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The Great Whale Road (historical, turn based, cards, hexes, C&C, management)

Neanderthal

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The developers made a simple assertion about a few German tribes attitudes towards trannies. Whether is true or not, is open to debate. To dismiss it out of hand as implausible is naïve, because ancient pagan cultures are known to be diverse and too alien for today standards – hence the example of Greeks' attitudes towards homosexuality. To bring onus of proof in these discussions is foolish, because everything is open to debate until you have a sizable amount of evidence to support either hypothesis.

This is all from sources as close to the period as you can get, rather than imagining that the Norse for some reason did what a far off, foreign culture did.

References?

Thirty years o studyin subject, if you wanna follow in that path then first start reading eddas an sagas, from Snorri Sturlusson to unknown authors whose works are still published. Then i'd move on to recognised experts in the field, personally i've always liked works of Gwyn Jones, his History of the Viking Age is exhaustive and thorough. You could also have a dabble in other popular sources, Tolkien for instance and his translation of Beowulf. There are hundreds of works out there focused on the Viking Age and before, there is a substantial body of evidence from various other sources as well, the Anglo Saxon Chronicles, The Domesday Book, Church records etc.

To refute all this and make up some unproven, unmentioned an implausible connection to Ancient Greeks is utter horseshit to be honest. Pagans weren't unknowable or alien, they were human, readin the sagas or any historical document will bring this home to anybody, and they acted in a human fashion.
 

SausageInYourFace

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Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath
The developers made a simple assertion about a few German tribes attitudes towards trannies. Whether is true or not, is open to debate. To dismiss it out of hand as implausible is naïve, because ancient pagan cultures are known to be diverse and too alien for today standards – hence the example of Greeks' attitudes towards homosexuality. To bring onus of proof in these discussions is foolish, because everything is open to debate until you have a sizable amount of evidence to support either hypothesis.

This is not how history works. There is a difference between reasonable speculation and inventing nonsense. If you make a far reaching claim about how a given historical civilization worked, you better be able to back it up with some good evidence. You don't have any; in fact, I'd wager you can't have any, so you have to resort to outrageous analogies and speculation. Meanwhile, the stuff that we do know overwhelmingly supports a critical position. Arguing against it with nothing more some far fetched conjectures and an argumentum ad ignorantiam is cheap and intellectually dishonest.
 
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Thats a bloody lot o supposition, might haves an wishful thinking there. I mean yeah sure the gays existed, always have an always will do, but it were regarded fairly much same as anywhere else when a majority looks at a minority, they were disgusted an far more fuckin judgemental than us modern folk.
Take Sparta, for instance. The men were separated from women at early age to be properly trained and they were all sexually initiated with men. You have a city full of homosexuals nurtured for military purposes. In fact, we have evidences that not only in Sparta, but also in Athens, homosexuality in the militaries was perceived as a positive thing that contributes to morale. In fact, bro-to-bro sex was the norm in Ancient Greece. Of course, this all sounds ludicrous to us, because we live in a very different culture. The fact is that you can’t use common morals of today to make conclusions about an ancient culture. This would be anachronic, to say the least.
Buggery was illegal and punishable by exile or death in Sparta due to it being regarded as unmasculine to be on the receiving end. Otherwise opinions on pedastryy strongly differed among the city states, Plato in particular was heavily against it believing that sodomy served to feminise boys. It was also socially unacceptable for adult men to be in such a relationship, as someone had to be the submissive and this bore with it the stigma of humiliation.
 

Merlkir

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I love how you all repeat that homosexuality was punished and persecuted, as if that somehow means it didn't exist, or that it prevents the topic from being used in the game. Like...what?
If you re-read my post, I wrote the same thing. Though I also added that it often wasn't actually punished, just officially deemed unacceptable. Because The Vikungs were not a singular culture that all acted the same. Because we're talking about pre-viking times also, as well as other non-scandinavian people with different customs, who will also appear in the game. (iirc there's a Hun companion for example)
Did I point out the importance of the active or passive role in homosexual encounters? I did. Did I point out the association of the receiving role with femininity and thus with a specific kind of magic? I did.
Did I mention that many of the later sagas might not be a good source of information since they're skewed by the lense of Christianity? I did.

It takes a whole opposit kind of bias to look at the available information and go: "Teh vikungs clearly hated teh gays! GOOD!"

Meanwhile, the game could have a Saami shaman who in contemporary terms could be labeled trans. (one of the articles I linked desribes a grave of such a person, a non-viking man who was buried in female dress and with feminine items, not just one comb)
Or a freed thrall who worked as a gay prostitute. (again, the articles list an accounting inscription mentioning these existed)
Or a former champion who was shunned for displaying "receiving" behaviour.

Do I think the devs will do this? Nah, probably not. There are easier and more "progressive" ways to tackle these topics. And I understand why you might dislike that approach. Still, you guys are being a bit unreasonable.
 

Neanderthal

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Thats going a bit far innit Merlkir? Nobody has said gays didn't exist, all thats being said (by me at least) is that a minority is just that, and they were viewed by majority in usual way that minorities are. In law and in general opinion.

The later sagas are unreliable in some things, but its fairly clear when they're making shit up or reaching, and linking myths and other cultures with the reality of everyday life is just that kind of reaching. Sure you could have a cast of fabulous freaks who totally dominate your party, and over represent a minority. You could have a bloke mocked in death by having a dress put on him, but don't wedge that into some baseless hypothesis that modern transwhateverism was a respected and popular passtime, it's silly.

Fine wi havin a gay companion, like say Arcade in New Vegas. Still it's not unreasonable to expect a game based on historical reality to actually use that rather than make up a load o shit an wedge in some unproven bollocks that even the most biased historian will say is sketchy and unsupported.

I mean its their game, if they want to drop the reality bit an say we're making a modern setting with a bit of Viking flavour, well thats fine. Might be more successful an all, after all just look at Skyrim, personally i'd just jog on but i'm sure they'd attract more folk who want to be represented, acknowledged and feel special.
 

SausageInYourFace

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as if that somehow means it didn't exist (...) GOOD!

No one said that, as far as I am aware, I certainly didn't.

one of the articles I linked

And if you read that article again yourself - particularly the part about the 'trans' shamans - you will certainly see that its based on speculation and very thin inconclusive evidence. That is even recognized by the author himself.

Do I think the devs will do this? Nah, probably not. There are easier and more "progressive" ways to tackle these topics. And I understand why you might dislike that approach.

As I said, I am curious of how they'll end up implementing this. Yes, its theoretically possible that they'll do it in an incredibly nuanced way that will put me to shame. In that case, good for all of us. Looking at their comments however, I highly doubt it. I don't think that doubt is unreasonable, but we will see.
 
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Lurker King

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Buggery was illegal and punishable by exile or death in Sparta due to it being regarded as unmasculine to be on the receiving end. Otherwise opinions on pedastryy strongly differed among the city states, Plato in particular was heavily against it believing that sodomy served to feminise boys. It was also socially unacceptable for adult men to be in such a relationship, as someone had to be the submissive and this bore with it the stigma of humiliation.

Plato's opinion changed over time. In Phaedrus he mentions the importance of bro-to-bro sex for military purposes, and the Symposium is also filled with passages about male-to-male love. Buggery became illegal in Sparta after Lycurgus, but it was common practice before that.
 

Drowed

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I just love these threads about historical revisionism, it's fun.

I mean, going by so many people today try to describe the past civilizations, I imagine that in 1000 or 2000 years the current society will be described as a congregation of post-cross-genderfluid non-trinary transhumans which abolished the neotraditional concept of family and post-religious syncretism inaugurating the Atheist-Christislaminity.

(And maybe, possibly, marking the beginning of the matriarchy and extinction of the male gender.)


SEMI-EDIT: Oh, and the game kinda looks cool, despite all this.
 
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vonAchdorf

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Bubbles said:
Boredom and monotony. Unceasing repetition. The mind is sedated, lulled to sleep among the endless waves. No hope. No relief.

Is this what it was like to be a Danish chieftain in the Dark Ages? The Spanish development studio Sunburned Games seems to think so. Their first game "The Great Whale Road" has just been released into Early Access, and it's one of the most boring RPGs in recent memory. In its present state, the game lacks any sense of challenge, any sense of urgency, and any sense of entertainment. When I had finished playing through the press build, I felt like I had lost several hours of my life that I would never be able to get back. Then I looked at the clock and realized that the entire playthrough had only taken me 90 minutes.

Does this mean it's better or worse than F4 on the Bubbles scale?
 
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Bubbles

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The Great Whale Road didn't offer any entertainment value for me in the current version, while I could at least make fun of Fallout 4. But TGWR has a much greater potential to actually be good at release.
 

vonAchdorf

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I really wonder why they apparently didn't bring any fun elements in their EA? That's not exactly great advertising. (Will wait for some Steam reviews, the audience might not be Bubbles and like it).

The card combat seems to be exactly what I expected, a gimmicky and abstract system, that's detrimental to muh immersion, while not even making use of the tactical possibilities it could offer.
 

vonAchdorf

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Reviewer on Steam said:
I have a feeling that this will elicit quite a few negative reviews by players who only put in an hour or so worth of time into the gameplay. It's not for that audience. This is a game that will arguably take a couple of playthroughs before people truly appreciate the game and what it has going on. I wont suggest that there is as much going on as a Civilization game. However, that is the type of crowd that I believe the developers have targeted. I certainly had similar feelings starting out with this game as I did in my first hour or so of playing Civ.

There is a lot, arguably too much, to take in at first and you will probably suffer through periods where you feel lost. You may even feel that you're playing multiple different games. So be warned - the tutorial screens are your friends. Read them thoroughly and take your time to absorb the information. Please don't just rush right through them even though they are all able to be brought back. There's not much worse than having to re-read and re-read tutorial screens that you rushed through in the first instance.

Did he review the same game? He also said that the combat was challenging.
 
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Bubbles

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Well, the game really is quite stat heavy, and once these stats start making a meaningful difference, the game could be much better. My greatest concern is that the developers might be pursuing a Banner Saga-style approach to failure, with the party unable to die and your home settlement surviving no matter what (in the current build, you can harvest zero food and the village will still survive). If these are not placeholder mechanics, but actually the intended design, then I'd be very disappointed.

The endlessly tedious seafaring is also roughly similar to The Banner Saga's overland journeys, but that game had a better idea of how to mix things up (switching to different groups every few hours, constantly changing the landscape and landmarks), didn't send you past the exact same stretch of landscape two or three times in a row (realistic for the storyline, but extra boring), and actually offered events that could result in the death of a party member or reveal new information about the plot during the travels. Every travelling event I've seen in TGWR is totally disconnected from the plot; I think it's because they were designed to be endlessly and randomly repeated.

I really wonder why they apparently didn't bring any fun elements in their EA? That's not exactly great advertising.

Maybe the funding they could get from their fans was more important than making a great first impression. I wouldn't blame the devs at all for rushing the game into EA if they had money trouble.
 

vonAchdorf

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I think I'll wait for one of the next bigger content updates before deciding to get the game or not, just to see if they got their priorities right. The asking price isn't that high.

They say they want to release in winter, which seems to be ambitious considering the state of the game you describe.
 
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Bubbles

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They posted that two hours after release. I don't regret giving them a critical preview, but it's pretty disheartening to see how important the Steam review score seems to be for the devs. They still have many months of improvements and sales ahead of them.
 
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Bubbles

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On free vs. on-rails travelling:

OodWttX.png


That sounds better than it is right now, but we'll have to see how it turns out in practice. Currently you can only travel by clicking on the name of a quest in the journal; the game automatically plots a course for you and insta-returns you home when you're done. The big question is whether they'll ever allow players to plot their own course.
 

vonAchdorf

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They posted that two hours after release. I don't regret giving them a critical preview, but it's pretty disheartening to see how important the Steam review score seems to be for the devs. They still have many months of improvements and sales ahead of them.

The SteamSpy guy said, there's only one launch for (most) games - which means if you don't sell at EA launch, it will be hard to sell later.
I think this might be different for niche titles which don't have a huge following at first, but con convince their target group through a professionally managed EA. I hope for them, that this will be the case here.
 
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Bubbles

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Sounds like we'll know more about their plans next week:

Character development - I can confirm that there is an affliction system on our list. The name is a tribute to Darkest Dungeon, which is one of the games we worship and pray to regularly at Sunburned Games. ;) Characters will acquire afflictions/traits through players' decisions in events/combat/... and these in turn will trigger other events. This is one of the more complex items on our list, and you will see it on the roadmap next week.

We haven't considered families or relationships so far, and for Early Access this is out of scope. But there is certainly food for design thought there!

Character customisation is very hard as we digitally hand-draw all the characters (portraits and miniatures). From the beginning of the project, we wanted to draw a variety of characters and poses - that in turn makes character customisation very expensive. We would have to draw every possible character, weapon and armour set combination. One of those 2D versus 3D trade offs. ;) Therefore we'll go down the other route, which is more feasible, and will lock characters a bit more in with weapon types.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/464830/discussions/0/353915309342839265/#c353915309344396136

The SteamSpy guy said, there's only one launch for (most) games - which means if you don't sell at EA launch, it will be hard to sell later.

I think this might be different for niche titles which don't have a huge following at first, but con convince their target group through a professionally managed EA. I hope for them, that this will be the case here.

The game peaked at 33 concurrent players on its EA release day. That's less than half of what AoD, Underrail or Caves of Qud got, but maybe the developers don't need to sell that many copies either. According to their website, there's only 10 people on the development team.
 
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vonAchdorf

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Dev blog

Welcome to our first weekly Early Access dev blog post!


Firstly thanks to all our players and the community activity - great suggestions and feedback. Now it is time to look ahead, and talk about what we have planned for the next few months.

Please note that this road-map is not cut in stone. We expect that we will be updating it as we move along, and as we receive more feedback. We are aiming to release an update at the end of each month.

Patches like v0.2.1 will be the exception. In this specific case we are splitting the scope of the August release to be able to have some updates ready in time for Gamescom.

I know that this is not the the most exciting update, but gamedev is not only fun and games. ;)

August-Gamescom - v0.2.0: Enhanced Features, Usability Improvements, Bug Fixes

New Features:
  • Ability to discard trading goods from the ship storage
  • New combat map: forest
  • Trading goods colour codes to indicate where they are produced
  • Character opinions for winter events

Improvements:
  • Replacing “sleeping on board” screen with a day transition screen
  • Winter home settlement - Make winter wintery!
  • Updating sailing screens with light specific for each day stage

Bug Fixes:
  • Remove ability of characters to swap places in combat
  • Characters will no longer pass through other characters during combat
  • Fix a bug where the player cannot leave a location after a saved game has been loaded
  • Fix a bug where the player cannot leave a location after combat
  • Fix a bug where armour sets are vanishing or the incorrect image is shown

Content:
  • First character mission - Going north to Ribe and the Limfjord
  • Additional NPCs - Adding a second set of Saxon enemies
  • New winter events - Events at your home settlement during winter
  • New location events - Events when you are at other settlements
  • New locations along the Danish coast

August - v0.2.1: Events and Enhancements

New Features:
  • Linking of events - Will allow us to combine events into chains for more story-telling options
  • Raiding of camps - This is the first phase of the raiding functionality. The ability to raid villages will be added later.

Improvements:
  • Revised weather system - Rain, and then some more rain
  • Event outcome randomisation - Some events results will have changing outcomes
  • Event character opinions - More variety of opinions
  • Trading goods balancing - Updating prices and availabilities

Content:
  • New sailing events
  • New rumours

You can find our full road-map from now until the end of October on our website.[www.the-great-whale-road.com]

The highlights in the September release will be Character Progression and a Trade System. The October release will feature the New Combat System with a new AI, as well as the 2nd and 3rd Chapters of the Danish Story.

Best.

New combat system in October? What will they change?

Also it's at 91% favourable reviews at the moment.
 
Self-Ejected

Bubbles

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Bug Fixes:
Remove ability of characters to swap places in combat

I'll assume this is a short-term "fix" because people on the Steam forums complained about inadvertently ordering their party members to swap places. Removing the mechanic altogether would be a shame.
 

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