Considering Dee has been silencing people who have been rational and respectful on both these forums and on Steam, I don't think your side can say very much about freedom of speech.
And yours can? Because I ask again: how is it ethical to call for censorship of easter eggs, or ask that a creator compromise her right to free speech? Aren't these contrary to the values GamerGaters claim to believe in?
Jezebel (part of Gawker media by the way, no need to say more) and Anita Sarkessian, a well known con woman that still hasnt finished the videos for which all of those people paid for. Now you've truly lost it Dee.
bengoshi casts Wish a Djinni appears bengoshi chooses this option:
Calmness.
Dear ladies and gentlemen! We've been waiting for an IE game for many years. We've seen N-Space falling and only Beamdog was left to convince the world a good and interesting old-school RPG with D&D rules can be made. Let's not lose that dream yet. Let's not cross any lines that shouldn't be crossed. Let's just go outside, talk to friends, play with pets, ride a bike. And then return to the BG game to enjoy its gameplay.
Because the gameplay is very good, including the gameplay in SoD.
The problem here is that all these totally fair, not at all revenge-based reviews wouldn't be occurring if not for the light-hearted Minsc potshot and inclusion of a certain character. Can the GG's just admit it's about that and not "bugs and poor writing" that render the game abysmal?
Others and I wrote our thumbs down reviews (which I admitted in my review was actually a mixed review, but steam had no option for that) for Baldur's Gate before even hearing about the Minsc line or Mizhena encounter, so I'd appreciate it if you stopped your strawmanning mendacities meant to spin the narrative of events: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197998538689/recommended/228280
Fans of the series have been irked for years regarding the missteps the Enhanced Editions have taken. I just recently started playing BG:EE a few days ago to get a party ready to transfer over to Siege of Dragonspear when I experienced them firsthand (cartoonish cinematics and UI blunders galore). You can bury your head in the sand all you want - it won't change the fact that there are other reasons people have issues with Beamdog's direction of the series that don't have to do with the mere introduction of SJW themes. Pigeonholing all negative reviewers and demonizing them is a sure-fire way to lose hardcore fans of the series, like myself.
Oh, I'm positive there are a bunch of negative reviews that make legitimate points about the game's flaws. It's got plenty of them. But the sheer volume of them, all saying basically the exact same things, in such a short amount of time, is doubtlessly the result of the GG slander campaign resulting from aforementioned "controversies".
Dee is more or less implying that there is a "terrible hate campaign" against Beamdog while ignoring that there are actual issues with the game. Not to mention that he is only proving the Gamergaters right by running straight to Anita and Jezebel of all places.
I agree with that. I couldn't even play SoD yet, because of the bugs and the drastic changes on the UI. I couldn't even examine the content of the game yet... I'm waiting for it's technical issues to be fixed before I can finally play the intersequel of my favorite saga in game history.
Well, too much whining these days. I enjoy playing SoD. I am a 33 y old games who loves the BG franchise, also the EE games. What i don't like is this childish behavior. You made the mistake in releasing the game before the quality was assured. That was your fault. There are really many bugs at the moment. I got myself into one, and can't progress anymore (i.e. can't leave the dwarf dungeon - have destroyed the phylacterium thing but the portal is still sealed and quest still not finished). Why are there no local text subs, i.e. german? Well, it's like it is. Just work on the bugs, and maybe delete the unnecessary things that don't add anything important to the content or benefit immersion, like the immersion breaking comment of Minsc and the transgender NPC. BG1 classic was also no superior story telling game, but BG2 especially with it rich mods was the right reference.
The PR is really a disaster. You should have taken the criticism professionally. In my opinion you should apologize and work on the open issues hard. After that you will see, that you will regain trust.
Learn from your mistakes and move on, that's the way to go. That's also the right thing to silence your critics. You made a good job with the EE's, don't destroy it with such a bad behavior. You have still a great fanbase. I also believe in you, i'm thankful that anybody has overhauled my favorite games of all times.
Boo will be sad if you destroy everything you build up for you and your fans.
Unlike metacritic and GoG, Steam is the only site that requires you to own a game before reviewing it. On Steam, SoD has a 71% approval rating (including reviews about legit technical issues). Everywhere else, it's tanking.
If you think that has nothing to do with gamergate, then there's nothing I can do to help you.
What exactly were you thinking posting this on twitter? You have probably just ensured that this sh*tstorm gets even bigger. http://archive.is/tlJCs
... if you don't want the shitstorm to get bigger, maybe you should have pm Dee instead of posting a thread that anyone can see...
It's quite obvious Dee is deeply passionate about the mostly pseudo-intellectual (and sometimes anti-intellectual) SJW movement. What he is doing is actively hurting the future of the game by pushing this fiasco towards things it is not (GGers vs SJWers instead of bad design choices vs lazy/stubborn devs - it should obviously be the latter if you care at all about great video games). He's basically calling for reinforcements from the femfreq battalion to "fight back against these malicious GGers!". I honestly hope, for the sake of the future of the series I once heralded as some of the greatest games of all time, he and any other mod/dev/writer who actively shove Baldur's Gate away from greatness to be removed/fired from their positions. I don't want them to be witchhunted, harassed, or any other rage-filled action because they are probably fairly nice and passionate people. Nevertheless, it's been evinced from the past couple days that their number one priority isn't making Baldur's Gate the best game possible - it's to feed their egos with varying amounts of SJW vitriol and machinations.
Edit: For the record I'm not a member of the pigeonholed Gamer Gaters or pigeonholed SJWs. I'm generally not a fan of engaging in slacktivism. Life is too precious to waste endeavoring to debate away the sea of ignorance online.
That's... disconcerting to see. Trent's message was alright with me but this is ridiculous. The "GamerGate" boogeyman meme needs to go away already. It's a bunch of trolls who LIKE this attention. If you ignore them they get bored very quickly, yet you just gave them more food and encouragement to continue.
These aren't DnD Trolls, fire only makes them stronger.
I wonder if it's just one butthurt guy with alot of accounts.
Anyways, I'm gonna stop feeding the trolls and I advice all fellow community members to do the same. Really, just stop posting and the trolls will starve and move on to the next prey.
So if you think nothing can fix the problem @Joey, why do you nag about it? Just walk away quietly then and let the rest of us who cares for the game and the company remain.
But you can't, can you? Cause the need for hating is so strong in some people.
Hate? There's only one side of this debate that's telling people to shut up and go away.
Protip - it's the same side of the debate that's been silencing people since day 1.
Can you honestly say there's no hate campaign? Anyway, what @Skatan said was reasonable, you say that there's no fixing it now, and that you don't like the game (must be so unrecognizable now, huh?), so why continue to stay here? We've heard enough, more than enough, from your side. There's nothing more to add, instead we're simply going in circles. So again "why not just walk away quietly and let the rest of us who cares for the game and the company remain"? The original series is waiting
Of course the original poster in this thread is using a web archive link (which is something I've seen a lot in the last 48 hours, interestingly enough), so I guess deleting the tweet is irrelevant.
Unlike metacritic and GoG, Steam is the only site that requires you to own a game before reviewing it. On Steam, SoD has a 71% approval rating (including reviews about legit technical issues). Everywhere else, it's tanking.
If you think that has nothing to do with gamergate, then there's nothing I can do to help you.
Steam also lets you buy the game, write a review and then refund the game...
Considering Dee has been silencing people who have been rational and respectful on both these forums and on Steam, I don't think your side can say very much about freedom of speech.
And yours can? Because I ask again: how is it ethical to call for censorship of easter eggs, or ask that a creator compromise her right to free speech? Aren't these contrary to the values GamerGaters claim to believe in?
All I've been saying is that the writing is banal and boring and that these devs have absolutely failed in good communication and PR.
Surely games having more types of characters and representation is a net positive for games in general?
Sure. Now let's have NPCs who are peadophiles, rapists, war criminals.
YAY DIVERSITY.
Besides this being a revolting equivalency, why not? A known war criminal would be a really interesting idea for a companion, although isn't that pretty much Dorn already? As long as the characters are written well and there is no tacit endorsement of their actions then I don't see why games can't have such characters.
Remove the GamerGate easter egg, as the whole point of that meme is to piss off GGers. No need to remove the character itself.
ha ha ha ha ha
And there it is: confirmation that those negative reviews are all dishonest BS intended as revenge for a perceived slight. And in fact nothing to do with the quality of the game itself.
This is awesome because it's going to go down in history as the moment Metacritic lost its legitimacy.
Btw I think people are worrying too much here. Doesn't anyone think maybe these moves by Trent and Dee are calculated? This is a business; they know that the weird GamerGate community is generally not respected, and you'll sell more games by charging right against them, than by conceding any ground to their trolling. This is smart and I love it.
After all if it's a question of retaining the right to publish material under the D&D brand... well D&D has had its own problems with paranoid reactionary far-right conservatives. So if you want to align yourself with D&D and role-playing in general, then aligning yourself against far-right conservatives seems completely sensible.
This whole thread is full of gems like this. Thankyou.
Sigh. It seems to be either horrible judgment or an intentional attempt to attract publicity. Deleting the tweet won't do much if the message is already out there. I don't know what was worse: beamdog trolling gamergate, gamergate overreacting with all the reviews, or beamdog crying about it to jezebel. Each side has to up the ante, just tweaking the other side.
The world's dumbest emotional arms race. Who is going to suffer? People on this forum who want to talk about the game, but all they see is this one issue on every thread.
Problem with reviews on GOG, is that any tool can write a review there without buying the game first, hence the proliferation of negative reviews there from SJWs, which that site is infested with, through people using multiple accounts to harass forum members and down vote reviews and forum posts.
GG is quite a hugely divisive item on that site with hundreds of pages of posts about it causing lots of people to actually leave the site (myself included).
I don't think that BD should have got involved in the reviews, it just gives these idiots more fuel to spew their hate.
Earlier in the process...told the writer not to mention politics in interviews, made sure devs don't slag off their critics or ask for positive reviews. Remove the GamerGate easter egg, as the whole point of that meme is to piss off GGers. No need to remove the character itself.
And I'm still waiting on an answer: is the removal of an easter egg not censorship? Is that not exactly what the Overwatch controversy was supposedly about? Does Amber Scott not have the right to free speech in interviews, or the right to tell critics to fuck off (the way so many GGers claimed Tecmo should have done)?
Of course the original poster in this thread is using a web archive link (which is something I've seen a lot in the last 48 hours, interestingly enough), so I guess deleting the tweet is irrelevant.
Thank you. I hope you don't get backlash for this because they get very personal, and as a fan, I'm very sorry you all have to put up with this nonsense. I do hope everyone at Beamdog knows there are a lot of people out there who are very excited about this game and the achievement in bringing a brand new adventure to us after so long.
And I'm still waiting on an answer: is the removal of an easter egg not censorship? Is that not exactly what the Overwatch controversy was supposedly about? Does Amber Scott not have the right to free speech in interviews, or the right to tell critics to fuck off (the way so many GGers claimed Tecmo should have done)?
It's not censorship, as censorship by its definition is done by a government or media organisation. Devs can do what the hell they like with their games, they don't need me to tell them that.
Comments
Now you've truly lost it Dee.
a Djinni appears
bengoshi chooses this option:
Calmness.
Dear ladies and gentlemen! We've been waiting for an IE game for many years. We've seen N-Space falling and only Beamdog was left to convince the world a good and interesting old-school RPG with D&D rules can be made. Let's not lose that dream yet. Let's not cross any lines that shouldn't be crossed. Let's just go outside, talk to friends, play with pets, ride a bike. And then return to the BG game to enjoy its gameplay.
Because the gameplay is very good, including the gameplay in SoD.
The PR is really a disaster. You should have taken the criticism professionally. In my opinion you should apologize and work on the open issues hard. After that you will see, that you will regain trust.
Learn from your mistakes and move on, that's the way to go. That's also the right thing to silence your critics. You made a good job with the EE's, don't destroy it with such a bad behavior. You have still a great fanbase. I also believe in you, i'm thankful that anybody has overhauled my favorite games of all times.
Boo will be sad if you destroy everything you build up for you and your fans.
If you think that has nothing to do with gamergate, then there's nothing I can do to help you.
Edit: For the record I'm not a member of the pigeonholed Gamer Gaters or pigeonholed SJWs. I'm generally not a fan of engaging in slacktivism. Life is too precious to waste endeavoring to debate away the sea of ignorance online.
These aren't DnD Trolls, fire only makes them stronger.
Anyways, I'm gonna stop feeding the trolls and I advice all fellow community members to do the same. Really, just stop posting and the trolls will starve and move on to the next prey.
YAY DIVERSITY.
Of course the original poster in this thread is using a web archive link (which is something I've seen a lot in the last 48 hours, interestingly enough), so I guess deleting the tweet is irrelevant.
Thank you thank you thank you thank you.
That's quite a jump there.
Especially considering the game already has plenty of war criminals.
Smoke a bowl and chill out people.
Deleting the tweet won't do much if the message is already out there. I don't know what was worse: beamdog trolling gamergate, gamergate overreacting with all the reviews, or beamdog crying about it to jezebel. Each side has to up the ante, just tweaking the other side.
The world's dumbest emotional arms race. Who is going to suffer? People on this forum who want to talk about the game, but all they see is this one issue on every thread.
GG is quite a hugely divisive item on that site with hundreds of pages of posts about it causing lots of people to actually leave the site (myself included).
I don't think that BD should have got involved in the reviews, it just gives these idiots more fuel to spew their hate.