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More diversity in representation

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DeletedUser37617

@RazorbackPirate #1 I saw no "flying off the tracks" in this post except by you, since you did go off the tracks by getting just a little off-topic and #2 No need to use curse words (ever in my opinion), and no need to reply at all when you don't say anything helpful. (name calling and saying HERE, do this, doesn't count)

Even though I am white, I agree that the Native American avatars do need to have a darker skin color... I for one would still use them (just in case Inno thinks I might not). I would also be a big fan of a darker skinned Mexican lady, being 1/8 of that myself and even my Grandma Viola has darker skin than the Native American avatars.
 

DeletedUser25166

Nope. And as a German company you're lucky every portrait is not blue eyes and blonde hair
 

DeletedUser

It's not racism, but it sure is whitesplaining.
It most definitely is racism. The OP is simply asking that the Indian (from the Indian subcontinent, for those of you still confused about references to Native Americans) avatars reflect the skin tones prevalent in that culture. Despite certain posters trying to project their own racism onto the OP's post, it was a respectful request.

Now if there are any other posts addressing anything other than support or non-support (without racial overtones), I will not hesitate to delete them.
 

DeletedUser28147

As no one has posted a screen shot of the avatar that is supposedly supposed to look like an indian woman I cannot say an opinion as to wether I think they got it wrong or not. The only female avatar I've seen is a younger middle aged woman who looks of Romanian decent(or something similar.) I can see where her head dress might be mistaken for Indian if you're not intimately familiar with either culture but from what I saw on the avatar she didn't look like she was supposed to be Indian at all.
As a final note. I did not see anywhere stating that this event was supposed to be an Idian event. Archeology can happen anywhere in the world and does, so all ethnicities can be represented.
We can't assume for sure the avatar is meant to be Indian unless the artists for Inno post something saying they are.
 

RazorbackPirate

Well-Known Member
As has been reported, the avatars you are referring to come from the 2017 Summer Event, which introduced the Maharajah's Palace and Elephant Fountain Sets. Here is the information for that event here. https://forgeofempires.fandom.com/wiki/2017_Summer_Event

Looking at the buildings and imagery for the event, I have always felt that the sets were as riff on the Taj Mahal. As such I have always viewed the avatars as an homage to the actual rulers and their wives who built such things.

Here are the avatars from the event, I believe.

latest
latest
latest
latest


Below is Emperor Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal and his wife, Mumatz Mahal, who he built the Taj Mahal for. Don't know about his fountain building skills or another Indian ruler famous for his fountains. Wikipedia only goes so deep. Most all images of them, purportedly from their time, have them both quite light skinned. Anyway, the more you know.

iu
 
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DeletedUser36624

Looking at the buildings and imagery for the event, I have always felt that the sets were as riff on the Taj Mahal. As such I have always viewed the avatars as an homage to the actual rulers and their wives who built such things.
The Taj Mahal is not a palace, however, it is a mausoleum, and is only one (albeit the most famous one) of several palaces/mausoleums built in the same era in the same style.
Here are the avatars from the event, I believe.

latest
latest
latest
latest


Below is Emperor Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal and his wife, Mumatz Mahal, who he built the Taj Mahal for. Don't know about his fountain building skills or another Indian ruler famous for his fountains. Wikipedia only goes so deep. Most all images of them, purportedly from their time, have them both quite light skinned. Anyway, the more you know.

iu
The portrait of Tanak seems to me to be more based on the Maharajahs of Patiala, most notably either Yadavindra Singh or his father. Notably, his official portraits show a much lighter skin tone than non-official sources such as news coverage.

Do you really think Mumatz Mahal regularly dressed in English country dresses?
 

DeletedUser28147

Let me begin by saying I really enjoy this game. My son downloaded it on my phone and said "here , try this" and I was hooked.

My only real complaint has been the lack of diversity. I was really excited when i found my first portrait in the Archaeology Event, an Indian woman like myself! Only she looked white. I even joked in my guild that she must be a Brahmin because she was so pale. I just ignored it.

Then I saw another portrait from the event, same pale skin. These women look like white women dressed up to go to an Indian woman's wedding! (The only reason I can safely think of for them to be dressed like that outside of cultural appropriation) Have any of you actually taken the time to look at an Indian woman? We come in a rainbow of shades, but very few are glowing white.

One of the aspects that drew me to this game was it's apparent appreciation for history and culture. The white washing is in complete opposition to that spirit.

I propose that you add diversity to the skin colors.
A piece of advice for the next time you want to post something in the forums. Think about something for more than "5 minutes" before you post about it. Also post an image of the thing you're talking about so that everyone knows exactly what you're talking about.
There is such a thing as a person of mixed origins and they get represented too. It's sad that you seem to look down upon people like that.
Do I think that Inno needs to be more careful about the avatars that they post depicting specific ethnicities during certain events? Maybe. But the fact of the matter is, people of mixed origins exist.
There will always be someone out there that is going to feel hurt over something they don't need to feel hurt about.
THINK BEFORE YOU POST.
 

DeletedUser29623

People get offended so easily these days, getting all outraged and butthurt over imaginary insults and telling other people what to do. They are oversensitive and such snowflakes!

For example, someone makes a perfectly reasonable request for Indian portraits with darker skin so that they can enjoy playing with an avatar that looks like them, and for some reason this totally triggers people who have literally nothing to lose in the granting of such a request. They read way too much into the original request, claim that people like them are being attacked as evil, then start telling everyone exactly what words to use so that they won’t be offended.

Seriously, dude. Look in the mirror.
 

RazorbackPirate

Well-Known Member
Do you really think Mumatz Mahal regularly dressed in English country dresses?
Not an expert on English country dresses so, not sure what you're specifically referring to. The avatar names are Mata, Radjah, Tanak, and Pari. Not sure about the official portrait I attached, but seems to me the guy paying the bill, the Shah, would have the paining painted to his liking.
 

RazorbackPirate

Well-Known Member
People get offended so easily these days, getting all outraged and butthurt over imaginary insults and telling other people what to do. They are oversensitive and such snowflakes!

For example, someone makes a perfectly reasonable request for Indian portraits with darker skin so that they can enjoy playing with an avatar that looks like them, and for some reason this totally triggers people who have literally nothing to lose in the granting of such a request. They read way too much into the original request, claim that people like them are being attacked as evil, then start telling everyone exactly what words to use so that they won’t be offended.

Seriously, dude. Look in the mirror.
You're right. I'm starting act and sound like a snowflake liberal. Seems if we'd peel back the dumb language invented in the last 50 years for the sole purpose of stoking outrage, there'd be less outrage. But I certainly don't want to tell someone what to say not to offend.

Again, never about the request, always about how it was made. Cut out the racial guilt shaming, and we're golden. No issues.
 

DeletedUser29623

I don’t see any racial guilt shaming in the OP. I think you are being way too oversensitive and defensive.

I’ve seen these avatars in the game, and tbh, it never even occurred to me that the first was meant to be Indian. She does look like a Caucasian woman dressed up in an Indian costume for some reason. I never thought about it much, not being Indian myself, but if I were and those were the only choices among all these portraits, I’d be annoyed too. That’s what “whitewashing” means: depicting images of people (usually characters from books) with much lighter skin and Caucasian features than they are supposed to have, usually because the artist has the unconscious notion that fair-skinned people are prettier and more appealing to the “average” person. OP’s complaint is that there are no dark-skinned Indian portraits when many many Indians have dark skin. At no point did she attack white people in general for this.
 

BruteForceAttack

Well-Known Member
Let me begin by saying I really enjoy this game. My son downloaded it on my phone and said "here , try this" and I was hooked.

My only real complaint has been the lack of diversity. I was really excited when i found my first portrait in the Archaeology Event, an Indian woman like myself! Only she looked white. I even joked in my guild that she must be a Brahmin because she was so pale. I just ignored it.

Then I saw another portrait from the event, same pale skin. These women look like white women dressed up to go to an Indian woman's wedding! (The only reason I can safely think of for them to be dressed like that outside of cultural appropriation) Have any of you actually taken the time to look at an Indian woman? We come in a rainbow of shades, but very few are glowing white.

One of the aspects that drew me to this game was it's apparent appreciation for history and culture. The white washing is in complete opposition to that spirit.

I propose that you add diversity to the skin colors.

latest


latest

Indian enough for you?
 
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DeletedUser29726

It was a longstanding complaint for many that avatars were not sufficiently diverse, it has been getting better though with time (original portraits had a very high bias both towards white and male). I can understand with limited numbers of portraits for other races being critical of your few options available.

As for directing you here by support... well you've learned how helpful support can be ;) Be sure to direct some vitriol their way the next time they tell you to post about something in the forums (a place that representatives of the game company mostly do not interact with).

There's not really much of anything we can help you with though. You could go to the proposals subforum, make a properly formatted post, get torn apart again there, eventually get things put to a vote, and if it passes get your proposal added to the junk-email folder of some innogames employee ;) Or you could be patient and hope that with time a portrait more to your liking gets added as new ones are with every event - they are aware of the desire for more diversity in portraits.
 

DeletedUser36624

Not an expert on English country dresses so, not sure what you're specifically referring to. The avatar names are Mata, Radjah, Tanak, and Pari. Not sure about the official portrait I attached, but seems to me the guy paying the bill, the Shah, would have the paining painted to his liking.
Official portrait? Link?
 

DeletedUser36624

Google? There's tons. The one I attached said historical, rare, blah, blah. Validate the source yourself. When you look, you'll see most portraits had them dressed similarly, so not sure who appropriated who in regards to dress. I searched images of the Shah.
The link to the portrait goes back to duckduckgo.com and bing.net. No way to get to the original source. Google has similar images, but they are all modern paintings in the Mughal style, hand painted, but produced quickly and cheaply for sale on eBay and other auction sites, and meant to appeal to Western buyers.

The first picture Wikipedia has up on Shah Jahan's page is genuinely from that era, and certainly looks different. Many of the portraits of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal together date from the 1800's and were by European artists.
 

DeletedUser38157

Looking through the avatar gallery it seems pretty diverse to me... I see African, Mediterranean, Middle-eastern, Indian, Eastern, Islander, North American, South American, Central American, European, Caribbean, even uh... undead? I don't see any issue with the diversity in regards to avatars, but if you want to request more avatars of a specific region, point in time, or ethnicity, I don't see how that's a bad thing either.
 

DeletedUser36020

Looking through the avatar gallery it seems pretty diverse to me... I see African, Mediterranean, Middle-eastern, Indian, Eastern, Islander, North American, South American, Central American, European, Caribbean, even uh... undead? I don't see any issue with the diversity in regards to avatars, but if you want to request more avatars of a specific region, point in time, or ethnicity, I don't see how that's a bad thing either.
Agreed, not a bad thing. The way this person worded the request and made it racially charged was unneeded. And that is why it received unhappy replies
 
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