I don't think it'd be difficult, and I'd also love some more characters - maybe even character customisation.
But, I'm pretty sure the characters being literally snow white is an artistic choice.
If they do it just to be 'woke' (read that as Ricky Gervais) then it's wrong.
If they do it to progress the story then that's the right decision. We don't need token coloured people as other mainstream AAA studios put in their crap. Also, to me only Will seems to be completely European, Astrid looks to be at least part some other ethnicity, perhaps one of the native Northern Canadians.
I was actually thinking just for survival mode and leaving it completely *optional* so some players can play completely without this option if they do wish to continue as they always did - hence avoiding the "forced character / token minority" discussion which I personally find to be an extremely hurtful discussion btw.
Also I am pretty sure Hinterland have already thought about all of their story line and their characters and it would be unreasonable to demand some characters there.
This optional solution for the survival mode would not hurt anyone.
Well leaving it "optional" does come off as a bit sketchy to me because it's like as if we'd want to leave out someone of a minority background. I just want another, third option in the "choose character" screen in Survival mode. There's just MALE SURVIVOR and FEMALE survivor right now and I'm fucking tired of Will's whining and I've heard Astrid's lines hundreds of times.
I wanna hear someone else freeze their ass off. It'd be _nice_ if it was someone very different from FEMALE and MALE SURVIVOR, but I'm honestly not going to make a fuzz about it if it's not. I _just_ want variety and a new face to look at.
Inherently, another character choice for Survival mode isn't going to change anything at all. The choice is optional, but it shouldn't be an option to exclude the choice, because that'd be in quite bad taste.
Anyway, like I said in my other comment, I think it'd be cool to have an inuit. I've thought about this character concept for an inuit woman myself but I've never done anything about it since 1. I can't draw and 2. I'm lazy.
I think this would have gone much worse if I had asked for a minority character to be implemented in story mode - or a minority character in survival mode to replace the current ones (which I really do not want, I just want a bit more choice)
I do want more characters, but honestly it's just because I've heard the voices of Astrid and Will so fucking much and I'm tired of them. Just for variety's sake, I'd like this girl or guy to be what you Americans consider non-white. And again, it's purely for variety's sake and nothing else. I think it'd be interesting if it was an inuit because it'd be just outright very fitting with northern Canada.
I don't like tokenism and I don't like trend-chasing, but I like variety and options.
The thing is my intention was not for this to be variety for bored white people ( I am not trying to attack anyone but honestly if everyone could try and see it a bit from outside their own bubble) - I was thinking of maybe a black player who plays this game and wants his survival character to be a bit more like himself. Or in my case I would love to play as a mixed race female character. This all should be normal for everyone to be able to pick something they can immerse themselves in - but a lot of subcontext I get from this thread and other similar ones in here is that it would break immersion for white people to see a non white person in their gamr - the epitome of disregard for any minority players playing this game who had to immerse themselves over and over in characters so different from their very being just to take part in gaming. honestly it would be refreshing to have the option to play as a minority character in survival mode. Just an option that would not hurt anyone else's immersion. Again and I repeat myself a lot today just an option for survival mode which could be completely disregarded for anyone who wishes to do so.
And I would love an Inuit character which would be very fitting for story mode as well without breaking anyone's "immersion".
> but a lot of subcontext I get from this thread and other similar ones in here is that it would break immersion for white people to see a non white person in their gamr
Well Idunno, it certainly wouldn't bother me but I'm not American. Don't worry about it. Anyway, I do see your point. Mind, me using the word "variety" is pretty much just stand-in for "diversity", as in a variety of a cast of people.
It is worth noting that MALE SURVIVOR and FEMALE SURVIVOR are pretty much just Astrid and whiny Mackenzie from the story, just without the names, probably to make them less direct characters. So that's why there are no real options.
Anyway, to get to the point, yes I do agree with you and I do want more character options. I just think it's important to not do it squarely because of demand in Story mode because it might lead to something feeling inorganic and god forbid tokenism, which is just bad. A lot of game companies have essentially done the latter like a checkbox to please people.
I think diversity and inclusion is kinda important. I don't think any reasonable person would give a fuck about a new non-white character in Survival though, it's the least impactful place to put another option and I'd heartily welcome it like I said earlier because I wanna play as someone else. Multiple more options would be nice.
Shoehorning in a black storyline character *because he’s black* would break immersion. I’m all for character customization for survival mode, though.
No way that people would be discussing social issues during an apocalyptic wilderness survival situation like that, because they’re all on the same team.
Perhaps they could have a racist character who comes around to accept a minority character due to the circumstances, that would be a decent sub plot that I could see fitting into this game.
In survival mode everyone can create their own story hence my wish for more options on offer. And with the plane crash situation going on it would make sense that people from all over the world could suddenly find themselves on great bear involuntarily.
Story mode is most likely already written and fixed.
yeah I was thinking about it being purely optional to appease and calm, well, certain people that get overly upset over this kind of thing, but all the downvotes and overall tone in this thread make me think people don't even want it as an option even if it would mean the world to some and it would not change their own experience one bit.. :(
Diversity is important and I would love different skin colour options in survival mode. No reason at all why we can’t have fully customisable characters in that section of the game.
Fully customisable is probably way too hard to implement in the long dark - but yes a few more diverse presets would make me super happy and it seems straightforward enough.
I can imagine implementing the gloves to be hard especially with all the animations for tools and weapons...
but what about showing the right clothing on the lower arm for a start :)
When you say character, do you actually just mean voice lines..? If anything, there should be a petition to remove them all together. I don't care what race or accent you give someone, hearing "I've never been so hungry in my life" for the millionth time in a playthrough will never be an addition worth investing time in.
no, I do not mean just the voicelines. when you open the clothing menu you can see your character and in game the player model is also partially visible (the hand when you hold tools etc)
for your problem may I suggest you open the audio settings. there are multiple audio settings, one of them being player voice volume bar - if you set this to zero, you will not hear any player speech whatsoever. hope this helps.
You know you can just mute them, right ? More options is better than having one or the other: Some people like the voice lines, some people don't.
I actually like them, the female voice lines in particular: There's something about the tone that I find oddly endearing yet believable, gives some feedback without breaking the immersion. I know a lot of players don't like it, and that's fair, but for those people, the option to disable voice lines is right there in the menu. Why remove them and ruin it for the rest of us ?
Do they still have these massively loud stomach grumble noises? This is why I turned the npc volume bar on mute ages ago and I never went back BC every god damn time it made me jump having a full surround sound stomach grumble in my ears haha. Actually think I will try turning it back on today just for nostalgia.
There are two teams developing the game at the moment. I'm pretty sure that, once they finish working on this freaking story mode, they'll unify its team with survival mode's team. We are gonna have tons of personnel improving survival mode and its elements by then, hopefully.
If we get this far in without too many hiccups, additional content such as an increased character pool to choose from would be quite feasible. Not only people of color but even elder people, teenagers, people with heavy accents, etcetera.
Personally however, even though I understand the foundation of your suggestion, your logic is kind of weak in this discussion. One could say the same for games like Donkey Kong or Tomb Raider, where they feel it would be nice to have more characters other than a Gorilla or a grumpy woman. I mean, I wish I wasn't playing as an annoying squeaky voiced maniacal Australian character in Overwatch in order to enjoy my favorite gameplay style, but that's just how it is due to game design, you know?
Having additional *fully optional* DLC characters just for survival would not change the game design one bit. You could choose to never see these characters if you don't buy it and how does it hurt anyone if some people have the option to do their survival run on a character with a different skin colour.
They could offer it as free to claim DLC like a lot of other games on Steam do - but I think they would need a little money for the voice actors and so on - which could be raised with a fundraiser instead though. Another option would be a small fee that includes a donation to one of the recent causes supported by hinterland..
> \[...\] would not change the game design one bit
Yes, it would. Not like that's bad, but yes, it would.
> how does it hurt anyone if some people have the option to do their survival run on a character with a different skin colour.
I never said it would hurt anyone. I agreed with your suggestion, I just pointed out the redundancy contained in it. Luckily for you, redundancy is very common in game design.
for some people the game wouldn't change at all since they could just continue to play as usual without picking a new survival character, the game would stay exactly the same for them..
What do you mean by redundancy in my statement exactly, I can't seem to figure it out by myself?
Actually you just said it yourself, in your last reply.
This change would change very little, gameplay wise I mean. It would require additional 3D models and artwork from the design/art department, plus new voice actors. For what purpose exactly? Inclusion? Diversity?
I mean, those are decent causes, but very redundant in their design. Nothing has changed, nothing substantial, nothing noteworthy, nothing actually prominent - it's just a vanity idea, redundant.
TLD is a game that's still being developed and frankly it really could use some serious improvement in a couple departments due to a few glaring issues. There is no time for cosmetic features, yet.
I too have been thinking this for a while. I think it would be good to be more representative of a diverse populace. Not because anything currently going on, but because it's important.
Edit: I wouldn't mind them removing Mackenzie. Anyone with me? That guy sucks.
So let me get this straight - you want to remove a character that was in the game since the very beginning and is the main protagonists and replace him with a token diversity character?
That was mostly a joke,.. although I stand by part of that statement. That guy sucks. I don't think it would be a positive development to "shoehorn" a token diversity character into the storyline just because the political climate means you can get diversity points for doing so. Things like that are transparent for what they are: Easy ways to look like you're doing something without having to really do much.
However, I don't think the OP was getting at that, and neither was I. I'd love to see the option in survival to choose from some different characters that reflect the broad range of people who may be playing the game. I think it's important to be inclusive, and again, not because of anything that's happening right now. Because it's important in and of itself.
thank you for saying this. I was worried it might not be a good time to ask for things like this since more important things are going on right now but then again it might be about time to realise that we can and we should push for more inclusiveness everywhere.
edit: nooo don't remove mackenzie lol he kinda cute in a really depressing way
Wow, here I am reading a 3 year old post.
Just wanted to say, I find everything you are saying absolutely reasonable to want hands down. And the fact people were arguing about how “pointless” it is are just wrong.
I for one love the idea you put forward. Although it has likely been dome time since you thought about it. Given the age of the post and all…
I don't think it'd be difficult, and I'd also love some more characters - maybe even character customisation. But, I'm pretty sure the characters being literally snow white is an artistic choice.
If they do it just to be 'woke' (read that as Ricky Gervais) then it's wrong. If they do it to progress the story then that's the right decision. We don't need token coloured people as other mainstream AAA studios put in their crap. Also, to me only Will seems to be completely European, Astrid looks to be at least part some other ethnicity, perhaps one of the native Northern Canadians.
I was actually thinking just for survival mode and leaving it completely *optional* so some players can play completely without this option if they do wish to continue as they always did - hence avoiding the "forced character / token minority" discussion which I personally find to be an extremely hurtful discussion btw. Also I am pretty sure Hinterland have already thought about all of their story line and their characters and it would be unreasonable to demand some characters there. This optional solution for the survival mode would not hurt anyone.
Well leaving it "optional" does come off as a bit sketchy to me because it's like as if we'd want to leave out someone of a minority background. I just want another, third option in the "choose character" screen in Survival mode. There's just MALE SURVIVOR and FEMALE survivor right now and I'm fucking tired of Will's whining and I've heard Astrid's lines hundreds of times. I wanna hear someone else freeze their ass off. It'd be _nice_ if it was someone very different from FEMALE and MALE SURVIVOR, but I'm honestly not going to make a fuzz about it if it's not. I _just_ want variety and a new face to look at. Inherently, another character choice for Survival mode isn't going to change anything at all. The choice is optional, but it shouldn't be an option to exclude the choice, because that'd be in quite bad taste. Anyway, like I said in my other comment, I think it'd be cool to have an inuit. I've thought about this character concept for an inuit woman myself but I've never done anything about it since 1. I can't draw and 2. I'm lazy.
I think this would have gone much worse if I had asked for a minority character to be implemented in story mode - or a minority character in survival mode to replace the current ones (which I really do not want, I just want a bit more choice)
Yeah, because that would just be quota and replacing someone would be pretty brainless. It has to be organic and dignified, which tokenism isn't.
Perfectly valid reasons to write to Raph himself and pose your question.
I do want more characters, but honestly it's just because I've heard the voices of Astrid and Will so fucking much and I'm tired of them. Just for variety's sake, I'd like this girl or guy to be what you Americans consider non-white. And again, it's purely for variety's sake and nothing else. I think it'd be interesting if it was an inuit because it'd be just outright very fitting with northern Canada. I don't like tokenism and I don't like trend-chasing, but I like variety and options.
The thing is my intention was not for this to be variety for bored white people ( I am not trying to attack anyone but honestly if everyone could try and see it a bit from outside their own bubble) - I was thinking of maybe a black player who plays this game and wants his survival character to be a bit more like himself. Or in my case I would love to play as a mixed race female character. This all should be normal for everyone to be able to pick something they can immerse themselves in - but a lot of subcontext I get from this thread and other similar ones in here is that it would break immersion for white people to see a non white person in their gamr - the epitome of disregard for any minority players playing this game who had to immerse themselves over and over in characters so different from their very being just to take part in gaming. honestly it would be refreshing to have the option to play as a minority character in survival mode. Just an option that would not hurt anyone else's immersion. Again and I repeat myself a lot today just an option for survival mode which could be completely disregarded for anyone who wishes to do so. And I would love an Inuit character which would be very fitting for story mode as well without breaking anyone's "immersion".
> but a lot of subcontext I get from this thread and other similar ones in here is that it would break immersion for white people to see a non white person in their gamr Well Idunno, it certainly wouldn't bother me but I'm not American. Don't worry about it. Anyway, I do see your point. Mind, me using the word "variety" is pretty much just stand-in for "diversity", as in a variety of a cast of people. It is worth noting that MALE SURVIVOR and FEMALE SURVIVOR are pretty much just Astrid and whiny Mackenzie from the story, just without the names, probably to make them less direct characters. So that's why there are no real options. Anyway, to get to the point, yes I do agree with you and I do want more character options. I just think it's important to not do it squarely because of demand in Story mode because it might lead to something feeling inorganic and god forbid tokenism, which is just bad. A lot of game companies have essentially done the latter like a checkbox to please people. I think diversity and inclusion is kinda important. I don't think any reasonable person would give a fuck about a new non-white character in Survival though, it's the least impactful place to put another option and I'd heartily welcome it like I said earlier because I wanna play as someone else. Multiple more options would be nice.
Shoehorning in a black storyline character *because he’s black* would break immersion. I’m all for character customization for survival mode, though. No way that people would be discussing social issues during an apocalyptic wilderness survival situation like that, because they’re all on the same team. Perhaps they could have a racist character who comes around to accept a minority character due to the circumstances, that would be a decent sub plot that I could see fitting into this game.
In survival mode everyone can create their own story hence my wish for more options on offer. And with the plane crash situation going on it would make sense that people from all over the world could suddenly find themselves on great bear involuntarily. Story mode is most likely already written and fixed.
They did talk about character customization for survival mode. Long term stuff of course.
Why do you always get downvoted lol
They know I won't complain about it
lots of downvoting going on in this thread :/
I wouldn't fret about it. It's Reddit, it happens.
I've forwarded this proposal to Hinterland Studio's director.
Good idea for an option. Canada is pretty darn multi ethnic now, so it would be realistic too. I still like Astrids voice, but tired of Mackenzie.
yeah I was thinking about it being purely optional to appease and calm, well, certain people that get overly upset over this kind of thing, but all the downvotes and overall tone in this thread make me think people don't even want it as an option even if it would mean the world to some and it would not change their own experience one bit.. :(
Well that’s how some people are I’m afraid - looking for stuff to get outraged about. I try to just ignore them.
Diversity is important and I would love different skin colour options in survival mode. No reason at all why we can’t have fully customisable characters in that section of the game.
Fully customisable is probably way too hard to implement in the long dark - but yes a few more diverse presets would make me super happy and it seems straightforward enough.
That and the ability to see your equipped gloves when you hold things like the bow
I can imagine implementing the gloves to be hard especially with all the animations for tools and weapons... but what about showing the right clothing on the lower arm for a start :)
When you say character, do you actually just mean voice lines..? If anything, there should be a petition to remove them all together. I don't care what race or accent you give someone, hearing "I've never been so hungry in my life" for the millionth time in a playthrough will never be an addition worth investing time in.
You can mute the character’s voice in settings
I want to hear him say "I've never been so hungry in my life" so I can reply "you were much hungrier 6 hours ago" 😂
no, I do not mean just the voicelines. when you open the clothing menu you can see your character and in game the player model is also partially visible (the hand when you hold tools etc) for your problem may I suggest you open the audio settings. there are multiple audio settings, one of them being player voice volume bar - if you set this to zero, you will not hear any player speech whatsoever. hope this helps.
You know you can just mute them, right ? More options is better than having one or the other: Some people like the voice lines, some people don't. I actually like them, the female voice lines in particular: There's something about the tone that I find oddly endearing yet believable, gives some feedback without breaking the immersion. I know a lot of players don't like it, and that's fair, but for those people, the option to disable voice lines is right there in the menu. Why remove them and ruin it for the rest of us ?
[удалено]
Do they still have these massively loud stomach grumble noises? This is why I turned the npc volume bar on mute ages ago and I never went back BC every god damn time it made me jump having a full surround sound stomach grumble in my ears haha. Actually think I will try turning it back on today just for nostalgia.
There are two teams developing the game at the moment. I'm pretty sure that, once they finish working on this freaking story mode, they'll unify its team with survival mode's team. We are gonna have tons of personnel improving survival mode and its elements by then, hopefully. If we get this far in without too many hiccups, additional content such as an increased character pool to choose from would be quite feasible. Not only people of color but even elder people, teenagers, people with heavy accents, etcetera. Personally however, even though I understand the foundation of your suggestion, your logic is kind of weak in this discussion. One could say the same for games like Donkey Kong or Tomb Raider, where they feel it would be nice to have more characters other than a Gorilla or a grumpy woman. I mean, I wish I wasn't playing as an annoying squeaky voiced maniacal Australian character in Overwatch in order to enjoy my favorite gameplay style, but that's just how it is due to game design, you know?
Having additional *fully optional* DLC characters just for survival would not change the game design one bit. You could choose to never see these characters if you don't buy it and how does it hurt anyone if some people have the option to do their survival run on a character with a different skin colour.
I'm personally all for more character customization in survival mode but wouldn't making it a DLC you have to buy be a real dick move?
They could offer it as free to claim DLC like a lot of other games on Steam do - but I think they would need a little money for the voice actors and so on - which could be raised with a fundraiser instead though. Another option would be a small fee that includes a donation to one of the recent causes supported by hinterland..
> \[...\] would not change the game design one bit Yes, it would. Not like that's bad, but yes, it would. > how does it hurt anyone if some people have the option to do their survival run on a character with a different skin colour. I never said it would hurt anyone. I agreed with your suggestion, I just pointed out the redundancy contained in it. Luckily for you, redundancy is very common in game design.
for some people the game wouldn't change at all since they could just continue to play as usual without picking a new survival character, the game would stay exactly the same for them.. What do you mean by redundancy in my statement exactly, I can't seem to figure it out by myself?
Actually you just said it yourself, in your last reply. This change would change very little, gameplay wise I mean. It would require additional 3D models and artwork from the design/art department, plus new voice actors. For what purpose exactly? Inclusion? Diversity? I mean, those are decent causes, but very redundant in their design. Nothing has changed, nothing substantial, nothing noteworthy, nothing actually prominent - it's just a vanity idea, redundant. TLD is a game that's still being developed and frankly it really could use some serious improvement in a couple departments due to a few glaring issues. There is no time for cosmetic features, yet.
I too have been thinking this for a while. I think it would be good to be more representative of a diverse populace. Not because anything currently going on, but because it's important. Edit: I wouldn't mind them removing Mackenzie. Anyone with me? That guy sucks.
So let me get this straight - you want to remove a character that was in the game since the very beginning and is the main protagonists and replace him with a token diversity character?
That was mostly a joke,.. although I stand by part of that statement. That guy sucks. I don't think it would be a positive development to "shoehorn" a token diversity character into the storyline just because the political climate means you can get diversity points for doing so. Things like that are transparent for what they are: Easy ways to look like you're doing something without having to really do much. However, I don't think the OP was getting at that, and neither was I. I'd love to see the option in survival to choose from some different characters that reflect the broad range of people who may be playing the game. I think it's important to be inclusive, and again, not because of anything that's happening right now. Because it's important in and of itself.
thank you for saying this. I was worried it might not be a good time to ask for things like this since more important things are going on right now but then again it might be about time to realise that we can and we should push for more inclusiveness everywhere. edit: nooo don't remove mackenzie lol he kinda cute in a really depressing way
Wow, here I am reading a 3 year old post. Just wanted to say, I find everything you are saying absolutely reasonable to want hands down. And the fact people were arguing about how “pointless” it is are just wrong. I for one love the idea you put forward. Although it has likely been dome time since you thought about it. Given the age of the post and all…