3411 réponses à ce sujet

[Iakus]

See my subsequent post. A visceral disgust to such things practically implies a visceral moral objection to such things.

Finding it silly or awkward is fine - since it is practically cartoony most of the time and reminiscent of the sex scene in Team America. But that isn't really an objection or a disgust to it being in the game, rather than how it is presented. If it was more realistic or believable, such people probably wouldn't object.

I would submit to argument that the vast, vast majority of people that object to such things do so out or recognized or subconscious moral or religious objection.

But who says the disgust is visceral for everyone?  What it it's just eye-rolling?

 

Perhaps people wouldn't object it it was presented differently, but what if they don't think it can be?  Either due to resource constraints, writing ability, technological limits?

 

You may be right that moral and religious objection may be the greatest rationale.  Or perhaps not, I don't know how we can easily determine it.  But in the end, does the reason matter?  

[Kabooooom]

I do not believe murder is OK; generally sentence Loghain, Howe, and the Illusive man to death because of this.

Where does what cease? *rhetorical* The right to opinions, beliefs, and requests are enjoyed by almost all; not the select few. And when kept within the ToS, one has the privilege to support or oppose such topics.

You do not believe murder is okay, but then kill murderers because they murder?

What you really mean is, you believe that killing is okay in certain circumstances, such as for capital punishment. I agree. But the argument underscores how utterly subjective and gray morality often is.

As for the latter, I was talking about the feasibility or practicality of changing a game for such requests and not yours (or anyone's) right to speak of them. I'm going to assume that you just misunderstood and weren't trying to construct a straw man, in which case it may have been my fault for not being more clear.

[Kabooooom]

But who says the disgust is visceral for everyone? What it it's just eye-rolling?

The thing is though, I have somewhat of a hard time believing that someone would be motivated to create a thread imploring a game developer to exclude or toggle such content simply because they roll their eyes to it. A much more reasonable human response would be "well I find this lame, other people probably like it, so it doesn't really bother me".

Having it bother you that much that it motivates the creation of such a discussion doesn't really scream "eye rolling" to me.

[Elhanan]

You do not believe murder is okay, but then kill murderers because they murder?

What you really mean is, you believe that killing is okay in certain circumstances, such as for capital punishment. I agree. But the argument underscores how utterly subjective and gray morality often is.

As for the latter, I was talking about the feasibility or practicality of changing a game for such requests and not yours (or anyone's) right to speak of them. I'm going to assume that you just misunderstood and weren't trying to construct a straw man, in which case it may have been my fault for not being more clear.

Can be a big difference between murder and killing someone (eg; self defense).

If the Devs actually look at this suggestion, and after study, make a decision, I can abide that result. Does not mean I shall like it, but can live with it. It does not hurt anyone to look; could be beneficial and possibly profitable.

[Pasquale1234]

I am, yes, because I honestly can't think of a reason why someone would object to swearing or sex other than finding them morally objectionable or offensive. Can you? Even a visceral disgust against such things implies a visceral moral objection to them. It's practically inherent in the objection, and pretty absurd to think otherwise.

Yes, I can think of plenty of other reasons.

Desensitization is one.

I remember the first time I ever saw Billy Jack - I was deeply, passionately angry about the way the little girl was treated by some townspeople - and later, the rape of Jean. I look at it today and wonder how it ever stirred any kind of emotion in me.

The HBO series Oz can serve as another example. It seemed really raw and shocking at first, but after more and more exposure to such material, the emotional impact lessens.

As for language - I use my share of raw language, but I think people sometimes forget what the words actually mean. I happen to feel that words and how we express ourselves is important.

I also remember the first time I heard Howard Stern on the radio. Nothing shocks me anymore, and I'm not convinced that that's a good thing. I don't want all of my senses so completely scabbed over that nothing has any emotional impact on me. So I sometimes choose to limit my exposure to such content, so that when I do choose to consume certain kinds of content, it can actually have an emotional impact.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

This is actually the first good point I have seen anyone raise so far, rather than most people who seem to be PC tiptoeing around the obvious. I concede in that case, and as a biologist I am ashamed that I did not consider that. But again, should we cater to the few asexual fans of mass effect?

My vote would be no. Just as they shouldn't cater to the small percentage who dont like gore or the small percentage who dont like homosexuality or swearing.

Why thank you. I'm glad I was able to broaden the discussion by bringing it up.

 

From a DAI interview, it seems Bioware is considering options that benefit those demographics as well as others. 

Spoiler

Dear Gaider, I heard somewhere that an asexual character might be created in the future. Even if it's not true, how do you think you would go on about such a character? Since asexuality is nothing the society would really notice (as loving the same sex would) but might be, depending on the character, a more internal struggle. And of course the difficulty for the player to have more than romance. As an asexual myself I'm just curious about how you would implement it into the story.

 

"As Patrick and I discussed at GaymerX last year, the thing we see more likely is allowing the player more opportunity to have romances where sex wasn’t a necessary part of it — I didn’t dictate that this needed to be the case in DAI, but I asserted to the writers that they needn’t feel required to include sex in their romances, and that’s why some of them don’t need to go there (like Dorian) or leave it out entirely (like Josephine). Whether we would make that a requirement in the future, I’m not really sure. We slightly change our approach to follower writing and romances in particular with each outing, so it really depends.

Insofar as including asexuality specifically, my difficulty with it remains the same as with other—shall we say more complicated?—forms of sexuality…in that the only way to really include them is to allow for an in-game discussion of that sexuality. You can’t just show it, you have to talk about it, and that gets a bit more difficult in a quasi-medieval setting where the notions and terms aren’t the same as in our own modern society.

Not impossible, mind you (as Krem certainly shows—though if you didn’t stop and talk to Krem about his transgender nature, would it still count? Would people even have been aware? The discussion had to be deliberate, and there’s not always an opportunity for that), but it’s certainly a hurdle. I’d say the entire team is aware there are fans who would like to see more stuff like that, so I’ll just say it’s possible and we’ll leave it at that for now."

[Il Divo]

But who says the disgust is visceral for everyone?  What it it's just eye-rolling?

 

Perhaps people wouldn't object it it was presented differently, but what if they don't think it can be?  Either due to resource constraints, writing ability, technological limits?

 

You may be right that moral and religious objection may be the greatest rationale.  Or perhaps not, I don't know how we can easily determine it.  But in the end, does the reason matter?  

 

That depends. I stand by what I said before: nobody has to justify how they feel about including a feature. All they need is "I like it" or "I dislike it". 

 

But we do run into logical fallacies when people explicitly try to do this on moral grounds. A page ago, somebody used the example that a language filter would let parents step out of the room without worrying about their kids hearing swearing. Okay, that works, but Bioware seems to love their moral conundrums. Your kid could still be allowed to: commit genocide, throw people out of a window to their deaths, blatantly threaten/extort someone into giving them money, torture a prisoner, and that's just to use Mass Effect as an example. 

 

That strikes me as very weak reasoning, particularly if the goal is to establish a market for this feature. This goes back to the whole T vs M rating dichotomy as well. 

[Elhanan]

That depends. I stand by what I said before: nobody has to justify how they feel about including a feature. All they need is "I like it" or "I dislike it". 
 
But we do run into logical fallacies when people explicitly try to do this on moral grounds. A page ago, somebody used the example that a language filter would let parents step out of the room without worrying about their kids hearing swearing. Okay, that works, but Bioware seems to love their moral conundrums. Your kid could still be allowed to: commit genocide, throw people out of a window to their deaths, blatantly threaten/extort someone into giving them money, torture a prisoner, and that's just to use Mass Effect as an example. 
 
That strikes me as very weak reasoning, particularly if the goal is to establish a market for this feature. This goes back to the whole T vs M rating dichotomy as well.

That was me, and if the child I mentioned could also overhear genocide, blackmail, torture, etc, I would also recommend ear phones. But that still does not remove the offensive language for the Player, and a Toggle could fix that.

[Kabooooom]

Can be a big difference between murder and killing someone (eg; self defense).

Off topic, but I think this is worth mentioning as I used the word "kill" as an umbrella term. Morally, self-defense is completely different from murder, yes. But there is little difference between killing someone against their will (effectively murder), and killing someone against their will as punishment because they committed murder. Both circumstances are taking a life against will, often when the victim cannot defend themselves. You are a proponent of capital punishment, as am I (in specific circumstances, provided an adequate level of evidence has been reached which in most cases has not). But we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking the act is somehow noble, or fundamentally different from that committed by the criminal. It is a purely pragmatic act. Honestly, I think that attaching any degree of virtue to it makes us use it more indiscriminately as a society, rather than sparingly, as it should be.

[Pasquale1234]

That depends. I stand by what I said before: nobody has to justify how they feel about including a feature. All they need is "I like it" or "I dislike it".

It would be great if that were true. It's pretty hard to do that when various other parties assign their assumed reasons for someone else's dislike of something.

[Il Divo]

That was me, and if the child I mentioned could also overhear genocide, blackmail, torture, etc, I would also recommend ear phones. But that still does not remove the offensive language for the Player, and a Toggle could fix that.

 

Fair enough, but what I was getting at was that the language toggle in theory won't get parents out of that conundrum and make Mass Effect a viable purchase. At least, not without removing all the other extremely mature content the child could experience. The example you used was that a parent could now walk into another room safely. That's more than enough time for a kid to throw a merc out the window, shoot Wrex in the face, (you get the idea), etc. 

[Kabooooom]

Yes, I can think of plenty of other reasons.

Desensitization is one.

I remember the first time I ever saw Billy Jack - I was deeply, passionately angry about the way the little girl was treated by some townspeople - and later, the rape of Jean. I look at it today and wonder how it ever stirred any kind of emotion in me.

The HBO series Oz can serve as another example. It seemed really raw and shocking at first, but after more and more exposure to such material, the emotional impact lessens.

As for language - I use my share of raw language, but I think people sometimes forget what the words actually mean. I happen to feel that words and how we express ourselves is important.

I also remember the first time I heard Howard Stern on the radio. Nothing shocks me anymore, and I'm not convinced that that's a good thing. I don't want all of my senses so completely scabbed over that nothing has any emotional impact on me. So I sometimes choose to limit my exposure to such content, so that when I do choose to consume certain kinds of content, it can actually have an emotional impact.

I dont find desensitization to be a particularly valid excuse, to be honest.

I do, absolutely,100% agree that violence, porn, swearing, etc. can desensitize someone. Especially with porn. With violence, there is a HUGE difference between seeing something happen in real life and seeing it happen in a game or movie. Most well adjusted human beings can see violence in games or movies, and have it not desensitize them for when they see it for real. They are absolutely completely different. But as someone who has witnessed a large amount of gore first hand in real life because of my job, I can absolutely attest that seeing such things desensitizes you.

So, I agree that everything should be in moderation. But moderation should be self imposed. I am not going to write Game of Thrones, saying that I like the plot but I am getting desensitized to seeing breasts flop around every five minutes. Instead, if that actually bothered me, I would turn the show off.

To me, the same thing applies here. Turn the game off, or dont buy the game. Changing the game seems unnecessary, to me, as resources could be better spent elsewhere. But I'm not a game developer, so it is just my assumption, and perhaps an incorrect one, that it would be problematic.

[Il Divo]

It would be great if that were true. It's pretty hard to do that when various other parties assign their assumed reasons for someone else's dislike of something.

 

I'll be honest: I was facepalming a bit seeing all the motives attached by others to the OP's request, especially since he was being pretty polite about it all. 

 

Some of the responses he got back were worse than your typical "Bring the Warden back!" threads. 

[Elhanan]

Off topic, but I think this is worth mentioning as I used the word "kill" as an umbrella term. Morally, self-defense is completely different from murder, yes. But there is little difference between killing someone against their will (effectively murder), and killing someone against their will as punishment because they committed murder. Both circumstances are taking a life against will, often when the victim cannot defend themselves. You are a proponent of capital punishment, as am I (in specific circumstances, provided an adequate level of evidence has been reached which in most cases has not). But we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking the act is somehow noble, or fundamentally different from that committed by the criminal. It is a purely pragmatic act. Honestly, I think that attaching any degree of virtue to it makes us use it more indiscriminately as a society, rather than sparingly, as it should be.

Killing is not something I wish to do, but is something in which I trained well. By doing so, my training could save lives. Others with military or like backgrounds could make similar points; likely better ones depending on their skills. However, it is my belief that most professionals in these positions do not want such situations to arise, and work very hard to prevent it. But if it is deemed as needed, they are ready.

[Elhanan]

Fair enough, but what I was getting at was that the language toggle in theory won't get parents out of that conundrum and make Mass Effect a viable purchase. At least, not without removing all the other extremely mature content the child could experience. The example you used was that a parent could now walk into another room safely. That's more than enough time for a kid to throw a merc out the window, shoot Wrex in the face, (you get the idea), etc.

Have read of cats doing this....

Ratings and Toggles will never replace proper oversight, but it can help; does not appear to hurt.

[Pasquale1234]

I dont find desensitization to be a particularly valid excuse, to be honest.

I don't need you to validate my choices, to be honest.

You asked. I explained one reason, and probably should not have bothered.
 

So, I agree that everything should be in moderation. But moderation should be self imposed. I am not going to write Game of Thrones, saying that I like the plot but I am getting desensitized to seeing breasts flop around every five minutes. Instead, if that actually bothered me, I would turn the show off.

One of many reasons why I've never watched it, and don't expect I ever will. It sounds like a royal snoozefest of extremes to me.

(and btw, desensitization starts happening looong before you recognize it - if you ever do. If you're not 'bothered' by any of that content, you might want to ask yourself why.)
 

To me, the same thing applies here. Turn the game off, or dont buy the game.

Or politely ask for concessions, as the OP did.

It doesn't look to me like the OP is seeking the advice or approval of any other forumites.

[AlleyD]

I hope to present a different perspective on the topic of offensive language and link in some of the source material etc, for anyone interested in psychological and neurological responses to the perception, and the use of swear words.

 

What happens in the brain of a person perceiving/or using a cultural taboo word? 

 

The most coherent answer I can find is from Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker's in his 2007 book "The Stuff of Thought" which links swearing with emotion. Previous studies had already illustrated that taboo words reside deep in the right hand side of the brain which is the area most responsible for the production and processing of negative emotion. The areas that light up with taboo words are the basal ganglia (Responsible for the production of taboo words and phrases) and the amygdala (responsible for perception). Simply put,  the amygdala is the area of the brain that processes threat and danger and is the trigger for the fight and flight response mechanism.

 

Another aspect relating to taboo words is that they are processed involuntarily. They cannot be edited, ignored or made just to be sound and letters. Upon perception of the word the amygdala responds. Someone having an aversion to language may be having a little stronger amygdala response than someone who is more comfortable with taboo words.

 

There is extensive use of obscenity in this clip, but I hope the context of serious scientific debate and research by an acclaimed professional psychologist and linguist will compensate.

 

 

A quick note about gore filters and how someone can be comfortable with violence in a game, but still feel uncomfortable with language. The brain isn't fooled into thinking the events are "real enough" to light up the amygdala enough to cause the spike of discomfort taboo words cause

[Kabooooom]

(and btw, desensitization starts happening looong before you recognize it - if you ever do. If you're not 'bothered' by any of that content, you might want to ask yourself why.)

.

Oh please, spare me your (rather ironic) moral lecture. Some, I dare say most, people aren't bothered by nudity because they recognize that nudity isn't something to be uptight about. Especially people like me, who have a medical background. The body is a beautiful thing, and I quite frankly find western societies' obsession with scandalizing nudity to be rather sad and pathetic.

I find it particularly amusing that you chose to make that comment after an entire paragraph where I elaborated on yes, I agree that desensitization occurs as I have experienced it myself with regards to gore and death. It happens naturally, as a coping mechanism.

But I find the people who object to it in games and media for that reason to be particularly naive. Sorry, but it's true.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

Oh please, spare me your (rather ironic) moral lecture. Some, I dare say most, people aren't bothered by nudity because they recognize that nudity isn't something to be uptight about. Especially people like me, who have a medical background. The body is a beautiful thing, and I quite frankly find western societies' obsession with scandalizing nudity to be rather sad and pathetic.

I find it particularly amusing that you chose to make that comment after an entire paragraph where I elaborated on yes, I agree that desensitization occurs as I have experienced it myself with regards to gore and death. It happens naturally, as a coping mechanism.

But I find the people who object to it in games and media for that reason to be particularly naive. Sorry, but it's true.

 

I've bee playing games for ~30 years, watching movies longer. I've never seen actual serious injuries. I'm pretty sure I'm not desensitized, and suspect I'd feel quite ill if I came across an actual dead body or severely injured person/gore.

 

The sooner everyone gets 'desensitized' to nudity the better. It's a body. We all have one.

[wolfhowwl]

How do we feel about jiggle physics?

 

 

I think it would add to the romance scenes and banshees.

[Elhanan]

I've bee playing games for ~30 years, watching movies longer. I've never seen actual serious injuries. I'm pretty sure I'm not desensitized, and suspect I'd feel quite ill if I came across an actual dead body or severely injured person/gore.
 
The sooner everyone gets 'desensitized' to nudity the better. It's a body. We all have one.

And most of us wear clothing....

[NWN-Ming-Ming]

And most of us wear clothing....

And most of us take some or all of them off when we pee, poop, shower, bathe, or make love.  Don't act so surprised to see things that have been there since the day you were born.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

And most of us wear clothing....

 

Why do you suppose that is?

[Elhanan]

And most of us take some or all of them off when we pee, poop, shower, bathe, or make love.  Don't act so surprised to see things that have been there since the day you were born.

Good list of activities I would rather not see in a game. Prefer Dragons and Reapers....

[NWN-Ming-Ming]

Good list of activities I would rather not see in a game. Prefer Dragons and Reapers....

Then don't pursue Romances or Love Interests.  You don't want to see nudity...  Problem solved.