Belle Sorciere

Pretty much anything exclusive to Nintendo systems. Not because I think the games or Nintendo systems are bad or anything like that (I have no basis to decide such things). I just prioritize other things over Nintendo so never get around to trying it. My roommates might get the Nintendo Switch though, so I might end up trying Zelda: Breath of the Wild. There are games that upon initially hearing their premise I wasn't entirely sold (Nier: Automata, Horizon Zero Dawn, Dark Souls) but once I learned literally anything about the games after that I started to look forward to playing them. There aren't a lot of games I can list that I absolutely wouldn't play under any circumstance. I mean there are a lot of games I'll never play because I have enough of a backlog as it is, but games that I reject out of hand? They exist but I'm hard-pressed to name any at the moment.

I'm stuck in the past with the Dark Souls games. Will possibly go further back and play Planescape Torment, whether EE or not.

You guys should really stop arguing about who cares less, it does nothing to further the discussion and is, quite frankly, even more ridiculous than me. That's the thing tho - it is pandering as long as Bioware isn't responsive to all criticisms. It's not only people (who probably aren't even transgender) that complain about their sensibilities who have problems with that game - there are other issues with it that genuinely impede enjoyment of a product that costs quite a hefty sum and if you're going to apologize to a group for doing things wrong for them, you might as well apologize to everybody else (Who cares, obviously. We don't. We're cool. We wear sunglasses and sneer at problems.) To me, it just stinks of "Oh boy, who cares about the rest of our customers, we have to apologize to this minority because that's the politically correct thing to do now." I didn't say I didn't care or that I cared less. Obviously I do care if I respond. So...don't try this "both sides are equally responsible" nonsense. It's not pandering, or your definition of pandering is so loose as to be completely useless. They're not indulging immoral or distasteful desires, needs, or habits. They're apologizing to a number of their fans for a misstep. They're not apologizing to trans people because that's the politically correct thing to do now. They're apologizing because they genuinely made a mistake with their character. I realize people who are not personally affected might not understand why such an apology can be necessary, but that doesn't mean it's unnecessary. It simply means you do not understand what is going on. Or to put it another way, just how could Bioware approach this situation without what you (wrongly) consider to be pandering? If your answer is anywhere in the general vicinity of "they shouldn't apologize" you're not coming at this from an informed position, but rather a position most likely informed by your own prejudices. To be fair, I already think that's the case with you and the other guy I responded to. So, why not just get over it?

Did I say it affect me? Did I imply this somehow impedes or hinders their effort to fix the game otherwise? Tell you what. You stop twisting my words, cut out the straw men, and quit telling me what I really am debating, and I won't assume that you have an ax to grind, seeing how apparently the only thing you care about in this game is the social commentary. Cool? Cool. I posted it here because it made me guffaw. It's silly, it's pandering, and it shows that their priorities are all over the place. So thoroughly BioWarian. And exactly how does an info dump from a paper-thin character constitute a "representation that furthers or at least exploits marginalization"? Please. Who's making a mountain out of a molehill? You offered the impression, by complaining at length across multiple posts that this does affect you. People don't usually expend that much energy on things that don't have an effect on them. So, protesting too much? Shifting goalposts? You shouldn't do those things. It's not pandering, except by an extremely permissive definition of the word that isn't actually the real definition. It exploits the character (and transgender people) by putting the character's status as a transgender woman front and center. If she wants to make a new life away from being known by her "deadname" and being seen as the wrong gender, it doesn't make much sense if she immediately confides that information when you ask her for her reasons for being there. It's also pretty much completely unlike every trans person I've ever known - some will early on disclose that they're trans, but I've never known one who also disclosed their deadname if they didn't have to. Including a transgender character isn't social commentary, no more than including a guy whose brother died on Eos. It's a data point about that character. Also, I don't only care about social commentary, I bought the game so I could blow things up in Andromeda and hopefully have a decent story to back it up. I do care about people having representation that doesn't misrepresent them, because for all too many people representation often turns out to be a negative thing. I'd rather Bioware be responsive to such criticisms than not.

I don't think the actual trans community was particularly pleased with how SoD handled the issue either, and for much the same reasons. In that case it tended to be the usual suspects in the press defending it, and largely because Beamdog blamed antiSJW neckbeards/ 4chan/ gamergate for review bombing the game, which got it mileage. It doesn't take much work to find evidence of the review bombing on Metacritic and GOG (both of which allow you to review games without owning them - there's no way Metacritic could even check for that), especially when the reviews on Steam (where you are required to own the game to review it) are summarized as "mostly positive." And anyone who was on Beamdog's forum when Siege of Dragonspear was published could see that a huge sticking point for these people was that there was a transgender character in the game.

Were there people hurt by waxy faces, derpy eyes and 'melting off a couch' animations they should also apologize to? I remember talking with Hainly, I remember the dialogue and it didn't phase me. And you know what, now that they're changing it, when I see the dialogue again...it still won't phase me. If a simple change like this makes some group of fans happy, why would I care? It's not like I'm playing MASS EFFECT: HAINLY ABRAMS. Sometimes I'm positively mystified by the stuff that works gamers up. You chaps have it backwards. The point I'm making is that BioWare should not apologize, as is pretty much the standard in this industry when stuff goes sideways. But breaking this unwritten rule and doing so for something that is positively trivial while refusing to do it for delivering a non-functional product is pandering, which is what we were talking about. I honestly don't see what's mystifying about this, but then again, I don't see anyone worked up here, either. Other than the people who supposedly demanded an apology in the first place, that is. Some problems are easier to fix than others. Altering a transgender character's portrayal to be more realistic is reasonable. Since most trans people don't just announce their trans history nor give out their "deadname" upon first meeting someone, it's appropriate to make a change here. On the other hand, fixing facial animations is a significantly harder task. They're already working on fixing some of the bugs and some quality of life issues. TBH I think changing the galaxy map is another example of something that maybe everyone doesn't see the need for, but it improves the experience for people who dislike it. Exactly the same thing, probably requires more work to alter than a few NPC conversations, but no one's going to complain about it because they don't have chips on their shoulders about the inclusion of transgender people. The apology doesn't impact you or your game. The change in dialogue will have at best a minor impact on your game, so what you're really debating here is whether it's appropriate for people who are part of a marginalized class have the right to complain about representation that furthers or at least exploits that marginalization. To put it bluntly, you're wrong. This element of the game has no impact on you, and the people for whom it does impact have made their opinions known and have received a response...which also has no impact on you. You're making a mountain out of a molehill.

Sent you a pm.