Baldur's Gate #BaldurGate: Siege of Dragonspear

[Metal Hurlant]

I found Amber's Bard hat.

Spoiler

Immunity to silence and deafness? And her 'bard effects' (or is that SJW agenda) lingers well after she's stopped.

 

[Beastro]

But it seems that no, you can't simply have your diversity - this is much bigger. This is just a stepping stone for a perfect liberal world, free of haters and bigots. And that can only be achieved by name-calling others on the internet:

Like fuck it's about stamping out hatred and bigotry, it's only allowing the "right" kinds of hatred and bigotry while claiming that that's not the case.

So much fixation in the modern world and the Left is over remaking society and Mankind, when all that's happening is people doing the same things in different way and not realizing it.

Things change, but they remain the same.

What are you trying to achieve with your comment? This is a highly polarizing subject, people who care about it are taking extreme opposite sides on this issue and think it is a big deal. It's not like your level headed middle-of-the-road argument is going to dissuade them.

WTF do you think?

It's also empowering to be the voice of reason, especially if you are a Cassandra people ignore and scorn.

The writer really doesn't care, she admitted that she adds "diversity" to her writing just for "diversity's" sake, and not because it serves the story being told. The inclusion is hamfisted.

And I bet she's over the moon given the reaction this has produced.

You can really tell what a persons bent is if "they don't care" about things. Ultimately she enjoyed being able to impose her views and inject them into the game and this is probably more of a response than she expected.

 

[Shammy]

It's Orwellian shit and disturbing for the same reason that ISIS destroying ancient works "because nothing came before Islam" is.

A bit of an extreme outlook for video games, no?

Regardless I'd hate to see Beamdog do anything to PST. On the subject of BG3, I'm hoping that if they do actually make it that they decide to start fresh, new characters, setting, plot, everything. I'd hate to see another Bhaalspawn entry honestly, and beamdog needs to prove that they can create something solid when handed a blank slate, because clearly giving them pre-established stuff to work with isn't such a good idea.

 

[Murk]

But it seems that no, you can't simply have your diversity - this is much bigger. This is just a stepping stone for a perfect liberal world, free of haters and bigots. And that can only be achieved by name-calling others on the internet:

Like fuck it's about stamping out hatred and bigotry, it's only allowing the "right" kinds of hatred and bigotry while claiming that that's not the case.

So much fixation in the modern world and the Left is over remaking society and Mankind, when all that's happening is people doing the same things in different way and not realizing it.

Things change, but they remain the same.

I think you quoted the wrong name on that line.

Unrelated edit: They even made Viconia's portrait blurry. Seriously, what is it with the blurring of everything?

 

[Dwarvophile]

I found Amber's Bard hat.

Spoiler

Immunity to silence and deafness? And her 'bard effects' (or is that SJW agenda) lingers well after she's stopped.

Why do she calls it a bard's hat ? As I saw somebody stating I don't rememnber where if you paint it in green you've got Robin Hood's Hat, which fits perfectly to a SJW.

 

[Murk]

The sketch looks like a... sprouting seed?

 

[Excidium II]

Why do she calls it a bard's hat ? As I saw somebody stating I don't rememnber where if you paint it in green you've got Robin Hood's Hat, which fits perfectly to a SJW.

Because she larps being a bard.

 

[Beastro]

A bit of an extreme outlook for video games, no?

Regardless I'd hate to see Beamdog do anything to PST. On the subject of BG3, I'm hoping that if they do actually make it that they decide to start fresh, new characters, setting, plot, everything. I'd hate to see another Bhaalspawn entry honestly, and beamdog needs to prove that they can create something solid when handed a blank slate, because clearly giving them pre-established stuff to work with isn't such a good idea.

There's more room to work with with games and we'll have to see how future "remastering" culture goes, but if it becomes like what they plan with these games, then it's effectively rewriting those games and not offering people the change to play the originals.

Video games already have a problem staying relevant in history given being tied to their platforms that is making things difficult for many to be reproduced even a decade down the line (like the problem with Homeworld) without people actively changing them.

Unless you preserve and rip your original CDs and pass them along, do think anyone is going to be able to play the original BG 50 years from now (assuming it could even even run on a computer by then)?

What are you trying to achieve with your comment? This is a highly polarizing subject, people who care about it are taking extreme opposite sides on this issue and think it is a big deal. It's not like your level headed middle-of-the-road argument is going to dissuade them.

WTF do you think?

It's also empowering to be the voice of reason, especially if you are a Cassandra people ignore and scorn.

But it seems that no, you can't simply have your diversity - this is much bigger. This is just a stepping stone for a perfect liberal world, free of haters and bigots. And that can only be achieved by name-calling others on the internet:

Like fuck it's about stamping out hatred and bigotry, it's only allowing the "right" kinds of hatred and bigotry while claiming that that's not the case.

So much fixation in the modern world and the Left is over remaking society and Mankind, when all that's happening is people doing the same things in different way and not realizing it.

Things change, but they remain the same.

I think you quoted the wrong name on that line.

Unrelated edit: They even made Viconia's portrait blurry. Seriously, what is it with the blurring of everything?

Yeah I thought I did, dunno how that happened.

The writer really doesn't care, she admitted that she adds "diversity" to her writing just for "diversity's" sake, and not because it serves the story being told. The inclusion is hamfisted.

I don't get it. You don't like it because of the SJW stuff, right? Don't tell me that if none of this SJW stuff had ever happened, you wouldn't have been playing the shit out of this game, remarking at every opportunity at how better it is than PoE.[/QUOTE]

I don't get it. You don't like it because of the SJW stuff, right? Don't tell me that if none of this SJW stuff had ever happened, you wouldn't have been playing the shit out of this game, remarking at every opportunity at how better it is than PoE.

TBH the biggest turn off are the bugs like the difficulty one fucking stuff up, but I'm in no hurry to play this, I've yet to complete either of the other games and wouldn't consider buying this one a year or more down the line when it's fixed, I've played them and it's a Steam sale throwing it out for $5 or less.

I have to agree with the minority here. What a moronic discussion.
Anti-SJW's being triggered harder by an apparently badly-written NPC than most self-proclaimed SJWs is kinda ironic, though.

It actually gives insight into how severe drama is on the internet.

I'm posting in this thread to relax while I do other shit, I'm willing to be we all are as are others on other forums.

As annoyed as many might be, I doubt if confronted RL and asked about it we'd give much of a shit. It, and most internet drama, comes off as a big deal because the internet is a concentrated dumping ground for people casually letting off hot air that presents things as being more important than they actually are.

 

[Excidium II]

Unrelated edit: They even made Viconia's portrait blurry. Seriously, what is it with the blurring of everything?

Who the hell knows, is like they do it to be consistent.

 

[BBMorti]

I found Amber's Bard hat.

Spoiler

Immunity to silence and deafness? And her 'bard effects' (or is that SJW agenda) lingers well after she's stopped.

She doesn't meet the minimum Charisma req's for being a bard.

 

[Rivmusique]

Oh I forgot, what is up with that white fog that just rolls over the screen every now and then? It seems to be on any map, and it just obscures you're view of the battlefield at random. Is it meant to only appear in the Fog of War? Because it's fucking annoying.

 

[Fowyr]

2) amplifies it. You can just tell that that "hey wench" line was written by a tumblerina. Normal people, even sexist men, know that men don't throw those lines at a women like that. You don't mess like with a party of adventures armed to the teeth. You call waitresses wenches, not company CEOs, high level politicians or idk movie stars.

Xir of Beamdog read "Eye of Argon" too much.

From where do you come barbarian, and by what are you called?" Gasped the complying wench, as Grignr smothered her lips with the blazing touch of his flaming mouth.

 

[Bubbles]

I found Amber's Bard hat.

Spoiler

Immunity to silence and deafness? And her 'bard effects' (or is that SJW agenda) lingers well after she's stopped.

Not that any of my bards ever actually sang bard songs, but isn't that linger effect terribly OP? Do you really just have to spend one out of every three rounds singing the song for 100% uptime?

 

[Excidium II]

Jester and Skald made viable by sjw hat?

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Editorial by Shane

https://kryptonradio.com/2016/04/08/dragonspear-editorial/

 

[Beastro]

This is why I love atheists.

"God is a silly joke, Theists and Deists are so stupid - Pick up a Math book *tips fedora laughing* Buhahahaha"
However.. Let me tell you what I personally think is -REALLY- going on without any scientific evidence!

Cus Buddhism is very in vogue with Atheists who still like to get their religion on the down low and claim it isn't as such.

Not to say all Buddhists are that way, mostly the Western variety, just like all the "spiritual, not religious" crowd.

for instance, has you help orc workers in a socialist rebellion and it's clearly considered a good thing to help them.

It was, how?

All I can remember of that quest was fucking their shit up.

That's actually very well integrated into the setting and the larger story of the game. At all opportunities does Arcanum bring up the industrial squalor and the racial prejudice of its world -- most of all if you are a low CHA Orc yourself -- and then caps off with an opportunity to actually roleplay about it.

Shit's totally different in Arcanum. It's not a matter of simple bias and prejudice against Orcs, the fuckers entire way of life is an affront to the rest of the world and they enjoy thumbing it in everyone's faces. That underlines all the more their origins where everyone has an unalterable and innate hatred of merely having them in their presence due to the magic that spawned them.

If they were simply benign and faced the latter problem, where everyone else is a victim of the magic that spawned them that keeps them from tolerating them it would be one thing, but they're literally intelligent animals who's entire way of life is nasty and there's good reason they're persecuted and forced to be civilized - the innate hatred and the fact half orcs as a product of rape are so prevalent people don't even know if any by-products of consensual sex are even able to exist.

I can't understand why any of you care about this at all. Are you all really so young and naive that a game with shitty writing and inept and out of place political preaching gets you so raw?

I have news for you: the world is cruel and most people don't care what you think and will assume you're stupid if you disagree with them. This is true no matter who you are.

Just take a walk and enjoy the sunshine. Life is too short to get bent out of shape by idiots who don't know they're idiots.

I could say the same thing, except I know you're just idling looking and posting shit on the internet, just as everyone else is going here.

Most Pillars rage isn't about the writing though ('blah mediocre' is about as vitriolic as that gets usually), it's about mechanics, encounter and level design, and Saint Josh of Sawyer.

(Which, from where I'm at, is more interesting anyway, even if the same ol' canards keep popping up.)

Really?

One of the "Pillars" of criticism about the game was the walls of text lore dumping and those massive descriptions many characters have when you first meet them.

 

[Beastro]

I can't understand why any of you care about this at all. Are you all really so young and naive that a game with shitty writing and inept and out of place political preaching gets you so raw?

I have news for you: the world is cruel and most people don't care what you think and will assume you're stupid if you disagree with them. This is true no matter who you are.

Just take a walk and enjoy the sunshine. Life is too short to get bent out of shape by idiots who don't know they're idiots.

I could say the same thing, except I know you're just idling looking and posting shit on the internet, just as everyone else is going here.

20 bucks says if this game came out in this day you'd all be having a shitfit over the constant jokes about Republicans VTMB makes.

Not everybody who's against SJWs is a bible thumper.

And even those that are don't mind a little humour poking fun at them

I wish more games had things like the radio shows of VTM:B in them, it's something I could literally listen to all day it's so amusing.

Ugh, that dialog is cringeworthy.

 

[Beastro]

lmao, that probably would be something ol Sensuki would do. He played that game for like 200 hours in beta or some shit, right?

More like a Celerity thing.

And I find it amusing he posted right after your post here.

Has anyone seen this? More amazing storytelling from Beamdog

Btw, watch the whole video..

Pisses me off hearing Bhaal, Baal pronounced that way.

"Ball spawn?" Aren't we all ball spawn when it comes down to it???

 

[Metal Hurlant]

One of the things I've been noticing is just because there's more enemies doesn't mean it becomes more tactical. A good fireball is all you need and quite often rules the day. But it is good to see ranged enemies change to melee when you close in on them. The better fights has been with spellcasters with their contingencies.

Spoiler

Scouting ahead with my bard, I came across some Orcs. ran back with my boots of speed and Fireballed them a couple of times (hit myself once in the process) and only had to finish off the Orc Leader.

 

[Shadenuat]

Not that any of my bards ever actually sang bard songs, but isn't that linger effect terribly OP? Do you really just have to spend one out of every three rounds singing the song for 100% uptime?

Not OP but a lot more viable, yes. First round hit the button, then 2 rounds cast spells. Some micro required but that's a good thing. In IWD2 there already was a talent like that.

 

[Shadenuat]

One of the things I've been noticing is just because there's more enemies doesn't mean it becomes more tactical. A good fireball is all you need and quite often rules the day. But it is good to see ranged enemies change to melee when you close in on them. The better fights has been with spellcasters with their contingencies.

Spoiler

Scouting ahead with my bard, I came across some Orcs. ran back with my boots of speed and Fireballed them a couple of times (hit myself once in the process) and only had to finish off the Orc Leader.

Yes that's 70% or more of all encounters in the game. If you have 2-3 AOEs ready, you'll win. It's a very rare thing when 2 arcane spellcasters can't kill everything you meet, since there are no well protected characters like in BG2, like golems, rakshasas, and so on. There are also no mass protections like in D&D3 so enemy mages can't put Mass Protection from Fire on their group for example. Mass Enlarge Person + Mass Protections + haste and others and so on is rule 101 of modern d&d warfare for groups like that (large military like encounters aka soldiers&catapults), without them they're just fireball fodder.

 

[Beastro]

Also the whole concept that "Officers Are Cowards" is retarded in that setting.

While concept is bullshit period.

People need to go look up the causality rates of them in WWI.

This may be a risky question to ask, but aren't left-leaning politics (somewhat awkwardly coupled with the more traditionally right-leaning "great man" theory of causation) pretty endemic in even older RPGs? I mean, Dark Sun: Shattered Lands is pretty clearly a mix of environmentalism and poor vs. rich, for example. And Fallout (particularly Fallout 2) makes a point of satirizing right-wing militarism and suburbanism. Almost every fantasy RPG I can think of has had, at some point, some messaging about discrimination and tolerance (Ultima 6 is probably the paradigmatic example of this). Same with bizarre insertions of real-world stuff, like having Bill Gates be a major figure in Arcanum (if only Troika had known what Appleby would become!) or Dan Quayle jokes in FO2.

Is the issue here (1) that the politics are too far left, (2) that the writing is worse, (3) that the gameplay is worse, or (4) that the issue has simply moved from background static to signal due to the years-long GamerGate brouhaha? Or some combination of these things? I'm not particularly interested in Siege of Dragonspear itself, but I am interested in whether there is a shift going on in terms of players' tolerance of messaging in games.

It's something the more conservative have been dealing with since forever (It's something I quickly learned to live with and tune out even as a kid with the way cartoons were). It's why this shit doesn't phase us, but it enrages everyone else to the left of us that is now being effected.

Todays Progressive is tomorrows Conservative.

Because feminism is a supremacist movement and, unlike the games you mentioned, it permeates every single moment of SOD.

What the hell do you think FO2 is centered around: a Reactionary group of old America trying to commit mass genocide so that the world can be repopulated again by pure Americans (which is led by an idiot strawman president whose name evokes Richard Nixon's).

FO1 doesn't have that problem and it's for that reason why FO2 was an odious edition to the franchise, because it started everything Bethesda just copied and made even more in your face, like the cannibal village of 50s conservatives.

 

[Celerity]

Heh, you fucks are still raging about me.

 

[FeelTheRads]

One mention in like 100 pages -> oh my god you are raging about me u are my puppets hahahahahaha

Poor fucktard, the need for attention is reaching critical levels. Someone ask him about his mod or something.

 

[ArchAngel]

The ani-LGTB sentiments on the codex always seemed to be in good fun but lately it seems like it has been taken over by a vocal minority of idiots who take crusading against anything even slightly gay as serious as the SJW's flauning around their agenda at every possible moment. Is this place filled with conservative Russians trying to shove their old skool "values" down our collective throates or what? Or are this just basement dwelling nerds who are really this bored and cantankerous?

Wtf are you rambling about/

People are mad at the way the NPC is presented and the underlying agenda, not the sexuality of the character itself.

If the case were as you present we'd have been seeing people rambling on paranoid about Edwin's curse being some tactic to normalize such shit, or other things like Cloud's little adventure with gays in FFVII decades ago being used as a tactic to introduce such a lifestyle into gamers minds like weirdos seem to think is the case with Teletubbies and Pokemon.

The fact is those were put in without an agenda to push, so it never raised anyone hackles. The fact that Beamdog has reacted in the way it has only shows how much that was put in specifically to push an agenda that has taken the issue beyond one simple NPC and as an issue endemic to the game as a whole.

Can you remove me from that quote, I never said that and you misquoted me for someone else.