snipgan,
@snipgan@kbin.social avatar

Considering their policy doesn't allow for other stuff like this, yeah I am not surprised.

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Reminds me of the time when a Spiderman mod removed the VERY few instances of a pride flag in a recreation of NEW YORK CITY and a Skyrim mod that removed any potential gay romances that only occur when wearing a very specific amulet (including a single dead skeleton couple off the beaten path.)

Those got booted as well cause.....come on now. Its blatantly targeting a group of people about their sexuality and gender who have BARELY any presence to begin with in these games.

Starfield is even more egregious as its LITERALLY just a menu option and the rare use in dialogue....

Really pathetic and sad people would even feel the need to make them to begin with. Let alone feel the need to upload them to a platform.

AeonFelis,

Never was so much cared by so many about something so meaningless.

Schadrach,

That really applies on both sides. This is such a nothing issue - it defaults to what you’d expect for a cis character, so you can literally ignore it if you aren’t going to play a character whose pronouns and body type do not align.

But, someone modding their game doesn’t effect anyone else playing it, whether that’s removing the pronoun selector in Starfield, adding a pronoun selector to Skyrim (even supporting multiple pronouns with different frequencies for each), turning every hold banner in Skyrim into a pride flag, removing pride flags from Spiderman, turning Skyrim dragons into Thomas the Tank Engine, or adding the ability to fuck Skyrim dragons. All of those are mods that exist, BTW.

To each their own.

AeonFelis,

And this only makes the claims that “this is not a political statement” more absurd. There may be room to argue that the original decision to let players select their pronouns is not political, but both the mod that removes it and the removal of that mod from Nexus are just pathetic attempts to get back at the other side. Can’t get more political than that.

mindbleach,

Who on earth are you talking about?

Of course this is political - because bigots made trans people’s existence a target of their politics. Defending them against that hatred and abuse is not somehow equally wrong, compared to that hatred… and abuse.

frunch,

I swear to god, every time i hear about conservatives getting upset about gay and trans rights I’m more convinced it’s projection. They want to have the freedom to follow their own preferences but have been taught by someone in their family and/or society that certain preferences are completely unacceptable. Rather than go against the grain, they lean into the hate side of it. “If i can’t have that, you sure as hell can’t–and if you do, you’re gonna pay dearly” seems to be the philosophy. All this because they want to explore their sexuality but they decided the social price is too much. Not allowed to have what they crave, now they just scorn those that are brave enough to face the storm they themselves avoided…or they just hate people having freedom. Probably both.

Angry_Maple, (edited )
@Angry_Maple@sh.itjust.works avatar

It’s only anecdotal, but a lot of the people I know who were hateful like that while growing up actually did come out as LGBTQ+. Some were trans, some were gay, some were bi, etc.

Some of them are just a-holes though. One dude complained about a gay classmate. He never liked it when I asked him why he was thinking about what the other guy was doing with his bits so much. I’ve always thouht it was a fair question. I never did get an answer, though.

lorez, (edited )

I think they want what trans, gay, lesbians, etc have. In terms of resources, jobs, money, social contacts and status. So, just like it happened with religion, they highlight the difference between you and them. Tribes created. Now it’s a Us against Them where them are different, so not human, inferior. If they are not human we can do whatever we want to them. And the rights start to be eroded. People arrested. We can go further down the line but you know what happens next. The Them get eliminated and the Us get the resources. We’ve seen this happen for ages.

AngryCommieKender, (edited )

Whenever you hear a conservative complaining about anything at all, it’s always projection/admission or both.

“They’re rigging the elections,”

“They’re gonna riot if Biden doesn’t win,”

“They’re running pedophile rings under their favorite pizza parlor,”

I could go on.

mindbleach,

You’re overthinking it.

Conservatives don’t believe things. Conservatives believe people.

Their stated ideals are ad-hoc justifications. All that has ever mattered is ingroup loyalty. Reality itself is defined by interpersonal trust. What’s true today is simply dictated by people above you in The Hierarchy, and your job is to make whatever mouth noises justify them. If they weren’t right and better and handsome then obviously they wouldn’t belong in that high position. It is impossible for someone to simply be wrong. That would require an objective means of evaluating claims. In their worldview, that is not what claims are for.

This constant quest for logical explanations is a category error. Logic is not what they’re doing. They think the whole world runs on who-says. Like if they get their guy to be the head scientist, he could make the sun go around the Earth.

kmaismith, (edited )

I don’t think your idea precludes the idea conservatives are bitter about their own self-repression. The social cost of exploration being too high is flip side of the strict adherence to hierarchy for world view. If there wasn’t some emotion to tap into the narrative wouldn’t land nearly as well as it has

jjjalljs,

Conservatives don’t believe things. Conservatives believe people.

This is kind of deep. Feels true. Did you come up with this?

mindbleach,

I did. This whole conservative theory-of-everything has been pinging around my brain for years, as many answers to ‘what the fuck are they doing’ became undeniably incomplete.

The hardest aspect to deal with is that this worldview is not fragile. There’s no ‘are we the baddies?’ moment where someone snaps out of it. If it was just a reverse cargo cult, there’d be more people who reject the invitation. So we can’t tell ourselves these people secretly know we’re right. This is not an act or a strategy. It has to be some internally consistent way of filtering events… and it has to look like what we’re doing, from the outside. Because in exactly the same way we tell ourselves everyone’s trying to be reasonable - they tell themselves we’re just performing loyalty.

It’s tribalism. Simple as that. It’s humanity’s default us-good-you-bad protect-the-village mindset, expanded from trusting your witch-doctor’s opinion on leeches to trusting your news anchor’s opinion on horse dewormer. I mean, he’s gotta be right. Look how much money he has. His penis must be enormous.

SpaceCowboy,
@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

The thing is it’s only just tangentially related to trans rights. I mean they’re making a character creation screen and they do need to know what pronouns to refer to the character as in game dialog as the player is playing it. So they need to know that for the game to work.

These fools seem to want Bethesda to add logic to restrict the pronouns on the character creation screen. So it’s not that they’re angry that Bethesda made an effort to be inclusive. They’re angry that Bethesda didn’t put in an effort to explicitly exclude trans people.

That and I think they’re just generally triggered over the word “pronoun.” Triggered by words that describe words. There’s something very wrong with these people.

Aecosthedark,

Have you read Terry Pratchetts book Thud? It touches on that briefly. For what its worth i agree with you. Nothing else makes sense. Especially when so many vocal homophobes get caught having same-sex fun.

Wahots,
@Wahots@pawb.social avatar

People will eventually stop giving a fuck. This same shit happened in 1954 w/gay people. Gay people started suing and winning, and society moved forward.

We’ll likely see the same thing. Generally, it has to get worse before things get better. Back then, it started when scientists got fed up with getting their buttholes inspected by “security” to make sure they weren’t gay today (embellishing a bit here, but the gist is that they got fed up with the constant fear mongering and told the security teams to fuck off).

I’m sure we’ll reach a fever pitch and then someone will tell them to fuck off, as is usual. Then everyone will forget about it, save for some older folks.

Check out the Lavender Scare: the prosecution of gays and lesbians in the federal goverment by David K Johnson. It’s an uplifting book on how social movements get going and how it provides a sea change for society at large, even straight folks, in this case.

canuckkat,

Society has moved on to attacking Trans and non-binary people, gays included in this ignorant lot (obviously not all gays).

People gonna hate what they don’t understand or if something makes them uncomfortable.

abraxas,

To be clear, there’s 50 years from 1954 to when gay marriage was first legalized. And 40 years ago, we even thought we were done with the whole abortion debate. Don’t even need to get into how long it took for people with Brown skin were legally treated anywhere near equal. BLM was how many years after the Emancipation? And still opposed by people who “want to leave it all well alone”. It’s a big deal that it takes that long to enact minimal change (considering we have a seated SCOTUS Justice who said we need to reconsider the constitutionality of gay marriage)

The real problem, perhaps, is everyone coming to the defense of the modder, even here. People saying “just let people do what they do” (see highly upvoted comment here). If the intolerant side “do what they do” and the rest of us get bored or sick of the human rights side, then it takes 50 years, or 100 years, or more to make meaningful change.

Schadrach,

Rather than go against the grain, they lean into the hate side of it. “If i can’t have that, you sure as hell can’t–and if you do, you’re gonna pay dearly” seems to be the philosophy.

Making a game mod that only effects people who choose to install it seems like a poor strategy for achieving that.

Kirkkh,

I’m non-binary and I’m afraid to express my gender in public. It’s good to know I should also be afraid to express my gender in a VIDEO GAME (points for realism I guess).

saze,

Where do you live, Iran? Also the mod doesn’t impinge on your ability to express yourself. Not sure how that relates to being afraid in a game.

MikeT,

This mod “impinge” on NexusMod’s rights, it’s their private service and they have the right to set conditions on it. One of which, mods cannot remove diversity.

It’s as simple as that. The people can go elsewhere to find the same mod or share it among themselves.

As for Iran statement, are you serious? There are people getting murdered in USA for even being non-binary. Even “binary” people are getting shot for being inclusive. Like this one www.cnn.com/2023/08/21/us/…/index.html

abraxas,

Let me guess, you don’t have any trans friends. Probably don’t have any gay friends, either.

I know no fewer than 5 people who have been physically assaulted over their sexuality or their gender identity. My local pro-LGBTQ church was vandalized by people who left messages about how god hates them.

You deserve all those downvotes you’re complaining about if you really believe that non-binary people in the Western world aren’t reasonably afraid to express their gender.

And as for “how it relates to…a game”. Can you imagine being Jewish and a bunch of pro-nazi mods made it to the frontpage of your favorite game? Can you imagine if then everyone started bitching because the site took those hateful mods down?

Games, as online communities, are used to “innocently” draw people towards extreme beliefs.

teruma,

A single player offline videogame, even!

AeonFelis,

This is a big deal because it’s a Bethesda RPG so you are going to spend 76% of the time in the character creation screen.

librechad, (edited )

Basically one of the only reasons I played Bethesda games LMAO

people_are_cute,
@people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

This is all fine and well, but am I the only one a bit concerned about how NexusMods is practically a monopoly in the modding scene? Why does literally every modder have to use a rate-limiting host as a platform, especially when Github exists?

derin,
@derin@lemmy.beru.co avatar

I mean, github does exist. It looks like people just prefer platforms with a pre-existing community.

Chailles,
@Chailles@lemmy.world avatar

Mods uploaded to github does really suck for discoverability though. There’s the roguelike Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. The modding scene exists entirely on Github and you’d basically never find them unless you go searching for mods on their Discord channel.

WalrusDragonOnABike,

Steam workshop exists as well, for games that support it.

ahornsirup,
@ahornsirup@artemis.camp avatar

That's even worse though. Plenty of games (e.g. Stellaris and RimWorld) are also available on platforms like GOG or, ugh, Epic. But if you want to use mods and you bought the game on any platform other than Steam it's fuck you.

WalrusDragonOnABike,

Even if you buy Terraria off of steam, you can use steam mods. Sounds like a per-game problem, rather than a steam problem.

ahornsirup,
@ahornsirup@artemis.camp avatar

I know it is, developers can block downloads unless the user is signed into a Steam account that owns the game. But as an end-user that's distinction without difference.

MonkCanatella,

steamworkshopdownloader.io never gotten this to work myself but I put the least amount of effort in as possible. There may be others as well but I remember when I did my research a couple years ago that it was a real trudge and almost not worth it.

brsrklf,

I know there are workarounds, but this is true. There are very little games I buy (at least directly) through steam nowadays, because I didn’t like what it became after the Greenlight/Direct debacle and I didn’t want my library to be that dependent of them anymore.

I have playnite as a unified game library launcher (with GoG, itch.io, humble, Ubi, EA, even Amazon Prime and freaking EGS just for the free games), so where I get my games from doesn’t matter much for me now.

But workshop integration is basically the only thing that makes me want a Steam copy for a game.

Though among the games in that case, there were Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress, and for both if you get a copy directly from the developers, you get DRM-free and a Steam key. So, that’s what I did.

Chailles,
@Chailles@lemmy.world avatar

There’s a couple issues with it. I mean, it’s simple for games where you’re not using a bunch of mods, but at some point it just becomes excessive. Not to mention that when a mod updates, the mod will automatically update breaking your game sometimes, or when you’re trying to play a game, a mod just doesn’t update causing it to break the game that way too. There’s just a lack of control that’s often necessary when modding.

WalrusDragonOnABike,

For beatsaber (which doesn't use steam workshop), the there's no steam integration and its a pain to deal with.

For terraria (which uses steam workshop), the modloader is smart enough to know which mods don't work with the current version of the game and disables them and steam lets you easily change which version of the game you have by using the "beta" options. Only time I've had issues with updates breaking things since 1.4 release was during beta-builds of 1.4 tmodloader (and those were generally easily fixed by going to the discord and finding the file to fix it). Since then, no needing to find files and paste them over the existing files, etc. No trying to install one mod at a time out of a dozen or two until you find which one breaks it and redoing the whole process over again. Pretty sure it also just uses the version of mods that support the game version you have, deals with dependencies automatically, etc.. The modloader will also direct you to things like the non-steam pages for mods (sometimes forum posts, sometimes discord, etc).

I don't think the steam integration is needed for such a seamless mod experience, but its certainly compatible with it. And terraria is an outlier because the game devs encourage mods and has a huge and dedicated community. For smaller games with devs that don't like mods, simply trying to keeping things working may take so much work, so that time that making a good integrated user experience is probably difficult.

Chailles, (edited )
@Chailles@lemmy.world avatar

Let’s be real here though, Terraria is an unfair comparison considering it’s modloader is integrated into the game itself and holds significantly greater support than most other mods with Steam Workshop support. (Oh and that the modloader is basically a community made mod manager anyways and is akin to using the community mod managers for the games mentioned below)

Stellaris, Rimworld, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Total War: Warhammer 3, Binding of Isaac, Dwarf Fortress, Space Engineers, Cities: Skylines, all of these very popular games with massive modding support are still plagued by the issues I mentioned above. And you know what? It has the issues you mentioned as well. Did you subscribe to an outdated mod? Oh, well, good luck figuring out which one that is. Forgot to download a dependency? Crash. Did a mod update and Steam just didn’t update the mod? Figure out what mod that was and unsubscribe to it and subscribe to it again. Did a mod just update and Steam updated the mod, even though the update breaks save compatibility? Well, unless the mod author uploaded the older version of the mod, good luck trying to have fun.

HipHoboHarold,

I think it’s just the internet being the internet. Or at least how it’s been for awhile. There are big sites that a lot of people crowd to and that becomes the default. Like auctioning things off online. Ebay. That was where everyone went to. Need to order a few different things online? Amazon. Are there other online stores? Plenty. But Amazon is seen as cheap and convenient.

Nexus mods is just the popular site, but the moders have other options.

Metal_Zealot,
@Metal_Zealot@lemmy.ml avatar

That’s kinda like saying PlanetMinecraft monopolized sharing world’s, isn’t it?

XTL,

That went so well until your proposed alternative was Microsoft.

Nioxic,

At least github is easier than the shit that is nexusmods

Also there are alternatives

Gitlab… sourceforge…

Ive downloaded a lot of mods from sourceforge over the years

Cypher,

Ive downloaded a lot of mods from sourceforge over the years

Your poor malware ridden computer….

mindbleach,

Yeah, but all of it’s for Windows XP.

Cethin,

Yeah, an alternative using git would be good probably, but maybe don’t use github. Preferably though, it’d be agnostic and just target some git repo anywhere. It’d pull from a description file for the page to ensure a uniform appearance preferably, and it’d show and manage versions from some uniformly named folder on the repo.

people_are_cute,
@people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I know what Microsoft’s general reputation is, but it’s undeniable that GitHub has only seen improvements since Microsoft acquired it.

Patches, (edited )

since Microsoft acquired it.

Embrace

Extend

Estinquish

They have not changed.

JackbyDev,

That only makes sense if Microsoft had a GotHub competitor lol. I think it was more about getting that juicy data and making copilot.

Kaldo, (edited )
@Kaldo@kbin.social avatar

I was really hoping thunderstore and mod.io would take off more since they seem more platform-agnostic and FOSS-like with their integration with git and versioning (and for some games they have), but people just prefer convenience of nexusmods and steam workshop unfortunately. They just have a bigger community and better discoverability in the end

forgotaboutlaye,

They have integration with Ready Or Not iirc. MSFS also has far more mods on Flightsim.TO than on Nexus.

stillwater,

Natural monopoly. Nobody else offers as good of an experience. The closest is ModDB and their UX is stuck in the mid 2000s.

niemcycle,

I remember using ModDB back then, I’m shocked that they have never updated their site since then

Justdaveisfine,

They’ve sort of moved on to mod.io, leaving Moddb on the back burner.

Kazumara,

I don’t think that term really applies here. It’s not like the barrier to entry for a webservice hosting game modification data is all that high. It’s very different from the railway, waterworks and power grid markets.

Also there are at least the competitors Loverslab, Curseforge, ModMD and Modrinth from the top of my head.

stillwater,

Indeed, it applies as much as accusations of monopoly. Two sides of the same coin. Really, it’s not a monopoly situation or any kind at all. It’s just by far the best of its kind and it has no competition.

mindbleach,

Network effect creates barriers to new competitors, regardless of quality. Either for the upstarts or the leaders. See: Twitter. Once some choice is the default, anything else faces an uphill battle.

Adoption is a feature you can’t design.

barsoap, (edited )

Does any one of those integrate with Mod Organizer or do I have to download the mod (often also with an annoying wait time) and then point Mod Organizer to it. Do they have an API that enables “a new version is out” notifications, or do I have to hunt everything down manually.

It really wouldn’t be that hard, but none of them cares. Nexus kinda has itself positioned well there as they would not have to support any third-party API endpoints in Vortex, but Vortex isn’t even the popular choice for many games.

Ganbat,

Well, for one thing, Nexus gives modders a share of ad revenue. Under a different name, I have a mod that’s a backend requirement for a big, popular mod, and that nets me a reliable few bucks a month.

That said, a good portion of the modding community also exists on Gamebanana. If you want BotW, ToTK or Source engine mods, GB is the go-to.

Aermis,

Wait I have a stupid subscription to nexus and idk why I haven’t canceled it (used it for one month for some mod back in the day). I use nexus for all mods. Should I keep my sub then because all I care about is modders getting something.

Default_Defect,
@Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

I bought lifetime premium years ago when it was still an option and have never once regretted it.

Crismus,

The lifetime access was such a good investment. I missed a lot of other lifetime subscriptions, and am glad I get such great download speed.

Ganbat,

Well, if you’re paying for premium, you’re still part of the site’s profit, part of which goes to the mods you use, so either way shouldn’t matter.

kamaii,

R2Modman and thunderstore.io has grown it’s catalogue quite a bit as of late, but it’s mostly (don’t know if it’s entirely or not) unity games. It’s my favorite modding platform with features that make sharing modlists for multiplayer a breeze.

ech,

There’s stuff like Curseforge, but it’s only for some games, mostly Minecraft. The problem, if someone considers it a problem, is really that communities for games generally centralize around one site for their mods for the most part, and Nexus has garnered a lot of trust and therefore has more pull/inertia for communities working those things out.

As for Github, I believe the vast majority of mods have Github pages, but Github itself doesn’t really have a UI suited for mod downloaders, and no real incentive to implement one. So sites like Nexus and Curseforge are still a necessity.

RaoulDook,

www.curseforge.com/starfield

Starfield mods (a few) on Curseforge currently

ech,

Nice! Personally I don’t have any particular issue with Nexus, but it’s always nice to see diversity. Monopolies are pretty much never good for end users.

RaoulDook,

My only issue with Nexus is that I have to create a login to download mods there. I don’t want to sign in to websites just to DL something. Curseforge is good for Minecraft mods and doesn’t hassle me with a login prompt

ech,

That’s fair.

yokonzo,

Nexus has the lions share, but only for some games, I had a premium subscription but still found for like half the games I mod that nexus either didn’t have a modpage for them or that most modders for that game used other sites to host their mods

rambling_lunatic,

In Curseforge we trust

carpelbridgesyndrome, (edited )

Not really sure curseforge is better. Its another of those sites with an sketchy bloaty overwolf launcher that makes you jump through hoops to load mods onto a server.

It’s concerningly hard to avoid overwolf in modding

DAMunzy,

I hope that was snarky because CF has really gone downhill.

JackbyDev,

It’s like I didn’t think it could get worse but it just kept getting worse and worse lol.

rambling_lunatic,

Yeah no question Curseforge ain’t great and if you want to get a modpack as opposed to a singular mod you get kind of screwed by the launcher.

Thing is, the alternatives tend to suck more. Plus my point was that Nexus ain’t alone.

MonkCanatella,

There’s also steam workshop. Neither are shining examples of a free modding community. I think nexus mods starting out better and slowly enshittified but I don’t know the extent of it.

JackbyDev,

Nexus hasn’t changed much over the years. They just make a new mod tool every few years it feels like lol.

gothicdecadence,

There’s also the Thunder store!

Rose,

We don’t. My ultrawide mods get thousands of downloads and I haven’t uploaded a single one to Nexus.

barsoap,

Their rate-limiting isn’t bad at all, their integration into everything is excellent, and for games without much of a community Vortex is often the only mod manager. Their API isn’t closed down, so Mod Organiser can integrate with Nexus just as well, and they probably would also do it with other mod sites if those ever bothered to set up a version check etc. API. They have an excellent search function.

In short: They provide a good service. Like the most annoying part about Nexus as a freeloader is the five or what seconds wait before your mod manager picks up the download.

And, no, their rate limiting really isn’t bad. 1.5MB/s for people with adblock, 3MB/s for people without. How often do you download gigabytes worth of mods it’s not like they’re bullying you into a subscription.

people_are_cute,
@people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

But any rate-limit is worse than no rate-limit. GitHub exists and can provide the same features in a better manner with no limits whatsoever.

barsoap,

Github has other ways to make money, and Microsoft capital to back up everything. And granted Nexus could use a better bug tracker, but you won’t see them getting into the private repository business any time soon.

Spudwart,

I believe modrinth will be expanding to be more than Minecraft mods iirc.

TheObserver, (edited )
@TheObserver@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Tbh I don’t even know why the option even exists. I have 2 days worth of playtime and not once does it go on about pronouns or anything like that. So to me the menu seems completely pointless. If i can recall i also don’t think the NPCs have even referred to me as male or he/him. Maybe Bethesda added it last minute or something to try to appeal to a larger group of people idk. I’m just enjoying my spaceship man.

ophy,

I’m not super far in, but I have heard it. The first time I remember hearing it is in the opening act when Lin is telling Barrett about you. Also when Sam talks to the marshal about you in Akila City. I suppose there are only so many opportunities for other characters to talk about you while you’re standing right there, but it does pop up, so it’s nice to have the option for those moments.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Do people really care what gender the MC is? I just role play as whatever gender the character is.

If I’m playing Tomb Raider, I am Laura Croft. If I play GTA, I’m CJ or Trevor or whatever. If I’m given a choice, I’ll sometimes look up if the gender matters (e.g. in Mount and Blade it can impact relations), and otherwise just pick randomly. When there’s a character creation screen, I usually randomize it a few times and get into the game.

I wouldn’t mind role playing as a gay or trans person, though I’d be a little worried about the content because I’m not looking for anything with relationships, I want to wreck monsters and solve puzzles.

all-knight-party,
@all-knight-party@kbin.cafe avatar

Depends on if the character's supposed to be a self insert. In a game with deep customization you may be trying to make yourself, and not playing as Lara Croft or Geralt, so being able to choose your pronouns helps immersion, and immersion's a big deal to many players who'll take it anywhere they can get it in a game, whether it's pronouns, or being able to see your torso and feet when you look down.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Huh, I guess I never want to insert myself because I’m not that interesting. :) I play games to escape myself, and I really hate seeing my own name show up in games.

But that’s probably more my personality (I hate being publicly praised) than anything else.

ech,

But that’s probably more my personality (I hate being publicly praised) than anything else.

Revisit this thought whenever you consider if other people “really care” about something that you don’t instead of questioning whether inclusion is ever “necessary”.

sugar_in_your_tea,

That’s fair.

It’s just not something I have experience with. Even my wife, who likes public validation, also prefers to role play in games.

But that’s the great thing about most RPGs, they have options to get whatever character model you want. So whether I understand people wanting to play as themselves or not is irrelevant. You can make your character look like yourself, I can make my character look random, and a trans person can make their character look like they see themselves. How I choose to make my character look has no impact on anyone else’s experience.

ech,

How I choose to make my character look has no impact on anyone else’s experience.

Tell that to the idiots making mods like this. Not that it changes anything for anyone but themselves, but it does promote bullshit bigotry over a menu selection of all things and fully deserves to be shut down.

And none of this is about “public validation”. It’s about having even just one more avenue for people that don’t happen to be cis white males to make a character for themselves that’s more relatable. More options should always be welcome. It hurts nobody and lifts up many.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yup, I agree. The mods exist to push a narrative and make others angry, that’s it.

I could understand if Bethesda made the MC trans with no way to change that, but expanding role play options is never a bad thing IMO.

WalrusDragonOnABike,

Most guys choose to be guys when given the choice, for example. Apparently a lot of people do care. Gender fluid, agender people, casgender people, etc may not care or vary more.

barsoap,

Why would I want to stare at a man’s ass and hear his grunts for hours on end.

WalrusDragonOnABike,

Idk. Why would someone want to have a man's ass and voice? Seems weird to me. Yet about half of the world seem to want to be guys. And most of those are happy to be a choose to be a guy when customization is an option. I can't answer why so many guys consistently and choose to be guys in game (and sometimes have pride in their characters appearance and try to brag about their it) or some tease other people they perceived as guys for choosing to be a girl in-game when I can't understand why they want to be guys in the first place.

For me, I relate more to those who make fun of themselves for using that excuse because they were in denial. I've definitely been there. Of course there are guys (cis or trans) who like playing as girls too; I just can't relate (aro-ace spec).

genoxidedev1, (edited )

I did notice it when creating my character but the only thing I thought was "Oh hey, cool"

Edit: I thought you said you didn't notice the option even exists but I'll just leave this here anyways

people_are_cute,
@people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

It was most likely a Marketing/management decision, just a checkbox to fill to show people they “care”.

snooggums,
@snooggums@kbin.social avatar

Or one of the many, many people involved with development suggested it because it applied to them or someone they knew and the decision was made to include it out of respect for the people involved.

ech,

Or, maybe, inclusivity is never a bad thing, regardless of your personal level of cynicism. Hate the world all you want, but there are people out there that appreciate and deserve things like this.

atzanteol,

Ahh the old “they did the right thing for the wrong reason” argument. Maybe, just maybe, somebody at the company did actually care?

DarkThoughts,

When you meet Sam & Cora they'll refer to you by your pronoun while they talk about you.
The whole thing is just to make the character generation non binary, that's it. I don't see why this is such a big deal for some people. I'm a cis male, I select a masculine body type and go with he / him, or maybe they / them, and be done with it. It does nothing but help others feel more included.

TheObserver,
@TheObserver@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Ohhhh. Wow i never noticed that tbh. I was so focused on trying to win sarah over. Never met a more picky person in my life. Now she resides on europa because she bitches every time i steal or a innocent sounding dialog option makes her mad. Sam is cool every ounce and a while he says something about me stealing but it’s not as annoying. I’ve yet to come across cora. I spend so much time in the ship builder.

DarkThoughts,

You might've missed their initial dialog in the lodge, which happened in that garden area. You can find her typically in the basement where she has her room and she will be on board of your ship if you assign Sam onto it. The kids in Starfield are actually pretty cute and wholesome, unlike the literal spawns of Satan from Skyrim.

TheObserver,
@TheObserver@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Ohhh that kid! I completely ignored that little stinker. I remember her trying to con me out of 50 creds for books. I’m too greedy for that i got ships to build.

atzanteol,

You probably would have noticed it if they used the wrong pronouns. Which is why the option exists…

Kolanaki,
!deleted6508 avatar

They finally give you something that controls how people refer to you in their games, and dipshits wanna remove it? This is as close as you’re going to get to having characters refer to you as a choice you’ve taken other than Codsworth and Vasco having like 1000 generic names recorded to use.

Whatisawaffle, (edited )

I mean, I sorta get it. Identity politics are political and often divisive, and some people don't want it in their escapism.
It's not a perfect analogy, but if a role-playing game had a mandatory character-selection choice to choose if my character was pro-choice or pro-life, I could see myself mildly resenting it.

darq, (edited )
@darq@kbin.social avatar

Not really a good example. A more apt example is if these people were getting angry that the character creator allowed a player to create a woman, or a person of colour. The game offering you a choice of pronouns is not asking you for a political opinion, it's literally just an option to create a type of character that these people don't think should exist.

And that's the crux of it, they aren't angry about pronouns, they're angry about trans and non-binary people becoming normalised.

Whatisawaffle, (edited )

I dunno, being a man, woman, or black person isn't political. Trans, non-binary, etc is, and normalizing it is political, regardless of if it's right or wrong. I think that you're correct and that it seems like something done as ammunition in the Culture War; normalizing identity politics rather than a design decision done out of a necessity to improve the quality of the game apart from that.

My earlier analogy was about having a pro-life/pro-choice option forced on you, but I guess to make it more accurate it would be more like the game just telling you that you're pro-life as part of your character settings? Because it's not just putting the politics in the game, it's taking a strong side. Again, rightly or wrongly, I can see why some people would resent that in their escapism.

AngrilyEatingMuffins,

Fuck off forever

darq,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

I dunno, being a man, woman, or black person isn't political.

I agree, they should not be, but people still try and make them political.

Trans, non-binary, etc is

No. Absolutely not. Trans people and non-binary people are types of people who exist. Exactly the same as men, women, people of colour, and so forth. They are no more or less political than those other types of people. People still make them political, but that's exactly the same thing as with other groups.

My earlier analogy was about having a pro-life/pro-choice option forced on you, but I guess to make it more accurate it would be more like the game just telling you that you're pro-life as part of your character settings? Because it's not just putting the politics in the game, it's taking a strong side. Again, rightly or wrongly, I can see why some people would reset that in their escapism.

You are mistaken. There is no political opinion here. None is being asked for, and none is being assigned. The character creator having additional options is just allowing players to make trans or non-binary characters. This isn't asking you for a political opinion, it's simply adding options to create more types of characters.

Which is why the bigots are upset. Because they don't think those types of characters should be allowed to be made.

Whatisawaffle,

Whether or not it should be, isn't LGBT issues political/controversial?

darq,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

As are women and people of colour, and their inclusion in media. These are all demographics of people. There is no difference.

Whatisawaffle,

There's no difference between a movie casting a woman/black man as the main character, compared to casting a trans person?

darq,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

No, there is no difference.

Your previous comments implied that there was a difference in type between the inclusion of women or people of colour, and the inclusion of trans of non-binary people.

There is a difference in magnitude of the controversy. But not a difference in type. Something can be more or less controversial, but it's still the same type of controversy.

Whatisawaffle, (edited )

Yeah, it seems we agree. My stance was only ever that I can understand why some people would've wanted to remove political controversy from their escapism if it made them uncomfortable and added nothing to the gameplay itself.

CileTheSane,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

Whether or not it should be, isn’t LGBT issues political/controversial?

Simply acknowledging LGBT exist

  1. isn’t political
  2. helps make it less political
nadir, (edited )

Of course it’s political. Politics aren’t just about things where there can be legitimate disagreement.

Acknowledging climate change is political. So is everything from basic public transport, better healthcare to if sexism and racism are even a thing.

It shouldn’t be. We also shouldn’t have a resurgence of actual fascists. But we do and it is.

SkyezOpen,

Acknowledging climate change is political

Acknowledging reality is political? I mean I guess I knew that already, but seeing it put plainly into words is silly.

Shit, I’ll see if I can pose as a right wing grifter and see if I can convince them that wearing matching socks is part of the liberal agenda.

CileTheSane,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

If everything is political then it’s impossible to make a game that isn’t political. This is no more valid than someone complaining that including an option for skin tone is political.

SkyezOpen,

Trans people: Exist

Brainlets: “Is this politics??”

Wirlocke,

I guess my existence is “political” then, I guess I can’t exist in a space without having something “forced” on people.

We were male/female, now were women/men/other, that’s it. It’s a personal matter that we go through and we want to simply exist. That’s only “political” when your dealing with people who actively want to harm our rights. I cannot stress enough that these people shouldn’t be treated with respect as if they’re not trying to destroy people for a simple personal choice.

DarkThoughts, (edited )

Aside from you being transphobic, you should realize that the people complaining about pronouns are also the people who complain about the "replaced white people" and "female leaders" in the game. So I guess black people and women are also political, by your logic?

RiikkaTheIcePrincess,
@RiikkaTheIcePrincess@kbin.social avatar

being a man, woman, or black person isn't political

Being a woman isn't political... until I do it? Kinda seems like there's no actually valid (sound? I forget the terminology) argument for how our existence is a problem, nor for how supporting or acknowledging our existence is a problem.

I don't actually quite understand what you're on about but it kinda seems like you're arguing that allowing people to play characters that don't match your preferences exactly is some kind of forced political thing and that's kinda horsecrap, y'know?

Anyway I'm gonna go exist at that bigot up there now. Byeee ö/

snooggums, (edited )
@snooggums@kbin.social avatar

I dunno, being a man, woman, or black person isn't political. Trans, non-binary, etc is, and normalizing it is political, regardless of if it's right or wrong.

Women and black people getting the right to vote and be treated equally has always been "political" you fucking jackass.

GentlemanLoser,

The best bigots are the ones that tell on themselves, dontcha think?

Kolanaki, (edited )
!deleted6508 avatar

I wouldn’t. I mean, I hate Nazis but I don’t mind a game where I can choose to play as one (so long as the context makes sense like it’s a multiplayer WW2 game or Diso Elysium). It’s a fuckin’ choice. If you don’t like one of the options: Choose a different one.

DarkThoughts,

Terrible analogy. It's just turning the binary male / female into non binary body types & pronouns to be more inclusive for those who fall outside the norm on the spectrum of things.

SkyezOpen,

Does it even affect dialogue? The PC is hardly ever referred to with pronouns, actually I can’t remember a single line.

Zehzin,
@Zehzin@lemmy.world avatar

I believe it changes enemy barks like “He/She/They shot him!” and maybe a few dialogue lines?

kamiheku,

Heh, I like how the enemies are considerate enough to figure out and use the correct pronouns mid-battle

Hey, you! What are your pronouns? … Thanks, now eat lead!

Zehzin,
@Zehzin@lemmy.world avatar

I might be a paid killer, but I’ll be damned if I’ll misgender someone. Professionals have standards.

Kolanaki, (edited )
!deleted6508 avatar

They definitely use your pronouns a lot. It’s all they refer to you as, aside from cute nicknames like “Dusty,” or “rook” or “renegade.” Probably doesn’t stand out if you chose your normal pronouns, since they’d just be say he/him or she/her or they/them.

Default_Defect,
@Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

A security officer referred to me as sir in New Atlantis.

mindbleach,

We can’t be far from text-to-speech tweaking a ton of voice acting. Might have to pronounce or IPA your custom name, to get an AI voice to nail it… but maybe it’s better-off being wrong. There’s disarming verisimilitude in schmaltzy NPCs confidently fumbling your character’s name. Or if some characters heard it, but haven’t seen it, and you catch some mutter ‘so that’s how it’s spelled.’

Whether that name is Paarthurnax, Heloise, or Ng.

Kolanaki,
!deleted6508 avatar

I am just picturing the orc noble who uses words incorrectly/mispronounces shit. Forgot what those are called, but they have similar characters in most of their games. In Starfield, they even called him “Dumbrosky.” Dumb Bro ski.

mindbleach,

Malapropisms.

Halosheep,

As someone with a generic name, fuck you!

oldlamps,

Internet brain worms

Aecosthedark,

*tadpoles

underisk,
@underisk@lemmy.ml avatar

Does anyone even install these mods or do they just exist for people to get outraged at?

eutsgueden,

Mostly the outrage.

Rottcodd,
@Rottcodd@kbin.social avatar

I would imagine a bare handful of people install them.

There's some number of people who are so angry and stupid that the mere sight of something like an option to choose pronouns fills them with blind, seething rage, so for them, mods like this are essentially QOL improvements.

More's the pity...

genoxidedev1,

Small government alpha males scared of having the option to choose he/him as their pronouns

RiikkaTheIcePrincess,
@RiikkaTheIcePrincess@kbin.social avatar

option to choose pronouns fills them with blind, seething rage

Yeah I was there when BATTLETECH (still dunno why its name has to be so LOUD :P ) launched. Every hatefool was raging about it, apropos of anything or nothing. Try to talk about any part of it and it's "OH YOU MEAN FUCKING PRONOUNWARRIOR?!?!" and a bunch of incoherent senseless bile. There's a sizeable group of people who deeply love being offended, and it's not us (queerfolk/LGBTQIA+/QUILTBAG/GSM/whatever). Like, I'm neck-deep in queer over here and every time I play a game with a pronoun selector at the beginning I promptly forget about it but oohhhh nooo, not these bellends. They somehow think a button at the beginning of the game that matters like three times ever has entirely DESTROYED videogames with LIES and FALLACIES 🙄

They'd be a joke and an insignificant oddity if they didn't deliberately make messes of everything else (say, going to MWLL/other games, ranting about "pronounwarrior," pretty sure some critters got teamkilled over it...) for no good reason.

Rottcodd,
@Rottcodd@kbin.social avatar

They'd be a joke and an insignificant oddity if they didn't deliberately make messes of everything else

My opinion exactly.

In ways, I actually feel sorry for them. In the first place, it has to suck just to be that angry and spiteful, but underneath that, it must really suck to feel so powerless and desperate and insecure that something as trivial and irrelevant as pronouns can send you into a compensatory rage.

My pity is greatly diminished by the fact that they're toxic assholes who try to force the world to accommodate their own failures though.

mindbleach,

I just cannot get over what a terrible name “quiltbag” is. How do you say that out loud and not immediately think better of it?

RiikkaTheIcePrincess,
@RiikkaTheIcePrincess@kbin.social avatar

Well, it's... pronounceable? Technically?

Okay I don't actually like it and don't know anycritter who does but it's there soooo putting it there seemed like a good idea at the time? 🤷

Laurentide,
@Laurentide@pawb.social avatar

Meanwhile, my canonically enby commander is rocking a fabulous magenta mohawk and having fun headshotting all the King Crabs so they can sell them to afford catperson surgery.

RiikkaTheIcePrincess,
@RiikkaTheIcePrincess@kbin.social avatar

Hah! Good luck with that :3

(Same but mine doesn't have the mohawk and doesn't specifically hunt KGCs :P ^.^ )

Laurentide,
@Laurentide@pawb.social avatar

I’m not hunting them specifically, their cockpits just happen to be magnets for my Marauder’s laser and autocannon rounds. :P

The first one I saw, in an early “titan” mission, got taken out by a single alpha strike from long range and dropped three salvage. (I renamed it Queen Crab when I noticed that some parts of the mech were white after applying my blue/pink paint scheme.)

SolOrion,

Wait, Battletech? The turn based one? From 2018?

That’s amusing. I played that a couple months ago. I don’t recall ever selecting a pronoun, but I’m sure I did and then just moved on like a normal person.

RiikkaTheIcePrincess,
@RiikkaTheIcePrincess@kbin.social avatar

Yeah, that's the one. There was so much outrage because it had the word "pronoun" in it at all 🤣It's just a little thing on the side during character creation and its effect is absolutely trivial. Actually I think the other MechWarriors 'have pronouns' too if you deliberately open the character editor for them. It's really the bare minimum, like I'm trying to come up with something sarcastic but those people were freaking out over nnnnooothing like the one word in one game is gonna ruin videogames for them forever, or some crap.

Which, like... if we could somehow trans so hard they'd go away don't they think we'd do it instead of just getting yelled at?

sugar_in_your_tea,

I’ve seen that in videos, but I always assumed it was for show to get their viewers riled up. I honestly can’t imagine an actual person doing this on their own, unless they were encouraged to do it by some influencer.

As in, how many people fire up a game, get mad that pronouns exist, and then search online for a “fix”? I think that number is pretty small.

But then again, I tend to be pretty careful about distancing myself from bigots.

Rottcodd,
@Rottcodd@kbin.social avatar

I think that number's pretty small too.

I'm just saying that it's not zero.

Blamemeta,

I can see someone with a modlist with 252 mods in it adding one just to max it out, and a plugin like this wouldnt conflict with much.

KingThrillgore,
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar
lunaticneko,

Are you sure about this picture? I’m sure that instead of nice cool looking ships most I make are just flying bricks or dicks.

Errrmmm, disks, I mean disks.

foo,

Thatsapenis.jpg

NutWrench,
@NutWrench@lemmy.world avatar

Let the people who play the game decide if a mod is worth downloading or not. Stop expecting corporations to manage your head for you.

HughJanus,

So there was a modification that remove pronouns, and they removed it, because it was “bigoted”…?

I’m so very confused as to what’s happening here…

Why would a “bigot” make a mod like that, and why would anyone care?

dangblingus,

Your either baiting, or you haven’t really been paying attention to the culture war taking place in North America.

HughJanus,

No I’m just legitimately confused about why anyone would do that or why anyone would care that they did.

foo,
sonnenzeit,

The part that confuses me a bit is that it’s a mod that removes functionality from a single player game. Usually features get added, not removed. When something is removed it’s usually to improve stability or performance. Or to rebalance the gameplay. This change falls into none of these categories.

Well I guess if the mod author did it to garner attention or make a point he/she/they succeeded.

Anonymousllama,

Another reason for not piling everything onto Nexus mods, their site, their rules unfortunately.

phantasmagoria,

I’m fine with you leaving too.

radau,

Cool but I’m pretty sure they didn’t ask you

phantasmagoria,

You too can leave

radau,

Leave what

AeonFelis,

Rule of thumb - if there are two sides to the issue, but one side is only supported by heartless idiots, and these heartless idiots happen to be identified with the political camp you oppose - then it’s a political issue.

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