172 réponses à ce sujet

[eroeru]

Realmzmaster wrote...
I grow weary of the depiction of elves as humans with pointy ears which by their lore they are not.

Agreed. Still, they shouldn't look ugly and nonappropriate (by the standard of many people and the word).


edit: what do you think of The Witcher's elves?

Modifié par eroeru, 22 mai 2012 - 04:33 .

[AkiKishi]

eroeru wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...
I grow weary of the depiction of elves as humans with pointy ears which by their lore they are not.

Agreed. Still, they shouldn't look ugly and nonappropriate (by the standard of many people and the word).


edit: what do you think of The Witcher's elves?

If they did not want people to object to the depiction, they should have used an original name rather than elf. If elves have one thing in common in whatever gameworld it's that they are pleasing to look at.



ElfQuest is about the furthest thing you can get from a Middle Earth Elf. But they still have more of an Elven identity than DA2.

[eroeru]

^^ They were more in the vein of what elf traditionally meant before Tokien. Meaning tiny pixie-like do-gooders.

(which is a good thing, as it still means "elf")

Modifié par eroeru, 22 mai 2012 - 06:35 .

[GunMoth]

 Ooo the elves in The Witcher 2 were wonderful! They were tall, slender, with gaunt faces. Old, yet retained their looks. Its always a trip talking to them because they definitely speak down to you in the way someone who was 100+ years old would. Not always arrogant, but sometimes apathetic. Like they had seen Witchers before. It was an interesting contrast to the people who would freak out when they saw you. 


I think DA 2's goal was to return to the original DnD depiction in terms of height. But they definitely tried returning to Baulder's Gate'ssss depiction with the facial features. I kind of liked the callback, but I felt with the intense overhaul with the Qunari, that it could have been met with something a bit more strong and less stylized. Their heads / eyes were so huge in comparison to the rest of the cast. @_@

[Realmzmaster]

eroeru wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...
I grow weary of the depiction of elves as humans with pointy ears which by their lore they are not.

Agreed. Still, they shouldn't look ugly and nonappropriate (by the standard of many people and the word).


edit: what do you think of The Witcher's elves?

Are you saying there are no ugly elves? Are there not elves that are more beautiful than others elves? In which case the other elves would be regarded as plain or ugly?
Or is it just human perception that sees the elves as more beautiful than themselves? Are you saying that every elf must be beautiful to fit the definition and therefore must meet or exceed the human standard of beauty which appears basically to have a European influence? An influence that basically limits the definition of beauty and is not universally accepted.

The witcher elves play into the defintion. They look like humans with pointy ears. What about them aside from the ears makes them look different from humans?

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 22 mai 2012 - 09:06 .

[GunMoth]

Realmzmaster wrote...

eroeru wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...
I grow weary of the depiction of elves as humans with pointy ears which by their lore they are not.

Agreed. Still, they shouldn't look ugly and nonappropriate (by the standard of many people and the word).


edit: what do you think of The Witcher's elves?

Are you saying there are no ugly elves? Are there not elves that are more beautiful than others elves? In which case the other elves would be regarded as plain or ugly?
Or is it just human perception that sees the elves as more beautiful than themselves? Are you saying that every elf must be beautiful to fit the definition and therefore must meet or exceed the human standard of beauty which appears basically to have a European influence? An influence that basically limits the definition of beauty and is not universally accepted.

The witcher elves play into the defintion. They look like humans with pointy ears. What about them aside from the ears makes them look different from humans?

I dont think they were ugly in the sense that Garrus was ugly. Or the dark spawn are ugly.
Elves are ugly in the "uncanny valley" department. Their anatomy is VERY off putting and they don't fit in with the artistic style of the game much.. It kind of appears as if they took the human animation rig and shrunk the body down, but kept the head the same size. Merril was really the only elf I wasn't completely appauled by. Fenris kind of freaked me out a bit. D: 


EDIT: There is a HUGGGGE difference between the witcher elves and humans if you actually played the game. They are much taller than humans and generally tower over Geralt. They have a yellow based skin tone giving them a tan or golden complextion, similar to Sten from DA: O. Their cheeks are gaunt. They have thick chins and jawlines. These are features a human can have, but not quite as defined or exagerated. 

Modifié par GunMoth, 22 mai 2012 - 10:50 .

[eroeru]

^^ He was referring to my notion that elves should hold on to the concept of being "beautiful".

Realmzmaster wrote...


Are you saying there are no ugly elves?

 

Well, yes, I think beauty and elegant features is a solid way to go. But the thing that matters most is that they should not make you think of Avatar the movie, bugs, and aliens. Moreso that the overwhelming definition in fact involves "beauty" (from all the "normal" folk's view-point), "immortality-kin" and a sort of "purity".

What if a game company made a game about unicorns, and all you'd get to see are sharks? (or donkeys...)

Modifié par eroeru, 23 mai 2012 - 12:11 .

[Androme]

Everything

[hussey 92]

lol the elves in DA2 did look like those blue monkeys from the Avatar

[AnImpossibleGirl]

tishyw wrote...

It was a poor sequel, the only similarity it bore to DA:O was the fact that both games are set in Feralden.

No...Origins was in Ferelden, Hawke played the pansy and ran from Ferelden in the beggining of the blight. The story of DA2 took place in Kirkwall--The Free Marches. 


To answer OP, what was "wrong" with DA2 was that it was not DA:O--and in my personal opinion was NOT in Ferelden. Gaider's first two books evolved in Ferelden...I am quite attached to Ferelden; needlesss to say. 

[Tirigon]

Realmzmaster wrote...


Are you saying there are no ugly elves? Are there not elves that are more beautiful than others elves? In which case the other elves would be regarded as plain or ugly?

To elves, some are more beautiful than others, but the others arent ugly in comparison. Elves define ugly as "non-elven".
Humans usually cant tell the difference anyways; all elves look the same to them.

Or is it just human perception that sees the elves as more beautiful than themselves? Are you saying that every elf must be beautiful to fit the definition and therefore must meet or exceed the human standard of beauty

Yes. Elves are Mary-Sue-humans, they are all humans want to be but rarely (or in the case of immortality never) are. As long as we have beauty as an ideal, they must therefore be beautiful.

which appears basically to have a European influence? An influence that basically limits the definition of beauty and is not universally accepted.

It actually is the most widely accepted one, that's why girls in anime, for example, are always white with huge eyes rather than having a japanese skin color and slitty eyes.

The witcher elves play into the defintion. They look like humans with pointy ears. What about them aside from the ears makes them look different from humans?

The Witcher elves are not really elves.

[Jerrybnsn]

We get the word "elf" from Old German which means "small". So in a sense, yes, elves are suppose to look like small people. In Germanic and Scandinavian mythology there were "wood" elves and "dark" elves. The wood elves where the ones that lived in the enchanted forests, the dark elves were the ones that lived underground and created the magic items from  the mysteries of the earth. Art depiction over the centuries have shown elves to look like small winged fairies, the squat dwarves, to long elegant beings.

I applaud bioware for trying to make them more "distinctive", but, unfortunately, they ended up making them ugly. Not as ugly as Bethesada elves though, so it could be worse. But I really hope they give the elves a better makeover for DAIII.

Modifié par Jerrybnsn, 23 mai 2012 - 10:40 .

[Cyberarmy]

GodWood wrote...

What I didn't like:

- The art style.
- The design changes (elves, qunari etc)
- Voiced PC
- The actual voice of the voiced PC.
- The PC as an actual character (it was impossible to roleplay an interesting and coherent character)
- Character creator not being at the start.
- PC never does (or even tries to do) anything.
- World didn't react to PC.
- Character icons too small.
- The over-the-top combat with exploding enemies.
- wave combat.
- Too much combat for the sake of combat.
- Ugly inventory with too much junk.
- Items no longer had descriptions or stories.
- Crappy directionless plot that relied too much on "lolevulartifact".
- Static companion appearances.
- Companion appearances not fitting in with the rest of the game.
- Graphics got worse.
- Score was rushed/reused.
- Reused maps.
- Environment is static and unchanging despite 7 year time span.
- Characters are mostly static and unchanging despite 7 year time span.
- So much railroading.

I could probably think of more if I tried.

This, only point i disagree is new Kossinth design, i like their new look but they also lack variety. Nearly every qunari in the game looks alike.

[Monica83]

Cyberarmy wrote...

GodWood wrote...

What I didn't like:

- The art style.
- The design changes (elves, qunari etc)
- Voiced PC
- The actual voice of the voiced PC.
- The PC as an actual character (it was impossible to roleplay an interesting and coherent character)
- Character creator not being at the start.
- PC never does (or even tries to do) anything.
- World didn't react to PC.
- Character icons too small.
- The over-the-top combat with exploding enemies.
- wave combat.
- Too much combat for the sake of combat.
- Ugly inventory with too much junk.
- Items no longer had descriptions or stories.
- Crappy directionless plot that relied too much on "lolevulartifact".
- Static companion appearances.
- Companion appearances not fitting in with the rest of the game.
- Graphics got worse.
- Score was rushed/reused.
- Reused maps.
- Environment is static and unchanging despite 7 year time span.
- Characters are mostly static and unchanging despite 7 year time span.
- So much railroading.

I could probably think of more if I tried.

This, only point i disagree is new Kossinth design, i like their new look but they also lack variety. Nearly every qunari in the game looks alike.

I agree on all those point

[Tirigon]

Jerrybnsn wrote...

We get the word "elf" from Old German which means "small". So in a sense, yes, elves are suppose to look like small people. In Germanic and Scandinavian mythology there were "wood" elves and "dark" elves. The wood elves where the ones that lived in the enchanted forests, the dark elves were the ones that lived underground and created the magic items from  the mysteries of the earth. Art depiction over the centuries have shown elves to look like small winged fairies, the squat dwarves, to long elegant beings.

I applaud bioware for trying to make them more "distinctive", but, unfortunately, they ended up making them ugly. Not as ugly as Bethesada elves though, so it could be worse. But I really hope they give the elves a better makeover for DAIII.

Bethesda elves arent elves either, they are Mer. Which is sometimes translated to elf, but that is stupid, which becomes just the more obvious when you realize that the "orcs" and "dwarves" in Nirm are actually mer - Orsimer and Dwemer, respectively - as well.


That being said, they look infinitely more beautiful and more elven than the ones in DA2, though the beauty part is of course a matter of taste.

[Rxdiaz]

It's much easier to ask what was right with DA2, because the list is quite short...

[wsandista]

Rxdiaz wrote...

It's much easier to ask what was right with DA2, because the list is quite short...

1. Ability Modifiers were in %, so they didn't degrade later in the game.
2.NOTHING ELSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Yakko77]

The game was a lot of fun IMO. Sure, the reused environments were a little old and a for a game called Dragon Age you'd think there's be more, you know, Dragons but overall I thought it was good. If anything it suffers from a bunch of little things that prevents it from being great. My biggest gripe is how it more or less forces you to choose between two factions at the end which both have many flaws and faults though I always sided with the mages over the Templars because a) I was a mage, to defend my sister who is a mage if I am not and c) I HATE religious authoritarianism. Any religious faction that tries to impose obedience through the point of a weapon or other intimidation is to be opposed at all costs. I'm sure the Templars "mean well" in most cases going after Blood mages with nefarious goals or whatnot but their treatment of every other mage in keeping them locked up is something I hope to oppose in DA3.

Oddly enough, I am looking forward to the Dawn of the Seeker movie... even if Cassandra is a member of a religious faction that I somewhat oppose, (No, though not religious I am NOT anti-religion though I am more or less deist or agnostic.)

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

for me:
Re-used environments
one dimensional companion characters
over the top combat animations (spin kick to throw a grenade? Really?)
railroaded plot

[21121313]

If there was anything i missed from the original DA: O after playing and beating DA2 it was the origin parts of the game. Being able to play as different races really made the game a treat as i am a former D+D player from way back when and i loved the options.

Nothing said lovin like beating the Archdemon with an Elf then wishing you could give all the folks who ****** on elves the one finger salute. Of course, there is the bonus of knowing that they will be kissing your rear end after saving their hides.

But i digress. The only thing that really bothered me about DA2 was Anders. There was just something not likeable about his character, unlike how i felt about him in Awakening. His DA2 storyline didn't bother me at all, though.

[ArcanistLibram]

On my first playthrough, I played an Apostate who supported Mages at every opportunity. The result? Every Mage in Kirkwall except the Apostitute and the Orlesian guy who just wanted to get laid turned out to be a Blood Mage Abomination and tried to kill me. On my second playthrough, I decided to play a pro-Templar warrior to see how the plot would change. I got the exact same plot as my first playthrough, except I had to kill different party members at the end.

The whole point of having the story spread out over "10 years" (7 of which are skipped over entirely) was to see how the player's choices would affect Kirkwall, but the game doesn't even pretend that anything Hawke does actually matters.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

ArcanistLibram wrote...

On my first playthrough, I played an Apostate who supported Mages at every opportunity. The result? Every Mage in Kirkwall except the Apostitute and the Orlesian guy who just wanted to get laid turned out to be a Blood Mage Abomination and tried to kill me. On my second playthrough, I decided to play a pro-Templar warrior to see how the plot would change. I got the exact same plot as my first playthrough, except I had to kill different party members at the end.

The whole point of having the story spread out over "10 years" (7 of which are skipped over entirely) was to see how the player's choices would affect Kirkwall, but the game doesn't even pretend that anything Hawke does actually matters.

Technincally the Apostitute was a blood mage who tried to kill you too.

[AkiKishi]

ArcanistLibram wrote...

On my first playthrough, I played an Apostate who supported Mages at every opportunity. The result? Every Mage in Kirkwall except the Apostitute and the Orlesian guy who just wanted to get laid turned out to be a Blood Mage Abomination and tried to kill me. On my second playthrough, I decided to play a pro-Templar warrior to see how the plot would change. I got the exact same plot as my first playthrough, except I had to kill different party members at the end.

The whole point of having the story spread out over "10 years" (7 of which are skipped over entirely) was to see how the player's choices would affect Kirkwall, but the game doesn't even pretend that anything Hawke does actually matters.

Was to enable everything to be set in one location and cut costs/time.

[Rxdiaz]

Yea, they cut costs for sure. But they still charged us full price.

Cut every corner, give us cut rate crap and still charge AAA prices.

Nice....

[SirGladiator]

The lack of meaningful choices was indeed huge. I mean, in the beginning nothing you do matters, your brother or sister die no matter what. In the next part, they get captured or die no matter what, I guess you could say its your choice which, but the first time you play its not a choice, its just completely random, because you have no way to know that by taking them with you they will die, if anything taking them with you seems to be the 'safe' choice, because leaving them behind could so easily lead to them being captured or killed while you're not there to protect them. Then in the next part, your mother dies no matter what, once again it doesnt matter what you've done to protect her, she dies anyway. And oh, by the way, if your sibling is still alive, you arent allowed to rescue them, or even act like you care at all about rescuing them, they're pretty much just irrelevant. Then of course in the final chapter, that insane ending, the fact that it doesnt matter which side you've supported the whole game, the leaders of both sides end up trying to kill you anyway, plus the simple fact that these people are basicly or mostly irrelevant the entire game, and suddenly they're the final 2 boss fights and its game over. Honestly, I didnt even care much about the way overused areas, because those other things were so much more annoying. Im sure DA3 wont feature overused areas, but whats going to make me a lot happier is when I have the opportunity to make a meaningful difference with my choices, save the lives of those important to me, and have an enemy that is an actual enemy, not a friend (or simply someone I dont much care about one way or the other) who goes insane at the very end just so there can be one more boss fight.