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The Infinity Engine games were full of jokey reference NPCs/items and throw-away joke lines even back in 1998.
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Apr 6, 2016 17:08
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I'll have to finish the game, but from the hour or so I played last night the writing seemed fine. Not to look back at it with rose-tinted glasses, but I remember enjoying the writing more in Torment, but that did have the better setting.
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Apr 6, 2016 17:13
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A person I follow on Tumblr posted some of the more egregious reviews and I am pretty darn angry right now.
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Apr 6, 2016 17:14
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Scyther posted:My favorite thing about Infinity Engine games has always been the dank memes. this but unironically
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Apr 6, 2016 17:15
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Lemon-Lime posted:The Infinity Engine games were full of jokey reference NPCs/items and throw-away joke lines even back in 1998. 1998 Baldur's Gate: I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. If it bleeds, I can kill it. I am the law! 2016 Baldur's Gate: i can haz cheezburger?
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Apr 6, 2016 17:19
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Scyther posted:1998 Baldur's Gate: I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. If it bleeds, I can kill it. I am the law! Gosh, it's almost as if people make references to different things 18 years later. 
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Apr 6, 2016 17:25
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Oh no, jokes! Whatever shall we do??
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Apr 6, 2016 17:26
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All of those references from 1998 actually made sense in their respective contexts within the game and the characters speaking them though.
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Apr 6, 2016 17:29
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you care way too much about something that really isn't even the weak point in the writing of a game, dude
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Apr 6, 2016 17:41
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You are right, in order for something to be considered "the weak point" in the writing, there would have to be strong points somewhere in the writing.
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Apr 6, 2016 17:50
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I just saw some of these reviews on my dashboard and I must say, they got me pretty incensed.
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Apr 6, 2016 17:52
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Scyther posted:2016 Baldur's Gate: i can haz cheezburger? This is super not topical for 2016
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Apr 6, 2016 17:59
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paradoxGentleman posted:I just saw some of these reviews on my dashboard and I must say, they got me pretty incensed. Care to elaborate?
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Apr 6, 2016 18:00
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Scyther posted:You are right, in order for something to be considered "the weak point" in the writing, there would have to be strong points somewhere in the writing. It's basically filler content, and it offers up nothing that modders haven't already done better 
Bedlamdan fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Apr 6, 2016 |
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Apr 6, 2016 18:01
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Serf posted:Care to elaborate? Standard evil SJW fare, really, they're just worded in such a way that I really want to momentarily abandon my normally pacific nature, reach through the screen, grab them by the hair and beat then on their keyboard until I hear something that isn't the computer break.
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Apr 6, 2016 18:04
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paradoxGentleman posted:Standard evil SJW fare, really, they're just worded in such a way that I really want to momentarily abandon my normally pacific nature, reach through the screen, grab them by the hair and beat then on their keyboard until I hear something that isn't the computer break. That sucks because there's plenty to criticize besides that (the bugs, the poor writing in general, the broken multiplayer (again), the fact that it breaks all the mods for the EE's of BG1 and BG2) but Beamdog really won't be paying attention to those.
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Apr 6, 2016 18:06
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paradoxGentleman posted:Standard evil skeleton fare, really, they're just worded in such a way that I really want to momentarily abandon my normally pacific nature, reach through the screen, grab them by the hair and beat then on their keyboard until I hear something that isn't the computer break. Welcome to the culture war, yo. Any hint of progress or pushback against the regressive idiots in entertainment and you get tons of shitheads crawling out of the woodwork to review brigade and spout bullshit. Hope you like it, because this is the future.
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Apr 6, 2016 18:12
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Bedlamdan posted:That sucks because there's plenty to criticize besides that (the bugs, the poor writing in general, the broken multiplayer (again), the fact that it breaks all the mods for the EE's of BG1 and BG2) but Beamdog really won't be paying attention to those. The devs have released two patches in as many days to make bugfixes, though?
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Apr 6, 2016 18:12
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gradenko_2000 posted:The devs have released two patches in as many days to make bugfixes, though? I'm still waiting for a few more patches before I even think of purchasing it.
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Apr 6, 2016 18:17
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Serf posted:Welcome to the culture war, yo. Any hint of progress or pushback against the regressive idiots in entertainment and you get tons of shitheads crawling out of the woodwork to review brigade and spout bullshit. Hope you like it, because this is the future. quote:This criticism is the desperate cries of dinosaurs as they struggle against the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction. It’s loud and violent, and in the end it’s just as successful. I am going to cling to this hope like sea urchin if that's all the same for you.
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Apr 6, 2016 18:35
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Scyther posted:All of those references from 1998 actually made sense in their respective contexts within the game and the characters speaking them though. 
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Apr 6, 2016 19:29
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Apr 6, 2016 19:50
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this guy looks badass
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Apr 6, 2016 19:55
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To someone who doesn't know much about Wolverine there's nothing weird about Bub Snikt, or anything he says. Larry Darryll and Darryll is a bit of a weird and jarring one, admittedly, but it's essentially an easter egg you could easily miss, not really on the same level as out of place and out of character banter from Minsc, a prominent companion throughout the series, that it seems everyone who's played the game has encountered. It'd be like Khalid calling Jaheira his "Bae" or Imoen talking about making the sword coast great again.
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Apr 6, 2016 20:00
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Scyther posted:To someone who doesn't know much about Wolverine there's nothing weird about Bub Snikt, or anything he says. The odds of someone playing a BG1 expansion in 2016 and not knowing where "it's about ethics in X" comes from are greater than the odds of someone playing BG1 in 1998 never having heard of Wolverine.
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Apr 6, 2016 20:04
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The point is that they didn't put any effort into writing the line into the game in a way that didn't seem out of place. Much like they didn't put any effort into writing their "diverse" characters to not be token and one-dimensional. And yet they're being hailed as civil rights champions by virtue of the gaming community being incredibly lovely.
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Apr 6, 2016 20:07
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Scyther posted:The point is that they didn't put any effort into writing the line into the game in a way that didn't seem out of place. Much like they didn't put any effort into writing their "diverse" characters to not be token and one-dimensional. And yet they're being hailed as civil rights champions by virtue of the gaming community being incredibly lovely. The counter-point being that there's nothing more "ham-handed" or "shoved in your face" about the trans NPC than there was in the original lazy references, so those complaints don't really hold water.
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Apr 6, 2016 21:05
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It's almost as if inclusion and diversity are important subjects that deserve meaningful representation and a level of thoughtfulness that pop culture references don't necessitate.
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Apr 6, 2016 21:21
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Yeah, it's real dumb to have Minsc have a single line you get from clicking on him a bunch, not at all like the lovely gnome who quotes the Simpsons. Come the gently caress on. You're giving the rest of Baldur's Gate a pass because you were, like, 14 when you played it. His line is no better or no worse then any of the other dumb things in that game. Dragonspear is literally and obviously the target of the hatemob. Like, this is super easily confirmable just by looking around a tiny bit. Unsurprisingly it's the same people who got real angry at Blizzard for taking out a pointless rear end shot in one of their games, because I guess censorship only counts when blah blah blah. Also lmao at the newest shithead who thinks literally just stating that a person exists is some kind of in your face political statement.
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Apr 6, 2016 21:21
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Also most of the people loudly up in arms over the character in question are doing so because they exist period, not because of how badly they may be written. If you want to criticise the game on those grounds then fine, but it's not what most folks are doing.
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Apr 6, 2016 21:22
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It's about quality in game writing. 
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Apr 6, 2016 21:22
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I will openly admit that Baldur's Gate was bad, but 2 was not. I'm not denying that Dragonspear is the target of a hate mob, it just so happens that it's also a buggy mess with bad writing.
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Apr 6, 2016 21:24
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Scyther posted:I will openly admit that Baldur's Gate was bad, but 2 was not. I'm not denying that Dragonspear is the target of a hate mob, it just so happens that it's also a buggy mess with bad writing. Okay but those are two orthogonal points. People aren't hating on it for their technical issues, and while maybe in some abstract sense it's a shame that those issues are being overshadowed by this other thing, well, maybe you should be taking that up with the people shouting about too much inclusion in their video games.
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Apr 6, 2016 21:27
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Pieces of Peace posted:The counter-point being that there's nothing more "ham-handed" or "shoved in your face" about the trans NPC than there was in the original lazy references, so those complaints don't really hold water. The core problem is that the people playing the game are twenty years older now, and the lazy approach to referential humor that was goddamned hilarious when they were twelve is recognizable as embarrassing by a thirty-year old. On a tangential note, complaining about a Bioware NPC dumping their backstory on you with no provocation is lol as gently caress. Bioware worldbuilding has always been a function of the four dialogue options' worth of unprompted exposition around "please go to [dungeon] and get me [item]." Yes, random doctor on Taris, I definitely care about why you have dedicated your life to fighting a plague that turns poor people into zombies. Please, do go on.
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Apr 6, 2016 21:32
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Scyther posted:It's almost as if inclusion and diversity are important subjects that deserve meaningful representation and a level of thoughtfulness that pop culture references don't necessitate. What does it say about the state of representation that people will get so excited over being represented by a one-note stereotype? We will take anything. (Note that I haven't done anything with the character in question, so I can't speak to how their writing is yet.)
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Apr 6, 2016 21:38
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ProfessorCirno posted:Yeah, it's real dumb to have Minsc have a single line you get from clicking on him a bunch, not at all like the lovely gnome who quotes the Simpsons. Come the gently caress on. You're giving the rest of Baldur's Gate a pass because you were, like, 14 when you played it. His line is no better or no worse then any of the other dumb things in that game. No, no. Like I said, Minsc says it on his own, and if Beamdog is to be believed it's also bugged so he says it very often. It's not one of those funny quotes they say only if you click them enough times. Baldur's Gate 1 was always lovely and gratuitous with its references, but at least it didn't try to paint the NPC synonymous with the franchise as a fedora-tipper or w/e. At least give it to that one evil aligned bard from BG1 whose name I never bothered to recall. Eldoth? quote:Unsurprisingly it's the same people who got real angry at Blizzard for taking out a pointless rear end shot in one of their games, because I guess censorship only counts when blah blah blah. They took it out and replaced it with an actual pin-up pose that also includes her butt, so I have no idea why Blizzard even bothered in the first place.
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Apr 6, 2016 21:49
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The trans NPC is the most baldur's gate thing about the dragonspear. NPC has something odd (in this case a wierd name) one of your dialogue options is to ask about said wierd thing. They give a long explanation of wierd thing. This happens with a good 50% of talkable npcs in the game. The Mincs line is unfortunate because I like Mincs and I'd prefer to not associate him with gamergate even ironically. In general though the Beamdog writing remains slightly better than BG1 but still much worse than BG2. Which is too bad. Ze Pollack posted:The core problem is that the people playing the game are twenty years older now, and the lazy approach to referential humor that was goddamned hilarious when they were twelve is recognizable as embarrassing by a thirty-year old. Something to note is that although Baldur's Gate was published by Bioware it was written and created by Black Isle the guys who now work at Obsidian. Hence why the Infinity Engine is a buggy mess in general not just in the new expansion, and the writing was generally better than Bioware from BG2 onward.
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Apr 6, 2016 22:20
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Terrible Opinions posted:Something to note is that although Baldur's Gate was published by Bioware it was written and created by Black Isle the guys who now work at Obsidian. EDIT: To clarify, Black Isle did the other IE games - Planescape Torment and Icewind Dale. However, Baldur's Gate - and the Infinty Engine itself - was Bioware's work.
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Apr 6, 2016 22:24
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Scyther posted:I'm not convinced the issues are fabricated. Some people I trust have been saying ever since BG:EE and BG2:EE came out that all the content added by Beamdog was really bad and stood in stark contrast to the original content. I wouldn't be even remotely surprised if Beamdog making a full-length game would result in a complete mess. Oh, sure. I was never convinced that the issues were fabricated. Just, I don't trust even seemingly unrelated negative user reviews on anything if malicious brigading has occurred. This is solidly in "I would double check with a reliable source to see if the crashes were real before believing it", territory. If they are, okay, fair enough. Just, the point is, if you've got a group with a long track record of dishonesty and weird double speak trying to get a product's user reviews to be as bad as possible, it makes it hard to trust the user reviews in general.
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Apr 6, 2016 22:30
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ProfessorCirno posted:Also lmao at the newest shithead who thinks literally just stating that a person exists is some kind of in your face political statement. It's sad to say, but given the way things are in geek culture a person's existence in a fictional work is a political issue. Anything can be made into a political issue, and politics reflect cultural trends. When Captain America fought Nazis in his first issue, it was political because the US at the time had a lot of fifth columnists who were supportive of Hitler's policies, and many politicians wanted to stay out of the war for various reasons. Same for having characters come out as gay in early 2000s shows, when political figures were winning elections in no small part due to anti-gay sentiment. Same story for Marvel's Kamela Khan, being a Muslim superhero where most people of said religion in media have been villains. And so on and so forth. So it's not in your face, but it is a 'political statement' in an odd way, just as political as having your cast of characters be all straight, or or trans-free, and so on. A statement saying "no, you're wrong, I'm working against the grain to have characters like this who aren't villains/comic relief/etc." It's also a case of selective interpretation. There was an older character in Baldur's Gate who got afflicted with a sex-changing curse, but that didn't get a lot of complaints at the time. And was played as comic relief. So it's less existence and more "does this character fit society's traditional narrative?" in determining what is 'political.' Libertad! fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Apr 6, 2016 |
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Apr 6, 2016 22:37
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