Do you think The Witcher series is "mature?"

[Jack_in_the_green]

As far as gameplay mechanics go, I really dont see any significant difference between trading flowers for sex, or choosing 3 "correct" dialog lines in order to be "rewarded" by the game with a cinematic sex scene (and then the "love" relationship does not continue further) as in the Bioware games. I can see why some people that are "attached" to some Bioware well written characters may view it defferently, but personal gaming experience aside, the mechanics are almost identical...

Furthemore, not all Bioware characters are written top notch, and I could name several ones off the top of my head (Jack and Miranda in Mass Effect; Isabella in DA2) whose revealing clothes and general demeanor are ALL about sexist male service, but nobody seem to be calling bloddy murder about it.

@BrotherRool, I DO agree with you that the sex encounters in The Withcer (first game) are juvenile... That is (I think) precisely the developers point. They werent thought out very well (in that I agree with you), but the rationale behind them is to be more humorous and tongue in cheek than serious. THat seems to leave some people with a bad taste in their mouths, as in some cases the whole situation is really weird.

But I think this is an extremely subjective issue, that speaks more of the player than the game itself, in some cases... I think that in most cases players NEED some sort of "moral validation" for the sexual encounter, or they feel put off by it, and then blame the game cause they feel ashamed... You COULD've saved Abigail (the witch) without having sex with her, but it seems what is troubling or disturbing you is YOUR preconceptions of what is a "morally correct" sexual encounter... In REAL LIFE, sex happens, more often tahn not without love or commitment, it's called "casual sex". It is politically correct to frown upon it, though it happens. IT IS NOT RAPE. The Witcher is just being honest to its source material (although in a far more juvenile and poorly thought out way, I admit it )-

 

[The Madman]

Seems unlikely that you dont remember a single one

Y'know, for someone who's never even played the Witcher games you sure do talk about them a lot. Or have you finally played 2 or read one of the books since the last couple times you've gone through this whole 'witcher is sexist' thing?

I ask out of curiosity not because I'm eager to get into debate, I've been through that before and know it's completely pointless. I just find it odd that every other Witcher topic has you in it when as I recall you barely touched the first and never played the second.

It would be like me jumping into topics about... I dunno, Metal Gear or some anime show or something.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Seems unlikely that you dont remember a single one

Y'know, for someone who's never even played the Witcher games you sure do talk about them a lot. Or have you finally played 2 or read one of the books since the last couple times you've gone through this whole 'witcher is sexist' thing?

I ask out of curiosity not because I'm eager to get into debate, I've been through that before and know it's completely pointless. I just find it odd that every other Witcher topic has you in it when as I recall you barely touched the first and never played the second.

It would be like me jumping into topics about... I dunno, Metal Gear or some anime show or something.

I played the first one up until the swamp and the half naked dryad lady (that's hardly 'barely touched'). I haven't played the second. I've never said otherwise. I think I played enough of the witcher one to have an opinion on it.

Again I don't know why guys take debating a games narrative so personally. I'm not calling you guys sexist for playing it.

But anyway a bit busy watching the ps4 launch atm.

 

[The Madman]

I played the first one up until the swamp and the half naked dryad lady (that's hardly 'barely touched'). I haven't played the second. I've never said otherwise.

Again I don't know why guys take debating a games narrative so personally. I'm not calling you guys sexist for playing it.

But anyway a bit busy watching the ps4 launch atm.

Swamp is chapter 2 as I recall and the first Witcher a pretty long game, too long even in my opinion which isn't something I say very often, so you were around 1/5th ish through it, maybe a bit less or more depending on how much you did in that chapter.

And again I just ask out of curiosity as it seems odd for someone to spend so much time debating over a series they've never really played, especially one with a whole series of books and movies in that setting as well. It'd be like me debating comic books and going purely by looks. I mean let's be honest, most comic book hero and heroines especially look stupid as hell and I've read maybe three comic in my life so it's not like I have a lot to go on here for context.

Incidentally I don't mean to say stop. By all means, go right ahead. I'm just curious why.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I played the first one up until the swamp and the half naked dryad lady (that's hardly 'barely touched'). I haven't played the second. I've never said otherwise.

Again I don't know why guys take debating a games narrative so personally. I'm not calling you guys sexist for playing it.

But anyway a bit busy watching the ps4 launch atm.

Swamp is chapter 2 as I recall and the first Witcher a pretty long game, too long even in my opinion which isn't something I say very often, so you were around 1/5th ish through it, maybe a bit less or more depending on how much you did in that chapter.

And again I just ask out of curiosity as it seems odd for someone to spend so much time debating over a series they've never really played, especially one with a whole series of books and movies in that setting as well. It'd be like me debating comic books and going purely by looks. I mean let's be honest, most comic book hero and heroines especially look stupid as hell and I've read maybe three comic in my life so it's not like I have a lot to go on here for context.

Incidentally I don't mean to say stop. By all means, go right ahead. I'm just curious why.

Heh, I think it is because it actually had quite an effect on me. It's the only game I've played in recent years where I've actually felt rejected as a female gamer, someone else here said 'it was very male'. Like I said I know enough about it to have an opinion. I'm certainly not clueless about it.

Sorry if stating my opinion annoys you somehow but I have a right to say what I think.

 

[wulf3n]

It's the only game I've played in recent years where I've actually felt rejected as a female gamer

I think the problem is you're talking about "The Witcher" and everyone else is talking pretty much about "The Witcher 2"

The Witcher was sexist few would disagree with that, whereas Witcher 2 merely had sexism in it, but wasn't sexist.

It seems as though a lot of the time you're saying because the game has sexism in it, it must be endorsing sexism.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

It's the only game I've played in recent years where I've actually felt rejected as a female gamer

I think the problem is you're talking about "The Witcher" and everyone else is talking pretty much about "The Witcher 2"

The Witcher was sexist few would disagree with that, whereas Witcher 2 merely had sexism in it, but wasn't sexist.

It seems as though a lot of the time you're saying because the game has sexism in it, it must be endorsing sexism.

Well I'd love to have a guarantee that the second game won't give me that uncomfotable feeling the first one did. Maybe that's what I looking for from people. But for every person that assures me its fine there is another who says that it's very male centric.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I played Witcher 2, lots of sex with every big busted woman that bats her eyes at you. In fact the game sells for that one reason. No, this isnt mature gaming, its 14 year old boy gaming. But that doesnt mean its a bad game. I would say Spec ops The Line had a more mature story line.

 

[wulf3n]

Well I'd love to have a guarantee that the second game won't give me that uncomfotable feeling the first one did.

If it was the world and the atmosphere that gave you that uncomfortable feeling, other than just the cards, then I wouldn't recommend it because it's pretty much the same.

Maybe that's what I looking for from people. But for every person that assures me its fine there is another who says that it's very male centric.

I guess it depends on how you define "male centric". I do believe that it's targeted at a male audience, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a testosterone fuelled male power trip.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Well I'd love to have a guarantee that the second game won't give me that uncomfotable feeling the first one did.

If it was the world and the atmosphere that gave you that uncomfortable feeling, other than just the cards, then I wouldn't recommend it because it's pretty much the same.

Maybe that's what I looking for from people. But for every person that assures me its fine there is another who says that it's very male centric.

I guess it depends on how you define "male centric". I do believe that it's targeted at a male audience, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a testosterone fuelled male power trip.

Do the female characters change their personalities just so the player can bonk them lol?

 

[wulf3n]

Well I'd love to have a guarantee that the second game won't give me that uncomfotable feeling the first one did.

If it was the world and the atmosphere that gave you that uncomfortable feeling, other than just the cards, then I wouldn't recommend it because it's pretty much the same.

Maybe that's what I looking for from people. But for every person that assures me its fine there is another who says that it's very male centric.

I guess it depends on how you define "male centric". I do believe that it's targeted at a male audience, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a testosterone fuelled male power trip.

Do the female characters change their personalities just so the player can bonk them lol?

They don't change their personalities, though there are some that are that seem too willing to have sex with the player.

e.g. "You saved my life, I have nothing of value to compensate you. Let's have sex."

 

[pspman45]

the way it was described to me, there are full frontal nude sex scenes in it
so that means no
not sure about the rest of the game, but that seems awful silly a thing to add to a "mature" game

 

[infohippie]

the way it was described to me, there are full frontal nude sex scenes in it
so that means no
not sure about the rest of the game, but that seems awful silly a thing to add to a "mature" game

*facepalms*

There is ONE. An OPTIONAL one. With a woman with whom Geralt has an already established intimate relationship. It is presented VERY tastefully and in fact is quite a beautiful scene.

 

[BarbaricGoose]

However, in the place where I start to disagree with you, frankly the game would have been maturer if it had a hot-coffee mechanic instead of the moronic conversation mechanic it had instead. In one case in particular, when the Witch proffered sex in exchange for you trying to help her not be burned alive, if you accepted in a similar situation in real life, I believe you could go to court for statutory rape. It really repulses me that the developers didn't notice that taken sexual favours off a women because she's scared you'll leave her to die otherwise is an incredibly wrong thing to do. And the dialogue for that instance is absolutely sickening 'I've wanted you from the moment I first laid eyes on you,', then why the fuck is he taking advantage of her then. And you get a collectible for doing it. I absolutely cannot abide men taking sexual advantage over women from a position of power and we have a semi-reward mechanic for it? When the dialogue started and I began to catch a glimpse of where it was going, I couldn't believe what was going on, that someone would write this and not know what they were doing.

So, although this is going to seem laughable to you, I actually consider myself as being fairly nice when I call the devs 13 year olds. Because I had the choice of choosing to believe they were so inept they couldn't realise that they had an option for the protagonist to near-violate someone, or that they put that there deliberately.

In Yahtzee's words

Some people might call The Witcher misogynistic, for the fact that every single woman in the game shows off a cleavage you could lose your dog in, and will jump on you at the slightest provocation, for a PG-13 sex scene, followed by a paradoxically explicit dirty postcard. Personally, I think it's less The Witcher's obvious hatred of women, and more the same misguided pretension to maturity that also causes the characters to cuss with every alternate word.

And that is what I've chosen to believe. This is something (the witch thing) I'm incredibly touchy about, it fills me with a lot of squick and disgust just thinking about it and there are reasons why I'm like that, but I don't particularly want to go into them, and I understand that other people aren't going to be offended in the same way and I definitely don't expect anyone else to stop playing a game they just bought at the end of the first chapter because of it, but I could have chosen to believe the developers were sick people and I didn't. I chose ignorance instead.

And as far as maturity goes, any system that has a women say 'I love flowers' and then you give her some flowers and then you have sex, that isn't a mature depiction of sex. I'm not saying the game is bad, I'm not saying it shouldn't exist (although if they wanted to cut the witch bit out thats fine with me), I'm not even saying the game doesn't handle other themes in a mature way. But, you've been pretty fair to me all things considered, so I hope you'll understand if I continue to believe that a game with that sort of sex system, doesn#t handle sex and women in a particularly mature fashion

The statutory rape thing... as I recall, you're able to turn down the witch's sex offer and still save her. So it's up to the player whether or not they want to possibly commit statutory rape. You can save her, kill her, or have sex with her AND THEN save her or kill her. So you're free to be a raging asshole, a saint, or something in between. I think that's what the series is all about. Geralt is not made out to be a real good guy or a bad guy. In fact, you're actually encouraged to be neutral and, more or less, selfish.

As for the misogyny thing, I don't think there is an "Obvious hatred of women" (LOL) in The Witcher. Yahtzee says that showing off cleavage makes the game misogynistic? I'm sorry, but that's stupid. I tend not to read Yahtzee's articles, because of stupid shit like that, so excuse me if I'm ignorant to other points he makes. If showing off cleavage is misogynistic, most women are misogynistic. Misogynistic is a word that gets thrown around a lot today, but I don't think most people use it properly. The Witcher does not hate women, but I might agree that it was a tad misguided in including its.. uh... collectibles. As for the cleavage? PERHAPS it was overdone, but The Witcher certainly wouldn't be the first. It was also toned down significantly in the sequel. And the cussing like sailors thing? I really don't see the problem there. Frankly, I found it refreshing. Although, if I have one critique for the series, it's that they go from saying "Whore" in The Witcher 1 to saying "Plow" in The Witcher 2. As in, "Plow yourself, whore." I thought it was nice for fleshing out the language and slang of the setting, but it was kind of a jarring change.

The maturity thing: I think everyone has a different definition of this word. Some people define it as dark, depressing games, others violent games, and others still have a more... loose definition. But I think that discounting The Witcher as immature because of its "Collectibles" is an overreaction. I don't think it treats women unfairly. I mean, if you really look at it, Geralt is the biggest whore of them all. (Or, he can be.) And when it comes to the really despicable people in The Witcher, most of them are men. So, pick your poison. Horrible men or slutty women. And make no mistake, there are slutty men and horrible women. I think The Witcher paints everybody in its universe as... what's a good word... less than virtuous, shall we say? And, again, I don't believe The Witcher 1 was immature, but even so, The Witcher 2 grew up.

In light of being able to avoid the witch ordeal, does that change your perception of the game at all? I think you'd like it if you gave it a fair chance. And The Witcher 2 is a huge improvement in every way. I feel like a lot of people on this forum who hate on The Witcher series do so only because Yahtzee said so. And it's a shame, because it's an excellent series, even if the original was a little rough around the edges. TW2 was significantly more refined. Cleavage is a little more sparing, and as I mentioned earlier the language is a little more colorful, the characters are more interesting. I could go on. It does deal with some dark issues, but I thought they handled them well. If you do decide to give it another shot, let me know how it turns out. I'm genuinely curious if you'll like the series.

Also: I think Yahtzee is a twit, if that wasn't obvious. Though I don't expect to win many favors with that sentiment.

 

[pspman45]

the way it was described to me, there are full frontal nude sex scenes in it
so that means no
not sure about the rest of the game, but that seems awful silly a thing to add to a "mature" game

*facepalms*

There is ONE. An OPTIONAL one. With a woman with whom Geralt has an already established intimate relationship. It is presented VERY tastefully and in fact is quite a beautiful scene.

didn't think porn, much less video game porn, could be presented tasteflly

 

[infohippie]

the way it was described to me, there are full frontal nude sex scenes in it
so that means no
not sure about the rest of the game, but that seems awful silly a thing to add to a "mature" game

*facepalms*

There is ONE. An OPTIONAL one. With a woman with whom Geralt has an already established intimate relationship. It is presented VERY tastefully and in fact is quite a beautiful scene.

didn't think porn, much less video game porn, could be presented tasteflly

That's the point so many people seem to be missing. It. Isn't. Porn. Nudity =/= porn. Sex =/= porn.

 

[Pharsalus]

Mature... didn't play enough to see it, overrated much? Oh yeah.

 

[Vegosiux]

That's the point so many people seem to be missing. It. Isn't. Porn. Nudity =/= porn. Sex =/= porn.

And "Containing nudity and political intrigue" =/= "mature". Ironically, I'm one of those people who doesn't have a problem with the nudity at least in 2 (the cards in 1 were silly), my problem is how the game would just not shut up with "Look at me, I'm dark and edgy! Here, another implied rape scene and some crass vocabulary! That's so totally mature, isn't it, huh, huh?"

Does the series deal with mature themes? You betcha. But I'd still not call it "mature" by its merits, because the atmosphere is just too forced to feel natural. Maybe it's an "eye of the beholder" thing, but it's more like a kid that snatches his father's smokes cause smoking is one of those things that make you an adult if you're doing them.

 

[rbstewart7263]

sorry bout that it certainly is my opinion shared by some not so by others. I dont have a problem with it because for me a perfect world isnt one where we stop telling racist jokes or where the witcher games take out the card thing. Its a world where we all tell racist jokes and know that there just jokes. Black guys make fun of me, I make fun of black guys and were all mature for it. Likewise Women are more open and able to be open about, male objectification. If there were a game that had the inverse id support it no matter how outlandish because thats my equality which I am aware differs from many others idea of what equality is.

I used the hold the same opinion about equality, but I eventually found that it was shortsighted because it didn't require me to take into account the feelings of other kinds of people. I wanted the freedom to use words like "******" because, hey, I'm not a bad guy -- I would never oppress people, that would be totally uncool and wrong. But eventually it occurred to me that a white person using that word casually and without respect to its history and the way others felt about it was contributing to oppression in its own right.

One of the things that tends to get ignored in debates about equality is the concept of social comfort. While things like the economic positions of ethnic groups are also very important, what ultimately matters most is whether a minority group is comfortable and happy interacting with the majority group on an equal-to-equal basis. So I wouldn't tell a joke about race around just any person of colour, because it's only right to take into account that they might be rightly offended. But perhaps I would tell the same joke in the presence of a coloured friend, because they know that I don't mean it and I expect them to fire back. The social context in either of these cases is very different, though, and I suspect the friend would be displeased with me telling the same in a different social context.

While the ideal world where racial discrimination is a thing of the past and slurs can be used without offense to any person is a noble idea, the fact of the matter is that we're nowhere near close enough to actual equality for that to be in any way realistic at the moment. Consider the long tensions between different cultural groups of the British Isles and the jokes they tell -- you know, an Englishman, an Irishman and a Welshman walk into a bar. Many people still found those jokes offensive towards the beginning of the 20th century because there was still bad blood between cultural groups there, such as the freshly-remembered discrimination against the Irish. Today, no-one gives a damn, and that's fantastic. But as a white guy, I have to wait for women and people of colour to come forward with that kind of humour themselves, because it's not my place to impose that on them if they find its content disconcerting.

And really, that's not much to ask. I respect their point of view and I think I've grown as a person for it. I'm still learning, of course, and it's not as though there's just one "coloured person" view or just one "female" view, but it's surprisingly easy once one stops taking it from the perspective of defending their own point of view and begins taking it as a process of open learning. Mind you, I don't agree with all aspects of all branches of feminism (which would be contradictory and impossible), nor do I agree on all matters of ethnic grievance with those people of colour. Nothing in this process of learning prevented me from having my own opinion, but I've been lucky enough to be opened to a variety of diverse perspectives as well.

Im ok with others not sharing my view as long as my right to have my view is respected. I mean Im respectful around people that I dont know that I keep such things to myself as I dont want to push my views on others. It still doesnt prevent me from smiling on the rare occasion I meet a new friend who is both non white and shares my appreciation for dark humor.

 

[rbstewart7263]

Well I'd love to have a guarantee that the second game won't give me that uncomfotable feeling the first one did.

If it was the world and the atmosphere that gave you that uncomfortable feeling, other than just the cards, then I wouldn't recommend it because it's pretty much the same.

Maybe that's what I looking for from people. But for every person that assures me its fine there is another who says that it's very male centric.

I guess it depends on how you define "male centric". I do believe that it's targeted at a male audience, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a testosterone fuelled male power trip.

Do the female characters change their personalities just so the player can bonk them lol?

They don't change their personalities, though there are some that are that seem too willing to have sex with the player.

e.g. "You saved my life, I have nothing of value to compensate you. Let's have sex."

Literally no one in the game does that. you get laid when you pay coin and once by your fwb and once I think from a soldier lady who thanks you for respecting her prowess in battle.