162 réponses à ce sujet

[daaaav]

This again... The physical traits of human beings are not dependent on their cultures but on the various environmental and geographical circumstances experienced by different groups of people throughout our history.

Thus when developing fantasy worlds and the people who inhabit them, there is no reason why physical traits CANNOT be divorced from any cultural or social stereotypes present in the real world. You shouldn't however, divorce physical traits from the very things that caused them in the first place... As long as harmful stereotypes are avoided what reason is there to?

Different cultures have different garments, music, food, laws, wants, needs and yes.. depending on where they live they may look a little different. This is to be CELEBRATED, not homogenised without cause or explanation.

[Twisted Path]

Nefla wrote...


There was an Asian looking and a Middle Eastern looking preset for Hawke and family but they just didn't do it very well.

I liked the vaugly Asian looking preset and actually picked it for my mage playthrough of Dragon Age 2. I even thought vaugly-Asian Carver looked better than the face he gets if you pick the defaults. The one downside was vaugly-Asian Hawke's mother had a horrible haircut.

Modifié par Twisted Path, 15 août 2013 - 05:57 .

[Conquerthecity]

I wish Bioware would canonize the fan theory that Jade Empire and Dragon Age occur on the same planet. It would be fun to somehow RP an Inquisitor who recently got off the boat from the JE.

[Mecha Elf]

Heck all I want is the skin tones to be better, as a Hispanic I have tan skin and biowares skin color for that shade is always a bit weird.

[Nethalf]

sandalisthemaker wrote...
I'm just making the point that the devs can do whatever they want. Thedas is not an exact replica of Medieval Europe like so many people claim, and even then, there were people of different races living in Medieval Europe.

It's not an exact replica of Europe but it is a replica anyway. We already got an option to turn our protagonist yellow-skinned. That's great and that's enough for me.

sandalisthemaker wrote...
If they want to add people with features associated with Asians, then they have every right to. They don't owe anyone an explanation either.

They do, actually.
They can put one or two Asian guys into the game, of course. But in that case, they should also put a small explanation where these persons came from.

[AllThatJazz]

Agreed, OP. More customisation options are always good

Given that both Vivienne and Painter both seem to have darker skin, I am cautiously optimistic. x

[Das Tentakel]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Random Jerkface wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Also, Isabella is a poor example. She was white in DA:O

No, she wasn't.

I hope you can understand mine and others confusion. As these two look comparably similar.

Yet one is a lily white ginger French girl and another is apparently black.

You're forgetting the 'one pixel' rule, Jimmy. The digital equivalent of the 'one drop' rule.

Yeah, I just made that one up. But a lot of this is 'in the eye of the beholder' stuff. I am not entirely sure about Gaider's claims regarding Isabella anyway. I'm pretty sure she was always meant to be 'dark', but I am not entirely sure she became definitively 'black', rather than 'Mediterranean dark' before BioWare was called out on the race / people of colour issue. Rivain sure sounded Spanish a couple of years ago, before BioWare 'fixed' it as Thedas' version of Hammerfell. Lore in the early stages of a setting's development is always in flux, and especially so when things haven't been published and set as canon. And even then...

As for my own opinion, put them in and don't bother with the lore. Thedas is quintessentially a 'Fantasy White North America With Swords' type of setting, might just as well make it 'Fantasy North America With Swords'. Keeping people of colour out feels very, very...uncomfortable. It's pretty clear they are now being inserted into the setting, so that should make most people happy.

Modifié par Das Tentakel, 15 août 2013 - 10:29 .

[Potato Cat]

I distinctly remember the darker skinned Origins characters looking purple. And they could always add Asian looking NPCs in the game, I just hope the lore reason for their existence and homeland is less stereotypically fantasy take on Chinese and Japanese culture, and more original. I think we've all seen at least one borderline offensive example of this trope. Hey, maybe you could incorporate the Asian appearance into the elves or even the dwarves of distant lands, if we ever see them.

[The_11thDoctor]

iPoohCupCakes wrote...

aang001 wrote...

they just offer us some Black and Asian hair styles/facial hair this
time around.

Please define 'Black and Asian hairstyles/facial hair' 
But anyways other than that I agree with you, we need more women/men of color in this game. I know there were some in DA:O and DA2 but not many, especially the women. The only female I could think off the top of my head that had some color is Isabela and that mage that Anders almost killed in his quest. 

For creating people of color some yellow tinted skins would be cool for creating asians. And for brown people all they pretty much need to do is create a skin color that does not have the protagonist look like they just rolled in some mud. Add gold/red undertones and stuff. 

You've heard of google right? Not being a snot or anything, but its very easy to tell what anyone means by Black or Asian hair styles. EX: Type in Korean Hair styles, Japanese, etc and a slew of them comes up. Click images and you can view them. There are very destinct, iconic, and/ or widely known styles. It would take took much space to list them all.


Im not stating no other race can wear a certain style hair, cause there are tons of people that can and do style their hair what ever way they want, but certain races wear certain styles more than others

I tried linking a few searches, but the links were breaking when I tried posting them.

Modifié par aang001, 15 août 2013 - 03:21 .

[maliluka]

SergeantSnookie wrote...

They also really ought to make the darker skintones less deceiving in the CC.

My Warden was supposed to be much darker than she ended up looking in-game...

I agree, I figured if I was a dalish elf in the sun all the time wouldn't I naturally have maybe a more golden or tan skin? it seemed no matter how I played with it, I still appeared more pasty white than what I chose in CC

[The_11thDoctor]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

krul2k wrote...

Do Asians complain if they cant play a white westerner in asian made games? just wondering ive never played an asian game but im guessing there CC represents Asians more than the westerner as ours does vice versa

im actually very curious on this now lol

In the Asian games I've played, it is more often the case that they actually make their character models look undeniably white in most cases. Which I've always found odd.

I can explain this somewhat if need be. Asian tend to love Westerners. Westerners have different hair colors that they(Asians) are not usually born with. When you live in a sea of people with the same hair color with little varience, sometimes you feel like spicing it up and dying your hair blond, brown or orange. It also adds to your fashion sence. Just as Westerners can be obsessed with Eastern culture, vise versa with Eastern countries. Like in Japan or Korea, being able to speak Eng is the cool thing. Watch a Korean drama or an Anime and see if its possible to not find someone who randomly speaks in English at some point. Good or bad... Culture and Fashion.

[Catroi]

makes no sence logically since the climate is European

[Ziggeh]

Why in good gravy do people care if it fits in with a flawed historical parallel?

If you think it might present a problem with versimilitude (which is a wierd stance to begin with) you'd have the option to ignore it entirely.

Or are we saying the fact that you could potentially create it within the character creator means that it must exist in your version of Thedas, and therefor needs an in game explanation? That's an absurd argument.

[The_11thDoctor]

Despite the few people arguing over having lore to explain Black and Asian people existing despite knowing that female Dwarves, and Kossif/Qun havent been shown before this in game, Darkspawn changing what they look like, Qunari suddenly getting horns, dragons, werewolves, mages and templars which also use magic but hate mages exist, this is relevant? This has nothing to do with my asking of them adding options for PCs to have the ability to look more like their ethnicity and look cooler while attempting to do so.

Despite the fact that everything in the lure isnt present in the DA games much like ME when they still havent shown Tali...not counting that generic stock photo, Female Krogan or Turrians, And still havent seen all the world of Thedas and what lies beyond the map or even really in each and every city from the known countries, we need to explain Black and Asians suddenly popping up in DAI?

... People are still people no matter where you go or the topic in the forums...

Thank you to those who responded like you had some sense. I regretted making the thread as soon as I hit create fearing this would turn ignorant quickly with no real comments of worth. If they can add more options for the players even if there are only 1 Black and 1 Asian playing, if it makes them/us feel more in tuned with our PC, we all win as gamers.

[Sylvianus]

AllThatJazz wrote...

Agreed, OP. More customisation options are always good

Given that both Vivienne and Painter both seem to have darker skin, I am cautiously optimistic. x

Who is Painter ?

[Rockpopple]

As a player of colour, I thought the CC in DA2 did a decent enough job representing the Hawkes... except for Carver. But Hawke and Beth and Mama Hawke were decently "ethnic" enough.

I'm all for better hairstyles though, and a better bald option. Like my avatar shows, some black men just look GQ bald, with the right facial hair.

[Aolbain]

Fast Jimmy wrote...


To date, no established nationality has included any people with features that would be remotely described as Asian. Or Albino. Or what have you. So if they did want to introduce different nationality features, they should do so with a previously unknown nation.

The nations of Thedas are not homogeneous. There is no reason there could not be some etnicity from Tevinter/Orlais/whatever that looks Asian.

[mikeymoonshine]

it would be nice (now that we hopefully don't have some family we have to look like) that there will be more variation in what kinds of characters you can create and what the characters in game look like.

the thing about hawke was there wasn't really a massive amount of variation in how you could make him/her look. He/she kinda looked the same in most instances just with darket or lighter skin, different colour eyes and a different shaped face. There was still a the sameness in all my hawks.

It would be nice to make someone who looks properly asian or african or whatever and to see npcs like that in the world.

I don't know allot about race in the DA lore, Isabella is supposed to be black right? although they look more kinda Caribbean maybe Egyptian looking or something. I think boiware maybe need to outline the lore on this and bring in some info about other cultures.

Plus ofc how does it work with other races eg: elves and dwarves?

I think there have been some pretty dark looking elves before and dwarves probably but you would exspect most dwarves to be pretty light skinned from living underground.

[Jessabeth]

I think that with the new engine, we'll be given a better range of skin colors. Unfortunately, the previous engines made it a bit difficult for anyone to make a decent looking person of color. Those skin tones were kind of horrible.

On the whole "we need to explain why x is here", I disagree. We're not told that "all x country is filled with white people". They could easily make Orlais a "melting pot" where people have come together.

[Fast Jimmy]

Aolbain wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...


To date, no established nationality has included any people with features that would be remotely described as Asian. Or Albino. Or what have you. So if they did want to introduce different nationality features, they should do so with a previously unknown nation.

The nations of Thedas are not homogeneous. There is no reason there could not be some etnicity from Tevinter/Orlais/whatever that looks Asian.

If they want to introduce a previously untalked about group of Tevinters that have other racial traits, that's fine. Someone mentioned the Fex, which have been incredibly vauge in their description in the past and who are the humans who live in the Qunari controlled capital of Par Vollen, could be correspondent with a real-life racial appearance.

This is all fine... they would just need to explain that. Or at least make the attempt of doing so.

If, suddenly, everyone is as multi-cultured and diverse as downtown New York City with zero explanation, however, that is not a good way to support established lore.

[mikeymoonshine]

Aolbain wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...


To date, no established nationality has included any people with features that would be remotely described as Asian. Or Albino. Or what have you. So if they did want to introduce different nationality features, they should do so with a previously unknown nation.

The nations of Thedas are not homogeneous. There is no reason there could not be some etnicity from Tevinter/Orlais/whatever that looks Asian.

Exactly we know that there is allot of moving around in thedas so someone's ethnicity may not always reflect the majority of people from their homeland. 

So far fereldens seem to be brittish white mostly, Orlais seems to be french basically so again pale but with lighter hair colours (allot of gingers) and Rivani's people are darker skinned. 

I don't really know about anywhere else but there could be darker people in Rivani than isabella. What about tervinter or antiva? There could be all kinds of different ethnic groups. 

[mikeymoonshine]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Aolbain wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...


To date, no established nationality has included any people with features that would be remotely described as Asian. Or Albino. Or what have you. So if they did want to introduce different nationality features, they should do so with a previously unknown nation.

The nations of Thedas are not homogeneous. There is no reason there could not be some etnicity from Tevinter/Orlais/whatever that looks Asian.

If they want to introduce a previously untalked about group of Tevinters that have other racial traits, that's fine. Someone mentioned the Fex, which have been incredibly vauge in their description in the past and who are the humans who live in the Qunari controlled capital of Par Vollen, could be correspondent with a real-life racial appearance.

This is all fine... they would just need to explain that. Or at least make the attempt of doing so.

If, suddenly, everyone is as multi-cultured and diverse as downtown New York City with zero explanation, however, that is not a good way to support established lore.

We have only been to Ferelden and The freemarches though. I guess we can assume the look from orlais because of all the orlaisian characters but most other places are anyones guess. A character from there may not be a representation of the way most people look there. Aveline was ferelden but she's origionally orleasian which is i assume why she looks like shes from orlais.