Hogwarts Legacy - Not as good as Dog Kid University

[Hexx]

Joking and sniping aside - review embarge and early access are both 6th Feb. Why not wait and see if chat is "derailed" then?

 

(You never know it might review terribly and suddenly no one's buying it for moral reasons!)

[Zael]

14 minutes ago, Majora said:

 

It just feels to me like there's some bad faith arguments being made around discussion of the game. I'm pretty sure someone earlier in this thread asked if a thread could be made sticking to discussion of the game and numerous people said anyone was free to create a new thread on this forum if they wanted to.

 

So someone creates a thread, it immediately gets derailed and locked, and then people get told a separate thread can't be created after all which seems to be a rule for this game and this game only.

 

I don't care about Harry Potter so it's easy for me to not care about this game but I can see why it's frustrating for people who do? The air in here is very much 'no-one is stopping you talking about the game. Of course you can!' but the tone in this thread is also really hostile and combative so I can see why people don't feel comfortable talking about the game much either. 

 

It feels like this forum doesn't want to be seen to outright censor discussion of the game like Resetera so the aim is to technically allow discussion while creating an unpleasant environment for people who want to do so. It feels dishonest.

 

I know people are also arguing they don't see the need to separate art and artist but just because I don't want to fund a game or person doesn't mean I'm not interested in seeing a discussion of the product. Hate Rowling and have no stake in Potter but actually I am quite interested in seeing how the game turns out and whether Avalanche came good and whether there are any interesting ideas in there etc

 

Similarly, if Jonathan Blow ever came out with a new game I couldn't in good faith buy it because I think he's exposed himself as a massive right-wing prick. But I love Braid and The Witness and I would still be incredibly interested to read critiques and thoughts about a new game without being constantly told he's a prick. I know he's a prick and that's why I wouldn't be buying a new game from him. But I'd still like an uninterrupted discussion on the product itself too.

 

TLDR I can be very much aware of the issues around certain games and creators and choose not to fund or support them while still being curious enough about the product that I'd quite like to read discussion of them without pages and pages of circular discussions about the creator.

 

Just to clarify this a little bit. I've been pretty vocal on here about this issue but at the same time I genuinely had no problem with the game only thread. I don't love the narrative that people are pushing here that goes "Oh we tried to make a games only thread but it got derailed and locked." I was going to leave the thread well enough alone until genuinely some of the worst anti-trans rhetoric I've seen on Rllmuk for a long time was brought into it. Graham did make a post almost immediately yeah but I'm pretty sure in that post he said something like "I'm not going to say more than this". It was only after the anti-trans shit happened that the thread got properly derailed and subsequently locked. 

[DennyDifferent]

17 minutes ago, Majora said:

It feels like this forum doesn't want to be seen to outright censor discussion of the game like Resetera so the aim is to technically allow discussion while creating an unpleasant environment for people who want to do so. It feels dishonest.

 

This is very much how it feels to me too. I'm not sure what the answer is, though. I generally agree with the idea that it's a good thing to alert people who may not be aware of JKR's behaviour but the same arguments going round and round is getting tiresome.

[bradigor]

20 minutes ago, Haribokart said:

 

Well when you think about it you can clearly see their plan all along was to get banned from Rllmuk for calling a cunt a cunt therefore being sent to prison so they get some raping in. It's just what they all do innit!

 

You've exposed my long plan. Years of depression and living a lie, with multiple suicide attempts, just to get into a women's prison to do the raping. 

 

Damn you HK

[therearerules]

1 hour ago, Darren said:

I wonder how people (in general, not aimed at anyone in particular here) would react if JKR had come out as an outspoken racist or homophobe rather than as a transphobe.

 

This isn't a theoretical, abstract discussion for those of us who have, to coin a phrase, trans interests at home.

We're pretty happy as a forum rehabilitating anti-Semites and separating their work from the artist here

 

[Darren]

1 minute ago, bradigor said:

 

You've exposed my long plan. Years of depression and living a lie, with multiple suicide attempts, just to get into a women's prison to do the raping. 

 

Damn you HK

 

Now let's just find out who you really are under this bradigor mask... Yoinks! JK Rowling!!

[Graham S]

As the thread seems to have been deleted, I can't check to see if I was obnoxious or spammy in the thread last night. I hope not, but I may have reacted with thinly disguised annoyance at times.

 

I felt it was important to not legitimise the somewhat understandable point of view that as this is a long, painful, circular argument that there should be an entirely safe space to discuss just the game, and not the wider matters. I wouldn't mind if once the game comes out and there's a separate controversy about the broomstick or graphics performance for people to spin that off into it's own discussion, but a "no-trans rights talk allowed thread" didn't sit right with me, so I wanted to make a small, polite, unspammy protest. I think my view has been reinforced after last night. While I expected a certain amount of eye-rolling from some, it felt very much like I was unwelcome, much like posting in a rival football teams thread or walking into an unfriendly pub, and it certainly went from zero to transphobia almost immediately. I don't think it's a great idea to have an explicitly trans-exclusionary thread for this reason. It's a pity that this makes it a bit more difficult to discuss the game for those that want to, but I think that might be a price that's worth paying.

 

I totally accept that there are much better forms of activism than talking about things on a video games forum. To a certain extent, I'd hope to participate in some of them. I remember that gay marriage was legalised in the US partly due to gay people and their family members going door to door, and allowing voters to see that they were real, ordinary, relatable people. I don't particularly want to disclose much about my personal life on here, but clearly trans people are important to me. I do think that rllmuk is my home, and I hope I do have a little bit of stored credit here with the members, so a while ago I decided, even if it meant being a bit dull and repetitive, to whenever the conversation on here started to focus on trans people being rapists and groomers or whatever the confected issue of the day is, to instead re-iterate they are the people we love, there are a lot of them about, and we should treat them much better than we do.

 

For me JKR is a sideshow that I try to ignore as much as possible, but sadly if you're interested in trans rights this is not possible. I don't think the game is that important in the big scheme of things. I do think it's important for rllmuk to be seen to be welcoming to trans and non-binary people and their allies. I don't think it's right to hive off any discussion about the game or JKR or whatever into the trans thread in Off Topic. Personally I'd prefer that thread to be more about other trans issues, rather than getting too caught up in whatever JKR, Glinner, or RevStu are up to now - shit like that belongs in the Transphobes Who Can't Handle Themselves on Twitter thread.

 

Love to all. Don't let the bastards make the country worse for trans people, sooner or later those bastards will come after you too.

[ZOK]

48 minutes ago, Rex Grossman said:

I think OSC is very vague though. JKR gets specific. I think that’s the difference between them.

Yes, they are not the same person.

[Gabe]

37 minutes ago, Kryptonian said:

I read it pretty negatively in that she doesn’t care that she’s lost/losing that particular audience as there is another audience that will continue to support her and like her stuff. She doesn’t seem bothered that that audience will also include a bunch hate filled bigots though.

 

I tried to write this post for longer than intended and still haven’t phrased it how I mean. 

Oh yeah, it's a horrible attitude whichever way you read it, but if you read it as being her saying she thinks everybody who buys stuff supports her you are just instantly just demonising a whole group of people that buy her stuff without knowing anything about her.

 

On the flip side I don't doubt a number of other hateful people are now far more interested in her that weren't previously, and also a group that do know but don't care, of course.

[bradigor]

14 minutes ago, Darren said:

 

Now let's just find out who you really are under this bradigor mask... Yoinks! JK Rowling!!

 

I would have gotten away with it too...

[Eighthours]

2 hours ago, Opinionated Ham Scarecrow said:

She wrote a fucking hate manifesto. It's her IP. Any sale lines her pockets.

 

I'll probably regret saying this on here, but I've read her essay a few times since all the controversy blew up about her views and I don't think it meets anything like that definition, tbh. Here it is for anyone interested: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/

 

I've put a few quotes from it in the spoiler box:

Spoiler

'I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria. Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law. Many people aren’t aware of this.

 

We’re living through the most misogynistic period I’ve experienced. Back in the 80s, I imagined that my future daughters, should I have any, would have it far better than I ever did, but between the backlash against feminism and a porn-saturated online culture, I believe things have got significantly worse for girls. Never have I seen women denigrated and dehumanised to the extent they are now. From the leader of the free world’s long history of sexual assault accusations and his proud boast of ‘grabbing them by the pussy’, to the incel (‘involuntarily celibate’) movement that rages against women who won’t give them sex, to the trans activists who declare that TERFs need punching and re-educating, men across the political spectrum seem to agree: women are asking for trouble. Everywhere, women are being told to shut up and sit down, or else.'

 

'I’ve read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don’t have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive. It’s also clear that one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or – just as threatening – unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class. The hundreds of emails I’ve received in the last few days prove this erosion concerns many others just as much.  It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.'

 

'If you could come inside my head and understand what I feel when I read about a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man, you’d find solidarity and kinship. I have a visceral sense of the terror in which those trans women will have spent their last seconds on earth, because I too have known moments of blind fear when I realised that the only thing keeping me alive was the shaky self-restraint of my attacker.

I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.

So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.'

 

I certainly don't agree with everything she's said on these issues, but branding her as someone who doesn't want trans people to exist doesn't stack up with her actual words, in my view.

[Graham S]

4 hours ago, Eighthours said:

 

I'll probably regret saying this on here, but I've read her essay a few times since all the controversy blew up about her views and I don't think it meets anything like that definition, tbh. Here it is for anyone interested: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/

 

I've put a few quotes from it in the spoiler box:

  Hide contents

'I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria. Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law. Many people aren’t aware of this.

 

We’re living through the most misogynistic period I’ve experienced. Back in the 80s, I imagined that my future daughters, should I have any, would have it far better than I ever did, but between the backlash against feminism and a porn-saturated online culture, I believe things have got significantly worse for girls. Never have I seen women denigrated and dehumanised to the extent they are now. From the leader of the free world’s long history of sexual assault accusations and his proud boast of ‘grabbing them by the pussy’, to the incel (‘involuntarily celibate’) movement that rages against women who won’t give them sex, to the trans activists who declare that TERFs need punching and re-educating, men across the political spectrum seem to agree: women are asking for trouble. Everywhere, women are being told to shut up and sit down, or else.'

 

'I’ve read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don’t have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive. It’s also clear that one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or – just as threatening – unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class. The hundreds of emails I’ve received in the last few days prove this erosion concerns many others just as much.  It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.'

 

'If you could come inside my head and understand what I feel when I read about a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man, you’d find solidarity and kinship. I have a visceral sense of the terror in which those trans women will have spent their last seconds on earth, because I too have known moments of blind fear when I realised that the only thing keeping me alive was the shaky self-restraint of my attacker.

I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.

So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.'

 

I certainly don't agree with everything she's said on these issues, but branding her as someone who doesn't want trans people to exist doesn't stack up with her actual words, in my view.

I’m afraid that if you judge her by her actions she’s doing a tremendous amount of harm to trans people. The way she’d like to portray herself and her views are at odds with what she does. Elon Musk says he’s a centrist, but does a lot of good work for Nazis. The people in the US denying trans people health care and support and schooling and who are removing books from schools that mention gay people or racism also claim to be doing it for good reasons. Don’t be taken in. 

[jonny_rat]

That Rowling piece should always have the Mermaids response posted at the same time.

 

https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/dear-jk-rowling/

 

Just because someone doesn't write the words "I don't want trans people to exist" doesn't mean they are affording space and rights for them to live their lives.

[Clipper]

17 minutes ago, Eighthours said:

 

I'll probably regret saying this on here, but I've read her essay a few times since all the controversy blew up about her views and I don't think it meets anything like that definition, tbh. Here it is for anyone interested: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/

 

I certainly don't agree with everything she's said on these issues, but branding her as someone who doesn't want trans people to exist doesn't stack up with her actual words, in my view.

As GRaham says action speaks louder than words and we know how carefully she words her statements vs how she acts. She supports and defends people/causes/businesses who are proven transphobes - some say that is accidental. As I said before she seems very unfortunate in wearing a tshirt that turns out to be from a supplier who produces transphobic tshirts as well - she defends people from twitter pile ons who just so happen to have transphobic views on more than one occasion. She seems to be pictured with many TERF or GC arseholes on many occasions and I'm sure she'd be "shocked" to hear what they are really like.

 

 Even if you give that article the most charitable reading that you can she is still "othering" people. She litters that article with references to "trans people" and keeps that very seperate to women. She is discriminating purely in the language she uses and she obfuscates the issue by concentrating on edge cases to the detriment of the majority.

[Dig Dug]

To flip the “talk about the game” discussion on its head.

 

Nestle make delicious chocolate and I used to adore milky bar. Kitkats are great too and I took pleasure in hunting down the seasonal variants when I was in Japan. They are also pieces of shit whose business practices fuck over the third world and kill many people. They do not consider clean water a basic human right. Therefore I no longer buy Nestle products and cannot speak about nestle without highlighting this knowing what I know. If I did continue to buy those products it’d say a lot about me as a person.

 

Trans friends of mine are having to ready themselves to start seeing many of their friends as those kind of people, and in this case they are the ones actually being victimised by the culprit. If I was buying nestle the worst treatment I’d get in this country is a “tut tut”because none of those people are the ones Nestle are harming.

[Jamie John]

Is there anything that documents or catalogues Rowling's transphobic statements and actions? It's difficult to find a sort of litany of what she's done as a lot is lost in the Twittersphere.

 

I'm trying to make my own mind up about it but (as often seems to be the case on the internet) opinion seems to split between 'she's a vile person who deserves to die for her views' and 'JKR is a saint; anyone who disagrees deserves to die for their views.'

[deerokus]

I wonder if the new characters in this game will be lazy xenophobic stereotypes to fit with the universe.

[Uncle Nasty]

14 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

Is there anything that documents or catalogues Rowling's transphobic statements and actions? It's difficult to find a sort of litany of what she's done as a lot is lost in the Twittersphere.

 

I'm trying to make my own mind up about it but (as often seems to be the case on the internet) opinion seems to split between 'she's a vile person who deserves to die for her views' and 'JKR is a saint; anyone who disagrees deserves to die for their views.'

 

I tried to pick the bones out of it - it's too much of a hot subject, too contentious, too emotional, to make any sense out of it. There are very clear lines in the sand and you're very much expected to pick a side, even if you don't agree with either. I don't feel comfortable with that at all. People on both sides are behaving like fucking lunatics.

[Haribokart]

“Doing my own research”

 

“Both sides”

 

[jonny_rat]

8 minutes ago, Uncle Nasty said:

 

I tried to pick the bones out of it - it's too much of a hot subject, too contentious, too emotional, to make any sense out of it. There are very clear lines in the sand and you're very much expected to pick a side, even if you don't agree with either. I don't feel comfortable with that at all. People on both sides are behaving like fucking lunatics.

 

There are two links upthread, one an extensive position piece by the Main Character in this debate, and then a comprehensive response by a specialised charity. If two articles are too much too allow you to get a handle on the issue, then don't wade in calling people lunatics. Particularly not the trans folks who are being affected by this everyday and don't get to bow out of having an opinion on it as we do.

 

If it helps, no you don't have to pick a side, that's a reductive thing to say.

[Zael]

If like 50% of the people in this thread who are crying about being forced to pick a side, or engage in the anti-trans debate, actually just talked about this game you'd get a good ole conversation going. 

[Jamie John]

15 minutes ago, jonny_rat said:

 

There are two links upthread, one an extensive position piece by the Main Character in this debate, and then a comprehensive response by a specialised charity. If two articles are too much too allow you to get a handle on the issue, then don't wade in calling people lunatics. Particularly not the trans folks who are being affected by this everyday and don't get to bow out of having an opinion on it as we do.

 

If it helps, no you don't have to pick a side, that's a reductive thing to say.

 

Cheers. Should have looked up thread!

[QuackQuack]

I don’t know if it’s been posted in here but I thought IGN had a good preview up. 

 

The guy says “the game functions like a Ninja Garden-esque combo masher”. It does look more like you just find a good combo and then do that over and over. 

 

 

[Kayin Amoh]

Good old Ninja Garden typo / autocorrect!

 

A dude on my Twitter feed was not impressed with IGN comparing this combat system to NG. I haven't looked at footage, but that sounds... unlikely at best.

[Fry Crayola]

Ninja Garden, eh?

 

(NSFW)

[QuackQuack]

VideoGaiden would have been more successful if it was called VideoGarden 

[Ry]

When it gets reviews of 5/10 and disappears none of the discourse will matter really.

 

But anyway... Rowlings a cunt, game looks shite. Harry Potter is a dweeb. 

 

 

 

[Rex Grossman]

11 hours ago, K said:

This particular culture war is an absolute gift for men who used to enjoy calling women cunts and bitches online, but have found it’s become less acceptable to do so. Ditto “Karen”. At last, men can once again safely hurl abuse at women. 

 

 

[Jamie John]

5 hours ago, Haribokart said:

“Doing my own research”

 

 

Whoa now - is this aimed at me? Surely it's better to look into things instead of speaking from a position of ignorance?

[NecroMorrius]

That depends, does your research involve any videos of a white man with a beard shouting at a camera while a nanoleaf bathes his large collection of funko-pops in aggressively purple light?