What the heck is happening with Act II‽ (Spoiler warning for basically the entire plotline)

"

lupasvasile#5385 wrote:

I was wondering when the circus clowns emerge.

You, and people like you, are the reason AAA games are dying. You want everything sanitized and written through the lens of real world societal issues and politics.
Everything must be written as if we are 10 year old children, everything white must be demonised, etc.


Thank god for GGG, and we need more like them, for sticking to their created world. Wraeclast is a brutal, dark, and tragic place. It's an unforgiving place where the strong succed and the weak die in horrible ways. I'm glad some people still have the balls to show a world for what it really is.

Also, just so you know, slavery is till a thing in the real world today; albeit slightly different than the classical definition. If you're so upset about it, go make a difference instead of crying about it being portrayed in a video game.

TL:DR: it's fantasy, have the maturity to make the distinction.

"

Nafraät#2974 wrote:

Thanks for wasting my time reading your comments.

"

Nafraät#2974 wrote:

If you think you can't show a dark, gritty and brutal world without having us be on the side of slavers, I don't know what to tell you. You have the literary understanding of edgy teenagers, the spite of gamegaters, and the imagination of bricks.

Thanks for wasting my time reading your comments.

"

adellredwinters#5741 wrote:

"

Nafraät#2974 wrote:

If you think you can't show a dark, gritty and brutal world without having us be on the side of slavers, I don't know what to tell you. You have the literary understanding of edgy teenagers, the spite of gamegaters, and the imagination of bricks.

Thanks for wasting my time reading your comments.

+1

There is something definitely at odds with the whole scenario. Like the Warrior literally is like "slaves? WTF?" while The Hooded One is saying they are honorable people like 2 minutes earlier. And then it just goes...unaddressed, and then Sekhema Asala gets a big triumphant moment when she gets to be the one to land the killing blow on the act 2 boss like we're supposed to like this person?

I'm not saying there can't be nuance here, and in fact I'm fine with the characters needing to work with a necessary evil but the game makes no real attempt at challenging Asala's world view and treatment of her own people or even just having people who don't like her use of slaves, and the Hooded One talks acts like these are good people. It's strange.

"

Nafraät#2974 wrote:

Please tell me that I am not the only one who was disturbed by Act II's storyline? Are we really helping a bunch of eugenicist slavers crush a rebellion of their undesirables because their leader was "corrupted by evil magic"‽ Making the oppressed the bad guys, but it's okay to oppose them because "they go too far", is already a very common and bad trope, but at least it usually comes with the empty promise of an effort to make a better world... We don't even get that here...

Between siding with the oppressed and the slavers, we had to be on the slavers side and get moved around the desert in a fortress pushed by hundreds of dessicated slaves.

Why? Who thought it was a good idea?


PS: Please don't come with any watsonian answer to this. GGG writing team is the one who make the story.

"

lupasvasile#5385 wrote:

I was wondering when the circus clowns emerge.

You, and people like you, are the reason AAA games are dying. You want everything sanitized and written through the lens of real world societal issues and politics.
Everything must be written as if we are 10 year old children, everything white must be demonised, etc.


Thank god for GGG, and we need more like them, for sticking to their created world. Wraeclast is a brutal, dark, and tragic place. It's an unforgiving place where the strong succed and the weak die in horrible ways. I'm glad some people still have the balls to show a world for what it really is.

Also, just so you know, slavery is till a thing in the real world today; albeit slightly different than the classical definition. If you're so upset about it, go make a difference instead of crying about it being portrayed in a video game.

TL:DR: it's fantasy, have the maturity to make the distinction.

"

PoE1 had slavery en mass as well, and at least two female characters have had pretty explicit backstories off the top of my head. But I never had to work with slavers. I in fact, got to murder many nazi's during Act 5. The guy who called Karui 'animals' (that's High Templar Avarius), and the guy who says "Women's place is to tempt the wills of man" (that's High Templar Dominus), the player gets to kill both of them (twice in fact). And then the literal icon of those ideals apologizes for the horror's he's helped bring in.

I do agree I'd like to see a few act 2 re-writes, I don't think you'd have to do too much to the narrative to both keep the brutal world and core assets in place, while not have the player just sign up to work with slavers and child killers without a word of opposition.

But it's nice to see how much of the forum is willing to out themselves.