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Cyberpunk 2077: Rockerboy Keanu Silverhand

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silentshot said:
It seems to me like some folks don't understand what is exactly in front of them. As I understood it, thanks to some good explanation on Reddit, what it means is that the player can create any type of character they want. Body, voice, skin, features, (maybe even having the option of having no limbs/default cyborg limbs?) etc. when creating their character.
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I admire your good intentions but fundamentally the issue is not that they don't understand.

The problem is that they're bigoted reactionary fuckwits. It's the same reason as to why people threw up a storm of whining in response to the news that Bloodlines 2 would feature the options to choose one's gender.

Reactionary assholes don't want any video game to offer anything nice to trans people or otherwise contradict their simplistic view of Humanity as a rigid male-female essentialist duality. It's bigotry, pure and simple.
 
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LSkullD said:
It's almost as if fascism and capitalism go hand in hand or something.
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In this case, it's more that the next logical step is fascism once people (Read: the dominant societal group) start realizing that "the wrong sort of people" (Read: minority groups in that society) can still achieve "success" (Read: recognition) in capitalism.

EDIT: Realised I'd accidentally mangled my point due to sleep deprivation.
 
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LSkullD said:
It's almost as if fascism and capitalism go hand in hand or something.
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Hakazin said:
In this case, it's more that the next logical step is fascism once people start realizing that "the wrong sort of people" (Read: the dominant ethnic group) can still achieve "success" (Read: recognition) in capitalism.
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I wouldn't go anywhere near that far honestly.
After all, the Capoalists realised they can make more money by making this game LGBT friendly.

If there is a profit available, Capitalism will be more then happy to manufacture, package and sell a LGBT friendly image
Just like it manufactured, packaged and sold certain forms of punk as Hot Topic.
Just like it manufactured, packaged and sold certain forms of religion as the prosperity gospel.

The system itself doesn't give too fucks as long as it can profit.

If there is a market then people will make it, much like how Porn was amongst the earliest adopters of VHS, DVDS, Blu Rays and streaming sites.
You just gotta convince them there is money in it.

This is just fuckheads being fuckheads. Nothing to do with the capitalist system.
 
Hakazin said:
In this case, it's more that the next logical step is fascism once people (Read: the dominant societal group) start realizing that "the wrong sort of people" (Read: minority groups in that society) can still achieve "success" (Read: recognition) in capitalism.
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That's not a specifically capitalist thing, that's true of any system that theoretically allows social mobility. The dominant group will set up rules to exclude "inferior" groups, while officially still giving them a "fair chance".

Fascism is basically what happens when they stop trying to pretend to be fair. Capitalism is amoral and doesn't care about fairness one way or another; fascism is outright malignant and cares about fairness a lot, in that it tries to be as unfair as possible. Fascism can come from capitalism, but it isn't particularly capitalist friendly.

In the case of entertainment like video games, that generally means that games tend to combine pandering to people's appetites (like sex) with a sort of shallow faux-tolerance as they try to appeal to as large a market share as possible. The outright bigots are bad capitalists, in that they sacrifice profits in the name of their bigotry; an example in games would be how for decades the American game industry basically shunned women, sacrificing what is now a huge market thanks to non-Americans getting into the business.
 
silentshot said:
[Off-topic edit: What... I wrote the term wonderful people in my penultimate paragraph but apparently it wasn't an autocorrect error. It automatically changes itself into "wonderful people"...? Is this another rule I haven't heard about? :???: I hope I don't get shot over for this.]
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The 'wonderful people' thing was kinda a joke, but also a serious thing by the admins that got tired of the phrase that sjws replaces. I figure it was this or they might have started to infract people saying sjw, but now it doesn't matter since all you get is wonderful people.

I don't think you'll get in any trouble.

Edit: wow, it even checks for the plural form.
 
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I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that Gavin is excited about Cyberpunk 2077. This is the 3rd song he's written and the game isn't even out yet.
 
He did the end credits song for Wasteland 2, and the official theme/credits song for Seven: The Days Long Gone. So he has been commissioned by at least two actual studios.

We'll definitely get a song once the game comes out, also maybe a few more between then.
 
The "Bath water going up" = "Eureka!" of cyberpunk;


"In 2077, they voted my city the worst place to live in America. Main issues? Sky high rate of violence and more people living below the poverty line than anywhere else. Can't deny it; it's all true... but everybody still wants to live here. This city's always got a promise for you. Might be a lie, an illusion, but it's there... just around the corner - and it keeps you going. It's a city of dreams. And I'm a big dreamer..."
— V

Where other dystopias are the result of conspiracy and/or oppression, CP2020/2077 is exactly the opposite. The divergence point of the timeline is back in the 80's, the four biggest agencies in the US basically attempted world conquest, and megacorporations rose to power while trust in the government was at its lowest in recorded history. That's why society in the CP-verse is so... exuberant. There are no legal barriers to anything anymore.
This plutocratic dystopia of violence and depravity and greed thrives because of the benefits of unrestricted expression;
Hard drugs? Get them out of the vending machine at the vehicle charging station.
The Satanic Verses? Download it to your wearable computer.
Change the configuration of your genitals? There are surgery parlors in strip malls just like the tattoo industry.
Social justice? You think any of the megacorporations give any consideration to nationality, religion, race or gender other than, "How do I sell stuff to this particular herd of sheep?"
The downside is that the megacorporations are just as unconcerned with mass starvation, lack of medical care, the proliferation of personal anti-tank weapons...

Because unregulated merchants will sell apples/drugs/guns to anyone with money. They also do so even if their customers with less money have more need for food, are buying drugs instead of food despite weighing less than a hundred pounds, or look like Alex and his droogs getting ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.
Shepherds keep their sheep fed, healthy, and protected. They also relentlessly imprison their flocks with fences, terrorize them with sheepdogs, shear them for wool, cull them for defects, butcher them for lamb and mutton.
The first group are typical cyberpunk megacorporations.
The second group are typical dystopian governments.
The "Eureka" moment comes when you realize which group is more likely to have large populations of outliers - geeks, trans, etc. - the merchants or the shepherds?

If you want freedom to smoke marijuana, defend yourself with lethal weapons, change your body to suit your desires, or even just express your personal beliefs... you have to accept that some people - perhaps a LOT of people - will do balls-achingly stupid things with those same freedoms. Up to and including driving themselves and their families into crippling poverty by frying their brains with recreational chemicals, use weapons irresponsibly, mutilate themselves with questionable technology, or even just act like self-righteous trolls.

Alternative? Appoint a "shepherd" to look after people's "best interests"... and accept that said shepherd will be the one who defines "best."

CP2020 is the first setting I've ever seen that has both groups, well-detailed, with extensive interaction between them beyond gunfire. Yes, Warframe has both as well - the first group are the Corpus Merchant Cults, the second are the Grineer Empire - but you play as a rogue faction of spaceninjas who do nothing but shoot at both of them.

Every fictional universe that isn't homogenous is violent as hell itself.
You rarely see non-whites, let alone guys in turbans or trans in Star Trek or Mass Effect.
In cyberpunk universes, everything's a heartbeat away from a shootout...
...but it's a melting pot, not a yogurt smoothie.

If you don't feel like you fit in anywhere in the world? Cyberpunk is for you, only watch your step; This place can be a little rough.
----
Aaand not many people like this concept.

Which of the hypocrites are you?
 
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The whole rant falls apart when you ralise that the "merchants" aren't going to stop the bigots from murdering all the "outliers" anyway.

And nothing is stopping some bigot in charge of a massive corporation from going "actually, fuck all the queers" (which. Happens in real life. Companies actually arent as dispassionate as the ideologues make them out to be. They're authoritarian hierarchies, so they follow orders by definition.)
 
Maaaaaybe the difference in representation is because cyberpunk is supposed to be punk, and thus subversive, and want to address those questions while average big production fantasy/space opera doesn't give a damn, and not because it's a capitalist dystopia? Maybe.
 
AKuz said:
The whole rant falls apart when you ralise that the "merchants" aren't going to stop the bigots from murdering all the "outliers" anyway.

And nothing is stopping some bigot in charge of a massive corporation from going "actually, fuck all the queers" (which. Happens in real life. Companies actually arent as dispassionate as the ideologues make them out to be. They're authoritarian hierarchies, so they follow orders by definition.)
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Even if we assume that corporations are completely dispassionate, amoral entities, it doesn't work. Selling hate is profitable business model.

It would be trivial to blame everything that goes wrong on the decline of moral values, as evidenced by [INSERT TARGET MINORITY HERE].
 
That's an amateur's mistake. Professionals don't kill the people they're stealing from. They want them alive and productive so they can steal from them again and again. Optimally, they sucker them so completely that they never realize that they've been stolen from, and thus invite them back - repeatedly - of their own accord.

It's called a "sustainable business model."

Hell, the few really successful governments in history copied corporations in that manner. The few that could resist eating the seed corn, that is.
 
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The "professionals" divert their targets attention towards someone else so they can suck them dry, and these "someone else" usually happen to be various underprivileged minorities who cannot retaliate.
 
And what happens when those underprivileged minorities are all dead? In-universe, the megacorporations at large tore Monsanto to pieces and marketed kibble just so they could make famines a thing of the past. They don't want the lowest class dead - as long as they can squeeze money and/or work out of them. Can't get blood from a stone. The ones living in the shantytowns where a strip mall is planned... well. That's another story.

But on average? Without dirt-poor people, who would keep the Methuselahs' toilets clean?
 
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