Picking a game that was already bad for 700 reasons doesn’t make the idiotic “woke = bad” label okay. The writing in a live service game was never going to be great.
I think part of what has happened is a group of people has identified that a lot of modern writing is garbage, but doesn’t know exactly what’s wrong with it. The issue gets blamed on whatever seems like the most obvious change to them. There are some stories with better writing that have a diverse set of characters, and while there are still weirdos on the internet that complain about it, the general market response suggests people are most interested in good media, and good media can represent a diverse range of people.
As for my take on modern writing, I think “design by committee”, by means of publishers and marketing specialists grasping more control over the creative process is the major culprit in its declining quality.
I realized this when I got into DBD and realized the game is in fact, very “woke”, and that it’s a core point of the game’s identity.
But it’s not a problem because it feels like a geniune effort by the Entity to capture a wide variety of survivors and killers from all walks of life, which translates into a lot of players able to look at the heroes and villains and go “Hey, s/he’s like me!”, which translates to putting in small things referencing sexualities and cultures to pander to those individuals.
The writing for all these characters are consistently good, except for when they aren’t (Looking at you Skull Merchant)
DBD IS a “Woke” game by every definition, but it isn’t shit and the story’s actually good because it’s clear the people making it give a shit about what they’re doing and the “woke” aspects simply come from exploring the ramifications of having the kind of cast it does.
I began to suspect it when people were bitching about how “Rey’s a giant Mary Sue!” in Star Wars
Because she isn’t. She actually LOSES most of the fights she’s in, can’t control her powers well for most of the films, and “How can she fly the Falcon so well!?!?!” was a common complaint even though she literally breaks the damn thing while doing so, meaning she can’t “fly it so well”, Rey as a character is clearly not the problem, but people latched onto her because she was something they could point to and say “HERE’S THE PROBLEM!”
So what WAS the problem with the sequels? The problem was they were so scared of doing something new with the Star Wars brand (Due to the fact that the prequels did something new and were lambasted for it) that they largely rehashed IV, V, and VI, without a plan for actually weaving one consistent story (Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker are great movies… that feel like they belong in separate trilogies)
And yeah… that and I will agree with the bashers in that making Luke’s Jedi Order fail and killing off all of his students off-screen without introducing any of them was basically Disney throwing money away.
Some of you may have seen HeelVsBabyface’s infamous “pronouns” rant video and taken it a bit out of context. Many said he was upset at the sight of a pronouns selection option on the character creation menu. His rant actually came a few hours into playing after a series of quests with incredibly contrived dialogue.
Remember the Dead Rising Remake that removes the erotica category from photos, changes Larry from being asian to being a new yorker (Cause Asians can’t be evil, unlike White people!), and removing all reference to the Vietnam War (Because Communists can’t be evil?)
Yeah… Dead Rising kept getting worse with every entry, but damn the fact that they went back and made the first game seem shitty is an accomplishment (Especially since between the Wii Version and the Remake, they did that twice!)
There’s nothing wrong with calling a bad game woke if they’re trying to cover their blatant flaws by tokenizing minorities and lgbt. See: Concord
Picking a game that was already bad for 700 reasons doesn’t make the idiotic “woke = bad” label okay. The writing in a live service game was never going to be great.
I think part of what has happened is a group of people has identified that a lot of modern writing is garbage, but doesn’t know exactly what’s wrong with it. The issue gets blamed on whatever seems like the most obvious change to them. There are some stories with better writing that have a diverse set of characters, and while there are still weirdos on the internet that complain about it, the general market response suggests people are most interested in good media, and good media can represent a diverse range of people.
As for my take on modern writing, I think “design by committee”, by means of publishers and marketing specialists grasping more control over the creative process is the major culprit in its declining quality.
I realized this when I got into DBD and realized the game is in fact, very “woke”, and that it’s a core point of the game’s identity.
But it’s not a problem because it feels like a geniune effort by the Entity to capture a wide variety of survivors and killers from all walks of life, which translates into a lot of players able to look at the heroes and villains and go “Hey, s/he’s like me!”, which translates to putting in small things referencing sexualities and cultures to pander to those individuals.
The writing for all these characters are consistently good, except for when they aren’t (Looking at you Skull Merchant)
DBD IS a “Woke” game by every definition, but it isn’t shit and the story’s actually good because it’s clear the people making it give a shit about what they’re doing and the “woke” aspects simply come from exploring the ramifications of having the kind of cast it does.
I began to suspect it when people were bitching about how “Rey’s a giant Mary Sue!” in Star Wars
Because she isn’t. She actually LOSES most of the fights she’s in, can’t control her powers well for most of the films, and “How can she fly the Falcon so well!?!?!” was a common complaint even though she literally breaks the damn thing while doing so, meaning she can’t “fly it so well”, Rey as a character is clearly not the problem, but people latched onto her because she was something they could point to and say “HERE’S THE PROBLEM!”
So what WAS the problem with the sequels? The problem was they were so scared of doing something new with the Star Wars brand (Due to the fact that the prequels did something new and were lambasted for it) that they largely rehashed IV, V, and VI, without a plan for actually weaving one consistent story (Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker are great movies… that feel like they belong in separate trilogies)
And yeah… that and I will agree with the bashers in that making Luke’s Jedi Order fail and killing off all of his students off-screen without introducing any of them was basically Disney throwing money away.
that’s horseshit. there is no such term for games that use sex to appeal to young boys to cover their blatant flaws.
plus that’s not why they’re doing it. two things can coexist without causing one another. that’s very disingenuous.
Don’t call it “Woke” though. Call it Faux Woke or Rainbow Capitalism. The term “Woke” carries specific baggage.
Starfield is another good example.
Some of you may have seen HeelVsBabyface’s infamous “pronouns” rant video and taken it a bit out of context. Many said he was upset at the sight of a pronouns selection option on the character creation menu. His rant actually came a few hours into playing after a series of quests with incredibly contrived dialogue.
I really hate how too many games, and it’s games especially that do this feel the need to pretend that gender doesn’t exist.
Remember the Dead Rising Remake that removes the erotica category from photos, changes Larry from being asian to being a new yorker (Cause Asians can’t be evil, unlike White people!), and removing all reference to the Vietnam War (Because Communists can’t be evil?)
Yeah… Dead Rising kept getting worse with every entry, but damn the fact that they went back and made the first game seem shitty is an accomplishment (Especially since between the Wii Version and the Remake, they did that twice!)