New Archetypes
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Don't be afraid to create new archetypes as you did in the beginning with the game.
We're not. All in good time. Trust me.
With how active these females are I would hope they have killer bodies.
Activity and killer bodies however doesn't mean they have to be all the same primary archetype. Right now we run the gamut of a pretty conservative slice from athletic, voluptuous, and heroic. There's a lot of in-betweens, but even those three landmarks don't address barbaric/hulky/hefty body types or even spindly/gaunt/spidery stylizations. My opinion is that whatever the character demands to communicate it's story is what we will use to do so. Different body types included.
Hard to trust you when all the past body shape have been the same.
You guys even had to change a skin because a skin and a new champion looked too similar... I don't even..
All the most reason to diversify the types of bodies we use for females.
You can't blame us for not trusting you. You guys released Diana who, was covered in armor, and wasn't overly exposed. Then you guys made her release skin, which was the typical over exposed fantasy armor bs. Worse, you guys destroyed the skin later. If you wanted us to trust you, you woud have made her release skin just as amazing as her default skin. You know classy and not trashy.
The launch skin and the surrounding issues were beyond my control.
Beyond your control, but that doesn't change the people's feelings towards the Riot staff that areinvolved with this issue.
I realize and sympathize with the frustration.The changes are not ideal to me either, however at this time I'm not really comfortable communicating the extent of my feelings or any additional context. If you care to place blame on someone, by all means, direct it towards me.
I like what they're doing with Borderlands 2, a lot. I REALLY like the mechromancer character. Actually, one stylistic take I'd like to mess around with would be the sort of Tank Girl type body. Punky, thin, spindly. Similar to the character treatments of The Gorilla's work. There's some interested space to play there.
Will I ever discount more filled out shapes to females? Nope. Do I see a place for someone like Borderlands 2's Ellie? Not right at the moment, but there's space to play. An awesome space that this shape plays in is someone like Ursula from The Little Mermaid. Disney actually has some of the best treatments of body type variety in all of entertainment history, from evil queens to grotesque villains to stunning princesses. They manage to pull it off with grace. Disney is actually one of my primary inspirations. Pixar as well. They manage to stylize all their body types in a "beautiful" way, even body types we may consider as unconventional for games/entertainment.
That said, the slice of players that're interested in characters that are not supermodel builds might be a smaller percentage of our audience. However, if we make a compelling character, that's what the important part is. The character as a whole is identifiable because of a holistic treatment to art, design and story. We can and will make it work.
Another space I'd like to play stylistically is the 40's/30's type of treatment to characters along the lines of the Batman animated series. There's also an artist who I love who goes by Cheeks, Sean Galloway. His style is so very interesting to me and I feel plays with stylization so uniquely. Thick to thins in terms of proportions and anatomy are great ways to push away from the standard female form. That's a direction I'd also like to pursue.
Personally I'm not terribly interested in the old hag champion idea, but that's not to say that it shouldn't or wouldn't be done. It just has to be the right character. I probably wouldn't be up to designing it because that's not where my strengths lie. In terms of females I tend to find my comfort zone in the statuesque, amazonian, heroic ladies, ala Leona, Diana, Vayne, etc. Yes, they have pretty standard builds, but that's just my little niche. That's where I find inspiration and I find the most space to convey powerful women. We have a lot more artists here more capable than I to create something more off the beaten path.
I think we will see more variety further down the line. Much like we sort of hit "Dudepocalypse" with Darius, Draven, Jayce, etc, we're hitting "Babesplosion" with Zyra, Diana, Syndra, etc. That over-consistency is probably more a symptom of the slotting process and the greater pipeline. I feel that if those champions were spaced out along with more variety that we'd avoid overlaps.
Overlaps GREATLY concern me. I'm convinced that we as designers can be much smarter and much more clever. I feel that recently it's been more of an issue with timing than anything else. The pendulum will swing, we just want to find a balance in the future, that's become a bit of a tricky thing as pipeline evolves. I have my affinities for particular female champions, but I'm as guilty as the next guy of having a pretty standard female with my name on it in the lineup.
If you guys have suggestions, and I know I've seen some, I'd love to get more takes on female variety. I've seen a lot of "hag" stuff, I know what that looks like. I'm more interested in stylization in visual treatment along the lines of the artists and styles I've mentioned. That to me is what counts. I'm more about how we execute than what we execute on. I want to do a ton of different treatments because the treatments are where we can play. We can put a number of different faces on the same archetype.
On the issue of women specifically, I would definitely love to see more branching into the "neutral gender" being feminite, and it already gives one of the best examples: Anivia. Even though I know the issue of "Monster Champions" has been discussed before, she's a prime example that a "monster" doesn't have to look monstrous. Similarly, other characters can have the same opportunity because you guys have wiggle room on non-humans. Rengar for example, would be just as believable as a female, even with the same build, simply because he's not human: for all we know, in his species females could look exactly like him. Personally, I think this would be a nice interim step by taking what could easily be gender-neutral characters and defining them as female instead of "it has to be a guy because they are tough and kick ass"
I like your suggestions and notions a lot. I also think we definably have room to play with gender neutral, or some hybridization. This can definitely play into more etherial and otherworldly characters from the Void as has been suggested. I kinda like the idea of something like the aliens from The Abyss as a good example of feminine type construction and blurring the line of gender, if there's even any present.
I know the old hag archetype isn't really your thing, but when you say old hag, I kind of get the image of a doddering, toothless old lady with baggy robes and a wart on her chin. I wonder if 'old lady' couldn't be done from a more compelling angle - when I think of an older female champion, I kind of get a Maleficent-ish feel. An icy queen sort image. Less of the cheesy over-the-top BUAHAHAHA stuff that we're seeing in Zyra or Syndra and more of a dignified, calculated, regal image. Lawful evil rather than stupid evil - a deceptively charming, snake-in-the-grass sort of personality. Kind of borders on Swain/LeBlanc territory, maybe...
One word. Yes.
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League Of Legends Part XII
