So... Concerns about Assassin's Creed 3.

[James Joseph Emerald]

Not averse to values dissonance, just to cartoonish villainy. I'm not going to argue that every place the Brits landed was all sunshine and happiness, but to portray them as randomly massacring people for no reason and kicking puppies while on the way to do it is just as ridiculous. Yes, they killed people. They didn't do it just to be dicks, though.

I'm not advocating cartoonish villainy. I'm just saying, I would be very disappointed if they side-stepped the massive issue of how unbelievably brutal many of the British/American colonists actually were and all the many atrocities that were committed during that time period.

You could make a game set in Germany during WW2, where some Nazi characters are portrayed as misguided or sympathetic, but you wouldn't completely avoid the horrors that Nazis committed just because it's "cliché" these days. And this is especially true for the American Revolution period, which is rather unexplored. I honestly couldn't name a single game that takes place during the period, let alone one that explores the morality of colonialism.

I just don't understand how anyone would hope that these sort of themes aren't explored simply because it's been done already in Avatar...

 

[alrekr]

I'm actually more worried that it's going to be a different cliche; that of the saintly natives vs the evil whitey (Similar to Avatar). This trope is, I think, more common than the first, and quite frankly, it drags down pretty much any work I've ever seen it in (Again, such as Avatar).

So... you're averse to period accuracy?

I mean, the only real difference between the Nazis and the British Colonial Empire is that the Brits wrote the history books. The horrors they inflicted on entire nations and races of people have had a drastic effect that has lasted to this day.

Imagine someone starting a thread saying that they're worried some WW2 game set in Germany will fall into the "cliché" of portraying Nazis as evil, and the whole Jew-killing thing is boring and they shouldn't dwell on it.

Do you know one of the reason's behind the Indians siding with the British? The American Revolutionaries were far more notrious for their attacks against them and would go onto be the people who more or less wiped out the Indians as force.

Further more the fact that the tribe the new protagonist is from was one of the big supporters of the British; which again makes little sense for any agression to be present in the game between the two groups.

That's just semantics. During that period Americans and British would've been virtually indistinguishable from a native's perspective. They were all invaders who took whatever they could and spread new diseases the native Americans had no immunity against. The fact that there was in-fighting between the colonists, and some native tribes took sides to play the advantage, is irrelevant. They never supported any foreign invaders, and to suggest so is just bizarre. Why would anyone?

From the colonist's perspective, all "Indians" were savages with primitive brains who had little to no capacity to comprehend what was going on around them. At best they were pitied, at worst exterminated like rats. This attitude is extremely well-documented, and any attempts to paint the relationship between Europeans and Native Americans as anything other than an invasion is "politically correct" revisionist bullshit.

This sort of cultural bias is what really annoys me, especially as it gets worse and worse.
In ten years, I bet people will believe the natives happily gave up their land to the white man and lived in peace until suddenly a comet came along and destroyed most of their population. And later Hitler decided to invade America and World War 2 happened but the USA single-handedly defeated him and they didn't blow up any cities full of civilians or anything.

Semantics? Now that's a bullshit way of trying over-rule my point. It was you who wanted portray the British as the sole cause of attacks on the Natives. So don't then use the defense that all the whites seemed the same to the Natives. Don't refer to my point as "politcally correct" revisionist bullshit.

Firstly as making white people seem more positive is neveron the politcal agenda its usually white people being overly sensitive towards other groups inorder to compensate for past discrimination. Secondly the point made in my post that the British (during the years AC3 is set) supported the Natives and their land claims is anything other than revisionist it is generally accepted by most Historians along with the fact that Europeans acted as aggressors as well.

Also you make the mistake of assuming the Natives were a united group of people. A correct assumption would be that the various native tribes did not agree with foreign invaders seizing their land...other tribes wasn't such a problem for them though. Similar thing was present in Africa; various Warlords would capture enemies and sell them to Europenas as slaves when they realised that Europeans were interested in such things.

Again you're the one making sweeping statement comparing the British to the Nazi regime is rathe far fetched. Now saying all the colonists as a group not quite so far from the mark but still rather distant. Main point is intention. Nazis wanted to eliminate a whole race whereas the Europeans were more focused on profit and land. Many even thought they were doing the Natives a favour by brining Wester European style society to them (view very common among the British).

Oh and top tip next time beside not being such a massive ill-informed tool. Don't talk about WW2 all the time get some other example; you've already used it at least twice.

 

[Yopaz]

Well I'm not concerned about the cliché though that is a problem. However keeping it historically accurate. Yeah I don't know the details of this since anything of this is relevant in history lessons for anyone from Europe. However in order to keep from changing history you are on the losing side here. The natives wont win and they will be beaten, massacred and end up as victims of alcoholism. There's no pleasant way to see this end. Even if this is a secret war with the goal of defeating the templars can't really win that either.