racy. Might've been out of place here, so apologies for that.

"So if it was a 85% nude male it would be okay? @_@"
Actually not really, not for me at least. But an armoured one, or at least a clothed one (male or female, matters not) would be best (for me).

I'm REALLY not calling "everyone who disagrees" pricks, and I sincerely apologise if that's what you got from it. My problem is with people attacking other people as "prudish" or "SJW" and so forth, or completely dismissing it because "I don't find it offensive".

I'm positive not all females are offended by it. I actually really like the elves and their less-than-traditional-beauty. My wife did as well. That said, I (and the OP and other people) believe there are issues with some of it. That's it.

The OP has made a grand total of one post, which is complaining about something nobody else cares in the manner of identity politics that is very well known to infest any gaming forum attempting to stifle creativity.

So no i wont give the OP the benefit of the doubt.

Oh the FIRST THING you see is a bit of exposed skin! The horror! i a m sure all those victorian women will faint immediatly, too bad they are all long dead and buried because we have moved past that age.

Good to know you fully agree with an agenda loaden post from someone that has joined this forum ONLY to inform us about this one grievance. It is quite clear you are part of that particular hivemind too.

This is priceless. This is exactly what I meant by my original post.

- "stifle creativity." - Are you serious? You're basically saying putting a different character as the first one you see "stifles creativity"? You think there's an artist or a designer over there, who if told to put Ifan as the first character, would be offended by it? This is, quite honestly, ridiculous.

- "is a bit of exposed skin" - Not sure if you know what "a bit" is, but clearly, this is NOT that.

- "It is quite clear you are part of that particular hivemind too." - Maybe. I guess you can ignore me saying I like the elves, it doesn't really matter what people say, does it?

I definitely second this. One of the most important things for convincing my wife to play a game is that the characters should be beautiful -- at the very least, this should include the character she's playing. Stripperiffic or not isn't too important. But she's been playing fantasy RPGs for a long time. People new to the genre will likely have very different feelings about this.


Let me just point out your hypocrisy here.

Vulpes criticises the stripperiffic woman that appears when you first start the game. You respond by rolling your eyes.

Earlier, you criticised Bioware for creating "softcore porn". And now you say how proud you are that your girlfriend played through The Witcher.

I'm sorry. What exactly do you find so offensive about the Bioware games? Were you actually trying to complain that the sex scenes weren't hardcore enough? I'm genuinely confused.



The first two Witcher games had issues with how they depicted "women and sex". Marcin, CEO of CD Projekt openly acknowledged these issues and the third game is, for the most part, a great example of how sex and relationships can be depicted in a non-sexist way.


I think it's telling that in Witcher 3, the loudest complaints about sexism were connected to the setting. That's a pretty good sign that you've done everything else right. Most of these critics are arguing that a fantasy setting doesn't have to be realistic, so why is there a need to introduce real world sexism? Why are there no black people in this fantasy depiction of Polish mythology? It's an argument that echoes a lot of the arguments in these forums from people supporting the chainmail bikini.

"It's a fantasy setting. It has teleporting crocodiles, and you want realism?" It's amazing how you can both make exactly the same flawed argument as your worst enemies.

The fact is that a fantasy setting presents an alternative version of reality. We still need to feel immersed.

Yes, fantasy armour and weapons are often designed with "rule of cool" rather than strict practicality. But look, I'm a simple man. I am not an expert on realistic medieval armour and weapons. If I see armour that looks like it works, then that's enough for me.

There's nothing about elven armour that looks effective. Also, on reflection, I really think it looks terrible, and the elves generally look very unattractive.

(I never expected to be so fond of the lizardmen. They look pretty good.)


I do believe that the woman in sexualised armour makes a bad first impression mostly because there is an established history of sexism in the genre. You don't want people's first reaction to "okay, time to strap myself in for one of those RPGs". So yes, if the first impression were a man in sexualised armour, it would be less of an issue.

Actually, I think you'll agree that the worst part of this is that Sebille succeeds at being both oversexualised and extremely unattractive. That's probably the worst possible combination.

Still, I think most people should be able to last long enough to click the button to try changing gender or race before they start frothing at the mouth.

Oh look at them swarm!
Best tactics you got. First you call everyone pricks and then you act like youve been the ones that have been insulted for people pointing out that somehow after nobody caring about your unrelated grievances in the other thread mysteriously another thread pops up with the exact same drivel made by an account created specifically for this venture.





You freak out over a pixelated character beeing listed in front of another pixelated character and im the one thats ridiculous?
Also nice Motte and Bailey argument there. Yon dont simply want Ifan to be placed in the front you want certain poses that the designers created removed from the game and you want certain outfits that the artists have thought up to be removed and changed as such yes you want to stifle creativity.

Take note people reading this: They will demand one thing and when attacked they will always act as if they have demanded something insignificant. Its called the Motte and Bailey argument and its also a logical fallacy.




Oh no! Its almost nudity! Quick bring the Burka! Lest the fragile women will faint in the sight of slightly uncovered skin.



And yet you use the same nonsense arguments and fear mongering as the rest does.



And youve yet to explain why thats a negative.



I can only speak for myself but i find it offensive that they are so bad.
For a company that prides itself in "Good writing" they sure create a bunch of very nonsensical situations where your character is quite clearly supposed to say one thing and if you dont the game chides you for it.
Also the combat system is bad and the quests are basically MMOs without the social element.



Oh the first witcher was sexist? Explain to me why because im genuinly curious.
Because the quote you gave is not phrased that way at all. Instead he seems to be acknowledging that they were going with a more flashy game of thrones esque vibe for the first couple of games and then went with a more narrativeely focused approach to sex and relationships, nowhere does this mean that the first games were sexist.
Or do you consider game of thrones sexist? I mean game of throne certainly has sexist characters in it but thats the point, they are generaly not shown as particulary virtuous are they now...




actually i wasnt, i was making fun of the post stating that teleporting crocodiles are more realistic than uncovered midriffs.
As ive pointed out before: history, bareley covered warriors are pretty common with tribal societies and to me, this does not interfere with the believeability of the setting at all.

You are however quite right with your comparison of the including of black people in witcher. That is indeed an issue of simmilar idiocy.
However i think that is not the same issue here: Elves look like elves do in this setting, the female elves dont look any less covered than the male elves, as such it is quite easy to deduce that it is simply how elves dress in this setting and how they go to battle.
Why they dont have worse stats as a result is quite obvious: because that would be annoying.



You are entitled to your opinion but an opinion is not an argument. I also think that instead of dwarves they could have gone with a more interresting race but just because i find dwarves to be a tired cliche doesnt mean thats an actual argument against their inclusion in the game.
Also im pretty sure elves arent meant to look attractive to humans, their arms are overly long as well as their legs im pretty sure they want them to look alien on purpose, simmilar to the lizards. Which again makes me wonder why the dwarves look so human by comparison.



if that stops you from playing a game you need to get your priorities straight.




Actually id call that creative, its a nice way for throwing off the audience.
Same as how the red prince acts very regal and pampered when he looks like a predatory animal. Its a visual bait and switch.

I wouldnt fancy myself an artist but this sort of playing with the audience expectations i am quite fond of myself too.
Especialy since you talk about "those RPGs", isnt that a great way then to dislodge the audiences expectations of the game right away?

If I may toss in my two cents:

As a male gamer, with progressive and modern attitudes towards sexism and portrayal of women in games:

I don't find this offensive. I do, however, find it kind of tacky. It reminds me of a Chinese shovelware MMO design, and I don't agree with the aesthetics.
I get the cultural elven expression, but it just doesn't sit right with me.
That said, I know DO:S2 will be a game with so many good things, that it will completely obscure this one thing I really dislike.

I guess no one noticed the OPs "You can say all you want about how the men are dressed the same for the elves, but it’s not equivalent in any way." right, or you could understand my 'here we go again'.

The OP basically outright stated the same is true for males, and they discard that since instead of actual discussion or thinking this is bad they need to feel victimnised. And just throwing away those good legit reasons why there is no victimisation.

Going all "everyone else looks the same, but let's ignore that and go all the way into my boohoo" is not exactly going to win my sympathy. It's making you look like someone without a clue.

EDIT: Also congrats on failing to see the difference between female skin and "I just talked to you for 5 minutes, LET's BANG"... that's what BioWare's softporn thing is all about, NPC's who are total sluts throwing themselves before the player.

Not everyone has the time to be constantly making posts in this forum. There are plenty of other newbies who have made a single post over the last few days. It hasn't even been 24 hours yet.


In this context, I was observing that he criticised Bioware for being "softcore porn", and yet he feels that this is fine. And that Witcher is fine. I seriously don't understand what he means by "softcore porn".


I never argued that Bioware games are perfect. He complained that Bioware games had too much sex. Do you agree?


Sex, particularly in the first game, was treated as a conquest. Geralt would find an attractive woman, pursue her until he achieved "sex", win a sexy "romance card" as a trophy and then would move on to the next conquest. You'll notice that this feature was removed in the Witcher 3. He still has sex. He still likes sex, but it's treated more maturely.

If you'll observe his sexual relationship with Yennefer, they have sex at multiple stages of the story -- including a point where she asks you for sex without any prompting from the player and gets grumpy if you refuse. She is treated as sexually interested and sexually equal. This is different from the first 2 games. This depiction is actually even more progressive than Bioware games (where you basically always have to initiate the sex).

Agreed. It wasn't intended to be anything more than an opinion. But I'm confident that more than a few people will share this opinion.


I agree that dwarves are boring. I would prefer to get rid of them. Glad we can agree on that. Maybe we could have playable orcs instead?


As long as you're the kind of person who falls over and then shouts, "I did that on purpose!"

No one seriously believes that they deliberately made elves ugly and overly sexual. This is not the kind of subversion we've seen from Larian.

If it was up to me I would ban SJWs from using the internet because their stupidity is frankly frightening. This is an alpha, anything is subjective to change. You are free to change characters and there needs to be a default state, so this is a non-issue. If you don't like x way of portrayal then change it so that you don't see it, simple solution.

But no, SJWs got to ruin the game for everybody else and post their snivelling nonsense.

Oh god, here we go again....

If it quacks like a duck.
Ive seen this type plentifull and thus i wont give the OP the benefit of the doubt.
also if the first post you make without having participated at all is about some real world grievance that you want to shove onto this game then i am not exactly inclined to listen to what you have to say.



Softcore porn is known for having terrible plotlines. Just like Bioware RPGs.



So what, sex in many ways is a conquest. Its seen as that by many people.
Not all sex is built on relationships and honestly not all relationships are founded on love or simmilar things. And seriously you havent ever seen sex beeing treated as something to earn? Like it or not that very much is also a reality in this world.
Portraying that isnt sexist, it fits the world they were creating.
Its not a particulary compelling thing ´compared to story driven romance but then again they also had a far smaller budget back then.



Realy not? I mean Larian games had a skeleton with lipstick on it which in my opinion is exactly that thing.
I do agree that right now Original Sin 2 could use more attractive faces especialy for human characters, right now they basically did the reverse of Original Sin 1 where you could not make your character look anything else than a movie star (which given what that game was it actually fit the theme) with the NPCs even comment on that fact.

But that doesnt mean that its a bad thing to have such a striking differentiation in style for one character.
I for one am fairly sure the general aesthetic weirdness of the elves is done on purpose.
I dont think the designers just "forogt" to give them human proportions.

could a reason why the elves (male & female) have such revealing armor and that its made out of leaves and wood (light,but durable material) aside that its how they dress, that they are a race who favors combat mobility, at least that is what i get out from their armor designs, that they are a swift moving race that favours mobility in all forms of combat, be it magic or normal fighting with swords.

Although I don't really agree with you about Bioware for the most part (and yeah, I am a bit fangirly about Bioware with the obvious exception of ME3's ending, but let's not go there) I had to laugh at Liara's speech about "we Asari aren't at all promiscuous but sex and we believe in other stuff and y'know, let's just have sex. Sex. Right now." It all got quite bizarre when Kaidan then came and had a go at me, and I was left wondering what just happened because the last thing I remembered doing was trying not to be killed by a bunch of geth.

I remember leaving Liara for last in ME1. So after saving her she had a lot of conversation.

And despite my utmost best and picking any and all "I don't care about you that way" options, Sheppard shagged her. Totally unavoidable. Like... what the hell BioWare?

And those people are sexist.

Witcher 3 also has casual sex. But sex isn't presented as a reward or a victory. It's presented as something that two adults do when they feel sexually attracted to each other.


If you think that D:OS characters were attractive, then I don't even know where to start. D:OS2 has room for improvement, but some of the faces look good. D:OS faces looked outright terrible.

Good point. Who doesn't relate to that? Softcore porn always has such terrible plotlines. When I'm in the mood for a good story, I like to sit down in front of some hardcore porn. They really understand the importance of good storytelling.

I actually quite liked them. Well, some of them. I suppose they're pretty standard fare, really. And then there's custom faces, something that is always a bit hit-and-miss: I was happy with my Oblivion character but many people thought it just had built-in fugly; and Skyrim was kind of the other way round where some people had a lot of success and I didn't. Then there was Mass Effect and Dragon Age Oranges where it seemed hard to make one's own character looks distinctly different from the basic model.

Fortunately, the couple of D:OS's faces I used worked well enough for me. DOSII's are okay but I hope that in due course they provide a bit more choice. And more shoes.


It took me a moment to realise that this may be slightly facetious. My misspent youth was mostly spent down the pub rather than watching dodgy videos, sadly.