Remove ads

Cyberpunk 2077: Rockerboy Keanu Silverhand

Reader mode
LSkullD said:
@hellgodsrus What are your thoughts on this? Could this mean actual playable trans characters or not?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm not sure why I in particular am being asked - it's perfectly possible to make playable trans characters if you devote the time and effort, particular in the writing and voice lines by other characters. The question is whether that effort has been put in, or whether this is (relatively) tacked on top of the game, or somewhere in between. Which we won't know til we can play it.
 
I just had a thought. Is there an ad-blocker implant you can get?
 
Carrnage said:
Hahahahah, an implant meant to recognize images and replace them with something else in real time and you think it'll be used to block ads?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
i can save the porn-watching for at home, possibly applying that same technology to memories rather than realtime :p

but seriously, HUD software OS's that's filled with ads and bloatware is bound to happen. Every opportunity to make another buck for the corpos
 
Carrnage said:
Hahahahah, an implant meant to recognize images and replace them with something else in real time and you think it'll be used to block ads?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well yes.

Even in Cyberpunk you rarely get to implant stiff without their permission... and when you are, a swamplant is the least of their worries. Plus why would a corp higher up want to suffer the neon spam. That's for people who can't order a tower blown up so she can get a better view
 
Reveen said:
One issue I have with the in game ad is that without a clear expression of what the game's values are the ad risks becoming a Rorschach test for the reader. Is it "hell yeah, in the future you can have a robodick"? Is it an expression of the sad exploitation of the bodies of women and LGBT people in the hypercapitalist dystopia? Is it some Fox News grandpa shit where you know the future is fucked up and scary because weird freaky people do sex in it? Who knows at this point? The game may frame the issue in a certain way that tells us how were supposed to feel about it, or it may stay safely neutral and not make a statement in a game directly named after a genre thats largely dedicated to making statements.

There's this dynamic kinda going on in the Witcher. Like with Sorceresses where throughout the games it's hard to tell whether we're supposed to respect them as strong women in a man's world, or see them as scheming wenches screwing up the man's world with their meddling. Or Dragon Age, which went out of its way to stay ambivalent on whether the treatment of mages is bad, or neccessary evil. With plenty of flip flopping on the matter.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
According to the artist, mostly the second one(sad exploitation), with a bit of the first(hell yeah). So that's the intent. Whether that'll be conveyed effectively is something we won't know until it's out.
 
WhoAmEye said:
i can save the porn-watching for at home, possibly applying that same technology to memories rather than realtime :p

but seriously, HUD software OS's that's filled with ads and bloatware is bound to happen. Every opportunity to make another buck for the corpos
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

That was a thing in Ready Player One right? 50% more ads for in game gold!
 
Nyvis said:
Damn, he isn't bad. I don't necessarily agree with him on sexualization or artistic freedom in general, but he makes his arguments pretty well. There was multiple times where I expected him to say something problematic and, no, people were just jumping ahead when he was trying to prepare the terrain to say the problematic thing is bad.

I especially liked the point about needing criticism within the game to show the ad is a bad thing. And his doubts about them doing it properly.

It's also interesting how he digs much deeper about how the ad is wrong, with "mix it up" and "manticore" implying fucked views about what a trans person even is. It's not just the depiction of a girl with a penis. The ad itself has transphobic elements.

Thanks for sharing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Damn, that is... definitely a girldick.

Listening to the analysis here, liveblog:
1: I agree, it's pretty cool that this can exist.
2: Yeah, it's super agreed that it feels uncomfortable and fetishy, it's Dr. Frank & Furter. Not subversive.
3: I super like that he disclaims his own personal biases here. (Artistic defense is important, not the inclusion of the thing itself.)
4: I agree that "sexualization isn't bad, it's that it's disproportionate that's the issue."
5: GOD YES A VENN DIAGRAM
6: and shutting down the haters super effectively
7: WE DO NOT YET KNOW, GOD YES, SOMEONE WILLING TO ACCEPT UNCERTAINTY
8: but we can likely exclude that there is no stigma in this game, yes
9: which world, how consistently, and is it dangerous irl?
10: transphobic language eliminates world A, agreed
11: ... and yes, the devs done fucked up that language right there. "Bodies in between." When the current topic is about a trans woman's body. Either that's transphobia or it's a really unfortunate slip when they meant "nonbinary."
12: Agreed, check against good rep.
13: Yeah, the right-hand side is difficult to do well.
14: Real work to notice very obvious things is a pretty good point towards "it needs to be pretty flagrant to be a parody"
15: He's right that pronouns doesn't affect the depicition... much. Save that the fact that they care enough to say they're nonbinary.
16: "Trans people only gain legitimacy through pornography" GOD THAT IS ACCURATE
17: "Sexualization can push trans women back into that category, of being a sex object"
18: So this heavy sexualization is a questionable choice which will take notable justification.
19: They have a duty to not normalize this, essentially.
20: "she has been liberated by your incredibly patronizing advice" yes good.
21: - it is actually a reasonable extrapolation! Buuuuuuut... yeah, exactly, what about the consequences today
22: This guy is actually super reasonable, overall.
23: "Grand theft auto school of social commentary" HA
24: "I don't think this is going to be justified, but if it's pointed out that it sucks in-universe then it'd be... cool." Agreed.
25: DAMN YES CORRECTLY SAYING "This is where the trans person needs to do the thing."
26: "there are tons of trans people who are in fact really fucking dumb" hah yes.
27: "No, I'm not debating any of you fucks." good move.
28: "There's nothing that prevents you from being reasonable, because being reasonable produces better outcomes."
Okay, I like this guy. I'm going to have to subscribe to this guy.
 
hellgodsrus said:
I'm not sure why I in particular am being asked - it's perfectly possible to make playable trans characters if you devote the time and effort, particular in the writing and voice lines by other characters. The question is whether that effort has been put in, or whether this is (relatively) tacked on top of the game, or somewhere in between. Which we won't know til we can play it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Well I hope this works out because if it doesn't, we're gonna be fucked.
 
Sucal said:
One of the first trailers had Male Vi coming out of bed with another man
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Which trailer? E3 2019 had nothing, l. Cause I do remember the 48 minutes having Female V with a male, but I think I heard some description of the footage before it's release where they said male V had a one nightstand with a man, but the E3 2018 trailer I don't think has any hint of romance (and the first teaser largely unrelated)
 
Redem said:
Which trailer? E3 2019 had nothing, l. Cause I do remember the 48 minutes having Female V with a male, but I think I heard some description of the footage before it's release where they said male V had a one nightstand with a man, but the E3 2018 trailer I don't think has any hint of romance (and the first teaser largely unrelated)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
There were apparently two versions of the gameplay demo shown at E3 2018, one with female V (which made it to YouTube) and one with male V (which didn't). Both had their respective V in bed with a dude.
 
Ritterin Sophia said:
Here's a pretty good video that encapsulates a lot of my thoughts on the trans ad in Cyberpunk 2077.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This dude kinda sucks, considering he follows a bunch of dipshit reactionaries on Twitter like Blair White, ShoeOnHead, and so on.

Like his whole argument appears to be "Well, cyberpunk is a genre about bad things, so one should not be mad when it shows a bad thing!", but that's just kinda fucking stupid and is the same chain of logic dorks use to go, "Well, the Empire in Warhammer 40k NEEDS to kill all the xenos, since they're all duplicitous and evil!"; using in-setting shit to justify IRL shittiness is so fucking dumb.
 
Last edited:
SunnySprings said:
This dude kinda sucks, considering he follows a bunch of dipshit reactionaries on Twitter like Blair White, ShoeOnHead, and so on.

Like his whole argument appears to be "Well, cyberpunk is a genre about bad things, so one should not be mad when it shows a bad thing!", but that's just kinda fucking stupid and is the same chain of logic dorks use to go, "Well, the Empire in Warhammer 40k NEEDS to kill all the xenos, since they're all duplicitous and evil!"; using in-setting shit to justify IRL shittiness is so fucking dumb.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I was with you for the first part but I have to disagree pretty strongly with the example given.

The entire point of Warhammer 40K is that it's a horrible dystopia filled with horrible people, making the Empire less fascist IMO hurts that premise and risks whitewashing it. Catholic space nazis should be awful and if people unironically think they're good guys that's a separate problem that wouldn't be fixed by making them nicer.

But yes, I agree that using in-story facts as a counter to out of story criticism is idiotic.
 
Yes, I know the Catholic Space Nazis are bad, that's the whole fucking point. The problem, however, comes with the setting CONSTANTLY trying to prove them RIGHT about their racism because the new writers aren't as committed to the bit the Rogue Trader devs envisioned. There's far less "oh, look, the Imperium is stabbing itself in its own back because it can't work with people" and more "well, obviously the Imperium can't just work with the Eldar, the Eldar are all liars and racists too!" It's just so boring, fuck Warhammer 40k, why did they have to kill the good Warhammer setting and replace it with some muddled Planescape-style bullshit
 
SunnySprings said:
Yes, I know the Catholic Space Nazis are bad, that's the whole fucking point. The problem, however, comes with the setting CONSTANTLY trying to prove them RIGHT about their racism because the new writers aren't as committed to the bit the Rogue Trader devs envisioned. There's far less "oh, look, the Imperium is stabbing itself in its own back because it can't work with people" and more "well, obviously the Imperium can't just work with the Eldar, the Eldar are all liars and racists too!" It's just so boring, fuck Warhammer 40k, why did they have to kill the good Warhammer setting and replace it with some muddled Planescape-style bullshit
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well yeah, I want them to be the bad guys who are doing wrong things that are worse off for everyone. Not coded as bad buys but actually right <wink wink nudge nudge>.

You're preaching to the choir.

On the rest, well Warhammer Fantasy lives on in the Total War series.
 
Fourthspartan56 said:
The entire point of Warhammer 40K is that it's a horrible dystopia filled with horrible people, making the Empire less fascist IMO hurts that premise and risks whitewashing it. Catholic space nazis should be awful and if people unironically think they're good guys that's a separate problem that wouldn't be fixed by making them nicer.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I could talk a lot about this, but effectively - whilst this works fine for sourcebooks and a tabletop game, it flags fast when you start to write actual stories, because it's actually very difficult to write a halfway compelling story where everyone is a bastard, so people find excuses for why X character who works for the space Gestapo is actually a good guy.

Twenty years later, and there have been enough books with enough excuses that the Imperium is by and large portrayed as being justified and righteous, because the excuses have coagulated into a mess of explanation such that all the insane fucking nonsense the Imperium does on the regular has a Reasonable Explanation built in there somewhere.
 
SunnySprings said:
This dude kinda sucks, considering he follows a bunch of dipshit reactionaries on Twitter like Blair White, ShoeOnHead, and so on.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Honestly, I suspect that's a professional thing?

That is to say, you've built a career out of responding to right wing bullshit. Do you:
A) Follow notable right-wing bullshit artists so you get informed when they drop some new bullshit for you to respond to.​
or​
B) Avoid reading the notable right-wing bullshit artists your career is built around debunking.​

I'm willing to give people like Vaush a bit of slack for following reactionaries, personally, because they are clearly not doing it because they are reactionaries themselves. That's not to say that I'm a huge fan of Vaush myself, but this particular criticism is pretty clearly off base.
 
SunnySprings said:
This dude kinda sucks, considering he follows a bunch of dipshit reactionaries on Twitter like Blair White, ShoeOnHead, and so on.

Like his whole argument appears to be "Well, cyberpunk is a genre about bad things, so one should not be mad when it shows a bad thing!", but that's just kinda fucking stupid and is the same chain of logic dorks use to go, "Well, the Empire in Warhammer 40k NEEDS to kill all the xenos, since they're all duplicitous and evil!"; using in-setting shit to justify IRL shittiness is so fucking dumb.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This is very reductionist given his job is criticizing the right wing and so he wants to be kept up on what dumb shit they're saying. For example the only video he's done on Blaire White involved her debating trans issues with Ben Shapiro where he reluctantly had to take her side but most of the video was spent pointing out how dumb Shapiro is and even jokes about that, but he doesn't have a high opinion of her. I mean you can take a look at his uploads: "Nazi Argument Garbage Dump", "Jordan Peterson is a PSEUDOINTELLECTUAL", etc. A counterexample of this where this criticism would be valid is Pewdiepie who goes on to uncritically platform and follow these people, but this is exactly the opposite of what Vaush is doing and in fact he often has to self-censor how he actually feels about these reactionaries because his views on Nazis and Fascists for example could get him deplatformed for advocating violence against a group of people.

Furthermore you misunderstood his argument. Since that's not been his point at all. In fact he explicitly said they have to justify the inclusion of that ad based upon the consequential outcome of it's inclusion in the real world, not a Thermian argument at all. In fact the opposite of a Thermian argument. This is why he was clear to say you need some form of verbal criticism of that fetishization be it a quest line, a companion, internal narration, or a text or audiofile clearly delineating why that kind of fetishization is bad.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top