All the dwarves in DA have American accents.
Pillars of Eternity by Obsidian Entertainment (Kickstarter) [Up: Teaser]
- Thread starter duckroll
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All the dwarves in DA have American accents.
Joseph Merrick
Member
damn. fuck. wake me up when the game is out and the third expansion is about to come out. they're saying all the right things so far :O~
arglebargle
Member
endure. in enduring, grow strong.
I actually always hated when worlds portrayed female dwarves like that. I liked to play sexy female dwarves in D&D, just because.
jim-jam bongs
Member
so exactly how many terabytes is your midget porn stash?
EndcatOmega
Unconfirmed Member
There cannot be two skies!
Oh god, you just reminded me of one of the conversations you'd hear if you were playing a female Warden in a relationship with Alistair.
23.
In seriousness though, I love playing dwarves in general, because they are so one dimensional practically any diviation makes your character seem extra cool. Like my beardless pirate dwarf back in my AD&D days, my whole group thought he was great just because I decided he shaved off his beard.
Back on topic, I like that Obsidian has taken this route with female dwarves because it allows for more options and make dwarves a little less boring.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Oghren is best in life.
jim-jam bongs
Member
impressive.
but I actually agree, dorfs can be pretty great. my main throughout all of vanilla wow was a dorf with a taste for firearms and explosives.
Short races are awesome. Except gnomes, they just suck, man.
BlueSummers
Member
Which is of course ridiculous.
Yeah, I just find these type of games are so horribly balanced, it would make sense if they simply designed the game/combat for a particular party size and if you go with less and keep dying, tough shit. Maybe have mercenary characters that you can hire.
It's pretty clear from past games and the way they've talked about this game that it'll be balanced for a 6 characters party.
So it'll probably like BG2, only for the most hardcore players who also don't care about fun or something. Honestly, I could never understand people who play those type of game solo.
I really like today's update. That's the kind of information I was looking forward to.
I think I came off as too harsh earlier, so my apologies. I guess all I was trying to say was that reputation got them the initial funding, but they will have to work hard and show some interesting design concepts to reach further goals.
The main thing I'm interested in is just seeing how they plan to make this RPG different or better than its predecessors. I never meant to imply I didn't have faith in the team. I was just surprised that they weren't prepared for this level of support. I realize you don't want to show all your cards at once, but if they haven't done much pre-production work I hope they're forthright about what they're planning, as today's update showed. For example, I think Fargo did a great job of conveying his game concept, explaining how he wanted to set up the game world, etc.
I figure that by the end of the campaign we might get something similar to the Wasteland 2 "Vision Document" that was sent out in that campaign (or was it after the W2 funding ended?).
I think I came off as too harsh earlier, so my apologies. I guess all I was trying to say was that reputation got them the initial funding, but they will have to work hard and show some interesting design concepts to reach further goals.
The main thing I'm interested in is just seeing how they plan to make this RPG different or better than its predecessors. I never meant to imply I didn't have faith in the team. I was just surprised that they weren't prepared for this level of support. I realize you don't want to show all your cards at once, but if they haven't done much pre-production work I hope they're forthright about what they're planning, as today's update showed. For example, I think Fargo did a great job of conveying his game concept, explaining how he wanted to set up the game world, etc.
I figure that by the end of the campaign we might get something similar to the Wasteland 2 "Vision Document" that was sent out in that campaign (or was it after the W2 funding ended?).
Yeah, they may allow a custom party of no-names.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Sorry, for what platform is this? PC only?
Windows, OSX, Linux
Windows only right now. Mac and Linux are strech goals. I think Mac is at 1.6m and Linux is at 2.2m.
Count of Monte Sawed-Off
un33dab@dpu$$y
Yeah, PC only.
6 party members is fucking awesome.
Dwarves and elves I can do without but I trust Obsidian to make them better than Bioware.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
But...thats kind of what elves and dwarves are. Short people and forest people, created for a specific property (LOTR), used in another highly successful heavily derivative property (D&D) and frequently used after that in other derivative works. I've played great fantasy games with all new races. I don't really like the world-building aspect of having elves and dwarves if this game doesn't tie into the D&D cosmology. Which it might, we'll see I guess
Come again?
In Dark Sun, elves are feasome desert-living marauders that kill and steal without remorse, halflings are jungle dwelling cannibals and dwarves are completly hairless and stoic to zen-like levels.
Now, it's a D&D setting, but it could just as well not be. All of the above is cool because these creatures are called elves, dwarves and halflings, because you understand they are invoking a certain image and then playing with it (in Dark Sun's case, it's what would've happened if a regular D&D world would have turned into a hell on earth.)
Just like in Shadowrun the mere presence of these creatures is cool and interesting because of the modern day setting.
I don't know how Obsidian is planning to use these races, and even if on the grand scale the race remain unchanged (elves are forest guys and dwarves are caves guys) maybe they're doing it to do something interesting with specific character - Like in BG2, where they used the character race and what you expect of it to great length (Mazzy is the most straight forward example.)
By using played and worn races and elements, they have more information in your mind to play with.
jim-jam bongs
Member
trouble brewing.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Unless we're going to expand the definitions back pre-Tolkien to European mythology, but I somehow doubt that's what they have in mind. "Forest people" was probably the wrong way to put it but I'm seriously interested in asking you guys then: what defines an "elf" and what defines a "dwarf"?
See, why on earth are those called elves, dwarves and halflings? Those would be much more interesting to me if they didn't have the previous cultural baggage attached to their names.
jim-jam bongs
Member
magic and technology, respectively.
I'm having a hard time even imagining playing a solo character in a game like BG2. Well for me at least, my character was a pure mage (made the most sense for me given the Candlekeep origins). If I had to play that solo, I think I'd be stuck flinging Melf's Minute Meteors at Adamantium Golems (with immunity to a lot of magic and weapons without very high enchantment levels) while kiting for at least half an hour :\
Everything sounds perfect (I don't mind elves and dwarves, though something completely bizarre would've been great). If they're not using Onyx, maybe Unity and share resources with InXile? It'd be pretty sweet if they built the "Eternity Engine" and brought upon a new age of role playing awesomeness...
What defines a "fairy" and what defines an "orc"? These are all fantasy elements derived from age old mythology from various cultures and legends. Fantasy is fantasy. Saying that dwarves and elves were created for LotR makes you look ignorant and dumb. Fact.
Technomancer is right. The old mythological elves and dwarves are hardly relevant. The image of these races as usually presented started with LotR and further solidified in D&D. He was wrong in assuming people always use them the same way.
Right here is where you're wrong. If they were just desribed as short people who are cannibals they wouldn't be interesting at all - Once you say they're halflings cannibals? "WTF I have to read this!". They are called that because that's what they are, Dark Sun used to be a regular ol' fantasy world before magic fucked it up, so they wanted to invoke these cultural baggage so that you'll see what could happen to the marry fantasy world once it gets fucked up.
Not to mention you'll be missing some 20-30% of content and 50-60% of the fun.
I don't see how they're not relevant. Are you saying that the modern fantasy depiction of dwarves in LotR and D&D are somehow extremely different from how they were depicted in the Ring Cycle? That predates LotR significantly. Seriously...
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
In the vast majority of their contemporary portrayals in RPG games? Yes, they are very clearly descended from their D&D contemporaries, who inarguably were inspired by Tolkien. Which is fine in games set in the D&D cosmology.
I'm the exact opposite. Give them a new name. At this point having a race called dwarves feels like having a group who worship a god named Zeus.
Saint10118
Member
Is this from Radiata Stories??!?!
No, it's from Lord of the Rings lol.
They are somewhat relevant, because they inspired the contemporary elves and dwarves - But please, most elements that characterize those races, from culture to looks, has been set by LotR and D&D. The old elves have almost nothing to do with the current pointy-eared elegant elves, for example.
Really? All you need is for them to be called Bufas and you're good? What does that give? It makes them boring, just another crazy fantasy race. If you call them elves but make them murdering bandits? Now you're on to something, you're invoking the elf only to have you imagine how he must survive when all the forests of the world died. It's all about expectations and subversions. But guess we'll agree to disagree here.
Saint10118
Member
Egg on my face! The more you know /comet
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I guess we will. Magic: the Gathering introduced a race a few years back that are basically halflings, only they're called Kithkin and they have low level telepathy and live in communes, and I fucking loved it.
In the Ring Cycle, the dwarves are a short race enslaved by one of their own, Alberich, who forged the great ring. His brother Mime is a great smith who forges the various magical equipment in the story.
My God! That sounds NOTHING like the characterization and culture of dwarves in LotR and D&D!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
So I'm not fully up on my history. In terms of cultural influence I stand by my point. You don't have to be the first person with an idea to be the person who causes everyone to notice it.
Nameless One
Banned
both of you have a point
meaning, i believe they should take the cliche races and put such twists on them
but also include new races with unique characteristics that we rarely or ever see.
win win
Amazing how few people know the source of that quote... and yeah, LOTR pretty much is the direct inspiration for most modern conceptions of races like elves and dwarves, even though it's certainly not the first to use them. With elves particularly he did a hell of a lot more fleshing out than anyone else had that I know of. IIRC he did basically invent orcs, though I think they were based on a German mythological race. I think it's pretty hard to overstate the shadow LOTR casts on most fantasy tropes, even now.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
both of you have a point
meaning, i believe they should take the cliche races and put such twists on them
but also include new races with unique characteristics that we rarely or ever see.
win win
It just feels....so....specific, so tied to known cultural associations, uhhh, I really don't know how else to put it. Words frame how we think about things. Even if they're completely creative elves, like desert bandits or whatever then they're going to have the associations in our minds to previous properties and that's not what I personally want. That's all I can say.
No, your point was that Tolkien "created" the races. Your words, not mine. That is ignorant and wrong.