ESO needs more Racism.

mrskinskull · June 2015

JamilaRaj wrote: »

Kharnamatic wrote: »

The game is very racist. Just go play the Ali'kr desert (redguard homeland) zone. It's like a hate letter by Bethesda directed against black people. The redguards are made out to be completely stupid, superstitious and inept, letting zombies take over their land because their religion forbids them from defending themselves against the undead. Every outsider npc calls them out and this, in effect calling them ***, and the whole plot of the zone is about the Great White Hope (player) coming into Ali'kr to save them.

I saved them while playing black redguard char. See? No racism here. Redguards do not need to rely on white infidel dogs to save them.

How cool would it be to have a few NPCs react to your char choice while doing the quest or after?

Just a few lines of NPC speech could make it so immersive.

Korah_Eaglecry · June 2015

The racism in the game is definitely white washed compared to other titles in the franchise. I do wish there was a bit more distrust between the races to at least make it feel more like Elder Scrolls. Every time I walk through Davons Watch, Mournhold or Riften and run into High Elves, Orcs, Wood Elves and Khajiit (Not players) standing around taking up the jobs of Merchants, Woodworkers, Clothiers and etc I cant help but shake my head at the thought that the NPCs should be less diverse and more in line with the locale. Especially given the current setting and world issues facing Tamriel.

Now Im not saying that there shouldnt be NPCs of other races outside of the EP Faction Races in EP Territory. But theres enough of them that makes me think this whole war is just an excuse to PvP and actually has no basis in telling a story, ie its immersion breaking for me as I go about my gameplay. And yes I know thats exactly the reason for the war. But atleast write a better story, be convincing and keep the Khajiit, Orcs, Redguard, Breton, High Elf and Wood Elves outside the city...Where youd expect a society in that setting to push their unwanteds and untouchables. Those races should be few and far between and should be looked upon with a bit of scorn and mistrust. They do belong to a race that is fighting and killing the warriors of the faction they are residing in after all. The same should be seen in both the Aldmeri Dominion and Daggerfall Covenant.

Im not saying this should reflect on the Player Character in any way as that would definitely be problematic and be against everything we've experienced playing Elder Scrolls games. Although a little less welcoming a stranger in to fix their problems and a little more suspicion wouldnt hurt immersion. Walking through Deshaan it felt like every Dark Elf was totally cool with me walking in and taking care of their internal issues. Which is in so many ways unlike Dark Elves. Heck it didnt take long for me to crack Naryu Virian and get her to spill the beans about being apart of a Secret Order of Assassins that had been outlawed and in hiding since the whole Assassination of the Emperor thing.

Overall I think the immersion of ESO is only skin deep. You only feel immersed as you did in past Elder Scroll titles as long as you dont stop and notice the things that wouldnt be acceptable in any other Elder Scrolls Titles.

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO · June 2015

mrskinskull wrote: »

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

mrskinskull wrote: »

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

Sexism isn't lore friendly

It is easily added and can offer scenarists more narrative opportunities.

Doesn't necessarily lead to a better narrative . Why the hell would you want to deal with something as mundane and irrelevant as sexism in a fantasy story? It gets tired pretty fast.

?
Interesting that you say that . Did you favor oblivion over skyrim? High fantasy over low? I really enjoyed the gritty low fantasy of skyrim and chaffed at oblivion's lotr shiney high fantasy.

But that's why its a discussion. Different opinions and all.

I don't really think it's a matter of high fantasy or low fantasy, I just can't see sexism enhancing the story or world in any way. Even Daggerfall, which was probably the most low fantasy of the series, didn't have much in the way of sexism. And it makes sense. The first Emperor of Cyrodiil was a woman. Three of the eight divines are women. Kyne, maybe the most important member of the Nordic pantheon is a woman, the three "good daedra" of Morrowind often manifest as women. The Bosmer have the Green Lady, who represents their strength, the Mane is sometimes female, Maleka Leki the Ansei became a god in the eyes of the Yoku, and so on and so forth.

It just doesn't really track that Tamrielic society would be viewing women as lesser.

BigInGlenumbra · June 2015

If you care at all for consistency and story, and aren't heavily influenced by your feelings over petty words, then you'd recognize the fact that this is a medieval fantasy setting where people of incredibly different cultures and species/races, even more different than human groups, have thousands of years of history killing each other based on differences (and many more years coming).

Do you REALLY think in such a chaotic, incredibly diverse, warring, medieval and barbaric world people would go "Oh but racism is where I draw the line. That's clearly MUCH worse than killing a living person over a sweetroll."

Show some respect for consistency of story. Quit being weenies.

Korah_Eaglecry · June 2015

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

mrskinskull wrote: »

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

mrskinskull wrote: »

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

Sexism isn't lore friendly

It is easily added and can offer scenarists more narrative opportunities.

Doesn't necessarily lead to a better narrative . Why the hell would you want to deal with something as mundane and irrelevant as sexism in a fantasy story? It gets tired pretty fast.

?
Interesting that you say that . Did you favor oblivion over skyrim? High fantasy over low? I really enjoyed the gritty low fantasy of skyrim and chaffed at oblivion's lotr shiney high fantasy.

But that's why its a discussion. Different opinions and all.

I don't really think it's a matter of high fantasy or low fantasy, I just can't see sexism enhancing the story or world in any way. Even Daggerfall, which was probably the most low fantasy of the series, didn't have much in the way of sexism. And it makes sense. The first Emperor of Cyrodiil was a woman. Three of the eight divines are women. Kyne, maybe the most important member of the Nordic pantheon is a woman, the three "good daedra" of Morrowind often manifest as women. The Bosmer have the Green Lady, who represents their strength, the Mane is sometimes female, Maleka Leki the Ansei became a god in the eyes of the Yoku, and so on and so forth.

It just doesn't really track that Tamrielic society would be viewing women as lesser.

To add to this in Skyrim your first Housecarl (a personal guard) is female. While Racism is definitely a part of the TES franchise. Sexism is not.

newtinmpls · June 2015

Telel wrote: »

Telel murders plenty of people who call them a cat.

Is this not sufficient?

Yukian wrote: »

But @Telel , Telel is obviously a cat.

We'll be putting that on your tombstone

newtinmpls · June 2015

mrskinskull wrote: »

The other stuff is just for consideration. Like social experiments.

Don't even get me started. Social experiments my @#!#$@#@#$@#$!!!

Go look up the Stanford Prison Experiment.

Gidorick · June 2015

The stalker quest sounds a bit... creepy, but the concept here is right on the money. We are at war where other factions have other races... and there WOULD be contention. If I play an Argonian in the Aldmeri, NPCs should take note of this and they should treat me differently.... but this would have had to have been designed from the get to.

undefeatdgaul · June 2015

Hahah glorious

ChingChangChui · June 2015

demendred wrote: »

Git off ma lawn, you filthy mountain dwelling nord........

Iceland's are the other way, snowcone.

Now get. Before I paint you yeller.

lottasay_ESO · June 2015

Game needs more ***

Stories-Bones-Tell · June 2015

That was something which bugged me about Skyrim. Everyone liked to act like Stormcloaks were crazy racists, when infact they were the status quo in TES universe.

Darkohzen · June 2015

Akavir_Sentinel wrote: »

TheShadowScout · June 2015

I have to agree with the basic main point the OP made - the game would be better if it showed more reaction to your characters race/gender! I would love to get different conversations from NPCs depending on character...

And yes, that would include "racist" remarks from some bretons who don't like my orc's face, or from dunmer who think my argonian should do manual labor instead of adventuring, or from altmer who consider my bosmer huntress a barely sentient barbarian... and sexist remarks, like chauvinist pig males telling my female characters the usual remarks about how they'd be only good for kitchen duty and so on (double points if they are NPCs I get to stab later on...

)

Oh, well. Who knows, maybe they will add something along those lines someday...

As for non-character-reactive racism... that's there. From altmer treating the other dominion races like cannon fodder to dunmer slavers, from argonians taking revenge on the descendents of slavers to orcs still holding a valid grudge against bretons, from one side of tamriel to the other we have a good spread. Of course, there are also other things... like the dunmer who wants to become a khajiit (likely a member of the secret senche society), turns to alchemy, messes up the potion and goes argonian instead...

Asheetz_Mdrawz · June 2015

I always liked, in Morrowind, how the dunmer looked down on argonians and khajits and kept them as slaves.

I hate argonians too, so this made me happy.

AlienSlof · June 2015

I've been wanting this for a long time. Quite a few of my characters are vampires, yet not a single NPC reacts to it, not even other vampires. There are a few quests involving vampires, yet I am treated like a common mortal. One in particular asks me to get vampire blood, and there I am, filled with the stuff and given no option to donate a drop or two of my own! I want NPC's to react to me - I'm walking around with fish-belly white skin, red eyes, etc and no one bats an eyelid. I want NPCs to revile me in stage 4, giving me a reason to feed.

One of the more fun aspects of vampirism that I had in the other ES games (and indeed modded into them) was having to manage my condition. NPCs would only talk to me if I was well-fed and thus not a threat at that time. I miss being treated like the vile vampiric bloodsucking leech that I am!

The_Sadist · June 2015

I'm quite indifferent, the amount of work that would be needed to create this sort of thing might be better spent on producing content. That being said, it would appease the roleplayers, so eh.

BlackEar · June 2015

Get out of here all you social justice warriors that cannot differentiate from real life and a video game. You should really go out more often.

By your logic, let us remove the violence! We have enough of it in the real world we don't need it in our games!

Cameron_Star · June 2015

I'm a bit bummed to be honest that no NPCs comment on my vampirism.
No "You're skin's as pale as the snow, you afraid of sunlight or something?" or "Are you feeling sick?"
I miss the good old days when people would chase me out of Whiterun screaming "Burn it. Burn the vampire!" Society in Tamriel just isn't what it used to be

Heathenpride · June 2015

Maybe Tamriel has just become a more tolerant society where the colour (or hue) of ones skin, or indeed whether one has a tail or not, no longer matters?

Storm_knight22 · June 2015

Why do khaijit lick their butts?

To get the taste of khajit cooking out of their mouths!!!!

Mickey_Ox · June 2015

Playing as an orc in the dominion i find very discomforting of how accepting everyone is. They should hate an outaider like me drinking there wine and sullying their women but they don't, its like their luring me into a false sense of security just so they can catch me unawares string me up from the city walls. Id enjoy my time alot more if they were true to there nature here and hated/ insulted me like we all know they actually do. #bringbackracism

hollamears · June 2015

I have to say, I also am more disappointed that reactions/different treatment isn't done towards my character based on their race. And while I haven't actually traveled to other faction zones yet, it's even more disappointing it doesn't happen with that either. Given what's going on during this time period in the game, something like that just seemed like it would have been thought of for player experience.

npw91 · June 2015

Racism??? Wow we should be "racist" against other alliances, if your in the same alliance, you shouldn't be fighting

tplink3r1 · June 2015

FrostGolem wrote: »

for all the racism in the world we don't need racism in more video games

For all violence in real world we don't need violence in video games, REMOVE ALL WEAPONS!

mrskinskull · June 2015

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

mrskinskull wrote: »

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

mrskinskull wrote: »

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

Sexism isn't lore friendly

It is easily added and can offer scenarists more narrative opportunities.

Doesn't necessarily lead to a better narrative . Why the hell would you want to deal with something as mundane and irrelevant as sexism in a fantasy story? It gets tired pretty fast.

?
Interesting that you say that . Did you favor oblivion over skyrim? High fantasy over low? I really enjoyed the gritty low fantasy of skyrim and chaffed at oblivion's lotr shiney high fantasy.

But that's why its a discussion. Different opinions and all.

I don't really think it's a matter of high fantasy or low fantasy, I just can't see sexism enhancing the story or world in any way. Even Daggerfall, which was probably the most low fantasy of the series, didn't have much in the way of sexism. And it makes sense. The first Emperor of Cyrodiil was a woman. Three of the eight divines are women. Kyne, maybe the most important member of the Nordic pantheon is a woman, the three "good daedra" of Morrowind often manifest as women. The Bosmer have the Green Lady, who represents their strength, the Mane is sometimes female, Maleka Leki the Ansei became a god in the eyes of the Yoku, and so on and so forth.

It just doesn't really track that Tamrielic society would be viewing women as lesser.

Oh. I can explain easily.

Sexism, racism, greed, lust, hate, revenge sloth, etc all create conflict. Conflict is the seed of an narrative.
This is how sexism might create more narrative opportunities.
I'm just talking about a few uttered lines reacting to your sex choice so maybe sexism is a bit strong of a word.

It could simply be a sex based compliment or insult or just a comment that would not exist without your choice as a player to make a your character a male or female.

Ex. Skyrim, white run. The female NPC who says shors bones finally a decent looking man in white run. That's actually sexism in a elder scrolls game or at least what I am suggesting.

Again this would just b another tool in the tool box of some very talented writers.

Great post BTW.

mrskinskull · June 2015

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

mrskinskull wrote: »

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

mrskinskull wrote: »

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

Sexism isn't lore friendly

It is easily added and can offer scenarists more narrative opportunities.

Doesn't necessarily lead to a better narrative . Why the hell would you want to deal with something as mundane and irrelevant as sexism in a fantasy story? It gets tired pretty fast.

?
Interesting that you say that . Did you favor oblivion over skyrim? High fantasy over low? I really enjoyed the gritty low fantasy of skyrim and chaffed at oblivion's lotr shiney high fantasy.

But that's why its a discussion. Different opinions and all.

I don't really think it's a matter of high fantasy or low fantasy, I just can't see sexism enhancing the story or world in any way. Even Daggerfall, which was probably the most low fantasy of the series, didn't have much in the way of sexism. And it makes sense. The first Emperor of Cyrodiil was a woman. Three of the eight divines are women. Kyne, maybe the most important member of the Nordic pantheon is a woman, the three "good daedra" of Morrowind often manifest as women. The Bosmer have the Green Lady, who represents their strength, the Mane is sometimes female, Maleka Leki the Ansei became a god in the eyes of the Yoku, and so on and so forth.

It just doesn't really track that Tamrielic society would be viewing women as lesser.

Sexism doesn't necessarily imply women would be downtrodden.

This might be an excellent chance to have a male characters play through an experience . This is a fantasy game and not forced into the narrow box of reality. For all the reasons you list, I'm guessing men in tamriel might have so me eye opening experiences

mrskinskull · June 2015

Gidorick wrote: »

The stalker quest sounds a bit... creepy, but the concept here is right on the money. We are at war where other factions have other races... and there WOULD be contention. If I play an Argonian in the Aldmeri, NPCs should take note of this and they should treat me differently.... but this would have had to have been designed from the get to.

Yeah main quest stuff would be too hard to change that's why my suggestion is simply a few NPCs sprinkled into the world with checks against your character sheet.

If argonian, the NPC argonian bread merchant might quietly slip you a lock pick and in a low hiss tell you 'be ready if this pact fails, brood brother' or something like the skoomd kajhitt starts akwardly singing an old kajhit tavern song and pauses to remember the nex line. If your character is a kajhittt, you two might finish out the song together. In text of course.

Any other ideas where simple character checks in random NPC conversation might help immersion?

JamilaRaj · June 2015

mrskinskull wrote: »

JamilaRaj wrote: »

Kharnamatic wrote: »

The game is very racist. Just go play the Ali'kr desert (redguard homeland) zone. It's like a hate letter by Bethesda directed against black people. The redguards are made out to be completely stupid, superstitious and inept, letting zombies take over their land because their religion forbids them from defending themselves against the undead. Every outsider npc calls them out and this, in effect calling them ***, and the whole plot of the zone is about the Great White Hope (player) coming into Ali'kr to save them.

I saved them while playing black redguard char. See? No racism here. Redguards do not need to rely on white infidel dogs to save them.

How cool would it be to have a few NPCs react to your char choice while doing the quest or after?

Just a few lines of NPC speech could make it so immersive.

Only until they add race change to cash shop. After that, racist NPCs not noticing you swap races like socks would sound just stupid.

mrskinskull · June 2015

JamilaRaj wrote: »

mrskinskull wrote: »

JamilaRaj wrote: »

Kharnamatic wrote: »

The game is very racist. Just go play the Ali'kr desert (redguard homeland) zone. It's like a hate letter by Bethesda directed against black people. The redguards are made out to be completely stupid, superstitious and inept, letting zombies take over their land because their religion forbids them from defending themselves against the undead. Every outsider npc calls them out and this, in effect calling them ***, and the whole plot of the zone is about the Great White Hope (player) coming into Ali'kr to save them.

I saved them while playing black redguard char. See? No racism here. Redguards do not need to rely on white infidel dogs to save them.

How cool would it be to have a few NPCs react to your char choice while doing the quest or after?

Just a few lines of NPC speech could make it so immersive.

Only until they add race change to cash shop. After that, racist NPCs not noticing you swap races like socks would sound just stupid.

Getting access to subtly different comments from NPCs might add hidden value to a flippant race change if it ever exists.

The player is changing races to chase racial passives, the NPC reactions would help to add weight to a callous min max decision. Then again, the kind of min maxers who would care about to he dunmer passive over the nord, prob spam skip the dialogue anyway. So I think it would still be a win win.