henke on 16/5/2015 at 17:47
Hmm, alright.
van HellSing on 16/5/2015 at 18:48
To be the devil's advocate for a moment, there are some possible problems both with the novels and the game.
For example, female homosexual relationships of all kinds appear frequently both in the books and the games, in TW1 and TW2 male homosexuality only comes up once, in the second game, and guess what: the character in question is a villain, a possible rapist who eventually gets castrated and fed his own balls. The novels didn't mention female homosexuality at all until the last, standalone novel, where, again, the only homosexual character is villainous, and his male lover, a straight man who's only in it for profit, is even more villainous.
Still, at the same time, the novels featured a (rather minor) character of ambiguous gender, presented in nothing but a respectful light and cited as a good officer. So, yeah.
Severian_Silk on 16/5/2015 at 20:33
Quote:
For example, female homosexual relationships of all kinds appear frequently both in the books and the games, in TW1 and TW2 male homosexuality only comes up once, in the second game, and guess what: the character in question is a villain, a possible rapist who eventually gets castrated and fed his own balls.
I don't recall that dude being castrated for homosexuality, but for being a sonuvabitch . The guy who castrates him also was a sonuvabitch. Those games are riddled with sons of bitches, no matter what their sexuality is :P .
So, this scene doesn't neccessarily condemn homosexuality.
Then again, I'm no medieval history expert, but I think that during the late middle ages homosexuals were punished by castration in some parts of Europe. So maybe this scene really does mean something :p ?
Renzatic on 16/5/2015 at 21:15
Everyone was pretty much castrating everyone back then. It's a wonder we're even around at all.
As for the drama, I came across (
https://medium.com/@adrianchm/the-boy-who-cried-white-wolf-on-polygon-s-the-witcher-3-review-f7ac8d7f0a5) this link while looking up reviews for the game, which aligns with Judith's point of view.
When it comes to the issue of race in games, I think of it in much the same way I do the whole Bechdel Test hoolabaloo. It's not that every game needs to have a certain number of black people, Asians, Middle Easterners, etc. portrayed in a positive light to be considered socially acceptable, but there do need to be more games with black people, Asians, Middle Easterners, in them.
Their exclusion isn't a manifestation of racial hate. But we could use some variety.
Yakoob on 16/5/2015 at 22:15
Having studied Polish history throughout my childhood, Witcher actually does a good job of recreating the medieval times. The books talk a lot about the politics, economy, folklore and social structure of the period, so it's definitely no accident or sexist/racist exclusion. I always felt the books were history first and fantasy later, tho the balance is shifted towards the later in the games (for obvious reasons).
However, I would admit some of the sexy sexy stuff in the game were nothing more than just a male fan service. Yes, it is how the society functioned back then with males having all the power and women often downgraded to little than their sex slaves*, but the point was already conveyed via sexual encounters Geralt (constantly) has without the need for stuff like the sex-cards.
And while I'm all for equality, I'm also against having a female/trans/non-white-race/etc. quotas games must abide by.
* Interestingly, the games hints the female seorcerers have their own little secret group that plays part in the politics. The books explore the sexist angle a bit better - at the groups inception it is agreed upon that men are too brutal and greedy to rule the world and thus an female-only group is necessary to counterbalance that. Granted it is still stereotyping both sides but at least it provides another side to the debate and acknowledges the problem of male dominance. And you could make the argument that the logic is just another reflection of the socially-primitive medieval times.
Tony_Tarantula on 17/5/2015 at 00:25
Quote Posted by reizak
I haven't read any of the reviews yet as I'm trying to avoid spoilers, but on the Metacritic page I couldn't help noticing that the Official PS UK magazine feels it's a failure as an open world game, and glancing through the (
http://www.gamesradar.com/witcher-3-wild-hunt-review/opm/) full review makes it seem like it's exactly because it's not like Skyrim. As much as I enjoy that game, the Bethesda approach to open worlds certainly isn't the only one (lack of level-scaling is mentioned as a negative?), so I'm trying not to get worried about that. Maybe I should read one of the 100 % reviews in order to regain appropriate levels of hype.
You see that a lot where a reviewer will go into a game expecting it to be a re-skin of their favorite game in the genre. Games get dinged for not being a copy of GTA/Skyrim/COD/etc.It can also go the other way such as how Inquisition was praised for being "like Skyrim".
It doesn't mean much.
Tony_Tarantula on 17/5/2015 at 00:45
Quote Posted by Renzatic
When it comes to the issue of race in games, I think of it in much the same way I do the whole Bechdel Test hoolabaloo. It's not that every game needs to have a certain number of black people, Asians, Middle Easterners, etc. portrayed in a positive light to be considered socially acceptable, but there do need to be more games with black people, Asians, Middle Easterners, in them.
The question here is why? What does having a higher quantity of games with minority characters achieve?
It achieves jack shit unless it makes sense. In every GTA game to date minorities were congruent because their origin fit into the plot. In Prince of Persia it would have been weird if the protagonists were anything other middle eastern.
There's some good examples of forced diversity in more recent Bioware games and all the faults of forced diversity is on display for all to see: the characters in question(if you've played it you know who I'm talking about) come off as near caricatures.
Tony_Tarantula on 17/5/2015 at 00:46
Quote Posted by froghawk
^Fair point, but this is a fantasy world that doesn't seem to be striving for realism in any other way. This whiteness has always been the case in these games, except in the first where the one brown guy was the main villain... says a lot.
No. The main villain was white.
The main "villian" is the little white kid that you rescue in Chapter 1Quote:
However, I would admit some of the sexy sexy stuff in the game were nothing more than just a male fan service. Yes, it is how the society functioned back then with males having all the power and women often downgraded to little than their sex slaves*.
That's a common misconception caused by the misattribution of Renaissance and Reformation era practices to the middle ages.
As much as I hate to link Wikipedia their information here is largely accurate. The picture it paints is very different from the women being "little more than sex slaves" meme that 20th century historians fabricated. Women's rights also varied considerably depending on the region with their rights being strongest in continental Western Europe.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Middle_Ages)
Renzatic on 17/5/2015 at 02:08
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
The question here is why? What does having a higher quantity of games with minority characters achieve?
It achieves jack shit unless it makes sense. In every GTA game to date minorities were congruent because their origin fit into the plot. In Prince of Persia it would have been weird if the protagonists were anything other middle eastern.
There's some good examples of forced diversity in more recent Bioware games and all the faults of forced diversity is on display for all to see: the characters in question(if you've played it you know who I'm talking about) come off as near caricatures.
It isn't forced diversity, which is something I'm very much against. The way I see it, including, say, a black character just to have a black character around for the simple sake of it is an empty gesture.
But making a game about a black character from a black perspective, that's something else entirely. The reason why I think there should be a higher quantity of games with minority characters is because, really, there aren't that many. So many stories that could be told from so many different perspectives that we're just not getting.
Severian_Silk on 17/5/2015 at 07:22
Quote:
But making a game about a black character from a black perspective, that's something else entirely. The reason why I think there should be a higher quantity of games with minority characters is because, really, there aren't that many. So many stories that could be told from so many different perspectives that we're just not getting.
This. There's so much unused potential when it comes to games that it's not even funny. I'd love to see a game based on some African mythology. I think God of War was supposed to be a game like that, but they scrapped the idea. Guess they thought it wouldn't sell :( .
