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Honestly its all rather a bit sad, like seeing the last effects of brainwashing take place on someone so they don't remember anything about themselves anymore. Or severe stockholm syndrome making them want to be with their conquerors.
So immigrants who want to become American for example are brainwashed because they want to live in and embrace a new culture? 
Essentially yeah, the price for admission is giving up everything of your peoples history and culture to become part of this new country. Call me old fashioned from having grown up in hawaii, but the price we had to pay for becoming a territory was an outlawing of our religion, language, our government being abolished, our people being bared from positions of power, and english and Americanization/Christianization efforts killing off any trace of our old culture.So immigrants who want to become American for example are brainwashed because they want to live in and embrace a new culture?
I think we need more white people in Thedas. Don't you agree Mockingword?
Yes, Thedas is totally starving for white people. 
Has anyone here ever seen the TV movie of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella starring Brandi? Now, don't laugh, hear me out. That was a super important movie for a lot of little black girls because it was the first time Disney offered up a non-white fairy tale princess. The whole movie was a mixed cast, with roles being cast regardless of race or ethnicity (White king, black queen, filipino prince, for example). There was no explanation for it, it just was. And no one complained that they were ignoring culture-- it was just a movie that allowed non-white kids to see themselves in media.
I know the parallel isn't perfect, but my point isn't that we should make Dragon Age like Cinderella-- The point is, it's STILL important for people to see characters/actors who LOOK like them, even if the character doesn't have a distinctly separate culture. For example, if you have a black actor playing a member of an alien race on a sci fi show, that's still POC representation, even though the character is not "African". Tuvok--the Vulcan portrayed by a black actor on Star Trek is a good example of this. There was no need to explain why this Vulcan had dark skin, when the others we'd seen were mostly pale-- the creators cast him and put him in the show, and that functioned on its own to expand the lore on Vulcans. We could look at Tuvok and think "Oh! Just like humans, Vulcans can have a variety of skin tones. I didn't know that before. Now I do."
To bring it back on point-- it is important to see people who visibly appear to be races other than white, even if, in the game world, they are not culturally distinct from the existing 'white' characters.
If Hawke can be a black or Asian-looking Fereldan, why can't other Asian-looking Fereldans exist? If Vivienne can be a black Orlesian, why can we not see other NPC Orlesians with straight black hair and epicanthic folds?
Essentially yeah, the price for admission is giving up everything of your peoples history and culture to become part of this new country. Call me old fashioned from having grown up in hawaii, but the price we had to pay for becoming a territory was an outlawing of our religion, language, our government being abolished, our people being bared from positions of power, and english and Americanization/Christianization efforts killing off any trace of our old culture.
Its a heavy price to pay when an entire people are made to come under the sway of another country. And on an individual level the process hasn't changed much, you kill off your old identity, which some people like and others fight to resist doing, and embrace a new identity that your newly adopted culture approves as socially acceptable. So yes, its a brainwashing that people accept as being okay to do, because to everyone else its bringing someone into a fold, instead of removing what was there before in favor of putting something more acceptable in its place.
Apparently you missed the numerous demonstrations a few years ago when thousands of people marched through streets with Mexican or other national flags as a sign of support for their home cultures. Maybe you've never been to Little Italy in New York? Or any of the other thousands of examples where Americans retain their native cultures (which often change over time, which is a natural process, blending 'American' with the immigrant culture).
I'll give you Hawaii and the Native American cultures were a bad thing on our ('American') part, but that was during America's Imperial Age. Today immigrants purposefully don't surrender their culture, even to the point of belligerence toward so-called 'American' culture. Also no-one is forced to come to the US, anyone who does made the choice and threw a whole ton of effort into making it happen.
Well there's no need to create new weapons, armors, characters, or environments either in dragon age games, but it's nice to see them actually put effort behind creating such things. Same thing applies here, there's a good way and a lazy way for introducing new elements of the story, and for something as big as adding in some sort of analogical representation of the people of asia, which I'm not even sure is meant to be east asian only btw, you would hope they do things in a good way.
I've already said, in the part of my post that you didn't quote, that I don't considere that the way ethnical diversity it's been treated so far is a good way to do it. Being a little more lore-friendly doesn't make it good, IMO.
Also I don't understand anything of what you wrote in the first sentence, it kinda sounds like a bunch of gibberish tbh. If you're wanting every nation to have perfect balances of representation everywhere, then I would suggest you really take a look if such a thing is actually something that's realistic. The sad fact of the matter is that the type of hyper ethnic diversification is a highly american concept that you don't find anywhere else in the world. Want proof? Here's some demographic data on some major countries.
United Kingdom: 87.1 % of people are white english/irish/welsh/scottish, France: 89.7% white french, Germany: 92.3% are white germen, Italy: 92% are pure italian, you find this across the board except for a few exceptional cases, and thats with the advances in travel of our 21st century world, imagine one where it takes months to travel across a single country and the fastest means of transportation is a horse and cart. Making thedas a ethnic-equality utopia where every state has the same mix of population features across the board is wishful thinking, but it isn't really feasible unless you were willing to take a lot more liberties in the setting.
But assuming you don't give a damn about the setting or things having logic, and just want everything to be a feel good mixing pot of 21st century idealistic ethno-diveristy, well good for you. I find it confusing how all these people could just spring up out of nowhere looking so different from each other when their origin is the same place and not having been a product of any sort of migration. We know for humans that there were multiple origin points for "humans" when we were still evolving on the planet, it'd jsut be too much of a stretch to have all humans coming from the same spot, living in the same areas, all being a giant mixing pot of different looks that vary greatly without rhyme or reason, while still having such bitter rivalries with one another's countries.
To me, short of confirming the maker is real and at work here, I don't buy such a thing could come about via natural means.
I've also been saying this from the beggining, and I know my english it's poor, but I really can't say it any clearer: I care far more for inclusion than for realism or even lore, and that is my whole point: if they have to make DA universe less medieval in order for it to be more inclusive, or even if they have to make a retcon to achieve it (an this applies for me to any important subject, not only to ethncitiy), I hope they do.
And (again), no, this doesn't mean I'm against it be done the way DG proposes (faraway land) or they way some other people (including myself) have proposed in this thread (using an already-in-lore region or community whith not established ethnicity). What I mean it's that I'm not against a less lore-friendly way of of doing it either.
What it's important to me, it's that's done, and what bothers me are the nature of some objections (some, others I understand, even if I disagree).
Am I the only who feels who it's doing nothing but repeating the same things to the same arguments, time and again? 
How about you get some of these asian countries to show some multi-ethnic representation first though, before you go proselytizing bioware? Maybe get japan, china, and korea to tone down the racist stereotyping and blatant nationalist pot shooting in their biggest exported and self-consumed media while you're at it?
It's perfectly valid for a poster to ask for them from us without worrying about what other game companies are doing.
There's no need (nor reason) for someone to go anywhere else but a game forum of a game (or game company) that they buy games from to ask for these requests. Further, that other companies may be worse than us doesn't mean that we're exempt from further requests ourselves.
Things are getting a bit heated here. It's late and I just finished up dealing with a bunch of ****. If I'm understanding things here, these are the perspectives?
1) There shouldn't be asian looking people because it doesn't make sense for that appearance to exist because of genetics?
2) There should be asian looking people because it's a fantasy game and I value that type of inclusion over adherence to realism?
Is that about right?
Am I the only who feels who it's doing nothing but repeating the same things to the same arguments, time and again?
Let's call it the Ouroboros of Unreason 
.
Ignoring those who cry 'political correctness' and 'racism', there's basically two viewpoints (consistent worldbuilding argument versus diversity / inclusion argument) that aren't so much opposed as that they follow two very different forms of logic.
In most fantasy universes, as in reality, they should be complementary. Thedas is highly unusual in the sense that it's a castrated, decolorized, isolated vague analogy of historical Europe. There are some examples in fantasy literature and particularly in (mostly American) pen & paper fantasy RPG settings, but they are actually pretty rare. There are good reasons for this, because most fantasy writers are at least vaguely aware of a wider world beyond Europe, that it interacted with Europe, and that incorporating this makes their world larger and more complete.
It wasn't always done because of political correctness; in fact, it's hard to argue R.E. Howard or Tolkien were modern-day liberals in that regard. But they understood the fact that if you want a diverse, rich, varied fictional world, it has to resemble our own in terms of size and variety.
When a setting wilfully ignores this general rule - for whatever reason - it feels 'wrong', and also makes it difficult to easily introduce this diversity afterwards. This is not so much because the creators don't want to, but because there are, ultimately, no compelling reasons to make them do this. Let's not beat about the bush: DA was created by an overwhelmingly white studio from a country that, until very recently, was overwhelmingly white*. It's a 'white' setting made by and for white people, with only the USA having a significant number of non-white gamers within EA's core markets.
I don't think it's a coincidence Rivain got retroactively 'Hammerfelled'; only 'black' gamers and their sympathizers (count me among them for inclusiveness reasons) really made a bit of a fuss about Thedas' susprisingly high degree of 'whiteness'.
What I mean is that BioWare isn't going to introduce new (and clearly non-European derived) human cultures and human phenotypes if there isn't significant gamer pressure behind it, regardless of the degree of sympathy individual devs like David Gaider may feel. There is no need. BioWare did Jade Empire and that game was a commercial disappointment. Why waste resources on non-traditional pseudo-Europan stuff if there's no real demand? That's only going to happen when gamers themselves, and in force, are going to demand diversity and actually reward it when implemented**. It doesn't really matter to what degree it requires retcons and special pleading, just that the pressure is exerted and Bioware acts upon it.
The movers and shakers at EA and BioWare aren't going to go along with this unless they see value in it, by way of either sales or very positive PR. People at BioWare themselves who are in favour of more diversity also need ammunition. They have to be able to point at gamer reactions (angry and / or reasonable, actual sales) to make their case.
*If I can trust Wikipedia in this, non-whites were barely 3% of Canada's population in the early '60s. That makes it almost as European as Europe itself at that time. It's a pretty safe bet this influences, even if only at an unconscious level, the way white Canadians experience and deal with issues like this. In this they are probably very different from Americans, where race has been an issue for a long time.
**Assuming it's at least a decent game, of course.
Guest_StreetMagic_*
Things are getting a bit heated here. It's late and I just finished up dealing with a bunch of ****. If I'm understanding things here, these are the perspectives?
1) There shouldn't be asian looking people because it doesn't make sense for that appearance to exist because of genetics?
2) There should be asian looking people because it's a fantasy game and I value that type of inclusion over adherence to realism?
Is that about right?
Partly.
There are some of us who say if there are Asians, then there should be a lore background for it. Many of us don't want random Asians. lol
And just to point out, I'm Asian myself. I don't see the big deal of not having them around.. I've enjoyed Dragon Age so far. It's just that if they do show up, it'd be nice to have an in-world reason. Not because of real world politics and inclusive reasons.
How about
3) There should be asian looking people with their own rich culture, history, religion and not just differently looking Fereldan or Orlesian. Not every setting should be 21th America.
How about
3) There should be asian looking people with their own rich culture, history, religion and not just differently looking Fereldan or Orlesian. Not every setting should be 21th America.
This you don't watch Japanese, Chinese move, set in that country, and wonder why move have so little or non at all character from different cultures.
Things are getting a bit heated here. It's late and I just finished up dealing with a bunch of ****. If I'm understanding things here, these are the perspectives?
1) There shouldn't be asian looking people because it doesn't make sense for that appearance to exist because of genetics?
2) There should be asian looking people because it's a fantasy game and I value that type of inclusion over adherence to realism?
Is that about right?
I simply don't understand how in this fandom so many people who support dark-skinned nationalities to be represented suddenly go "NOPELOREBCH" at people who want asian people to be represented
I think there's no real reason to have other ethnicities in Dragon Age, but that's just in the same way that there's no real reason to have Africans either. Most games tend to end up feeling like a typical American film or telly- Mostly white people + a quota of African Americans. And I don't think that's suitable for every setting.
I think it kinda worked in the Elder Scrolls, cause it's a large, alien enough place, and the Redguard is a whole other playable race from a land far far away. (although once again we only have african americans).
We need more games like San Andreas and Sleeping Dogs. It kinda sucks that most fantasy games have a european setting, but wouldn't it be great to have a game set in the Medieval Orient, Africa or India?
I simply don't understand how in this fandom so many people who support dark-skinned nationalities to be represented suddenly go "NOPELOREBCH" at people who want asian people to be represented
This is kinda what I mean. Everything just feels so USA.
I can't remember, but did the Witcher 2 have any non-whites at all?
This is kinda what I mean. Everything just feels so USA.
I'm all for diffirent races being represented
Obviously they would be adapted to the world setting, but I see no reason why some nationalities in Thedas can't have asian-like features and culture or african-like ot etc-like
At least visually
And why making such NPCs is considered to be bad thing by some people
I'm all for diffirent races being represented
Obviously they would be adapted to the world setting, but I see no reason why some nationalities in Thedas can't have asian-like features and culture or african-like ot etc-like
At least visually
And why making such NPCs is considered to be bad thing by some people
I haven't seen anyone make it a bad thing. The main opinion of the other side is that they want such an NPC to be inserted with a lore explanation, instead of being inserted at random acting like they have always been there. I just don't understand why some are so opposed to avoiding retcons.
This is kinda what I mean. Everything just feels so USA.
I can't remember, but did the Witcher 2 have any non-whites at all?
Darker skinned individuals? Sure, but true non-whites not so much. Only far, far away in the south of the Witcher world there are what you could call black skinned people but they are hardly ever seen up in the north where the Witcher game series takes place.
This is kinda what I mean. Everything just feels so USA.
I can't remember, but did the Witcher 2 have any non-whites at all?
So true. Playing a Bioware game is like playing a game viewed through the prism of 21st centuary values and sensibilites.
Playing The Witcher is like playing a game that reflects it's own values and the those of the world it occupies.
More and more Bioware games seem to be writting by formula. We have to have so much of this, so much of that , almost like they have a checklist.
I don't remember but I generally only remember the ones in DA because people make such a fuss anyway.
(...) Thedas is highly unusual in the sense that it's a castrated, decolorized, isolated vague analogy of historical Europe. There are some examples in fantasy literature and particularly in (mostly American) pen & paper fantasy RPG settings, but they are actually pretty rare. There are good reasons for this, because most fantasy writers are at least vaguely aware of a wider world beyond Europe, that it interacted with Europe, and that incorporating this makes their world larger and more complete. (...)
I think the problem is that the role of real-world medieval non-european, non-white and/or non-christian societies and communities that interacted more directly with real-world medieval white-christian-european societies and communities in DA universe (and in some other medieval fantasy settings, as you've said) is filled with non-human races...
which I'm fine with, but then there's no reason not to put all kind of human ethnicities in what was suppossed to be the white-christian-euroepan societies... But then again, if the solution it's bringing them now from faraway lands or whatever, well, so be it
So true. Playing a Bioware game is like playing a game viewed through the prism of 21st centuary values and sensibilites.
Playing The Witcher is like playing a game that reflects it's own values and the those of the world it occupies.
More and more Bioware games seem to be writting by formula. We have to have so much of this, so much of that , almost like they have a checklist.
I don't remember but I generally only remember the ones in DA because people make such a fuss anyway.
I find extremely naive to think there's any kind fiction absolutely free from the influence of values and sensibilties of its creators and the world they live in. As for The Witcher being that free from 21st century values and sensibilties fiction, lol. I guess you mean free from progressive 21st century values and sensibilties. I also disagree deeply with the implication of your post that BW games could be in anyway harmed for reflectin some of this 21st century values and sensibilties, quite the opposite, IMO.
And, again, quotas are sometimes needed, maybe not in this case, but in many others.
This is kinda what I mean. Everything just feels so USA.
I can't remember, but did the Witcher 2 have any non-whites at all?
No, only by way of reference (you can read a journal written by a Zerrikanian, if I remember correctly). Witcher I had Azar Javed, a Zerrikanian sorceror, and he's clearly non-European. Zerrikania itself is far to the southeast and seems to be pretty exotic (tattooed warrior women, matriarchy etc.).
The 'core setting' itself is wholly European though, and is the result of two waves of colonization. An initial one on another continent by way of the Conjunction of the Spheres, when human groups arrived from another (parallel?) world, and a more recent one where humans settled a continent inhabited by Elves, dwarves and gnomes. The nonhuman races' position therefore somewhat parallels that of Native Americans (the colonization itself took place around 500 years ago, tsssk...).
It's not quite clear where the Zerrikanians (and any neighbours) came from, or when.
Based on the chaotic mix of personal names, surnames and placenames, one can assume the ancestors of the humans of the Witcherverse 'core region' came from various regions (and maybe eras) of Europe, or one or more parallel Europes. However, the Witcherverse was never intended as an exercise in systematic worldbuilding though; it's much more a mixed-up place where the author could create a pastiche of various elements of Europe's history, folklore and several literary genres.
I think the problem is that the role of real-world medieval non-european, non-white and/or non-christian societies and communities that interacted more directly with real-world medieval white-christian-european societies and communities in DA universe (and in some other medieval fantasy settings, as you've said) is filled with non-human races...
Not quite; there's no real parallel here in my opinion. The Qunari are recent arrivals and a fairly marginal (geographically speaking) presence, and play a similar role to the Spanish conquistadors - if they had been kicked off the American mainland by the Aztecs and Mayas. Elves and Dwarves are natives, with the Elves playing the rol of American ghetto blacks as well as native Americans. The non-European lands and peoples, whether in the form of nonhumans or not, are actually barely there in the DA world. De facto there IS no wider world.
I find extremely naive to think there's any kind fiction absolutely free from the influence of values and sensibilties of its creators and the world they live in. As for The Witcher being that free from 21st century values and sensibilties fiction, lol. I guess you mean free from progressive 21st century values and sensibilties.
The Witcherverse actually has a fairly modern feel to it, just like DA, but it mixes it up with a lot of historically based precedents, as well a fair amount of pragmatism and somewhat (not always) succesful attempts at psychological realism on the part of its characters. If there's a parallel, think 20th century mainland Europe, particularly its central and eastern parts, and throw in the 16th and 17th century witch hunts, anti-Jewish pogroms and the Thirty Years' War for good measure. Fun times in a fun place.
I think some people, particularly Europeans (not all) feel The Witcher to be more 'authentic' because they recognise the architecture, the clothing, the armour, the way events unfold from their own history, even if there are no 1:1 parallels. And it's something that is either largely absent or implemented in a somewhat clunky way by DA, even though it tries to imitate some of the same aspects of European history.
The core values by the creators seem to be about the same, though. The difference seems to be that DA puts these values into many of the characters and the setting, while the Witcher demonstrates the importance of these values by showing what happens if tolerance, self-rule, respect for minorities, restrictions on power etc. are (relatively) absent. It's not entirely as clear-cut as I am putting it here, but the net result is that Thedas feels a lot 'friendlier' than the Northern Kingdoms, even though on paper it's not that great of a place (in fact, in many ways it's worse because many of the countries on Thedas tend to behavioural extremes compared to Witcherverse countries).
I think another way for it to make "sense" is to go in the complete opposite direction, have no ethnicities, and have a complete clusterfuck of phenotypes all mixed in very thoroughly. People with thin nostrils, wide nostrils, pink skin, brown skin, ginger hair, black hair, thin lips, fat lips, epicanthal folds, flat brows, pronounced brows in any combination, all around. After all the people in this universe seem only preoccupied with hating people based on their ears 
It would be kinda jarring but less USA-ey. and hey these are fictional humans, did they even come from apes?
Something that all media should have always been doing? What? In case you hadn't noticed the world is made up of many different nations with populations that vary greatly in terms of ethnic makeup, etc. The "media" (it isn't some sort of monolithic global entity you know) only has to worry about their target audience,
Game developers should only have to worry about making the game they want to make, not "media representation" and all of this other nonsense which the marketing people will be nagging them about anyway.
Thoughtlessness? What thoughtlessness? The fact that cultures in previous games may not have been "asian enough" for critics who are looking to invent some sort of problem? Why do those critics deserve more attention than every other critic out there?
you sir, take a like
1) There shouldn't be asian looking people because it doesn't make sense for that appearance to exist because of genetics?
2) There should be asian looking people because it's a fantasy game and I value that type of inclusion over adherence to realism?
Not what I gathered, myself, Han, and a feww others proposed
"There is no reason to not have asian looking people, just use their inclusion as a chance to expand lore, don't just throw them for diversity's sake"
but wouldn't it be great to have a game set in the Medieval Orient, Africa or India?
when games get grief for having black zombie enemies in Africa or the American South I cannot imagine a game like that going over well
The core values by the creators seem to be about the same, though. The difference seems to be that DA puts these values into many of the characters and the setting, while the Witcher demonstrates the importance of these values by demonstrating what happens if tolerance, self-rule, respect for minorities, restrictions on power etc. by their (relative) absence within the setting. It's not entirely as clear-cut as I am putting it here, but the net result is that Thedas feels a lot 'friendlier' than the Northern Kingdoms, even though on paper it's not that great of a place.
Indeed which makes Biowares approach come across as patronising and heavy handed.
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