OT: Video Game Talk (oh, also the Week before the All-Star Break Pre-Game Talk "archive")

[RockLobster]

Interesting. I definitely knew there was more to the names she chose than face value, but I always thought they were fun, quirky reasons. Maybe there are racist undertones, I can't really speak to that, but I also wonder if she just didn't give a lot of this much thought because she never expected to get this big. Either way, she should have tiptoed a bit more. We clearly live in a different world now too though.

Please excuse me if I come off insensitive or ignorant, but what's wrong with giving characters stereotypical names? If asians have asian-y names, and a lot of Irish have typical Irish names...how all of the sudden is that racist? If I'm writing a Chinese novel, I'm sure as shit not going to name my main character John Smith. I guess I've never understood that aspect of "racism". The Shacklebolt part is pretty f***ed up if true though, no doubt.

Idk about the goblins thing...that feels like a bit of a reach to me. Aren't goblins mythically known for their greed and yearning for gold? Similar to dwarves in the LoTR world? I know in Clash of Clans the goblins do increased damage vs gold caches, etc.

I believe it's how they look in the movies, of which Rowling had a relative unprecedented level of approval of, that is really the issue here. Go look at the goblins in the movie and then find a pic of Nazi anti-semite propaganda.

With regard to the name. Like Cho Chang...I'm not Asian so I cannot give a lot of insight in to this, so if someone else who is wants to help me I'd appreciate it. But I believe the idea is that both "Cho" and "Chang" are Asian surnames, but not of the same country. It's just a real lack of foresight in to planning. Like you can look at all the names she gave the white characters: Bellatrix LeStrange, Hermione Granger, etc.; but when it came to the book's first Asian character it comes off as if she went "Hmm...Asian names...oh I got it, 'Cho Chang', nailed it, moving on"

 

[SaltySkywalker]

I don't think it's hilarious or paradoxical.

People are learning everyday, they grow up with words and language that, as minors, they may not fully understand the meaning behind them. So they can be people who aren't racist to their core, but not understand the words they're using are themselves racist/prejudicial.

I can think of a few from when I grew up: Homophobic Slur/faggy and jew.

I know countless people who now work in equality-based institutions who used Homophobic Slur/faggy to mean "lame", yet they didn't fully understand the term back then as a pre-teen/teen; similarly for some people I grew up with saying something like "You jewed me out of [X]". They had no real understanding that the word and way they were using it were anti-semitical, not until a little later in their lives. I would never call them racist because they didn't understand what they were saying and the historical meaning of those words. Now, I would if they were educated on them and still considered using them because they didn't care. But that's not what happened.

Delete.

 

[henchman21]

They have names like that because they're children's books for children written by someone who isn't very good at writing.

I feel this fact gets overlooked a lot. JK Rowling isn't Murakami. Her work is for pre-teens and teens to enjoy... thus they were written simply for that audience.

 

[Ararana]

They have names like that because they're children's books for children written by someone who isn't very good at writing.

Not to mention Cho and Shamus were introduced in the Philosopher's Stone in 1997. For context 11 years BEFORE California, of all places, voted on and passed legislation to make gay marriage illegal.

Doesn't excuse it, but judging individuals in the past through today's lens should come with a little context.

 

[S E P H]

I don't think it's hilarious or paradoxical.

People are learning everyday, they grow up with words and language that, as minors, they may not fully understand the meaning behind them. So they can be people who aren't racist to their core, but not understand the words they're using are themselves racist/prejudicial.

I can think of a few from when I grew up: Homophobic Slur/faggy and jew.

You have to consciously think of the slur to call someone that though and the situations you are presenting tend to happen during the immature kid ages which eventually grow up. It was like my discussion a couple of years back where I presented the idea that the majority of kids are racist. Now that was probably a big-time over-exaggeration on my part, but a lot of it has to do with kids not truly understanding what's going on (which you imply).

I wouldn't call that unconscious racism, I would call that naivety. For example, when Chappelle Show came out, parents not really knowing what it was or not paying attention to what their kids were watching, probably had many kids watch it because it was funny. I know I did and since kids pretty much imitate everything they see on the telly, was using the N-word in my mid-school like it was Fruit Stripes gum. Them using the word because they consciously thought of it in Wernicke's area, went through the arcuate fasciculus, and finally out the Broca's area. Sure the context portion was not evident at the time - due to naivety, - but hopefully, the majority of those kids learned not to ever use it once they acquired reasoning skills. Everyone probably says something stupid at points in their lives, however, what unconscious racism does is make a "jail-free card" for people who truly conduct racist acts.

I will also bring up here the idea that I suggest you are missing is that many aspects that we see in social life are ones that we are presupposition to due to cultural inferences. For example, Indian people wanting to only marry Indian people is not a racist act nor is it an act of unconscious racism. An Indian being an Indian person can have the predisposition to want to marry someone of their own culture first and foremost. These reasons could be to a number of factors, but familiarity, religion, and just day-to-day life are probably the most foundational like raising their kid with certain values found only in Indian culture or vegetarians due to the certain concepts of Hinduism. The racist part that could potentially come into play is when my Indian brethren got shunned by his parents for marrying a Mexican woman. Thankfully, they came around after a couple of years, but there are probably worse stories of parents never forgiving their offspring. This just doesn't happen only in Indian culture though, but it's one of the more socially known ones.

 

[MonsterMack]

IMO people are over-analyzing the hell out of the Harry Potter books and just finding what they want to see, in terms of the "racist undertones". You can find/make up something bigoted in near everything if you try hard enough.

 

[UncleRisto]

Idk about the goblins thing...that feels like a bit of a reach to me. Aren't goblins mythically known for their greed and yearning for gold? Similar to dwarves in the LoTR world? I know in Clash of Clans the goblins do increased damage vs gold caches, etc.

Antisemitism predates goblins. But I mean they really look like Nazi propaganda and they control banks. However, I think she probably just went with some stereotypes without putting thought into it. It might even be like a joke, honestly. I think it's kind of funny.

 

[RockLobster]

IMO people are over-analyzing the hell out of the Harry Potter books and just finding what they want to see, in terms of the "racist undertones". You can find/make up something bigoted in near everything if you try hard enough.

Well yeah, that's kind of a point that Henchy & I made a few days ago too.

I've maintained that I am going to play the game, likely enjoy it, and continue enjoying the Potter films that are out now because I don't believe they align with the views that Rowling herself has. As a fan of the series growing up, I'm not going to let her shitty viewpoints take that away.

 

[sethro109]

IMO people are over-analyzing the hell out of the Harry Potter books and just finding what they want to see, in terms of the "racist undertones". You can find/make up something bigoted in near everything if you try hard enough.

I knew it!

 

[MonsterMack]

I knew it!

lol
I can't like posts until mid March so consider this a like.

 

[Muffin]

lol
I can't like posts until mid March so consider this a like.

They didn't like you being a huge fan of a certain poster on the St Louis board?

 

[henchman21]

So... back to better news. Nintendo Direct tomorrow, we should get a nice presentation of Tears of the Kingdom. That alone has me hyped! I just finished up my 4th playthrough of BotW a couple days ago and I'm more than ready for that to drop in May.

We won't get this news, but news of an upgraded or new Switch would be my dream. I find myself wanting a Steam Deck, but knowing an upgraded Switch or whatever they call the next gen model is less than 18 months away makes me pause.

 

[RockLobster]

lol
I can't like posts until mid March so consider this a like.

 

[S E P H]

Antisemitism predates goblins. But I mean they really look like Nazi propaganda and they control banks. However, I think she probably just went with some stereotypes without putting thought into it. It might even be like a joke, honestly. I think it's kind of funny.

I love the Harry Potter series even though the Fantastic Beast Series has sort of destroyed some of the universe for me. The first movie was great, the second movie was good but had too many characters, and the third movie was just suckage at maximum level.

As time increases and as Ceremony said, she's not a very good writer...

 

[MacKaRant]

So... back to better news. Nintendo Direct tomorrow, we should get a nice presentation of Tears of the Kingdom. That alone has me hyped! I just finished up my 4th playthrough of BotW a couple days ago and I'm more than ready for that to drop in May.

We won't get this news, but news of an upgraded or new Switch would be my dream. I find myself wanting a Steam Deck, but knowing an upgraded Switch or whatever they call the next gen model is less than 18 months away makes me pause.

I basically never go back and replay open world type games, but last year I did a second playthrough of Breath of the Wild in order to prepare for Tears of the Kingdom.

Actually, it's quite a long story, but Breath of the Wild was the first 3D open world style game I ever played. So I didn't fully appreciate on my first playthrough all the ways it flipped typical open world design. But, on the other hand, I wasn't suffering from any of the open world fatigue that I think was starting to creep into most gamers by 2017. It was a mind blowing experience to have BotW be my first open world.

 

[MonsterMack]

Told our resident troll Drij to f*** off and he reported me. I drunkenly made it worse by reporting the warning I got in my dms. Whoops

 

[henchman21]

Pokemon is absolutely a flagship franchise, but their insistence on hitching it to GameFreak hasn't exactly produced the results you'd expect from a AAA console Pokemon. I know a lot of people have liked them, but everyone can agree that they're incredibly buggy and look like they're two steps away from being 3DS games visually. Lots of that has to do with the Switch's limitations, but still. We saw what can be done with the likes of BotW. As for the others, I don't think anyone could reasonably argue a game like Splatoon is AAA on the level you'd expect from a God of War or Spider-Man. A great series, sure. But, like I said, lower on the totem pole.

Couldn't disagree more on their variety of exclusives. They've pumped out games like Rift Apart, Astro's Playroom and Sackboy's Big Adventure which are all excellent platformers in their own right...then have produced or made deals for the likes of Demon's Souls, Horizon, FF7R and NiOh 2 which are all standout RPG's. Tons of their games follow the action/narrative formula for sure, but they do it better than anyone. There's also a good amount of variety in those games as well (Spider-Man playing nothing like Tsushima, for example).

I'm just not sure how you can expect much more than games like Demon's Souls, Miles Morales, Sackboy and Astro's. All above or damn-near 90+ games on review aggregators, on top of your standard third-party fare. It doesn't get much better than that in contemporary launch lineups.

So with Nintendo's results... we have some numbers on the AAAness of Splatoon. GoW Ragnarok has solid ~11m copies and Sony has stated it was the fastest selling first party game in their history. It has sold fantastically to put it bluntly. Splatoon 3 has sold 10m copies since its release in September. A bit longer, but 10m copies is definitely a bar AAA games are happy with. Pokemon sold over 20m.

 

[henchman21]

I basically never go back and replay open world type games, but last year I did a second playthrough of Breath of the Wild in order to prepare for Tears of the Kingdom.

Actually, it's quite a long story, but Breath of the Wild was the first 3D open world style game I ever played. So I didn't fully appreciate on my first playthrough all the ways it flipped typical open world design. But, on the flip side, I wasn't suffering from any of the open world fatigue that I think was starting to creep into most gamers by 2017. It was a mind blowing experience to have BotW be my first open world.

I'd kill to have BotW be my first open world experience. That game was just such a literal breath of fresh air to the concept. Just re-playing it now, the graphics are kinda shitty and there are some framerate issues... but the game is just so F good. I replayed Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk just prior to BotW... and while I love both of those games, BotW is just a whole different level. Makes me question Earthbound as my favorite game.

 

[MacKaRant]

I'd kill to have BotW be my first open world experience. That game was just such a literal breath of fresh air to the concept. Just re-playing it now, the graphics are kinda shitty and there are some framerate issues... but the game is just so F good. I replayed Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk just prior to BotW... and while I love both of those games, BotW is just a whole different level. Makes me question Earthbound as my favorite game.

As amazing as it was to have Zelda be my first open world, going back and playing other open world games after BotW really sucked though...with a few exceptions.

Witcher 3 was fun because of Geralt and how fantastically realized and lived in the world felt, which outweighed the questionable open world design decisions in the game (follow the line gameplay, density of map markers, level-gated side quests, etc.).

Skyrim (and Elder Scrolls in general) is the OG of open world fantasy RPGs, and I appreciated the uniqueness of the culture and architecture in each new major city.

Elden Ring is the one game that took the lessons of BotW in letting the player explore based on curiosity rather than map icons and did something unique with it, namely mashing it up with Dark Souls and doing something that BotW couldn't--have compelling "traditional" dungeons within the open world structure.

 

[henchman21]

As amazing as it was to have Zelda be my first open world, going back and playing other open world games after BotW really sucked though...with a few exceptions.

Witcher 3 was fun because of Geralt and how fantastically realized and lived in the world felt, which outweighed the questionable open world design decisions in the game (follow the line gameplay, density of map markers, level-gated side quests, etc.).

Skyrim (and Elder Scrolls in general) is the OG of open world fantasy RPGs, and I appreciated the uniqueness of the culture and architecture in each new major city.

Elden Ring is the one game that took the lessons of BotW in letting the player explore based on curiosity rather than map icons and did something unique with it, namely mashing it up with Dark Souls and doing something that BotW couldn't--have compelling "traditional" dungeons within the open world structure.

Yeah Elden Ring is a nice mashup of BotW and Dark Souls... I'm not always the pickiest about frame rates, but I think that might be Elden Ring's biggest failing (on consoles). The Souls games can be brutally difficult at times, so when the framerate is all over the place and you don't have VRR (I don't on my main TV)... it pulls you out of the immersion. If the difficulty was a bit more forgiving or the framerate was rock solid, it would probably be much higher in my personal lists. Though I still think Bloodborne is the best Souls game and the framepacing is utter shit.

 

[S E P H]

There is such a thing as a game having too big of a map and I argue BotW and AC: Origins suffer from those same fates. Don't get me wrong, both are some of the best games I ever played, but the top left region in BotW is just empty snowy mountain space with close to zero Easter Eggs or things to do, whereas Origins is the best Assassin's Creed game I've played, but way too long to traverse the damn map. I love the differences in setting when you go to one of the ancient pyramids from the sand dunes on the very far left of the map, but it simply is just a time waster in the end. It's a little bit annoying not because I don't appreciate the work and value that the studio put in, but because the time to make the map like 0.5 times bigger could've been put to better use by making the world much more immersive. Think about how much more the Nintendo team could've added in terms of more enemies, quests, weapons, and anything else I am missing if they decided to make the BotW map 1-2 times smaller?

 

[henchman21]

There is such a thing as a game having too big of a map and I argue BotW and AC: Origins suffer from those same fates. Don't get me wrong, both are some of the best games I ever played, but the top left region in BotW is just empty snowy mountain space with close to zero Easter Eggs or things to do, whereas Origins is the best Assassin's Creed game I've played, but way too long to traverse the damn map. I love the differences in setting when you go to one of the ancient pyramids from the sand dunes on the very far left of the map, but it simply is just a time waster in the end. It's a little bit annoying not because I don't appreciate the work and value that the studio put in, but because the time to make the map like 0.5 times bigger could've been put to better use by making the world much more immersive. Think about how much more the Nintendo team could've added in terms of more enemies, quests, weapons, and anything else I am missing if they decided to make the BotW map 1-2 times smaller?

I don't at all think BotW's map is too big. I think it is much closer to the proper size. The Hebra Mountains are more desolate (though I think the Gerudo desert is far more desolate)... like most extreme cold regions are. I still felt there was quite a bit to do there.

A game that suffers from that (and is still great) is the Witcher 3... I don't know the stats but that map has to be 3-4x BotW and double Orgins. None of them hold a candle to Just Cause 3 or Death Stranding. Those games are utterly enormous... and Death Stranding is basically post apocalyptic FedEx simulator.

 

[Ararana]

I will never happened but just give me a playable Zelda damn it. Switching between melee Link and ranged magic Zelda throughout the game would be amazing.

 

[henchman21]

I will never happened but just give me a playable Zelda damn it. Switching between melee Link and ranged magic Zelda throughout the game would be amazing.

Boy do I ever have news for you!!! You can do this in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.




(Just ignore that the game sucks)

 

[Ararana]

Boy do I ever have news for you!!! You can do this in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.




(Just ignore that the game sucks)

Lol yeah HW is terrible.