Serious video game question.

[AshleyO]

Man, that's lame. You know what? I think those games like Smackdown vs. Raw got it pretty good as far as being able to get close to a shade one would really want.

Is there a mod for Skyrim to introduce darker shades? I feel like someone should take this on. It'd be pretty cool.

Skyrim seemed to have depicted Redguards as kind of Arabic.

[Versus]

There are mods for Asian characters, but the red guards mods all white wash them.

[Versus]

Like, the Mage character I have has an ambiguous Asian look, but the darker skin tones look awful in character creation.

I remember oblivion had a really cool race mod called chocolate elves, though.

[Versus]

Double post.

[Versus]

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/4079

Here we go. Definitely a start, but I had to dig for that mother fucker.

[Alan]

And it only has 11 endorsements.
Me I always make them white; I'm starting to wonder why after reading this thread.

[AshleyO]

Weird. I have tendency to play a brown character; even if it's a Breton. I lean more towards a darker shade.

[Versus]

Originally Posted by Alan

And it only has 11 endorsements.
Me I always make them white; I'm starting to wonder why after reading this thread.

Probably because 99% of the video games you've played have a white protagonist. That, and game developers don't spend a lot of time on the details of making a PoC in games with character customization. As an example, there are not any asian character options in vanilla Elder Scrolls games despite that the Akaviri are specifically modeled after asian cultures, there are, I think, maybe one or two hair options that look like they could be a black person's hair, and in every game before skyrim, the darkest character skin tone slider made you look green.

Bioware games are especially bad about it, with The Old Republic being a wonderful exception. But yeah. Just try to make a PoC character in Dragon Age. It really annoyed me about the bullshit justification they gave as to why.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Versus

Probably because 99% of the video games you've played have a white protagonist. That, and game developers don't spend a lot of time on the details of making a PoC in games with character customization. As an example, there are not any asian character options in vanilla Elder Scrolls games despite that the Akaviri are specifically modeled after asian cultures, there are, I think, maybe one or two hair options that look like they could be a black person's hair, and in every game before skyrim, the darkest character skin tone slider made you look green.

Bioware games are especially bad about it, with The Old Republic being a wonderful exception. But yeah. Just try to make a PoC character in Dragon Age. It really annoyed me about the bullshit justification they gave as to why.

How was Mass Effect? I'm thinking of making a Jacob clone for my male run XD

[Versus]

I didn't look. I'm talking about Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age.

[Saya]

Next time I play Dragon Age 2 I'll test that out, but as far as I remember there was no head preset so I'm pretty sure the best you can accomplish is the white-person-dipped-in-tea look.

[Miss Absynthe]

You all make my heart so freaking happy.

[Versus]

Originally Posted by Murder.Of.Crows

I didn't mind the magic in the game, and I can settle with the archery. The only thing I wish I could change is to have a section in the menu where it's dedicated to status ailments and character health. I was walking around for hours with people telling me I look like shit, and then the moon came out and my screen went red, telling me I felt a strange hunger. I hadn't the slightest idea what the hell was wrong, and no doctor would talk to me. which can be cool in it's own way, like being scared if you have the plague or not and having to make your way to the doctor to find out...

Oh. I forgot to say that if look under magic, and then active effects, you can see your sickness.

Also, magic and archery annoy me not because they aren't fun, but they are gimped. The sheer survivability and damage output of a shield and enchanted and refined one handed weapon makes the other two look like a joke. Magic doesn't scale with level, costs too much. Archery is similarly gimped and it annoys me that you still can't craft arrows.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Versus

I didn't look. I'm talking about Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age.

But it makes an interesting dichotomy, you know? Science fiction games set far in the future have our characters act beyond racism as if its a thing of the past, to emulate Star Trek's hopeful vision for humankind. Black SWTOR characters never have their colour commented on. What Mass Effect and SWTOR do however is talk about racism in a xenophobic/speciesist way, in which aliens are discriminated against, very systematically in SWTOR and through personal prejudice like Ashley's bigotry in ME.

And in Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age, set in an unreal fantasy past based off of medieval Europe, where racism would most realistically be a problem, black people are mythical, yet we have the racial commentary with the white elves in Dragon Age's case. Not even Isabela's or Duncan's skin tone gets commented on at all, and they very much fit the "white person dipped in tea" trope, all because of the writers' ignorance of black history in medieval Europe. Isabela was white in the first game and in the ads for DA2 so I wonder if the choice to have her darker was a last minute decision to keep criticism at bay.

In both cases, if PoC are present or no, they want to criticize racism without PoC being involved in any way.

[Versus]

Originally Posted by Saya

But it makes an interesting dichotomy, you know? Science fiction games set far in the future have our characters act beyond racism as if its a thing of the past, to emulate Star Trek's hopeful vision for humankind. Black SWTOR characters never have their colour commented on. What Mass Effect and SWTOR do however is talk about racism in a xenophobic/speciesist way, in which aliens are discriminated against, very systematically in SWTOR and through personal prejudice like Ashley's bigotry in ME.

And in Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age, set in an unreal fantasy past based off of medieval Europe, where racism would most realistically be a problem, black people are mythical, yet we have the racial commentary with the white elves in Dragon Age's case. Not even Isabela's or Duncan's skin tone gets commented on at all, and they very much fit the "white person dipped in tea" trope, all because of the writers' ignorance of black history in medieval Europe. Isabela was white in the first game and in the ads for DA2 so I wonder if the choice to have her darker was a last minute decision to keep criticism at bay.

In both cases, if PoC are present or no, they want to criticize racism without PoC being involved in any way.

They even go so far as to allow the player to make racist dialogue options. I remember in the Old Republic, there's a conversation you walk in on where an alien is trying to get help from a law enforcement guy who refuses to listen to him. Eventually, the alien calls him out on his bullshit like "You always treat us this way!" he turns to me and asks what I think, and I remember when I played through as an alien I had the option for "Well, they treat ME okay!" but when I played through with you as a human, it gave me the option for "Stop your whining." In Mass Effect, you meet Tali as she's being harassed by a racist human citadel security guy, and it still gives you the option to chime in.

Shit, even The Elder Scrolls games do it. In Morrowind, there are plantations with Khajit slaves, Oblivion has a city to the south where Argonians live in poverty and are treated like shit, and even Skyrim has a blatantly obvious part where THE FIRST THING you see upon entering Windhelm is a conversation where two Nord men are threatening a Dark Elf woman because she's a Dark Elf. If you talk to her after, she explains that the Dark Elves in the city moved there after Morrowind was blown up by a volcano and that they live in the slums and are treated like rodents by the Nords. AGAIN, the player has the option to say something racist.

It really makes me how white developers are so comfortable outing this shit in their games and don't even have the honesty to call it what it is.

[AshleyO]

Originally Posted by Versus

Oh. I forgot to say that if look under magic, and then active effects, you can see your sickness.

Also, magic and archery annoy me not because they aren't fun, but they are gimped. The sheer survivability and damage output of a shield and enchanted and refined one handed weapon makes the other two look like a joke. Magic doesn't scale with level, costs too much. Archery is similarly gimped and it annoys me that you still can't craft arrows.

Oh buddy. You have GOT to get Dawnguard.

Archery gets a hell of a boostershot. Especially with crossbows.

BTW... my favorite arrows to CRAFT is dragonbone arrows.

[AshleyO]

Originally Posted by Versus

They even go so far as to allow the player to make racist dialogue options. I remember in the Old Republic, there's a conversation you walk in on where an alien is trying to get help from a law enforcement guy who refuses to listen to him. Eventually, the alien calls him out on his bullshit like "You always treat us this way!" he turns to me and asks what I think, and I remember when I played through as an alien I had the option for "Well, they treat ME okay!" but when I played through with you as a human, it gave me the option for "Stop your whining." In Mass Effect, you meet Tali as she's being harassed by a racist human citadel security guy, and it still gives you the option to chime in.

Shit, even The Elder Scrolls games do it. In Morrowind, there are plantations with Khajit slaves, Oblivion has a city to the south where Argonians live in poverty and are treated like shit, and even Skyrim has a blatantly obvious part where THE FIRST THING you see upon entering Windhelm is a conversation where two Nord men are threatening a Dark Elf woman because she's a Dark Elf. If you talk to her after, she explains that the Dark Elves in the city moved there after Morrowind was blown up by a volcano and that they live in the slums and are treated like rodents by the Nords. AGAIN, the player has the option to say something racist.

It really makes me how white developers are so comfortable outing this shit in their games and don't even have the honesty to call it what it is.

I can't even deal with Windhelm. They treat the Argonians like trash and treat Dark Elves like shit. The stormcloaks are just way too nationalistic as well and the Jarl never seems to have anything to say on the condition of his highly racist town.

Which reminds me. I have a Dark Elf vampire with 100 in archery and the meanest dragonbone bow I could craft and double enchanted that should give that place a little visit.

[Versus]

Originally Posted by AshleyO

I can't even deal with Windhelm. They treat the Argonians like trash and treat Dark Elves like shit. The stormcloaks are just way too nationalistic as well and the Jarl never seems to have anything to say on the condition of his highly racist town.

And of course, the alternative is to aid a puppet government of colonialism that oppresses religious freedom and autonomy. :/

[Versus]

Originally Posted by AshleyO

Oh buddy. You have GOT to get Dawnguard.

Archery gets a hell of a boostershot. Especially with crossbows.

BTW... my favorite arrows to CRAFT is dragonbone arrows.

That's neat, though to be honest, archery lost it's appeal to me after Morrowind. Though Morrowind had cool stuff like crossbows and throwing stars/knives.

I like their progress in story telling. The fact that I can be angry at the imperials and stormcoaks at the same time is testament to that. That should be their main focus, in my opinion.