@Fardragon All in all, I think Trent stood his ground. He didn't give up to bullies, as you put it. He was wise enough to recognize that the Minsc line was kinda out of character and addressed the Mizhena issue with style. I just to tell @TrentOster that many in this community will continue to support Beamdog. You created good content in the past and SoD is better than good. It's great content.
Nevertheless, the bigots will be encouraged by what they see as a partial victory to keep pushing for more. This won't stop it, it will make it worse.
Whatever happens, future developers are going to be afraid to include transexual characters in thier games, while the bigots move on to the next hated minority they want exterminated from the media.
Umm, Bioware's already done a transexual character, and to a lot less controversy than SoD. Let's just see where the updated content goes, and if it solves the problem here.
If you are going to announce changes to the game, then you need to announce that they will be the *only* changes. This is important.
Calls for more have already started in this thread 20 minutes after you made your statement.
And the calls have a lot less anger to them, and have more of a "feedback" feel to them. And I think they should be treated as such. As long as they stick with being fans pointing out areas that could use improvement. And not "OMG THIS SUXXXX!!!!!"
There's nothing inherently wrong with calls for changes. It's the change being advocated that matters. Calling for all women being removed from the game would obviously be bad. Calling for, for example, better graphics would be good.
It is a bit amusing that some people consider cheering for: 1) Making a more in-depth transgender character. 2) Removing a bad joke.
To be bigoted. GGers were oversensitive to the minor joke, and honestly it made no difference that it was removed to me, except perhaps as a peace-offering by Beamdog.
But celebrating the evolution of TG character. That is a good thing. Everyone should be celebrating it.
It is a bit amusing that some people consider cheering for: 1) Making a more in-depth transgender character. 2) Removing a bad joke.
To be bigoted. GGers were oversensitive to the minor joke, and honestly it made no difference that it was removed to me, except perhaps as a peace-offering by Beamdog.
But celebrating the evolution of TG character. That is a good thing. Everyone should be celebrating it.
I have mixed feelings about it. As I've written elsewhere, the bar to include a given character shouldn't be any higher just because that character is a minority. Having a more developed transgender character is great, but I don't believe Beamdog did anything wrong in the first place by including an undeveloped transgender character -- the game (like any RPG) is full of undeveloped characters. To me, this change feels too much like acquiescence to the idea that diversity is only acceptable if it's "done the right way," and that's too bad.
I'm certainly not mad at Beamdog about it. They were put in a tough spot, and they're responding by improving the game. But in context, I still see reasons not to cheer about this development.
@Fardragon All in all, I think Trent stood his ground. He didn't give up to bullies, as you put it. He was wise enough to recognize that the Minsc line was kinda out of character and addressed the Mizhena issue with style. I just to tell @TrentOster that many in this community will continue to support Beamdog. You created good content in the past and SoD is better than good. It's great content.
Nevertheless, the bigots will be encouraged by what they see as a partial victory to keep pushing for more. This won't stop it, it will make it worse.
Whatever happens, future developers are going to be afraid to include transexual characters in thier games, while the bigots move on to the next hated minority they want exterminated from the media.
Umm, Bioware's already done a transexual character, and to a lot less controversy than SoD. Let's just see where the updated content goes, and if it solves the problem here.
If the quality improves, we all win.
Bioware, backed by EA, are a much bigger company, with far more resources to fend off an attack. A small company like Beamdog is a much easier target to bring down and make an example of.
@Fardragon All in all, I think Trent stood his ground. He didn't give up to bullies, as you put it. He was wise enough to recognize that the Minsc line was kinda out of character and addressed the Mizhena issue with style. I just to tell @TrentOster that many in this community will continue to support Beamdog. You created good content in the past and SoD is better than good. It's great content.
Nevertheless, the bigots will be encouraged by what they see as a partial victory to keep pushing for more. This won't stop it, it will make it worse.
Whatever happens, future developers are going to be afraid to include transexual characters in thier games, while the bigots move on to the next hated minority they want exterminated from the media.
Umm, Bioware's already done a transexual character, and to a lot less controversy than SoD. Let's just see where the updated content goes, and if it solves the problem here.
If the quality improves, we all win.
Bioware, backed by EA, are a much bigger company, with far more resources to fend off an attack. A small company like Beamdog is a much easier target to bring down and make an example of.
"Fend off an attack"?? roflmao I think you, somehow, have managed to get World War II and angry tweets confused. Angry tweets matter every bit as much as the entity reading them wishes. If you are leech with parasitic teeth deep in the juicy manure modern day Internet Outrage Culture generates, you can absolutely turn angry tweets into something huge. Heck, you can turn into an Internet celebrity by going around telling people about angry tweets you are getting. If you are a typical, adjusted grown up without some gigantic malign agenda, you can always just not care. There. Attack over.
100 angry user reviews on MetaCritic on the other hand are, ultimately, every bit as huge a deal as it appears when you take one step back and look at it from this new vantage point one meter away. 100 bad user reviews. In metacritic. Oh me ged.
"Fend off an attack"?? roflmao I think you, somehow, have managed to get World War II and angry tweets confused.
It's somewhere in the middle. Obviously, it's not a physical war claiming millions of lives, but neither is a campaign to crash the game's ratings on multiple sites just "angry tweets".
Metacritic reviews can matter friend. Obsidian famously missed out on a pay bonus for New Vegas after they fell one point short of the score they needed.
"Fend off an attack"?? roflmao I think you, somehow, have managed to get World War II and angry tweets confused.
It's somewhere in the middle. Obviously, it's not a physical war claiming millions of lives, but neither is a campaign to crash the game's ratings on multiple sites just "angry tweets".
I disagree with the notion of Beamdog currently being target of activity that is equally near to WW II as it is to angry tweets.
Tons of games generate protest/troll user-reviews for whatever reason. Bitter fans, people throwing gasoline on bush fire, people legitimately outraged about something or another..Or some, any, combination of all in the above. It is such a norm now that I can't see it as a big deal.
I think it is fair to say everybody who reads user reviews reads real reviews as well. Everybody who reads both of these in Internet has the media interpretation 101 down. As result, if real reviews are all green then Nobody ever trusts bad user reviews; They are no indicator of game's quality but rather, indication that there is/was some huge outrage or another going about the game.
Diablo 3, Call of Duty, Fall Out 4, Star Wars Battlefront..I could go on. All of these games have terrible user score in MetaCritic. Nobody mistakes it as some accurate indication of game's quality. Nobody cares that way.
It - does- sometimes have value as indicator of some outrage or another going down. Let's assume reviews from actual press are, say, 79 and yet, user score is 20. Nobody thinks: " Oh gosh! This game is 20 out of 100!" Everybody thinks" Oh gee. wonder what the outrage clusterhump was all about this time around.."
So potential buyer can spot bad user score, Google why it is there,in doing so find out game devs are huge self confessed SJWs or something and then, if the said consumer has huge issue with that, he or she can make a value decision and skip buying the game. Kinda twisted. However, as I'm typing this, I realize it ultimately works as intended; ie, reviews helping consumer decide.
@Fardragon All in all, I think Trent stood his ground. He didn't give up to bullies, as you put it. He was wise enough to recognize that the Minsc line was kinda out of character and addressed the Mizhena issue with style. I just to tell @TrentOster that many in this community will continue to support Beamdog. You created good content in the past and SoD is better than good. It's great content.
Nevertheless, the bigots will be encouraged by what they see as a partial victory to keep pushing for more. This won't stop it, it will make it worse.
Whatever happens, future developers are going to be afraid to include transexual characters in thier games, while the bigots move on to the next hated minority they want exterminated from the media.
Umm, Bioware's already done a transexual character, and to a lot less controversy than SoD. Let's just see where the updated content goes, and if it solves the problem here.
If the quality improves, we all win.
Bioware, backed by EA, are a much bigger company, with far more resources to fend off an attack. A small company like Beamdog is a much easier target to bring down and make an example of.
Bioware has weathered its share of controversies.
Heck Blizzard's dealing with one right now.
AAA studios are not by any means immune to this stuff
I do not celebrate brokenness do not cheer and smile when I see a person harming themselves spiritually emotionally or physically. Some people think there are Absolutes. Some people think that good and evil is set for all time and is not an objective measure set by 1 or any amount of men.
When you go into a fantasy game like Baldurs Gate with a goal to set all things as socailist and anti-two-major-religions with your ideal of what should be then you raise your weapon and start a crusade against the other side- who may be fat old guys in past 40 who still hold to their antiquated values and liked whiney Amoen cry girl cute cute stuff and boy toy Safina. Just because an Islam or traditional Jewish/Christian (not the post-Christian Church of England Church) feels some sex acts are always wrong does not mean they are bigots. It means they think differently from you. I am a really kind guy and have physically protected women and children from harm from that 1 in 100 nasty guy/persons with terrible slants and much more terrible attitudes then the most elite Flaming Fists.
Anyway there is a sublime socailist anti-police twerk in the intro city. And there is also a clear supa fem woman love woman character. She is a girlzz power snapping turtle speaker women that would be playing smiles with Hillary Clinton. Then you have a lame fleshed out transperson in there just to put one in there... The whole thing is soooo pandering it is almost too revolting for me to enjoy going into caves and killling spiders with their horrible squeaky screams in death. - well no I like it overall... I still think if they want to redo it they should get the boy-girl London social star Paris to do the voice of the transgirl - Ireally really thought Paris was a girl that is born a girl...
I would be mad if they had a savage tribes family bury their deformed babe in the game and I could not stop them too like the last isolated tribe in the Amazon still does. Why can my cool fighter guy have a cool whiney in a positive pandering way girlfriend and instead be stuck with a mouthy archer mom who is a grouser. Corwin is more irate then women on the view with Alex Jones.
Why could they not have Minsc say "MURDERING SCUM I AM GOING TO BRING YOU TO JUSTICE AHHH EVIL GLOBALIST I TASTE YOUR BLOOD AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
Then you could have Alex Jones versus Everyone who drinks tap water. That would be a much cooler debate but NOooo you have to bring out the nerdy 22 year old basement boys versus the 38 year old 6 income figure hipster Bernie and Clinton lovers. How boring....
AHHHHHH SCUM !!!! MURDERING AHHHH!!!! I think I will ask for a mod with Alex Jones as a Bezerker who yells at lefties in the game.... make sure you do not drink water, watch for chem trails, and make sure you have lots of food stored in ur basement.
Metacritic reviews can matter friend. Obsidian famously missed out on a pay bonus for New Vegas after they fell one point short of the score they needed.
MetaCritic reviews totally matter. All too much, actually. But for love of all that is holy, please don't confuse actual MetaCritic-approved reviews by media and - USER- reviews. You can be certain nobody in their right mind ( neither dev or publisher) would make any kind of a deal about the latter. Former have questionable measure of legitimacy. Latter are as relevant as these forums, or youtube commentary threads.
Metacritic reviews can matter friend. Obsidian famously missed out on a pay bonus for New Vegas after they fell one point short of the score they needed.
MetaCritic reviews totally matter. All too much, actually. But for love of all that is holy, please don't confuse actual MetaCritic-approved reviews by media and - USER- reviews. You can be certain nobody in their right mind ( neither dev or publisher) would make any kind of a deal about the latter. Former have questionable measure of legitimacy. Latter are as relevant as these forums, or youtube commentary threads.
If anything, it's "critic" reviews that don't matter anymore. I've seen many garbage games get rated very highly by critics, and for nearly every game that I have played the user average much more accurately reflected the true score of the game. Whether this is because critics are bought and paid for I don't know - but I think that "critics" and gamer journalists are not taken seriously anymore by most gamers.
@Dee On second thought, please feel free to close the thread. It fell off page one earlier for a reason and with all of the people who have posted here I can see it getting Necromancied in the future when it should be dying a peaceful death
Thanks to everyone who took a stand against the bullying and review bombing. If someone wants to start a thread or post a comment once in a while reminding people to leave their honest reviews on metacritic et al, that would probably be useful.
Wut are you trying to silence I seriously want an Alex jones parody as opposed to a Corwin or millitant belt of fem-power Safana character. Be soooo cool if Alex would voice act it!
Comments
If the quality improves, we all win.
1) Making a more in-depth transgender character.
2) Removing a bad joke.
To be bigoted. GGers were oversensitive to the minor joke, and honestly it made no difference that it was removed to me, except perhaps as a peace-offering by Beamdog.
But celebrating the evolution of TG character. That is a good thing.
Everyone should be celebrating it.
I'm certainly not mad at Beamdog about it. They were put in a tough spot, and they're responding by improving the game. But in context, I still see reasons not to cheer about this development.
I think you, somehow, have managed to get World War II and angry tweets confused. Angry tweets matter every bit as much as the entity reading them wishes. If you are leech with parasitic teeth deep in the juicy manure modern day Internet Outrage Culture generates, you can absolutely turn angry tweets into something huge. Heck, you can turn into an Internet celebrity by going around telling people about angry tweets you are getting. If you are a typical, adjusted grown up without some gigantic malign agenda, you can always just not care. There. Attack over.
100 angry user reviews on MetaCritic on the other hand are, ultimately, every bit as huge a deal as it appears when you take one step back and look at it from this new vantage point one meter away. 100 bad user reviews. In metacritic. Oh me ged.
Tons of games generate protest/troll user-reviews for whatever reason. Bitter fans, people throwing gasoline on bush fire, people legitimately outraged about something or another..Or some, any, combination of all in the above. It is such a norm now that I can't see it as a big deal.
I think it is fair to say everybody who reads user reviews reads real reviews as well. Everybody who reads both of these in Internet has the media interpretation 101 down. As result, if real reviews are all green then Nobody ever trusts bad user reviews; They are no indicator of game's quality but rather, indication that there is/was some huge outrage or another going about the game.
Diablo 3, Call of Duty, Fall Out 4, Star Wars Battlefront..I could go on. All of these games have terrible user score in MetaCritic. Nobody mistakes it as some accurate indication of game's quality. Nobody cares that way.
It - does- sometimes have value as indicator of some outrage or another going down. Let's assume reviews from actual press are, say, 79 and yet, user score is 20. Nobody thinks: " Oh gosh! This game is 20 out of 100!" Everybody thinks" Oh gee. wonder what the outrage clusterhump was all about this time around.."
So potential buyer can spot bad user score, Google why it is there,in doing so find out game devs are huge self confessed SJWs or something and then, if the said consumer has huge issue with that, he or she can make a value decision and skip buying the game. Kinda twisted. However, as I'm typing this, I realize it ultimately works as intended; ie, reviews helping consumer decide.
Heck Blizzard's dealing with one right now.
AAA studios are not by any means immune to this stuff
When you go into a fantasy game like Baldurs Gate with a goal to set all things as socailist and anti-two-major-religions with your ideal of what should be then you raise your weapon and start a crusade against the other side- who may be fat old guys in past 40 who still hold to their antiquated values and liked whiney Amoen cry girl cute cute stuff and boy toy Safina. Just because an Islam or traditional Jewish/Christian (not the post-Christian Church of England Church) feels some sex acts are always wrong does not mean they are bigots. It means they think differently from you. I am a really kind guy and have physically protected women and children from harm from that 1 in 100 nasty guy/persons with terrible slants and much more terrible attitudes then the most elite Flaming Fists.
Anyway there is a sublime socailist anti-police twerk in the intro city. And there is also a clear supa fem woman love woman character. She is a girlzz power snapping turtle speaker women that would be playing smiles with Hillary Clinton. Then you have a lame fleshed out transperson in there just to put one in there... The whole thing is soooo pandering it is almost too revolting for me to enjoy going into caves and killling spiders with their horrible squeaky screams in death. - well no I like it overall... I still think if they want to redo it they should get the boy-girl London social star Paris to do the voice of the transgirl - Ireally really thought Paris was a girl that is born a girl...
I would be mad if they had a savage tribes family bury their deformed babe in the game and I could not stop them too like the last isolated tribe in the Amazon still does. Why can my cool fighter guy have a cool whiney in a positive pandering way girlfriend and instead be stuck with a mouthy archer mom who is a grouser. Corwin is more irate then women on the view with Alex Jones.
Why could they not have Minsc say "MURDERING SCUM I AM GOING TO BRING YOU TO JUSTICE AHHH EVIL GLOBALIST I TASTE YOUR BLOOD AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
Then you could have Alex Jones versus Everyone who drinks tap water. That would be a much cooler debate but NOooo you have to bring out the nerdy 22 year old basement boys versus the 38 year old 6 income figure hipster Bernie and Clinton lovers. How boring....
AHHHHHH SCUM !!!! MURDERING AHHHH!!!! I think I will ask for a mod with Alex Jones as a Bezerker who yells at lefties in the game.... make sure you do not drink water, watch for chem trails, and make sure you have lots of food stored in ur basement.
Thanks to everyone who took a stand against the bullying and review bombing. If someone wants to start a thread or post a comment once in a while reminding people to leave their honest reviews on metacritic et al, that would probably be useful.
Have a great night.