Yosharian

I'm saying I ended up with an Aggressive tag despite clicking on zero conversation choices marked Aggressive.

Is there anything to indicate that 'picking one with good spells and keeping it forever' isn't intended behaviour? Just because you can switch grimoires doesn't mean the devs didn't imagine players would stick with one the really liked. This presents design issues. You can't design encounters around "hey, let's design this to be very tough if the player doesn't, say, debuff with the 2nd level Miasma spell and then hit them with an AOE disable like Confusion," because you can't guarantee that the player has access to those spells. So you have to design a fight such that a player with a blaster mage can handle it just as readily as one with a control mage... and vice-versa. What's the point of including grimoire swapping at all if they don't intend players to make use of it? I think the current system could be used as-is if Wizards had separate grimoire slots rather than having to pay a "quick slot tax" that no other class has to deal with. I don't think the added versatility of an extra grimoire really presents that much of a balancing problem, considering the speed at which Wizards can cast spells.

Oh believe me, I had the same thought =)

The whole post was basically a question. Nothing in the post is aggressive. Nothing in it deserves such a response. Just tell them that you do not like this particular idea. Tell who? The troll that posted once and then never reappeared in the thread? Give me a break. I would never reappear in a thread after such a response. Aww diddums!

The whole post was basically a question. Nothing in the post is aggressive. Nothing in it deserves such a response. Just tell them that you do not like this particular idea. Tell who? The troll that posted once and then never reappeared in the thread? Give me a break.

It's kind of hard for me to list every game where GG had a non-impact, since it's pretty much every game released since. Can you name one?

Every game released since the toilet back-up called Gamergate happened? Except for Hatred, and that flared up on release and then died, because games catering to Gamergaters don't do well long-term. So you can't name any examples, then?

Care to provide some examples?

As good as any reason to nuke it from the face of the earth, but then you'd miss the enjoyment of reading everyone slam dunking on it...

Charisma hardly equates 1-to-1 with beauty.

I don't think it makes them an expert as such, just, as you say, it affects them directly. I was only responding to that particular post, but yes, I believe a large part of the pushback was due to those reasons, sure. Isabella sounds pretty unique, but yeah, I do think that most trans people want to look like their chosen gender, rather than stand out as trans. It seems more rational than wanting to wear a sign that says 'trans person here'. I fully admit I am not an expert on the subject so I can not claim to know what the majority of trans people think on the subject. I think the writer is a virtue-signaling, talentless hack, sorry if that wasn't clear. Given more weight? Perhaps... perhaps not. Maybe just taken into account. The SoD affair is often painted as a bunch of transphobic basement-dwellers angry at representation/inclusion. I'm simply trying to show that it was a little more nuanced than that.

That's just absurd.

Wikipedia is a biased resource.

> can't really say that the game is disliked because of "leftist propaganda" and "a political agenda" > while saying it's full of changes from a progressive PoV > then claim that anti-SJW wasn't a leading force in the backlash against the game. > That literally makes no sense at all. Yes I agree, what you wrote makes no sense at all. I've read it three times and I still don't get the point you're trying to make. > being a trans person doesn't make them any less a random person from the Internet. It makes them an important voice on the subject considering that the topic being discussed is trans inclusion. > transgendered individuals aren't a homogeneous group Do you think what that person says, about just wanting to blend in and not broadcasting the fact that they're trans, is an uncommon point of view among trans people? > this person wasn't elected to represent their demographic or anything The writer wasn't elected to represent the demographic either, but that didn't stop them from attempting to portray a trans character successfully, and, from an objective point of view, failing miserably. > you just pulled a random persons quote about the game off the Internet because it supports what you are saying about the backlash against the game They're trans. > We each have random every-day people who are not experts and have no greater authority to speak for others but who do back up our positions. So....yay. The difference is, I responded to the arguments contained in your 'random every day' person's quote. You ignored the ones in mine. I'll say it once more, I only posted the quote as evidence of what one trans person thought of Mizhena, nothing more, nothing else. Anything else is just other people putting words in my mouth.

This isn't a good argument because dwarves are short, yes, but they're also very squat, as in wide. Dwarves are muscular, they're just short. PizzaShark isn't merely talking about height, so you're misrepresenting his argument. > Large amounts of body mass doesn't mean that you're stronger It doesn't necessarily mean you're stronger, true, but being stronger naturally means having larger muscles, wider shoulders, and so on. Look at World's Strongest Man/Woman-types and show me the one that looks like a long distance runner. Of course someone can just be a fat person and not be strong, but that's not what we're discussing. > I've also personally been thrown (at over six foot plus) by a woman who was maybe five foot four. That's not strength, that's technique, and it's not what we're talking about. The ability to use technique to achieve things way beyond your physical strength wouldn't be represented in-game by a large 'Might' score, it'd be represented by a particular class, or a particular ability/set of abilities.

Yet another dumb false flag post

What's so hard to believe that men and women are physically the same despite looking different in a world where you can summon a big ass dragon out of no where just by singing songs? Real world physics rules was never important in any fantasy world, otherwise it won't be called fantasy. Actually, even with soul power being the explanation for all the overtly supernatual abilities of characters in Eora, women would still be less physically capable than men because their bodies are smaller and limbs shorter - assuming you have, like, a male Nappa and a female Nappa, their power level being the same doesn't matter. The male Nappa has longer limbs and can therefore exert more total force (due to leverage given via the longer limbs) than the female Nappa even though they both have... what was Nappa's power level, again? There's literally no way you can explain this away in fluff without explicitly stating that Eora does not have the same physical laws as the real world does, because at least as far as physical feats go (moving really fast, being really strong, etc) it's quite clear that they still operate on real-world physical principles. Maybe the guidebook goes into this, I don't have it. I'd think that fundamental differences in physics in the real world and Eora would bear mentioning in-game, though. Admittedly this is splitting hairs, but I hope it serves to illustrate the point - you can't have sexual dimorphism and say that the physical capabilities of the smaller creature are equal to the physical capabilities of the larger creature, assuming all other variables are equal (they both have a power level of 9000, etc.) SJW went from being a mark of pride to being a derogatory term not just because of Gamergate, but because a minority of people using that term to describe themselves had a tendency to take things a little too far. It's essentially the left-leaning version of the alt-right phenomenon and kind of ties into the horseshoe concept, since these descriptors are generally political as much as they are ethical (you probably won't see proto-fascists in left-leaning political circles, and an SJW would probably find themselves ostracized in a far-right political group, etc.) > you can't have sexual dimorphism and say that the physical capabilities of the smaller creature are equal to the physical capabilities of the larger creature, assuming all other variables are equal You can if you don't think it's really crucial to have, for example, a strength malus to females and a bonus to males, in your game. If it serves some gameplay purpose that isn't irrelevant or trivial, or if it plays an important part of immersion or some other role-playing aspect, then it could be more important. But to say that you can't have sexually dimorphic species while simultaneously having no difference mechanically between males and females.... Why can't you? What harm does it cause? Personally I would consider it absolutely fine for males and females to have different attribute penalties/bonuses, but I don't see it as being so important that it's going to affect my enjoyment of the game, in the same way as it doesn't really bother me that the game doesn't have realistic bacterial infection mechanics, as per the example I gave earlier in the thread. It's just not that important to the game. It doesn't enrich the game to have these male/female differences.

I would never have thought you could post something so silly, Boeroer.

> random people Not a random person, specifically a trans person, the very person that the character is supposed to be written for and about. > to prove what the SoD fiasco was about I never once claimed that the quote I posted 'proved what the SoD fiasco was about'. > Leftist propaganda It's one of the reasons that the character wasn't liked. Most of the trans content takes the form of a lecture, and the responses range from 'Bye' to 'I agree completely'. So it's not entirely unreasonable to paint this content as propaganda. > political agenda weaved into it It absolutely does, from Mizhena herself, to Minsc's content, to the revision of pre-existing characters to make them more palatable from a 'progressive' point of view, including NPCs commenting on relationships from a modern feminist perspective, and probably more things that I can't recall off the top of my head. You may not perceive it as such, probably because it seems the norm to you, but there absolutely is a political agenda weaved into SoD.

Yeah, exactly.

Is there anything to indicate that 'picking one with good spells and keeping it forever' isn't intended behaviour? Just because you can switch grimoires doesn't mean the devs didn't imagine players would stick with one the really liked. Yes, Josh Sawyer repeatedly discussed this intent, although I can't seem to find the quotes right now. Also the description of grimoires includes the line "Though all grimoires are limited by a finite set of pages, many accomplished wizards are known to carry several grimoires at once to handle a variety of situations." But that doesn't mean that just using one is unintended behaviour.

I replied before you added the quote, but didn't realize the "quote" function here added it in. With regards to the post you made, that is exactly my problem with it, and with the depiction of many trans characters in media. But still I think the intention, and the vast majority of complaints levied towards it, is a whole other kettle of fish to saying "Hitler did nothing wrong": the Beamdog line fails in misunderstanding a condition it's portraying (though then again I know many who *would* openly call themselves trans), but its intentions are in the right place; that is not the case at all with the latter, as it rather explicitly states mass genocide is "nothing wrong". The reason why Gamergate and many others acted against and actively demanded its removal was not the above quote, it was sheer plain transphobia, and again, all for something that is *minimal*. It's *nineteen seconds* of dialogue. That's what makes this especially ridiculous. For the record, so does it do the same of Amber Scott's statements, about being "proud" of being an SJW and so on so forth. It's all ridiculous, from either side of the argument. Alright, I chose a poor example. It was simply my intention to show that two lines of dialogue can be contentious to people in a non-trivial way, despite being a very small fraction of a game's content. I'll grant you that the intentions of the developers were somewhat in the right place, as far as inclusion is concerned, but I also contend that they are in the wrong place insofar as they, in my opinion, intended to lecture the player. > The reason why Gamergate and many others acted against and actively demanded its removal was not the above quote, it was sheer plain transphobia It really wasn't. > It's *nineteen seconds* of dialogue. I appear to have been wasting my time if you still don't understand why this is not a good argument.

Yeah, that's a severe problem with romance pacing. Five minutes of Maia in my party and she's already asking if I'm banging anyone. There are times when I wonder if my watcher has Aloth, Eder and Pally rotating shifts outside his door to keep the horndogs away. Gee it's almost like people sometimes act, swiftly, on impulse when they're physically attracted to someone. Also, anecdotal, but yours was too: Maia had been in my party for many hours of gametime before she asked me about that. Also also, because it's actually kind of important: the way in which that conversation plays out is actually quite witty, even if it's quite blunt. Anyway, I don't agree that anything described in these two posts is 'a problem'.

I mean yeah, that is definitely one of the criticisms that was levelled at the character. Minor spoiler for BG2: I actually think it'd be quite interesting for a character to have to go through that process, having the Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity change them, but the change be permanent as opposed to temporary as it is in BG2, and seeing the character come to terms with being a completely different gender. The Minsc thing isn't even defendable, it was utterly stupid.

What's really disgusting me is how freaking *many* of these "There are women doing things that I don't like women doing in this game!" so-called reviews have been showing up lately.Really makes me question my self-identity as a "gamer" when I see what's up with parts of gamer culture these days. I just don't understand why of all games it's this one that's getting ragged on for these reasons. So far this is like the least "political" game I've played all year.RPGs seem to be particularly vulnerable to this stuff for some reason. The worst I've seen was the Beamdog forums during the release of Siege of Dragonspear a few years ago. The devs included a minor NPC with two lines of dialogue about gender fluidity and gamergate launched a weeks-long review bombing campaign knocking the metacritic and GoG scores down to 3 (meanwhile: 7.5 among verified Steam purchases). The developer downsized and hasn't released any OC since.Yet it's somehow the "SJWs" who are still charicatured in the gaming community as the unreasonable value crusaders. Goes to show that gamergate was never really about combating censorship in gaming so much as fighting cultural change and representational diversity. I mean, I get it. When games have been made with no care for any demographic but yours for the past thirty years, it's hard to adapt when the industry *finally* notices that other people want to play too. Same thing is happening with comic books – a female Thor and a black Spiderman are always going to cause some people's heads to just explode. I was actually one of the people that had a problem with SoD. Now THAT was just virtue signaling garbage. It was embarassing. Don't get me started on the state of Marvel comics. It was two lines of dialogue + a cheeky Minsc bark. The rest was imagined by gamergate conspiracy theorists and has since been roundly debunked – I won't sift through it again here. Regardless, no team of developers should have to go through something like that over something so minimal. Go back sometime, read the **** that was said to and about Amber Scott, read the metacritic review spam, and honestly defend that reaction as proportional to the "offending" content. Gamergate has become everything that it claimed to hate about so-called "SJW's" — driven by victim/outrage politics, unreasonably prosecutorial, and finding cause for offense under every rock and behind every corner. OP practically wrote a manifesto on how a game that features cosmic space pigs and drug-addled monks is on a mission to emasculate him, FFS. That's not normal. Gamers should be able to criticize content they don't like without assuming a pervasive and malicious agenda behind every creative decision. This culturally aggrieved conspiracy mongering has been out of hand for a while now. "Hitler did nothing wrong" is one sentence but I imagine you'd have a problem if an NPC said that. That depends on the character. It's not a statement I would agree with, but if it was said in-game by a neo-nazi skinhead, then hell no I wouldn't have a problem with it--it's an accurate reflection of the character, even if all we know about that character is "neo-nazi skinhead that we meet for two seconds and says one line". Sigh, well OK fine, it would be reasonable if a neo-nazi skinhead said it. But surely you see my point. 'It's just two lines of dialogue' is not a reasonable argument.