Dragon Age 2 - A Look At The Qunari, Evolved @ GameInformer

JDR13 said:

This reminds me of….

or

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blame the Augment virus for that

I actually like the look of the render just in terms of some new monster or whatever but I can't imagine Sten looking like this. As others have mentioned, this completely removes the humanity and would change my perception of Sten and his motives.

Well,

I like the new look. I detested the original design — it was bland and without intrigue. For that matter, I detested Sten as his personality was a perfect match for that look. Perhaps in a future play-through he'll be my tank but, on my original play, I assigned him to polishing armor at camp.

Anyhow, aries100 hit the proverbial nail on the head — nothing is being retconned. It fits with the established canon that Qunari have horns (i.e. Brood Mothers made Ogres, who have horns, out of Qunari).

Now, I will scream bloody murder if Sten gets reintroduced with this look but, if you read the text of the article, it's stated that not all Qunari had horns (and presumably Sten was one of these, or he had them removed). We can expect some stylistic liberties to be taken with returning characters — they have to mesh with the new design. However, Bioware would shock me if they radically altered established canon.

Horns and identical muscle system with humans is a bad idea .

Dhruin said:

I actually like the look of the render just in terms of some new monster or whatever but I can't imagine Sten looking like this. As others have mentioned, this completely removes the humanity and would change my perception of Sten and his motives.

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But maybe thats interesting, you know? If something looks like a monster, but isn't?

I doubt that they will change the looks to a monster and still keep it at the good site.
Still it would be interesting yes

Well, Mass Effect's Krogans, which anyway seem to share a lot of Qunari traits, didn't exactly look like Teddybears either...

I'm just waiting for ME & DA universes to be conected at one point ...

I don't like the horns part. Put the hair back on him and cut his nails. That would be what I would want to see. Why do these guys always think they have to change stuff and make it better? Oh well.........what can you do, they hold the paint cans.

ME and DA universe? MDAE : mass dragon age effect
The new post apocalypse, next gen sucessor from games as BG, ME, DA
an action oriented first person shooter rpg

Some quotes from the forums by the devs
source:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/3274086&lf=8

David Gaider:

Yes, on one level the qunari look different— just as the darkspawn look different, or the elves and dwarves look different or any other model in the game will look different. The artistic style has changed, and that will affect everything you see to one degree or another. If you met Sten now he would no doubt look different.

Would he have horns? No, he would not. We are telling you that not all qunari have horns. Is that different than what you saw before? Yes it is. We never said then that qunari could have horns, but neither did we say they couldn't. In this case both appearances are possible.

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Mary Kirby:

Not to interrupt a fascinating debate, but you guys realize that the "Qunari swordsman" in that render doesn't have a sword either, right? Like maybe that's just a render of the creature without any gear on to show the physical differences? And Qunari do not, in fact, fight naked and unarmed?

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David Gaider (again) on a question that sound like 'but where do qunari come from?'

The answer:

Err… perhaps you inferred that they came from another world. We've said that qunari arrived on the continent of Thedas from elsewhere just over three hundred years ago. Nothing more.

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Also, the thread has evolved into something of lore debate about the DA lore vs. the LOTR lore… Quite fascinating, I find.

Cm said:

I don't like the horns part. Put the hair back on him and cut his nails. That would be what I would want to see. Why do these guys always think they have to change stuff and make it better? Oh well………what can you do, they hold the paint cans.

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They actually make more sense with horns than without.

I prefer the orginal qunari design. It feels more subttle and natural than these beasts. Dragon age 2 is certainly going to feel very different.