Guild Wars 2

@ Kimeekat and UnseeN

Kimeekat: I agree

UnseeN: GW1, well…remember the ghostly hero’s planted around the game to include prophecies? They were Elonian and just as large as Norn. They may have had a tribe that traveled North or may have been apart of a tribe that traveled south. Being as I could do that my self on foot, I don’t think it’s too far fetched that it may have occurred over the span of history that the GW universe has.

So many directions you can go with made up lore. Anything can happen or even have happened.

Conncept.7638:

Ashabhi.1365:

My Necro is a Black Norn. She is a decendant of an Elonian Paragon and a Norn Monk.

That’s… not possible. Norn and humans can’t have children together.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Norn

The section on physiology. It was stated in a PAX interview that none of the races have the physical capability of cross-breeding no matter how similar they may look.

Absolutely correct… My bad… but she still looks awesome ;-)

Akari Storm.6809:

@ Kimeekat and UnseeN

Kimeekat: I agree

UnseeN: GW1, well…remember the ghostly hero’s planted around the game to include prophecies? They were Elonian and just as large as Norn. They may have had a tribe that traveled North or may have been apart of a tribe that traveled south. Being as I could do that my self on foot, I don’t think it’s too far fetched that it may have occurred over the span of history that the GW universe has.

So many directions you can go with made up lore. Anything can happen or even have happened.

Doesn’t matter if humans lived and did stuff with Norn for 5k years, there still wouldn’t be any children from it.

@Kimmekat

Well explained and i hope there are more players out there like yourself to help tyria remain more diverse :-D

Black necros are awesome with afros.

jessiejay.3625:

@Kimmekat

Well explained and i hope there are more players out there like yourself to help tyria remain more diverse :-D

diversity is great but kimmie sounds like she’s doing it out of obligation or she’ll feel bad for playing what she wants. That kind of bothers me when people do things for “political correctness” or for some kind of “moral obligation.” People should make what they want and not feel bad even if the game ended up being 90% purple charrs.

Yes there is a lack, and I’m sorry but I love my necromancer…COWER IN HER BEAUTY
But on topic, I feel as though I kind of like it as it makes characters like my necro stand out in the crowd. One valid argument is that the faces may seem unambiguous. Another is that people generally make their avatars similar to them so given a safely assumed demographic of the types of people that pay this game…..

Sunshine.4680:

jessiejay.3625:

@Kimmekat

Well explained and i hope there are more players out there like yourself to help tyria remain more diverse :-D

diversity is great but kimmie sounds like she’s doing it out of obligation or she’ll feel bad for playing what she wants. That kind of bothers me when people do things for “political correctness” or for some kind of “moral obligation.” People should make what they want and not feel bad even if the game ended up being 90% purple charrs.

The thing is I don’t particularly think making a white character is “what I want” to play. What I want to play is a character who sparks a backstory for me. They’ll be pretty no matter what skin color they are because it’s a video game… So why would I want to make 5 chicks of Ascalonian descent when there’s the Krytans’ and Canthans’ and Elonians’ stories to explore? It’s the same reason having only human characters when I could be Sylvari or Norn or Asura (I admit I hold a grudge against Char from GW1) would bore me -shrug-

On the other hand, I do feel a moral obligation. I think of my characters as a cast and if my Persian or Philippino or Mexican friends saw that cast… I wonder would we have the same discussions critiquing lack of diversity in comics and television but this time it’s about my characters? I don’t want that, you’re right. I like to think of that less as guilt, because that feels very different to me. Maybe the word you’re looking for is “empathy”.

I don’t make characters based on guilt. I want every one of them for so many more reasons than just their skin color. Skin color is just a low priority choice in making my new character. My firsts question is “which class don’t I have a character for yet?” Then I’m thinking “is there a character of mine from GW1 that needs a relative?” And I pull lore from there along with which personal story selections I haven’t chosen yet. I don’t see why I should just default to white when I make such an effort to create diverse characters in every other respect.

Rest assured, all my characters are exactly what I want to play, but thank you for your concern.

kimeekat.2548:

Sunshine.4680:

jessiejay.3625:

@Kimmekat

Well explained and i hope there are more players out there like yourself to help tyria remain more diverse :-D

diversity is great but kimmie sounds like she’s doing it out of obligation or she’ll feel bad for playing what she wants. That kind of bothers me when people do things for “political correctness” or for some kind of “moral obligation.” People should make what they want and not feel bad even if the game ended up being 90% purple charrs.

The thing is I don’t particularly think making a white character is “what I want” to play. What I want to play is a character who sparks a backstory for me. They’ll be pretty no matter what skin color they are because it’s a video game… So why would I want to make 5 chicks of Ascalonian descent when there’s the Krytans’ and Canthans’ and Elonians’ stories to explore? It’s the same reason having only human characters when I could be Sylvari or Norn or Asura (I admit I hold a grudge against Char from GW1) would bore me -shrug-

On the other hand, I do feel a moral obligation. I think of my characters as a cast and if my Persian or Philippino or Mexican friends saw that cast… I wonder would we have the same discussions critiquing lack of diversity in comics and television but this time it’s about my characters? I don’t want that, you’re right. I like to think of that less as guilt, because that feels very different to me. Maybe the word you’re looking for is “empathy”.

I don’t make characters based on guilt. I want every one of them for so many more reasons than just their skin color. Skin color is just a low priority choice in making my new character. My firsts question is “which class don’t I have a character for yet?” Then I’m thinking “is there a character of mine from GW1 that needs a relative?” And I pull lore from there along with which personal story selections I haven’t chosen yet. I don’t see why I should just default to white when I make such an effort to create diverse characters in every other respect.

Rest assured, all my characters are exactly what I want to play, but thank you for your concern.

Would your friends have the same diverse cast as you? Or would there cast all look the same? I understand what you mean, I think maybe your wording was a little off on what you meant so I was trying to understand what you were trying to say better. I think I may have misunderstood. I also don’t care much for Charr myself.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Yes there is a lack, and I’m sorry but I love my necromancer…COWER IN HER BEAUTY
But on topic, I feel as though I kind of like it as it makes characters like my necro stand out in the crowd. One valid argument is that the faces may seem unambiguous. Another is that people generally make their avatars similar to them so given a safely assumed demographic of the types of people that pay this game…..

I agree with you, had the human area been Elona and the majority black looking people would be asking where the white looking people are and the same discussion would come up. These topics are usually and endless cycle.

I have many different coloured and patterned female charr characters. Note, I am neither a large humanoid cat with horns or a female. :P

As a black man whenever I can make a character with darker skin tone I do (obviously I can’t if it is sylvari or something like that).

Do I think it is weird that there are few black npcs in the game? Nah I can’t bring myself to care that much.

I want to get an all black or predominantly black guild going. It does seem pretty tough to find each other in online gaming, I know we are out there!

mukage.5970:

I want to get an all black or predominantly black guild going. It does seem pretty tough to find each other in online gaming, I know we are out there!

Facebook page maybe?

Nice necro btw. Anet use some nice skin colours in the game.

Ashabhi.1365:

My Necro is a Black Norn. She is a decendant of an Elonian Paragon and a Norn Monk.

No she isn’t. According to the lore norn and humans can’t interbreed.

If you want to roleplay, at least do it right.

Doesn’t bother anyone that they resurrected a 15 month old dead thread.

kimeekat.2548:

I feel bad when someone says “I made the character I like to look at” and it’s white. I feel like… if I make only white characters am I contributing to a culture telling non-white people that their skin isn’t as pleasing or beautiful etc? Because it seems that way. I think about that a lot.

No offense, but that is pure nonsense. People tend to prefer people of their own skin color, especially when looking for a partner. There is nothing racist about that, it’s just biologically ingrained in us and it’s not something to be apologetic about. Black people usually prefer black people, asian people prefer asian people, etc. etc. and they’re not apologetic about it, so why should us whites be apologetic about preferring white people?

When we make white characters to express our preference for white people, we’re not telling black non-white people that they’re not beautiful, we’re just telling them that we prefer our own skin color, just like they prefer their own skin color.

I’m not sure if you’re American or European, but I’m European, and in our European culture which is predominantly white, you’re obviously going to see more white people represented in the media than people of color. I know North-America has a lot more people of color than we have in Europe, but I’m pretty sure that even in North-America white people are the majority, which means you can also expect the majority of people in your media to be whites.

Again, there is nothing racist about this. Just go to Asia and see how many white people are represented in their media. I’ve been to Japan a couple of times and you pretty much see exclusively Japanese people in their media (whenever you see a white guy in Japanese television they’re usually playing the bad guy, lol!), with the exception of anime and Japanese videogames perhaps (then again their anime and game characters are often so cartoony that you can’t really tell what the ethnicity of the characters are). Yet no one thinks Japan is racist nor do I see anyone demanding Japan to add more people of other ethnicities to their media.

So please, don’t feel sorry for preferring people of your own skin color and don’t feel obligated to make characters of other skin colors. If you enjoy playing as characters from other ethnicities then that’s great, more power to you! But you shouldn’t feel obligated to play characters of other skin colors because you’re afraid you’d otherwise be racist, because you aren’t.

Lucos! Looks at the dates. Not that there’s anything wrong with the sentiment of your replies.

zenleto.6179:

Lucos! Looks at the dates. Not that there’s anything wrong with the sentiment of your replies.

Sorry I didn’t realize this was a necro thread. Someone else before me necro’d it.

Behellagh.1468:

Doesn’t bother anyone that they resurrected a 15 month old dead thread.

Dead thread redemption.

/e runs away

LucosTheDutch.4819:

zenleto.6179:

Lucos! Looks at the dates. Not that there’s anything wrong with the sentiment of your replies.

Sorry I didn’t realize this was a necro thread. Someone else before me necro’d it.

Meh, no worries. If anything its always interesting to see the search function actually works for people sometimes.

I’m black.

I play charr.

Not everyone in this game is compelled to play their specific race, gender, or even species.

you cant count in black asuras, sylvari & charr

kimeekat.2548:

Someone upthread said “black norn aren’t possible” which is ridiculous because ANet wouldn’t have given us the option to make them dark skinned if that were legitimately the case.

Perhaps I am thinking of a different post but the individual I saw make a reference to what was not possible wasnt commenting on black norn but rather the possibility of a character having both human and norn ancestry. The two races cannot interbreed.

Ashen.2907:

kimeekat.2548:

Someone upthread said “black norn aren’t possible” which is ridiculous because ANet wouldn’t have given us the option to make them dark skinned if that were legitimately the case.

Perhaps I am thinking of a different post but the individual I saw make a reference to what was not possible wasnt commenting on black norn but rather the possibility of a character having both human and norn ancestry. The two races cannot interbreed.

You just responded to a post well over a year old. I don’t think you will get any feedback from the person you quoted given the age of the post.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Ashen.2907:

kimeekat.2548:

Someone upthread said “black norn aren’t possible” which is ridiculous because ANet wouldn’t have given us the option to make them dark skinned if that were legitimately the case.

Perhaps I am thinking of a different post but the individual I saw make a reference to what was not possible wasnt commenting on black norn but rather the possibility of a character having both human and norn ancestry. The two races cannot interbreed.

You just responded to a post over a year old.

D’oh !

Most of the faces are Caucasian, and I find a very dark skin color doesn’t fit them. As if they have been too long in the sun (or rather in a solarium) and I find that ugly. I wanted to recreate my very dark Necro from Elona, but GW2 just doesn’t have the facial structures….

Idk. In Guild Wars 1 I got to the Elona campaign, got my character slots and made some new characters. Since I knew that was a campaign with a dark skinned/African theme, my first char was black. What did I see when I arrived in Kamadon? All the NPCs were black and all the other players were white.

If people won’t even make dark skinned chars when the lore says they should be dark then I’m not expecting many to do so when it doesn’t specify.