12 réponses à ce sujet

[Maria Caliban]

Seriously? Why would you do this, BioWare?

[David Gaider]

Maria Caliban wrote...
Seriously? Why would you do this, BioWare?

Heh. Funny that I would essentially say "I don't know, I've never compared them" and come back to this.

Looking in-game, it seems like Fenris is a tad shorter than my Male Hawke. It's not a marked difference, though. Same appears to be true for female elves.

As for those calling this a ret-con-- I don't know what to say there, really. Humans come in a variety of sizes, despite the fact we only model one. Same applies to elves. Why someone would be especially attached to elves being markedly shorter than humans I really have no idea, but there's nothing that requires that they be. Dwarves are a different story. The word "dwarf" kind of requires that they be a particular height... that doesn't apply to the elves.

But I guess people will get attached to different things? Well, there you go.

[David Gaider]

Wynne wrote...
 For instance, if they didn't do it for ye olde Hot Rod Samurai, but because it makes the animations easier so they can focus on doing them well instead of making as many kissing anims for different heights. *hugs you both* It will be all right, you'll see.

I'm not sure what about having elves be a bit taller is "Hot Rod Samurai". Is there something inherently awesome about that which I'm missing?

If you're looking for reasons, one big one is the animation part, as you mention. Any animations involving characters interacting becomes more complicated when models are of different heights. We'd like to have more interaction. Therefore reducing the number of variables makes perfect sense.

Another reason is that we don't need elves to be a lot shorter in order to look different from humans. They already look different, now. Combined with them being very thin, making them also a lot smaller would risk them looking like children. If you really want to complain about something being changed, the alteration in their overall style is the the big one. Their height... yeah, not so much. Unless you have a thing about the height of a potential elven romance, I guess, which it appears some people do. i get that some people interpreted the height of their model in Origins as some kind of statement, but that was never intended to be the case.

And I'll leave it at that. This is what I get for off-handedly mentioning things. Chris is gonna come glare at me, I just know it.

Modifié par David Gaider, 20 janvier 2011 - 04:20 .

[David Gaider]

tmp7704 wrote...
It's usually called "reductio ad absurdum". To put it in more plain terms, it's funny how the dwarves don't have to undergo species-wide transformation in DA2 for the sake of that alleged extra interactivity, yet still get books thrown in their face, toss things and do all sorts of tricks.

No offense but if you believe the height of characters tremendously affects the amount of conversations and such the characters can partake, that's rather gullible.

For starters, I never said that making elves the same height (or roughly-- they are still shorter) as humans makes interaction possible. It makes it easier, on a systemic scale when you're taking into account things like camera angle (where the head needs to be centered) and animations (when "matching up" where interacting models touch). You reduce the number of variables involved and therefore questions of interacting stop having "but what if it's an elf? what if it's a dwarf?" automatically tacked on.

If you know that a dwarf is involved, such as Varric and the book in his face, it's not an issue. You're dealing with set models and you know how they'll interact, period. I'm talking about systems.

And, incidentally, once again that is only part of the reasoning. We wanted to change the way elves look (and have), yet didn't want them being slender to also make them look child-like. You can make assumptions if you like, but it's not very complicated-- and considering that I never thought of elves as in "they must all be shorter than humans" (as they were in D&D)  I don't really think it's a big deal. As always, YMMV.

[David Gaider]

tmp7704 wrote...
Part of the "... ehh" reaction is caused by the earlier comments from the devs how they're doing their darndest to make DA2 not look like the standard Tolkien-derived fare that DAO was (their words)

If you look at the elves of DA2 and see Tolkien elves just because they're not as short as they were in Origins, then perhaps you need to check your glasses.

[David Gaider]

tmp7704 wrote...
Mr.Gaider, with all due respect, maybe stopping for couple minutes to think before you engage in the Snark™ could be in order.

The original comment i was responding to was about how tall and slender is more like "Tolkien elves". My comment was to point out that making things more "like Tolkien" is opposite to what devs stated as their intention, which was supposedly to make things look less Tolkien-like.

If you go from "more/less like Tolkien" to "they aren't exactly like Tolkien, what are you, blind" then i can only presume it's because strawmen are so much easier to burn down?

Oh, I understood you.

What I meant, meanwhile, was that they only look more like Tolkien elves if you simultaneously ignore the fact that we've changed a great deal more about the appearance of elves than simply their height. Those other changes, after all, aren't Tolkien-like at all, and I'm not sure why you'd look at them in isolation of each other.

Hence the suggestion to check your glasses.

Modifié par David Gaider, 20 janvier 2011 - 07:32 .

[David Gaider]

And... who do we think the male and female leads are? I'm curious.

[David Gaider]

AlexXIV wrote...
I think the obvious point is that Fenris is an LI. We can take it as a given now since there is no other reason to change male elves height and human females height only. They made it to match Fenris to femHawke. Since if you think that Fenris could be the only straight LI for femHawke they don't want him to be smaller as well.

Seriously?

So we thought that Zevran, say, was too short. If anyone didn't buy him as a love interest, that was why. So we're going to go in and change the heights of all elves to accommodate this assumed all-important romance with Fenris, because female players just wouldn't accept it otherwise? It couldn't be because of the other reasons I stated, it has to be some heightist conspiracy?

I've heard some bizarre notions on this forum from time to time. Occasionally there's even some truth to them, even if they're bent out of proportion-- but this one takes the cake.

Incidentally, we haven't changed the height of human females. Not sure why you think so, or why anyone would think a love interest would have to "match" anything. I think this teaches me to answer questions, if this is the sort of stuff people can conjure up to justify their dislike of a change. Wow.

Modifié par David Gaider, 21 janvier 2011 - 02:43 .

[David Gaider]

makenzieshepard wrote...
Let's not split hairs, heightism as it regards to discrimination is a real issue.

Sure, but what does that have to do with someone assuming that some kind of discrimination against short people was behind our decision? That's absurd. It's like the people accusing us of homophobia because they didn't get the gay romance they wanted-- never mind that there was one to begin with.

(Ok maybe there is an outside one in a million chance considering your distate for dwarves )

*I* think romances with dwarves are squick because they're hairy and stocky. Just because I wouldn't dig such a romance myself doesn't mean I wouldn't approve of someone else writing it.

I don't see the logic or reason for the change.  What you have explained makes little sense to me and I don't agree with what I've seen.  That's still ok right?  It does not make you wrong, might not even make me wrong opinions being what they are.

Someone saying "it's just my opinion" doesn't mean they can't be wrong. Not liking a decision you don't understand, that's fine. I have no problem with "I just liked them shorter". Suggesting, however, that there's some kind of conspiracy behind it-- that it must be a result of darker motives, an assumption that we think romances with short characters are unacceptable -- is not the same thing.

[David Gaider]

Addai67 wrote...
They did.  Not only are they taller, per the concept art the difference between the women and men is less.
I guess that's sexist, too?

Careful with that. I believe Chris Priestly already said that the heights in that concept art were not representative... meaning the concept art is there to show the visual distinction between the races. It's not meant to show the exact height that the models in-game will use.

[David Gaider]

Addai67 wrote...
Alright, so with respect to elves in general, we still don't know how tall they are relative to humans, either male or female, though you said it was to make them look less like children so that sounds to me like a general change rather than Fenris alone being made taller.

Of course it's a general change. Why would Fenris have a unique height?

Eventually you will all see this for yourselves, rather than trying to claw out information from my words-- which are clearly insufficient. I think I'll give it a rest. Sorry for stirring everyone up.

Modifié par David Gaider, 21 janvier 2011 - 04:10 .

[Stanley Woo]

RedRoo wrote...

Side note: Holy smokes, I hope that doesn't meant you're still at the office, David. Crunch time is srs bizniss...

He might be. QA certainly is, and we're not alone...

[David Gaider]

AlexXIV wrote...
Your reasons were interaction and animations.

As well as not wanting to make elves look like children, coupled with the rest of their appearance change.

Which would have been a perfect reason to make all elves and humans same size, also females and males. And I am a supporter of same-sized toons, not sure where you got the impression of the opposite. I never said I am unhappy with what you did there, I am only one of many who don't understand it. If I am not all wrong we have 4 different sizes for 2 races and 2 genders now. Why not make them all same size? Wouldn't that have been easier?

Yes, having every model be exactly the same size would, in fact, be easiest. Making things easier for ourselves does not mean wanting to make everything uniform-- these decisions to not exist in isolation of each other. In this case, given the fact that we didn't want thin elves to simply look like young humans (as in their silhouette-- their face is already quite different), the fact that it also helps with our variations in character height (an issue which had been identified in Origins as something that made scenes of interaction between variable characters expensive) makes that even better.

I'll point out that you didn't say you didn't understand our reasoning or that you didn't agree with it-- you said the only reason that we could possibly want to make all elves taller was so Fenris and a female Hawke would "match" romantically, as we evidently find short romance interests unacceptable. Which is not only discarding what I said, regardless of whether you agree with it, but also something we can't possibly defend against. "Unfortunate Implications" trope aside, I consider that low. Take that for what it's worth.

Modifié par David Gaider, 21 janvier 2011 - 05:16 .