@jjstraka34 You're absolutely right, we are NOT entitled to a good game. And neither do we have to buy their next one. There should always be communication between developers and gamers, but ultimately, we are their audience. They can make a game they love and we hate, but they have to make money and stay in business too.
Edit: "Gamer" - one who purchases and plays video games for enjoyment. That is the only requirement. We come from all walks of like, SJW included.
One of the issues I have with the "Different take" on the characters is that it's mostly from what I can tell men, telling a woman that the female characters were fine, and "strong" and "sex positive" and that really irks me. You're allowed to have preferences but you need to stop holding up stuff that was written in a video game before some forum members here were probably even born as sacred and beyond criticism.
No offence, but people can do what they like. You're allowed to have preferences. End of. Nobody "needs" to stop telling anybody to do anything.
Being a specific gender does not qualify or disqualify anybody from having a legitimate opinion of a video game character.
Nobody said anything was beyond criticism - I said Amber's interpretations of Jaheira specifically were very, very different to my own. I consider her interpretation incorrect and wrong. I have every right to refuse to buy the game on the grounds that I dislike the changes. I don't "need" to stop anything and find the suggestion rather offensive.
Thank you very much.
Edit: In fact, why does this even "irk" you? Why does men having an opinion on a female character being strong "irk" you?
When that opinion revolves entirely around how their trans-ness is presented, then no, your opinion is not as equally valid. This is not an area of expertise for you and looking at your other posts you have a clear agenda against the idea of representation.
The problem is you're so used to being babbied on this and being treated as if you have something valid and intelligent to say. It messes with your self image when someone tells you "actually no".
I'm sorry, but you're off base here. Any fan and, particularly, paying customer of the game has the right to share and voice their opinions. And what do changes to Safana and Jaheira have to do with "trans-ness". To my knowledge those characters have not been made trans in any way.
At any rate, you're welcome to tell people their opinions don't matter, but people are equally welcome to, and certainly will, disagree with you.
@jjstraka34 Oh come off it. The argument is over, they got together and decided to change things, if they get together and change things again, or decide not to change anything else, you don't have a say in their decision. So instead of accusing them of caving pathetically, why don't you support them and give them your best wishes for their future endeavors.
@jjstraka34 You're absolutely right, we are NOT entitled to a good game. And neither do we have to buy their next one. There should always be communication between developers and gamers, but ultimately, we are their audience. They can make a game they love and we hate, but they have to make money and stay in business too.
You know "gamers" includes people who like what Beamdog is doing and are happy to give them money, right?
The false dichotomy some people are making between real gamers/fans and people who are interested in "social justice" themes in games, even to the point of accusing Amber/Beamdog of not playing the game, is really tiresome.
Mivsan you and the others need to stop treating the existence of trans people as an artefact of some left wing or liberal agenda and equating our existence and dignity with your subjective and very limited point of view. (...)
As I've never commented on anything related to the social issues/writing in the expansion I didn't even purchase, I assume I was brought into this by mistake. Therefore, you might want to consider editing your post to indicate whom you were really addressing.
@Vitor *In Branwen's voice* Thank you for your kind words. :+)
I will not be purchasing Dragonspear (and likely not BG3) due to this controversy and I shall explain why.
But firstly let's get some facts straight: - I have no problem with people based on their gender/sexuality. That's who they are. It's their business. - I am a long time player of the Baldur's Gate series (BG2 is by far my favourite game of all time). - I do not condone threats of any kind made against anybody.
So why will I not be purchasing the game?
I was very worried about a sequel to BG1 as, inevitably, it would include writing a lot of dialogue for existing characters (E.g. Minsc) whom I am very fond of - and I was worried they would not be done any justice at all.
It appears I was correct, with a "GamersGate reference" - which I understand to be some sort of 3 way war between SJWs, Trolls and people interested in journalism ethics - being stuffed in to Minsc's dialogue.
I have no problems with video games tackling current issues in society, but to seemingly take one side over another is inviting drama at best. At worst it is actively provoking people by forcing their favourite character to troll them with a meme.
The entire thing just seems to be infinitely compounded by Beamdog Tweeting & actively asking for support from, what I understand to be, prominent SJW Twitter handles & websites.
Particularly, I was very disappointed in the interview the writer Amber Scott, where she states that Safana was a "sex object" and Jaheira a "nagging wife played for comedy", with the implication being that Amber would be fixing these perceived "sexist" wrongs.
Personally, I found Jaheira over the entire series to be a very strong female character. She was the leader of my group on my very first play through of BG2. The only Druid character in existence who could revive people, and was a total badass to boot due to her multiclass.
Safana I was never overly fond of, to be honest. But I never got from playing the game that she was a "sex object" by any means. To me, she was the stereotypical femme fatal. Confident and dangerous, always bragging about her exploits. Not just an arse and boobs with which to initiate a sex scene.
Amber Scott, to me, has fundamentally misunderstood these characters - if she truly believes what she said in that interview.
I have no problem with Amber including the trans-sexual character Mizhena, although from looking over the dialogue options on YouTube - to me, it does not appear to be very well written. No where near subtle enough and quite hamfisted.
If Amber wanted to create new characters in order to introduce elements such as trans-sexuality into the game, then fair enough. No problems there. I'm happy to have people represented.
If I were to be very nitpicky, I do feel it's a little... tokenistic(?) To have half of the new characters openly come out as non-straight. But for heaven's sake it's a video game about dungeons and dragons, I don't care enough about that for it to bother me too much.
I will link to a Steam discussion with the point of view of one trans-sexual person, though. As I myself refuse to speak on matters that I know bugger all about:
But please, please... why would you change EXISTING, ESTABLISHED CHARACTERS such as Safana, Minsc or Jaheira?! Based on a subjective analysis from, frankly, what comes across as a bit of an SJW bubble.
The Response
One of the biggest reasons I will not be purchasing this or BG3 is due to the response from the developer.
Firstly, we have Beamdog twitter's call to arms to defend the game. Which, fair enough, there has been an apology. But it should not devolve into identity politics to begin with.
Secondly, we have a game (and notice, I haven't even touched on this yet) which is apparently - according to Steam reviews - buggy as all hell.
Thirdly, thanks to getting many bad reviews - some of which mention trans sexuals - many of which talk about a buggy game: to then BEG for positive reviews because Beamdog:
"really don’t want potential fans to miss out on the series because of protest reviews by small minded individuals."
The above is absolutely horrific PR - a direct attack on people who are reviewing the game & find issues. By your statement: anybody who reviews the game negatively due to bugs is a "small minded individual".
In conclusion:
- I do not like seeing some of my most favourite characters re-written because one writer thought they were "sexist". - I do not appreciate the - purposefully or not - calling of any negative reviewer a "small minded individual". I see this as a thinly veiled attempt at silencing critics of a buggy release. - I find Beamdog's identity politics attempts at PR an absolute disaster. - I find the statement where Mr.Oster calls people "small minded individuals" for having the gall to dislike something to be... frankly, rather small minded in itself. - The game is reportedly very buggy at release. Many people claim this is "modern" game development but I call it lazy testing. - I find shoe-horning in SJW issues to be mildly irritating, but not something in-and-of it's own enough to dissuade me from purchasing & enjoying the game. - I am not a fan of drama at all & this turns me off the studio which has come across lately as behaving in a way befitting to teenage school children (E.g. calling up your friends for support on Twitter, name calling critics).
Thank you for all of the fantastic work you've done with BG:EE., IWD:EE and BG2:EE. I really, really enjoyed those games - but I am afraid I will be looking at any future projects with a much more cynical light after all of this nonsense.
I do hope that those people who have bought the expansion genuinely enjoy it. But for me, I will be giving it a miss.
Can't argue too much with this. Still plan on buying the game when technical bugs are cleaned up. I do agree Beamdog's PR was awful but I also commend them for their recent statement.
@jjstraka34 You're absolutely right, we are NOT entitled to a good game. And neither do we have to buy their next one. There should always be communication between developers and gamers, but ultimately, we are their audience. They can make a game they love and we hate, but they have to make money and stay in business too.
You know "gamers" includes people who like what Beamdog is doing and are happy to give them money, right?
The false dichotomy some people are making between real gamers/fans and people who are interested in "social justice" themes in games, even to the point of accusing Amber/Beamdog of not playing the game, is really tiresome.
You misunderstood me, and I agree with you. There really is no dichotomy here, there are many different opinions: extreme, neutral, and any value in between. I only mean that Beamdog really can do whatever they want. They can make a BG3 all about socio-political topics if they want. This isn't about a dichotomy of "true fans" and "SJWs who obviously care more about politics than games," no, you can be both a gamer and a SJW, one or the other, or neither.
I love Beamdogs games and have continued to support them. But if they stood by Amber's "don't like it? too bad" comment, I would cease to support them. Games are first and foremost for their fans, not their true fans, their majority fans. If you tell some large percentage of your players "too bad" in favor of a minority of your players, you lose business. That was my only point. They have not yet lost my business.
I still think you guys (Beamdog) missed the mark completely. You still think we're mad about a shallowly written transgender character and a GG line by Minsc.
What about the fact that...
1: The main writer outright claims BG to be sexist, insulting the game and its fans in one strike? 2: Jaheira, Safana and others were rewritten as a result in order to "fix" that "problem"? 3: You (Trent) called those who gave critical reviews "small-minded" (your exact words) 4: One of your developers went to Anita and Jezebel on Twitter for help against all us evil GG'ers? 5: There are STILL preachy elements obviously influenced by the writer's political stance (another example of this is the woman murderer who killed her husband - as a paladin or some other lawful character, you have NO roleplaying options AT ALL to actually turn her in - once again, you can only salute and condone her strong, independent woman behavior) - this is just one example
And these are just off the top of my head. Are you guys never going to address any of the above? Ever?
Because right now, I'm even more insulted that you have had pages upon pages of well-written explanations about what exactly this is about, and I can ASSURE you, that the trangendered character is the least of it. What you are doing is essentially boiling it down and simplifying it instead of actually addressing what we've been telling you for days.
EDIT: Also, what exactly do you plan on doing to the trans character? Will you actually allow the evil aligned player to be able to mock her or something along those lines, and, you know, let us play our role in the roleplaying game? Because I highly doubt it. But let's hope I'm mistaken.
I still think you guys (Beamdog) missed the mark completely. You still think we're mad about a shallowly written transgender character and a GG line by Minsc.
What about the fact that...
1: The main writer outright claims BG to be sexist, insulting the game and its fans in one strike? 2: Jaheira, Safana and others were rewritten as a result in order to "fix" that "problem"? 3: You (Trent) called those who gave critical reviews "small-minded" (your exact words) 4: One of your developers went to Anita and Jezebel on Twitter for help against all us evil GG'ers? 5: There are STILL preachy elements obviously influenced by the writer's political stance (another example of this is the woman murderer who killed her husband - as a paladin or some other lawful character, you have NO roleplaying options AT ALL to actually turn her in - once again, you can only salute and condone her strong, independent woman behavior) - this is just one example
And these are just off the top of my head. Are you guys never going to address any of the above? Ever?
Because right now, I'm even more insulted that you have had pages upon pages of well-written explanations about what exactly this is about, and I can ASSURE you, that the trangendered character is the least of it. What you are doing is essentially boiling it down and simplifying it instead of actually addressing what we've been telling you for days.
We've? That's a bit presumptious isn't it? Speaking for others? I never had any problem except Miz's writing, so don't put words into my mouth. The argument has ended, move on.
It's probably hard for them to have an accurate picture of all these issues being issues because the goalposts have been moving at high speed since y'all started your complaints.
Plus, they're not issues for all the fans who own this product.
I can't comment on others views on the matter but my criticism of the the alterations are as follows: Safana and Jaheira are established characters with clear personalities. You may not like them as characters but they're clearly established. You can't suddenly alter other peoples writing and give no reason. If Beamdog wished to alter the characters they should have created an arc for them to follow which would have organically grown their personalities rather than a sudden change.
Amber Scott gave a reason. You may not like that reason, you may not agree with that reason, but don't claim there was no reason.
When I say "no reason" I mean from the perspective of the character and the end user playing the game. There is no in game reason explored for the changes made to the character. It's just a sudden and jarring change from BG into SoD.
Of all the writing complaints, this is my concern. I'm largely staying out of this argument because I haven't played Siege of Dragonspear yet, (trying to do a main game run through first), and thus can't have an informed opinion. But the idea of just changing established characters to fit one's personal taste just strikes me as inherently wrong. It's exactly what i don't want to see in a potential Baldur's Gate 3. If you make the change through development, have them experience events that change their world view, or have them reveal parts of their personality they had kept hidden etc, then great! But changes with no story justification, no.
That said, I'll have to wait until I play it to determine for myself how much their personalities have really shifted. But the implications Ms. Scott made are concerning in that regard.
@Abdel_Adrian Fair enough. I appreciate the "don't like it? too bad" comment because I think it's directed not at the majority, but at a small subset of fans that will never be pleased with what Amber writes. In other businesses, like retail, for instance, sometimes when a customer complains you can try and solve their problems, and sometimes when they threaten to never come here again, the best thing to do is just say, "Please don't, thanks," and move on.
It's probably hard for them to have an accurate picture of all these issues being issues because the goalposts have been moving at high speed since y'all started your complaints.
Plus, they're not issues for all the fans who own this product.
Well, that's a bit disingenuous, I bought the product and have been playing it for the last few days. I took issue about one thing and suddenly I'm lumped in with the jerks? Or did you mean it's not a problem for every single person who bought the product? Context is difficult on the internet.
One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.
It's probably hard for them to have an accurate picture of all these issues being issues because the goalposts have been moving at high speed since y'all started your complaints.
Plus, they're not issues for all the fans who own this product.
Well, that's a bit disingenuous, I bought the product and have been playing it for the last few days. I took issue about one thing and suddenly I'm lumped in with the jerks? Or did you mean it's not a problem for every single person who bought the product? Context is difficult on the internet.
I mean it's not a problem for every single person. By that I mean the interview comment and the changes to Safana and Jaheira.
@Abdel_Adrian Fair enough. I appreciate the "don't like it? too bad" comment because I think it's directed not at the majority, but at a small subset of fans that will never be pleased with what Amber writes. In other businesses, like retail, for instance, sometimes when a customer complains you can try and solve their problems, and sometimes when they threaten to never come here again, the best thing to do is just say, "Please don't, thanks," and move on.
Yeah, I definitely see that point. I think they justified the negative reviews on metacritic and elsewhere as a flood of GG hate, and I have no knowledge on that, but Steam had plenty of negative reviews too and requires that you own the game to review it. It felt a lot like they were saying any criticism at all can't be real because it's ALL transphobia. That's very extreme. Of course I'm sure plenty of it was transphobia and no amount of changes would make some bigoted people happy - that's not what they need to address. They needed to address the fans that loved everything Beamdog, but had many complaints about SoD, and not just about Mizhena/Minsc/Jaheira/Safana.
This is purely opinion, no one can determine how many reviews are authentic, but I sincerely think that of the people who loved BGEE, BG2EE, and IWDEE, more of them disliked SoD than loved it. To say "too bad" with such overwhelming negativity is a lot like saying, "we don't mind losing a lot of business because we care more about the business of this small percentage." I respect that decision though, if it's one a company wants to make.
I'm glad that Beamdog is taking fan criticism into consideration and is making some changes, it is a mark of a good company. First I will admit that I have yet to play the expansion, and I just learned about the so called controversy today. After watching much of the 'controversial' dialogue on YouTube, I have come to the conclusion (like many others have) that the primary issue (minus the bugs) in SOD is the writing. One of the fundamental rules of good writing is that a writer needs to show and not tell. What can happen if a writer does not do this, is that their writing can come off as being lazy, and or politically charged which in turn will make the reader or gamer feel antagonized. The transgender merchant, in my opinion, seems rather lazy, almost like a token trans character. I say this as a person who rather liked the character of Krem in the last Dragon Age game, a character that I found to be well rounded, and quite novel for a video game. Thus, I find it rather silly, and disappointing to see a character like Mizhena some random merchant shoehorned into the game just blurting out their gender history. Writing needs to be bit more meaningful, and every aspect of one's writing should fit cohesively into your story. Now that David Gaider is with Beamdog, he would be an excellent person to consult about writing a better Mizhena, as I believe that it was Gaider and Patrick Weekes that wrote Krem for DA:I.
As for the SJW dialogue, I think it is suicide for a writer to write only one side of the debate into their game. I think one really needs to either depict the debate in a way that allows people to make up their own minds, or stay away form it altogether. Personally, and it must seem ironic, I think that a video game itself is not the place to have this debate about sexism in video games. Why? Video games don't give the other side a chance to respond, and that is bound to agitate gamers. Think of it like this. What if someone wrote some random bit into the game about Anita Sarkesian being the Charles Keating (or staying with the times) Bernie Madoff of the gaming community, and then just sort of left the debate at that? It trivializes the discussion, and makes it look like one side of the debate has no points, and is dominated by a huckster. Gamers will look at that kind of writing, and think that the writer is trying to slip in an agenda. It looks even worse, when iconic characters like Minsc and Boo are made to be the mouth piece for the controversial dialogue.
As for Safana, I never use her anyway, but from what I can tell her previous character has been whitewashed. I'm not sure why she can't use her sexuality to help her get what she wants (should no such character exist?), or how that makes her less of a strong character, and turning her into some kind of dominatrix who acts like a jerk to the main character makes her any better. All I know is that she won't be in my party.
It's probably hard for them to have an accurate picture of all these issues being issues because the goalposts have been moving at high speed since y'all started your complaints.
Plus, they're not issues for all the fans who own this product.
Well, that's a bit disingenuous, I bought the product and have been playing it for the last few days. I took issue about one thing and suddenly I'm lumped in with the jerks? Or did you mean it's not a problem for every single person who bought the product? Context is difficult on the internet.
I mean it's not a problem for every single person. By that I mean the interview comment and the changes to Safana and Jaheira.
Ah, I see. Yes those weren't a problem for me. The interview is just a person with pride in their work, countless other people have said "too bad" to people who disliked things, it's a bit blunt, but not a problem. Imoen was my thief, so Safana never entered the picture, so can't speak honestly on that. Jaheira has always been a brsque woman, and still is in SoD. Honestly she was probably just mad that her friend just died, and she had to take orders from his adopted child and their friend (given their lack of experience in the world.), and she's less stressed now, she still has the same personality from what I can see though, just somewhat softened (Hell, the only time we see her out of SoD, she nhas suffered personal loss and is angry.)
Steam currently has approximately 1/3 negative and 2/3 positive reviews now, and is listed as "mostly positive" much like it was before all this drama started. It never got worse than "mixed" which is approximately half good, half bad.
Given the numbers involved, it is beyond any reasonable belief that every single negative review on metacritic was written by someone who owns the expansion. There's just too many reviews as compared to other titles. If SoD sold that many copies you can bet Beamdog would have something to say about it.
Steam currently has approximately 1/3 negative and 2/3 positive reviews now, and is listed as "mostly positive" much like it was before all this drama started. It never got worse than "mixed" which is approximately half good, half bad.
Given the numbers involved, it is beyond any reasonable belief that every single negative review on metacritic was written by someone who owns the expansion. There's just too many reviews as compared to other titles. If SoD sold that many copies you can bet Beamdog would have something to say about it.
Nothing is beyond reasonable doubt here, no one knows the facts. But I do know that the Steam scores didn't improve until AFTER there was that favor asked, you know, for positive reviews. There has also been A LOT of discussion on very feminist/homosexual/transgender blogs and sites about how they should all buy on Steam and flood with positive reviews to "fight GG." If indeed GG is doing anything, so too is anti GG. But that is still a freaking ton of negative reviews from confirmed buyers of the game, especially compared to every other enhanced IE game - so there is obviously a large issue that many Beamdog lovers feel, even if it's not >= 51%. 1/3 of authentic reviews being negative is really, really bad.
Steam currently has approximately 1/3 negative and 2/3 positive reviews now, and is listed as "mostly positive" much like it was before all this drama started. It never got worse than "mixed" which is approximately half good, half bad.
Given the numbers involved, it is beyond any reasonable belief that every single negative review on metacritic was written by someone who owns the expansion. There's just too many reviews as compared to other titles. If SoD sold that many copies you can bet Beamdog would have something to say about it.
Yeah, the whole review thing is a shitshow, all we can do is hope it dies down as the extremists lock onto something else and the levelheaded people ride in.
I'm glad that Beamdog is taking fan criticism into consideration and is making some changes, it is a mark of a good company. First I will admit that I have yet to play the expansion, and I just learned about the so called controversy today. After watching much of the 'controversial' dialogue on YouTube, I have come to the conclusion (like many others have) that the primary issue (minus the bugs) in SOD is the writing. One of the fundamental rules of good writing is that a writer needs to show and not tell. What can happen if a writer does not do this, is that their writing can come off as being lazy, and or politically charged which in turn will make the reader or gamer feel antagonized. The transgender merchant, in my opinion, seems rather lazy, almost like a token trans character. I say this as a person who rather liked the character of Krem in the last Dragon Age game, a character that I found to be well rounded, and quite novel for a video game. Thus, I find it rather silly, and disappointing to see a character like Mizhena some random merchant shoehorned into the game just blurting out their gender history. Writing needs to be bit more meaningful, and every aspect of one's writing should fit cohesively into your story. Now that David Gaider is with Beamdog, he would be an excellent person to consult about writing a better Mizhena, as I believe that it was Gaider and Patrick Weekes that wrote Krem for DA:I.
As for the SJW dialogue, I think it is suicide for a writer to write only one side of the debate into their game. I think one really needs to either depict the debate in a way that allows people to make up their own minds, or stay away form it altogether. Personally, and it must seem ironic, I think that a video game itself is not the place to have this debate about sexism in video games. Why? Video games don't give the other side a chance to respond, and that is bound to agitate gamers. Think of it like this. What if someone wrote some random bit into the game about Anita Sarkesian being the Charles Keating (or staying with the times) Bernie Madoff of the gaming community, and then just sort of left the debate at that? It trivializes the discussion, and makes it look like one side of the debate has no points, and is dominated by a huckster. Gamers will look at that kind of writing, and think that the writer is trying to slip in an agenda. It looks even worse, when iconic characters like Minsc and Boo are made to be the mouth piece for the controversial dialogue.
As for Safana, I never use her anyway, but from what I can tell her previous character has been whitewashed. I'm not sure why she can't use her sexuality to help her get what she wants (should no such character exist?), or how that makes her less of a strong character, and turning her into some kind of dominatrix who acts like a jerk to the main character makes her any better. All I know is that she won't be in my party.
Jesus....I must have missed the part where the original Baldur's Gate games were some sort of literary masterpieces. Furthermore, many of these characters were only in the first game which has sparse dialog to being with. The personality of nearly ANY NPC in BG1 was murky at best, so it's generally foolish to think that Amber fundamentally changed anything. They were all pretty much blank slates, and everything else is mostly in individual player's heads....
Nothing is beyond reasonable doubt here, no one knows the facts. But I do know that the Steam scores didn't improve until AFTER there was that favor asked, you know, for positive reviews. There has also been A LOT of discussion on very feminist/homosexual/transgender blogs and sites about how they should all buy on Steam and flood with positive reviews to "fight GG." If indeed GG is doing anything, so too is anti GG. But that is still a freaking ton of negative reviews from confirmed buyers of the game, especially compared to every other enhanced IE game - so there is obviously a large issue that many Beamdog lovers feel, even if it's not >= 51%. 1/3 of authentic reviews being negative is really, really bad.
Okay so, have you looked at how many reviews are on Metacritic? 470 reviews. Compare to Fallout 4's DLC having ~150 across all platforms. Compare this to Steam where there are seven times as many Automatron reviews as there are SoD reviews. Consider that Steam is the only place where you have to actually own the game to review it.
Anyway, the review rating did not increase until today, it was mixed for the past two or three days. And the guy who asked for positive reviews asked for people who enjoyed the game to post reviews because Gamergaters and others were review-bombing the game with negative reviews - the majority of which at that time seemed to be complaints about the existence of a transgender character.
So yes, it is beyond belief that everyone who posted a negative review about SoD actually owns it.
And the only reason 1/3 of the reviews are negative is because of the review bombing. How many of those people purchased the game, reviewed it (taking advantage of the fact that DLC doesn't show hours played), and then got a refund? So no, 1/3 of the reviews being negative isn't "really, really bad." Most of those reviews are people angry about a transgender NPC and can be safely discounted as "sour grapes."
I would say most people annoyed with the writing of the character. As I previously stated its a world of magic and there are several spells, powers, potions and deities who could swap your gender. You find the Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity, you also meet Melicamp who has been turned into a chicken and a number of dragons that can turn into humans to name a few examples. To be honest most people would be unimpressed by such a simple change for a person. They could have even added a dialogue to represent this. If you were playing a evil/rude person they could end the conversation by saying they'd seen more impressive magic elsewhere etc.
In regards to the dialogue the other issue people are having is that; in a game with multiple options to respond to NPCs you can only say nice things to Mizhena which is rather stilted. And let us remember that this is a game where you can (if you chose to) threaten people (including women and children), kill beggars and generally be a horrible person.
While there are some options in the game to threaten people. That isn't the norm. I was just playing BG1 and when I entered Beregost, a guy approached me and gave me directions. My only option out of that was "Thanks for your help." No option of "You wasted my time", or "Get out of my way". Or any other rude/evil option. I was forced to be polite. South of Beregost, I was approached by a hunter who said he could smell ogres nearby. My options were, "you're good at what you do", "you know the area pretty well", and "we could use a talented hunter, what do you say?". Again no option to mug the lone guy in the woods, no option to say "get a job, hippy scum". All polite and complimentary.
My point is, could there be more roleplay options? Absolutely, and that would always be the case. But why is it that no one complained about a lack of evil options until a transgendered character was introduced? Why is it her dialog specifically that people want evil options for? In the vast majority of cases, evil options are overlooked. This isn't an exceptional case. Yet the complaints weren't there before.
@Abdel_Adrian Fair enough. I appreciate the "don't like it? too bad" comment because I think it's directed not at the majority, but at a small subset of fans that will never be pleased with what Amber writes. In other businesses, like retail, for instance, sometimes when a customer complains you can try and solve their problems, and sometimes when they threaten to never come here again, the best thing to do is just say, "Please don't, thanks," and move on.
Yeah, I definitely see that point. I think they justified the negative reviews on metacritic and elsewhere as a flood of GG hate, and I have no knowledge on that, but Steam had plenty of negative reviews too and requires that you own the game to review it. It felt a lot like they were saying any criticism at all can't be real because it's ALL transphobia. That's very extreme. Of course I'm sure plenty of it was transphobia and no amount of changes would make some bigoted people happy - that's not what they need to address. They needed to address the fans that loved everything Beamdog, but had many complaints about SoD, and not just about Mizhena/Minsc/Jaheira/Safana.
I definitely don't think Beamdog handled this whole thing well. They should have anticipated at least some of the anti-SJW backlash, not included a stupid joke that adds nothing to the game but that people could easily hang their offense on, and fixed major bugs that seem like they should have been obvious (like difficulty settings and multiplayer, which are the main two I've seen people complain about), so the complaints would have to focus on the writing, and it wouldn't look like Beamdog was deflecting legitimate concerns.
(I mean, they should have done better QA anyway, because seriously Beamdog, this is your fourth release, how do you not have your shit together by now, but whatever. My point is that Beamdog seemed surprised by the response they got, and they should not have been.)
While there are some options in the game to threaten people. That isn't the norm. I was just playing BG1 and when I entered Beregost, a guy approached me and gave me directions. My only option out of that was "Thanks for your help." No option of "You wasted my time", or "Get out of my way". Or any other rude/evil option. I was forced to be polite. South of Beregost, I was approached by a hunter who said he could smell ogres nearby. My options were, "you're good at what you do", "you know the area pretty well", and "we could use a talented hunter, what do you say?". Again no option to mug the lone guy in the woods, no option to say "get a job, hippy scum". All polite and complimentary.
My point is, could there be more roleplay options? Absolutely, and that would always be the case. But why is it that no one complained about a lack of evil options until a transgendered character was introduced? Why is it her dialog specifically that people want evil options for? In the vast majority of cases, evil options are overlooked. This isn't an exceptional case. Yet the complaints weren't there before.
Almost as if...it's only because she was trans that they wanted to be cruel...since they didn't mention any other NPC in SoD that you couldn't be cruel to...imagine that...
I'm glad that Beamdog is taking fan criticism into consideration and is making some changes, it is a mark of a good company. First I will admit that I have yet to play the expansion, and I just learned about the so called controversy today. After watching much of the 'controversial' dialogue on YouTube, I have come to the conclusion (like many others have) that the primary issue (minus the bugs) in SOD is the writing. One of the fundamental rules of good writing is that a writer needs to show and not tell. What can happen if a writer does not do this, is that their writing can come off as being lazy, and or politically charged which in turn will make the reader or gamer feel antagonized. The transgender merchant, in my opinion, seems rather lazy, almost like a token trans character. I say this as a person who rather liked the character of Krem in the last Dragon Age game, a character that I found to be well rounded, and quite novel for a video game. Thus, I find it rather silly, and disappointing to see a character like Mizhena some random merchant shoehorned into the game just blurting out their gender history. Writing needs to be bit more meaningful, and every aspect of one's writing should fit cohesively into your story. Now that David Gaider is with Beamdog, he would be an excellent person to consult about writing a better Mizhena, as I believe that it was Gaider and Patrick Weekes that wrote Krem for DA:I.
As for the SJW dialogue, I think it is suicide for a writer to write only one side of the debate into their game. I think one really needs to either depict the debate in a way that allows people to make up their own minds, or stay away form it altogether. Personally, and it must seem ironic, I think that a video game itself is not the place to have this debate about sexism in video games. Why? Video games don't give the other side a chance to respond, and that is bound to agitate gamers. Think of it like this. What if someone wrote some random bit into the game about Anita Sarkesian being the Charles Keating (or staying with the times) Bernie Madoff of the gaming community, and then just sort of left the debate at that? It trivializes the discussion, and makes it look like one side of the debate has no points, and is dominated by a huckster. Gamers will look at that kind of writing, and think that the writer is trying to slip in an agenda. It looks even worse, when iconic characters like Minsc and Boo are made to be the mouth piece for the controversial dialogue.
As for Safana, I never use her anyway, but from what I can tell her previous character has been whitewashed. I'm not sure why she can't use her sexuality to help her get what she wants (should no such character exist?), or how that makes her less of a strong character, and turning her into some kind of dominatrix who acts like a jerk to the main character makes her any better. All I know is that she won't be in my party.
Jesus....I must have missed the part where the original Baldur's Gate games were some sort of literary masterpieces. Furthermore, many of these characters were only in the first game which has sparse dialog to being with. The personality of nearly ANY NPC in BG1 was murky at best, so it's generally foolish to think that Amber fundamentally changed anything. They were all pretty much blank slates, and everything else is mostly in individual player's heads....
Didn't say that it was a masterpiece, and that does not change anything that I wrote. Are you going to respond with something meaningful, or are you just going to keep trying to straw man what I wrote?
@BelleSorciere You missed large portions of my point - I clearly focused on Steam and the authentic reviews there. Ignore GOG and Metacritic, focus on Steam where we at least know the reviewers own the game. 1/3 of them dislike it. That's a very large percentage that should not be ignored, much less written off as entirely transphobic, as if that could be only complaint about a game that launched with plenty of bugs.
(Keep in mind I bought it, love it - minus some writing, and continue to support Beamdog.)
I find this whole thing to be absolutely disgusting.
Siege of Dragonspear has problems. Real, legitimate problems. A one-liner from Minsc a d a transgender person existing are not among them, but they're all anyone is talking about.
Can we please discuss the godawful UI that has been shoved into BGEE and BG2EE with barely functional map and journal menus? Or the whole host of new bugs that have been injected into the two classic games by way of the Dragonspear update? Or that Dragonspear itself is largely unplayable for many gamers?
No?
We're going to spend all our time pretending bigots have legitimategrievances and that Beamdog is somehow brave or laudable for condemning harassment while hastily trying to appease the angry internet people who saw an inconsequential NPC in a video game who happened to be transgendered and then flipped the **** out?
Comments
There should always be communication between developers and gamers, but ultimately, we are their audience. They can make a game they love and we hate, but they have to make money and stay in business too.
Edit: "Gamer" - one who purchases and plays video games for enjoyment. That is the only requirement. We come from all walks of like, SJW included.
At any rate, you're welcome to tell people their opinions don't matter, but people are equally welcome to, and certainly will, disagree with you.
You have an appalling lack of understanding of what I wrote for someone who allegedly read it.
The false dichotomy some people are making between real gamers/fans and people who are interested in "social justice" themes in games, even to the point of accusing Amber/Beamdog of not playing the game, is really tiresome.
@Vitor *In Branwen's voice* Thank you for your kind words. :+)
I love Beamdogs games and have continued to support them. But if they stood by Amber's "don't like it? too bad" comment, I would cease to support them. Games are first and foremost for their fans, not their true fans, their majority fans. If you tell some large percentage of your players "too bad" in favor of a minority of your players, you lose business. That was my only point. They have not yet lost my business.
What about the fact that...
1: The main writer outright claims BG to be sexist, insulting the game and its fans in one strike?
2: Jaheira, Safana and others were rewritten as a result in order to "fix" that "problem"?
3: You (Trent) called those who gave critical reviews "small-minded" (your exact words)
4: One of your developers went to Anita and Jezebel on Twitter for help against all us evil GG'ers?
5: There are STILL preachy elements obviously influenced by the writer's political stance (another example of this is the woman murderer who killed her husband - as a paladin or some other lawful character, you have NO roleplaying options AT ALL to actually turn her in - once again, you can only salute and condone her strong, independent woman behavior) - this is just one example
And these are just off the top of my head. Are you guys never going to address any of the above? Ever?
Because right now, I'm even more insulted that you have had pages upon pages of well-written explanations about what exactly this is about, and I can ASSURE you, that the trangendered character is the least of it. What you are doing is essentially boiling it down and simplifying it instead of actually addressing what we've been telling you for days.
EDIT:
Also, what exactly do you plan on doing to the trans character? Will you actually allow the evil aligned player to be able to mock her or something along those lines, and, you know, let us play our role in the roleplaying game? Because I highly doubt it. But let's hope I'm mistaken.
Plus, they're not issues for all the fans who own this product.
That said, I'll have to wait until I play it to determine for myself how much their personalities have really shifted. But the implications Ms. Scott made are concerning in that regard.
This is purely opinion, no one can determine how many reviews are authentic, but I sincerely think that of the people who loved BGEE, BG2EE, and IWDEE, more of them disliked SoD than loved it. To say "too bad" with such overwhelming negativity is a lot like saying, "we don't mind losing a lot of business because we care more about the business of this small percentage." I respect that decision though, if it's one a company wants to make.
As for the SJW dialogue, I think it is suicide for a writer to write only one side of the debate into their game. I think one really needs to either depict the debate in a way that allows people to make up their own minds, or stay away form it altogether. Personally, and it must seem ironic, I think that a video game itself is not the place to have this debate about sexism in video games. Why? Video games don't give the other side a chance to respond, and that is bound to agitate gamers. Think of it like this. What if someone wrote some random bit into the game about Anita Sarkesian being the Charles Keating (or staying with the times) Bernie Madoff of the gaming community, and then just sort of left the debate at that? It trivializes the discussion, and makes it look like one side of the debate has no points, and is dominated by a huckster. Gamers will look at that kind of writing, and think that the writer is trying to slip in an agenda. It looks even worse, when iconic characters like Minsc and Boo are made to be the mouth piece for the controversial dialogue.
As for Safana, I never use her anyway, but from what I can tell her previous character has been whitewashed. I'm not sure why she can't use her sexuality to help her get what she wants (should no such character exist?), or how that makes her less of a strong character, and turning her into some kind of dominatrix who acts like a jerk to the main character makes her any better. All I know is that she won't be in my party.
Given the numbers involved, it is beyond any reasonable belief that every single negative review on metacritic was written by someone who owns the expansion. There's just too many reviews as compared to other titles. If SoD sold that many copies you can bet Beamdog would have something to say about it.
Anyway, the review rating did not increase until today, it was mixed for the past two or three days. And the guy who asked for positive reviews asked for people who enjoyed the game to post reviews because Gamergaters and others were review-bombing the game with negative reviews - the majority of which at that time seemed to be complaints about the existence of a transgender character.
So yes, it is beyond belief that everyone who posted a negative review about SoD actually owns it.
And the only reason 1/3 of the reviews are negative is because of the review bombing. How many of those people purchased the game, reviewed it (taking advantage of the fact that DLC doesn't show hours played), and then got a refund? So no, 1/3 of the reviews being negative isn't "really, really bad." Most of those reviews are people angry about a transgender NPC and can be safely discounted as "sour grapes."
My point is, could there be more roleplay options? Absolutely, and that would always be the case. But why is it that no one complained about a lack of evil options until a transgendered character was introduced? Why is it her dialog specifically that people want evil options for? In the vast majority of cases, evil options are overlooked. This isn't an exceptional case. Yet the complaints weren't there before.
(I mean, they should have done better QA anyway, because seriously Beamdog, this is your fourth release, how do you not have your shit together by now, but whatever. My point is that Beamdog seemed surprised by the response they got, and they should not have been.)
(Keep in mind I bought it, love it - minus some writing, and continue to support Beamdog.)
Siege of Dragonspear has problems. Real, legitimate problems. A one-liner from Minsc a d a transgender person existing are not among them, but they're all anyone is talking about.
Can we please discuss the godawful UI that has been shoved into BGEE and BG2EE with barely functional map and journal menus? Or the whole host of new bugs that have been injected into the two classic games by way of the Dragonspear update? Or that Dragonspear itself is largely unplayable for many gamers?
No?
We're going to spend all our time pretending bigots have legitimategrievances and that Beamdog is somehow brave or laudable for condemning harassment while hastily trying to appease the angry internet people who saw an inconsequential NPC in a video game who happened to be transgendered and then flipped the **** out?
Really?
Jesus ****ING Christ.