First of all, important updates:
-I’ve been shitty about replying to bug reports and stuff lately because I had some personal stuff to deal with over the last few days. Sorry about that, I’m back as of today, though I might not get around to checked the various fora until this afternoon.
-How did everyone enjoy the Halloween pinups? MagicWhiteLady wanted to make a big splash when she started being social, and worked really hard on those.
-The reason why there was a sudden update with the image archives and all was because there was a game-breaking bug in the game that I wanted to fix because it was almost impossible to avoid unless you knew what you were doing. I agonized over it for a few days before deciding the just say “fuck it” and drop the new update even though it had stuff I wanted to save for November. And, of course, it still has bugs, because fml.
-Tomorrow, I’m going to be participating in N7 Day from 12-5pm GMT. All that time I’ll be playing ME3 multiplayer on my Xbox, doing silver & gold matches and hanging out so if you’re interested in hooking up for a group send me an email at the usual place.
Now for something completely different….
Some of you have noticed and commented on the lack of nonwhite characters in Harem Collector. And, well, you’re absolutely right to, racism is a problem and it can be pretty insidious. It was never my intention to have HC contain exclusively white characters, though, and MagicWhiteLady is working on some new sprites so other skin colours will get represented in game.
The lack of nonwhite characters in video games really saddens and frustrates me, to be honest. Not because I don’t feel like I’m represented, I am white, but I don’t find that heroes or protagonists with different skin tones bug me. In fact, GTA: San Andreas is one of my favourite games of all time regardless of the hero’s skin colour- I’m a sucker for literary remakes and the Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favourite books.
The frustrating part actually comes from my background as a business student. I wouldn’t call myself a capitalist, but I do believe that the market should be and can be fair and equal with respect to ethnicity, sexual preference, skin colour, etc. However, when the population of nonwhites in North America is on such a sharp rise, and the number of North Americans who play video games only increases every year, you would expect there would be a corresponding rise in nonwhite protagonists. After all, people as a whole prefer game protagonists who look like themselves, which is why customizable protagonists are so popular.
I know games have something of a biased outlook because Japanese produced games make up such a large part of the market, and few Japanese companies seem to create content with the non-Japanese in mind. But believe me when I say Japan has it’s own closet skeletons that rarely get addressed.
Lecture aside, there will black people in HC soon, and other skin tones will also be represented in time.
>”However, when the number of black and latino video game consumers heavily outnumber the white gamers”
since when?
>Holloween pinups
They were really nice
>gamebreaking bug
There is another one in the update you released to solve that other gamebreaking bug. I started a brand new game for p3 and got stuck in an unavoidable gamebreaker bug. Hongfire has been down for 4 days though so I was only able to report it as a comment on the last post on this blog….
I will go ahead and put a copy of it on ULMF
>”However, when the number of black and latino video game consumers heavily outnumber the white gamers”
Source?
Also don’t change your game from what YOU want it to be. If diversity is your thing go for it, if not, I’m the one playing a free game on the internet. How much of a douche would I have to be to complain?
…I can’t get a source on that. Post corrected.
I have a feeling I heard it from James Portnow, but doing the statistical math doesn’t add up, so that was probably wrong.
Unfortunatly for the rest of the internet there many who are at the lvl of douche needed to complain about even the most mundane or unimportant thing. As one of the many people on the internet I thank you for not being a douche. I say something along these lines when I see rational people on the internet cause it is always good to see them.
Using the Oct p3 zip, I started a new game from scratch and had no problems until just now. After doing Yamamaya’s Love quest, Larelle disappears from my mansion/condo. She isn’t in the dungeon, library, quarters, or anywhere else. Therese had the same RP as her and was in the dungeon. Now Therese is in the condo’s servants’ quarters.
Also, I noticed some text issues.
Ino repeats a phrase at the end of her exam quest. The main character says something in broken English during Yamamaya’s Love quest (about wizards). A sentence is cut off partway at one point (I think something Serade says). And I remember a word going off screen to the right in Eastfort when talking to a soldier or something.
I enjoyed the game overall, and like how it isn’t grinding intensive. I’d rather have low level characters and few items + a traditional RPG feel, than a grindquest or walls of text.
Everything for social justice, of course. But what about black slaves? Wouldn’t that be more racist than having no black characters at all? What about stereotypes?
I just think it’s a no existing problem, every character should be the character he is, any ethnicity he belongs. I’m not offended anyways though I’m a black girl. I just love HC. That’s all i think 🙂
Hey, I’m just on real fast to reply because Nekochan pointed out your post to me, and I always appreciate hearing from the lady-fans of HC.
Obviously I can’t ignore the context of black slavery, but if it’s any help I will implement ethnic diversity across the board- there will be black slaves, peasants and slave owners, just as there are already white slave, peasants, and slave owners.
I guess what I mean to say is I’m more interested in having diverse characters across the board than providing a specific answer to black slavery. Having only black slaves would absolutely be more racist, but that’s not my intention.
With regard to stereotypes, I am going to avoid them except where I can defy expectations for humour (as always). Besides, HC is a fantasy game- a “racist” joke is more likely to be about orcs, dwarves and elves than about whites, blacks, and browns.
“I wouldn’t call myself a capitalist, but I do believe that the market should be and can be fair and equal with respect to ethnicity, sexual preference, skin colour, etc.”
You should be proud to call yourself a capitalist, don’t ever be ashamed by that. However, the market is has nothing to do with “fair”. It has no moral basis or bias. The market is about efficiency of usage of resources. From that efficiency comes a greatly improved chance for better quality of life for each and every person involved (compared to any other system of allocating resources we know of).
This makes it “good” and “fair” according to most people’s views. However, such qualifications are subjective and thus cannot be innate to the market as such.
Damn! I hit publish and my four paragraph long (at least 1000 words in text) comment just dissapeared! I was using an OpenID profile and control-Z/undo does nothing. Anyone else had this problem? I spent half an hour writing what would be a very nicely written post. Is it a common glitch?
I am currently low on time, but to keep it in a nutshell. I am a White Hispanic (think Ricky Martin White Hispanic, not Pancho Villa White Hispanics that are currently half of California’s population), and would be very sad to see interracial relationships/sex on Harem Collector as I have strong opinions about it, but would rather not state why for fear of being flamed, stalked, or otherwise harassed by people who promote “tolerance” and seek to reduce bias, but at the same time turn around and say that anyone who disagrees is evil and should be prosecuted. I would like to see this as optional (like what it was done in GTA; SA) as Harem Collector is one of my favourite games and having interracial sex is a turn-off/bone-killer, it also distracts me from the game as a player. If it would not be too hard, I would like to request either an optional approach to interracial sex San Andreas style (or whatever is more fitting), or non-cannon White alt-sprites (I could also make them myself if necessary). This has nothing to do with religion as I am atheist.
While I’m just a sprite-ist, I’ll throw my opinion into the ring. Sadly Jamos, I doubt that something like this will be implemented.
Yeah, that’s not going to happen- a “white people only” mode is ethically questionable.
And, btw, your post couldn’t send out more “I’m actually really racist” vibes if a team of experts worked together to produce a perfectly crafted paragraph just to get that effect across. I’m sorry if interracial sex kills your boner, but from the way you come across I think I’ll just shrug and say acceptable losses.
I understand your decision, but to prevent any perceived misunderstandings, I was not asking for a “White people only” mode, but rather something that warned (or prevented) viewers of interracial sex possibilities happening. I am perfectly fine if the Captain of the Guard as well as the King, Queen, and whoever else you might want to change to be Black, Asian, American Indian, or Latin American according to the current classifications of those ethnic groups.
Funny you should say that, I carefully picked what words I would use to try to reduce or eliminate any racist vibe in both this and the post that dissipated as well as give details about my ancestry and appearance. Moreover, I never said I was not racist which strikes me as odd, but nonetheless I am not. I have Black (actually mulatto, but African American mulattoes mainly classify and identify as Black) friends and many of my extended family married mestizos & castizos, mainly unavoidable if you happen to be from Puerto Rico as well as friends with a Dominican family (somewhere between 1/4th or 1/8th Black except the youngest son whose father was from somewhere in Central America and unmistakeably Black) whom were neighbours with me in my teenage years. Myself? I am commonly mistaken as Italian, have medium brown eyes bordering on amber, black hair, red lips, and sun-sensitive skin whose maximum tanning ability is a shade of white which one would barely call a tan.
Why do I object to your interracial sex but not to that of my blood and flesh? Simply because they are not really my family, my maternal grandmother only has half-siblings for the most part and the only truly related sibling borders on the line defining the mentally challenged. I could care less for my father’s side of the family. Besides all of this, my family do not think of themselves as White to begin with, they all think of themselves as just Hispanic, giving the term the racial value that destroyed the true meaning of the word, and how can I object to that when they themselves classify as non-White (as in the race not the skin colour)? I have researched all the census records and traced a few ancestors off the island; plus, they mainly owned the land they grew coffee on and it relates to the history of the are in NW Puerto Rio that I come from. Although I have to admit, none (of the Whites) in my family look like typical Hispanics and none would know if they passed them on the street without them talking.
As I said before, I understand your judgement on my request, but would like to ask if you would grant me the privilege of being able to remake interracial sex scenes & the characters involved for re-distribution. Of course, I will give credit where credit is due and explicitly state that this is not my game as well as give you a preview no more than 20mb in size (done by removing sound & porn pictures not made by me as the audio and pictures folders account for over 95 percent of the game data) and a change-log (as well as hack) to quickly show the changes made. I am asking this because there is no license distributed with the game.
Now, do not think that I am just trying to kissing ass, I also have friends that belong to far-right groups and support Golden Dawn as they fight for what they think is right as well as the slander and labels imposed upon them by those who disagree. At the same time, I go into a crazed yellow fever several times a year which I am quite ashamed of. I would also like to thank you again for the mods and resources you have provided me by pestering Gurotaku. Alas, I could not find the suitable mods I was looking for for the futa thing (to humour and appease another game developer that is into horse-pricked girls).
Again, I’ll provide a small tidbit form my PoV
I don’t’ think a re-distribution will fly. You could do as you will since the game is free content but I doubt it will receive support of any kind from Noah or his team as it conflicts with his ethics and beliefs, and your mods would misrepresent his work.
Plus, Noah might be trying to work out some legal-ize for licensing and distribution.
Apologies.
Regardless of your reasoning, background, and any purported friends or relatives you have, I will continue to put relationships of whatever nature I want in Harem Collector. I will not condone any “white washed” or “recoloured” modifications to Harem Collector.
Unfortunately, I cannot decisively prevent you from making and distributing such a mod without violating my own policies concerning free distribution and open source. However, please bear in mind that I will not promote or participate in the distribution of any mods that change the game based on any sort of intolerance or discrimination, regardless of if you’re removing black characters, gay characters, or whatever else.
If it troubles you that much, just ignore the relevant character(s) after recruiting them. But regardless of what you choose to do, this is the end of this discussion.
MagicWhiteLady, unfortunately I could not read your comment before Noah commented (or rather I did, but it was not the only reply I had received). I thank you for your work, even with more gratitude if they are made pixel by pixel; I have not mastered the art of shading (or any art itself), but your opinion is valued and I also would like to say that I appreciate your comment, because of the reason you are a sprite-ist. You do not have any responsibility of reading, much less replying to posts made on this blog and it shows that above all, you are a dedicated individual. To be honest, I can at best draw a dolphin that looks like the letter ‘e’ with a beak and thus, I am truly in no position to criticize your art. I did like them for the effort involved, but from the viewer’s view point, Therese’s right arm seems to be holding the tray with just the fingers (a thumb would greatly improve the image, I would imagine) and here left eye appears to be a bit droopy. Best image I would give to a toss up between Yamamaya and Alina.
Note: I meant my previous post to be a reply within my first post, I did not notice I was writing a new comment, hehe. Anyway, I had to cut the post into two, because it had too many characters.
Sadly I am not going pixel by pixel at the moment! I’m doing re-colours and brief pixel changes. I’m using colour layers, multiply layers and screen layers… but that’s mostly so I can do it for speed! I have a couple of projects that I am building more traditionally!
I just finished a newer character, I’m not sure when she’ll show up. then Yamamaya is getting tweaked to be caramel-brownish (like a tabby cat) and Penelope is getting a tan. So even tho she’s still probably Caucasian she’s a country girl who hangs out in the sun. You can see what I was going for in yamamaya’s skin tone here : http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wZZ1wyEPwNY/UnL2hnpHF4I/AAAAAAAAADk/AfL96L1Mjp4/s1600/YamaHalloweenResize.png
If you like art keep at it! It just takes practice practice and lots of being open to change and critique !!
I hope you’ll come to like the new look of some of the girls even if you’ve got some ethical grievances.
I’ll be around a lot more! I’ve been moving in the bg helping out Noah! So I hope to make a lot of friends =D