Kem0sabe
Arcane
It was even part of their Outer World press campaign preceding release. "this is not new Vegas in space, temper your expectations"
Height differences are a mess. Notice that no Elder Scrolls lets you play as a short race.I don't think that reducing the scope is a bad thing. Quality > Quantity. In Gothic 2, there is a total of ONE main city, very memorable, full of interesting stuff. In Skyrim, there are many "major cities", all boring and uninspiring.
As for 2 races, IMO they should have added at least a 3rd race. Humans, Dwarves and Elves.
This cope has been already expended, Obsidian has spent the past decade repeatedly failing to make a reduced scope (relative to AP/NV) translate into more sophisticated design.I don't think that reducing the scope is a bad thing. Quality > Quantity. In Gothic 2, there is a total of ONE main city, very memorable, full of interesting stuff.
I doubt they can go any lower lol."Obsidian: lower your expectations". It's sad.
Morrowind introduced different heights (and weights) by race/gender combination, with male bosmer (wood elves) being the shortest, though the difference is less extreme than for the usual fantasy dwarves and halflings.Height differences are a mess. Notice that no Elder Scrolls lets you play as a short race.I don't think that reducing the scope is a bad thing. Quality > Quantity. In Gothic 2, there is a total of ONE main city, very memorable, full of interesting stuff. In Skyrim, there are many "major cities", all boring and uninspiring.
As for 2 races, IMO they should have added at least a 3rd race. Humans, Dwarves and Elves.
It has more mechanics, more features (disarming mines, dragging bodies etc.), traits, perks that are actually interesting and affect gameplay as well as appear as dialogue options (a few of them but still), highly moddable. Tow pales in comparison.IMO Obsidian declined a lot. Just compare FNV with outer worlds, FNV has a lot of interesting factions, lots of cool weapons, and OW has neon weapons and revolves around "corporations bad", hence I'm not hyped for this game. Can be good? Sure. But so far, the unique good things that I saw are the spell effects.
Sounds like another excuse for incompetence.Height differences are a mess.I don't think that reducing the scope is a bad thing. Quality > Quantity. In Gothic 2, there is a total of ONE main city, very memorable, full of interesting stuff. In Skyrim, there are many "major cities", all boring and uninspiring.
As for 2 races, IMO they should have added at least a 3rd race. Humans, Dwarves and Elves.
It's not first person though.Sounds like another excuse for incompetence.Height differences are a mess.I don't think that reducing the scope is a bad thing. Quality > Quantity. In Gothic 2, there is a total of ONE main city, very memorable, full of interesting stuff. In Skyrim, there are many "major cities", all boring and uninspiring.
As for 2 races, IMO they should have added at least a 3rd race. Humans, Dwarves and Elves.
Obsidian are a AAA studio who have convinced players that they're AA.
Dragon Age Origins let you play a dwarf and it caused a lot of additional work. Dragon Age II only let you play a human to reduce the workload because they absolutely did not have the time or the people available to get it working right. With Inquisition they had TOR money coming in so they could bring them back. Obsidian is having enough problems as it is making Avowed. Adding dwarves and orlans wouldn't make it a better game, in fact it would result in the exact opposite.Sounds like another excuse for incompetence.
This makes no sense. Dragon Age II has a playable dwarf character, Varric. They didn't let you pick a race for the protagonist because you were playing as the pre-defined character of Hawke and BioWare was under the delusion that they were crafting some deep personal drama.Dragon Age Origins let you play a dwarf and it caused a lot of additional work. Dragon Age II only let you play a human to reduce the workload because they absolutely did not have the time or the people available to get it working right. With Inquisition they had TOR money coming in so they could bring them back. Obsidian is having enough problems as it is making Avowed. Adding dwarves and orlans wouldn't make it a better game, in fact it would result in the exact opposite.Sounds like another excuse for incompetence.
Sure, but I don't see why it would be so hard to make a few changes to convey a character's height in first-person, like changing the FOV.It's not first person though.
Varric is not a PC. They have to alter pretty much every cinematic for the player character if the PC is a dwarf. Story decisions are downstream of resource-availability. The writers don't define the parameters of the game.This makes no sense. Dragon Age II has a playable dwarf character, Varric. They didn't let you pick a race for the protagonist because you were playing as the pre-defined character of Hawke and BioWare was under the delusion that they were crafting some deep personal drama.
Again, this makes no sense. You can control Varric directly in combat and he participates in cutscenes. So if they wanted to allow the player to play as a dwarf, they could just reuse his character model and animations. With a few exceptions, that's how all these games work, with the playable characters sharing the same character models and animations as the NPCs.Varric is not a PC. They have to alter pretty much every cinematic for the player character if the PC is a dwarf. Story decisions are downstream of resource-availability. The writers don't define the parameters of the game.This makes no sense. Dragon Age II has a playable dwarf character, Varric. They didn't let you pick a race for the protagonist because you were playing as the pre-defined character of Hawke and BioWare was under the delusion that they were crafting some deep personal drama.
Neverwinter Nights didn't have cinematics so height of the PC didn't matter.
From the PC's perspective it wouldn't work.Again, this makes no sense. You can control Varric directly in combat and he participates in cutscenes. So if they wanted to allow the player to play as a dwarf, they could just reuse his character model and animations.
We're talking about existing games, not mods. This just shows how nonsensical your whole argument is.Original Jade Empire had a fade-to-black instead of a lesbian kiss. They never made an animation for this scene. Someone modded it
What about the Kotor games? Wookies were bigger than human characters. T3-M4 and G0-T0 were smaller than even dwarves. There were lots of other droids and alien races of differing heights, all of which participated in cutscenes.Your example is from NWN2 which is a lousy game that shipped with a million problems. "We have to make cutscenes for player characters of radically different heights and builds" was likely a contributing factor.
Its the same for armor, in theory. In practice, the armor is just a tattoo on the character's chest, taking their shape and stretching as they do."We have to make cutscenes for player characters of radically different heights and builds" was likely a contributing factor.
But they didn't participate in hugging, or punching, or other specific animations. They just existed in the cutscenes, as furniture, and not as actors. I can't even recall if a wookie ever gets a hug, or grappled, or punched in that game.There were lots of other droids and alien races of differing heights, all of which participated in cutscenes.
Seems kinda hopeless to try to explain this to you since you just can't comprehend it. It takes extra work to make it look right. They have finite resources. They have to make choices early on figuring out what they can have and what they can't. This isn't Pillars of Eternity 3, it's Avowed, a spin-off. Similar to how Redguard was an Elder Scrolls spin-off that only allowed you play as a very specific Redguard character. It's an easy decision to make to avoid this particular workload so they can focus on things that are far more important when it comes to making a full-scale RPG from scratch.We're talking about existing games, not mods. This just shows how nonsensical your whole argument is.
What about the Kotor games? Wookies were bigger than human characters. T3-M4 and G0-T0 were smaller than even dwarves. There were lots of other droids and alien races of differing heights, all of which participated in cutscenes.
This is not true. There are multiple sections in Kotor 2 where you only play as T3-M4. In fact, T3-M4 is the first character you play as when the game starts.Why are you using kotor as an example when those games only let you play as a human character
That game was not an RPG, it was an action-adventure game. You almost always play as a pre-defined character in those games.Similar to how Redguard was an Elder Scrolls spin-off that only allowed you play as a very specific Redguard character.