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Vanderdeath posted:
Alaois posted:yeah The Witcher is possibly the worst possible example to pick of "heh wouldn't it be fuckin STUPID to read politics into this game?" With regards to actual colonialism you've got a fair point, considering it is a major theme in the games. But apart from Geralt taking a couple of exceptions to sentient beings, monsters in the Witcher world are an infestation that need to be exterminated. Monsters are no more natives to the continent than Gnomes, Dwarfs, Elves or Humans. They have all come from different worlds via the conjunction, and any species that were native to the Witcher world have long since gone extinct.
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Jan 28, 2018 22:12
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New Butt Order posted:The thing I like about the colonialism bit of that Monster Hunter review is that you could append it to the end of basically any RPG review and it'd work just as well and cause the same reaction. Definitely both.
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Jan 28, 2018 23:09
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Arcsquad12 posted:With regards to actual colonialism you've got a fair point, considering it is a major theme in the games. But apart from Geralt taking a couple of exceptions to sentient beings, monsters in the Witcher world are an infestation that need to be exterminated. Monsters are no more natives to the continent than Gnomes, Dwarfs, Elves or Humans. They have all come from different worlds via the conjunction, and any species that were native to the Witcher world have long since gone extinct. Eh, I'd argue that the Dwarves, Elves, etc. have way, way more of a claim to ancestral rights on the Continent. Dwarves and Gnomes are natives and Elves have also been there for several thousands of years before the Conjunction that brought humans. Also the last Conjunction brought monsters, but a large number of those monsters are/were sapient (the Elder Vampires, Godlings, Bruxas, etc.) which makes their extermination much more troubling. The exception being the Elder Vampires since they're basically Super Saiyans in that setting.
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Jan 29, 2018 00:02
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Vampires really only make themselves a problem except in special circumstances. The ones that actively attack humans get put down while the higher ones rarely dabble in human affairs. Plus those sentient monsters are the ones geralt tends to make exceptions for. But something like a drowner or a bilge hag by their very nature pose a threat to society, even moreso something like a fiend or a draconid. He'd have a better claim to ranting about colonialism in Witcher surely, but that just emphasizes that trying to apply it to monster hunter is really stupid when the text refutes his argument.
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Jan 29, 2018 00:35
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Isn't this basically a Thermian Argument?
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Jan 29, 2018 00:59
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Spark That Bled posted:Isn't this basically a Thermian Argument? There's a difference between "there's an in-setting justification for this aspect of the text and so it isn't actually bad" and "this isn't actually what's happening in the text in the first place". The former is a rationalization for some aspect that you acknowledge to be present in something, the latter is a counterargument for why something (which can be either positive or negative) isn't true about a text in the first place. A Thermian argument is "it's there, yeah, but isn't bad because-", but these posts (either the MH stuff or the Witcher stuff, not sure which specifically you mean) are an argument for why a colonialism read of the given work isn't accurate in the first place. And if a person is arguing that something is in some sense allegorical, it's completely fair for someone else to bring in pieces of the text, even in-setting details (edit: so long as they're actually present within the text, and they're prominent enough that they're not just offhand minutiae but are clearly a significant part of the work in some sense), that run counter to the allegory as a way of arguing against that. Idran fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Jan 29, 2018 |
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Jan 29, 2018 01:47
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Motto posted:tbf that is literally true and something observed even before current social media got popular. SA's own retsupurae eventually moved away from making mock videos in part because some fraction of the audience would go and give people poo poo directly. Heck, even in mockthreads that usually only concern dozens of posters you have to lay down "don't touch the poop", which inevitably gets broken and thread locked. As for that Monster Hunter review, it's pretty bad.
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Jan 29, 2018 02:56
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Imagine four velociraptors on the edge of a cliff. Say a direct copy of the velociraptor nearest the cliff is sent to the back of the line of velociraptors and takes the place of the first velociraptor. The formerly first velociraptor becomes the second, the second becomes the third, and the fourth falls off the cliff. Colonialism works the same way.
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Jan 29, 2018 03:14
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Never played Witcher, only BioWare's various franchises, Fallout and Elder Scrolls. Oh and Fable. The only one of those devoid of nasty implications is Fable. Seems to me fantasy games or RPGs have a lot of obvious real world inspiration or themes and that would obviously include politics and colonialism.
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Jan 29, 2018 05:23
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Dragon Age and Mass Effect both feature races of people are explicitly discriminated against in parallels to discrimination actual groups of people have faced. I've played a quarter of the way through the first Witcher years ago, and I recall discrimination against non-humans was a somewhat major recurring theme. I have no idea how people look at video games and claim they're apolitical.
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Jan 29, 2018 05:27
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Roth posted:Dragon Age and Mass Effect both feature races of people are explicitly discriminated against in parallels to discrimination actual groups of people have faced. I've played a quarter of the way through the first Witcher years ago, and I recall discrimination against non-humans was a somewhat major recurring theme. Dunno if you misread me but I was saying the opposite. DA and ME are so intensely political that you'd have to be blinder than I am to not see it. It's one of the things I like most about Dragon Age, actually. City Elf and Dwarf Noble Origin were so good. And much as some hate DA2, it deals a lot with refugees being discriminated against, exploited and abused.
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Jan 29, 2018 05:31
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NikkolasKing posted:Dunno if you misread me but I was saying the opposite. DA and ME are so intensely political that you'd have to be blinder than I am to not see it. Nah, not accusing you. Just expressing general astonishment that there's such a strong contingent of people angry about politics in games despite some of the most best/popular games featuring them pretty heavily.
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Jan 29, 2018 05:32
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e: nvm
Hemingway To Go! fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Jan 29, 2018 |
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Jan 29, 2018 05:36
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NikkolasKing posted:Never played Witcher, only BioWare's various franchises, Fallout and Elder Scrolls. Oh and Fable. The only one of those devoid of nasty implications is Fable. Sapkowski's original Witcher novels are heavily inspired by Polish history and folklore. The divisions of the northern kingdoms and the encroaching threat of a germanic inspired empire are pretty hard to ignore.
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Jan 29, 2018 05:55
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Arcsquad12 posted:Sapkowski's original Witcher novels are heavily inspired by Polish history and folklore. The divisions of the northern kingdoms and the encroaching threat of a germanic inspired empire are pretty hard to ignore. I don't deny it. I just don't know anything about either incarnation of Witcher and i was actually kinda curious if the books were as political as the games were given that there do seem to be substantive differences between the two. (At least according to the two fanbases I've seen arguing with one another over the years.)
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Jan 29, 2018 06:04
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Final episode of my show - I reviewed Diana Gabaldon's OUTLANDER.
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Jan 29, 2018 06:11
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NikkolasKing posted:I don't deny it. I just don't know anything about either incarnation of Witcher and i was actually kinda curious if the books were as political as the games were given that there do seem to be substantive differences between the two. (At least according to the two fanbases I've seen arguing with one another over the years.) The books are very political. At the same time that Geralt and Ciri's adventure is going on, there are frequent cutaway segments that feature other characters as they maneuver the pieces in a huge political and military chess match. Most of the differences in the games come down to Geralt having a somewhat softer characterization than in the books and the prevalence of monsters. In the books they are almost extinct, hence the notion that Witchers are becoming outdated. For gameplay purposes, this is changed so they are loving everywhere, though the games do try to justify their presence by being set in regions either untamed by humanity or in polluted areas where monsters thrive.
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Jan 29, 2018 06:28
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Roth posted:Nah, not accusing you. Just expressing general astonishment that there's such a strong contingent of people angry about politics in games despite some of the most best/popular games featuring them pretty heavily. I don't think it's always that people have issues with games having political themes in it. I think in most cases, it's more-so that people get annoyed when games are really heavy-handed or tactless when they do it (MrBTongue touched on this in his video on Dragon Age 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onr_z45NVyI). I also think the reason why people get annoyed is that it comes across as the reviewer or writer not so much talking about the game, but using it as soapbox or just to grab attention. For example, I would think that a game like Forza Horizon 3 wouldn't really have political themes, but if you were to write an article about it, I imagine you might say something about the automotive industry, branding and advertising, or environmentalism. I wouldn't expect an article about Forza Horizon 3 to bring up the topic of the Australian government being against same-sex marriage, but that is an article that exists. Waypoint | Forza Horizon 3’ Depicts a Better Australia Than Australians Deserve posted:This is not a feeling I'm entirely comfortable with. On the same day my review code for Forza Horizon 3 appeared in my inbox, our current prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull—who unseated previous gargoyle prime minister Tony Abbott during a now-traditional vicious leadership spill in September 2015—introduced a much-maligned same-sex marriage plebiscite legislation in the parliament. This plebiscite, proposed by a prime minister who has openly stated that he supports same-sex marriage, will let the public vote on whether they think same-sex marriage should be allowed or not. Every existing poll indicating that Australians are ready and willing to accept it; yet apparently this is still a matter for debate. Funding will be given to parties on either side of the debate, meaning that we're likely to be bombarded soon with government-funded campaigns opposing the rights of same-sex couples. Bigots will be given a large forum, and funding, to voice their hate. Despite arguments that this will be a costly course of action, one that could potentially endanger the lives of vulnerable queer Australians and ultimately slow the process, our government is stubbornly insisting upon it. See also: Polgyon's 'politics in the Philippines' comment from the Rock Band 4 article and maybe the Tropico 5 review. (though that's certainly debatable) Now, on the flip-side, if you wanted to write a video game article and tie it to the topic of the American police force, you could write an article about Daryl F. Gates and how his involvement with development of Police Quest: Open Season potentially affected some of the elements in the game, and that would be a lot more applicable.
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Jan 29, 2018 08:15
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Roth posted:Dragon Age and Mass Effect both feature races of people are explicitly discriminated against in parallels to discrimination actual groups of people have faced. I've played a quarter of the way through the first Witcher years ago, and I recall discrimination against non-humans was a somewhat major recurring theme. I find the use of fantasy or sci-fi racism as an analogue for real world prejudice comes with its own heap of problems. It's a well meaning idea on the surface "we can say all humans are equal so people can make a character like them and see themselves in the game, but still tackle real world issues!" (And of course, this happens outside games as well) But then they end up soft-erasing minority voices, experiences, and characters from their story because the cast ends up all white. So the party member who could've been a black person talking about racial prejudice is now an elf with white skin talking about similar things but with fantasy words thrown in, but then they forget to add actual black people to the cast. It also facilitates soft cultural whitewashing where every minority they do have shares some vague fantasy cultural perspective based on the studio's own politics and cultural experiences, rather than acknowledging that queer americans and black americans and Indian americans and so on all have varying cultural touchstones, outlooks, and manners of interacting with their peers. At best, other cultural viewpoints are depicted as some vague foreignness usually with European (often French) derived influences, rather than subcultural phenomena in their own culture. So sure, if they remembered to add a given character, you can "see yourself" in the game, but it's a version of you that fits neatly into the mainstream culture of wherever the game is from rather than the you that reclaims slurs or participates in drag or speaks in a regional dialect or actively does things to assert your identity that pushes yourself away from white or straight or cis culture. Which isn't to say it can't be used to tell good stories, but I feel like "okay but what if in our property the Elves were, like, refugees!!?" tends to end up just making an attempt to address a real issue an erasure of the actual people they're trying to make you think about.
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Jan 29, 2018 08:52
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All those JRPGs with secret lost royal family protagonists are clearly signs that game developers yearn to return to feudalism and monarchy.  (please don't reply to this with 'this but unironically' i am already being unironic)
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Jan 29, 2018 09:02
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Linear Zoetrope posted:I find the use of fantasy or sci-fi racism as an analogue for real world prejudice comes with its own heap of problems. It's a well meaning idea on the surface "we can say all humans are equal so people can make a character like them and see themselves in the game, but still tackle real world issues!" (And of course, this happens outside games as well) But then they end up soft-erasing minority voices, experiences, and characters from their story because the cast ends up all white. So the party member who could've been a black person talking about racial prejudice is now an elf with white skin talking about similar things but with fantasy words thrown in, but then they forget to add actual black people to the cast. I remember reading something where someone said that one of the problems with fantasy/sci-fi races is that they sometimes fall into pit of stereotyping. Like the thing of 'all dwarves drink' or 'elves are all in tune with nature and hate humans' or 'Klingons are all about honor'. It's the problem that they tend to depict these different species or races as being very one-note. What I'm saying is that Hermey was a very progressive example of breaking elf stereotyping.
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Jan 29, 2018 09:08
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Max Wilco posted:I also think the reason why people get annoyed is that it comes across as the reviewer or writer not so much talking about the game, but using it as soapbox or just to grab attention. What that Forza 3 article is an example of is the reflex pushback against the idea of a writer talking about personal experiences with something even when their view on it isn't negative. "I played a good game but here's some things it made me think" is, somehow, out of line or something.
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Jan 29, 2018 09:28
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Max Wilco posted:I don't think it's always that people have issues with games having political themes in it. I think in most cases, it's more-so that people get annoyed when games are really heavy-handed or tactless when they do it (MrBTongue touched on this in his video on Dragon Age 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onr_z45NVyI). I also think the reason why people get annoyed is that it comes across as the reviewer or writer not so much talking about the game, but using it as soapbox or just to grab attention. This seems to be a common thing in journalism. Steady jobs for journalists are thin on the ground these days compared to the number of people wanting to break into the field, so a lot of those who desperately want to write about politics or some other important topic instead end up covering something far outside their own interests in order to pay the bills. The good ones are professional enough to do the research and write quality articles anyway, but others… not so much.
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Jan 29, 2018 09:39
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ungulateman posted:All those JRPGs with secret lost royal family protagonists are clearly signs that game developers yearn to return to feudalism and monarchy. Regicide is a moral act.
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Jan 29, 2018 09:52
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Max Wilco posted:For example, I would think that a game like Forza Horizon 3 wouldn't really have political themes, but if you were to write an article about it, I imagine you might say something about the automotive industry, branding and advertising, or environmentalism. I wouldn't expect an article about Forza Horizon 3 to bring up the topic of the Australian government being against same-sex marriage, but that is an article that exists. See, this just makes me think that Waypoint is a joke review site that people are taking seriously for some reason. Just a shame that's probably wrong.
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Jan 29, 2018 10:48
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ungulateman posted:(please don't reply to this with 'this but unironically' i am already being unironic)
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Jan 29, 2018 11:08
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Fantasy is preoccupied with the idea of royalty because fantasy is preoccupied with finding easy solutions to complex problems. “Dethrone the evil monarch and crown a good one, and their wise rule will solve all the problems in the land” wraps up a story much more neatly than “Dethrone the evil monarch and try to cobble together a functioning government while preventing other evil people from taking advantage of the power vacuum”.
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Jan 29, 2018 11:27
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Infamous Sphere posted:Final episode of my show - I reviewed Diana Gabaldon's OUTLANDER. Thanks for doing videos for all these years. Your dramatic Jack Chick reading still makes me giggle whenever I see it.
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Jan 29, 2018 13:16
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Dragonatrix posted:See, this just makes me think that Waypoint is a joke review site that people are taking seriously for some reason. That Police Quest article was actually pretty deece.
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Jan 29, 2018 13:22
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Darth Walrus posted:That Police Quest article was actually pretty deece. Yeah, it was really good. I don't remember where I saw it, but I posted it in the "cops being shits" thread to great fanfare.
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Jan 29, 2018 13:30
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Infamous Sphere posted:Final episode of my show - I reviewed Diana Gabaldon's OUTLANDER. Nice to see you back here!
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Jan 29, 2018 13:54
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Bakeneko posted:Fantasy is preoccupied with the idea of royalty because fantasy is preoccupied with finding easy solutions to complex problems. “Dethrone the evil monarch and crown a good one, and their wise rule will solve all the problems in the land” wraps up a story much more neatly than “Dethrone the evil monarch and try to cobble together a functioning government while preventing other evil people from taking advantage of the power vacuum”. Most fantasy also tends to be based on the Middle Ages,.
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Jan 29, 2018 14:03
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Fame Douglas posted:Most fantasy also tends to be based on the Middle Ages,. Which makes me wonder: Are there any fantasy settings that that are actually set in the actual (Well with added magic\dragon\etc.) middle ages? The only one that comes to mind is Darklands. Most i know are either set on their own worlds or some kind of post apocalypse where most technology is lost but magic returns.
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Jan 29, 2018 14:10
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englerp posted:Which makes me wonder: Are there any fantasy settings that that are actually set in the actual (Well with added magic\dragon\etc.) middle ages? The only one that comes to mind is Darklands. The Middle Ages themselves were post-apocalyptic, though, as in living in the wreckage of the Roman empire. Sure, the Romans didn't have robots, but they had indoor plumbing, aqueducts, paved roads, an advanced legal code, etc.
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Jan 29, 2018 14:13
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englerp posted:Which makes me wonder: Are there any fantasy settings that that are actually set in the actual (Well with added magic\dragon\etc.) middle ages? The only one that comes to mind is Darklands. that would actually own the d&d thread in td had a kewl take on this in regards to law enforcement, reputation, and wandering adventurers: quote:My most extensive study was on late-medieval London, but the general setup is very similar to other English cities and reasonably portable to other Northern European cities. Things get different especially in Italy, but a lot of the general concepts of how an urban society functioned are pretty similar, again.
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Jan 29, 2018 14:14
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Fame Douglas posted:Most fantasy also tends to be based on the Middle Ages,. Also Fantasy can legitimately have Divine Right or something similar.
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Jan 29, 2018 14:16
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Infamous Sphere posted:Final episode of my show - I reviewed Diana Gabaldon's OUTLANDER. Does this mean that you're done with making video reviews?
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Jan 29, 2018 16:10
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Roth posted:Dragon Age and Mass Effect both feature races of people are explicitly discriminated against in parallels to discrimination actual groups of people have faced. I've played a quarter of the way through the first Witcher years ago, and I recall discrimination against non-humans was a somewhat major recurring theme. Nobody has ever said this. What people are saying is that it's also easy to make very stupid unsupported claims about specific political messages.
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Jan 29, 2018 18:06
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Hey remember how Extra Credits made a video and yall said Jim should respond to it? Here ya go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ksqAZmjtzs
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Jan 29, 2018 18:13
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Kotaku and Polygon defending large companies, like the Uncle Toms they are, unsurprising.
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Jan 29, 2018 18:18
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