{"id":3417,"date":"2014-07-24T12:51:05","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T19:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cpgaming.gg\/?p=3417"},"modified":"2014-07-28T13:40:17","modified_gmt":"2014-07-28T20:40:17","slug":"the-importance-of-character-design-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/the-importance-of-character-design-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of Character Design – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brian “i am guitar” Cordry, Player Manager for Evil Geniuses<\/em><\/p>\n

Character design is one of the most important aspects of any video game that wants to amount to anything. Much attention has been given to the trend in that triple-A titles that revolve around a single protagonist always seem to follow the same archetypes: the character must be male, white, strong, rugged, etc. I can’t give any new insight on that, but I did want to bring it into a discussion on games that don’t revolve around a single main character. With DotA 2’s The International 4 having just happpened and the League of Legend’s Season 4 World Championships coming up, let’s talk about character design in MOBAs.<\/p>\n

League of Legends<\/a> and DotA 2<\/a> are the frontrunners in the MOBA genre by miles. The games share a similar background and the parallels are heavy even today: they are both played by millions, have hugely successful competitive scenes, continue to grow at an alarming pace, and share some very distinct design decisions. Both games, having grown out of the Warcraft 3 custom map \u201cDotA,\u201d inhabit the same fictitious genre: a hybrid of fantasy and steampunk technology, populated by elves, warriors, wizards, and monsters. Although each game exists in its own universe, they ostensibly inhabit the same space in our mind, and so it’s no surprise that their character concepts are so similar. Both games check off a variety of ‘standard’ character themes that we’ve come to expect in the fantasy realm, from the broad to the bizarrely specific. Frost archer? A fantasy staple. Spider queen? Always evil, always present. Pirate? Yes. Wise old talking tree? Yes. Sturdy stone giant? Of course. Dragon-morphing knight? Yep. Troll? Yep. Stampeding centaur? LoL’s version is an evil ghost, but they’re both there. Tavern-dwelling, drunken brawler? The alcohol makes him stronger! Small, mischievous, energetic creature that traverses this fantasy land in some sort of advanced (but not-too-advanced) mechanical walker? That’s pretty narrow, but yes, that character is in both games.<\/p>\n

Clearly, these fantasy themes are imbedded in the hivemind of what we westerners view as acceptable heroes. When we log into our favorite game, we want to roleplay as a fierce knight or a powerful sorceress for an hour at a time. That’s what video games are! An escape from the dullness of our everyday classes, jobs, and activities. So how does this drive character design in games that have one-hundred-plus characters? How many characters are catered to fulfilling a fantasy about \u201cwhat you wish you could be (the lead male)\u201d – knowing that the target audience for both games is typically young, white males \u2013 and how many are catered to more niche fantasies? Where does the popularity of either fantasy fall in the grand scheme of things? How do each of these two massively popular games treat some of the fantasies that they have in common?<\/p>\n

In League of Legends, there are 119 characters, or champions<\/a>. By my count, 79 of them can be defined as “male”, with the majority of the would-be-genderless champs (Blitzcrank, the robot, and Malphite, the stone giant, for example) being given the nod toward male based on voice or lore. That means that 40 fall under the female banner. Of the 79 males, if we use a pretty narrow version of humanoid (two arms, two legs, a face, skin, the need for clothing), I find 32 of them to land in that category. Of those 32, taking out the demons or those with un-classifiable race, it appears that 26 of them are white (or arguably white). And of those 26, only a handful have “strength” as their defining trait (as opposed to shadowy, agile, cunning, or magical) \u2013 I count 10. And then we can narrow it down a bit more with the “rugged” trait, to find that really the champions to fall under the typical \u201clead male\u201d class are Darius, Draven, Garen, Graves, Jarvan, Jayce, and Tryndamere \u2013 and even some of these are a bit of a stretch. Not bad! LoL rebuffs the stereotype of the lead male and retains only about 6% of their champs in this category.<\/p>\n

How about DotA 2? The game is often heralded by its fans for being more gritty and darker, and having less “realistic” elements. The game clocks in at 107 characters, or heroes<\/a>. DotA 2 is a bit less specific on the genders of some of its ambiguous characters (Io the wisp, Phoenix the… well, phoenix), but there are 70 or more males. Of those males, if we use the same definition of humanoid, we find that only maybe 25 can count. Many of these have red, blue, green, or other non-race-identifiable skin, so when we narrow it down to just the white heroes, our number drops to only 17. When we try to identify which would be categorized as strong, we shrink the figure further to just 7 (sorry Pudge). And with our final filter to narrow our search into heroes that might be handsomely rugged, I find that only a handful of characters fit the bill: Kunkka, Beastmaster, Omniknight, Dragon Knight, and maybe Lycan. Just 5 heroes of the 107 (about 5%) fall into the classic lead male stereotype.<\/p>\n

\"lolchamps\"<\/a>\u00a0\"dota2heroes\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Clearly, both of these titles do a great job of opening up to fantasies outside of the normal area of comfort for other popular video games. We’ve answered a couple of the questions we asked earlier: we know that both games are fine with putting forth alternate fantasies. But which do the fans prefer? According to stats on lolking.net<\/a> and dotabuff.com<\/a>, none of the champions that fit the ‘lead male’ role are in the top 10 most popular characters for either game over the past month. It is appropriate to note, however, that a couple heroes that contain most of the features of the lead male stereotype do hit the top 10 in both games: Yasuo (has an agile, slender frame rather than a strong frame), Lee Sin (asian), and Jax (humanoid but not human) in League of Legends, and Bloodseeker (humanoid but not human) and Axe (red skin) in DotA 2. Based on these popularity charts, it’s clear that fans are open to picking some of the alternative fantasy options \u2013 as long as they don’t deviate too far from the stereotype. A quick look at the 10 least popular champs on LoL shows that they are all either non-male, non-human, lack strength, or lack the rugged handsomeness \u2013 only the white, male Malzahar gets anywhere close to the stereotype. But the designers of the game are fine with it. A recent quote<\/a> from \u201cMeddler,\u201d a Lead Champion Designer for LoL, revealed that \u201cOur thinking on monster\/creature champions has changed over the last couple of years. We still see clear personality and strong theme as really important, but are happier exploring those through creatures, not just humans\/humanoids, than we were in the past. Some of that’s a conclusion that, given the size of our champion roster, we no longer feel that every champion must have broad appeal. A somewhat niche concept, that appeals really strongly to some players and not at all to others, is fine or, potentially, ideal when you’ve already got more than 100 other champs to choose from.”<\/p>\n

View Part 2 of this article on cpgaming.gg<\/a><\/p>\n

Follow Brian on twitter @EGguitar<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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