Beyond The Sea

Like this or this compare to sassy attitude animation.

You know what is so funny? Hollow Knight was designed as agender. They are intentionally never refered to as he or she. Literally a "SJW" avatar. Statistically speaking, it's not terribly likely to survive a Biawac and then just happen to run into the leader of the Leaden Key going about sinister business. High fantasy RPGs have never exactly run on what's statistically likely to happen. It's true. Whatever percentages may or may not apply in reality have no inherent relation to Eora. In essence there is no chance. Everything in PoE is the way it is because it was crafted that way. We as players don't wander through endless fields or deserts of nothing. Every map was made with a purpose. Even if that purpose was to fill a number of maps promised on Kickstarter. Developers are almighty gods of the worlds they create. Setting the game in a European inspired civilization is a choice, as is having homo sapiens. Making these humans white is a choice. It's up to the developers. It's their decision to create as many black female paladins and deranged women-hating priests as they please.

I've seen people say Tekēhu must be gay because he uses the sassy attitude animation. Counterpoint is what is masculine to us isn't necessarily what is masculine among Huana or indeed in Deadfire. Also Jack Sparrow. Some place their bets on Serafen because as pirate he's the typical candidate for the amoral or immoral bisexual rogue archetype. Rogue as in antihero or villain, not class.

I want you xplore your xotic jungle. Be Maia-nd I'll be yours. You good Ser-ra-fen-ning the flames of my love. You deciphered my heart. Well, to be fair they probably came up with a lot of puns for Aloth, Edér and Pallegina in 5 years or however long.

haha! Getting immersed in Divinity 2. ha! My money is that they are going full VO. Making a deal out of it if its anything less would be silly because... well D:OS2. As long as Deadfire will have writing worth being read/heard I am all for it. Probably not directly related, but why not remember... https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/911665142881857536 Also looking at the gifs from the companion/relationship update on Fig which was posted on Valetines Day of course. It's Pallegina, Aloth, Edér and Tekēhu. Do you think they were selected for the best puns or are these the lovers?

I think you forget PoE is based on popular old RPGs, based on the popularity or reputation of Obsidian. I can't think of any positives that outweigh the confusion and frustration new players experience when confronted with attributes. They are only part of the game because of popular tradition and consequently popular demand of old school hardcore fans.

I don't know. I mean both Edér and Aloth were voiced by Matthew Mercer. Isn't he even more expensive now that he rose to fame as McCree and speaks at all those conventions? Is there enough money for all that? But if it is full V.O. I'm guessing this will either be part of a big release date announcement trailer or a separate PR story after the release date announcement ramping up to launch. I absolutely loved DOS2 for a complete voice acting.

If it could easily be done Sawyer wouldn't have to ask. There is extra effort required here and he wants to find out if it's worth to put this effort in.

Hiravias also asks Edér if he ever smoked something (was it Dyrcap?) with a girl and Edér says "is there any other point?" Still, wouldn't be a difficult retcon at all. Ed's just a deeply closeted country boy, who knows how to go along with the "locker room talk." In a rural community like Gilded Vale, it probably is a little unusual for such a funny, buff, and strikingly handsome dude to be a bachelor well into his 30s. Religious isolation, fear of the Legacy, and his whole emotional situation re: the war and his brother might explain that, but maybe there's another factor, too... The narrative isn't as challenging as the reaction of players. They may claim they were misled, lied to. Some more homophobic players may feel betrayed for being tricked into liking someone who turned out to be homosexual. Both in and out of game, blaming either Edér himself for lying or more likely Obsidian for making him gay. Why risk any of this if you have new characters without such baggage who could be gay? I cannot think of a logical reason at the moment.

It's easy to say oh well, this developer includes bisexual, lesbian or gay characters therefore they are advocates for diversity. But most these developers accommodate players who don't want to deal with diversity. For example in Skyrim you can marry someone of the same sex but unless you wander about with the marriage seeker amulet you would never know any male character would marry a man. Skyrim itself has no gay characters. All couples are heterosexual. The same is true for Stardew Valley. Unless you enter a romantic relationship with a bachelor or bachelorette of the same sex there is nothing gay or lesbian in that game. In New Vegas some gay and bisexual character will only reveal their sexuality if you have the Confirmed Bachelor perk. It's hidden from those players without it. In Divinity: Original Sin 2 you can have sex with every single companion but Fane will talk about his wife and daughter and the Red Prince will talk about having sex with a Sucubus and he's in love with the Red Princess. None of the male companions mention a former male lover. The same is true for virtually all bisexual male characters including Fallout 4 and Dragon Age. The people who don't want to deal with sexual minorities don't have to. They are very much considered and taken into account. Only the radical extremists who hate the very presence of sexual minorities are ignored because there are not many of them and exactly because their opinions are so irrationally hateful.

I thought Edér is fond of animals... Well, if he ended up one, it'd be sort of a retcon wouldn't it? I mean, i remember him mentioning some milkmaid who 'knew what she was doing' back in Gilded Vale, when you enter the Salty Mast. Hiravias also asks Edér if he ever smoked something (was it Dyrcap?) with a girl and Edér says "is there any other point?"

Yes, Edér talks about sex with women. In don't recall him ever expressing any interest in men. At least some people might well consider it a retcon, even if he were bisexual. "Some characters will prefer a different range of characters than others" I thought was referencing relationships based on reputation as described by Sawyer in the relationship backer update video. For example Edér would not be romantically interested in someone who is cruel to animals. Because of varying character heights and costs of creating versus one-time use alone smaller games usually don't have romantic animations, hence any race gating aside from narrative reasons is unnecessary. Romantic relationships still have to be written and possibly recorded. Obviously if you create more gates, fewer character will see that content. If it's not much content it's fine, just another choice strong in reactivity but limited in scope. The bigger gated content gets the less justifiable the gate becomes. Work is limited. If a writers spends time on writing a long romance gated by species, sex and reputation, then that writer won't be writing something else. Indie games like Divinity: Original Sin 2 or Stardew Valley don't gate relationships by anything other than reputation achievable by anyone. It's not ideal, I personally don't prefer it, but from a production standpoint making all love interests bisexual is most efficient and it offers the greatest choice variety for all players. Previously I had expected Deadfire to take a similar course. Now it seems that is not the case. By the same logic having defined sexualities easily favors straight male players as they are most often the biggest player demographic, thus receiving the most resources, with female players coming second, followed somtimes by less universally appealing love interests like aliens, robots or furries and gay players pretty much being lowest priority. Granted the sample size of games isn't very big. I said before Serafen and Tekēhu might possibly be considered too alien to be popular love interests based on roughly the same principles as above. If you make a conventionally attractive woman and a female dwarf or Orlan love interest, convention dictates the attractive woman will be more popular, and the work invested in the Orlan will be seen by fewer people, it becomes worth less so to speak. Though Sawyer's post about leaving the preferences of characters up to the narrative team and his admission that not everyone can be pleased indicate otherwise. He mentions gay characters, yet he writes out "we have men who are attracted to men and women who are attracted to women." It could have many reasons. Fantasy games tend to avoid the word gay. Or maybe Deadfire has straight and bisexual characters, not gay and lesbian ones.

This should be Aloth. He is ALREADY half-woman Which is exactly why he shouldn't. Basically all of the male companions from PoE except Aloth are masculine. Edér boast about his sexual experiences with women. Hiravias flirts aggressively with women. Durance likes to call women whores. Kana tries to flirt with Maneha as well. Their personalities suffice to avoid any questions about their masculinity or sexuality. They are unquestionably men. Aloth is the only male companion who is shown to be weak, a coward even. As can be seen right here this creates questions about his sexuality. Aloth being bisexual or gay really would confirm some problematic stereotypes. Nevermind the whole issue of Iselmyr. Being sometimes female has a whole other set of complications. Isemyr would contribute to an association of homosexuality or bisexuality with being transgender. Presumably Deadfire will mostly played by people who identify as straight who tend not to differentiate between sexual identity, behavior and attraction. Nontheless Carrie Patel wrote Aloth and Maneha. Of all writers she appears most eager to write characters who don't confirm to gender roles. Therefore I'd say the likelihood of Aloth being interested in men is unfortunately still quite high if Patel wrote him in Deadfire.

So many youtube comments are about the desktop background.

Oh, I didn't realize, thank you. What made me doubt a publisher is based on what Tim Cain said. Most recently at something called Reboot Develop. He said Nulb, a town in in Temple of Elemental Evil, had retroactively about two thirds of it's content disapproved by the publisher so soon before release that Troika couldn't change or replace it. And he previously said when he came to Obsidian he had a single condition that he wouldn't have to deal with publishers. Troika went bust trying to find a publisher for their last project, didn't they? I just assumed his and Leonard Boyarsky new game wouldn't have a traditional publisher similar to PoE.

How do you know? The Deadfire SEC filing from March of this year. I don't understand lawyer script. Where does it mention this unannounced project?

It's not crowdfunded game. They have a publisher for it. How do you know?

I'm sure Tim Cain is not one to waste time but an announcement already? They would have to show something, no? Something that at the very least should already communicate a look and feel of the final product. Yes, New Vegas didn't take long to make but engine, tools and assets were already done. I can't imagine Obsidian would open crowdfunding based solely on the Troika reputation.

JJ Abrams said, "Star Wars was always a boys' thing and a movie that dads take their sons to, and though that's still very much the case, I was really hoping this could be a movie that mothers could take their daughters to as well." He cast Lupita Nyong'o and Gwendoline Christie. He spoke out about having female characters and on those characters not getting toys like the male ones. He cast John Boyega and defended this call. Diversity does not automatically lead to tokenism. Abrams made a conscious effort. This wouldn't have happened without people speaking up, without some women asking to be represented better. I just don't think asking for minority representation is entitlement.

As I understood you wrote, you don't need representation or that representation is insulting or bad. My point is not everyone thinks that way. Representation can be very powerful, especially if your identity doesn't get represented a lot or usually not in a good light.

Dominant, athletic, tough, independent, win against the odds, be the hero, get the girl. The archetype of a man. What men should be like. What men want to be like. Not all men, of course. Not as many as they used to be. But this is still a widespread ideal. Do you think it's a coincidence that so many movies, games and other media have straight white male protagonists? Do you think the same types of characters over and over make for the best and new experiences? Do you think it's fun for women to see themselves portrayed as damsels to be rescued or sexy prizes to be won again and again? Do you not understand how empowering it feels then to be a heroine who isn't reduced to her attractiveness?

Hmm. He pays for the games. Why shouldn't he expect that games be made for him? It's the same with every other consumer product. Calling it "entitlement" makes it sound like he's just supposed to accept whatever he is given without complaint. No, it doesn't work that way. That guy wanted to removed gay content because he didn't want to deal with it. Should women be removed from games because sexist customers ask for it? Should people of colour be removed from games because racist customers demand it? Oh sure, use straw man tactics. Right then, for the sake of discussion, I'll say yes. Sure it can be ugly... possibly even very ugly. But I think the player should be given a certain amount of leeway to customize a game experience to their preferences. The developers already have to take into account certain national preferences when developing their games. Why not convert that into a set of configurable options? Why shouldn't a man of African heritage have the option to convert the entire cast into people of color? He paid for the game. Why shouldn't a lesbian have the option to convert all romances into lesbian romances? The angry guy I mentioned was a straight guy who wanted gay content removed. He was enraged by it. He was a homophobe. It's hatred. Asking for gay characters is asking to be included. It's not asking to exclude and devalue other people. Like MortyTheGobbo said it's not the same.

Hmm. He pays for the games. Why shouldn't he expect that games be made for him? It's the same with every other consumer product. Calling it "entitlement" makes it sound like he's just supposed to accept whatever he is given without complaint. No, it doesn't work that way. That guy wanted to removed gay content because he didn't want to deal with it. Should women be removed from games because sexist customers ask for it? Should people of colour be removed from games because racist customers demand it?

Well, we know a bit. Romances are part of the relationship system. We know how they work from Backer Update 13. Relationships are based on likes and dislikes, love and hate for certain attitudes or behaviours. This will give reputation in some way, since there are breaking points for conversations. One of the listed option is actually "let the sparks fly." Down below are "feelings of intense loathing, or even love." Edér likes it when you or your companions are nice to animals. He dislikes cruelty towards animals and zealots. "We're not setting out to say, we're gonna have this many relationships of this type, or this many relationships of another type. What we wanna do is develop these companions organically in a way that feels true to the character, and the sort of interactions that they will have." I assume this means that relationships are not predetermined and can develop depending on how the Watcher behaves. It may refer to what he said on tumblr, that not all companions are available for romance. Or he could mean something entirely different, not sure.