Stereotypes typically have some original factual basis, but are poor predictors of behavior, worse generalizations, and terrible teachers for those trying to understand or learn about a culture, group of people, region, or the world. Yes, there is a reason they get applied in media when the director (director in a general sense) has an impression they want to send to the viewer/player/reader/listener and a limited amount of time and resources with which to do it. That doesn't make it a desirable practice.
I can definitely understand Blizzard's reasons for denying us most possible aspects of character customization; in fact, in that context, I wonder if they might not have been better off keeping the issue of customization and the concept of demographics furthest from our minds by continuing to dictate gender as well, but I'm not one for understanding or predicting the effects of something like that on a game's market penetration, so I'll assume their decisions were well-informed. Even so, perhaps a wider range of customization might have worked in their favor overall, even if it would cost a few days of development effort.
As I don't want to be unfair to karsen, I will point out, Slayer, that my not coming from anywhere, but I hope my previous statements explain where I am coming from.
Actually I have it's called anime. Stereotypes exist for a reason, because more often than not they are true. I get what your saying and if they wanted a hill billy which doctor and could explain it to me I'd be fine with that.
This means only you've seen a cartoon. Stereotypes are not true any more than any other commonly-held ideas tend to be true, which makes them wrong a significant fraction of the time. They could have made the witch doctor absolutely anything, and owe no one any more explanation than they do now.
Stereotypes could just have easily been invoked to make the DH black, as DHs will clearly make the best basketball players.
Jay Wilson mentioned that at first they did have character customization, but took it out because:
#1. The customization wasn't very visible when wearing armor, so it was a waste of time.
#2. It became a time barrier to hitting "Start" and start playing.
I believe both of those explanations, and they seem quite reasonable. I have a friend who is a game designer at a different company, and I can imagine that #2 is, in fact, actually a huge deal to them.
I don't know much about the "witch doctor culture" but I've never heard of a white one.
You've also never heard of someone summoning Meteors or firing beams of energy from their hands, launching anything that can be called a "rain of arrows" (or of vengeance) with a single bow twang, or escaping their enemies by summoning a wall of zombies or swarm of locusts. As I said before, this is about appealing to deeply-ingrained cultural stereotypes, a common practice among movie directors and every other branch of the entertainment industry.
Playing D&D years ago we got to pick our race/class/gender/ etc. Is that not the norm? When a player starts D&D are they told they will play a 57 year-old middle eastern female cleric named "Verellia"?
Say you wanted to be an bard and you pick an Orc... well you get the picture it just doesn't quite work.
I've never played D&D being given a pre-constructed character, but, esp with a limited degree of background, that might be a fun way to play. Nor have a made an orcish bard, but I tend to be a min/maxer. Some of my friends would definitely appreciate playing in this way.
The characters are locked I believe due to the general background. White witch doctor? No... Things are locked for a reason and as far as I understand there's more than enough specification in there.
White WD, black barb, DH, and monk; there should be no difference. The background could have been whatever they wanted it to be, and be ethnically-correlated, or not. All up to Blizzard.
You also forgot D&D... things are locked for a reason its called lore, you know something that's in role playing games! Such a concept indeed! A hillbilly witch docotor just wouldn't make sense "Joe Bob the voodoo trailer pimp will throw explosive moonshine at you instead of toads..."
The lore is whatever they want it to be, but even so, a great deal more variability might have been offered as per WoW's character creation system, where skin color is highly variable for many species. This is a fantasy game in a non-Earth world; none of it "makes sense," they could have made absolutely any type of WD or other character that they wish, including hillbillies and it would make no less sense than a black one. They are simply calling on deeply-ingrained cultural stereotypes that suggest that Africans and creoles have witch doctors and shamans. It's a business decision, and perfectly understandable and defensible, but not really entirely culturally egalitarian.
I would prefer a version of diablo 3 where I can customize the skin color, hair color & length, body type, and gender to that of my personal preference, rather than having race/gender locked to a specific class (thankfully we at least have gotten a choice of gender).
I belive all people should be able to make their hero look as similar (or different) to themselves as they would like. It is, after all, an action ROLE playing game.
I can't argue with that. I can only assume that DIII's architecture makes customizable character models technically untenable for how Blizzard wants to handle graphics.
This is an open discussion on a fan forum, I'm not submitting an article for peer review. I find asserting ad-hominems to be significantly more offensive to an open discussion than a minor grammatical error. I also find it interesting that English is the official language of the US now - would you mind citing a source that implies you cannot be american if English isn't your native language? I grew up speaking engligh, but my parents did not and it's not the primary language in our household. I was unaware this fact means my opinions or input is invalid.
What is a forum, but a place for peer review? I'm not sure what statement was an ad hominem, as I did not suggest that dropping an 'o' invalidated a point, I simply find it worth correcting. I would call English the common tongue of the US, but it is no official language.
But I just can't get over it, they're just so damn silly! Rain of frogs, flaming bats and dancing around the bonfire. I just can't make myself roll one or even want to see one in my teams! They're just completely uncool!
If by "silly," you mean awesome. Rain of Frogs (and Locust Swarm) harks back to when some disgruntled almighties really stuck it to the enemies of their chosen people. Flaming bats. Flaming bats are uncool? Flaming -- freaking -- bats.
I will stand by the statement that warriors, barbarians, or knight-variety fighters are always the most boring. This time around, we have Governor Schwarzenegger wielding his sharpened brass section. To be fair, I'll play one, eventually. Possibly even before I play the assassin's creed acrobat, but I have no idea how people can see the class with the most monosyllabic abilities as more interesting than the spiritual successor (literally) to the necromancer. In fact, take out the barb, bring back the necro instead, and I will be a happier man. (I would say the WD is a clear integration of WoW warlock concepts with the DII necromancer; both great classes, being integrated to make another great class.)
Though my monk will probably be leveled up more quickly since I will be playing him in a group, my WD will be my main character for soloing.
The styling of the hero is just to far out there to allow me to enjoy my power fantasy role playing. I like to see my self as the hero I'm playing (like most gamers- at least on some level) and it's hard to relate to an aging black tribal doctor who uses toads and blowdarts, as an early twenties white american. Plus, I find the animations lanky and goofy, and the constant "booga-booga!" emotes annoying at best.
I'm not sure I really want to address this one... except certainly to point out that "[t]he styling of the hero is just too far out there," for someone of stated demographics to hit with straight English grammar, apparently. That, and that the Diablo sorcerer was black, and the DII paladin was black (though I really hated the paladin for play style and conceptual reasons.) Also, I think one might want to consider openly describing relating to a character such as this as difficult when the alternatives are an Asian with magic powers, Schwarzenegger on steroids (which are also taking steroids), or in general, in a game made by people who expect you to relate to elves, wolves, cows, goblins, aliens, pudgy green dudes, and zombies (though perhaps DIII is not quite intended for the same demographic as WoW.)
While I, personally, have no problem relating to characters of any size, shape, or variety (perhaps a little to muscle-bound axe-jockeys), I can see that, being a late-twenties black American, some others of my demographic might want to see a little representation and not have a choice of white, white, white, and Asian (though I'm pleased George Takei can be represented too... though perhaps a little disappointed that he doesn't do the related voice-over.)
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If it has been useless, why did you read this far? And if you haven't actually read it, how do you know it's useless?
WasiKaBooM, I can't like your post enough.
I can definitely understand Blizzard's reasons for denying us most possible aspects of character customization; in fact, in that context, I wonder if they might not have been better off keeping the issue of customization and the concept of demographics furthest from our minds by continuing to dictate gender as well, but I'm not one for understanding or predicting the effects of something like that on a game's market penetration, so I'll assume their decisions were well-informed. Even so, perhaps a wider range of customization might have worked in their favor overall, even if it would cost a few days of development effort.
As I don't want to be unfair to karsen, I will point out, Slayer, that my not coming from anywhere, but I hope my previous statements explain where I am coming from.
This means only you've seen a cartoon. Stereotypes are not true any more than any other commonly-held ideas tend to be true, which makes them wrong a significant fraction of the time. They could have made the witch doctor absolutely anything, and owe no one any more explanation than they do now.
Stereotypes could just have easily been invoked to make the DH black, as DHs will clearly make the best basketball players.
I believe both of those explanations, and they seem quite reasonable. I have a friend who is a game designer at a different company, and I can imagine that #2 is, in fact, actually a huge deal to them.
Well, we will be playing with these characters for ungodly numbers of hours, so, on average... a lot...?
You've also never heard of someone summoning Meteors or firing beams of energy from their hands, launching anything that can be called a "rain of arrows" (or of vengeance) with a single bow twang, or escaping their enemies by summoning a wall of zombies or swarm of locusts. As I said before, this is about appealing to deeply-ingrained cultural stereotypes, a common practice among movie directors and every other branch of the entertainment industry.
I've never played D&D being given a pre-constructed character, but, esp with a limited degree of background, that might be a fun way to play. Nor have a made an orcish bard, but I tend to be a min/maxer. Some of my friends would definitely appreciate playing in this way.
White WD, black barb, DH, and monk; there should be no difference. The background could have been whatever they wanted it to be, and be ethnically-correlated, or not. All up to Blizzard.
The lore is whatever they want it to be, but even so, a great deal more variability might have been offered as per WoW's character creation system, where skin color is highly variable for many species. This is a fantasy game in a non-Earth world; none of it "makes sense," they could have made absolutely any type of WD or other character that they wish, including hillbillies and it would make no less sense than a black one. They are simply calling on deeply-ingrained cultural stereotypes that suggest that Africans and creoles have witch doctors and shamans. It's a business decision, and perfectly understandable and defensible, but not really entirely culturally egalitarian.
I can't argue with that. I can only assume that DIII's architecture makes customizable character models technically untenable for how Blizzard wants to handle graphics.
What is a forum, but a place for peer review? I'm not sure what statement was an ad hominem, as I did not suggest that dropping an 'o' invalidated a point, I simply find it worth correcting. I would call English the common tongue of the US, but it is no official language.
If by "silly," you mean awesome. Rain of Frogs (and Locust Swarm) harks back to when some disgruntled almighties really stuck it to the enemies of their chosen people. Flaming bats. Flaming bats are uncool? Flaming -- freaking -- bats.
I will stand by the statement that warriors, barbarians, or knight-variety fighters are always the most boring. This time around, we have Governor Schwarzenegger wielding his sharpened brass section. To be fair, I'll play one, eventually. Possibly even before I play the assassin's creed acrobat, but I have no idea how people can see the class with the most monosyllabic abilities as more interesting than the spiritual successor (literally) to the necromancer. In fact, take out the barb, bring back the necro instead, and I will be a happier man. (I would say the WD is a clear integration of WoW warlock concepts with the DII necromancer; both great classes, being integrated to make another great class.)
Though my monk will probably be leveled up more quickly since I will be playing him in a group, my WD will be my main character for soloing.
I'm not sure I really want to address this one... except certainly to point out that "[t]he styling of the hero is just too far out there," for someone of stated demographics to hit with straight English grammar, apparently. That, and that the Diablo sorcerer was black, and the DII paladin was black (though I really hated the paladin for play style and conceptual reasons.) Also, I think one might want to consider openly describing relating to a character such as this as difficult when the alternatives are an Asian with magic powers, Schwarzenegger on steroids (which are also taking steroids), or in general, in a game made by people who expect you to relate to elves, wolves, cows, goblins, aliens, pudgy green dudes, and zombies (though perhaps DIII is not quite intended for the same demographic as WoW.)
While I, personally, have no problem relating to characters of any size, shape, or variety (perhaps a little to muscle-bound axe-jockeys), I can see that, being a late-twenties black American, some others of my demographic might want to see a little representation and not have a choice of white, white, white, and Asian (though I'm pleased George Takei can be represented too... though perhaps a little disappointed that he doesn't do the related voice-over.)