What game are you playing?

[KnightBrolaire]

Oh goddamn. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to wait for a sale, but now? Couldn't pay me to play it.

Yeah I mean I don't have a problem with fiction actually imitating or being inspired by real life. Game of Thrones and The Poppy War are two book series that immediately come to mind. Both draw heavily on actual historical events (war of the roses and ww2/the rape of nanking respectively).

This is just insanely problematic when the goblins/jews are supposedly the "bad guys" in the game.

 

[TedEH]

there are a lot of transphobes and it's not a cancelable offence yet.

Isn't this THE cancelable offence? I can't think of many people who have been cancelled for other things. Well, I guess that and grooming etc., but you get my point.

I do think there's something to The BlackBard's point - but not so much much that there's a turning point, but more of a "push back". I don't mean that to say it's justified at all - just that I can definitely imagine some people having the attitude of "alright, I'm done with all this cancel culture stuff - I'm just going to do and say what I want and shrug off the consequences". A change in overall public attitude is something that comes with friction.

Re: the screenshot - I wanted to hold any judgement until I try the game myself (and I still mostly will) but that's pretty damning in itself. I'm still going to play the game eventually, but it'll be hard not to see this stuff.

 

[StevenC]

Isn't this THE cancelable offence? I can't think of many people who have been cancelled for other things. Well, I guess that and grooming etc., but you get my point.

I do think there's something to The BlackBard's point - but not so much much that there's a turning point, but more of a "push back". I don't mean that to say it's justified at all - just that I can definitely imagine some people having the attitude of "alright, I'm done with all this cancel culture stuff - I'm just going to do and say what I want and shrug off the consequences". A change in overall public attitude is something that comes with friction.

Re: the screenshot - I wanted to hold any judgement until I try the game myself (and I still mostly will) but that's pretty damning in itself. I'm still going to play the game eventually, but it'll be hard not to see this stuff.

Here in the UK our last two Prime Ministers got the job by competing on transphobia. It's very popular here.

And who has ever been cancelled for transphobia? Joanne's overpriced game is breaking sales records, Dave Chappelle had exactly 1 performance cancelled (a year after it all started). I can't think of anyone else.

 

[BlackMastodon]

View attachment 120964

That's pretty gotdamn bad.

 

[Werecow]

And who has ever been cancelled for transphobia? Joanne's overpriced game is breaking sales records, Dave Chappelle had exactly 1 performance cancelled (a year after it all started). I can't think of anyone else.

Graham Linehan pretty much has, but he has doubled down on being an evil shit at every chance. He's lost his career, wife, nearly all his money. Thing is with him, he's been so terrible that it's been pretty much self-inflicted. Even before it happened he was always one of those people who tried to win internet arguments with everyone. He then applied that trait to being a transphobe i guess. He even published this weird manifesto for discriminating against trans people.

Black Books and The I.T. Crowd are two of my favourite comedies, so i was so dissappointed in him.

 

[StevenC]

Graham Linehan pretty much has, but he has doubled down on being an evil shit at every chance. He's lost his career, wife, nearly all his money. Thing is with him, he's been so terrible that it's been pretty much self-inflicted. Even before it happened he was always one of those people who tried to win internet arguments with everyone. He then applied that trait to being a transphobe i guess. He even published this weird manifesto for discriminating against trans people.

Black Books and The I.T. Crowd are two of my favourite comedies, so i was so dissappointed in him.

Father Ted is still good, but IT Crowd doesn't hold up. Lineham has been actively anti-trans for over a decade and it's taken this long for anything to happen to him, but he also hasn't been working much generally the past decade since IT Crowd ended.

 

[narad]

View attachment 120964

Yeaaa, I'm going to go with "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.". Or in this case, simply ignorance.

 

[wankerness]

Yeaaa, I'm going to go with "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.". Or in this case, simply ignorance.

Looking past the hysteria into this, the horn is probably what you say, just an unfortunate coincidence, and the description including the 1612 year are taken straight from the third Harry Potter book. So, I suspect it’s the devs going out of their way to make things true to the books and not realizing any unfortunate coincidences (or dog whistles if Rowling intended it that way in the third book, which I guess isn’t impossible). But to put this as evidence of hateful anti Semitic behavior on the part of the devs is stretching.

I hate being in the position of defending Rowling and this game, but I hate loud half truths and exaggerations being allowed to stand as fact. Hate Rowling for things she’s actually done, not bogus reaches that are getting trumpeted all over Reddit and Twitter by the wokemob. She’s done plenty of actual awful things. Making stuff up just weakens your own arguments.

Now I see they’re posting plot spoilers for the game everywhere, as if anyone cares about the plot to an open world game. They’ve equated themselves to the 4chan chuds who did the exact same thing with the end to half-blood prince right when that book released, but trying to claim moral superiority.

 

[Werecow]

I couldn't resist it and i'm replaying Prey yet again. Also doing another Sekiro run alongside.
I've got a no-damage with 100% perfect deflects on Owl Father now, yet i can't manage the full deflects with Gyoubu, despite him being so much easier to actually beat in general.
I have weird skill holes or observation problems with the game. Like i can extremely regularly no-damage and really dominate the first true phase of Isshin SS, but i'll regularly fully die on his second phase still. I don't seem to be able to see or work out his spear at all.

 

[Leviathus]

Made it to late game/DLC on Dark Souls 2. Took down the blue smelter demon after 4 or 5 tries and got the fancy blue sword. I think that run to the boss might be the most unforgiving in all of souls. Way more stressful that the fight itself. It's a relief to get through the fog door. Still have Fume and Alonne, Ancient Dragon, Darklurker, all the throne room bosses and the Sunken King DLC to get to. This is where the real fight begins! IIRC i have a bone to pick with Gank Squad. Undecided about doing the snow DLC, but perhapz.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

Looking past the hysteria into this, the horn is probably what you say, just an unfortunate coincidence, and the description including the 1612 year are taken straight from the third Harry Potter book. So, I suspect it’s the devs going out of their way to make things true to the books and not realizing any unfortunate coincidences (or dog whistles if Rowling intended it that way in the third book, which I guess isn’t impossible). But to put this as evidence of hateful anti Semitic behavior on the part of the devs is stretching.

I hate being in the position of defending Rowling and this game, but I hate loud half truths and exaggerations being allowed to stand as fact. Hate Rowling for things she’s actually done, not bogus reaches that are getting trumpeted all over Reddit and Twitter by the wokemob. She’s done plenty of actual awful things. Making stuff up just weakens your own arguments.

Now I see they’re posting plot spoilers for the game everywhere, as if anyone cares about the plot to an open world game. They’ve equated themselves to the 4chan chuds who did the exact same thing with the end to half-blood prince right when that book released, but trying to claim moral superiority.

Yeah it's juuust a coincidence that they explicitly picked a shofar/ram's horn, which is exactly what jews use for ceremonial purposes and in times of war.

 

[CTID]

I couldn't resist it and i'm replaying Prey yet again.

god, i love arkane games but something about Prey just loses me a few hours in every time i've tried. i even love the old immersive sims like system shock 2 and the OG Deus Ex but for some reason i can never keep up with Prey, even though i know i should love it

Made it to late game/DLC on Dark Souls 2. Took down the blue smelter demon after 4 or 5 tries and got the fancy blue sword. I think that run to the boss might be the most unforgiving in all of souls. Way more stressful that the fight itself. It's a relief to get through the fog door. Still have Fume and Alonne, Ancient Dragon, Darklurker, all the throne room bosses and the Sunken King DLC to get to. This is where the real fight begins! IIRC i have a bone to pick with Gank Squad. Undecided about doing the snow DLC, but perhapz.

Crown of the Old Iron King is prob my favorite dlc of DS2, but god the boss runs for Blue Smelter and Sir Alonne are insane. to the point that i'm convinced it has to be a fucking joke

edit: also just watched a comparison video of Metroid Prime and the remaster and it honestly looks like a complete remake, it's pretty incredible how much better it looks now

 

[Leviathus]

Crown of the Old Iron King is prob my favorite dlc of DS2, but god the boss runs for Blue Smelter and Sir Alonne are insane. to the point that i'm convinced it has to be a fucking joke

Ahh i forgot about the Sir Alonne one. I'll probably be farming most of those guys out of existence.

 

[MFB]

Completed Mt. Gelmir and Volcano Manor/just Praetor Rykard since I don't have access to Mountaintop of the Giants yet. Started going through Darkroot Depths and it was just sort of boring, so I'm finally doing the Capitol. Opened the shortcut by the Crucible Knight do avoid that shit death run, fuck lightning stuff, shits annoying.

Maybe it's just this zone, but it seems like this is also getting to where the game wants you to play one specific style and that's it. With close quarters, my magic is slower and gets blocked by the level, so I have to just use MVK the whole time which is fine, I guess? We'll see if it opens back up once I'm done here.

 

[wankerness]

Completed Mt. Gelmir and Volcano Manor/just Praetor Rykard since I don't have access to Mountaintop of the Giants yet. Started going through Darkroot Depths and it was just sort of boring, so I'm finally doing the Capitol. Opened the shortcut by the Crucible Knight do avoid that shit death run, fuck lightning stuff, shits annoying.

Maybe it's just this zone, but it seems like this is also getting to where the game wants you to play one specific style and that's it. With close quarters, my magic is slower and gets blocked by the level, so I have to just use MVK the whole time which is fine, I guess? We'll see if it opens back up once I'm done here.

It’s a thing with indoor areas. I used pretty much exclusively melee in the capital and the dungeon areas around there but just rock sling or the occasional pebble on the main bosses. Haligtree and farum Azula were more balanced between melee and spells while clearing. The problem with those big leyndell knights (and lots of later big enemies like the tankier beast men) is that they don’t stagger except with the moonveil art and if you don’t stagger them every attack they’ll mess you up.

Are you saying you beat Rykard or you cleared up to him? The bounty thing is really obnoxious cause it forces you to save him for way later, but I always wait anyway cause some of the items from that chain are so good.

 

[wankerness]

god, i love arkane games but something about Prey just loses me a few hours in every time i've tried. i even love the old immersive sims like system shock 2 and the OG Deus Ex but for some reason i can never keep up with Prey, even though i know i should love it

Crown of the Old Iron King is prob my favorite dlc of DS2, but god the boss runs for Blue Smelter and Sir Alonne are insane. to the point that i'm convinced it has to be a fucking joke

edit: also just watched a comparison video of Metroid Prime and the remaster and it honestly looks like a complete remake, it's pretty incredible how much better it looks now

The blue smelter run is like the gank squad run and the lud/zallen run - it was meant to be done in coop and it’s totally nuts if you try it alone. Unlike Lud/zallen, though, summoning npcs doesn't really help. I would always go through really slowly and kill everything and just make absolutely sure i didn’t take more than one try at the boss (ex use the +3 magic quartz ring and a magic infused havel’s shield), or just save scum at the door.

Alonne’s run has no good explanation, I don’t know why they did it. Fortunately he’s really easy compared to Fume Knight so I think I’ve only died to him like once in all my runs. My only advice on that run is stock up on poison arrows and kill all the lizards with those while pulling the knights with arrows very carefully one at a time. It's still stupid, your options for him are either beat him with a greatshield and totally trivialize the fight and make it boring, or fight him in the more exciting way it's intended and risk having to do that hell on earth runback the first 12 attempts. Or save scum. Again, I think it's totally justified there, as well as with Lud/Zallen or the Gank Squad.

 

[wankerness]

Yeah it's juuust a coincidence that they explicitly picked a shofar/ram's horn, which is exactly what jews use for ceremonial purposes and in times of war.

Based on the illustration that looks very little like a Shofar, and there are plenty of horns out there in culture that aren't tied to Jewish people, so again I point to the comment about stupidity vs malice being a definite possibility here. That said, I certainly get that it looks bad and its existence along with all the other baggage is definitely problematic. I would expect this to get patched out along with an apology, and I absolutely think it should be removed. But, I wouldn't be surprised if it was done out of utter ignorance or, at worst, one or two devs tried to get in something antisemitic and no one else who actually saw this item description in game during testing and whatnot had ever heard of a shofar (I know I never did till yesterday) so it got in with no interference, not through some big racist conspiracy where hundreds of devs all conspired to put in a loaded reference into the game in an item description somewhere.

I suspect the major problem here, one that shouldn't be missed by any of these megabudget games, is that they apparently didn't have a cultural team combing through this stuff explicitly to make sure there wasn't anything that could even possibly be interpreted like this in there. You know that no major studio game would ever consciously have allowed anything in that was blatantly racist cause it's just bad capitalism. That stuff tends to be the realm of indie games made by psychos like that ProX team.

I admit that this is turning into The Last Jedi for me, where the opposition is SO frothed up and obnoxious and full of half-truths and exaggerations and bile (seriously, look at Gamingcirclejerk if you want to lose all faith in humanity) that it's working the same way everyone screeching about TLJ having pink hair lady bossing around men and being racist against white men and the movie "ruining" Luke Skywalker made me want to like that movie more than I actually did.

So yeah, I'm finally starting to agree with Ted - they're attracting SO much negative attention to their own cause that they're actually going to prop up sales of this thing. It's insane. You see people proudly posting reactions like "jesus, what is wrong with you idiots, shut up already" that they get from posting plot spoilers EVERYWHERE along with saying things like "see, no one could possibly be annoyed by us unless they were already anti-trans, and my making them really annoyed at me and galvanizing them against our cause is funny and just revealing existing anti-trans people!!! Hoorah for justice!!" Jesus christ.

Scorched earth policies like outright lying or going all out alienating any opposition to win like, political power to actually affect positive change is understandable, but these idiots aren't gaining any sort of power, they're just getting off on trying to scold people and ruin things for people, not make any actual meaningful change with anything. The odds that they're actually probably going to help INCREASE sales of this thing seems to be irrelevant as long as they can scold people, meaning that they're really not in this for any actual positive reasons.

This all said I still haven't bought the game and don't have any plans any time soon and do agree the horn thing should absolutely be removed, even if I'm still skeptical it was done with actual malice. If they patch this kind of thing out and issue apologies I probably will on discount someday. If not, eh. I'm really burned out on open world games that aren't Elden Ring right now.

 

[TedEH]

they apparently didn't have a cultural team

It's been my experience that most don't. It's just sort of unspoken-ly assumed that the values of the team will be enough of a "filter" that such a team wouldn't be necessary, or that it would be the job of QA / Loc QA to catch that kind of thing.

 

[wankerness]

It's been my experience that most don't. It's just sort of unspoken-ly assumed that the values of the team will be enough of a "filter" that such a team wouldn't be necessary, or that it would be the job of QA / Loc QA to catch that kind of thing.

Seriously? That seems like a huge mistake with how much content is in games and how something like this, one little paragraph on one little item description, can cause a gigantic backlash, but I guess I'm not surprised they'd try and do that. That sounds like Ubisoft - the way their games all start with showing a message onscreen like "this game was made by a multicultural, multiracial team of people of many different genders", when that might just mean "we had people of all these races/genders all following top-down orders from a couple white guys and no one screened shit."

 

[MFB]

It’s a thing with indoor areas. I used pretty much exclusively melee in the capital and the dungeon areas around there but just rock sling or the occasional pebble on the main bosses. Haligtree and farum Azula were more balanced between melee and spells while clearing. The problem with those big leyndell knights (and lots of later big enemies like the tankier beast men) is that they don’t stagger except with the moonveil art and if you don’t stagger them every attack they’ll mess you up.

Are you saying you beat Rykard or you cleared up to him? The bounty thing is really obnoxious cause it forces you to save him for way later, but I always wait anyway cause some of the items from that chain are so good.

Yeah I forgot the knights don't stagger either which is a cowabummer, but whatever, I'll deal with it for now.

I'm at 45/45 for VIG/MIND and 51 for INT, so I'm dumping a couple pts into DEX now to save the talisman slot, and eventually I'll get the 4th slot too.

I actually killed Rykard since I didn't have the patience to wait until unlocking MOTG, and killed Harlow and his bullshit whips, so I said fuck it. Last time I did Volcano Manor I was overpowered at that point he was trivial, and he still was (killed him on 3rd try due to bad placement after summoning mimic).