Character Creation Has A Race Problem

[KaivaC]

It's alot less scary than you're probably imagining I assure you. I brought up the Viera thread because you mentioned the topic of character creation being a horse that has been beaten for years and that might be why people aren't talking. I just compared it to the Viera topic which is a horse that has been extra, extra beaten but still has 205 pages.

I imagine that it has to do with Au Ra being added, so why not Viera. And Yoshi hasn't exactly shut this down, either - he just said it would be difficult due to the way Viera bodies are, so a lot of the gear, particularly for feet, would have to be adjusted. People have also been asking for Viera since as far back as 2015, maybe even longer. I'd imagine if they do add Viera, though, character creation would follow suit...but not everything done by the dev team has been logical.

[kikix12]

It's alot less scary than you're probably imagining I assure you. I brought up the Viera thread because you mentioned the topic of character creation being a horse that has been beaten for years and that might be why people aren't talking. I just compared it to the Viera topic which is a horse that has been extra, extra beaten but still has 205 pages.

Most people already gave their opinion on top of all the antagonism. You expect them to come and write the same thing once again, just without the hostility, when most people wouldn't even try to keep up with this thread?!

If you want to see whether the topic is actually going to attract answers or not, then make a thread that is completely devoid of any "racist" innuendos. Don't use any "black people" and similar words in there at all, just use "darker colors/tones" instead. Then, since it'll be a new, fresh thread...people won't feel like it's repeating themselves ad nauseum pointlessly that much.


Though I'm really not sure what you expect.There's no one really against adding these options to character creator, but that's pretty irrelevant. Viera is 200 pages long...yes. But character creator threads are numerous. They certainly total more than 200 pages by now. But they are more in-depth part of the code and as such more hurt by the sucky job done by 1.0 makers. We haven't been told that Viera won't come, either (and they even made sketches and such, actually planning for them). We have been told that more options, past hairstyles, won't come anytime soon if ever. Rather, that they MAY come only when they will replace the entire graphic engine. So yeah...The differences there are numerous.

[Mikki]

I don't know, I've made some really lovely chocolate roes. Maybe you don't like roes, but I've also managed some hyurs. Honestly though, this is a Japanese game. You can't expect Japanese people who barely ever see black people to be able to represent them well in a game. They have tried in previous FF titles and did well but it's harder when it's all customization options and they only have the capacity to allow a few options (for whatever reason). Sure, the game is available in many countries. But if it doesn't appeal to you personally due to a "lack of diversity" then simply don't play it. A game that is released in multiple locations need not appeal to everyone in those locations. And as someone who lives in Japan who barely sees any black people at all, I'm honestly surprised they included any options for them at all. Sure, more diversity would be nice. More ANYTHING is nice. But you need to sit yourself down in the reality of the fact that this is a Japanese made game where they have barely any exposure to black people at all and therefore, these characters reflect mostly what you see in their culture. And maybe to you most of the characters look "white" because you ARE white or are used to seeing white people so you have the bias to see them that way. But personally, I can definitely see them as Asian.

Here's an interesting situation. I have a friend here who is half American, half Japanese. He grew up in Japan. His father is black. I grew up in America in an area with a healthy population of black people. When I first came to Japan, I saw him as black. He appeared such to me. However, to my surprise most Japanese people saw him as Japanese just by appearance. I was baffled. He didn't look Japanese to me at all. However, after having lived in Japan for several years and seeing mostly only asians and hardly any black people, my view of him began to shift and I saw him as more asian. Crazy, right!? It would seem that we look at features in a certain way that is most familiar to us when those features are not entirely clear. For example, your miqote. I could definitely see her as white but I could also see her as asian, too. It really depends on how you view it. (Should be noted though of course their eyes are bigger but that's a cartoony exaggeration and is not necessarily meant to indicate "white" eyes.)

But that being said, I do think they could use more variations in hair styles. I'd love some more curly ones. But again, living in Japan I can tell you that pretty much everyone has straight hair here...maybe wavy if they perm it. I'm not surprised at the options. Not everyone in this world is as familiar with all different races as many Americans or Europeans are and if you aren't familiar with it, you probably don't feel so comfortable to include it because including it poorly can be just as offensive if not more so than not including it in the first place.


In any case, here are some really lovely dark skinned characters that I managed to make:

Male Roe

Female Roe, I think she's really pretty tbh.

Female highlander. Sorry I just really like this hair although I thought some of the race specific ones worked well too. This one is just BAMF imo. Notice them strong brows too! Love em.

Male highlander. I love male highlanders, they're really handsome imo.

Female midlander. Honestly I actually think she's really cute!

[NessaWyvern]

For example, your miqote. I could definitely see her as white but I could also see her as asian, too. It really depends on how you view it. (Should be noted though of course their eyes are bigger but that's a cartoony exaggeration and is not necessarily meant to indicate "white" eyes.)

I know what you mean, when I am playing my Miqo'te, my best friend says she looks very asian which surprised me at first, and when I was playing my Au Ra (The one with the fins) she thought it looked much more european.

[Nandina]

.

I swear I went up for the curly updo on the female midlander, lol. I was getting excited, and then as I kept going down, I was like "Oh, shit, Imma be stuck like this the entire time if I want curly/kinky hair." Was really disappointing. What really irritates me is the fact that this game has been out for like 5 years now (at least I'm sure it will be 5 years in August). Like I know not everything is perfect when something releases and I expect to wait a little bit, but after 5 years I expected to see a little somethin' somethin' with all the patches.

[Magic-Mal]

I swear I went up for the curly updo on the female midlander, lol. I was getting excited, and then as I kept going down, I was like "Oh, shit, Imma be stuck like this the entire time if I want curly/kinky hair." Was really disappointing. What really irritates me is the fact that this game has been out for like 5 years now (at least I'm sure it will be 5 years in August). Like I know not everything is perfect when something releases and I expect to wait a little bit, but after 5 years I expected to see a little somethin' somethin' with all the patches.

And let's be honest, if you make a "black" female Midlander you only have 3 possible hair choices. Locks, Frohawk, and Afro. That means there's like a 33% chance anyone could possibly look like your character.. You can see it in this very thread. Most of the characters(except the Highlander Female) use the same Frohawk and tbh they look very very similar... Because there are so few choices that the majority of black characters will look exactly the same as each other.

[Iscah]

I suspect the several pages of "arguing about the argument" have made a lot of people lose interest and stop reading. (In which case, for all they know, it's still going and that's the only reason the topic is still alive.)

[Lunaxia]

"We want butt sliders! Bunny suits for men! Motorbikes! Bulges! Frilly lolita skirts! Angel and devil costumes! Rabbits!"
>300+ likes

"Character creation is biased towards eurocentric beauty standards despite having a clearly human race with varying ethnicities like those IRL and should have more representation for other races."
> "wOOoOaahHH man this is a FANTASY game whoever heard of BLACK PEOPLE in a FANTASY GAME lmao wwOAHH outragEOUS who do you think you ARE"

lol, gross.

[MoroMurasaki]

lol, gross.

God I'm tired of the crossposts from tumblr showing up on the OF...gross indeed.

[Theodric]

God I'm tired of the crossposts from tumblr showing up on the OF...gross indeed.

Heh.

I've already seen someone rant about my posts here on Gamefaqs and Tumblr. It's pretty creepy, honestly. I don't think anything I've posted here been super controversial - and it's worrying that rather than discuss things with me in a civil manner there's a reliance on sneaky passive aggressiveness instead. I suppose it's just further proof that quite a few of those involved just aren't willing to accept different opinions, thus they have no interest in an actual discussion and instead expect everybody to fall in line in complete agreement.

Well, he's rather handsome! He reminds me of Erwin Smith from Attack on Titan. A wonderful design and that combination of facial features is something I don't see too often when compared to the default male Midlander face.

And let's be honest, if you make a "black" female Midlander you only have 3 possible hair choices. Locks, Frohawk, and Afro. That means there's like a 33% chance anyone could possibly look like your character.. You can see it in this very thread. Most of the characters(except the Highlander Female) use the same Frohawk and tbh they look very very similar... Because there are so few choices that the majority of black characters will look exactly the same as each other.

There's numerous other hairstyles you can use, though. As well as things such as highlights - be they subtle or bold. I don't have golden or even long hair in the real world, yet my character does. Why do you feel like your character has to have certain hairstyles? As I said, I'm not against them adding the sort of hairstyles that you desire but until they do there's ways to mitigate the issues you have with the limitations in place.