Non-White Human Avatars

[DeletedUser14366]

What's with the one black avatar having glowing eyes!? Seventeen white ones with normal eyes, one in a mask that's probably white under there too. Can we not have a black female or some other ethnicities? You got two tribal painted girls that both look white and four gingers. That ain't right. White privledge much? Let's get some color in the game.

 

[DeletedUser]

And what's wrong with a Drow or two, huh?

 

[SoggyShorts]

Can we not have a black female or some other ethnicities?

Of the 21 human looking portraits here are 5 that surely qualify. There's even at least one(maybe 3) that fit your specific request for a black female. Almost 25% non-caucasian humans is probably one of the highest levels of diversity you'll find for pre-set avatars in a medieval era fantasy game.
Also why the heck would you want a portrait that looks like you when you can have this:

And what's wrong with a Drow or two, huh?

Presumably drow are a different race of Elves, just like the Woodelves are, so we could get them as a guest race.... but not if you already had them as a portrait

 

[DeletedUser]

You don't get the top three (or the Dragons) until you start building Ancient Wonders. Shouldn't have to wait for diversity in game avatars.

Presumably drow are a different race of Elves, just like the Woodelves are, so we could get them as a guest race.... but not if you already had them as a portrait

My post was actually a joke, Soggy. I wasn't seriously suggesting we have Drow-like avatars, though I would genuinely like to see some variation among the Elves as well. You'll be getting your 'other uses for blueprints' before we'll see greater diversity in our regular game avatars, and that's a shame.

 

[DeletedUser5800]

Firstly, it's probably mostly representative of the country of origins demographics:
German 91.5%, Turkish 2.4%, other 6.1% (made up largely of Polish, Italian, Romanian, Syrian, and Greek)

Secondly, it is a common problem in most games: http://adanai.com/gamer-demographics/
"Gamers have responded to the diversification of games, but oddly, games haven’t done as well at responding to the diversification of gamers. Many game companies still cater to very narrow demographics, with casts dominated by straight white men. Too often, female characters are relegated to nothing but eye candy at best, and minorities are very underrepresented."

Thirdly, a large part of the general problem is who is developing games: http://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/21/video-games-race-black-protagonists-509328.html
"The International Game Developers Association suggests that only 3 percent of game developers are African-American, a figure that has risen by only 0.5 percent in the past decade. In comparison, 76 percent of developers are white"

Conclusion: There should be more diversity in all games but that probably won't happen until the root causes of who is developing them and more importantly who isn't and why are addressed.

I support lots of more avatars and ways to personalize them but yes there at least should be several more default beginner ones that represent more players.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I dunno, in some games sure, but in a fantasy game like this? Is your portrait really supposed to represent you, and how you look in real life? How do you square that with all of the blue-skinned ones? Or do some players actually look like orcs,trees, and dragons in real life?

 

[DeletedUser]

I dunno, in some games maybe, but in a fantasy game like this? Is your portrait really supposed to represent you, and how you look in real life? How do you square that with all of the blue-skinned ones? Or do some players actually look like orcs,trees, and dragons in real life?

I wasn't aware that games, including fantasy ones, were a White Male only universe. The point is that players of other ethnic backgrounds should not have to be represented in the game world by Anglo-only avatars. It's not "one-size-fits-all".

 

[SoggyShorts]

I wasn't aware that games, including fantasy ones, were a White Male only universe. The point is that players of other ethnic backgrounds should not have to be represented in the game world by Anglo-only avatars. It's not "one-size-fits-all".

You quoted me for this, but your response has nothing to do with what I said. Unless you think trees, orcs and dragons fall into the category of "White male universe"

I think we're looking at this from totally different viewpoints. You seem to be saying that your portrait should represent your RL self, while I believe it should represent your in-game character. Again, what about all of the players (half?) that play as Elves?

In my decades of gaming I have never chosen to play as a character that looks like me. Aside from the danger of constant distraction from the hotness, I find games are more interesting when I'm doing something I can't in real life, or playing as someone I'm not in real life.

 

[DeletedUser5800]

You seem to be saying that your portrait should represent your RL self, while I believe it should represent your in-game character.

That doesn't mean that options would not be beneficial. Let's imagine for a moment that we are not the exact demographic catered to. The game has 10+age rating, if you were a 12 yr old dark skinned girl which avatar would you pick? To me it does seem to present limited options, especially from the start, for some groups.
Luckily the app solved this by making every human the blonde bearded white guy...

 

[SoggyShorts]

The game has 10+age rating, if you were a 12 yr old dark skinned girl which avatar would you pick?

My money is on an Elf.
To be clear, I obviously wouldn't be bothered if there were more options, but I think more non-human options would be better than more RL ones.
Have a look around the forums where you can pick almost any image that exists-- how many of us have a RL photo of ourselves as a profile pic? Aside from you, as you are clearly a RL viking

 

[DeletedUser5800]

Aside from you, as you are clearly a RL viking

Spoiler

 

[SoggyShorts]

I KNEW IT!
I must say, I am impressed at your dedication. Shaving the sides of your head to prove a point...well done sir.

 

[DeletedUser5800]

I am impressed at your dedication.

What came first, me or the avatar? LOL It was me, but I did pick the one that looked the most like me which I feel is relevant to the discussion at hand.

 

[shimmerfly]

Your all goofy but then I don't have donkey ears or a blue face in real life. By the way why do all the elves have donkey ears? I was hoping for something more like Spock. Easy on the ears Inno!

 

[SoggyShorts]

What came first, me or the avatar? LOL It was me, but I did pick the one that looked the most like me which I feel is relevant to the discussion at hand.

Indeed it is. After a quick scan here:
https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?find-new/12320866/posts
There are a few that use RL photos as well.

Your pic does bring up another issue with Game developers adding more "RL" avatars- Look at the first complaint from the original post- "Why does the black guy have glowing eyes?" When I first saw that avatar I thought "ooh, badass", but others apparently find it somehow offensive.

Here are two very possible scenarios that can happen with the "I'm offended, everything triggers me" community:
1. They make really good looking avatars representing a wide variety of real life humans.
"Why is everyone so perfect?! This sets unrealistic beauty standards, and you are oppressing me"
2. They make more realistic representations of all humans
"Why does the ______ avatar look like _____? That's racist!"

So game developers should add more avatars to represent more diverse players in appearance. At the same time, they should all look really good, but without setting unrealistic standards. Good luck winning as a developer these days.

 

[DeletedUser5800]

So game developers should add more avatars to represent more diverse players in appearance. At the same time, they should all look really good, but without setting unrealistic standards.

Agreed.

 

[DeletedUser]

You seem to be saying that your portrait should represent your RL self, while I believe it should represent your in-game character.

You don't know my other in-game characters, Soggy. Well, you know one other, but I don't think you know it's me.

Most of my characters are Elves, and only one of them is imagined as blue-skinned. Out of the remaining Humans, only two are envisioned as Anglo. I would like the option of representing the others as close to how I imagine them as possible. It would increase my enjoyment of the game considerably, and inspire me to feel more invested. You have no way of knowing how other players imagine their characters unless you ask them. One of my Humans is a Pirate by the name of Salty Jim. He's in Elcysandar. It's his second go-round; I lost his password and the email I used, so I had to start him over from scratch which is why he's so far behind. Anyway, in my head, he resembles a much younger Hogun The Grim, but obviously in the game I haven't that option.

So game developers should add more avatars to represent more diverse players in appearance. At the same time, they should all look really good, but without setting unrealistic standards.

The avatar artists at Forge of Empires don't seem to have a problem with this.

 

[SoggyShorts]

You have no way of knowing how other players imagine their characters unless you ask them.

Only if they have preconceived ideas about how their character looks prior to seeing the options for character looks.
If a player chooses an avatar, I figure their character looks like that avatar. I don't feel that's too great an assumption.

Again, I'm not against adding more avatars. I only dispute that Elvenar is being overtly racist with it's current selection of avatars.

The avatar artists at Forge of Empires don't seem to have a problem with this.

I haven't checked, but I'd be quite impressed if no one ever complained about a single avatar or lack of avatar in FoE ever.

 

[DeletedUser]

Only if they have preconceived ideas about how their character looks prior to seeing the options for character looks.
If a player chooses an avatar, I figure their character looks like that avatar. I don't feel that's too great an assumption.

Again, you won't know unless you ask. Some gamers have characters that have very well-developed backstories and they play those characters in every or nearly every MMO they play. We have to choose the avatar that most closely resembles the character as we envision them. There isn't another option. It's "one size fits all" that's the problem.

I'm not against adding more avatars. I only dispute that Elvenar is being overtly racist with it's current selection of avatars.

What's to dispute? Asking for more diversity in the choice of avatars with which to represent our characters isn't an accusation or assumption of racist artists or developers.

 

[DeletedUser5800]

I only dispute that Elvenar is being overtly racist with it's current selection of avatars.

I would agree that there probably isn't overt racism here, there is this quest giver:

But I also agree that there are underrepresented groups for those that may like to be more like themselves in a fantasy world vs a fantasy person in a fantasy world (or explicitly doesn't want their fantasy person to be white).
There is no denying that some of us have more of choice than others in this area... and a dark skinned female has exactly zero choices as is the case with many other ethnicities whereas a white person has a good chance at something similar to themselves or at least not entirely different. It probably would be more inviting to more players if the standard human avatars at least had an equal representation of 3 skin tones and for each sex.