Reminder: Selectable Character Gender is a "Minimum Bar."

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

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DarthSki44 wrote:

Im glad I checked out a number of pages ago. It's the reason I don't post much anymore. Everything is a damn battle (unless you just write POG in your responses to GGG news), it often gets personal, and in this particular thread, there are even mysgontic and bigotry dog whistles. Highly disappointing. I physically cringed at some of the posts.

Let's not water down the self imposed toxicity either: self-victimizing, emotional extortion, constant use of fallacies and downright bad faith in the "defender" stance. That's not how you conduct any argument, yet when i pointed that out, these points were doubled down even harder, drowning even more the actual valid points made in pointless and needless drama.

If this thread is revived at a later date, don't invite toxicity, don't make emotional arguments and don't attack the player base. We might even get a good debate instead of whatever this is.

I won't even disagree to the extent this thread dissolved. Both sides at fault to be sure, but take a step back, look at what was written, and tell me that a prickly, defensive, stance that ended up getting taken was a shock.

So yeah... is this topic worth a debate or discussion? I do think so, yes. Is this community capable of doing it in a non-toxic, mature way? No fucking shot imo. My advice would be that OP take a slightly generalized version of gender options in games to off-topc as a thread. The landing is a bit softer there. The "fall in line" mentality to the defense of GGG in GD just puts a target on you. It's exhausting to the point of frustration. Been there.

I do feel bad for the OP a bit on how this went, and how they lashed out in response. But I also feel bad that there really isn't a good way for legitimate GGG criticism or debate to go well in GD either...on any topic really. You just get meme'd on, asked why you are still here, why you don't just play something else, get called a dad gamer, or a host of other shit that doesn't really make anyone want to engage.

I don't know if for some it's the frog in boiling water scenario to where they can't see it, but really, these boards have been intellectually obliterated.

A thread that starts out semi-toxic will always end up toxic. Derogatary terms, name-calling and stereotypic dividing started already in the OP.

That said, people are quick to use the T-word the moment people are disagreeing with them on a discussion forum. Sure, some post in this thread went overboard and semi-personal, which is bad, but I think most people stayed on-point and discussed the case. Did it drag out way too far? Of course; most forums are filled with people wanting/needing/trying to get the last word, and most of us are guilty of that from time to time. The the further a thread gets dragged out, the less valid arguments there are - and people crosses a line or two.

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Lets just get a male, female and non-binary version of all classes. I'll grab myself a coffee now and will play some Broken Sword Reforged. Memories <3

Darth, I think we all forfeited the right to complain about toxicity as soon as the discussion was opened with a bunch of toxicity. It's really hard from there to steer towards a healthy discussion.

Also not classy to spitefully throw a bunch of moderation-triggering buzzwords which can have the thread locked any second, so you could conveniently potentially play the martyr in a future thread.

Furthermore, you tend to paint every opinion contrary to yours with the broad stroke of "fall in line mentality". Granted, there is some of that happening like everywhere, there are trolls like everywhere, but if you look past this nitpicking, you will see that there are also plenty of valid opposite opinions in this thread.

Let's keep it classy <3

I honestly miss the old Off-Topic. The off-Topic of years ago when you could engage in philosophical debates, talk about current events in the world, have some real properly meaty discussions with folks about stuff that mattered. Did those discussions get hot sometimes? Ohhhh yeah. Hah, Forever and I had locked horns real good on more than one occasion back in the Old Off-Topic Days.

These days? OT is a fuckin' meme dungeon where absolutely nothing of any worth or value can be talked about without getting mod suplexed to the center of the earth. Really depressing, this place was a lot more fun and useful in those days.

I do find it bitterly amusing that I'm blamed for "dissolving" the thread when I spent several pages ignoring the meme trolls spewing anti-woke nonsense in an attempt to avoid exactly this outcome. "Don't attack the playerbase" they say, all while the playerbase is showing me exactly why these threads are always so agonizing and throwing a fresh red flag every third post.

Would things have gone differently if I had adopted a more positive tone? No. No they would not have. Most of the responses in this thread would've been exactly the same. The fact that people are even now tossing accusations of

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

self-victimizing, emotional extortion, constant use of fallacies and downright bad faith

is really all there is to be said.

Forever nailed it, really. Not all fights worth fighting can be won. Pretty squarely lost this one to the Chadbros. Can only hope that at some point in the future, the war shifts and it becomes possible to start winning a few of these fights. Until then, guess I have a fresh reminder of why I tend to avoid these forums. "People Like Me" are very, very clearly not welcome here.

Until next time, I suppose.

POG

hoho try reddit I'm sure they are more welcoming.

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

self-victimizing, emotional extortion, constant use of fallacies and downright bad faith

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1453R wrote:

Not all fights worth fighting can be won. Pretty squarely lost this one to the Chadbros. Can only hope that at some point in the future, the war shifts and it becomes possible to start winning a few of these fights. Until then, guess I have a fresh reminder of why I tend to avoid these forums. "People Like Me" are very, very clearly not welcome here.

Sounds about right.

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NorbertLa wrote:

Furthermore, you tend to paint every opinion contrary to yours with the broad stroke of "fall in line mentality"

I do? Like what? If anything what I do (or did) most is question that GGG is right/infallible as the default position to start off with. I think antagonism is OK if its in good faith. In fact it's healthy. You don't really don't want echo chambers and group thought as the status quo. There have been a ton of examples of this in the past. GGG introducing loot boxes, or the streamer priority queue, or their opposition to SSF as examples.

When it comes the the general community it's often exactly the reverse. Diablo as another example, probably the one I'm most known for engaging with, how can anyone defend the position of "D4 bad" as the starting point? It obviously can be "bad" from an individual perspective, I can live with that, but not as an objective truth. Honestly that's absurd. It makes discussion impossible. There are positive things that are in D4 that GGG can learn from from competitive and accessibility standpoint, while still maintaining their identity and niche.

God help you trying to get that point across though, or *gasp, play both games?! I eventually gave up on that from a serious debate standpoint. It's an unwinnable biased nightmare here. "Diablo" might as well be added to the CoC as inflammatory for its name only lol.

Anyways I would disagree wholeheartedly on that characterization of my selective antagonism. GGG, infact, doesn't get it right all the time.

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

I agree that some games should not have locked gender, PoE included, but you are quickly eroding any arguments you made if that's how you want to keep conducting this argument. And let's not fool anyone, this is an argument, not a fact that all games that can do so, should be forced to do so.

I think i alredy made myself clear. Cheers.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

This thread is equal parts sad, and infuriating on just the behavior alone. The tech space is bad with bro culture no doubt, but gamers are the worst, truly. This particular community? ...ugh what a change over the years, especially if you have even remotest sense of an opposing opinion to the popular belief. It's really bad.

Anyways GGG gonna GGG. At some point a gaming journalist, or content creator, or whomever, is going to ask about this topic during the PoE2 media blitz. I hope GGG and their marketing team have a good response from a PR standpoint outlined on why they have chosen against player diversity here. Especially given their documented commentary on the subject previously with their desire to address it. Given the opportunity PoE2 has presented, with the character modeling and rigging upgrades, the intentionality of not including a gender option is magnified. Not great excuses left.

Pretty sad to see a good game like this having such a bad community. Hopefully this is the case and they'll get asked about this topic in another media.