I was referring to various social issues especially "representation". I understand Watch Dogs controversy. I was expected.
At the end of the day I just want to play a good game.
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Mike Pondsmith's (Cyberpunk 2020 creator) response to some Cyberpunk 2077 criticism (accuracy to his orig. work, race representation) [see staff post]
- Thread starter Rodjer
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At the end of the day I just want to play a good game.
Am I missing something or does he not really address why the "Animal" gangs changed from white to black, other than being "okay" with it.
Is that what posters on the first page are parading around as a dunk?
Is that what posters on the first page are parading around as a dunk?
I actually don't remember MW2 having a controversy surrounding social issues, only the whole No Russian thing.
The last controversy I remember was surrounding RDR2, in regards to its voice actors (which I felt was unjustified).
It's not comments from black people or trans people or women or gay people or any other minority who have no problem with it that I have a problem with - it's the straight white guys that then use their comments to shut down minorities opinions who do have a problem with it, just cus they want to shut down any criticism about their beloved game. Which, c'mon, you know is gonna happen, you can see people already priming it in this thread.
The race of the Animals was never stated. The leader of the Animals is a white woman (I think? Hard to tell with 'roids).
Isn't it the best , there's a video of him running a game of Cyberpunk 2020 for some people at IGN and like one person knew what they were doing but Mike was amazing I wish he would do that for the critical role crew lol
Hopefully not because what you're referring to is the Voodoo Boys, not the Animals.
The Voodoo Boys were given an explanation in an interview, but doing research/listening, what does it matter when someone has a slam dunk to deliver.
From what we've been told the Animals are simply a gang who juice up, aka, take roids, and they'll probably consist of... anyone in this world who wants to take drugs to bulk up.
Voodoo boys was changed from white to black over 50 years.
Pretty sure the Animals gang is new and they're just roided up people.
And why is that a issue? Because of the GoG tweets from more than a year ago for which the guy responsible was fired? And after that there was no any other issue with CD Projekt RED when it comes to these issues? I mean, in their Witcher games they handled racism, domestic violence, sexism, oppression, religion, hatred, war and the consenquences of it on the population and countries, etc. with great results.. why do you suddenly think that the writers aren't going to handle them well? I mean, the possibility is of course there, but I just wanted to ask why is this a issue for you right now, when the game is almost one year before release and so far we really don't know much about the themes and the overall story of the game.. a concern? Yeah, of course, even the best writers can easily screw up but an issue now? No reason for it to be an issue.. but that's of course your right, I'm just trying to understand why it's an issue for you :)
Gotcha. I was looking at the reddit response and confused the that group with another.
Great, I'm glad he likes it. Mike's excitement doesn't cancel out the concerns other people have, though.
What arguments are you talking about, anyway? Specifically the cyberpunk thing? Because falling short of the promise of its own vision might as well be one of cyberpunk's defining traits, so CP2077 doesn't exactly have to pass the highest bar to qualify. It's far from the first work in the genre to be criticized along those lines, and I wouldn't expect that criticism to stop just because Mike is satisfied with it.
Who's hurled shit at Mike Pondsmith?
If you're genuinely interested in what the concerns are and where they stem from, and why many aren't willing to extend them them the benefit of the doubt, then I wrote a pretty comprehensive summary from my view:
Either people directly who knew who he was before talking shit, but the more likely scenario with the internet and forums, everyone indirectly who erased him from the creation process to deliver their accusations of (non-challengeable) racism/white supremacy. Or the big-brain favourite, "Did you know Poland has issues so most of CDPR must be a reflection of the worst of Poland?".
Instead of asking some basic ass questions or people trying to read into the lore of Cyberpunk 2020 and find out more about the creator and how closely he's leading this project at CDPR, the more thrilling thing to do online is go from 0 to 100 and then double down if you might end up being wrong. It becomes some sort of blood sport on the internet, a form of radicalization if you ask me, to always assume the absolute worst and feel morally superior to try and tread over every person you see or basically invent as your enemy.
Considering your life blood recently seems to have been smugly posting things in Cyberpunk threads over the past week dismissing concerns from trans to race, I find it questionable how much you dislike the tactic when you seem to thrive on reacting to it in the tone you do. I've genuinely seen you persistent as an articulate and interesting poster who's long been a great source of long teardowns. The past week I've only seen you in these threads hand-waving things though and I really don't get it. It's actively noticeable in its difference and it was disappointing to see even if you're right that the extremes hit are both reactive and ill-considered.
I think he is more involved then any other writer. He is no stranger to game design for example CDPR made the design the guns and he said nope this is not how they look in 2077 and they changed it.
To add to this, you can read in this very thread how much of a role Pondsmith has had in making the game. So it's not just how CDPR handle it, because it's not just them writing the game.
But even if it was, they released TW3 a few years back. And people are on here wringing their hands that CDPR can't do nuance? What?
accusing people of calling Mike a white supremacist on such a ridiculously flimsy basis strikes me as going from 0 to 100
of course i can only criticize what we've seen so far. to be honest though we have seen more of cyberpunk than we have of many other games that aren't released yet thanks to the 50 minute demo. I don't know the game could still change it's tone midway through but all the recent things that have been said makes me feel like the game is going further away from the vision they presented in the mike pondsmith 2013 interview. for example i'm not a big fan of keanu reeves being constantly in your head during the game. i love Keanu as an actor, the matrix is my favorite movie of all time but casting keanu i feel like makes the game a little more campy and cheesy. that's just me though. if keanu makes this game a 20 million seller i'm fine with it.
That's just it, what vision are we talking about? Being true to its own universe or being true to the expectations of what people think cyberpunk is. It is a lot of things but people are not setting the parameters under which they are judging if it is a vision of cyberpunk at large.
If people are criticizing it for not being true to Mike's vision of cyberpunk then they're barking up the wrong tree, as the post in the OP says. If people are criticizing it for not being cyberpunk, they aren't really describing where it falls short.
You won't find me assuming the absolute worst of basically every person who isn't myself. So, yes, I do detest what is often a form of radicalization online which routinely ends up showing just how easy it is in this retweet and react internet culture to get things wrong, one-sided or even go as far as try to ruin people's lives/image over assumptions.
I don't either, so there's evidently some middle ground between that and feeling a need to go into every discussion thread about concerns and tell people how they're worrying about nothing.
Honestly, and this is going to sound like a drive-by, but threads like these are beginning to make me utterly loathe the userbase here. Some of y'all are so fucking transparent when you're searching for excuses to justify shitty things. Go ahead and pat yourselves on the shoulder for all of the effort you're putting into this.
TBH this is exactly what popped into my head when I saw his comment. Just wasn't brave enough to say it...
@Reddit too...
Pondsmith said in one interview that first time they showed him guns on this game they didn't Look right at all. They were shiny and beatiful so he said to them in my world they are ugly and not shiny etc. Next time he visited them, the guns were like he wanted. CDPR are huge fans of his work and they really listen him. He has said numerous times how the world looks like just as he has it his head.
Well, that sort of "middle ground" is exactly what I try to strive for (in most cases where things aren't blatantly apparent). One of my first posts in this topic was expressly saying people need to ask questions, but what also goes along with that is reading, listening and allowing people to speak before going from 0 to 100 simply on gut instinct.
Yes, sometimes you can be right to go right for the jugular, but sometimes you're not. And what makes things even more unpleasant is when people might not have been right to go for the jugular from minute one but ego gets in the way and there is no self-reflection or backing down.
It actually makes me anxious to see some operate as they do. It must be incredibly tiring and self-destressing at times.
Well, like I said, I don't think either type of comment should be used to shut anything down. But on the other hand, comments like the one I'm replying to do seem to kind of be trying to shut down the conversation from the point of view of a minority who interprets the situation differently.
And you can't really help some percentage of people trying to fuck with the conversation on whatever level. But I do think the vast majority (at least in this thread) seem to be able to make the distinction between people criticizing the individual parts that could potentially be problematic, and making some kind of all-reaching hyperbolic judgement about CDPR and the game as a whole based on the scant amount of information we've received so far. And it does seem like it's the latter a lot of people take issue with.
User Banned (1 Week): Dismissive and condescending commentary over multiple posts in this thread; history of similar behavior in other topics
Well are the voodoo boys in CP2077 objectively shitty? There seem to be a lot of opinions going around and highlighting the ones of the original creator seems fair
Another comment of his
holy shit LOL
I was waiting to hear his perspective on all of this.
I see the games you're playing here. They're not worth anyone's time. Enjoy making excuses to stuff your fingers in your ears while going "la la la". You're putting the effort in. So much effort. I hope it's worth it for you.
What game? I mean you declared that the things people try to justify are shitty but the very OP provides an alternate view on that. Is that not worth being brought up? It's a topic with nuance where you should listen to multiple perspectives
User Banned (Permanent): Dismissing concerns surrounding representation, misrepresenting other members, previous related infractions
Another comment of his
THE perfect answer to this fake outrage bs. Seems like a legit cool dude.
It might not, but it might at least stop people from putting words in his mouth. Honestly, that seems to be the part that makes him angry.
"we're just higlighting oPiNiOnS, you can't feel strongly against anything i agree with because that's not oBjEcTiVe, unlike anything that agrees with me, that's where the real objectivity is, i'm so smart and rational, i'm just hearing everybody out, i'm not making excuses, that's definitely not what i'm doing, that's definitely not the real basis for my investment in this topic and promoting these particular responses, ones I just so happen to agree with, ones that go so far as to be reasons that allow people to continue to shit on marginalized communities BUT HEY i've got no problem with you guys you guys are just OUTRAGED over NOTHING i'm so logical i'm so smart, both sides have points, it's so nuanced, i'm just really interested in highligting the parts that agree with me thinking it's a nonissue"
I doubt that you realize it but that's what you're doing.
Ah, sorry.. I wanted to respond to someone else.. sorry man :)
Ah I see, you got this whole strawman in your head and now you're projecting it on me. Like I never ever said that that opionions that agree with me are objective, but sure go on
You have no fucking reason to bring that word up other than to use it to shit on people who feel upset by this. "Well, your upset isn't OBJECTIVE, therefore it's ILLEGITIMATE, unlike the creator's viewpoints, those are what's LEGITIMATE. oh no wait I just think they should be highlighted lol they're all just opinions to me"
"Hey, Elaine, why are you reacting so harshly to this guy?" -- Cool that you asked. For one, I'm trans. I see people making excuses all the time. "All opinions should be highlighted. So let me highlight the one that happens to shit on people's concerns." Fuck offfffffffff. You guys make me not want to live on this planet anymore.
Again, I never said that. Objective would just mean that there's no debate to be had about whether the voodoo boys are offensive or not. Since there are multiple viewpoints on this though it's a more nuanced issue than just "You guys just want to excuse shitty thing"
You are not wrong here, there's quite alot of posters in this thread, that I've seen multiple times in other threads try to dismiss minorities opinions (not even just Cyberpunk) and they just happen to be using this OP as people being "hysterical" and "out for blood" without being calm and rational like them to see all the intent and facts and yaddda yadda.... Like, we apparently don't know what's going on in this thread. I'm glad there's someone else pointing it out.
User Banned (3 Days): Repeated hostility towards other members; backseat modding
You might like to pretend that, but I've read this thread. I've seen the posts in this thread. This thread EXISTS as an excuse to sideline complaints from marginalized people. Not all opinions are created equally.
You might say that there's debate to be had. But this thread is treating it like the creator's statement means that the debate is over. There is no value to highlighting that in this context. You look hostile when you try. Context matters. Your post does not exist in a context that makes me look kindly upon you.
Bruv, this is what I'm saying.
Another comment of his
Fuck these armchair shitheels deeming what is and what isn't offensive to black people, let us decide that and deal with your people.
That RPS article was shit.
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