I was wondering if anyone saw this yet? It seems to be a controversial scene from DA:V. I haven't played Dragon Age since Origins came out. Is this what writing at Bioware has become? Geeze, the Social Justice  peeps needs new Warriors! It seems more cringey and pathetic than anything I've seen all year on consoles. It's gotta be a satire, right?! Because if it isn't, then the woke have stared into the meme abyss for so long that they have finally BECOME the meme abyss! lol!
I mean, come on!

https://youtu.be/xKTjzLVAx4E?si=Y_Dy_czEcU1UuIAL

Now, please. Excuse me. I need to go to the bathroom and barv my lungs out!

All the wokeness aside, this really does point out a much bigger problem with fantasy today. All these youngsters (i.e. anyone under 30) didn't grow up with LotRs or Excalibur, they grew up with Harry Potter. So, for them, modern day politics and modern day sensibilities have always been part of "fantasy". We are lucky that the game doesn't have magic cell phones (ala Ever After High). 

We talk about this problem with RPGs all the time with supposed adventurers going to proms and being all concerned about orc rights.

I don't know if there is a solution. In this case, the game is underperforming and we'll see if counter-programming games like Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 will do better. But in the long run, us oldsters will die out and our decedents are left in a world were entertainment and political propaganda are one in the same.

My concern isn't what the current state is, but what the future is. I really think the downfall of TTRPGs is the CRPG/vidygaem mechanics slipping in. I thought the f'n forge crap damaged the hobby, but... jeez! I really think no one has a single new idea or mechanic anymore. I bought some of Pundit's books, but still it's mainly rehashing what has come before, more or less. I really should buckle down and get my homebrew up in .pdf form. I've just been so exhausted lately...

Quote from: hedgehobbit on November 04, 2024, 10:04:28 AMAll the wokeness aside, this really does point out a much bigger problem with fantasy today. All these youngsters (i.e. anyone under 30) didn't grow up with LotRs or Excalibur, they grew up with Harry Potter. So, for them, modern day politics and modern day sensibilities have always been part of "fantasy". We are lucky that the game doesn't have magic cell phones (ala Ever After High). 
--- snip ---

OMG! I think you're right:

Making games for the 'modern' audience has been a complete train wreck.  If this game does not tank Bioware as a company, I pray that Mass Effect 5 will bounce back in the other direction.  The gamers/fans have sent a clear signal that the pronoun BS in the board game was not appreciated.

Quote from: zircher on November 05, 2024, 08:59:12 AMMaking games for the 'modern' audience has been a complete train wreck.  If this game does not tank Bioware as a company, I pray that Mass Effect 5 will bounce back in the other direction.  The gamers/fans have sent a clear signal that the pronoun BS in the board game was not appreciated.

I hate to see any company like bioware tank. Unfortunately, if ME5 does come out within this decade, I'm afraid it'll still have the 'woke virus' due to the time it takes to develop a software product. Look at how Vampire: The Masquerade is delayed to all hell now. I'm expecting much of these games to be canceled or shelved indefinitely. As for board games, at least they can always be re-skinned and re-worked. Especially the Eurogames.

Oh, more news:
Enjoy!

Quote from: hedgehobbit on November 04, 2024, 10:04:28 AMAll the wokeness aside, this really does point out a much bigger problem with fantasy today. All these youngsters (i.e. anyone under 30) didn't grow up with LotRs or Excalibur, they grew up with Harry Potter. So, for them, modern day politics and modern day sensibilities have always been part of "fantasy". We are lucky that the game doesn't have magic cell phones (ala Ever After High). 

We talk about this problem with RPGs all the time with supposed adventurers going to proms and being all concerned about orc rights.

I don't know if there is a solution. In this case, the game is underperforming and we'll see if counter-programming games like Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 will do better. But in the long run, us oldsters will die out and our decedents are left in a world were entertainment and political propaganda are one in the same.

I feel the need to drop some white pills on this topic:

First up, the LOTR and Harry Potter movies were coming out around the same time in the early 00s. They've both definitely hung on in the popular culture. I don't think there'd be a reliable way of measuring which one has been more influential, but I'd guess it was LOTR. More importantly, what was been the biggest thing in fantasy since then? Game of Thrones. Personally I detest Game of Thrones, but the whole pitch for it was that it didn't have modern day sensibilities. Since GoT, there really hasn't been a "next big thing" in fantasy TV/Film. The Witcher got a minor bump when the Netflix show came out, but the show hasn't done all that well long-term and most of the fans have stuck with the videogames and/or books. In the last few years Hollywood has just been trying to limp the existing franchises along.

In the videogame sphere, the biggest Fantasy games for the last decade have been the Dark Souls franchise. Again, you can make some moral complaints about the series, but you can't credibly call it woke or full of modern sensibilities.

In general, I think videogaming is a more right-leaning hobby than tabletop roleplaying. You mentioned Kingdom Come, but historical games selling themselves on at least a degree of authenticity are a major scene in videogaming: Mount & Blade II, Valheim, Mordhau, Crusader Kings, Manor Lords, Hellish Quart, and so on. On the internet, there's way more, and way more vocal, detractors of wokeness in video-gaming than there are in tabletop RPGs. When a hyper woke game comes out, its usually a near-universal laughingstock. I've been following the Veilguard discourse. It's almost all negative, and the stats bear that out. According to SteamCharts, the all-time peak concurrent players on Steam for Veilguard is currently 46,021, compared to 95,863 for Kingdom Come: Deliverance, 228,285 for Dragon's Dogma II and 952,523 for Elden Ring.

I said this in another thread a while back, but I suspect a big part of the reason there aren't more based young people in tabletop gaming is that they felt unwelcome in such an apparently left-wing hobby, and went to videogames instead.

Quote from: consolcwby on Today at 01:55:41 AM

Quote from: zircher on November 05, 2024, 08:59:12 AMMaking games for the 'modern' audience has been a complete train wreck.  If this game does not tank Bioware as a company, I pray that Mass Effect 5 will bounce back in the other direction.  The gamers/fans have sent a clear signal that the pronoun BS in the board game was not appreciated.

I hate to see any company like bioware tank. Unfortunately, if ME5 does come out within this decade, I'm afraid it'll still have the 'woke virus' due to the time it takes to develop a software product. Look at how Vampire: The Masquerade is delayed to all hell now. I'm expecting much of these games to be canceled or shelved indefinitely. As for board games, at least they can always be re-skinned and re-worked. Especially the Eurogames.

Oh, more news:

Enjoy!

BGG has a stranglehold on board games and tries to enforce this woke nonsense wherever they can.