Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear

[Drem]

Anybody been watching this Beamdog PR disaster?

[Zanchief]

Not until now. I might just pick the game up to fuck with these GG assholes.

[Arlos]

Anybody been watching this Beamdog PR disaster?

What "disaster"? A bunch of Gamergate pricks getting their panties in a bunch because a game dared to include someone who was trans in the game? That's a "disaster" now? Good to know.

Seriously, the Gamergate misogynists can all go die in a fucking fire, as far as I'm concerned. I don't consider them actual gamers, they're women hating bullies, who are far far worse than the "social justice warriors" they rant about. Gosh, one one side of the argument are girls who like playing games. On the other are misogynistic assholes who want games to be a strictly male-oriented thing, and be damned anyone else having fun.

Seriously, fuck those guys. They make me sick.

[Zanchief]

As soon as anyone uses the acronym SJW I just tune them out. It's like an announcement your a woman hating, asshole.

[Reynaldo]

Dunno about all that...i just know I bought the expansion immediately when i heard about it

[brinstar]

As soon as anyone uses the acronym SJW I just tune them out. It's like an announcement your a woman hating, asshole.

i love this unequivocally zan

and agreed, gamergate people are just the most wretched scum. between them and the PUA/MRA community (with which there is much overlap) i don't know who's more disgusting

[Drem]

Anybody been watching this Beamdog PR disaster?

What "disaster"? A bunch of Gamergate pricks getting their panties in a bunch because a game dared to include someone who was trans in the game? That's a "disaster" now? Good to know.

Seriously, the Gamergate misogynists can all go die in a fucking fire, as far as I'm concerned. I don't consider them actual gamers, they're women hating bullies, who are far far worse than the "social justice warriors" they rant about. Gosh, one one side of the argument are girls who like playing games. On the other are misogynistic assholes who want games to be a strictly male-oriented thing, and be damned anyone else having fun.

Seriously, fuck those guys. They make me sick.

The game already had transgender characters and pop culture references.

Amber Scott is a turd and brought this on herself. Beamdog and her are deflecting the massive amount of real criticism about broken multiplayer, bugs, broken mods, and unintelligent writing onto this transgender character that, afaik, you don't even have to talk to.

Yeah the GG tards did mob their reviews, and the subreddit is a downvote vortex from SJW/GG warfare, but there are lots of real reasons this game is getting tons of negative reviews. Beamdog didn't need to talk about their personal agendas in public. If Amber Scott didn't put the GG diss joke in for Minsc or give the interview talking about SJW and how awesome she is, none of this would be happening

And yet, it would still have shit reviews ahahah

[Zanchief]

Why exactly do you think Amber Scott is a turd? Why is it we only ever hear about these people in the industry if their woman and people want to smear the shit of them? Funny you specifically call out Amber Scott by name, yet refer to everyone else, including the CEO of Beamdog, as "Beamdog".

It seems these game breaking bugs are being used as a mantle for rampant misogyny just as "ethics in journalism" was used during that other shit show. You landed on the wrong side of this one, Drem.

[Drem]

Oh God, really? I took a side? I only know her name because she's the only one in the public spotlight. I guess the feelings of the shitty author are more important to people like you than the actual content of the game or her ability to write in general. She is an awful writer. As someone on meta puts it, "Writing by someone's infant weened on cringy daytime TV". You obviously never saw the juvenile garbage they put into the EE versions of the original two games, either. For the record, I didn't know her name or that it was a woman until I read her public statement a couple days ago. So until I was just saying "Beamdog sucks ass at writing" if that makes you feel better.

I think for most of us that have followed the EEs since release, we weren't expecting much from SoD anyway. So to see it not only be just as disappointing as expected, but also be a let down in so many other ways:

You can't play multiplayer
All mods are broken
Breaks the lore
Still can't import characters from original/GoG versions
Still the same bugs since EEs released in 2012
Linear as all fucking hell, can't even go back to old areas
Monsters randomly spawn in waves all the time
Extremely tedious
Doesn't feel like Baldur's Gate anymore
Safana is gutted and a total cliché now

...well, you get the idea

Don't buy into the hate hype that these GG vs. SJW internet mobs are trying to create. It's just a bad game. And despite however you wanna label me or judge me, you can just go to Steam or Meta and see that 95% of the remaining negative reviews make no mention of these supposedly controversial issues. It's just a shitty game. But it's impossible to have a real discussion about why it's so bad because people like you are too focused on their political agendas

[Zanchief]

"Writing by someone's infant weened on cringy daytime TV".

Gotcha...nothing of substance on the subject but pointless hyperbole.

You seem to be holding her responsible or the entire game. That's why you're on the wrong side. You're hate is aligning itself unnecessarily against a professional woman when you have have no direct knowledge of her actual work simply because mobs of misogynists hate her for being a alleged SJW. I think critical thinking might be called for in this case.

I've perused enough reviews on Steam to know that almost all of them mention a political agenda. If you want proof, there's that too. Why do BG 1 and 2 EE have much better aggregate reviews when the same "infant weened cringy writing" and bugs were present? Right, no gamer gate bullshit.

[Drem]

Well it's the way I've felt about Beamdog's treatment since day one. It doesn't live up to the franchise. Get mad about whatever else you feel like but I am not getting caught up in this political shit. I think it's silly. Everyone's acting stupid on both sides. The fact remains that SoD is not good

Aggregate reviews mean little for 1 and 2 considering they're still 95% Black Isle's games. Their added content has received no praise and this new expansion isn't doing any better. But please, keep thinking every bad review is left by a moronic GG transphobe and not by old BG diehards that're extremely disappointed with the final product

Once this all cools off, the game will still have bad scores. Because it's a bad game.

[Drem]

Also:

"Writing by someone's infant weened on cringy daytime TV".

Gotcha...nothing of substance on the subject but pointless hyperbole.

You seem to be holding her responsible or the entire game. That's why you're on the wrong side.

You obviously haven't played the game or the EEs if you don't agree with that quote. Or you have low standards, which i don't believe is the case. The writing is a fucking joke compared to how excellent the originals were, and that was one of the aspects of the game I enjoyed most

[Zanchief]

Honestly Drem, I don't believe you care about these GG asshats, but because of your own crusade (and I'm not saying your criticism isn't warranted) you've targeted this one single person who's worked on the game. The type of character assassination and straight up harassment that's been happening to woman in the gaming industry since 2014 is frightening. I'm just letting you know man, you don't want to be on their side of this.

[brinstar]

yea dudes

idgaf if a bad game gets bad reviews for being a bad game but when you use that as a smokescreen to single out this woman with ugly gendered attacks and brutal sexism you're just a piece of trash who deserves to have your precious vidyagames taken away

not saying you're doing that drem but these fuckbags are shitting up what is i'm sure otherwise cogent criticism and tainting/entangling the whole thing

i mean how many women need to be run out of the gaming industry with doxxing and rape/death threats before they'll be satisfied? so gross

[Jay]

Amber Scott might be a shit employee who made a bad game. If that's the criticism, then she brought that upon herself with her work or lack thereof. Anything else targeting her personally, whether it's gender or doxxing or rape threats, that's not something she brought on herself. That's the evil of internet fuccbois.

[Arlos]

Anybody been watching this Beamdog PR disaster?

What "disaster"? A bunch of Gamergate pricks getting their panties in a bunch because a game dared to include someone who was trans in the game? That's a "disaster" now? Good to know.

Seriously, the Gamergate misogynists can all go die in a fucking fire, as far as I'm concerned. I don't consider them actual gamers, they're women hating bullies, who are far far worse than the "social justice warriors" they rant about. Gosh, one one side of the argument are girls who like playing games. On the other are misogynistic assholes who want games to be a strictly male-oriented thing, and be damned anyone else having fun.

Seriously, fuck those guys. They make me sick.

The game already had transgender characters and pop culture references.

Amber Scott is a turd and brought this on herself. Beamdog and her are deflecting the massive amount of real criticism about broken multiplayer, bugs, broken mods, and unintelligent writing onto this transgender character that, afaik, you don't even have to talk to.

Yeah the GG tards did mob their reviews, and the subreddit is a downvote vortex from SJW/GG warfare, but there are lots of real reasons this game is getting tons of negative reviews. Beamdog didn't need to talk about their personal agendas in public. If Amber Scott didn't put the GG diss joke in for Minsc or give the interview talking about SJW and how awesome she is, none of this would be happening

And yet, it would still have shit reviews ahahah

What does Amber Scott have to do with broken coding? She's a writer, not a programmer. Why are you blaming her even a tiny little bit for the game having broken multiplayer, bugs, and broken mods? You're just perpetuating the GG narrative of "Lets blame everything on any convenient female target we don't like for whatever reason".

If you want to say her writing is bad, that might be a legitimate discussion, but you better be able to cite chapter and verse on WHY it's bad, rather than just say "unintelligent writing" with no evidence to argument to back it up. That's just insulting someone, that's not actually trying to show how the writing is bad or unintelligent. Again, you're marching in lockstep with the GG asshats.

If you want to complain about the Beamdog coders being idiots, and having the game in an incredibly buggy state, that would be one thing. If you want to blame Beamdog management for allowign the game to be released when they must have known it was still buggy as fuck. But calling out Amber Scott specifically as being emblematic and/or the primary source of what's wrong with the game, you're just being as big a misogynist asshole as the GG fucks.

[Jay]

What "disaster"? A bunch of Gamergate pricks getting their panties in a bunch because a game dared to include someone who was trans in the game? That's a "disaster" now? Good to know.

Seriously, the Gamergate misogynists can all go die in a fucking fire, as far as I'm concerned. I don't consider them actual gamers, they're women hating bullies, who are far far worse than the "social justice warriors" they rant about. Gosh, one one side of the argument are girls who like playing games. On the other are misogynistic assholes who want games to be a strictly male-oriented thing, and be damned anyone else having fun.

Seriously, fuck those guys. They make me sick.

The game already had transgender characters and pop culture references.

Amber Scott is a turd and brought this on herself. Beamdog and her are deflecting the massive amount of real criticism about broken multiplayer, bugs, broken mods, and unintelligent writing onto this transgender character that, afaik, you don't even have to talk to.

Yeah the GG tards did mob their reviews, and the subreddit is a downvote vortex from SJW/GG warfare, but there are lots of real reasons this game is getting tons of negative reviews. Beamdog didn't need to talk about their personal agendas in public. If Amber Scott didn't put the GG diss joke in for Minsc or give the interview talking about SJW and how awesome she is, none of this would be happening

And yet, it would still have shit reviews ahahah

What does Amber Scott have to do with broken coding? She's a writer, not a programmer. Why are you blaming her even a tiny little bit for the game having broken multiplayer, bugs, and broken mods? You're just perpetuating the GG narrative of "Lets blame everything on any convenient female target we don't like for whatever reason".

If you want to say her writing is bad, that might be a legitimate discussion, but you better be able to cite chapter and verse on WHY it's bad, rather than just say "unintelligent writing" with no evidence to argument to back it up. That's just insulting someone, that's not actually trying to show how the writing is bad or unintelligent. Again, you're marching in lockstep with the GG asshats.

If you want to complain about the Beamdog coders being idiots, and having the game in an incredibly buggy state, that would be one thing. If you want to blame Beamdog management for allowign the game to be released when they must have known it was still buggy as fuck. But calling out Amber Scott specifically as being emblematic and/or the primary source of what's wrong with the game, you're just being as big a misogynist asshole as the GG fucks.

Except he's not doing any of that. Here's the line: "Beamdog and her are deflecting the massive amount of real criticism about broken multiplayer, bugs, broken mods, and unintelligent writing onto this transgender character that, afaik, you don't even have to talk to."

Did he say her and the beamdog team were dodging said topics? Yes. Did he hold her accountable for programming? Nope. He's holding the game accountable for being shitting in so many of its buggy ways but if you reread the thread, in no way does he suggest Amber Scott is responsible for more than being a shitty writer. Being a head writer means you are emblematic in relation to what content is in a game. Maybe you're not a programmer but you're sure as fuck telling the story to the audience.

On the other hand, you just suggested his criticism of her makes him misogynist and in fact "as big a misogynist asshole as the GG fucks." to which I say we've all known each other long enough to know that's not true. Insulting a writer who is a woman is not misogyny. How many people called John Romero a piece of shit for Daikatana? Misandrists? Now insulting a writer in any way that reflects her gender or because of her gender is misogynistic, sexist and what have you. Drem misspoke to say she brought those insults on herself, imo, but he hasn't suggested that she's ass at her job because she's a woman.

You hate the smokescreen of the bad game to use as a way to be a typical GG person, cool. Agreed. There's another smokescreen though. Using a good cause and good ideals to attack, insult and label others. You just did that to Drem.

[Drem]

Thanks, Jay. I sat here for like an hour trying to figure out why Arlos felt the need to write any of that based on what I posted. Honestly it's kind of offensive. I absolutely never blamed all the problems on her. The patronizing tone of the post doesn't help, either.

There are a few reasons I called her a turd and said she brought this on herself, and I feel like people are misinterpreting why I said that so here we go: As a business owner, when you get negative press you need to ignore it. If you react, and especially if you react by getting your boss to make a statement begging your friends to leave good reviews, you look petty. Here are the other reasons:

Minsc: She has taken a big, innocent, teddy bear of a character that a generation of gamers loved and turned him into her bullhorn with a quip that alienates a portion of their potential customers. It's a moment that makes him come completely out of character and sprinkles the game with some of the uglier parts of the internet that just simply don't need to be there.

Safana/Jaheira: In an interview with Kotaku, Scott says (and I feel like this really shows how little she understands about the property in general) "If there was something for the original Baldur’s Gate that just doesn’t mesh for modern day gamers like the sexism, [we tried to address that]. In the original there’s a lot of jokes at women’s expense. Or if not a lot, there’s a couple, like Safana was just a sex object in BG 1, and Jaheira was the nagging wife and that was played for comedy. We were able to say, “No, that’s not really the kind of story we want to make.” In Siege of Dragonspear, Safana gets her own little storyline, she got a way better personality upgrade. If people don’t like that, then too bad"


Ok, great. Wait, what? No, Safana was a fucking badass. Her lack of trustworthiness was a theme that ran through both games and she had the fighting skills to back up her swagger. She was flawed and self-absorbed but she was so rad. A femme fatale moreso than a sex object. Simply calling her a "sex object" is thoughtless.

And Jaheira? What? She was cold, calculating. She was a cynical war refugee that didn't give a fuck about the fates of others. She didn't accept you as a hero. She criticized and made her own judgements. So I guess that means.... a nagging wife, huh?

Ruining these characters that people loved is one of my biggest gripes with this writer. She's shitting all over the original writers that created these incredible personalities that we've loved for over 15 years. Characters that, as far as I'm concerned, were perfect. She knows she's doing it, and doesn't care what you think, because they totally needed a "way better personality upgrade"

Trent Oster's public responses have all missed the root of the problem. He keeps pinning it solely on these two controversial issues but doesn't seem to understand that expectations of this content are extremely high. Beamdog doesn't understand that pointless character butchering and making fun of a portion of your customers is why this is happening. They mass censor reviews that are personal attacks when their product set the precedent.

[Zanchief]

Except he's not doing any of that. Here's the line: "Beamdog and her are deflecting the massive amount of real criticism about broken multiplayer, bugs, broken mods, and unintelligent writing onto this transgender character that, afaik, you don't even have to talk to."

Might want to back that quote up a tad. Drem has made a few personal insults to this woman already simply because he doesn't like the writing in this game. A standard for which could never really be met. I've red very little actual criticism about the writing in the game beyond the political stuff. I've played the original games, and enjoyed them a lot, but lets be honest, the writing is not revolutionary. It's pretty awful at times. It's cool to be nostalgic about this, but when Drem makes personal attacks upon a woman because her artistic license doesn't live up a standard which could never be met I'm going to call him out on it, especially if those attacks line up with a hate group with a despicable track record.

Do I think Drem is a misogynist? Hell no. Which is why I warned him he doesn't want to be on their side on this.

[Drem]

To me this is the same as making fun of George Lucas for fucking up Star Wars. He's a turd, too

[Jay]

Except he's not doing any of that. Here's the line: "Beamdog and her are deflecting the massive amount of real criticism about broken multiplayer, bugs, broken mods, and unintelligent writing onto this transgender character that, afaik, you don't even have to talk to."

Might want to back that quote up a tad. Drem has made a few personal insults to this woman already simply because he doesn't like the writing in this game. A standard for which could never really be met. I've red very little actual criticism about the writing in the game beyond the political stuff. I've played the original games, and enjoyed them a lot, but lets be honest, the writing is not revolutionary. It's pretty awful at times. It's cool to be nostalgic about this, but when Drem makes personal attacks upon a woman because her artistic license doesn't live up a standard which could never be met I'm going to call him out on it, especially if those attacks line up with a hate group with a despicable track record.

Do I think Drem is a misogynist? Hell no. Which is why I warned him he doesn't want to be on their side on this.

Sure, and I think Drem said a couple of things I disagree with and i find your overall criticisms reasonable. I just think "But calling out Amber Scott specifically as being emblematic and/or the primary source of what's wrong with the game, you're just being as big a misogynist asshole as the GG fucks." is way overboard. Arlos has "voice of modded" lesser shit but he gets to tee off on Drem because his anger over the issue trumped his reasoning. I wanted to point that out because too often do people on the right side of an issue act wrongly to other people. Like Lyion said in another thread. It's not these issues that are a problem, it's common courtesy. I mean unless Arlos is convinced Drem wants to threaten Amber Scott with rape.

[Drem]

Arlos ran away from this thread with his tail between his legs. Still no one making a single comment about the game here except me, aside from the fact that Rey got it.

How do you feel about it Rey? The only thing I'm really enjoying here is the new art. The rest of it is just so weird. And if someone new came to the series they'd get what might feel like character development thru SoD, but when they go to BG2 all of these characters revert back to their old selves. The expansion makes the continuity really strange

[Reynaldo]

Well I rerolled a character (half orc fighter/cleric) to start it from scratch. Having fun so far. Have it set on normal difficulty so it's not too hard apart from the occasional running into the basilisks and getting someone stoned or having my wizards on the outer edge and running into a band of archers lighting them up before i can move them away.

Probably about 4-5 areas away from getting to Baldur's Gate so still a week or two (with my sparse playtime) from getting near the end of the original content. I love it so far though. Love the ease of gameplay and the BG2 fullscreen skin on BG1. Love the health bars on top of the characters and enemies now. Hitting TAB to light up loot piles. It's just everything I love about BG only better.

Will give more when I get into the new stuff. Looking forward to the bigger fights.

[Arlos]

FYI, I didn't run anywhere. I've just had far more important things to deal with, since my mom was just diagnosed with colon cancer a week ago. I'm sorry I considered that to be more important than continuing an argument with you. The posts I did make were stuff I could do in the space of a few seconds, largely with cut and paste. Notice I've only posted a couple things in a while, all of which were pretty trivial. Continuing with an argument required way more emotional energy than I have available at present.

Though, I wasn't really planning on responding to this much more because I didn't feel it to be productive. You said what you did, and it sounded like you were blaming her for all the game's problems, as most of your complaints were non-writer related, and yet she was the emblematic element you were hanging your complaints on. Was I overly harsh? Probably, and to what extent I was I apologize. I still don't like the way you were describing your complaints, but meh, like I said, I have more important things I'm worrying about at the moment.

[Drem]

Ah I was just poking, no worries. Sorry to hear about your mum :/ Best wishes, sir