Baldur's Gate: Seige of Dragonspear

So I get a GOG message about a new Baldur's Gate game, and I get excited. I go over to GOG and read the reviews, and see how bad they are. My excitement is gone.

But maybe the reviews are just people who hate politically correct games and SJW's. Okay, I admit I hate those things too. But I don't mind a little bit of social justice like what they did with Dragon Age: Inquisition. But I wouldn't push it any further than that game did, otherwise it starts to get intrusive to what the game is actually about.

What ever happened to fantasy games being about you know... fantasy? What happened that fantasy games now have to accurately portray life in the year of 2016? I get the impression women don't want men to even have fantasies anymore. They've taken our fantasies away from us. Thanks women. We knew we could count on you for preventing us from having a good time.

Okay I'm being facetious here. But I'm serious about fantasy games should be about fantasy, not real life. Having not played the game, I won't comment any more than that. I tried to find some youtube videos of this trans character, but I couldn't find it. Regardless, I hear the rest of the gameplay is just as bad. Too bad, I would have really enjoyed an expansion bridging the link between Baldur's Gate and BG2, 2 of my favorite RPG's.

Anyone here played it? Thoughts please? And be honest, don't rate it down just because the game is politically correct.

Disgustipated said:

So I get a GOG message about a new Baldur's Gate game, and I get excited. I go over to GOG and read the reviews, and see how bad they are. My excitement is gone.

But maybe the reviews are just people who hate politically correct games and SJW's. Okay, I admit I hate those things too. But I don't mind a little bit of social justice like what they did with Dragon Age: Inquisition. But I wouldn't push it any further than that game did, otherwise it starts to get intrusive to what the game is actually about.

What ever happened to fantasy games being about you know... fantasy? What happened that fantasy games now have to accurately portray life in the year of 2016? I get the impression women don't want men to even have fantasies anymore. They've taken our fantasies away from us. Thanks women. We knew we could count on you for preventing us from having a good time.

Okay I'm being facetious here. But I'm serious about fantasy games should be about fantasy, not real life. Having not played the game, I won't comment any more than that. I tried to find some youtube videos of this trans character, but I couldn't find it. Regardless, I hear the rest of the gameplay is just as bad. Too bad, I would have really enjoyed an expansion bridging the link between Baldur's Gate and BG2, 2 of my favorite RPG's.

Anyone here played it? Thoughts please? And be honest, don't rate it down just because the game is politically correct.

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Yes, i have heard that it tries to be too PC. Like how in the first one Safana was basically a bit of a sex object (and she was damn sexy might i add), whereas in this one she actually has a personality

I am all for widening the pool somewhat however. Gay characters, female characters, characters from ethnic minorities etc. None of this i have a problem with. And sometimes i think it works rather well, like in Dragon Age origins with Zevran, who is probably one of the best gay characters. Or Samantha Traynor in Mass Effect. But you need to have good writing to make it work. And that is what seems liek the problem here. The moment you start including something because you think you ought to - like give a female a strong personality, make a gay person really macho, it just seems fake and insincere. You should only ever include a character for the sake of the story. And under no circumstances should you change a characters perceived personality in order to fit in with some sort of "modern" ideology. Which is what the devs seem to have done here.

I mean if you look at it another way - maybe it is not PC to make fun of stupid people. So in this one they decide to make Minsc some sort of genius in a serious and meaningful way. Thats just dumb. And it doesnt work.

IMO some of the best characters in gaming have come from GTA. And thats not because they are nice people. Often they are horrible, violent, sexist and racist. But i also dont see whats wrong with that. There are the same in books, TV and film. Why not games?

But then you will always have the militant in the crowd who will label you as tacitly agreeing with a particular character just because you can play as them. For that i guess you can thank the likes of Anita Saarkeesian. After all her tropes vs women or whatever the bile was called that she produced caused quite the stir.

Personally i think its a shame they went down the PC route, if thats what they have done. They might have been better sticking with established strong female characters in the game like Viconia, Imoen, jaheira and Dyneheir. But dont go off piste. And dont reinvent the wheel. Viconia was racist and incredibly sexist, but then people were racist and sexist to her, so that kind of makes sense.

Okay I'm being facetious here. But I'm serious about fantasy games should be about fantasy, not real life.

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And...how does fantasy translate to not including transgender characters? There's no link from the one to the other. Fantasy already includes large parts of the length and breadth of human diversity. What's special about transgender folk that their part of human diversity cannot be part of fantasy?

"Sorry, you transgender folks are too controversial to include in games because that would bother people", now THAT is bringing real life stuff into fantasy. It's saying that the kind of discrimination transgender folk face everyday in real life should also apply in fantasy worlds, to the point of keeping them out of those worlds altogether.

As for Safana: I haven't seen HOW they handled her character, and I'm certainly not about to trust the judgement of either of you, (or anyone who would complain about social justice in video games). There are good ways to add depth and change the interpretation of the characters, there are also bad ways (like Sherbz's proposed "suddenly making Minsc a genius). Not having seen which they took exactly, I can't comment on the quality of the writing. But it's certainly not a crime, in and of itself, to change the portrayal of a character.

You guys realise D&D has half breeds and spells for changing gender and stuff right? There's no problem with the game here, only a problem with some of the people playing it.

Gators complaining about a single NPC in a game.

Like a single NPC...

There is a reason I like the internet application that converts the words "political correctness" into "respecting others" cause these negative reviews over a transgendered figure is just pathetic. Gaters, as the Sad and Rapid Puppies they are, are truly whiners. Transphobia is pathetic.

A useful article on the case.

Also this Point and Clickbait poke must be posted.

Those sorts of people won't like Paizo's material then. Several of the Pathfinder iconic characters are within the LGBT spectrum and it's just part of their back story, as (you know) it should be.

Hehehe ethics in heroic adventuring.

Let's face it, GGers. "It's about ethics in..." is going to be a recuring meme joke for the next decade or so, right up with "Make ... Great Again" and "Je suis ...", among others.

It probably would sounded better coming from a paladin like Ajantis or Kheldorn, but it really doesn't sound that bad as a throw-away line. Hell, BG2 had the classic situation with a low-level party trying to magic missile the Slayer, which ends with the infamous line, "Bondari reloads."

And short of a paladin, Minsc's a pretty good choice for the line. He IS all about butt-kicking Evil (in a rather paladin-y sort of way), after all.

I don't like it when people include "variety" characters for the sake of having some people represented, but that line isn't even that awful (though it still kind of sounds like cringey fanfic), not that it's well written either. Just another pointless internet fight that should be ignored.

Amateurishness is all I expected out of Beamdog anyway and why I have paid zero attention to this game.

There's only so much capacity for "well-written" in a minor NPC - there's a very low limit to how much characterization you can pack in a few lines of conversation.

Oda Nobunaga said:

There's only so much capacity for "well-written" in a minor NPC - there's a very low limit to how much characterization you can pack in a few lines of conversation.

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So write a main character in? Why is that a problem? There are a few minor characters in bioware games that are mere window dressing, aside from some exceptions. Have the balls to make them a leading part, and then judge accordingly. But they must be well written.

I'd love to see that, but I can understand reluctance to do it, given how high the bar is going to be on every side for the first few of those (once it's been done a few times, perhaps not so much).

And of course the marketing departments are probably going to fight the idea tooth and nail as long as they can.

In the meantime, a bit of representation as minor characters is certainly far better than none.

This and the "buttgate" thing just puzzles me. How can these things be such a big deal?

I hear there are other complaints about the quality of this game, but any other legitimate complaints will be forgotten, and it will be remembered as having flopped because gamers can't handle a single poorly written NPC with the wrong genitalia, rather than any overall analysis.

sherbz said:

If you must know, the character I was most sexually attracted to was Zevran. Followed closely by Viconia. Maybe I am a terrible person. I am sexually attracted to an assassin and a man hating fundamentalist. And that's to say nothing of my attraction to computer sprites.

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Nah those are good choices, Zevran was funny and viconia was tsundere although when I first played BG2 those first times I was always a Half-Orc which was too ugly to love.
I just hope you didn't like that Alistair lookalike in dragon age 2. Even putting aside his terrorism he was awful to be around.

Oruc said:

Nah those are good choices, Zevran was funny and viconia was tsundere although when I first played BG2 those first times I was always a Half-Orc which was too ugly to love.
I just hope you didn't like that Alistair lookalike in dragon age 2. Even putting aside his terrorism he was awful to be around.

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No Alastair was always too geeky for me. I prefer my men more discreet. A bit like me I guess.

sherbz said:

No Alastair was always too geeky for me. I prefer my men more discreet. A bit like me I guess.

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No I don't mean Alistair, I mean the one who looked like him and blew up a church

Oruc said:

No I don't mean Alistair, I mean the one who looked like him and blew up a church

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For my sins, I have never played dragon age 2. So I don't actually know what you are talking about. It's on my to do list.

sherbz said:

For my sins, I have never played dragon age 2. So I don't actually know what you are talking about. It's on my to do list.

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Oh my bad, I shouldn't spoil it for you.

Is Token-ism really such an unprecedented thing in gaming? If so I must say I'm impressed. Still, I suppose token trans characters is relatively novel compared to racial or gay ones where there has been a precedent from film for years.

I say I support equal-opportunity tokenism if we really have to have it, while tokenism itself is a bad thing. I haven't played any of the games, Baldurs Gate fans have a right to be upset if the quality of writing has worsened, but there has to be more than just this one thing.

(Not a reply to anyone in particular, just general thoughts.)