EbonyBetty

Honestly is Obsidian could do a modern (but not too futuristic that it's cyberpunk) day, fantasy urban jungle similar to The Secret World or Vampire: Masquerade Bloodlines but as an isometric crag, that'd be stellar. What do you guys think?

I'm really interested in the this topic buuuuuuut I tried reading all 19 pages of this and my brain went "we ain't got time fo' that." I'm just gonna shoot at the hip at where I think the thread is going and hope I don't step on too many toes. Hi, Bioware fangirl here. Besides their latest installment: ME:A, I've been a huge fan of bioware games and for the most part I've been fine with how they handled the romance. Yes, the fact that once you set your eyes on a romanacble character, whether they agree with your protagonists choices or not, with a few "heart icon dialog" choices they'll fall in love you formula can get a bit stale for some people. I'm all for sometimes letting the player be absolutely shallow and literally creating new MCs just so they can romantically Pokemon catch 'em all with the love interests, because lord knows I've done it. However, I'd really like to see variations added to it. I think what bores people is that the end outcome is always positive. I'm not gonna lie, (Dragon Age Inquisition spoilers incoming) I was really impressed and floored that the hobo elf man I'd been dating has actually been an elder god that wants to destroy the world. What I hope bioware does with DA4 is keep Solas like that. I don't want "true love opened his eyes and now he understands the sanctity of mortal life." Nah, I want him to be like: "I'm going to basically start a genocide to get what I want and I want you to join, but if you don't I'm still gonna destroy the world anyway and possibly down the line maybe kill you too if you decide to get in my way." Romance and Love doesn't always have to lead to good and healthy relationships (within reason, I'm not for any sexual assault or abuse). I want some relationships can leads to some Helen of Troy drama. I want a player's choice to pursue a romance to launch a thousand ships and possibly have dire consequences to the game's environment, all because the protagonist (and ultimately the player if possible) didn't notice they were being sweet talked be a charismatic warmonger. It'd be really cool to have a moment when I'm playing game where I feel complicit in the bad things that's happening the game's world because I continue to love the villain/monster of the story that I didn't know was one to begin with. Like (spoilers) Doki Doki Lit. Club which plays on and inserts consequences into the trope that no matter how dumb your character is in the visual novel, a cute anime girl is gonna fall madly in love with you. Why can't we do that with Bioware's "We'll bang, okay?" romanceable companion buffet? Granted that's easier said then done. Bioware attempted something similar to what I said above in DA2 with Anders being an extremist and blowing up the chantry, however there a grey morale area where one could argue he was simply being a freedom fighter, I want a scenario where there is no grey area. Your beaux is straight up wrong and the fact that you the main character loves them makes them feel justified and ultimately enables them.

Eder making a spilt decision in order to save the Watcher's soul from Eothas:

Pillars of Eternity 2 is in actuality a ruse and front for Josh Sawyer's true gaming opus: Antique Bike Repair Simulator

Welp, Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age Inquisition have been called out. Time to bring in the Red Headed Step-Child of the DA series Dragon Age 2 In the concept art it's implied that Hawke was supposed have tattoos like Fenris had. For those that don't know or purged your memory of Dragon Age 2 ( I don't blame you). Fenris was forcibly tattooed against his will with lyrium-infused ink. Lyrium is basically the mana of DA world is made out of the decomposed bodies of dead titans. This act granted Fenris temporary invulnerability, resistances to magic, and super strength (the famous scene of how you meet Fenris is is him literally punching a guy's heart clean through the otherside of him.) Now, I'm in the minority of most DA fangirls, I ****ing hated Fenris. He was an interesting concept on a bland character and it was clear that the tattoos were a hold-over from something else because he's story about those tattoos go literally nowhere. Instead I think DA2 should have opened with Hawke (yes I'm keeping the fixed name character but I feel Hawke could be either Elf or Human and can be either Mage, Warrior, or Rouge), selling themselves in indentured servitude, to pay for their families' trip away from war-torn Ostagar. They're ultimately tricked and sold into actual slavery and literally the first scene the player sees/plays is their player-character trying to escape Mad Max Fury Road opening-style from this Tevinter organization and ultimately getting caught, tied down and painfully tattoed with lyrium ink. The camera doesn't skimp on the gore and the last thing the player sees is the camera panning up with Hawke's muffled screams. 'Cause this Hawke ain't no punk, they escape. Either sneaking out and only having to kill a couple of people or going on a full bloody rampage. Honestly the whole 1st act should be thrown away. No underground expedition and making it rich. Hawke is alone and trying to figure out how the hell they can get back to their family. They ultimately get picked up by the Qunari ship and is treated like this oddity. Storm happens and the Qun ship crashes into the Kirkwall port. BAM! we're already rollin' with the Qunari/Kirkwall conflict. I have more ideas, but I gotta go off to class. ADD MORE IF YOU GUYS WANNA

Holy cannoli, this is honestly all I ever wanted. Still too high a price, but those "Bioware points" can rot in Hell.

I definitely gotta give it to Resident Evil 7. I'm from the south and have family from Louisiana and BOY did the voice actors nail that southern twang (except Zoe, Zoe's VA didn't what part of America she came from). I'm not a resident evil fengirl, never played any of the previous ones, and I still never felt lost or out of the loop when it came to lore. *Thinks about the opening dinner table scene* Mhmmm...chitlins...

Sorry I've been away for a while, senior thesis is a bitch. anyway WITCHER 3 UPDATE CONTAINS SPOILERS So I dicked down Yennifer (Shani is still and always will be the bae, but CDPR doesn't seem to think so). Made the baron's wife die. Free'd some orphans. Rescued my TOTALLY NOT BISEXUAL friend Dandelion (like seriously, 3 times the game goes out of it's way to let you know that he JUST flamboyant TOTALLY NOT queer and all the male friends he has are JUST HIS FRIENDS HE'S NOT BANGING ANY OF THEM ALTHOUGH HE'S A MASSIVE ****. Rescuing Dandelion sub-plot was probably my favorite. I loved creating the play to lure out the shape-shifting gnome guy, bravo CD Projekt Red, I'll give you that one, bravo. *golf clap* Also the TOTALLY NOT a vampire ageless morgue doctor was cool too. Singing more of CD Projekt's praises, going to Kaer Morhen and hangin' out with my bros, getting drunk, reminiscing about old times and their training days really shows how CDPR is good at taking time to flesh out the little things in their characters. Also LAMBERT IS STILL MY FAV WITCHER, WHAT A GOOD GRUMPY BOY, BUT HE STILL HASN'T GOTTEN HIS LOBSTER SOUP, I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN SINCE WITCHER 1, CDPR! A-hem *flattens hair* Anyway, once you come across Ciri, Witcher 3's title definitely turns into Papa Geralt's Murder Adventures and Children Protection Brigade Now this time I gotta give major props to the voice actor who voices Geralt. Whenever he deals with scared little kids in the game, Geralt's VA is able to make Geralt sound so sweet and nurturing that, *Ba-dum* w-what was that? I-Is my heart fluttering for Geralt? *Ba-dum* How can this be?!!? It also doesn't help that the way I choose Geralt's dialogue choices usually corresponds with my thinking of "Has Geralt had his daily glass of Respect Women Juice, today?" Anyway, the best villains in the game are the Three Crone Sisters by far. They're much more intriguing than the elf Lich-King knock-off. Killing his douch-y ice mage during his succubus orgy felt good though.

I will never forgive Ken Levine for what he did to Daisy Fitzroy's character, some of the most racist s*** I've seen in a video game in a long time. He may not have his head up his ass but his fist is definitely up there.

Witcher 2 Update: Had sex with Triss in an ancient (so definitely not up to code) Elven Bathhouse and then had sex with a Succubus in her groundhog hole of a home. Sex with Iorveth still pending. See ya next week.

Sorry, it took so long for me to respond to my own damn thread, but I've read everyone's response and it's quite compelling. For me, I tend to listen to the people at the bottom of the pyramid as opposed to the top. I don't think CDPR is the worst of the video game companies (I've been reading a lot about Rockstar *shudder*) and I'll def. check out "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels" @HooAmEye. As a person looking from the outside in, I feel CDPR is starting to buy into its own hype, they feel like they're no longer the "little guy" and can stand shoulder to shoulder with the Heavy Hitters now, certainly, its fandom hyping them up doesn't help. But like the old proverb goes: Those who are rewarded much, have much to be expected. So I feel CDPR have backed themselves into a corner. Everybody and their mama has given CDPR awards for Witcher 3, game developers are claiming they're taking notes from Witcher 3 in terms of quests or say they want CDPR's RPG "crown." That's a lot of pressure and stress. CDPR might be getting a little too big for its britches, I've read some of the Glassdoor reviews, on both sides and it's unanimous that the management there can be an "organized and inspiring circus" on the positive side and "complete lawless ****-show" on the negative side. It seems order can be something they lack at times. However, some might argue that's what gives video game developing its charm? Some have argued yes and no (I'm somewhere in the healthy middle). This kind of "Wild West cowboy" experimental freedom has been in the game industry since the beginning. There's a really interesting article about the early days of Atari and its downfall with E.T. along with accounts from former employees on Cracked Really nice read. I still think this mindset is very much embedded within the industry and unfortunately has a very high probability of being a menace to the worker bees at the bottom of the totem pole. Despite how far video games have come they're very much a new industry (probably leaving its childhood years and entering teenagehood) and is evolving a lot faster within a shorter timespan than say the Movie Industry. To keep the Wild West analogy going the video game industry is a Gold Rush with lots of gold in them hills, but at the expense of a lot of exploitive labor and with out-of-touch/boy's club rich white guys being the last ones standing when all is said and done. TL;DR: I don't think people's suffering should be profitable if the end result gives them no gratification, however that is oil that makes the gears of Capitalism turn. However private companies have the freedom to be more accommodating to their workers ex. Ben n' Jerry's, Zappos, even Obsidian (they have really nice benefits and every Friday the company treats its employees to a movie to see the latest film). With CDPR being known for treating their customers with respect, I think most of us assumed they treated their employees the same way too and ultimately kind of left us with a shock.

Hey, fellow Osidianites! All this CD Projekt Red Controversy has really got me thinking and I really want to have a discussion about it. Yes, I know everyone with a Youtube channel is talking about it at the moment but I'm curious about what y'all think here. If y'all don't know about the CD Projekt Red hurrah, apparently working at current Video Gaming's Sweetheart company is the 7th circle of Hell. Due to the spotlight of negative Glassdoor reviews , the game company put out a PR clean-up statement. Here are some really good videos to get you up to speed: 1, 2 Now I wont lie, I'm also starting this discussion out of self-preservation. If you don't already know, I'm a black woman that wants to get into the video gaming industry. In an industry that is 78% white males and with African American MALES only making up 9% of the industry, I know my journey is gonna be an upstream battle with a spoon for a paddle. But I love this industry so much and see so much potential in it that I think it's worth it. However as a black person, the true canary in the coal mine for black suffering in a workplace is: if even the WHITE people there ain't happy, then your black ass is gonna roast. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the workplace should be adult daycare with everything being fun and stress-free, but as an educated psychology student, I know morale in the workplace is crucial. There can be stress, pain, overtime, and frustration of the highest order but if there isn't any emotional payoff or self-actualization to justify it you end up with what's to be expected: people quitting, depression, hatred for upper management, health problems, rebellion/sabatage among workers, even suicide. Studies have shown a thousand times over, happy employees = less financial and social scandals for the company. I think the reason why CD RED is getting a lot of the spotlight is that most of their consumers aka people who don't work at CD RED but know their product are really conflicted about what to do with this information. The Witcher series has changed the game, not just for video games, but how to treat your consumer base. In one of the videos I've linked, a supposed ex-CD RED employee joked that since CD RED treats their fans like gold but their employees like ****, they can essentially get away with HR and PR murder. So I have to ask, are great games worth it even at the expense to the emotional and eventually physical immolation of its employees? Most of us are aware of the infamous "crunch" sessions in the video gaming industry. Those last 3 weeks before a game is launched and in the game developers offices where employees are spending 15-18 hour days at their desks. They're away from their loved ones, bad posture, eating breakfast, lunch, dinner takeout in the break room (if they even have one) on a product that might not even sell and/or review well. Here are some articles (for and against) crunch in the video game industry, 1, 2, 3, 4. Game developing is definitely a high risk-high reward industry and we, the consumers often see the high reward part. But what about the high risk and possibly little to no reward part? Do we as consumers have an obligation to demand better treatment of the employees to an entertainment that we cherish so much. There's the Actor's Guild for the movie and TV industry. We've seen that video game Voice Actors are demanding better treatment and trying to unionize, and some of you guys might remember the 2007-2008 Writer's Guild Strike . Is this par for the course for Game developers? Also this might pertain to us, Obsidianites more because most of us are backers for PoE and PoE II. What if we were to find out the game we kickstrted were forcing employees on year-long crunches and firing anyone who objected, such as the Glassdoor reviews for CD RED? (I don't think Obsidian is like this, but just to serve as an example). What kind of reaction would we give? TL;DR: Sorry for all the questions asked here. We as consumers often praise the "Blood, sweat, and tears" mentality in the video game industry, but what is too far? Video game fan and consumers have a lot more power in the entertainment consumption as to compared to the movie, book, or tv industry; sometimes swaying how developers work on their games. Is CD RED in the wrong if their products come out so right?

also i forgot to ask, are there any steamworkshop mods for witcher 2 they'd recommend ?

WITCHER UPDATE! I FINISHED WITCHER 1 My thoughts: First off all, don't you hate it when you adopt a lil orphan boy to shield him from the horrors of war, only for the lil boy to turn out to be a powerful time-traveling sorcerer whose future-self turns out to be the main antagonist behind the game? Yeah me too...ALVIN YOU ARE SO GROUNDED. Also, F**K OFF WILD HUNT SPECTER GUY! If anyone's killing Alvin/Jaques it's ME, this is a family matter and papa!Geralt needs to do some parental-disciplining. I swear if there was a way for Geralt to order Jaques to go get a switch off a tree and beat his @ss, I would have taken it. I *hit* TOOK *hit* YO *hit* UNGRATEFUL *hit* ASS *hit* IN *hit* AND *hit* THIS *hit* IS *hit* HOW *hit* YOU *hit* REPAY *hit*ME? Also Berengar is a lil b***h. Boo-hoo, I can't have kids and I'm too awkward to talk to women so I'm gonna betray the order that made me into an awesome mutant monster killing machine because I'm sad. Meanwhile, Shanni is bae, Zoltan is my bro, and Geralt's totally-no-homo-okay-just-a-lil-homo-bff Yaevinn is awesome. Meanwhile, Triss annoys the hell outta me, though I gotta throw respect to her for being a fellow OG and simply using Geralt purely for sex. *UPDATED I STARTED WITCHER 2* CD PROJEKT RED THIS IS BULL**** WHERE IS MY BAE SHANNI?!?!?! My boy, Geralt is all laid up w/ Triss drinking her bathwater actin' like Shanni doesn't exist. Apparently, in the bios Shanni broke up with Geralt and Geralt came crawling back to Triss for some lonely-lickin'-my-wounds-heartbreak-booty. CD WHY YOU GOTTA DO M'BOY LIKE THAT? Anyway, Triss is even more annoying, she sounds like a California valleygirl in the middle of medieval Europe. I felt bad about my guy King Foltest tho. I mean sure, he was an incestuous-womanizing-short-tempered -jerkwad but there was a sense he cared about his townspeople and Geralt. Meanwhile, Roche is creepy, but Ves seems cool (imma hit that later), and one-eyed Iorverth is sexy as hell. I'm at the part when we're about to meet up w/ Dannilion and Zoltan. The combat is a lot more complex and I'm having trouble getting used to it, any tips?

That is all...

I'm feeling' a little R&R aka Randora and Rekke (zing!) I hope Randora is like the wizard-version of the drunken kung fu master, meanwhile with Rekke I seem to gravitate towards mysterious/"ugly" figures. Honestly I'm sometimes cool with underdeveloped companions, it allows my imagination to fill in the empty spots.

We also have to remember that there's currently a VA strike going on in the entertainment industry. The likes of Jennifer Hale, Tara Strong, and Nolan North are participating in. But if there wasn't, I'm mixed about full voice overs. It should be mandatory that you can skip them, because I too, am a fast reader and can sometimes get annoyed waiting for the VA to catch up. But then there's such good voice acting that resonate sso well with such scenes, that if it was just in text it wouldn't have the same emotional impact. Take Dorian's personal quest in DA:I for example.

What do people think go Guild Wars 2? Should I get it? Is it like a massive MMORPG? I'm not a huge fan those where you just grind and grind to get better gear and the story is on the back burner and are just one of the many players in the cog of the machine. But I keep on seeing good reviews of GW2, and also I'd be lying if I didn't say I like how they handle afro-textured hair in the CC. Yay or Nay?

Unfortunately the animations will remain janky throughout the series but the story makes up for it imho.

I honestly have to laugh at how crazy this thread has gotten.

Just made this thread because I'm curious and bored, a deadly concoction. Right now I'm eating spaghetti with meats sauce and sauteed mushrooms. I might have a Klondike bar for dessert. Tell me what you're having for breakfast/lunch/dinner right now? Also, you can totally Instagram this binch up and take a picture of your food too.

"Heavy risk, but the priiiiiiiize~" Honestly, that was a symptom of not having a black writer on staff. I kinda understood what Bioware was trying to do. They were trying to make kind of a Fabio style non-serious romance with Jacob, but it backfired and came off creepy and vaguely racist (the hypersexual big buff black man and his Mandingo BBC). Me and like three other people are probably the few that romanced Jacob as a serious relationship. There's actually a moment where fem!Shepard says something really sexual to Jacob (in like, their 2nd conversation ever) and he (and me) are like "whoa Shepard, keep it in your pants." And to make matters even worst, he cheats on Shepard and knocks up another woman in ME3. Again, had there been a black writer in the Bioware writer's room they would have told them that there's a harmful stereotype about black men and infidelity as well as black men supposedly cause a lot of unwanted pregnancies. Bioware -most likely- inadvertently enforced those harmful stereotypes due to their cultural ignorance. AKA I don't trust Bioware with black people anymore.

Perk: Mocking - The sharp tongue of the socialte was always a double-edged sword. With Mocking she can attract the attention of her enemies, so they may attack her and not her companions. Hopefully her sword didn't get rusty. Okay now ... where is the Kickstartermoney for this :D? You and me, Harry Easter, let's copyright this s*** up right now. Someone get Brian Fargo on the phone, we've got money maker in the works. But in all seriousness thank you for the compliment! :D

Sweet Molly, I leave for a couple days and this thread has gotten really interesting. When it comes to creating female characters they are often more restricted in their "sexual dimorphism" than male characters are. Woman characters, for the most part, do have to look more pleasing to the male eye for them to be the "good guys" or play an important part in media. Our generation is not the only ones that endorse it. From the Grimm Fairy Tales where princesses are described as beautiful and the Old Hag is well...exactly what it says on the tin which lets you know she's evil; down to Golden Age Hollywood's Wizard of Oz: "Are you a good witch or a bad witch? Only bad witches are ugly." Yes, there are some female villains that are attractive but they a mixture of male sexual attraction and "fear" ("Well mark me down as scared and horny!") and is a patriarchal construct. Usually, when a female villain is attractive she has a tragic backstory, her evilness was inspired by love, she was once good but fell from grace, yada yada, to make her more sympathetic. However, if the female villain is not sexually attractive, she's just evil plain and simple. You might be familiar with Sigmund Freud's concept of "The Medusa," a female figure so ugly and horrifying that it makes men freeze up in fear and symbolically "castrates" him. Often the fear is tied to a maternal figure in the man's life because The Mother is the only female that once commanded a man (when he was a young boy and vulnerable) in patriarchal society ie "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle Rules the World." Feminist scholar, Julia Walker has written and spoken about the obvious flaws in Freud's logic. in fact, Frued has a whole chapter for himself in her book. The idea of "The Medusa" caters to the "male gaze", suggesting the underlying idea that men cannot sympathize with a woman if she doesn't have at least one trait of what is conventionally attractive in their current society. The idea that women in media have to be at least a little pleasing to look at for men to consider her a full being. While with male (or male coded) characters in a patriarchal are automatically considered full being and are thus afforded more flexibility. How do you think the Hunchback of Notre Dame would have fared had the genders been reversed? A grotesque woman and an attractive man, would you have felt sympathy for her plight? Also, take a look at the emotions of Inside Out for instance and consider their design. Compare the creative leniency given to the physical characteristics of the female-coded emotions and the male-coded emotions. Look for how the illustrator was able to convey that each "sprite" represented a certain emotion through JUST their appearance (pretend you never saw the movie). Who is granted more creative leniency? While most of Freud's ideas have been criticized but that doesn't keep the media from drawing inspiration aka the Id, super ego, ego. And unfortunately, the "Medusa" idea also extends for how to make a woman character "evil" such as giving her "masculine traits" both physical and personality wise. In a patriarchal society, men that are subservient to women are considered weak and vice versa: a woman is only seen as powerful by how many men she has under her heel. Granted Freud didn't "invent" these ideas since they were already ingrained in his society, but rather gave a name for them. But this is about the design of female video game characters, correct? Please tell me a protagonist of a video game who is female and fat. I'm talking belly rolls, double chin, and flabby arms and wasn't shown in a comedic light. I again say the protagonist, not a side character, but the virtual avatar the player controls. Please tell me of a female protagonist who has dark skin (use lupita nyong'o as reference) with a wide nose (not the conventionally attractive thin European nose stuck on a black person). Tell me of a female androgynous protagonist, leans heavily towards male characteristics and is shown in a sympathetic light (no, attractive "tomboys" don't count"). Tell me of a female protagonist that dresses kind of like what society considers a "prude." aka very little skin showing, no skin tight clothing but rather baggy clothing, no breast tease, and no makeup. Also, she doesn't go through a "makeover" transformation to make herself more desirable. Meanwhile, I'll be over here counting how many female protagonists adhered to the media's ideas of attractive traits for women. But the reason why I bring this up is, a female protagonist shouldn't have to be "conventionally attractive" for a male audience to sympathize with her. To be quite honest, that's an insult to the men. Men have enough common sense to differentiate sexual attraction and empathy when looking at a character. I also want the cookie-cutter female dimorphism to be at least evened out with more realistic looking women because those type of woman exists and are most likely playing the game. TL;DR: Why the **** do Argonian women in Skyrim have titties? They're reptiles, they can't breast feed! Yes, I know/installed the mod that takes out the boobies, but that should have been in the base game. That's just basic biology folks.

Look to mythology for some interesting variants. Lots of incest, bestiality, castration, and death by snu snu. Yeah, that'd spice things up.