There isn't much I am going to say on this subject,
but I most certainly do NOT play characters I identify with. Its the complete opposite.
And I kind of thought that was normal? Don't most people get into fantasy things because they want to be something they are not?
I typically play with whether it fits me from a gameplay perspective - design and appearance are largely irrelevant for me unless it's an entirely separate function of the game independent of the gameplay I.e. character customization.
Can I play it, and is it the most annoying fucking harasser in the game? It's for me! Nazeebo/Azmodan/Murky let's go! Don't worry, the Pufferfish does not care about race. :bzz:
My 0.02... I'm probably very typical in playing large male characters in pretty much any game that gives you any choice in the matter.. I don't think I've ever mained a female character in any game...
That said, presently my favorite heroes are Jojo, Sonya and Abathur... two ladies and a giant worm lol
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Abathur is forever a classy English Gentlemen with a hat and monocle in my headcanon.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
+5
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The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
edited July 2015
How long until we get Beach Party Abathur who's wearing a bikini and the hat is a parasol?
Who else is on the data mined list of heroes to come?
The other one I remember is the terran king guy from starcraft? My starcraft lore is awful but there were lines from nova about 'never expecting to do regicide' and from Kerrigan about 'how many times am I going to have to kill you' and stuff like that. Also it seems like he's going to be a not-front-line guy, more like abathur, with like propaganda-based abilities and stuff.
Who else is on the data mined list of heroes to come?
The other one I remember is the terran king guy from starcraft? My starcraft lore is awful but there were lines from nova about 'never expecting to do regicide' and from Kerrigan about 'how many times am I going to have to kill you' and stuff like that. Also it seems like he's going to be a not-front-line guy, more like abathur, with like propaganda-based abilities and stuff.
Mengsk. I remember the list. Not sure if they use them all. But it has been pretty good so far.
Dark Iron Dwarves aren't black. They are grey to dark grey.
Noticed how I didn't say the Dark Irons were anything except "not white"?
Hmmmmm
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Got him!
It's not a gotcha but rather a "Don't try to be cute." warning.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
How can they not be making a Mephisto character?
He is the most iconic fucking part of Diablo II!
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
I'm gonna venture a (completely baseless) guess that they're going to squeeze as much as they can out of current IP's before they start into old titles.
Playing support in Quick Match is pointless. Completely, utterly pointless. A sucker's bet every time.
A fairly significant percentage of Quick Match games come purely down to team composition. Your team has crap for damage so you auto-lose. Your team is too squishy so you auto-lose. Playing support will almost never push you towards a better composition, because support is the one role that Blizzard forcibly evens out when creating teams. Since pretty much all supports are squishy and low-damage, picking support exacerbates the most common problems in already-bad team comps while never being the edge you have over an opponent. So statistically, the smart call is to only ever play high-DPS assassins/specialists and tanks with at least decent damage.
Dark Iron Dwarves aren't black. They are grey to dark grey.
Noticed how I didn't say the Dark Irons were anything except "not white"?
Hmmmmm
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Then I don't even know what your point was.
I'm pretty sure his point was that it's a stereotype that gets applied to most who are "not white", not just to black people. It doesn't matter that the Dark Irons aren't black--they're not white, and their not-whiteness seems like it's meant to serve as an indicator of their inherent evilness and treachery. (Which is bad.)
Dark Iron Dwarves aren't black. They are grey to dark grey.
Noticed how I didn't say the Dark Irons were anything except "not white"?
Hmmmmm
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Then I don't even know what your point was.
I'm pretty sure his point was that it's a stereotype that gets applied to most who are "not white", not just to black people. It doesn't matter that the Dark Irons aren't black--they're not white, and their not-whiteness seems like it's meant to serve as an indicator of their inherent evilness and treachery. (Which is bad.)
I'm pretty sure it's more that they are meant to look evil in the same way like Darth Vader or any other evil-with-a-capital-E character is meant to look evil.
Dark Iron Dwarves aren't black. They are grey to dark grey.
Noticed how I didn't say the Dark Irons were anything except "not white"?
Hmmmmm
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Then I don't even know what your point was.
I'm pretty sure his point was that it's a stereotype that gets applied to most who are "not white", not just to black people. It doesn't matter that the Dark Irons aren't black--they're not white, and their not-whiteness seems like it's meant to serve as an indicator of their inherent evilness and treachery. (Which is bad.)
I'm pretty sure it's more that they are meant to look evil in the same way like Darth Vader or any other evil-with-a-capital-E character is meant to look evil.
I'm guessing it's more to do with making a Warcraft equivalent of Duergar dwarves, the evil, magically/psionically (depending on edition and rulebooks) inclined gray dwarves from D&D. Night elves versus mana addcited high elves was a nice break from the usual tabletop inspirations that drove a lot of Warcraft lore but Blizzard isn't always that inventive.
Okay so this is gonna be a talk about ethnic diversity in the characters in the game and stuff, so if you're not into this kind of meta level social justice in media discussion and just wanna talk about mechanics, that's cool, you do you and all. But it's something that's been sincerely bugging me, so, I'mma stick it under a spoiler so I don't gum up all the legit talk about mechanics and all.
It's sincerely started to bug me about how very white the cast lineup is. And I mean okay, thanks Seraph slash TealDeer, way to spend too much time on Tumblr! But sincerely...
Of all the humanoid characters, we only have two who aren't white -- Nazeebo and Tyrael. For both of them, all their skins cover their faces with masks or deep hoods, so it's hard to tell. Nazeebo also covers a kind of uncomfortable stereotype of the witch doctor.
I get that most of the characters are from established properties and many of those properties are pretty old and from a Before Time when we didn't even TALK about diversity in games. And I AM glad that Blizzard has been doing a bang-up job of including female characters of a pretty wide variety of body types (from generic sexy elves to HOT BEEFCAKE WARRIORS for Sonya and Hammer to chubby adorable fatties in LiLi). But at the same time, many of the Starcraft and Diablo characters aren't established, pre-existing characters, they're new characters meant to represent units or character types from those franchises. And it's like... why NOT include more people who ain't white?
You can talk all you want about how in lore most of the Starcraft humans are apparently from the South and former convicts (forgive me, I haven't played Starcraft, but people who have informed me that this is the case), but have you been to the south? There's a lot of black people there, as it turns out. And (unfortunately, because America is racist) a lot of convicts happen to be black. Also, there's lots of Asians there too! Iirc Austin has a huge Vietnamese population. Basically, it comes down to, "Why is Sgt. Hammer white?" It's honestly a kind of arbitrary choice when you think about it too hard.
Also, surely EVERYONE from Nazeebo's country isn't a witch doctor? Are there no hunters, warriors, barbarians, scholars, etc? From what little I know of the Diablo franchise, I think there's a Southeast Asian / Central Asian type place, and an East Asian type place too? What about characters from those countries? I have heard the Wizard will be Asian when s/he is released, so I hope so, and I hope s/he isn't a stereotype.
Something that I think would be super cool, and would make a TON of sense: introduce a Korean Starcraft hero. Korea practically INVENTED the ESports genre THROUGH STARCRAFT, they love MOBAs, this would be a no-brainer for Blizzard to do as a hey thank you to the Korean fanbase. In fact, let me break it down... Starcraft is short on Support characters right now, there's only Tassadar, who is... not the ideal support guy right now as he stands. Why not have a melee support human combat medic? Something like a tough, built fireplug, in power armor, the kind of woman* who is trained to get out on the battlefield under heavy fire and administer medical aid on the field. Maybe her mechanic is that she drops bandages and medpacks for people to pick up, I don't know, I just pulled that out of nowhere. Make her Korean, have her toss off common Korean Starcraft gaming catchphrases, and give her a professional Korean ESports skin. Bam! We have a cool new character who fills an empty role who happens to not be yet another white person.
*why woman? I flipped a coin, *shrug*
The thing that irks me the most is probably Zagara's Luxoria skin. Luxoria is EXPLICITLY based on a cartoony version of Ancient Egypt, and iirc the Spider Queen has North African features (sorta) (I mean she's a spider). Zagara has no canon human appearance (afaik) and yet for her Luxoria skin they make her human parts... a white woman? There's literally no reason to do that whatsoever. Like, why, exactly, did you make the NORTH AFRICAN THEMED SKIN of a character with no canon human appearance white, and not Middle Eastern or African?
I know this is all basically just social justice warrior nitpicking but it still bugs me. Diversity in human characters also gives room for diversity in character themes, skins, appearances, and voice actors, which is always a fun and good thing, so it's really perplexing to me that Blizzard isn't taking advantage of the opportunity.
This is a very good post. Would you mind if I tried to pass it along to the appropriate people?
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Gonna need you to look reeeeal close at what I posted.
Ah, but consider this: he is part of Diablo 2.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
There isn't much I am going to say on this subject,
but I most certainly do NOT play characters I identify with. Its the complete opposite.
And I kind of thought that was normal? Don't most people get into fantasy things because they want to be something they are not?
As a white dude I mostly play women. And for some reason if I can, I give them a black skin color.
My wow warlock was a black redhead and I played her for two years
But I guess some people want to play as themselves?
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
It is by and large accepted as fact that most people identify more with someone who looks similar to them, or at least has a 'blank canvas' for them to portray themselves on.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
I'm a skinny, zero-facial-hair, white dude and I played a big bearded Tauren for three years. I don't think I could have gotten any farther from what I look like IRL.
Gonna need you to look reeeeal close at what I posted.
Ah, but consider this: he is part of Diablo 2.
*looks at cover*
Nope, it's Diablo II.
Weren't all the Prime Evils absorbed into one new Diablo, a stronger Diablo, a... Diablo 2, even?
Not that I have any clue whether HotS Diablo is that Diablo.
Diablo.
The HotS Diablo is the Diablo 1/2 Diablo.
HotS doesn't respect timelines. Also there was a specific reason for this - Diablo was developed for the game before Femablo was finalized? Or it was to avoid Diablo 3 spoilers for the time? I forget exactly.
Gonna need you to look reeeeal close at what I posted.
Ah, but consider this: he is part of Diablo 2.
*looks at cover*
Nope, it's Diablo II.
Weren't all the Prime Evils absorbed into one new Diablo, a stronger Diablo, a... Diablo 2, even?
Not that I have any clue whether HotS Diablo is that Diablo.
Diablo.
The HotS Diablo is the Diablo 1/2 Diablo.
HotS doesn't respect timelines. Also there was a specific reason for this - Diablo was developed for the game before Femablo was finalized? Or it was to avoid Diablo 3 spoilers for the time? I forget exactly.
The reason I choose to believe is because femablo looks dumb and D2 diablo looks hella tight. Also I wish there was a D1 graphics skin.
It is by and large accepted as fact that most people identify more with someone who looks similar to them, or at least has a 'blank canvas' for them to portray themselves on.
I actually look exactly like a male orc rogue... So this is probably true. Go greenskins!
There isn't much I am going to say on this subject,
but I most certainly do NOT play characters I identify with. Its the complete opposite.
And I kind of thought that was normal? Don't most people get into fantasy things because they want to be something they are not?
As a white dude I mostly play women. And for some reason if I can, I give them a black skin color.
My wow warlock was a black redhead and I played her for two years
But I guess some people want to play as themselves?
Most of the characters I make are from the various game designs I have been coming up with... my whole life.
I have a long list of characters to use so I just pick a name and make what that game will let me make that is closest to them.
Or sometimes I come up with a new name and look and use that later. In that case, they look what at that moment looks cool to me.
The skin tone is completely random. I do not think "man I have not had enough black or white or inbetween yet" when I do it. There is not some kind of internal counter that needs to be fulfilled. I pick randomly because it doesn't matter. Either it looks cool or I just feel like this person has this skin tone and done.
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I typically play with whether it fits me from a gameplay perspective - design and appearance are largely irrelevant for me unless it's an entirely separate function of the game independent of the gameplay I.e. character customization.
Can I play it, and is it the most annoying fucking harasser in the game? It's for me! Nazeebo/Azmodan/Murky let's go! Don't worry, the Pufferfish does not care about race. :bzz:
That said, presently my favorite heroes are Jojo, Sonya and Abathur... two ladies and a giant worm lol
And I love those ladies.
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
Warfield is already a planned character - data exists in the game files already.
http://2p.com/11377731_1/Heroes-of-the-Storm-Data-Mining-37-New-Heroes-and-Kill-Voiceovers-Preview-by-JaminNoob.htm
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
The other one I remember is the terran king guy from starcraft? My starcraft lore is awful but there were lines from nova about 'never expecting to do regicide' and from Kerrigan about 'how many times am I going to have to kill you' and stuff like that. Also it seems like he's going to be a not-front-line guy, more like abathur, with like propaganda-based abilities and stuff.
It's an old datamine from late last year so a good chunk of the listed heroes are already in the game.
Some new ones brought up in http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/forum/topic/17085020151
Mengsk. I remember the list. Not sure if they use them all. But it has been pretty good so far.
He is the most iconic fucking part of Diablo II!
That's substantially more info than I'd expected.... here's to another Aba style hero in mengsk.
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
I'm gonna venture a (completely baseless) guess that they're going to squeeze as much as they can out of current IP's before they start into old titles.
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
Well for starters, he's part of Diablo 2.
Hold down the space bar for the giant bar of light over your hero. Doesn't help with the cursor but helps keep track of your hero.
Playing support in Quick Match is pointless. Completely, utterly pointless. A sucker's bet every time.
A fairly significant percentage of Quick Match games come purely down to team composition. Your team has crap for damage so you auto-lose. Your team is too squishy so you auto-lose. Playing support will almost never push you towards a better composition, because support is the one role that Blizzard forcibly evens out when creating teams. Since pretty much all supports are squishy and low-damage, picking support exacerbates the most common problems in already-bad team comps while never being the edge you have over an opponent. So statistically, the smart call is to only ever play high-DPS assassins/specialists and tanks with at least decent damage.
No skill matching, it can't even follow its own rules for composition, and we still have fairly long queues every so often. It's a wreck.
Then I don't even know what your point was.
I'm pretty sure his point was that it's a stereotype that gets applied to most who are "not white", not just to black people. It doesn't matter that the Dark Irons aren't black--they're not white, and their not-whiteness seems like it's meant to serve as an indicator of their inherent evilness and treachery. (Which is bad.)
I'm pretty sure it's more that they are meant to look evil in the same way like Darth Vader or any other evil-with-a-capital-E character is meant to look evil.
i don't know that i would say "darker skin tone = evil" is necessary a positive design choice
I'm guessing it's more to do with making a Warcraft equivalent of Duergar dwarves, the evil, magically/psionically (depending on edition and rulebooks) inclined gray dwarves from D&D. Night elves versus mana addcited high elves was a nice break from the usual tabletop inspirations that drove a lot of Warcraft lore but Blizzard isn't always that inventive.
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This is a very good post. Would you mind if I tried to pass it along to the appropriate people?
Gonna need you to look reeeeal close at what I posted.
Ah, but consider this: he is part of Diablo 2.
*looks at cover*
Nope, it's Diablo II.
Well its worth learning malf and valla if you need to use them hero league. They're very good characters.
Also for not white characters I'd like to see d2 paladin as a support with a bunch of sweet auras
My wow warlock was a black redhead and I played her for two years
But I guess some people want to play as themselves?
Not that I have any clue whether HotS Diablo is that Diablo. Nor would it matter.
...
Diablo.
The HotS Diablo is the Diablo 1/2 Diablo.
HotS doesn't respect timelines. Also there was a specific reason for this - Diablo was developed for the game before Femablo was finalized? Or it was to avoid Diablo 3 spoilers for the time? I forget exactly.
The reason I choose to believe is because femablo looks dumb and D2 diablo looks hella tight. Also I wish there was a D1 graphics skin.
I actually look exactly like a male orc rogue... So this is probably true. Go greenskins!
...It's hard to get a date...
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
Most of the characters I make are from the various game designs I have been coming up with... my whole life.
I have a long list of characters to use so I just pick a name and make what that game will let me make that is closest to them.
Or sometimes I come up with a new name and look and use that later. In that case, they look what at that moment looks cool to me.
The skin tone is completely random. I do not think "man I have not had enough black or white or inbetween yet" when I do it. There is not some kind of internal counter that needs to be fulfilled. I pick randomly because it doesn't matter. Either it looks cool or I just feel like this person has this skin tone and done.