Both in game and in the art Elves are nearly indistinguishable from Humans

This is especially true when you're zoomed out as most people are during play.

I would suggest considering a change to make Elves more "elemental/colorful" so they can stand out a bit more...similar to Godlike from Pillars or Tiefling from D&D.

I'm not against a paler skin tone option for both , but I do think the game would benefit from some greens and blues to help distinguish Elves from the other races.

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Songcaller

The Armour in BDO has set models for set classes. Its not based on Race at all. You also can't use the armour models on all classes. Shai for example is excluded from the majority of armour models because Shai is really small compared to most classes. Of course, Shai has their own armour models though. It can be annoying when you play Shai and get the standard Cosmetic Rewards which exclude Shai though.

Edit: Shai could be classed as a Child Depiction though or a **** if you prefer, so the sexualised female cosmetics aren't really appropriate for Shai.

Dygz

Right.
So, the way armor works in Ashes, armor doesn’t stretch to fit any proportions.
So, there is a limit to how beefy and wide a Dünir can be, for instance.
I think what we currently see is that the Dünir base model is actually wider than some of the armor sets, so Dünir seem thinner when wearing some armor sets than they do without any armor.

Remember that Steven uses a lot of hyperbole. “As good or better than BDO” really means the goal is for the character creator to offer a lot of options. And he hopes people will like it as much as they like the BDO character creator.
I don’t think people will be able to make overly-exaggerated characters, primarily due to the constraints of the armor designs for each race.

Songcaller

Yeah, BDO itself doesn't allow for major adjustments, just fine tuned adjustments. You can make weird faces and weird proportions but not extreme proportions. You can change vertical, horizontal and depth parameters. You also risk clipping with a lot of the hairstyles but I digress. The beauty of BDO is you have access to the character creator at any time so if you want to change something you pop the consumable and make the changes. I don't think Ashes will use the latter system because its not very risk vs reward.

Ferni

@Dygz You're right, I don't think we can create half-elves and half-orcs either. What I was trying to say was that if the character creator offers many different options to modify the morphology of our character, you maybe could make an elf with small ears, not very pointy and with a body shape that looks similar to a human body.

Songcaller

Here is a BDO Example of an Elf I made:

The ears are the signature, please forgive the eyes. I love wonderful eyes.

Dygz

I meant that I don’t think Elves will be able to make Human-like ears and I don’t think Humans will be able to make Elf-like ears.

I think Humans will not be able to make pointy ears and Elf ears will be able to be larger than default Elf ears but not smaller.

Songcaller

Yeah, I understand what you mean. I'm not sure how IS will treat the Character Creation tools. In BDO you can morph the ears into many sizes. I'm not sure if IS will allow the same flexibility but if they aim for a similar character creator to BDO then the options might be similar. There are only two Elven Options in BDO but other than the ears they are very similar to humans. Ranger/Archer and Dark Knight can be Elves in BDO. Not a lot relates to the Races though which won't be the same in Ashes.

Edit: Spelling mistakes.

Dygz

I think the goal is for similar but the devs want to keep within racial ranges for Ashes lore.

But, maybe they won’t care about visual Half-Elves.
We’ll have to see.

Songcaller

Yeah, personally I'm not a fan of Half-Breeds or Half-Elves. I am a big fan of Elves in general though. I will prefer the heavier stance on the racial front in Ashes because I enjoy immersion. I feel the Node Functions, the cosmetic functions and the Racial Augments will enhance immersion for me.

Elloa

The Alpha Character creator is obviously a placeholder, and its not even certain than the silhouette (the squeletton) of the races currently in Alpha 1 is final.
So I would not worry too much guys.

However it may be a great thing to continue to post how in your ideal world you would envision the elves!! That would be constructive, as the character creator is still in development, you have a chance to influence the work with proper feedback

hiro

I think making their features more pronounced would aid in this issue. This also would come in more as the character creation system gets more flushed out. More pronounce ear tip and being able to make them larger or stick out more, making taller and sleeker body sizes would help. Also, making the Vaelune a bit more burley would also assist. Im not saying huge, just a bit more muscular or built.

Asgerr

Dygz wrote: »

I think we have only seen base models for Empyreans, so far.
Again, we will have to see what’s possible to achieve with sliders.

The issue I have with this is that I shouldn't have to work the sliders to make an elf look like an elf.

You should be able to play any preset of any race and be identifiable as being of that race.

Without armor, as things stand, it looks like humans and elves are nearly indistinguishable without zooming on their ears.

With armor on (and thus not seeing their skin color and facial features), it looks like maybe even Orcs might be hard to tell apart from humans and elves.

In this art, you could even be forgiven if you mistook the orc facing away from us as being an elf:

Throw a helmet on this one and they look like humans:

The same goes for all the concept art shared on Elves and Humans. And their in game rendition also accentuates that lack of visual identity.

Songcaller

I'm a massive fan of different shapes and patterns for the eye retinues. I think Elves don't need to have Human eye retinues. I would really appreciate options in the eye retinues for Elves in particular. I also appreciate a wealth of colours perhaps purple, orange, red and green. I love to take screenshots and I often inspect my female toons very close and personal hence the focus on eye retinues. I hope eye retinues aren't overlooked.

Percimes

Maezriel wrote: »

Races should be visually distinct and stand out from one another whether it be in height, build, or pigmentation and seeing as how Elves are the exact same height in build as humans and the Orcs aren't really a distinct color either I picked the attribute that made the most sense to change.

I disagree with your basic premise. There is no "need" to look different, especially for Elves. Although there are many iterations of Elves looking distinct from human, the classic elvish look is usually close to that of human. Tolkien's elves look barely different from human. For most of D&D's history elves and human looked quite similar.

Having some races looking alike at first glance is a good thing for the PvP side of thing. Racial augments being harder to guess, you can surprise an opponent by picking a race/class/armour/build combo that is not typical and maybe gain a little advantage in the fight. I personally did this in Dark Age of Camelot. My saracen mercenary looked like a scout (because it was the "best race" for that class) and attracted the enemy stealthers looking for an easy kill. Surprise, surprise! I'm in mail, got two swords and now you're dead.

If looking different and easily identifiable is important for you, be brave and roll a Tulnar!

Songcaller

If the racial crusades happen from the crusades thread I will be happy to appear a different race to my real race. Sometimes subterfuge keeps one alive. I haven't really played an Elf before which couldn't be mistaken as a Human at a glance. I'm not sure about Orcs looking like Humans but the thread isn't about Orcs really.

Dygz

Asgerr wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

I think we have only seen base models for Empyreans, so far.
Again, we will have to see what’s possible to achieve with sliders.

The issue I have with this is that I shouldn't have to work the sliders to make an elf look like an elf.

You should be able to play any preset of any race and be identifiable as being elf.

Not during an Alpha. Especially for races that are very similar to Humans.
You keep arguing like what a gamer should be able to play. But Alpha is not about what players should be able to play, Alpha is about testing.

This is similar to my expectation that I should be able to create a character that looks like me even as soon as access to Alpha begins.
If the Alpha has Humans, I should be able to create a character with African or Asian features...hopefully in addition to being able to create characters with European features.
I have this expectation because of Landmark.

Landmark was announced the summer of 2013. Alpha opened Feb 2014. I was pleasantly surprised to be able to create a character that looks fairly close to my irl appearance.
When H1Z1 Alpha launched in 2015, I was shocked to be stuck with only European characters...especially since the lead artist was Mat Broome, who is African American.
Mat told me that they start with a default model. When I asked why the default model always have to have European features, he didn’t answer.

Mat Broome also started as lead artist for Ashes characters and I was disappointed to once again see the default Human character(s) once again only having European features. It should be OK to sometimes have the default character be Asian or African rather than European.
I was hoping to interview Mat on The Ashen Forge, but seems Steven is the only one allowed to give interviews and Mat is no longer working at Intrepid Studios.

Ashes was originally supposed to launch in 2019, so I was surprised when APOC finally opened that I wasn’t able to create characters with African features - APOC was basically what they were hoping would be Alpha One, but they didn’t have enough mobs for that so they went with just using players for the test. But, if they were planning Alpha One for 2018, and a release in 2019, characters with African features should have been available.
More disappointing was jumping into APOC and seeing no traces of Dwarves or Orcs.
We could see statues of Humans and Elves but no statues of Dwarves or Orcs.
Which meant they had no models for Dwarves or Orcs yet. Thus it was easy to predict that Ashes would not be launching in 2019 and probably not releasing in 2020.
But they had only Humans and Elves because Elves are very similar to Humans compared to Dwarves and Orcs. Implementing Elves is quicker and easier to do than Dwarves and Orcs.
And Elves that look like Humans is quicker and easier to do than Elves that don’t look like Humans.
So you should expect an Alpha to have Elves that look like Humans.

Similarly, you should expect a team of EQ/EQ devs to start with Dwarves that look like EQ Dwarves because that’s what they know got to make. It’s going to be quickest and easiest for them to create Dwarves that look like EQ Dwarves so that’s what you should expect to see in an Alpha.

Similarly, if the lead artist is European, I would not be as surprised that the default Human has European features. Easiest to create what you know best. I expect an African-American to have enough experience creating African-American characters that they could quickly and easily create African characters as the default.

An Alpha is not developed for what gamers are going to want to PLAY during the Alpha.
An Alpha is about getting basic stuff in so that the devs are able to TEST.
For an Alpha, Elves don’t need to be quickly and easily distinguishable from Humans.
Especially since it is typical in D&D for Elves to be indistinguishable from Humans if they’re fully clothed and wearing helmets.
Because Elves looking similar to Humans in an ALPHA is not going to effect the TESTING.

Songcaller

Wood Elf could be seen as a Human if she wore a helm:

Wood Elves are often depicted by horns, green armour, leaf armour or distinctive nature armour rather than their ears:

Night Elves in WoW have purple skin and long, pointy ears. They would still be seen as Human in Full Plate Armour:

Night Elves wear distinctive armour much like the wood elves:

High Elves can also appear to be humans if they wore human armour. High Elf Armour is distinctive, much like Night Elves in WoW and Wood Elves in other IPs.

These High Elves could be mistaken for Humans if they wore helmets with their robes:

Dark Elves from Lineage 2 also have blueish/grey skin but could be mistaken for Humans in full plate armour.

lineage_ii__dark_elves__female_p_2__by_sinto_risky_dectg0w-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9NjQwIiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvYzk2YjhmN2UtY2U0NC00ZGQ3LWJmNDYtOTExM2FlZTIyN2Y4XC9kZWN0ZzB3LWI3ZjhlNWFjLTJhYmMtNDk5OC05ZjZmLTljZTc1ODg0MzdmYi5qcGciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTAyNCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.FrioxejpIHQeXj0nTJYQ19jo9fEx6MMnofPojhTjnvY

Dark Elves also have distinctive armour, much like Wood Elves, High Elves and Night Elves:

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRwyDgqqTOhIwMxj3nYmKtL0R7YTJcav6hoxg&usqp=CAU

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRwyDgqqTOhIwMxj3nYmKtL0R7YTJcav6hoxg&usqp=CAU

In most IPs, Elves are proportioned like Humans and could be mistaken for Humans if the Elf wanted to appear like a Human. Elves have great pride however, and dress like individuals when they choose to show their heritage. I believe Ashes has the right idea behind the flavours. In reality, Ashes only has Wood Elves (Py-Rai) and High Elves (Empyrean) and both of these races will have personal architecture, personal Lore and personal Armour Styles.

If you want to buy Generic Cosmetics which can fit all races, then you will appear like other races. If you want to be individualised or a match for your kinsfolk then you should aim for Racial Transmogs and Racial Armours/Appearances.

Edit: Spelling mistakes.

RocketFarmer

For elves are they benevolent or are they as varied and corruptible as humans? Such things can be brought about in their features which makes an evil handsome/pretty elf more despicable due to preconceived notions based on appearance. Happens in the human world all the time.

Elves have had a pretty broad interpretation. Some taller than the average human, some much smaller. They are the Others in the wood. The stranger your mother tells you to beware of. Some will like human only to be betrayed by a feature or two. Pointed ears, not necessarily large. Odd eyes in terms of shape, color or iris. A beauty that doesn’t look right by human standards.

And what should the feel be? It ranges from Santa’s elves to a Lovecraft style horror (especially when you dig into some of the older stories).

For physique, they tend to generally be thinner than the average human but not weaker and are much more agile

For the races in general, I would hope they have the full range of human variation. Likewise having the same degree of diversity in the other races would be a good thing. That said, I think you need an economic system for the extreme ends of the spectrum otherwise you are going to see a lot of 7 foot or 4 foot humans. Does size affect stats or combat mechanics? Perhaps the type of variation is dependent on your starting biome?

Provide players with options to make decisions that may have consequences. Isn’t that the real theme of this game?

Asgerr

Dygz wrote: »

Asgerr wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

I think we have only seen base models for Empyreans, so far.
Again, we will have to see what’s possible to achieve with sliders.

The issue I have with this is that I shouldn't have to work the sliders to make an elf look like an elf.

You should be able to play any preset of any race and be identifiable as being elf.

Not during an Alpha. Especially for races that are very similar to Humans.
You keep arguing like what a gamer should be able to play. But Alpha is not about what players should be able to play, Alpha is about testing.

@Dygz FFS, at what point of this conversation have I or anyone said anything about this needing to be done for the Alpha???

Seriously man, you're being ridiculous.

Everyone here understands that these issues -- and possible requested changes -- are meant to be for whenever the game launches. If the feedback provided prompts Intrepid to enact any changes, they could be implemented as late as Beta-2.

Songcaller

I would argue every Elven Player will be different because every Elven Player will be Human. Therefore, you have all the nuances of Humanity within The Elven Players. Should Elves reflect the Human's Preferences? Yes they should. There are tall humans, thin humans, small humans, plump humans and ripped humans. There will of course be the same for Elves. There is no set parameter to state Elves can't look like Humans, and no set parameter to say Humans can't wear Elven Armour.

There are however, distinct differences between Santa's Elves, High Elves, Dark Elves, Wood Elves and Night Elves. Much the same as there are differences between High Elves, Dark Elves, Wood Elves and Night Elves. For a start each would worship a different Deity and each have different preferences. Can all this be accommodated from simple appearance? No, it can't be. Can you mould an Elven Character into a feasible pigeon hole? Yes, you could.

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