32 réponses à ce sujet

[Dabrikishaw]

http://www.craveonli...exual-character

 

Yeah yeah, there are probably other reasons it's being negatively reviewed, but tellingly some people feel the need to criticize the inclusion of a trans character at all.

[Grond0]

Thanks Dabrikishaw - that seems to be a balanced article.  

 

I haven't actually played SoD yet, although I have got a copy, but I have seen some of the review activity on Beamdog.  For what it's worth my impression is that the reviews are actually very good about the game itself.  There is a bit of concern about bugs and I can certainly understand that given I've experienced plenty in the comparable changes to BGEE.  There's also a significant number of people who dislike the UI, although I suspect a couple of patches in to sort out a few glitches and that number will reduce a lot.  

 

However, the negative reviews are overwhelmingly associated with concerns that Beamdog are pursuing a 'social justice agenda' with this game.  As mentioned I haven't yet played the game, but I've only seen 2 examples quoted in the reviews of this supposed agenda - both of which are derived from minor bits of dialogue which would be very easily missed or bypassed by people playing the game.  If you like BG I suggest you should therefore not be put off by the controversy and give SoD a look.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Whilst I have worked alongside a transgender person, and got along OK with him/her, (did have some problems due to the person not being a team-player, but that was nothing to do with the gender issue)

 

I wouldn't buy a game with this topic in it for children any more than I would allow them to install RE.

 

It would not however stop me buying the game as an adult.

 

IMO it is impossible to change your gender, for no matter how many operations you have, every cell in your body will still state whether you are XX or XY, and in addition recent research has shown that it is primarily a psychological problem which needs to be addressed as 40% of transgender people commit suicide and performing the operation does not seem to help much, if at all.

[Grond0]

I wouldn't buy a game with this topic in it for children any more than I would allow them to install RE.

 

It would not however stop me buying the game as an adult.

I don't wish to get into an argument about the complex issue of gender Wise.  However, while I might have some sympathy with your views about the inappropriateness of the game for children if it really were thrusting a particular perspective at a child I think that is simply not the case.  Again remembering that I haven't played the game, the entire issue seems to have been constructed from one minor bit of dialogue you have to seek out (it's in the article linked above if you want to see it).  In terms of having a 'social justice agenda', that is far less obtrusive than the original game (which for instance treats slavers rather harshly , never mind having a recruitable NPC who is bisexual).  That's before you even start to consider the damage you might do to children as a result of using the Girdle of Masculinity / Feminity ...

[Alesia_BH]

I don't want to be drawn into the complete animal soup of this debate, but I feel I'd be remiss if I said nothing. I'll make a general comment, and then say no more.

 

History is unkind to the intolerant. The present of today inevitably becomes the past, and in that process those who have discriminated against others on the basis of race or ethnicity, gender or preference, come to look increasingly foolish. Those who respect and honor human diversity, on the other hand, tend to be vindicated. This is among the most salient socio-cultural trends of the 20th and 21rst centuries. I, for one, am grateful for this, but even if I weren't I'd be mindful of it when making public comments on identity and diversity. I would hate to see our community look narrow and provincial a few years from now.

 

Being on the right side of history matters. But it is less important than being on the right side of the present. Because it is in the present that we feel. It is in the present when intolerance can hurt some, while making the world less joyful for all. It is in the present when hatred can cloud what kindness would clarify. Most importantly, it is in the present when we can change ourselves, our culture, our future and our soon to be past. It is in the present when we choose.

 

Do I take sides in culture wars? Yes. And I always play for the same team. I side with kindness and tolerance, understanding and compassion, generosity and awareness: I side with love. I don't get mean, and I don't get cruel. I don't get narrow, and I don't get rude. That's no fun for anyone.

 

I have read a number of Amber's posts on the Beamdog forums. She seems nice. I like her and respect her- and I would like her and respect her even if I didn't enjoy her work. I have also read the posts of many of her critics. Some of them seem less nice. But I like them and respect them, too, because I believe that liking and respecting others -even those we disagree with- is the clearest way to a better world- past, present or future.

 

I look forward to buying Siege of Dragonspear. I love forward to playing Siege of Dragonspear. And I look forward to sharing my gaming experiences with our community- including those whom I might disagree with on one point or another. Because I like to play- I like to play with everyone. Let's keep playing, friends. Fighting isn't for the real world: it's for games. Play is for life.

 

Best,

 

A

[General TSAR]

Thanks Dabrikishaw - that seems to be a balanced article.  

Except not.

 

From what I gather from reviews; the writing, multiplayer, mods going ban happy for any critique, and the bugs are the primary reason for the backlash but the crave article is trying to insinuate that the inclusion of a transgender character is the reason for the low reviews. Ha! Someone should point them to a little game called Witcher 3.

 

It also doesn't help when the writer is like, "Screw you! I don't care if the character seem forced or poorly written or a token character, they are a platform for my identity politics" and then having the president of Beamdog beg for positive reviews.

 

Here's a far better article:

 

 

Any game developer that requests positive reviews as a result of negative criticism should be a red flag for anyone.

http://gameranx.com/...ldurs-gategate/

[realmuzzy]

This is my first post in a loooong while, I was sadly too busy to go beyond reading the weekly digest emails. However, this controversy is something I really want to comment on. I have strong feelings on the topic, some things said in this thread already give me a strong emotional reaction. But I don't actually want to discuss my views, I'll just quote Alesia: "History is unkind to the intolerant."

 

What I'm hoping for is that the controversy stays far away from these forums. This is a uniquely friendly and welcoming community and there's plenty of other places where we can take each other to task. I don't think this is a place for criticizing the games (or defending them), it's a place for enjoying them and making them your own and telling your stories with the help and support of others.

[General TSAR]

What I'm hoping for is that the controversy stays far away from these forums. This is a uniquely friendly and welcoming community and there's plenty of other places where we can take each other to task. I don't think this is a place for criticizing the games (or defending them), it's a place for enjoying them and making them your own and telling your stories with the help and support of others.

So games and expansions shouldn't be scrutinized? How else will they be improved?

[TK514]

I wouldn't have a problem if they had included a trans character, but, unfortunately, they didn't.  They included someone with all the plot/game relevance of a tree stump and had her say "I'm trans".  There are chunks of rock on the map you meet her that have as much interactivity and more importance to gameplay/purpose for being in the game.

 

If you're going to make a trans character then have the decency and the backbone to actually make them a character.  Don't just throw in a stump with a sign on it and call yourself 'progressive'.

[Aasim]

What I'm hoping for is that the controversy stays far away from these forums.

This. 

[Kevin Lynch]

Indeed, as long as the discussion can remain friendly, there's no problem with talking about it here. Just be careful where it goes. Thanks.

[ussnorway]

a storm in a tea cup imo

[CoM Solaufein]

Some how within the past few years I've been moved into an alternate universe. Enough with the shoving politics into my face. Personally I don't care who you love or what you think you are, contrary to what nature gave you, but stop sticking it in my face at every turn.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Some how within the past few years I've been moved into an alternate universe. Enough with the shoving politics into my face. Personally I don't care who you love or what you think you are, contrary to what nature gave you, but stop sticking it in my face at every turn.

 

I can understand your point of view on this. However, to me the fact that 40% of transgender people commit suicide is horrific. Clearly when people have the op, they think that their troubles will be over and then suddenly they discover that they are still there.

 

IMO the problem is psychological, different but on the same lines as people who think that they are Napoleon or Jesus Christ. The treatment therefore needs to be psychological.

 

The latter are clearly psychoses, so perhaps transgenderism is too. I am no psychiatrist so I could be completely wrong.

[Kevin Lynch]

This shouldn't be a discussion about transgender issues in general, or an opinion on it, but about the character in the game. Please keep it focused. Thanks.

[Seraphim24]

History is unkind to the intolerant. The present of today inevitably becomes the past, and in that process those who have discriminated against others on the basis of race or ethnicity, gender or preference, come to look increasingly foolish. Those who respect and honor human diversity, on the other hand, tend to be vindicated. This is among the most salient socio-cultural trends of the 20th and 21rst centuries. I, for one, am grateful for this, but even if I weren't I'd be mindful of it when making public comments on identity and diversity. I would hate to see our community look narrow and provincial a few years from now.

 

 

This is absolutely true. However, it's become commonplace (in no way suggesting you would be in this category by the way, just saying generally) to state these sorts of things but demonstrate no actual ability to kind of realize it.

 

It's a person's ultimate ability to actually realize that tolerance every day and make it feel real to people that matters just as much, well probably more, than some kind of generic agreement with the notion, to determine as you say whether they were on "the right side of history" although I suppose that could be viewed as a sort of "abstaining" from being on the wrong side, at least.....

 

Anyway on topic, was realizing about how much I liked Baldur's Gate the other day, specifically 1, overall, all I've done is look at Siege of Dragonspear and go, hm, you know, maybe it'll be a positive experience, I haven't tried it yet though.

[vbibbi]

Has anyone played the expansion and have a response/review they can share? I'm curious how the game is, ignoring the controversial elements. I've heard mixed responses on the dialogue and professional quality of the content and want to hear more about it.

[ussnorway]

For context:

I play neutral & evil characters on hard with scripts and extra damage turned off… so extra enemies that have better tactics and will set ambushes or sacrifice peons to defeat you but still use the core rules for their spells and attack damages.

 

Combat;

Tactics employed by the enemies are based on you having a strong (very well equipped) group so if you want to charge “hoping for the best” then I’d recommend story mode… even then you will die a bit.

 

Quests;

This is subjective and many of the minor encounters have special evil (having this character lets you avoid battle) options and you may well miss 50% of the expansion on your first play through… or even your third…  I’ve personally played through it 5 times with my current being a no-reload (takes a LOT longer) and have only encountered one bugged quest which involves delivering the bones of adventures to the afterlife portal… it’s very easy to miss some of the bones when you collect them and placing less than all of them in the portal first time will break the quest reward… it still shows completed.

 

Patched Interface:

Beamdog made a major blunder imo by not releasing any documentation on the changes they made… assuming people will learn it themselves has resulted in several bug reports from upset players whom don’t realise the script defaults can | should be adjusted to your own play style for things like “turn undead” “switching to melee when arrows run out” and just “breaking stealth”… there are also several undocumented changes made to spell effects and rulings based on opinion that upset long term players (myself included) used to the core rules behaving a certain way but they are consistent across all the games now so if you summon a spirit in bg1, DS, bg2 or tob the result will behave as expected in each case which is at least something we can adjust to.

[Grond0]

If you haven't seen it already you might want to have a look at 

https://forums.beamd...ist-spoilers/p1

which brings together all the professional reviews released about SoD.

[vbibbi]

Thanks for the tips. I had found a few reviews via Gamebanshee, as well. There was a hilarious one from a personal blog where the guy was clearly just trying to push his right wing agenda by claiming the Flaming Fist officer was real world racist because she didn't want to travel with Viconia. He phrased it as if it was because she was dark skinned rather than because she was part of a fantasy evil race and was evil herself. And mentioned the refugee content which I guess is controversial, as saying it was hate speech that it was described as smelly due to so many people in an enclosed space.

 

There were luckily some politically impartial reviews which did a good job discussing pros and cons. From the sound of it, some of the writing is uneven and doesn't always match the tone of the base games. I just reinstalled my versions of BGEE and BG2EE so will replay those for now, as I haven't played them in years.

[Buttafook0]

It's impossible to believe that this gender politics insanity has now infected Baldur's Gate now of all things. One day when common sense has returned to the world, people are going to look back and be amazed at this period in history. My already low opinion of Beamdog is now even lower and the fact they charge $130 for an edition of this is just pure madness.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Thanks for the tips. I had found a few reviews via Gamebanshee, as well. There was a hilarious one from a personal blog where the guy was clearly just trying to push his right wing agenda by claiming the Flaming Fist officer was real world racist because she didn't want to travel with Viconia. He phrased it as if it was because she was dark skinned rather than because she was part of a fantasy evil race and was evil herself. And mentioned the refugee content which I guess is controversial, as saying it was hate speech that it was described as smelly due to so many people in an enclosed space.

 

There were luckily some politically impartial reviews which did a good job discussing pros and cons. From the sound of it, some of the writing is uneven and doesn't always match the tone of the base games. I just reinstalled my versions of BGEE and BG2EE so will replay those for now, as I haven't played them in years.

 

Sadly, it's not just Right Wingers that are racist. Some countries in the old communist block were/are. Sometimes this is as a result of their history where they were not well treated by invaders.

[vbibbi]

Sadly, it's not just Right Wingers that are racist. Some countries in the old communist block were/are. Sometimes this is as a result of their history where they were not well treated by invaders.

 

I won't go into racism as this thread as it's already under risk of closure, but I was not trying to imply certain groups are more or less racist or inclined toward racism. In this specific example, the reviewer was clearly right wing, due to many of his statements against the issues discussed and how he labeled Beamdog as the "antagonist" to his views. And not that he was racist, just using a strawman argument about the in-game politics to try to make the DLC look bad. But it was very laughably transparent, as anyone who was familiar at all with the setting knows that it's not an issue of non-white skin with drow, it's that they're an evil demon-worshipping branch of elves. GRANTED, there can be perceived issues with making the evil elf branch dark skinned, but this is not the place for that discussion.

[StarcloudSWG]

I don't care that the character is transgender.

 

I do care about 'breaking the fourth wall' by referring to real-world controversies that have nothing to do with the game world's politics.

I do care if the character was poorly written, or if the character's entire identity and storyline revolve around their transgender nature and the character is otherwise boring. "Oh, I made up my name" doesn't really need an unprompted explanation about why.

 

One of the very first magic items you come across in the original Baldur's Gate was a Belt of Gender Change. Yes, it was cursed in that you needed a Remove Curse to unequip it, but it provided the opportunity to play 'what if' with characters. Kind of. The world didn't acknowledge the fact the character was now male instead of female, or the other way around, which was probably due to the fact the player was expected to get rid of it; magic item slots were more important than RP possibilities anyway in terms of gameplay.

 

This character would have been a great way to give that cursed item some significance in that character's story.

[Grimwald the Wise]

I don't care that the character is transgender.

 

I do care about 'breaking the fourth wall' by referring to real-world controversies that have nothing to do with the game world's politics.

I do care if the character was poorly written, or if the character's entire identity and storyline revolve around their transgender nature and the character is otherwise boring. "Oh, I made up my name" doesn't really need an unprompted explanation about why.

 

One of the very first magic items you come across in the original Baldur's Gate was a Belt of Gender Change. Yes, it was cursed in that you needed a Remove Curse to unequip it, but it provided the opportunity to play 'what if' with characters. Kind of. The world didn't acknowledge the fact the character was now male instead of female, or the other way around, which was probably due to the fact the player was expected to get rid of it; magic item slots were more important than RP possibilities anyway in terms of gameplay.

 

This character would have been a great way to give that cursed item some significance in that character's story.

 

I expect some modder will ensure that the belt becomes part of a quest for this character. If they went to the trouble of creating the character, they should have given him/her some kind of quest, and that they didn't use the belt shows either a lack of knowlege of the game, or a lack of imagination.

 

By the way, Romantic Encounters makes use of that belt pretty well in a mildly amusing fashion.