Diversity & Inclusion

Hello there!

Let's get this out of the way. I'm black. I was born black, raised black, and I feel I will be black for quite some time. I love gaming and exploring new worlds and new stories in those games.

I have played only a handful of MMOs (BDO, ESO, GW1, GW2, Archeage, LOTRO) and only 1 has included a specific black ethnicity (ESO with Redguards) and 1 has a general human race with multiple ethnicities that you could create but can actually fit into a specific culture (GW2 with Elonans and Canthans).

Even GW2 stumbled at first because for 4 years after launch the only hair options for black characters was an afro, dreadlocks, and a bald head (tacky and lacks creativity). It was only when they geared up towards their Path of Fire release that they included more diverse hairstyles and I was absolutely moved that a game I had loved since beta had finally thought to make a wider array of their player base feel more included.

I can't even imagine the lack of representation felt by Asian, Latinx, Indigenous, etc people.

I am super excited to play Ashes but looking at the races it looks like there are 8 white races and 1 kind of culturally ambiguous race that is meant to be a catch all for "non-white". Is it a big ask to think outside of the box more to include more culturally diverse characters to allow more people to be able to see themselves represented in the game without being locked to one character race?

Like my main will be a dwarf for SURE. I have always loved dwarves. But why is there never any non-white dwarf races? Dwarves can be seen in mythology for cultures all around the world, not just in western Europe. Why do we keep clinging to these tropes? it is an honest question because this is something that serves as a barrier for immersion for myself and for many players of color. There are lots of cool stories there that are just waiting to be explored.

I look forward to the responses I will get and the sad thing is I am ready to be demeaned and the berated by people for asking something so simple lol.

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Lostforever

I am a PoC and I don't want to see any real world culture issues in the game and politicize. I want to get away from the real world and hence why I play MMO to escape.

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!

Damokles

You would be right op if there werent a few things:
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.

Lostforever

Damokles wrote: »

You would be right op if:
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.

Songcaller

Lostforever wrote: »

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.

Damokles

Lostforever wrote: »

Damokles wrote: »

You would be right op if:
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.

They were influenced by existing cultures on earth regarding aesthetics.

Damokles

Beck Altarr wrote: »

Next someone will be complaining there is no way to transition and where is the Official Safe Space in the Metropolis.

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?

Kohl

Screw the safe space.
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.

Leroher

suprvilln wrote: »

Hello there!

Let's get this out of the way. I'm black. I was born black, raised black, and I feel I will be black for quite some time.

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.

7Legion

suprvilln wrote: »

Hello there!

Let's get this out of the way. I'm black. I was born black, raised black, and I feel I will be black for quite some time. I love gaming and exploring new worlds and new stories in those games.

I have played only a handful of MMOs (BDO, ESO, GW1, GW2, Archeage, LOTRO) and only 1 has included a specific black ethnicity (ESO with Redguards) and 1 has a general human race with multiple ethnicities that you could create but can actually fit into a specific culture (GW2 with Elonans and Canthans).

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.

Asri

White chick here. I totally get the OP. If the only representation I ever got in videogames was pediphiliac, oversexualized asian girls -- I wouldn't want to play them either. Making my character not look like that while still being surrounded by stereotypes wouldn't feel inclusive no matter what sliders there were.

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.

Makinoji

This topic can apply to many other things, such as sexuality, disability, and so on.
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.

Nagash

*sigh* Just make everyone grey skeletons and be done with it

Kohl

Nagash wrote: »

*sigh* Just make everyone grey skeletons and be done with it

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.

grisu

Did you just assume my colour identity?

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<.

Nagash

grisu wrote: »

Did you just assume my colour identity?

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<.

because people always want something to complain about

Beeper

Nagash wrote: »

because people always want something to complain about

This is real life.

NelsonRebel

I think the ops purpose was just to ask and see if the game would have options to be diverse.

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.

Murdach

I feel you boss. There are a few people on here that say, "I dont care", but it is nice to have more than a skin color slider. Actual Black, Latin, or Asian features are few and far between. That is no beuno in 2020. I hope the Ashes team is on top of this. I personally dont care so much about cultural representation in these games, but it might be nice to have a race that is reminiscent of Zulus or Mongols, or whatever.

Murdach

LockedOut wrote: »

The goal is to have a character creator equivalent to BDO. I'm guessing you won't have any issues making your character the way you want. Personally, I don't really know if it's me, but posts like this kinda rub me the wrong way. When I watch a movie like Black Panther where the cast is mostly black, zero white main cast, and one of the few white people is a sub villain. I don't think well where's my representation? Art usually reflects the artist, whether that's games, movies, novels. Most Fantasy is based off of Tolkien, so it makes sense that a lot of the races tend to be white.

But, who cares? I was raised, and still believe today that as M.L.K. Jr. said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." When I watch the Black Panther, I don't think where's my representation because it's already there. It's there when T'Challa is talking to his father in the afterlife, it's there when M'Baku decides to stand with, and protect T'Challa.

We're much more than just the color of our skin; we share a much deeper bond. We're all brothers, and sisters. We're all human.

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

voidshadow

Nagash wrote: »

Forgot this existed. I agree 100%

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