The next DRAGON AGE™: Behind the scenes at BioWare

Nobody said the wider world should be 'asleep' or that there's a global equilibrium. I'm sure they have smaller-scale drama and wars and magical disasters of their own. But there's a difference between that and reality-warping and world-ending threats emerging regularly all over the place. If that's the case then that world is simply already dead, and doesn't know it yet. Making it rather pointless to make a big deal of defending. I'm already having a hard time seeing why Thedas shouldn't just roll over and accept the inevitable given their apparent odds of making it another few hundred years.

A world where Thedas isn't the center of conflict and dysfunction, justifying it being the setting of the games as opposed to anywhere else, is a world that doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of making it.

And I'm sure nobody disagrees with you about any of those things. I would just much, much rather that non-European Fantasy emerge as its own thing, written by people who specifically want to do that and make something awesome and unique of it, rather than as half-assed Dragon Age DLC produced in the name of multiculturalism. Which seems to me to be the most likely outcome of wishing that Dragon Age would go to fantasy Persia.

1) Kind of completely missing the point. And I'm assuming you meant Slavic folklore and myths. Scandinavian lore is barely featured in the setting at all.

2) Figure it out from the context, like everybody else. I know you can do it. 

3) No. This assumption doesn't even make sense. Not only are not all Europeans white, neither is the European fantasy being referred to. I'm curious why you felt the need to ask that question, except to race-bait.

I asked the question because the concept of "The West", is, historically, fluid and self-contradictory. If you don't intend "Western" to be read as "European/white", then your argument about departing from cultural roots is just gibberish, because no single development studio, not even CD Projekt Red, has "cultural roots" in just one culture, assuming they have any at all.

Does "the general statistical tendencies of cultural and historical backgrounds and knowledge and interests belonging to a particular writing staff" sound clearer to you? Because that's what you're supposed to infer when people talk about the cultural backgrounds of groups of writers. Next time just do that. 

And something being fluid and something being self-contradictory isn't the same thing. I get that you have problems with concepts that can mean more than one specific thing depending on the context and nuance of the conversation. A lot of people do. I can be a bit obsessive about clear and specific wording too. But please stop using that deficiency as an excuse to accuse everyone and their mother of being racists or sexists or whatever else you fancy.

And please, please stop conflating the implementation of elements from any given culture or part of the world with attempts to actually portray fantastic versions of past societies and cultures. One require ridiculously more thought and research and time to do tastefully than the other, which is why they're two different conversations.

1) It certainly makes it clear that what you mean is "white", or, since you want to be a pedant about it, "majority white".

2) And you'll notice I said fluid AND self-contradictory. Two separate qualities. Like how an object can be rough AND heavy.

3) I'm not "conflating" anything. All I have said is that Witcher 3 takes elements from multiple mythic traditions, and the world of Witcher 3, *canonically*, does not consist only of Not-Poland, even though Not-Poland is most of what is shown. It departs, albeit only slightly, from its alleged "cultural roots", just like the book series it is based on.

4) Which is, to be clear, a good thing. Anyone who aspires to tell stories should go out of their way to absorb the myths and past and contemporary popular fiction of as many different cultures as possible.

Woop woop! Watch out for Captain Noxluxe of the public forum police.

I didn't butt into your conversation. I made an independent observation. I don't actually want to be involved in conversation with you, hence why I don't quote you when I do happen to have opinions on things you happen to be talking about.

New to you, maybe. Writers should read often and widely. That's rule number one.

Also, I'm not talking in the context of retelling classic stories or blah blah blah, I'm talking about creating original fiction like The Witcher and Dragon Age. People should read widely to gain a broader pool from which to draw inspiration for their own work.

You really do need to start thinking about how ironic some of your statements are, Captain Panda. 

Of course. If I go up to a group of people having a discussion, stand right next to them and start loudly commenting on the topic, that's just me "making independent observations". As long as I don't make eye-contact I'm not butting in. Gotcha. And if you don't want to be involved in a conversation with me then the answer is very simple: stop commenting on discussions I'm a part of, and specifically not my comments. It's not exactly rocket science. From what you're saying it just sounds like you want to bitch about others' opinions, but don't feel like anybody should be entitled to call you out or ask you to back it up, which is a pretty pathetic approach to discourse.

And "often and widely" isn't the same as "from every source possible". Not everybody's interests are universal or shallow enough for that kind of dabbling to make sense. And again I would add "-and think carefully about how and whether to integrate elements to serve the overall work." to that idea of what people "should" do if they intend to mix cultural elements together. And just in general.

Ah yes, The Witcher, which derives its setting and characters entirely from Scandinavian folklore and myths.

Except for the genies.

And the harpies.

And the sirens.

And the succubus.

And the country of Zerrikania, which, despite never being shown in the games, is clearly taking influence from Africa and the Middle East.

where's the Anthem pic from?