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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
How to do/avoid politics right?
captivated
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
After the latest debate over the WoW Calimdor book, I am wondering how Intrepid will handle/avoid discussions on racism, sexism and other socially hot topics? Did they already make a statement about that somewhere? What do you guys think? What would you like to see?
In my oppinion there are two realistic scenarios.
1. The FRUIT BOWL method: They avoid everything "offensive" by any cost and therefore always adebt and try to please everyone. For example by preventing all sorts of "sexy" outfits, and implementing FRUIT BOWL paintings right from the launch. That would mean that they are always kinda in the defense, and might even have to change the lore if people find something "inappropriate."
2. The EVIL VERRA method: They kinda go semi-GRR Martin/Witcher and make debatable topics a part of their game world. This might also involve stereotypish character traits, or let's say, very attractive character modells. FF for example is heavily sexualized, but they seem to not care about media backlashes.
Of course you can argue that there is a third way, by simply avoiding all the hot topics... But let's be honest, that is impossible. People will always find something that they consider inappropriate... If Intrepid wants to make all characters and races Mary Sue like, they'll create a blend and boring world. And even if they go that way, people still will find something to rage about.
Personally I'd love to see that Intrepid would take a "GoT/Witcher light" version, were they allow negative things to happen, but also implement elements that show appreciation towards minorities. I would love to see a bad ass gay main character, that does not feel forced like many Hollywood gay characters. But at the same time I'd also love to see greedy dünir dwarfs, and racist elves that consider orcs and dwarfs to be inferior products of creation.
Personally I'd love to see Intrepid doing what ever they want. Implementing stuff the right wing hates and stuff the left hates. And all that under a big fat "We don't care about what you think"-Statement. So I vouch for a truely "diverse" Verra in every sense of the word. If you want, you can start with some anti german stereotyps, I will not feel offended by it, I promise.
Please, don't discuss political topics here, but rather how to do politics right in Verra.
I am curious about your replys.
Greetings, cap
In my oppinion there are two realistic scenarios.
1. The FRUIT BOWL method: They avoid everything "offensive" by any cost and therefore always adebt and try to please everyone. For example by preventing all sorts of "sexy" outfits, and implementing FRUIT BOWL paintings right from the launch. That would mean that they are always kinda in the defense, and might even have to change the lore if people find something "inappropriate."
2. The EVIL VERRA method: They kinda go semi-GRR Martin/Witcher and make debatable topics a part of their game world. This might also involve stereotypish character traits, or let's say, very attractive character modells. FF for example is heavily sexualized, but they seem to not care about media backlashes.
Of course you can argue that there is a third way, by simply avoiding all the hot topics... But let's be honest, that is impossible. People will always find something that they consider inappropriate... If Intrepid wants to make all characters and races Mary Sue like, they'll create a blend and boring world. And even if they go that way, people still will find something to rage about.
Personally I'd love to see that Intrepid would take a "GoT/Witcher light" version, were they allow negative things to happen, but also implement elements that show appreciation towards minorities. I would love to see a bad ass gay main character, that does not feel forced like many Hollywood gay characters. But at the same time I'd also love to see greedy dünir dwarfs, and racist elves that consider orcs and dwarfs to be inferior products of creation.
Personally I'd love to see Intrepid doing what ever they want. Implementing stuff the right wing hates and stuff the left hates. And all that under a big fat "We don't care about what you think"-Statement. So I vouch for a truely "diverse" Verra in every sense of the word. If you want, you can start with some anti german stereotyps, I will not feel offended by it, I promise.
Please, don't discuss political topics here, but rather how to do politics right in Verra.
I am curious about your replys.
Greetings, cap
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Comments
I was in a game shop yesterday in the mall and the nerds (said with affection) were setting up on the many tables the place had set up. Were they raising their voices about politics or social issues? No, they were their to enjoy each others company and were happily chatting about the lore of their fictional characters and whom had the +4.
Games are based on groups coming together to have some fun, not dramamonger. If you want to be active in social justice or politics, that's your choice, but don't try to ruin everyone else's enjoyment.
There are no right politics because they are subjective. Its like saying 'lets do the best ice cream flavor in the world and then everyone can enjoy the same flavor'.
AoC is fantasy world, leave the real world crap where its at.
Politics and regional social issues have NO PLACE in AoC.
I don’t have any issues exploring racism, sexism, and/or classism in a game. Doesn’t have to be overt, and certainly not referential to real-world incidents (e.g. everyday politics, topical issues, etc.). But these issues are endemic to human society, and will be part of the game - whether the devs or the players bring it.
Attempting to somehow sanitize Verra’s lore of these issues would not only come off as super awkward, but would also be a huge pain in the ass to write.
I totally understadn what you mean, but how can you avoid social issues? For example romance, would you take the stance that there should not be such a thing as romance in the World/Lore of Verra? What about racial traits, should races have depth in terms of characeristics (good and bad once)? Because you cannot have these things without getting the discussions. Blizzard was not looking for a new social justice debatte when they characterized goblins as greedy and described a certain troll shaman as iliterate, until he met an elve.
My point is, should Intrepid avoid any sort of possibile debatte, or should they rather go the Witcher or Game of Thrones path of, our world got whatever it got, its cruel and dark, period. The problem I see is the aproach of Blizzard, because if you come to the conclussion that you always want to not step anyone on his toe's, you agree to a mindset of getting constantly scrutinzed and you agree that you'll change every point of conflict in lore or game world to fix it. And you also try to pendantly not hurt again any political camp and therefore totally scrap important elements of human living like racial identiy, sexuality etc...
I totally agree with you, but I'd say it seems to me that Blizzard is actually going that way of "sanitizing" their game, and because of that people constantly point out new things blizz has to adept. On step on this road leads unavoidable to thousand more.
That's why I said, I'd love it, if they just could stick with the mindset of, "we do Verra how ever we want" and therefore you can find pretty much everything there. Races will have special characteristics and some might find paralleles to cultural stereotypes in the real world, so what?
I just hope they'll don't end up dodging conflict and keep the world filled with intressting good and evil elements.
Well, Blizzard… it was clear they had some issues from the beginning. But players brought their own bias in as well. On Burning Blade (which as one of the original pvp realms) there were horde guilds with all gnomes as KOS.
Ashes is going to go a step further with it’s open world pvp and who is targetable. So the freedom for players to bring their own thoughts on these issues is going to increase as well. The answers as to ‘why’ one group targets another group is not in the hands of the devs to ‘fix’ or ‘sanitize.’
Eso has a bunch of races that hate each other.
But there 3 alliances of 3 races each.
There are also towns that races live harmoniously together.
There are also towns that races live together, but one of them rules and looks down on the others. All bases are covered.
If somebody gets offended inrl because of the ingame behaviours between races, they can go and do stuff to themselves.
If somebody says something insulting regarding inrl in chat, chatban. If they go ahead and become ABUSIVE, perma ban.
What does politics have to do with any of this?
People should learn at their homes not to hurt others.
People should also learn at their homes not to be vindictive about insignificant situations and occasions, grow a thick skin.
Politics divide people in groups and lobbies. They are not there to protect or care for any of you.
This is an insult to the groups of people that have suffered at the hands of angry and miserable people. I dont like how the industry pretends that love is in the air and nothing ever happened and that everyone is accepting because this is not the reality.
And if you push lies in the screens you are not actually supressing evil people or changing the world for the better.
You need to show it how it really is and make an example of those that stand for good, the brave and honest ones.
Dont pretend that everything is alright and that people one day will be tricked into stopping being miserable, hateful and that they one day will become accepting.
Ye.. people first need to learn to be good at young age. Trying to make people accepting before they become good will never work, no matter how much you spin the message.
Offenders get punished. That's that.
Similarly, people draw parallels between whatever is said or done in some quest or whatever, and 'anything going on in the real world that pushes their hot buttons'.
For example, this game contains marriage, therefore it's automatically political because it has to have some settings for 'which characters can marry which', and for some people, to allow certain settings is a political statement, and for others, other settings count as a political statement.
And what can people do about the decisions made by the developers about their world?
If players dont like it they can go elsewhere.
No need to engage in dialogue. It's a made up world.
We dont have to "do/avoid" politics.
This topic is a non-issue.
I completely agree, and this is the approach I prefer they take. I'm moreso noting that doing so will be considered 'politics' and cause 'drama'.
If that isn't what OP was referring to, then yeah, you're completely right, just ignore whoever doesn't like the rules/lore/logic of the world of Verra except in the case where the person who was responsible for making the decision legit didn't know that it was offensive and then, when told, would also prefer to not be offensive in that way for whatever reason.
When you are known for being a toxic work environment, with sexual abuse being somewhat rife, among other biases, and when you are unwilling to actually fix those issues (this is the best description of Blizzard and Activision as a whole that I can come up with right now), then when people point out similar issues in your game, you deal with them before they blow up in various forms of media.
Basically, you can't have racist or sexist activity in your game, if your company is racist and sexist but is trying to pretend that it isn't.
On the other hand, if your company is free of these things, then it is easier to explore them within your game.
Intrepid seems to have it's house in order in this regard.
In any case I have no doubt there will be plenty of click-bait articles that attempt to manufacture controversy.
The Thalmor were KOS in all my Skyrim forays.
Are you a hypocrite, or you never use any product, knowing it comes from the abuse of hundreds of thousands of people?
Gamers should chill the f out with their blizzard outrage and other such.
There are so many more crimes besides that.
Some players will use that to hate other races or religions, which is fine as long as the target is the other player's character, not the player. In other words, as long as players stick to actual roleplay, no problem here.
My guess is most players by far will be more concerned with node and guild politics, which in some form is almost the entire point of the game.
The game doesn't need to actively go into sexuality or abortion or other hot topics that people can disagree about, in order to be a good game. Same-sex marriage will be allowed for fairly obvious reasons, and anyone who has a problem with that need to STFU and get with the times or leave.
Hhahahhahha ok.
"Cool to see..."
Hypocrite. Dont worry u are not alone. The internet is full of that.
I am pretty surprised your response isn't 'gamers should be angry about more things' actually. Going 'chill out' when the thing people are outraged about is literal evil doesn't suit your earlier proclamations. If people can get angry about the right thing in this matter they should use it as practice for other matters right? You know. Like the literal slave labor used to produce certain goods?
But maybe your just culturally more of a say nothing just do, type. Respectable but some people need to be angry to 'do the right thing.' Just a different way the mind can work. Takes all kinds you know?