Character Creation Has A Race Problem

[Nandina]

See, with this statement right here, it lets me know that you feel it's a race issue, when it's really not. This is a non issue. If you want to achieve a certain look, you have the options to do so. Limited options, yes, but it is still possible to get a look that your hoping could be representative

If people use it being a Japanese MMO for their reasoning as to why there isn’t any diversity, and I respond that SE isn’t just marketing their MMO only to Japan, how can you sit up here and take umbrage when I reason that they should think about their audience outside of Japan? And if the options were available to do so, the thread wouldn’t exist.

I wouldn't say it has a race problem, as all the games races are pretty well represented, and you can choose your skin color to be whatever you want.

racial characteristics from the real world shouldn't apply, as the game doesn't denote races by color. Stop looking for racial issues where they don't exist, it makes it harder to fight for them where they do actually exist.

They started off fine, but when something like this is said, they are just inviting themselves to criticism over an unnecessary response.

If you were fine with how it started off, why were you fine with Valkyrie_Lenneth’s comment? This is why I mentioned real life, because Valkyrie_Lenneth mentioned the real world, and from there it somehow spiraled into me wanting my character to look EXACTLY like me in the real world, which isn’t the argument I made. I’m sure none of us could recreate ourselves, including those players who are white. But those players who are white could at least make a character who is noticeably white, even if the character doesn’t look like them. It’s like playing darts. Even if I don’t hit a bullseye, I at least want to hit the board if I’m going to be bothered to play. Meaning, that character doesn’t have to look 100% like me, but I at least would want the option to customize my character in a way I can at least relate to.

The retaliation comes from people saying this isn’t the real world, and using that to justify why other facial characteristics and hair types can’t be represented. So you mean to tell me that in a world where there are people noticeably inhuman with horns, tails, and scales; asking for kinky/curly hairstyles, other face types, and a non-ashy skin tone which could be done in a mere patch is asking for too much because this isn’t real life? Fine, SE is too lazy to implement the face changes, but it doesn’t justify the response about “this not being the real world”. Like obviously, lol. But that same reasoning isn’t applied when it comes time to explaining why Europoean features are the standard. SE literally patches the game all the time. Why can’t this be updated again?

This isn’t about just me. I’m speaking up for others, because the reality is there are other people who have the same complaints as me. I don’t know if you’re knowledgeable about makeup, but you can’t replicate for example a NC44 in Mac, or a 330 in Fenty with the in-game color grid, and many of the options are identical. If you go too far to the right, you get too dark; if you go too far to the left, you get too light. There’s no middle ground, which means that no, you can’t be any color you want. And with the options available, the undertones could at least be fixed when going vertically. People are walking through Eorzea covered in baby powder, lol.

But my question is why haven’t you disagreed with people using the real world as an argument against it, but then when I respond, you only say I’m making it about race, lol. I never denied anyone the right to be represented or spoke out against anyone’s representation, nor have I justified why anyone else shouldn’t be represented. That however happened to me, and that’s fucked. You and others, are trying to gaslight me. But it’s whatever. I stand by my points. The OP was actually pretty jokey hence my use of “dookie dreads” and “in severe need of lotion”. It was Valkyrie_Lenneth, who trivialized the point I made, and said that I was making it racial issue when there wasn’t one, and essentially speaking up unnecessarily. But you agreed with how I started off, but didn’t take issue with that. I guess. It was really me just saying, okay we need a few improvements here. I never called anyone racist, bigoted, or anything of the sort; if anything I simply highlighted an issue of underrepresentation. Using make up again as an example, there was a time when the different shades you see in a department store weren’t available. Did that make the department stores racist? No. In many of those instances, the department stores didn’t know black and brown women wore make up, so didn’t bother to release shades for them. When it was known, this changed and we have the current beauty industry we have today. Meaning, that maybe SE isn’t in touch with a significant portion of their player base, but if I or no one else speaks up, they’ll never implement changes. But when I did speak up, nearly everyone shot it down because “it isn’t the real world”.

For the record, I don't have any problems with them adding customization options to character creation. I have a problem with people saying the game is racist because they can't choose specific features on their character on the race they want.

No one said the game was racist. Your mind was so quick to go into defense mode, that you’re fighting against a claim no one made. It says “Character Creation Has A Race Problem”. What is that race problem? Underrepresentation. Underrepresentation isn’t racist in and of itself. Now if they were out here giving people Jinx and Mr. Popo lips, I’d say it was racist. So now people are acting like they don’t know what racism is or isn’t. I have not once claimed the game to be disparaging to a group of people, so wtf are you talking about? And clearly you do have an issue with added customization, because your response is that “it’s a fantasy game, why does it have to match humanity on racial features”. Please be consistent.

If anything, I said “So you mean to tell me that my black and brown friends are good enough to receive a subscription from, but not good enough to have the character creation cater to them as well?” I 100% stand by that, because common sense dictates that you cater to your audience, especially if they’re paying you. Using makeup as an example again, you would not open a Sephora in Lagos, Nigeria; but only have pale shades, and if you do have darker shades, you wouldn’t have it so that only 20% of the demographic can find something that matches them. That’s speaking to underrepresentation, not racism.

[Magic-Mal]

snip.

I'll continue to stand by your cause and I could relate to everything you've said. And I agree that "the real world" argument is a weak one, very weak. Fact is, in FFXIV, there are white people, there are asian people, and there are black people, few however. And Hyurs are humans. Just.. come on.

On another note, I noticed a lack ginger people as well! And curly/wavy non-african hairstyles. Those people are also left out.

[KaivaC]

snip.

I haven't addressed valkyrie at all. Matter of fact, the only people I've responded to were you and Magic-Mal. I'm responding to you because you are the OP. The thing is, you say you want to hit at least hit the dart board... But you can. Hyur and Roes can... I've done it before I settled on Au Ra. Hairstyle is another issue that's not necessarily about race... More like, the devs probably just settled on hairstyles inspired by previous FF games, contests, and whatever probably felt popular. We all already know the nightmare in trying to get more hairstyles. You turned this into a racial thing when you initially said that the creation tools we had leans towards Caucasian aesthetics. You set that tone and everybody is reacting to that. I'm not everybody. But I do disagree about the whole underrepresentation thing that you keep claiming.

[Joven]

wall o' text

Sorry to say but this game, or any game for that matter, doesn't need to be diverse or inclusive to anyone. This is a work of fiction and in being such can be whatever the creator intends it to be. Just because SE is marketing the game outside of Japan doesn't mean they need to cater to anyone. It's their product to do with as they please just like it's your money to support said product or not. It's called the free market for a reason. Just because other games may have "more diverse options" doesn't mean this game has to have them.

[Lucinda]

As a black person, I only create black characters unless there’s no option for it. Personally, it just makes me feel more comfortable playing something kinda like myself. While I would appreciate more ‘black’ hairstyles, it’s not a race issue. SE has been rather bad at adding a wide range of hairstyles overall.

Even though a game is fiction, so are other games, and they still manage to have a wide variety of styles - including some ‘black’ ones. Nevertheless I wouldn’t go around chanting that there’s purposely under-representation.

[LeoLupinos]

Today's character creator does not represent FFXIV successfulness.
I really would like them to invest more into it.
They can take money from FFXIV to make FF7 Remake, KH3 etc but can't make a proper character creator, ok.

[micropanther7]

So, I've been tempted to use a Fantasia, and change from Miqo'te, so I started playing around with the character creation, and the lack of diversity is abysmal. I wanted to make a Hyur female, but I can't help but notice there isn't much wiggle room. There's only one cute braided mohawk style, and some dookie dreads. Where are the curly or even kinky hair styles? There are no flat twists, no cornrows, no box braids, no senegalese twists, no two strand twists, etc. I thought there was an afro option, but I didn't see that either. Under the nose options, there's are no truly wider options (I'm not saying the nose has to take up the entire face). There are no larger fuller lips. Skin tones run either cool or red, and there are absolutely no yellow undertones. Many of the little boxes on the skin color grid are virtually indistinguishable from the ones at least four spaces from them vertically, making them a waste. On brown skin tones, this makes the character appear ashy and in severe need of lotion. Skin tone alone is not diversity. Sure you can make your character Sudanese black, but if the nose and lips are slim and thin, is it really a black person? No.

Releasing multiple hairstyles is cute, but when are we going to get some new faces, noses, lips, and eyebrows that don't harken back to the late 90s and early 2000s? There's nothing wrong with a thicker brow. I bring this up, because there are many black and brown people who play this game, yet the character creation only caters to one demographic for the most part, and that's white. Ironically, I don't even see Asian faces despite this being a Japanese game. So you mean to tell me that my black and brown friends are good enough to receive a subscription from, but not good enough to have the character creation cater to them as well? I'm biracial (black mom, Russian dad) and while I'm not dark skinned I don't have thin lips and sharp facial features.

I already know some people are going to be in their feelings about this, and that's fine.

OP, did you just look at Hyur midlander? I'd recommend female highlander, some of their character options have nice dark skintones, and some of the face options have decent sized lips. Sadly until they add more options, we gotta make the best with what we've got I have to agree though, and it's not just ffxiv, some of the dark skin tones look... weird, or off, I noticed that's it's the way the lighting is in some games (having played redguard in Skyrim). Have you tried using reshade within ffxiv? Tweaking that might improve skin tone.

[Iscah]

I think the question of whether Hyurs should have a full range of real-world-equivalent racial features gets muddled by the presence of other races. Hyurs are "the" human race by our view, but from an Eorzean view all the others are equally human. If that's the case, should Midlander Hyurs even be able to 'claim' all the different races? Is that a good or a bad thing? Eg. there are no 'Mongolian' Hyurans because the equivalent people are all Xaela instead. "Lack of representation" by real world standards versus "lack of fantasy diversity" if you stick to 'realistic' Hyurans everywhere instead of making other races more 'interesting'.

And then you get weird examples like the Vanu Vanus drawing from a 'Pacific Islander' vibe (forgive me not being more specific) - is it good that there's some representation of those cultures, or bad that it got packaged as belonging to hulking birdmen instead of "humans"? Is it then a problem if you can't replicate a real-world person from those cultures within the Hyuran character options, or do you just say "that makes sense, that culture doesn't exist as a human tribe in this world anyway"?

It's a can of worms, and I'm sure different people would have different opinions on it. I don't have an answer, just tricky questions.

[MrMagnificent]

I never had this problem with highlanders.
Male or female.


The hair options is lacking though.

[Sirius-Khan]

Bless you for this thread.