darrylzero wrote...
KLUME777 wrote...
@Bioware
So why did you not have this system in DAO? (The skin-changing-color-for-family-members-according-to-Hawke One)
Surely at least one of the testers noticed this problem? And it is'nt really a thing where you "didn't have time for" since you'd be segragrating 1/3(?) of the audience in a pretty big problem.
I can imagine it must have been quite a turn off since its glaringly present in the very first scene. You may have lost Customers. How can you ignore that?
What I find confusing about this attitude is the idea that if we just made Fergus and the rest darker skinned that would solve something. I would understand better with regard to Brosca, Mahariel, or Tabris characters (though the absent mother is convenient explanation for city elves), but for the Couslands I don't get it at all. To me, this eliminates what is interesting about the expereince of racial difference, reducing everything to the melanin content of someone's skin (or perhaps some particular facial features you associate with a given racial/ethnic background). If you and your family appeared to be from some non-white background, the game would still effectively treat you as white (or more accurately, as Fereldan, since the racial baggage of Thedas is different from our own and Fereldan characters may be among the most discriminated against in other countries, akin perhaps to the way the Irish were treated from well before the British empire had India or Africa to deal with). It doesn't help you play an afro- or asian- descended character, really. Isn't that the point?
I respect the developers' insistence that their fantasy world is their fantasy world and that they shouldn't have to (and perhaps couldn't, ultimately) approach race or ethnicity in ways that have obvious or direct connections to the real world. But I would very much like to play a character that looked dark-skinned and was social marginal because of it. For me, that's because I am personally very drawn to role-playing conditions of social marginality, because I enjoy doing so most when the issues resonate with the world that we actually live in, and because the aspects of social marginality I find the most interesting/concerning in the real world mostly involve darker skinned people.
So, part of me gets really excited about the idea that I can make the Hawke family look Rivaini and pretend that they've been discriminated against for this. However, in game, they will not have been discriminated against for this. In game, they will be discriminated against (if at all) for being refugees, specifically Fereldan refugees, and for being a family of apostates. Moreover, there's no indication so far that Rivaini peoples are discriminated against in the Free Marches, Orlais, Ferelden, or anywhere else. It's spawned some interest for me in role-playing some kind of Chasind-descended refugee, as they are clearly treated with some of the suspicion, fear, and contempt I enjoy having to confront and overcome in-game. But I am more interested in playing urban identities than tribal ones, which makes what I want pretty difficult to accommodate, or at least pretty specific and maybe idiosyncratic. So, the particular configuration of ethnic difference and social marginality
that I find most compelling to role-play is likely going to remain
unavailable to me.
This, of course, is not the end of the world. Bioware remains my favorite developer for their storytelling and their character building, and in DAO, I could play a city elf or a dwarf commoner to get aspects of that. I did that, in the end, and I enjoyed it. As I get older, though, I have less and less interest in playing non-human characters (or even in the existence of such "fantasy races"). So, while I find the treatment of elves and dwarves in Thedas interesting (quite interesting, actually), it's no substitute (for me) for a human character facing the same kinds of struggles. It looks like DA2 will get me closer, as I am particularly interested in refugee identities, especially if I can role-play engaging in criminal behavior as a response to the social marginality of being a refugee (here's hoping I can set myself up as a smuggler in Kirkwall early in the game). However, I will still almost certainly play with a darker-skinned Hawke family and find myself pretending that it matters that I have done so.
That's ok, I guess, but mostly I'm waiting for Bioware (or some other developer who genuinely cares about a good story with good characters and takes player choices seriously) to write the story that I am searching for. I imagine everyone is in this position, to some degree, and I don't mean to imply that my particular baggage here is so important that it needs to be addressed (though I may feel that way at times). So, what can we do? I guess I can hope that posts like this catch the eye of a writer and plant the seed of an idea, but that seems like a longshot. Or, I can hope that Bioware focuses on PC origins in some future game (whether there are several, as in DAO, or only one) that emphasize occupational roles (for lack of a better word) over concerns of race, family, etc. If backgrounds were things like Chantry initiate, smuggler, or city guard, without specifying race or putting us in contact with our families (akin to the mage origin, in that regard), more of our imaginations about how our characters got to that point could be in play. In DAO, they have to show elven and dwarven and human society to help introduce characters to the game world, but future titles wouldn't be as compelled to do so.
That said, I'd rather just play a Rivaini smuggler in Antiva or Tevinter, particularly if Rivaini rejection of Andraste in favor of a syncretism of sorts between local tradition and parts of the Qun, has generated suspicion of and even contempt for dark-skinned humans in places like Tevinter with a big Qunari problem. Fingers crossed...
Good god!!
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