The Serpent Isle Remake: More Fawn Screenshots!
In a pair of updates to his Serpent Isle remake’s project website, Thepal showed off a new screenshot of Lady Yelinda, followed by a handful of screenshots of other NPCs from the City of Beauty, as well as a couple of pictures of the city itself.
Like, for example, Kylista here:
[singlepic id=878 w=500 h=281 float=center]
Kylista
He’s making phenomenal progress, isn’t he? Or, like the man himself tweeted: “Just read my About page: “Don’t expect me to say ‘I created Fawn today'”. News 20.2.11: “I created Fawn today… Here’s a screeny”.
Something I liked about the Fawn in SI is that, despite the city’s reputation, the inhabitants were not actually a bunch of beautiful people. They all seemed well-groomed and made up, but they looked like everyday people.
I’m afraid a modern game almost certainly have turned all three of the cities into Cities of Hats.
I agree that I did like that not all of them were beautiful too (and you’ll find that not everyone in the city is “beautiful”. Well-groomed, yes. But not beautiful). But my problem is that the original faces didn’t really match the dialogue.
“Lady Yelinda, honor to her, is the ruler of Fawn. She is the most beautiful woman in the city, the very embodiment of Beauty.”
“Lady Yelinda rules Fawn, assisted by Joth, Voldin and myself. Many say she is the most beautiful woman in the city. Others, like Zulith, say Kylista is more beautiful.”
“Lady Yelinda is the most beautiful woman in the city.”
“Kylista is the worst example of this pernicious doctrine of Beauty… She believes that her attractiveness marks her as superior to all others, and that her sensuality is a divine gift by which to influence men’s minds.”
Those two need to be beautiful. It makes the city make more sense. They’ve even got different types of “beauty”. As my wife put it, one kinda looks like the Prom Queen, while the other has a different sort of beauty. I thought it was a good idea to have them look different like that as people in town disagree over who is the “most beautiful”.
Some others will also be quite attractive. I have Jorvin being attractive (he probably needs a little more work) since he is in a relationship with Yelinda (and as the leader of the shallow people, she would probably have the most attractive guy in town). Voldin won’t be particularly attractive (he won’t be ugly either), but will dress the part.
If you wander through Monitor in the demo, you’ll see that not everyone is attractive (in fact… most in Monitor aren’t). I’m trying to keep most people looking as much like their Serpent Isle counterparts as possible, only changing them when it doesn’t seem to fit with the story/dialogue.
Looking good, Thepal! I haven’t been following Oblivion modding too closely for a while now, but how did you manage the see-through windows? I assume there are no “interior” worlds but everything is in an exterior?
The Monitor windows I made were in an interior acting as an exterior. I basically had to copy everything in the exterior of Monitor and put it the interior, then create “ground” meshes to put everywhere for the actual landmass (this drove me insane, as I needed to rotate/resize meshes to create the hills and such, and took me most of the day). Once one town is done, I can simply copy the entire “interior exterior” into the other interior cells and position it which takes a few seconds instead of hours.
I haven’t mass-produced it yet for every house, as I’m waiting for everything to be done first (for example, I’ve added a crane for Andral’s studio since then which would have needed to be added to dozens of interiors if they were already made).
Now that I have moved on to Fawn, I’m thinking I might end up making the interiors actual exteriors, as the lighting and water looks better if I do that. The only issue is that walls don’t block the sunlight (so even if you’re standing next to a wall, half your body will be lit up like it is in direct line-of-sight with the sun). But it seems to be the best option.
Eventually I plan on creating a “rain” mesh that I can put outside the windows so it looks like it is raining when it is raining outside. But that is something I’ll leave until after everything else is done.
Ahah! Found a link for Planet of Hats that works where I am.
Don’t worry about everyone looking the same. One of the things I’m putting huge amounts of effort into is making characters actually have character. If you see someone from across the town, you should recognise who they are. And up close, they should all look different.
Mostly based off of the original game, I’m adding different hair styles, face textures, mustaches, beards, eye patches, tattoos, clothing, armor, etc, etc, for the NPCs. Yelinda for example has a unique hair style, face texture, dress, necklace, tiara, shoes…
The only thing that you’ll find lacking is NPCs with a different skin colour. I can only work with what the original gives me.
Monitor: Shmed.
Fawn: Hmm…. Well, there is Scots outside town… Is it bad that the only black man is exiled from town?
Moonshade: Um… er… um… Ah! There’s the Magister!
And then there is Brunt, Batlin’s companion.
In order to try to add a bit more colour (as two of the three black people in game are evil) I’ve been adding Pikemen and Fawn guards of various skin tones.
Didn’t Delphynia in Fawn have dark skin? Or am I remembering it completely wrong?
Here…why not consult the definitive list?
http://codex.ultimaaiera.com/wiki/Category:Serpent_Isle_Portraits
Every portrait from Serpent Isle. Look ’em over and see for yourself.
Here’s the NPCs that, to me at least, appear to be non-Caucasian:
http://codex.ultimaaiera.com/wiki/Brunt (bad, dies)
http://codex.ultimaaiera.com/wiki/Delphynia (good, dies)
http://codex.ultimaaiera.com/wiki/Fedabiblio (good, lives)
http://codex.ultimaaiera.com/wiki/Karnax (good, lives)
http://codex.ultimaaiera.com/wiki/Scots (good, dies)
http://codex.ultimaaiera.com/wiki/Shmed (bad, dies)
It would be fair to say, I suppose, that non-Caucasian characters in Serpent Isle tend to end up dead, but it doesn’t seem fair to say that the majority of non-Caucasians in the game are evil. Indeed, the vast majority of them are NOT henchmen — directly or indirectly — of Batlin.
Simply wonderful!!! Thumbs up, Thepal!!!
After having seen the screenshots, I couldn’t leave here without quoting:
“I saw a green slime by the water recently. Disgusting creatures. I hope to not see another.”
Huh… Delphynia and Karnax are black :p I must have just thought they had tans when I’ve played through it. (yes, I’m serious)
Luckily I haven’t done either of their faces yet :p
Please note – beauty is a very subjective thing. Just because you or I find someone attractive or ugly, doesnt mean others will agree.
And fair warning: if I see people in waify skimpy medival dress, with DD breasts, I wont be playing it. Thats a huge turn off for me in games.
Beauty is partially subjective, in that there has to be some allowance for variance in tastes. But for the most part, I tend to look on the idea of “subjective beauty” as being the result of cultural conditioning more than anything else.
Among men at least[1], most will agree with pretty surprising uniformity how individual women “rank” in a hierarchy of beauty. We could test this theory, I suppose, if I were to post a series of pictures with accompanying polls inviting the user to rank the subject of each photo on a scale of beauty from 1 to 10. It wouldn’t exactly be scientific, but it would be something.
But some other blogger did that already, and also noted the results of the survey. The results were, indeed, pretty uniform.
This has some basis in biological reality: we know that the 0.7 waist-hip ratio in women is a strong indicator of reproductive fitness, and certainly the part of our perception of beauty that originates in the “animal instinct” would take note of such things.
All of which is to say that if in fact you and I do agree on whether or not a particular woman is pretty, this is actually a decently accurate indicator of whether a plurality of men will find her to be pretty as well.
[1] Among women, we could expect a similar overall result, namely that women would agree with some uniformity how individual men rank in a hierarchy of handsome. The results would be partially skewed, however, by the fact that women’s perceptions are more strongly affected by their perception of a man’s strength of personality (among other things). That is to say: a less physically attractive man with a strong, forceful, outgoing personality might rank higher than a handsome but mild-manner gentleman.
Whoa, linking to Roissy’s blog? I’ll never think of you in the same way again, WtF. 😉
Ah, you know the site! Well, well! 😉
I read all sorts of blogs, Infinitron. My iPhone’s RSS reader pulls from upward of 300 sites.
But my problem is that the original faces didn’t really match the dialogue.
Well, it’s all relative. The most beautiful woman in the city isn’t necessarily all that beautiful.
My impression of Kylista was that she was a major hottie, 15 or 20 years before the events of the game. We all know the type.
@Wizard
Why spoil the fun? Bring on the waify dresses and improbable cup sizes!
It kind of reminds me of an argument I came across while lurking about in the Mount & Blade forums. There were people who wanted the game to stick to realism and have the chicks wear the same armor as the dudes, and then there were some people who wanted special “Xena” style gear for the ladies.
I’m in the latter camp. It may be a bit cheesy, but it is all in good fun.
As to the subjective beauty discussion, I read an article in the WSJ recently-ish about a study done that found out what women from all different parts of the world found attractive in the faces of men.
The crux of the findings were that women from “healthier” nations (like Sweden and Denmark) prefer feminine faces in men, while women from less healthy nations (like Mexico and Bulgaria) favored masculine traits in the faces of men.
Interesting stuff.
Link to article here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704100604575145810050665030.html
In other news, I’m moving to Denmark.
That makes a great deal of sense. In a developing nation, a partner who appears stronger, more rugged, and more generally masculine would at least seem to be a partner who would a) be better able to provide for his wife and kids, and b) father stronger, healthier children. One could understand the appeal in uncertain circumstances.
Conversely, in areas where life is not marked by instances of dire need, and could more reasonably be described as comfortable, a partner who seems more genteel and likely to form emotional bonds would be more appealing. With the need for a strong, reliable provider being lessened, the emotional needs can take precedence.
The Mythbusters have done what equates to social experiements as regards appearances, such as in the Beer Goggles myth. There’s a lot of the surrounding science explained by them – or rather their research team, on the forums. It seems to strongly support the subjectivity of it. I’ll dig up the link if I can.
I suppose I should say – really, what bothers me about those games isn’t the size of the breasts per se, its the fact that these games are selling it essentially as porn. They stick a big pair of mammaries on a girl and expect it to sell because of that, as opposed to having a girl who just happens to have big ones. We as people tend to exxagerrate that somewhat, I suppose, because most of the collective US seem to want that too (not sure why, as my better half always says, ‘I look at those girls and think, holy back pain batman!’)
I guess the point is that its often done as sexploitation and tha’s what I react to when I say its a turn off. If it was done tastefully, it wouldn’t bother me as much, or probably at all – and in fact probably quite the opposite 😛
Meh…even allowing for things like hair colour preference, culture, and race, it’s still generally the case that most men can agree to within a certain percentage that an individual woman is (or isn’t) attractive. Helen Thomas looks like a troll, and Irina Shayk is gorgeous. Find me anyone who would disagree.
Extreme examples, yes, but they illustrate the basic point even so.
Someone missed the corellation does not imply causation line in statistics 😛
(And I didnt really like either of them)
Someone isn’t particularly a fan of Hume, rather.
But even granting Hume’s maxim as an absolute, it is still often the case that correlation can be evidence of systematic influence.
Fortunately, Hume’s maxim isn’t an absolute. Take, for example, this correlation between the number of sexual partners a woman has had and the odds that a marriage in which that women participates will end in divorce. More sexual partners in her history = higher risk of divorce, regardless of education or social status. Having even one other sexual partner in her history lowers her odds of marital success from around 80 % to just north of 50%.
Strictly speaking, this is just correlation, but in fact it speaks to causation because of the well-documented hormonal and psychological effects of sex. The more sexually-affected pair bonds she forms, the greater the risk that she will either a) be diminishingly capable of forming new bonds and/or b) feel a particularly strong sense of bonding to a past lover, to the detriment of a present relationship.
In other words, the correlation (number of sexual partners vs. rate of marital failure) points us directly to the cause (past sexual partners & pair bonding).
Also:
Still, you must at least be capable of recognizing and admitting that Helen Thomas is, generally speaking, physically repellant and/or unattractive, while Irina Shayk is, generally speaking, physically attractive and/or pretty.
Maybe you’d rate Shayk as a 7 and I’d rate her as a 9, and maybe you’d rate Thomas as a 4 and I’d rate her as a 1, but in the broader sense we’d agree that Thomas falls into the “not pretty” category whilst Shayk falls into the “pretty” category.
Heh. Awesome discussion. I’m going to sit back and let you guys battle it out.
Apart from saying that I’m not a fan of huge breasts and skimpy costumes. Kylista will have the most… um… revealing dress in the game since she is meant to be playing off of her… um… assets. (and I spent a good hour searching for a dress to use that wasn’t ridiculous in that area)
Apart from that, don’t expect a lot of female bodies put on display (especially with huge breasts). I use the BAB mod for Oblivion, which tends to be a little more average, rather than a lot of the “Eye-Candy” mods preferred by others.
That said, there might be a bit of flesh shown in a couple of scenes (you can probably guess which). I’m not going to throw in sex scenes, but will probably be somewhere between Serpent Isle itself (immediate fade-to-black) and Dragon Age (clever camera angle). Closer to the former though.
I’ll back up WTF Dragon by agreeing that Helen Thomas is, indeed, less attractive than Irina Shayk by miles…
How’s that for an argument that you never thought you’d have to go out of your way to make a case for!
It’s an extreme example, but usefully illustrative.
I’d propose that in the broadest sense, we could lump physical attractiveness/prettiness into about three categories. Let’s call these A, B, and C.
Category A = 8s, 9s, and 10s, men an women who are OBVIOUSLY attractive beyond reasonable dispute. Maybe not “your type” (yeah, you), but still indisputably attractive.
Category C = 1s, 2s, and 3s, men and women who are OBVIOUSLY not attractive and are, in fact, actively hard on the eyes.
Category B = everyone else, the 4s through the 7s. Pretty self-explanatory.
I’d further be prepared to grant that in general, there wouldn’t much dispute about which category a person falls into. Helen Thomas is obviously a C, Irina Shayk an A. We might expect some dispute as to where, within a category, a person is — is Helen Thomas a 1 or a 2? — but not about which category a person belongs in.
That sound about right?
To me its like comparing cat scat to dog scat, in the end its still scat. I find neither attractive in any stretch of the imagination.
“In other words, the correlation (number of sexual partners vs. rate of marital failure) points us directly to the cause (past sexual partners & pair bonding).”
Id like to see some solid science that backs that up, and Im not being facetious saying that.
Wizardry, follow the link I provided. The article I link to links in turn to the CDC study from which the data is drawn.
As to the whole pair-bonding bit, I’ll get you some links tonight. It’s been a pretty hot topic in the last couple years, so even a quick Google search should prove fruitful.
Update: This paper is phenomenal and covers a ton of ground. It makes it all but impossible to deny the link between female promiscuity and inability of women to form enduring long-term relationships. Granted, there’s more to it than just pair bonding, but obviously a more storied sexual history does contribute to a diminished ability to bond.
Which makes sense if you think about it in terms of the operative hormones that affect sexuality and pair bonding in women: oxytocin and testosterone. Oxytocin is the actual affective/bonding hormone, and is apparently produced in heightened levels during sexual arousal. It is also produced during other moments of intimacy (e.g. physical touch, cuddling, etc.), especially in women. And it also affects women more than it does men; male bonding is also affected (heavily) by vasopressin. Testosterone is, of course, the main male hormone, but its effect on women is rather interesting: it boosts libido and sexual arousal.
So if we imagine the typical sexually active woman, we are imagining a person whose oxytocin levels are on the high side (meaning she is feeling bonded to her partner to some degree). We are also probably imagining a person who is being exposed to a bit more testosterone than normal, and so are imagining someone who is a little (or a lot) more interested in sex than normal.
Now, if this is her first major relationship, her body is probably going to be really reacting to these heightened hormonal levels. It’s kind of like drinking: a double scotch is going to affect you less if you’ve been drinking one every Friday for three years, and it’s going to affect you a lot more if you’ve never had a sip of alcohol in your life. Maybe not in terms of raw BAC, but in terms of how your body will process and react to the sudden spike in alcohol level. But what if it’s her fifth relationship? Is she going to be as impacted by the hormonal spikes she’s experiencing? Probably not. Will that impact her ability to form long-term bonds with partners? Probably, yes.
And the data previously cited indicates that. If a woman enters a marriage having had even one other sexual partner apart from her husband (or husband-to-be), the odds that the marriage ends in divorce go from 20% to nearly 50%…this after other mitigating and/or exacerbating factors (socio-economic status, education, religiosity) are controlled for. If there’s another possible explanation, I can’t think what it is.
You make the claim that these opinions are indisputable, which … I think is provably wrong even looking at this conversation. You have to conceed that much.
As to my use of the term “indisputable”, I’d be willing to clarify that I’m speaking of the impossibility of rational opposition to the following statements:
– that some people are objectively more physically attractive than others
– that in a general sense, people can be lumped into three categories of attractiveness about which people will agree: “unattractive”, “somewhat attractive”, and “very attractive”.
– that within these categories, there is perhaps room for dispute about e.g. just how “very attractive” a person is.
I do not discount the possibility that a person might mount an emotionally-driven opposition to these assertions, however.
And that’s as much as I’ll say, because to say more would be to invite a flame war.
WtF said: “- that some people are objectively more physically attractive than others”
Others said: [equally disturbing comments, though equally interesting]
The only important categories I lump people into are those who should be killed and those who shouldn’t, and I use pretty forgiving parameters in forming those opinions.
Physical beauty should be irrelevant. Would you love your wife less if she suffered third degree burns over most of her body in an auto accident that was her fault? Why would you marry her -before- the accident but not after? Maybe you’d love her the same, but stop fucking her afterward. These are important questions.
Perhaps people take the path of least resistance–their biological and cultural instinct–and take comfort in the fact that their peers will not blame them. It’s easy, after all, just to go along.
Sexual attraction is biological as well as cultural, not accounting for individual deviancy. Some people like fucking corpses, for example, and fatter, paler women were once considered attractive because they obviously weren’t toiling in the fields and were well fed.
While I find this discussion as interesting as I find it disturbing, clearly human sexuality has less to do with measurements than has been purported here. I don’t know what to say, really, but something about this discussion leaves a damn bad taste in my mouth. Anyone want to fill me in on what I’m missing?
Also, the threat of a flame war sounds, well, like a dare! =)
Sanctimonia, I think your post was probably a little strong. Might have been better to just stay out of it rather than post something quite so… strong.
At this point I’m wondering if I should enter the conversation, or just continue to stay out of it. Since this was a post about my mod, I think I’ll have to do the former since it seems to be going somewhere bad.
WTF: “that some people are objectively more physically attractive than others” – There can’t really be any rational argument against that, as long as you don’t mean that in a global sense. I’m taking the “some” to mean in some cases you can find objective reasons to say one person is more *physically* attractive (doesn’t work in all cases)
WTF: “that in a general sense, people can be lumped into three categories of attractiveness about which people will agree” – This is the main thing I have to argue with. I know some women who I think are “very attractive” (on the higher side of that) that other people have told me they find almost off-putting. Objectively, the woman might have an “attractive” body shape, face, etc to me, but not to others. It is definately not the case that everyone could agree that the person fits in one of those three categories.
Sanct: “Physical beauty should be irrelevant” – Why? Why is being physically attracted to someone not important and only emotional/mental attraction is? I would never have married someone I wasn’t physically attracted to. Physical attraction is subjective, and as you get to know someone that will change, but marrying someone that you aren’t physically attracted to is probably not the best idea. (your burns thing is actually something I find interesting… I usually don’t even notice those sorts of scars, but see what they would have looked like without them, which I’m guessing isn’t normal. I’ve noticed that in movies and stuff a lot, that I think they are “hot” despite severe scarring) My happiness with my life/marriage would be lower if I was with someone that I wasn’t attracted to physically.
Wizardry: “You make the claim that these opinions are indisputable, which … I think is provably wrong even looking at this conversation” – This is a good point. WTF, you responded by saying that it can’t rationally be opposed. I think my post is fairly rational. I couldn’t be bothered looking up research on the matter to back me up, but I don’t think I really need it. Personal experience has shown me that different people view physical attractiveness in different ways. What is “very attractive” for one might not be particularly attractive at all for another. The Hot Or Not website is an example of this. Taking into account votes that may be purposely incorrect, people still show a large scale of differences in opinion about some people. There are some people who (almost) everyone would think are very attractive. But there are a lot more that people would disagree over.
I think that people need to recognise that other people have differing opinions, and they aren’t necessarily illogical because they are different from what you think. With Kylista, I based her off of someone that objectively I can say is very attractive. Personally, I’ve never been particularly attracted to that person. But a majority of other people are, and if I went down a list of the “objective” features that make an attractive person, she would get a tick in every single box. I actually am a little confused over why I don’t find her more attractive myself since she is objectively very attractive. So she would, I’d say, fit into WTFs people “who are OBVIOUSLY attractive beyond reasonable dispute. Maybe not “your type” (yeah, you), but still indisputably attractive”. But not everyone can be so neatly packaged into categories.
@THEPAL
You are truly a wise man. That was the best post in the entire thread, and damn if it didn’t make me feel better about it all.
THEPAL said, “Sanctimonia, I think your post was probably a little strong. Might have been better to just stay out of it rather than post something quite so… strong.”
I take that as a compliment, though on first reading it made me a bit sad. In my defense, I do want want people to -feel- what I’m saying, even if they disagree. Passion, I suppose (gargoyle virtues?).
I know sexual attraction, wherever it comes from, is important in any relationship between couples, but I rail against the assumed logic of what is normal that divides us unnecessarily. “Oh, her nose is big.” “Oh, she’s over 130 pounds.” “Well, I used to love her, but she lost her job and can’t pay the rent.” There’s a lot of BS love out there and it offends me deeply. Before I was married I really didn’t understand that. Also I think it’s cool that Aiera’s a good forum for interesting discussion like this…just awesome.
Well, this discussion has drifted. I’d just like to repeat what I was hinting at earlier.
I think the people of Fawn were basically mouthing platitudes when they said Kylista and Yelinda were “the most beautiful women in Fawn”. Female beauty diminishes as women grow older and “hit the wall” (to use a Roissyan term). After 25-30 it’s all downhill.
But on the other hand, you can’t expect a city to be ruled by 20-somethings. It takes time to reach such positions. Kylista and Yelinda were attractive OLDER women, and their followers called them “the most beautiful” out of loyalty and respect.
something about this discussion leaves a damn bad taste in my mouth
Well, technogeeks like measuring and quantifying stuff. It helps us make more sense of the world.
Controversy arises when they Measure What Man Was Not Meant To Measure. Things that most people would rather not know the details of. Like sexual attraction. Or, more famously, intelligence.
My intelligence is 1000 kilometres wide! (and don’t even get me started on the other thing)
I did actually make Yelinda look a little older after taking that screenshot, as she seemed too young. Somewhere around the 30-35 age range. I like Kylista looking like she is in her 20s though (or like a 30s actress, I s’pose, since they don’t seem to age like normal people). In fact, I think I’ll upload Yelinda’s new face. She is basically the same, with her features just adjusted a little to make her not look like a teenager.
Well, intelligence metrics have some utility. And some people are more intelligent than others.
(ducking!)
Infinitron is right in noting that we’ve lost the topic somewhat, so the following will be mostly brief.
Thepal: I mostly agree with you, especially as regards physical attraction as a prerequisite for marriage. At it’s core, the marital relationship is a sexual one; physical attraction between spouses is a necessity, and if it’s ever lacking the system will break down pretty quickly.
If I disagree anywhere, it’s that I do still think the three categories — which, in their most distilled form, amount to ugly, average, and hot — are still largely valid, though I suppose I need to allow for statistical outliers a bit more. A bit. Beauty and aesthetic appeal as a function of body symmetry, relational ratios between certain bodily areas, size/shape/prominence of individual features are measurable things, to some extent. The Roissyan assertion that people will tend to agree on the appeal (or lack thereof) of certain combinations of these things is sound, and that’s certainly been my observation in life. Yes, there is some variance where taste is concerned — some men like bigger breasts, some women don’t like beards, some people prefer redheads to blondes — but this is still usually variance within categories. (We can allow for some confusion at category boundaries, though.)
Kevin & Infinitron: I realize that the discussion has gotten rather metric in nature, stats & figures and suchlike. That said, I’m not actually trying to commit a reductionist fallacy here and suggest that all the beauty of romance distills down to bio-mechanics and animal instinct. I read Roissy; I’m not Roissy myself.
(To be fair, all that bio-stuff does come into play as well.)
Now here’s where I make you all hate me. Kevin, you pose a challenging “what if” question, and it’s one that’s a struggle for me to answer now. Ten years ago, I would have unequivocally stated that heck yes, I’d stand by my wife (then-girlfriend) as she went through a life-threatening, appearance altering crisis.
Seven-ish years ago, that actually happened.
Nothing like burns, but it did leave her permanently scarred, affected her weight and body shape for several years, and lingers to this day in various forms. I stuck by her then, and obviously the relationship progressed.
But would I do it again? I really can’t be sure, actually…because the personal cost and toll I paid was phenomenally high, and I’m still dealing with it to this day. And yes, it impacts my relationship with my wife in a detrimental way.
So can I say I’d stand by through another major crisis, especially one which left me feeling unattracted to my wife? No, I can’t say that unequivocally. Not anymore.
Ken:
I’m not aware of your particular circumstances, but damn, you’re going to get yourself in trouble, putting information like that online.
Infinitron: Maybe.
But how else was I to honestly answer the question? Avoid it entirely?
Ehh … Both me and my other half have been through our scrapes and disasters which have left scars … I cant speak for her, but I am still by her, and attracted to her. Though I do have to admit that I often wonder if her and I have a relationship like others.
@thepal
And first, to be clear, I just want to address the beauty issue. I don’t want to get into that marriage can of worms, seeing as how I’m not married and wouldn’t rightly know what I was talking about. So please take this comment and limit the scope to just the objective beauty conversation.
Philosophically speaking, that beauty can be objectively measured is untouchable (within a similar set of presuppositions about the nature of reality). The Hellen Thomas vs Any Other Chick example shows that we all have some innate understanding of beauty that we can measure things or people against. Furthermore, we can (and do) indeed put people on a scale, as WTF suggests, based on how close they are to true beauty.
Now, one might then ask, how come I think X person is really hot but my friends disagree with me?
Simply answered, that is irrellevant. The fact that there exists an objective sense of beauty has nothing to do with your ability or lack thereof to measure it. That is to say, if you happen to think that Hellen Thomas is beautiful, it only proves that you are bad at determining beauty. Someone adding 2 and 2 together and coming out with 10 we say is just bad at maths instead of saying that math is relative. Kind of like that.
The real tricky part, then, is determining who knows best when it comes to beauty. For that, I don’t have a particularly good answer. “The people that study beauty” will have to suffice.
WTF Dragon: That comes loaded with the ad hominen implication that if I am rational, I have to accept your premise. This is mot true; one does not follow from the other.
There’s some good information here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness
A lot of our perception of beauty is cultural rather than biologically predefined. Some far-flung tribe in the jungle or desert may have a different perception of beauty than some potato-chip-eating American teenager trolling 4-chan. Same goes for the ancient Egyptians, Romans, etc. Human sexuality has really run the full spectrum throughout history and geography.
And WtF, what are you doing man??? Your wife is going to stab you in your sleep! In a perfect world honesty would always be the best policy, but women and police sometimes make honesty a less than wise move.
“Have you been drinking tonight, sir?”
“Uh, yes officer. I had four beers and a long island iced tea. Also I have an open container under my seat and there might be some weed in the console, I can’t remember.”
“I appreciate your honesty. Please step out of the vehicle.”
Wizardry: Ad hominem wasn’t the intent; the intent was to tacitly observe that the idea of objective standards of beauty and/or attractiveness (there is a difference, which I have been careless in not strictly noting at each mention) is an issue about which people can very quickly become emotional, for a variety of reasons (not the last of which is that it both flies in the face of and challenges a part of the average Westerner’s cultural upbringing, at least for those of us who’ve been brought up in the last 50ish years).
Kevin: I’ll read that link in full later. I’ve skimmed it, and a lot of what it talks about are the very same metrics that have come under discussion here, which lead me to think it might actually support the idea of objective beauty and/or attractiveness.
That opinion might change upon a complete reading, I hasten to note, but that’s the vibe I’m getting right now.
As to whether I live through the night, well…you asked, I answered, and the revelation was necessary to give context to my answer. It might have been imprudent to offer even the vague detail that I did, but it would have been even more imprudent to simply say “no, I wouldn’t” and leave it at that.
And frankly, if an officer asked me that question and I had in fact been drinking, I think I’d probably opt for the honest answer there too…since it’s probably better to cop to what I’ve obviously done rather than deny, deny, deny and wait for the breathalyzer.
“Now, one might then ask, how come I think X person is really hot but my friends disagree with me?
Simply answered, that is irrellevant. The fact that there exists an objective sense of beauty has nothing to do with your ability or lack thereof to measure it. That is to say, if you happen to think that Hellen Thomas is beautiful, it only proves that you are bad at determining beauty. Someone adding 2 and 2 together and coming out with 10 we say is just bad at maths instead of saying that math is relative. Kind of like that.”
2 + 2 is 4. That is a fact.
Equating that to someone disagreeing with you over someone’s beauty is not the same. Not even close. “No, you are wrong. They are beautiful.” That is just arrogant. That’s like saying “I accept that you believe in another God, but you are wrong and I am right.” (yes, I know I just gave an example way over on the other side of silly)
Checklist:
Symmetrical features: tick
Certain facial features: tick
Certain body type: tick
Purple toe-nail polish: tick
Symmetrical features is pretty much the only thing that I can see being universal (and I can even see that there could be exceptions to that rule). As for everything else, people have differing opinions. Can you honestly say they are wrong? “Oh… no. You are bad at determining beauty. You see, their hips are perfectly proportioned for child-birth. And look at her cheeks. They are just like Angelina’s, who everyone in the world agrees is very beautiful.” It is ridiculous to think that there are objective features that make someone beautiful. People like different things. Their opinion of beauty is just as valid as anyone else’s. Especially since every person’s opinion of beauty has been skewed by the society they live in, which is why the idea of “beautiful” has changed so much over time. Even now, different parts of the world would find different things beautiful (though it would be getting less due to world-wide media)
Could I, using objective means, tell if a person would be attractive to a majority of people in an area? Hell yes. In fact, I could choose people who over 90% would probably think are beautiful. To say the rest can’t determine beauty is ridiculous. They find other things beautiful, and that is just as valid (not all of them are going to have a warped view from everyone else due to circumstances). Or is the minority always wrong now? *points to virtue of Humility and the force of Tolerance*
I think the real problem here is there is a firm line being drawn, and the message is that if you don’t agree with it then clearly your thinking must be wrong.
It’s a wholly unscientific mindset, I think, personally.
I like where Thepal is going with his idea of Fawn though; it seems much more realistic to think that its more a cult of personality and a political web of ass-kissing then some ur-male fantasy of a town full of DD people all in their late teens. I know I, for one, would find that immensely more interesting and satisfying as a story backdrop.
Well, I’m not really going anywhere the original didn’t. All dialogue and such will be the same. Basically the only design decisions I get to make are what the NPCs look like (and most will look as much like the originals as I can do in a short period of time) and what they are wearing. Facial expressions in dialogue also make a difference, but I’m limited to some pretty basic emotions for them too.
The main thing I’ve tried to do so far is have Kylista seem nice and kind and such, rather than a bitch from the start. I liked the fact she seemed all kind, and made promises regarding the Breastplate of Beauty and such, and then turned out to be a bitch. Who wouldn’t trust a face like that? *points to Kylista*
Remind me to post a picture of the FemShep I just created for my Renegade playthrough of Mass Effect. It’s so friggin’ amusing watching this cute-as-a-button redhead with a perpetual slight smile dole out the Renegade assholery.
Heh, Femshep … my best friend Mayas looked pretty much just like her, and given her own personality, it was … interesting. IRL shes a bit rough around the edges I’d give you that, but shes a big teddy bear really 😛
Interesting that she was 100% renegade IG, I mean 🙂
If this picture is real, Helen Thomas was pretty hot in the thirties.
http://www.familyoldphotos.com/pa/mercer2/images3/january/helenthomas-1932.jpg
But yeah, beauty is subjective, some dudes would prefer 110 year olds over hot 20 year old models. Even if one dude out of 6 billion honestly believes it…
Growing up, I always wanted to believe beauty wouldn’t be a main factor to finding a girl. From experience, the sweetest, nicest, coolest ugly girls just don’t do it for me. And on the other side of the coin, hot chicks are usually some of the worst people you will ever meet.
LAWL at Wizardry! You know, cops will really appreciate honesty, since they get lied to all the time. They sometimes will just follow you home if you tell them you’re drunk and just over the limit and you’re not out of control. You might be surprised, or you might have a cop on a bad night. It’s really a coin toss. Just hope it’s a holiday and he doesn’t want to do paperwork ;).
I like Utah highway cops. I’ve only been pulled over for speeding once there, and the officer let me off with a warning because it was too much paperwork to give a ticket to a Canadian.
My friend, who lived in Las Vegas for a while, said the Utah cops were pretty laid back. My personal experience with cops from my hell-raising years wasn’t so good however, at least in North Carolina and Georgia. Small town cops are by far the worst, as they seem to take everything personally and are lazy.
Once, representing myself, I presented enough information that the officer failed to gather thereby showing reasonable doubt. The DA and the officer didn’t even say anything as the judge awaited their response to my statement. “Case dismissed. Mr. Fishburne, you are free to leave.” If only they’d known I actually -was- guilty, muahahaha!!!