Blarghagh

Heavy moderation is never our goal. I don't think anything we've done really qualifies (feel free to disagree if you want). I'd say the biggest source of tension is the PG-13 problem. Obsidian decided the content on the board must be PG-13 since their board isn't rated and they share responsibility for what happens on their board. Their games are rated, and a significant number of them go far over PG-13 level and the audience that the forum attracts mirrors that. In the end, it's frustrating for you guys and it's frustrating for us because it sometimes means we have to dissuade things that would otherwise be fine and we have trouble maintaining that line - the ratings boards are notoriously draconian and unfathomable. Take the movie "The Conjuring", the ratings board declared that would be rated R for intense atmosphere. I mean, what the hell is that all about? Regarding the systems Nonek and alum were talking about, we do actually have a tiered system in place. We just don't discuss it and very few people ever get into the higher tiers.

Having come from a Chinese household, you begin to tire of the cuisine and even local takes on it wear on you, to the point that for me what seems completely banal to my friends (meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and peas) seems totally exotic to my palette. Thankfully sushi, teppanyaki, and Korean barbecue are still foreign enough for me that it's a joy to go out and eat. I get that. I will never eat another boiled potato in my life. Roasted, baked, mashed, anything else but boiled. My dad was obsessed with eating meat and potatoes five days a week. I get nauseous at the sight of them now.

This is indeed a very pressing concern for us at all times. Generally, if posts contain actual feedback and hostility that is easy to seperate, we tend to choose editing posts by removing the hostility and keeping the feedback, though sometimes it just can't be helped. There have even been a handful of occassions where devs themselves asked us to remove extremely blunt criticism and we refused for that very reason.

Pruned. Yeah, we're having none of that. Keep your personal grudges out of this. Derailment with ad hominem attacks are not appreciated.

If I recall correctly, this was from a little ARG they had right before announcing the Kickstarter for PoE.

Wait, I do? Last game release was before I was a mod, so I wasn't aware of that. That would actually be pretty awesome.

Haha, thanks. The fun fact is that we're all volunteers. We don't get anything in return except the pleasure of having people whose posts we remove railing at us for being Nazis/communists/SJWs in private messages.

Exactly, his ideas but actual writers and directors improving them like what happened with Empire? Sounds like a solid plan to me.

Gosh, I hope you don't find some of the comments that were made recently about The Binding of Isaac by some of those journalists. Making fun of it for having poop in it, for instance.

Yeah, we're counting on it. The same thing happened when the backer beta started, and with pretty much any major announcement or release.

I wasn't aware you were a "problem" and that these things are specifically about you. I believe some people already posted that they were sorry that they got hostile towards people and let it escalate. I don't think anyone is blaming you specifically? I can't speak for anyone else, though, but I find it weird that you take the debate personally. I'm "selling" peace yet I don't remember having any negative interactions with you (correct me if I'm wrong, and I'll probably apologize). Is Grognard a rude term? I believe it just means old soldier and refers to people who like their games old school. I don't know what Sawyer said about them. Either way, nobody here is being forced to apologize, they're doing it from their own volition and desire. Demanding one from Sawyer seems odd since nobody is making such demands on you. Anyway, like I said before, "peaceful" does not have to mean agreement or pandering. It's just the difference between "I think your opinion is completely wrong and here's why" honesty, and "I think you're an incompetent fool who has to learn how to read and I won't bother with your nonsense anymore" ad hominem rudeness.

The problem with what Stun is saying is that he connects peaceful and agreement. No such connection exists. I can agree with someone but be a jerk about it (not what we want) and I can disagree with someone respectfully (what we want). Presto, no echo chamber.

Well, I reject the notion of art myself and I've had that discussion at length in one of the previous threads so I'm not going to get into that, but I didn't mean to imply feminism and art are similar. My point was more: Dear Esther is somehow art despite its inherent misogyny but Bayonetta can't be considered art because it objectifies women?

The same applies to just about everything, though. Sturgeon's Law, I believe it's called. 90% of everything is tripe. To compare, movie reviews, book reviews, music reviews, etc. aren't any better than game reviews. Hell, especially not music reviews. Music reviews are worse for the simple fact that Pitchfork exists.

I hope it's not cancer. Sucks, man.

I didn't mean you specifically, it was more in response that everyone here could do it. There's a couple of people here that would be great and I think you're one of them. If you did a gaming blog, I'd totally read it. But those people are mostly exceptions, not the rule. I do agree with you that a lot of things get unfairly ignored or unfairly praised. A lot of game developers or games get bashed for sexism, but you barely ever get true praise for games that don't do it, and if you do, it's misdirected. I've mentioned before that Dear Esther very unfairly gets praised for it since the game is the literal definition of the women in refrigerators trope, and then Bayonetta has a confident, powerful character that embraces her feminine side and it gets criticism because of some "male gaze" camera angles? I wish there were more games that had confident, powerful women without emasculating them.

Yeah, I appreciate this thread. Not just for Obsidian, but for the community. As mods we sometimes only get to really focus on the negative parts and it's nice to see positive sentiments. We love the fact that people are passionate about this stuff because that's what we are, and the fact that we're even neccesary is a showing of how passionate people really are. Even the times when people get angry and say nasty things it's because they care so much and just want everything to be awesome. I know that before I was a mod I flipped my lid a couple of times and said some nasty stuff to people and I totally regret it.

Discussing isn't the same being a good writer, though.

Why? You're not responsible for that one. I am.

It was mentioned as a factor for said dev feeling uncomfortable, not as a jumping off point to discuss the merits of it. The rest of the thread is a discussion of PAX comments about how it gave developers more freedom to interact and it grew organically from there - leaping on someone at the first mention of feminism is NOT. Either way, stop discussing each other. This thread is on very thin ice as it it.

This thread is not to turn into a discussion of feminism, capiche? We've got enough of that going on in Way Off Topic and if it turns into that, I'm closing it down.

Eh, I'm not too sure about that. George is still a very creative mind, he's just not very good at harnessing it. George's ideas or outlines, but someone else writing and directing? I'd be in. I have more faith in that than I do in JJ coming up with the ideas.

Ain't that the truth. When I bought NWN2 on release, it wouldn't even install. It was still more playable than any AAA title Ubisoft released this year.

I should specify, I know the kill XP debate was around before but it really exploded when George Ziets weighed in on it during an AMA. Tensions were high for a couple of weeks and the number of reports went through the roof. Although I'd like to point out how priveleged you are considering we mods are not so lucky that we can just avoid the romance threads.

You +1ed Leferd. As for the word toxic, I got that from the flamewars you mentioned, those 2 are pretty interconnected. I should have quoted flamewars to avoid confusion. As for the rest, I made no comment on it because it's not true, they have time to post elsewhere. No one is asking them to spend the whole day on the forums talking to us. Well, that was more about that it was toxic during the KotOR 2 days. It's true Feargus almost shut the forums down. Wasn't aware they do post more elsewhere. Can't comment on that. I've got no horse in this race (look, no backer badge) and I'm just obliged to read stuff here. On the other hand, the few that do post elsewhere may not be indicative of the whole - what I said about crunch time is generally true in game development, from my experience anyway. About the flamewars, I meant mostly the flamewars from a couple of months back about kill XP (and before that, the influx of people coming to complain about the lack of romances). Those were nasty. It's calmed down a lot now, but activity is also down and now (from my point of view) a lot of threads end up being the same people discussing each others' reading comprehension rather than the topic at hand. They aren't flamewars, but I don't consider most of them very conductive to debate either.