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Dunno. Good characters are characters, not stereotypes. Try to write people, not a cliché, and you can have dozens of white straight male characters that are interesting, because "white straight male" isn't the defining part of their character, it is just a backdrop. In my opinion, all characters should be handled that way. Write an interesting character. Most of the time, their sex, sexuality, gender are not relevant to their part in the story. Add whatever you wish, don't make it too blatant that it overtakes the character that you wrote and turns them into "token gay".
I wish more people would just see people as people, as opposed to some single superficial thing that they feel defines them. This is true for both real and fictional people.
And sometimes, it does matter. Something like Brokeback Mountain as a story wouldn't make any sense with straight characters. But those are few stories. But that is not the majority of stories.
Note that i am not opposed to any sort of people in games. I think it is nice that video games are starting to have a more diverse cast. Just make sure what kind of story you are telling. Add characters that fit that story, and if their sexuality isn't really relevant, keep it in the background. Have Bob the drunk mechanic, who misses his brother who is in the war, and who is really into baseball, and who has some trouble with the local gangs, who also happens to be trans. Don't have "Bob the trans man!", who is trans and only talks about how he is trans. This is true for any other one-word characteristic that can easily be used as a cliché. Don't have "The Dwarf" or "The Bard". In my experience, in most cases, those obvious parts are not what make a character. So don't focus on them.
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On April 09 2016 01:09 Plansix wrote:
Part of making interesting characters is having them from diverse backgrounds and world views. When they say that “white male” characters are boring, it’s that they are boring in a sea of other white male characters. That the way to give them texture is to have other people in the world of diverse backgrounds beyond just elves and dwarves. And within that, they can write more variance between dwarves, elves and other groups. Background is part of any character, because the author needs to know where they obtained their view on the world.
I do think the phrase “white, straight male characters are boring to write” is a bit hyperbolic however. Its just hard to make them stand out if there are 7 of them in the main cast.
This is absolutly stupid, the idea that white male or that heterosexual are boring is plain stupidity. Good writers actually know how to write about the most basic of things and show them in a new light : see how Proust describe how his memory is being reactivated by eating a biscuit (a madelaine is not a biscuit but whatever)... If you take everything at face value (this is a white male, like it's sufficient to describe a character...) then all you can do is propose rather crude and poor writing.
May I add that heroic fantasy (which baldur gates is part of) have its own history and narrative : for exemple, as you touched, racism is questionned through the relationship between dwarfs, elves and orcs with humans, with the rather interesting add of "mixed race" such as half elves or half orcs... It's a good way to both give deepness to a fictionnal world and indirectly question real life thematics. You can't just impose real life political question to a game without actually doing anything on them... It's like completly destroying even the idea of fiction. In the same vein, many work in sci-fi question political topic without actually boring anyone : it's because they're actually well written and intelligent enough not to impose a set of value on someone but take some kind of detour in order to both entertain the reader / player and question political problems.
The problem is those guys just have no talent, so they prefer taking one legendary game and changing it rather than thinking of a game and a story that could both entertain and convey their ideas.
Soon we will have anti abortion characters in game, because we need diversity.
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On April 09 2016 01:38 Simberto wrote:
Dunno. Good characters are characters, not stereotypes. Try to write people, not a cliché, and you can have dozens of white straight male characters that are interesting, because "white straight male" isn't the defining part of their character, it is just a backdrop. In my opinion, all characters should be handled that way. Write an interesting character. Most of the time, their sex, sexuality, gender are not relevant to their part in the story. Add whatever you wish, don't make it too blatant that it overtakes the character that you wrote and turns them into "token gay".
I wish more people would just see people as people, as opposed to some single superficial thing that they feel defines them. This is true for both real and fictional people.
And sometimes, it does matter. Something like Brokeback Mountain as a story wouldn't make any sense with straight characters. But those are few stories. But that is not the majority of stories.
Note that i am not opposed to any sort of people in games. I think it is nice that video games are starting to have a more diverse cast. Just make sure what kind of story you are telling. Add characters that fit that story, and if their sexuality isn't really relevant, keep it in the background. Have Bob the drunk mechanic, who misses his brother who is in the war, and who is really into baseball, and who has some trouble with the local gangs, who also happens to be trans. Don't have "Bob the trans man!", who is trans and only talks about how he is trans. This is true for any other one-word characteristic that can easily be used as a cliché. Don't have "The Dwarf" or "The Bard". In my experience, in most cases, those obvious parts are not what make a character. So don't focus on them.
That is sort of the issue with a lot of the reasonable criticism and the developer said their character felt short and they plan to try harder. Ideally, someone being trans should be a natural part of the character that you just infer over time. Of course, video game dialogue has a very unnatural flow since everyone is so expository with the "here is my life history" dialogue option, so I can see how the problem formed. They could have been far more subtle about it.
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Simberto, travis and Tuth pretty much sum up how I feel. This just makes me wonder how bad the writers are or if this was something that was done on a bad day, week or month.
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This gave me the desire to play BG again (while darksouls comes out...), find out this Nietzsche quote before the first cutscene... didn't remember that.
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I came for a review of the new BG expansion, boy did I come to the wrong place lol.
Few observations or musings I have, If I think justice is a good thing, am I a justice warrior? Is it wrong to have politics in a game and if games should be just about having fun then is there a universal standard to what fun activities are and what a fun game is?
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There really is no "boring characters". It's all down to writing. There's no ifs and buts.
Being trans could totally be a part of a characters background, it starts to get retarded if it's for political reasons. Then you don't have an actual character but a political statement of sorts.
Assassins creed did it correctly with Leonardo da Vinci. Stuff is implied, and you kinda know it, but it's not the reason for the character to exist. Other examples that i personally know of are The Last of Us, or Witcher 3 - not transgender, but at least gay characters where "being gay" isn't the defining character of the person.
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On April 09 2016 01:38 Simberto wrote:
Dunno. Good characters are characters, not stereotypes. Try to write people, not a cliché, and you can have dozens of white straight male characters that are interesting, because "white straight male" isn't the defining part of their character, it is just a backdrop. In my opinion, all characters should be handled that way. Write an interesting character. Most of the time, their sex, sexuality, gender are not relevant to their part in the story. Add whatever you wish, don't make it too blatant that it overtakes the character that you wrote and turns them into "token gay".
I wish more people would just see people as people, as opposed to some single superficial thing that they feel defines them. This is true for both real and fictional people.
And sometimes, it does matter. Something like Brokeback Mountain as a story wouldn't make any sense with straight characters. But those are few stories. But that is not the majority of stories.
Note that i am not opposed to any sort of people in games. I think it is nice that video games are starting to have a more diverse cast. Just make sure what kind of story you are telling. Add characters that fit that story, and if their sexuality isn't really relevant, keep it in the background. Have Bob the drunk mechanic, who misses his brother who is in the war, and who is really into baseball, and who has some trouble with the local gangs, who also happens to be trans. Don't have "Bob the trans man!", who is trans and only talks about how he is trans. This is true for any other one-word characteristic that can easily be used as a cliché. Don't have "The Dwarf" or "The Bard". In my experience, in most cases, those obvious parts are not what make a character. So don't focus on them.
I partially agree with you. As an example, gay characters in fiction should be like most gay people I know in real life, you wouldn't really know they are gay unless you probe them. Sure, some are more effeminate and more obvious than others but that isn't their defining characteristic. Fiction writers should really avoid writing one dimensional characters
However, the differences are what helps in remembering characters. Personally, I'm terrible at remembering names and faces. Some defining characteristic (especially a physically visible one) is what anchors the characters' story to that character. Race, sex, class, etc. do add a way of differentiating characters from each other. Having one white straight male character be pale white and skinny but another muscled and tanned does help me to tell them apart. It helps me remember whose story is whose. It's the anchor in my memory.
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I'm about 3 hours in, seems very linear so far.Moreso than even ToB!
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On April 14 2016 17:11 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
I'm about 3 hours in, seems very linear so far.Moreso than even ToB!
It is very linear until you exit BG. Then it is a bit less linear :D
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I am too lazy to make a thread just for this, but has anyone tried playing NWN2 online on realms of trinity?
I just started, just playing solo by myself.. I am actually having a lot of fun. It's basically an MMO, not too many people on it though - but it's pretty obvious a ton of work went into this.
http://www.realmsoftrinity.com/
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So the "Gamergate" morons are just trashing the release of the game. Really they have managed to stain the whole gaming community; we are perceived as bunch of sexist biggoted hateful idiots. I think it's painful that half the stories about videogames and players in mainstream newspapers are about a minority of sexually frustrated internet keyboard warriors.
Has someone played the game here and can talk a bit about it and could we stop focusing on a point no one in his right mind should care about at all?
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I had a fight yesterday in which I finally seen how it is to be on a receiving end of a fireball from darkness. And AI hit my whole group with it :D
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On April 18 2016 15:12 -Archangel- wrote:
I had a fight yesterday in which I finally seen how it is to be on a receiving end of a fireball from darkness. And AI hit my whole group with it :D
When I started using SCS I felt bad for having bullied the AI with my mages for so long.
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On April 18 2016 04:54 Biff The Understudy wrote:
So the "Gamergate" morons are just trashing the release of the game. Really they have managed to stain the whole gaming community; we are perceived as bunch of sexist biggoted hateful idiots. I think it's painful that half the stories about videogames and players in mainstream newspapers are about a minority of sexually frustrated internet keyboard warriors.
Has someone played the game here and can talk a bit about it and could we stop focusing on a point no one in his right mind should care about at all?
You do realize your post counters itself right?
First, you are taking GamerGate as if it was an organization, and its mostly ppl using a hashtag. Making a generalization about that makes no sense.
Second, you say that gamers are "perceived" as X. If we are not that (gamers that is), then we dont need to actually do anything, because the perception is what is wrong, and the people who are pushing this perception as mainstream are to blame. So... its not gamergate that is to blame, but those using gamergate as an example to brand everyone.
Can you imagine the same analogy used today for African American males? One of them is a crack head, all of them must be crackheads... that is what today we would call Racism, and the same people branding every gamer (and everyone that uses the gamergate hashtag), would call you a racist for MUCH less than that.
You see the hypocrisy in it? You only attack people when its in your own interest.
Anyone who looks at a case and makes a generalization from it (like saying 1 gamer did this, so all gamers will act like that) is not only dangerous but ignorant or malice.
Also, depending who you ask, you will get different opinions.
Some have no problem with gamergate, others hate it. Some are feminists, others hate it.
So this "managed to stain the whole community", depends who you ask.
Back to the game thou, from what Iv read, the linearity is what bothered almost everyone. This gender stuff was brought up by the developer, not the gamers (the gamers just didn't like the stereotype behavior of the characters, making it seem that the dev is trying to defend a group of people they dont understand).
Then again, I did not buy the game as I felt it might not be the best way to spend my money, but most importantly, my time.
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On April 18 2016 15:12 -Archangel- wrote:
I had a fight yesterday in which I finally seen how it is to be on a receiving end of a fireball from darkness. And AI hit my whole group with it :D
Do you play with SCS or just insane? 'cause that's pretty cool if the AI is finally up to par.
God knows how much I love SCS but if I can do a playthrough without boring myself to death with combat and the burden of installing SCS, I'm happy 
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Insane in SoD.
In Bg1EE and Bg2EE you still need SCS because AI changes are per encounter and will not automatically work in Bg1 and BG2.
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On April 18 2016 16:42 iloveav wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2016 04:54 Biff The Understudy wrote:
So the "Gamergate" morons are just trashing the release of the game. Really they have managed to stain the whole gaming community; we are perceived as bunch of sexist biggoted hateful idiots. I think it's painful that half the stories about videogames and players in mainstream newspapers are about a minority of sexually frustrated internet keyboard warriors.
Has someone played the game here and can talk a bit about it and could we stop focusing on a point no one in his right mind should care about at all? You do realize your post counters itself right? First, you are taking GamerGate as if it was an organization, and its mostly ppl using a hashtag. Making a generalization about that makes no sense. Second, you say that gamers are "perceived" as X. If we are not that (gamers that is), then we dont need to actually do anything, because the perception is what is wrong, and the people who are pushing this perception as mainstream are to blame. So... its not gamergate that is to blame, but those using gamergate as an example to brand everyone. Can you imagine the same analogy used today for African American males? One of them is a crack head, all of them must be crackheads... that is what today we would call Racism, and the same people branding every gamer (and everyone that uses the gamergate hashtag), would call you a racist for MUCH less than that. You see the hypocrisy in it? You only attack people when its in your own interest. Anyone who looks at a case and makes a generalization from it (like saying 1 gamer did this, so all gamers will act like that) is not only dangerous but ignorant or malice. Also, depending who you ask, you will get different opinions. Some have no problem with gamergate, others hate it. Some are feminists, others hate it. So this "managed to stain the whole community", depends who you ask. Back to the game thou, from what Iv read, the linearity is what bothered almost everyone. This gender stuff was brought up by the developer, not the gamers (the gamers just didn't like the stereotype behavior of the characters, making it seem that the dev is trying to defend a group of people they dont understand). Then again, I did not buy the game as I felt it might not be the best way to spend my money, but most importantly, my time.
Whaaaaat????
You compare being a gamergate keyboard warrior and being black or being a feminist? Are you fucking serious?
The gamergate is a "scandal" about game journalism, that was used as a pretext for a campaign of harassment, bullying blatant sexism (oh, yeah, it's called "anti-feminism" lol) by a bunch of trolls. That's it. Don't make it like it's like being black. Participating in a campaign of sexist intimidation is not ok. And let's be clear, that's all what people claiming the gamergate hashtag were about. The gamergate sole motive is to target women (sorry, "feminists") in the gaming world and it has always been.
And it has made the media in the whole world, giving the world an image of gamers being a bunch of misgynist assholes. I am precisely saying those idiots don't represent the gaming community. They represent themselves, their fake scandal, their fear of women (sorry "feminists"), and their sexual frustration. The whole thing wouldn't exist if those people had ever had a girlfriend.
Now, the fact that those wankers jump on their feet because a game has 3 lines of dialog representing a minor character being transgender (it's not even that it's not a big deal, it's not a deal at all) and asking people to boycott the fucking game shows how much moronism and biggotry is going on there. It's not even a recruitable PNJ. It's three lines of a minor encounter. And don't say it's the dev who advertised that for being PC. It's just not true.
But of course "It's only about bad writing", say people who haven't played the game and have no idea.
The dev write whatever they want. It's their story. Are those people gonna fucking boycott every book or movie that has a minor character that is a transgender / travestite? Oh wait, they probably do.
Now if you don't want to play the game for whatever reason (probably "bad writing"), it's your business. I just wonder if someone who has played it could give his impression, because we've been expecting a new BG for a decade and that's really exciting.
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I just started a playthrough however I'm doing BG1EE, SCS, Insane so won't get to SoD for a while. I'm thinking I'll have to export my party so I can then set it to Legacy of Bhaal mode, so I'm afraid I can't comment.
It is pretty exciting although wasn't hugely impressed with any of the EE content from a story perspective...Black Pits and general quality of life improvements were very welcome.
Lol at the guy who seems to be arguing hating feminism is a valid point of view.
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EPT
