Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
In my ideal game we won't have white, black, brown etc people in the game, instead we will have blue, purple and neon people!
1. One of two actual human races is of arabian and north african design
2. Orcs werent designed after american indigenous populations
3. One dwarf race was designed after one of THE MOST OVERLOOKED ETHINICITIES EVER (Polynesian)
"Aelean architecture has a French medieval influence.
Dünir have a Nordic cultural influence.
Empyreans have a Greco-Roman imperialistic feeling.
The Niküa have a Polynesian influence.
The Py'Rai have a Navajo Native American influence.[63] Py'Rai architecture has a woodland inspiration.
Pyrian architecture has a Greco-Roman influence.
The Vek have a Mesoamerican racial influence."
Edit: I am of turkish and german decent, i grew up between both worlds and lived through racism my whole life. I dont care for what it symbolises in a game. Games are there to leave the real world behind, see impossible things and have fun.
You are right but I hope they didn't base races on any real world cultures to being with. Maybe its hard to come up with truly unique races and cultures but I wish they did that instead of basing it real world stuff.
You will find that 99% of Ashes is based on something else.
They were influenced by existing cultures on earth regarding aesthetics.
O. M. G. YES! We totally need safespace in nodes! How about... Prisons? Everyone gets their own little cell, and we just... forget about them?
What about my bi-sexual character? I need my flag as an option on my tabard! Or rather, how about you allow me to split my character in 3 colors, pink, purple, and blue?
I also want male npc's to blush whenever I walk past them.
Let's be honest, I loved that joke xD
Aside from that, I can't feel you cuz I'm white, but yeah, I agree with you. Would be good to have options like GW2 PoF and the thing you said about the dwarves made me think, I don't have enough info about that, I used to think about dwarves in a LotR way.
So yeah, I think, as it is a whole new universe, maybe the stuff about dwarves etc could be overlooked, but at least there should be an option for everyone to be in the game.
I'm sorry mate, I stopped right here.
Guild Wars 1, added black ethnicity with Elonians with Nightfall expansion. Before that, you could perfectly make tanned/black characters. The elonians were mostly additional skintones and faces. Same for GW2.
BDO, it's a korean game. Still, you can edit the face enough and have a character black. Especially with this extensive character creator.
Didn't play the rest.
Let's be honest here, you can't always apply human ethnicities to a fantasy world. So you are bound to not find ethnicities, skin color, face styles in a game. While it's fine, I do understand you however, I'm far from this political hysteria going on atm, but I'm always a bit disappointed with character creator in general because I can't make a good looking black/tanned female character.
From my understanding of AoC, Py'rai elves will be able to have "brown"/black skintones (mega happy with that one, black elves as in chocolate elves are extremely hard to find in a vanilla game) and if I'm not mistaken you have a human race that is similar to elonians.
Edit : LockedOut said it all, couldn't have said better myself.
Representations of north african and middle eastern races isn't uncommon. But subsa-haran African cultures are almost entirely ignored, perhaps because there are so many of them. Their folklore is as wildly creative as anywhere else. (For those who seem to think they have no fantasy.)
But it is a fine line for western developers to walk between representation and cultural appropriation.
I would just say to create your ideal avatar, create a backstory, and jump in. Whether it's animalistic, white, black, brown, purple, or whatever. AOC is giving you the tools in the creator and the vast cultures of the world to make your own path.
It is rough trying to represent everyone and every culture but again at some point the player has to help themselves.
By applying real-world constructs, you're restricting yourself from the start and opening yourself up to being offended or feeling misrepresented.
Hmm... a proposition worthy of discussion.
But grey color symbolizes neutrality. I don't feel neutral. So I'd suggest we make them 3-colored. Pink, Purple, Blue. As those 3 colors symbolizes both male/female, and everything between.
Can I also say... I really like your signature. But the skeleton color is bad.
I duno, about this topic, all this about inclusion and stuff in a fantasy game where I just run off to be a Zen orc or a hippy elf, like.. why does it have to be broken down to >that's the culture that inspired it<.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
because people always want something to complain about
This is real life.
Everyone likes to project themselves in some way shape or form.
Personally I do like being able to make my characters have appearances close to my own with white/tan skin and go from there with my own game fantasy.
I won't knock you for this, but it isnt equal. Black Panther is kind of a one in a million movie. 99% of movies of any type represent White folks of all shapes, sizes, and walks of life. Your life is inundated with representation, boss. It is a special kind of privilege
Forgot this existed. I agree 100%
Its a movie based in a region that makes sense for it's demographic. It was also made because of stan lee's comics
Who isnt even within that demographic.
Calling someone Privileged (for being white) is something people made to be microaggressive and racist without outright saying they are racist.
Either way I wouldnt go the route of calling people privileged just because you dont agree with them. Argue their logic, not their skin.
Yup. Sadly not everyone will think like this. People forget why we play games to relax and get away from the world for a bit.
Hey! I did read your comment and it helped a lot actually to know and it made me even more excited to play the game!
Check out the Biloko of Zaire, Tokoloshe in South Africa, and Yumbo from South Africa which are like a dwarf/fairy hybrid. There are also lots of bad ass monsters in African mythology which would be cool to see in a game.
well luckily it doesnt matter what you feel is "weak" lol. ive played many games without a single black character and loved it. the whole point if my original post is thinking outside of the box and building a CREATIVE and DIVERSE world to immerse myself into and not just making cookie cutter games.. no culture is a monolith and considering that makes for a better game to me. cheers!
It is ignorant and naïve of you to say people play games to escape the problems of the world when a lot if problems in the world can be found in games as well. You have to look at things in a bigger picture and for POC, LGBTQ, alt lifestyle people to live in a world where they are not fairly represented and then in their form of escape (gaming) they face those same things. That is the world we love in and these games and stories are made/told by people who live in the real world and if they want their game to truly be an escape then they would at least consider that they have the power to provide a sense of inclusion in a game that is often sparse in the real world. They of course do not have to but they do themselves and their player base a disservice by not doing so. From what i have learned/researched today it seems as though AoC has taken that into consideration which means a lot to me.
Black Panther is set in an African country that has been shrouded in secrecy and isolated since it's inception. Why would there be white people native to Wakanda? One if the protagnosists was white in that movie and the main antagonist was black. Your point makes no sense.
and stop with the MLK quotes. America rejected MLKs message and he was assassinated....and if he was alive today he certainly would support diversity and inclusion in games. There were MANY civil rights leaders and if you are reaching for an MLK quote to try to use that against a movie like Black Panther then havent truly grasped his message at all.
Racism is the belief that one race is superior to a other. look up the definition. nothing i said was racist or even hinted at white people or any other people being inferior.
are you saying having diverse races in a game = politics? lol.
having gay/bi-sexual characters would be awesome actually. ESO has a lot of that and it makes the stories much more interesting
No, if you look at what I was replying to I was talking about a different subject altogether there from the previous postings who were talking about off topic items.
You can see from my other posts that AoC is already in the direction of diversity.
MMO's should be diverse. Thats kind of the point