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I don’t get the “life is cheap in the south” bit, like life seems pretty cheap in the base game already according to the writing
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Mar 6, 2020 21:33
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I hope that there's an anti slaver or escaped slaves / arena fighters background, that sounds like it would be fun.
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Mar 6, 2020 22:42
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When are they gonna release this DLC. I can only get so hard
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Mar 7, 2020 08:41
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Jay Rust posted:I don’t get the “life is cheap in the south” bit, like life seems pretty cheap in the base game already according to the writing I imagine slaves will just be cheap fodder you can have in your company to throw a shield + spear onto when an actual brother gets hurt. What's the betting they have lovely stats?
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Mar 7, 2020 16:25
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I imagine slaves will continue with this games vein of denigrating anyone who has already had a difficult life.
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Mar 7, 2020 18:01
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Southpaugh posted:I imagine slaves will continue with this games vein of denigrating anyone who has already had a difficult life. lmao I wanted to protest but after thinking about it -- you're 100% right.
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Mar 7, 2020 18:12
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It has event where you pillage and murder a defenseless farmstead, complete with child murder and implied rape. Its about lovely people in lovely times being lovely to each other. Its not a modern commentary.
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Mar 7, 2020 18:47
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Southpaugh posted:I imagine slaves will continue with this games vein of denigrating anyone who has already had a difficult life. Yeah, if there's one thing about the writing that rubs me the wrong way it's this. ShootaBoy posted:It has event where you pillage and murder a defenseless farmstead, complete with child murder and implied rape. Its about lovely people in lovely times being lovely to each other. Its not a modern commentary. Even when you play your character as a decent person, they still are a lovely person being lovely to others. It doesn't matter how much the people of a town like me, the writing indicates I think of them only as worthy of contempt. Chakan fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Mar 7, 2020 |
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Mar 7, 2020 18:48
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Given how they chose to write the refugee backgrounds, I wouldn't bet on their writing dealing with slaves in a decent way.
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Mar 7, 2020 19:06
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ShootaBoy posted:It has event where you pillage and murder a defenseless farmstead, complete with child murder and implied rape. Its about lovely people in lovely times being lovely to each other. Its not a modern commentary.  Doesn't seem very necessary
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Mar 7, 2020 19:44
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Yeah good thing I started skipping dialogue boxes early
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Mar 7, 2020 20:25
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Its not like you just stumble into it or are forced, it's pretty loving obvious what's coming when you pick the option to attack the totally defenseless farmstead so you can take their poo poo. Not to mention that basically every time you ever interact with the common people it ends with them going "Wow, I can't believe you mercenaries didn't rob and murder us." Because mercenaries are lovely, lovely people, barely better than bandits.
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Mar 7, 2020 20:44
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Man I just want to play my medieval tactics game without reading unfunny sneering every ten minnutes. The tone of the writing that isn't "mercenaries are bad people" the whole tone of the game is written with tedious edgelordery in mind. I may have found this effective when I was a teenager, but at this point its tedious, boring and frankly makes me think the writers either believe this stuff or its lazy writing. I skip most of the text in the game, having read a fair bit of it and the DLC will have me coming back for new mechanics, but not for a single moment do I expect the DLC writing to be any better than what was in the game from the outset.ShootaBoy posted:Its not like you just stumble into it or are forced, it's pretty loving obvious what's coming when you pick the option to attack the totally defenseless farmstead so you can take their poo poo. Not to mention that basically every time you ever interact with the common people it ends with them going "Wow, I can't believe you mercenaries didn't rob and murder us." Because mercenaries are lovely, lovely people, barely better than bandits. You can portray unpleasant realities in video games/media perfectly well if you can write it well. But the BB guys don't have the chops for it.
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Mar 7, 2020 21:08
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best tactical game in recent years that breathes new life into a genre and doesn't sell it out by cheapening it to a puzzle, mediocre-tier edgelord writing that panders to the lowest common denominator with pseudo-historical "realism" and biotruths. its like the inverse of Into the Breach.
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Mar 7, 2020 21:29
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Currently transcribing the script of Spartacus into an .xml so I can mod in some servile uprisings as a proper counterpoint.
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Mar 7, 2020 21:52
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that better be Spartacus the Starz TV show and not Spartacus the Fast novel
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Mar 7, 2020 22:06
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Controversial opinion: I enjoyed the writing in Battle Brothers.  I never really got the edgelord complaints.
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Mar 8, 2020 06:29
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Gobblecoque posted:Controversial opinion: I enjoyed the writing in Battle Brothers. I actually enjoy it quite a bit too, but they handle touchy subjects and it certainly shouldn't be immune to criticism.
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Mar 8, 2020 09:37
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the real issue of BB's writing isn't that it is particularly edgelord-y, but that the tone of "grim outcomes in grim times, serious treatment of the squalor and filth of the period," comes across as perfunctory, like its just crossing a checklist labeled BAD THINGS THAT HAPPENED BETWEEN 200 AND 1700 AD. It's especially egregious when you contrast it with the more silly or whimsical events that can also happen, which undercuts that tone pretty badly. It's just gesturing at bad things you can do as a tonal thing but it doesn't actually let you make a living off of pillaging the countryside to get through a rough patch - you're still mostly beholden to the general "get mission, complete mission" gameloop. IMO if you're going to include a cutscene where you pillage a farmhouse, make the player play it out as a very one-sided battle.
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Mar 8, 2020 09:50
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Impermanent posted:if you're going to include a cutscene where you pillage a farmhouse, make the player play it out as a very one-sided battle. this is in the game though
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Mar 8, 2020 10:12
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It's the implied rape scenario that I have beef with. It's like a lovely table top DMs take on gritty.
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Mar 8, 2020 15:00
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I mean, taking a bunch of slaves and giving them weapons and the ability to use them on eg nobles seems like a fairly solid thing to do.
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Mar 8, 2020 16:15
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Yeah, in general I like the writing as it doesn't read as particularly edgelordy to me, but more of a stab at grim/gritty writing with a slight tonal disconnect that comes from writing in your second language. That said, I've also never come across the implied rape dialogue, so maybe I'm just playing as too nice of a murder-hobo.
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Mar 8, 2020 16:23
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I got a real chuckle out of the melon fucker bro scenario, bit maybe it was because I'd also just gotten the horse fucker one before that.
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Mar 8, 2020 20:20
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Babe Magnet posted:that better be Spartacus the Starz TV show and not Spartacus the Fast novel Fast was a comrade who didn't sell out his bros we should be so lucky to have that sentiment of solidarity in this merc badn simulator
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Mar 9, 2020 05:07
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Maybe I play this game wrong but I always choose the options like chastising my soldier who harasses the peasants even though all it does is lower his morale, or helping the caravan pull their wagon out of a ditch for no reward, or telling a child to go home without robbing them. I've never got the impression from the writing that my squad is anything but a bunch of unruly but ultimately good-natured soldiers who keep looking at opportunities like the ditched caravan and maybe empathizing with the brigands and going "yeah I understand why they'd just rob this guy, it would be so easy, who would ever know?" but then choosing to make the right decision anyway, either because they're actually good people and are just disillusioned by the lovely state of the world, or because I am there as their leader to chisel some goddamn benevolence into this hopeless emotional wasteland. Sure, every event has the lovely option for immoral mercenary captains but it's up to you whether that's the reality of your virtual friends and with not all that many exceptions (are there even any? I can't think of any off the top of my head but I've been playing rimworld ever since the dlc), your mercs only do atrocious things when you tell them to. Yeah it's lovely that if you choose to pillage a farmstead and then choose the more violent options you find out one of your soldiers probably raped someone, but maybe you should feel bad for clicking the button to pillage a defenseless farm in the first place. (really I think the problem is that when you do choose to do awful things the writing generally tries to make your troops look like heroes while they do it) deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Mar 9, 2020 |
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Mar 9, 2020 06:54
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deep dish peat moss posted:Maybe I play this game wrong but I always choose the options like chastising my soldier who harasses the peasants even though all it does is lower his morale, or helping the caravan pull their wagon out of a ditch for no reward, or telling a child to go home without robbing them. For anyone curious there's an actual in game stat that keeps track of this, next to your Reknown, Reputation I think it's called. Other than not raping townsfolk and abandoning caravans I think letting guys retreat when it asks you increases it. I also believe it's from an abandoned game play element since it's effects seem to be sweet gently caress all. EDIT-I have no idea what it does, but every time that kid lies to me in the marketplace I make sure he gets his comeuppance. gently caress that kid Scaramouche fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Mar 9, 2020 |
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Mar 9, 2020 08:56
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deep dish peat moss posted:
This is exactly how I read it as well.
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Mar 9, 2020 09:16
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Sometimes you find a bro that's so terrible you have to keep him just to see the trainwreck in action: 1 HP above the absolute minimum. e: In related news, I just learned that the game can apparently crash when a bro actually dies from Webknecht poison. Email Address posted:Yeah, in general I like the writing as it doesn't read as particularly edgelordy to me, but more of a stab at grim/gritty writing with a slight tonal disconnect that comes from writing in your second language. Either way, the writing is generally good when it goes for humor but that's the best I can say about it. I don't expect subjects like religious conflict and slavery to be handled well judging by the stuff already in the game and Hollingshead's history of racist and islamophobic RPGCodex posts. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 12:00 on Mar 9, 2020 |
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Mar 9, 2020 11:48
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I have never ran into a situation with the writing where I thought it was going full on bad game of thrones rip off with the grim unfair world thing but I also generally pick the good guy options. If you pillage a farm the game narration is from the point of view of a guy who just pillaged a farm so yeah it probably is not going to do justice to how horrible that is. I have no trouble believing it comes off poorly but it seems unfair to talk poo poo on the whole game because the rape and pillage event was not written well.
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Mar 9, 2020 13:57
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It's not just the rape and pillage scene, which I've never gotten personally. But the overall tone of the writing is that of a sneering imperialist. Personally, that takes away from my tactical turn based mount and blade fun. It's more so a shame because of how good the game is. I'm inevitably going to get the DLC, so when I'm replaying and I come across something distasteful or belittling I'll screenshot it for the thread.
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Mar 9, 2020 14:13
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I think the best example is the background descriptions for refugees. They're all about how this person is a coward because they refused to stay and fight for their home, and therefore gently caress them they deserve to die.
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Mar 9, 2020 14:23
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And that doesn't even make sense, given how normal it was to swell armies by taking in well armed refugees. Just look at how practically everyone took in refugee armies fleeing from the Mongols, or the early history of the Goths.
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Mar 9, 2020 14:39
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golden bubble posted:And that doesn't even make sense, given how normal it was to swell armies by taking in well armed refugees. Just look at how practically everyone took in refugee armies fleeing from the Mongols, or the early history of the Goths. Yeah it's because the instances of bad writing are not actual representations of some grimdark medieval historical reality, they're representations of a contemporary right-winger's imagination of what the Middle Ages were like.
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Mar 9, 2020 14:44
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vyelkin posted:I think the best example is the background descriptions for refugees. They're all about how this person is a coward because they refused to stay and fight for their home, and therefore gently caress them they deserve to die. Oh yeah I remember that. I figured they were trying to get across what stats will be good/bad for this background but yes it’s pretty hacky writing. I take it as everything is written from the point of view of a mercenary captain which lends itself to be being written like a jaded dickhead who doesn’t care about people. Comrayn fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Mar 9, 2020 |
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Mar 9, 2020 14:58
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I mean, the middle ages also didn't have orcs, undead, or krakens either.
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Mar 9, 2020 17:27
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There's no option to roleplay as a vaguely well-meaning but ultimately inert computer toucher. This sucks.
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Mar 9, 2020 17:28
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Comrayn posted:Oh yeah I remember that. I figured they were trying to get across what stats will be good/bad for this background but yes it’s pretty hacky writing. This is what i've always taken from it. The guy who runs the merc company hates people. This is apparent in the majority of interactions he has with other people, even down to the guards where he tries to talk to you "as if you give a poo poo about what happens to the man". Also, mandatory "it ain't that deep, bro".
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Mar 9, 2020 17:37
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The “hunt down what’s terrorizing the villagers” missions always have that mandatory pop-up a few in-game hours after accepting it. And it’ll describe a guy who just killed his neighbour’s dog. Or a woman who’s looking for a missing child and says, “Well I think he’s mine,” or something. It’s just weirdly dismissive
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Mar 9, 2020 19:21
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Wizard Styles posted:
Ack, bummer. I was definitely cutting it some slack based on that assumption. Well here's hoping that the slave background doesn't explain that they're slaves because they're too unmotivated or smooth-brained to be free.
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Mar 9, 2020 20:53
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