15 hours ago, ferrous said:

Separate uniforms, I'd frown on, because it's basically a form of segregation, and it would definitely suck if the black character's uniforms ended up being easier to spot, giving a gameplay advantage to those who choose white characters.  The main people it bothers to see black guys in nazi uniforms are, people with historical hangups in an already very much not historical game mode, and racists.  I'm guessing people with historical hangups aren't going to be too keen on buying a CoD game in the first place, so that pretty much just leaves the racists. 

Quibbling over wermacht or nazi, when the wermacht did plenty of terrible shit, and fought alongside and for the nazi party is a bit silly.  Feel free to start a separate thread, but it starts to head off into weeaboo territory very fast.

They have a separate mode already, it's called Single Player Campaign.  It's much more likely to hew more towards realism. (Slightly, this is after all, Call of Duty we are talking about)

And it's not a both sides thing when it comes to squeezing white people into a game.  It's called punching up instead of punching down.  IE give a helping hand to those who need it, and are lacking representation, not giving more representation to a group that is already well represented.  And remember, Europe was actually pretty diverse back before WW II, it's something that seems to get overlooked, especially in fantasy games.  There were the moors, Poland's population was 1/3 minorities before WWII, heck even one of Napoleon's generals was black. 

Okay... We are talking of a time in history where segregation of races where the norm. We are talking of a video game skinned as a WW2 game. How - is - this - bad? How is this anything other than historical facts?

Really, if you cannot take historical facts, why even play a game with ANY historical background? If you think all of these things practically EVERY country in the world still stood for in the 40's are so bad that you cannot take it, why not voting with your wallet and just leave the game on the shelf?

Or is it that you think other players cannot take these facts? Well, maybe we do need a "parental advisory: historical content" on the box. No, I am serious. I am not against people being open that a game CAN hurt someones feelings and these people are informed of the fact.  So they can decide for themselves if they still want to play that game.

I agree that CoD is free to warp history in any kind or form AS LONG AS THEY MAKE THAT CLEAR to their players. And yeah, its pretty much accepted by now that the multiplayer part of a game with a story or skin based on historical facts usually is least concerned with these facts in favor of gameplay.

"I'm guessing people with historical hangups aren't going to be too keen on buying a CoD game in the first place, so that pretty much just leaves the racists. " - Really? You have a pretty low opinion of CoD and the playerbase in this case. Not saying if I think you are right or wrong, but I would guess the people interested in CoD are pretty much your average hardcore gamers. Yes, there are racists among them... just as leftwing ideologists. Black people, female players... and historical buffs.

If anything, the dev cannot really make it right because someone WILL be offended anyway. That is why a compromise is needed. Maybe this "customization > historical accuray" IS the best compromise...

Okay, can we PLEASE stop this "wehrmacht were nazis", "wehrmacht did terrible things" nonsense right here and now (and just to make it clear: there were nazi party member among the wehrmacht, the wehrmacht did terrible things, not all nazi party members believed in the ideology, and some wehrmacht soldiers actually were heros trying to kill the Führer, with MOST wehrmacht soldiers just being average grunts who just tried to survive a terrible war like everyone else)? That is NOT the topic, its your opinion, and I am trying VERY hard here to not get baited. If you want to discuss that and know MY opinion (which I am sure a lot of people that are interested in history and can look at history without any bias would support), we can open a new topic and discuss our view on history politely. Unless you can convince me how wehrmacht soldiers showing up in a game has anything to do with diversity (other than them NOT showing up would hurt diversity), lets stop this dicussion here.

Wow, okay, lets also stop the "privilege" thing here. Again, has nothing to do with the discussion really. Why? Because we are not talking about if diversity is good or bad, if the whole PC movement is good or bad, or if games should be influenced by leftwing ideologies more and more or not. I have my opinion, I am sure you have yours, but the dicussion here is if the push for diversity we currently see is having bad consequences, or if there might be better implementations to this call for diversity.

Unless anyones "privilege" has anything to do with the discussion, lets also stop this. Its bait for the other side, if you ask me. Maybe you can explain as to why you think it matters to the discussion, but unless you can, lets keep that part out of it.

"And remember, Europe was actually pretty diverse back before WW II, it's something that seems to get overlooked, especially in fantasy games.  There were the moors, Poland's population was 1/3 minorities before WWII, heck even one of Napoleon's generals was black. "

Yes. The Moors were also in the end driven out of europe by the first crusades (besides some small communities, who had it jsut as hard as the jews at times), the black people in positions of power where unicorns (now THIS would be interesting historical figures to place a story around, people like Dido Elizabeth Belle for example), and minorities were often singled out and opressed in europe. Lets not forget what happened to the armenians.

I don't think its so much overlooked as just both sides down- or upplaying it. Europe was neither as christian and white only as the rightwing people claim, nor as multi cultural as some leftwing people might paint it as. Jews had problems with the christians in waves, with them sometimes being tolerated, sometimes being oppressed. Same with the muslim, and all the other minorities.

The country I am living in had catholics and protestantic people still fight each other to the death 170 years ago. See how that even happened 30 years ago in Ireland.

Europe has a history of strife and oppression. Also of almost impossible co-existence at times. Its a given in an area where so many languages, so many different faiths, and so many cultures live so close to each other.

The early parts of the 20th century might have seen big advancements in human rights... the 40's still were NOT the world where political correctness was generally accepted. Actually, before WW2, all over the world people were in SUPPORT of the german nazi party... because their ideology reflected the extremist ideologies that sprung up all over the world in a time of depression and economical strife.

But this also going off on a tangent, so I'll stop here.

2 hours ago, Gian-Reto said:

Really, if you cannot take historical facts, why even play a game with ANY historical background?

I can answer that.

Some people find the contemporary technology, and associated tactics and strategies, to be interesting and they derive a certain enjoyment from simulating it.  They can do that without the wholesale embrace of the political ideologies of the day, including that of maintaining 'racial' purity.  Turns out it's only at the level of political ideology that the colour of the skin of the person pulling a trigger or driving a tank makes any difference, and it's irrelevant at the strategic, tactical, or technical level.

So, if you're playing the game to gain enjoyment from the strategy, tactics, or technology, you'll be fine with the design choices the developers made.  If you're ideologically motivated or on the spectrum and filled with anxiety about the inexacting background detail in the historical simulation, then the game is not for you.  There is also a sub-genre of trainspotters who gain their pleasure from finding and sharing the inaccuracies in mass-market entertainments.

The designers and producers had to make choices.  Additional detail means higher cost.  Additional restrictions on participation means fewer paying consumers.  Games are not a charity focused exclusively on your own pleasure, they're a business and like most entertainments businesses, factual accuracy takes a back seat to increased revenue every time.  Really, the lack of Historical Purity you're railing against is not the result of the 'diversity' you disdain, it's the result of lower development costs and broader market acceptance resulting in ongoing business investment -- free market economics, if you will.

19 minutes ago, Bregma said:

I can answer that.

Some people find the contemporary technology, and associated tactics and strategies, to be interesting and they derive a certain enjoyment from simulating it.  They can do that without the wholesale embrace of the political ideologies of the day, including that of maintaining 'racial' purity.  Turns out it's only at the level of political ideology that the colour of the skin of the person pulling a trigger or driving a tank makes any difference, and it's irrelevant at the strategic, tactical, or technical level.

So, if you're playing the game to gain enjoyment from the strategy, tactics, or technology, you'll be fine with the design choices the developers made.  If you're ideologically motivated or on the spectrum and filled with anxiety about the inexacting background detail in the historical simulation, then the game is not for you.  There is also a sub-genre of trainspotters who gain their pleasure from finding and sharing the inaccuracies in mass-market entertainments.

The designers and producers had to make choices.  Additional detail means higher cost.  Additional restrictions on participation means fewer paying consumers.  Games are not a charity focused exclusively on your own pleasure, they're a business and like most entertainments businesses, factual accuracy takes a back seat to increased revenue every time.  Really, the lack of Historical Purity you're railing against is not the result of the 'diversity' you disdain, it's the result of lower development costs and broader market acceptance resulting in ongoing business investment -- free market economics, if you will.

Sure, I can understand that. But why then not call it what it is? A fantasy world? Why call it WW2? Or not call it "WW2 in an alternate history"? Or just make it abundant clear without calling it out like wolfenstein does? Nobody takes Wolfenstein as factual history... because its just so comical ridicolous, in a good way.

Oh, and just to address this: people wanting history being told as it was back in the day has NOTHING to do with people embracing the ideologies or politics of that day. What it HAS to do with is that everything in history can teach us something. If you strip stuff out of history you strip out part of what people can learn from history.

So because something wrong has been done in the 40's, lets no longer talk about and forget it? And yes, I understand when people grow tired of it and no longer want to hear about it. That is why fantasy worlds have been created. To get relief from the real world, which was and always will be a mixed bag of awesome and aweful.

Altering history as told is a dangerous thing. Its what happened in nazi germany, its what happened in soviet russia, and to be honest it happens EVERYWHERE all the time, to some degree. Its not always ill willed or even voluntary... and yes, you could say I blow this out of proportions, this is just entertainment... but in a day and age where some kids are CONSTANTLY being blasted by media, while most probably never looking at an actual history book unless forced to, every small inaccuray is becoming dangerous.

That is my opinion at least. Feel free to call me alarmist or anything.

I never said I disdain diversity. I question if the implementation of diversity currently being used is the best way to achieve more diversity in games. And I am pretty much aware that the fault lies not with the call for diversity itself, or the people doing the implementation most of the time. Still, BECAUSE the devs are already at their limits with budget, resources and all the demands thrown at them, diversity becomes yet another demand that might be one too much.... just as not overstepping about 100 other red lines for SOME people (who might not even be the customers of the game), as actually finishing and shipping the game within the scarce resources the dev gets for all of this.

I actually disagree, games like this get kids thinking about WWII, and they are more likely to pick up a book on a shelf or ask their history teacher questions and want to learn about it once they have *some* exposure to it.   World of Warships got me to read The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.  And there is a game that teaches nothing of the history, which, frankly neither does CoD multiplayer, or World of Tanks.  They can all claim to be 'historical' or 'realistic' though.    I want to stress this though, there is no history being told in CoD multiplayer.  This is sort of like complaining about the horrible paint jobs allowed in War Thunder Ground Forces -- except here now that it's adding something worthwhile, diversity, the complaints against it have extra connotations that I don't think historical purists notice.

8 hours ago, Gian-Reto said:

Wow, okay, lets also stop the "privilege" thing here. Again, has nothing to do with the discussion really. Why? Because we are not talking about if diversity is good or bad, if the whole PC movement is good or bad, or if games should be influenced by leftwing ideologies more and more or not. I have my opinion, I am sure you have yours, but the dicussion here is if the push for diversity we currently see is having bad consequences, or if there might be better implementations to this call for diversity.

Unless anyones "privilege" has anything to do with the discussion, lets also stop this. Its bait for the other side, if you ask me. Maybe you can explain as to why you think it matters to the discussion, but unless you can, lets keep that part out of it.

Because you brought up the often repeated strawman of "Will non-white games need to add white people?" tangent.  The two things are not equivalent, if you want to drop that line of reasoning, that's fine.

On 30.6.2017 at 7:06 PM, ferrous said:

I actually disagree, games like this get kids thinking about WWII, and they are more likely to pick up a book on a shelf or ask their history teacher questions and want to learn about it once they have *some* exposure to it.   World of Warships got me to read The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.  And there is a game that teaches nothing of the history, which, frankly neither does CoD multiplayer, or World of Tanks.  They can all claim to be 'historical' or 'realistic' though.    I want to stress this though, there is no history being told in CoD multiplayer.  This is sort of like complaining about the horrible paint jobs allowed in War Thunder Ground Forces -- except here now that it's adding something worthwhile, diversity, the complaints against it have extra connotations that I don't think historical purists notice.

 

Well, if that would be the result in most cases, I would be very happy. I would LOVE to see more young ones eager to read up on history and not just limit it to the heavely moderated history lessons they get in school (which many of them most probably will sleep through).

My personal expierience when I was a teenager in school was different. I was on of a very tiny set of students interested enough to pick up the history book WITHOUT being forced to by the teacher. I had read the whole book in classes by the time the class maybe finished one chapter. I am certain I was not the only history fan in the class. The only one looking forward to the history lessons (because I could read the history book without anyone complaining about it ).

The vast majority of the class on the other hand... they loathed it. So this is school, and sure enough, a game might give a teenager more incentive to actually open a book for once. I am still sceptical if that is the reaction with most of them. Sure enough, many will not even NOT open a history book, but also completly ignore any kind of historical context delivered by the game. I fear in the middle there is a small group which might pick up the historical context, and not question it enough... that might not be bad in all cases. It just makes me uneasy when I hear history being distorted in any kind of media and people not questioning it. Its one of the reason the emergence of fake news channels on the internet and even in traditional media worries me quite a bit.

Look, I am aware that in this occasion, history buffs might actually end up voicing the same complaint as some more shady people do. To me, that is NOT a reason to not voice the complaint... if anything, that is just more of a reason to not only complain, but also talk about how you imagine the game could improve on it. Because this is were I would expect a racist to have a very different solution to the same "problem" (paraphrases because its not a problem to everyone). I don't want to have diversity removed. Because, besides other things, that would also be bad for historical accuray. It was called "World War" for a reason, and not "European war" or whatever.

All I am saying is that I think there are better ways to get a historical accurate game with a diverse set of genders and ethnicities represented. And sure enough, my interest is historical accuray first and foremost. I am happy to compromise on it for the sake of other valid interests, like diversity in games. But a compromise should be a compromise. And I feel the current one is not a good one from where I stand as a fan of historical accurate content.

Again, in the instance of the CoD multiplayer, I do not argue that this is the most important thing to cater for. I am just saying from where I stand, it could have been done better without compromising on diversity too much.

On 30.6.2017 at 7:06 PM, ferrous said:

Because you brought up the often repeated strawman of "Will non-white games need to add white people?" tangent.  The two things are not equivalent, if you want to drop that line of reasoning, that's fine.

Lets just agree to disagree on this one. I am a hardcore believer in equal rights. I have my opinion on it, you seem to have yours. I see where this opinion is coming from, and I respect that, even if I cannot agree with you on this.

Well, I am sorry I didn't knew that this is a strawman for rightwing people (assuming that is what you mean)... I am usually not partaking in this left vs. right flamewars, so I am not aware of all the different strawman tactics of both sides. All I am doing is voicing my own opinion. As usual, feel free to disagree with my opinion. But don't start assuming where that opinion is coming from without looking at ALL I have been saying in this thread.

But this is getting way offtopic of this threads topic if you ask me. And yes, I might have started that tangent. Something to discuss in another topic, if anyone wishes to have this discussion.

I was on my heels about CoD:WW2 because I there were no swastikas, and I'm highly against trying to forget the consequences and reasoning behind WW2, and swastikas and the idea of uniting under any symbol shouldn't be preserved well.

Otherwise I'm fine with having some historical inaccuracies in the Multiplayer.

Re Gian:  It's alright, it's been a lively discussion, and for the most part our interests align.  I think we both want the same thing -- more diversity, I think we're just quibbling over details.  

Re KostadinPetkov:  I have a feeling that might be due to wanting to be sold internationally?  Germany bans the swastika, so if they wanted to sell the game there, they'd have to go in and remove it from everything.  So why do everything twice, just don't put it in the first place =\  Come to think of it, I don't think Wolfenstein has it either.  I don't know how I feel about it, it's a little weird to see it removed from the historical bits, but i'm fine to see it gone from multiplayer.

20 hours ago, KostadinPetkov said:

I was on my heels about CoD:WW2 because I there were no swastikas, and I'm highly against trying to forget the consequences and reasoning behind WW2, and swastikas and the idea of uniting under any symbol shouldn't be preserved well.

Otherwise I'm fine with having some historical inaccuracies in the Multiplayer.

@ferrous is spot on on this. Swastikas are banned in germany. As much as this can lead to ridicolous results (like the lego recreation of the Bismark having had to have the swastikas hidden with paper when shown in germany), that has become a staple of german laws and is pretty well known internationally by now.

Neighbouring countries have laws in place that go into the same direction. Swastikas AFAIK are not directly outlawed in Switzerland, but "racist symbols" are, and if somebody takes you to court over it the court will most probably not rule in your favour if you use swastikas in public.

I think the US actually is rather an exception than the rule in the western world in allowing swastikas to be shown in public.

Personally... meh. I am no fan of altering history (as I think I have stated often enough by now), but if changing logos and flags are the only alterations done to prevent getting into legal hot waters, I can live with that. We all know what a white circle with a red border, filled with any kind of black symbol stands for. Personally I would like to see the same treatment for ALL the countries flags, something some chinese games nowadays do. Which sounds like the perfect solution to the problem. After all, if we see an M4 Sherman duking it out with a Pz4, with a star symbol on the sherman and a cross symbol on the Pz4, we kinda grasp the meaning of it.

As long as the history is not altered in a game claiming to be more or less historically accurate, I can live with that one compromise. I think you can achieve that with altered symbols, as long as people still get who is who.

Is it somewhat ridicolous? Yeah... but really, IMO at least this is not such a big deal.

Disclaimer: I'm super white so the things I say are through the lens of my whiteness. I may have some things misconstrued and the things I say, while not intending to be, may be considered racist as I am a part of a society that teaches us from birth that white people are both the default and better than others. Apologies in advance!

---

Personally, I think that of course it could lead to, "unwanted," results. We can't divine outcomes of things as humans (or, at least with 100% accuracy), but in terms of the consequences your talking about (I'm assuming the dissemination of false/inaccurate information), I don't think that the push for diversity would lead to those results. I mean, non-white, non-straight, non-male, and non-cis people weren't invented in a certain time period!

Diversity for diversity's sake is a noble thing, but at the same time, if one is making a historical piece, inserting diversity should be thought out, researched, and appropriate. As an example, say your historical story is set in the early America. It would be disingenuous to include characters that were people of color, specifically black people, in roles of high social standing. In most cases it was literally against the law for that to happen. Still, that doesn't mean your cast can't be diverse. It also doesn't have to be stereotypical representation! Just because a character in this era is black doesn't mean you have to make them a slave for, "historical accuracy."

I think one of the goals in pushing for diverse representation in media is to promote historical accuracy, not to gloss over the parts of history that aren't shining examples of inclusivity (read: most of history). If we want to produce media that is historically accurate, it should be accurate (or at least plausible) from all angles: not just what was on the curriculum for AP American History. As you mentioned, there are thousands of amazing, untold stories that have people at the center of it that belong to populations that are underrepresented in media. Make a game about those stories. Just because your game is set during WWII doesn't mean it has to be about the Americans fighting the Germans. It doesn't mean the player character has to be a straight white guy. It doesn't mean that the cast has to be predominantly white with a few tokens for, "diversity," that get killed off later.

When it comes to fantasy settings, a Utopian setting also isn't the ideal when it comes to making a diverse cast. Yes, it would be nice if everyone in the world wasn't racist and everyone got along, but fantasy as a genre has the potential to address ills we have in our world. The ideal, in my opinion, would be to have a cast that is diverse by the standard of Earth in a fantasy setting and have the story address a problem we have/had in our world with that cast. It's one thing to have a group of main and side characters standing up against the oppression of the elves as a diverse unit (by our standards) and another for a group to do the same thing, but have everyone be white (or worse, everyone but the, "exotic races," be white). The former is an fantasy allegory that tells about uniting against racial oppression. The latter is the White Savior Complex in a fantasy world (people of color/elves need white people/humans in order to not be oppressed).

At this point, I'm starting to ramble, so I'm cutting myself off here, but to summarize, the push for diversity in games should have the outcome of informing people about things minority populations do/have done rather than spreading misinformation. Really, the misinformation that is being spread currently is that only straight white guys ever do anything, which I think is a little worse than spreading the misinformation of a lesbian did something someone else did during the pre-colonial era or something.