Villager Suggestion

I like a lot of your ideas, but I'm just wondering: How do you figure Stardew Valley is a small european town?

 

I understand what you mean, but the mentality of feeling inferior because of skin color is a problem even in the real world... If you add too many colored NPCs then someone else will complain that there is too much color, as an example. I mean I think it would be cool with all colors of the world in the game, but overdoing it is also possible. So I say yeah it would be nice but it's not a good idea to focus too much on such a mentality.

 

... did you seriously - seriously - just argue that it was possible to add too many people of colour because it will make white people 'uncomfortable'?

Do you often get uncomfortable when surrounded by too many non-whites?

Have you considered what this means about yourself?

Have you met a lot of white people who suffer from inferiority complexes given the constant humiliation of being white?

Have you considered what this means about yourself?

 

Follow-up: you realize you're implying that you're okay with non-white being made uncomfortable by Stardew Valley, given it's overwhelming whiteness.

 

Hold your horse there cowboy... I have colored friends, it's not cool to start assuming negative things about people like that, I urge you to reconsider the way you replied.

 

Also, this is where you misunderstood me, by color I did not mean black, I meant any color.

Edit:

Also it's not fair to attack the white guy just because white is not considered a color. I didn't say anything about white people, you are assuming things and in a bad way at that...

 

You are saying things that are racist. Having 'coloured' friends doesn't make your statements less racist. Anyone can say racist things, regardless of circumstances. Again, you said that there is 'mentality of feeling inferior because of skin color,' and that if you added 'too many colored NPCs then someone else will complain that there is too much color,' because 'overdoing it is also possible,' - saying that it was A) possible to have 'too many' people of colour in a product and you wouldn't want to make non-people of colour uncomfortable or inferior for having doene so. You said this about a game that has precisely one (1) black human character and one (1) mixed-race human character, and (at my count) thirty-five (35) white human characters.

And you said this without any seeming problem with the 35 white characters possibly making anyone uncomfortable. I am not 'assuming negative things about people,' I am looking at your words and repeating them back to you, the things they say are negative. And racist. It does not -and I need to make this point very strongly - imply that you yourself are a racist person. I am not insinuating you are a white supremicist or a KKK member or a Neo-Nazi. You're probably a decent person - but that doesn't make the views you have expressed here unproblematic. Good people can say troublesome things too.

Also, this:

Is not an evasion of the points you made. That wasn't why I responded to you - I'm a white guy, and your whiteness isn't the issue here. The issue is what you said and how you said it. If you're going to rebut me, do so by all means, but first you have to clarify your own statements.

 

Your post was confusing, but you did make that point clear. I'm more confused by your jump to the conclusion that by asking for more diversity we run the risk of having too much diversity. There are only two black people right now, I'm not really sure how we can suddenly jump to having too many people of color. It seems like kind of a wild leap to make, imo.

While DukeofRiven was a little aggressive with their response to your post, I have to agree with their point about discomfort with color: It's not okay for white people to be uncomfortable by the diversity, but it is okay for non-white people to be uncomfortable with how it is now?

 

Okay well I did not mean it like that, take note of me never saying white anywhere. What I meant was simply that if there are too many white, too many asian, too many african, (insert race too many) it will have the same results and someone will bring it up again. Hope I made that clear enough... Balance is definitely the only way to solve such a problem. But that is not always a good thing for a game when it comes to originality. Alright guys? Hope I've made myself more clear...

Edit:

For me personally I did not mean anything racist, and I also am not a racist, so I am very sorry for not making myself more clear.

Edit2:

Funny thing is that if white was considered a color then my points wouldn't be so confusing... Mindblown...

 

Yeah I understand this, and I'd gladly see more black NPCs, that was not my point though... Again I'm sorry for not being more clear. Sometimes I have difficulty with using the right words to express what I mean.

 

Yeah I guess I'm really not understanding what you are saying then. And no I really don't think that "if white was considered a color" your points would be less confusing. I don't see how that would help at all.

Your points in your first post as I see them:
1. mentality of feeling inferior because of skin color is a problem even in the real world... Yes. That's what we're talking about. Real people, right here, right now feel inferior because in games they love they are not represented in any way. And no one on this thread is asking for any specific ethnicity to be represented or for any white characters to be replaced. No one is even saying how much they hate it now or anything like that. We just want more.

2. If you add too many colored NPCs then someone else will complain that there is too much color, as an example I mean, someone is always going to complain, but frankly I think that complaining about more diversity doesn't make any sense and is, to be honest, kind of racist. Sorry but it's true. The real world is diverse and this is a game set in an imaginary world so saying that it can't be diverse is stupid. It has crazy monsters, a wizard, and little apple sprites but it can't have asian or hispanic or anything else like that represented? Saying that is just masking your racism with cries of "realism". Now, to be clear, I am not saying that being okay with how it is now makes you racist. But saying that it can't change does.

3. I mean I think it would be cool with all colors of the world in the game, but overdoing it is also possible. Well yeah, I guess it is possible. But I don't think we are anywhere near that point. No one has even made a suggestion that even gets us close to the point of overdoing it. No one here has said "Hey lets just change everyone to be a PoC and then add even more PoC!" which is where I think we would be reaching the point of overdoing it. But nothing like that has been said. Just, "Hey it would be nice to have more diversity"

4. So I say yeah it would be nice but it's not a good idea to focus too much on such a mentality. What do you mean focus too much? There's been little to no focus on the matter because people keep derailing the discussion to "Why do PoC need to be represented? I don't see the point" Because it's important to us. Because we get very little representation as it is. Where is the harm in asking for it? I see diverse people every day and I live in a small town in Eastern WA (And ConcernedApe is in Western WA so his experience is probably not much different). Why should there not be that in the things I love? I understand that you didn't mean any harm with what you said, but that doesn't mean what you said isn't harmful.

When you look different, people treat you different (which is probably why the guys who "are mixed but look white" don't get it) and to want a game you love to not treat you like an outsider is very important. Video games, since their invention, have been an escape for the "outsiders" of the world. They have been, for the people who don't feel like they fit in with the rest of society, an escape to become a hero, or a villain, or whatever they want to be. To say that making video games be more welcoming to the outsiders of the world is wrong or not a good idea is to go against the essence of what made video games great in the first place. It's stupid and selfish of people to assume that because they feel included no one else should be.

Edit: RiZU - I am not trying to attack you with this. I'm just trying to explain my view on things. A lot of people on this topic have been dismissive or attacking the opinion that there should be more diversity and I wanted to explain why I think they are wrong.

 

I have already tried to make myself clear, and I understand clearly that you misunderstood my wording because of me being very short and not making things clear in my post. I do not like racism and I do not like people hating on each other just the same. So telling me that what I said is racist really hurts me on a personal level. Do not tell me that you are not attacking me when you are basically getting the wrong idea and forcing those thoughts onto me, because it is rude and uncalled for, and I will not just sit here and read your bullshit claims without telling you that it's down right insulting to me. I never once tried to offend anyone, what I said was misunderstood and yeah that is a big problem so I tried to explain as clearly as I could what I meant. Continuing this any longer is waste of time for everyone and is- at least to me- making me depressed.

I am not directly against this suggestion, if you could just understand what I am saying. I'm actually FOR this suggestion, I just don't think that this is something that is healthy to focus too much on. That is all I ever wanted to say, and I am sorry for the confusion.

 

I am sorry you feel hurt like that. The reason I wrote that whole thing out point by point is so you can understand how I perceived what you said. I was not trying to put words in your mouth. I just took your first post and quoted it point by point with my interpretation of it. Like you said, I apparently misunderstood you. I was hoping you would clarify what you meant. You keep on saying I misunderstood but you are not saying what you actually mean. I do think what you said came off as racist but that doesn't make you racist. People can say racist things without meaning to be racist. There is a lot of racist viewpoints ingrained in people on a daily basis. It takes active work to keep that from affecting how they view the world and that doesn't make them bad people. Clearly you feel that you didn't even say anything offensive and I would appreciate it if you would make it clear what you meant because I would love to feel the same way.

 

pretty much everyone talks about more ethnic diversity so i won´t go there, instead how about we get something else than singles/ straights couples?
same sex paring is clearly possible and no one in town seems to have anything against 2 ppl of the same gender getting married, so why not have one, or more, same sex couple(s) in the village?

 

I agree to that. It is a nice touch that when you play as a girl Leah has a girlfriend. But that's only when you're a girl. More same sex couples would be nice.

 

Not that I personally care much about it, but would be a nice feature in the far future.

 

The type of animals you can raise and the way the buildings are constructed, not to mention many of the character names. The Geographic Diversity could also mean American, with ready access to a desert, and the regular seasonal changes. Their style of dress also tends to draw up European or western cultures. (I should have said western, as in of the west). But a lot of that could be me projecting. The setting is obviously a fictional one and the year it takes place in is obscured by having to do most of your farming by hand but also having plasma tvs, but it seems to draw the most similarities to small rural communities in European or western nations.

To be completely fair, the type of veggies you can grow come from a much wider area, but still.

 

Like I said before...I'm all for adding more NPC diversity if adding more NPCs is an option.

But if its going to be done... let them have a purpose. I don't want more diversity JUST for the sake of diversity.

I care far mor about whether or not the character feels like a person rather than their skin color or orientation.

 

Oh absolutely. The last thing you want to do is add a character to fulfill a requirement, and undercut that by making them a stereotype. That's like, the WORST thing you can do. Fully formed, diverse characters are the order of the day!

 

Precisely.

Don't add a same sex couple or more People of Color because "they should have representation too!".
Add them because you have a cool couple of characters with interesting personalities that just happen to be a same sex couple or a person of color.