Yeah I think so, the Daisy name I mean. Ever since KillerRabbit made that tinfoil hat "bicycle built for two" thread. It must have been written down somewhere, perhaps in the mine? Just shorthand for the worm in our head.
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=763875I think it makes sense, again like Total Recall, that our cosmetic inputs there might have some bearing on who we encounter later. Minthara has her own VO and head model and such that can't be accessed without mods I guess, but it still seems like an entertaining idea. Even if just for the makeup or the eye color, the haircut and such. Dotmats I think also raised the idea in that one BG3 video he made, that modern RPGs are really trying to just play off the real doll 'play as who you want to sleep with' sort of ideal, which is what gives these games all those familiar YA pitfalls. It would be interesting, since the tadpole thing is so baked in, to go all meta there. As like a running commentary on the typical player choices. They seemed to have a good laugh in their first EA newsletter, when they realized that everyone was just using the most bland model choices available, instead of like tieflings with horns and blue hair lol. They may have gotten an equally boring result for Daisy, if they were tracking it in their analytics. I don't even bother to change her face model anymore. I click the voice from 2 to 4, since the Scots accent sort of grates, and maybe click a different haircut just for flair, but otherwise Daisy is just the drow gal they throw at me, since the choices don't seem to affect anything other than one or two introspection cutscenes. It could at least be randomized, but they didn't go there with the custom PC character creator, so I guess why would I expect them to do it in the sub-character creator hehe. It would be cooler though if the choices there actually impacted who we ran into among the NPCs somehow, or how they ended up looking.
Florrick and Kagha are putting Minthara to shame with their eye makeup chops. Nobody is signing up to get their cosmetology degree from the Absolute's "School of Absolute Beauty" now. Not with Patch 5 Minthara on the cover of the brochure at any rate hehe
I can almost anticipate that in patch 6 Minthara will have a new VO line where she says something like "Beauty is only skin deep!" before trying to cut someone. Or "All in the eye of the beholder" but like with an actual Beholder's eye in her hand. It'll just turn into the running joke. Too far along now to stop that from happening.
ps. You can't even see Minthara's eyebrows in the top animation above, since the brow color matches her skintone almost exactly now. It looks like when the stylist asks the makeup artist to completely cover a model's eyebrows, so new brows can be drawn on with a pencil. Perhaps in a totally different shape, or with a more severe angle or whatever, but where we can still totally see the actual eyebrows under all the powder. It just seems wonky and over the top catwalk, especially for this character. Again, if it was Astarion doing it, I'm sure he gets a pass. But Minthara? It just doesn't fit.
pps. further digression, but evil path should be like MInthara says "perhaps someday, in Menzoberranzan..." with that stary-eyed whimsy look like maybe she's changed deep down, but then the PC just says "Or not" and straight mercs her for the black armor and the misty step amulet at the last moment? hehe. So cold!
I mean she could still come back later and be all pissed about it, especially that you jacked her duds, and "what about all we shared, and the absolute?" before trying to kill you a third time. But that would just be better. She should be designed to get dropped in Act 1 and have her black armor taken by the PC, regardless of the path. Same as Drizzt in BG1 to BG2 follow up. Better Evil.
Evil path works best as comedy I think, but where the villain is still playing it straight. Like Alan Rickman's Sherriff of Nottingham or Edwin from BG. Minthara cutthroat evil of the previous look kinda had that for me, mainly in the hair I guess. Rocker hair, like late 80s early 90s blow out had a certain vibe, but this one is like a whole different sort of Minthara now. I still think black armor could sell it though. Maybe she's born with it, maybe its black armor
3ps. SWTOR was mentioned earlier, and the analogous character there I think is Thana Vesh. Like a one dimensional B villain psycho who'd slip into the background otherwise, except for being redeemed by her badass black armor. A sense of style that made her memorable. Talk about eyeshadow lol. In that game they played it where SW Baroness balked at every advance, whereas here Minthara is the one doing the pouncing to an almost comical degree, but I think the comparison is kind of apt. Same thing going on, I'd suspect, where without the right look the character would just ring sort of hollow and become instantly forgettable. Might be giving Minthara too much credit in that comparison, since Thana Vesh had the whole "I can do anything better than you" tease, and was being constantly thwarted by her insufferable Darth Lord whoever. I don't remember his name. But she stood out. She got the name rec. Same way Minthara did here. Even as a one note, the armor should look badass.
Her patch 5 outfit is like what you force the PCs to dress in at lvl1, so they can be excited to immediately find something that looks way cooler, not how you dress a villain heheh. They should really put in some work there for Minthara's duds, cause the new duds combined with the new makeup and all the rest is just dragging her down, like from B villain to D.
