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[Herr Uhl]

Medhia Nox wrote...

@Herr Uhl: Well sure - but the dwarves in Orzammar are a fairly original take on dwarves (their culture) - as are the Thedas elves.

Thedas elves and dwarves take more from D&D than they do from Norse myth.

And D&D takes from Tolkien who takes from Norse myth. Norse myth is one of the cornerstones to fantasy.

Consider that you don't notice it now. Fantasy takes foreign elements and assimilate them usually. While on the norse theme, there are loads of settings that have the horned tall blonde and bearded norse warriors wielding axes from the north, it is enough to be a staple. This is not at all how vikings actually were, and I'd expect similar caricatures of a culture that is more foreign to the developers unless they're devoting a lot of time into researching the culture. I don't see that happening to introduce a new faction in Thedas.

Slipping in a completely foreign culture to a setting is a major thing. If it is done, that ought to be the focal point of the game, not a sideshow. Having a couple of traders in port cities from far away foreign lands seems more achievable.

[soignee]

Plaintiff wrote...

And there's a vast difference between co-opting ethnic art to make lingerie, which you then market as an "Exotic Eastern Experience", and taking some aspects of different real cultures and cobbling them together to make an entirely new, entirely fictional culture for your fantasy world.

I linked because Victoria's Secret have the most slapped wrists for this level of apropriation recently, and there's a store in every American town usually. How about some Dior then? They're a couture house, and have been for a long time. Have some vintage "at the height of his career" Galliano cherry picking native clothing for his collection. This collection is pretty reknown as classic Galliano, what he's famous/good at. Everyone recalls it, usually, when they mention past collections. To some, as the author of the link states, it's still perpetuatiing a stereotype and harming a culture while doing so.

I'm still using fashion as an example, but I'd argue that world builders in fantasy stories and video games do the same level of cherry picking, taking from myth and culture for their world building, as it suits them. Tropes and stereotypes are dutifully marched out, without being realised, because it's the quickest way to get to a point in a story.  

As an example, World of Warcraft shamelessly plunders from world cultures -Thrall is the epitome of noble savage, as well as that of taurens, trolls, tuskarr, gorlocks... I'd argue that it's predominately white settings first for the heroes in much loved fantasy and sci fi stories also - Tolkien, Wheel of Time, Sword of Truth, A Song of Ice and Fire, Dune, Ender's Game and even Discworld, then cherry picked myths and cultures from non white/european myth for "other," including monster/bad guy cultures.

I agree that non white euro fantasy setting would be great, just the current formula as it stands means it's just going to be cherry picking, no depth. Futher DA installments with a non white and non european myth setting? Awesome. Bring it.

[x12796]

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

Eh. I haven't particularly missed them. And if it's a choice of introducing an Asian themed continent vs expanding on Tevinter and Orlais I'd choose the latter every time.

Exactly, the Teventer are so fascinating and we barely scratch the surface of the Imperium both past and present.  There is so much that I think Bioware could do with the Tevinter to make excellent future DA games that I think it would be an injustice to ignore them.

It's also not like Asia is underrepresented in video games considering the early market dominance by Japanese video game companies and the cult like fan base of anime and ninja games.  Even the Elder scrolls games have limited Asian influences with the Blades and Akaviri and the continent that the Akaviri originally came from.

[Solmanian]

The elves are inspired from asian sources, dwarves from mayan or aztec, and the qunari with their bare chested "armour" (srsly, how can a people that don't wear "real" armour actualy threaten armies using plate armour?) are obviously inspired from the more various tribal groups. atleast from art design. Culturaly wise is actualy different sources.

[Herr Uhl]

Solmanian wrote...

The elves are inspired from asian sources, dwarves from mayan or aztec

No.

[EpicBoot2daFace]

Shouldn't there be a push to go beyond the typical british medieval fantasy setting anyway? I think the lack of racial diversity is because the setting is always the same. It doesn't matter what they name the country or region, it's just Europe. The excuse is "Well, black people really didn't live in these places back then." Then change the ****ing setting or take some creative liberties, for **** sake.

Modifié par EpicBoot2daFace, 25 février 2013 - 03:57 .

[Volus Warlord]

If they don't give plot reasons for some newfound "diversity," it'd just be empty tokenism.

If they actually backed it up lorewise, than it could be good.

[syllogi]

Solmanian wrote...

The elves are inspired from asian sources, dwarves from mayan or aztec, and the qunari with their bare chested "armour" (srsly, how can a people that don't wear "real" armour actualy threaten armies using plate armour?) are obviously inspired from the more various tribal groups. atleast from art design. Culturaly wise is actualy different sources.

Both elves and dwarves are borrowed from Germanic/Scandinavian/Norse mythology by way of Tolkien, and filtered through Dungeons & Dragons for what we usually see in fantasy video games.

Asia and Central/South America have very rich and interesting mythologies and folklore, and it would be great if the DA franchise wanted to use them for inspiration in the future, but I don't see any kind of direct connection in the first two games.   

Modifié par syllogi, 25 février 2013 - 04:36 .

[Iosev]

I would love to see the Dragon Age world expanded to show cultures with non-European influences. While I can certainly understand the desire to visit known locations like the Anderfels, Antiva, or Tevinter, that doesn't mean we have to explore them all before introducing new locations. Perhaps you could even do both (i.e., have a game explore one of the currently known locations, while introducing a new culture at the same time through trading, or possibly invasion).

[David Gaider]

Four things:

1) Thedas is not Europe. It's vaguely based on medieval Europe-- and, while I can see why some people would like more fantasy based on things other than medieval Europe (and I approve-- heck, we did Jade Empire after all), it is and the setting is already created. Making direct comparisons to "it was like this in European history", however, and trying to say that means it should also be like this in Thedas is not going to hold much weight. Dragon Age is not a historical simulation.

2) That said, there were black people in Europe. Depending on which era you look at, in fact, there were potentially a lot of them. Thedas also has Rivain, which is roughly analogous to medieval Spain... but I wouldn't try to stretch the comparison too hard.

3) We've said previously that we'd like to have more ethnic variation in Dragon Age. Our previous engine couldn't do very dark skin tones very well, but with that fact changed it's something we'd like to include. Rivain does exist, like I said, and while they're not the most populous country their people are not exactly barred into their cities. We're going to include them where they make sense, and thankfully there are indeed places where they make sense. It's perfectly reasonable for people to ask for more of this-- it's not about "political correctness" so much as not making the default white in every single instance just because nobody thought it could maybe be otherwise.

4) All that said, trying to squeeze every real-world ethnicity onto one continent simply isn't going to happen. There are, however, places in Dragon Age other than the continent of Thedas... should we ever go to those places, one should expect to see other sorts of people there. And there's nothing stopping the occasional traveler from far away coming into the game for plot reasons, though that's going to be exceptional simply because traffic between the continents is not exactly great. If it was, you'd expect people to be talking about "the lands beyond Thedas" a trifle more, wouldn't you? That could, however, always change.

How people look in the game is really more the Art department's province than Writing's, but we have input on the subject (and a degree of influence over the context). Ultimately this is something you're simply going to have to wait and see on, and we'll show what we mean. Beyond that, however, like I said above there's really no reason to slam anyone who asks for more representation in fantasy. It's a big place.

Modifié par David Gaider, 25 février 2013 - 04:47 .

[The Teyrn of Whatever]

jillabender wrote...

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

a12boom wrote...

Africa's current culture is participating in white genocide in the south region of the continent, killing each other in Rwanda, and forcing people to submit to Islam...no thank you. But if you meant fesitivals, armor, architecture...not much, really. Asian culture is much more my style.

I would prefer if we stuck with Orlais and the Tevinter Imperium then move up the map.

Um... what?

I have to agree that it's bizarre to talk about Africa as though it has one monolithic culture.

It's equally bizarre to talk about Asia in the same way. Places like Japan, China, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan (no Borat jokes please), the many nations that make up the Asian parts of the former Soviet Union are all fairly distinct from one another.

[Paul E Dangerously]

Solmanian wrote...

The elves are inspired from asian sources, dwarves from mayan or aztec, and the qunari with their bare chested "armour" (srsly, how can a people that don't wear "real" armour actualy threaten armies using plate armour?) are obviously inspired from the more various tribal groups. atleast from art design. Culturaly wise is actualy different sources.

How can the Qunari beat people with plate armor? I don't know. They're huge, strong, united and have cannons.

[soignee]

David Gaider wrote...

Four things:

1) Thedas is not Europe. It's vaguely based on medieval Europe-- and, while I can see why some people would like more fantasy based on things other than medieval Europe (and I approve-- heck, we did Jade Empire after all), it is and the setting is already created. Making direct comparisons to "it was like this in European history", however, and trying to say that means it should also be like this in Thedas is not going to hold much weight. Dragon Age is not a historical simulation.

2) That said, there were black people in Europe. Depending on which era you look at, in fact, there were potentially a lot of them. Thedas also has Rivain, which is roughly analogous to medieval Spain... but I wouldn't try to stretch the comparison too hard.

With regards to 2), yes!



"But it's not historically accurate!" weirdly gets bandied about for medieval europe based fantasies, even if the world has unicorns and talking dragons. This reminds me when some people lost their collective shistuffings when the BBC Merlin had a black Guinivere and black knight of the round table, as well as Heimdal of the recent Thor film being played by Idris Alba. I rather think the latter was a quiet "please shut up" from the filmmakers to the modern Ahnenerbe followers who use Norse imagery in their propaganda- as well as Idris Alba looking fabulous in gold, obviously.

Moors (of Othello fame) inhabited some of southern Europe (spain especially)  as early as 7th century, as well as Berbers... the silk road that precedes them certainly dealt with people of all colours, as well as there being Romani gypsies who have been in europe for a very long time. Europe has never been purely white.

The points I made earlier, however, is that other cultures being cherry picked for world building comes with a certain set of baggage that needs to be navigated around delicately and respectfully. Tropes of noble savage and race stereotypes have been wheedled about in English literature for a very long time, and it's hard to shake them off; especially if the main world is built around the usual fantasy tropes.

[Lennard Testarossa]

David Gaider wrote...
Our previous engine couldn't do very dark skin tones very well, but with that fact changed it's something we'd like to include. Rivain does exist, like I said, and while they're not the most populous country their people are not exactly barred into their cities. We're going to include them where they make sense, and thankfully there are indeed places where they make sense.[...]How people look in the game is really more the Art department's province than Writing's, but we have input on the subject

What would Isabela and Duncan have looked like had the engine been able to produce darker skin tones? I get that they're supposed to be non-European looking, but beyond that, I'm not quite sure what the people of Rivain look like.
Some people claim they are supposed to be black, but then again, they have relatively straight hair, so I'm not quite sure what you were going for. It's not like every ethnicity in Thedas has to have a direct equivalent in the real world, of course.

Modifié par Lennard Testarossa, 25 février 2013 - 05:25 .

[rolson00]

@David Gaider yes I agree with you, I suggested in my first comment introducing ethnic people via the Tevinter imperium as slaves, is that feasible?

[Lennard Testarossa]

rolson00 wrote...
@David Gaider yes I agree with you, I suggested in my first comment introducing ethnic people via the Tevinter imperium as slaves, is that feasible?

...and from where exactly would the Tevinter Imperium have gotten these slaves?

[The Hierophant]

Lennard Testarossa wrote...

rolson00 wrote...
@David Gaider yes I agree with you, I suggested in my first comment introducing ethnic people via the Tevinter imperium as slaves, is that feasible?

...and from where exactly would the Tevinter Imperium have gotten these slaves?

Probably by slavers capturing some unwitting explorers/traders who arrived by boat from some other continent.

[David Gaider]

rolson00 wrote...
@David Gaider yes I agree with you, I suggested in my first comment introducing ethnic people via the Tevinter imperium as slaves, is that feasible?

I think I'd prefer to avoid the implication that extra-continental ethnic groups are automatically enslaved whenever they encounter Thedosian white people-- there's no reason they couldn't have a powerful culture of their own, albeit far off-- but with regards to lone stragglers, I suppose it's possible. Even so, I'm uncertain I'd use that as an introduction for an entirely new culture.

[Fast Jimmy]

The Hierophant wrote...

Lennard Testarossa wrote...

rolson00 wrote...
@David Gaider yes I agree with you, I suggested in my first comment introducing ethnic people via the Tevinter imperium as slaves, is that feasible?

...and from where exactly would the Tevinter Imperium have gotten these slaves?

Probably by slavers capturing some unwitting explorers/traders who arrived by boat from some other continent.

Again... I'd think Bioware may be extremely leery about having the first contact with some non-European ethnicities in the context of them being slaves. I know Thedas isn't Earth and all, but there's still some real world analogies that could get brought into that that are really negative.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Gaider. 

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 25 février 2013 - 05:57 .

[rolson00]

The Hierophant wrote...

Lennard Testarossa wrote...

rolson00 wrote...
@David Gaider yes I agree with you, I suggested in my first comment introducing ethnic people via the Tevinter imperium as slaves, is that feasible?

...and from where exactly would the Tevinter Imperium have gotten these slaves?

Probably by slavers capturing some unwitting explorers/traders who arrived by boat from some other continent.

In the DA world we already know that the Tevinter Imperium already has human and elvern slaves i'm simply using the lore Bioware has provided

EDIT a very good point David Gaider

Modifié par rolson00, 25 février 2013 - 06:00 .

[EpicBoot2daFace]

David Gaider wrote...

Four things:

1) Thedas is not Europe. It's vaguely based on medieval Europe-- and, while I can see why some people would like more fantasy based on things other than medieval Europe (and I approve-- heck, we did Jade Empire after all), it is and the setting is already created. Making direct comparisons to "it was like this in European history", however, and trying to say that means it should also be like this in Thedas is not going to hold much weight. Dragon Age is not a historical simulation.

I'm actually saying the opposite. I think you guys should take more creative liberties because it's a rather generic setting to begin with. It may not be Europe in a literal sense, but it's not different enough to distinguish itself among all the other RPG's that have characters who speak primarily with an english accent. It's not difficult to imagine Thedas as Europe while playing the game.

Also, yeah... Jade Empire. How did you guys go from making this original RPG set in Asia, to a boring medieval fantasy RPG that doesn't even have an original bone in it's body, and is still struggling to carve out any sort identity for itself among it's peers?

[Lennard Testarossa]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
Again... I'd think Bioware may be extremely leery about having the first contact with some non-European ethnicities in the context of them being slaves. I know Thedas isn't Earth and all, but there's still some real world analogies that could get brought into that that are really negative.

It seems extremely unlikely anyway. The Tevinters aren't complete and utter morons, and only a complete and utter moron would enslave members of an unknown culture that has the capability to cross the sea between continents. **** like that can start wars and it's not like Tevinter doesn't have its hands full with the Qunari.

rolson00 wrote...
In the DA world we already know that the Tevinter Imperium already
has human and elvern slaves i'm simply using the lore Bioware has
provided

Where would they capture non-Caucasian slaves if there is no place in Thedas where non-Caucasian people live and no other reachable continent?

Modifié par Lennard Testarossa, 25 février 2013 - 06:07 .