Divinity: Original Sin II - Preview
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Aerth
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To be fair, the full article is more balanced and covers more ground.
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The values it promotes? Who says it wants to, or even should, promote values? Even if a game has some as a reflection of its creators, I doubt promotion of them is the goal. I hope the game isn't this preachy. If you're looking to video games for direction for, or a bolstering of, your own personal values, you're in a world of hurt, and I wish you luck. Not sure a game needs to have much of a philosophy either. How about trying to promote fun? Let's not take ourselves too seriously. Larian doesn't.
And its aesthetics? In the first sentence you bash the article's author for focusing on the superficial, and then you list aesthetics as your second important point. Don't get me wrong: Aesthetics certainly are a valid aspect to judge a video game by, but it just seems contradictory as you've presented it.
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Ovenall
SasqWatch
I disagree. Don't want a "preachy" game, but some sort of inherent values should be included. So many games have an "evil" option which is basically "be rude and kill people if you want" which never fits into the overarching story, and always seems like a band-aid fix just to allow an "evil" option to exist. Face it, most CRPGs are made with a "good" alignment PC in mind.
SSIGuy
An Islander Returned
From many past threads, "values" in video games lead to a lot of contention and debate (sometimes good, sometimes not, sometimes tiring). But it is interesting that a lot of people have debated whether video games are "art" on these forums in the past. Art has/is used very often to make points and engender debate about political and cultural issues. I think that's a role some video games have started to go into and I, for one, am ok with that. I do think it elevates what a game can be and do.
Look at the new south Park RPG and the "darkness" slider where as you make your character's skin tone darker, the game will be harder to play. That's getting a lot of attention - and rightly so. A lot is inflammatory but a lot is thoughtful and considered. Good "art" does that.
That said, there should always still be lots of room for games that don't do this (just, say, like in the movies where I can choose to watch the latest Marvel flick or instead watch something by Ai Weiwei (a Chinese artist who makes heavily biased and politicized films)).
Ultimately the market place will probably dictate to what degree we see both kinds of video games - and I'm happy to see both kinds ('cause I can choose what I want to play and what I don't).
Look at the new south Park RPG and the "darkness" slider where as you make your character's skin tone darker, the game will be harder to play. That's getting a lot of attention - and rightly so. A lot is inflammatory but a lot is thoughtful and considered. Good "art" does that.
That said, there should always still be lots of room for games that don't do this (just, say, like in the movies where I can choose to watch the latest Marvel flick or instead watch something by Ai Weiwei (a Chinese artist who makes heavily biased and politicized films)).
Ultimately the market place will probably dictate to what degree we see both kinds of video games - and I'm happy to see both kinds ('cause I can choose what I want to play and what I don't).
Oh, hell no, regarding games that are full of SJW moralizing, if that is what we are discussing. The people who are usually like that, well, they aren't so perfect themselves, and are often worse than the people they are shaming or trying to preach their "values" too, let's put it that way. That is what I have found, anyway.
Often, just like those preachers who were televangelists, and became famous preaching hellfire and brimstone, in a self-righteous manner, well, it turns out many of them were sinning up a storm on the sly. That is what many of these type of people (mainly talking online and social media here) remind me of…Enough said.
Often, just like those preachers who were televangelists, and became famous preaching hellfire and brimstone, in a self-righteous manner, well, it turns out many of them were sinning up a storm on the sly. That is what many of these type of people (mainly talking online and social media here) remind me of…Enough said.
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Morals are morals regardless if the messenger is upholding them. Just because there are failures and hypocrisy everywhere does not negate the need for morals.
Someone elses failure should not be an excuse not to try.
I don't care if creators try and place "values" in their games. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Someone elses failure should not be an excuse not to try.
I don't care if creators try and place "values" in their games. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
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SSIGuy
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Well, my point was the idea that a lot of people want video games, as a relatively new form of media, to evolve. And history has shown that every form of media has been used to carry messages beyond it's original intended use as just entertainment. Whether that's well-considered thoughts, satire, propaganda, religious indoctrination, education, etc - all media gets co-opted in all kinds of way as it's use evolves.
So to say we want games to evolve and improve and grow to tell more complex stories, means these other things will come with them. It's naive to think otherwise or to say we want games to evolve but just don't evolve in the directions I don't like.
And as Wisdom points out, we have a choice to exercise over what we buy.
So to say we want games to evolve and improve and grow to tell more complex stories, means these other things will come with them. It's naive to think otherwise or to say we want games to evolve but just don't evolve in the directions I don't like.
And as Wisdom points out, we have a choice to exercise over what we buy.
An endless time wasting debate on The Watch? That never happens here!
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Heh, that's pretty good.
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Well, games are doing just fine as far as I'm concerned, but that is just me from the cheap seats...
SSIGuy
An Islander Returned
Yeah, me too mostly... I don't have to have more politicized or cultural content in my games. I'm just saying if we want games to tell deeper, more complex stories (which I do) then you gotta expect that other stuff will come with it sometime.
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As long as the cheap seats are microtransaction free, multiple location exclusive preorder free, mmo consolized phonseshit free.... I'll so join you!
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Ripper
Зичу Вам успіхів
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Yes, I agree. I was joking when I said I hope the game doesn't promote values - because any suspicion of promoting a position tends to spawn interminable trainwreck threads. It's a shame, because it could be an interesting conversation with thoughtful contributions like yours, but I fear it usually devolves into antagonism and psuedo-philosophical horseshit of the highest order.
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SSIGuy, your points about values in video games are all well taken. I guess what I was reacting to was the idea of reserving judgment on a game until seeing whether it meets some sort of internal checklist of political viewpoints a person agrees with. So many people these days are so easily offended, go out of their way to look for excuses to be offended and so intolerant of a viewpoint that doesn't perfectly mesh with their own.
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SSIGuy
An Islander Returned
Yeah, that's true. That's what comes with the growth of the market (among other things). There are good things and bad things but overall I think it's good that these things are coming up in video games too. I don't remember making any assumptions about whether my paddle was a male paddle or female paddle when I first played pong in the mid-70s.
And that's cool but it's nice now to have choices in games that offer more interesting questions about about my place in the world. Or not, if that's someone's preference. 
D
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Probably my least favorite part of the game really. The controls overall are annoying.