OK, I’ve read all your comments throughout this thread - I’ve responded to quite a few of them - and now I’m going to say this, and sign off.
Even assuming - as I have tried very hard to do so far - that you’re asking these questions in good faith, there’s very simple reason why no one wants to engage with you, why you’re getting down votes and tired, dismissive answers… this is a settled issue.
There is no meaningful or useful new debate to be had here. You’re turning up in the middle of a PhD physics lecture demanding to have a discussion about whether the Earth orbits the sun. We’ve been there, we had that argument, and the fact that you’re not willing to educate yourself sufficiently on the subject does not mean that you get to throw it out to the floor for fresh discussion as if there’s anything to be gained from that.
That’s why no one wants to have a thrilling intellectual debate with you about this. Because it’s boring, it’s old, and you have not raised a single new or interesting point in this entire thread. And while you’re treating this as intellectual exercise, real people’s lives are being destroyed by the bigots that you are - knowingly or unknowingly - carrying water for.
If all this is news to you, if you thought you were somehow at the forefront of cutting edge intellectual discussion here, then please take this as an opportunity to do some learning and growing. Spend some time listening to marginalized voices. Ask questions - respectfully and without making demands of people’s time - instead of asking for debate.
If you really do mean all this in good faith then I wish you the best and I hope to see you grow and learn from the experience, for your own sake as much as anyone else’s. We all have to start somewhere.
The intent of my posts was not to reopen settled debates, but to explore the principles that underlie how moderation decisions are made on platforms that host user-generated content. I believe this is a worthy subject of inquiry because it can affect various communities in different ways. While you see this issue as settled, the modding community is ever-evolving, and new scenarios that challenge established norms will likely continue to arise. I assure you that my intent is to engage in good faith, and I am open to learning from this experience. If you choose not to engage further, I respect your decision.
You’re coming at this from the angle that this is some strange new reality that the world has never encountered before, but it truly isn’t. This is not an “evolving new situation”, we’re not on the bold frontiers of strange new norms. It’s just bigotry. Bigotry isn’t new, it’s as old as mankind.
There’s a reason we’re all citing philosophical principles laid down in the 1940’s, almost like the world suddenly had a pressing need to reckon with the true cost of allowing violent intolerance to grow unchecked… Maybe some recent event prompted that?
The fact that bigots are communicating their bigotry through mods for videogames now doesn’t change what bigotry is, or how we fight it. This shit is older than any of us here, and the tools and principles are well established.
And the fact that bigots will frame their bigotry in dog whistles with just enough ambiguity that people like you can say “Maybe this was completely innocent” isn’t an accident, it’s by design. That quote from Lee Atwater I shared earlier? He’s talking about the politics of the early 1970s. Most of us weren’t alive then. Again, this is nothing new. The only change is that right now their target is trans people, because they always point their hate at the target society is least willing to defend. Pick off the weak from the herd.
If you’re trying to better understand how this stuff works, I respect that. Just because things have been understood for a long time, doesn’t mean everyone knows them. I didn’t start out magically knowing this stuff either. In my college days I styled myself as a free speech absolutist, someone who would on sheer magnificent principle defend the rights of a Nazi to be a Nazi. I learned better when I actually met and talked to the people that my “principles” were actively harming. So yes, I get it, and if you’re here to learn I commend that.
But please, don’t frame it as a debate. “Should we tolerate the free speech of bigots” is only a debate for the bigots, because like any guilty party they will never stop trying to relitigate their case. They can only benefit from this “debate” and the rest of us can only lose.
They will say things like “You’re just as bad as us if you censor us” to which we say “No, we are not, because our refusal to engage comes from clear moral principles, while yours comes from hatred.”
They will say “If you censor us, where do you draw the line?” to which we say “At the limits of your intolerance. We will tolerate, within reason, everything that is not an expression of bigotry and hatred.”
They will say “You cannot judge our intent or know our souls. How can you assign blame to our actions?” to which we say “We will judge you by your actions. The drunk driver doesn’t mean to cause harm, but we still criminalize the behaviour because it is harmful. If you do not intend to be a bigot, but you choose to actively express bigotry, we will hold you accountable for your actions all the same. A racist prank is still racist. Saying ‘Just kidding’ doesn’t undo the harm spread by your words. It is on you to learn these things and be better.”
They will say “But you could get it wrong. What if you misjudge the innocent?” to which we say “This could apply to any action of society. The innocent are convicted of crimes they did not commit, but this does undermine the value of having laws, it only reinforces that we must apply those laws as carefully and as justly as possible, that we must never forget the human cost of these decisions. It does not invalidate the decisions.”
They will find every angle, seek every accommodation, because they have nothing to lose by trying. They will never stop, and we can only let their arguments fall on deaf ears.
I’m not saying that there is absolutely no room for discussion to be had within this realm. There is always room for discussion in any subject. But you need to be mindful of the difference between “I think our models of climate change could be improved in this specific way…” vs “Is climate science real?” You won’t get any traction by arriving at a school and trying to dig up the foundations. Educate yourself on the fundamentals, and from there you can seek out specific areas where meaningful argument can be made, without needlessly relitigating core principles.
Your detailed response outlines a nuanced stance on the issue, framing it within a long historical context. However, I believe that framing the issue as ‘already resolved’ dismisses the evolving complexities of online moderation, and how it intersects with the fluid nature of speech and social norms.
Historical Precedence: While it’s true that bigotry has existed throughout human history, how we engage with it has evolved, especially in the digital era. To suggest that the ‘tools and principles are well-established’ may not fully capture the complexity of online spaces where interaction occurs asynchronously, across cultures, and without the benefit of vocal tone or facial expression.
Freedom of Speech: You critique the notion of debating whether we should ‘tolerate the free speech of bigots.’ However, even well-intended moderation can have a chilling effect on speech. How do we prevent the slippery slope where the bounds of acceptable speech continually narrow?
Intent vs Impact: You suggest judging people solely by their actions, but this discounts the complex interplay between intent and interpretation. Who gets to define what constitutes bigotry in a statement open to multiple interpretations?
Potential for Misjudgment: You accept that innocent people could be wrongly accused but say that this doesn’t invalidate the act of moderation. While true, this doesn’t address the ethical dilemma of sacrificing individual fairness for collective security.
The Role of Debate: The dismissal of debate as a tool available only to bigots undermines the basis of democratic society. Even well-established principles benefit from regular scrutiny. Shouldn’t we always strive to challenge our existing models to account for new variables?
Moral High Ground: Your argument assumes a moral high ground, positioning any differing opinion as inherently stemming from hatred or ignorance. This approach precludes constructive discussion and leaves no room for the reevaluation of norms and rules.
In sum, I respect your position but believe that it does not leave room for the complexities and nuances of this discussion. Insinuating that only ‘bigots’ would want to engage in a debate about freedom of speech and platform moderation is reductive and does not further a meaningful conversation about how we navigate these tricky waters.
I have waited till the release to play it. It’s still in its wrap. Is now the definitive moment finally? Do I get the DLC right now, or is that for later?
Maybe so! I had not heard that. So perhaps the best route is to play through a second time, with the update 2.0 patch and dlc, and play the dlc storyline after the main story has concluded.
So you bought the game on release and never played it because it turned out to be a broken unfinished mess, and now, without having played it again, you’re asking if you should dump even more money into it?
The downvotes, the jokes, I find it immature. Seems like lemmy turned out to be to have become toxic with the Reddit refugees.
Look, I’m looking forward on playing the game ever since release. I still respect cd project for what they have done with Witcher 3. I simply waited to play the game as my time is sparse nowadays and I have to chose consciously how I spent it. If the game gives me dozens of hours of a great time, I see no problem in spending the cash.
Seriously the assumption of free time that corpos have for their consumer base is WILD, but it just feeds into the ‘must have 100% market share’ mentality that drives the culture as we lose every shred of our living moments on anything but living
While true, I feel like games that work well on the Xbox Series S also work well on Steam Deck and when it comes to porting games to PC, those ones specifically are ported well.
All this power game developers have been getting, while great for creative endevours, has been either a waste of space or require outrageous specs just to perform normally. And some great games are bogged down by this while relying on upscaling methods to fill in the difference.
Either way, we’ve reached a point where more power and space isn’t the solution anymore to better games. Can only hope new tech gets better optimized.
Imagine relying on free labor to fix your broken ass game, and then having people defend you when called out for making a boring game that relies on free labor for content.
Imagine thinking that what is very probably the most hand-crafted content ever in a 3D game, with one of the broadest variety of choices for anything close to that scale, is a game lacking content.
It's not an opinion. If you ignore straight procedural generation with no human input like no man's sky, Starfield is very probably the biggest 3D game ever made. The fact that it's an absolutely massive game isn't debatable in any way.
Nobody who's played it is making the ridiculous claim that they ran out of content. It's fundamentally not possible for "relying on mods for content" to be in good faith.
BG3 is a top down CRPG. Having 3D assets and being a 3D game with full 3D movement aren't the same thing.
And whether it's more content is debatable. There's more pure story and production, with a lot of branching, but the overall amount of space (not counting Starfield's use of negative space because of the setting) is significantly smaller. And even in terms of total number of quest lines, Starfield has a lot. Which you can get more time out of is all about personal preference. There will be people with 1000 hours in both, easy.
Turn based and action are mutually exclusive. It is not and does not resemble an action game.
The assets are 3D. You do not play in 3D. You do not cast a spell and have the physics of your interaction calculated in real time while 10 other characters are simultaneously acting and having their spells calculated based on the real time movements of all the other characters. You do not hit a jump button and have where you land determined by your speed and direction. The actual gameplay mechanics are all pure dice roll. There are no 3D physics in play.
Your jump must be decided by the vector of your movement when you hit the button. If it is not, there is literally nothing you can do to qualify.
Your actions must be aimed in real time and the outcome determined by the vector of your aim. Hitscan is shit, but it can qualify. If the action (not the vector of the shot) is decided by a dice roll, you unconditionally do not qualify.
There's plenty more. But BG3 is not and does not in any way mechanically resemble a 3D action RPG. It has no common traits. The camera perspective outside of combat isn't relevant.
I think you’re simply misunderstanding what “3D” means. 3D does not mean real-time, dynamic, or anything else. It simply means 3D. BG3 is entirely in 3D. Every single asset is 3D hell the entire explorable world is 3D. So yes, it quite literally is a 3D game. With action. Making it a 3D action game.
Think of what the alternative would be. Is this a 2D action game? Obviously not.
If you’re looking for a 3D real-time action game then yeah, this isn’t that. But that’s not what anyone’s arguing.
Edit: Also… is your argument that a game like Morrowind isn’t in 3D? Just because hits are handled by dice rolls? That’s insane lol.
No, it is not. You do not have a position in 3D space. You have a position on one of a small number of discrete 2D planes. BG3 is a 2D pure CRPG that happens to be decorated with 3D assets. Calling it a 3D game is the exact same unforgivable fraud as calling Metroid Dread one. It is not and does not in any way resemble it.
If you aren't strictly in real time for combat, you unconditionally cannot be or resemble an action game.
To be fully 3D, literally every part of the core gameplay physics must occur in real time. Hits cannot be determined by any other factor but the vector of the attack projected through 3D space into a character's hit box. The existence of a dice roll to determine a hit (not the vector) is an unconditional disqualifier in all contexts. There are no exceptions, and no room for them.
Everything about your description of BG3 is fully unhinged nonsense that should be offensive to any human being with any understanding of what games are. They aren't nitpicks. You're fundamentally destroying the core definition of very basic terms in a way that completely destroys all meaning. It would be less disgusting to be a flat earther.
In BG3 you do have a position in 3D space, what’re you talking about? Have you ever even played the game? My money’s on no.
Metroid Dread is a side scroller in which only one dimension is ever viewable outside of cutscenes. BG3 is a full 3D world with full camera movement, to the point of being an over the shoulder third person game should you choose to play it that way. They’re apples and oranges.
If you aren’t strictly in real time for combat, you unconditionally cannot be or resemble an action game.
If this were true then the term “real-time action” wouldn’t exist, as the term would be redundant. Besides, how do you then define games that have a bit of both, like Chrono Trigger? The whole thing seems a bit silly to me.
Hits cannot be determined by any other factor but the vector of the attack projected through 3D space into a character’s hit box.
So again, by your definition a game like Morrowind wouldn’t be considered a 3D game. That’s completely unhinged lol, nobody would agree with that. Clearly your definition is a bit flawed.
You’re fundamentally destroying the core definition of very basic terms in a way that completely destroys all meaning. It would be less disgusting to be a flat earther.
…I think maybe you need to take a break and go outside or something.
Literally everything about game development is a trade off. It's not possible to make a game at 5% of Starfield's scale as polished as a rockstar game. The difference in scale is too massive.
The scope of Bethesda games is a huge part of the point. Nobody else makes anything similar to what they offer.
UE5 is "the same engine" iterated on in the same way Bethesda's is, there are plenty of games using UE that don't run well, and it would take plenty of custom work to build to Bethesda's scale using it.
The current iteration of Unreal is completely unrecognizable from its original rendition, meanwhile this new version of the Creation Engine literally retains bugs present back in the days of Gamebryo. You simply can’t compare the two. But, in Bethesda’s defense, this isn’t due to incompetence or anything. It’s due to resource allocation and incentive.
There’s a reason most devs have been moving towards Unreal and away from making their own engines, and it’s because making your own proprietary engine takes insane amounts of time and resources - time and resources that devs don’t get any return on mind you. For most, it doesn’t make sense to dedicate loads of time to polishing an engine, when that time could be better spent on your next game - a game that you actually do get a return on.
Unreal is completely different in this regard, as Epic actually does get a return on their investment into the engine, as the engine itself is their product. So they have every incentive to polish Unreal as much as possible. That’s why it’s so insanely polished and indistinguishable from its original rendition. Not because all engines magically improve over time and at the same rate.
I know Todd Howard said that engines are somehow meaningless, and then a bunch of Bethesda fans took that and ran with it as a way to defend any criticism of the Creation Engine, but unfortunately it’s just not that simple.
And to be clear, I want the Creation Engine to succeed. I’ve been modding Bethesda games since 2013 and am still active in the modding community! The engine is rough but makes all of it possible, and the community at this point knows it so well that it’d be devastating to suddenly lose it all. But Bethesda needs to sit down and really dedicate some time to overhauling it, and unfortunately, albeit understandably, I just don’t see that happening.
Internet commenters keep getting dumber and dumber. I figured anyone with two brain cells to rub together would see that human beings can understand nuance and that not everyone likes or dislikes the same things and that the entire game is not 100% objectively bad.
People tend to think on black and white and not grayscale.
If you objectively compare the mechanics, writings and factions to fallout 4, Starfield is almost a direct upgrade from fallout 4 in several aspects. Gunplay, gun customization, rpg check choices that play more role in having a unique experience, factions that arent totally terribly written like it is in FO4, where almost all factions are unlikable or not interesting.
The people who are let down by starfield expected bethesda to not make a bethesda game in simple terms.
Do i think its GOTY material, hell no (im basically at the point of no return point in the game). Its a helluva lot better than FO4, but people treat the game like it killed their first child.
Well, I wouldn't necessarily say the exploration is as good, I think the issues about not having maps and there being a lot of loading screens are valid, but those problems don't automatically make the game horrible, and while the optimization isn't awesome after the recent update and Nvidia driver it looks decent and runs at an almost always locked out 60 FPS on my RTX 3060 with the settings lowered, so if you want the better visuals you can get there, and if you wanna play with smooth frame rate you can make that work, too. Again, not that that excuses it, but it's not irredeemably bad.
I think it's important that people understand what works about the game and what doesn't, whether they come to an end result of liking it or not, I hate to see people shit on it wholesale, and I also hate to see people defend it wholesale as well. It's got problems, but it's got successes, too.
I've actually been really enjoying it. It's a pleasant universe to just get absorbed in.
Sure, it's got a lot of very valid complaints (performance, UX etc.) but they matter less to me the more I get into it. Writing is not groundbreaking, but it gets pretty good. Since very good voice acting from otherwise random NPCs.
Also the first game I've played that lets me use non-binary pronouns as a third option, rather than just Gendered or not. Very cool and I hope to see more games do that.
I'd say the most disappointing thing is how straightforward almost every quest is. They don't do what Obsidian does in games like New Vegas and Outer Worlds where lots of quests have multiple resolutions, some hidden. In this game if it's not in the objective list it's usually not an option. It's the typical Bethesda experience of course, rather than Obsidian's, so it's still nice for what it is.
It's the closest I've personally felt to exploring and interacting with the worlds of Mass Effect 1 and Knights of the Old Republic in a long time. It's got that sense of wander about it for me.
Yeah the straightforward quests are sometimes a little disappointing.
I.e. there’s a tiny side quest where you have to get some rich guys wedding ring back from his fiance. You go to the fiance and that say that they saw the rich guy cheating (having a conversation) with the waiter at their favorite restaurant, and that they shouldn’t have to give the ring back.
I went back to the rich guy to find out if this was true, and to insert myself firmly into their drama, but there was no new dialogue from the rich guy. I just had to pick a dialogue option to either take the ring or let the fiance keep it.
It would have been nice to be able to confirm my suspicions that they were just being friendly with the waiter, not cheating, and maybe get the two back together. But no it was go to person A, get quest, speak to person B, return with ring/update that they are keeping it.
There are some great quests, and lots of cool world building, but the RP portion is sometimes a bit lacking compared to (as you mentioned) New Vegas.
The only game that scratches the space exploration itch Elite doesn't quite scratch (I mean, Elite is very good, but has it's shortcomings when it comes to on-foot stuff). Ship interiors, base building and having actual life on planets, not just some fungoida and bacterium patches, alone are a reason to be excited about Starfield. Also, jetpack combat.
Funny how Elder Scrolls veterans are enjoying the game for what it is while bitter Playstation diehards, wishful thinkers with gigabyte-sized dreams.txt and bandwagon-o'-hate jumpers are complaining about things that never were to be so loud you can clearly hear the "Reeeeeeeeeee...." from Alpha Centauri😏
I feel like the person posting that in the first place was not really acting in good faith - with as highly politicized as the topic is, and with how much people genuinely care about it given the way people’s rights to just live have been so quickly taken away, posting that was basically lobbing a grenade to watch what happens. It couldn’t just be an innocuous post because by nature of what it was, it wasn’t innocuous, and there was no way to not know that. People were going to get angry and the comment section was, very predictably, both here and in the Starfield comm it was cross posted to, going to turn into a dumpster fire. It felt like, to me, that the OP had an ax to grind, and that came out in their replies to people who were upset. It was by nature an incendiary post, and got incendiary reactions.
The recent exchange surrounding that post has raised serious concerns about the quality of discourse on this platform. Rather than engaging in reasoned debate to dissect the complexities of the issue, many participants seem to resort to inflammatory rhetoric. This unfortunate trend undermines the very purpose of a discussion forum and has led me to reconsider my continued participation here.
It is meaningless to engage in bad faith discussions. Are you aware of the paradox of tolerance? Tolerating intolerance only serves the purposes of the intolerant, while the tolerant get pushed aside (which could mean anything from disenfranchisement to death)
Therefore, the tolerant must be intolerant towards intolerance.
There exists no good faith or tolerant argument in which removing pronouns makes sense, it is at its base a message of intolerance.
There are no complexities and no discussions to be had, you are either intolerant yourself, or naïve, if you think this is a topic that can be discussed.
The intent of my original post was not to advocate for intolerance, but to question how moderation decisions are made, especially when there appears to be inconsistency. In doing so, I hoped to promote reasoned debate on that specific issue, not to engage in bad faith discussions.
While I understand that certain topics may be inherently fraught, the objective was to consider how platform moderation intersects with issues of free choice and community standards. That said, if the prevailing consensus is that some subjects are too divisive for productive discourse, then that too is a topic worth discussing.
I’m kind of curious to here about Nexus’ inconsistency. As far as I can tell they’ve been pretty consistent if the mod gets their attention. There was a Spider-Man mod that removed a pride flag, and Nexus removed that too. That feels consistent to me.
I weep for all the talented people working under squenix. They seem determined to squeeze blood from a rock, shattering it into a thousand tiny shards, few of which are worth paying for anymore.
I already sold my physical copy and I really don’t regret it at all.
My group of friends and I where really excited and played through the story together, but the endgame just wasn’t fun. I don’t know what exactly it was, but we kinda stoped playing.
The new season and “patches” didn’t really improve it a lot imho… a shame, really!
The game feels unfinished. The seasons forcing you to reset so shortly after the game just launched only to replay content you just went through in order to get season rewards that don’t even pay for the next season’s pass feels punitive.
I haven’t played since the first season launched, and likely won’t until they release the expansions. It just doesn’t have enough to keep the game interesting in the meantime, which is a shame because mechanically it’s a much better game than D3, but suffers the same problems with being a single player / co-op PvE game that Blizzard is desperately trying to make into an MMO.
Blarg, I kinda hate articles like this. They talk about the leak but don’t seem to link to it anywhere. So now you have to go off and search for it yourself 🙄
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