But, we've got Giants with hairy nether bits so...fair trade?
And honestly I rather like our new realistic companions with diverse personalities and looks, wouldn't trade them for any Mirandas, Liaras, Ashleys or Isabellas. To be fair though, Leliana and a certain somebody else are still hot.
I don't think it is idle speculation that this is a result of pressure on Bioware from some individuals and groups to portray women more realistically in Bioware games. You can find the posts advocating for that in these forums going back many years now and you can find developer comments; in posts here, on official bioware blogs, external blogs/comments, and panels at various conventions and expositions; acknowledging these concerns and sometimes expressing varying levels of agreement.
I'm not really comfortable with using "pressure" to describe a situation where people express a concern and the devs think that the people with the concern are actually right. Was Bio "pressured" into removing ME1's awful inventory system?
You say ME1 got awful inventory system?
You clearly didn't play DA2. And DA: I.
Because you are trying to hide yet another 'poor me, I don't like the girls in this game, so it must be a conspiracy' thread as something else. I've asked you numerous times about EVIDENCE to support your claims since that's how you put the OP forward. But since you haven't provided any, I'm going to assume that you are just looking to complain about the female character looks.
Do know, mate. Seems to me that Liveshiptrader noticed an issue while playing and came here to share it. He presents his opinions and view, not necessarily facts. This is a video game forum, not a consummate scholar researcher board. You do not need evidence, quotes, clues or whatnot. You want to discuss his realization or want to dismiss it right away throwing 'evidence first' rationale? If you choose the second option, you've already let us know about you stance, I suggest you move along as you contribute nothing anymore.
I am pretty sure it was a deliberate choise to make the game less sexual and try to appeal for younger more casual audience too. It is missing the rawer, darker, more primal? atmosphere the previous titles had. No more desire demons or brood mother or spirit of nature and missing any disturbing imigery that would cause nightmare for some.
A valid point. DA:O was a clear departure from a cookie-cutter fantasy setting, and, while not overly dark, it had its highlights (or maybe highdarks) led by the broodmother episode, among others (desire demons included). Now, the departure from already established images may look like a deliberate maneuver to make the game less drastic, and therefore, more appealing to the audiences. Not only the 'sexiness' of some characters (I do not only talk about models appearance-wise; as a companion Morrigan was oozing with sensuality and it had more to do with the way she was/spoke/acted, rather than how she actually looked) is missing, but also the abovementioned 'darker setting' factor.
I don't think it is idle speculation that this is a result of pressure on Bioware from some individuals and groups to portray women more realistically in Bioware games. You can find the posts advocating for that in these forums going back many years now and you can find developer comments; in posts here, on official bioware blogs, external blogs/comments, and panels at various conventions and expositions; acknowledging these concerns and sometimes expressing varying levels of agreement.
Agreed. Bioware is already at the point of ridiculousness with the way they introduce all types sexuality orientation within their characters, and how eager they are to show it - this one is bisexual, this one transsexual and so on. The pursuit of cratering for everybody's whims has led to certain characters falling flat on their faces, simply because how unnatural and insisting their are with their orientation. It is a subject where subtlety would do wonders, unfortunately, Bioware has shown none.
Curious how easily the people who pressured Bioware (and there are a lot on this board) for inclusion of various sexual orientation characters are appeased. I would expect them raging at how inept Bioware is at portraying orientations. That's an issue that needs more attention.
I believe a healthy dose of stable proportion should take precedence. Heterosexuality is the dominant orientation (meaning, statistically, number of heterosexuals exceeds any other orientation in a given population); I find it extremely weird that my party of only several people is so diverse orientation-wise. It is just odd.
Same goes for physical appearance. Relativism aside, some people are ugly, some are beautiful. Why not include a healthy dose of both?
As I side note, I never liked Miranda from ME2, but I appreciated the writing of her; her personality was believable and somewhat relatable. She wasn't you average bombshell.
Peace.
I think there was a conscious choice from Bioware to veer away from "typical perfect" beauty, and they tried hard to emphasis alternative and more "regular/natural" beauty types.
I don't necessarily appreciate (I find Vivienne and Sera downright ugly, Cassandra too butch and find only Josephine attractive), but I respect the idea and the execution.
Female characters are still sexy in the DAI. Vivienne has dress which exposes her chest. You see Cassandra's boobs during romance scene, there hasn't been any boobs (except broodmothers if someone wants to go there..) in earlier DA games. In counterbalance some male characters have also nudity in the romance scenes. I like that things are balanced like that.
Of cource sexiness isn't all about nudity and revealing clothes. It's confidence and attractiviness. Some players find Cassandra threatening Inquisitor in the trailer very sexy. There is lot of things different people determine as sexy and just cutting down clothes and making female characters beaty queens isn't right way. It would just cheapen the characters and reduce them to eyecandy. Also there is no need for female or any characters to be sexy all the time.
Biovar, stop stealing my attractive hetrosexual male LI sidequest tactics with healing, plz. Conspiring to keep them all for yourself is DAMAGING THE TRU FANS OF THIS SERIES.
Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder? I consider Cassandra overall more attractive both in appearance, voice and personality than Morrigan ever was...and I am so glad Bioware obviously has no designers hired from the Nexusmods and turn all their chars into anime-dolls dressed in leather-straps only covering their nipples.
Desire demons though were kinda nice to look at but ... tehre is simply more than just sexual desire, and why should a desire demon look like a sexy female all the time?
And I just wanted to add that I think Blackwall, the only human male romance companion for a female looks like an old fart with a hobo-beard! So much for some kind of agenda against females looking less good in this game...it obviously goes both ways (Just glad I cannot accidently romance Cole *shudder* what an ugly creep that is)
Vox Draco
I detect a dissonance here. First you are glad that females are no longer presented as physical, sexual objects. Then you proceed to complain that Blackwall and Cole are unattractive.
Vox Draco
I detect a dissonance here. First you are glad that females are no longer presented as physical, sexual objects. Then you proceed to complain that Blackwall and Cole are unattractive.
Hold on like that and you'll be called a sexist 
I'm not really comfortable with using "pressure" to describe a situation where people express a concern and the devs think that the people with the concern are actually right. Was Bio "pressured" into removing ME1's awful inventory system?
I considered using the word influence instead. Pressure does have some connotations that I wasn't trying to imply such as the connotation that Bioware was somehow being forced to do stuff against their will. But pressure has other connotations that I did wish to imply that influence isn't able to. Primarily that of a persistant force being applied over a long time. This issue, and this conversation, is nothing new to Bioware or their forums.
The earliest conversations on the topic that I personally recall go back to Neverwinter Nights. The minor controversy and debate regarding Aribeth's cleavage revealing armor. That most likely wasn't the first time it came up. There was also some forum controversy regarding the romance imbalance in Baldur's Gate 2 (3 romancable females and 1 romancable male) that wasn't the same topic but touched on related topics. Since then the topic has come up again and again and every time it is pretty much the same conversation with the same things being said. This topic, and those advocating for it, has been applying pressure for well over 10 years now.
Yet throughout that Bioware maintained the ability for their artists to portray females as attractive and sexualized when they felt it would better contribute to the game. Dragon Age: Inquisition stands out somewhat from other Bioware games in this regard though. As the original poster correctly noted, this is much more subdued in this game compared to almost all previous Bioware games.
Bioware isn't a monolithic organization, they have many employees that no doubt have differing opinions. Maybe what changed is that more developers have changed their minds on how they want to create games or maybe naturally occuring employee turnover has altered the balance of opinions held. Most likely though is decisions were made by project leads and higher that they were going for a more subdued approach regarding the sexualization of female characters within the game. This is certainly well supported by Bioware and EA's statements on the topic of wishing to increase diversity within their games. Although in this particular case I would argue its result is a decrease in diversity as sexualized femininity is not present much within Dragon Age: Inquisition (although it is curious to note that sexualized masculinity is still present and in line with previous Dragon Age titles) and that has in some ways resulted in less diversity among female characters. I think it is fairly clear that this persistant pressure from portions of the fanbase, which is not solely expressed through the Bioware forums, has been a strong contributing factor to Bioware making these decisions regarding Dragon Age Inquisition.
I want to clarify again that I think the game and setting is better served when there are different kinds of representations of females and males, but I think that sexualized and attractive representations have their place as well. IMO, Romances are one of them. I think Bioware has achieved a poor balance of this with Dragon Age Inquisition.
I also want to clarify that I do not think whichever aesthetic approach they take is inherently right or wrong. An idealized and sexualized art style is fine and may work better for certain games while a very realistic and subdued approach is also fine and may work better for other games. It all depends on what a creator of a game is trying to accomplish and how that choice interacts with the other game elements to create the overall game experience. Of course market factors have to also be considered if the game creator wants to make money. If what they are trying to accomplish is something that enough players don't want or like then that will create issues with how a game is recieved by the players and that ultimately effects the financial prospects of that game and future games by the developers.
I'm not really comfortable with using "pressure" to describe a situation where people express a concern and the devs think that the people with the concern are actually right. Was Bio "pressured" into removing ME1's awful inventory system?
I would use the word pressure if it was done for apparent moral reasons, that is most often the case for advocating for the removal of anything sexy. There's a very "you need to this because it's right" element about not having anything that could sexualize women vs the you need to do this because it's what I want for me.
If it was simply a matter of taste as in the case of an inventory system then that's fine but it's a changing taste that does not match mine which is unfortunate for me and fortunate for those that it it does.
I don't think it was a thing that went "Hey, let's buck traditional attractiveness and make everyone ugly*" as it was some sort of shift in artstyle and an attempt to make characters more grizzled by throwing scars and angular facial features everywhere. Whereas DA2 made the setting grittier and harsher, DAI makes the characters grittier and harsher.
Then you throw Cullen into the mix, and things go right out the friggin' window. Maybe all you need to get a "pretty" LI is to be really, really loud and annoying.
*YMMV and all that.
I don't think it was a thing that went "Hey, let's buck traditional attractiveness and make everyone ugly*" as it was some sort of shift in artstyle and an attempt to make characters more grizzled by throwing scars and angular facial features everywhere. Whereas DA2 made the setting grittier and harsher, DAI makes the characters grittier and harsher.
Then you throw Cullen into the mix, and things go right out the friggin' window. Maybe all you need to get a "pretty" LI is to be really, really loud and annoying.
*YMMV and all that.
I just need Merrill-ish party member back.
I just need Merrill-ish party member back.
God, don't you think Sera is ugly enough without piling on the "elf freak" appearance ? :x
God, don't you think Sera is ugly enough without piling on the "elf freak" appearance ? :x
I don't mind her appearance. I need character INSIDE that appearance.
You know, it's not a face making us who we are. It's our behaviour through actions.
I don't mind her appearance. I need character INSIDE that appearance.
You know, it's not a face making us who we are. It's our behaviour through actions.
Like appearance doesn't matter 
But it was more of a cheap jab at elve's atrocious appearance in DA2. And at Sera. God Sera.
"A large consideration was also that DA has a large female following and we thought they deserved more than the usual female game stereotypes."
But no one cares about usual male game stereotypes. And to OP I think yes. because David Gaider in his presentation "Sex in Bioware games" show Isabella design like it's a bad thing.
The sad thing is, the Cassandra shown and described in this blog post is totally my type... but the one I encountered in game is not. It is mostly a personality thing but the awkward animations, her voice/accent and to a very small part her appearance also play a role. The difference between the concept art and the rendered NPC is too significant.
As I always say, it's not just about superficial things, the entire person has to be beautiful. A supermodel with a bad character will never be as attractive than a cute girl with a beautiful mind. And even that doesn't even cover the basics.
The sad thing is, the Cassandra shown and described in this blog post is totally my type... but the one I encountered in game is not. It is mostly a personality thing but the awkward animations, her voice/accent and to a very small part her appearance also play a role. The difference between the concept art and the rendered NPC is too significant.
As I always say, it's not just about superficial things, the entire person has to be beautiful. A supermodel with a bad character will never be as attractive than a cute girl with a beautiful mind. And even that doesn't even cover the basics.
Cassandra's accent annoys the hell out of me so I can understand where you're coming from.
The sad thing is, the Cassandra shown and described in this blog post is totally my type... but the one I encountered in game is not. It is mostly a personality thing but the awkward animations, her voice/accent and to a very small part her appearance also play a role. The difference between the concept art and the rendered NPC is too significant.
As I always say, it's not just about superficial things, the entire person has to be beautiful. A supermodel with a bad character will never be as attractive than a cute girl with a beautiful mind. And even that doesn't even cover the basics.
Personally I thought that was handled better with Aveline in DA2
A woman who would be considered handsome over beautiful and the romance for men wasn't replaced to make room for it.
I think it's a mixed bag, there was some toning down in terms of Desire Demons, not a lot of skimpy armor, no Brothel but we also have nudity so, I say it's a mixed bag.
Vox Draco
I detect a dissonance here. First you are glad that females are no longer presented as physical, sexual objects. Then you proceed to complain that Blackwall and Cole are unattractive.
Yes! No! Wait ...?
pft....Arrow to the face...
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