Also, Corwin has an exceptional strength score. Not as high as Minsc, but still 18+.
She would have, wouldn't she?
Anyway, the implication she makes is that Minsc won't be useful. The veteran warrior with an exceptional strength score. His toughness isn't a subject of discussion. You're not given the chance to praise him, much less directed to do so by the options available to you.
Also, Corwin has an exceptional strength score. Not as high as Minsc, but still 18+.
She would have, wouldn't she?
Since she is an archer that specialises in longbows then yes, she would be quite strong. Well done to Beamdog for the verisimilitude here.
If only verisimilitude were the motivating factor!
I don't see why we can't assume this in good faith my friend.
And that's what I love about you.
All jokes aside, isn't the honest answer likely just a min-maxing one? Like, I'm honestly not seeing the political or verisimilitude here. I'm seeing Fighters want exceptional strength to be good.
The best we can do is let our feelings on the game be known and contact these review sites directly such as GOG and suggest they change their open review policy. Not just because of this game but for any games in the future that will be a target for this abuse. Sadly I haven't noticed it before but since it has now put a game/series I love in the crosshairs it's opened my eyes. I'm not sure how Metacritic takes suggestions but on GOG there is a direct way to send any suggestions you have about the site.
I'm not saying to do it for the sake of doing either, that would be no different than what these trolls are doing, I'm saying if you feel positively then please let it be known, even if you aren't the reviewing type at least spread the word about your feelings.
Also, Corwin has an exceptional strength score. Not as high as Minsc, but still 18+.
She would have, wouldn't she?
Since she is an archer that specialises in longbows then yes, she would be quite strong. Well done to Beamdog for the verisimilitude here.
If only verisimilitude were the motivating factor!
I don't see why we can't assume this in good faith my friend.
And that's what I love about you.
All jokes aside, isn't the honest answer likely just a min-maxing one? Like, I'm honestly not seeing the political or verisimilitude here. I'm seeing Fighters want exceptional strength to be good.
Taken by itself... it could be? She's a Ranger, however, and an Archer at that, and she doesn't have 18 Dexterity.
It is not like she has exceptional stats across the board.
The SocJus fixation is with strong women, and power in general. They don't care nearly so much about factors like being sensible, likeable, or smart. Would that they did...
I would actually predicted a 12 Intelligence for Corwin on the basis of the SocJus paradigm before I looked it up. She should be smarter than the average person, but Intelligence itself is distasteful to SocJus because they associate rationality with oppressive masculine modes of thought. They're always going after autistic people for this reason.
It's not uncommon for "professional" reviews to vary dramatically from "user" reviews, especially when there is a AAA title with a lot of backing involved.
News sites, under the claim of harassment, have all but disabled comments beneath articles. But now, no one can counter them onsite (where it matters most, first impressions are a doozy), even when they make a claim that is false.
Let us not take some nuclear approach ourselves to stop the anger, potentially handing the reins of perceptions to people with far weaker morals besides the seeking of profit.
(PS I really want an Ivanova npc of similar personality, Jaheira is the closest I can manage.)
The best we can do is let our feelings on the game be known and contact these review sites directly such as GOG and suggest they change their open review policy. Not just because of this game but for any games in the future that will be a target for this abuse. Sadly I haven't noticed it before but since it has now put a game/series I love in the crosshairs it's opened my eyes. I'm not sure how Metacritic takes suggestions but on GOG there is a direct way to send any suggestions you have about the site.
I'm not saying to do it for the sake of doing either, that would be no different than what these trolls are doing, I'm saying if you feel positively then please let it be known, even if you aren't the reviewing type at least spread the word about your feelings.
Good suggestion. I've done this, at the least they should make their systems less open to abuse for future games.
Also, Corwin has an exceptional strength score. Not as high as Minsc, but still 18+.
She would have, wouldn't she?
Since she is an archer that specialises in longbows then yes, she would be quite strong. Well done to Beamdog for the verisimilitude here.
If only verisimilitude were the motivating factor!
I don't see why we can't assume this in good faith my friend.
And that's what I love about you.
All jokes aside, isn't the honest answer likely just a min-maxing one? Like, I'm honestly not seeing the political or verisimilitude here. I'm seeing Fighters want exceptional strength to be good.
Taken by itself... it could be? She's a Ranger, however, and an Archer at that, and she doesn't have 18 Dexterity.
It is not like she has exceptional stats across the board.
The SocJus fixation is with strong women, and power in general. They don't care nearly so much about factors like being sensible, likeable, or smart. Would that they did...
I would actually predicted a 12 Intelligence for Corwin on the basis of the SocJus paradigm before I looked it up. She should be smarter than the average person, but Intelligence itself is distasteful to SocJus because they associate rationality with oppressive masculine modes of thought. They're always going after autistic people for this reason.
What, by the holy love of Mystra, are you even saying?!
Can someone >please< translate this for me, because none of this makes sense.
@Osigold: Who are you talking about when you anthropomorphize "SocJus"? Do you just mean everyone who cares about social justice? Or is there a specific online community I'm not aware of? I've been playing catchup with this stuff, but my understanding is that there are people who explicitly identify with GG and use KiA as an unofficial hub. Is there some rough counterpart on the left? I'm genuinely unclear on what group you're thinking of, whether I'm a member of that group, and where your characterizations are coming from.
I don't think there's any obfuscation taking place because there's no need for it. People who think it's unacceptable that the game insults them on a personal level or think that it's a propaganda piece dressed up in the dead skin of an old friend are going to these sites to say so, not to avoid saying so.
I myself don't trust any score given to a game, movie (imdb for example) or anything else really, that has less than 5000 votes (reason why I don't really trust almost any metacritic game scores). It usually only means that too many of the people voting are haters and it doesn't bring out the "real" score it should have. When enough people vote, the score will settle to its "true" value.
For some reason I have noticed, people very often only go out and write bad reviews and not the good ones. When you hate something you make your voice heard, but when you love something, it is less likely. But it is just my opinion and own observation
I reported "Trannys Gate: The Siege of Bumdong", but it's still up there. I'm not sure GOG will do anything about the brigading. And I doubt any groups doing the brigading will ever admit to it or admit that a few lines in a massive game are the main reason they're giving 1 star reviews. It's a shame Beamdog didn't hold off a month to do more testing. Even then, a lot of people have completed the game with no trouble or major bugs, that's the thing.
Most 1 star reviews go
1. social justice/agenda 2. bugs
But we're up to 20+ pages in this thread alone. Nothing will change regarding people claiming it's not just about the social agenda. Some folks will demand proof that the 1 star reviews are solely due to social agenda. What proof could we reasonably obtain? No one will ever admit to doing so, even while they loudly complain about social agenda in BG. It can only ever be correlation.
... Is anyone else jaded?
I know there are bugs, but reading some of these reviews you get the impression the game doesn't run at all and I'm not having that experience. Maybe I'm lucky, maybe my PC is perfectly set up to handle the game because I have yet to crash, yet to have my game broken, yet to have a quest not proceed as it should and finish properly... I dunno. Multiplayer is messed up for people but I can't speak to that as I haven't really tried it. I'm just wondering if they are not getting more clever in their review bombs and using overblown bug reports as a shield for their real reason now.
Perhaps this entire thing is making me paranoid but alas. All I can do is enjoy the game and hope people who haven't got it yet can see through the nonsense and give it a shot someday.
Also I wasn't suggesting to use their tactics against them, that would make us no better. I was merely saying we as individuals who enjoy the game can only do what we can and if we truly believe this company and the people behind it deserve what we got, then please take the time to share it.
I don't think there's any obfuscation taking place because there's no need for it. People who think it's unacceptable that the game insults them on a personal level or think that it's a propaganda piece dressed up in the dead skin of an old friend are going to these sites to say so, not to avoid saying so.
Regardless of how they feel they are manipulating review scores maliciously and gaming the up/downvote system on Steam. Their actions are clearly wrong.
I reported "Trannys Gate: The Siege of Bumdong", but it's still up there. I'm not sure GOG will do anything about the brigading. And I doubt any groups doing the brigading will ever admit to it or admit that a few lines in a massive game are the main reason they're giving 1 star reviews. It's a shame Beamdog didn't hold off a month to do more testing. Even then, a lot of people have completed the game with no trouble or major bugs, that's the thing.
Most 1 star reviews go
1. social justice/agenda 2. bugs
But we're up to 20+ pages in this thread alone. Nothing will change regarding people claiming it's not just about the social agenda. Some folks will demand proof that the 1 star reviews are solely due to social agenda. What proof could we reasonably obtain? No one will ever admit to doing so, even while they loudly complain about social agenda in BG. It can only ever be correlation.
... Is anyone else jaded?
And more than 25 pages of reviews on GOG....which is insane, because as I've said, Pillars of Eternity has less reviews, and it's been out for a year and is a much bigger release. Hell, the original Baldur's Gate has 90 pages of reviews, and people have been able to comment on that one since the site started. We all love Baldur's Gate, but there is no way in hell enough people in the gaming community do to justify the amount that have popped up since the release. I wrote a review when Pillars came out and it was one of maybe 5-10 total reviews up there for DAYS.
Ultimately, I don't know what will happen. There are plenty of people out there who despised the Enhanced Editions to begin with for whatever reason, and now they'll immediately see these reviews and think Beamdog is in way over their heads in original content, which just isn't the case. Bad reviews killed Sword Coast Legends, but at least those were justified because the game was crap. Siege is exactly what you'd want it to be, minus the bugs. A shame, we'll see I guess.
But we're up to 20+ pages in this thread alone. Nothing will change regarding people claiming it's not just about the social agenda. Some folks will demand proof that the 1 star reviews are solely due to social agenda. What proof could we reasonably obtain? No one will ever admit to doing so, even while they loudly complain about social agenda in BG. It can only ever be correlation.
This actually isn't so bad.
During the development of the mmo "Star Wars: The Old Republic", there was a thread about SGRAs (Same Gender Romance Arcs), and the discussion of whether the game should have them.
Threads were closed and locked when they reached over 1000 posts (though the mods generally did not reach them until 1200-1400).
There were 15 different iterations of that thread over the course of 5 years.
I reported "Trannys Gate: The Siege of Bumdong", but it's still up there. I'm not sure GOG will do anything about the brigading. And I doubt any groups doing the brigading will ever admit to it or admit that a few lines in a massive game are the main reason they're giving 1 star reviews. It's a shame Beamdog didn't hold off a month to do more testing. Even then, a lot of people have completed the game with no trouble or major bugs, that's the thing.
Most 1 star reviews go
1. social justice/agenda 2. bugs
But we're up to 20+ pages in this thread alone. Nothing will change regarding people claiming it's not just about the social agenda. Some folks will demand proof that the 1 star reviews are solely due to social agenda. What proof could we reasonably obtain? No one will ever admit to doing so, even while they loudly complain about social agenda in BG. It can only ever be correlation.
... Is anyone else jaded?
And more than 25 pages of reviews on GOG....which is insane, because as I've said, Pillars of Eternity has less reviews, and it's been out for a year and is a much bigger release. Hell, the original Baldur's Gate has 90 pages of reviews, and people have been able to comment on that one since the site started. We all love Baldur's Gate, but there is no way in hell enough people in the gaming community do to justify the amount that have popped up since the release. I wrote a review when Pillars came out and it was one of maybe 5-10 total reviews up there for DAYS.
Ultimately, I don't know what will happen. There are plenty of people out there who despised the Enhanced Editions to begin with for whatever reason, and now they'll immediately see these reviews and think Beamdog is in way over their heads in original content, which just isn't the case. Bad reviews killed Sword Coast Legends, but at least those were justified because the game was crap. Siege is exactly what you'd want it to be, minus the bugs. A shame, we'll see I guess.
Well if they think that fake negative review bombing costs them sales by lowering the review score they might reconsider locking it to people that own the game.
To be honest, I'm starting to (cautiously) think this might actually help us in the long run if it hasn't had a significant impact on sales. The backlash has become so extreme and overblown that it might be starting to look embarrassing for the gamerbros. Just looking at the metacritic reviews, I think it looks patently obvious to outsiders that the score has been manipulated – once they research *why,* they'll come to the same conclusion that many latecomers to the issue have: "That's it? These people are insane."
Especially if we start getting coverage by larger gaming sites. Maybe some genius will launch a DDOS attack on the site or something – the harder you bully someone, the more sympathetic they start to look.
@Osigold: Who are you talking about when you anthropomorphize "SocJus"? Do you just mean everyone who cares about social justice? Or is there a specific online community I'm not aware of? I've been playing catchup with this stuff, but my understanding is that there are people who explicitly identify with GG and use KiA as an unofficial hub. Is there some rough counterpart on the left? I'm genuinely unclear on what group you're thinking of, whether I'm a member of that group, and where your characterizations are coming from.
SocJus is shorthand for Social Justice, an extremist left wing social/political philosophy based around identity politics. It's closely associated with the authoritarian left and with third-wave feminism. It's not a specific concrete group of people but a loose ideology that can be described by certain characteristics such as condemnation of free speech, the practice of "no-platforming", the use of social media to bully and destroy the lives of those who publicly express opinions that they find distasteful, a belief in patriarchy theory, racism against white people and sexism against men, combined with the idea that you cannot even be racist against white people or sexist against men. It has pseudo-religious aspects such as "privilege" as a sort of "original sin", "patriarchy" as "the devil" and a tribalistic condemnation of outsiders, including first and second wave feminists. There are lots of identifiable characteristics and concepts that help to make up SocJus, such as a belief in the "progressive stack", where how "oppressed" they believe you to be on account of your race, gender and sexuality determines your worth as a person and the validity of your beliefs, but only as long as you agree with them - unless your position on the stack is bad, of course.
Social Justice Warriors do not believe in actual social justice. The term is used ironically by their detractors. The person who wrote an essay arguing that air conditioning is sexist, is an SJW. The people who bullied scientist Matt Taylor until he cried after he helped to land a vehicle on an asteroid because the shirt he wore to the press conference had "sexualised" cartoon women on it, are Social Justice Warriors. It turned out the shirt was made for Taylor by a woman. The people who attacked UK Prime Minister David Cameron for declining to wear a "this is what a feminist looks like" T-Shirt, are Social Justice Warriors. It turned out the t-shirt had been made in a sweat shop. The people who saw a post on social media of a teenage girl showing off her hairstyle and relentlessly attacked her en masse with savage threats and language that would be disgusting to apply even to an adult, because they felt the little girl had "appropriated their culture", are Social Justice Warriors. Tim Schaefer, when he made a joke based on the idea that all the women gamers who spoke up in support of GamerGate must be sock puppets - because no real woman would ever be a filthy dirty gamer, of course - exposed himself as a Social Justice Warrior.
Joan Baez, the famous singer and activist who helped start Amnesty International, is not a Social Justice Warrior. That's actual social justice. This, I thoroughly support and commend.
Comments
Anyway, the implication she makes is that Minsc won't be useful. The veteran warrior with an exceptional strength score. His toughness isn't a subject of discussion. You're not given the chance to praise him, much less directed to do so by the options available to you.
I'm not saying to do it for the sake of doing either, that would be no different than what these trolls are doing, I'm saying if you feel positively then please let it be known, even if you aren't the reviewing type at least spread the word about your feelings.
The SocJus fixation is with strong women, and power in general. They don't care nearly so much about factors like being sensible, likeable, or smart. Would that they did...
I would actually predicted a 12 Intelligence for Corwin on the basis of the SocJus paradigm before I looked it up. She should be smarter than the average person, but Intelligence itself is distasteful to SocJus because they associate rationality with oppressive masculine modes of thought. They're always going after autistic people for this reason.
It's not uncommon for "professional" reviews to vary dramatically from "user" reviews, especially when there is a AAA title with a lot of backing involved.
News sites, under the claim of harassment, have all but disabled comments beneath articles. But now, no one can counter them onsite (where it matters most, first impressions are a doozy), even when they make a claim that is false.
Let us not take some nuclear approach ourselves to stop the anger, potentially handing the reins of perceptions to people with far weaker morals besides the seeking of profit.
(PS I really want an Ivanova npc of similar personality, Jaheira is the closest I can manage.)
Can someone >please< translate this for me, because none of this makes sense.
For some reason I have noticed, people very often only go out and write bad reviews and not the good ones. When you hate something you make your voice heard, but when you love something, it is less likely. But it is just my opinion and own observation
... Is anyone else jaded?
I know there are bugs, but reading some of these reviews you get the impression the game doesn't run at all and I'm not having that experience. Maybe I'm lucky, maybe my PC is perfectly set up to handle the game because I have yet to crash, yet to have my game broken, yet to have a quest not proceed as it should and finish properly... I dunno. Multiplayer is messed up for people but I can't speak to that as I haven't really tried it. I'm just wondering if they are not getting more clever in their review bombs and using overblown bug reports as a shield for their real reason now.
Perhaps this entire thing is making me paranoid but alas. All I can do is enjoy the game and hope people who haven't got it yet can see through the nonsense and give it a shot someday.
Also I wasn't suggesting to use their tactics against them, that would make us no better. I was merely saying we as individuals who enjoy the game can only do what we can and if we truly believe this company and the people behind it deserve what we got, then please take the time to share it.
... Is anyone else jaded?
And more than 25 pages of reviews on GOG....which is insane, because as I've said, Pillars of Eternity has less reviews, and it's been out for a year and is a much bigger release. Hell, the original Baldur's Gate has 90 pages of reviews, and people have been able to comment on that one since the site started. We all love Baldur's Gate, but there is no way in hell enough people in the gaming community do to justify the amount that have popped up since the release. I wrote a review when Pillars came out and it was one of maybe 5-10 total reviews up there for DAYS.
Ultimately, I don't know what will happen. There are plenty of people out there who despised the Enhanced Editions to begin with for whatever reason, and now they'll immediately see these reviews and think Beamdog is in way over their heads in original content, which just isn't the case. Bad reviews killed Sword Coast Legends, but at least those were justified because the game was crap. Siege is exactly what you'd want it to be, minus the bugs. A shame, we'll see I guess.
During the development of the mmo "Star Wars: The Old Republic", there was a thread about SGRAs (Same Gender Romance Arcs), and the discussion of whether the game should have them.
Threads were closed and locked when they reached over 1000 posts (though the mods generally did not reach them until 1200-1400).
There were 15 different iterations of that thread over the course of 5 years.
Just a bit of perspective.
Ultimately, I don't know what will happen. There are plenty of people out there who despised the Enhanced Editions to begin with for whatever reason, and now they'll immediately see these reviews and think Beamdog is in way over their heads in original content, which just isn't the case. Bad reviews killed Sword Coast Legends, but at least those were justified because the game was crap. Siege is exactly what you'd want it to be, minus the bugs. A shame, we'll see I guess.
Well if they think that fake negative review bombing costs them sales by lowering the review score they might reconsider locking it to people that own the game.
Especially if we start getting coverage by larger gaming sites. Maybe some genius will launch a DDOS attack on the site or something – the harder you bully someone, the more sympathetic they start to look.
Social Justice Warriors do not believe in actual social justice. The term is used ironically by their detractors. The person who wrote an essay arguing that air conditioning is sexist, is an SJW. The people who bullied scientist Matt Taylor until he cried after he helped to land a vehicle on an asteroid because the shirt he wore to the press conference had "sexualised" cartoon women on it, are Social Justice Warriors. It turned out the shirt was made for Taylor by a woman. The people who attacked UK Prime Minister David Cameron for declining to wear a "this is what a feminist looks like" T-Shirt, are Social Justice Warriors. It turned out the t-shirt had been made in a sweat shop. The people who saw a post on social media of a teenage girl showing off her hairstyle and relentlessly attacked her en masse with savage threats and language that would be disgusting to apply even to an adult, because they felt the little girl had "appropriated their culture", are Social Justice Warriors. Tim Schaefer, when he made a joke based on the idea that all the women gamers who spoke up in support of GamerGate must be sock puppets - because no real woman would ever be a filthy dirty gamer, of course - exposed himself as a Social Justice Warrior.
Joan Baez, the famous singer and activist who helped start Amnesty International, is not a Social Justice Warrior. That's actual social justice. This, I thoroughly support and commend.
Hopefully that provides some clarity for you.