Hogwarts Legacy - Whimsical Wizardry
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Also a common thread with positives shared in all reviews I seen is the word "nostalgia." They are very clear that this is what it does best. Which is...well, it ain't for me. It ain't intriguing. But it is profitable.
Hmm, some elements are honestly quite reminiscent of MMOs...mainly the glut of fetch/collection quests, and the mail system (whereby NPCs contact you to give quest updates or instructions from far away).
But on the other hand, the map and the combat system don't seem directed towards an MMO. Combat often involves levitating, pushing or pulling your opponent to control their movement or placement, which wouldn't suit fighting alongside other players. And the map inside the castle is very enclosed and secret-finding-oriented, suited to a single player game.
I'm gonna say not, though a few elements are admittedly reminiscent, and I do get the impression they envisaged greater complexity that didn't make it in. Plus there's the whole Quidditch pitch right there but no Quidditch.
I mean I literally have no attachment or knowledge of the IP at all and I think the game is great. Not sure what's going on with GrilfriendReviews stream, but there is a lot of ambient music and there is a little magic sting whenever you collect things. It's a little light on combat in the early game but I can't speak on how far GF is.
One wonders how much of that is due to publishers having realized "bugs = bug videos on youtube = clickbait articles linking the videos = free advertising". And from that, followed Rockstar's and Bethesda's suit of just not giving a shit about bugs that aren't showstoppers bad enough to bait class action suits.
In the book, at least, the entire house was mandatorily evacuated to Hogsmeade, because McGonagall. Slughorn had already left the castle by that point, to muster and lead the reinforcements from Hogsmeade. The Slytherin students still willing to fight returned with the Hogsmeade reinforcements, as part of the flanking maneuver against the Death Eaters.
Chalk it down to Rowling's dodgy writing and questionable values, that suicidal myopia (what was supposed to be Gryffindor's collective flaw) got lionized while tactical intelligence got shunned. See also, how Ravenclaws were never really written as that smart...and how we're expected to just unironically accept Harry's designated hero status, when he's in reality kind of a dope around whom intelligent people who get shit done operate.
Alternate character interpretations abound in the fandom. Hell I saw one video that made a very cogent argument Ron should well have been in Slytherin, as every time we get insight into Ron's internal thoughts, he's exceptionally driven by ambition. The only thing that really sets him as a Gryffindor is his "first in line" status for getting the piss taken out of him when trouble comes calling.
If any of the main trio should have been a Hufflepuff, I personally think it should have been Hermione. She's naturally intelligent, yes, but what defines her as a character is she's a far harder worker than the other two. Her success was a direct consequence of that. That would have been a much clearer stance and harder line on the themes explored in her character, and a direct refutation of the "blood purity and natural talent" conflict throughout the books.
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I wasn't paying that much attention to the game overall but I could've sworn it was meant to be some sorta online live service nonsense. If not an MMO, something like Destiny or Warframe or whatever.
I'm actually quite surprised to find out that it's basically Harry Potter Skyrim.
Are you sure you mean 'book' and not 'interviews with JK Rowling'? Because in the version I read none of the Slytherin students remained to fight against Voldemort. To quote a few passages:
'Thank you, Miss Parkinson,' Said Professor McGonagall in a clipped voice. 'You will leave the Hall first with Mr Filch. If the rest of you house could follow.'
Harry heard the grinding of benches and then the sound of the Slytherins trooping out on the other side of the Hall.
'Ravenclaws, follow on!' cried Professor McGonagall.
Slowly, the four tables emptied. The Slytherin table was completely deserted, but a number of older Ravenclaws remained seating while their fellows filed out: even more Hufflepuffs stayed behind, and half of Gryffindor remained in their seats, necessitating Professor McGonagall's descent from the teachers' platform to chivvy the under-age on their way.
Harry heard the grinding of benches and then the sound of the Slytherins trooping out on the other side of the Hall.
'Ravenclaws, follow on!' cried Professor McGonagall.
Slowly, the four tables emptied. The Slytherin table was completely deserted, but a number of older Ravenclaws remained seating while their fellows filed out: even more Hufflepuffs stayed behind, and half of Gryffindor remained in their seats, necessitating Professor McGonagall's descent from the teachers' platform to chivvy the under-age on their way.
'If your son is dead, Lucius, it is not my fault. He did not come and join me, like the rest of the Slytherins. Perhaps he has decided to befriend Harry Potter?'
And now there were more, even more people storming up the front steps, and Harry saw Charlie Weasley overtaking Horace Slughorn, who was still wearing his emerald pyjamas. They seemed to have returned at the head of what looked like the families and friends of every Hogwarts student who had remained to fight, along with the shopkeepers and homeowners of Hogsmeade. The centaurs Bane, Ronan and Magorian burst into the Hall with a great clatter of hooves, as behind Harry the door that led to the kitchens was blasted off its hinges.
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No, from the very beginning it was announced as a single player rpg. Maybe you're thinking of the mobile games, which are more of a life service thing, as I understand?
I don't think my assumption has any real basis, and I might have confused it with news of a supposed canceled EA Harry Potter MMO. But I don't think I read those headlines carefully so my brain just computed "Harry Potter MMO" and I made way too many assumptions about things. Especially considering the climate of today's gaming industry, my odd glances in the direction of Hogwarts Legacy just made me assume things.
This game has inspired me to replay Magical Diary: Horse Hall.
A bit over a hundred years ago, the MKT train company delibarately staged a train crash, and accidentally killed 2 people and injured dozens, and the resulting, though negative, publicity made it a massive success for them. Videos about somewhat buggy games have to be better than that.
"Dear Devil,
How many must die for my next game to break 10 million copies sold?"
With Love
Todd
This has the same energy of the people claiming saying Orc with a hard C is the same as saying the n-word in DnD.
Fantasy stories often use historical events to inspire events in their own world. Also the Goblins are evil in this universe so this artifact implies that Fettmilch was evil, so how is it anti-semetic when it reads like a call out to how much of a bastard Fettmilch was? It's literally implying that it was evil.
How are goblins evil in this universe?
Do you think that's what the explicit message of Harry Potter was supposed to be, that some races are just evil and inferior and need to be kept down? In particular, the race who run the banks in which everyone stores their money and possessions.
Because I have a pretty passionate dislike of JK Rowling, and even I think you're doing her dirty with that assessment.
That clearly wasn't the explicit message at all, it's the implicit one, and at this point I can't even tell you for sure it was unintentional because the author seems to be perfectly fine making friends with all kinds of insane bigots. But frankly, I don't think many of the people who are still taking the time to defend Harry Potter for some reason actually think that was the message.
Like, you can't tell me the people making this game don't follow the discourse around it. They have paid community managers. They absolutely knew about the recurring anti-semitism thing and the way the films had already mishandled it. If noone in the entire creative process sat down, looked at this and thought "hey, maybe lets' double check there's no way this could be misconstrued", then someone fucked up.
Like, there didn't even need to be a date. You could have just said "the goblin uprising" and left the date ambiguous, or given a vague date like "the seventeenth century". If for some reason it had to be a specific date, maybe check that date doesn't coincide with a pogrom (I know there are a lot of pogroms, but come on).
If this is all a misunderstanding, then it implies a level of idiocy which noone should feel particularly obligated to forgive. These people want us all to go on social media and hype their game, they can deal with the backlash when they fuck up (assuming, generously, that this was a fuck up and not actual malice).
Also, just make it a fucking trumpet. 2 minutes in photoshop. 2 seconds to rewrite text. Done.
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I mean the villains so far have been goblins and dragons. #notalliguess.
I really think people are looking for malice where there is no intention to be malicious. Do you think the writer was sitting there trying to write about the 150-somthing artifacts in the game and thought, "I know I write a little hate crime in here mwhahahahahaahaha!"
Again fantasy writing pulls from historical events to fill out the world all the time, including atrocities because evil needs to exist to make a world believable and also to give things relevance. And considering the game's location in western Europe, pulling from European history specifically makes sense.
But people want the game to be nothing more than a hate-fueled anti-everything propaganda piece to prove their narrative right so...whatever.
The point is, in order for me to believe that isn't what happened, I have to believe that a bunch of people fucked up. They really fucked up. Like, they just straight up didn't do their jobs, or didn't take basic steps to preempt an obvious problem that would have been completely trivial to fix. And if it was just the poor people being crunched to death I could maybe forgive, but you're telling me this got past multiple layers of management without someone flagging it as a potential issue? What is the point of having community managers, or social media managers, if they're either too incompetent or too unimportant to be able to flag such an obvious mistake? There are millions of dollars tied up in this product, what does it say if none of the hundreds of people involved could spend 5 seconds google searching a date.
Okay, when you know a particular element of your setting has historically been accused of fostering antisemitic tropes, why the fuck would you intentionally reference a historical atrocity against Jewish people at all, let alone with the race that, however you look at it, does swing dangerously close to a lot of conspiratorial anti-semitic stereotypes and which you're using as the villain (and, let's just assume they are, I've heard a bunch of conflicting stuff but I don't want to spoil over a disagreement I don't really care about).
I mean, this is the franchise that had to somehow find a way to reference the holocaust in their stupid childrens' magic animal movie (with the specific context that trying to stop the holocaust would be.. bad) so maybe I just shouldn't expect better. But considering all the trouble they went to to try and distance themselves from the morally warped elements of the source material and its creator, they're doing a very bad job at being better.
I don't know, I don't know enough about the HP lore to know what the deep lore was meant to establish so I can't give you a reasoning. I also have never heard of HP being anti-Semitic only that it was somehow anti-trans solely because of Rowling's twitter exploits.
Again though, I think that a lot of that is projection. WW2 allegories are used in fantasy all the time and simply referencing the events does not mean there is some Nazi level secret plot by the people behind the project. I feel it's people projecting their hatred for Rowling upon the title for their own personal reason, not for anything that based on actual malice or intent by the developers behind the project.
Good to know my support for boycotting and sanctioning streamers has proven to be the right thing
Blessed be KonradLeijon
Another point of the house system being flawed: How exactly did cunning become a trait of Slytherin? We've seen plenty of Slytherins in the book, and aside from Slughorn and Snape they're all idiots.
Most prominently Voldemort who fails at everything he does, and keeps insisting his army handicap itself. Draco can most charitably be said to have an intelligence he wastes due to hubris and cowardice, Lucius makes several giant blunders, Belatrix is a deranged simp and the Death Eaters only ever won because the ministry was so determined to surrender itself to them.
The most cunning person from Hogwarts seems to be Dumbledore who's from the house opposite to Slytherin. Which is also weird because the later books made it a point to mention teenage Dumbledore was intensely ambitious, which he fears he still is deep down, while emotional cowardice seems to be a bit of a flaw of his.
Most prominently Voldemort who fails at everything he does, and keeps insisting his army handicap itself. Draco can most charitably be said to have an intelligence he wastes due to hubris and cowardice, Lucius makes several giant blunders, Belatrix is a deranged simp and the Death Eaters only ever won because the ministry was so determined to surrender itself to them.
The most cunning person from Hogwarts seems to be Dumbledore who's from the house opposite to Slytherin. Which is also weird because the later books made it a point to mention teenage Dumbledore was intensely ambitious, which he fears he still is deep down, while emotional cowardice seems to be a bit of a flaw of his.
