Good game with some weird SJW elements. Conctructive criticism.

[Asperger Berzerker]

This post is long, but intedned to be constructive. I would like a polite discussion, not rants and name-calling.

So, I bought this game because I loved POE. Like POE, Tyranny has a lot of good elements in the game system and a pretty cool world to explore and get involved in. The weird thing is, the world is basically an inversion, or bizarro-universe version, of a Bronze Age setting.

1 ) You have a huge, disproportionate number of females both in leadership and in combat.
2 ) You spend most of the first act beating them down and intimidating them.
3 ) Men are present, but they are typically portrayed as oafs or bastards who need a stronk womyn to lead him and show him the way. This would be OK if it was just one culture or nation, but literally the whole world is copypasta'd from a blue-haired feminist's Xena fanfiction.

Another forum member mentioned that the Young Kingdoms might be fighting for their lives, and so conscripting females made sense as a last ditch effort. I might agree if that were the case but... they're not conscripting females, literally every culture you come across is a feminist matriarchy whose professional military is run and staffed by a majority of women. Even the beastman race is stronk womyn feministz. This is Sonic-fanfiction level schlock.

It gives the game a very weird vibe when you spend most of your time as a warrior/emmisary of a god/hero literally beating the crap out of women. If the devs wanted to make a feminist universe, they went about it all wrong. You literally meet stronk tumblr womyn for most of the first act and then brutally victimize them and deliver them to sadists in the Chorus to victimize.

I like this game, I loved POE and I want future projects by this team to be a critical and commercial success. Here is some advice from a life-long RPG gamer:

1 ) Your audience for this type of game is going to be mainly young men. Young men do not enjoy beating down women and gutting them with a sword, even if she is a stronk gender warrior of tumblr. Men want to fight and best other men in combat, or fight and slay monsters.

2 ) We do not like to be lectured by stronk womynz about how men are useless brutes and women are basically better, bla bla bla. This is not just a feature of Eb being a bit of a loony, but a constant theme repeated throughout the game. It's very annoying to have tumblr feminism woven into the very fabric of the narrative at every turn.

I am not saying that you can't have a strong femal character, or a female "warrior princess" or "Red Sojna" type hero.

The point I am making is that this game includes women as the overwhelming majority of "good" characters and leaders, only to have them beat down and reduced to tears in a way that definitely is not satisfying to the player. I don't like the idea of brutalizing women. There's no honor in it, even if she's a "warrior." I do like the idea of my character and team competing with other men-at-arms and monsters to conquer a nation, secure treasure, or accomplish some other goal.

I don't know what you look for in a heroic fantasy RPG (and yes, I know you work for the "villain" but you have heroic options), but conducting a massacre of girls is not exactly enjoyable.

[RidiculousName]

Agreed. There really isn't much left to say.

[Siddha]

Sounds to me like you dont like the gameplay of this game
and would be better off not playing it

Your account of how the game starts out puts me off it too
Not because of any silly anti-SJW nonsense
But because I dont particularly like massacring girls either

From what you say this is not an heroic RPG
Sounds like an anti-heroic or evil RPG

It also does not sound anything like Bronze Age culture
so I dont know where that notion came from

[suejak]

Get over it. This isn't your world (thank God); it's theirs. It's not merely a product, but a work of art. It is allowed to express a worldview that may challenge your assumptions or, yes, even compromise your fun.

There are many other games out there that satisfy all-male battle fantasies. This is one of the few that features women in prominent roles. To whine about the exception is proving a sad point about you.

[metzger]

Yeah, overrepresentation of women in the military is bizarre.

[Dyer1981]

1. People need to stop talking about 'bronze age' this and that... this is a FANTASTY world, not OUR world. and ETHICAL principals have nothing to do with TECHNOLOGICAL achievements, slavery could have been abolished in the Bronze age, it wasn't, but them using Bronze has nothing to do with it. Also, comparing a fantasy world to ours like this is absurd - as if EVERY culture in existence advances exactly like ours.

2. I would assume a warrior would want to face the best warriors regardless of sex, I have no idea why you think a male warrior wouldn't fight a female warrior on the battlefield. Nobody had issues fighting Joan of Arc or any other historical woman leader/general/commander etc... and suggesting that women warriors can't be treated like male warriors is sexist and at odds with the rest of your post.

3. assuming only men play this game is sexist and at odds with the rest of your post.

4. Maybe in this world men are dolts that need to be whipped into shape by women, why is that a problem?

You need to be able to see the difference between this world and a fictional world. the rules/morals that govern ours do not govern in this place. Its like saying all Highlanders are murderers because they have to fight until there is only one... the rules of Highlander universe does not corrolate to ours.

[Rain]

Originally posted by Siddha:

Sounds to me like you dont like the gameplay of this game
and would be better off not playing it

Your account of how the game starts out puts me off it too
Not because of any silly anti-SJW nonsense
But because I dont particularly like massacring girls either

From what you say this is not an heroic RPG
Sounds like an anti-heroic or evil RPG

It also does not sound anything like Bronze Age culture
so I dont know where that notion came from

Considering they put a lesbian married couple into the game and you cant do crap to them is indicative, perhaps, of where the devs stand on the matter. Or perhaps they dont, but hey, we wouldnt want to offend a minority of the population because we have to represent, right?

Also, ironic, is the fact that the vast majority of people dont go around brutalizing the others by gutting them, but you can do that in the game...but dont hate on lesbians!

Evil is only so far in this game and only within certain acceptable limits defined only by those people who gave the go-ahead in designing the game. Thats what makes the premise a bit silly although also enticing. Catch twenty-two, anyone?

[Anilexis]

So what's difference what gender is your friend or enemy?
It's fantasy setting, not historicaly correct.
Don't assume some traits are general to gender in all worlds - it's foolish.

[BBB]

Originally posted by Siddha:

Sounds to me like you dont like the gameplay of this game
and would be better off not playing it

Your account of how the game starts out puts me off it too
Not because of any silly anti-SJW nonsense
But because I dont particularly like massacring girls either

From what you say this is not an heroic RPG
Sounds like an anti-heroic or evil RPG

It also does not sound anything like Bronze Age culture
so I dont know where that notion came from

Lol the game's advertising very specifically says you are the bad guy.

There's another thread on "bronze age culture."

Originally posted by Gabriel Gorgutz:

You have a huge, disproportionate number of females both in leadership and in combat.

Vendiren Guard and Unbroken have been hounded to death and are fighting for their very survival. The usual pre-occupations over women's traditional roles tend to go out of the window there.

On the other hand, there is perhaps a legitimate complaint here regarding the Scarlet Chorus (such a chaotic bunch have a great many rapists no doubt which rather makes you wonder how women would survive, let alone thrive. Verse, death Knell, Jagged Edge - all female leaders in an organization that defines itself through physical force.

However, all of this is only really an issue if you';re looking at it from a 19th century to present day point of view (or arguably medieval times as well) where the role of women was highly codified. Less so now.

As far as I am aware, bronze age cultures had a much greater variety in female roles, including leadership.

Also, the reason the developers reference bronze age culture was to highlight that it was Kyros' ability to use iron that gave him/her the edge needed to conquer all.

As for the beastwomen thing, I can only assume they're based more on hyena culture than lion culture. Hyena packs are run by females and are very quick to pounce on weakness.

"2 ) We do not like to be lectured by stronk womynz about how men are useless brutes and women are basically better, bla bla bla. This is not just a feature of Eb being a bit of a loony, but a constant theme repeated throughout the game. It's very annoying to have tumblr feminism woven into the very fabric of the narrative at every turn. "

No-one likes lectures but one could easily turn this around and say no one likes being lectured about how women are inferior blah blah. I am using Eb alot and apart from one comment "this weapon is as useless as nipples on a man" I can't think of anything overtly feminist.

[BBB]

"literally every culture you come across is a feminist matriarchy whose professional military is run and staffed by a majority of women."


My understanding was that the tiers were mostly matriarchal. If that is so, then *ofcourse* somehing as important as the military is going to be matriarchal as well.


Kyros' kingdoms are much more strictly egalitarian, whether people like it or not (ingame) so it makes a kind of sense that you as the fatebinder are disrupting the status quo.

[BBB]

"Considering they put a lesbian married couple into the game and you cant do crap to them is indicative, perhaps, of where the devs stand on the matter. Or perhaps they dont, but hey, we wouldnt want to offend a minority of the population because we have to represent, right?"


Have yet to find them!

[Rain]

Originally posted by BBB:

"Considering they put a lesbian married couple into the game and you cant do crap to them is indicative, perhaps, of where the devs stand on the matter. Or perhaps they dont, but hey, we wouldnt want to offend a minority of the population because we have to represent, right?"


Have yet to find them!

Lethians Crossing. In one of the houses.

[Chrille]

it´s...just..a...game. omg.

[Bussy Slammer 420 Goku]

I am pretty anti-SJW but I didn't feel like this game was overbearing or odd. Some of the "The overlord is a man - woman - man - woman and has a bi-sexual lust for everyone" seemed really forced in the dialog, but it's not like it distracted me.

[Mandala]

I AM SJW AND I AM T..T..T.. totally agree. People on the internet can write such a big posts just to feel accepted. LUL

[Kytze]

I don't see why it is bad that women have important roles in this game, women who don't apply to the usual female stereotypes. I neither see when they are "lecturing" us about gender equality. As it was previously said by other users, it is a fantasy world. Therefore it doesn't have to have a parallelism with the unequality in our world. They prefer to put emphasis in other areas that you can like or not, it's something for you to decide!
When you cannot do anything to the lesbians, for example, is more about the fact that in that world homosexuality has been completely accepted as something neither good nor bad. It could be like if you have brown hair. We'll not insult you for that
What I'm trying to say here is that our point of view of some matters here, in the real world, can be completely different from the world of tyranny.


It is not a historical game so why they have to put women in inferior roles? why they have to attack homosexuality? This world have other dilemmas, other perspectives which do no belong to this unanimous insistence of being "uncoherent" because the real world is not like that.

As a woman I encourage these news settings. Personally I want to have higher ranks in these games without being reminded that because of being a women if I was a NPC I would have never achieved what my main character did.

P.D: sorry for my grammar mistakes, I'm not native!!!