Baldurs Gate 1 Expansion

So much moaning for nothing. Games shouldn't make political/religious points? Why the bloody hell not?? You can find that in every other form of entertainment, from books to films or stand up comedy.

Games are part of our culture now, they are not just toys for children so expect them to continue to make similar points, even if they fail spectacularly.
 
Zethor said:
So much moaning for nothing. Games shouldn't make political/religious points? Why the bloody hell not?? You can find that in every other form of entertainment, from books to films or stand up comedy.

Games are part of our culture now, they are not just toys for children so expect them to continue to make similar points, even if they fail spectacularly.
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+1

Yes it was a pretty poorly executed and not very subtle point which could have been better but that doesn't excuse the vitrolic response which has the whole thing stinking of misogynistic lunatics (and I hate the whole mysoginistoc labelling ****) wanting a reason to unleash abuse on anyone who doesn't fit their stereotype.

Standard internet moron behaviour.
 
A good point that was made on another site is that trans people do not fit the world the Sword Coast.

There are potions of gender reassignment, and there are items/artifacts which can change your gender. Perfectly.

Therefore, there is no reason for a trans person to exist in the world of BG. It seems the developers either didn't know this, or deliberately ret-conned the lore to allow them to insert a trans character.

That is in itself a pretty silly thing to do.
 
FoxEye said:
A good point that was made on another site is that trans people do not fit the world the Sword Coast.

There are potions of gender reassignment, and there are items/artifacts which can change your gender. Perfectly.

Therefore, there is no reason for a trans person to exist in the world of BG. It seems the developers either didn't know this, or deliberately ret-conned the lore to allow them to insert a trans character.

That is in itself a pretty silly thing to do.
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Or not every person on the sword coast has enough gold to buy a potion like that? Hardly like they have universal healthcare and a society that focuses on such issues :p
 
Do you want all video games to give you a narrative about the social issues du jour?

How about a section in every video game where you have to listen to a ten minute monologue about trans issues.

You'd be fine with that?

I wouldn't be. If you want politics you can always watch Newsnight. Or join a lobby group for an issue you feel strongly about. Become an activist.

Instead of this silly "let's have political agendas in our entertainment - bring it on!" nonsense. It achieves nothing. It's just a way for the PC to show people how PC they are by agreeing to be bombarded from every direction with all these different "injustices".

If Pong was written today, the bat would lecture you for 10 mins on why you shouldn't judge the ball for being gay but still wanting kids. Appropriate? If you say so.
 
No1newts said:
+1

Yes it was a pretty poorly executed and not very subtle point which could have been better but that doesn't excuse the vitrolic response which has the whole thing stinking of misogynistic lunatics (and I hate the whole mysoginistoc labelling ****) wanting a reason to unleash abuse on anyone who doesn't fit their stereotype.

Standard internet moron behaviour.
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What a load of tosh. This isn't misogynistic at all. It is a simple observation that someone tried to be edgy and failed by writing something so incredibly bad that even the people they were trying to appeal to were annoyed and offended by it.

Zethor said:
So much moaning for nothing. Games shouldn't make political/religious points? Why the bloody hell not?? You can find that in every other form of entertainment, from books to films or stand up comedy.

Games are part of our culture now, they are not just toys for children so expect them to continue to make similar points, even if they fail spectacularly.
Click to expand...

Because most writers who try to incorporate religious / political / sexual themes fail miserably. I'm quite a big fan of fantasy books and bought one book in particular that I had heard good things about. I started reading it and slowly realised that it was written by an American ranting about how bad Communism was when he clearly had no idea what Communism actually was. After about 50 pages of reading I couldn't take the ignorance any more and I've never read a book by that author ever again. The funny this is I'm not even particularly in favour of Communism. If he had actually taken the time to understand what he was talking about I might very well have agreed with him but his ignorance turned me off it pretty much straight away.

So yeah games can include what every they want but it would take an exceptional writer to do it in such a way as for me to actually enjoy and this Baldurs Gate expansion is a perfect example of a bad writer.
 
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I wholly agree that the writing is poor, and the issue is almost dragged into the script just for the sake of it.

But the whole 'hatemob' thing is completely inappopriate. By all means give feedback to Beamdog and let them know about , but to claim they are 'offended' by the material?

Completely excessive and my view is 'so what!?' if anyone gets offended. It certainly was not the intention of Beamdog to offend anyone and this is the way it should be taken. Hatemob by all means when the intent is there....but in a game by a game developer that wants to appeal to the masses? Come on!?!:mad:

PC as a whole has gone absolutely nuts. Seems these days a growing proportion of the general population look for any excuse to get 'offended'. Real life happens all the time and does not generally agree with every possible diverse aspect in the population, you know what? Move on with it, in the grand scheme of things its a null point. I am sure transgenders have had a lot more to overcome in their life than a poorly executed script from an NPC in a mid tier game.

Keyboard warriors will be keyboard warriors though, and just because you claim to be offended it doesnt mean you are right.
 
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FoxEye said:
Do you want all video games to give you a narrative about the social issues du jour?

How about a section in every video game where you have to listen to a ten minute monologue about trans issues.

You'd be fine with that?

I wouldn't be. If you want politics you can always watch Newsnight. Or join a lobby group for an issue you feel strongly about. Become an activist.

Instead of this silly "let's have political agendas in our entertainment - bring it on!" nonsense. It achieves nothing. It's just a way for the PC to show people how PC they are by agreeing to be bombarded from every direction with all these different "injustices".

If Pong was written today, the bat would lecture you for 10 mins on why you shouldn't judge the ball for being gay but still wanting kids. Appropriate? If you say so.
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If you think games aren't giving a narrative on life be it overt or covert you are so incredibly niave.

And a 10 minute monologue? It is a couple of lines, get some perspective and have a word with yourself though I am sure you won't as its a perfect smoke screen to act like a juvenile.

I'm out though, people like you can never be reasoned with.
 
No1newts said:
I'm out though, people like you can never be reasoned with.
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I thought he was engaging in a lively debate with you on matter over which you both disagree. If by "can't be reasoned with" you mean "won't agree with my side of the argument", by all means leave the thread :p

Personally I think this is all a load of chuff. If the writer wants to bring her own viewpoints into a game she presumably wants me to buy, don't expect me to cough up my money to have PC issues rammed down my throat. If they are happy to have lower uptake on their game because of it and therefore lower (if any) profits, they can knock themselves out.
 
All the delicate flowers getting offended over a few lines of dialogue in a game.

Is the trauma of reading a couple of lines of backstory about a character's background really too much to bear? Poor things.
 
mid_gen said:
All the delicate flowers getting offended over a few lines of dialogue in a game.

Is the trauma of reading a couple of lines of backstory about a character's background really too much to bear? Poor things.
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Does it advance the story any to have those couple of lines in the game? Or are they just there purely as a SJW thing?
 
mid_gen said:
It fills out the backstory of one of the characters, that's what incidental dialogue is for, so yes, it does.
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At what point does it spoil your immersion though? If it's quite a jarring and obviously out of place piece of dialogue, why does it need to be there? It's not a case of boo hoo I don't like this, it's a case of people not buying the game if they disagree with being spoon fed someone's personal agenda.
 
I put up with an hour of crawling through a hospital so I could play an open world stealth game in Metal Gear. I still have no idea WTF the burning unicorn rider was about.
I think I can cope with a side NPC in a massive RPG who has a couple of lines of clumsy dialogue about trans.
Ragers like raging.
 
mulpsmebeauty said:
At what point does it spoil your immersion though? If it's quite a jarring and obviously out of place piece of dialogue, why does it need to be there? It's not a case of boo hoo I don't like this, it's a case of people not buying the game if they disagree with being spoon fed someone's personal agenda.
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It's not out of place. If games can adress issues related to morality, social structures or inequality they can adress sexuality too. You're not getting spoon fed anything, games are not educational tools, they are a reflection our society. There's a place for transgender people in it so there's a place for them in games, should writers decide to include them.
 
mid_gen said:
It fills out the backstory of one of the characters, that's what incidental dialogue is for, so yes, it does.
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And is this character and her tansexuality intrinsic to the story line or any side quests, or is it a character who doesn't advance the game in anyway & has just been shoehorned into the game for SJW reasons?
 
wordy said:
And is this character and her tansexuality intrinsic to the story line or any side quests, or is it a character who doesn't advance the game in anyway & has just been shoehorned into the game for SJW reasons?
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Her transexuality is not relevant at all to the storyline. It makes no difference at all. Even if it was forced into the storyline, does it really matter? Whether it be clumsy writing in the pursuit of being 'progressive' or just there for the hell of it, I do not understand why it is such a big deal to people.
 
wordy said:
And is this character and her tansexuality intrinsic to the story line or any side quests, or is it a character who doesn't advance the game in anyway & has just been shoehorned into the game for SJW reasons?
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The idea that this character's "backstory" can be "I'm a trans" is also laughable. No info about where she came from, what guild she belongs to, etc, etc. Just "Hi there, I'm a trans! That's my reason for existing in this game!"

And the author has already said that the character exists purely because she is a self-confessed SJW, and wants SJW themes in all her writing.
 
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