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SuperNova on 21 February 2018
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haxxiy said:
SuperNova said:
Out of curiosity, is there a female playable character?

Because 'historically accurate' is not at all a blanket excuse for the mechanics and portrayals you put into your games. While it might me true that most women in the 1400 didn't have combat roles, Joan of Arc being one of the most famous ones and Elise Eskilsdotter who became a pirate to avenge her husbands death perhaps the most badass one, that does not mean that it would be impossible to struckture a game around non-combattive roles either.

Integrating black characters or asian charaters, while staying historically accurate would also not have been impossible. There was a substantial enough black population in Denmark around the time for example that portraits of black noble danes exist, setting the game in Denmark or close to the danish border would have allowed for black characters.
There were also active trade routes into Asia and east Asia. I mean, Marco Polos famous travels took place around 100 years earlier. There was enough contact that the black death was able to spread into europe from Asia, and it is not just likely, but proven that trade delegations from Asian countries came all the way to continental Europe, so if you WANTED to have an asian character in the game while stil staying historically accurate, you could.

The developers evidently didn't want to do any of that, and that's fine, it's their game.
The 'in the name of historic accuracy' excuse however is not sufficient on any of these points. The developers made choices and the game is the result of these choices.

Since you mention Marco Polo, it would have been worth noting he and his relatives were literally the only italians Kublai Khan had ever seen in its entire lifetime; and Yuan China was actually at one end of the silk road, and was a world power on trading, diplomacy etc., unlike Bohemia. So, the chances do not look that great for a 16 square km piece of land somewhere in the middle of Central Europe.

And the Black Death was transmitted from the turkic / mongolic peoples through the Eastern Roman Empire and the Pontic Steppe, by means of invasion (some even outright mention biological warfare, such as throwing infected dead bodies over walls on sieges) and only then to the rest of Europe, not direct cultural contact, which was basically closed to Europe ever since the arabs dominated most of the Mediterranean.

On heart, though, this whole thing is not a debate over historical accuracy, but trying to impose a poltical statement even against overwhelming odds it is something factual. People's feelings are involved as well, since it was OK not to be minorities among the rural Spain RE4 zombies, but those absolutely had to exist instead on RE5 on a similar context, transposed to Sub-Saharian Africa.

Yes?

What I'm saying is they clearly didn't want to make diversity a priority, or they would have chosen a diffrent 16 square km piece of european land. And AGAIN it's fine that they didn't.

If they wanted to tell a diverse historically accurate story, the options are there. They didin't take these options, because it didin't fit with what they wanted to do. That's ok. It has however all to do with design decisions and very little with historical accuracy.

So we are in agreement in so far as I also don't think this debate is about historical accuracy. I'm also not trying to impose anything. The only thing I am saying is that instead of using an excuse of historical accuracy 'We didn't want to' should be sufficient enough explanation.

 

One aside about the black death point: European cultural contact and trade with Arabs was well established by the time and it was by no means only indirect and by invasion. Heck there was a sizable enough Arab population in Spain that the Spanish King (who was technically austrian) had to establish diplomatic relationships with them, since they were the former ruling class.