Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Friday, March 12, 2004 - 1:36 CET by chevalier

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

David Gaider, Designer

Character Portraits & Models:

Quote: Potential portraits for future game editions (DnD or whatever) may simply involve a headshot picture of my specific character, as already appears in the character construction menu; not a specific picture painted by an artist, but rather a simple computerized reproduction of my Human Female with Head 03, medium phenotype (or whatever), with appropriate skin and hair tones.

I would tend to agree. Having portraits that match your in-game avatar would be ideal... and considering that the in-game avatar is likely to get more and more detailed and lifelike as polygon counts go up, that's probably a good thing.

Quote: One may conversely argue "what's the difference between the twelve-odd "white" skin tones? one is mid-light-light-white versus mid-light-light-light-white

I suppose that's fair.

Quote: Not merely a non-priority, but a non-issue as well? Are you then saying that darker skin tones in the game are minutae? again, you may personally see this as inconsequential from a design standpoint, but i gather BioWare's human resources department may not.

That's just the thing. This is not a human resources issue (and by that I assume you meant public relations), it is an art issue and a question of our time and resource allocation. You are implying that I am disregarding the importance of a certain segment of our customer base, but I'm not... it is not as if black skin tones are not represented in the palette, we are talking about a particular hue of brown not being in the skin palette. We made an effort to include as many colors as we could in the GUI to provide for a wide range of options of customization (reds and greens and blues, too, remember); yes, there could be more... but there can always be more. All I'm saying is that "fair racial representation" is not a consideration in the matter.

As Shadowhawk mentions above: the look of elves, how cool your monk moves, what kinds of creatures you can make... these are the issues that take precedence in our minds. Should it be otherwise? It's debateable, obviously. What I am calling minutiae is the process of color selection versus other considerations... there are so many other important considerations that getting hung up on this non-issue due to the perception of controversy would be a mistake. That's all.

Quote: Completely ignoring black customers has in no way been implied; this is perhaps simply an over-statement itself. Rather, an imbalance between lighter and darker skin tones may merely have been referenced.

That's just the thing, you can't have it both ways. Some people in this thread are agreeing but not agreeing... you can't say it's just a hue missing from the palette and imply that it's lack is not representative of a group of people. That's politicizing an issue that isn't one. I do believe that we are very fair overall, even if that isn't the point. Maybe I should have just stuck with the "thanks for the input".

Georg Zoeller, Designer

BioWare plans: While we won't comment about unannounced future projects, it is pretty safe to say that we are certainly not leaving the rpg market for a while. Same is true for the PC market.