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Forums - Politics Discussion - The sjw review by eurogamer on Kingdom Come: Deliverance

"while over there bedding a noble and having one-night stands. That's in addition to my Troubadour perk which makes me even more irresistible to women and lets me use the "bathwenches" for free, which ties into a key mechanic of keeping yourself clean and patched up. It also means I get the Alpha Male buff (+2 to Charisma) because I've been satisfied and apparently it shows. It literally says that."

I love how this upstanding respectable antiracist womenrespecting man, in this game of tons of options, immediately dives into all the "deplorable" perks and skills and then complains.

It sounds just like when people complained about being able to run over women in GTA. Well, spoiler alert, you can also choose to NOT run over them. The point is to have the option to do what you want and form your own story.



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They really should review Personal 5. That game lacks diversity, has a few homophobic moments. You can date allmost all female characters at the sake time and glutony gets awarded. Anyway another rant like having to many black zombies in RE5 which took place in Africa.



Please excuse my (probally) poor grammar

Well, politics literally can't "stay out of games" simply because everything is political in some form or fashion. Anything that is trying to send a message about something can always be seen as that. I don't know how much about the 'historical accuracy' that goes into the time period for this game but I think part of it is because while everyone should be pushing for more diversity and inclusion some might worry that historical accuracy is actually instead just being used as an excuse to purposely exclude others, which is an assumption in the end. 

It had happened as well with Call of Duty:WW2 where someone asked whether there would be swastika's would be in the multiplayer and the dev sort of insinuated that the person must have bad intentions for asking that. Don't get me wrong, the question is a little iffy and if that person was asking that because they supported bad stuff or some shit then absolutely call them out, and I personally wouldn't care if they completely removed it, but considering that they had promoted the game constantly about how historically accurate it would all be i'm not sure that should have been the immediate response, at least not unless more information was known about their intentions for asking. But they did also say multiplayer was seen as the more non-trying to be accurate mode. 

Edit: I've edited this comment to more accurately portray what I had intended to say at the time, as the original was poorly worded. 

Last edited by FloatingWaffles - on 16 August 2021

FragilE^ said:

"while over there bedding a noble and having one-night stands. That's in addition to my Troubadour perk which makes me even more irresistible to women and lets me use the "bathwenches" for free, which ties into a key mechanic of keeping yourself clean and patched up. It also means I get the Alpha Male buff (+2 to Charisma) because I've been satisfied and apparently it shows. It literally says that."

I love how this upstanding respectable antiracist womenrespecting man, in this game of tons of options, immediately dives into all the "deplorable" perks and skills and then complains.

It sounds just like when people complained about being able to run over women in GTA. Well, spoiler alert, you can also choose to NOT run over them. The point is to have the option to do what you want and form your own story.

It's totally cool if you only run over men though. Reminds me of the cyber bullying against women adds. Like cyber bullying against men doesn't take place or the crime is not as bad as long as the victim has a penis.



Please excuse my (probally) poor grammar

DonFerrari said:
SuperNova said:
Out of curiosity, is there a female playable character?

Because 'historically accurate' is not at all a blanket excuse for the mechanics and portrayals you put into your games. While it might me true that most women in the 1400 didn't have combat roles, Joan of Arc being one of the most famous ones and Elise Eskilsdotter who became a pirate to avenge her husbands death perhaps the most badass one, that does not mean that it would be impossible to struckture a game around non-combattive roles either.

Integrating black characters or asian charaters, while staying historically accurate would also not have been impossible. There was a substantial enough black population in Denmark around the time for example that portraits of black noble danes exist, setting the game in Denmark or close to the danish border would have allowed for black characters.
There were also active trade routes into Asia and east Asia. I mean, Marco Polos famous travels took place around 100 years earlier. There was enough contact that the black death was able to spread into europe from Asia, and it is not just likely, but proven that trade delegations from Asian countries came all the way to continental Europe, so if you WANTED to have an asian character in the game while stil staying historically accurate, you could.

The developers evidently didn't want to do any of that, and that's fine, it's their game.
The 'in the name of historic accuracy' excuse however is not sufficient on any of these points. The developers made choices and the game is the result of these choices.

So basically you want devs to limit themselves and choose instances where they could satisfy your demands.

No. And I didn't say anything to that effect either. I also didn't demand anything at all. Please don't let your offense blind you to a reasonable post.

All I did say is that clearly this dev made choices of what they wanted in their game and these choices didn't include a desire for diversity or female representation. I then proceded to say, and I quote: 'That's fine.'

The reason these are not in the game is not 'historic accuracy' it is that they didn't want to include them as part of their vision and that's fine.



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JWeinCom said:
Ka-pi96 said:

You mean that load of tosh that basically says  "you don't know, it might have been like this"? Yeah, and the Earth is flat...

 

"We know of African kings in Constantinople on pilgrimage to Spain; we know of black Moors in Spain; we know of extensive travel of Jews from the courts of Cordoba and Damascus; we also know of black people in large cities in Germany," the historian, Sean Miller, tells me. Czech cities Olomouc and Prague were on the famous Silk Road which facilitated the trade of goods all over the world. If you plot a line between them, it runs directly through the area recreated in Kingdom Come.

That's the part that was omitted from the OP.  I'm not a historian, so I can't speak to the validity, but the actual argument was much more than "you don't know, it might have been like this?"  Although, the OP cherry picked parts of the review to make it seem like that.

So you want to argue just so you can accuse the OP of something?

Errorist76 said:
DonFerrari said:

Owwww how could I forget of the vikings who originated from Peru or Texas... how silly of me, please pardon me.

And you dare preach to me just above =p

He was clearly joking sarcastically.

I know and I was when I answered... he used some terms (like taxist) that in Brazil we use when joking about calling others racist, misogynist, etc. I'm almost sure he understood I was joking as well.

FragilE^ said:

"while over there bedding a noble and having one-night stands. That's in addition to my Troubadour perk which makes me even more irresistible to women and lets me use the "bathwenches" for free, which ties into a key mechanic of keeping yourself clean and patched up. It also means I get the Alpha Male buff (+2 to Charisma) because I've been satisfied and apparently it shows. It literally says that."

I love how this upstanding respectable antiracist womenrespecting man, in this game of tons of options, immediately dives into all the "deplorable" perks and skills and then complains.

It sounds just like when people complained about being able to run over women in GTA. Well, spoiler alert, you can also choose to NOT run over them. The point is to have the option to do what you want and form your own story.

Nope, we can't let anything bad happen to girls and black people in movies and games... but then we will complain about the main role not being portrayed by a woman on a movie that she will suffer corporal abuse, because then we should tone down the movie to avoid the culture of abuse of women.

Qwark said:

They really should review Personal 5. That game lacks diversity, has a few homophobic moments. You can date allmost all female characters at the sake time and glutony gets awarded. Anyway another rant like having to many black zombies in RE5 which took place in Africa.

They really are consistent on their crazyness.

FloatingWaffles said:

this also reminds me of that time when one of the Call of Duty WW2 devs insinuated that someone on twitter was a racist/nazi because they said why aren't there any swastika's to be seen if the mode is called Nazi Zombies

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2017/07/call-of-duty-ww2-dev-accuses-fan-of-being-racist-for-wanting-swatiskas-in-game/35820/

keep in mind this was after the devs were constantly talking about how 'historically accurate' that COD WW2 was going to be as well 

SJW's really do make fools out of themselves with shit like this. 

I also love when they drive themselves in a corner... just like the Master of None's actor.

Qwark said:
FragilE^ said:

"while over there bedding a noble and having one-night stands. That's in addition to my Troubadour perk which makes me even more irresistible to women and lets me use the "bathwenches" for free, which ties into a key mechanic of keeping yourself clean and patched up. It also means I get the Alpha Male buff (+2 to Charisma) because I've been satisfied and apparently it shows. It literally says that."

I love how this upstanding respectable antiracist womenrespecting man, in this game of tons of options, immediately dives into all the "deplorable" perks and skills and then complains.

It sounds just like when people complained about being able to run over women in GTA. Well, spoiler alert, you can also choose to NOT run over them. The point is to have the option to do what you want and form your own story.

It's totally cool if you only run over men though. Reminds me of the cyber bullying against women adds. Like cyber bullying against men doesn't take place or the crime is not as bad as long as the victim has a penis.

Or when talking about violence in Brazil, where 90%+ of homicide victims are man, but we should fight against the violence against woman. Or the statistics that put all crimes that happened against woman, black or gay as a hate crime instead of a symptom of the generalized violence in the country (we had a case of someone on a gay couple killing the partner and being classified as a homophobic crime).

Ka-pi96 said:
Qwark said:

They really should review Personal 5. That game lacks diversity, has a few homophobic moments. You can date allmost all female characters at the sake time and glutony gets awarded. Anyway another rant like having to many black zombies in RE5 which took place in Africa.

Yeah but all the characters in Persona 5 are east Asian. Things only lack diversity if it's Caucasians

If your story takes places on Norway during viking times and you have all people being latins, asians and blacks you have all the diversity you need... white people are over represented so take them out and keep diversity (I haven't ever seen anyone complaining about the lack of diversity on black only series)... nowadays we have movies that they want someone to do the census of how many of each ethnicity was presented and if it matches current USA population, doesn't matter if you have good actors of that race to hire or if the timeframe and place of the story would make sense with that population.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

Ugh, I hate shit like this so much you have no idea. One website that calls themselves "progressive gaming" that is partnered with a site I write for wrote an angry rant disguised as an "editorial" basically saying the game is a "white man fantasy" and that there should be "people of color," despite taking place in Medieval Eastern Europe.. The fact that they can call themselves progressive after a write-up like that is laughable to me. Like, just what exactly is "progressive" about racism?

I don't necessarily think politics should stay out of games, as games can be a form of art, and art has always been a commentary of society. I do however believe that IDENTITY politics should stay the hell out of games, and basically - don't throw your racist hang ups and your divisive racial view of society on others, particularly artists who, the last thing they want is censorship..



 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident - all men and women created by the, go-you know.. you know the thing!" - Joe Biden

SuperNova said:
DonFerrari said:

So basically you want devs to limit themselves and choose instances where they could satisfy your demands.

No. And I didn't say anything to that effect either. I also didn't demand anything at all. Please don't let your offense blind you to a reasonable post.

All I did say is that clearly this dev made choices of what they wanted in their game and these choices didn't include a desire for diversity or female representation. I then proceded to say, and I quote: 'That's fine.'

The reason these are not in the game is not 'historic accuracy' it is that they didn't want to include them as part of their vision and that's fine.

I saw all your convoluted explanation. And it wasn't "there can be stories of medieval Europe with black people or woman", but more like "if they weren't racist misogynists they could chose a story that would include then without being less precise".

Let's not forget that when you have 99% data showing one thing and you chose the 1% that is different then that is the forced choice.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

DarthMetalliCube said:

Ugh, I hate shit like this so much you have no idea. One website that calls themselves "progressive gaming" that is partnered with a site I write for wrote an angry rant disguised as an "editorial" basically saying the game is a "white man fantasy" and that there should be "people of color," despite taking place in Medieval Eastern Europe.. The fact that they can call themselves progressive after a write-up like that is laughable to me. Like, just what exactly is "progressive" about racism?

I don't necessarily think politics should stay out of games, as games can be a form of art, and art has always been a commentary of society. I do however believe that IDENTITY politics should stay the hell out of games, and basically - don't throw your racist hang ups and your divisive racial view of society on others, particularly artists who, the last thing they want is censorship..

they are as progressive as they are liberal... just they changing the meaning of the words...

And sure political choices and narrative can be part of a game, and even if they want they can make a game that pushes diversity and equality themes, but that is it, if they want. But when SJW make pointless attacks because someone doesn't adhere to their crazy notions it's better, because given enough time they dig their own grave.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

Aeolus451 said:
RolStoppable said:

Indeed, it doesn't make sense. I was curious and looked up the review and here is the uncut version that I found:

When Kingdom Come does succeed, it's peerless. The Elder Scrolls and The Witcher can feel flimsy next to the sophisticated systems and heft of history on show here.

But there's also a big problem. There are no people of colour in the game beyond people from the Cuman tribe, a Turkic people from the Eurasian Steppe. The question is, should there be? https://www.resetera.com/threads/separating-games-from-their-creators-kingdom-come-deliverance.17250/">The game's makers say they've done years of research and found no conclusive proof there should be, but a historian I spoke to, who specialises in the area, disagrees.

"We know of African kings in Constantinople on pilgrimage to Spain; we know of black Moors in Spain; we know of extensive travel of Jews from the courts of Cordoba and Damascus; we also know of black people in large cities in Germany," the historian, Sean Miller, tells me. Czech cities Olomouc and Prague were on the famous Silk Road which facilitated the trade of goods all over the world. If you plot a line between them, it runs directly through the area recreated in Kingdom Come. "You just can't know nobody got sick and stayed a longer time," he says. "What if a group of black Africans came through and stayed at an inn and someone got pregnant? Even one night is enough for a pregnancy."

It's not conclusive proof but it's readily available doubt to undermine Warhorse's interpretation. What muddies the water further is whose interpretation it overridingly is: creative director, writer and Warhorse co-founder Daniel Vavra's. He has been a vocal supporter of GamerGate and involved in antagonistic exchanges on Twitter (collected in https://www.resetera.com/threads/separating-games-from-their-creators-kingdom-come-deliverance.17250/page-2%23post-3450110">a ResetEra thread). More recently, he wore the same T-shirt depicting an album cover by the band Burzum every day at Gamescom 2017 - a very visible time for him and his game. Burzum is the work of one man: Varg Vikernes, a convicted murderer and outspoken voice on racial purity and supremacy. He even identified as a Nazi for a while.

This isn't to say Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a hotbed of racism, because it isn't. The Turkic Cumans speak a different language and are a hostile enemy, which seems like a limited portrayal but no less so than any other war game I can think of. Then again, I'm white, so maybe I've missed things. And racism can take many forms, one of them being exclusion.

More apparent to me was the back-slapping laddishness revolving around bedding women. I'm pursuing a love story over here, while over there bedding a noble and having one-night stands. That's in addition to my Troubadour perk which makes me even more irresistible to women and lets me use the "bathwenches" for free, which ties into a key mechanic of keeping yourself clean and patched up. It also means I get the Alpha Male buff (+2 to Charisma) because I've been satisfied and apparently it shows. It literally says that. The game's Codex even feels the need to describe the ideal woman of the time: "a thin, pale woman with long blonde hair, small rounded breasts, relatively narrow hips and a narrow waist".

All of which means that a shadow lingers over Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Instead of challenging the Dark Age it reinterprets 615 years later, the game seems to delight in it. Instead of seeing notes in the margin of a history book, we get what feels like a glossy pamphlet advertising an escape into an oddly romanticised past. And it's that, ultimately, which makes me too uneasy about Warhorse's work to be able to recommend it.

So the reason why it doesn't make sense is not because the historian is a complete idiot, but because the original poster provided selective quotes to misrepresent the review. That doesn't mean that putting calls for diversity into reviews is a practice that should be encouraged, but merely that the situation isn't as deplorable as it was depicted in this thread.

I provided a link with the full review. I can't copy the whole review so anyone could be accused of "selective editing" if they try use an article in their thread. I chose the most relevant parts of the review to my thread. Even with everything the one historian he could find that agrees with him, brought up, his theory banked entirely on "if one got sick, stayed at inn, knocked up girl/got pregnant" . That's just alot of wishful.

SuperNova said:

And I'm not debating that. In fact I said, it's their choice, it's fine.

I just pointed out that if diversity was important to this dev they could have kept the time period, european setting and historic accuracy while still having diverse characters.  'Historic accuracy' is not the right argument here. It's 'We didn't want to.' And that's fine.

Not really. I doubt that they would have a foreigner do everything he did. Again, historical accuracy.

I didn't neccessarily mean a black player character doing exactly what they are having their protagonist do, although I do admit, personally I think a GTA5 like aproach with diffrent characters showcasing diffrent lifestlyes in the 1400 could have been interesting. If they had wanted to include black, asian or female character options they undoubtedly would have had a far more ambitous and far reaching project on their hands, while preserving historic accuracy.

All I'm saying that historical accuracy is not neccessarily preventing them from having black, asian or female characters in prominent roles in the game, even as NPCs.

Again, personally I'm fine with them not prioritizing that and that not being part of their vision, I can accept that, I just don't like the historical accuracy argument because it's proovably flimsy. 'That was not part of our vision, but we appreciate the feedback' should be the only answer needed here.