On the lack of Racial Diversty in TW3, or Disruptive Controversies.

[AVMC]

just make a small dlc that adds a few colored people from zerrikanian and be done with it

Then watch as a small minority, masquerading as speaking from authority, rallies against the use of people of color as enemies who, "only appear in the game for you to kill and release deep hostility toward those who are different."

Wait some of them don't fight? "How dare you use them as set pieces. They might as well not be there. The player is empowered to do anything, while the minorities are enslaved to roles, unable to change their lives."

There is NO end to this if studios give an inch. It's not about an end goal. It's not even about the points they make. It's about a sense of righteousness and somehow having the personal line to a unwavering, incorruptible, moral authority.

Leave it to those who want it to make it for themselves.

 

[Kad_Venku]

The sarcasm aside. Not sure if a Zerrikania DLC would change a thing.
Why?
Think about the history of Sapkowski's world.
The world the books and games take place in is a world which was once solely inhabited by dwarves and gnomes. At a certain point the Aen Sidhe (elves) arrived and took the world over, pushed the dwarves and gnomes back to mountain enclaves.
The important part here is that there were no humans living in this world at that time whatsoever.
Only during or shortly after the Conjunction of Spheres which took place about 1000 years before the books and games are set, humans arrived, not a whole race or something, but only a few ships, which very likely were sent by one nation of a certain other world-sphere to have a look at the strange phenomenas currently happening on the borders of the collided worlds.
They made it and arrived at the Pontar Delta pretty much a parallel to Columbus and similar discoverers arriving on the North and Middle American continent and slowly colonizing it (vieolently by surpressing the by then native Aen Sidhe and pushing them back to enclaves, as they originally did with gnomes and dwarves) until they hit the first big obstacle (Korath Desert in the books/games or Appalachian Mountains and Nevada Desert in real life). And at this time they spread out over that one single known continent, spread from north to south in a time of about 1000 years they founded and fathered nations, but as they all origin from the same small fleet they are of the same biological race even originally of the same culture, there was simply no time for them to evolve, even down in Zerrikania the "best" that might be there is a Ottoman Empire-ish culture, which is practiced by racial still white/slavic people which turned somewhat darker with time (Thinking of Italians or Greek type of skin here.) Even the Nilfgaardian culture is a strange adaption of the elvish one. Oh and think about it, it's said that Nilfgaardian sounds and reads like a strange french dialect. So it's actually even a clue where those original ships might have come from.

I'll say it again - there was no evolution in the human race in this world as it is not the humans world, but a foreign one.
The time the humans inhabited the world is by no means a time that would cause a noticeable amount of racial diversity.
A thousand years are a blink of an eye to evolution.

 

[warbaby2]

Then watch as a small minority, masquerading as speaking from authority, rallies against the use of people of color as enemies who, "only appear in the game for you to kill and release deep hostility toward those who are different."

Wait some of them don't fight? "How dare you use them as set pieces. They might as well not be there. The player is empowered to do anything, while the minorities are enslaved to roles, unable to change their lives."

There is NO end to this if studios give an inch. It's not about an end goal. It's not even about the points they make. It's about a sense of righteousness and somehow having the personal line to a unwavering, incorruptible, moral authority.

Leave it to those who want it to make it for themselves.

It's about staying relevant... as long as there is money to made of of self righteous dimwits, there will never be an end to it.

 

[ironhorse384]

It's about staying relevant... as long as there is money to made of of self righteous dimwits, there will never be an end to it.

QFT One only has only to peruse the patreons of the big players in the realm of "progressive ideals" to see the correlation between money and fanning the flames of discontent.

 

[Graelock]

This pretty much sums up how I feel about this "controversy"

I agree...I am half Caucasian, half Asian, and it was only somewhere toward the tail-end of my second run through, that I realized there wasn't any "present day" cultural diversity, but this hadn't occurred to me, and nor did it bother me.
After thinking about it, I wondered why that was. It felt like there was a reason...but I just knew it would be controversy and was waiting for this thread or article to surface on the matter.

Believe it or not, too much cultural diversity could affect the story's historic inspired setting, or setting in general...in any game. Not to mention, there is a lore-inspired source that painted the picture back in 93, and developers are expected to adhere to. It is a Polish novel, too.

Let's think about other titles here for a moment. Would it make sense to have my Asian ancestry in Red Dead Redemption? No, not unless you want to see them working the railroads, which I do not want to see. What about eastern Asian culture in Assassin's Creed 1? Which centered itself around the Holy Wars/ Crusades? Get my point? We play these games because they feel organic to these times and locations...much like a fairy tale, or story such as Robin Hood. They transports us to a world that is not our own, and to make those worlds ours would make it feel in-genuine.

Another way to look at it, is there are games and stories written all the time which are based on Egyptology, Asian culture and or Mythology from various regions. It all breaks even. We don't get mad when there isn't a Latino ninja, in Ninja Gaiden, do we?

 

[Marlborough.702]

I love the game. I think the most valid argument against including modern minorities is staying faithful to the author's vision and what is in his books which are being used as source material for these games.

That said as someone who has done post-graduate work in European history I've got a big problem with the history argument. I hate hearing this argument being made for defending the games. It's weak. It's grounded in only the most shallow and superficial understanding of European history or the culture and society of Medieval Europe.
Medieval Europe was not as closed off from the wider world as some would like to believe. The African Moors ruled most of Spain until late in the middle ages. In the Slavic world they would have certainly been familiar with Tatars, Mongols, and they were certainly using the river system in Russia to navigate to the Mediterranean and trade with the Arabs or the Persians. This idea that people with dark faces would have been unknown to white Europeans of the middle ages is preposterous. Certainly the larger towns and ports would be more cosmopolitan and the educated classes and the elites would have been aware. It's a weak argument so stop making it.
Lastly, despite the medieval flourishes and touches this world is entirely fantasy so the idea of black people or asiatics walking through it is not as preposterous when set against having to fight griffins and harpies, is it?
This whole idea that fantasy games with armor, swords, and shields etc should be populated with only white people is ridiculous and absurd. You have to realize how silly you sound to any rational person when you say "I want a medievalesque fantasy game populated by elves and dragons but I will have a gran mal hissy fit if they put a black person in it!!" Enough with that!
The only valid reason for not including black people in this game is if it's faithful to the books which I confess I have not yet read. But I'd accept that argument before I accepted some preposterous, pseudo-historical argument that is entirely ungrounded in historical realities and absurd to tie to fantasy game to begin with. My two cents and I realize I am probably wasting my time with this. It's a great game. Relax and have fun with it. Even a good many of the people criticizing it recognize it's mastery. You don't have to close the gates, blow the horns, and pour hot oil on any negative comment. It's not worth it.

 

[mbaker51591]

Isn't it the game already got race and cultural diversity? So the media is defining race now by color seriously! They are far more racist if they define race to be color.

Also if CDProject add color race in the game. It will provide more tension. Seriously racism and prejudice in the game is quite openly part of the lore. Just imagine burning a color mage in Novigard, hanging a color race in the tree, color elves being persecuted, color race selling fistech and etc. Will they react much more different w/ this.

 

[Kad_Venku]

I love the game. I think the most valid argument against including modern minorities is staying faithful to the author's vision and what is in his books which are being used as source material for these games.
The only valid reason for not including black people in this game is if it's faithful to the books which I confess I have not yet read.

Thanks, that exactly the point about 90% of both sides miss, having a historic background for a fantasy setting is sadly an as invalid argument as saying because it's fantasy it has to include different ethnicities.

A tad further up I explained how the world works, and just to prevent someone turning this in an argumant that Sapkowski might have created a racitst world. He has not, he died those changes to have the freedom to critizise without actually having to name real-life persons, institutions and is more openly able to critizise them, even mock (which he does not do either) them without problems.
The problem itsef luckily isn't one but an artificially created. A person to identify with does not have to meet your individiual culture, gender, or appearance, it's about the person's values, desicions and deeds. Exclusively.

 

[MattMk1]

I love the game. I think the most valid argument against including modern minorities is staying faithful to the author's vision and what is in his books which are being used as source material for these games.

That said as someone who has done post-graduate work in European history I've got a big problem with the history argument. I hate hearing this argument being made for defending the games. It's weak. It's grounded in only the most shallow and superficial understanding of European history or the culture and society of Medieval Europe.
Medieval Europe was not as closed off from the wider world as some would like to believe. The African Moors ruled most of Spain until late in the middle ages. In the Slavic world they would have certainly been familiar with Tatars, Mongols, and they were certainly using the river system in Russia to navigate to the Mediterranean and trade with the Arabs or the Persians. This idea that people with dark faces would have been unknown to white Europeans of the middle ages is preposterous. Certainly the larger towns and ports would be more cosmopolitan and the educated classes and the elites would have been aware. It's a weak argument so stop making it.
Lastly, despite the medieval flourishes and touches this world is entirely fantasy so the idea of black people or asiatics walking through it is not as preposterous when set against having to fight griffins and harpies, is it?
This whole idea that fantasy games with armor, swords, and shields etc should be populated with only white people is ridiculous and absurd. You have to realize how silly you sound to any rational person when you say "I want a medievalesque fantasy game populated by elves and dragons but I will have a gran mal hissy fit if they put a black person in it!!" Enough with that!
The only valid reason for not including black people in this game is if it's faithful to the books which I confess I have not yet read. But I'd accept that argument before I accepted some preposterous, pseudo-historical argument that is entirely ungrounded in historical realities and absurd to tie to fantasy game to begin with. My two cents and I realize I am probably wasting my time with this. It's a great game. Relax and have fun with it. Even a good many of the people criticizing it recognize it's mastery. You don't have to close the gates, blow the horns, and pour hot oil on any negative comment. It's not worth it.

This strikes me as a bit of a strawman. I've read through more threads arguing about this than is probably good for me, and I don't think I've seen many people argue that "non-white" people were unknown in Medieval Poland.

What I have seen is a lot of people arguing against the ridiculous claims that the Western Slavic world was actually just chock-full of racial diversity (as we understand the term today in the Western world) because there were Moors in Spain, Turks in the Balkans, Tartars in the Ukrainian steppes, and there's a record of that ONE muslim trader that might have actually made it into what's today's Poland. The diversity of that world was ethnic, not racial - which is, incidentally, something that *is* represented quite well in Witcher 3.

Not that it really matters - as far as I'm concerned, the only reasons necessary to explain why the world of Witcher 3 looks like it does is that the people who made it felt like making a fantasy version of the world *they* live in, and are in no way responsible for addressing other cultures' racial diversity issues.

Though it would be nice if more people were able to see past the fact that Witcher 3 is so "white" and realized it actually contributes a hell of a lot more to the cultural diversity of this medium than any Western fantasy game with a generically racially heterogeneous cast ever has.

 

[Ishmaelsonata]

This topic makes me wonder if there are actually people who are legitimately offended.

It's hard for me to imagine personally. I am not Caucasian and I've always found it pretty easy to appreciate western lore for it's own sake. It's not very hard actually... it has everything to do with the setting, mythos, story telling, lore, etc and has very little to do with race; to me race is just part of the setting and contribute to the presence of atmosphere. To be honest, feeling offended that 'x group wasn't included' is just wierd to me. I don't expect to see any east asians in medieval european folklore, if they do appear, I would actually be more curious of the story of how this happened to be.

So does anyone have a good guess at any legitimate reasons. Because otherwise, I'm just going to chalk all the media controversies to the usual garbage pile of obvious attention grabbing shenanigans.

 

[panamakira]

As a dark skinned woman myself, the lack of variety in skin tones in the Witcher world was not a concern or at least NOT something that jumped out and bothered me either. I have other problems with the game (see last note) but not that one per se. However it doesn't bother me if other people take The Witcher series as a conversation starter for lack of racial diversity in games? I think there's a Polygon piece out that sums those feelings nicely for those who were bothered about it. I think it stems more out of the frustration of being left out and lack of representation in video game overall more than anything.

As a minority, I can understand your point of not wanting a developer to add a black or asian character just to fill a quota and make us feel better and I wasn't expecting that in the Witcher. (Most of the time these characters simply fall into stereotypes that make everything worse anyway). And even though I'm particularly very fond of Geralt, I do like to feel part of a game. While you might prefer to experience a story through the lense of a particular character, for me it's nice to find a way to inject myself in the story. Gamers have different ways to play and enjoy and some people feel more invested if you could identify with a character at a more intimate level like race and gender. Without wanting to, I've felt invested in Ciri's story and even though we don't really experience enough through her eyes, its one of the best parts of the game. I love Geralt but I freaking love Ciri.

I mean I've been playing since the TW1 and it's not something that was a concern because I felt the world was presented in a way that was letting me know, these are the kinds of people that inhabit it and this is their story and it's a very specific setting, so I understood that. Don't get me wrong, I sometimes feel it would be nice if the universe would be more open to it like some of the games in the same genre, I think I understood that the source material was particular in what it was presenting us and the devs went with that on the games.

However, there's been a couple of times where it has been a little awkward. I remember CDProjekt Red hosted a contest once, I believe for The Witcher 2 but I could be wrong, in which if you won, your face could appear in the game? and I remember wanting to enter SO BAD but c'mon where was I going to fit in this world. The moment I started playing the game I understood this is Geralt's story and it happens that maybe there are only Caucasian people in this universe so entering the contest would simply not do right?

In a smaller note I had a bigger problem with the way some of the female population in the game were represented. I don't mind the sensual confidence they carried but I just rolled my eyes at their outfits. I think the one that bothered me the most was Ciri showing her bra for no damn reason and running on a swamp with heels (ridiculous guys, it ain't that magical wearing heels on uneven terrain LOL!) and just random ass and tit shots, even peasant women who either had two models: old hag or supermodel with a low cut dress. I know...I know....a topic for another day but one I felt was more bothersome than the lack of racial diversity tbqh!

 

[warbaby2]

In a smaller note I had a bigger problem with the way some of the female population in the game were represented. I don't mind the sensual confidence they carried but I just rolled my eyes at their outfits. I think the one that bothered me the most was Ciri showing her bra for no damn reason and running on a swamp with heels (ridiculous guys, it ain't that magical wearing heels on uneven terrain LOL!) and just random ass and tit shots, even peasant women who either had two models: old hag or supermodel with a low cut dress. I know...I know....a topic for another day but one I felt was more bothersome than the lack of racial diversity tbqh!

Same difference, it's either sexism or racism... thanks for proofing that.

 

[Jou05]

CDPR just keep doing what you're doing and don't give in to any of this so called pressure because you could end up like, IDK, Bioware?

^ This
Bioware is already a shell of its former self because they listened to these bs controversies and demands
DA:I is so politically correct and sanitized it hurts

 

[SpotEnemyBoats]

It seems all these politically correct critics want is a racial quota, which I find to be even more racist. These people aren't even worth listening to.

 

[Gerudon]

In a smaller note I had a bigger problem with the way some of the female population in the game were represented. I don't mind the sensual confidence they carried but I just rolled my eyes at their outfits. I think the one that bothered me the most was Ciri showing her bra for no damn reason and running on a swamp with heels (ridiculous guys, it ain't that magical wearing heels on uneven terrain LOL!)

Even as a guy I second that. Specially the high heels are just plain stupid. Ciri is supposed to be a daughter for the player, there is no need to make her look sexy. In this case however the high heels not only NOT add anything to the character, they only make Ciri less believable and therefore subtract from an otherwise well done character.

The racial discussion is an empty one in my opinion. Some people think, that a polish video game based on a polish book series and set in fictional Medieval era and in realms that are called The NORTHERN Kingdoms has somehow adhere to the same rules as a US sitcom set in CA or NY. Hell, Big Bang Theory or How I met your mother aren't exactly racially diverse either and in those cases it would actually make sense.

 

[kiadaw]

I am not a historian, but while I agree that there must been people from other culture coming to Europe in middle ages, not to mention Arabs occupation of south of Europe & Mongol in East, Then there are traders, & I think they may mainly be near big cities with ports. Places like Venice in Italy probably see more trade than say Poland . Many people probably live a lifetime meeting less than a handful of people who speak a different language, let alone different ethnical group.

When you look at the map of Witcher, its not a world (if people do not already realised) but a region, that is a model pretty much like North Western Europe, where even less people from other areas have venture being far end of the North West of Eurasian Continent .

Norigard looks like continental Western Europe, like Poland, France, Germany (Never been to Poland but I guess its not too different from Germany where I live), & Skelliage is a little bit like Scotland, British Isles, & a bit of Nordic thrown in. We do know the team went to Scotland to capture the feel of locations of their game.

If I am part of the development team, I will thrown in some 'Arabs' or African traders, or Mongols like people just to give a feel there is a bigger world than the Northern Kingdom, place if diferen culture, ethnical group, climates. I will however not do that for the sake of political correctness.

Taking about climate, there is a merchart that mentioned something about palm tree, which show that there are areas known by the people that is of warmer climate.

The thing I wanted to point out is, having gender equality (you know where you pick male & female & there is no difference in abilities & skills), ambracing Gay & homosexual, having strong women, or ethncial, diversity in a game should be a creative choice. Its shouldn't be force fed for Political correctness. Its a fictional world & people should have to choice that seems reasonable/believeable in teh game they made.

If you made a game, where every women is a leggy blonde, & thare are no fat people, that took place in modern day NY, then I will have an issue. Thats different.

 

[Liquidacid]

It's a work of fiction so none of these types of issues even matter. It's not real. All that matters is if you found it entertaining or not. If you didn't or you find it offensive simply don't read/watch/play it. Problem solved.

Anyone who is weak willed enough to be influenced in any significant way by how someone or something is portrayed in something that's clearly fiction was a lost cause to begin with and should just be ignored. Honestly anyone who even takes fiction to heart enough to be truly offended by it enough to feel the need to actively push their beliefs on others and demand it be changed should be ignored as well.

 

[panamakira]

Same difference, it's either sexism or racism... thanks for proofing that.

No worries! I've seen your posts on the matter so I'm not going to waste my time further than this. Either way as fan of the series, I felt inclined to respond on the topic. Now I move on!

 

[warbaby2]

No worries! I've seen your posts on the matter so I'm not going to waste my time further than this. Either way as fan of the series, I felt inclined to respond on the topic. Now I move on!

Yea, at least I'm able to enjoy media content without the need to apply my own sensibilities, something that seams to be exceedingly hard for people these days... good you still like the series, though...

...that wasn't sarcasm, I really am, since it's a great series regardless.

 

[KOngo-Otto]

I think the one that bothered me the most was Ciri showing her bra for no damn reason and running on a swamp with heels (ridiculous guys, it ain't that magical wearing heels on uneven terrain LOL!)

Those heels as you called them, are actually modelled after 17th century French Cavalry boots and were worn by men at that time.