642 réponses à ce sujet

[KC_Prototype]

I always felt Dragon Age lack diversity in ethnicity. I know it's a fantasy game but still. I want more ethnic options because I am black and I like to make my characters look like me or at least be a cool representation. I feel like DA:O did a lousy job with that but I did the best I could(hence my profile pic) and with DA2 it was an improvement but still the same lack of options and limited hairstyles(there was basically two black hairstyles but one was a bald look and the other had a bad hairline). ME did an a better job with this but still had limited options until ME3 which did a great job with ethnic diverse options for Shepard. I at least like to see more ethnic hairstyles. Also, I want to see more ethnic diversity with npc's. I know Thedas is supposed to represent medieval Europe but there were some black people in Europe back then and besides, it's fantasy right? TES had the redguards, why can't Dragon Age have some type of black people. I know I am probably alone on this but hey, I want to be heard.  

PS: I don't want to start a race war, just expressing an idea and opinion

[IC-07]

Heeeeere weeeee goooooooo!

[Plaintiff]

More options is never a bad thing.

[Nomadiac]

I'd really like more options, but for some peoples (Races? Ethnicities?) it doesn't make sense as the lore currently stands. For example, so far no one in Thedas has been described as looking Asian, so until we get some context for Asian-looking people existing in Thedas, (from a yet-undescribed country, minority population, traders from overseas, etc.) having an Asian PC when no one else around looks Asian doesn't make sense.

That said, black people actually are in Thedas (or at least dark-skinned: the Rivaini are dark-skinned, and Isabela is part-Rivaini), so I suspect that you'll be able to create black characters.

(Also, I don't understand where this idea that Thedas is meant to be a representation of medieval Europe is coming from. It's heavily inspired by that setting, sure (as is nearly all Western fantasy), but it's not historical fiction. There's no reason for Thedas to be constrained by the realities of that period.)

Modifié par Nomadiac, 30 juin 2013 - 11:45 .

[Darth Krytie]

I agree that it'd be nice to have a better way to do more skin tones and hairstyles. I think that it's been said that it was the fault of the engine that it looked so crappy before. Hopefully, this new engine can render darker skin tones better.

[MisanthropePrime]

Ethnic diversity should only be added if it fits with established lore. Bear in mind that the ethnicity of Thedas, and thus their phenotypes and distribution, are not the same as those of Earth. This doesn't mean that characters of different races shouldn't be seen in the game: quite the contrary, they should only be seen where merited. It'd be silly to see a Rivaini in a backwater Ferelden town which receives little through-traffic and whose population descends from the fair-skinned Avvars just because they have dark skin and it makes you feel fuzzy that you're including a character who shares a trait with a highly visible ethnic group in contemporary America, but it makes perfect sense for them to be in a metropolitan city that's a center of trade like Val Royeaux.

Complaining that there's no ethnic diversity in a setting explicitly designed around medieval Europe and lacking diversity in the physical phenotypes real-world Earth had at the time makes about as much sense as me complaining that all the characters in a game set in Japan look Asian. What did you expect from homogenous nations?

Modifié par MisanthropePrime, 30 juin 2013 - 11:53 .

[vpacheco1984]

The devs even said that they didn't like the fact that their old engine couldn't give enough skin tone diversity and they are hoping the new Frostbite engine allow for more diversity. So do I.

[Plaintiff]

MisanthropePrime wrote...

Ethnic diversity should only be added if it fits with established lore. Bear in mind that the ethnicity of Thedas, and thus their phenotypes and distribution, are not the same as those of Earth. This doesn't mean that characters of different races shouldn't be seen in the game: quite the contrary, they should only be seen where merited. It'd be silly to see a Rivaini in a backwater Ferelden town which receives little through-traffic and whose population descends from the fair-skinned Avvars just because they have dark skin and it makes you feel fuzzy that you're including a character who shares a trait with a highly visible ethnic group in contemporary America, but it makes perfect sense for them to be in a metropolitan city that's a center of trade like Val Royeaux.

Complaining that there's no ethnic diversity in a setting explicitly designed around medieval Europe and lacking diversity in the physical phenotypes real-world Earth had at the time makes about as much sense as me complaining that all the characters in a game set in Japan look Asian. What did you expect from homogenous nations?

1) They obviously took inspiration from places other than Europes and time periods other than the Middle Ages

2) Even if they hadn't, they're not under any obligation to "accurately represent" anything.

3) It's not "adding ethnic diversity", it's letting people make the character they want. If Bioware provides CC features that denote Asian descent, that doesn't mean the setting is going to suddenly be peppered with Asian expies where there were none before. It doesn't affect your game at all.

[Merc Mama]

Oh! I'm for this..
I don't need there being other race colours in DAI and just cause I'm black, doesn't mean they need to throw in more dark skinned NPCs, but it would be nice to have that choice and maybe see a few other minorities in the game.. I find it strange that elves are pale when they seem to live a traveller's life and would most likely be sun tanned cause of all that time in nature.

[Jonata]

I'm definitely supporting this.

Since there are no selectable races, having a Character Creation tool able to at least mirrors humanity's vast diversity in the real world becomes something that basically needs to be there.

Modifié par Jonata, 30 juin 2013 - 05:03 .

[nightscrawl]

Aside from the CC options, which I agree there needs to be more of, the worst part about DAO was the Human Noble origin. You could certainly make your Warden a PoC (person of color), but your whole family was Caucasian, so... yeah.

At least DA2 was greatly improved on that front by having the family correspond to the CC presets. Amusingly, the preset I started with makes the family have a Latin-type look, but at this point I'm so used to them I can't use anything else!

Modifié par nightscrawl, 30 juin 2013 - 05:06 .

[PlasmaCheese]

You aren't alone. =D There were a few dark-skinned elves in Denerim, but not in the Alienage (as far as I can remember). I always had a squee moment when I saw them. I have squee moments whenever I see brown characters..so yea, I would love seeing more. I'd like for them to get our skintones right, too.. My black Warden and Hawke look really shiny/glittery in some light. e_e Unrealistically so.. OH, and curly hair. Please.

[Tarek]

more steve like characters plz

[Tarek]

and actually if we want to be statistical about people on earth, white people are the minority numbers wise

now excuse me I need to worship my Steve idol....

[Oielvert]

I wanted one of my wardens to have the same hairstyle and face tattoo as trailer warden. I had to settle for Alistair hair (I don't see how he can be obsessed by that haircut) and some generic tribal markings. It was underwhelming to say the least.

[Merc Mama]

Tarek wrote...

and actually if we want to be statistical about people on earth, white people are the minority numbers wise

now excuse me I need to worship my Steve idol....

Now Steve was a great character, ethnically I was blown away by him cause he had a hispanic name, but he didn't conform to a stereotype. He had alittle of this and that and those eyes. Fereldan needs more Steves.

[MissOuJ]

If I remember correctly, the developers have commented that the lack of darker skintones was because it was an issue engine-wise (they didn't look realistic or something, can't remember what the problem was exactly), but this won't (?) be an issue anymore because Frostbite is apparently much better in this regard. So here's hoping!

I haven't heard anything about non-caucasian facial structures though, but maybe we'll get those as well? I remember that even in the demo Kingdoms of Amalur had pretty awesome character creator with a wide variety of ethnicities and different facial structures, so maybe something similar?

[LobselVith8]

KC_Prototype wrote...

I always felt Dragon Age lack diversity in ethnicity. I know it's a fantasy game but still. I want more ethnic options because I am black and I like to make my characters look like me or at least be a cool representation. I feel like DA:O did a lousy job with that but I did the best I could(hence my profile pic) and with DA2 it was an improvement but still the same lack of options and limited hairstyles(there was basically two black hairstyles but one was a bald look and the other had a bad hairline). ME did an a better job with this but still had limited options until ME3 which did a great job with ethnic diverse options for Shepard. I at least like to see more ethnic hairstyles.

More customization in creating a non-white protagonist would be great. I also think the 'default' protagonist showing up before the character creator should be avoided in Inquisition.

KC_Prototype wrote...

Also, I want to see more ethnic diversity with npc's.

I would like to see that, too.

KC_Prototype wrote...

I know Thedas is supposed to represent medieval Europe but there were some black people in Europe back then and besides, it's fantasy right? TES had the redguards, why can't Dragon Age have some type of black people. I know I am probably alone on this but hey, I want to be heard.

There was diversity in ports like Kirkwall, which is why the lack of diversity in the game stood out for some people, especially those who knew that history isn't as uniform as Hollywood would lead you to believe.

KC_Prototype wrote...

PS: I don't want to start a race war, just expressing an idea and opinion

More diversity is a great suggestion.

[Silfren]

Orlais sounds like a very cosmopolitan city.  To satisfy the crowd who crows endlessly about "REALISM OMG," well...Andrastianism being the world's dominant religion, and Orlais being the heart of the Chantry, on top of being a fairly advanced empire, it'd be a good setting for a multi-ethnic populace (if not a multi-cultural one).

If we see Tevinter, I'd expect to see some considerable diversity, too, but in this case, it bothers me more than a little bit that we could end up seeing a lot of ethnic diversity among the slave population and lower classes, and very little among the magocracy.....and hoo boy that's not problematic at all.

[MisanthropePrime]

Plaintiff wrote...

MisanthropePrime wrote...

Ethnic diversity should only be added if it fits with established lore. Bear in mind that the ethnicity of Thedas, and thus their phenotypes and distribution, are not the same as those of Earth. This doesn't mean that characters of different races shouldn't be seen in the game: quite the contrary, they should only be seen where merited. It'd be silly to see a Rivaini in a backwater Ferelden town which receives little through-traffic and whose population descends from the fair-skinned Avvars just because they have dark skin and it makes you feel fuzzy that you're including a character who shares a trait with a highly visible ethnic group in contemporary America, but it makes perfect sense for them to be in a metropolitan city that's a center of trade like Val Royeaux.

Complaining that there's no ethnic diversity in a setting explicitly designed around medieval Europe and lacking diversity in the physical phenotypes real-world Earth had at the time makes about as much sense as me complaining that all the characters in a game set in Japan look Asian. What did you expect from homogenous nations?

1) They obviously took inspiration from places other than Europes and time periods other than the Middle Ages

The only places that are distinctly non-European in this setting are also populated by non-humans. I'm not sure what connotations you wanna take from that.

2) Even if they hadn't, they're not under any obligation to "accurately represent" anything.

Bioware does seem to want to craft a fantasy world that holds some modern values while providing a facsimilie of the middle ages, which can be a little jarring at times. When reading World of Thedas I was pretty damn surprised to find that on the topic of homosexuality in Thedas it was said to be pretty much tolerated everywhere, for instance. Not that there's anything wrong with homosexuality, but that there's no prejudice against it in all of the various cultures on the continent seems a little hard to swallow. Same thing goes with wanting to promote a weird "rainbow coalition" in the middle ages. Hell, I found it weird how African Hubert the Orlesian looked and there's not even an Africa analogue in the setting.

3) It's not "adding ethnic diversity", it's letting people make the character they want. If Bioware provides CC features that denote Asian descent, that doesn't mean the setting is going to suddenly be peppered with Asian expies where there were none before. It doesn't affect your game at all.

Unless the lore supports characters from multiple ethnic groups (which it entirely could, considering the Inquisitor is going to have multiple origins), I'd rather the game not have those phenotypical features, actually. Hawke and his family having dark skin could be explained by them being in Lothering, relatively close to the wilds and potentially having Chasind ancestry, so that would be a fine way to combine ethnic pluralism and existing lore (if it didn't make Leandra dark skinned as well). But just having someone with an epicanthic fold when no group in the game  is shown to have that feature, and said group has no reason to be part of the population of a given area, strikes me as a bit odd.

[MisanthropePrime]

Merc Mama wrote...

Tarek wrote...

and actually if we want to be statistical about people on earth, white people are the minority numbers wise

now excuse me I need to worship my Steve idol....

Now Steve was a great character, ethnically I was blown away by him cause he had a hispanic name, but he didn't conform to a stereotype. He had alittle of this and that and those eyes. Fereldan needs more Steves.

Steve was probably of Afro-Carribean decent, there are people who look like him especially in places like Cuba who have obviously Hispanic last names.

[Silfren]

Nomadiac wrote...

I'd really like more options, but for some peoples (Races? Ethnicities?) it doesn't make sense as the lore currently stands. For example, so far no one in Thedas has been described as looking Asian, so until we get some context for Asian-looking people existing in Thedas, (from a yet-undescribed country, minority population, traders from overseas, etc.) having an Asian PC when no one else around looks Asian doesn't make sense.

That said, black people actually are in Thedas (or at least dark-skinned: the Rivaini are dark-skinned, and Isabela is part-Rivaini), so I suspect that you'll be able to create black characters.

(Also, I don't understand where this idea that Thedas is meant to be a representation of medieval Europe is coming from. It's heavily inspired by that setting, sure (as is nearly all Western fantasy), but it's not historical fiction. There's no reason for Thedas to be constrained by the realities of that period.)

...Since Asia does not exist in Thedas, nobody WILL be described as Asian.  But we did see a character in Origins who had features that most people recognized as Asian.

I know I'm not the only person who finds the "context!  realism!" arguments against diversity to be tedious.

Also, bear in mind that medieval Europe WAS diverse.  I realize you're arguing against people who use this argument, but you're STILL perpetuating the idea that medieval Europe never heard of dark people.  

[Androme]

 It makes sense only for the protagonist if he/she doesn't have a defined ancestral background story-wise, otherwise no.

Modifié par Androme, 30 juin 2013 - 07:59 .

[Androme]

Silfren wrote...

Also, bear in mind that medieval Europe WAS diverse.  I realize you're arguing against people who use this argument, but you're STILL perpetuating the idea that medieval Europe never heard of dark people.  

Medieval Europe was not diverse and isn't today. The indigenous populations of all european nations share a common ancestry (race), only with small differences (ethnicity).

Modifié par Androme, 30 juin 2013 - 08:01 .