» Thu Mar 04, 2010 12:05 pm Ugh NO.
I get so tired of the "animal races must be tribal barbarians" nonsense that pops up in so many fantasy settings. Please no, that's so overdone it's sickening to me. The same goes for Orcs. I get so tired of the same tired clichés and I'm glad TES doesn't fall into this trap. It's almost racist design, suggesting you can't be more than your race. I can't express how much I hate that kind of design. I have this reaction to "this race should look more angry too," what as if the race is angry all the time all day long? Sure if they look more bestial when angry that makes sense, but please no cookie cutter permanent scowls. That doesn't even make sense, especially for the beast races, as if animals are never content, happy, or affectionate. Cats for example have far more body language than simply angry. Oblivion actually does this pretty well with Khajiit ears in the personality minigame. They are animals so they must be primitive... with anger! No thanks. I know you did not say that about the beast races, but it's a very common thing to see and I'm not fond of it. I'm very happy TES shies away from that kind of thing.
I don't mind how the races look in Oblivion, but I wouldn't mind some more individuality. None of this extreme cliché every member of a race is a cookie cutter carbon copy of a walking stereotype though, please. For the Khajiit and Argonians I'd like something mostly like Oblivion but with individualized hands/feet, rather than spray painted human hands/feet. That oft posted Argonian concept image looks good in my opinion, even though it's not detailed.
I'm really looking forward to see what they did with the races this time.
I get so tired of the "animal races must be tribal barbarians" nonsense that pops up in so many fantasy settings. Please no, that's so overdone it's sickening to me. The same goes for Orcs. I get so tired of the same tired clichés and I'm glad TES doesn't fall into this trap. It's almost racist design, suggesting you can't be more than your race. I can't express how much I hate that kind of design. I have this reaction to "this race should look more angry too," what as if the race is angry all the time all day long? Sure if they look more bestial when angry that makes sense, but please no cookie cutter permanent scowls. That doesn't even make sense, especially for the beast races, as if animals are never content, happy, or affectionate. Cats for example have far more body language than simply angry. Oblivion actually does this pretty well with Khajiit ears in the personality minigame. They are animals so they must be primitive... with anger! No thanks. I know you did not say that about the beast races, but it's a very common thing to see and I'm not fond of it. I'm very happy TES shies away from that kind of thing.
I don't mind how the races look in Oblivion, but I wouldn't mind some more individuality. None of this extreme cliché every member of a race is a cookie cutter carbon copy of a walking stereotype though, please. For the Khajiit and Argonians I'd like something mostly like Oblivion but with individualized hands/feet, rather than spray painted human hands/feet. That oft posted Argonian concept image looks good in my opinion, even though it's not detailed.
I'm really looking forward to see what they did with the races this time.
I agree with everything you said.
In TES it's also a good thing that the races aren't categorized as Good, Neutral, and Evil races. I personally don't like how lizardmen are always evil in most fantasy settings.
