Will my storyline offend anyone?

[aboutasoandthis]

Thank you for posting your comments. I'm actually glad to have opinions that contradict me.

 

I am offended. But I just wont play your game, it's biased and racist.

Wow. I've never been called racist before. Wierd. If you're still reading this Desimodontidae can you tell me why I'm racist? I'm not mad. Remember this topic is about whether or not something is wrong with me. If you think I'm racist because I'm not using all black characters, that is more offensive to me than anything. This may be my first game, but it is DEFINITELY NOT MY FIRST STORY. That feels like racism coming from you to me. If you tell me why you think I'm racist I'll shut up.

For everyone else, I think you are missing the point. The points of my storyline are

1.) Why Black Mages and actual African-Americans do not coexist in Final Fantasy games.

2.) Should my espers come from a history of slavery and should they be the central theme of my game.

Any other thoughts on what is in my game are non-existent. Please give me a reason as to why you think I'm racist before you accuse me of this.

If this gets out of hand or becomes a flame war (Yes I know what that is) then either I or somebody else will delete it.

EDIT=========================================

Actually Desimodontidae I apologize. I directly contradicted myself. I said that I would change my storyline if anyone thought it was racist. You don't have to post if you don't want to. I just wanted to know why. I got mad but I decided to let it go. I'm sorry, but since you didn't give me a reason the current storyline will stay. I'm sorry you won't be playing my game.

EDIT=========================================

[Dragoon de Sol]

1.) Why Black Mages and actual African-Americans do not coexist in Final Fantasy games?

A: There is no reason they souldn't. A Black Mage is a class. An African-American Mage is a person who is a mage. African- Americans can be Whte Mages, can't they?

In one game, they ate not kept seperate. Barret Wallace is African-American, and Tifa/Aeries are Black Mages.

2.) Should my espers come from a history of slavery and should they be the central theme of my game?

A: I admit that this would add quite a bit of originality. it would be a good idea IF you didn;t milk the concept. Do not make the espers modeled after the bloody, gory side of it. Just the unfair of it all.

And why not center your storyline on them. FF6, FF9, and FF10 did it.

[YankeePaladin]

I think it sounds good; racism is a good theme for games. Ever played Tales of Symphonia? That game is a good example of racism used effectively as a thematic element.

[Osmose]

1. Asakura (Desdimonte) is an ***, not offended. He's being sarcastic. Ignore him.

2.The Black Mage comment (since I'm a Black Mage fanatic [who, ironically, rarely ever plays as one when given the choice ]) made me think about how Black Mages are portrayed, specifically in FF9, since that's the only Final Fantasy I know of that actually treats them as a seperate race (built by humans, but a race nonetheless).

They can actually be compared to a few things in real life. Firstly, they're a minority in the world and are forced into the service of the empire, grouped into a single town, and yet they still develop a sort of family kinship and a culture unique to themselves. That's a big heaping of slavery analogy right there, although I highly doubt it's intentional (most "deep" messages are unintentional, IMO)

The other one is an analogy to Artificial Intelligence - if a machine feels, is it human? How does it validate it's existance?

3. Don't worry about whether your game offends people or not. It's yours, and you shouldn't need to justify the game on the approval of others unless you're aiming to make a profit from it rather than the simple desire to make a game.

[aboutasoandthis]

I took it seriously. Really funny to me. lol.

Osmose: The esper comparison to slavery was intentional but now that you talked about the Black Mages, I got to thinking. For espers and Black Mages, everything about community and service to someone else was already in my game's backstory. I didn't even think of how deep it was until just now.

Dragoon de Sol: Like osmose said, I was talking about the black mages like Vivi from Final Fantasy 9 and maybe the heartless from Kingdom Hearts. Thanks for the comments.

YankeePaladin: Was that on the gamecube? It was a cool game. I didn't get to finish it though cause it was a rental.

I feel much better about this now. Thank you everybody.

[YankeePaladin]

Tales of Symphonia was on Gamecube and PS2, I believe. I agree, great game. FFX also had some good anti- racist themes as well, although ToS's themes were more central to the plot.

As for your own game, make sure to give every character some level of humanity. Racism is a human evil, not an inhuman one, after all.

[aboutasoandthis]

In Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and soon to be FF12, the Bangaa did not want to be called "lizard men." This is because there is a Bangaa race who are actually murderous and eat everything in sight. Most Bangaa don't want to associate with them. This will greatly affect my character Faust.

If you need proof about the lizard men go to this link:

http://ffxii.net/?nav=game/race

[Heradite]

Add a mexican in there!

No wait let me do that....DO NOT ADD A MEXICAN IN THERE.

--

seriously:

I always wondered why main chracaters are always white. I look for good fantasy games with blakc main charcaters...with blakc characters at all mostly, and I see non.

[Meiscool-2]

Originally posted by Heradite
I always wondered why main chracaters are always white. I look for good fantasy games with blakc main charcaters...with blakc characters at all mostly, and I see non.

It's a fact that most black people play sports games, and it's also a fact that there are more white people in places that vender video games. Hence, normally, an RPG would have a white character because a person basically tries to imagine themselves as that character, and that would be harder if the guy wasn't your skin color.

Originally posted by Dragoon de Sol
African- Americans can be Whte Mages, can't they?

A black whte mage huh?

[YankeePaladin]

Originally posted by aboutasoandthis
In Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and soon to be FF12, the Bangaa did not want to be called "lizard men." This is because there is a Bangaa race who are actually murderous and eat everything in sight. Most Bangaa don't want to associate with them. This will greatly affect my character Faust.

If you need proof about the lizard men go to this link:

 http://ffxii.net/?nav=game/race" target="_blank">http://ffxii.net/?nav=game/race

Don't worry, I've played FFTA, but that's not exactly what I meant. I mean, the Bangaa aren't human, but have human characteristics; that is, they can talk, think, and feel. Just don't make your characters completely bad or anything like that.