And got most of his "confirmed kills" when using a light machine gun, as the squad leader of an infantry squad. Propaganda is a powerful thing when it comes to distorting our views of history.Squilookle said:
EA on women in Battlefield V; "If you don't like it, don't buy it"
- Thread starter FakeSympathy
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Even ignoring his submachine kills, his confirmed kills as a sniper numbered 219, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at.Gethsemani said:
Yes, I know (though you've excluded groups like the Free French). Thus, "rare". But rarity is an utter, utter irrelevance.Johnny Novgorod said:
Who is saying it's the norm?! Nobody at all has been arguing that the armies were 50% female, or that women were expected in most divisions. This is an invented argument.Johnny Novgorod said:
Never change, quote notification system.
To be fair to the champions of Battlefield V this is my eternal beef with pretty much every piece of media, usually American, that depicts a past where minorities enjoyed rights and treatment that they didn't historically have (and who are we kidding, in many cases still don't). The make-believe that these prejudices never existed.
In talking about armies I have excluded "groups", yes.Silvanus said:
The game, in the trailer.
To be fair to the champions of Battlefield V this is my eternal beef with pretty much every piece of media, usually American, that depicts a past where minorities enjoyed rights and treatment that they didn't historically have (and who are we kidding, in many cases still don't). The make-believe that these prejudices never existed.
I can absolutely get behind the idea that we shouldn't whitewash the past by pretending as if historical issues weren't as bad as they actually were (ie. equality issues, voting rights, worker rights, stratified societies etc.). However, when something comes around that's so obviously over the top pulp as the BFV trailer I also think we should see it for the piece of entertainment that it is meant to be. When the trailer features a bunch of vehicles that never where in the war, has someone throw a grenade and then shooting it to make it explode to cause a prop airplane flying below tree top level to crash, followed by said character laying on their back and mowing down an entire squad of enemies with a machine gun that really belonged to the enemy, then that's a pretty good statement about how (not) serious we should take the games adherence to realism.Johnny Novgorod said:
In the same way that I can watch a movie like The Thin Red Line or Saving Private Ryan and feel that it is striving to be authentic and somewhat historically accurate, I can also watch a movie like Zone Troopers or Where Eagles Dare and realize that they are meant only to entertain, using WW2 as a backdrop to tell their outrageous stories. If 'Super Realistic War Movie' suddenly has a woman general commanding de-segregated US infantry units in France 1944, who ride on M48 tanks and exclusively use Soviet weapons, that's worthy of condemnation. If 'Nazi Zombie Operation Sea Lion' happens to feature a sassy black woman from Brooklyn (despite being set in Kent, England 1940) and shows us a bunch of Indian female Territorials fighting Nazi Zombies, that's probably more intended to be in the spirit of the movie then an egregious failure of realism.
Battlefield has never been historically accurate. I mean just look at the last Battlefield game, in which their depiction of World War 1 was laughable at best. I don't remember much outrage then, and that time around they were bragging about how historically accurate they were making it....so why the hell is it a problem this time around? It's basically an exaggerated fan fiction of a war, just like the last one they released.
Also isn't this just about the multiplayer avatars? If so, what the actual hell is wrong with people? There is zero historical anything about the multiplayer of a Battlefield game...and isn't that kind of the point? If you want a historically accurate game, shouldn't you just go play one instead of raging about how there's female avatars in a series where the only semblance of historical accuracy has been, at best, the setting? I get there's still this counter culture cluelessly screaming about "forced" diversity, but come the fuck on.
Oh well, good on EA for telling them to fuck off n' whatnot.
Also isn't this just about the multiplayer avatars? If so, what the actual hell is wrong with people? There is zero historical anything about the multiplayer of a Battlefield game...and isn't that kind of the point? If you want a historically accurate game, shouldn't you just go play one instead of raging about how there's female avatars in a series where the only semblance of historical accuracy has been, at best, the setting? I get there's still this counter culture cluelessly screaming about "forced" diversity, but come the fuck on.
Oh well, good on EA for telling them to fuck off n' whatnot.
The drum on which I was banging before the day that never happened, was WWII was at times a very bizarre war, and it's awash with stories we read about eighty years on and can only respond with "no fucking way!". Those moments weren't all that happened, just singular moments in a war of such scale and devastation it defies belief, and it paints a very skewed picture of the war to talk only of them, but they still happened. That's where BFV fails, at least in my mind, because in this case DICE and EA can have their cake and eat it too; there are plenty of historically-accurate stories of badass stuff women did in WWII that would be perfect for a Battlefield game. They're stories of stuff French and Soviet women did, and eww, we can't have that now can we?Gethsemani said:
Honestly, I'm a gen-X'er. It's a sobering thought, but millennials are probably going to be the last generation to have living relatives who experienced the war. Even then, millennials growing up hearing about the Depression and the war the way I did, from relatives and family friends who lived through it, is iffy as hell. After that, it's just stories.
I think that's why this topic gets my blood up. My experiences and biases are on me, but I want the stories of the war my grandparents' generation lived through told right before it's too late. Yes, even in "just a video game". DICE and EA want to tell the stories of women who fought in the war. I get it, and I support it, but tell the stories of the women who fucking fought in it. Personally, I don't think that's an unreasonable request, and frankly I have nothing but rancor for people who are okay with sweeping stories of women who actually fought under the rug in favor of some brazenly anglocentric bullshit.
Wait? You're telling me that an armored train wasn't taken down by a single bedouin woman with an anti-tank rifle while running around like a chicken with her head cut off dodging triplanes which zero in on her and only her and artillery which can track her incredibly accurately at 100 meters without having any kind of LOS(like the shells were guided by GPS or something)?Nedoras said:
That every 5th guy in the war didn't have a man portable machine gun, including gun that hadn't been placed in frontline service yet or at all?
That one tank with 3 guys in it didn't take out an entire german armored division by themselves despite continually breaking down and getting hit by artillery?
Or that Italians in suits of armor and carrying a traditionally mounted automatic weapon can shoot down half the Austro-Hungarian air force by themselves?
I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you!
Next you'll be telling me that CoD isn't a realistic recreation of modern warfare tactics, where one private named Ramirez repels an entire Russian invasion by himself.
To be fair to EA, the single player they revealed so far seems to be more grounded in actual war stories (the woman from single player being a Norwegian resistance member for example). That probably means it will be the over the top, hyper realistic stuff from BF1, but it will be more grounded.Eacaraxe said:
Most of the kerfuffle in this thread and the rest of the internet seems to be about the choice to let players design their own multiplayer avatars, complete with being able to make paraplegic, black women in the Wehrmacht. If you criticize the single player for just making shit up, I can respect that (in so much that that was my main gripe with BF1 after all the 'we want to make a realistic and respectful single player'-rhetoric). But anyone who criticizes the multiplayer for not being realistic or authentic enough needs to really consider their priorities, considering the complete lack of authenticity in all BF multiplayer ever.
In all honesty, I'm so fed up with online play of any sort at this point in any game, it had completely slipped my mind BFV was even going to have a multiplayer mode and I just kind of reflexively ignore(d) any discussion of it whatsoever. I never even played BF1's multi-player mode; I did the war stories and shelved it with the intention of trading in later, but never did.Gethsemani said:
I'm entirely aware how stupid and ironic this realization is.
And this is what really gets me riled up- that even now, there are people out there that still think Saving Private Ryan is historically accurate. Once the 30 minute mark arrives and the beach scene is done, it turns into a goddamn cartoon just as much as Fury was. It even goes full U-571 in the climax by specifically labelling the Tiger tanks and Waffen SS soldiers after those that fought the British -not the U.S.- on the exact same day the fictional fight in the climax happens- and yet nobody ever seems to complain about that when U-571 is such an easier target for Brit-Bashing. It's a well made film, but for goodness sake don't let the 'gritty' first battle of the movie fool you- after that it's an utter fantasy in every respect.Gethsemani said:
"Robin Hood has never tried being period correct! Just look at the most recent movie starring Taron Egerton!"Nedoras said:
Do you realise how ridiculous that sounds, using a single entity to dictate the pattern of an entire franchise? Prior to Battlefield 2, the series' first fictional entry, the series actually did try to approximate history somewhat, and clearly showed a lot more respect for the events it was recreating than Battlefield 1 ever did. And for the record, people did kick up a stink about that in BF1, only it came later when we actually got to play the game- because in the trailers they kept all the prototype bullshit to a minimum.
Eacaraxe said:
THIS. This is goddamn Spot. On.
The technology is there. So is the audience. All we need now is a developer with the balls to research and tell authentic stories without all the schmaltz, instead of the same old shallow artificial garbage that marketing keeps saying the audience wants.
I still want my movie about the Battle off Samar. The whole engagement only lasted two hours, within a "war epic blockbuster" 160-minute runtime, they could have a 20 minute prologue, show the battle in real time, and have a 20 minute epilogue for God's sake.Squilookle said:
You'll notice that the operative word was 'authentic' and not realistic. I know you and I have had this discussion before, that people who call media based on real wars realistic are often not looking for actual realism. They are looking for something that conforms with their idea of what is authentic. SPR feels authentic, it has a heavy pathos meant to evoke the feelings of despair and dread that veterans have reported feeling during the war. It is a costly production, it gets its weapons, uniforms and vehicles right and the actors are even pretty convincing as soldiers. But for all that, it contains a ton of historical errors. The Thin Red Line is similar, as is Band of Brothers and The Pacific, despite being based on the actual memories of those involved.Squilookle said:
My entire point is that calling for realism in media is a fool's errand, because real war isn't all that fun. It is slow, boring and suddenly very violent, chaotic and painful. It can't be realistically portrayed, which is why almost all media settles for the authentic portrayal. SPR is not realistic, but it is hyper realistic in an attempt to evoke the feeling of the war. That's really the best any piece of media can do.
That conflicts slightly with the popularity of games like Verdun, Squad, Project Reality, and the ArmA series. Well, popularity disproportionate to their status as tiny indie games and premium mods. Or for that matter the earlier Clancy games, before they hopped on the Modern Warfare train to cuckoo-land. "Cinematic action military shooters" have clearly peaked in popularity and the market's saturated, and that reflects itself in publishers' attempts to market the games as realistic. Look at how BF1 was marketed versus the end product, and how that triggered a pretty strong backlash.Gethsemani said:
Demand for realism in military shooters never went away, it just got swept under the "Modern Warfare" tide, and one could argue the demand is shifting back towards realism. Sure, "true" realism isn't a reasonable goal, because who wants to play a game where you sit around in an FOB twiddling your dick all day, or hiding in a trench being shelled nonstop while suffering from dysentery and trench foot (Press "F" to shit). Even though, hilariously enough, in a game like Squad that and running supply convoys is most of the gameplay. But that's a straw man argument, since the demand is for realistic approximations of combat.
That exclusion renders the line of argument pretty worthless.Johnny Novgorod said:
An appeal to rarity is misplaced in a discussion about plausibility. We needn't pay it any attention; it's irrelevant, just as it's not relevant that Link was just one of thousands of Hylians. So what? Should Ocarina of Time have focused on Hylian Soldier #512 instead, in order to portray the common experience?
The trailer never makes that argument. Depicting something happening doesn't somehow imply it was a commonplace occurrence; imagine applying the same line of thinking to almost any other game trailer. It's utterly untenable.Johnny Novgorod said:
Hell, even imagine applying that line of thinking to other FPS trailers. If a Battlefield trailer shows a soldier score some amazing trick-shot with a grenade, does that imply to you that the Battlefield developers are trying to convince us that happened all the time in the real war? It's ludicrous.
First off, that's a false equivalence.Squilookle said:
Using a single entry to dictate the pattern of an entire franchise? I was just using that one as an example because it was the latest one and they stated they were going for "historical accuracy" with it. However, it's always been this way. Battlefield 1942's level of historical accuracy was simply "these were weapons and vehicles used in the war". What events was it even recreating? That game was practically multiplayer only, and the campaign was at best a tutorial for multiplayer. Throwing you in a map, saying it's a place where a battle happened, and then giving you weapons used in the war as a whole is such a low bar that I don't even know why you're giving it recognition. It didn't give a single shit about the history of the war, the war was a setting for large scale multiplayer.
Yeah I saw some complaints about the weapons and equipment, but that's not what I'm talking about and I didn't see much of it. I'm talking about the campaign missions, which were based on real battles that happened, and shit all over what actually happened there. All the while the developers were going on and on about how they were researching and dedicated to historical accuracy.
I understand maybe wanting a more historically accurate and realistic Battlefield game, but the series has never been that. I don't understand why anyone would have expected any differently. Expecting Battlefield to give a shit about historical accuracy when it's always been a multiplayer focused playground is silly. Unless your version of historical accuracy is Battlefield 1942, where it was merely window dressing for dumb fun. Maybe that's all you want and I'm okay with that. Hell I'm currently having that problem in War Thunder, where they've recently added more modern tanks n' whatnot, but you're playing them on WW2 maps for the most part and it's jarring....they really need to catch up and add some more modern-esque maps. But my overall point in my post was that female avatars being the straw that broke the camels back makes no damn sense. It's been a trend for a long time with the series.
Pardon my french, but that's Connerie.Eacaraxe said:
If you were really that concerned about hearing authentic WWII stories while you still could, you would get off your ass, go to the nearest Veterans' center, and get the story from the men who lived it, not from a freaking VIDEO GAME.
Video Game WWII is where P-38 Lightnings take off from aircraft carriers and sink the IJN single-handedly(or in twos) with lasers, lightning bolts and tidal waves. Where gatling guns mow down zombie troopers by the score. Where the Soviets wield lightning guns and walking tanks battled it out between the hedgerows. And let's not get into the times people messed with history to ensure Hitler or even Stalin won.
If soldiers without Y-chromosomes are were you draw the line when it comes to realism, we have been WAY past that for decades now.
Both my granddads served, one was in the 12th Infantry which means he landed on Utah and stayed in the shit straight through to Luxembourg. The other was a POW for two years right up until the point the 14th Armored division liberated his camp, and in that time he caught TB and lost two of five lobes of his lungs. One of my great uncles was also in the Army, another was in the Navy, and a third was a Marine but you did not ask him about the war or try to talk to him about the war, ever. When I said I grew up on stories about the war, I fucking meant it.SAMAS said:
Just like when I said I wanted stories about the war told right, I fucking meant it. Just like when I said I wanted stories told about the women who actually fucking fought in the war, I fucking meant it. You take that weaselly, intellectually dishonest, straw man bullshit elsewhere.
As i already wrote in another thread, i really hated SPR. Aside from the beach scene at the start it somehow felt off. The pacing, the characters, the over the top action, the contrieved events and especially the stupid pathos. It didn't matter that much that they had good props and lots of money, that film was so unconvincing as a war movie that it somehow ruined the whole expirience.Gethsemani said:
It felt like some stupid Pulp movie with WWII background.
And a movie i did like is "Tora! Tora! Tora!" Somehow that managed to be convincing as a war movie, to capture the tension of the events and to never feel ridiculous. And in no small part it achieves that by having long, slow, boring parts of preparation, planning, anticipation and waiting culminating in violent and chaotic exchanges where the action happens.
Tora! Tora! Tora! manages to evoke the feeling of the war where Saving Private Ryan decidedly does not.
And yes, i have the same preferrences with video games.
That is kinda really not how i remember games like Aces of the Pacific or Great Naval Battles 2: Guadalcanal which actually feature this kind of attack in that theatre.SAMAS said:
For a very ong time most WWII games at least tried for accuracy and to get as close as possible despite technical limitations was seen as something to be proud of. When they stopped, they lost me as customer.
It is probably not surprising that i can't name a single WWII shooter i actually liked. Shooters were always the worst. But even among shooters the new Battlefields seems to be particularly shitty.
I also don't really like the Pulp genre itself, but i assume that could have been guessed by now.
As someone who's played Verdun, ArmA, Red Orchestra/Rising Storm, the old Rainbow Six games and a bunch of other 'realistic' games, I know full well that there's a demand for those titles. But let's not pretend as if they are 'realistic' as much as they are intending to be more 'authentic' in how they portray combat. They all strive to emulate the high damage of firearms, the vulnerability of the individual soldier and the need for teamwork to succeed. But they are by no means properly realistic. Even in the most simulationist of them, like ArmA, the average PC/NPC still has too much weapon control, moves too fast and changes positions way too easily for it to be realistic. They want their combat to feel authentic, so that the player can sort of imagine that this is what a real firefight would be like, because a realistic firefight is impossible to emulate in a game ("Tap X to not shit yourself", "You have panicked, wait to regain control", "You dropped your magazine while reloading, look at it and press F to pick it up " etc.).Eacaraxe said:
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore the 'realistic' FPS genre, but we should never fool ourselves into thinking that they are even remotely realistic. What they do is that they play up certain FPS traits to create games that create more authentic player behavior then your average FPS (no bunny jumping, stopping to aim and fire etc.), but they are still a far cry away from a properly realistic game, which would have to involve combat vests getting stuck on brushes, people dropping stuff due to adrenaline induced digit stiffness, people vomiting from anxiety and stress, frequent weapon jams, temporary blackouts and sudden but extended lulls in the action when everyone just tries to figure out what's going on and where everyone is in relation to them. Not to mention the very strict 1 spawn per player rule.
I mean, the thing I remember most from my combat training in the army was how incredibly freaking slow it was, especially in urban fighting. You could go extended durations without seeing an enemy and when you did it was all short bursts of firing before you or they disappeared from sight and it was back to trying to figure out how to move around not to get (pretend) killed. During three hours worth of combat training you could have maybe 10 minutes of firing your weapon or being in a position where you could fire at a known enemy position. Which is very different from the much more focused 'realistic' experience of any FPS ever.