Races in the past were unique, now they're just shorter humans, horned humans, long eared humans and...humans. It's not the only thing that feels very watered down in this entry.
@@123domo8 Nah, elves were shorter humans. But it played into fantastic (literally) racism, because there were next to no visual difference apart from ears and lighter build...
Even the bestial races are becoming essentially humans with a bestial look. They dress in human clothes, behave like humans, think like humans, sound like humans, have human cultures, and even their anatomies are losing unique traits and becoming human anatomy reskinned. Artists nowadays cannot innovate without making everything human-centric and I find these concepts if different races more and more boring.
It’s why the Rings of Power sucks. The races don’t feel unique anymore. Everyone is just another kind of human. I guess fantasy races need to look and act like “modern” society.
no - theyre now a mixture of cartoooney -- and dead ugly - for the women mainly --- The monsters are utter shi$#te though -- the onkly decenbt face i seen on playthroughs was varric and solis wjich they stole from previous version.
Qunari looked amazing. Not just because they're so different but because it firmly aligned with their story and society. They were a fiercely disciplined warrior society. New renditions look like a Best Value Klingon in a cheap parody of Star Trek.
@@dearen7588 its from dwarfs/ elves to robots the woke are utterly incapable of producing/dealing with non-human characters (or women). remember for instance when c3po and r2d2 were basically equal stars of star wars
I don't think it's that. I think these are people that don't want to work on IP's they love. They want to work on IP's they consider "problematic" so they can change them. They already come in disliking the series/games/movie franchise they're going to be working on.
_"Oh but that's really difficult to do, it requires more labor and stuff..."_ It's not the costumer's responsibility to care about your problems. Your role is to provide the best product you can and theirs is to decide whether or not to buy it. The idea that something shouldn't be done because it "requires extra work" is becoming increasingly common as a justification for mediocrity and laziness. This is why it's important to hire the best people for the job, and not just some under-qualified schmucks to fill some quotas.
Yeah its been an excuse used publicly by game devs in defense of why somethings been crap - which has never sat right with me, as a game dev. I always thought to myself, when has game dev ever been easy? like i dont understand why you would literally state something so obvious as a defense.
It’s lacking in taste and thoughtfulness not only in their CC, but also across the board. Their armor and clothes are mostly ill-fitting and poorly art directed, as well. Their dragons don’t look scary and instead look like Pixar baby bobblehead dragons. I have a suspicion that they had toxic positivity in their work environment and everyone held back in criticizing each other’s work.
@@HazVsRPG 😆 well it's true, I mean just look at them. Anyway, I'm also an art director / graphic designer, so I get your points. This would've been any creative's dream job, there are so many missed opportunities here for superb character design. It's so odd that they did not think to collect pictures of past Qunari, and build something great from that.
When I saw the dragon fight, I just felt like I was watching someone playing with children's toys. Nothing about the dragon induced fear. The whole head/body ratio they are forcing on everything makes things look "cute" and that is NOT what Dragon Age is supposed to be.
@denisegesilva3082 in an era where people are so unhinged that they complain that orcs from D&D are racist it's no surprise to me that all fantasy races became homoginized lumps of uninspired crap. Orcs in the new 6th edition books got the same treatment as the Qunari design wise. Why even bother having those races anymore if there's nothing unique enough to make them stand out from humans?
The discrimination against curvy women is so odd. Especially coming from a company who claims to prioritize diversity and inclusion. It comes off as very hypocritical and implies a certain ideology to exclusively leave out curvy women as even an option
Its a really strange thing. It reeks of an agenda. theres no reason to not have it, nothing technical, its purely visual. So we come back around to exactly what weve both stated and how is that inclusive exactly?
This exactly... and the shitty thing is, if they hadn't so loudly proclaimed it was IN the character creator to start with, I wouldn't even care! I'm just pissed because they flat out lied... about this and SO many other things.
@@HazVsRPG And the fact of the matter is that it isn’t at all. It’s their version of inclusivity that focuses only on what they think is important and needs to be included. Which conveniently leaves out what is actually important to most people which is interesting and attractive characters or at least the ability to create them. And is exactly why most games with this ideology fail because it isn’t representative of what people actually want
100% Agree... though DA2 has its flaws.. they nailed it with the Qunari.. DA: I .. the Qunari was like some weird looking minotaur... can't speak for others on this but this is definitely a huge disappointment to have waited 10 years for this..
Dragon Age Origins, we saw the Qunari as these hulking, towering humanoids that spoke in such a distinct and unique accent or dialect, it set them apart and made them unique. The Elves were a broken and diverse race, having devolved from graceful, ethereal beings to a mere shadow of that, looking more akin to anorexic humans with ears than their ancestors. Dwarves were honestly the most diverse group in the first game, because they had distinct appearances based on their facial structures, beards, tattoos, and armor. They were smiths, hewn from rock and bound to the Earth, and their mannerisms spoke to that. Dragon Age II, the Elves were the first distinct species we interact with, literally meeting with Keeper Marethari and Merrill, who looked drastically different from when we met them in Origins. Their brows were broader, their forms slimmer, their armor fit their bodies and was entirely unique to that of humans. The Elves in the Alienage were worn down, they had heavy eyelids, and almost alien facial structures. The Qunari maintained their hulking forms, but we got a first look at what they really looked like outside the comics- massive, horned beasts that looked more like Ogres and Dragons than humans. Pointed ears, horns and crests that seemed to almost tear out of their foreheads, strong geometric features, and muscle that stretched across every inch of their bodies. More than that, they had warpaint that dictated their position, and titles for each of their warriors. Again, the accent present whenever they spoke. The Dwarves were humanized a bit, but they maintained that stone-hewn appearance. Dragon Age Inquisition, they redefined the Elves for the second time, making them more human while maintaining some of that uncanny valley feeling in their overall design, which allowed us to separate the Elves from the humans with little effort. The Qunari finally got their day in the sun with Iron Bull, who while lacking that traditional accent present in their culture, held their size, strength and ability set perfectly. They even drafted up outfits and weapons for them, alongside giving players the chance to create their own Qunari Inquisitor- a Tal-Vashoth by all rights. Several horn variants, from metal plated to broken, each maintaining that broad-brow, wrent-skin and muscular form appearance, sacrificing none of their inhumanity for the design. The Dwarves reclaimed their design again, but played the smallest part in the game that they've ever played before, with only one really small storyline from Varric. Now in Dragon Age Veilguard, we get this this almost Fortnite-meets-Borderlands art style that removes a lot of the qualities from each species. No longer are the Qunari (from the player's view at least) hulking masses of meat and muscle, with fierce features. Instead, they opted to humanize them a lot, making them softer, smaller and overall less terrifying, which is a massive visual retcon. The Elves look closer to their Origins design, but more than that, they look like humans with sharp ears, and very little to set them apart. The Dwarves now just look like cartoonish child-like adults, whimsical rather than mighty. And that's not even touching upon the spirits and demons from the games, which shared almost the exact same design for three games straight, and now have undergone a massive overhaul to look vastly less intimidating. The Pride Demons in previous games had a lot of shared features with the Ogres, but also looked like masses of writhing flesh and matter, which set them apart. The Shades were cloaked horrors, which looked like dementors and were threatening as hell. The Arcane Horrors were towering mages, which almost looked like liches from the Elder Scrolls. In Inquisition, spirits changed even more, and some of their designs were intentionally terrifying, let alone the abilities they possessed to rend open holes in reality to jump at you. DA Veilguard doesn't look to me like a grimdark fantasy with horror elements- it looks like a child's fantasy RPG, and as a lifelong fan of the franchise, that pisses me off. We won't discuss the Darkspawn either, because DA Origins had the best iteration of them, and they just look fucking awful now.
I appreciate this comment a lot. Thanks for taking the time to write this up. You're so right about this, i wish i had more time to talk on it because i feel like 15-20 minutes just isnt enough time to cover all the things I want to say, or deep dive quite enough into all of the topics. This is absolutely spot on.
@@HazVsRPG You covered a lot in a really short video, which is incredible. The current DA devs have lost the overall image that comprised Dragon Age's themes and iconography for so long. In previous games, they understood the idea of culture and species evolution shaping the appearance of characters and races- a fact that the Mass Effect devs also worked with when designing the Asari, the Krogans, the Salarians, the Quarians, the Geth and the Turians. They had to evaluate what caused their species to develop their unique traits, rather than all looking like off-branch humans. The Qunari, in lore, were theorized by the in-game characters to have either been created by the Kossith via some obscure blood ritual, or mating with those who had dragon's blood to begin with. They developed dragonlike features as a result, and a society based on imperical fact and logic, purpose and intent, which shaped their culture and breeding. Every Qunari was bred for a specific purpose, whether to be a fighter, an assassin, a diplomat, a politician, or a farmer. The Elves were literally spiritual beings without a confirmed origin point, aside from having been around so long that their leadership became gods, and when Solas made the Veil, the Elves lost their immortality, magic and beauty forever. They were lithe and agile and alien. The Dalish had rougher, yet more natural features, and more muscle than most because they spent more time in the wilds than anywhere near cities. Even their warriors were small and weak compared to humans, but they were faster and lighter on their feet. Dwarves were said to be literally made by the earthen Titans, crafted from their flesh and molded to be their protectors, the stoneborn, so they look rough and bulky, yet small, and despite their size, they're stronger than your average human, with no connection to magic. And there are even more things out there that we haven't even seen yet, that people have been dying to see for ages!
I know I'm a bit of an echo chamber for your opinions on these things, but yeah. 1000% accurate and I agree. This character creator absolutely a Timmy creator. Have you seen the comparison that someone did with the head sizes? For some reason the heads are too big. Perhaps it was an attempt at a stylistic choice, but it does not work out. Take a look at other pop culture and how long-time franchises with alien species have evolved, like the klingons in Star Trek. Even with hair, there's a zero percent chance that every race in a fantasy setting would have the exact same hair types or styles. Even within IRL humans there are vastly differing hair types (thin, thick, oily, dry, straight, curly, wavy, etc). By the way, I absolutely adored RIFT. And I can't agree more regarding body shapes. Where's my dwarf, carved from a MOUNTAIN, thick and chiseled? Slightly balding hair but thick and braided with adornments throughout (including his beard). But also happens to have massively muscled glutes? Or you know, sometimes a fella just wants to run around as a lithe elven beauty who is jaw-dropping gorgeous. This can be subjective, sure, but with how this low effort creator functions, we are locked into Mr. and Ms. MID.
1000% dude. A little effort from the dev goes a long way. This is why Skyrim is so successful, as others have already mentioned. It's a game we're races are different. Everyone's different. It feels more real, and less 'cheaply made'. Even if Bioware leaned into this angle even a little it would go a long way.
Jsyk the reason the heads are big is to delete the "clipping" issue that plagued every prior Dragon Age game (and probably one of the worst offenders ever) that they were only able to solve by Race-Locking armor, which people hated. So now they found a proportion that works for scaling across all races, its why they look a bit bobble-headish. Its because theyre all a bit closer to dwarf proportions.
Is it really just an echo chamber if the issue is actually an issue though? Especially if we're screaming into the void and the Devs and friends are calling us - and I quote - "Fucking tourists"? It's really starting to feel like the echo chamber is BioWare, IGN and the Community Panel. If they'd actually address our concerns in a rational and logical way, rather than ignoring or insulting their POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS we wouldn't be echoing nearly as much. It's infuriating and I'm basically getting to the point that I not only don't want to buy the game on principle but I kind of regret ever paying for the previous games too.
@@yeetusdeleetus4697 honestly, I think a lot of people would have preferred race-locked armour on a good looking model, than this parade of uncanny funko pop bobble-heads
@@Rapunzel879 i would straight up go to the Qunari quarters just to stare at them lol The Qunari bed in inquisition has similar statues to the old models....sigh
I’m still not understanding what the hell happened to the Qunari. They were 6’5 300 lbs of walking mountains of muscle. Now? They’re just elves with horns.
The problem with top surgery scars is they are not in the scars tab, they have a whole tab dedicated to just that. It's like they saw what Budweiser did and said "hold my beer"... Pun intended.
@@HazVsRPG I also believe more choice is good, if they quietly put this in I wouldn't care. But they have done this specifically to get noticed and score ESG points. That's what makes it so pretentious and disingenuous.
Skyrim has some ugly characters but they did have true variety in the races. These all look like Sims. I don't want Sims fantasy edition. DAO had hard wide dwarves, elves were alien and pretty, while Sten the qunari may be human like but he is hard and odd, humans could be strong and lovely. Say no to Sims Fantasy Edition.
100% Skyrim is behind the times graphically but at least the races looked different. Even though the game was technically limited. It's just about putting in the effort to feel unique, not the same as everyone else.
@@HazVsRPG It should be noted that Skyrim is limited in comparison by today's standards! (though Batman Arkham Asylum looked better, it wasn't as massive).
Skyrim looks the way it does because Bethesda games just look ugly. They always have, they always will until they get rid of that crappy engine. But it's art design is still light years ahead of this game.
It's not pretentious my dude, its the straight up truth. The perspective of someone with experience, who has mastered the craft in question. These game devs, and studios, need to be listening to this. Otherwise we're going to continue to get Timmy from the groierie store.
I dont understand what the infatuation is with this whole angle. Its blowing my mind to see it over and over. meanwhile from soft hitting homerun after homerun.
@@HazVsRPG 100%. The only logic I can think of is, it's "easier", or maybe "cheaper" to just grab some un-art-touched faces, clean them up a bit and toss them into the code-blender for some sliders. And if that's what it is, it's pretty damn sad. Any logic beyond that, just goes to a darker place I'd rather not consider lol.
@@Circurose it started in an inquisition game, races and characters and everything have to look ugly and dumb, because that is how woke idiots look in real life
@@Circurose They obviously wanted the trans qunari companion to be "attractive", in order to achieve this they needed to humanize and feminize the whole race in order to fit that design.
8:30 on the topic of male and female Qunari, it's worth noting that their Qun religion/philosophy have women not be warriors, this would make a lot of sense with how they are portrayed as notably smaller/thinner than male Qunari (sexual dimorphism) Otherwise, mostly agree completely. I miss the DA2 elves, they actually looked like a different race.
@@Comandate7 Bull's group was also an undercover mercenary group and it's clear he's a lot more flexible on the Qun than most Qunari, I'm speaking entirely on the logic of how their distinct male/female roles would have come to be due to the physical differences between genders.
@@ExileTwilight Agreed on origin of roles, but bull explicitly states that under the Qun Krem is a man and it's not uncommon for trans people exist- it's just that they have to conform with their preferred gender (so Krem could become a warrior, since he is a man but not a cook for example, if cooks are only women)
its like they were so focused on checking all their boxes for their narrow minded modern day diversity they forgot what true diversity would actually look like in a fantasy world with all these races. i pray they make this game easily modable so i can create some interesting characters i actually want to get invested in and not just "template c the third"
The Qunari have lost all of their exclusive features that made them look incredible. Iron Bull aside, they've never looked better, and more original, than DA2. And that game was only produced in one year. Fast forward, Veilguard was a reported four year project and they look infinitely worse than their DA2 counterparts. Hell, they even look like a downgrade from Inquisition. And they're even using a better version of Inquisition's game engine. How the heck does this happen? Qunari do not look as if they have the LEAST bit amount of dragon in their dna. The lord being that they are magically infused with dragon essence or something, hence their huge vitality, volatility, strength, HORNS, features, etc. They look like cosplaying humans in Veilguard, it looks like a bad joke. Solas' look is worse as well (he's an Elf, and Elves are spirit entities in Dragon Age, although many alive do not share that heritage anymore. They are almost all exclusively Thedas-born and Earth-raised creatures, so they're allowed to look more normal imho. But Solas it's not. He is an ANCIENT, multi-thousands of years old Elf who was born in the Beyond; the Fade. He looks as normal and genetic as everybody else does!) At the end of Inquisition, there was some slight differentiation, but you could put Solas next to That annoying party elf chick and you could see that they were different. Cleeearly different. And his unique, awesome look and demeanor in Trespasser DLC its gone in Veilguard as well. I don't like anything about the Veilguard's art direction. I think from the ground level up, it's trash. It's genuinely the first DA game I'm specifically avoiding. I've seen too much of it, and all of it i hate. The over-emphasised glow in the UI, the characters, the bland dialog, the art direction, the dumbed down companion combat and unable to control them (they also deal 0 damage, wtf? They're immortal and do 0 damage, gtfoh...) Jfc this game is trash tier. I can't believe they developed such a bad game. This is supposed to be practically near-grim dark, but we're now in... Peak soft-modern high fantasy. How the hell did this happen?
Funny how game after game in the series they have REDUCED what you can do with the party characters --- it started with you equiped them as yourself like any crpg game -- then you lost that and only specific armour upgrades allowed .... now you cant even control their movements moment to moment --- ie its DESTROYED the startegic gameplay -- gone from strategic crpg to generic xbox cartoon button mash.
Yeah I can't see me ever liking this combat system enough to forgive the change from deep strategy to facerolling button combos - which are clearly in the game but STILL haven't been discussed in any of the "combat deepdives". It's all just really weird. I have a really bad feeling that it'll be repetitive and boring AF after a few hours.
Not only that, but apparently your party members can't even be downed or die in combat. They are basically just extra artillery. The more I hear about this game the more it just sounds like a glorified dating sim.
I sorta missed the unique race passive that all the races had like the +1 perk from humans or 25% range reduction from elf and the 25% magic defenses from dwarfs.
Dragon Age 1 was the best game, Dragon Age 2 had the best, most unique interpretations of the various races. Inquisition was meh, Veilguard looks just bad
I agree with almost all you've said but my one point of disagreement is the elves in da2, they simply were ugly there compered to how they were in origin
I think DA 1 was king of immersion and lore. The whole game felt like a LOTR HelmsDeep simulator. DA2 just like you said had best design and culture of races. DA Inquisition had best world design and exploration.
Yes they failed, and yes most qunari players saw the Arishok as THE reprisentation of what qunari males should look like. I know I did, I definately wanted to make a character similar.
Mate, it's not the existence of “top scars” in a fantasy game that upsets people, it's the fact that this option is separated from all the other scars just to pander to a minority within a minority. And this option may trigger women who survived actual breast cancer - but who cares, right? That is an example of unhealthy tokenism. Again, if the character creator were like in Black Desert or Dragons Dogma 2 - no one would care about "top scars". But we can only create flat and boring male or female Timmys - so, people are tired of this narrative and easily triggered.
Yeah, as yourself and quite a few others have pointed out. Ive honestly overlooked this. I didnt think about it for long enough, and my partner even mentioned that, if top scars is an option, why is breast enhancement or bbl and botox not an option? In short, yeah ive flipped since being able to read all the comments. I Do think its an option that a very targeted option within a very defined sandbox that bioware have crafted. Which isnt good.
How does separating it from other scars equate to pandering? If nothing else it means it doesn't take away from other scar options. This is the typical whining for the sake of whining. Even if the complaint is the character creator doesn't allow interesting enough creations, the scars would still be a non-issue because they are not what holds back every other single feature in the character creator. It REALLY sounds like it's an issue for you just on its own and you can't even be honest about that because you know how the logical conclusion to that sounds.
You’re the first person I fully agree with on this. Feel like most people are talking about the wrong stuff over the fact that all the races look human and there’s nothing significantly different about them. It’s a good video and I think more people should definitely see this.
The Qunari character they had in the reveal trailer for the character creator looks like a slightly bored accountant... with horns. Like a character from a "subversive" comedy about the banality of evil. He's an accountant in hell, and he's just as unremarkable as an accountant in the real world... but with horns. (Apologies to all the accountants out there, I'm sure most of you are lovely people... without horns.)
They made them the same so they were more f#ckable. It's fucking moronic. I hate in fantasy when races are not distinct. Tolkien got this. He made Elves, Dwarves and Humans very different.
You really pinned the nail on the head here. My biggest concern from the start was how all the characters look so airbrushed and lifeless. And now, if my female elf can't even be drop-dead gorgeous and feminine, and every race and character looks like some variation of the same human, I hope the game makes up for it in other ways...
I've been a DA fan since origins so seeing the bizarre choices (and being violently sick from the "hey listen" visual noises and UI/UX stuff. I actually cannot play the VG trailers without feeling motion sickness) is just...ya know, disheartening over the franchise's direction. The final kicker was reading a comment elsewhere that said "Why do they look like tieflings?" I...as a long time fan...cannot unsee it now.
Oh the motion sickness stuff, yes!! This game has the inauspicious "privilege" of being the ONLY non-first person game I've EVER seen that gives me a migraine. It takes a LOT for flashing lights to trigger a migraine for me, it's usually smells or motion sickness from the illusion of my head being still while my body is moving through space (like reading on a train or playing FPS games). This THIRD person game has somehow done it though. It's bad.
@@noctoi Yeah the weirdest part is that I've improved my motion sickness over the recent years but it's suddenly these trailers that I felt punched hard. That took me completely off guard that I had to lie down and take stomach meds. I for one won't be able to play because of all the UX vomit and I don't know if anyone can endure long times on this game. I've actually watched a vid of a UI designer actually taking a deep dive in improving the design (to the best he could) and I'll say what he made makes it 100 times better.
@@noctoi Tremendously so. Whatever the case will be for Veilguard (though I think we all know what the outcome is gonna be) that UI designers can take it as an example of what you should and shouldn't in the future. I got to learn a lot from those design changes too.
I don't think they had an art director because the direction across the board has been incredibly poor and Low effort, the the quanari to the darkspawn it looks like dross.
The hardest thing about this is it's almost impossible to critique or praise this game because the "woke" and "anti woke" have both taken their stance on it and there's little room for legitimate conversation in the middle of their blind war
@HazVsRPG what's worse is it's rare to see videos like this now as people with influence(journalists or RUclipsrs) will usually go hard one way or the other because controversy gets views and clicks.
they want to diversify so much but they're making everyone a gigachad, damn if they want everyone to feel part of this game give us the option to at least make an ugly character with personality, because now they are just... ugly. Also they bother so much to add breast scars(good for them), but why there so few skin colors? Literally 2 rows... In 2024?? And I have to read from chills this game is PROGRESSIVE.
I’m so glad someone finally pointing this out as a defense for the art of rpgs and not because it’s “woke”. It’s so frustrating talking about this issue without being lumped into antiwoke and the woke crowed. I want fantasy races to be unique. Not different flavors of humans, that’s what the human option is for.
exactly, we are all part of unique cultures here on earth, if anything celebrating that individuality is where the magic is. Imagine making us all the same, wtf - thats seriously sinister stuff.
Here's the thing, game companies actually want the far right anti-woke crowd to appear. It's a strategy where you use far right hate to mask real issues with a product. That is why when I see right wing grifters getting mad about pronouns I get extra mad. Number 1 pronouns being in a game does not matter at all and if you are so absorbed by a culture war that you freak out about it that's a you problem, and 2 it detracts from the real issues that stop games from getting better as an art form. Even people in this comment section complaining about activists and DEI are part of the problem, these old, provably false claims about diversity making games worse is hiding the real flaws with a game, and is in fact contributing to games becoming worse instead of fighting against it. The issue is simply bad artist, or bad managers. Sometimes both, normally it's management. Until gamers can recognise that diversity has nothing to do with the issues the current games industry faces, we will not make progress on making them better.
Unpopular Opinion: TBH Larian humanized elves too much for my liking. In the old portraits of Baldur's Gate by BioWare, the elves have larger eyes and pointed features--- even Beamdog closely followed this art direction for their enhanced edition. They were really otherworldly. Even half-elves like Neera and Jaheira had larger eyes and pointed looks. Now their elves are just humans with pointy ears. This is precisely the homogenized design the video was talking about.
It's basically every western game/media. Because none of them knows how to make pretty and ethereal anything anymore. Don't believe me? Just look Rings of Power Elves compared to Lord of The Ring movie adaptation. ROP's elves are humans cosplaying and appropriating by putting pointy ears and calling it a day. LOTR elves are ethereal, beautiful, timeless. Or how about elves in Japanese media. Same thing. So, yeah, this is what happens when you give the job to people who can't see pass themselves.
@@CC-of5xl absolutely. Depiction of races and classes had changed a lot over time. E.g. drow used to be just that - dark-skinned elves, while now they have noticeable typical 'black human' traits more often than not. Just in case, I mean no disrespect or hatered here!! I'm talking specifically about unique race-specific facial features, which no longer exist. Typical portrait of Drizzt was nothing like what we see for a modern 'dark elf' in pretty much all the possible settings and media.
@cttommy73 wtf are you talking about? Have you seen the elves from BG1 and 2 they look like bugs. The elves in BG3 look way more attractive. You also clearly just have some weird agenda if you can't admit Shadowheart isn't one of the most traditionally attractive CRPG companions of all time
"big butts..." That applies as well to men haha, but yeah overall I agree with your critics. I would no doubt play as a Qunari if they were like those badass examples you showed. My problem with most videogames is that I can't do such imponent looking PCs (excepting perhaps Skyrim and GW2 that do have real racial features). If it's not only that, the armours can be the most generic/typical design. It seems like a trade-off when it shouldn't.
@@HazVsRPG Yep, the larger male body template also has a larger stomach range in the slider. They can be made much fatter than the female 'plus size' body template. Also, why no hip slider?!
I am a dev that thinks more options, more diversity, more ways to customize are a good thing. Art in games is not the most important thing most of the time and that being said i think games is an excellent way to include more groups of people because it normally won't affect design anway. that being said i'm with you 100% on everything you said here. i normally try to give benefit fo the doubt and i am struggling here. did they choose not to invest in character creation? was it a higher up decision? who's deciding to put limitations on character customization now? i'm so confused how they went from such unique looks for races to that...
Yeah im coming up blank, and you can see why the rage side of the interwebs takes this and runs with it hard down whatever lane they are in. Because there really is no explanation that makes any sense.
@@HazVsRPG it really sucks too cause i don't want to give people ammunition that make rage videos for the sake of rage. I want things to succeed and i'm understanding if they tried and just missed the mark but as an artist and dev i can't make sense of this one cause the entire direction from the start was off.
@@arinrobinson3898 I think this is something the Devs AND the Community Panel and their followers don't seem to understand... Most of us actually LOVE Dragon Age. We've been around since the beginning, and we LOVE this franchise. We WANT it to be awesome! The vast majority of us would probably "stop complaining" if they'd just address the problems in a respectful and meaningful way, but instead anyone who says anything even remotely construed as negative is labeled a 'hater' and literally told to eff off 😒
Yep DA2 was the peak of Qunari look. It was rough and rugged, it was perfect PERFECT. Then DA: Inquisition came along and it still wasn't too bad but it was somewhat smooth and much less rough/rugged; heck even the Bull had a better design but back then we don't even know the term "woke" to describe what we had with Inquisition yet there are signs there already, it just wasn't as bad as today. Now you got what people will describe as "npcs cosplaying as qunari" or as I would call it "npcs transition/identify as a qunari" If I have to describe it personally, I feel that it looks more akin to a Star Wars twi'lek. You know what you're playing as @ 8:50? Edward from Twilight all you're missing is the shimmering sparkle lol
I have a funny story to tell you about the Sparkle, I know the artist responsible for this idea. I used to work with him - he suggested it to the director as a meme/joke - and he loved it. And that is literally how that whole idea started / began. This is a lesson for all designers out there that ever have the opportunity to work with film directors etc - never go to a concept meeting with joke / meme takes on a design.
The arishok was the best designed charscter they've ever done. And they managed to do it in the 18 months of development time they had for DA2. They had *10* years for Veilguard. And the only thing theyve managed to do is create top surgery scars and colored hair. I hate this world.
@4:40 Bro, freaking modders can do it. I guarantee you, just 1 random mod creator on Nexus can facelift that entire race and restore them to their former glory. There is literally no excuse for Bioware, with all their vast resources and manpower, not to be able to do it. Bottom line is that they just don't want to. They don't care enough to. They're either too lazy or too incompetent, or both.
I can guarantee that Nexus will censor these types of mods. However, there are other places where they will survive, and it's the only way I would ever consider playing this game.
But what you describe already was there in DA2 (for elves, they had distinct features), for Qunari, and even for dwarfs. Elves had slanted almond eyes, that were quite big, tall faces and nose that in profile was going in one line with forehead.
Here's the issue with the top surgery scars. This game takes place in a fantasy setting where there's magic wizards and dragons. You can literally turn yourself into anything you want. You would not need surgery. So it goes against the setting. That is the biggest issue of the top surgery scar. It exists only for social indoctrination, nothing else. The game was made by a bunch of activists who not only suck a character design, they don't understand basic video game design as well.
Yeah ive since changed my mind on this, reading through the comments has given me a different perspective. I see it now, and also wish that i had taken more time to think about it.
@@HazVsRPG it's not the biggest issue in the game, but it's a symptom of the sickness that has spread across the industry. It's one of those mountain vs molehill things.
Thanks for your insight, I feel like in all of these debates, I haven't really heard about just how this is really just cheaping out on user experience and work while masquerading it as progress. I feel the same.
Haz you unbelievable Legend!! Thank you sir for getting out there your expertise on a subject that has been in serious decline in recent years; not only in the gaming industry, but also in the pop culture, comic and figurine arenas as well! I don't know why, but it seems that the idea of choice has become the topic of taboo now. Like there needs to be guardrails put up because we all need to be 'protected' from ourselves in maybe doing something that is overly creative or outwardly outlandish. Hey! Is that the basis of fantasy or isn't it? How many people here have been able to go on a quest and come back carrying two or three sets of armor, five or six different swords or battle hammers and still be able to draw a two handed great sword off their back and obliterate a pack of Kobolds' with ease?! Like we see that every day too right? (where do they carry all that stuff seriously) The choice should always be there to create the most fantastic fantasy looking character or bring it back to creating yourself to an exact likeness. Get rid of the guardrails, put effort into letting the player base be creative with your creation and lets explore this world that you have created with the upmost excitement! Common you supposed AAA-A studios out there, let's go!
Thanks so much dude, thats a really good way of putting it. Its the Guardrails. I wonder if its because we are all seasoned game players now, weve seen games take shape and change over the years and it seems odd to step backwards back into some odd place where as adults we feel like 'I dont need these at all why am i looking at these guard rails right now damnit' As if we are being coralled down some lane. Its such an odd thing to be experiencing!
I have a couple points. 1: This video might be too early lol. I'm not sure we've actually seen the complete character creator in action. I haven't personally been scrounging the Internet for the full thing so maybe I'm incorrect. 2: Dragon Age Elves are not the "hauntingly beautiful" type of elves, they are just as f'd up and normal and mortal as humans. Now which is preferable is ultimately up to the individual interacting with the game world. 3: I do agree that if a Sci-fi or fantasy game is going to do Ancestries/Races/Species they should lean into them and make them stand apart from each other in a big way visually. 4: As much as I like BG3 the Dragonborn were a disappointment to me. They had the same posture as everyone else and the tail was just sad. The heads are indeed phenomenal though. 5: The hair and beards look so dang good, holy moly. From the worst hair in games to the best lmao. As always great to hear your thoughts on these games! ❤
This is just visuals. I'm sure behavior will be same throughout the races... Fondly remember how interesting and difficult, even with save spamming, it was to get to know Sten the Qunari.
I think it’s also devs being lazy and not wanting to handcraft all the races to look unique so they just make them all look human with a bit of differences. It was noticeable in mass effect andromeda with the Asari they were literally just blue humans.
We've had customizable Argonians since Oblivion and have had them since. Look at ESO giving different scale types and patterns. They can certainly make more dynamic horns, they wouldn't even need to make a ton of stuff, just some different forehead keratin/scale types and the ability to scale and position them how you'd like, just how every other game does
Very matured point of view. Not until viewing this video that I realize what the kind of feeling I have seeing the character creation: the horn character looks like some kind of character with ancient makeup we saw in 1980 movies
Yea, i agree with you 100% and i truly believe that the main reasoning behind how samie every race has to be financial. They didnt want to worry about clipping issues and making unique armor sets for the different races that would accentuate each of their unique features. Ie more leather pauldrons and straps for quanari, more revealing sensual but functional clothes for the elves, HEAVY plate for the dwarves, and you know...people stuff for the people. They just want everyone to be able to equip anything and move on. With as little changes to the base designs as possible so late game we will look even more similar to each other.b
When you're right, you're right. Honestly, typically I'm turned off by 'alien' features like Tieflings and Qunari possess, but I actually want those differences to be heightened (I just don't want to MC them). Also, very much unlike you, I'm not big into overlyschmexification, but that's me- BUT without the options to go wild even the 'normal' loses its lustre.
Yeah it was apparently imported across form either the Sims (which would track because of Corinne's background, except Sims hair was never that good) OR from FIFA (no idea, I never played those games). Either way it wasn't "created and curated just for Dragon Age: The Veilguard tm"
@@dragonhitman1071 Makes sense. The money that gets poured into their sports games is staggering. It makes our poor little CRPG budgets look like pocket change.
@@noctoi yup, though personally with the hair (that everyone praises) being the best thing, the stuff from biowares side on character front looks even worse.
@@dragonhitman1071 It really does. If you put aside the shiny new tech, the actual character models in DA:O and DA:2 were pretty damn good. The enemies were flawless. If they were faithfully remastered they'd blow DA:V character models out of the water.
Fully agree with what you're saying about the elf/qunari/dwarf design. I remember being pretty sceptical when people were criticizing the elf design in terms of musculature, like 'ooh how can my elf wield a greatsword with noodly arms' and the like. I always thought that was just the fantasy aspect of elves, them being lithe and still ridiculously strong by human standards. And still, they buffed up Fenris in the comics and now every elf since inquisition. That and them toning down their defining facial features along with making them as tall as humans now make the ears and the lack of body hair the only aspects that differenciates them from humans. I've even seen people asking why elves have no beards in Veilguard and it's like - what are you on about??? Just give humans the option to have pointy ears while you're at it, what's even the point of having a seperate race model for elves if they look human in every other aspect?? But back to the character creator: I also feel like they did an abysmal job with scars and the like - they don't look like scars did in inquisition, or even real life. They're superficial, and look like face paint at best. I've also seen people say that they didn't allow for more variety in bodyshapes (like women being curvy, having an actual bust size etc.) because of potential clipping issues with armor and hairstyles that arise from having too many unique body shapes. I think that's a bullshit excuse, but then I know nothing about 3d animation and modelling. Do you think this might have been a reason for them to excude 'average' female body shapes, because of technical issues?
To be honest, that excuse has been a thing since the dawn of 3d game dev. Its been problematic and a core reason for a lot of technical restraints in a lot of games. Every studio attempts to tackle this issue differently. But making a small chest size the MAX - and using 'armor doesnt fit large chest size' as the reason, is no longer a valid. And to cite otherwise is just lazy. Its so easy to get around this - and in fact that process can be mostly automated with some competent script writers (no extra work necessary aside from some extreme outliers perhaps)
We can all agree that DA2 was a failed DA game, tho i can say i did have fun on that game in its time and in fact my first entry to the IP before i fell inlove with DAO, but imma say DA2 gifted us the coolest and badass Qunari ever. Arishok is just the best villain i loved in that IP and will always be the only design i can think of when Qunari is mentioned. DAI's ironbull looked goofy to me then Veilguard gave us the Queer'nari.
Don’t know you, don’t know your channel. I love Dragon Age, and am really looking forward to playing this game, hand-waving a lot of meta stuff to embrace the fantasy roots. But have to admit am in total agreement with you on this one.
When it comes to Arishok - all male classical masculine features are increased x5 times but with a very artistic approach. His face shap flows into shape of the horns elegantly. There is a good contrast between elegant design and rough masculinity. The concept art of qunari males and females is absolutely beautiful. Because it's nicely stylized. DA3 lacks any artistic touch.
Physically, the only distinguishable factors between humans and qunari now are the horns, ears, and height. They had a really good thing going in DA2 where the qunari's facial features make them look naturally menacing, now they just look like masculine elves with big foreheads. I don't really know what made them change it.
It's a problem with the handcrafted characters too. I am a fan of Dragon Age 2 art design and was disappointed with the art direction starting from Inquisition. DA2 Elves and Qunari looks like a distinct race separate from human with the elves being lankier with bigger eyes and Qunari being massive hard edged muscled behemoth.. and then Inquisition just basically have elves be human with sharp ears and Qunari looking like cosplaying body painted bodybuilders.. and Veilguard further make them look like cosplaying humans with even less of distinct racial features (now available in black or asian flavor). I was very much against the top surgery scars as I would assume a transgender person would choose to be the gender they want rather than have a reminder of their attempt.. but realize it's an option that you don't have to choose. It's not forced on you.. but then they also forced your character to be a boobless flatass cardboard cutout by taking away the option to have large features which many would choose to be the idealized version of a character. It's just confusing to me that the designer think we would want this.
And that confusion, is exactly why we talk about it and try to come to (ir)rational conclusions about why that is. Its easy to see why so many rage about it - because people are tired of seeing this over and over again. Its getting unimaginably eyerolly and boring and we are all catching up to speed.
I’m glad you made this video. I remember thinking this EXACT thing when BioWare released the first trailer and you see the Qunari. What in the world happened to this race between DA2 & DAI to Veilguard?? Minus the horns, they look like a completely different race! And I refuse to believe they look different because the game takes place in a different area of Thedas.
Your point of view on the Kunaris just took my breath away. I agree so much with this way of looking at things that I can only nod in approval. It really was a real waste what they did with the Kunaris.
Elves and Qunari designs were amazing in Dragon age 2! Holly man I was amazed by the big beautiful eyes of the elves and long faces when i played the game. Qunari were mean and scary especially the Tarashock and the qunari mage. This character creator I'm exited for but the difference between the races are not super different they all look the same.
If normal people don't say anything we leave a vacuum for the more extreme clickbait crowd to do it and they just stir up animosity towards decent people. Good on you for speaking up about this Haz. I love Bioware and the Dragon Age games so am only critical because I care. At the moment this game isn't enticing me but I'd happily be wrong, eat some humble pie and buy it if it turns out to be good.
All of this. I would be STOKED to be embarrassed and wrong about this game, because I LOVE Dragon Age as an IP. I'm just really worried I WON"T be wrong, and the Devs are not helping by dog piling on anyone who breathes a whiff of a reasonable concern and lumping us in with the REALLY shitty people who are *actually* being horrible and unreasonable.
Same here. Its hard to navigate the waters because its such a radioactive topic. I would LOVE if the game is a homerun - im just really struggling to look at any footage and be like 'holy shit this is it!!'
I see what they were going with when they made Sten look like a tall human with braids in the original. You can imagine the Qunari being a relative of humans but not exactly human. When 2 came out and they made the Qunari look unique that clearly was no longer the case. DAI made them look a bit more human but in this game they're back to Origins but with big horns.
7:57 YES. 9:07 YES. 9:33 YES. But that's exactly the issue here. BioWare did the absolute barest minimum of work on this character creator. And it's just so much cheaper to give all the faces basically the same measurements because then all of the tattoos, beards, lipsticks and piercings that you mention will fit neatly onto them. Having different faces and headshapes requires you to adjust your "tacked-on" decoration, which equals more work. And BioWare fully consciously opted out of that. Yes, that includes bust and butt sizes. Very good video, I enjoyed listening to some common sense! Thank you for uploading and please accept my upvote :)
I didn't think that was the Qunari race, I couldn't believe it! Look at that space for rent on the forehead 🤣 DA2 Qunari was the best they've ever looked, how could they butcher them like this. I heard they largely took the character creator from Sims 4 as reference on how the races should look, no wonder they all look so human like and ordinary.
DA2 Qunari were peak badass design. They failed on variety, but the whole game did. But creature design? Even the elves were cool looking, they had inhuman eyes and pronounced nose bridges. You didnt need to see the ears to know it was an elf
For Dragonage Inquisition, I made a male Qunari with traditional African facial features and these massive freaking horns. It was the first masculine character I had made in a long time, usually in these sorts of games I just played a female character design with a few facial scares and minor imperfections to add some character to make her more believable to my sensibilities. So when I saw these supermodel Qunari I was a little thrown off. It appeared that you couldn't hit that hardcore *vibe* with them anymore, which was strange because I thought that was apart of their allure. It was also the reason I picked them in that game. Because usually Orcs are the standin tough race, but I usually don't like Orcs due to whatever reason, but the Qunari just had this whole cool backdrop of their entire species that was tribal, yet noble, and kind of just cool. I'm pretty much in tandem with a majority of what was said here. I did like an ugly elf, called Sera in the last Dragonage game, but she stood out to me because she was a drunk idiot that you could add to your party and she ended up being one of my favorites. Not much to add, other than to agree that a _breast and butt_ slider with more *B* *O* *O* *M* would've been a nice touch. It really doesn't help that I still can't get past the PG-13 vibe that the game seems gives off. I'm still totally gonna buy it at some point down the line because I like rpg's... and I like this gameworld a ton. But yeah, whenever I get it I most likey won't be playing a Qunari.
yes... now they are just different flavours of humans. Before Humans were... well humans from either German sorcery land, normal lands, medieval land or renessaince france lands. Then you had Elves, who were slim and more agile, but also more frail ( hence it was curious why Solas was the only elf with a more... normal build) Dwarves, short and stocky with no conections, or natural conection to the veil. And Qunarie, these humanoid giant horned people. Iron Bull was awsome.
The Qunari was described as a race of giants with big horns on their heads. Hence, the leader you have shown from DA2. It sure was a fun fight when you have to fight him.
I agree the more options the better obviously I’m not a character designer but I have an absurdly large interest in this particular part of game and if I had the opportunity do work on some of these models like the qunari I think imposing fits the best what I mean is like a huge build like there muscles have muscles (like a Baki characters ) with very sharp face features like you said with the square jaws small narrow eyes and enormous horns I look like from an evolution standpoint you couldn’t do forward facing horns and since there are a more tribal race I think more unkept hair would work the best (like dread/fairy locks braids or wild unbrushed styles ) I tried to keep this short but it’s disappointing to see what is supposed to look like this big menacing mass of horns and murder turned into something that looks like it could be in a Pixar movie
It pisses me off because they pretty much are killing the RP part of the damn RPG. I don't want to play me every damn game and god knows I don't look THAT fucking ugly!! I have a nice ass and I like that about me so stop with this everyone looking like flaccid nobodies, not all of us are as ugly as the people making these games.
Theyve also killed the Strategic side of the gane -- you cant control the characters of your party (always essential on previous games on hard settings) -- - i want full control of their positioning, and not be forced to what a stupid AI wants to do ..... i've lost effectively 3/4 of the game.... heal now ... ove out of the way ... nooo yer dead stupid ai.
The Qunari used to remind me of Tim Curry from Legend. Now they remind me of a sad beta Satyr. I have zero fear of them, there is NOTHING aggressive about their facial structure anymore. It's like they took all the Klingon genes out and replaced them with Care Bears.
The design looks like one those teen tv series on Disney channel, high school drama and shit like that, where the teens put aside their differences to expose the corrupt principal.
i guess EA will do what ea do best. When more people playing Concord and Durstborn as they play Politcal Age Fail guard. Close the door of BioWare. The bioware gamers love died a long time ago. The Qunari looked so great in DA2. Now they get a Temu Tiefling from Wish...
This was truly a fresh, new perspective I had not thought nor seen in forever. Thank you for this video and I agree with everything, the way you describe de races of Thedas would have been a dream of mine, sounded so, so great.
I have a bit of mixed feelings. The way everyone wants the Qunari to look was the art style of Dragon Age 2, the Elves from there are also my favorite. In this universe, they are not supposed to be prettier than Humans, they are just different and kinda attractive, hence the racism towards them. It is even stranger that they decided to abandon this ideas for Inquisition, although on the Tarot cards we see the similarity of the Qunari and Elves to how they looked in the previous entry. The straight nose bridge is here for Solas and Abelas, but that's it. And the problem is that the style of DA2 is more cartoonish and exaggerated, while in Inquisition the emphasis was on realism. That's why everyone looked like humans. But the saddest thing is that if there was no DA2, no one would have noticed the change of the Qunari and elves, because they are generic in both Origins and Inquisition. So it's worth understanding that the DA2 style was created for DA2, was put aside for Inquisition, and was not brought back for Vailguard. I can not know the thought process behind all this, but I would love if developers came clear as to why they decided to make Qunari another Tieflings.
I remember when Inquisition came out but there were enough us or we weren't loud enough because we didn't like the character creator and the direction they were taking the Qunari
Waiting 10 years and being offered pure shit.....we all know the og Bioware is dead so I hope they will go under in name as well after this shitshow tanks.
You know, I would usually find that brutal to the point of cruel - But in this case with all the gaslighting, the devs and ex writer bullying their customers and the horrific and un-asked for retcons to game lore? I'm kind of hoping the same thing. It's clear they want Origins forgotten, they don't consider Origins to be the *origin* of the franchise anymore. I wish they'd stop and just let it die.
Agreed. NO EXCUSE. After the extreme detail and variety of Eldenring, a game I didn't care for but I respect, I'm not taking "iT's ToO hArD aNd ExPeNsIvE!" Qunari don't need HALF the detail and complexity of Eldenring's characters and creatures to be stunning and excellent. Not even a quarter. GET IT TOGETHER, BIOWARE.
Ah yes, all my favourite fantasy races:
Timmy
Timmy with horns
Timmy with pointed ears
Timmy again but shorter
HAHAHAHAHA this made me laugh so hard.
TIMMYYYY!!!
Timmeh!
Timmy !!!
Races in the past were unique, now they're just shorter humans, horned humans, long eared humans and...humans. It's not the only thing that feels very watered down in this entry.
@Kross415 lets be honest, though, dwarves were always just shorter humans.
@@123domo8 Nah, elves were shorter humans. But it played into fantastic (literally) racism, because there were next to no visual difference apart from ears and lighter build...
Even the bestial races are becoming essentially humans with a bestial look. They dress in human clothes, behave like humans, think like humans, sound like humans, have human cultures, and even their anatomies are losing unique traits and becoming human anatomy reskinned. Artists nowadays cannot innovate without making everything human-centric and I find these concepts if different races more and more boring.
It’s why the Rings of Power sucks. The races don’t feel unique anymore. Everyone is just another kind of human. I guess fantasy races need to look and act like “modern” society.
no - theyre now a mixture of cartoooney -- and dead ugly - for the women mainly --- The monsters are utter shi$#te though -- the onkly decenbt face i seen on playthroughs was varric and solis wjich they stole from previous version.
Qunari looked amazing. Not just because they're so different but because it firmly aligned with their story and society.
They were a fiercely disciplined warrior society.
New renditions look like a Best Value Klingon in a cheap parody of Star Trek.
This is a top quality descriptor I like it a lot.
😅
Qunari were frightening and gorgeous, almost like the Xenomorph.
Now they look like parodies of their former selves 😢
@@AndragonLea I've seen comments calling them discount tieflings. But I prefer Tieflings from Temu
@@brandicunningham7243 Seriously, I'm kind of sad about their decline.
Clearly too much soy in their diet. Scrawny things.
I agree 100% Creativity it's lacking so hard, or maybe just lack of genuine interest and passion.
@@rsick266 it's honestly made to not offend certain people I'm not allowed to criticize
@@dearen7588 its from dwarfs/ elves to robots the woke are utterly incapable of producing/dealing with non-human characters (or women). remember for instance when c3po and r2d2 were basically equal stars of star wars
All true. You got to break boundaries. Not limit them.
I don't think it's that.
I think these are people that don't want to work on IP's they love.
They want to work on IP's they consider "problematic" so they can change them. They already come in disliking the series/games/movie franchise they're going to be working on.
_"Oh but that's really difficult to do, it requires more labor and stuff..."_
It's not the costumer's responsibility to care about your problems. Your role is to provide the best product you can and theirs is to decide whether or not to buy it. The idea that something shouldn't be done because it "requires extra work" is becoming increasingly common as a justification for mediocrity and laziness. This is why it's important to hire the best people for the job, and not just some under-qualified schmucks to fill some quotas.
Yeah its been an excuse used publicly by game devs in defense of why somethings been crap - which has never sat right with me, as a game dev. I always thought to myself, when has game dev ever been easy? like i dont understand why you would literally state something so obvious as a defense.
@@HazVsRPG
You're not going to create excellence by lowering your standards to the lowest common denominator.
If you hire people who like the game, universe and product, with a passion for gaming, they are not going to complain about having to work on it
It’s lacking in taste and thoughtfulness not only in their CC, but also across the board. Their armor and clothes are mostly ill-fitting and poorly art directed, as well. Their dragons don’t look scary and instead look like Pixar baby bobblehead dragons. I have a suspicion that they had toxic positivity in their work environment and everyone held back in criticizing each other’s work.
You had me at pixar baby bobblehads 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@HazVsRPG 😆 well it's true, I mean just look at them.
Anyway, I'm also an art director / graphic designer, so I get your points. This would've been any creative's dream job, there are so many missed opportunities here for superb character design. It's so odd that they did not think to collect pictures of past Qunari, and build something great from that.
When I saw the dragon fight, I just felt like I was watching someone playing with children's toys. Nothing about the dragon induced fear. The whole head/body ratio they are forcing on everything makes things look "cute" and that is NOT what Dragon Age is supposed to be.
They turned high fantasy into mid fantasy. This is the worst timeline for art and storytelling in media.
@denisegesilva3082 in an era where people are so unhinged that they complain that orcs from D&D are racist it's no surprise to me that all fantasy races became homoginized lumps of uninspired crap. Orcs in the new 6th edition books got the same treatment as the Qunari design wise.
Why even bother having those races anymore if there's nothing unique enough to make them stand out from humans?
The discrimination against curvy women is so odd. Especially coming from a company who claims to prioritize diversity and inclusion. It comes off as very hypocritical and implies a certain ideology to exclusively leave out curvy women as even an option
Its a really strange thing. It reeks of an agenda. theres no reason to not have it, nothing technical, its purely visual. So we come back around to exactly what weve both stated and how is that inclusive exactly?
This exactly... and the shitty thing is, if they hadn't so loudly proclaimed it was IN the character creator to start with, I wouldn't even care! I'm just pissed because they flat out lied... about this and SO many other things.
@@HazVsRPG And the fact of the matter is that it isn’t at all. It’s their version of inclusivity that focuses only on what they think is important and needs to be included. Which conveniently leaves out what is actually important to most people which is interesting and attractive characters or at least the ability to create them. And is exactly why most games with this ideology fail because it isn’t representative of what people actually want
100% Agree... though DA2 has its flaws.. they nailed it with the Qunari.. DA: I .. the Qunari was like some weird looking minotaur... can't speak for others on this but this is definitely a huge disappointment to have waited 10 years for this..
Dragon Age Origins, we saw the Qunari as these hulking, towering humanoids that spoke in such a distinct and unique accent or dialect, it set them apart and made them unique. The Elves were a broken and diverse race, having devolved from graceful, ethereal beings to a mere shadow of that, looking more akin to anorexic humans with ears than their ancestors. Dwarves were honestly the most diverse group in the first game, because they had distinct appearances based on their facial structures, beards, tattoos, and armor. They were smiths, hewn from rock and bound to the Earth, and their mannerisms spoke to that.
Dragon Age II, the Elves were the first distinct species we interact with, literally meeting with Keeper Marethari and Merrill, who looked drastically different from when we met them in Origins. Their brows were broader, their forms slimmer, their armor fit their bodies and was entirely unique to that of humans. The Elves in the Alienage were worn down, they had heavy eyelids, and almost alien facial structures. The Qunari maintained their hulking forms, but we got a first look at what they really looked like outside the comics- massive, horned beasts that looked more like Ogres and Dragons than humans. Pointed ears, horns and crests that seemed to almost tear out of their foreheads, strong geometric features, and muscle that stretched across every inch of their bodies. More than that, they had warpaint that dictated their position, and titles for each of their warriors. Again, the accent present whenever they spoke. The Dwarves were humanized a bit, but they maintained that stone-hewn appearance.
Dragon Age Inquisition, they redefined the Elves for the second time, making them more human while maintaining some of that uncanny valley feeling in their overall design, which allowed us to separate the Elves from the humans with little effort. The Qunari finally got their day in the sun with Iron Bull, who while lacking that traditional accent present in their culture, held their size, strength and ability set perfectly. They even drafted up outfits and weapons for them, alongside giving players the chance to create their own Qunari Inquisitor- a Tal-Vashoth by all rights. Several horn variants, from metal plated to broken, each maintaining that broad-brow, wrent-skin and muscular form appearance, sacrificing none of their inhumanity for the design. The Dwarves reclaimed their design again, but played the smallest part in the game that they've ever played before, with only one really small storyline from Varric.
Now in Dragon Age Veilguard, we get this this almost Fortnite-meets-Borderlands art style that removes a lot of the qualities from each species. No longer are the Qunari (from the player's view at least) hulking masses of meat and muscle, with fierce features. Instead, they opted to humanize them a lot, making them softer, smaller and overall less terrifying, which is a massive visual retcon. The Elves look closer to their Origins design, but more than that, they look like humans with sharp ears, and very little to set them apart. The Dwarves now just look like cartoonish child-like adults, whimsical rather than mighty.
And that's not even touching upon the spirits and demons from the games, which shared almost the exact same design for three games straight, and now have undergone a massive overhaul to look vastly less intimidating. The Pride Demons in previous games had a lot of shared features with the Ogres, but also looked like masses of writhing flesh and matter, which set them apart. The Shades were cloaked horrors, which looked like dementors and were threatening as hell. The Arcane Horrors were towering mages, which almost looked like liches from the Elder Scrolls. In Inquisition, spirits changed even more, and some of their designs were intentionally terrifying, let alone the abilities they possessed to rend open holes in reality to jump at you. DA Veilguard doesn't look to me like a grimdark fantasy with horror elements- it looks like a child's fantasy RPG, and as a lifelong fan of the franchise, that pisses me off. We won't discuss the Darkspawn either, because DA Origins had the best iteration of them, and they just look fucking awful now.
I appreciate this comment a lot. Thanks for taking the time to write this up. You're so right about this, i wish i had more time to talk on it because i feel like 15-20 minutes just isnt enough time to cover all the things I want to say, or deep dive quite enough into all of the topics. This is absolutely spot on.
@@HazVsRPG You covered a lot in a really short video, which is incredible. The current DA devs have lost the overall image that comprised Dragon Age's themes and iconography for so long. In previous games, they understood the idea of culture and species evolution shaping the appearance of characters and races- a fact that the Mass Effect devs also worked with when designing the Asari, the Krogans, the Salarians, the Quarians, the Geth and the Turians. They had to evaluate what caused their species to develop their unique traits, rather than all looking like off-branch humans. The Qunari, in lore, were theorized by the in-game characters to have either been created by the Kossith via some obscure blood ritual, or mating with those who had dragon's blood to begin with. They developed dragonlike features as a result, and a society based on imperical fact and logic, purpose and intent, which shaped their culture and breeding. Every Qunari was bred for a specific purpose, whether to be a fighter, an assassin, a diplomat, a politician, or a farmer. The Elves were literally spiritual beings without a confirmed origin point, aside from having been around so long that their leadership became gods, and when Solas made the Veil, the Elves lost their immortality, magic and beauty forever. They were lithe and agile and alien. The Dalish had rougher, yet more natural features, and more muscle than most because they spent more time in the wilds than anywhere near cities. Even their warriors were small and weak compared to humans, but they were faster and lighter on their feet. Dwarves were said to be literally made by the earthen Titans, crafted from their flesh and molded to be their protectors, the stoneborn, so they look rough and bulky, yet small, and despite their size, they're stronger than your average human, with no connection to magic. And there are even more things out there that we haven't even seen yet, that people have been dying to see for ages!
I know I'm a bit of an echo chamber for your opinions on these things, but yeah. 1000% accurate and I agree. This character creator absolutely a Timmy creator. Have you seen the comparison that someone did with the head sizes? For some reason the heads are too big. Perhaps it was an attempt at a stylistic choice, but it does not work out. Take a look at other pop culture and how long-time franchises with alien species have evolved, like the klingons in Star Trek. Even with hair, there's a zero percent chance that every race in a fantasy setting would have the exact same hair types or styles. Even within IRL humans there are vastly differing hair types (thin, thick, oily, dry, straight, curly, wavy, etc).
By the way, I absolutely adored RIFT.
And I can't agree more regarding body shapes. Where's my dwarf, carved from a MOUNTAIN, thick and chiseled? Slightly balding hair but thick and braided with adornments throughout (including his beard). But also happens to have massively muscled glutes? Or you know, sometimes a fella just wants to run around as a lithe elven beauty who is jaw-dropping gorgeous. This can be subjective, sure, but with how this low effort creator functions, we are locked into Mr. and Ms. MID.
1000% dude. A little effort from the dev goes a long way. This is why Skyrim is so successful, as others have already mentioned. It's a game we're races are different. Everyone's different. It feels more real, and less 'cheaply made'. Even if Bioware leaned into this angle even a little it would go a long way.
Jsyk the reason the heads are big is to delete the "clipping" issue that plagued every prior Dragon Age game (and probably one of the worst offenders ever) that they were only able to solve by Race-Locking armor, which people hated. So now they found a proportion that works for scaling across all races, its why they look a bit bobble-headish. Its because theyre all a bit closer to dwarf proportions.
Is it really just an echo chamber if the issue is actually an issue though? Especially if we're screaming into the void and the Devs and friends are calling us - and I quote - "Fucking tourists"?
It's really starting to feel like the echo chamber is BioWare, IGN and the Community Panel. If they'd actually address our concerns in a rational and logical way, rather than ignoring or insulting their POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS we wouldn't be echoing nearly as much. It's infuriating and I'm basically getting to the point that I not only don't want to buy the game on principle but I kind of regret ever paying for the previous games too.
@@yeetusdeleetus4697 honestly, I think a lot of people would have preferred race-locked armour on a good looking model, than this parade of uncanny funko pop bobble-heads
DA2 had peak Qunari.
@@Rapunzel879 i would straight up go to the Qunari quarters just to stare at them lol The Qunari bed in inquisition has similar statues to the old models....sigh
Of course it did, it was also the one game you cant play as a qunari/different race. Typical Bioware one step forward 10 steps back.
I’m still not understanding what the hell happened to the Qunari. They were 6’5 300 lbs of walking mountains of muscle. Now? They’re just elves with horns.
The problem with top surgery scars is they are not in the scars tab, they have a whole tab dedicated to just that. It's like they saw what Budweiser did and said "hold my beer"... Pun intended.
I see this now. I wish i had taken more time to think about this instead of just lumping it in with the 'its just an option' argument.
@@HazVsRPG I also believe more choice is good, if they quietly put this in I wouldn't care. But they have done this specifically to get noticed and score ESG points. That's what makes it so pretentious and disingenuous.
Well I want a real ass and titties tab and this is coming from a straight woman.
Skyrim has some ugly characters but they did have true variety in the races. These all look like Sims. I don't want Sims fantasy edition. DAO had hard wide dwarves, elves were alien and pretty, while Sten the qunari may be human like but he is hard and odd, humans could be strong and lovely.
Say no to Sims Fantasy Edition.
100% Skyrim is behind the times graphically but at least the races looked different. Even though the game was technically limited. It's just about putting in the effort to feel unique, not the same as everyone else.
@@HazVsRPG It should be noted that Skyrim is limited in comparison by today's standards! (though Batman Arkham Asylum looked better, it wasn't as massive).
The game directors only previous title was a Sims DLC, you can't make this up.
Probably the same engine, EA forces all their studios to use their crappy engines.
Skyrim looks the way it does because Bethesda games just look ugly. They always have, they always will until they get rid of that crappy engine. But it's art design is still light years ahead of this game.
It's not pretentious my dude, its the straight up truth. The perspective of someone with experience, who has mastered the craft in question. These game devs, and studios, need to be listening to this. Otherwise we're going to continue to get Timmy from the groierie store.
I dont understand what the infatuation is with this whole angle. Its blowing my mind to see it over and over. meanwhile from soft hitting homerun after homerun.
@@HazVsRPG 100%. The only logic I can think of is, it's "easier", or maybe "cheaper" to just grab some un-art-touched faces, clean them up a bit and toss them into the code-blender for some sliders. And if that's what it is, it's pretty damn sad. Any logic beyond that, just goes to a darker place I'd rather not consider lol.
This is what happens when you hire activists and not artists.
So wanting monster races to be more unique instead of humans with horns is somehow "woke?"
@@Circurose yeah.
@@hammkers7 the vid is not even about woke or not woke. Watch it before commenting.
@@Circurose it started in an inquisition game, races and characters and everything have to look ugly and dumb, because that is how woke idiots look in real life
@@Circurose They obviously wanted the trans qunari companion to be "attractive", in order to achieve this they needed to humanize and feminize the whole race in order to fit that design.
8:30 on the topic of male and female Qunari, it's worth noting that their Qun religion/philosophy have women not be warriors, this would make a lot of sense with how they are portrayed as notably smaller/thinner than male Qunari (sexual dimorphism)
Otherwise, mostly agree completely. I miss the DA2 elves, they actually looked like a different race.
@@ExileTwilight It was reconned in Inquisition though with Bull saying to Krem that -according to the Qun philosophy - he's a man.
@@Comandate7 Bull's group was also an undercover mercenary group and it's clear he's a lot more flexible on the Qun than most Qunari, I'm speaking entirely on the logic of how their distinct male/female roles would have come to be due to the physical differences between genders.
@@ExileTwilight Agreed on origin of roles, but bull explicitly states that under the Qun Krem is a man and it's not uncommon for trans people exist- it's just that they have to conform with their preferred gender (so Krem could become a warrior, since he is a man but not a cook for example, if cooks are only women)
DA2 Qunari design are still the best looking in the series and i will happily die on that hill!
Agreed. I know a couple of the artists that worked on those. Still the best.
I'll die happily up on that hill right beside you.
@@HazVsRPG That's nice. Inquisition was cool too but DA 2 was basically beasts in humanoid shape. Now they humans with cosplay horns
its like they were so focused on checking all their boxes for their narrow minded modern day diversity they forgot what true diversity would actually look like in a fantasy world with all these races. i pray they make this game easily modable so i can create some interesting characters i actually want to get invested in and not just "template c the third"
I believe the hair tech was ported over from the FIFA development team.
Really?? Its a fine piece of kit man, that hair is *chefs kiss*
Before i learnt this info as well, I used to tell myself as a joke that they spend most of the development on the hair. Good job FIFA devs, i guess.
100% agree. its a complete travesty what they have done to the qunari, elves and dwarves.
Completely agreed I want monsters to look like monsters not everything has to be pretty
Yah, a variety you know? Like a range of racially diverse peoples and cultures man.
@@HazVsRPG but the anti-woke can't goon to ugly monster races!
It's not even pretty. It's just bland.
@@Jimalcoatl it's not just "bland", it's ugly.
Why can't I write "u.g.l.y? Whatever, it is not just bland it's u.g.l.y.
The Qunari have lost all of their exclusive features that made them look incredible. Iron Bull aside, they've never looked better, and more original, than DA2. And that game was only produced in one year. Fast forward, Veilguard was a reported four year project and they look infinitely worse than their DA2 counterparts. Hell, they even look like a downgrade from Inquisition. And they're even using a better version of Inquisition's game engine.
How the heck does this happen?
Qunari do not look as if they have the LEAST bit amount of dragon in their dna. The lord being that they are magically infused with dragon essence or something, hence their huge vitality, volatility, strength, HORNS, features, etc. They look like cosplaying humans in Veilguard, it looks like a bad joke.
Solas' look is worse as well (he's an Elf, and Elves are spirit entities in Dragon Age, although many alive do not share that heritage anymore. They are almost all exclusively Thedas-born and Earth-raised creatures, so they're allowed to look more normal imho. But Solas it's not. He is an ANCIENT, multi-thousands of years old Elf who was born in the Beyond; the Fade. He looks as normal and genetic as everybody else does!) At the end of Inquisition, there was some slight differentiation, but you could put Solas next to That annoying party elf chick and you could see that they were different. Cleeearly different. And his unique, awesome look and demeanor in Trespasser DLC its gone in Veilguard as well.
I don't like anything about the Veilguard's art direction. I think from the ground level up, it's trash. It's genuinely the first DA game I'm specifically avoiding. I've seen too much of it, and all of it i hate. The over-emphasised glow in the UI, the characters, the bland dialog, the art direction, the dumbed down companion combat and unable to control them (they also deal 0 damage, wtf? They're immortal and do 0 damage, gtfoh...)
Jfc this game is trash tier. I can't believe they developed such a bad game. This is supposed to be practically near-grim dark, but we're now in... Peak soft-modern high fantasy. How the hell did this happen?
Aand not even starting on the demons and monsters theyre like hollow cartoons
@@tonyug113 was about to write this, but you beat me to it.
Not even cartoons, just straight-up fortnite crap.
Iron bull looked like a bull and was bisexual, wtf does that have to do with Qunari lore lmao
I would have loved to play as a Qunari who looked as big and imposing as the Arishok, holy cow :O
Yeah this is a good schpiel right here. Agreed.
Funny how game after game in the series they have REDUCED what you can do with the party characters --- it started with you equiped them as yourself like any crpg game -- then you lost that and only specific armour upgrades allowed .... now you cant even control their movements moment to moment --- ie its DESTROYED the startegic gameplay -- gone from strategic crpg to generic xbox cartoon button mash.
Yeah I can't see me ever liking this combat system enough to forgive the change from deep strategy to facerolling button combos - which are clearly in the game but STILL haven't been discussed in any of the "combat deepdives". It's all just really weird. I have a really bad feeling that it'll be repetitive and boring AF after a few hours.
Not only that, but apparently your party members can't even be downed or die in combat. They are basically just extra artillery. The more I hear about this game the more it just sounds like a glorified dating sim.
I sorta missed the unique race passive that all the races had like the +1 perk from humans or 25% range reduction from elf and the 25% magic defenses from dwarfs.
Dragon Age 1 was the best game, Dragon Age 2 had the best, most unique interpretations of the various races. Inquisition was meh, Veilguard looks just bad
@@blindhamsterman1 Exactly!
I agree with almost all you've said but my one point of disagreement is the elves in da2, they simply were ugly there compered to how they were in origin
@@o.e749 personally, I loved the DA2 elves. They got a really distinctive appearance that didn’t just look like humans with pointy ears.
@@blindhamsterman1 i guess they are better looking then the Skyrim elves
I think DA 1 was king of immersion and lore. The whole game felt like a LOTR HelmsDeep simulator.
DA2 just like you said had best design and culture of races.
DA Inquisition had best world design and exploration.
Yes they failed, and yes most qunari players saw the Arishok as THE reprisentation of what qunari males should look like. I know I did, I definately wanted to make a character similar.
Mate, it's not the existence of “top scars” in a fantasy game that upsets people, it's the fact that this option is separated from all the other scars just to pander to a minority within a minority. And this option may trigger women who survived actual breast cancer - but who cares, right? That is an example of unhealthy tokenism.
Again, if the character creator were like in Black Desert or Dragons Dogma 2 - no one would care about "top scars". But we can only create flat and boring male or female Timmys - so, people are tired of this narrative and easily triggered.
Yeah, as yourself and quite a few others have pointed out. Ive honestly overlooked this. I didnt think about it for long enough, and my partner even mentioned that, if top scars is an option, why is breast enhancement or bbl and botox not an option? In short, yeah ive flipped since being able to read all the comments. I Do think its an option that a very targeted option within a very defined sandbox that bioware have crafted. Which isnt good.
How does separating it from other scars equate to pandering? If nothing else it means it doesn't take away from other scar options. This is the typical whining for the sake of whining. Even if the complaint is the character creator doesn't allow interesting enough creations, the scars would still be a non-issue because they are not what holds back every other single feature in the character creator. It REALLY sounds like it's an issue for you just on its own and you can't even be honest about that because you know how the logical conclusion to that sounds.
@@MagusPrimeX first - chill 😅
Second - you are too focused on the scars, they are just a topping of the problem.
You’re the first person I fully agree with on this. Feel like most people are talking about the wrong stuff over the fact that all the races look human and there’s nothing significantly different about them. It’s a good video and I think more people should definitely see this.
Thanks so much, appreciate the kind words!!
The Qunari character they had in the reveal trailer for the character creator looks like a slightly bored accountant... with horns. Like a character from a "subversive" comedy about the banality of evil. He's an accountant in hell, and he's just as unremarkable as an accountant in the real world... but with horns.
(Apologies to all the accountants out there, I'm sure most of you are lovely people... without horns.)
LOL!
DA2 trailer Qunari was actually both intimidating and hot. So huge serious oppnent and also as a separate race it looked fantastic..
They made them the same so they were more f#ckable. It's fucking moronic. I hate in fantasy when races are not distinct. Tolkien got this. He made Elves, Dwarves and Humans very different.
The goat. I cant even start with the new LOTR stuff.
BIOWARE failed to make a game that can stand only away from the shadow of Mass Effect.
You really pinned the nail on the head here. My biggest concern from the start was how all the characters look so airbrushed and lifeless. And now, if my female elf can't even be drop-dead gorgeous and feminine, and every race and character looks like some variation of the same human, I hope the game makes up for it in other ways...
I've been a DA fan since origins so seeing the bizarre choices (and being violently sick from the "hey listen" visual noises and UI/UX stuff. I actually cannot play the VG trailers without feeling motion sickness) is just...ya know, disheartening over the franchise's direction. The final kicker was reading a comment elsewhere that said "Why do they look like tieflings?"
I...as a long time fan...cannot unsee it now.
Oh the motion sickness stuff, yes!! This game has the inauspicious "privilege" of being the ONLY non-first person game I've EVER seen that gives me a migraine. It takes a LOT for flashing lights to trigger a migraine for me, it's usually smells or motion sickness from the illusion of my head being still while my body is moving through space (like reading on a train or playing FPS games). This THIRD person game has somehow done it though. It's bad.
@@noctoi Yeah the weirdest part is that I've improved my motion sickness over the recent years but it's suddenly these trailers that I felt punched hard. That took me completely off guard that I had to lie down and take stomach meds. I for one won't be able to play because of all the UX vomit and I don't know if anyone can endure long times on this game.
I've actually watched a vid of a UI designer actually taking a deep dive in improving the design (to the best he could) and I'll say what he made makes it 100 times better.
@@Cheynise Yeah I saw that one too, and it was like flicking off a spotlight. Instant relief. It's wild how much difference it made!
@@noctoi Tremendously so. Whatever the case will be for Veilguard (though I think we all know what the outcome is gonna be) that UI designers can take it as an example of what you should and shouldn't in the future. I got to learn a lot from those design changes too.
I don't think they had an art director because the direction across the board has been incredibly poor and Low effort, the the quanari to the darkspawn it looks like dross.
The hardest thing about this is it's almost impossible to critique or praise this game because the "woke" and "anti woke" have both taken their stance on it and there's little room for legitimate conversation in the middle of their blind war
I know. It makes things very difficult. It's like a radioactive topic. Extremely volatile.
@HazVsRPG what's worse is it's rare to see videos like this now as people with influence(journalists or RUclipsrs) will usually go hard one way or the other because controversy gets views and clicks.
@@CC-of5xl Totally agree. The culture wars thing is shutting down the real debate that matters.
its not a blind war its a cultist propaganda game anti woke people are just normal people who don't want propoganda in their games
they want to diversify so much but they're making everyone a gigachad, damn if they want everyone to feel part of this game give us the option to at least make an ugly character with personality, because now they are just... ugly.
Also they bother so much to add breast scars(good for them), but why there so few skin colors? Literally 2 rows... In 2024?? And I have to read from chills this game is PROGRESSIVE.
hahah giga-chad
I’m so glad someone finally pointing this out as a defense for the art of rpgs and not because it’s “woke”. It’s so frustrating talking about this issue without being lumped into antiwoke and the woke crowed. I want fantasy races to be unique. Not different flavors of humans, that’s what the human option is for.
exactly, we are all part of unique cultures here on earth, if anything celebrating that individuality is where the magic is. Imagine making us all the same, wtf - thats seriously sinister stuff.
Here's the thing, game companies actually want the far right anti-woke crowd to appear. It's a strategy where you use far right hate to mask real issues with a product. That is why when I see right wing grifters getting mad about pronouns I get extra mad. Number 1 pronouns being in a game does not matter at all and if you are so absorbed by a culture war that you freak out about it that's a you problem, and 2 it detracts from the real issues that stop games from getting better as an art form. Even people in this comment section complaining about activists and DEI are part of the problem, these old, provably false claims about diversity making games worse is hiding the real flaws with a game, and is in fact contributing to games becoming worse instead of fighting against it. The issue is simply bad artist, or bad managers. Sometimes both, normally it's management. Until gamers can recognise that diversity has nothing to do with the issues the current games industry faces, we will not make progress on making them better.
Unpopular Opinion: TBH Larian humanized elves too much for my liking. In the old portraits of Baldur's Gate by BioWare, the elves have larger eyes and pointed features--- even Beamdog closely followed this art direction for their enhanced edition. They were really otherworldly. Even half-elves like Neera and Jaheira had larger eyes and pointed looks. Now their elves are just humans with pointy ears. This is precisely the homogenized design the video was talking about.
@SurinameNgalan that was a long time ago and they followed DnD 5e for BG3. Old school BG followed DnD of the time.
It's basically every western game/media. Because none of them knows how to make pretty and ethereal anything anymore. Don't believe me? Just look Rings of Power Elves compared to Lord of The Ring movie adaptation. ROP's elves are humans cosplaying and appropriating by putting pointy ears and calling it a day. LOTR elves are ethereal, beautiful, timeless.
Or how about elves in Japanese media. Same thing. So, yeah, this is what happens when you give the job to people who can't see pass themselves.
That was intentional since that's how they are usually depicted in D&D.
Larian's own ideas of what an elf is can be seen in divinity original sin 2.
@@CC-of5xl absolutely. Depiction of races and classes had changed a lot over time. E.g. drow used to be just that - dark-skinned elves, while now they have noticeable typical 'black human' traits more often than not. Just in case, I mean no disrespect or hatered here!! I'm talking specifically about unique race-specific facial features, which no longer exist. Typical portrait of Drizzt was nothing like what we see for a modern 'dark elf' in pretty much all the possible settings and media.
@cttommy73 wtf are you talking about? Have you seen the elves from BG1 and 2 they look like bugs. The elves in BG3 look way more attractive. You also clearly just have some weird agenda if you can't admit Shadowheart isn't one of the most traditionally attractive CRPG companions of all time
"big butts..." That applies as well to men haha, but yeah overall I agree with your critics.
I would no doubt play as a Qunari if they were like those badass examples you showed. My problem with most videogames is that I can't do such imponent looking PCs (excepting perhaps Skyrim and GW2 that do have real racial features). If it's not only that, the armours can be the most generic/typical design. It seems like a trade-off when it shouldn't.
Yeah I agree with you, except, look at the male 3d models they actually look like they have jucier butt's haha!!!
@@HazVsRPG Yep, the larger male body template also has a larger stomach range in the slider. They can be made much fatter than the female 'plus size' body template. Also, why no hip slider?!
I am a dev that thinks more options, more diversity, more ways to customize are a good thing. Art in games is not the most important thing most of the time and that being said i think games is an excellent way to include more groups of people because it normally won't affect design anway. that being said i'm with you 100% on everything you said here. i normally try to give benefit fo the doubt and i am struggling here. did they choose not to invest in character creation? was it a higher up decision? who's deciding to put limitations on character customization now? i'm so confused how they went from such unique looks for races to that...
Yeah im coming up blank, and you can see why the rage side of the interwebs takes this and runs with it hard down whatever lane they are in. Because there really is no explanation that makes any sense.
@@HazVsRPG it really sucks too cause i don't want to give people ammunition that make rage videos for the sake of rage. I want things to succeed and i'm understanding if they tried and just missed the mark but as an artist and dev i can't make sense of this one cause the entire direction from the start was off.
@@arinrobinson3898 I think this is something the Devs AND the Community Panel and their followers don't seem to understand... Most of us actually LOVE Dragon Age. We've been around since the beginning, and we LOVE this franchise. We WANT it to be awesome! The vast majority of us would probably "stop complaining" if they'd just address the problems in a respectful and meaningful way, but instead anyone who says anything even remotely construed as negative is labeled a 'hater' and literally told to eff off 😒
@@HazVsRPG The only explanation that makes sense to me is narcissism.
I don't want a version of myself as an elf, dwarf, or qunari. I want a really cool fictional character.
Yep DA2 was the peak of Qunari look. It was rough and rugged, it was perfect PERFECT. Then DA: Inquisition came along and it still wasn't too bad but it was somewhat smooth and much less rough/rugged; heck even the Bull had a better design but back then we don't even know the term "woke" to describe what we had with Inquisition yet there are signs there already, it just wasn't as bad as today. Now you got what people will describe as "npcs cosplaying as qunari" or as I would call it "npcs transition/identify as a qunari" If I have to describe it personally, I feel that it looks more akin to a Star Wars twi'lek. You know what you're playing as @ 8:50? Edward from Twilight all you're missing is the shimmering sparkle lol
I have a funny story to tell you about the Sparkle, I know the artist responsible for this idea. I used to work with him - he suggested it to the director as a meme/joke - and he loved it. And that is literally how that whole idea started / began. This is a lesson for all designers out there that ever have the opportunity to work with film directors etc - never go to a concept meeting with joke / meme takes on a design.
The arishok was the best designed charscter they've ever done. And they managed to do it in the 18 months of development time they had for DA2. They had *10* years for Veilguard. And the only thing theyve managed to do is create top surgery scars and colored hair. I hate this world.
Elves have ethnicities now making them just humans with pointy ears
@4:40 Bro, freaking modders can do it. I guarantee you, just 1 random mod creator on Nexus can facelift that entire race and restore them to their former glory. There is literally no excuse for Bioware, with all their vast resources and manpower, not to be able to do it. Bottom line is that they just don't want to. They don't care enough to. They're either too lazy or too incompetent, or both.
Yeah will have to leave it up to modders haha!!!
I can guarantee that Nexus will censor these types of mods. However, there are other places where they will survive, and it's the only way I would ever consider playing this game.
But what you describe already was there in DA2 (for elves, they had distinct features), for Qunari, and even for dwarfs.
Elves had slanted almond eyes, that were quite big, tall faces and nose that in profile was going in one line with forehead.
Here's the issue with the top surgery scars. This game takes place in a fantasy setting where there's magic wizards and dragons. You can literally turn yourself into anything you want. You would not need surgery. So it goes against the setting. That is the biggest issue of the top surgery scar. It exists only for social indoctrination, nothing else. The game was made by a bunch of activists who not only suck a character design, they don't understand basic video game design as well.
Yeah ive since changed my mind on this, reading through the comments has given me a different perspective. I see it now, and also wish that i had taken more time to think about it.
@@HazVsRPG it's not the biggest issue in the game, but it's a symptom of the sickness that has spread across the industry. It's one of those mountain vs molehill things.
Thanks for your insight, I feel like in all of these debates, I haven't really heard about just how this is really just cheaping out on user experience and work while masquerading it as progress. I feel the same.
Haz you unbelievable Legend!! Thank you sir for getting out there your expertise on a subject that has been in serious decline in recent years; not only in the gaming industry, but also in the pop culture, comic and figurine arenas as well! I don't know why, but it seems that the idea of choice has become the topic of taboo now. Like there needs to be guardrails put up because we all need to be 'protected' from ourselves in maybe doing something that is overly creative or outwardly outlandish. Hey! Is that the basis of fantasy or isn't it? How many people here have been able to go on a quest and come back carrying two or three sets of armor, five or six different swords or battle hammers and still be able to draw a two handed great sword off their back and obliterate a pack of Kobolds' with ease?! Like we see that every day too right? (where do they carry all that stuff seriously) The choice should always be there to create the most fantastic fantasy looking character or bring it back to creating yourself to an exact likeness. Get rid of the guardrails, put effort into letting the player base be creative with your creation and lets explore this world that you have created with the upmost excitement! Common you supposed AAA-A studios out there, let's go!
Thanks so much dude, thats a really good way of putting it. Its the Guardrails. I wonder if its because we are all seasoned game players now, weve seen games take shape and change over the years and it seems odd to step backwards back into some odd place where as adults we feel like 'I dont need these at all why am i looking at these guard rails right now damnit' As if we are being coralled down some lane.
Its such an odd thing to be experiencing!
What do you mean in recent years? Inquisition was more than 10 years ago
I have a couple points.
1: This video might be too early lol. I'm not sure we've actually seen the complete character creator in action. I haven't personally been scrounging the Internet for the full thing so maybe I'm incorrect.
2: Dragon Age Elves are not the "hauntingly beautiful" type of elves, they are just as f'd up and normal and mortal as humans. Now which is preferable is ultimately up to the individual interacting with the game world.
3: I do agree that if a Sci-fi or fantasy game is going to do Ancestries/Races/Species they should lean into them and make them stand apart from each other in a big way visually.
4: As much as I like BG3 the Dragonborn were a disappointment to me. They had the same posture as everyone else and the tail was just sad. The heads are indeed phenomenal though.
5: The hair and beards look so dang good, holy moly. From the worst hair in games to the best lmao.
As always great to hear your thoughts on these games! ❤
They make the dwarfs like gnoms!!!
This goes to book of grudges
This is just visuals. I'm sure behavior will be same throughout the races... Fondly remember how interesting and difficult, even with save spamming, it was to get to know Sten the Qunari.
Yep, the good old days when actions and choices "really mattered". It was SUCH a good game
I think it’s also devs being lazy and not wanting to handcraft all the races to look unique so they just make them all look human with a bit of differences. It was noticeable in mass effect andromeda with the Asari they were literally just blue humans.
Thats pretty much word for word what i said when i played andromeda!
We've had customizable Argonians since Oblivion and have had them since. Look at ESO giving different scale types and patterns. They can certainly make more dynamic horns, they wouldn't even need to make a ton of stuff, just some different forehead keratin/scale types and the ability to scale and position them how you'd like, just how every other game does
Very matured point of view.
Not until viewing this video that I realize what the kind of feeling I have seeing the character creation: the horn character looks like some kind of character with ancient makeup we saw in 1980 movies
Yea, i agree with you 100% and i truly believe that the main reasoning behind how samie every race has to be financial. They didnt want to worry about clipping issues and making unique armor sets for the different races that would accentuate each of their unique features. Ie more leather pauldrons and straps for quanari, more revealing sensual but functional clothes for the elves, HEAVY plate for the dwarves, and you know...people stuff for the people. They just want everyone to be able to equip anything and move on. With as little changes to the base designs as possible so late game we will look even more similar to each other.b
When you're right, you're right. Honestly, typically I'm turned off by 'alien' features like Tieflings and Qunari possess, but I actually want those differences to be heightened (I just don't want to MC them). Also, very much unlike you, I'm not big into overlyschmexification, but that's me- BUT without the options to go wild even the 'normal' loses its lustre.
Yeah see, thats the thing for me me the choice is what matters most. So it always comes across as an 'intent' when something is obviously targeted.
Ironic how "diversity" makes them all look the same..
its not hard to see that one could look at this as quite sinister also! which explains why its such a nuclear topic.
Agree 1000%, even more than that. You're so right, it should be illegal 😅
So from what i heard the hair wasn't even done by bioware.
Yeah it was apparently imported across form either the Sims (which would track because of Corinne's background, except Sims hair was never that good) OR from FIFA (no idea, I never played those games). Either way it wasn't "created and curated just for Dragon Age: The Veilguard tm"
@@noctoi believe it was fifa where they took it from.
@@dragonhitman1071 Makes sense. The money that gets poured into their sports games is staggering. It makes our poor little CRPG budgets look like pocket change.
@@noctoi yup, though personally with the hair (that everyone praises) being the best thing, the stuff from biowares side on character front looks even worse.
@@dragonhitman1071 It really does. If you put aside the shiny new tech, the actual character models in DA:O and DA:2 were pretty damn good. The enemies were flawless. If they were faithfully remastered they'd blow DA:V character models out of the water.
Fully agree with what you're saying about the elf/qunari/dwarf design. I remember being pretty sceptical when people were criticizing the elf design in terms of musculature, like 'ooh how can my elf wield a greatsword with noodly arms' and the like. I always thought that was just the fantasy aspect of elves, them being lithe and still ridiculously strong by human standards. And still, they buffed up Fenris in the comics and now every elf since inquisition. That and them toning down their defining facial features along with making them as tall as humans now make the ears and the lack of body hair the only aspects that differenciates them from humans. I've even seen people asking why elves have no beards in Veilguard and it's like - what are you on about??? Just give humans the option to have pointy ears while you're at it, what's even the point of having a seperate race model for elves if they look human in every other aspect??
But back to the character creator: I also feel like they did an abysmal job with scars and the like - they don't look like scars did in inquisition, or even real life. They're superficial, and look like face paint at best.
I've also seen people say that they didn't allow for more variety in bodyshapes (like women being curvy, having an actual bust size etc.) because of potential clipping issues with armor and hairstyles that arise from having too many unique body shapes. I think that's a bullshit excuse, but then I know nothing about 3d animation and modelling. Do you think this might have been a reason for them to excude 'average' female body shapes, because of technical issues?
To be honest, that excuse has been a thing since the dawn of 3d game dev. Its been problematic and a core reason for a lot of technical restraints in a lot of games. Every studio attempts to tackle this issue differently. But making a small chest size the MAX - and using 'armor doesnt fit large chest size' as the reason, is no longer a valid. And to cite otherwise is just lazy. Its so easy to get around this - and in fact that process can be mostly automated with some competent script writers (no extra work necessary aside from some extreme outliers perhaps)
@@HazVsRPG Thanks for explaining.
We can all agree that DA2 was a failed DA game, tho i can say i did have fun on that game in its time and in fact my first entry to the IP before i fell inlove with DAO, but imma say DA2 gifted us the coolest and badass Qunari ever. Arishok is just the best villain i loved in that IP and will always be the only design i can think of when Qunari is mentioned. DAI's ironbull looked goofy to me then Veilguard gave us the Queer'nari.
Don’t know you, don’t know your channel. I love Dragon Age, and am really looking forward to playing this game, hand-waving a lot of meta stuff to embrace the fantasy roots. But have to admit am in total agreement with you on this one.
you should get to know this channel and watch him on twitch. its worth it
When it comes to Arishok - all male classical masculine features are increased x5 times but with a very artistic approach.
His face shap flows into shape of the horns elegantly. There is a good contrast between elegant design and rough masculinity.
The concept art of qunari males and females is absolutely beautiful.
Because it's nicely stylized.
DA3 lacks any artistic touch.
Physically, the only distinguishable factors between humans and qunari now are the horns, ears, and height. They had a really good thing going in DA2 where the qunari's facial features make them look naturally menacing, now they just look like masculine elves with big foreheads. I don't really know what made them change it.
It's a problem with the handcrafted characters too. I am a fan of Dragon Age 2 art design and was disappointed with the art direction starting from Inquisition. DA2 Elves and Qunari looks like a distinct race separate from human with the elves being lankier with bigger eyes and Qunari being massive hard edged muscled behemoth.. and then Inquisition just basically have elves be human with sharp ears and Qunari looking like cosplaying body painted bodybuilders.. and Veilguard further make them look like cosplaying humans with even less of distinct racial features (now available in black or asian flavor). I was very much against the top surgery scars as I would assume a transgender person would choose to be the gender they want rather than have a reminder of their attempt.. but realize it's an option that you don't have to choose. It's not forced on you.. but then they also forced your character to be a boobless flatass cardboard cutout by taking away the option to have large features which many would choose to be the idealized version of a character. It's just confusing to me that the designer think we would want this.
And that confusion, is exactly why we talk about it and try to come to (ir)rational conclusions about why that is. Its easy to see why so many rage about it - because people are tired of seeing this over and over again. Its getting unimaginably eyerolly and boring and we are all catching up to speed.
I’m glad you made this video. I remember thinking this EXACT thing when BioWare released the first trailer and you see the Qunari. What in the world happened to this race between DA2 & DAI to Veilguard?? Minus the horns, they look like a completely different race! And I refuse to believe they look different because the game takes place in a different area of Thedas.
Yeah its a very cheap explanation so far!!
Your point of view on the Kunaris just took my breath away.
I agree so much with this way of looking at things that I can only nod in approval.
It really was a real waste what they did with the Kunaris.
Elves and Qunari designs were amazing in Dragon age 2! Holly man I was amazed by the big beautiful eyes of the elves and long faces when i played the game. Qunari were mean and scary especially the Tarashock and the qunari mage. This character creator I'm exited for but the difference between the races are not super different they all look the same.
I agree! Also missed the class bonuses I felt it really helped putting together a story for your character.
It's the most sane take on this topic man. I couldn't agree more.
If normal people don't say anything we leave a vacuum for the more extreme clickbait crowd to do it and they just stir up animosity towards decent people. Good on you for speaking up about this Haz. I love Bioware and the Dragon Age games so am only critical because I care. At the moment this game isn't enticing me but I'd happily be wrong, eat some humble pie and buy it if it turns out to be good.
All of this. I would be STOKED to be embarrassed and wrong about this game, because I LOVE Dragon Age as an IP. I'm just really worried I WON"T be wrong, and the Devs are not helping by dog piling on anyone who breathes a whiff of a reasonable concern and lumping us in with the REALLY shitty people who are *actually* being horrible and unreasonable.
Same here. Its hard to navigate the waters because its such a radioactive topic. I would LOVE if the game is a homerun - im just really struggling to look at any footage and be like 'holy shit this is it!!'
I see what they were going with when they made Sten look like a tall human with braids in the original. You can imagine the Qunari being a relative of humans but not exactly human. When 2 came out and they made the Qunari look unique that clearly was no longer the case. DAI made them look a bit more human but in this game they're back to Origins but with big horns.
7:57 YES. 9:07 YES. 9:33 YES. But that's exactly the issue here. BioWare did the absolute barest minimum of work on this character creator. And it's just so much cheaper to give all the faces basically the same measurements because then all of the tattoos, beards, lipsticks and piercings that you mention will fit neatly onto them. Having different faces and headshapes requires you to adjust your "tacked-on" decoration, which equals more work. And BioWare fully consciously opted out of that. Yes, that includes bust and butt sizes. Very good video, I enjoyed listening to some common sense! Thank you for uploading and please accept my upvote :)
Thank you for the very kind words!!!
I didn't think that was the Qunari race, I couldn't believe it! Look at that space for rent on the forehead 🤣 DA2 Qunari was the best they've ever looked, how could they butcher them like this. I heard they largely took the character creator from Sims 4 as reference on how the races should look, no wonder they all look so human like and ordinary.
People have said that but I had no idea about the sins angle. It's interesting to me that this is even a thought.
DA2 Qunari were peak badass design. They failed on variety, but the whole game did. But creature design? Even the elves were cool looking, they had inhuman eyes and pronounced nose bridges. You didnt need to see the ears to know it was an elf
According to Corrine busch.... This version of Kossith died withthe former Arishok. It now being replaced by goat-men.
Goatmen is a really good description. They do look like that!!!
For Dragonage Inquisition, I made a male Qunari with traditional African facial features and these massive freaking horns. It was the first masculine character I had made in a long time, usually in these sorts of games I just played a female character design with a few facial scares and minor imperfections to add some character to make her more believable to my sensibilities. So when I saw these supermodel Qunari I was a little thrown off. It appeared that you couldn't hit that hardcore *vibe* with them anymore, which was strange because I thought that was apart of their allure. It was also the reason I picked them in that game. Because usually Orcs are the standin tough race, but I usually don't like Orcs due to whatever reason, but the Qunari just had this whole cool backdrop of their entire species that was tribal, yet noble, and kind of just cool.
I'm pretty much in tandem with a majority of what was said here. I did like an ugly elf, called Sera in the last Dragonage game, but she stood out to me because she was a drunk idiot that you could add to your party and she ended up being one of my favorites.
Not much to add, other than to agree that a _breast and butt_ slider with more *B* *O* *O* *M* would've been a nice touch. It really doesn't help that I still can't get past the PG-13 vibe that the game seems gives off. I'm still totally gonna buy it at some point down the line because I like rpg's... and I like this gameworld a ton. But yeah, whenever I get it I most likey won't be playing a Qunari.
I mean, the first Qunari we met was just a big boy with cornrows. The horns and eyebrow ridges all just appeared in DA2
yes... now they are just different flavours of humans.
Before Humans were... well humans from either German sorcery land, normal lands, medieval land or renessaince france lands.
Then you had Elves, who were slim and more agile, but also more frail ( hence it was curious why Solas was the only elf with a more... normal build)
Dwarves, short and stocky with no conections, or natural conection to the veil.
And Qunarie, these humanoid giant horned people. Iron Bull was awsome.
The Qunari was described as a race of giants with big horns on their heads. Hence, the leader you have shown from DA2. It sure was a fun fight when you have to fight him.
He destroyed me the first time i fought him. I remember it clearly haha! I remember thinking like 'oh shit i guess he really is tough haha!'
Yea, he got me a couple of times, until I figured out his routine. It was a good fight.
I agree the more options the better obviously I’m not a character designer but I have an absurdly large interest in this particular part of game and if I had the opportunity do work on some of these models like the qunari I think imposing fits the best what I mean is like a huge build like there muscles have muscles (like a Baki characters ) with very sharp face features like you said with the square jaws small narrow eyes and enormous horns I look like from an evolution standpoint you couldn’t do forward facing horns and since there are a more tribal race I think more unkept hair would work the best (like dread/fairy locks braids or wild unbrushed styles ) I tried to keep this short but it’s disappointing to see what is supposed to look like this big menacing mass of horns and murder turned into something that looks like it could be in a Pixar movie
It pisses me off because they pretty much are killing the RP part of the damn RPG. I don't want to play me every damn game and god knows I don't look THAT fucking ugly!! I have a nice ass and I like that about me so stop with this everyone looking like flaccid nobodies, not all of us are as ugly as the people making these games.
Theyve also killed the Strategic side of the gane -- you cant control the characters of your party (always essential on previous games on hard settings) -- - i want full control of their positioning, and not be forced to what a stupid AI wants to do ..... i've lost effectively 3/4 of the game.... heal now ... ove out of the way ... nooo yer dead stupid ai.
All i can do is slow clap really. *clap*
BDO has one of the best CC out there. Rift's CC was great as well. DA Veilguard - just throw some DAZ characters in there an call it a day.
Yeah BDO is amazing, Nioh 2, Dragons Dogma 2 - list goes on and on haha!
The Qunari used to remind me of Tim Curry from Legend. Now they remind me of a sad beta Satyr. I have zero fear of them, there is NOTHING aggressive about their facial structure anymore. It's like they took all the Klingon genes out and replaced them with Care Bears.
The hair tech came from EA's FIFA dev's. Also a lot of the combat routines came from Jedi survivor dev's.
I didnt know any of this stuff!! Figures that they didnt make it because it stands out so much!!
The design looks like one those teen tv series on Disney channel, high school drama and shit like that, where the teens put aside their differences to expose the corrupt principal.
Lol this made me laugh!!!
i guess EA will do what ea do best. When more people playing Concord and Durstborn as they play Politcal Age Fail guard. Close the door of BioWare. The bioware gamers love died a long time ago. The Qunari looked so great in DA2. Now they get a Temu Tiefling from Wish...
This was truly a fresh, new perspective I had not thought nor seen in forever. Thank you for this video and I agree with everything, the way you describe de races of Thedas would have been a dream of mine, sounded so, so great.
Glad you enjoyed the video. I would like to make more just like this!
I have a bit of mixed feelings. The way everyone wants the Qunari to look was the art style of Dragon Age 2, the Elves from there are also my favorite. In this universe, they are not supposed to be prettier than Humans, they are just different and kinda attractive, hence the racism towards them.
It is even stranger that they decided to abandon this ideas for Inquisition, although on the Tarot cards we see the similarity of the Qunari and Elves to how they looked in the previous entry. The straight nose bridge is here for Solas and Abelas, but that's it. And the problem is that the style of DA2 is more cartoonish and exaggerated, while in Inquisition the emphasis was on realism. That's why everyone looked like humans.
But the saddest thing is that if there was no DA2, no one would have noticed the change of the Qunari and elves, because they are generic in both Origins and Inquisition. So it's worth understanding that the DA2 style was created for DA2, was put aside for Inquisition, and was not brought back for Vailguard. I can not know the thought process behind all this, but I would love if developers came clear as to why they decided to make Qunari another Tieflings.
They turned Qunari women into handsome squidwards.
DA2 qunaris where awesome looking 👀 when I first saw them I wanted to be them now ….I don’t they make the new ones look stupid and ugly
2:20
For whatever reason, I almost always make myself in games, or as close as i can get wothout spending hours on it.
I remember when Inquisition came out but there were enough us or we weren't loud enough because we didn't like the character creator and the direction they were taking the Qunari
I was there. And I was vocal. I tried haha!
I came across some videos about this game and I saw how excited people were in their comments, man how can you be excited about this game???
Waiting 10 years and being offered pure shit.....we all know the og Bioware is dead so I hope they will go under in name as well after this shitshow tanks.
Haha this brutal truth made me laugh!
You know, I would usually find that brutal to the point of cruel - But in this case with all the gaslighting, the devs and ex writer bullying their customers and the horrific and un-asked for retcons to game lore? I'm kind of hoping the same thing.
It's clear they want Origins forgotten, they don't consider Origins to be the *origin* of the franchise anymore. I wish they'd stop and just let it die.
I would buy your version in a heart beat. I will get Veil when it fails and it's on a hectic sale and i have a feeling I won't wait long.
Agreed. NO EXCUSE. After the extreme detail and variety of Eldenring, a game I didn't care for but I respect, I'm not taking "iT's ToO hArD aNd ExPeNsIvE!"
Qunari don't need HALF the detail and complexity of Eldenring's characters and creatures to be stunning and excellent. Not even a quarter. GET IT TOGETHER, BIOWARE.