263 réponses à ce sujet

[Ophir147]

Elton John is dead wrote...

*Most longest quote pyramid in the history of all time snipped, omg*

If you say so but if you consider that spitting poison you clearly weren't here after DA2's release. If I wanted to bash it I would post some of the pictures of the poorly textured NPC's you find in Kirkwall to go with this thread.

I understand your argument, but claiming that having a unique version of elves and paying distant homage to classic representations of fantasy are both mutually exclusive makes no sense.

I may be interpreting this wrong, but aren't you just saying, "If they're called elves and have anything in common with anything, why bother trying to make them any different?"

Also, I don't think it's fair to compare the differences between humans/dwarves and humans/elves. In DA:O, the only way you could actually tell that an elf was, in fact, an elf, was if they short, had pointy ears, or looked like a remarkably clean-shaven bum, whereas dwarves not only have a much more prominent size difference, but also have a different, square-like facial structure. The changes were even more pronounced in Dragon Age 2, in which dwarves faces almost look like polynesian moai.

[LinksOcarina]

Giubba1985 wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

Giubba1985 wrote...

Wait wait i'm starting to lose your point.

Again we are not debating about the DA2 designe to be original or unique but of being different from the tolkienesque standard and being a nice variation in videogames.
And that's regarding the Visual part of elves.

Than there is the lore part were as you said there are the major difference from the usual standard.

Point is why starting to fuss about that elves are in so manu games that do not need to be portraied for once in a different form?

Honestly what you are debating is pointless. The tolkein standard is a mish-mash of cultural sources and mythology he cobbled together because he could. It doesn't matter if its different or unique based on that standard, its still not original  because people adopted it as a standard, when it shouldn't have to be one.

Simply put, Dragon Age didn't need elves to be a fantasy game, which made Dragon Age just another derivative of the fantasy tropes. Since they are there our best judge is their lore, which does make them more unique but even as someone else pointed out, is still not unique enough.

Putting aside the veiled insult to Tolkien what amuse me it's the....prejudice? against certain element of fantasy as genre, i blame game of thrones for this.

Anyway your point is clear now.

Game of Thrones is also derivative too. The Watch, the ice zombies, dragon-blooded nobles and a kid who sees visions. You can say its a "low magic" setting which is true but thats about it. 

Originality in fantasy really doesn't exist. It just depends on how its told. 

[Fast Jimmy]

I think the lore should trump everything in the design of things. And the lore in DA:O's codex establishes them as short humans with pointy ears that are highly valued by humans because of their beauty. DA2 took that lore and blew it out the water for donkey-esque creatures.

I had a similar problem with the Qunari, but at least Bioware tried to put a band-aid on that with the mention of the hornless Qunari appearing like Sten, while the "standard" Qunari is gray skinned with horns  (even if every Qunari we fought in DA:O was hornless, a statistical anomaly, to be sure). And I have a similar problem with NPCs being able to appear as corresponding real-life ethnic groups, simply because the lore doesn't account for anything outside the European Causcasian to the duskier tone of the Rivain. The lore wouldn't permit the appearance of an NPC that looked like, say, a real-life Native Aborigine... at least not without an explanation saying that possibly they were from an as-yet-unknown part of Thedas.

The lore should be the gold standard in these things. If the lore needs to be changed, that is a retcon and there should be at least a good design reason for it as well as some level of in-game explanation of the incongruency.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 10 août 2013 - 02:37 .

[LinksOcarina]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I think the lore should trump everything in the design of things. And the lore in DA:O's codex establishes them as short humans with pointy ears that are highly valued by humans because of their beauty. DA2 took that lore and blew it out the water for donkey-esque creatures.

I had a similar problem with the Qunari, but at least Bioware tried to put a band-aid on that with the mention of the hornless Qunari appearing like Sten (even if every Qunari we fought in DA:O was hornless, a statistical anomaly, to be sure). And I have a similar problem with NPCs being able to appear as corresponding real-life ethnic groups, simply because the lore doesn't account for anything outside the European Causcasian to the duskier tone of the Rivain. But the lore wouldn't permit the appearance of an NPC that looked like, say, a real-life Native Aborigine... at least not without an explanation saying that possibly they were from an as-yet-unknown part of Thedas.

The lore should be the gold standard in these things. If the lore needs to be changed, that is a retcon and there should be at least a good design reason for it as well as some level of in-game explanation of the incongruency.

Considering worse stories have ruined lore than Dragon Age, I can safely say that lore in these situations is completely overrated, because it is always meant to provide backstory and flavor text, not a bible of how the world works. Truth be told, we shouldn't need lore to tell us how it works either. 

Just watch, one day we will see Griffons again...I would state money on it that it will be a questline and we find a small Griffon den deep in the mountains. 

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 10 août 2013 - 02:40 .

[Am1vf]

Fast Jimmy, goblins can be described as green "short humans with pointy ears". And the uglyness of DA][ elves was a result of lack of development, not the redesign.

[Fast Jimmy]

Originality in fantasy really doesn't exist. It just depends on how its told.

Originality in fiction doesn't exist, period. In sci-fi, everything is derivative of Asimov or Verne in some way, just like everything in fantasy is derivative of Tolkien. Every story structure has been explored before in the 10,000 years of human story-telling. The difference is the strength of characters, the cohesiveness of the narrative and the skill of the story-teller. So making non-Tolkien elves just to say you don't have Tolkien elves is a stupid reason to do anything, especially when it violates the precedent of lore you had already established.

Because if everything in fiction has already been done, then the only thing you have to stand on isn't originality, but how solidly you put forth your world. If your world is constantly changing for no understandable reason, then the fabric of your world becomes weak.

[Parmida]

LinksOcarina wrote...

Elton John is dead wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

Am1_vf wrote...
*cough*thewitcher*cough*

The witcher is crap anyway, who actually enjoys that game.  [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/devil.png[/smilie]

Its also in Polish and I sadly only read the english translation of The Last Wish, which is all short stories and kinda boring honestly. 

Play The Witcher 2 then. You don't need to read the books.

I did, it was ok. I put it on par with Dragon Age 2. 

I played the so called Witcher 2 too. And it wasn't even a pale shadow of the DA:O or Skyrim. So boring, it would make me yawn literally.

[LinksOcarina]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Originality in fantasy really doesn't exist. It just depends on how its told.

Originality in fiction doesn't exist, period. In sci-fi, everything is derivative of Asimov or Verne in some way, just like everything in fantasy is derivative of Tolkien. Every story structure has been explored before in the 10,000 years of human story-telling. The difference is the strength of characters, the cohesiveness of the narrative and the skill of the story-teller. So making non-Tolkien elves just to say you don't have Tolkien elves is a stupid reason to do anything, especially when it violates the precedent of lore you had already established.

Because if everything in fiction has already been done, then the only thing you have to stand on isn't originality, but how solidly you put forth your world. If your world is constantly changing for no understandable reason, then the fabric of your world becomes weak.

Man, the RPG world is poorly constructed then. 

[Fast Jimmy]

Am1_vf wrote...

Fast Jimmy, goblins can be described as green "short humans with pointy ears". And the uglyness of DA][ elves was a result of lack of development, not the redesign.

Fair enough. And from the screenshots circulating on the base Elven face frame, I'd say the level of design is better. Coincidentally enough, it also looks remarkably similar to DA:O. 

[Am1vf]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Originality in fantasy really doesn't exist. It just depends on how its told.

Originality in fiction doesn't exist, period. In sci-fi, everything is derivative of Asimov or Verne in some way, just like everything in fantasy is derivative of Tolkien. Every story structure has been explored before in the 10,000 years of human story-telling. The difference is the strength of characters, the cohesiveness of the narrative and the skill of the story-teller. So making non-Tolkien elves just to say you don't have Tolkien elves is a stupid reason to do anything, especially when it violates the precedent of lore you had already established.

Because if everything in fiction has already been done, then the only thing you have to stand on isn't originality, but how solidly you put forth your world. If your world is constantly changing for no understandable reason, then the fabric of your world becomes weak.

Originality doesn't exist. We can only try different combinations of what we have already seen, that's called creativity.

edit: and one of the problems here is that they are changing the design again.

Modifié par Am1_vf, 10 août 2013 - 02:47 .

[Fast Jimmy]

I played the so called Witcher 2 too. And it wasn't even a pale shadow of the DA:O or Skyrim. So boring, it would make me yawn literally.

It's funny when people try to come off as smug and wind up only sounding like dunces.

Why is it the "so called Witcher 2" exactly? Is the title of the game questionable?

[LPPrince]

^Yep, say hello to your average DA2 background elf.

[RedArmyShogun]

Hey, hey, hey. Screw you OP? How do you know the humans arn't the weird ones?

[cjones91]

The DA2 elves looked like they had Down Syndrome so I prefer the new design.

[AresKeith]

I prefer the reredesign of the elves

And honestly I feel the whole "They're just humans with pointy ears" argument to be weak since nobody says anything about Dwarves being "Small humans with giant beards"

[LPPrince]

Anyway, I think we're already far enough in to know that elves in DA:I will be somewhere between DA:O's and DA2's.

I'm okay with this. I'm optimistic about the alpha build elves we saw the other day.

[Fast Jimmy]

Man, the RPG world is poorly constructed then.

Do you mean the RPG genre? Because there is no RPG "world."

If you meant the genre, I wouldn't expect it to be - it was created by hundreds of thousands of writers over time. Meanwhile, the DA universe was constructed by a dozen. Those dozen writers should all be operating under the same over-arching framework of narrative consistency.

[LinksOcarina]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Am1_vf wrote...

Fast Jimmy, goblins can be described as green "short humans with pointy ears". And the uglyness of DA][ elves was a result of lack of development, not the redesign.

Fair enough. And from the screenshots circulating on the base Elven face frame, I'd say the level of design is better. Coincidentally enough, it also looks remarkably similar to DA:O. 

I don't know about that. The ears are pronounced still and the facial features are still very symetrical and "pointy" for the lack of a better word. 

I think they are just gonna finish the job and not keep it merely adequate in terms of looks. 

[legbamel]

LinksOcarina wrote...
Honestly what you are debating is pointless. The tolkein standard is a mish-mash of cultural sources and mythology he cobbled together because he could. It doesn't matter if its different or unique based on that standard, its still not original  because people adopted it as a standard, when it shouldn't have to be one.

Simply put, Dragon Age didn't need elves to be a fantasy game, which made Dragon Age just another derivative of the fantasy tropes. Since they are there our best judge is their lore, which does make them more unique but even as someone else pointed out, is still not unique enough.

So you want someone to invent a game where all of the races have new names and new appearances, no dwarves, orcs, goblins, elves, or humans?  Because if there's a more tired trope in fantasy than having humans in it, I don't know what it could be.

Modifié par legbamel, 10 août 2013 - 02:49 .

[cjones91]

AresKeith wrote...

I prefer the reredesign of the elves

And honestly I feel the whole "They're just humans with pointy ears" argument to be weak since nobody says anything about Dwarves being "Small humans with giant beards"

Not to mention most of the DA2 elves looked weird.

[Fast Jimmy]

Originality doesn't exist. We can only try different combinations of what we have already seen, that's called creativity.

I agree. And fitting those pieces together to make a coherent puzzle is a demonstratable skill of creativity.

When you change the pieces of that puzzle so that they don't agree with what had been done before, then you sound like a four year old telling a story where suddenly everything is changed simply because you decide it on a whim. "Okay... except we aren't cowboys anymore... we're astronauts! And we're on Jupiter!" That is an example of an egregious retcon.

Changing the appearance of an entire race is a less severe one, but one that is pretty huge nonetheless.

[Parmida]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I played the so called Witcher 2 too. And it wasn't even a pale shadow of the DA:O or Skyrim. So boring, it would make me yawn literally.

It's funny when people try to come off as smug and wind up only sounding like dunces.

Why is it the "so called Witcher 2" exactly? Is the title of the game questionable?

The witcher that everyone keeps complimenting.

[Am1vf]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Originality doesn't exist. We can only try different combinations of what we have already seen, that's called creativity.

I agree. And fitting those pieces together to make a coherent puzzle is a demonstratable skill of creativity.

When you change the pieces of that puzzle so that they don't agree with what had been done before, then you sound like a four year old telling a story where suddenly everything is changed simply because you decide it on a whim. "Okay... except we aren't cowboys anymore... we're astronauts! And we're on Jupiter!" That is an example of an egregious retcon.

Changing the appearance of an entire race is a less severe one, but one that is pretty huge nonetheless.

But now they're changing it again, how's that better?

Still, some changes in appearance to adapt to diferent art-styles aren't so bad imho.

[Fast Jimmy]

I don't know about that. The ears are pronounced still and the facial features are still very symetrical and "pointy" for the lack of a better word.

I think they are just gonna finish the job and not keep it merely adequate in terms of looks.

If you look at highly polished DA2 elves like Fenris, Merrill and Maeretheri, the. Yes, I could see how you could think this.

If you look at how the vast majority of non-feature Elven NPCs looked, then you might think like me and say the design in DA2 was a vast departure and that the new alpha models looks much more like DA:O (with a slight change to facial form to look a little more distinctive).

You see DA2 elves as a lack of polish. I see DA:O elves as a lack of technical ability to create the slight differences they were going for.

Either way, I don't think the DA:I design will upset either of us. But if the OP is really asking for alien, bestial elves, I think THEY will be let down.