Now that FF16 will feature LGBT+ characters, can we get some rep in FF14 too?

[Melorie]

Except, you are here, crying about it. Coping with the fact that there was in fact not billions of black people in medieval Europe.

Where did I said that there were billions of black people in medieval europe? See? You people are always so sensitive. I said that many people that act like someone not being white in a certain setting most of the time know next to zero about history and how complex it is. You are so dumb, you go and buy the same extremes and modern ideas of 8 or 80, black and white, y'all criticize. You cry regarding how people are obsessed with race but the ones that are actually obsessed with it are yourselves. The american concept of race doesn't exist in the rest of world's history. It's funny, really. Stop being such a simpleton and go see how complex the world is. Go take a look at the black people in The Garden of Earthly Delights from Hieronymus Bosch, perhaps?

I'm not here crying because there is no representation. I literally just said I find that diversifying the different stories around human journeys is always good, and don't see what the big deal is. The ones crying about it are the ones in the thread acting like seeing a gay dude in their video-game somehow ruins it.

[CaptainLagbeard]

Sure, diversity of characters is good, but most normal people want diversity of ideas.

Even in a fantasy setting, if a character looks completely out of place, it's going to make the story feel quite silly and will take you out of it, and I do acknowledge that I am saying this as the forum avatar still has my cat hoodie from my crafting glams...

[Melorie]

Sure, diversity of characters is good, but most normal people want diversity of ideas.

Even in a fantasy setting, if a character looks completely out of place, it's going to make the story feel quite silly and will take you out of it, and I do acknowledge that I am saying this as the forum avatar still has my cat hoodie from my crafting glams...

You can't bring diversity of ideas without diversity of characters. The different ideas we form comes from different places, regions, cultures, ideas of beauty, ways of dressing up, relationship with nature, bla, bla, bla. What is the point of bringing different ideas and excluding the variations of people that come with it?

Maybe a character looking out of place can bring a new story. Maybe he comes from a distant place, maybe he is trading, traveling, maybe his grandmother ended up there and now it isn't a big deal. There is literally no need to fuss over this kind of explanation like it ruins a story. A good story won't be bad because of it.
And if a fantasy story allows for people being out of place, like your cat hoodie glam, then maybe embrace it already? And use it as a tool for storytelling wisely. I am tired of white-haired people, personally. Would love to see someone out-of-place in our party.

[CaptainLagbeard]

You can't bring diversity of ideas without diversity of characters. The different ideas we form comes from different places, regions, cultures, relationship with vegetation, ideas of beauty, ways of dressing up, relationship with nature, bla, bla, bla. What is the point of bringing different ideas and excluding the variations of people that come with it?

In most places around world historically, you had different countries with very different cultures, right next to each other. The people looked the same, but had different ideas. It's a very narrow minded way of thinking that you think all people of a single "race" are completely homogeneous.

[Melorie]

In most places around world historically, you had different countries with very different cultures, right next to each other. The people looked the same, but had different ideas. It's a very narrow minded way of thinking that you think all people of a single "race" are completely homogeneous.

I never said that. I said that if you want different ideas but can't accept and don't want to see different characters, maybe YOU have a narrow mind of what different ideas can be. If you enjoy stories, there's no reason for you to not want new perspectives from different people and different places.

I agree that even inside a certain group of people that share genetic characteristics, there is not a consensus of ideas. But that is beyond the point of the discussion? The discussion here is how people treat anything that's not status quo as "a token from western culture" and how that's, well, ridiculous, and against what the world was and is.

[CaptainLagbeard]

I never said that. I said that if you want different ideas but can't accept and don't want to see different characters, maybe YOU have a narrow mind of what different ideas can be. If you enjoy stories, there's no reason for you to not want new perspectives from different people and different places.

I agree that even inside a certain group of people that share genetic characteristics, there is not a consensus of ideas. But that is beyond the point of the discussion? The discussion here is how people treat anything that's not status quo as "a token from western culture" and how that's, well, ridiculous, and against what the world was and is.

The point still stands, populations were largely ethnically homogeneous, but not ideologically. So when you place a story in a historical setting, or make a fantasy setting based off of that history, then you start adding things that don't fit in the particular setting they pretty blatantly stand out.
Just to bring the conversation back towards FF 16 a little, Yoshi-P has said the game's world, or at least the corner of the world the game takes place in, is inspired by Medieval Europe, which was at least 99.99% white. And then people got mad that ~0.01% wasn't being represented in the game. So it's either continue on course, or add in a random black guy there for the sole reason that idiots online cried about him not being there.

[purgatori]

You make this sound like some sort of new thing, but I will set my life's savings aflame if characters like Laguna and Kiros are straight.

[Tehmon]

Ultimately the whole FF16 race debacle boils down to a stupid irrelevant question being asked, and it got a stupid irrelevant answer by Yoshi-P.

If asking '' are there any black people in your game '' is seriously an important question you want to ask a director of a game, you must be out of your damn mind. I am always craving for more gay characters in video games, but I'd never ask anything of the sort like '' are there gay characters in the game???? '' from any developer. It's such an awkward goddamn question.

But Yoshi-P's answer or rather justification was pretty dumb as well. Many medieval European inspired fantasy worlds are filled to the brim with '' diversity '' and those limitations you put on yourself and the game you are creating are wholly artificial and self-imposed. And ultimately as I've browsed through all the trailers and pictures of FF16, it's not really heavy-handed with the medieval European inspirations to begin with, so the '' race '' thing being one thing they are seemingly holding fast to seems silly. The whole '' while the characters might not be diverse, they have a diversity of ideas and backgrounds and stories!! '' thing also kind of irked me, as if you could only have one or the other! But there's a kernel of truth there as well, sadly it's generally used AGAINST having diverse characters, as if to maintain the current hierarchy and disregard diversity entirely.

Even so, I don't think Yoshi-P has any ill intent though and I think he just built the foundation of FF16 on a generic vision of medieval European inspired fantasy, and generally speaking those worlds do tend to look a certain way in terms of characters and people in them, mostly white, if not all white. I don't believe there was any deliberate decision to exclude anyone, just the dev team following common tropes and that's that. That doesn't make the game '' worse '' either for not including certain type of characters, and to say that would be weird, EXTREMELY weird.

[EliaStormblade]

If people can make a generic medieval/oldtimey anything, they can do so for Europe as well. No one will begrudge you for not adding white and black people to games where the setting is based on Feudal Japan. I don't get the whinging.

[Raoabolic]

I know this is a troll but would you still play XIV if it had it's own WoW 9.1.5 patch and sudden lore changes that technically wouldn't break it(think something along the lines of Chromie from WoW)?