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Early in the BG3 beta the devs put out an article complaining that everyone was playing a white guy. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/28963

Early in the BG3 beta the devs put out an article complaining that everyone was playing a white guy. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/2896336186738209915 https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/2896336... Now if you are required to play as some character that looks like yourself to feel "represented" is that surprising? > Don’t forget to read the EULA ;) Perhaps the GOG release can run offline.

cassianoleal 3y ago
> Now if you are required to play as some character that looks like yourself to feel "represented" is that surprising? I'm not sure what that means. Isn't this an RPG? As in, Role Playing Game? You're supposed to play a role, not feel represented.
jncfhnb 3y ago
Imo it’s because the character creator is not so good. There’s very few face choices and each one feels real world ethnically specific. The fantasy species racial options are very jarring. The halflings and gnomes are goofy. Note that none of the provided characters are gnomes or halflings. You know ahead of time that you’re going to be wandering around with a group of largely classically attractive tall humanoids. The tieflings and Dragonborn look so jarring that it’s hard to imagine casually imagine picking them unless you specifically planned on it ahead of time. If your planned headcanon is to look like someone that people take somewhat seriously it feels like your respectable looking options are drow and human.
ziml77 3y ago
That is a bizarre misrepresentation of what they were saying. They're just surprised that people are making themselves a generic person instead of using some of the options that add more fantasy elements to the character. Though I'm not sure why that's surprising to them. If you look at WoW for example, the distribution of race selection was always heavily biased towards human (followed by the next closest to looking human, the various elves). I guess most people are looking to make their character a self-insert. I find that boring in a fantasy setting, but I'm not going to say people can't do as they please with their characters.
aceazzameen 3y ago
See, I don't mind the anonymous data being used to improve the game (mostly). It's what they take from the data and how they "improve the game" is where I get weary. My beef with analytics is I've worked at enough places where the data is used to min/max everything, which ultimately makes for a very bland product that loses its vision. Let's use Larian's post as an example. Most people are making a generic white guy. Other companies see that and say, okay then let's only invest resources in allowing players play as a generic white guy. It's wasteful to do otherwise because "the data says so." But then you get a souless product that looks like everything else. There's value in catering to the niches. It's more inclusive to the users who are looking for products with those niches (horns, tails, headphone jacks, whatever). But mostly having those niches makes it more appealing to everyone else, even if they won't interact with the niche, because now it stands out.

cassianoleal 3y ago

> Now if you are required to play as some character that looks like yourself to feel "represented" is that surprising? I'm not sure what that means. Isn't this an RPG? As in, Role Playing Game? You're supposed to play a role, not feel represented.

jncfhnb 3y ago

Imo it’s because the character creator is not so good. There’s very few face choices and each one feels real world ethnically specific. The fantasy species racial options are very jarring. The halflings and gnomes are goofy. Note that none of the provided characters are gnomes or halflings. You know ahead of time that you’re going to be wandering around with a group of largely classically attractive tall humanoids. The tieflings and Dragonborn look so jarring that it’s hard to imagine casually imagine picking them unless you specifically planned on it ahead of time. If your planned headcanon is to look like someone that people take somewhat seriously it feels like your respectable looking options are drow and human.

ziml77 3y ago

That is a bizarre misrepresentation of what they were saying. They're just surprised that people are making themselves a generic person instead of using some of the options that add more fantasy elements to the character. Though I'm not sure why that's surprising to them. If you look at WoW for example, the distribution of race selection was always heavily biased towards human (followed by the next closest to looking human, the various elves). I guess most people are looking to make their character a self-insert. I find that boring in a fantasy setting, but I'm not going to say people can't do as they please with their characters.

aceazzameen 3y ago

See, I don't mind the anonymous data being used to improve the game (mostly). It's what they take from the data and how they "improve the game" is where I get weary. My beef with analytics is I've worked at enough places where the data is used to min/max everything, which ultimately makes for a very bland product that loses its vision. Let's use Larian's post as an example. Most people are making a generic white guy. Other companies see that and say, okay then let's only invest resources in allowing players play as a generic white guy. It's wasteful to do otherwise because "the data says so." But then you get a souless product that looks like everything else. There's value in catering to the niches. It's more inclusive to the users who are looking for products with those niches (horns, tails, headphone jacks, whatever). But mostly having those niches makes it more appealing to everyone else, even if they won't interact with the niche, because now it stands out.