Kingdom Come: Deliverance - Pure medievalism!

[Yix]

No, it's a very reasonable conclusion based on information given in-topic and beyond.

[matt0]

2 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Yeah that's a lot of jumping to conclusions if you haven't played it. 

 

I'm going off other people's assessments of it in this thread and various podcasts. Have you played it and are those assessments wrong?

[Cosmic_Guru]

18 minutes ago, Talk Show Host said:

If it takes five to ten minutes walking/running fron one side of the map to the other it must be really small.

 

16 km²

[Stanley]

Just now, matt0 said:

 

I'm going off other people's assessments of it in this thread and various podcasts. Have you played it and are those assessments wrong?

No but they haven't played it either. I'm not saying it's totally historically accurate or that they're not being portrayed well, but it's also not something I've seen highlighted in reviews etc. 

 

I'm on the fence. I feel sad about it because I was looking forward to the game, but I think I'll wait and see.

[mdn2]

1 minute ago, Stanley said:

No but they haven't played it either. I'm not saying it's totally historically accurate or that they're not being portrayed well, but it's also not something I've seen highlighted in reviews etc. 

 

I'm on the fence. I feel sad about it because I was looking forward to the game, but I think I'll wait and see.

Eurogamers review talks about it today.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-02-20-kingdom-come-deliverance-review

[Zael]

Edit: Beaten!

[matt0]

1 minute ago, Stanley said:

No but they haven't played it either. I'm not saying it's totally historically accurate or that they're not being portrayed well, but it's also not something I've seen highlighted in reviews etc. 

 

I'm on the fence. I feel sad about it because I was looking forward to the game, but I think I'll wait and see.

 

People at Waypoint and US Gamer both played it and discussed it on their podcasts - Waypoint in depth, US Gamer as an aside in a more general review.

[Stanley]

Well I'm out for the time being. I've been umming and arring but I'm now too uncomfortable to play it. Although I'm as disturbed if not more by the flagrant sexism. Sounds well dodgy.

[sbrandon111]

I'm after a copy if anyone is selling theirs, PS4 or Xbox please. There's a horse joke in here somewhere but considering my down votes for an earlier post i'll leave the humour out.

[Cosmic_Guru]

1 hour ago, Stanley said:

Well I'm out for the time being. I've been umming and arring but I'm now too uncomfortable to play it. Although I'm as disturbed if not more by the flagrant sexism. Sounds well dodgy.

 

I think I might have mentioned it here before now if this was a sexist or misogynistic game.  

[Stanley]

10 minutes ago, Cosmic_Guru said:

 

I think I might have mentioned it here before now if this was a sexist or misogynistic game.  

Well all that alpha male bullshit sounds sexist to me. No need.

[Uncle Mike]

I thought the Eurogamer review made a right hash of the discussion, if I'm honest. Admittedly, I don't expect a games journalist to be an expert on medieval eastern European history, but the section on whether we should be bothered by its lack of black people was really weak in contrast to @Piccolomini's discussion of the troublesome elements of the Cuman characters in the game.

[Stanley]

The whole thing is a mess this is why developers should keep their personal opinions to themselves. 

[Cosmic_Guru]

12 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Well all that alpha male bullshit sounds sexist to me. No need.

 

Or just silly, juvenile schoolboyish stuff, but yeah, unnecessary.

[Stanley]

1 minute ago, Cosmic_Guru said:

 

Or just silly, juvenile schoolboyish stuff, but yeah, unnecessary.

It's made by grown men though (and women I guess) as someone else said if we're going to hold Hollywood accountable for their depiction of women in films then the games industry should fall under the same scrutiny. 

 

The description of the perfect woman from that Eurogamer review is highly suspect, both in terms of being sexist and racist.

[Cosmic_Guru]

1 hour ago, Stanley said:

It's made by grown men though (and women I guess) as someone else said if we're going to hold Hollywood accountable for their depiction of women in films then the games industry should fall under the same scrutiny. 

 

The description of the perfect woman from that Eurogamer review is highly suspect, both in terms of being sexist and racist.

 

How can anyone take a +2 charm buff after sex at all seriously?  

 

The statement in the Codex is suspect because it can only reflect the views of the rich, the literate, i.e those whose views on life have survived to the present day and who commented on their wives / mistresses appearances in letters, and / or who paid for their portraits to be painted (features a la mode at the time were often accentuated).  Doubtless the poor were much less discriminating, although child bearing potential (which is slightly contradicted by a fashion for narrow hips) would be a very practical concern of theirs too.  And no matter how pale of complexion an "ideal" woman, a lifetime of backbreaking work in the fields would soon change all that  (cf Victorian Britain for example where the idle rich languished under their parasols).

Edited February 20, 2018 by Cosmic_Guru

[Larsen B]

Agreed that the EG review misses its target.

 

I understand that Rob Purchese was trying to be sensitive and did genuinely have an uneasiness about playing it because of the conversations around its lead developer but you've got to be sure exactly what you're railing against. A lack of ethnic representation is a fairly weak argument, particularly with no clear evidence to substantiate it, and it's ended up having most people attack it for that.

 

Because I hate myself, I read nearly all of the comments and there were actually 2 insightful ones amongst the bickering:

 

Quote

 

The funny thing was, if the developer was anyone else, I probably wouldn't have blinked at the relative absence of non-white people in the game or the treatment of women. After all, women were objectified back then and suffered many horrid indignities (much more than today), and while there's little doubt that there were pilgrims and other assorted visitors from the Middle East and Africa in Eastern Europe, they would have been relatively rare and many people would have gone their entire lives without seeing a person of Arab or African descent.

And even if you happened to chance upon a Moor in Medieval Europe, they wouldn't have been Morgan Freeman in a headscarf. Barring the scholars among the Moors and Arabs, who would have been more sensitive to different customs, they were culturally so distinct from Europeans that meaningful interaction would have been fraught with problems. Such a portrayal would probably have been met with accusations of racism. By comparison, modern Europeans have a lot more in common in terms of social norms with modern-day Arabs and Africans.

It's a game set in Medieval Europe, so it goes with the territory that it will be a patriarchical, predominantly white society. My enjoyment of the game would not require me to wish that modern-day society was of a similar nature, any more than playing Wolfenstein would represent endorsement of the arbitrary en masse slaughter of Nazis (well, I do personally endorse such Nazicide, but that's another thing).

Here's the problem though: the way Daniel Vavra chose to act like an utter cunt throws up all kinds of questions about the true intent behind his creative decisions. Did he create this game with the intent to frame it as some kind of European racial and gender utopia? Far-right culture is often very fond of medieval settings such as European feudalism and Viking culture. Do you feel comfortable giving your money to someone who is essentially a self-professed neo-nazi, even if the work itself is comparatively harmless?

 

 

The last paragraph sums up to me how the debate should have been framed. If having no people of colour in rural hamlets is as historically accurate as most can convincingly argue, was this deliberately chosen because it entertains the idea of pure Caucasian ethno-state?

 

The other was this interesting comment about actual historical inaccuracies and serves to put the above in a stronger context:

 

Quote

I am 33 hours in the game so far. And I see big historical troubles in other areas that are not highlighted in the reviews. Which sadly leads me to an opinion that people writing those are willing only to use modern lenses for races and not for other stuff. 

 

There is no jewish character or storyline in the game which is crazy. In these times of war (and famine and other troubles) the purges of jews were at it´s highest as those were the favorite enemies you could have turn people´s wrath towards to. (as it was during the 30s or as you can do being a brexiter and holding gun towards eastern european workers nowadays) Warhorse turned (via Dan Vavra as the lead writer) their blind eye towards it. 

But there is a general trouble of portrait of the medieval spirit when it comes to religion. You see Vavra (as is the majority of current Czech nation) is atheist and in his perspective religion seems to be only very weak habits for contemporary people and there is nothing important related to it in the game. And when it is - it is a criticism of it. This is crazy. Religion and christianity were the pillars of contemporary social/economic order. (mind you the story takes place just 15 years before the whole country went berseker in bloody civil war between religion fanatics, one might even say "contemporary ISIS")

The same goes for women. It´s crazy you don´t put in an interesting (i am not saying strong but interesting) female character and you hide it behind the "historical accuracy" when in fact it is just an excuse to go "all boy" way. 

I don´t think it is an objective error (as let´s say these bugs that won´t allow you to finish a quest) but it really tells you a lot about the author and what kind of narative he wants to push on you via so called "historical accuracy". 

In the end I will speculate a bit: In many sessions with Vavra I heard him saying he was desperate when looking for co-authors (writers/quest designers) and he was let down with students of FAMU (czech film university) as they were seen by him as not that good storymakers. He opted to hire nonwriters to work on the game. There is no surprise that students of FAMU would qualify as "new left" and something that is very strange/hostile to mr. Vavra and his opinions. 
This tells you a lot about "ego before facts" and in the end it is very visible in the game.

 

 

Which I think this does a good job of proposing that its slavishness to authenticity is only... well, skin deep.

[Wiper]

5 hours ago, Larsen B said:

Agreed that the EG review misses its target.

 

I understand that Rob Purchese was trying to be sensitive and did genuinely have an uneasiness about playing it because of the conversations around its lead developer but you've got to be sure exactly what you're railing against. A lack of ethnic representation is a fairly weak argument, particularly with no clear evidence to substantiate it, and it's ended up having most people attack it for that.eep.

 

As an added bonus choosing to focus specifically on the lack of diversity rather highlights EG's utter failure to practice what they preach, what with their permanent staff being 100% white, and having over the years become only more male-dominated.

[Comrade]

8 hours ago, Uncle Mike said:

I thought the Eurogamer review made a right hash of the discussion, if I'm honest. Admittedly, I don't expect a games journalist to be an expert on medieval eastern European history, but the section on whether we should be bothered by its lack of black people was really weak in contrast to @Piccolomini's discussion of the troublesome elements of the Cuman characters in the game.

 

Piccolomini is literally a medieval historian (or at least claims to be). I don’t really think it’s reasonable to expect a games journalist to be as knowledgeable about 15th century Bohemia as that.

[Larsen B]

7 hours ago, Wiper said:

 

As an added bonus choosing to focus specifically on the lack of diversity rather highlights EG's utter failure to practice what they preach, what with their permanent staff being 100% white, and having over the years become only more male-dominated.

 

True to an extent but you can only employ whoever applies for a job.

 

And the staff page doesn't include the many freelancers that have had pieces commissioned and some of them are BAME writers.

[Yix]

Not keen on that point. Anecdotally, I know a lot of minority writers (and am one myself) aptly qualified who have applied to EG positions and sent freelance pitches and never heard anything back. I'm not sure where you're getting info to suggest minority writers aren't going for these roles.

[ModoX]

I think it's right to be calling EG out on their own lack of diversity, and I'm sure their review isn't perfect, but I appreciate them discussing it and some of the conversation going on over there is troubling to say the least. Vavra himself made the social issues a key part of the critical conversation around this game, so it's something worth addressing regardless, and the EG review did actually try to assess how it manifests in the game itself. 

 

I'm really not comfortable with the view that it should be discussed outside the review in an editorial piece, which has been suggested in the comments a lot - you're excising that portion of the conversation and demoting it to a lesser position, and by doing so tacitly condoning Vavra's viewpoint, and that of people who believe "you should get your politics out of my hobby".

[evilashchris]

An easier way to do it would have been to publish a review and an article. One about the game, one about the shitstorm and publish them together.

[Eighthours]

1 hour ago, Larsen B said:

 

True to an extent but you can only employ whoever applies for a job.

 

And the staff page doesn't include the many freelancers that have had pieces commissioned and some of them are BAME writers.

 

They definitely have the right to hire whoever they think is the best person for any job. They just need to make sure that the recruitment process is fair to BAME applicants and ideally encourages such applications. If anyone has any evidence that they’re not fair to those applicants, then by all means criticise them, but I don’t think that a site with relatively few full-timers ‘has’ to have BAME representation... even if their present lineup does somewhat chime against their often preachy tone on ethical issues. 

 

As you say, they have a decent pool of freelancers. 

 

My issue with EG is that they are sometimes guilty of shoehorning political commentary into reviews where it’s not necessary, seemingly coming out of nowhere. The Kingdom Come review is one where the issue of the lead dev’s views and past comments are absolutely fair game for discussion, but the bits about the lack of black characters in the game were badly expressed and argued, so they kinda missed an open goal here.

 

It also read to me in the review that Rob went to the historian specifically to get a negative angle. The discussion in this thread about the race issues has been much more incisive, in my view.

[Cosmic_Guru]

The EG review just seems poorly constructed and self-contradictory in places and the contribution of the historian has been counter-productive in this case. 

 

Funnily enough I completed a lengthy side quest last night which I thought might cause me to eat crow regarding the "back-slapping laddishness" elements of the game, but it didn't pan out that way at all.   

 

 

[Larsen B]

1 hour ago, Yix said:

Not keen on that point. Anecdotally, I know a lot of minority writers (and am one myself) aptly qualified who have applied to EG positions and sent freelance pitches and never heard anything back. I'm not sure where you're getting info to suggest minority writers aren't going for these roles.

 

That wasn't what I was trying to imply but I appreciate it can easily be read like that.

[Simmy]

Ugh, can we get back to actually talking about the game please? If you want to talk about the developer maybe make another thread or something? I'd hazard a guess that most people playing this genuinely don't care about the "controversy".

[Wiper]

5 hours ago, Yix said:

Not keen on that point. Anecdotally, I know a lot of minority writers (and am one myself) aptly qualified who have applied to EG positions and sent freelance pitches and never heard anything back. I'm not sure where you're getting info to suggest minority writers aren't going for these roles.

 

I'm doubly wary of the "you can only hire the people who apply!" logic as it's exactly the reason that was repeatedly given, for years, when I challenged the fact that the 11 person team I was in was 100% white men. Because as a team of analysts of various types, obviously the reliance on mathematical, statistical and/or computing knowledge meant we would only attract white men! While quietly ignoring that the team contained a grand total of two computing degrees (one attained while in the role), with everyone else a humanities graduate (two classicists, a geographer, a fine artist, a creative writer...) or not a graduate at all. 

 

Only, last year we had a major restructure, leaving only three of us in role, and seven roles to fill (we dropped to a ten person team as part of it). And this time we used a different agency to recruit, and took a different approach to job specs (i.e. our managers rather than HR came up with them).

 

And miraculously we ended up with a team now made up of 40% women, 20% non-white - and, hilariously, considerably better qualified, with almost all of the new hires having maths or status degrees. It's almost as though the problem had been with us and our recruitment process! 

[Simmy]

Is it honestly so absurd to think that there were no black people living in this 16 square mile patch in the year 1403? I live and work in a district in modern day Berlin and don't recall the last time I saw a person of colour outside of a television show. Folk are just making this out to be something that it's not and it's distracting from the fact that this game is actually not too shabby!

[Zael]

6 minutes ago, Simmy said:

Is it honestly so absurd to think that there were no black people living in this 16 square mile patch in the year 1403? I live and work in a district in modern day Berlin and don't recall the last time I saw a person of colour outside of a television show. Folk are just making this out to be something that it's not and it's distracting from the fact that this game is actually not too shabby!

 

This has been answered several times in the last few pages but just in case you didn't have time to read them:

 

Is it absurd that a 16 square mile patch in Eastern Europe in 1403 had absolutely no black people? No, that's feasible.

 

Is it absurd that when asked about the decision to have little to no diversity in your game you cite historical realism in a game that has health potions, save potions and has actual historians and scholars in this particular field refute you? Well yes, it is a bit.