Man, that other thread was really out of hand. Thought about saying something, but wasn't going near that chaos.
From the other thread:
I might as well clarify a few things about Dave's canon appearance. Dave is designed to essentially be the simplest he can possibly be while still being detailed enough to be playable. (This is mostly relevant to the suit and helmet.) He has a few details showing off the use of emissive maps to let people know they're there and see how they work. He's grey so he can look neutral and reasonably appropriate on any color of ship. The only exception of this is the lights on his suit, skin/hair color and helmet's glass. While mostly the glass is blue/teal because people associate that color with glass (among some other simple reasons), it is also that way because it is in the general range of contrasting colors to Dave's skintone. (orange-blue)
Dave's simplicity is to encourage players to make their own skins, where they can look any way they want. At the same time, Dave is meant to be interesting enough that not making a skin isn't a "penalty"; you still look decent, albeit generic and bland.
If it is necessary to discuss it, the first thing to consider when discussing skins and races is "Why is any skintone/race depicted in StarMade?" The answer to this is because... well, what else are you going to do if you want to provide a resource for a face? The character has to be some race to be seen as human and normal. We, as humans, make many assumptions when we view things, and giving the skin and hair actual tone creates a specific perspective that implies characters in the game A. are human and B. do tend to have their heads exposed when not wearing a helmet. Can't make the actual "skin" color grey because that would appear very lifeless in comparison. So in other words, it has to be something.
Now, in regards to the racial appearance of Dave, there is a simple answer to this. "Dave" is based off of a Caucasian male character of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is official. (Also, consider checking the StarMade wiki:
http://starmadepedia.net/wiki/Dave) The Default texture AI block also bears a somewhat uncomfortable resemblance to HAL. References to 2001: A Space Odyssey have started to be somewhat of a running gag.
However, the Dave in 2001: A Space Odyssey has bluish eyes, while StarMade's Dave has brown eyes. This IS intentional to make him more generic and better represent the majority of humanity. (In many places, you aren't going to see anything
but brown eyes.) So the creation of Dave WAS actually done with consideration of representing humanity in a relatively neutral way, representing more people.
He's Dave. He's an avatar of humanity in space, but we can hope we've long since left the binds of racism behind us and won't judge a character just for being Caucasian. Same with sexism; we can hope we've long since left the binds of sexism behind us and won't judge a character just for being male. While there is nothing wrong with racial identity, what matters first and foremost is that you are
human. Dave is human, and THAT is the identity he should be seen by, not by skin color or gender. (And if racial identity IS highly important to you, the game is designed in such a way that makes customizing your appearance to represent things important to you possible and encouraged.
)
As the number of NPCs increases, especially with things like AI factions, more skin variation will be inevitable. At some point, if possible (meaning this isn't an official statement of specific future features, just my personal opinion), I'd like there to be a way for you to create a skin piecemeal in an available editor, making everyone able to adjust things however they want. If such a system is there, you can be absolutely certain a variety of racial identities will be represented, to allow people to better connect with their character and to celebrate the differences that make people unique. In regards to NPCs, it offers much needed visual variation.
I'm surprised skintone and racial identity is such a concern, however, when that can be changed already and females are underrepresented. Same as above - I don't feel gender should have more attention than our shared humanity - but skin color is only skin deep (or so they say) and there tend to be noticeable changes in body shape when it comes to gender/biological sex. While I don't consider the Dave model to be unable to represent females, I do believe a model that has a more feminine shape would recognize and celebrate our differences in gender/sex. If player appearance customization is given more attention, I would expect a female model to be of higher priority than providing a selection of racial appearances. You can already change your racial appearance, but a female model would offer new things that cannot currently be done. (Not to mention the difference between males and females can be observed anywhere on the globe, making that
contrast more universal.)
If giving a selection of racial appearances built into the game's interface, I'd like to give you even more than that when doing so. (Different hair? Separate hair color adjustment? Suit color? Different suit designs? That's just the beginning.) There's a lot more to a person than the color of their skin. Custom skins give you the opportunity to adjust your appearance in far more detail than skin color alone, and since those are already present, StarMade providing an automated means of selecting racial identity is lower priority than it otherwise would be. People are more than welcome to make their own skins for different skin colors/racial identities and share them, however.
We would highly support people using the features present in the game to represent a wider range of racial identities.
Currently, I think it is more important that development is focused on gameplay and improving the game as a whole, for everyone to benefit. I don't judge people based on their skin color, and to be honest, I think diverting development toward something related to skin color at this point would be a little bit strange. (Since there's nothing preventing you from changing your skin color right now, so focusing development on this would imply difference in skin color is very important to display and implement, higher priority than improving gameplay.)
As a side note, I consider myself a feminist and general human-rights activist of all kinds. We are all human. We shouldn't forget the differences between us, but we don't need to put strong focus on them either. Let us pay more attention to the things we all share than to the things that separate us, though not try to prevent or ignore the things that make us unique, nor judge people based on the things that make them unique.
tl;dr: Yeah, I agree that more options for race and gender should be there when possible, but we're more focused on gameplay right now. If you want to change your racial appearance, make a custom skin! It's a little harder to look female with the shape of the current model, but not impossible. We'll try to improve these things eventually.
PS: For those who had been arguing in the other thread, polite discussion is how you get developers to comment and listen to you, not attacking each other. Also, don't feed trolls.
