Well said. Just watch out for moderation. It's not worth it.
I for one have never seen an mmo with a greek influenced race (save eso that has a greek helmet for the Roman based Imperials).
I never cared to make a fuss to feel included.
The reality is that the human races in games are mostly western medieval with a tokenism secondary option in which the jam all other cultures in one.
And it's ok. Idc.
Take Witcher for example. They commited their story to being based on polish themes. And people loved it for being well structured.
Take Sekiro or Ghost or Tsuwhatever. Take Dynasty Warriors. Tought me so much about the Chinese.
I didnt care if there wasnt a white guy option.
In LoL Pantheon isnt even on my top 5 picks.
People need to separate fantasy from reality. I never saw anybody raging that orcs dont have human white or human black skin options.
What's the deal with elves?
Let us remember that orcs, elves, dwarfs, goblins, etc are all from Indo-European and specifically Germanic and Celtic cultures, they have always been represented as a mirror image of Germanic and Celtic people. That is why elves have always been depicted as fair with light hair, do not try to suggest this imagery was simply invented by a modern writter. When discussing this topic we must keep in mind that these creatures are depictions from an ancient culture and we must respect the culture that these things come from. Just as if we were discussing Yokai or Yao Guai, we would respect their origins in Han and Japanese culture and represent them as such.
Exactly, and there are many many different variations yet most fall into the same vague category of description. If I say elf you imagine a handsome or beautiful long and pointed eared supermodel-like creature with flowing loreal locks of hair and a love of nature. If I say Orc you generally imagine a big hulking muscle brain with a pig-ish face, tusks, and vary from greyish skin to dark green and an insatiable bloodlust they can unleash.
These are the "general" ideas that many people think of when you say Elf or Orc. This can be expanded into the other fantasy creatures, and that's why there will always be pushback when someone tries to suggest a change to such things for literally no other reason than because they can. It's even worse when people start asking for fantasy races to fulfill a diversity quota when they are literally a different species. They are already diverse in their own unique way.
There is no need draw real life political issues into it. If you read a book and it tells you the sky is blue, you don't get to say "Well I think it's green". The sky is blue because it's not your story to tell, and if you don't like that you should probably stop reading the book. Our characters are the same. They are inside the "book" that is Ashes of Creation and if the author says your character is a primarily black-skinned race, you shouldn't suddenly get mad that there are no white-skinned versions of your race.
Now, as for ashes of creation, we still have a few months before they start releasing their take on Orcs, tulnar, and possible updates to the current races. I am all for diverse races, skin colors, and all sorts of weird customization options, but it should reflect the lore of the world. I understand this thread is more about asking for these options before the lore is implemented, so all I can say is good luck. I just don't want to see players attempting to push for silly notions of diversity when we literally have the Tulnar, a collection of species that intermingled for thousands of years.
do not try to suggest this imagery was simply invented by a modern writter.
I didn't. I pointed out the difference between being 'influenced' by a culture versus depicting that culture literally. That said, I truly don't understand the shitfit if someone wants to play a black elf. It's an invented race. You can point to whatever 'canon' you want, it's still a fantasy where every instance can be different.
WTF? All I'm advocating for is the races to be genuinely unique, again, what's the point if the only thing that's different about them is their starting stats? I think races that have unique customization options keep the game fresh. If every Elf, Orc or Dwarf you bump into look identical to each other, the world gets a bit bland. I'm sure certain hairstyles or beards would be interchangeable but the core physical attributes that make up each race should stay unique.
Right. Which has nothing to do with not being able to make a Kaelar with dark skin.
A Kaelar with dark skin does not make every Elf, Orc or Dwarf look identical.
A Kaelar with dark skin allows more diversity.
A Kaelar with only light skin means they will be closer to being identical.
I will remind you that each race in the game is a legitimately different race, but because the human races only have different skin tones, you keep equating that to their being only a cultural difference. This is incorrect. Until a developer comes forward and states otherwise, you're lying to yourself and other posters. As an example, take Nords and Redguards, they're races, not simply 'cultures'.
What you seem to be saying is that the Kaelar should exclude minorities.
What is wrong with you? Who said anything about minorities? Nearly all of your posts on this topic move away from the subject of the game into political race-baiting. It's not constructive and it's weird.
Because Netflix likes to pander, just like Blizzard, when they suddenly let Blood Elves be dark-skinned because of a loud minority. It's the same as asking for Redguards to be light-skinned because, "I don't care, I can't play THIS specific race unless they're made in my image!".
Pandering.
Mmmmmn hmmmmn.
Yes, pandering. Which a lot of game companies do to appease the loud minority and as we saw in Blizzards case, to take the public eye away from the happenings behind closed doors. They don't really care, it's simply a tactic to subdue the 'offended' in the modern political climate.
They should also be able to create Kaelar with Asian features/skin tones and Polynesian features/skin tones and Native American features/skin tones, etc.
If any of the two human races were to have Asian features, it would be the Vaelune, as they take racial influence from the Middle East.
Your Baldur's Gate 3 link is precisely why it's fine for it to be possible to create Kaelar with dark skin.
Because the vast majority of players will still create Kaelar with European facial features and light skin.
If what you're advocating is a character creator at least as robust as Baldur's Gate 3, then we agree.
What I was highlighting was giving players unlimited choice ended up resulting in bland, generic characters. Which is what we're going to see if this goes unchecked.
Players should be able to create Kaelar characters with dark skin that is common among the Vaelune.
They should also be able to create Kaelar with Asian features/skin tones and Polynesian features/skin tones and Native American features/skin tones, etc.
Do not even attempt to bring other races into this, I am Polynesian and I couldn't care less if characters in a game looked like me or not, neither do most Asians or Native Americans. This is entirely about you and your insecurities. Go see a therapist and take your meds
LMAO
I will talk about any damned thing I want to talk about.
I am not confusing Greek education with being Greek.
Greece has always allowed assimilated people to be Greek, even in antiquity, regardless of skin color.
People of Albanian, Bulgarian, Pakistani descent can be as proud as they want to be of their original ethnic heritage. And they can still be Greek. And they can have children with native Greeks and those children will be Greek, regardless of skin color.
The concept of skin tones defining race was not a thing - anywhere - prior to the 1800s.
The tirade you went on due to your warped interpretation of what you think I said is on you - it doesn't accurately reflect anything I wrote.
You are a moron who has proved time and time again that you know nothing of history or genetics. The Greeks have always been an Indo-European people with distinct genetics, they only subjected people to Hellenization if they were conquered or within the Hellenic sphere of influence. 90% of the time these people were other Indo-Europeans and never considered Greek, only Hellenic in culture.
You are obsessed with skin colour and yet no one has mentioned that as a defining notion of race as you boldly claim. I do not know what schools were teaching in the 60's when you were a kid but obviously it rotted your brain. Stop trying to demolish other ethnicities sense of identity. In the end that is all that you are doing. Everything that comes out of your mush brain is nothing but an insult to ancient and distinct ethnic groups.
Stop trying to use the modern world as a reflection of the ancient world, and please stop confusing nationality and ethnicity. It just makes you seem senile.
Learn to take no for an answer and appreciete what you have that makes you unique.
Except, no one with design authority has said ‘no’ yet. So, your ‘no’ is just as valid as my ‘yes.’ And until Intrepid has a final decision, the discussion continues.
I appreciated your rebuttal on Greece. But keep in mind that human culture in Ashes isn’t Greek. It’s influenced by Greek culture. Tolkien’s orcs we’re influenced by the rise of fascism in Germany. That doesn’t make the Urik’ai Nazis or restrict their affect to some Germanic anachronism.
Let us remember that orcs, elves, dwarfs, goblins, etc are all from Indo-European and specifically Germanic and Celtic cultures, they have always been represented as a mirror image of Germanic and Celtic people. That is why elves have always been depicted as fair with light hair, do not try to suggest this imagery was simply invented by a modern writter. When discussing this topic we must keep in mind that these creatures are depictions from an ancient culture and we must respect the culture that these things come from. Just as if we were discussing Yokai or Yao Guai, we would respect their origins in Han and Japanese culture and represent them as such.
Should have made this point myself earlier. Pretty much this ^
I always forget the origins on such mystical creatures.
Your Baldur's Gate 3 link is precisely why it's fine for it to be possible to create Kaelar with dark skin.
Because the vast majority of players will still create Kaelar with European facial features and light skin.
If what you're advocating is a character creator at least as robust as Baldur's Gate 3, then we agree.
What I was highlighting was giving players unlimited choice ended up resulting in bland, generic characters. Which is what we're going to see if this goes unchecked.[/quote]
WTF? All I'm advocating for is the races to be genuinely unique, again, what's the point if the only thing that's different about them is their starting stats? I think races that have unique customization options keep the game fresh. If every Elf, Orc or Dwarf you bump into look identical to each other, the world gets a bit bland. I'm sure certain hairstyles or beards would be interchangeable but the core physical attributes that make up each race should stay unique.
Right. Which has nothing to do with not being able to make a Kaelar with dark skin.
A Kaelar with dark skin does not make every Elf, Orc or Dwarf look identical.
A Kaelar with dark skin allows more diversity.
A Kaelar with only light skin means they will be closer to being identical.
I will remind you that each race in the game is a legitimately different race, but because the human races only have different skin tones, you keep equating that to their being only a cultural difference. This is incorrect. Until a developer comes forward and states otherwise, you're lying to yourself and other posters. As an example, take Nords and Redguards, they're races, not simply 'cultures'.
What you seem to be saying is that the Kaelar should exclude minorities.
What is wrong with you? Who said anything about minorities? Nearly all of your posts on this topic move away from the subject of the game into political race-baiting. It's not constructive and it's weird.
Because Netflix likes to pander, just like Blizzard, when they suddenly let Blood Elves be dark-skinned because of a loud minority. It's the same as asking for Redguards to be light-skinned because, "I don't care, I can't play THIS specific race unless they're made in my image!".
Pandering.
Mmmmmn hmmmmn.
Yes, pandering. Which a lot of game companies do to appease the loud minority and as we saw in Blizzards case, to take the public eye away from the happenings behind closed doors. They don't really care, it's simply a tactic to subdue the 'offended' in the modern political climate.
They should also be able to create Kaelar with Asian features/skin tones and Polynesian features/skin tones and Native American features/skin tones, etc.
If any of the two human races were to have Asian features, it would be the Vaelune, as they take racial influence from the Middle East.
Your Baldur's Gate 3 link is precisely why it's fine for it to be possible to create Kaelar with dark skin.
Because the vast majority of players will still create Kaelar with European facial features and light skin.
If what you're advocating is a character creator at least as robust as Baldur's Gate 3, then we agree.
What I was highlighting was giving players unlimited choice ended up resulting in bland, generic characters. Which is what we're going to see if this goes unchecked.
Baldurs Gate 3 is certainly one of the many reasons not to go over the top and make some crazy choices in char creation. Actually no, DnD is one of the reasons. More and more changes have been added to pander to people as well, like some special additions to being a wheelchair user, trans and other stuff like that. DND just turned into a whole mess of pandering to the minority. They just turned it into a real world representation instead of keeping it DnD 🤣 I'm not against into any of the groups, but hell, this is one of the reason why we got such a dumbed down edition. Stripped of everything
And what did we end up with? A fucking school themed ball party as a module.... like this ain't the only thing, but shit is getting worse.
Intrepid should stick to its lore and not pander to anyone or we will get shit of a mess like DnD turned into.
Except the fact that when it comes to modern story telling, you are still quite literally 'making shit up.' In Final Fantasy XI orcs, elvaan, and various deities like Odin look nothing like their mythological counterparts, or have the same sharp European limits. You can respect where something comes from while still making it your own. Or should we be striking down Square Enix for cultural appropriation due to their asian/darker skinned elves and portraying Odin as a samurai? That'd be nonsense right?
Hell even elves are an evolution. Most of the time they were depicted as short, then got conflated with 'fey in general' (on purpose because Tokien thought it more interesting) and we therefore now general think of elves as tall, largely due to the Tolkien popularization by dnd. Which also added their own components and so on.
Ashes is currently in the process of 'making shit up.' I respect people who want to 'keep source material as is.' I will even fight for you. I will reject, however, limitations on making new things for the sake of 'being more pure to the source material.'
Except the fact that when it comes to modern story telling, you are still quite literally 'making shit up.' In Final Fantasy XI orcs, elvaan, and various deities like Odin look nothing like their mythological counterparts, or have the same sharp European limits. You can respect where something comes from while still making it your own. Or should we be striking down Square Enix for cultural appropriation due to their asian/darker skinned elves and portraying Odin as a samurai? That'd be nonsense right?
Hell even elves are an evolution. Most of the time they were depicted as short, then got conflated with 'fey in general' (on purpose because Tokien thought it more interesting) and we therefore now general think of elves as tall, largely due to the Tolkien popularization by dnd. Which also added their own components and so on.
Ashes is currently in the process of 'making shit up.' I respect people who want to 'keep source material as is.' I will even fight for you. I will reject, however, limitations on making new things for the sake of 'being more pure to the source material.'
First things first, Odin is not the Nordic god in FF. Its just a Knight called Odin.
You're comparing Asian culture to European culture, they have a bit different representation. And even with the differences, the elves are still pretty accurate to what they were originally depicted as. Orcs in Asia are depicted as pig men, that's cultural as well.
The short people you're mixing up with fae. Elves are based on fae/are fae, but the elves were made by Tolkien.
Like I said before, changing things just to reinvent the wheel is never good. It always backfires.
Hence why I have been for keeping things lore accurate. DND dropped that and turned the whole lore into an abomination
Except the fact that when it comes to modern story telling, you are still quite literally 'making shit up.' In Final Fantasy XI orcs, elvaan, and various deities like Odin look nothing like their mythological counterparts, or have the same sharp European limits. You can respect where something comes from while still making it your own. Or should we be striking down Square Enix for cultural appropriation due to their asian/darker skinned elves and portraying Odin as a samurai? That'd be nonsense right?
Hell even elves are an evolution. Most of the time they were depicted as short, then got conflated with 'fey in general' (on purpose because Tokien thought it more interesting) and we therefore now general think of elves as tall, largely due to the Tolkien popularization by dnd. Which also added their own components and so on.
Ashes is currently in the process of 'making shit up.' I respect people who want to 'keep source material as is.' I will even fight for you. I will reject, however, limitations on making new things for the sake of 'being more pure to the source material.'
First things first, Odin is not the Nordic god in FF. Its just a Knight called Odin.
You're comparing Asian culture to European culture, they have a bit different representation. And even with the differences, the elves are still pretty accurate to what they were originally depicted as. Orcs in Asia are depicted as pig men, that's cultural as well.
The short people you're mixing up with fae. Elves are based on fae/are fae, but the elves were made by Tolkien.
Like I said before, changing things just to reinvent the wheel is never good. It always backfires.
Hence why I have been for keeping things lore accurate. DND dropped that and turned the whole lore into an abomination
Alright, lets try something else then. What do you think the point of pandering is?
The short people you're mixing up with fae. Elves are based on fae/are fae, but the elves were made by Tolkien.
Like I said before, changing things just to reinvent the wheel is never good. It always backfires.
Hence why I have been for keeping things lore accurate. DND dropped that and turned the whole lore into an abomination
I think you need to wiki less and read more. Elves have appeared in literature in various forms for centuries. Spencer and Chaucer alone take them back to the 13th Century, and that’s just medieval England. Tolkien published the Hobbit in 1937, which asserted his version of elves. Gygax and crew created their version in the 70s. Salvatore created his version in the 80s.
All of these are ‘changing things’ to the benefit of telling good stories. That’s not an abomination. What is an abomination is restricting the depiction of creative, invented creatures for literally no other reason than ‘well that’s the way they were before.’
If your ‘reasoning’ took hold, it would leave the Lord of the Rings looking more like a blend of Snow White and the ceiling of the Sistine chapel.
I think that if there would/will be a lore reason stating that for example Kaelar would have darker skin color than Vaelune, then because of the lore "locking" this feature on the character creation would make sense.
Since the lore for now makes no such assumption, then for what reason should we go this way ?
"Because elves have light skin in 73 out of 89 Fantasy lores !" ? That makes absolutely no sense to me. Let's leave the other lores where they are, this game is not about them isn't it ?
I mean, each of the races has already some "distinctive" physical features right ? Dwarves size, elfs ears... being able to figure out which race we are dealing with thanks to these is good enough for me.
Having a skin color based race in game may enhance/force a "I've no choice but to belong to this group" kind of feeling according to the race we'd chose, which is the exact opposite of the "high level" direction Steven whishes to bring the game to, if I'm not mistaken.
"Having the choice" is an absolute key feature of the game, since the players choices are the very thing that will makes Verra alive and so much interesting.
This game respects the players choices a lot. On several levels. Regarding this fact, not being able to chose such a basic feature as skin color would feel kinda bad.
So basicaly... if there will be lore reasons to lock some physical feature like skin color for a given race, then I wouldn't mind this "lock" much... but unless there is some, I'm 100% in favor of letting each race having a variety of those.
Yeah this thread is kind of a dumpster fire, as much as I have been repeatedly try to 'bring everyone back to center' all it takes is one idiot to 'cry rascism' or ignore someone's arguments to derail any reasonable type of discussion. Though after rereading every single post on this thread I started to realize, there isn't actually a point to this thread. Op just was expressing how they hoped the character creator would let them look unique and distinct. I'm glad to have had certain parts of the conversation. I definitely understand George Black and Conrad's point of view better at least. I don't think my own points were particularly heard or cared for but eh. So it goes. Maybe next time. You can consider me 'bowing out' of here for now. I highly encourage others to do so as well.
Racism is more believing and acting upon your race being superior to another. Too many things get blamed for being racist that just are not technically racist.
I wouldn't necessarily say allowing or not allowing a race in the game to be a specific skin tone or skeletal structure in relation to facial differences implies racism.
If the lore of the race and their culture imply that's the way they look, then so be it.
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Op just was expressing how they hoped the character creator would let them look unique and distinct. I'm glad to have had certain parts of the conversation. I definitely understand George Black and Conrad's point of view better at least. I don't think my own points were particularly heard or cared for but eh. So it goes. Maybe next time. You can consider me 'bowing out' of here for now. I highly encourage others to do so as well.
The OP was fine.
I think your points were heard and cared about.
@Dolyem - Yeah, I know your response has been make what you want. But the predominant feedback hasn’t been ‘make your character as you wish.’ It’s been closer to your meme’s characterization, to which I just wanted to add context.
@Dolyem - Yeah, I know what your response has been. But the predominant feedback hasn’t been ‘make your character as you wish.’ It’s been closer to your characterization which I just wanted to add context.
Ohhhhhhh I see, we should totally get a discord going sometime, I would be up for discussing these things or just anything ashes related once in awhile where context doesnt get lost in text.
Racism is more believing and acting upon your race being superior to another. Too many things get blamed for being racist that just are not technically racist.
I wouldn't necessarily say allowing or not allowing a race in the game to be a specific skin tone or skeletal structure in relation to facial differences implies racism.
If the lore of the race and their culture imply that's the way they look, then so be it.
Yeah, sensitive people like to use racism or sexism a lot as an excuse because they can't handle the truth these days. (Not saying anyone is like that on this thread or forum)
I might sound like asshole but I've had to handle this a lot before in games I ran publicly for dnd and pf, and with ppl wanting to be various manner of lore breaking characters I have started to get annoyed because of "I want my character to be this" stuff 😆
Yeah this thread is kind of a dumpster fire, as much as I have been repeatedly try to 'bring everyone back to center' all it takes is one idiot to 'cry rascism' or ignore someone's arguments to derail any reasonable type of discussion. Though after rereading every single post on this thread I started to realize, there isn't actually a point to this thread. Op just was expressing how they hoped the character creator would let them look unique and distinct. I'm glad to have had certain parts of the conversation. I definitely understand George Black and Conrad's point of view better at least. I don't think my own points were particularly heard or cared for but eh. So it goes. Maybe next time. You can consider me 'bowing out' of here for now. I highly encourage others to do so as well.
Heard, yes, cared for... well, varies by what you mean cared for. People don't necessarily have to care for opinions of others, but I certainly do accept its your opinion, but I certainly disagree 😆
I think I see what you're saying, I agree that character customization should be very flexible so players can look how they want to, even despite what lore may say. It doesn't hurt anything, except maybe another players immersion but honestly anything can break someone's immersion so that's just tough luck.
I just think it stupid when people scream racism in regards to when a culture or race in a story doesn't have a melting pot of different types of people. There is nothing wrong with establishing entire civilizations that have distinctive physical traits while not having others. In its own way it creates more diversity so long as several factions are created, and it still promotes the uniqueness of each one instead of not being able to tell just from looking at them, which is important in a game. Now if it was just "humans" then yea, you should probably try to toss in many types of people. But with established named variants of humans, there is nothing wrong or racist about different physical characteristics between them, or limiting the characters of the lore in the same regard.
I think I see what you're saying, I agree that character customization should be very flexible so players can look how they want to, even despite what lore may say. It doesn't hurt anything, except maybe another players immersion but honestly anything can break someone's immersion so that's just tough luck.
I just think it stupid when people scream racism in regards to when a culture or race in a story doesn't have a melting pot of different types of people. There is nothing wrong with establishing entire civilizations that have distinctive physical traits while not having others. In its own way it creates more diversity so long as several factions are created, and it still promotes the uniqueness of each one instead of not being able to tell just from looking at them, which is important in a game. Now if it was just "humans" then yea, you should probably try to toss in many types of people. But with established named variants of humans, there is nothing wrong or racist about different physical characteristics between them, or limiting the characters of the lore in the same regard.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Having unique races/variants is important.
I think things like skin colour can be more generously tweaked without really changing racial appearance though. An example given previously in the thread is how blood elves were allowed to have dark skin, and it was referred to as pandering. I for one did not see it as pandering, because the elf itself still has the same racial features/face, their skin is just darker... something that isn't entirely unfriendly to the lore, especially since the high elves of WoW are based on the sun elves/high elves of d&d, which also have dark, sometimes very dark skin. Other dark skinned elves from d&d include wild elves, wood elves, and pre-Crown Wars dark elves. All their features remain the same, but their tones are unique and different, sometimes even being coppery or green. Moon elves can be blue and purple. I think that's cool.
I certainly don't want every race to be able to look like every race, but I do at least want there to be options for customization (within reason, with the lore)
For the record, I think it's totally fine to have appearances and stats locked into different fantasy races. I don't think there's anything wrong with, let's say, ogres all being dumb and ugly, for example. This doesn't discriminate against anyone because 1. It could be established to be true and 2. Ogres don't exist. (Sorry Shrek.)
Yea but to be fair, its not discriminating if its just established lore as far as humans are concerned. It could be where there isn't even a white human character in the game, and have established lore as to why that is. And it wouldn't necessarily be racist.
The only moment it becomes racist is when there is intent to discriminate against a people. If the reason to not include X ethnic group of people in the game is because you don't like X ethnic group of people, then that is racist. It isn't racist to have separate and unique groups, or even a singular group for a story or game, many japanese and chinese culture inspired games are proof of this.
But I am down to hear more of your opinion on this
Yea but to be fair, its not discriminating if its just established lore as far as humans are concerned. It could be where there isn't even a white human character in the game, and have established lore as to why that is. And it wouldn't necessarily be racist.
The only moment it becomes racist is when there is intent to discriminate against a people. If the reason to not include X ethnic group of people in the game is because you don't like X ethnic group of people, then that is racist. It isn't racist to have separate and unique groups, or even a singular group for a story or game, many japanese and chinese culture inspired games are proof of this.
But I am down to hear more of your opinion on this
Yeah, nah. I agree entirely with that. I think we essentially share the same opinion.
Its the developer's creative vision let them envision their world, if you don't like it make a new game yourself with whatever character settings you like. Why does everyone have to impose their view on others.
If you don't like how others do something do it yourself.
So if you don't like how developers see their game lore and characters make your own game and lore
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I for one have never seen an mmo with a greek influenced race (save eso that has a greek helmet for the Roman based Imperials).
I never cared to make a fuss to feel included.
The reality is that the human races in games are mostly western medieval with a tokenism secondary option in which the jam all other cultures in one.
And it's ok. Idc.
Take Witcher for example. They commited their story to being based on polish themes. And people loved it for being well structured.
Take Sekiro or Ghost or Tsuwhatever. Take Dynasty Warriors. Tought me so much about the Chinese.
I didnt care if there wasnt a white guy option.
In LoL Pantheon isnt even on my top 5 picks.
People need to separate fantasy from reality. I never saw anybody raging that orcs dont have human white or human black skin options.
What's the deal with elves?
Exactly, and there are many many different variations yet most fall into the same vague category of description. If I say elf you imagine a handsome or beautiful long and pointed eared supermodel-like creature with flowing loreal locks of hair and a love of nature. If I say Orc you generally imagine a big hulking muscle brain with a pig-ish face, tusks, and vary from greyish skin to dark green and an insatiable bloodlust they can unleash.
These are the "general" ideas that many people think of when you say Elf or Orc. This can be expanded into the other fantasy creatures, and that's why there will always be pushback when someone tries to suggest a change to such things for literally no other reason than because they can. It's even worse when people start asking for fantasy races to fulfill a diversity quota when they are literally a different species. They are already diverse in their own unique way.
There is no need draw real life political issues into it. If you read a book and it tells you the sky is blue, you don't get to say "Well I think it's green". The sky is blue because it's not your story to tell, and if you don't like that you should probably stop reading the book. Our characters are the same. They are inside the "book" that is Ashes of Creation and if the author says your character is a primarily black-skinned race, you shouldn't suddenly get mad that there are no white-skinned versions of your race.
Now, as for ashes of creation, we still have a few months before they start releasing their take on Orcs, tulnar, and possible updates to the current races. I am all for diverse races, skin colors, and all sorts of weird customization options, but it should reflect the lore of the world. I understand this thread is more about asking for these options before the lore is implemented, so all I can say is good luck. I just don't want to see players attempting to push for silly notions of diversity when we literally have the Tulnar, a collection of species that intermingled for thousands of years.
Tulnar can hide all pieces of clothing and weapons as a racial now. Are you happy now? Do you see what you have done?
I didn't. I pointed out the difference between being 'influenced' by a culture versus depicting that culture literally. That said, I truly don't understand the shitfit if someone wants to play a black elf. It's an invented race. You can point to whatever 'canon' you want, it's still a fantasy where every instance can be different.
I will remind you that each race in the game is a legitimately different race, but because the human races only have different skin tones, you keep equating that to their being only a cultural difference. This is incorrect. Until a developer comes forward and states otherwise, you're lying to yourself and other posters. As an example, take Nords and Redguards, they're races, not simply 'cultures'.
What is wrong with you? Who said anything about minorities? Nearly all of your posts on this topic move away from the subject of the game into political race-baiting. It's not constructive and it's weird.
Yes, pandering. Which a lot of game companies do to appease the loud minority and as we saw in Blizzards case, to take the public eye away from the happenings behind closed doors. They don't really care, it's simply a tactic to subdue the 'offended' in the modern political climate.
If any of the two human races were to have Asian features, it would be the Vaelune, as they take racial influence from the Middle East.
What I was highlighting was giving players unlimited choice ended up resulting in bland, generic characters. Which is what we're going to see if this goes unchecked.
Oof, that sounded like a burn 🔥 😆
Should have made this point myself earlier. Pretty much this ^
I always forget the origins on such mystical creatures.
What I was highlighting was giving players unlimited choice ended up resulting in bland, generic characters. Which is what we're going to see if this goes unchecked.[/quote]
Baldurs Gate 3 is certainly one of the many reasons not to go over the top and make some crazy choices in char creation. Actually no, DnD is one of the reasons. More and more changes have been added to pander to people as well, like some special additions to being a wheelchair user, trans and other stuff like that. DND just turned into a whole mess of pandering to the minority. They just turned it into a real world representation instead of keeping it DnD 🤣 I'm not against into any of the groups, but hell, this is one of the reason why we got such a dumbed down edition. Stripped of everything
And what did we end up with? A fucking school themed ball party as a module.... like this ain't the only thing, but shit is getting worse.
Intrepid should stick to its lore and not pander to anyone or we will get shit of a mess like DnD turned into.
Hell even elves are an evolution. Most of the time they were depicted as short, then got conflated with 'fey in general' (on purpose because Tokien thought it more interesting) and we therefore now general think of elves as tall, largely due to the Tolkien popularization by dnd. Which also added their own components and so on.
Ashes is currently in the process of 'making shit up.' I respect people who want to 'keep source material as is.' I will even fight for you. I will reject, however, limitations on making new things for the sake of 'being more pure to the source material.'
First things first, Odin is not the Nordic god in FF. Its just a Knight called Odin.
You're comparing Asian culture to European culture, they have a bit different representation. And even with the differences, the elves are still pretty accurate to what they were originally depicted as. Orcs in Asia are depicted as pig men, that's cultural as well.
The short people you're mixing up with fae. Elves are based on fae/are fae, but the elves were made by Tolkien.
Like I said before, changing things just to reinvent the wheel is never good. It always backfires.
Hence why I have been for keeping things lore accurate. DND dropped that and turned the whole lore into an abomination
Alright, lets try something else then. What do you think the point of pandering is?
No.
I think you need to wiki less and read more. Elves have appeared in literature in various forms for centuries. Spencer and Chaucer alone take them back to the 13th Century, and that’s just medieval England. Tolkien published the Hobbit in 1937, which asserted his version of elves. Gygax and crew created their version in the 70s. Salvatore created his version in the 80s.
All of these are ‘changing things’ to the benefit of telling good stories. That’s not an abomination. What is an abomination is restricting the depiction of creative, invented creatures for literally no other reason than ‘well that’s the way they were before.’
If your ‘reasoning’ took hold, it would leave the Lord of the Rings looking more like a blend of Snow White and the ceiling of the Sistine chapel.
Since the lore for now makes no such assumption, then for what reason should we go this way ?
"Because elves have light skin in 73 out of 89 Fantasy lores !" ? That makes absolutely no sense to me. Let's leave the other lores where they are, this game is not about them isn't it ?
I mean, each of the races has already some "distinctive" physical features right ? Dwarves size, elfs ears... being able to figure out which race we are dealing with thanks to these is good enough for me.
Having a skin color based race in game may enhance/force a "I've no choice but to belong to this group" kind of feeling according to the race we'd chose, which is the exact opposite of the "high level" direction Steven whishes to bring the game to, if I'm not mistaken.
"Having the choice" is an absolute key feature of the game, since the players choices are the very thing that will makes Verra alive and so much interesting.
This game respects the players choices a lot. On several levels. Regarding this fact, not being able to chose such a basic feature as skin color would feel kinda bad.
So basicaly... if there will be lore reasons to lock some physical feature like skin color for a given race, then I wouldn't mind this "lock" much... but unless there is some, I'm 100% in favor of letting each race having a variety of those.
That R word gets tossed around nilly willy anymore.
I wouldn't necessarily say allowing or not allowing a race in the game to be a specific skin tone or skeletal structure in relation to facial differences implies racism.
If the lore of the race and their culture imply that's the way they look, then so be it.
I think your points were heard and cared about.
Odd that wasn't what that was a response to
If that was the thing to respond it would sound more like...
And so the discussion continues…
Ohhhhhhh I see, we should totally get a discord going sometime, I would be up for discussing these things or just anything ashes related once in awhile where context doesnt get lost in text.
Yeah, sensitive people like to use racism or sexism a lot as an excuse because they can't handle the truth these days. (Not saying anyone is like that on this thread or forum)
I might sound like asshole but I've had to handle this a lot before in games I ran publicly for dnd and pf, and with ppl wanting to be various manner of lore breaking characters I have started to get annoyed because of "I want my character to be this" stuff 😆
Heard, yes, cared for... well, varies by what you mean cared for. People don't necessarily have to care for opinions of others, but I certainly do accept its your opinion, but I certainly disagree 😆
I think I see what you're saying, I agree that character customization should be very flexible so players can look how they want to, even despite what lore may say. It doesn't hurt anything, except maybe another players immersion but honestly anything can break someone's immersion so that's just tough luck.
I just think it stupid when people scream racism in regards to when a culture or race in a story doesn't have a melting pot of different types of people. There is nothing wrong with establishing entire civilizations that have distinctive physical traits while not having others. In its own way it creates more diversity so long as several factions are created, and it still promotes the uniqueness of each one instead of not being able to tell just from looking at them, which is important in a game. Now if it was just "humans" then yea, you should probably try to toss in many types of people. But with established named variants of humans, there is nothing wrong or racist about different physical characteristics between them, or limiting the characters of the lore in the same regard.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Having unique races/variants is important.
I think things like skin colour can be more generously tweaked without really changing racial appearance though. An example given previously in the thread is how blood elves were allowed to have dark skin, and it was referred to as pandering. I for one did not see it as pandering, because the elf itself still has the same racial features/face, their skin is just darker... something that isn't entirely unfriendly to the lore, especially since the high elves of WoW are based on the sun elves/high elves of d&d, which also have dark, sometimes very dark skin. Other dark skinned elves from d&d include wild elves, wood elves, and pre-Crown Wars dark elves. All their features remain the same, but their tones are unique and different, sometimes even being coppery or green. Moon elves can be blue and purple. I think that's cool.
I certainly don't want every race to be able to look like every race, but I do at least want there to be options for customization (within reason, with the lore)
For the record, I think it's totally fine to have appearances and stats locked into different fantasy races. I don't think there's anything wrong with, let's say, ogres all being dumb and ugly, for example. This doesn't discriminate against anyone because 1. It could be established to be true and 2. Ogres don't exist. (Sorry Shrek.)
Yea but to be fair, its not discriminating if its just established lore as far as humans are concerned. It could be where there isn't even a white human character in the game, and have established lore as to why that is. And it wouldn't necessarily be racist.
The only moment it becomes racist is when there is intent to discriminate against a people. If the reason to not include X ethnic group of people in the game is because you don't like X ethnic group of people, then that is racist. It isn't racist to have separate and unique groups, or even a singular group for a story or game, many japanese and chinese culture inspired games are proof of this.
But I am down to hear more of your opinion on this
Yeah, nah. I agree entirely with that. I think we essentially share the same opinion.
If you don't like how others do something do it yourself.
So if you don't like how developers see their game lore and characters make your own game and lore