I was supposed to buy it a couple of days ago, and I haven't bought it yet because I'm EXTREMELY unhappy with how all of the controversy has been handled. I'll buy it when it has all died down.
It has made me more hesitant, but not for the reasons you might expect. I never planned to pre-order this game -- in spite of BG being an all time favorite for me. I recall being frustrated with my initial experience with BGEE due to the bugs and lack of polish, so for me it makes sense to wait on SoD until some patching is done, and, of course, looking at reviews.
It's the reviews that are giving me pause, or rather, the lack of substantive reviews. Mostly reviews are focusing on a few distinct details, and are not useful for giving a good picture of the expansion overall.
So, until there are more useful reviews out there to look at, it's harder to decide 100% whether it's going to make sense for me to purchase (though I suspect that it will).
Well I'd allready gotten it when this whole mess started. So I guess for me the question is, has the controversy made me more hesistant towards buying future expansions/games? No, it hasn't. I have issues with one of the writers. But they are just one of the writers. And I think it was a bad move to have one of the game's characters make fun of a large group of people. But the game itself I enjoy, all this fuss hasn't ruined that for me.
I haven't ordered it yet, but still intend to do so. Even if it were the worst game imaginable, there is still the potential to pick up some new loot. I will probably postpone my complete run until some of the bugs are fixed though.
It was a day 1 purchase for me... Though I have to admit that I almost did a refund when Dee made an error in judgement. Thankfully he was pretty swift on correcting that error and apologising on the forum. With the recent announcement I am glad that I never went through with it and am looking forward to see what Beamdog comes up with in regards to expanding Mizhena, and any future content that they may come up with.
The controversy is making me consider asking for a refund.
For clarity's sake, the controversy to me is that Beamdog laid down for Gamergate. Weak, weak effort. If you choose to put content in that might ruffle feathers, have the conviction to stand behind it or don't go there in the first place.
I actually rather have a loyalty counter-reaction to seeing a gaming studio I appreciate unfairly mobbed and under siege. Because it is a greatly enjoyable expansion in my view.
I bought on Collector's Edition with no intent of cancelling - filthy shipping fees to Europe included, mind you Beamdog.
I would add "More likely to buy because I am a BG fan, this is unfair in view of quality of SoD and Beamdog commands my loyalty as a fan."
The controversy is making me consider asking for a refund.
For clarity's sake, the controversy to me is that Beamdog laid down for Gamergate. Weak, weak effort. If you choose to put content in that might ruffle feathers, have the conviction to stand behind it or don't go there in the first place.
Backtracking 6 days after release is just sad.
They didn't lay down to gamergate, the trans character stays and they promised to include more, better written trans characters in the future.
What they did was acknowledge that the trans character could have been less forced and the Minsc line was unnecessary.
Both sides can be happy with the outcome. What more would you want?
It's the reviews that are giving me pause, or rather, the lack of substantive reviews. .
There is one such thread here - I gave a list my list of pluses and minuses on gameplay and other greater and smaller highlights. Some other fora members too, so you might wish to search for it.
What has made my jaw drop actually is that the two leading Finnish sources dome and pelaaja - which I enjoy for a typically good Finnish journalistic standard - do not have a review as of yet! It's almost as inexplicable as the fuss... Finland has a strong gaming culture and love of BG!
The reverse, I moved my timetable for buying SoD up several notches every time I read over the top hate directed at the game phrased in a transmisogynistic/transphobic way, which meant I ended up buying it within 24 hours of the first hate I saw lmao (I'm a bit broker now than I would like but it's worth it)
I can't imagine not buying BG2 SOA because of a few random NPC's walking around Athkatla that were not written at a high enough standard. That would be like refusing to buy a bag of grapes because one or two of them might be bruised. Makes no sense to me. I knew what SOD was. It was a continuation of BG with the same characters and gameplay with minor tweaks and improvements to the characters and game engine. That is exactly what I got and I am happy.
If anything it makes me more likely to buy it, just to get the coppers into BD's hands so that they can continue to create content. Right now I can't get either BG:EE or BG2:EE to run on my comp, and am not particularly enthused about playing either [when I do become able to play them], but I would like BD to have the opportunity to create more content for the BG series.
People actually made new accounts just to vote "yes, I think I'll skip it". So absurd.
Well as pointed out in the megathread I own pretty much all the BG games, old and enhanced. And I think I'll skip it. However, the official reply is fair enough, although I haven't verified the claims of "threats"/"harassment" myself (might be true, might not, haven't looked into it. But it's a bit similar to a certain freq's rhetoric). I won't really care much about this "controversy" myself anymore, it's just a personal choice because of the remaining dialogue option problems, etc. But at this point I'll probably just sign off from the whole thing. Sure, I might be a bit skeptical of future releases from Beamdog (but still try to give them a fair look over), but only at a personal level. I won't really be shouting "down with Beamdog!" from the rooftops. The only people I can see being massively unhappy about this at this point are the SJW's since they're against any kind of constructive dialogue and outcomes that doesn't include "muh victimhood" and "GG'ers are evil incarnate".
I got it day 1 and it hasn't hampered my enjoyment at all. I mean it kinda did because I found the whole thing sad... it was supposed to be an exciting time but it was kinda mellowed by the outraged, extremely loud few.
I just hope it all subsides now that Beamdog has put out that statement.
I love it when these guys try to pretend the harassment campaigns are manufactured or nonexistent or an act of deception on the part of those targeted (such as the slightly oblique reference to Anita Sarkeesian in XartaX' post, as well as the implication that Beamdog is possibly lying about threats and harassment).
It's just easier for them to look the other way and pretend it doesn't happen - or even participate - than it is to try to rein in the worst excesses of their compatriots.
1) I've got plenty of mods installed and I don't want to restart the game or ruin my romance with Dynaheir.Therefore, I'll wait until I finish the original game and expansion so I can buy and install SoD.
2) Currently I ain't got a credit card, so I had to buy BGEE from steam (which allows other forms of payment) and only after I install it I'll be able to buy the DLC.
Please, point me in the direction of some specific harassment/threats and I'll condemn it personally. However, until I'm actually shown occurrences of it I'll reserve the right to be skeptical of rhetoric like that. "Listen and believe" is not something I subscribe to, and I'm afraid you'll have to live with that.
I voted "Yes and I think I'll skip it", but that is because there is no option for "Yes, for now at least".
Here is my reasoning.
Linear play, myriad of Bugs and broken mods:
This is the big one. Others below make me worried about this story and future stories beamdog develops - hopefully we have a more open minded world - but this one make me worried on the quality of the game.
A linear RPG is boring - BGI and BGII are exciting and interesting due to interesting side quests, open world. Heck, I play at least once or twice per year since they launched the originals and my favorite part is Act I & II of BGII. I add a ton of mods to my game to have the biggest amount of content possible with various alternatives.
So a very linear game story seems boring - specially so if they don't give many ways to complete quests or RP choices - and broken mods just make me sad.
So this ends up being the big reason I hold back on buying the game, I want to let the storm of the other issues pass so I can learn better on how these issues stand and, with respect to bugs and broken mods, at least have that fixed.
Now to the controversy:
The trans character:
I have absolutely 0 problems with adding diversity in the game - this, might I add, is nothing new to D&D or to ton of games. Heck D&D tabletop is, in essence, all about open roleplaying with a lot of diversity as the guy that wrote FR even came out and said (which I agree 100%) - who here never played tabletop as a different gender, belief or inclination needs to branch out their RP!
My issue with this character - and hopefully this appears that now will be addressed - is that adding a character that sticks out as a sore thumb, has a completely unrealistic dialogue and then, when the topic gets out of hand with actually interesting reviews / comments being dismissed as bigot by devs, the devs also come out and say in a ton of public media "that this is only one line of text out of thousands" - meaning - irrelevant.
Good job, now not only the devs put a target on that community by putting them on the spot (without a good NPC to stand on), when that community faces the crossfire the devs created the devs toss them to the lions and wash their hands of it saying that character/text is nothing important.... just shameful....
What the devs could have done and would be much appreciated in my view, would be to include this diversity - if the idea is to bring attention to this part of the character - with depth and in a thought provoking manner (with roleplay possibility).
E.g., add a quest that involves the player having the option to travel with an NPC to break a gender change spell for some reason another person ask. The PC then gets the chance to learn and sympathize with the NPC, gets to see more depth of the character, the player then has the chance to discover that the spell was done by choice and now the player has the dilemma of breaking the spell as requested (for some reason the quest giver would want the spell broken regardless of the NPC's choice) or helping the NPC stand by its choice. Both choices having good and bad consequences (guess what, a lot similar to how real life really is in these cases) - so as to be a bit thought provoking. (Think of Witcher 3 and how every choice has a good/bad side to it in that game and, thus, really makes you think on the difficulty of that choice).
In my view, if you want to add diversity so people will have a more open mind, then the right way is to make people think about and understand the issue/dilemma, not shove down their throat what you think they should think and feel otherwise you will only create bickering - so if at the end of the day someone goes and thinks they should break the spell (example above) let them or if think they should help the NPC stand by its choice let them.
You are not here to teach your moral views, you are here to entertain and, perhaps, provide a thought provoking experience. (Witcher 3 was brilliant in this)
Minsc "one liner":
Completely unnecessary to add fuel to an internet discussion with a lot of controversy. Just spitefulness of the writers.
Glad this is being removed.
"Baldur's Gate is sexist":
Here is a relevant problem. BGI & BGII had a lot of strong female characters, had a lot of weak female characters, strong male characters and weak male characters - your PC could even be a strong female character or a strong male character. The game had jokes on characters of both sexes (Hey, have the devs ever played BGII with Edwin and done his BGII personal quest??).
Also, with a good community mod (romance disregards race and gender) you could open all romanceable NPCs to any inclination.
The games also have, more importantly, a big array of diverse personalities.
The developers coming out and saying that they think the game is sexist because they personally dislike a personality of a few hand picked characters is blatant prejudice in my view.
The devs are essentially saying that no person in the world can act or think like that (i.e., think different than the devs) otherwise they are "sexist" / "bigots" / etc.
In my line of work I regularly meet several people of various walks of life and choices, and always get to know at least a bit of their personalities - and this may shock certain devs, but yes, some people act like Safana (less the murder - most of the time) or as Jaheira, or as Aerie, or as Viconia (again less murder - most of the time), or as Anomen, or as Edwin, etc.
Their personalities and beliefs do not necessarily make them "weak", "sexist", a "tool for men/patriarchal society" or anything of the sort. That is who they are, their personalities.
There is no right or wrong to a person personality or beliefs - there is only a wrong when we use our personality and beliefs as an excuse to be disrespectful / harmful to others.
The fact that the devs have decided that it is best to go out of their way to reduce the different personalities in the game so as to bring them in line with how the devs think people should "think and act" is really wrong in my view and I am sad that the developers support this one sided view and, dare I say, bigoted view "100%".
(At least that is what I gather from Trent's comment "we stand behind all our developers 100%")
This, sadly, is not recognized at all in Trent's post and makes me worried on how future stories will likely be more shallow because of this....
The 'controversy' makes me want to buy another copy,, I was wanting the soundtrack anyhow, and methinks having the GoG self contained installer version for posterity would be good.
I wasn't planning on playing it since I was kind of skeptical of making an expansion pack for a game as old as Baldur's Gate, but the controversy actually made me curious and I wanted to support the game after hearing about how much backlash it had received.
Why isn't that an option for the poll by the way? "No" is winning by far and I know others bought the game because of the backlash as well.
Comments
It's the reviews that are giving me pause, or rather, the lack of substantive reviews. Mostly reviews are focusing on a few distinct details, and are not useful for giving a good picture of the expansion overall.
So, until there are more useful reviews out there to look at, it's harder to decide 100% whether it's going to make sense for me to purchase (though I suspect that it will).
For clarity's sake, the controversy to me is that Beamdog laid down for Gamergate. Weak, weak effort. If you choose to put content in that might ruffle feathers, have the conviction to stand behind it or don't go there in the first place.
Backtracking 6 days after release is just sad.
I bought on Collector's Edition with no intent of cancelling - filthy shipping fees to Europe included, mind you Beamdog.
I would add "More likely to buy because I am a BG fan, this is unfair in view of quality of SoD and Beamdog commands my loyalty as a fan."
What they did was acknowledge that the trans character could have been less forced and the Minsc line was unnecessary.
Both sides can be happy with the outcome. What more would you want?
On external reviews, this is the one I found:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3049904/software/baldurs-gate-siege-of-dragonspear-review-a-fitting-end-to-a-legendary-game-17-years-later.html
What has made my jaw drop actually is that the two leading Finnish sources dome and pelaaja - which I enjoy for a typically good Finnish journalistic standard - do not have a review as of yet! It's almost as inexplicable as the fuss... Finland has a strong gaming culture and love of BG!
I just hope it all subsides now that Beamdog has put out that statement.
It's just easier for them to look the other way and pretend it doesn't happen - or even participate - than it is to try to rein in the worst excesses of their compatriots.
1) I've got plenty of mods installed and I don't want to restart the game or ruin my romance with Dynaheir.Therefore, I'll wait until I finish the original game and expansion so I can buy and install SoD.
2) Currently I ain't got a credit card, so I had to buy BGEE from steam (which allows other forms of payment) and only after I install it I'll be able to buy the DLC.
Here is my reasoning.
Linear play, myriad of Bugs and broken mods:
This is the big one. Others below make me worried about this story and future stories beamdog develops - hopefully we have a more open minded world - but this one make me worried on the quality of the game.
A linear RPG is boring - BGI and BGII are exciting and interesting due to interesting side quests, open world. Heck, I play at least once or twice per year since they launched the originals and my favorite part is Act I & II of BGII. I add a ton of mods to my game to have the biggest amount of content possible with various alternatives.
So a very linear game story seems boring - specially so if they don't give many ways to complete quests or RP choices - and broken mods just make me sad.
So this ends up being the big reason I hold back on buying the game, I want to let the storm of the other issues pass so I can learn better on how these issues stand and, with respect to bugs and broken mods, at least have that fixed.
Now to the controversy:
The trans character:
I have absolutely 0 problems with adding diversity in the game - this, might I add, is nothing new to D&D or to ton of games. Heck D&D tabletop is, in essence, all about open roleplaying with a lot of diversity as the guy that wrote FR even came out and said (which I agree 100%) - who here never played tabletop as a different gender, belief or inclination needs to branch out their RP!
My issue with this character - and hopefully this appears that now will be addressed - is that adding a character that sticks out as a sore thumb, has a completely unrealistic dialogue and then, when the topic gets out of hand with actually interesting reviews / comments being dismissed as bigot by devs, the devs also come out and say in a ton of public media "that this is only one line of text out of thousands" - meaning - irrelevant.
Good job, now not only the devs put a target on that community by putting them on the spot (without a good NPC to stand on), when that community faces the crossfire the devs created the devs toss them to the lions and wash their hands of it saying that character/text is nothing important.... just shameful....
What the devs could have done and would be much appreciated in my view, would be to include this diversity - if the idea is to bring attention to this part of the character - with depth and in a thought provoking manner (with roleplay possibility).
E.g., add a quest that involves the player having the option to travel with an NPC to break a gender change spell for some reason another person ask. The PC then gets the chance to learn and sympathize with the NPC, gets to see more depth of the character, the player then has the chance to discover that the spell was done by choice and now the player has the dilemma of breaking the spell as requested (for some reason the quest giver would want the spell broken regardless of the NPC's choice) or helping the NPC stand by its choice. Both choices having good and bad consequences (guess what, a lot similar to how real life really is in these cases) - so as to be a bit thought provoking. (Think of Witcher 3 and how every choice has a good/bad side to it in that game and, thus, really makes you think on the difficulty of that choice).
In my view, if you want to add diversity so people will have a more open mind, then the right way is to make people think about and understand the issue/dilemma, not shove down their throat what you think they should think and feel otherwise you will only create bickering - so if at the end of the day someone goes and thinks they should break the spell (example above) let them or if think they should help the NPC stand by its choice let them.
You are not here to teach your moral views, you are here to entertain and, perhaps, provide a thought provoking experience. (Witcher 3 was brilliant in this)
Minsc "one liner":
Completely unnecessary to add fuel to an internet discussion with a lot of controversy. Just spitefulness of the writers.
Glad this is being removed.
"Baldur's Gate is sexist":
Here is a relevant problem. BGI & BGII had a lot of strong female characters, had a lot of weak female characters, strong male characters and weak male characters - your PC could even be a strong female character or a strong male character. The game had jokes on characters of both sexes (Hey, have the devs ever played BGII with Edwin and done his BGII personal quest??).
Also, with a good community mod (romance disregards race and gender) you could open all romanceable NPCs to any inclination.
The games also have, more importantly, a big array of diverse personalities.
The developers coming out and saying that they think the game is sexist because they personally dislike a personality of a few hand picked characters is blatant prejudice in my view.
The devs are essentially saying that no person in the world can act or think like that (i.e., think different than the devs) otherwise they are "sexist" / "bigots" / etc.
In my line of work I regularly meet several people of various walks of life and choices, and always get to know at least a bit of their personalities - and this may shock certain devs, but yes, some people act like Safana (less the murder - most of the time) or as Jaheira, or as Aerie, or as Viconia (again less murder - most of the time), or as Anomen, or as Edwin, etc.
Their personalities and beliefs do not necessarily make them "weak", "sexist", a "tool for men/patriarchal society" or anything of the sort. That is who they are, their personalities.
There is no right or wrong to a person personality or beliefs - there is only a wrong when we use our personality and beliefs as an excuse to be disrespectful / harmful to others.
The fact that the devs have decided that it is best to go out of their way to reduce the different personalities in the game so as to bring them in line with how the devs think people should "think and act" is really wrong in my view and I am sad that the developers support this one sided view and, dare I say, bigoted view "100%".
(At least that is what I gather from Trent's comment "we stand behind all our developers 100%")
This, sadly, is not recognized at all in Trent's post and makes me worried on how future stories will likely be more shallow because of this....
Why isn't that an option for the poll by the way? "No" is winning by far and I know others bought the game because of the backlash as well.