137 réponses à ce sujet

[Tony_Knightcrawler]

Most members of the races look better.

Modifié par Tony_Knightcrawler, 20 mars 2011 - 08:45 .

[Spooky81]

Qunari are fearsome, their new looks do them justice. Would be nice to see more diverse ingame models rather their entire race having the exact same face(except for Arishok and mages). Didnt notice much change in the dwarves other than Bodahn looking like he was hit by a train.

Elves are definitely an improvement over the ones in DAO. The concept artwork for DA2 elves looks good, but i can't say the same for the ingame models. I appreciate how they're more resentful and venomous towards their human conquerers. The Dalish in DAO were too polite and timid. Overall, i think they elves could be abit more hostile in their attitude(like how the Scoia'tael act in the Witcher ).

[nicethugbert]

I don't see why arbitrary artistic details have to remain the same between DA1 and DA2. DA2 is it's own game. It does share a world with DA1. But, there is no need to have complete conformance on all details between the 2 games. Otherwise, why a new game instead of an expansion? Artistic license is a good thing on arbitrary details such as Qunari horns, elf ears, etc. These sorts of things have no impact on the story and I like the difference from a "what if" perspective.

[The Teyrn of Whatever]

dshoub wrote...

I agree with you on the elves, in fact somewhere else on the forums (don't recall where) someone compared them to the Navi from Avatar and it's uncanny how close the resembalance is. Though unlike you I think the whole Qunari redesign is just plain bonkers. I mean a touchup or a slight tweak is one thing, but adding horns to the species? Where was the logic behind this? Was Sten just some genetic freak. Not likely considering the way Qunari think, the fact that he was a commander in the Qun, they wouldn't have had a genetic anomaly in that position. So basically they just said to hell with Origins, I want horny giants! As for the dwarves, they seem to be more like "little people" now and less like hardy, tough dwarves. Just my thoughts on it though, so feel free to diagree, theres no reall right answer.

Actually for whatever reason in the Qun, hornless Qunari are seen as special, born for great things, that sort of thing. That's the retcon reason why he doesn't have any. Other Qunari such as their mages have their horns removed (the extremities sawed off at any rate) and those who turn away from the Qun remove their own horns as well.

No there is no real right answer or correct way to feel about the issues of design aesthetics. Reactions will always be deeply subjective. I just happen to find the elves, apart from party members (who look just fine), tend not to be to my liking.

The elves of modern fantasy have sure gone through different concepts over the years (in the departments of appearance, culture, etc.). Tolkien's elves were not pointy eared in the books, nor were the males explicitly beardless. They were just incredibly beautiful people who lived forever.

Nowadays elves tend to have pointy ears. I don't mind this personally. It's a good way of distinguishing them from humans, especially in visual media such as games and movies. Whether elves are generally good, or sadistic and evil, pointy-eared or not, capable of growing facial hair or not, immortal, mortal, or once immortal and now not so, they are a staple of fantasy and I can't quite say that Dragon Age's elves are "wrong", which was never the point of my starting this discussion or my comments. I just happen not to like the new look too much. I agree with what some other fans have said, basically to the effect that the concept art looked good for Dragon Age II's elves while the final product was a little less stunning. Comparisons to the Na'Vi are pretty fair.

[The Teyrn of Whatever]

Tony_Knightcrawler wrote...

Most members of the races look better.

Yes. Most.

[Icinix]

Members of the Qun are awesome. Elves...not so much...but at least they look less Human. Which is an improvement.

[abigger]

The elves I can live with. They look different, fine. But, as it has been said earlier, the darkspawn redesign is positively abhorrent compared to the predecessor. They now look like zombies with down syndrome. Especially the ogres.

[The Teyrn of Whatever]

On another note, they really need to bring back the full range of Darkspawn for any future Dragon Ages featuring Blights. It would be a shame to only have Hurlocks and Ogres... and those new mage Darkspawn things. I like Genlocks, Shrieks, and blighted creatures. Of course I think the appearance of only Hurlocks in this game was more about how little the Blight had to do with the plot of this game (does this venture into spoiler territory?) more than some lame retcon... or at least that's my hope.

Didn't mind the Hurlock redesign although I don't prefer it to the look in Origins.

Also someone cited the elven noses as one of the improvements made in Dragon Age 2. Sorry, but in my humble opinion this is one of the features I despised the most and definitely the single feature which I find makes them look like rodents. Just fugly, plain and simple.

[Thibbledorf26]

I like the new look of elves, it makes them look more differentiated from humans, I am happy that Bioware is moving away from making every race 'humans with x difference'.

[The Teyrn of Whatever]

berelinde wrote...

I did NOT like the darkspawn redesigned. They weren't even remotely scary anymore, unless you find clowns scary.

The dwarves didn't look any different, at least the males we met. Loved Varric's look.

The elves... I really did like the new elf look. Seriously. They don't look like skinny kids anymore, and that's a very good thing. I liked how their facial structure was different form humans, too, with high-bridged noses and pointier faces. And how could you say Merrill was ugly?! She was adorable! I particularly liked how the one half-elf we met did have some elven characteristics. Way cool.

Merrill is cute as a button. Love her look. Gorgeous.

This is what they should have used as a template for other elves. She looks like a really pretty, fine-featured human with pointy ears, which is perfect.

Merrill in DA2 reminds me a little of what I was going for when I created my very first Grey Warden, a female Dalish elf named Vaella. I chose the most cat-like eyes from the choices available, gave her high cheekbones, a long, thin aquiline nose, generous lips, a thin neck... and voila! I even chose a hairstyle that totally hid her ears from sight, and she still looked very much like most fantasy fan's ideas of an elf. The results were perfect, in my mind.

The "beautiful humans with pointy ears" aesthetic worked for Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films and it would have worked just fine in Dragon Age 2. Can you imagine Legolas or Arwen or Galadriel or Elrond or any of the other elves in LOTR where the actors were given unnecessary facial prosthetics to make them look more alien?

It might not have ruined the movies, but man it would have been a serious knock against the overall visual appeal of the trilogy.

If it were up to me I would make the Dalish look more exotic and fine-featured while making the City Elves look more human: worn out, aged, rugged, which to some extent, they did with Origins. Anyway that's enough about that. I have strong feelings on the subject and I think I've made my point.

Love,

The Teryn of Whatever

[TJSolo]

nicethugbert wrote...

I don't see why arbitrary artistic details have to remain the same between DA1 and DA2. DA2 is it's own game. It does share a world with DA1. But, there is no need to have complete conformance on all details between the 2 games. Otherwise, why a new game instead of an expansion? Artistic license is a good thing on arbitrary details such as Qunari horns, elf ears, etc. These sorts of things have no impact on the story and I like the difference from a "what if" perspective.

Why? It is called continuity and artistic integrity.  Unless there are well-known artists doing their own interpetation of the races in Thedas every game then for the same artist to change styles on a whim is not artistic license, it is artistic spazzing.

[Pwnzor326]

The Elves took some getting used to but ultimately I'm happy that they made the switch. Every race in Origins looked very close to humans so I'm glad that they diversified the Quanari and the Elves.