Whelp, my immersion was just broken. Time to ragequit from history. Computer! Door!undeadsuitor said:
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Representation in games must be properly contextual
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hey wasn't there a character like that in Pirates of the Caribbean 3?undeadsuitor said:
because [I/]white guys just wanna have FUUUUuuuun....ooohhhh ho guys just wanna have fuuuuuuuun[/I]Zachary Amaranth said:
and blacks/woman gays don't....they want to talk about what it is to be black/gay/woman...all the time
[quote/]
from the movie cruel inentions
Black guy: I'm writing a symphony, its based on the life of martin luther king
Nostalga Chick: "because what ELSE would I write a symphony about?"[/quote]
BUT WAIT they say
if your thing isn't about what it is to be gay/black/woman then whats the point of BEING gay/black/woman you might as well just be a.....oh I don't know...the default
so steeped in disingenuous bullshit but I grantee you they wouldn't make such a comment on "realism" with anything elseVault101 said:
its like people will only bring up certain things when they want to dismiss something...hmm
and now I have to go look up that book[/quote]
Oh of course not!
I've heard about her. And yeah a "twofer" would just blow some peoples minds.undeadsuitor said:
I feel like this is a circle truthism thingVault101 said:I thought chilvalry was a nice idea but something that was never fully practiced....Therumancer said:I think it was Heinlein who at one point mentioned that codes of conduct like Bushido and Chivalry worked great until conflict with an enemy that didn't respect them. The Samurai were overthrown by mobs of peasants, and Chivalry arguably ended with battles like "Agincourt" when the flower of French knighthood took the field and marched out to claim a victory since by the rules they should have won easily, and got massacred by longbows when the British decided they weren't submitting to French rule based on some code of honor. There are apparently still some hard feelings about this today.
.
[quote/]I've been of the opinion that video games probably need to teach people to be more pragmatic and less ethical when it comes to war, violence, and conflict resolution. Basically plot armor isn't going to save the day IRL just because your doing the right thing to earn your "Paragon" points or whatever. In the end it's what you achieve for your own side. It would be nice if people wouldn't fight at all, but frankly that isn't going to happen,
"assume it will never change so do nothing to change it"
I'm not saying we should all lay down our weapons and sing kumbya but considering how fast weve moved (I won't say "progressed" because that's another topic and beside the point) within the last 100 years and how fast we continue to move I'm not sure anyone can really say what "wil or won't change"[/quote]
Actually I think Chivalry was well practiced, it's just that when push came to shove and one side of a major war was going to take a major, permanent, loss because of it, they just dropped the principles, and the guys playing by the rules lost to the guys who weren't. Chivalry wasn't all that "nice" by a commoner's standards, the basic idea was mostly a code of conduct between men of value (which actually involved harsh actions towards those of low birth who stepped out of line, even towards your enemies). Part of the idea was that with bloodlines being so valuable they couldn't have all the noble warriors dying on the field of battle, so in practice it came down to war turning into a sort of regimented sport in many cases, with mobs of armed peasants being put against each other while the battle was largely resolved by nobles beating the crap out of each other, the bottom line was to make it so a person of high birth could surrender to another and thus not die and be able to carry on their bloodline and so forth. In practice this meant as insane as it sounds that if some peasant actually attacked a knight or noble on the other side, he could be disciplined or killed
for it, because even if an enemy he has no right to truly attack his betters. This is why things like Agincourt pretty much ended the conflict, and arguably Chivalry, when France took the field of honor in places like that it brought scads of knights with it, knowing Britain didn't have enough nobles to oppose them, it was more or less a victory parade, as the war was over and all those horrible Brits were about to become part of France by the rules. The thing was Britain didn't want to submit to French rule so it basically decided "F@ck the rules" and had a bunch of peasants, armed with dishonorable peasant weapons (Longbows were not typically used on the battlefield before this) just flat out demolished the French Nobles, and that ended the war because during these massacres it wasn't just the sheer loss of forces it was the nobles, leaders, and bloodlines that were being hit which literally shook the foundation of France and it's empire, it arguably never recovered from losing that much of it's Nobility so quickly over a handful of engagements. At least that's my basic understanding of it.
As far as change goes, my basic attitude is that the real "hope" for humanity is to see everyone united under one global government and culture. Something I believe is possible because certain people like Hitler have come close to doing it, and even if it takes the worst kind of tyrant in the long run it's worth it due to the way it will end future conflict, and face it no Tyrant lasts forever, and once rebelled against a people held together for a long term by such a society are going to stay together.
That said I believe for the most part world unity will happen due to the spread of ideas, and we already see it happening, which is why so many nations and cultures are concerned about "global firewalls" and such and trying to protect their culture and values from outside ideas that make people want to change. That said, ideas alone won't do it, as there are groups of people who will not give up autonomy under any circumstances, or for whatever reasons (usually spiritual) reject the rule of reason. This means war and extermination ultimately become necessary, as a global unity works as long as everyone is a part of it. This does not create a utopia, but it does mean that you won't see the same kinds of wars and such that have so far plagued the world. In the long run the short term costs would be well worth it.
Basically the world being messed up like it is, I think the "ideal outcome" ultimately comes down to a final war killing 90% of the human race, but leaving us with a central global government and culture, one that could institute strict population control to prevent the current resource crunches that exist now and allow everyone to have a high standard of living. In such an environment wars like we have now would be a thing of the past even if society was not utopian, and we could ultimately redirect our energies towards space travel, once we get up into space and start colonizing we could then expand our population gradually as our resources expand.
See, at the end of the day one of our big problems is that there are just too many bloody people, we're already running out of resources, we're cutting down wood, exhuming metal, and everything else faster than the planet can replentish it and most of the population still live in pretty poor conditions. As nations develop and want more, that puts more of a strain on resources that can barely support the hungry developed nations we already have. The need for resources and control of them fuels a lot of the conflict today (one way or another). What's more simply by having different nations it engenders paranoia since people will always be concerned about what other groups competing with them are doing, thinking, and developing. Reduce the population to the point where we're not exhausting the planet, and put everyone into the same group... and well... there goes most of your future conflicts.
Of course to get to that point is going to involve a lot of war and bloodshed, and people need to be in the right state of mind for that. Right now the mentality of the USA is one where we can't even defeat peons like North Korea and some of the poorest Middle Eastern nations on the planet because we simply can't bring ourselves to do the needed levels of damage to the culture and the people themselves. How would we ever spearhead unifying the world, or heck, even have any chance of some of our people surviving even if we didn't spearhead it?
See right now I think a big part of the problem is the rest of the world is thinking "war and brutality" where outside of video games the US and a lot of the western world is thinking "peace and ethics". Even in those video games there is an ultimately upbeat message for the most part that comes down to ethics in conflict always someone leading to a victory. That's why I think we've been unable to make much headway in our current conflicts, and have been so ineffective in dealing with recent offensive actions by Russia and China. We're willing to believe morality will always prevail, and that people who talk about peace publically actually mean it. The USA succeeded in part because of it's fighting spirit, and we need to regain that. As twisted as it is, in this messed up world the biggest bastard wins, and right now we're losing ground because while we're being nice guys all of the big bastards are in Russia, China, and riding around on tanks with ISIS in The Middle East, and they are pretty much kicking our can for all intents and purposes as we're reacting to them as opposed to doing what our doctrine demands, seizing the initiative, and making them react to us.
If I'm making a fictional company for my fictional game, I'm pretty sure my CEO get's to be whatever I want.
Zobmie Lizard
Also, that any thing that has a non-white straight male character has to be about that character's non-white straight maleness is 7 heaps of arbitrary pig crap.
Zobmie Lizard
Also, that any thing that has a non-white straight male character has to be about that character's non-white straight maleness is 7 heaps of arbitrary pig crap.
I'm not personally interested in characters like this pirate in my fantasy.mecegirl said:
Having said that, I think that this response might just be the coolest thing I've read all month, and applaud the author for defending his work so promptly and succinctly, for the benefit of those who might enjoy it!
yeah ok...I'm not going to get into the political side here and quite frankly your insistence on making every reply a tome's worth of reading is getting gratingTherumancer said:
EDIT:not that I can't see your points but...you know...I'm not doing this
Why a zombie lizard? Why can't it be a vampire werewolf lizard?Supdupadog said:
#endthezombie
I think you meant "tome," but now I'm picturing someone literally buried under a post.Vault101 said:
I feel that way sometimes.
I wouldn't object to a sexuality option in the character creation menu in games where romance options are available. I'm one of those cross-dressing gamers who always plays female if given the option, so I'm going girl-on-girl in the romance options... and why are you putting Miranda and Jack in front of me if I can't do anything with them... I hate you Mass Effect 2Dholland662 said:
If you're straight, no awkward moments with same sex characters. If you're bi, it's party time with everyone. The characters are only as gay, straight, or bi as you want them to be, not prodding the player for potentially unwanted information in-game.
Well sure, that's a creator's right, of course internal consistency tends to help. Basically if I'm writing a Shadowrun Adventure and I reveal the new CEO of a recently developed megacorporation is a Gummi Bear, that's going to be pretty stupid for the setting, and while I have the right to do that, everyone else is pretty much correct in saying I'm being stupid and that makes no sense at all even for the beating that setting can take.... nor will they want to get involved as mercenaries in the upcoming Energy Drink wars when it's revealed they are releasing a new product using gene tailored (so they will work on humans) Gummi Berries as an ingredient.... indeed I doubt I'd even get far enough to explain how Aztechnology plans to remove Duke Igthorn and his ogres from stasis in an effort to stop them....Supdupadog said:
Basically, it all comes down to context. I believe the OP's point was mostly dealing with a game intending to be fairly realistic and grounded in what the real world is like.
As far as your gay point goes, that tends to be fairly loaded. The reason being is that if you have a gay character in something your developing, there is no point to it unless they make it fairly obvious that they are gay. Basically if a character is gay, and nobody knows it because he keeps it to himself, and it never comes up, there is no real point to that distinction. Pretty much any character who has never done anything sexual or made any comments about it in anything could be theoretically gay. If your setting out to have a gay guy, you need to make it obvious which means the plot needs to have his sexuality come to the forefront. This can be a problem if your entire intention is that you want a gay character so there can be one, and don't have anything else in mind for him to do, at which point "gay" becomes the entire personality and definition of the character. This is why political correctness and inserting characters to be nice can be such a problem, because it becomes obnoxious, usually adds nothing to a given work, and winds up making nobody happy. Of course that's something the whole PC movement refuses to learn, you can't force creativity, if a creator has a fully 3D character in his mind who happens to be gay that works, but if he develops something and doesn't have one, so people complain, and he's forced to make something to shut them up, the character usually winds up becoming the token piece of one note pandering everyone hates.
I think what the OP was getting at is that it's kind of ridiculous if you say have an out of place character, like say a Native American CEO, appearing just so you can be PC and say "hey, look, a Native American in a position of prominence". If you have a fully fleshed out character to begin with, and a story/world built to allow such a thing, then that's not what he's talking about.
To use your gay bit, I think a good example of what he seems to be talking about would actually be "Old Republic Online". Bioware had gay romances in some of their games, so the gay community and it's guilt filled defenders got upset when Bioware released "ToR" and it didn't include any gay romance options because the writers in this case didn't have any plans for any when they made their characters and plotlines. People whined, and whined, and whined, and cried, and cried, and cried, until eventually Bioware said "okay, shut up, we'll put some in for the next major expansion" which Bioware did. "Hutt Cartel" comes out and there are a couple of gay characters that can do a brief romance thing with the PC in the storylines. Of course this wasn't enough for the people whining, because they didn't get exactly what they wanted (active companions/ship mates) and the characters were pretty shallow and not a big part of much at all. Given that the creators didn't want to do this to begin with and didn't have any ideas for important characters that happened to be gay on their own, the result was disappointing because they made a token gesture of appeasement that came across exactly like what it was. Bioware already showed it wasn't bigoted on the subject, but in this case they were being forced to go counter to what they wanted to make, and the end result was pretty pathetic and even silly seeming. I'm guessing the OP thinks a lot like me and feels that if the creator doesn't want to do something, they shouldn't try and pander to this kind of thing, because it just makes problems worse.
no actually....you DON'T need a pointTherumancer said:
if you don't want to have subtext do it for you then a character can mention a boyfriend or even have their boyfriend as a character and that's it
again no one questions if someone just "is" male or straight
but as soon as you make them gay/woman/whatever its like you need justification, you don't, sometimes gay/women/colord characters live their lives like everyone else
or you know....gay people can be "normal"Dholland662 said:
[quote/]Bad representation.
Making almost everyone bisexual for reasons in DA2.
Token characters need to go.[/quote]
ain't nothing wrong with bisexuality
I can imagine those two having some very very angry energetic sex.....Netrigan said:and why are you putting Miranda and Jack in front of me if I can't do anything with them... I hate you Mass Effect 2
.
I find myself thinking of Peter Dinklage. Pretty much his whole career, he's been fighting to play Just A Guy. The IT guy just happens to be a dwarf. The creator of the Sentinels just happens to be a dwarf. The coolest character in Game of Thrones... is a girl, but the second coolest just happens to be a dwarf.
And, honestly, there's a lot of this in life. The construction foreman just happens to be a woman. Unusual, but it happens. The newspaper editor just happens to be Hispanic, okay. The President just happens to be black, well, I guess that could theoretically happen (seriously, there's this comic writer who used to complain about Morgan Freeman playing these kinds of characters with that snicker, snicker, oh how unrealistic this is kind of attitude). I don't want a gong to go off when the Asian race car driver shows up, but I'm not going to think anything strange about any group being represented anywhere.
And, honestly, there's a lot of this in life. The construction foreman just happens to be a woman. Unusual, but it happens. The newspaper editor just happens to be Hispanic, okay. The President just happens to be black, well, I guess that could theoretically happen (seriously, there's this comic writer who used to complain about Morgan Freeman playing these kinds of characters with that snicker, snicker, oh how unrealistic this is kind of attitude). I don't want a gong to go off when the Asian race car driver shows up, but I'm not going to think anything strange about any group being represented anywhere.
Aww it's Therumancer.
Ya know the context is just as malleable as any other part of the story. Why is the CEO a Gummi bear? Because it's a company staffed by anthropomorphic copyright candy.
Also this realistic tripe. What we perceive to be realistic is crap all the time. There are outliers, exceptions, and complete misconceptions everywhere. Unless you're being literally historically accurate, using real people, what occupies your universe is super malleable.
Also also, if you're writing for a game that lasts for 8 hours, I'm sure it's not hard to do something to get across a character's sexuality. A line of dialogue, a short interaction, a hug, freaking cartoon heart. It is like the opposite of hard.
Also also also, Arcade and Veronica completely craps on this idea the gay characters story lines have to be about their sexuality. Fallout doesn't even use the word gay or homosexual or nothing. You actually have to dig into their dialogue trees to learn.
Ya know the context is just as malleable as any other part of the story. Why is the CEO a Gummi bear? Because it's a company staffed by anthropomorphic copyright candy.
Also this realistic tripe. What we perceive to be realistic is crap all the time. There are outliers, exceptions, and complete misconceptions everywhere. Unless you're being literally historically accurate, using real people, what occupies your universe is super malleable.
Also also, if you're writing for a game that lasts for 8 hours, I'm sure it's not hard to do something to get across a character's sexuality. A line of dialogue, a short interaction, a hug, freaking cartoon heart. It is like the opposite of hard.
Also also also, Arcade and Veronica completely craps on this idea the gay characters story lines have to be about their sexuality. Fallout doesn't even use the word gay or homosexual or nothing. You actually have to dig into their dialogue trees to learn.
Vault101 said:no actually....you DON'T need a pointTherumancer said:
if you don't want to have subtext do it for you then a character can mention a boyfriend or even have their boyfriend as a character and that's it
again no one questions if someone just "is" male or straight
but as soon as you make them gay/woman/whatever its like you need justification, you don't, sometimes gay/women/colord characters live their lives like everyone else
I can imagine those two having some very very angry energetic sex.....Netrigan said:and why are you putting Miranda and Jack in front of me if I can't do anything with them... I hate you Mass Effect 2
.
Actually you sort of made my point for me, since you yourself said they would have to mention a boyfriend or something, making it entirely obvious. If they don't do that, and make it obvious one way or another they are gay, there is no point to it because by definition anyone who doesn't specify sexual orientation one way or another could be gay.
It's sort of like some of the complaints about Dumbledore, JK Rowling basically came out eventually after some thinking and said "Dumbledore is Gay", after at first saying that she hadn't much thought about it but if any character she wrote was gay it was probably him. That academic point of course didn't matter to a lot of people because it's never explicitly said in any of the books or movies which has lead to people saying it should be edited in and so on (it's fairly fringe, but there). The point is that it seems a lot of the people the statement was made for don't seem to care unless it's explicit. That's the whole problem with the PC thing. People generally aren't happy with just being able to project that a character who doesn't specify in a story or whatever could in theory be anything.
As far as Jack and Miranda goes, I suspect some rule 34 was just born if someone hasn't already done that one... and somewhere a million lesbian femsheps cry.
Oh, it exists... it exists.Therumancer said:As far as Jack and Miranda goes, I suspect some rule 34 was just born if someone hasn't already done that one... and somewhere a million lesbian femsheps cry.
Just to creep you out, so does Barney, Marge, and Homer. Homer is in the middle.