Tedd Video Game Opinions - 013 - HD
Added 2021-06-01 04:39:05 +0000 UTCWoof
Commentary
This isn't a deal breaker for me, but it always bums me out.
They make it even worse in Fallout 4, because they'll give some enemy dogs adorable handkerchiefs around their necks, and animations in which they play with teddy bears.
In Fallout 3, there was an animal friend perk that made all animals non-hostile, and it doesn't work that way in Fallout 4 I WANT IT BACK YOU JERKS!
Comments
@Adicitus Fair point there about Deus Ex... also, I never knew that about dishonored.
Harmony Petersen
2021-06-05 01:06:16 +0000 UTCThe Deus Ex and Dishonored series of games both offer plenty of non-violent options to overcome obstacles and enemies. The Original Deus Ex had a character whose whole schtick pretty much was promoting non-violent/non-lethal options. Dishonored had a system where the world literally becomes a worse place if you kill people. And to be clear: both series take place in worlds which use of lethal force can often be justified, so taking the non-violent/non-lethal option becomes extra meaningful.
Adicitus
2021-06-04 19:13:49 +0000 UTC@marcelbutkis That's one thing that always bugs me about people's preconceptions of non-violence and pacifism. Non-violence & pacifism does NOT mean "no property damage". It means "Don't kill". Norway heavily damaged, destroyed, eliminated, etc. an insane amount of infrastructure, but generally did it with minimal or no casualties (many buildings were destroyed while unoccupied). Property damage is, honestly, often a key component of widespread non-violent resistance. People think of Ghandi when they think pacifism. What he did was surprisingly effective. However, documentaries often portray him just saying 'no' and taking it. People forget, and are rarely taught, that there was a LOT of economic damage from everything he did. One example was salt. Britain's main financial power was in the sell of salt. That was basically their #1 export to the area. Ghandi taught the people to harvest their own salt. And that was just one example - he was systematically removing the British Empires economic supports one-by-one. As a result of his actions, the British empire was faltering; loosing all of its income in the region. Non-violent resistance is almost always economic focused, however, it's not exclusively. At the end, the British Empire couldn't make enough money to support the presence of its troops, had no local support, and it was sucking the empire dry. The British were, economically, left with no choice other than leaving. To understand the core principal of pacifism, I often suggest people to watch the anime "Trigun". The anime is about a pacifist protagonist, and sums up pacifism mindset well (including when a pacifist fails to follow through on their values). Less obvious, but a western shown that has a strong pacifist lead characters, include Dr. Who., Superman, and Batman. All of them avoid killing if at all possible (villains, when they do die, usually die as a result of their own actions).
Harmony Petersen
2021-06-03 18:51:53 +0000 UTCNorway violently resisted Germany, though. They blew up Germany's heavy water program that was going toward their atomic research.
marcelbutkis
2021-06-03 04:51:10 +0000 UTCIMHO, the morality of things should always be questioned, and people being your family doesn't mean judging them necessarily happens less. My great great grandfather had the opportunity to choose sides in the US civil war, and owned slaves and fought for the confederates. If I could meet him, I'd probably punch him in the jaw for it. Do I consider him a horrible person for having sided with slavery? Definitely. Even my grandfather who did know him personally was ashamed of him.
Harmony Petersen
2021-06-02 19:12:31 +0000 UTCEdit: I was a doofus. I got my countries mixed up. I always have a problem switching Norway and Sweden. It was Norway, not Sweden. (I don't have that problem with Finland though? It's just those two countries. Updating my comments.)
Harmony Petersen
2021-06-02 15:31:11 +0000 UTC@Ed Grimm Yea. Not to mention people get better at diplomacy the more they try it. In some ways, diplomacy should be more level-up-able than combat (you don't lose skill when you get hit!) As for Norway, considering you say they didn't do much, I don't think you realize what all they did. When they were occupied by Germany, that's when their real threat to the Nazis *began*. The economic damage that Norway did to Germany can't be underestimated. Germany built factories there. Norweigins ensured everything produced was defective. There was a saying among Nazi troops that "If your gear said, 'Made in Norway', you were already dead." Nazi trains would derail, Norwegian infrastructure all of a sudden became mysteriously difficult and expensive to maintain, money for Germany would always get taken by thieves, etc. Basically, Norway single-handedly crippled the 'unstoppable' German war machine.
Harmony Petersen
2021-06-02 15:23:57 +0000 UTC@Prof Sai Definitely defeat. Germany retreated from Norway during WWII before the allies did their push. Norway simply made themselves much too costly to occupy. Every Norweigin person did their best to make life as expensive as possible for the Germans. It's debatable depending on who you talk to, but some would say they did more to defeat the Germans than the allies did. You talk to a war historian, they'll say the allies did more. You talk to an economic historian, they'll say Norway. Me, I side with the latter considering "soldiers have to eat". Armies aren't free. If they hadn't economically hurt Germany so much, we'd probably all be speaking German and sending people like me to concentration camps.
Harmony Petersen
2021-06-02 15:22:35 +0000 UTCI love that Tedd was about to get back on track and got interrupted yet again.
Wild Card
2021-06-02 00:43:40 +0000 UTCIt <i>could</i> be Hanma since she's now canon (shown when Volty addresses his peers).
Windscion
2021-06-02 00:19:30 +0000 UTCI feel like my biggest complaint about undertale's implementation was the 'no experience'. Seriously? I understand that fighting like that doesn't give offensive combat experience, but it absolutely gives defensive combat experience and dealing with people experience. My issue with the Sweden comment is that only worked because Germany basically took on the world. If all of the world took on the same approach to dealing with Germany, we would be speaking German today. Sweden didn't really do much of anything to fight Hitler. They took some refugees that they probably wouldn't have been able to take had they made their border into a skirmish line, but that didn't help defeat him, just prevented him from doing as much damage as he would've otherwise. But once again, that only worked because others took more aggressive stances.
Some Ed
2021-06-01 22:35:41 +0000 UTCIt's also easy to say that the people who wanted out could have left. Lots of people left before the start of WW II. If I recall correctly, it was my father's grandparents who met on one of the last boats from Germany before WW I. They were all smart enough to leave before that war, why couldn't people have been smart enough to leave before the worse war that followed? But I know better. My great grandparents started preparing to leave the country long before they actually did. If I recall correctly, they had their tickets 6 months before the boat left. Anyone trying to leave much later than that would've been SOL. I've heard the wait for people trying to leave right before WW II was worse - not only was it longer, but it was also more deadly, as the SS didn't take kindly to people wanting to leave unless it was clearly apolitical and "you guys terrify the shit out of me" was considered political. I have sympathy and respect for those who tried to leave and die or tried to resist. But I also understand a lot of the front-line soldiers were people who tried to resist, and they killed a lot of good people because of being sufficiently terrified of the people who gave them their guns. That said, I don't mind their inclusion in video games. It was a horrible time, but it's important to remember about it. There's echoes of it all over the world even today and I feel it's important that people recognize when they see those echoes. It's also important to understand that people can be dangerous and you need to recognize when they are and respond appropriately. In real life, that's usually just avoiding them, not doing business with them, and voting against them. By not supporting them in that fashion, we can usually defer when they're problematic to the national scale long enough for their organizations to implode or to self-destruct against a similar organization. Note that they do not limit themselves to a single party; voting a straight party in the US will sometimes support one regardless of which party.
Some Ed
2021-06-01 22:24:29 +0000 UTCDid Sweden really "win" against Hitler, or just bear him until others defeated him?
Prof Sai
2021-06-01 18:19:22 +0000 UTCAND NON-VIOLENT OPTIONS!!!! Games need to always have a non-violent options to resolve conflict. So far, the game that has done this best is undertale, and it honestly didn't do that great. Talking down people, handcuffing and turning over to the cops, sneaking past guards, disrupting supply lines, treaties, traps & restraint, capturing & taming (for animals of course), economic takedown, etc. Too many games teach that the ONLY solution is murder. Heck, if Norway can non-violently resist literally NAZI GERMANY and WIN during WW2, no video game has any excuse. <--- BTW, Grace would probably love that little factoid. (Edit note: Apologies, originally this said Sweden, because I always get Sweden and Norway mixed up. It's Norway.)
Harmony Petersen
2021-06-01 16:53:18 +0000 UTCIs this Grace? When we previously saw those collars, the letter was the persons romantic interest. So that would make this someone who likes Greg? (I know it isn't. :)
Prof Sai
2021-06-01 15:15:09 +0000 UTCJust about every animal appears as an enemy in some game. I've come to take it in stride. But yeah, I suppose it's worse with domestic dogs, because unlike, say, rabbits, they're probably doing a master's bidding. For a moment, I thought Tedd transformed into this doggo.
Stephen Gilberg
2021-06-01 14:08:59 +0000 UTCMe with the zombie dogs
Yelani W
2021-06-01 13:33:54 +0000 UTCPersonally I don't like fighting wolves in games either, unless they're clearly evil monster wolves.
Chronos Cat
2021-06-01 12:49:09 +0000 UTCyes it's super easy to say the people carrying out a genocidal regime sucked, actually it was even super easy back then which is why people did
Hilda Leyes
2021-06-01 09:41:02 +0000 UTCEasy to say in hindsight and when none of them were your relatives :/ My point was mostly about "shooting harmless dogs" ranging rather low and the list of problematic things in those settings. In a war-time setting, shooting enemy soldiers is a necessity. So is shooting a dog sent at your throat in a postapocalyptic setting. If I start questioning the morality of these, I'd rather shoot the dog. When gaming though, I usually don't.
Klaus
2021-06-01 09:24:22 +0000 UTClets_not_try_and_justify_why_a_man_would_join_the_nazis.gif
Hilda Leyes
2021-06-01 08:37:38 +0000 UTCDogs are a harmless example really. How about "was this raider forced to become what he is?" The dog is innocent, but ultimately the raiders themselves might also just have met the wrong people. And yet, I somehow find it easier to kill human NPCs than a cute dog NPC. The issue goes deeper though. In The Division, are the enemies legitimately criminals or are they people trying to survive in the aftermath of a crisis? I haven't played this particular series, but there was plenty of controversy around enemies doing nothing but standing around and wearing stereotypical unwealthy-city-dweller clothing, and defending themselves from an aggressor. Never mind the part, where real-life groups are explicitly used as enemies. I used not really to think about it, but the way "communist soldiers" are used as throw-away enemies in N64 Golden Eye (and movies of the time) is borderline propaganda. And when the "Nazi soldier" stereotype is used, if I stop to think about it -- as an Austrian, relatives of mine technically *were* Nazi soldiers. Hard to say in hindsight, whether they were at the time falling for the Nazi Government's superiority and justified-war propaganda, or going to the frontline because the alternative would have ranged from prison to execution.
Klaus
2021-06-01 07:49:03 +0000 UTCIn D&D terms the doggos are lawful good working for lawful evil bosses.
Opus the Poet
2021-06-01 07:33:26 +0000 UTCSo... having the bad guys with dogs is bad, because dogs are cute and nice, but having bad guys with spiders is bad because spiders are scary?
Thisguy
2021-06-01 05:25:24 +0000 UTC
