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Ydwin to return in the expansion?

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rjshae

rjshae

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After reading her description again...

 

 

Ydwin- A strange pale elf cipher from "a lot of different places". Fascinated by animancy, Ydwin spends her free time examining fresh and not-so-fresh corpses. Though she has a charming and pleasant demeanor, new acquaintances are often shocked at her intimate familiarity with death and her dispassionate affect in the face of even the most grisly scenes.

 

Assuming that this is still accurate, I agree with the portrait change. I really liked the first portrait but it's important to have one that matches the character. She's still perfect and I'm sure I'll come to love the new portrait as well.

 

Perhaps one may even liken her to an elven Morticia Addams?

 

Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc

"It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats."

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Lephys

Lephys

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That's silly. Would you say it's narrow minded to prefer one genre of games over the other? Or one genre of music over the other. Or movies, or books, or whatever else. And i never said that i want ALL characters to be designed a certain way, did i? I only commented about Ydwin, that's it.  

 

No it isn't, and no I wouldn't say that. But I would say that thinking "music is for my enjoyment, therefore it should sound only like my one favorite band, and nothing else. Any other combinations of sounds that could possibly be conceived are not good or are less good than only the sounds I've already heard and have deemed my favorite" is narrow-minded.

 

You only commented on Ydwin, but you said you'd prefer her to be more feminine. So, either you're applying your preferences to all characters as you come to them, or you're okay with 7,000 other characters in Deadfire being unfeminine so long as JUST Ydwin for some reason is made more feminine. So, just because you didn't specifically name all the other people you'd rather were more feminine doesn't mean you didn't suggest that all female characters in Deadfire should possess a minimum level of femininity that suits your subjective tastes.

 

To put it another way, the only reasoning you gave for Ydwin's design to be altered is that you found her lacking in femininity. It wasn't like "well, based on her background and the vision expressed for her, I think this level of femininity doesn't match well with her character design." Nope. Just "I like feminine females, therefore I'd like it if she were more feminine." So it follows that if we present any female in the game world to you who happens to be under this level of femininity, you'd prefer that they were more feminine. Thus, you're not okay with a game world that contains ANY females who are less than some arbitrary, baseline femininity. That's pretty narrow-minded.

 

That may not have been your intent, which is fine. I'm simply pointing out where your line of reasoning leads, in the manner in which you applied it. If you're okay with some female characters in the world being less feminine, and others being more feminine, then you'd either:

 

A) Be fine with Ydwin's design, as she'd just be an example of variety amongst female characters, or

B ) Have a specific problem with her aesthetics as they pertain to her specific character design/role/etc. (a problem with an objective basis, essentially).

 

EDIT:

 

For what it's worth, I am not attacking you. I am simply pointing out how your comments are presenting themselves. I understand English isn't your first language, and I have to say that I couldn't tell at all, so your English is quite excellent. :). So, again, it's not that I'm trying to tell you what you mean, but without any context or elaboration, just coming in and saying "character X needs to be more feminine," the only thing people are going to take from that is that you arbitrarily want attractive female characters, for no other reason than that you expect females to be attractive to you.

Edited by Lephys

Should we not start with some Ipelagos, or at least some Greater Ipelagos, before tackling a named Arch Ipelago? 6_u

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Abel

Abel

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Well, a few more "feminine" characters wouldn't hurt (feminine in the cute sense. I don't like to use this word here, because it's completely arbitrary... And would deem not "feminine" most of female characters for no objective reason), but this did not strike me at first, while playing. What struck me more was the dwarves. To me, they were like mini humans ^^. Both voices, characters, and traits. Call me a cliché fan, but i would have liked them to be a bit more grumpy.

 

I barely have any idea of who Ydwin is, so as long as the art for her portrait is nice, i don't see a problem (and the art happens to be nicely done, so...). Write a cute character if you would (annah-like). But first, work out the dwarves please :).

Edited by Abel
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Lephys

Lephys

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It is always bothersome when Dwarves are just re-sized humans. :p. Aesthetically, they seem like more of a sub-race than an actual race, if they're not distinct enough.

 

I can't think of a couple of other games that have done this, but I know they exist.

Edited by Lephys
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Should we not start with some Ipelagos, or at least some Greater Ipelagos, before tackling a named Arch Ipelago? 6_u

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TheisEjsing

TheisEjsing

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Uh there are no games where dwarves are just a human subrace, hence why they are treated like their own race, with their own culture.

Well, there's little Bill, and Jimmy from GTA. They're a human subrace. ;-)

 

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blotter

blotter

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Uh there are no games where dwarves are just a human subrace, hence why they are treated like their own race, with their own culture.

 

I think that what Lephys is saying is that in many games, even when dwarves are nominally distinguished from humans on the basis of race and culture, the differences are so minuscule in practice that they tend to seem more like little, stocky humans than a truly distinct species.

 

In the Pillars games, that might even be deliberate insofar as the setting's emphasis lies more on differentiation through cultures (which typically cross racial lines in Eora) than races, but by the same token, dwarves would hardly be the only ones affected by this approach.

 

Edit: Upon rereading his post, I'd say I missed the point. His statement that

 

 

Aesthetically, they seem like more of a sub-race than an actual race, if they're not distinct enough

 

Relates to issues of visual character design/racial phenotypes rather than personality or culture.

Edited by blotter
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Lephys

Lephys

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Blotter is quite correct, Karkarov. Sorry for any confusion. Yeah, I don't need them to be like 300% different from humans. But, if they could've just been actual humans who simply stopped growing at 4-ft of height, and happen to be a bit muscular, it bugs me. Of course, same with elves who look EXACTLY like svelte humans with pointy ears.

 

It's hard to put a finger on, but it's possible to give even a race that looks very similar to humans its own distinct style and "aesthetic personality." Give it a feature set that says "Okay... from across a field, I might think that's a human. But nope... up close, that's DEFINITELY a Dwarf and not just a stocky human."

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Should we not start with some Ipelagos, or at least some Greater Ipelagos, before tackling a named Arch Ipelago? 6_u

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Karkarov

Karkarov

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Blotter is quite correct, Karkarov. Sorry for any confusion. Yeah, I don't need them to be like 300% different from humans. But, if they could've just been actual humans who simply stopped growing at 4-ft of height, and happen to be a bit muscular, it bugs me. Of course, same with elves who look EXACTLY like svelte humans with pointy ears.

 

It's hard to put a finger on, but it's possible to give even a race that looks very similar to humans its own distinct style and "aesthetic personality." Give it a feature set that says "Okay... from across a field, I might think that's a human. But nope... up close, that's DEFINITELY a Dwarf and not just a stocky human."

Well dude by that token elves are just skinny humans with long ears and light skin tone.

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Messier-31

Messier-31

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Blotter is quite correct, Karkarov. Sorry for any confusion. Yeah, I don't need them to be like 300% different from humans. But, if they could've just been actual humans who simply stopped growing at 4-ft of height, and happen to be a bit muscular, it bugs me. Of course, same with elves who look EXACTLY like svelte humans with pointy ears.

 

It's hard to put a finger on, but it's possible to give even a race that looks very similar to humans its own distinct style and "aesthetic personality." Give it a feature set that says "Okay... from across a field, I might think that's a human. But nope... up close, that's DEFINITELY a Dwarf and not just a stocky human."

 

Have to agree, PoE characters sometimes all look like humans.

 

Plus: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/93823-races-of-eora-conclusions-and-speculations/

Edited by Messier-31

It would be of small avail to talk of magic in the air...

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Lephys

Lephys

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Well, sometimes they are just designed as humans with pointy ears. I find it far more interesting when they're at least structured differently. I mean, an android is just a human that's made out of electronics, but you can still put an android into a game and make it look mostly human while having it behave in a unique fashion. Something to distinguish it, intuitively, from a human. Unless, of course, the point of the lore/story is that it's very hard to distinguish them. If you do something interesting with that, then great. If not, it's a bit silly to sit down and create something that's 99% like this other thing you created. I think we tend to enjoy things more when an entirely different race of creatures seems and feels like a different race, and we're not having to be reminded constantly that "Oh, they only live in this forest, and they have +2 Int, and if you look really closely, they all have a mole on their left forearm."

 

It's a lot more than aesthetic differences, but the aesthetics help. *shrug*. Maybe I'm just weird, and everyone else is cool with like 7 Star Trek races that all look almost exactly like humans, but with a tiny dimple somewhere, or different eyebrows.

Should we not start with some Ipelagos, or at least some Greater Ipelagos, before tackling a named Arch Ipelago? 6_u

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Amentep

Amentep

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This thread is overdue closing due to length.  If someone wishes to discuss this topic they may start another one, but its clear the utility of this discussion is at its end.

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I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot! ~ Ro-Man

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