Butthurt gamer blog

[BLOBERT]

S ISNT THIS GUY A MULTILOVE FFAG WITH A DEN OF FAGS IN A MULTIFAG LIVE ARRANGEMENT!!!!

 

[Jaesun]

... New Vegas has gays and bi-sexuals ...

They werent the focus, or rather their sexuality wasnt their focus.

And that is why we talk about how they got it right, Veronica entire character was based on something besides she was a lesbian and the fact she was was simply part of the character that was brought up about two or three times without being that relevant, it could have been written out or replaced and would not change the character.

It also helped neither of them were "romantic options", sure there were other characters that were gay or bi but really ... compare New Vegas with BioWarian dating sim.

Having token gay for the sake of it ... that is wrong.

Exactly.

 

[Roguey]

I agree with writer Greg Rucka that fiction needs to respect the diversity of the world and whities, straighties, and self-loathing others should just deal.

 

[dnf]

as long as they are a minority and opressed im ok with it

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I agree with writer Greg Rucka that fiction needs to respect the diversity of the world and whities, straighties, and self-loathing others should just deal.

So, about 5% of NPCs are actually gay, as in the real world? That rounds down to 0 gay companions for most party based RPGs, you know.

 

[Roguey]

So, about 5% of NPCs are actually gay, as in the real world? That rounds down to 0 gay companions for most party based RPGs, you know.

Creating a story with large-scale ratios in mind is silly.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

So, about 5% of NPCs are actually gay, as in the real world? That rounds down to 0 gay companions for most party based RPGs, you know.

Creating a story with large-scale ratios in mind is silly.

So it's fine to have a story with only privileged white people present? Since we don't care about large-scale ratios?

 

[Roguey]

So it's fine to have a story with only privileged white people present? Since we don't care about large-scale ratios?

If there's a good reason for it. With a lot of stories, there isn't.

And since I remembered

15:24 - Infinitron: people don't really care how sexist the game is as long as the writing is good
15:25 - Infinitron: roguey's idol lesifoere likes the witcher(!)

She's criticized both for their treatment of women, so she does in fact care. One can enjoy problematic fiction while acknowledging the problematic parts.

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

I agree that gay people existing in fictional settings is perfectly believable. It doesn't mean a story has to mention or reveal any such characters though. Who knows, maybe Chewbacca was a gay wookiee, you never know.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I agree that gay people existing in fictional settings is perfectly believable. It doesn't mean a story has to mention or reveal any such characters though. Who knows, maybe Chewbacca was a gay wookiee, you never know.

They're not really gay unless

a) You can make out with them.

b) They mention their gay partner in the first conversation you have with them.

Anything else is just pure fauxgressiveness.

 

[Sodafish]

I agree with writer Greg Rucka that fiction needs to respect the diversity of the world and whities, straighties, and self-loathing others should just deal.

So, about 5% of NPCs are actually gay, as in the real world? That rounds down to 0 gay companions for most party based RPGs, you know.

5% of the world's population is gay? I don't find that credible in the slightest.

 

[thedeadlymoose]

Re: Why do I play/support casual RPGs:

Because that's what us libruls do. It's what we live for. We trample your dreams and destroy everything you love.

Also, uh, suddenly everyone is asking me questions, and most of them are at least in the neighborhood of "fair", so get ready for a wall of text.

this "I'll take what I can get" attitude just makes you complicit in the exploitation of a minority group for the purposes of fleecing the group and its supporters and you should know that.

I'm aware. I'm aware who Mass Effect's all-lesbian blue alien race was aimed at (besides heterosexual virgin male gamers). I was less than impressed.

But here's how I see it. On Monday they deny we exist. On Tuesday they will only cast us as villains. On Wendesday they may exploit us, but it's still better. On Thursday they're tokenizing, but it's still better than being exploited. And finally by Friday we're just more fellow humans, who exist without a special point needing to be made out of it.

Torment is Friday in this metaphor. It's the first game of its specific kind that I've heard of where the devs took the attitude towards queer inclusion that I feel is the 'right' approach. For what that is, see Colin McComb's explanations on Formspring & in interviews.

(Why am I not counting New Vegas? Because NV had a setting where you would not logically have very many visible queer people. Numenera is a setting where you WOULD logically have a lot of visible queer people. NV still was brilliant in this category though.)

And... finally, while I do also genuinely enjoy Bioware games. They're like delicious popcorn. They don't hold a candle to stuff like Planescape:Torment, but few games ever do.

Most importantly, why does it matter when an e-man sticks his e-penis?

Because ignoring the existence of queer people, *in a setting where we would logically exist*, is a bad thing, in my opinion. (Answered this further below.)

heteros, homos, and trannies should all fight for the greater good and support a potentially good game, haaai?

I pledged literally every spare dollar I have in my bank account, so, yes, I can safely say I agree with you here, besides the incredibly silly way in which you put it

And I would have still pledged as much as I could even if the developers disagreed with me. The fact that they didn't is just why I'm also filled with glee.

(Honestly that's the confusing part about this topic: While the LIBRUL part is 100% true, I'm not sure where I was butthurt on my blog. I'm surely prone to being butthurt, but... I posted those in extreme enthusiasm. Am I missing something, or is this just more of the bile you get when you piss off RPG Codex? Genuinely confused here. Perhaps I haven't lurked enough.)

15:26 - Infinitron: really, all this talk about sexism, it's just a proxy argument for "we want better writing!"
15:26 - Infinitron: I guess just asking for better writers would be elitist or something"

See, here's the thing. Yes, this is really a better writing issue. But just because someone's a good writer doesn't mean they can fuck shit up. Even totally accidentally. The Torment devs asked backers for suggestions, and I gave a suggestion.

(I am also a Witcher fan, even though much of the writing is... not good. Did I like the cards? No. Did I like the rest of the game, and can I acknowledge the strong female characters? Well... Uh, yeah. That isn't *hard*.)

But why do you need this acknowledgement? Serious question, really.

Alright, yeah, fair question.

It's my belief, based on a couple decades of being 'out' as queer, that most homophobia and gay-bashing and the shit I've had to deal with in real life stems currently from the fact that media - sometimes deliberately and sometimes accidentally - pretends that queer people don't exist, and when we do, only as horrible stereotypes.

I'm not lumping inExile in there. Bioware is also an exception (to some extent) and Obsidian is definitely a big exception.

That makes a difference, socially speaking. It's the same fucking reason women are typically taught by romantic comedies that love MUST play out in this very specific, incredibly unrealistic, often deeply creepy and fucked-up way. If you really don't believe romantic comedies have a LOT to do with that, I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

[There's more to say on this topic but this is already a huge wall of text, so I will abstain.]

So it's not that I need the acknowledgement everywhere. But having it *somewhere* is pretty awesome. And Torment, especially the Numenera setting, seemed like the perfect place to ask for it, being what it is. The developers are beholden to no one. They could and did weigh my suggestion by its own merits. (And I couldn't be happier with the outcome.)

Or really, any kind of references to sexuality, be them hetero or otherwise?

It's not about references.

Take PS:T. Morte, Annah, Ignus (& his lover), The Nameless One, and many miscellaneous NPCs who are "obviously heterosexual" because you see them doing heterosexual shit like, well, coupling up with someone from the opposite sex.

(I'll grant you the prostitute example was a bad one; a better one is the couple with the husband who sold his body to the Dusties early in the game. They didn't say WE ARE HETEROSEXUAL!!!! They were in a heterosexual relationship that the player could see.)

The only references I want are 'that, but with same-sex people'. This is what I'd meant by 'no pandering'. (Though obviously according to RPG Codex, just asking at all was begging for pandering. Gotcha. I'll make a note of this for future reference.)

How come we were just fine without any "this guy is straight, this guy is not" in videogames until after Bioware made it popular?

It's really not Bioware, as much as many people, including Boware themselves, would like to pretend otherwise. It's the same reason that every year it gets politically safer to support same-sex marriage. This was always a problem... just only for TEH GAYS. (Most of us queers anyway; there are always those few who didn't see a problem. But that's a tangent.) It's just that only now is it more acceptable to talk about it. Not TOTALLY acceptable, just more so.

I doubt this is going to convince anyone, of course, but you asked me a genuine question and I'm giving you a genuine answer.

Your comment of "I'll take what I can get" only reinforces that and it's in the same vein as the "this is not an RPG if it doesn't have multisexual romances" claims I've seen.

I don't really see how. I don't think RPGs need romance. Would you mind elaborating?

I suggest if you want to fanboy an RPG company which includes gay and bi-sexual characters in their games you switch to Obsidian.

I absolutely fanboy Obsidian. They're fucking fantastic. Agreeing with the rest of your post also. In terms of queer inclusion, yes, they're definitely better than Bioware. But again, most of the hate directed at Bioware seems suspiciously pointed about gays, not about the quality of their games. Which is odd, since there's so much to critique there.

This doesn't really apply to the RPG Codex as much as it does elsewhere (such as the Torment uservoice forums); in fact, the Codex review of ME3 played a large part in me determining to not get it until it goes for sale extremely cheap.

But it's present here too. It's present right here in this thread, where Infinitron calls my victory dancing on my personal blog an example of librul butthurt. One thing is being said, and you're hearing another. Sort of seems like you're hearing what you want to hear. You know. From my faggoty standpoint.

(By the way, the comment about how I'm not being a 'good' faggot, because I'm posting a lot about faggot-related stuff, was extremely funny.)

Go and ask some of those people if PS:T has chauvinistic elements like what I described. Even if they acknowledge it, they won't care, because it's "mature", "fresh" and "thoughtful".

What if we don't care because the game was so well written that it rose above those elements, and still deserves its crown as the best-written RPG of all time? Just asking.

You talk shit about my waifu again boy and you're in for some ass kickin!

I'm sorry. That entire character arc was awful writing. Full-stop.

It's not even that it couldn't have worked if done better. It's that it didn't, and wasn't.

[I'm not even talking about the character, who seemed fairly cool conceptually. I'm talking about the writing. It flopped. It may be worse in my memory than how it really was in practice, but... Meh.]

So, about 5% of NPCs are actually gay, as in the real world?

You mean 10%, and you mean LGBTQIA or whatever acronym you want. [I'm going to use 'queer'.] Basically: Not just full on homosexuals "count". In theory you'll have bigger numbers in larger, closely-packed populations, given how being not-heterosexual happens, at least per current research. "Gay" is... well, first off, even though queer people & a significant minority of same-sex relationships have existed in every population there is, the specifics of being 'gay' are rather unique to modern Western culture.

1 in 10 is enough to be reasonably obvious.

(In other words, there was a reason I didn't ask the devs to think about including 'gay' people but rather 'queer' people.)

If you want to believe it's 1% or less, that's your bag and I won't argue with you. But I'm not going to start assuming otherwise just because people don't want to believe it.

Cowboy Moment - they're not really queer unless there's some way to discover that they are queer in the story. Example: Renly & Loras in Game of Thrones. Did people miss that? Yes. Was it obvious if you'd only been paying attention? Yes. Not a perfect example, but a good one.

A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones is also a good example of a world where it just wouldn't be realistic to have a 10% queer cast. I'm a huge ASOIAF fan and while I would have appreciated more queer characters, it would be silly to go asking GRRM for it.

Whereas in Numenera, it wasn't silly to ask, because they'd logically be in there; the only question was whether the devs would essentially just forget to write them in. This is a reasonable mistake to make, even for good writers. I've seen good writers do it before, and good writers are sure to do it again. Nobody's perfect. And that's why I bothered.

[Why am I bothering *here*? Well, because the Codex entertains me, and I am all for being entertained. And people asked some good questions. So why not.]

 

[tuluse]

There's a lot of Bioware hate here for pretty much everything they do (or have done since BG2). I think the specifically about gays being... so prominent?... is more about people failing to articulate what their real problem is. That or failing to see that the ridiculous melodrama Bioware puts on is the problem and not the fact that there are gay characters. It's an easy thing to latch onto and point to as a "change" that Bioware has made while the quality of the games has gone down.

I don't really care about you wanting "queer" characters in games. It really will affect me very little. I don't like seeing Bioware held up as a champion, and I don't like to see their games sell well. So if you really like Gaider's stance on gays send him a check for $60 and don't give EA your hard earned money.

 

[Broseph]

EA has very obviously (with the help of Bioware and Maxis) tried to take advantage of the LGBT community. Just look at their recent YouTube video that was put there to deflect the SimCity shitstorm. People feel like they can praise BioWare and EA just for including gay characters, but when gay characters aren't treated like normal people, it falls apart. I am bisexual myself and I was pleased with Obsidian's treatment of it in New Vegas. Arcade was a great, well-written companion and the gay aspect was just one part of his character, one that wasn't even immediately obvious unless you pressed him a little.

 

[Cromwell]

You talk shit about my waifu again boy and you're in for some ass kickin!

I'm sorry. That entire character arc was awful writing. Full-stop.

It's not even that it couldn't have worked if done better. It's that it didn't, and wasn't.

[I'm not even talking about the character, who seemed fairly cool conceptually. I'm talking about the writing. It flopped. It may be worse in my memory than how it really was in practice, but... Meh.]

Of course it was, its bioware. What it was not is worse then the rest. Anyway, I didnt think someone would take my post seriously. To your cowboy example I cant even imagine how someone could mis sthe sexuality of a knight who had his horse dressed up all in flowers.

I stll dont understand how someone can be gay, bi, black white green yellow or fuck sheep, wanting to be handled as equal to all the other people and then doesnt get enraged if someone puts this in a game and makes it a selling point, its the same selout as with any other minority and someone who doesnt hate that should be punished by all other people of this minority.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Alright, yeah, fair question...

Thanks for the answers. You seem pretty level headed unlike on your blog where you were pretty much "HAHAHA HOMOPHOBES".
Just a couple of points:

They didn't say WE ARE HETEROSEXUAL!!!! They were in a heterosexual relationship that the player could see.

Well, OK, but do you think the intention was to specifically point out that they were in a heterosexual relationship* or just, you know, that's what the writer came up with because it didn't occur to him to make a gay couple? It seems to me that you think that if hetero is in homo must absolutely be in as well. What about the writer's vision? What if he has no interest in writing about it because it doesn't really add anything to what he writes? That's why people say that you want to be pandered to, because you give the impression that no matter what, homosexuality must be acknowledged just for the sake of it and that a relationship (of whatever kind) is some kind of political statement and not... well... simply an artistic decision.

I don't really see how. I don't think RPGs need romance. Would you mind elaborating?

I mean that your claim of "I take what I can get" is in the same vein as that about romances because you put so much importance on it as those people put on romances and that neither really have anything to do with gaming or should be a focus for a game developer. Unless they design Harlequin covers, like Bioware.

*Edit: Sure, in that example, the couple could have been easily replaced with a homosexual one and there would have been no big difference, if any. Well, except for people who see this kind of stuff as political statements. And here's a problem... I really think that asking for inclusion does you harm. More than good? I don't know, but because you ask for inclusion you get results as these when anything that even smells homosexual is seen as pandering even if the author really wanted to write about it and didn't do it just out of obligation.

 

[Lorica]

The responses in this thread have sort of covered this already: Bioware uses gay characters to sell games. That is bullshit, especially when what they're selling is basically a heterosexual game--you just can fall into relationships with people of the same sex due to reasons indistinguishable from programming laziness. Loren: Amazon Princess had better portrayals of sexual relationships than any ME game yet written.

Moreover, with a game that cannot give a single shit about telling a real story or, more importantly, building its mechanics around gay characters, asking for them is like asking for a diversity in the colours of the lichen on the rocks in a game. It's totally inane and superficial, the change (barring lichen based games?). If the game designer has it, it can show a level of attention to detail and craft, sure. Making it a selling point? Making it the reason you will or will not enjoy a game? It's like the point of playing games is entirely missed. They're making a Torment sequel and somebody's first thought is "I HOPE THE LICHEN IS THE RIGHT SHADE OF TEAL!" WTF?

To put it another way, hearing somebody claim that a specific game would have been or will be improved by the inclusion of gay characters is like hearing somebody say "2001: Space Odyssey was really interesting, but it really could have used more gays. The fact that there weren't any really hurt my enjoyment of the movie." In other words, if the game isn't about anything to do with gender politics, even tangentially--it could be about love, about persecution, or about the mangement of social forces at a strategic level, and so forth--how does the inclusion of queers change anthing that matters in either the trappings or the mechanics of the game? In fact, I'd say it's worse to sell out artistic vision for political or commercial concerns.

No, lichen never has had to deal with the feeling that it was being censored out of the media. There are a lot of idiots out there. But by and large, isn't it already 'Friday' enough that you can say 'cut out the fucking sexploitation already'? When you can think of companies that produce games that offer representation without exploitation, why put up with that idiocy?

Last point: Interesting games about gays sound ten million percent more interesting than shoehorning gays into a game that doesn't have any idea what to do with them.

Real last point: The conclusion of this is the answer to the rhetorical question about e-men and their e-members. If the useage of e-members is represented in mechanical terms and makes for entertaining gameplay (hentai, hur, hurr), I would care. If it's fluff, then who gives a shit?

 

[Blaine]

Creating a story with large-scale ratios in mind is silly.

Classic feminist technique: Utilize (often spin-doctored) statistics when they support my agenda, criticize others for utilizing statistics when they don't support my agenda.

I'm aware. I'm aware who Mass Effect's all-lesbian blue alien race was aimed at (besides heterosexual virgin male gamers). I was less than impressed.

Classic feminist double standard: Shaming language ("virgin", i.e. "You can't get sex!"; also "neckbeard" and so on) is acceptable if directed at men.

 

[Angthoron]

To be fair, this "gay/straight npc" bullshit is a non-issue generated by EA/Bio and a bunch of people happy they got attention in their hobby. Because why? Because usually, unless you have issues, you won't care if your friends, colleagues etc are gay, straight or into beating off to ponies. They're just PEOPLE. It's when you put them into your sphere of sexual interest that their preferences begin to matter, and really, if you want to fap to pixels, that's fine but I might actually give zero fucks about npc sexuality and might even prefer for them to not have any in most games I play.

 

[AngryEddy]

But just because someone's a good writer doesn't mean they can fuck shit up. Even totally accidentally.

(I am also a Witcher fan, even though much of the writing is... not good. Did I like the cards? No. Did I like the rest of the game, and can I acknowledge the strong female characters? Well... Uh, yeah. That isn't *hard*.)

See Infinitron, you can't please political gamers. Here we have a foaming at the mouth fag, who can't keep his sexuality to himself, admit that he wouldn't be satisfied with great writing if it showed homosexuals in a negative light. These assholes LIVE for left-wing politics, without them, they are an empty shell. There is no "codeword" or hidden lust for better writing, these animals simply don't give a shit unless something serves as a vehicle to force their retarded politics on non-believers.

And for the gay guy who said Witcher has a bad story, Witcher is the only game I have ever seen, have the balls to go against the status quo, and show that liberalism can get you killed [Witcher 2, helping the elf in the beginning town where they lynch elves because they're violent cunts, then when you help the cute litle elf girl, it turns out she's a murdering psycho who has killed a bunch of humans, and then attacks you] and homosexuals as deviants [the gay wizard who gets his balls chopped off and shoved down his throat].

 

[Western]

Does Bioware even make gay NPC's these days? I thought they we're all bi-sexual and bi isn't gay (Disclaimer; I played about 15 hours of Mass Effect 1, decided it was too meh to play on, same with Dragon Age, haven't bothered playing the rest of their games, so you tell me).

 

[Jick Magger]

It's the same issue with feminism and the circular logic of "Women are treated as distressed damsels in media/The women who are shown as strong and assertive are actually just male characters with a bra on and thus don't count". Once had an amusing conversation with one of my lecturers about female characters in film and, after disregarding strong female characters in several movies, such as Sarah Conner in Terminator 1 & 2 and Ellen Ripley in Aliens as either being a foil to the male protagonist and a male surrogate respectively, cited the ideal female character as...Lisbeth Salander, a psychotic vigilante with a whole slew of mental problems and is often two steps away from being a full-blown mary-sue.

Does Bioware even make gay NPC's these days? I thought they we're all bi-sexual and bi isn't gay (Disclaimer; I played about 15 hours of Mass Effect 1, decided it was too meh to play on, same with Dragon Age, haven't bothered playing the rest of their games, so you tell me).

There's your token indian helmsmen in ME3, and the pilot who solely exists to depend on you for emotional support as he sobs about how his husband dies in hopes that you'll eventually become butt-buddies...in ME3.

 

[Cromwell]

Does Bioware even make gay NPC's these days? I thought they we're all bi-sexual and bi isn't gay (Disclaimer; I played about 15 hours of Mass Effect 1, decided it was too meh to play on, same with Dragon Age, haven't bothered playing the rest of their games, so you tell me).

In mE you have Party members for male and female romances and ones for both genders. Whats really entertaining about the series is the fact that you cant fuck or even flirt out of your crew (aside from i think the blue mistress in one or somewhat but i only read that). Also I noticed that bioware writers do accomplish somewhat seductive characters (the asari in charge of ... err omega station or what it was called) but if a character is supposed to be seductive like the asari companion mistress in one or even worse the asari sukubus in 2 the writing gets abysmal even by mass effect standards. Which means rubbing her at you constantly goes for seductive in their writing rooms.

 

[Infinitron]

It's present right here in this thread, where Infinitron calls my victory dancing on my personal blog an example of librul butthurt.

Eh, I never used the word butthurt. This thread wasn't named by me. The original post was split off from another thread, probably by Jaesun.

 

[Kane]

It's present right here in this thread, where Infinitron calls my victory dancing on my personal blog an example of librul butthurt.

Eh, I never used the word butthurt. This thread wasn't named by me. The original post was split off from another thread, probably by Jaesun.

jaesun is worse than hitler