Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 05, 2023, 09:05:45 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on August 05, 2023, 05:23:49 PM

Quote from: Effete on August 05, 2023, 05:08:40 PM

Quote from: Psyckosama on August 05, 2023, 04:53:03 PM
He even CANCELED us for calling him out... Jesus. It really does fuckin' loop around.

Horseshoe Theory confirmed?

More like an Ouroboros. It just goes in circles eating itself.

Quote from: Reckall on August 05, 2023, 05:13:14 PM

Quote from: Effete on August 05, 2023, 05:08:40 PM

Quote from: Psyckosama on August 05, 2023, 04:53:03 PM
He even CANCELED us for calling him out... Jesus. It really does fuckin' loop around.

Horseshoe Theory confirmed?

Mostly "It is not woke if it is me".

You don't understand! No one's calling for outright bans (...yet), so there's no parallels. Cuz two things can't be alike if one of them is basically the same thing, only worse.

And here we have FOUR imbeciles that don't know what cancelling someone means, me not wanting to read your stupid "enlightened centrist tm" drivel isn't me cancelling you.

And yes, this means both VisionStorm and Effete are being added to the ignore list, have fun imagining things and thinking it's reality you lying twats.

"Blocking someone is not acting like a SJW when I do it! I'm totally not going down a purity spiral and in desperate need to go out and touch grass."

Dude, seriously take a month off the internet. It rots your brain.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 05, 2023, 11:56:05 PM
So, just so we are clear here, those of you who are denigrating this thread are perfectly fine with a video game that includes options to have sex with animals.  And this is not "degenerate" in your opinion.  If this is an accurate description of your opinion, I would like to know a) if there is anything you feel a mass-marketed video game should not include (or would be repulsive if it did include) and b) what behavior would you consider to be a sign of "degeneracy" in a game?

I honestly don't give a shit. "Degeneracy" is largely a tradcon/puritanical concern. I don't live my life preoccupying myself with whether what other people do is "degenerate" or not. What other people do with their lives is none of my business or concern.

I care about victims. Is someone being hurt? Is actual demonstrable damage being done? And no, "I predict that sometime in the future society will fall into ciaos and Western Civ will collapse because someone somewhere did something I didn't like that infringed on no one*," is not demonstrable damage. That's just you speculating about stuff and imposing your values, then pretending your objections have objective merit, and anyone who disagrees or doesn't care enough MUST be "one of THEM" (Gotcha bitch!). Therefore confirming your suspicions that you were right all along! Except you weren't; you're just hallucinating stuff while going down a purity spiral looking for "Degenerates!™".

AS others have pointed out this isn't even an actual bear, but a shapeshifted character engaging activity that comes up all over in real world mythology (shapeshifted animal fucking!). And you don't even have to see it unless you go down that path. It's rated M/17+, so it's not even marketed to children. Does it warrant a mention to serve as a TRIGGER WARNING for overly sensitive (totally not SJW-y) people who may object to that kind of material? I guess. But that's not really what this discussion is about. This is about finding the DEGENERACY!™, "and pointing it ALL out" (-Geeky Sarkeesian).

*And yes, this hyperbolic statement has been implied by people defending this type of discussions on the basis that the DEGENERACY!™ has been out in media for decades (with TSR using "he or she" decades ago--HARRUMPH! I saw!), we just didn't call it out early/hard enough. That's why we're at the Culture War predicament that we're currently at right now!

Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 05, 2023, 11:56:05 PM
So, just so we are clear here, those of you who are denigrating this thread are perfectly fine with a video game that includes options to have sex with animals.  And this is not "degenerate" in your opinion.  If this is an accurate description of your opinion, I would like to know a) if there is anything you feel a mass-marketed video game should not include (or would be repulsive if it did include) and b) what behavior would you consider to be a sign of "degeneracy" in a game?

Honestly, as long as it's not shoved down my throat with bad writing, character assassination, lack of choice, terrible plotlines, tried together with a general sneering sense of self-superiority, I'll accept damned near fucking anything in games.

I honestly have more problems with the sex scene (among other things) in Last of Us 2 and Alloy's redesign in Horizon Forbidden West than with the bear fucking in BG3.

One is a unavoidable cut scene where you see a butch woman-creature with the likability of a orc getting railed from behind, published by a studio owned by a company that was simultaneously going after Japanese studios for showing too much thigh in their weeaboo waifu games. That entire scene (and the rest of the game tbh) exists in that special place where gonk, hypocrisy, and virtue signaling meet.

The other was just a simpering pander to people who are never going to actually play the game as to be hailed as heroes on social media...

The bear sex... eh... well... it's a plot decision. Not one I'd make but... well... tell me the spoilers needed to find that path so I can avoid them at all costs please!

If it was a plot critical thing, well, lets just say I'd be much less accepting.

TBH, my first reaction to anyone screaming degeneracy is to restrain the urge to punch a motherfucker in the throat. Listening to moral guardians (both right and left) preach about degeneracy is like listening to people trying to argue in favor of gun control. Same rhetoric, same tactics.

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 06, 2023, 12:14:08 AM
VisionStorm is right; toxic purity spiraling isn't exclusive to the Woke... the woke are just the most prominent example of it.

Oh not even, the American religious right has been burning that torch for literal centuries now. Last big flair-up was in the 1980s with the whole Moral Majority bullshit.

Problem is the SJWs are the loudest monkeys in the pen this day and age... and Geeky is a self-declared "Christian Puritan"... don't need to be a rocket scientist to see where this is going.

Quote from: Reckall on August 06, 2023, 01:40:24 AM
When I saw this thread I thought "Well, this is new..." However, I first tried the, you know, actual game. Yes, you can create a "they/them" character, but you aren't forced to do it. You can create a female trucker but when I went for a (stereotypical) beautiful paladinette I easily created a beautiful woman.

Truly a man of taste.

QuoteRegarding "genitals" I can be bothered less. However, if there is an option (like in many "better bodies" mods for Skyrim) I always choose "realistic". Some of these mods ask you if you want a "doll" down there or a realistic representation - and somehow if I choose "doll" I feel that part of the illusion of realism goes away. Having said that, I don't think I ever even checked once the final model. In BG3 I clicked on "default" for my body type and moved on.

Did people make this much noise when you could do the exact fucking same in CP2077? Just wondering.

QuoteGenerally speaking, my feeling is that BG3 is "inclusive" in the original, positive, sense of the word: everyone is welcome, nothing is forced. I tried to avoid spoilers but here and there I read snippets of comments by players astounded by the enormity of the game's contents. In my four hours (I had to stop for technical reasons) I still have to find something outside what you feel a D&D (the way it was) game should contain.

There is a reason that other game devs are freaking out at the prospect of actually being held to... standards...

QuoteWas this poor bear a marketing stunt? If so, it worked perfectly, as it enraged the "righteous crowd" thus making a fictional bear in a fictional setting more popular than 90% of the influencers out there ( My reaction: "You can do THAT? Boy, when they were saying that BG3 is BIG they meant business...") Congratulations to all those who ate hook, bait and line - showing their hypocrisy as a side effect.

Was thinking the same thing. By enraging 5% of the population, most of whom will probably never actually play the game, they attract the attention of the other 95%.

Quote
BG3 is not a porn game. It is as pornographic as Mass Effect is - only a bit more extreme (and still you aren't forced down that path). Do you even tried it??

He's clearly never actually played a porn game.

BG3 is not a porn game. It's a mature game with sexual content, but it's not a porn game. It has a couple R-rated cut scenes.

Listening to him bitch is like listening to some 1980s church lady (or 2010s land-whale) scream and crow about how movies with titties are going to turn all the youth into rapists.

Quote
"I'm not calling for the game to be banned - I'm only insulting EVERYTHING AND EVERYBODY about it" (while still having not a single clue about what I'm talking about).

That tends to be how these things go.

Quote
It is rated M/17+

I pointed that out like last page, still didn't grock.

Quote
Oh, yeah, ye olde "I was caught accusing people/entities of things I had no clue about, so, when the reality of the situation was shown to me I must HAVE HIT A NERVE. Isn't it? Isn't it?"

The one thing hypocrites hate most is being called out on being hypocrites.

QuoteSomething I can understand. You said some lunatic things about BG3, defended them by behaving like a woke would have done, and blocked those expressing some sane counterpoints. Guess us saying "don't be a woke variant" must have hit a nerve with you.

Again, this attitude predates the current crop of wokelings by generations.

But yes, the christian moral guardian type is basically just a pallet swap SJW with all the seething horseshit that implies.

Quote from: VisionStorm on August 06, 2023, 08:22:43 AM
I care about victims. Is someone being hurt? Is actual demonstrable damage being done? And no, "I predict that sometime in the future society will fall into ciaos and Western Civ will collapse because someone somewhere did something I didn't like that infringed on no one*," is not demonstrable damage. That's just you speculating about stuff and imposing your values, then pretending your objections have objective merit, and anyone who disagrees or doesn't care enough MUST be "one of THEM" (Gotcha bitch!). Therefore confirming your suspicions that you were right all along! Except you weren't; you're just hallucinating stuff while going down a purity spiral looking for "Degenerates!™".

This is the problem with all forms of social guardians. They believe in the concept of social crimes. Crimes where no one individual is a victim, but society itself is.

It's the reason for shit like sodomy laws, anti-miscegenation laws, pornography and prostitution bans, the war on drugs, prohibition, and book bans.

QuoteAS others have pointed out this isn't even an actual bear, but a shapeshifted character engaging activity that comes up all over in real world mythology (shapeshifted animal fucking!). And you don't even have to see it unless you go down that path. It's rated M/17+, so it's not even marketed to children. Does it warrant a mention to serve as a TRIGGER WARNING for overly sensitive (totally not SJW-y) people who may object to that kind of material? I guess. But that's not really what this discussion is about. This is about finding the DEGENERACY!™, "and pointing it ALL out" (-Geeky Sarkeesian).

*And yes, this hyperbolic statement has been implied by people defending this type of discussions on the basis that the DEGENERACY!™ has been out in media for decades (with TSR using "he or she" decades ago--HARRUMPH! I saw!), we just didn't call it out early/hard enough. That's why we're at the Culture War predicament that we're currently at right now!

Honestly, this entire thread stinks of the 1980s IMHO, and in all the worst ways.

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 06, 2023, 12:14:08 AM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 05, 2023, 11:56:05 PM
So, just so we are clear here, those of you who are denigrating this thread are perfectly fine with a video game that includes options to have sex with animals.  And this is not "degenerate" in your opinion.  If this is an accurate description of your opinion, I would like to know a) if there is anything you feel a mass-marketed video game should not include (or would be repulsive if it did include) and b) what behavior would you consider to be a sign of "degeneracy" in a game?

I haven't seen anyone denigrating the thread.

I have seen a number of people question allocation of limited resources towards given issues (people have only so many fucks to give and perpetual outrage is exhausting)... I'd personally rather rail against the game in question for why it includes genitalia at all; what about the game so desperately calls for their detailed inclusion that it couldn't possibly be made without a "choose your explicit genitals" feature?

I would suggest that this particular outrage the OP started railing about was engineered by the game developer specifically to suck all the oxygen out of that broader controversy that normies might actually give a shit about if it were actually focused on and keep it laser focused on a much harder for normies to take seriously controversy about bear sex.

But no, you can't have that sort of nuance here now; if you aren't sufficiently outraged by what the OP wants to be outraged about you become the enemy outgroup who must be accused of every sin and for whom there is no possibility of forgiveness (even unconditional apologies are insufficient).

VisionStorm is right; toxic purity spiraling isn't exclusive to the Woke... the woke are just the most prominent example of it.

Standards are not a "purity spiral."  That's would only be true if the standards change (which is why "woke" devolves into purity spirals; because the left has no standards, only tactics in its pursuit of power).  Thank you for identifying where you stand...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 06, 2023, 10:23:02 AM
Thank you for identifying where you stand...

No problem.

For clarity... I stand on the position that it would be more productive to go after the game for why it felt the need to include ANY genetalia (and would posit it adds pretty much zip to the actual story and therefore is only present to coarsen society) vs. burning energy on the smaller and more easily dismissed ("it's a joke") subset that is bear sex (which frankly seems to have worked perfectly for the developers in getting all the perpetual outrage crowd to ignore the broader issues by being the shiny red dot for you to pursue).

And thank you for identifying yourself as a moral guardian so myopic in focus that you devote all your attention to a cracked window while berating people for pointing out that there's still a burglar inside the house.

Strong "The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs!" energy in this thread ...

Quote from: Effete on August 06, 2023, 12:44:58 AM
But to answer your questions, I don't think a game marketed to adults should have any limits, even if the things depicted are unlawful or morally reprehensible.

So there is nothing beyond the pale for the game's protagonist (which you are) to do?  Rape?  Genocide?  Child molestation?  That's pretty extreme.

Quote from: Effete on August 06, 2023, 12:44:58 AM
As for what behavior I would PERSONALLY find degenerate, I don't think that's relevent to the discussion.

Actually, it is.  What principles you hold is the crux of the question.  If you have no principles, no boundaries, no limits, then you are just like the woke.  There is no "degenerate" in your world.  Which means there is no way for someone with principles, boundaries, limits to coexist with you.  Because, while you may demand they respect your lack of limits, you'll never respect their principles/limits in return.  Which is exactly what is being shown in this thread.

Quote from: VisionStorm on August 06, 2023, 08:22:43 AM
I honestly don't give a shit. "Degeneracy" is largely a tradcon/puritanical concern. I don't live my life preoccupying myself with whether what other people do is "degenerate" or not. What other people do with their lives is none of my business or concern.

...

*And yes, this hyperbolic statement has been implied by people defending this type of discussions on the basis that the DEGENERACY!™ has been out in media for decades (with TSR using "he or she" decades ago--HARRUMPH! I saw!), we just didn't call it out early/hard enough. That's why we're at the Culture War predicament that we're currently at right now!

Well, at least you recognize that you are part of the problem.  You might dismiss the argument that we are here because we ignored the creeping degeneracy in the past, but dismissing is not defeating.  How did we get to this point, if not by slow incremental steps, with people like you ignoring what was happening (in society and in your hobbies)?  I'm genuinely curious as to how you think it happened.  So "Don't ask, don't tell" didn't become "gay love is the same as hetero love" and then "all love is love" and then "MAPs are real people who can't help it"?  That's just coincidence?  And video games and RPGs haven't been used to push and normalize these messages?

The left isn't the only part of the political spectrum that has become self-centered.  And "who cares, as long as it doesn't affect me" is the battle-cry of the self-centered...

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 06, 2023, 10:46:11 AM
And thank you for identifying yourself as a moral guardian so myopic in focus that you devote all your attention to a cracked window while berating people for pointing out that there's still a burglar inside the house.

Broken Window Theory says "Hello!"...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 06, 2023, 11:15:24 AM

Quote from: Effete on August 06, 2023, 12:44:58 AM
But to answer your questions, I don't think a game marketed to adults should have any limits, even if the things depicted are unlawful or morally reprehensible.

So there is nothing beyond the pale for the game's protagonist (which you are) to do?  Rape?  Genocide?  Child molestation?  That's pretty extreme.

I'd say it depends on the genre. If it's professing to be an RPG then one would expect the ability to choose between doing what is right and what is wrong... the degree of wrong tolerable I would actually argue is proportional to the degree of "reality ensues" associated with it.

If the game engine turned many of the normally friendly guard mobs hostile and only allowed you access to black markets because you can't show your face and normal vendors won't sell to you after such crimes (or say starts sending bounty hunters and assassins at you at ever increasing intervals) then I'm all for allowing the evil options to be included because then your choice matters.

One of things I liked when playing Elder Scrolls Online was that it actually had such a system in place where being spotted picking locks, breaking and entering, picking pockets or assassinating people would flag you as a criminal. As a criminal you would be attacked on sight by guards (meaning you had to use various secret entrances to enter all the walled towns and cities and hide from guards patrolling the cities... which made buying from open markets exceptionally risky) and had to launder stolen goods through black market fences (who took a cut).

I had no problem with those crimes being options in the game for players precisely because there were real consequences for it.

One can instruct in morals both by positive example and by cautionary tale.

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 06, 2023, 11:59:10 AM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 06, 2023, 11:15:24 AM

Quote from: Effete on August 06, 2023, 12:44:58 AM
But to answer your questions, I don't think a game marketed to adults should have any limits, even if the things depicted are unlawful or morally reprehensible.

So there is nothing beyond the pale for the game's protagonist (which you are) to do?  Rape?  Genocide?  Child molestation?  That's pretty extreme.

I'd say it depends on the genre. If it's professing to be an RPG then one would expect the ability to choose between doing what is right and what is wrong... the degree of wrong tolerable I would actually argue is proportional to the degree of "reality ensues" associated with it.

If the game engine turned many of the normally friendly guard mobs hostile and only allowed you access to black markets because you can't show your face and normal vendors won't sell to you after such crimes (or say starts sending bounty hunters and assassins at you at ever increasing intervals) then I'm all for allowing the evil options to be included because then your choice matters.

One of things I liked when playing Elder Scrolls Online was that it actually had such a system in place where being spotted picking locks, breaking and entering, picking pockets or assassinating people would flag you as a criminal. As a criminal you would be attacked on sight by guards (meaning you had to use various secret entrances to enter all the walled towns and cities and hide from guards patrolling the cities... which made buying from open markets exceptionally risky) and had to launder stolen goods through black market fences (who took a cut).

I had no problem with those crimes being options in the game for players precisely because there were real consequences for it.

One can instruct in morals both by positive example and by cautionary tale.

That's a reasonable perspective.  Do you suffer any negative consequences in BG3 for having sex with a bear?

Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 06, 2023, 12:01:19 PM
That's a reasonable perspective.  Do you suffer any negative consequences in BG3 for having sex with a bear?

If you don't wake up the next day with Bear-chlamydia, Bear-gonorrhea, and Bear-herpes, then the developers have failed.


EDIT: Apparently this was my 69th post...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 06, 2023, 11:24:07 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on August 06, 2023, 08:22:43 AM
I honestly don't give a shit. "Degeneracy" is largely a tradcon/puritanical concern. I don't live my life preoccupying myself with whether what other people do is "degenerate" or not. What other people do with their lives is none of my business or concern.

...

*And yes, this hyperbolic statement has been implied by people defending this type of discussions on the basis that the DEGENERACY!™ has been out in media for decades (with TSR using "he or she" decades ago--HARRUMPH! I saw!), we just didn't call it out early/hard enough. That's why we're at the Culture War predicament that we're currently at right now!

Well, at least you recognize that you are part of the problem.  You might dismiss the argument that we are here because we ignored the creeping degeneracy in the past, but dismissing is not defeating.  How did we get to this point, if not by slow incremental steps, with people like you ignoring what was happening (in society and in your hobbies)?  I'm genuinely curious as to how you think it happened.  So "Don't ask, don't tell" didn't become "gay love is the same as hetero love" and then "all love is love" and then "MAPs are real people who can't help it"?  That's just coincidence?  And video games and RPGs haven't been used to push and normalize these messages?

The left isn't the only part of the political spectrum that has become self-centered.  And "who cares, as long as it doesn't affect me" is the battle-cry of the self-centered...

You have yet to demonstrate the presence of a problem, only assert the existence of one. And presumed the conscription of everyone into the fight against your asserted problem...or they must be part of the "problem" (totally not circular thinking).

And no, correlations do not imply causation. An ostracized group in society demanding equal rights decades ago, does not mean that superficially similar groups claiming to speak on their behalf today are part of the same overarching agenda working on some elaborate long con decades in the making. There's a bunch of dots that you're missing before you arrive at that hasty generalization, such as the advent of social media, the introduction of critical theory and intersectionality into the wider unsuspecting public, gamification of social networks, algorithmic manipulation of information, the fact that not everyone in the so-called "LGBTQ+" community (which isn't even a real community, but an amalgamation of groups shoehorned together for political purposes) even agrees with this stuff, etc.

Or do you also think that black people speaking out against Jim Crow decades has a direct causal link to BLM rioting in the streets today. Could it possibly be that these people have been manipulated by the media, activists, politicians and shadowy orgs through the use of censorship, disinformation and algorithms in gamified social networks*? Nah, gotta be them n****rs getting uppity since the 60s and not enough people putting them in their place. Cuz I mean, we used to have segregation and now we have angry black people trying to tear everything down. Obviously the two must be causally related, because black people.

*Social media uses gambling methods (https://ihpi.umich.edu/news/social-media-copies-gambling-methods-create-psychological-cravings) and has been proven to be capable of mental manipulation (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1320040111).

Quote from: Horace on August 06, 2023, 12:39:47 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 06, 2023, 12:01:19 PM
That's a reasonable perspective.  Do you suffer any negative consequences in BG3 for having sex with a bear?

If you don't wake up the next day with Bear-chlamydia, Bear-gonorrhea, and Bear-herpes, then the developers have failed.


EDIT: Apparently this was my 69th post...

Proof that you approve of simultaneous oral sex with a bear and are therefore part of the problem!

Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 06, 2023, 12:01:19 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 06, 2023, 11:59:10 AM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 06, 2023, 11:15:24 AM

Quote from: Effete on August 06, 2023, 12:44:58 AM
But to answer your questions, I don't think a game marketed to adults should have any limits, even if the things depicted are unlawful or morally reprehensible.

So there is nothing beyond the pale for the game's protagonist (which you are) to do?  Rape?  Genocide?  Child molestation?  That's pretty extreme.

I'd say it depends on the genre. If it's professing to be an RPG then one would expect the ability to choose between doing what is right and what is wrong... the degree of wrong tolerable I would actually argue is proportional to the degree of "reality ensues" associated with it.

If the game engine turned many of the normally friendly guard mobs hostile and only allowed you access to black markets because you can't show your face and normal vendors won't sell to you after such crimes (or say starts sending bounty hunters and assassins at you at ever increasing intervals) then I'm all for allowing the evil options to be included because then your choice matters.

One of things I liked when playing Elder Scrolls Online was that it actually had such a system in place where being spotted picking locks, breaking and entering, picking pockets or assassinating people would flag you as a criminal. As a criminal you would be attacked on sight by guards (meaning you had to use various secret entrances to enter all the walled towns and cities and hide from guards patrolling the cities... which made buying from open markets exceptionally risky) and had to launder stolen goods through black market fences (who took a cut).

I had no problem with those crimes being options in the game for players precisely because there were real consequences for it.

One can instruct in morals both by positive example and by cautionary tale.

That's a reasonable perspective.  Do you suffer any negative consequences in BG3 for having sex with a bear?

No clue. I had no plans to buy BG3 regardless of content. My interest in the topic is entirely academic.