Racial diversity among the powerplay lead figures

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jabberwalkie

J
Hagledesperado said:
If creative direction is based on what subconscious assumptions and habit the developers brought with them into the studio, is it really creative or is it sticking to a previously made mold that the developers may even be unaware of?
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You allude to discrimination. As many of us have covered here, I personally think that the dev's made an effort to be very inclusive to all playing the game in the representation of the powers being more global (currently) in nature.

Frontier have listened to the players on many occasions before. Would you really prefer they hadn't?
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In some instances, I think it probably would have been better if they hadn't. It's their playground that we are playing in after all, and we have paid to participate in the game.
 

Ra_Zda4a

R
Mephane said:
I hate to be that guy, but someone has to speak up. I am a bit disappointed by the lack of racial variety in the current power leaders:

http://fs2.directupload.net/images/150605/qmdjyqdi.png

I want to make it clear that I am not accusing FD of anything, this was certainly not mal-intended in any way, maybe they even thought about it and possibly have something more in the pipe for future powers, who knows. It is just that this picture looks remarkably... light-skinned; we have one person who looks Asian, and two people seem a bit Mediterranean, but that's it. (Also, 6 out of 10 people in the picture are male.)

I am glad you didn't follow a really bad trope and had made Archon Delaine the only black guy, that would have been really awkward. So let this be just a small heads-up towards FD - good start, but you could still do better.
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I'm also disappointed. I do not see any Russian face on the screen. My bear is mad about it, he is going to break his balalaika on my monitor, he also told me that if i wont send this message he will drink whole month supply of my vodka. Please forgive me for this post, i had to post it, otherwise...
 

Armour

A
Ziljan said:
I think the real issue here isnt "racism" at all. It's whether people feel the game was made for them to play it, or if it was made for people look more like the country it was created in. This game is an international phenomenon. And whether or not you feel the game was made for you will depend on whether or not you look at those 10 faces and see something that looks familiar. That's not racism, that's just human nature.
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And course, the facts that
  • there are insectoid aliens called Thargoids
  • most people in the game don't even come from the same planet as the players
  • every player has at least one personal spacecraft
  • it's over 1000 years in the future from the time of the player
will in no way affect the relatability of the players to the world of the game. No, it all comes down to how tanned some character portraits happen to be.

What a terrible thing it is that the fiction of the Elite galaxy is influenced by the environment of the creators a bit. I mean, Douglas Adams was a tall white man who went to Cambridge. They should probably check their white male privilege, and strip out any trace of H2G2 irreverence, so people who aren't tall white Cambridge alumni can relate to the product they chose to buy.

Of course everything should be homogenised and market researched to death so that it has the personality of lift music in order to appeal to the widest possible audience. Why would the cultural idiosyncracies of the creators of a piece of art negatively affect it's ability to reach an audience? Surely those are the things that make it interesting.

Anyway, the same thing that applies to the particular foibles of the gameplay mechanics on display applies to the other content. It's Frontier's game, made for them - we can choose to hop on board if we like but we can't expect to dictate terms. I'm almost glad they didn't make it patronisingly rainbowesque for commercial reasons. It's diverse enough thus far, and I am sure it will naturally reflect the makeup and preferences of the userbase more accurately as time progresses without some top-down PC casting call.
 

Ben Ryder

Ben Ryder
It's funny how the people who want this thread closed also seem mostly the people who say the topic is not significant but the thread is on 8 less replies than the launch thread.
 

Kano Magnus

Kano Magnus
I wish we could go back to more innocent sci-fi without any social or political issues, you know, like Star Trek, or The Prisoner, or Logan's Run, or Soylent Green, or Alien, or or or
 

Jay8ch

J
If it's so important make your own game and add characters of your choosing. It's fair to ask that stereotypes aren't included but it's not fair to demand that the characters meet some unobtainable utopian criteria that's going to vary from person to person anyway. Give over.
 

rootsrat

Volunteer Moderator
rootsrat
Adept said:
This does not fly. It is a game yes, a work of art. Art has has a message, you are always saying something.
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I strongly disagree. I am an artist (I write poetry, prose, do some photography, create music, play a djembe drum - so I do quite a lot of art as a hobby) and I also have an art group where we regularly organise art events. Since 2008 we've been working with maybe a 100 artists altogether or maybe even more. I am not saying this to brag, but to show that I have some idea of what I'm talking about :)

I can tell you that there is a lot of art that is being made purely for the creation act. There is a lot of art that is also completely meaningless. Often there is no "message", just artist's expression. Or commercial purpose. Some art pieces are just a work to do and an artist not always creates because they feel that inner voice that tells them "Go and paint, write, play, dance, make love, GO AND CREATE!". Sometimes it's just a contract that says "I need a cover for my book. It has to be horror-themed. The book is about a murderous car posessed by a demon." - and the artist sits down, mutes that inner voice and does his job :)

Now the viewer can interpret an art piece in their own way, trying to figure out what message is the artwork carrying, but that's the viewer creating that message, not the artist. And that's OK, art is supposed to be perceived on a VERY subjective level and if it speaks to a viewer that's great. So IMHO the art speaks, but it isn't always saying something.

Sorry, I may be digressing and offtopping here, but I think it's an important aspect of art. The misconception of "art must ALWAYS deliver a message" is quite common and it can often distort perception of an artwork.
 
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XWaters

X
Agremont said:
The amount of strawmen in this thread is incredible...
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ikr? TIL racism ended when Obama became president.

tbh, i think they've done a fairly good job. they haven't gone full united colors of benetton, but i'd give them a 7/10 - a good stab at representation. evening up the sexes would've been nice, but it's at least better than what we have irl.
 
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