Vhaeyne wrote: » Dygz wrote: » What is "forced diversity"? Always a fun subject to charge into head first... That term has no official definition, but I think this quick video does a reasonable job of showing how most people feel about "forced diversity".https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPig_16OcHw I know we are both on the same side of this issue for different reasons. I don't think me asking for more customization or you asking to be able to make a character that looks like you are examples of "forced diversity". Forced diversity in Ashes would be the Devs deciding that an amount of NPCs in Ashes are going to have a skin color, and they are going to make a big deal about it every time you talk to them. They would do this, so they can try and change your mind about an ideology you may or may not have. From what I understand, this is not something anybody is asking for.
Dygz wrote: » What is "forced diversity"?
Dolyem wrote: » Vhaeyne wrote: » Dygz wrote: » What is "forced diversity"? Always a fun subject to charge into head first... That term has no official definition, but I think this quick video does a reasonable job of showing how most people feel about "forced diversity".https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPig_16OcHw I know we are both on the same side of this issue for different reasons. I don't think me asking for more customization or you asking to be able to make a character that looks like you are examples of "forced diversity". Forced diversity in Ashes would be the Devs deciding that an amount of NPCs in Ashes are going to have a skin color, and they are going to make a big deal about it every time you talk to them. They would do this, so they can try and change your mind about an ideology you may or may not have. From what I understand, this is not something anybody is asking for. This is a good description, I would also say unnecessary inclusion of any demographic into another and identifying them as one and the same, is another form of forced diversity. More along the lines of fans demanding it rather than original ideas for the lore. My example of gods of Egypt is more or less saying, why are there any white people at all in an ancient Egyptian setting? There shouldn't have been. It was forced onto an already established lore and history(of the people, not mythology). Now a good example of natural diversity I like is Gladiator. There are reasons why there are different people from different cultures and ethnicities in one place. It made sense for the time and place the story is based. But again, the only time this is even an issue is in established lore. As far as player characters go, let people go crazy and have fun with it. When it comes to lore, if there are distinguished differences between race, culture, or ethnicity....that isn't a bad thing. Hell if there wasn't even a white European option in this game for the lore and everything was based on African, Native American, and Chinese inspirations I would still want to play it. There would probably be some people that are deterred at first, but wait, they could make their character look how they want? Oh damn, they look like a European knight and they get what they want and it doesn't affect the lore! WOW! F forced diversity, just give me a good story with lore that makes sense, if diversity comes naturally with it then awesome, but if it isn't there it can still be just as good or better. So long as players still get to make the character look how they want.
JustVine wrote: » Conrad wrote: » JustVine wrote: » Conrad wrote: » Dygz wrote: » There is not just one type of wheel. Wheels are reinvented all the time. Elf in The Witcher: Yes, and it's not canon. Don't link something that is breaking the books canon. Which btw Netflix did far more than the games. Like honestly, idgaf about what Netflix added with their show, it's not a valid way to prove your point. If not for the fact that Sapkowski cares more about the money than moderating other mediums which adapt his work, Netflix show would be completely different and the games would be quite different as well. In the end, even though he doesn't moderate adaptations of his work, it doesn't make them canon either way It's written by a white polish man. Obviously 'I perceive most things of my homeland white' happens. Once other minds get involved with something ideas change according to the participating minds. The more something is allowed to exist the more 'normal' it starts to seem because the only reason it's 'weird' to you is unfamiliarity. I have never even considered 'making my elves tan consistently in every character creator I use and play elf' for the past two decades to be 'not in canon' until.... Today? Because you all noted 'it's not canon'? No. Netflix race swapped a lot of characters even tho they were not described as such. I dont give a damn about what you think honestly, but dont try to spin it into something that "supposedly" supports your point. Sapkowski explicitly said he allows the books to be put into other mediums because money. He fucked up 1 time with witcher and now he is all out with getting as much as possible. Don't use invalid points like that to support your points. Netflix is far too infamous with race swapping characters for "ticking boxes", and if you guys keep pushing the bullshit with Witcher I will just ignore your posts Uhm..... Easy there mate. I am not using the Witcher for my argument at all. You could apply what I said to any work of art involving elves.
Conrad wrote: » JustVine wrote: » Conrad wrote: » Dygz wrote: » There is not just one type of wheel. Wheels are reinvented all the time. Elf in The Witcher: Yes, and it's not canon. Don't link something that is breaking the books canon. Which btw Netflix did far more than the games. Like honestly, idgaf about what Netflix added with their show, it's not a valid way to prove your point. If not for the fact that Sapkowski cares more about the money than moderating other mediums which adapt his work, Netflix show would be completely different and the games would be quite different as well. In the end, even though he doesn't moderate adaptations of his work, it doesn't make them canon either way It's written by a white polish man. Obviously 'I perceive most things of my homeland white' happens. Once other minds get involved with something ideas change according to the participating minds. The more something is allowed to exist the more 'normal' it starts to seem because the only reason it's 'weird' to you is unfamiliarity. I have never even considered 'making my elves tan consistently in every character creator I use and play elf' for the past two decades to be 'not in canon' until.... Today? Because you all noted 'it's not canon'? No. Netflix race swapped a lot of characters even tho they were not described as such. I dont give a damn about what you think honestly, but dont try to spin it into something that "supposedly" supports your point. Sapkowski explicitly said he allows the books to be put into other mediums because money. He fucked up 1 time with witcher and now he is all out with getting as much as possible. Don't use invalid points like that to support your points. Netflix is far too infamous with race swapping characters for "ticking boxes", and if you guys keep pushing the bullshit with Witcher I will just ignore your posts
JustVine wrote: » Conrad wrote: » Dygz wrote: » There is not just one type of wheel. Wheels are reinvented all the time. Elf in The Witcher: Yes, and it's not canon. Don't link something that is breaking the books canon. Which btw Netflix did far more than the games. Like honestly, idgaf about what Netflix added with their show, it's not a valid way to prove your point. If not for the fact that Sapkowski cares more about the money than moderating other mediums which adapt his work, Netflix show would be completely different and the games would be quite different as well. In the end, even though he doesn't moderate adaptations of his work, it doesn't make them canon either way It's written by a white polish man. Obviously 'I perceive most things of my homeland white' happens. Once other minds get involved with something ideas change according to the participating minds. The more something is allowed to exist the more 'normal' it starts to seem because the only reason it's 'weird' to you is unfamiliarity. I have never even considered 'making my elves tan consistently in every character creator I use and play elf' for the past two decades to be 'not in canon' until.... Today? Because you all noted 'it's not canon'?
Conrad wrote: » Dygz wrote: » There is not just one type of wheel. Wheels are reinvented all the time. Elf in The Witcher: Yes, and it's not canon. Don't link something that is breaking the books canon. Which btw Netflix did far more than the games. Like honestly, idgaf about what Netflix added with their show, it's not a valid way to prove your point. If not for the fact that Sapkowski cares more about the money than moderating other mediums which adapt his work, Netflix show would be completely different and the games would be quite different as well. In the end, even though he doesn't moderate adaptations of his work, it doesn't make them canon either way
Dygz wrote: » There is not just one type of wheel. Wheels are reinvented all the time. Elf in The Witcher:
JustVine wrote: » Dolyem wrote: » Vhaeyne wrote: » Dygz wrote: » What is "forced diversity"? Always a fun subject to charge into head first... That term has no official definition, but I think this quick video does a reasonable job of showing how most people feel about "forced diversity".https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPig_16OcHw I know we are both on the same side of this issue for different reasons. I don't think me asking for more customization or you asking to be able to make a character that looks like you are examples of "forced diversity". Forced diversity in Ashes would be the Devs deciding that an amount of NPCs in Ashes are going to have a skin color, and they are going to make a big deal about it every time you talk to them. They would do this, so they can try and change your mind about an ideology you may or may not have. From what I understand, this is not something anybody is asking for. This is a good description, I would also say unnecessary inclusion of any demographic into another and identifying them as one and the same, is another form of forced diversity. More along the lines of fans demanding it rather than original ideas for the lore. My example of gods of Egypt is more or less saying, why are there any white people at all in an ancient Egyptian setting? There shouldn't have been. It was forced onto an already established lore and history(of the people, not mythology). Now a good example of natural diversity I like is Gladiator. There are reasons why there are different people from different cultures and ethnicities in one place. It made sense for the time and place the story is based. But again, the only time this is even an issue is in established lore. As far as player characters go, let people go crazy and have fun with it. When it comes to lore, if there are distinguished differences between race, culture, or ethnicity....that isn't a bad thing. Hell if there wasn't even a white European option in this game for the lore and everything was based on African, Native American, and Chinese inspirations I would still want to play it. There would probably be some people that are deterred at first, but wait, they could make their character look how they want? Oh damn, they look like a European knight and they get what they want and it doesn't affect the lore! WOW! F forced diversity, just give me a good story with lore that makes sense, if diversity comes naturally with it then awesome, but if it isn't there it can still be just as good or better. So long as players still get to make the character look how they want. Egyptian people are real. Their deities have animal heads on them and are up for religious debate. Humans are real, elves presumably not. There can't be forced diversity when BOTH the thing in question isn't real AND the writer didn't make /explicit/ exclusions/criteria. Telling me a black elf can't exist in a setting where it didn't say they couldn't is forced 'un'diversity. Where there are elves there is magic for bloody sake. How is shooting a fire ball requiring less suspension of disbelief than a black elf when a writer never said 'all elves are white.' If the writer said so in the source material, I will say 'did that decision make any difference to your world that mattered?' I will ask this almost only in rp settings (I will ask this in sci fi settings sometimes, but that's because I am a nerd,) because it seems foolishly limiting in rp settings. But I will also say 'ok it's your rules' and move on.
Conrad wrote: » Yes it makes a difference and it does matter because you're changing the lore established by someone else. If you break the lore it's far less immersive because its less and less the world the person made. At that point it's just a non canon fanfic.
Merek wrote: » 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.
Merek wrote: » 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!".
Merek wrote: » The Kaelar should be able to have a nice, healthy tan that one would see in your average Greek. However, they shouldn't be able to achieve the dark skin tone that's unique to the Vaelune. If this is too much, why don't Intrepid just merge them and create a 'culture' sub-category for character creation? Leave the Human race as one, generic 'Aela'. But, If they did that, we'd probably end up with a Baldurs Gate 3 situation.
George Black wrote: » Dygz dont talk about my country unless you know what you are talking about. You are confusing ancient Greek education with being Greek. History is based on writtings, cross examination of events. Facts. Not agendas and political ideology. Just because global cities want to make everybody an assimilated 'good citizen' that doesnt mean that the rest of the world accepts this forceful elimitation of unique identity. Albanians in Greece (or Bulgarians or Russians or Pakistanis or English or French or German) are proud to be who they are. I am happy to be Greek and even though I live in Australia I will never be Australian and I dont want to, just like if I was living in China I'd never be Chinese, nor me nor my kids. My last name is Greek. It doesnt become Chinese all of a sudden. Nor a Bulgarian name becomes Greek all of a sudden. Learn to respect people identities instead of trying to make everything the same for your convenience. Dont go around and say crap like "... since the 1800..." about people that have unique language, culture and mythology, preserved to this day since antiquity. The first world empire that respected other civilizations instead of forcing them to give up their religions or way of life, and trully celebrated and respected foreign peoples uniqueness. Dont talk about my country with the same breath as you push political agendas aimed at imprisoning rational thinking that cant be controlled or forced to get in line with the herd.
George Black wrote: » Because people confuse the words racism, culture, nationality, citizenship. And it's all because people are ignorant and prefer to be fed info and they dont place value on educating themselves. Apparently being educated is too offensive, as opposed to avoiding confrontations.
George Black wrote: » Ye it's my response to why I fight for distinctive cultures (be it ingame or inrl), despite the fact that skin tone color should not be restricted on character creation. I dont know what the hell dygz is going for. I have never seen him make sense on anything.
George Black wrote: » When did I showed disrespect to other peoples cultures? It's others, not me, that treat differences, uniqueness, characteristics as something offensive that we should pretend that dont exist, or should not be allowed to exist.
George Black wrote: » Learn to take no for an answer and appreciete what you have that makes you unique.
Dygz wrote: » Conrad wrote: » Yes it makes a difference and it does matter because you're changing the lore established by someone else. If you break the lore it's far less immersive because its less and less the world the person made. At that point it's just a non canon fanfic. LMAO The skin tones of Elves is not lore created by Sapkowski in 1993. In 1993, it didn't occur to him to include more diverse characters. It was right around 1993, when my friend whose bio grandparents were Persian and whose bio parents identified as Caucasian but the father died Asian said to me, "Hey! At least you can see yourself on billboards. I can't see myself on billboards." And I realized that when I wrote Sc-Fi/Fantasy, 85% of the time my protagonists are white and 15% of the time they're black. Why? Because 98% of Sci-Fi/Fantasy stories have white protagonists and sometimes I want the protagonist to look more like me. And I realized, if there's going to be more equitable representation in mass-media fiction - the creators have to proactively think about the demographics, rather than just go with status-quo of what was possible during the eras of segregation. In 1993, the vast majority of Fantasy writers were not thinking about equitable representation in their stories. By 2000, D&D 3rd Edition finally included equitable representation among Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, Humans, etc... EQ had already launched. World of Warcraft had already started production. Too late, then, for those devs to catch up to the D&D devs. It's taken 15 years for the World of Warcraft devs to catch up. Anyone also into comics - which is probably most of RPG fandom - is going to be familiar enough with retcons and visual revamps to be able to deal with lore being tweaked to include more diversity. Especially when it comes to modern day TV and film. And the same should also be true of video game franchises. Ashes is a new IP, so nothing is being tweaked. Steven says we will have a character creator at least as good as BDO - it will most likely take some inspiration from MetaHuman Creator, so there is no reason to have systemic restrictions based on outdated notions of what Fantasy races can be due to archaic notions of what "race" is.
Vhaeyne wrote: » Conrad wrote: » Yes it makes a difference and it does matter because you're changing the lore established by someone else. If you break the lore it's far less immersive because its less and less the world the person made. At that point it's just a non canon fanfic. I can agree that it makes a difference in the case of established lore. Can you agree that since Ashes is still an early collaborative work that the lore is not yet established?
