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 Sigvatr wrote:
The best way to handle this issue is to just ignore it. It's a bunch of people shouting "WOLF!" for the 100000x time tying to get attention and their minutes of fame.

On the upside, those "interesting" people serve as free advertisment for the best game in years.

Oh yes, Obsidian must be making some special "Thank you" Cards for them. This is the best kind of publicity, so I guess the joke's on them.

And the game deserves all the sales it gets.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
First off, stop projecting as it is right now you are thinking all I want to hurt people for some reason, it's basically equating a false argument.

Well, I was asking you for your reasons. You did not really answer.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Second: The world is not your hugbox, there will be things that offend you at times and to be to your displeasure

Yeah, I know. And I am not asking for nothing offensive ever. But I wrote that earlier : “can you not tell the difference between a story that makes you uncomfortable by challenging your expectations, pushing your moral boundaries, and generally putting you into an unfamiliar, likely thought-provoking situations, and a story that push you back into already mainstream harmful stereotypes about you?” along with “Now, if it was in an horrible game full of horrible stuff that you really did not like, you certainly would just that “That horrible game is horrible”. But if it is in a game that you otherwise really enjoy, likely you would try to make them change it. ”.
That piece of text does not bring much to the game, and so unless you actually want to make people feel bad, I see no reason not to replace it with something that does not make people feel bad.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
and all you are doing is promoting censorship "Because you feel bad".

Oooh, scary!
What I am doing is saying that if you did something without realizing you were making some people feel bad, and you can change it pretty easily, then you should do it rather than getting all caught up in arms about how you would never cave in to censorship. Now of course if you offended people either for the explicit purpose of offending them, or because you thought it was a great way to carry whatever message, carry on. But that is certainly not the case here.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Because there's no harm in keeping it either

If you genuinely think there is no reason to keep it and no reason to remove it either, you should be indifferent to the issue. You are only opposed to removing it because someone is campaigning to remove it. Basically, you are being that guy.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

If you genuinely think there is no reason to keep it and no reason to remove it either, you should be indifferent to the issue. You are only opposed to removing it because someone is campaigning to remove it. Basically, you are being that guy.

it's called Slippery Slope.

First it's an EVIL line "against transgenders" (it's not even focused on them) .

Then what? Something someone, somewhere doesn't like? Like someone thinks it's bad for us to hurt goblins because it has a symbolic meaning of the "WHITE MAN" oppressing the minorities?

Where does it stop?

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

If you genuinely think there is no reason to keep it and no reason to remove it either, you should be indifferent to the issue. You are only opposed to removing it because someone is campaigning to remove it. Basically, you are being that guy.

it's called Slippery Slope.

First it's an EVIL line "against transgenders" (it's not even focused on them) .

Then what? Something someone, somewhere doesn't like? Like someone thinks it's bad for us to hurts goblins because it has a symbolic meaning of the "WHITE MAN" oppressing the minorities?

Where does it stop?

Indeed, its pretty the same issue that was raised up over the "controversial" Batgirl/Joker cover and somehow oversensitive people interpreted it as a form of sexual assault/rape. The best part is that the majority of these offended people don't even read the comics and thus didn't understand the context and past history between the two in The Killing Joke. I feel like its the same here where they take out this specific line in the game out of context and try to spin it as a part of transphobic agenda hidden within the game.

Pic for reference:

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

If you genuinely think there is no reason to keep it and no reason to remove it either, you should be indifferent to the issue. You are only opposed to removing it because someone is campaigning to remove it. Basically, you are being that guy.

it's called Slippery Slope.

First it's an EVIL line "against transgenders" (it's not even focused on them) .

Then what? Something someone, somewhere doesn't like? Like someone thinks it's bad for us to hurts goblins because it has a symbolic meaning of the "WHITE MAN" oppressing the minorities?

Where does it stop?

I already made that argument facetiously on the last page! You can't just come in and make it seriously now!

But to answer, basically you listen to the complaint and then react based on what it is. So in this case, maybe you go - oh, geez, I didn't realise this would hurt people, I didn't know the background of that trope and didn't intend to hurt anyone. It's not really integral to the game and it's easy to change so we'll remove/replace it in a future update.

In some other circumstances, you might examine it and say, oh, damn, now that you mention it the subtext there really is awful, but at this point there isn't really anything we can do other than to try to avoid the same problem next time, because it'd be too labour intensive to change it.

Writing stuff is tough. Sometimes you write something and the subtext is bad or there's some historical context there that you weren't previously aware of. It happens. You just do the best you can and try to keep growing as a writer. In this case, it seems like a pretty easy fix, so that's a big plus.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Apple fox wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I'm not sure how this limerick applies to transgender people.
All it says is that the woman turned out to be a man.
That doesn't mean transgender; it just means that the hero was really drunk at the time.

Have people seriously not heard of these sort of stories? I thought it was a common occurrence in comedy, where someone gets drunk and shags someone he / she shouldn't have.

We don't know the context of said person being there, but It's a very common joke against transgender.
Sometimes the best is to let it rest at the bottom of the ocean until the environment is more welcoming to the people it maybe mocking.

Really? I thought it was more of a joke against drunkards.
Then again, the versions I know did not have transgender folks.

I have been exposed to this joke more with transgender, bad comedy movie recently that for the life of me can't remember.
Drunkards are often involved in some way, and most often it makes for a fail of a joke from my experience.

 daedalus wrote:
None of that means that either should have elements removed to satisfy the consciences of people who upset easily.

I kind of wrote a paragraph on why they were upset, and I do believe it is justified, but apparently no-one read it or no-one cared to comment on it.

 daedalus wrote:
Your argument is that it's so minor nothing is lost from the plot or atmosphere. I'm arguing that atmosphere is a lump sum of everything, and removing anything, no matter how obscure or small would change that.

You are missing the part about it not being written to be part of a coherent atmosphere in the first place. Remember, it was written in isolation by someone who made nothing else in the game. It is basically a sticker on top of the coherent atmosphere set up by Obsidian team. And it would be changing that sticker for another sticker.

 daedalus wrote:
I want you to explain to me how removing this joke would not be censorship. That's really all I want. If I can be convinced of that, then I can walk away and never look at this thread again.

From which perspective? Obsidian's perspective, or the backer's perspective?
From Obsidian's perspective, it would just be giving them new arguments and convincing them to change the text. It would be exactly like, say, pointing out a small error in the proof of a theorem in a research article. It does not even matter if the person that mentioned the error was being a jerk about it, once you have learned about it, you just want to change it. And changing it is not censorship, it is your right to publish what you want to.
From the backer's perspective, well, he can still say it somewhere else, but Obsidian have no duty, I guess, to provide him or her a platform for saying this. It is exactly like not being allowed to say certain stuff on DakkaDakka is not censorship.

 Sasori wrote:
Really? Because there are several Trans-People that posted on Obsidans Twitter to keep it, and it is not offensive to them... Stop speaking for an entire community.

Okay. Then it would maybe hurt only 50% of the trans that would see it. Or maybe even 25%. Or 10%. Even then, that seems 10% too many too me.

 Grimskul wrote:

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

If you genuinely think there is no reason to keep it and no reason to remove it either, you should be indifferent to the issue. You are only opposed to removing it because someone is campaigning to remove it. Basically, you are being that guy.

it's called Slippery Slope.

First it's an EVIL line "against transgenders" (it's not even focused on them) .

Then what? Something someone, somewhere doesn't like? Like someone thinks it's bad for us to hurts goblins because it has a symbolic meaning of the "WHITE MAN" oppressing the minorities?

Where does it stop?

Indeed, its pretty the same issue that was raised up over the "controversial" Batgirl/Joker cover and somehow oversensitive people interpreted it as a form of sexual assault/rape. The best part is that the majority of these offended people don't even read the comics and thus didn't understand the context and past history between the two in The Killing Joke. I feel like its the same here where they take out this specific line in the game out of context and try to spin it as a part of transphobic agenda hidden within the game.

Pic for reference:

Spoiler:

The thing is a lot of the people did understand, and where being told they didn't understand. Comics are another can of worms with a huge history of dumb piled on dumb. :p

I don't care ether way about that cover, but I can understand why it cause issue. If there wasn't other issues a cover like that wouldn't be a issue, it's bringing up context that wasn't intended and draws other issues up.
If it was created without the negative history it would most likely be well received within its own context.
Sadly we have a very negative history and this is why things such as this can be seen as negatives rather than positives.

 TheDraconicLord wrote:
it's called Slippery Slope.

First it's an EVIL line "against transgenders" (it's not even focused on them) .

Then what? Something someone, somewhere doesn't like? Like someone thinks it's bad for us to hurt goblins because it has a symbolic meaning of the "WHITE MAN" oppressing the minorities?

Where does it stop?

I know, right. We must just decide a direction, and go ALL THE WAY into it.

I mean, let us be serious. Where do we stop? Well, when it stops being reasonable. Yeah, it requires us to use our brain and judgment. Certainly better than saying “We must never change, ever!”.

 Grimskul wrote:
Indeed, its pretty the same issue that was raised up over the "controversial" Batgirl/Joker cover and somehow oversensitive people interpreted it as a form of sexual assault/rape. The best part is that the majority of these offended people don't even read the comics and thus didn't understand the context and past history between the two in The Killing Joke.

Actually, the outrage about the cover was by people that read the comic it was supposed to be the cover of. Just check back in the thread made about it earlier in Off Topic. I had no problem with it, because I did not know the comic it was supposed to illustrate. And indeed, there are way more violent covers out there. But the people that actually read the Batgirl comics disliked the cover because it really did not go with the tone and direction of the actual comics. And do you know who had the last word on that? The actual people making the comic. The guest illustrator that made the cover had apparently not been briefed enough, and his work was not what they wanted, so they did not use the (alternate) cover.
And the past history between the two in The Killing Joke was very frequently brought up as to why the cover was inappropriate. So you are just wrong on every point here. You need to do more research.

Apple fox wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

If you genuinely think there is no reason to keep it and no reason to remove it either, you should be indifferent to the issue. You are only opposed to removing it because someone is campaigning to remove it. Basically, you are being that guy.

it's called Slippery Slope.

First it's an EVIL line "against transgenders" (it's not even focused on them) .

Then what? Something someone, somewhere doesn't like? Like someone thinks it's bad for us to hurts goblins because it has a symbolic meaning of the "WHITE MAN" oppressing the minorities?

Where does it stop?

Indeed, its pretty the same issue that was raised up over the "controversial" Batgirl/Joker cover and somehow oversensitive people interpreted it as a form of sexual assault/rape. The best part is that the majority of these offended people don't even read the comics and thus didn't understand the context and past history between the two in The Killing Joke. I feel like its the same here where they take out this specific line in the game out of context and try to spin it as a part of transphobic agenda hidden within the game.

Pic for reference:

Spoiler:

The thing is a lot of the people did understand, and where being told they didn't understand. Comics are another can of worms with a huge history of dumb piled on dumb. :p

I don't care ether way about that cover, but I can understand why it cause issue. If there wasn't other issues a cover like that wouldn't be a issue, it's bringing up context that wasn't intended and draws other issues up.
If it was created without the negative history it would most likely be well received within its own context.
Sadly we have a very negative history and this is why things such as this can be seen as negatives rather than positives.

But that's the thing though, the cover is not supposed to be something that is comforting. It's supposed to reflect the fear that the Joker evokes even from someone in the Bat-Family and, as mentioned already, bring back the history of the Killing Joke. If people can't acknowledge that, shouldn't this "negativity" as you call it be ignored? I think that the fact that some people extrapolate such odd SJW interpretations of things like this is more reflective of their own prejudices and mindset moreso than the work itself.

I don't really care for the joke myself. It's a cute little rhyme and all. but I could do without it.

If they can take it out and let the backer put something else that would be cool. If they aren't planning to do that, then that's fine. It's not like that joke is the entirety of the game.

 Grimskul wrote:
But that's the thing though, the cover is not supposed to be something that is comforting. It's supposed to reflect the fear that the Joker evokes even from someone in the Bat-Family and, as mentioned already, bring back the history of the Killing Joke.

And is a distressing cover that evokes the fear the Joker cause even in the Bat-Family appropriate for this run of the Bargirl comics line? Apparently not. That is what the fan of this comic line and the authors of this comics line have said. So use that cover for a comics line where it is appropriate. Stop trying to impose it on authors and fans that want something else.

Hybrid, what kind of reality are you living in, when you expect everyone in the world to cater to ever group, for every scenario that is possibly offensive.

The line in question may not even be referring to a trans person.

Once again, by blowing this out of proportion you are trivializing the serious issues that the LBGT community is going through.

We've got people with PTSD from the War in Afghanistan and Iraq. Do you think we should remove every War Movie beacuse it may cause some offence to the people who served? Or because it is a potential Trigger for PTSD?

PTSD is a great example of something that has made huge strides. A lot of the reason for that is because major issues such as the stigmata of it. These are the kinds of things that you should be focusing on, not a line in a video game, that in all reality is not that offensive.


So Seriously Hybrid, how you drop the stupid issues like this, and actually work on things that can end up having a positive impact on the LGBT community, not things that will cause people to dismiss them more easily.

 Grimskul wrote:
Indeed, its pretty the same issue that was raised up over the "controversial" Batgirl/Joker cover and somehow oversensitive people interpreted it as a form of sexual assault/rape. The best part is that the majority of these offended people don't even read the comics and thus didn't understand the context and past history between the two in The Killing Joke. I feel like its the same here where they take out this specific line in the game out of context and try to spin it as a part of transphobic agenda hidden within the game.

Also didn't we go over the joker cover in depth already? The arguments being presented are, from everything I've read, ignoring some massive tonal considerations that I hadn't known about before the controversy. Which is to say that apparently Batgirl is a light hearted and generally fun series, so a direct tie back to the story in which Barbara was assaulted and crippled is rather jarring from that perspective.

Though I did enjoy the cover edits that spawned from it though, especially the 'defiant Batgirl' one and Superman/Doomsday.

 Sasori wrote:
Hybrid, what kind of reality are you living in, when you expect everyone in the world to cater to ever group, for every scenario that is possibly offensive.

The line in question may not even be referring to a trans person.

Once again, by blowing this out of proportion you are trivializing the serious issues that the LBGT community is going through.

We've got people with PTSD from the War in Afghanistan and Iraq. Do you think we should remove every War Movie beacuse it may cause some offence to the people who served? Or because it is a potential Trigger for PTSD?

PTSD is a great example of something that has made huge strides. A lot of the reason for that is because major issues such as the stigmata of it. These are the kinds of things that you should be focusing on, not a line in a video game, that in all reality is not that offensive.


So Seriously Hybrid, how you drop the stupid issues like this, and actually work on things that can end up having a positive impact on the LGBT community, not things that will cause people to dismiss them more easily.

Well, one of the serious issues the LGBT community has is that trans people are portrayed as deceivers, "really" the other sex, who trick people into sleeping with them, and that sleeping with them would be the worst thing ever. The little poem is yet another entry enforcing that view.

It really does not help the trans community to say that how trans people feel about things is not an issue deserving of consideration. I mean, how petty can you get? Trans people feeling awful is so unimportant that changing some completely optional flavour text on a clickable item is unacceptable? Geez. With allies like that, who would need enemies?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 TheDraconicLord wrote:
it's called Slippery Slope.

First it's an EVIL line "against transgenders" (it's not even focused on them) .

Then what? Something someone, somewhere doesn't like? Like someone thinks it's bad for us to hurt goblins because it has a symbolic meaning of the "WHITE MAN" oppressing the minorities?

Where does it stop?

I know, right. We must just decide a direction, and go ALL THE WAY into it.

I mean, let us be serious. Where do we stop? Well, when it stops being reasonable. Yeah, it requires us to use our brain and judgment. Certainly better than saying “We must never change, ever!”..

Oh right, because we all see from the "uproar" that a single rhyme caused that everyone can be reasonable. So yeah, IMO I think the rhyme is innocent enough and should stay there because I feel that forcing the removal of such a tiny innocent joke is blowing it out of proportions and getting far too close to censorship for my liking.

it doesn't even mention "transgender", it mentions a man. It doesn't say "DEATH TO ALL TRANSGENDERS", it's a tiny joking rhyme. The problem is that this is the internet, and the internet is SERIOUS BUSINESS, ALL THE TIME.

Ok, I'm out, I honestly miss the days where it was only trolls I had to worry about.

 Grimskul wrote:

Apple fox wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

If you genuinely think there is no reason to keep it and no reason to remove it either, you should be indifferent to the issue. You are only opposed to removing it because someone is campaigning to remove it. Basically, you are being that guy.

it's called Slippery Slope.

First it's an EVIL line "against transgenders" (it's not even focused on them) .

Then what? Something someone, somewhere doesn't like? Like someone thinks it's bad for us to hurts goblins because it has a symbolic meaning of the "WHITE MAN" oppressing the minorities?

Where does it stop?

Indeed, its pretty the same issue that was raised up over the "controversial" Batgirl/Joker cover and somehow oversensitive people interpreted it as a form of sexual assault/rape. The best part is that the majority of these offended people don't even read the comics and thus didn't understand the context and past history between the two in The Killing Joke. I feel like its the same here where they take out this specific line in the game out of context and try to spin it as a part of transphobic agenda hidden within the game.

Pic for reference:

Spoiler:

The thing is a lot of the people did understand, and where being told they didn't understand. Comics are another can of worms with a huge history of dumb piled on dumb. :p

I don't care ether way about that cover, but I can understand why it cause issue. If there wasn't other issues a cover like that wouldn't be a issue, it's bringing up context that wasn't intended and draws other issues up.
If it was created without the negative history it would most likely be well received within its own context.
Sadly we have a very negative history and this is why things such as this can be seen as negatives rather than positives.

But that's the thing though, the cover is not supposed to be something that is comforting. It's supposed to reflect the fear that the Joker evokes even from someone in the Bat-Family and, as mentioned already, bring back the history of the Killing Joke. If people can't acknowledge that, shouldn't this "negativity" as you call it be ignored? I think that the fact that some people extrapolate such odd SJW interpretations of things like this is more reflective of their own prejudices and mindset moreso than the work itself.

The thing is that batman hasn't been immune too, and been apart of some of the seriously bad part of the comic industry. It's only just getting out of that and getting better. Until that happens covers like that will cause issues with a lot of people who are fans and readers.
Covers like that in that context can be prolonging this period of adjustment. Like it or not there are a lot of new fans of these series also, and they won't have the positive history to these sorts of covers.

Yeah, I know. And I am not asking for nothing offensive ever. But I wrote that earlier : “can you not tell the difference between a story that makes you uncomfortable by challenging your expectations, pushing your moral boundaries, and generally putting you into an unfamiliar, likely thought-provoking situations, and a story that push you back into already mainstream harmful stereotypes about you?” along with “Now, if it was in an horrible game full of horrible stuff that you really did not like, you certainly would just that “That horrible game is horrible”. But if it is in a game that you otherwise really enjoy, likely you would try to make them change it. ”.
That piece of text does not bring much to the game, and so unless you actually want to make people feel bad, I see no reason not to replace it with something that does not make people feel bad.

Uh no, I would not, they chose to keep something of that in there and just because it makes me squeamish or otherwise I would most certainly not have them change it, if it's really that bad then one can simply not buy the game. You know, voting with your wallet and all that?

If you genuinely think there is no reason to keep it and no reason to remove it either, you should be indifferent to the issue. You are only opposed to removing it because someone is campaigning to remove it. Basically, you are being that guy.

You do realize that by being the vocal minority in this case and calling for it's removal that would be You, you know this right?

adjective: contrarian

1.
opposing or rejecting popular opinion; going against current practice.

 Sasori wrote:
PTSD

Some people's struggles don't diminish the pain and suffering felt by others. It's not a misery Olympics where X sufferers get the Gold so the Silver and Bronze 'winners' should just be happy they don't have it worse.

Trans people's rate of attempted suicide is something like ten times that of the base population. An important part of their identity being a lazy punchline isn't helpful. Some in this thread are championing the limerick in a baffling fashion; it's neither original nor witty. It's The Big Bang Theory of orientation based humour.

Personally I see that the conversation is even happening to be beneficial. I'm sure there are large swathes of the population who never even think about how such things might be hurtful to others. In general we're pretty happily oblivious to the struggles of people who are different from us until it hits home.

So maybe the little limerick doesn't get changed, but at least having a conversation about how trans people are portrayed (even in a heated and 'lawlsjwomgbbq' that some might be) is probably more thought being aimed at how some people live than would've occurred otherwise.

So that's a win, I guess.

 Sasori wrote:
Hybrid, what kind of reality are you living in, when you expect everyone in the world to cater to ever group, for every scenario that is possibly offensive.

I get what you mean: people should be unnecessarily mean to others for no good reasons.

 Sasori wrote:
We've got people with PTSD from the War in Afghanistan and Iraq. Do you think we should remove every War Movie beacuse it may cause some offence to the people who served? Or because it is a potential Trigger for PTSD?

No. But you cannot make a war movie without war, and people that do not want to watch war movies will not see them. However, it seems very easy to do Pillars of Eternity with that specific epitaph replaced by another.

 TheDraconicLord wrote:
The problem is that this is the internet, and the internet is SERIOUS BUSINESS, ALL THE TIME.

Well, it is mostly serious business when you are talking about stuff that is actually serious business in real life. Like here.


If anyone wants to learn about the Batgirl series and all the context to understand the cover controversy, read this:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/03/14/so-how-inappropriate-is-the-batgirl-41-joker-variant-cover/
and especially this:
http://multiversitycomics.com/annotations/the-burnside-hooq-up-batgirl-40-and-response-to-joker-variant/
Now you will get an idea of what the Batgirl comics are about, who enjoys them, and why the cover was considered inappropriate by the team behind Batgirl.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Uh no, I would not, they chose to keep something of that in there and just because it makes me squeamish or otherwise I would most certainly not have them change it, if it's really that bad then one can simply not buy the game. You know, voting with your wallet and all that?

I see. So you must be very, very glad for GW's total contempt for feedback, then . But the rest of the world believe in giving and getting feedback.

How could that silly rhyme possibly ever offend anyone?
It does not even mention or imply transgenders?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

So the “joke” is basically insulting you as someone who tries to entrap people, presents having sex with you as an extremely shameful act, and completely ignores your point of view to focus only on the point of view of the cis guy, that is already extremely prevalent.

The rhyme just says that he slept with a man. It says nothing about transgenders.

Well, that is how it was understood by many people anyway, apparently. Certainly if the backer edits it to make it clear it is not about transgender, everyone will be happy, then.

Well, that is how it was understood by many people anyway, apparently. Certainly if the backer edits it to make it clear it is not about transgender, everyone will be happy, then.

Only one hostile vocal minority is going to be happy and the rest will be disappointed that obsidian caved in.

Personally I see that the conversation is even happening to be beneficial. I'm sure there are large swathes of the population who never even think about how such things might be hurtful to others. In general we're pretty happily oblivious to the struggles of people who are different from us until it hits home.

So maybe the little limerick doesn't get changed, but at least having a conversation about how trans people are portrayed (even in a heated and 'lawlsjwomgbbq' that some might be) is probably more thought being aimed at how some people live than would've occurred otherwise.

So that's a win, I guess.

At this point and time it seems more like it's starting to desensitize people to it rather then get them to talk about it.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Well, that is how it was understood by many people anyway, apparently. Certainly if the backer edits it to make it clear it is not about transgender, everyone will be happy, then.

So were the Salem witch trials. Just because something was assumed to have malicious intent does not mean the author had malicious intent.

My recent research found out that there is NO tombstone about black people! Not a single one! So since all people got one...but black people...this means...that black people aren't treated as people! That's outraging! I'm going to make an angry Twitter post about it!

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:Well, one of the serious issues the LGBT community has is that trans people are portrayed as deceivers, "really" the other sex, who trick people into sleeping with them, and that sleeping with them would be the worst thing ever. The little poem is yet another entry enforcing that view.

Do you think censoring every reference to this is the correct way to go about it? History shows that it is not.

For one, as said before, the line may not even be depicting a trans person. It could be simply the man was drunk and mistook a man for a woman. You can't possible know the actual attention of the author.

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:It really does not help the trans community to say that how trans people feel about things is not an issue deserving of consideration. I mean, how petty can you get?

Where exactly, did I say that? I even had an example of the opinion of several trans people on this issue...

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:Trans people feeling awful is so unimportant that changing some completely optional flavour text on a clickable item is unacceptable? Geez

If a Trans person is really feeling that awful, or terrible at this joke, then they need to seek professional help.

I hold that censorship of this nature is unacceptable, and context is important. Look at this issue for what it really is.

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:Geez. With allies like that, who would need enemies?

I actually strive to make a diffrence where it counts. I Vote for legislation that advances equality and fairness for LGBT communities. I donate when I can to causes and groups that I feel make a difference in the fight.


Look at the Twitter feeds on this. It is nothing but petty squabbling. This kind of exposure is driving people away from the actual issues. This is a serious problem.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
From which perspective? Obsidian's perspective, or the backer's perspective?
From Obsidian's perspective, it would just be giving them new arguments and convincing them to change the text. It would be exactly like, say, pointing out a small error in the proof of a theorem in a research article.

You're conflating facts and fiction. Literally.

It does not even matter if the person that mentioned the error was being a jerk about it, once you have learned about it, you just want to change it. And changing it is not censorship, it is your right to publish what you want to.

You're right, it's not censorship in the traditional sense. It's a loud minority attempting to shame an entity into censoring itself. You're also assuming they're utterly unaware of what's been added to the game. I find that highly unlikely. They would have to review every possible entry to make sure there's no actual hate speech, copyright infringements, or other nasty stuff that they would have a major blowup about. I'm thinking something like "Kill all the black people," pro-Nazi comments, or something like that. You might find the notion uncomfortable, but I'd say there's a 100% certainty that someone green lit it for the game.

From the backer's perspective, well, he can still say it somewhere else, but Obsidian have no duty, I guess, to provide him or her a platform for saying this.

But for contributing x number of dollars to the project, they Entitle him to contribute credits to the game. I suppose that comes down what's in the T&C though.

It is exactly like not being allowed to say certain stuff on DakkaDakka is not censorship.

And censoring something from a book is not censoring it because you can write it somewhere else, amirite?

A reasonable compromise, in my mind, would be to offer a removal tool that cuts the string out of whatever resource file it's in. Or offer an additional setting that filters content people might find disturbing or could cause mental discomfort. A lot of games have stuff like that.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Only one hostile vocal minority is going to be happy and the rest will be disappointed that obsidian caved in.

Yeah. That is what I am starting to hate about gamer/geek culture now. Even if the change results in a better epitaph, people are still going to complain because they just hate others being made comfortable. I do not know if that qualifies as hateful or stupid or both or something else entirely, but this needs to go.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Only one hostile vocal minority is going to be happy and the rest will be disappointed that obsidian caved in.

Yeah. That is what I am starting to hate about gamer/geek culture now. Even if the change results in a better epitaph, people are still going to complain because they just hate others being made comfortable. I do not know if that qualifies as hateful or stupid or both or something else entirely, but this needs to go.

One persons view of better does not constitute better in the eyes of everyone else. Your views do not conflate over mine just as mine do not conflate over yours and I'm very certain we don't have the same tastes as to what could end up "better", especially considering that some of the people who are fighting for the censorship are just as vile as any other person.

A reasonable compromise, in my mind, would be to offer a removal tool that cuts the string out of whatever resource file it's in. Or offer an additional setting that filters content people might find disturbing or could cause mental discomfort. A lot of games have stuff like that.

For those that care about this, here.

https://github.com/smadin/pillars-memorial-patch

This will remove said thing from your game.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

For those that care about this, here.

https://github.com/smadin/pillars-memorial-patch

This will remove said thing from your game.

And that is something I can wholeheartedly support with every fiber of my being.