'Ugly characters?' thread

From her appearance I'd consider josie rather plain.

Sara's face is ok to me when not in motion. It's the animations that twist her face into a hideous mess.

Scott looks a lot better, though. He's very handsome to me. They both have a boy/girl next door vibe which is fine by me. I liked that about Kaidan too. I thought Sara looked good (in an ordinary sort of way) in the wake-up scene. In the recent video I think she looks terrible.

Not too fond of Peebee's looks yet but too early to tell.

Unless Liam is super hot like Cullen and Cora looks like, say, Sera... I don't think it's a conspiracy. Yet.
I mean, as a straight woman I cannot say I was thrilled appearance-wise about those generous four choices presented to me: apart from ridiculously handsome Cullen, there was bald Nosferatu, an old dying man and a grotesque ox with a tiny head...
I wish I had played a male inquisitor so I could have romanced attractive Dorian or Cass who just needed different hair to look good. She has gorgeous eyes and I adore her personality.

That's what I said before .There are different people of different genders and sexual orientation that didn't necessarily like the options they had in Inquisition, not only straight men.

Inquisition was a mess regarding LIs imo. If I were a woman I'd go for Cullen. Out of women only Leliana was good and obviously she wasn't an option. Vivienne was very good character-wise imo and I'd be willing to overlook her looks in favor of pursuing her had she been an option, because of how terrible alternatives were, but alas it was not meant to be either. I ended up alone on both my male and female playthroughs (wanted to try Cullen as female, but as mentioned in another thread, it felt really weird to me and I had to stop it). I don't think it ever happened to me in any other RPG game with romance.

Playing as a female never feels weird to me, although it would probably change if I played female and was forced to romance a male. It would also depend on what level the romance would be. I played Venetica where you play as a female and are pretty much in love with a man, but he dies very early into the game and before "anything" (as in sex) happens so it didn't really bother me.

As for romancing Cullen it did feel really weird. I tried romancing Alistair in Origins before and had to stop and switched to Leliana because it felt really weird. Same in Inquisition, after few flirts I stopped because I just couldn't go on. I talked more about it in Cora's dedicated thread, page 6 I believe. Head on there if you want a more detailed, hm, review I guess.

True enough, if Cassandra was universally attractive we wouldn't have threads like this. I suppose I don't know, I thought it was usually based on looks (which can vary depending on culture, and where a person grew up). I didn't think you're a special snowflake, I was just going for a different strokes for different folks type of thing but did so poorly.

deadpool9 Avatar
Dec 5, 2016 11:47:18 GMT -7 deadpool9 said:
Tarkus No need to bring Jesus into this. If you believe, you should know better than to say that. If you don't believe, why are you saying that except to offend people who do believe? It's offensive speech on another level than our obviously inane debate over video game characters' attractiveness.

Typed it out of frustration at your post that I quoted, and you're right I'll be sure to type Jimmeny Cricket or just use one of those smilies next time.

I'm glad you agree. Honestly, with how few LIs there are in games there's really no point in making characters (at least romanceable ones) that will appeal to only minority, be it in looks or character. Character is also very important besides looks, because while looks will attract in the first place, it will be the character that will make people romance someone. I mean, sure, there will be people who are only interested in the sex scene and whatnot and will not care about character's personality, but once again it won't be majority. And when it comes to personalitites, there are also ones that majority find attractive. Look at KOTOR, it's a very old game. Bastilla's hairstyle is questionable at the very least and the game's graphics didn't age terribly well. Still she's very popular, probably the most popular LI from all Star Wars games. Just look at the amount of fanfiction with her (even femslash). Obviously looks don't come into play that much with her because her face is nowhere near realistic, yet she's still attractive to most men. That's because of how she acts, because of her personality, and the fact that despite unrealistic graphics she was still fairly attractive. Hell, we had BG, NWN where all you had about a character was a portrait (or in case of NWN a very blocky model, not unlike early Lara Croft), yet people still loved and romanced characters from those games. Times have obviously changed and as graphics got better and aspire to be realistic, you need to make characters attractive as well, but as long as character has good personality, people are satisfied if said character is just fairly attractive, she doesn't have to be top model. When your character neither looks nor acts attractively though, you're in a deep shit. You're also in also in a deep shit when your character is well written but her looks are widely considered not attractive at all. You're in a bit shallower shit if your character's personality isn't good but she looks attractive, because that's how the world works. All in all, you should always aspire to make your character universally attractive in regards to both personality and looks. There are lots of personalitites that most will find attractive, especially when they know it's a game. It's really not hard to come up with. Just look at which established characters are very popular and work from that. Looks are even easier to work with, there are lots of sources on what majority of men find attractive.

Of course all what I wrote is regarding potential LIs, not all characters.

She's too innocent and kinda in her world. I don't know how to explain it. She's like a Disney princess, her whole character and her romance is something 10 years old would enjoy rather than young men. As I said before, I've no doubt there were men who enjoyed her romance, but it definitely wouldn't be the majority. Ashley, Miranda, Leliana, Morrigan - strong (in traditional and not feminist sense) women are what attract the most. There are also other fairly universally attractive characters - as it was pointed out earlier, rougish mischievious young characters for one. "Unapproachable" noblewomen is another. Innocent, but with hidden second-self that's not so innocent, like Tali. Josephine takes traits from various types but her combination ends up being bland and unnatractive. It's hard to explain, but really, you can see she's not really popular, especially when compared to the characters I mentioned before and there's a reason for that.

I disagree, but you are entitled to your opinion. Most guys I know who played DAI loved her romance, many even more than the other ones you mentioned. Plus Josephine wasn't just written for men but women as well since she is available to both. Her romance definitely has inspiration from older kinds of love stories, but the fact those things have sold incredibly well, to men and women, shows it is not a small minority that enjoys them. After all they were popular enough to last for centuries and still be popular. Me personally she is my favorite romance in the history of Bioware games and I hope MEA and future games have more like her. 

Take any movie.
Take any comic.
Take any videogame.
You will find attractive men. Average men. Old men. Young men. Men with glasses. Muscle men. Skinny but pretty intelligent men. Gross men. A good-looking man who is the protagonist. Or maybe he looks like a normal guy but he is different, he has something special. Maybe he doesn't know that yet, but probably he will find out.
The same movie has a hot girl who is the love interest of the protagonist. Maybe there is another one who is average good looking. Maybe there is no more women in the movie because it's very distracting (they are defined by their sex and sex appeal rather than by a narrative purpose).

 Also, it's very funny you mention the "Strong Independent Woman, I don't Need a Man" as a feminist thing when feminist DESPISE that poor narrative (this maybe interests you: www.overthinkingit.com/2008/08/18/why-strong-female-characters-are-bad-for-women/ )

I clearly stated that I find Ryder attractive, me and other guys?  No, I don't find him attractive, and other hetero guys don't find him attractive.  We are straight, not gay or bi.  We can tell he's better looking for a guy than Sara is for a gal, though.  Um, I think I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that English isn't your first language, as opposed to you suggesting that I find him attractive as in you're implying that I'm gay.  I suggest that you never say a man is attracted to another man unless you're calling him gay.  If you do that, there are very specific consequences on this site for people who make slurs about someone's sexuality.

Otherwise, it's evident that there's a significant disparity in the level of physical appearance between the two Ryders.  I suppose if you want to think that Sara has been designed to be as goodlooking for a woman as Scott is for a man, then, hey, I'm not your optometrist.  You may proceed to say that up is down and down up, or that good is evil and evil good.  I won't stand in your way by arguing with you about it because it would be profitless.  Let's agree to disagree and leave it at that.