People who think it's unacceptable that the game insults them on a personal level
If you think that then you are literally a crazy person. The game nor its devs *know* on a personal level. So they definitionally cannot insult you on a personal level.
This reminds me of the guy stalking a movie star, talking about how "when she looked at me through the movie screen, I knew she loved me too."
Hmm, there's a little more to that I think. You can assault someone personally by also attacking the generic group they are in.
People who utilize phrases like "All X are ....". Like if you said something like "All frogs give you warts" I may very well be insulted.
I personally dislike the "All GamerGaters are review bombing this game to sabotage it." I personally gave it an 8/10. I docked 1 point for broken mods, and 1 point for the admitted alteration in existing character personalities.
Though my karma took a hit on KotakuInAction, because I was in the group that said review bombing was excessive and counter-intuitive to our general platform of free speech. But for some, "no politics ever" is the reason they flocked to the name. For others, it was the "anti-socjus" attitude. And sadly, for a few, there were some of less savory persuasions.
So pretty much par for the course of any online group...
@Osigold And that relates to the entire game how exactly? I honestly do NOT understand where you're coming from and how you're coming to conclusions like that, while playing the game.
@Osigold And that relates to the entire game how exactly? I honestly do NOT understand where you're coming from and how you're coming to conclusions like that, while playing the game.
That is, if you're playing the game of course.
Did you perchance get an opportunity to peruse this post?
It's not a mask, the quality of the writing is an additional problem to the social justice agenda, which is less of a conspiracy and more of something that one of the writers freely and openly admitted to... not that it requires a conspiracy for a small group of people to write something governed by their political beliefs...
I would still like to have an example of that beside the cleric you seem to dislike.
I'll be more than happy to oblige, my good person.
There's a part of the early game where refugees who have been taken in to the city of Baldur's Gate have attacked someone who has given at least a little indication that he might be a "vulnerable person" and beaten him half to death, in order that they might mug him and the very large amount of gold he is carrying, which happens to belong the protagonist.
The protagonist confronts these individuals and it transpires that they stole the money because they were hungry and thought it belonged to the Dukes, and spent some of the gold on a feast while distributing it to other needy refugees.
The player has three choices at the end of the conversation.
The first (and in my opinion, by far the most positively framed) is to let the group go and with rather glowing approval.
The second is to tell them that their hearts were in the right places, but explain that they unfortunately have to be arrested because of what they did to the man they mugged
The third is the "total asshole" response where you just start slaughtering everyone.
This is an incredibly loaded presentation of these events. Stealing from wealthy people is meant to make everything better even if take you in and shelter you in your time of need; You are encouraged, through positive framing, to let them go for being such swell guys just because they gave other people's money to their mates; and you cannot choose to enforce the law without telling them that they basically did the right thing. For that matter, why is gold the barrier to these people getting fed? Isn't the ability to produce and provide food generally more of a factor in situations like this? That wouldn't fit with a SocJus narrative though...
Well, what if you don't think they did the right thing? What if you think mugging someone is a bad thing? What if you think theft of huge amounts of gold isn't that easy to justify? That's not a permissible alternative. You either agree with the SocJus view that refugees are poor and downtrodden regardless of their crimes, rich people deserve to get robbed, and beating someone half to death is totally OK if he's more privileged than you; Or you're a monster and can do the "kill everyone" thing.
This is bad as a series of resolution choices even before we consider this is D&D / a roleplaying game... but this is D&D. What's a Lawful Neutral character meant to think? For that matter, if you think their hearts were in the right places then why would you be arresting them at all? Is that part only there to inject some SocJus feels into the "have justice done" choice instead of making that an internally consistent option within itself? What's a gold-loving Neutral character meant to do?
These problems are compounded by the fact that in the very same part of the game we're presented with the image of a powerful woman standing in armour over the near naked bodies of a bunch of men who had been brawling in the streets because they were bored (because, that's what men DO, right?) and she tells them off for repaying their hosts' generosity by causing a commotion in the streets. You end up being her message delivery boy so that she can get back up against the near-naked, co-operating men.
So, "causing a commotion in the streets" (stuipid men and their roughhousing!) is a scandalous abuse of good will that absolutely must be dealt with, but mugging and nearly killing a vulnerable citizen for the gold that he's carrying, which you presumed belonged to your hosts, makes you a hero (because SocJus)! There's no mention of abuse of hospitality within a mile of that conversation.
There you go, one example. As with all these examples, there's room for doubt and leeway when you consider it individually, and I know that.
I was playing it, but I'm not anymore. My first steam refund.
I apologise for the confusion, but one of the problems with addressing what SJWs do is that it doesn't make a good "elevator pitch"; the compressed version isn't easily digestible.
If you knew things like the history of GamerGate, then you'd be more likely to understand both the insult and how SocJus has informed the writing of the game, but it may just not be something that I can communicate in forum posts. I've been trying my best, but I'm not surprised that a few people say they can't follow it.
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.
We can hope for that. These crusaders do tend to go too far with their lunacy and end up looking ridiculous, at least it's a small bonus that they never learn. :P
@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.
Hopefully that provides some clarity for you.
Where to begin....authoritarian left?? Please show we these Western Democracy dystopias that are popping up with left-wing leaders in charge. I won't hold my breath on that one.
If you honestly don't believe that a white person is born with a certain amount of privilege compared to a black person (ESPECIALLY in America, where we do most certainly have an original sin) or that men have historically been dominating positions of power on this planet for almost all of human history, I really don't know what to tell you.
A person claiming their air conditioning was sexist?? Is that an Onion article?? Do you honestly think most liberals think about such nonsense?? The other examples are anecdotal stories about personal slights and problems. I'm sure they might have caused the "victims" some grief, but I'm sure they're hanging in there.
Before you chime in with you telling me about my "regressive left" attitudes, I'll happily submit to being guilty of living up to the definition that Sam Harris and Milo Yiannopoulos fans use as their personal credo. Thank god this cult of psuedo-intellectual nonsense hasn't spread much farther than Youtube and Reddit.
@Osigold And that relates to the entire game how exactly? I honestly do NOT understand where you're coming from and how you're coming to conclusions like that, while playing the game.
That is, if you're playing the game of course.
Did you perchance get an opportunity to peruse this post?
It's not a mask, the quality of the writing is an additional problem to the social justice agenda, which is less of a conspiracy and more of something that one of the writers freely and openly admitted to... not that it requires a conspiracy for a small group of people to write something governed by their political beliefs...
I would still like to have an example of that beside the cleric you seem to dislike.
I'll be more than happy to oblige, my good person.
There's a part of the early game where refugees who have been taken in to the city of Baldur's Gate have attacked someone who has given at least a little indication that he might be a "vulnerable person" and beaten him half to death, in order that they might mug him and the very large amount of gold he is carrying, which happens to belong the protagonist.
The protagonist confronts these individuals and it transpires that they stole the money because they were hungry and thought it belonged to the Dukes, and spent some of the gold on a feast while distributing it to other needy refugees.
The player has three choices at the end of the conversation.
The first (and in my opinion, by far the most positively framed) is to let the group go and with rather glowing approval.
The second is to tell them that their hearts were in the right places, but explain that they unfortunately have to be arrested because of what they did to the man they mugged
The third is the "total asshole" response where you just start slaughtering everyone.
This is an incredibly loaded presentation of these events. Stealing from wealthy people is meant to make everything better even if take you in and shelter you in your time of need; You are encouraged, through positive framing, to let them go for being such swell guys just because they gave other people's money to their mates; and you cannot choose to enforce the law without telling them that they basically did the right thing. For that matter, why is gold the barrier to these people getting fed? Isn't the ability to produce and provide food generally more of a factor in situations like this? That wouldn't fit with a SocJus narrative though...
Well, what if you don't think they did the right thing? What if you think mugging someone is a bad thing? What if you think theft of huge amounts of gold isn't that easy to justify? That's not a permissible alternative. You either agree with the SocJus view that refugees are poor and downtrodden regardless of their crimes, rich people deserve to get robbed, and beating someone half to death is totally OK if he's more privileged than you; Or you're a monster and can do the "kill everyone" thing.
This is bad as a series of resolution choices even before we consider this is D&D / a roleplaying game... but this is D&D. What's a Lawful Neutral character meant to think? For that matter, if you think their hearts were in the right places then why would you be arresting them at all? Is that part only there to inject some SocJus feels into the "have justice done" choice instead of making that an internally consistent option within itself? What's a gold-loving Neutral character meant to do?
These problems are compounded by the fact that in the very same part of the game we're presented with the image of a powerful woman standing in armour over the near naked bodies of a bunch of men who had been brawling in the streets because they were bored (because, that's what men DO, right?) and she tells them off for repaying their hosts' generosity by causing a commotion in the streets. You end up being her message delivery boy so that she can get back up against the near-naked, co-operating men.
So, "causing a commotion in the streets" (stuipid men and their roughhousing!) is a scandalous abuse of good will that absolutely must be dealt with, but mugging and nearly killing a vulnerable citizen for the gold that he's carrying, which you presumed belonged to your hosts, makes you a hero (because SocJus)! There's no mention of abuse of hospitality within a mile of that conversation.
There you go, one example. As with all these examples, there's room for doubt and leeway when you consider it individually, and I know that.
You are reading WAAAYYY too much into that subquest. Baldur's Gate is about role-playing and alignments – the first response is for chaotic good/neutral characters, the second for lawful good/neutral, and the third was for evil (rarely are you ever given options for all six). The game does not encourage you to pick the first option, that's a SJW conspiracy you're projecting onto the content. I can say that confidently because if you pick the second option, the assailants actually AGREE with you. You can even go visit them in prison at the Flaming Fist and they agree with you some more.
I'm sorry, but you are seeing things in this game that just are. not. there.
@Osigold And that relates to the entire game how exactly? I honestly do NOT understand where you're coming from and how you're coming to conclusions like that, while playing the game.
That is, if you're playing the game of course.
Did you perchance get an opportunity to peruse this post?
It's not a mask, the quality of the writing is an additional problem to the social justice agenda, which is less of a conspiracy and more of something that one of the writers freely and openly admitted to... not that it requires a conspiracy for a small group of people to write something governed by their political beliefs...
I would still like to have an example of that beside the cleric you seem to dislike.
I'll be more than happy to oblige, my good person.
There's a part of the early game where refugees who have been taken in to the city of Baldur's Gate have attacked someone who has given at least a little indication that he might be a "vulnerable person" and beaten him half to death, in order that they might mug him and the very large amount of gold he is carrying, which happens to belong the protagonist.
The protagonist confronts these individuals and it transpires that they stole the money because they were hungry and thought it belonged to the Dukes, and spent some of the gold on a feast while distributing it to other needy refugees.
The player has three choices at the end of the conversation.
The first (and in my opinion, by far the most positively framed) is to let the group go and with rather glowing approval.
The second is to tell them that their hearts were in the right places, but explain that they unfortunately have to be arrested because of what they did to the man they mugged
The third is the "total asshole" response where you just start slaughtering everyone.
This is an incredibly loaded presentation of these events. Stealing from wealthy people is meant to make everything better even if take you in and shelter you in your time of need; You are encouraged, through positive framing, to let them go for being such swell guys just because they gave other people's money to their mates; and you cannot choose to enforce the law without telling them that they basically did the right thing. For that matter, why is gold the barrier to these people getting fed? Isn't the ability to produce and provide food generally more of a factor in situations like this? That wouldn't fit with a SocJus narrative though...
Well, what if you don't think they did the right thing? What if you think mugging someone is a bad thing? What if you think theft of huge amounts of gold isn't that easy to justify? That's not a permissible alternative. You either agree with the SocJus view that refugees are poor and downtrodden regardless of their crimes, rich people deserve to get robbed, and beating someone half to death is totally OK if he's more privileged than you; Or you're a monster and can do the "kill everyone" thing.
This is bad as a series of resolution choices even before we consider this is D&D / a roleplaying game... but this is D&D. What's a Lawful Neutral character meant to think? For that matter, if you think their hearts were in the right places then why would you be arresting them at all? Is that part only there to inject some SocJus feels into the "have justice done" choice instead of making that an internally consistent option within itself? What's a gold-loving Neutral character meant to do?
These problems are compounded by the fact that in the very same part of the game we're presented with the image of a powerful woman standing in armour over the near naked bodies of a bunch of men who had been brawling in the streets because they were bored (because, that's what men DO, right?) and she tells them off for repaying their hosts' generosity by causing a commotion in the streets. You end up being her message delivery boy so that she can get back up against the near-naked, co-operating men.
So, "causing a commotion in the streets" (stuipid men and their roughhousing!) is a scandalous abuse of good will that absolutely must be dealt with, but mugging and nearly killing a vulnerable citizen for the gold that he's carrying, which you presumed belonged to your hosts, makes you a hero (because SocJus)! There's no mention of abuse of hospitality within a mile of that conversation.
There you go, one example. As with all these examples, there's room for doubt and leeway when you consider it individually, and I know that.
Yes and I've read it. Personally, I think he's determined the game to be sharing views he disagrees with before actually playing it, falling into confirmation bias. I have no idea, why you'd play the game for the sake of hunting for political standpoints, but apparently it's a thing. He shared his mind on it and it's fine.
What I find to be mind-boggling is how he remains here and goes off-topic about political ideologies instead of, I don't know, kicking some arse in the name of good with Minsc. What's the point?
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.
I didn't like the new NPCs in the Enhanced Editions. (the UI updates and QoL updates are lovely)
There are some who say that they were overpowered, which I don't necessarily agree with.
Personally, I simply found them to be bland compared to the NPCs in the original game. Fortunately, if you make a point of avoiding the new NPCs (as in, the new content), you can still enjoy a great game.
For this expansion, however, I find that the blandness extends to the entirety of the narrative experience.
@Osigold As for the naked men laying on the street... that's the slave/miner sprite. BG doesn't have a female equivalent in the code because the original only chose to portray males. THAT's why the emaciated figures on the ground were men, not because of some anti-male agenda. What would it take for you to consider that you're making accusations based on confirmation bias?
I am sorry to admit that I haven't been able to read the full 674 posts but I did skim through many. Now, leaving personal bias and feelings aside, consider this:
Unless someone was kept in a bubble and/or was born yesterday then it should have been abundantly clear that there are haters and bigots in the world and that even among more open-minded individuals, there STILL are certain issues that they feel strongly about. Those are religion, politics, nationalism/ethnicitism, race/color, social and political.
Now if I were the project lead of THE project that would make or break the studio behind its' creation I would have done my damnedest to STEER THE HELL CLEAR of ANY AND ALL of the above. I would NEED it to do the best that it possibly could which means that it should be as unifying and inclusive as possible and do my damnedest to make sure there wouldn't be anything that could possibly polarize ANY group regardless of how I felt about a certain issue and CERTAINLY WOULDN'T see this as a chance to try and educate ANYONE but ONLY focus on making this as much fun for everyone as I could.
What's more, it's a freakin' fantasy setting which means there's no direct correlation to actual groups in the real-world to begin with so you'd have to be ACTIVELY TRYING to pick an issue with a real-world correlation here which is exactly what the lead writer, by her own admission, went out of her way to do.
Take a pause for a second and try to take what I just said in: The team of writers INTENTIONALLY chose to make their personal views on very sensitive and polarizing matters known through their work and then took issue when people that didn't share their views voted (mainly) with their wallet and (secondly) with their voice.
Not only that but when that happened instead of taking it all back and saying "mea culpa", they went all-out and confronted their attackers FURTHER aggravating and uniting them against someone they perceived as a threat to THEIR world-view.
And as if that weren't enough, the lead writer took it even further, essentially attacking well-established and much-beloved characters by saying that she "fixed" them and even added that if there were people that didn't like it then that was their problem.
Now I am sorry but it should have been abundantly clear than when you NEED your project to succeed then it isn't the other people's problem if they don't like it, it is YOURS.
Right now what's done is done and the way I see it Beamdog has one of two options:
Stay the course, risking everything by losing a SIGNIFICANT percent of their target demographic in the hopes that it would be offset by the respect gained by like-minded individuals
or
Do a 180, take it all back, promise that along with the obligatory bug-fixing they'll be taking a monetary hit by hiring a new writing team to make a full pass of the writing, improving it where needed and purging ANYTHING that could be perceived as inflammatory and/or polarizing (i.e. enforce self-censorship), releasing the revised script as a future patch.
Not a choice I would have liked to be forced to make.
Beamdog is relatively small company with passion and interest in bringing games that most of the world has forgotten about back into the limelight. They, we, *I* believe that these games surpass in content, in thought, in ability, in execution and in what makes an RPG an RPG much of what is being produced today. Name another game that was considered better that PS:T in story or BG2 in story execution and game play and the date it was released....then pick which of those games you honestly believe will hold that title for as long as BG2 or PS:T did.
While you may be right about your concept that no one looks at metacritic before buying a game, we're not Bioware, we're not EA Games, we're not Blizzard Entertainment. The difference between a 20 million dollar release and a 20 million dollar release short a couple thousand bucks for the one off people who happened to not realize Video game reviews are about as useful as t**s on a boar is pretty small.
When you're talking about thousands of players and and buyers, that thousand bucks for the one off people gets a bit more problematic.
It's also tough to watch people lambast your hard work without feeling a need to step in and say something...which is the only reason I responded to anything in any of the God forsaken "review" threads.
I'm going back to helping users and try my damndest to stay away from the discussion topics. As someone who put a year of effort into this game, to tell you that what I'm reading now is...disheartening...would be an understatement.
I can't imagine how the president of the company might feel.
No, it's not my first day on the internet. I had rather hoped this small community of game lovers might be a little less 4 chan and a little more...I don't know...humane?
Maybe I had forgotten in my time away from posting that the forums here are no different than anywhere else around the internet. That anywhere on the internet there will always be a mass of opinions and the loudest of those will always be the most controversial.
Let me say that as someone who supported Gamergate and is still sympathetic to them with lots of friends who do that I'm sorry this happened to you. I think GG and other dissenters have seriously overreacted. It's embarrassing.
That said, I plan on purchasing your game once I have the money and reviewing it based on the story, characters, gameplay and technical aspects - the things that count. From the LPs I've seen, the game looks great and more than likely going to review it positively. I've been tabletop D&D players since the 90's. It's so good to see AD&D 2nd Edition gameplay once again. I also want to see BG3 and maybe even a Planescape: Torment sequel.
Of course, I'd also love to see a Spelljammer game done BG style, but I'm probably hoping/asking too much at this point.
Anyways, I hope this blows over and people can go back to enjoying the game for what it is. I wish you and the staff the best of luck with this game and hopefully see future D&D titles.
the use of social media to bully and destroy the lives of those who publicly express opinions that they find distasteful
Like your kind is trying to do to Baldur's gate siege of dragonspear?
No, people's lives. Sometimes their jobs, sometimes their liberty, sometimes their art, sometimes their actual lives.
"My kind", in so far as I have a kind, isn't even trying to kill Siege of Dragonspear. SJWs have organised letter writing to get GOG to remove products from their stock before, and successfully at that. They've gotten AAA titles pulled from the shelves of major retailers. We're not trying to block the sale of the game in any way. Anyone who wants to buy it is free to do so, and personally I hope they have a good time.
@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.
Hopefully that provides some clarity for you.
Where to begin....authoritarian left?? Please show we these Western Democracy dystopias that are popping up with left-wing leaders in charge. I won't hold my breath on that one.
You don't need a dictator to have an authoritarian attitude. Banning Somalian refugee speakers from talks at universities is more than enough.
@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.
Hopefully that provides some clarity for you.
Where to begin....authoritarian left?? Please show we these Western Democracy dystopias that are popping up with left-wing leaders in charge. I won't hold my breath on that one.
You don't need a dictator to have an authoritarian attitude. Banning Somalian refugee speakers from talks at universities is more than enough.
Like how Montaron's a murderous bastard or how Minsc is dopey and silly? Sometimes, to be memorable, a character needs exaggeration.
Yeah, some of the original characters like Minsc are quite hammy...but that's the point of those characters. I find him funny, even though there are quite a few people that find him annoying.
Some of the less hammy characters, like Keldorn, are also endearing. But the new characters...I don't know...they simply try too hard to be interesting.
authoritarian left?? Please show we these Western Democracy dystopias that are popping up with left-wing leaders in charge. I won't hold my breath on that one.
A political philosophy or trend cannot exist and be subject to criticism if it hasn't yet taken over a nation state?
[spoiler] I'd say "authoritarian left" is a perfectly good term to describe those on the political left who have given up liberal values like
individualism
humanism
secularism and scientific reasoning
free speech and open discourse
rule of law and due process
etc. in favor of putting shallow identity-based (and ironically Americanocentric) 'social justice' above all, and fight towards this goal using "Might makes right" tactics and by closing down discourse and bullying dissenters wherever they hold institutional power (e.g. some University campuses). [/spoiler]
About a month or so before fallout 4 was released I complained about the RPG elements being restricted by making the main character a Middle aged ex soldier suburbanite in a hetero marriage with a kid in tow. I was immediately bombarded with (aside from death threats and prompts for me to kill myself) claims that I was a 'Social Justice Warrior.'
As someone who doesn't spend too much time exploring internet culture...what the fuck is a social justice warrior and why are so many people being verbally abused and degraded for saying things that would be viewed as respectable and compassionate in an offline setting?
Also, what the hell is a gamer gate? It seems like the Internet is now comprised of 5% people who feel like a dragon inside and like to post about it on tumblr, 45% people who are vehemently enraged about this and looking for catharsis by berating anyone who says anything remotely left wing and 50% of people who are just utterly bewildered. Probably because they remember what it's like to communicate with an actual human being in person. In short...what the hell? This trans character has one optional line, yes?
I've changed the title of this thread to more accurately describe its topic.
That being said, I'd like to remind everyone that this site has rules, and we expect you to follow them, no matter which side of the issue you're on. Keep the discussion civil.
Comments
People who utilize phrases like "All X are ....". Like if you said something like "All frogs give you warts" I may very well be insulted.
I personally dislike the "All GamerGaters are review bombing this game to sabotage it." I personally gave it an 8/10. I docked 1 point for broken mods, and 1 point for the admitted alteration in existing character personalities.
Though my karma took a hit on KotakuInAction, because I was in the group that said review bombing was excessive and counter-intuitive to our general platform of free speech. But for some, "no politics ever" is the reason they flocked to the name. For others, it was the "anti-socjus" attitude. And sadly, for a few, there were some of less savory persuasions.
So pretty much par for the course of any online group...
That is, if you're playing the game of course.
I apologise for the confusion, but one of the problems with addressing what SJWs do is that it doesn't make a good "elevator pitch"; the compressed version isn't easily digestible.
If you knew things like the history of GamerGate, then you'd be more likely to understand both the insult and how SocJus has informed the writing of the game, but it may just not be something that I can communicate in forum posts. I've been trying my best, but I'm not surprised that a few people say they can't follow it.
If you honestly don't believe that a white person is born with a certain amount of privilege compared to a black person (ESPECIALLY in America, where we do most certainly have an original sin) or that men have historically been dominating positions of power on this planet for almost all of human history, I really don't know what to tell you.
A person claiming their air conditioning was sexist?? Is that an Onion article?? Do you honestly think most liberals think about such nonsense?? The other examples are anecdotal stories about personal slights and problems. I'm sure they might have caused the "victims" some grief, but I'm sure they're hanging in there.
Before you chime in with you telling me about my "regressive left" attitudes, I'll happily submit to being guilty of living up to the definition that Sam Harris and Milo Yiannopoulos fans use as their personal credo. Thank god this cult of psuedo-intellectual nonsense hasn't spread much farther than Youtube and Reddit.
I'm sorry, but you are seeing things in this game that just are. not. there.
What I find to be mind-boggling is how he remains here and goes off-topic about political ideologies instead of, I don't know, kicking some arse in the name of good with Minsc. What's the point?
There are some who say that they were overpowered, which I don't necessarily agree with.
Personally, I simply found them to be bland compared to the NPCs in the original game. Fortunately, if you make a point of avoiding the new NPCs (as in, the new content), you can still enjoy a great game.
For this expansion, however, I find that the blandness extends to the entirety of the narrative experience.
Now, leaving personal bias and feelings aside, consider this:
Unless someone was kept in a bubble and/or was born yesterday then it should have been abundantly clear that there are haters and bigots in the world and that even among more open-minded individuals, there STILL are certain issues that they feel strongly about.
Those are religion, politics, nationalism/ethnicitism, race/color, social and political.
Now if I were the project lead of THE project that would make or break the studio behind its' creation I would have done my damnedest to STEER THE HELL CLEAR of ANY AND ALL of the above.
I would NEED it to do the best that it possibly could which means that it should be as unifying and inclusive as possible and do my damnedest to make sure there wouldn't be anything that could possibly polarize ANY group regardless of how I felt about a certain issue and CERTAINLY WOULDN'T see this as a chance to try and educate ANYONE but ONLY focus on making this as much fun for everyone as I could.
What's more, it's a freakin' fantasy setting which means there's no direct correlation to actual groups in the real-world to begin with so you'd have to be ACTIVELY TRYING to pick an issue with a real-world correlation here which is exactly what the lead writer, by her own admission, went out of her way to do.
Take a pause for a second and try to take what I just said in:
The team of writers INTENTIONALLY chose to make their personal views on very sensitive and polarizing matters known through their work and then took issue when people that didn't share their views voted (mainly) with their wallet and (secondly) with their voice.
Not only that but when that happened instead of taking it all back and saying "mea culpa", they went all-out and confronted their attackers FURTHER aggravating and uniting them against someone they perceived as a threat to THEIR world-view.
And as if that weren't enough, the lead writer took it even further, essentially attacking well-established and much-beloved characters by saying that she "fixed" them and even added that if there were people that didn't like it then that was their problem.
Now I am sorry but it should have been abundantly clear than when you NEED your project to succeed then it isn't the other people's problem if they don't like it, it is YOURS.
Right now what's done is done and the way I see it Beamdog has one of two options:
- Stay the course, risking everything by losing a SIGNIFICANT percent of their target demographic in the hopes that it would be offset by the respect gained by like-minded individuals
or- Do a 180, take it all back, promise that along with the obligatory bug-fixing they'll be taking a monetary hit by hiring a new writing team to make a full pass of the writing, improving it where needed and purging ANYTHING that could be perceived as inflammatory and/or polarizing (i.e. enforce self-censorship), releasing the revised script as a future patch.
Not a choice I would have liked to be forced to make.That said, I plan on purchasing your game once I have the money and reviewing it based on the story, characters, gameplay and technical aspects - the things that count. From the LPs I've seen, the game looks great and more than likely going to review it positively. I've been tabletop D&D players since the 90's. It's so good to see AD&D 2nd Edition gameplay once again. I also want to see BG3 and maybe even a Planescape: Torment sequel.
Of course, I'd also love to see a Spelljammer game done BG style, but I'm probably hoping/asking too much at this point.
Anyways, I hope this blows over and people can go back to enjoying the game for what it is. I wish you and the staff the best of luck with this game and hopefully see future D&D titles.
"My kind", in so far as I have a kind, isn't even trying to kill Siege of Dragonspear. SJWs have organised letter writing to get GOG to remove products from their stock before, and successfully at that. They've gotten AAA titles pulled from the shelves of major retailers. We're not trying to block the sale of the game in any way. Anyone who wants to buy it is free to do so, and personally I hope they have a good time.
Bland writing doesn't get better because there's more of it. Yeah, some of the original characters like Minsc are quite hammy...but that's the point of those characters. I find him funny, even though there are quite a few people that find him annoying.
Some of the less hammy characters, like Keldorn, are also endearing. But the new characters...I don't know...they simply try too hard to be interesting.
[spoiler]
I'd say "authoritarian left" is a perfectly good term to describe those on the political left who have given up liberal values like
- individualism
- humanism
- secularism and scientific reasoning
- free speech and open discourse
- rule of law and due process
etc. in favor of putting shallow identity-based (and ironically Americanocentric) 'social justice' above all, and fight towards this goal using "Might makes right" tactics and by closing down discourse and bullying dissenters wherever they hold institutional power (e.g. some University campuses).[/spoiler]
As someone who doesn't spend too much time exploring internet culture...what the fuck is a social justice warrior and why are so many people being verbally abused and degraded for saying things that would be viewed as respectable and compassionate in an offline setting?
Also, what the hell is a gamer gate? It seems like the Internet is now comprised of 5% people who feel like a dragon inside and like to post about it on tumblr, 45% people who are vehemently enraged about this and looking for catharsis by berating anyone who says anything remotely left wing and 50% of people who are just utterly bewildered. Probably because they remember what it's like to communicate with an actual human being in person. In short...what the hell? This trans character has one optional line, yes?
That being said, I'd like to remind everyone that this site has rules, and we expect you to follow them, no matter which side of the issue you're on. Keep the discussion civil.