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 November 06, 2024, 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.

BGG was lost back in 2012. Almost around the same time as the big purp. As if there was some kind of plan. Go figure.

Metatron is weighing in now... amazing! I don't always agree with him, but I always like his videos. So, I'll share:


Hm. Interesting take. It's too bad about the series, even though I only ever played the first one all the way through. I'll keep with playing games like Death Note and Clock Tower. Oh, well... so much woke BS is still on the way, though!

I don't have much nostalgia or high praise for dragon age as a series. I didn't like origins and I've never tried any of the other games. I think ME 1-3 are the only bioware games I've ever really played and enjoyed? I guess I played NWN? I never finished that though.

Even when the game was FREE, it only garnered 20k players?... BWahahahahaHA! The DESPAIR this game is generating is... WONDERFUL!!!

QuoteI don't have much nostalgia or high praise for dragon age as a series. I didn't like origins and I've never tried any of the other games.

Fair enough. I really liked the game when it first came out, but yeah - much of the story was forgettable, with the exception of Morrigan. I always liked her. Heheh.

Maybe the Chinese will take over the AAA market, like with Black Myth Wukong (and possibly with Showa American Story next year). However, I think that indie companies who don't cater to a "modern audience" will do just fine.

Quote from: Rhymer88 on November 09, 2024, 04:23:32 AMMaybe the Chinese will take over the AAA market, like with Black Myth Wukong (and possibly with Showa American Story next year). However, I think that indie companies who don't cater to a "modern audience" will do just fine.

I will not support Communist China, since I stand with Hong Kong. I'm kind of sick of Monkey King stuff. However, we do need more games from Asia since The United Nations, Inc. is trying to shut down anime and anime-adjacent properties. Games like Stellar Blade and Lies Of P. Hopefully, the western indie devs will begin to realize they need to step up or be left behind.

Quote from: consolcwby on November 09, 2024, 07:46:12 PM

Quote from: Rhymer88 on November 09, 2024, 04:23:32 AMMaybe the Chinese will take over the AAA market, like with Black Myth Wukong (and possibly with Showa American Story next year). However, I think that indie companies who don't cater to a "modern audience" will do just fine.

I will not support Communist China, since I stand with Hong Kong. I'm kind of sick of Monkey King stuff. However, we do need more games from Asia since The United Nations, Inc. is trying to shut down anime and anime-adjacent properties. Games like Stellar Blade and Lies Of P. Hopefully, the western indie devs will begin to realize they need to step up or be left behind.

This is a bigger deal than most people recognize. The Western videogaming crash in the mid-80s led directly the rise of Nintendo and the Japanese dominance of the industry in the 90s. The western industry is either heading for another crash or already in it, depending on how you measure, and its in danger of taking the Japanese industry down with it. Right now, the Koreans are well placed to step into the gap, but in the longer term its likely to be the Chinese.

Problem is that it's not 1985 anymore. Videogames are the most profitable and probably the most culturally influential entertainment medium in the world. The problem with Chinese influence in the market is that with any company operating out of mainland China, there's no way of knowing how involved they are with the Chi-Com government, and so you have to treat any Chinese product as potentially a cultural Trojan horse. Korean cultural influence is less inherently suspicious, but it still comes with a likely attempt to normalize gacha as a monetization model, which I'd rather not see.

Either way, its a pity to see the West commit cultural suicide just because we let morons produce all of our media.