Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
This is a point I actually agree with. Individual intent is uncontrollable and this is another reason why everyone should be able to make their character as they wish
So... yes. That would be fine.
https://www.quora.com/How-does-skin-tone-hair-color-and-eye-color-vary-among-different-Middle-Eastern-ethnicities
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/a-brief-history-of-the-genes-that-color-our-skin/542694/
https://thinkafrica.net/african-skin-tones/
https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-018-1395-3
Sounds like you want to count colonizers and individuals of foreign origins as definitive representatives of the cultures they work their way into? You're reaching now. All I am making my point for is saying it isn't racist if there was no intent to discriminate, and it aligns with cultural and regional lore, and that goes for any race. An all melanin heavy race with no "European features" or white people isn't racist so long as it isn't intended to be and makes sense with the lore, and vice versa.
But we shouldn't and can't do that sort of thing in these games, because some people jump to the conclusion that it was done with racist intent, which is why its better to allow everyone to make their character look as they wish.
Baldur's gate 3 customization. That's the framework that I think you and I are looking for.
some examples.
You can even roleplay as a clown.
You can make great looking characters and the tools to do that require allowing clown monsters as well. If you want to look at certain things from the game look up "Baldur's gate 3" with any of these modifiers: Male/Female, Dwarf, Halfling, Elf, Tiefling, Githyanki, Human.
Systemic Racism: It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behavior that amount to discrimination through prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.
At any rate...
We should probably move away from the derail and return to the original topic.
Floki best boi.
So you are claiming that Mother Nature is racist?
Nope, that's the way things are. Every region on the planet has its representatives based on best adaptation to climate, environment, etc... that's Mother's Nature system - and believe me, it has nothing with racism. You have an unhealthy obsession with the topic despite the fact that MOST of the planet Earth don't give a shit and don't have problems with "systemic racism". If the lore says black race is black - then it's black... simple. If it's green, then it's green. But you say that you're going to point that orcs can't be orange and don't have tails... and the reason is "systemic racism"? Wtf...
Either do some reading of the things I linked https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/308797/#Comment_308797 and make a seperate thread in response or respect the man and:
You mistakenly believe that skin color always determined "race".
You could learn about when race became a thing and when and why skin color became a factor of what determines "race". You could learn about when the Irish and Italians were not accepted as white in the US.
I find it interesting that I'm the one with the unhealthy obsession, but you can't seem to move on and return to the original topic.
Human is the species, and within that are many separate races and cultures.
The two human “races” in AoC are really macro cultures having a collection of many different races. Unless they wanted to more or less declare these as two separate human species on the own - like Cro Magnon (early modern human) vs Neanderthal. But I assume AoC is following the cultural angle here, which is very common for fantasy RPGs.
The two representative human cultures to first step through the gate are modeled after European and Middle-eastern cultures (or more likely Islamic culture from the 10th and 11th century). From a historical perspective during this time period those were the dominant Cultures for the geography from a European-centric perspective. Within those real life cultures there are many different cultures based on a variety of factors that is represented by behavior, art, customs, etc. Perhaps additional human cultures step through the gate in the future.
Like a lot of fantasy RPGs, they use other cultures as the model or influence for the other “races”, like Elves, Dwarves and Orcs. I happen to think this is kind of lazy in that an Elven Native American does not really represent a Human Native American. But I understand that to create the depth and breadth of Human variation and also have these unique species with their own variation, while retaining some degree of familiarity to make it worth playing from the perspective of a human player, is a huge time investment. In addition, a lot of traditional fantasy races are really just representations of aspects of human behavior, ideals and values for which we can identify.
A player should be able to select as broad of a range of skin tones and other features to create whatever they like with the only restriction being those placed by the creative direction and intended “realism” for the game.
The fact that all player character “races” can start at any available starting location, which apparently may be representative of a number of different cultures, means by design the players are not limited in their selection based on these superficial features. In other words, there is no expectation to have a racially “pure” node. In fact, the game is being set up to be just the opposite. And in the grand scheme of things there are other, more significant sources of player conflict in the game such that if some group of players wanted to make skin tone a discriminating feature, then they are in for a hard time because the rest of the players simply don’t care or will just put them on their KoS list because they will simply be viewed as annoying.
As for the Mother Nature comment, and sticking to the game, how much evolution is involved when player characters are stepping through a gate from a completely separate world to restore an ancient, lost world? I would say zero. Race distribution in Verra is simply a bag of jelly beans spilled out over the map. What players do after that, that is to be determined.
I don't need to read, I travelled a lot in the Middle East. A mix of locals, Slavs, Greeks, British, etc... common sense. It still has nothing to do with "systematic racism" because of lore-wise ideas for races there. Especially AoC starts as a new world, many years after the cataclysm - so all races rather stay in their communities and become unique for their home regions. Just as an example - there is a reason why Maori people (or any other civilization which haven't had contact with others) look unique. Looking unique has nothing with racism.
OK - instead of races, use the term "ethnic", it should be more proper for sensitive people. How I understand Verra is how the Earth looks like - different races are based on different cultures. If you go to Japan, you see Japanese people look like Japanese People. If you go to Ukraine, you see Ukrainians. If you go to Kongo, you see Bantu, or Maori in Polynesia, etc... I really recommend traveling and see different cultures and as someone said here "representatives" for each ethnic group.
Now... Nigerian can come to Finland and live there, but he's still an elf living in orc community
Uniqueness in ethnics is beautiful, mixing everything to be the same is insipid and boring.
Being light skinned does not prevent people from becoming Bantu or Maori. Skin color is not a factor.
Elf, Orc, Dwarf, Human and Tulnar are different species. Which has nothing to do with skin color.
Kaelar and Vaelune are different cultures. Which also has nothing to do with skin color.
I think what you mean is diversity is beautiful.
I haven't said anything about mixing things to be the same.
My Baldur's Gate 3 Dwarf is not the same as my BG3 Tiefling. They are both beautiful.
The systematic racism that has traditionally been in place in RPG fantasy settings promotes the concept of skin color being a primary factor of "race". Which is problematic.
D&D 3rd Edition finally removed the rules that restricted the skin colors associated with fantasy "species".
By 2021, it's time for MMORPGs to catch up.
"Race" has nothing to do with "common sense".
My grandmother was born Colored and died white.
In the hospital as a newborn, my niece was white if my brother was not present and African American if he was present.
A friend of mine told me a couple of days ago that her father was born Caucasian and died Asian.
"Common sense" has nothing to do with skin color being a factor of "race". And for thousands of years of Human history skin color had nothing to do with ethnicity.
You could actually become educated about the history of "race" instead of trying to rely on "common sense".
"Common sense" also leads some people to believe the Earth is flat. Just as it lead people to believe that the Sun circles the Earth and that the Earth is the center of the universe.
The World isn't oriented around cities like NYC. Travel more.
Yes, other 1% came from different ethnicities/cultures and decided to settle down
But, from what you just wrote, you don't understand what systemic racism is.
If, in your Mongolian example, less than 100% were not possible that would be indicative of systemic racism.
Anyways. We really should end the derail because it's going to take too long to educate you. And that is not what this thread is for.
But first let me tell you a few words.
Back in the day people used to celebrate their differences. They used to admire people that were different than them, worship their foreign gods and introduce theirs as well. Take Greeks and Egyptians for example, or Hindu and Chinese/Japanese.
Back in the day people had enemies as well. Mostly it would be their neightbouring people, with which they had land disputes or raid insidents. People didnt call them racist or intolerant. They were at war.
Racism started at the same time as globilization. People from poorer countries migrated to the countries that established economies (sometimes by stealing other peoples resources). For the first time in mankind people saw differences (that before were celebrated) as inferiority. And I would argue that this form of racism remains in global capitals. "Ah you are not X anymore, you are Y now. You behave like us now or we will laugh at you or call you nationalist if you maintain your X identity".
And fast forward to 2010, people started pretending that everything is similar. They started pretending that there are no differences to be CELEBRATED. We must all be the same, act the same, shut up and watch our netflix otherwise someone will call use racist or intolorant. No more thinking. Thinking is offensive.
So here is the real reason why Valeune and Kaelar shouldn't have ethnicity/culture features to be CELEBRATED AND ADMIRED, or other unique features that would make them look a lot more AWSOME AND INTERESTING.
It's because it's a video game, you "one-only-word I want to use to describe accuratly, but these days we have to type a pretentious paragraph, in an attempt to insult someone, while maintaining the self delusional facade that we are more mature than others (and avoid bans ofc...)".
It's a video game and people that are yellow black white red of skin color should be able to wear knight looking armors and swords, as well as ninja looking armors and swords as well as ancient looking armors and swords, having created a character that looks like themselves if they wanted too.
It's a video game and an mmo at that. That's why skin tone should not be restricted. Not because anybody is racist ffs. Could you not have said that instead of attacking a different view?
But ofc not. You see, thinking is offensive now. Going political is safe, although brainless.
Devs please don't ruin the game with some SJW bs
A black dwarf, an Asian elf, a middle eastern human. I don't see anything wrong with any of it. The more options the better so people can really connect with their characters. The best option to me is to distinguish the different race cultures are through their cloths, their armor, and maybe hairstyles..
Their is a lot of slippery slop arguments here and as you don't go with neon orcs, I don't see anything wrong with allowing humanoids from a large variety of backgrounds .
I have to disagree. It has nothing to do with SJW nonsense in this case.
It is about allowing a respectable amount of player agency. Time and time again we sit down to create our characters only to have a limited amount of freedom based on some arbitrary lore that is rarely infallible.
Even in a game like Lord of the Rings Online. A game pulling from what is some of the most recognizable and well-known fantasy lore. Even in LOTRO you could make a black hobbit. Why? Because it allows for more player freedom, and it does not change the lore significantly or negatively. All it does is make the game more fun for more people.
To me, the only way to ruin a game is to chose lore over fun and player agency. If I just wanted pure lore, I would read a book.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.