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- She / Her
"The Front Page", I've got a bridge that I'd like to sell you mate. But first I think I'll show you what the actual front page looks like.
Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear
- Thread starter Leoric
- Start date
- PC
"The Front Page", I've got a bridge that I'd like to sell you mate. But first I think I'll show you what the actual front page looks like.
Jace911
Spider-Dork
- Location
- The Gold-Bricking State
You're right, my mistake. All of that was on the second page, behind literally one click of "load more reviews".
I guess that means it doesn't exist!
- Location
- Out and About
That's not what either of them said. At all.
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- She / Her
Cute, but I wouldn't quit my day job to become a fisherman if I were you. The herrings just aren't biting these days.
- Location
- Out and About
You know what I found? An open letter from a transwoman who thinks the whole thing was poorly handled:
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
If I am going to discuss this game in terms of its trans representation, I would agree that it's badly handled. For example, picking out one of the scummy reviews, one of them made the comment, 'They insert characters into their game that blatantly scream personal information at the player and the player is given no choice on how to react to it besides "Wow, that's so great for you to tell me how gay you are without me even asking you about that! Good for you!"'
Given the context surrounding that quote, it's pretty clearly not coming from a progressive place. Nevertheless, I think there's a decent point in there.
I mentioned Krem from Dragon Age: Inquisition last page, and I think they make for a pretty good contrast. Krem was trans, but the game didn't rub your face in that, nor did it hide it. You could go through the game never talking to the Chargers enough to find out that Krem was trans... But it's a Bioware game. Those have been driven largely by their characters at least since Mass Effect 2, if not since the beginning. If you're playing a Bioware game, exploring the various NPC's and their dialogue is part of the experience, so Krem's transgenderism, while not part of the core experience, was far from a carefully-hidden easter egg either.
Basically, Krem was trans but he wasn't Krem, The Trans Guy. He was Krem, the snarky lieutenant of the Bull's Chargers who happens to be trans. That's a pretty great handling of the issue, I think. Apart from anything else, it seems pretty true to life, since I kinda doubt many trans people enjoy focusing on the gender they were assigned versus who they are, to the point of volunteering that information to people they just met.
Given the context surrounding that quote, it's pretty clearly not coming from a progressive place. Nevertheless, I think there's a decent point in there.
I mentioned Krem from Dragon Age: Inquisition last page, and I think they make for a pretty good contrast. Krem was trans, but the game didn't rub your face in that, nor did it hide it. You could go through the game never talking to the Chargers enough to find out that Krem was trans... But it's a Bioware game. Those have been driven largely by their characters at least since Mass Effect 2, if not since the beginning. If you're playing a Bioware game, exploring the various NPC's and their dialogue is part of the experience, so Krem's transgenderism, while not part of the core experience, was far from a carefully-hidden easter egg either.
Basically, Krem was trans but he wasn't Krem, The Trans Guy. He was Krem, the snarky lieutenant of the Bull's Chargers who happens to be trans. That's a pretty great handling of the issue, I think. Apart from anything else, it seems pretty true to life, since I kinda doubt many trans people enjoy focusing on the gender they were assigned versus who they are, to the point of volunteering that information to people they just met.
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- Location
- Drachyench on Discord
Drizzt and company feature even more prominently in SoA though! The pop culture references declined, yes, but even moreso than BG
TotAC) IMO a number of characters and plots were one dimensional. The major characters were better fleshed out, but everyone else was delegated to almost token "one-off minor quest giver" (and I'm not kidding: there's all of two unnamed NPCs in Athkalta). And as mentioned by others a number of the romance plots were... of dubious quality, when put lightly (ex: Anomen).But disregarding this: You said you didn't like the first BG's mechanics / lore? Felt them bland? SoD is an expansion to the first game, functioning as a bridge into SoA. It, perhaps obviously in hindsight, should have been a given it'd lean more towards BG than SoA?
As for the ongoing discussion (in the thread overall) re:Trans portrayal: Yeah. It could have been handled better. It's a darn shame 90% of the negative reviews bringing up the trans thing are butthurt not over that but explicit PC / Spoopy Skeleton reasons, and that other trans persons' issues were only brought up after both the arguments "it's not really about the trans thing" and "it's not like anyone agrees with those reviews " were shot in the foot with an elephant gun. Likewise it is a plum shame the people arguing about the representation are often of an entirely different tone / making an entirety different point from "PC wizards in the trees!" but are being held up by them as human shields.
I want more LGBT characters where their sexuality is part of their identity, not the whole of it. One of my favorite modern fantasy books is The Steel Remains, where 2/3 of the main characters are gay. It's an important part of the main PoV character's backstory and affects the plot. But at the same time, he's very much a hero first and foremost, with a personality, wants, desires, fears, and shames. This is a guy you can completely identify with, and the fact that he sleeps with men is still part of the story rather than an aside! It's beautiful writing and I really appreciated it.
Whenever I come across a character whose main defining aspect is that they're gay I just cringe because it's basically exploitative writing. God, I hated the shuttle pilot in Mass Effect because his entire character was the Sad Gay Man trope unless you give him your Magic Penis. It's another thing I think The Last of Us got right in its writing; it had a memorable gay character whose sexual preference was just another part of his character.
I don't want writers to stay away from gay (or bi or trans or any other member of the alphabet soup!) characters out of fear that they'll do them wrong. But I want them to write characters first and foremost, not import cutouts from their teen girl yaoi fanfiction.
I stopped in the middle of a rather fun Archer run, so to me it's a good reason to play BG:EE again.
Thinking back, I liked the Extended Edition companions an awful lot. Sure, they 'stood out' compared to one-note wonders like Tiax, but they felt and played uniquely nonetheless. Their stories proceeded at a decent pace compared to the overall content, and had some very interesting twists and endings through BG I and II. So I have a good amount of faith in Dragonspear's designers.
And speaking as someone who started playing the series about two years ago, Infinity Engine graphics still have their charm. There's a moodiness to them I just can't find in photo-realistic open world Hardware-Fests.
Will probably report back once I've sunk my teeth into it.
Gotten a decent amount in with the first Bhaalspawn I ever made (Elf Fighter with 9 dex. who needs dex anyway). Party AI is actually useful now, and there's some neat little UI improvements for equipment comparison. Combat encounters and dungeon design is solid, reminds me of mid-BG2. The story has some very interesting themes so far.
Because you're the great "Hero of Baldur's Gate", you get roped by the City Council into dealing with the brutal Crusade on the borders (you do get more personal reasons as well, but they're clearly trying to use you). A lot of evidence suggests they're only doing this to stop the refugee crisis produced by said crusade. These refugees have done legitimately unsavory things to survive, which is demonstrated in a very cool way:
You have to work with the Flaming Fists on your expedition. And THEY'RE STILL THE FLAMING FIST. The only force who can defend the city from a murderous invasion, who're also massively racist and often uncontrollably abusive. Like, their party representative Captain Corwin is a loving mother and a well-behaved soldier, but she'd totally sympathize with the folks who tried to lynch Viconia. I'm putting her in a party that's half goblin+drow out of spite.
The Shining Lady, the main villain, is Mrs. Lawful Good and leads a multi-cultural army against literal Hell-Fiends torturing folks for eternity. Of course, to consolidate the power needed to do this, she's had to conquer lands and do a fair amount of slaughtering/home-burning herself. Now that's a good villain.
Meanwhile the old-fashioned BG silliness is still here. Like, I'm the deadliest being in the entire country, but I've also got a reputation for doing inane fetch quests for anyone who asks. I'm fetching potion cases from attics and delivering 50 GP deposits for Bhaal's sake! These folks know an RPG heroine when they see one.
tl;dr: It's a good game, y'all. I haven't even had any bugs.
Because you're the great "Hero of Baldur's Gate", you get roped by the City Council into dealing with the brutal Crusade on the borders (you do get more personal reasons as well, but they're clearly trying to use you). A lot of evidence suggests they're only doing this to stop the refugee crisis produced by said crusade. These refugees have done legitimately unsavory things to survive, which is demonstrated in a very cool way:
They took all of your money to help their fellows (not knowing it's yours). All of it. Gone. You got to keep your items, but whether you forgive them is up to you.
You have to work with the Flaming Fists on your expedition. And THEY'RE STILL THE FLAMING FIST. The only force who can defend the city from a murderous invasion, who're also massively racist and often uncontrollably abusive. Like, their party representative Captain Corwin is a loving mother and a well-behaved soldier, but she'd totally sympathize with the folks who tried to lynch Viconia. I'm putting her in a party that's half goblin+drow out of spite.
The Shining Lady, the main villain, is Mrs. Lawful Good and leads a multi-cultural army against literal Hell-Fiends torturing folks for eternity. Of course, to consolidate the power needed to do this, she's had to conquer lands and do a fair amount of slaughtering/home-burning herself. Now that's a good villain.
Meanwhile the old-fashioned BG silliness is still here. Like, I'm the deadliest being in the entire country, but I've also got a reputation for doing inane fetch quests for anyone who asks. I'm fetching potion cases from attics and delivering 50 GP deposits for Bhaal's sake! These folks know an RPG heroine when they see one.
tl;dr: It's a good game, y'all. I haven't even had any bugs.
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- She / Her
Lucky. I ended up looking for a bunch of soldiers for about 30 minutes before realizing that the game never properly spawned them.
But yah, it's pretty good. Better than I expected when they first announced it.
- Location
- The Hague
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- He/Him
The point, such that it is, is based on a basically completely invented presentation of the character. Almost all of these complaints about Mizhena being trans are either something along the lines of 'she just blurts it out to you without you asking' or 'they're rubbing this trans stuff in my face.' Neither of those things are true. You only find out about Mizhena being trans if you show an interest in her name and then follow another dialogue option - ie. you only find out if you decide to have a personal conversation with her. An entirely optional conversation with a side character is mostly definitely not having it rubbed in your face.
When it gets down to it the great majority of these complaints exist because a trans character being in the game makes these particularly vocal people enormously uncomfortable. When it gets down to it a major and recurring complaint is literally 'I don't like that this game has a trans person in it.' That there are actually negative reviews based on her existence at all, reviews that have hundreds of upvotes, should probably make you tilt your head a bit.
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This again?
I suppose that's technically true, bearing in mind that the dialogue options in question are, "Mizhena? That's an unusual name. I don't think I've heard it before," and, "What was wrong with your old name?" It kind of doesn't segue way into the "When I was born my parents thought me a boy and raised me as such," dialogue as cleanly as they first thought.
Not that it really matters as the CEO of the company has already stated that they're going to "improve" the character in a future patch. As well as remove Minscs reference to Gamergate.
I suppose that's technically true, bearing in mind that the dialogue options in question are, "Mizhena? That's an unusual name. I don't think I've heard it before," and, "What was wrong with your old name?" It kind of doesn't segue way into the "When I was born my parents thought me a boy and raised me as such," dialogue as cleanly as they first thought.
Not that it really matters as the CEO of the company has already stated that they're going to "improve" the character in a future patch. As well as remove Minscs reference to Gamergate.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Huh. The impression I got is it was practically her introduction, so I sit informed.
I still think it's kind of odd for them to talk about it so freely with someone they just met, and Narcissist is right that it's not a natural segue, but that's certainly less clumsy than I thought.
Reveen
Castro-Trudeauist
Lol, I guess "MUH CREATIVE FREEDOM" is a one way street, huh?
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- She / Her
That sounds like the perfect response though?
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- The Hague
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- He/Him
I actually think it does. Look, I'm not trans or anything, but I have a few trans friends and for them picking a name was a pretty important stage in finding their actual identity. It's pretty closely linked stuff.
Let's be real, there isn't an RPG around where you spend a realistic amount of time getting any kind of information. Like in Mass Effect I went from zero to life story in a couple of spins of the dialogue wheel. I don't think it's that unusual by the standards of the genre.
As an aside in real life I once asked an acquaintance about her name and discovered that her parents are embarrassing tragics for a certain band, so I dunno maybe it's not that outrageous in real life either
Jace911
Spider-Dork
- Location
- The Gold-Bricking State
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Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
... Witcher 3?
I mean I take your point, but I feel like there's a difference between the relatively innocuous information given in most RPG's and stuff that is, even setting aside the risks of bigotry because, hey, Faerûn, deeply personal.
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I haven't played Witcher 3. I did play Witcher 2 but Geralt was already embedded deeply in a lot of relationships so it's hard to judge. I guess ultimately the character judged that in a setting where there's literally an item that can make you a woman that someone probably isn't going to lose their minds over it
Jace911
Spider-Dork
- Location
- The Gold-Bricking State
This is assuming that Faerun has the same level of transphobia as our world does, which there really isn't any evidence for AFAIK. I mean come on, it's not like she was wearing a neon sign that said "I AM TRANS". Someone asked about her name, she explained it matter-of-factly, end of conversation. There's no real need to conceal it because again, as far as I know, there's no preexisting threat of being abused or murdered for being trans in Faerun.
Aside from the psychotic manbabies players whose reaction to this character's existence was to murder her in-game and post the videos on YouTube---something which is sadly not unlike real life.
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- She / Her
It sounds like it, but that's just my opinion. Personally I'm just glad I can throw out my plan to mod the character to make her feel more natural, like Krem but more Baldur's Gatey. Now I can go back to being a lazy, lazy person and throw out all these silly ideas of friendship tracks and interviewing the people who wrote those "I'm trans and here's what I think about Mizhena" articles to get a feel for how to write it.
Subjectivity is a wonderful thing. I know that deciding your name "is" an important stage, and from what I understand it's also a very personal one. So in my opinion it makes little sense for her to just engage in that conversation from out of the blue.
Well I usually use Baldur's Gate 2 as the gold standard for NPC dialogue. Heck, Beamdog did a pretty good job with their additions in the enhanced editions of BG1 and BG2.
Mass Effect... I'm trying to remember who all gives you their life story the second you meet them. Usually your options are related more to the immediate situation. "Oh, your sister's been kidnapped? Where was she last seen?" or "Why do you hate humans so much?", not exactly life story material. Granted I haven't touched Mass Effect in a while, so I could just be forgetting a massive swath of NPC dialogue.
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- The Hague
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- He/Him
It's just totally normal for the genre. You ask a question, you get the answer. RPGs aren't usually in the business of withholding information from the player except where the narrative would prefer you not to know.