Is The Escapist the most civilized gaming website?

[k-ossuburb]

Funnily enough, my reaction to hearing the new about gay relationships in Skyrim was:

"Meh, so what? I'm not going to waste my time marrying anyone no matter who (or what) they are. I'm more interested in how much dragon ass I can kick."

It's not that I'm against it in any way, I just don't care, even if it was just straight marriages I still wouldn't bother with it because I like going on quests alone I don't want some ball-and-chain slowing me down and turning every quest into a damn escort mission.

 

[Treblaine]

you mean the most pretentious, passive-aggressive, politically correct gaming website?
probably.

yeah, how else would anyone define civilised?

 

[LarenzoAOG]

Totally off-topic here, but if the first guy hates gays so much why doesn't he blame the straight parents that are giving birth to all these gay babies?

 

[Soxafloppin]

Out of the ones I visit, Yea.

But I mainly check out Fighting Game forums which are full of the Trolls, for whatever reason.

 

[veloper]

This place has the right amount of dirt.

You can swear and don't have to worry too much about other people being oversensitive. I have some warnings on my profile, but the mods let you get away with much, compared to other boards so I'm happy.

What makes it all worthwhile is how the members here have got more relevant things to say compared to most boards. We still get some high content threads occasionally with people who can rationally argue their different positions.

I'd say we got a nice working class atmosphere here.

 

[JoJo]

A website? Mature and civilized? Excuse me while I go laugh over there.

tbh, no forum is ever going to be rid of its trolls, idiots, or bigots. Dig around enough here in the Escapist, and I'm pretty sure you'll find someone. What matters is that the Escapist has shown to give intellect and thoughtful discussions about not only all genres and mediums of video games, but also some bits of life in general and other electronics. This website treats the stuff it discusses fully and with respect, and thus promotes people like us to post. You know, people that use the organ inside our skull.

But yeah, I feel your pain after reading those posts. The Internet is truly a scary place, where people can voice their opinions, no matter how stupid they are.

Sadly as a long-time user of this forum this is true, our forum is just as biased, just in different issues. Children, parents, furries and religious people, just to mention a few, all get a depressing amount of hate here.

 

[Lono Shrugged]

Specialist games forums (flight sims, high end tactical shooters like Arma) are like country clubs compared to this place.

It's not the most civilised and I wouldn't want it any other way.........cuntamigos

 

[LuckyClover95]

In this sense yeah. But Escapist isn't very civilized when someone announces they are religious and everyone treats their beliefs like shit. Religious tolerance win, not.

 

[Brandon237]

The Escapist is decent, and to those saying the mods are ban-happy, they aren't that bad with it, I have never seen a suspension or higher against someone who hasn't asked for it, and you can have your controversial opinion so long as you don't say it in an aggressive manner. The mods do a good job, and I am happy for it.

Civilised for the internet, it is still something.

 

[The_Emperor]

IGN is partly owned by rupert murdoch so fuck IGN

Escapist is nice but the Mods get a bit uppity, one warned me for criticising my own country.

 

[tomtom94]

Propaganda is a feature of totalitarian states because it basically involves a point being shoved down your throat so you believe it. Not the case here I'm afraid.

You probably know this, but just to be clear, propaganda is not used exclusively by dictatorships. Almost every nation uses/has used propaganda to further some political agenda or other. Just look at some of those posters from the 40s meant to inspire help for the war effort in America. And the key part of propaganda is bias. The prominence of homosexuality in the game is not what makes it gay propaganda or not, rather, it's how it's presented. And I'd have to actually play it before I could call it either way.

Yeah, I may have gone with a bit of hyperbole there, overreacting >_<. I know well enough that most governments and a lot of filmmakers are just as guilty of propaganda, I just wish that a word with such negative connotations wasn't associated with this, same with "the gay agenda". Who says there has to be one?

I suppose you're right at the end though, only time will tell. Can't wait for the first reviews to come out...

 

[jawakiller]

[/quote]

But he does have a point...

No he FUCKING does not. This attitude pisses me off.

Spoiler: Overused Argument Done To Death

What Bethesda have included is an OPTIONAL choice. As in one that does not force you to do anything which you might consider uncomfortable at any point. If they forced you to flirt with male characters as part of the plot then it would be a different story but they aren't. They are offering people the option of pursuing a romantic path with male characters in a sidequest.

It's not "propaganda", it's an option. Propaganda is a feature of totalitarian states because it basically involves a point being shoved down your throat so you believe it. Not the case here I'm afraid.

Just because something is a minority doesn't merit its exclusion from a game. Conversely, just because something is politically correct doesn't merit its INclusion, but at least it's a step away from "het or GTFO". In this case, it's a role-playing game with romantic options, which makes homosexual male/female a legitimate role. It wouldn't suit certain other games (ie the examples you suggest) because they would be inferior for it. Diversity is not a bad thing though, and if we want video games to be treated as art, then we need it.

(For the record, I'm straight, but I am a massive homophobephobe.)

OT: I think it's the moderation on here that tends to discourage a certain type of people. Go look at the people who come here just for ZP and you'll see why they don't tend to last long on here.
Never really looked round other websites for comparison though...

Actually I do believe he makes an excellent good sir. Whether you realize it or not, inserting content into a game is propaganda of some kind. Perhaps you should not limit your definition of propaganda to something only fascist, horrible Nazis do. The fact that it is optional is irrelevant. Having the option presented is telling the audience to accept it. No, they are not telling them to be gay, they are telling them that it is ok. Now while I'm not about to say anything hateful or hilarious about homosexuals, I don't think you can deny the fact that Bethseda intentionally put the gay option in their game.

And while it is true, some games aren't hurt by this option, you shouldn't automatically assume his point is completely wrong when in some cases it is right. Like the example I gave. Putting a homosexual (not saying they're all bad) in a game filled with dudes chainsawing aliens in half would add nothing to the games plot. I think it would actually ruin the game. Why? I will post the reason if someone actually doesn't know (and gave a shit)

 

[Jakub324]

It's much more civilised than YouTube. Sites like that are the Badlands of the internet.

 

[Aggressor and Usurper]

Nowhere near. By and large it's fucking awful. People attempt to appear civilized but they're as bad as the issues they complain about. It's a cesspool of incessant self-diagnosed Aspies and first world problems.

But yeah, it's not the worst. Keep it up guys.

 

[TakerFoxx]

It's more rigidly moderated, and trolls/idiots who act like trolls tend to be quickly weeded out. And it's true, as a whole it's much more tolerant towards homosexuality than most, which is a welcome change.

But that is not to say it is more tolerant in general. It simply has different prejudices. Try to make a topic or even a post that says anything remotely positive about religion and see where that gets you.

 

[Galloglasses]

Oh look, a thread about the controversy of gamers not liking the homosexual issue being brought into the games they wish to escape reality with. How delightfully hypocritical.

We should have games throw in abortion as an option for female player characters or male player characters to convince their girlfriends/wives into having in games so we can go the extra mile in sandwiching current social events into our media. I CAN SEE NO DOWNSIDE WHATSOEVER.

Seriously though, I do not care about what anyone's stance on gay rights is IRL. I personally would rather not have it be present in my open world games were any number of secret shenanigens can be occurring in NPC's bedrooms. Would that mean I'd be OK in getting rid of a hetero romantic option? Yes, because it has almost never been done right, games developer's are hardly likely to get gay ones right either. Unless romantic options or the sexual orientation of a character plays a significant part of the gameplay like it did in Persona, it'll be the most surperfluous of options and the game as a whole would be better off without it. God knows Fable would have been a tad less terrible without the romantic options. Oblivion functioned just fine without any romance whatsoever, Skyrim hardly needs it.

 

[SSoSFAGTiaCaGwaP]

Eh, Gamesradar wasn't that bad. I think these websites are just more popular so there's a larger amount of idiots on there.

Yeah, but one thing that bugs me, is that the first few comments on anything are always "FIRST!" -_-

 

[metal eslaved]

is kind of civilized until you mention religion or politics, then is just feel like a bar fight on the internet.