103 réponses à ce sujet

[Vergil_dgk]

I really think this is a non-issue. I played Jade Empire where everyone was asian and that was no problem and I played an african-american gangsta in GTA and that was no problem either. I really think skin colour isn't that important in fantasy games as long as it fits the context and doesn't break the immersion. It would be weird if the people where a mix of all different races with no explanation though, things have to make sense.

[Kalcalan]

KirbySkywalker wrote...

bottom line is, i would like to see more representation of all the people of the world in these games. its not hard for developers to do. i see some intelligent people agree with me while others of you are idiots. but i paid for the game so why should they change it. its just not cost effective. that is all that matters once a company like EA gets involved. they sacrifice the passion for the cash-in.

Those who disagree with you are idiots because they disagree with you? Thank you, that comment made my day. You've just proved that you couldn't make a valid reply to what has been posted in this thread.

People who resort to name calling to hide the fact that they can't find a valid argument to engage in a constructive exchange are not worth wasting time arguing with.

That being said, "more representation of all the people of the world" would be hilarious in a Fereldian setting. That would mean that at least one character out of five will be Chinese.

I'd suggest playing Jade Empire instead of Dragon Age.

[DocDoomII]

Could it be because, like in the real world, skin tone is dependent on the DNA and it's evolution based on the environment where an ethnic group live?

Since in a medieval settings, things like planes, trains and cars are non existent, then the only way for people from different regions of the world to move to another region is: on foot, on horse, on boat.

I don't see why large group of people in such a setting should face difficulty to move from their home to an unknow place (no net, no tv, no radio = no information on other lands), other than to move war.



...sssssso.



Other lands seems to exist, in dragon age world. Look at the qnari. Their skin tone is, like, olive gray. And there are few of them here and there because they are on scouting mission or mercenary left from an old war. Surely they didn't go in that region of the world for vacation.



So, maybe black people exist, but they are near the equator and maybe is a place quite far from where the story take place.

[KirbySkywalker]

Vergil_dgk and DocDoomII (and people with similar points) , you guys have good points, i suppose when i get into an RPG i expect to immerse myself in a whole WORLD, when in actuality i am only getting a REGION.

[Kalcalan]

KirbySkywalker wrote...

Vergil_dgk and DocDoomII (and people with similar points) , you guys have good points, i suppose when i get into an RPG i expect to immerse myself in a whole WORLD, when in actuality i am only getting a REGION.

How long did it take you to realize that Ferelden is only a small part of Thedas?

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Thedas

What a senseless waste of time...

[KirbySkywalker]

Kalcalan, you are right, you are so smart i should have listened to you from the beginning! you have successfully trolled me into submission. i hope you are happy for your great success! you are #1!

[Kalcalan]

KirbySkywalker wrote...

Kalcalan, you are right, you are so smart i should have listened to you from the beginning! you have successfully trolled me into submission. i hope you are happy for your great success! you are #1!

You can't call people idiots because you are unable to find a proper reply to their points and then accuse them of trolling.

Your name calling didn't affect me and your sarcasm is wasted on me.

I guess having a sensible discussion with you is too much to ask so let's drop it then.

[Radahldo]

I was told with the toolset we could make PC's of color? I still don't like the idea of being trammeled with a certain ethnic make up-- just dark skin; or, eyes that I cannot unslant to a less distasteful dimension, all for the congruity of the world.. but if the Toolset fixes all of that, then okay, I guess.

..
So far i've just seen anthropomorphic elves, drow, and that's it actually...

Modifié par Radahldo, 29 novembre 2009 - 11:09 .

[Koralis]

KirbySkywalker wrote...

even in player creation, you can not create a character dark enough to match the skin tone of many races of peoples on earth.  this is the same with WOW, the darkest skin tones looked like the kardashians skin tone - just a tanned white person or a half and half person at most...

i imagine many characters to play with or to put in mods as npcs.  its really irritating that all i can create is white, tan, or strange jaundice people.

Strange.  I made a pretty dark-skinned black man in the character creator.  The next tint down looked purplish, so I didn't use it.


http://social.biowar...&game=dragonage

[Koralis]

Lord Phoebus wrote...


They definitely went for Celtic/Norse/Norman vibe with the setting, so I suppose it fits. .

Quite true.  Liliana made a point in one of her conversations about how cold it was here as opposed to Orlais.  Darker skin tones would predominate in warmer, sunnier climates.  Any dark skinned peoples in this game are basically immigrant minorities.

[purplesunset]

Boy, this thread sure went downhill real fast.

Especially after the OP came back. (His recent posts show that he himself doesn't even fully understand the issue that he brought up).

There goes my hopes that a thread on this topic  could actually be productive.



The realism argument is BESIDE THE POINT. 

Just as I predicted in my first post, people keep bringing up the realism argument as if they're saying somethign new that hasn't been said before. " It's all white because it's based on medieval europe."


The bottomline is that game developers have the power to pick and choose when they want to be realistic.

For example, they knew that gamers liked to roleplay female warriors, so they eschewed realism,  and made it possible for women to become equally powerful warriors to men. It was a favor to gamers, not an obligation. They could have done the realistic thing and made women second class citizens who married as part of business transactions. OR they could have given women -10 penalty to strength or something "realistic" like that. But they knew this would invite the ire of gamers who wanted to roleplay women, so they chose to eschew realism.


They know that some gamers like to roleplay someone who looks similar to them in a game. If they so choose, they could have thrown those players a bone and made it so that your parents' skin color matched your own so as to not make those users feel as awkward or left out. Again, it's not an obligation, but a nice gesture to those people who want to roleplay characters similar to themselves. Just like how they did a nice gesture to those people who like to roleplay female characters. 

It DOES NOT have to be anything major like making everry city a multi-cultural melting pot, just like how they didn't have to do anything drastic like making every city all-female. They didn't have to make the societies all  matriarchal  and men subservient to appease those roleplayers who liked playing female characters. Similarly, they don't have to do anything drastic. Any argument about quotas and enforced political correcness is therefore an alarmist, straw man type of argument.

The realism point is moot, the real issue is a roleplaying issue.

Are my posts too long? I've got a feeling that I'll just have to repeat myself over and over. I wish something would come of a thread like this. The issue was big enough to warrant blogs and a thread on a white nationalist website.

As I've said before,  threads like these would go away if there were more games like Jade Empire (the game that people love to bring up in threads like these). If there was an rpg game in an African setting perhaps people who prefer roleplaying someone who looks like themselves won't feel so alienated. I think frustration is a big motivation for the blogs, and threads like these. However, I already pointed out why it would be highly unlikely, if not impossible, for an rpg game to be made in an African setting. The alternative therefore is to just go the way of Fallout 3 and appease those roleplayers, just like how you appeased the roleplayers who wanted to play female warriors. Again,  it's not an obligation, and it doesn't have to be anything drastic.

*sigh* (tired of repeating myself)

Modifié par purplesunset, 29 novembre 2009 - 01:34 .

[TcheQ]

Your character was born in Ferelden, to Ferelden parents.

Or perhaps you would like to argue genetics

[Sarevok Anchev]

relhart wrote...

Hi.

Hello Sweety!
You also a Mage? Wanna test my Rod of Entanglement?

[Samahl na Revas]

removed by user

Modifié par thecalling, 29 novembre 2009 - 03:34 .

[Schyzm]

Vergil_dgk wrote...

I really think this is a non-issue. I played Jade Empire where everyone was asian and that was no problem and I played an african-american gangsta in GTA and that was no problem either. I really think skin colour isn't that important in fantasy games as long as it fits the context and doesn't break the immersion. It would be weird if the people where a mix of all different races with no explanation though, things have to make sense.

exactly why does culture and creative endeavours have to be hollowed out and destroyed by people for political purposes, I don't remember anyone screaming about needing bunches of africans in jade empire.  These are the same people who try to stop people from saying merry christmas and make them say happy holidays instead.  

[purplesunset]

Schyzm wrote...
exactly why does culture and creative endeavours have to be hollowed out and destroyed by people for political purposes, I don't remember anyone screaming about needing bunches of africans in jade empire.  These are the same people who try to stop people from saying merry christmas and make them say happy holidays instead.  

Thank you sir, for not reading the other posts  before responding.   I don't mean to single you out, but posts like yours (and the ones above) are exactly the reason why these threads never amount to anything.

If I sound frustrated, then, yes I am. It's uncharacteristic of me to reach this point because I pride myself in having a calm, rational demeanor. 

But when you pour your heart out in a post, and people just dismiss it, ignore it, mischaracterize it, de-rail it with non-sequitirs, or shrug it off by introducing an obvious red herring like "political correctness" it makes you question whether it is even worthwhile to attempt to engage anyone on a forum.

Modifié par purplesunset, 29 novembre 2009 - 05:42 .

[Schyzm]

purplesunset wrote...

Schyzm wrote...
exactly why does culture and creative endeavours have to be hollowed out and destroyed by people for political purposes, I don't remember anyone screaming about needing bunches of africans in jade empire.  These are the same people who try to stop people from saying merry christmas and make them say happy holidays instead.  

Thank you sir, for not reading the other posts  before responding.   I don't mean to single you out, but posts like yours (and the ones above) are exactly the reason why these threads never amount to anything.

If I sound frustrated, then, yes I am. It's uncharacteristic of me to reach this point because I pride myself in having a calm, rational demeanor. 

But when you pour your heart out in a post, and people just dismiss it, ignore it, mischaracterize it, or shrug it off by introducing an obvious red herring like "political correctness" it makes you question whether it is even worthwhile to attempt to engage anyone on a forum.

I didn't even reply to your post god.  and I'm sorry if I have a different opinion to you.  yes this has A LOT to do with political correctness when posters start coming in and throwing around the acronym POC, thats basically a guarantee this is tied directly into political motivations.

maybe it's not worthwhile for you, I guess you're just one of those misunderstood flowers.  if only the establishment patriarchy would recognize your personhood....

[s5134195]

Just on an aside, I'm glad Ferelden is not a complete conglomerate of ethnicities, cultures and races. Its flaws and limits gives it character, and serious, if we had everything in Ferelden, why on earth would we want to go anywhere else? Half of the thrill of fantasy is knowing that there's so much more out there. It's why we explore the real world in the first place! Let's make sure we give BioWare work to do.



Covering all ethnic/cultural fronts? Definitely. Plopping them all in one *small* location? Lame.



And what does BioWare have against chickens? Why are there so many dogs in Ferelden??

[Laurelinde]

Part of the problem, perhaps, is that yes, if we're making the world in Dragon Age roughly analogous to our world, the climate, architecture, and races are again quite 'European' - so we find it 'realistic' to have them populated by white people.  So maybe people are partly upset that they have gone for 'traditional' European, 'white' settings again, rather than something a bit different.  One of the great things about a game like Morrowind was how utterly different it felt - you did get some of the 'traditional' settlements, but you also got people living in giant crabshells and mushrooms, anthropomorphic cats and lizards, and elves and humans of every shade.  There was no need for any special explanation for it, or a 'lookie lookie, we have black people in European-style mountains and forests!' exposition, it just was, and you took it and ran.  Maybe Bioware (and many other games designers) missed a trick by not either using a non-traditional setting (without necessarily resorting to things like pygmies in ziggurats, ninjas in pagodas or mummies in mastabas, which gets a bit...stereotypical), or using non-European-looking people, and just letting us buy it from the get-go.

I know modern fantasy originated in European myths and stories, and that's fine - we all know and love them!  But if you're get to build a new world from the ground up, and you're trying to be groundbreaking, there's an argument for going for broke, maybe?

Dunno.  Maybe we'll see more in future games when we get to travel further afield than Ferelden, which seems to be pretty parochial in lore terms. (Yay, accidental alliteration!)

[purplesunset]

Thanks again Laurelinde for giving me the confidence to give this one more shot.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Schyzm:

To make things clear, I am actually against enforced political correctness, quotas etc. 

Even though I'm black, my political views are conservative with libertarian leanings. As such,  my views are quite different from what people would expect from the typical black person. For one thing, I am against affirmative action and any kind of system that gives black people an unfair advantage.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I am actually a fairly neutral observer in this issue, and I don't really agree with any one side. The point I've been trying to make is that this is not really a racism issue, or a political correctness issue. It is a roleplaying issue.

To illustrate  my point again:

Imagine that a company designs a game where  you could only create male warriors and the settign was male-only. Their reasoning for this is that it is realistic and women are too weak to survive in the harsh, war-like setting that they created.

However, some gamers who prefer playing as a female were disappointed with this, and they brought up the issue on a forum. Would  people go and say, "Stop whining you politically correct feminists !!!!!!" "Just play a male because it's more realistic  in the setting !!!"

Similarly, some people (I am NOT one of them), prefer playing a character of the same race as themselves in a game. They go on a messageboard board and point out how it feels bit awkward for them. And then everyone says, "Stop whining you politically correct racists !!!!" "Just play white person because it's more realistic in the setting !!!"

Now, what if in scenario one, the gaming company decides to throw a bone to those roleplayers and add in some females in the game, and make it possible to play a female warrior. The developers are NOT obligated to do it, it would just be a nice gesture to appease some of their fans.

It doesn't have to be anything drastic either. The developers don't have to add unicorns and fluffy pink clouds to their setting to make it more accomodating to the females. They could still keep their harsh, war-like setting.

Modifié par purplesunset, 29 novembre 2009 - 10:46 .

[Koralis]

purplesunset wrote...
 The point I've been trying to make is that this is not really a racism issue, or a political correctness issue. It is a roleplaying issue.
...
Similarly, some people (I am NOT one of them), prefer playing a character of the same race as themselves in a game. They go on a messageboard board and point out how it feels bit awkward for them. And then everyone says, "Stop whining you politically correct racists !!!!" "Just play white person because it's more realistic in the setting !!!"

The developers have allowed the toolset to create black characters.  The player will be somewhat rare in terms of the game, but it's possible.   If someone feels that it's impossible to create a black character, then they just aren't very good at tweaking the character generator.  I've seen several pretty decent ones while I was hanging out on the Character Generator board prior to release.  I'm sure that you could go there to get pointers, or even have someone send you the files if you PM them.

So far I've played a swarthy-skinned bald elf and am currently playing a hag.   I'll get to the black noble  human next probably.

[Laurelinde]

No worries purplesunset, I am, well I'm about as pale as my avatar but I am actually a minority, technically, where I live, and I kind of know what it's like to feel...'foreign.' And I'm old-ish, and been gaming awhile, and it used to kind of bug me when no games had female character options (usually no options at all, just default muscly white guy!), so I guess I can kind of empathise. I don't know. I guess I can just understand that there is some innate bias in a lot of things that isn't intentionally hurtful or racist/sexist/anything-else-ist but still makes people who don't 'match' feel like they're running uphill.

[purplesunset]

Laurelinde wrote...

No worries purplesunset, I am, well I'm about as pale as my avatar but I am actually a minority, technically, where I live, and I kind of know what it's like to feel...'foreign.' And I'm old-ish, and been gaming awhile, and it used to kind of bug me when no games had female character options (usually no options at all, just default muscly white guy!), so I guess I can kind of empathise. I don't know. I guess I can just understand that there is some innate bias in a lot of things that isn't intentionally hurtful or racist/sexist/anything-else-ist but still makes people who don't 'match' feel like they're running uphill.

Indeed. I am grateful for your empathy and understanding.  Empathy is the key. Even though I don't  agree with the people who bring up these issues, I can at least understand where they are coming from.

You do not have to agree with someone to understand where they are coming from.

A lesson in wisdom that more people need to learn. I will freely admit that it took a while for me to teach myself this. Empathy takes both patience and effort.

[Deathstyk85]

the game takes place in a northern style "cold mountainous region" wich as someone pointed out, would not promote darker pigmentation naturally, such as seen in other areas.
also, the orlesians, are mildly french in their style and looks
the antivans are representive of the spanish
the qunari are the only people we dont see much of, for good reason as if we did they would be invading/trying to spread the qun wich would be unpleasant, but they are larger, darker people.
now that all that is out of the way, this isnt an issue, you have posted this before, and you are simply doing it for attention, or truly believe that somehow this game is racist because there isnt an equal number of every color of the rainbow shown.

[Schyzm]

purplesunset wrote...

Thanks again Laurelinde for giving me the confidence to give this one more shot.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Schyzm:

To make things clear, I am actually against enforced political correctness, quotas etc. 

Even though I'm black, my political views are conservative with libertarian leanings. As such,  my views are quite different from what people would expect from the typical black person. For one thing, I am against affirmative action and any kind of system that gives black people an unfair advantage.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I am actually a fairly neutral observer in this issue, and I don't really agree with any one side. The point I've been trying to make is that this is not really a racism issue, or a political correctness issue. It is a roleplaying issue.

To illustrate  my point again:

Imagine that a company designs a game where  you could only create male warriors and the settign was male-only. Their reasoning for this is that it is realistic and women are too weak to survive in the harsh, war-like setting that they created.

However, some gamers who prefer playing as a female were disappointed with this, and they brought up the issue on a forum. Would  people go and say, "Stop whining you politically correct feminists !!!!!!" "Just play a male because it's more realistic  in the setting !!!"

Similarly, some people (I am NOT one of them), prefer playing a character of the same race as themselves in a game. They go on a messageboard board and point out how it feels bit awkward for them. And then everyone says, "Stop whining you politically correct racists !!!!" "Just play white person because it's more realistic in the setting !!!"

Now, what if in scenario one, the gaming company decides to throw a bone to those roleplayers and add in some females in the game, and make it possible to play a female warrior. The developers are NOT obligated to do it, it would just be a nice gesture to appease some of their fans.

It doesn't have to be anything drastic either. The developers don't have to add unicorns and fluffy pink clouds to their setting to make it more accomodating to the females. They could still keep their harsh, war-like setting.

females are in gaming much more because of lara croft and overused young male hormones then any effort to "include" women or "empathize" with their plight.  if you'll notice the women in gaming aren't exactly feminist friendly.  

I hope you spam every eastern game demanding bunches of africans or whatever else(maybe southern indians? polynesians?).  

I would say I support any actual creative force making a game.  if you find some interesting or attractive reason to include people that look HOWEVER you want then that is totally legit.  if you take the european fantasy genre based on celtic and norse mythology and just ram in the god damn united nations for the hell of it, then that's genuinely annoying.