Hogwarts Legacy - Not as good as Dog Kid University

[Rex Grossman]

4 minutes ago, ulala said:

 

It's a bit odd to hold up a game that's a world created by a transphobe as "progressive" for trans people!

 

You cannot make this up, i cant believe what im reading.

 

Hell, all trans people should buy this according to your logic, yeah, represent!!

 

/s

 

 

 

 

JFC.

 

You're looking to get outraged even by the people who AREN'T supporting the game.

 

[jonny_rat]

5 minutes ago, K said:

It just feels a bit like publishers are superficially trying to get brownie points with different marginalised groups when (to use the NFS example again) a woman who you've just met, who is one of your opponents in an illegal underground street racing syndicate, decides to start telling you about how difficult it was presenting as a man in their community. Nobody would ever say that in that context, surely? It's jarringly incongruous, not to mention not exactly being an especially sensitive or insightful way of presenting the subject of race and gender. I get that representation is hard and that its inevitable that people will make mistakes, but this felt like a really low effort way of trying to broaden the appeal of a game.

 

I think the nature of development means that this is inevitable, with people working in their own little boxes of the game. Narrative designers in games on the lower end of the budget scale don't get a chance to steer the more in-depth features and mechanics, so shoehorning a character in where they can is probably about as much as they can do. Maybe there's roomfuls of suits pushing to include minorities, but often in my experience it's someone pretty low down the chain. As I said, I don't really see the issue unless it's trying to defuse or distract something actively harmful.

[Floyd]

I don't like this, pay extra for early access thing. The game's either out or it's not. I suppose the the pirates will be quick on this one with the PC version so even they can play it early!  Not that I mind too much as I wouldn't have tiem to play it until the weekend anyway.

[ulala]

11 minutes ago, Rex Grossman said:

 

JFC.

 

You're looking to get outraged even by the people who AREN'T supporting the game.

 

 

i'm sorry, it thought it was you who described this game as "progressive" in terms of trans representation

 

if i was incorrect, please accept my apologies

 

 

[thesnwmn]

9 minutes ago, Floyd said:

I don't like this, pay extra for early access thing. The game's either out or it's not. I suppose the the pirates will be quick on this one with the PC version so even they can play it early!  Not that I mind too much as I wouldn't have tiem to play it until the weekend anyway.

 

Welcome to the shitty world of big releases these days. A way to squeeze extra money out of idiots.

[Rex Grossman]

7 minutes ago, ulala said:

 

i'm sorry, it thought it was you who described this game as "progressive" in terms of trans representation

 

if i was incorrect, please accept my apologies

 

 

 

I get that you're desperate to be even angrier about this game but you know exactly what I said.

Games are so depressingly un-progressive than having a trans character in this one means you can make the case the game (the game! - notJKR herself!) more progressive than most.

I could say someone hitting you around the head with a cricket bat might be safer than than being hit around the head with a crowbar. It doesn't mean I think being hit around the head with a cricket bat is actually safe. Just safer.

 

 

EDIT: I have no fucking idea why I'm responding to inane performative indignation when there are real things to be angry about but I've done it now.

[ulala]

Just now, Rex Grossman said:

 

I get that you're desperate to be even angrier about this game but you know exactly what I said.

Games are so depressingly un-progressive than having a trans character in this one means you can make the case the game (the game! - notJKR herself!) more progressive than most.

I could say someone hitting you around the head with a cricket bat might be safer than than being hit around the head with a crowbar. It doesn't mean I think around the head with a cricket bat is actually safe. Just safer.

 

 

I'm not desperately to be angry about the game, i'm angry about what JKR is contributing to what I see is an attempt at genocide. And I chose my words very carefully.

 

I see people who buy they game, as contributing to JKR and their campaign. JKR has confirmed this is exactly how they see it too.

 

[K]

12 minutes ago, jonny_rat said:

 

I think the nature of development means that this is inevitable, with people working in their own little boxes of the game. Narrative designers in games on the lower end of the budget scale don't get a chance to steer the more in-depth features and mechanics, so shoehorning a character in where they can is probably about as much as they can do. Maybe there's roomfuls of suits pushing to include minorities, but often in my experience it's someone pretty low down the chain. As I said, I don't really see the issue unless it's trying to defuse or distract something actively harmful.

 

I guess the issue is that it's exceptionally clumsy and reduces the character down to a single trait. Mass Effect Andromeda did something similar with one character and the developers got absolutely slated for it - IIRC, you did some dull fetch quest for a character and at the end she said something like "Thanks mate. Tell you what, it's much nicer being here in the Andromeda galaxy where I can be a woman. Not like the grief I had back home when I was a man called Ian!". It's just painfully bad characterisation and storytelling. Like, David Cage-level bluntness.

[gospvg]

32 minutes ago, David Kenny said:

I would like to do this, but my kids are 8 and 10. I'm not sure they're going to be able to appreciate the subtlety of Rowling's brand of transphobia. If she was openly spouting hateful things about trans people it would make my life easier frankly, but her "concern" about women only spaces and people using self-identification to invade women's bathrooms might on the face of it seem harmless. I need to think carefully about how I can explain that this type of language, and especially the association of trans people with a threat to women, is so damaging to trans people.

 

I probably won't bring it up unless they ask about the game so I'm just thinking out loud here.

 

Apologies, I was not implying how to deal with it but just saying how I am.

I am sure you will deal with this in your own way that you see fit for your kids.

 

My daughters are 12 & 16.

[Rex Grossman]

Just now, ulala said:

 

 

I'm not desperately to be angry about the game, i'm angry about what JKR is contributing to what I see is an attempt at genocide. And I chose my words very carefully.

 

I see people who buy they game, as contributing to JKR and their campaign. JKR has confirmed this is exactly how they see it too.

 

I don’t mind you being angry about the game/JKR. Being wound up about what I said seems both pointless and misguided however.

[David Kenny]

4 minutes ago, gospvg said:

 

Apologies, I was not implying how to deal with it but just saying how I am.

I am sure you will deal with this in your own way that you see fit for your kids.

 

My daughters are 12 & 16.

Not at all. I didn't think you were suggesting anything.

[Nobuo's Organ]

Watching ExcessiveProfanity play this, it looks like the Ubisoftest of Ubisoft games - as soon as you can open the map (you die if you walk more than 5 metres away from whichever character you're supposed to be tutorial-walking with, of course) it clonks you with "1/150 Doodads" counters and shows you exactly where "undiscovered" things are

 

Bandit camps btw

[HarryBizzle]

Fair few people saying there’s little enemy or task variety, the story is unremarkable and the loot is utterly superfluous, but they all seem to love it in spite of this. 

[yakumo]

Niece really wants to play this, got a lot of buzz with the young ones. I admit I'm interested too from what I seen, I know JK is a huge piece of shit but then it's not my first rodeo where an book I enjoyed the author being a huge dingus. I really enjoyed Ender’s Game when I was little, but like JK he's a massive CUNT. 

[jonny_rat]

21 minutes ago, K said:

 

I guess the issue is that it's exceptionally clumsy and reduces the character down to a single trait. Mass Effect Andromeda did something similar with one character and the developers got absolutely slated for it - IIRC, you did some dull fetch quest for a character and at the end she said something like "Thanks mate. Tell you what, it's much nicer being here in the Andromeda galaxy where I can be a woman. Not like the grief I had back home when I was a man called Ian!". It's just painfully bad characterisation and storytelling. Like, David Cage-level bluntness.

But in the NFS game you were describing.. the character doesn't have space to be anything other than a single trait. And Andromeda also suffered from having lots of little boxed in NPCs and quest storylines.

 

None of this excuses or makes the situations described any better, but if you're looking for wide and deep characterisation of minorities from games with paper thin storytelling, then the outcome is just going to be the exclusion of those characters in the short term. This isn't a tokenism issue, it's a design and narrative issue, and writers will probably get a handle on how to write about trans stuff in time.

[K]

20 minutes ago, jonny_rat said:

But in the NFS game you were describing.. the character doesn't have space to be anything other than a single trait. And Andromeda also suffered from having lots of little boxed in NPCs and quest storylines.

 

None of this excuses or makes the situations described any better, but if you're looking for wide and deep characterisation of minorities from games with paper thin storytelling, then the outcome is just going to be the exclusion of those characters in the short term. This isn't a tokenism issue, it's a design and narrative issue, and writers will probably get a handle on how to write about trans stuff in time.

 

I dunno, I think there's plenty of space in the game. There are seemingly hours and hours of your character chatting on their carphone to his psychopathic speed addict ((c) 2023 Strafe) chums about various things. I feel they could have worked the characters gender identity into the game a bit more convincingly through that route. I don't think it's a binary choice between having no minority characters and having minority characters whose minority status is front and centre in their initial conversations with everyone they meet. That's why I thought it was tokenism - the game's desire to have a trans character seemed to have overwhelmed its need to write a believable character.

[JoeK]

39 minutes ago, yakumo said:

Niece really wants to play this, got a lot of buzz with the young ones. I admit I'm interested too from what I seen, I know JK is a huge piece of shit but then it's not my first rodeo where an book I enjoyed the author being a huge dingus. I really enjoyed Ender’s Game when I was little, but like JK he's a massive CUNT. 

 

There are just so very many! Orson Scott Card having written one of the best short stories ever, but being a colossal fuck is a constant annoyance

[DennyDifferent]

Someone's made a handy tool if you want to find out if anyone you follow on Twitch has played the game...

 

https://havetheystreamedthatwizardgame.com/

 

[yakumo]

3 minutes ago, JoeK said:

 

There are just so very many! Orson Scott Card having written one of the best short stories ever, but being a colossal fuck is a constant annoyance

I know, I feel conflicted and guilty knowing that a part of me really still enjoy his stories but he's such an asshole. 

[Festoon]

Going to be odd when Rowling is howling and cackling at how well this does while attacking trans people and the idea that they could exist.

[Eighthours]

11 minutes ago, DennyDifferent said:

Someone's made a handy tool if you want to find out if anyone you follow on Twitch has played the game...

 

https://havetheystreamedthatwizardgame.com/

 

 

'YOUR NAME VILL ALSO GO ON THE LIST!'

 

 

[Rex Grossman]

15 minutes ago, DennyDifferent said:

Someone's made a handy tool if you want to find out if anyone you follow on Twitch has played the game...

 

https://havetheystreamedthatwizardgame.com/

 

Could someone do that for console friend lists? 
That would really put the cat amongst the pigeons.

[K]

You could presumably just check people's achievement / trophy lists if you wanted to carry out a Hogwarts audit on your friends.

[jonny_rat]

18 minutes ago, K said:

 

I dunno, I think there's plenty of space in the game. There are seemingly hours and hours of your character chatting on their carphone to his psychopathic speed addict ((c) 2023 Strafe) chums about various things. I feel they could have worked the characters gender identity into the game a bit more convincingly through that route. I don't think it's a binary choice between having no minority characters and having minority characters whose minority status is front and centre in their initial conversations with everyone they meet. That's why I thought it was tokenism - the game's desire to have a trans character seemed to have overwhelmed its need to write a believable character.

 

But it probably is a choice - if I've learned anything from working with games developers, no one is trying to make a shit story or a shit character, or a shit game for that matter. There are always reasons for why the thing they made turned out bad, and it's rarely the 'lazy devs' trope. It sounds in this case like it's lack of ability, or lack of feedback from representative players, or lack of time, or members of the writing team working on bits of the game in isolation. So there is a choice - do we cut that character because they're hard to write?

 

And I mean, I probably do agree that it's tokenism (I haven't played it so, you know) - but to go back to your original post about this, it's taking the rough with the smooth right? I'll eat as much tokenism as it takes if it's part of a wider journey.

[Floyd]

4 minutes ago, Rex Grossman said:

Could someone do that for console friend lists? 
That would really put the cat amongst the pigeons.

 

Why would that matter?

[jonny_rat]

Just now, K said:

You could presumably just check people's achievement / trophy lists if you wanted to carry out a Hogwarts audit on your friends.

 

Hogwaudit

[Rex Grossman]

Just now, Floyd said:

 

Why would that matter?

Because people care who supports the game?

[Graham S]

I’m afraid it’s very clear when people you know give off bad vibes on this subject, there’s no need to go looking for it. 

[Rex Grossman]

2 minutes ago, K said:

You could presumably just check people's achievement / trophy lists if you wanted to carry out a Hogwarts audit on your friends.

I don’t have a PlayStation or Xbox so this kind or sorcery is beyond me.

[Rex Grossman]

Just now, Graham S said:

I’m afraid it’s very clear when people you know give off bad vibes on this subject, there’s no need to go looking for it. 

I guess. I’m thinking about the fact that if other people are like me they’ve got people on their friends list (I only have a Switch) who they can’t remember who they actually are.