[Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony] Achievement Ideas? (p13)

Dropping in to just say this whole thing makes me feel sad. Lots of effort and artistic vision went into this, with no bad intentions at all, until misinterpreted by a bunch of individuals for the sake of embarking on another idealistic crusade.

I realize and totally accept there are some aspects that might indeed justify a change, but in their entirety, the demands are over the top. 

16 minutes ago, NightFright said:

Dropping in to just say this whole thing makes me feel sad. Lots of effort and artistic vision went into this, with no bad intentions at all, until misinterpreted by a bunch of individuals for the sake of embarking on another idealistic crusade.

 

I realize and totally accept there are some aspects that might indeed justify a change, but in their entirety, the demands are over the top. 

Rather than blaming members for raising very justifiable concerns, your ire should instead be raised at Torm who demonstrated poor behaviour in response to said concerns. Had he reacted more positively and constructively, this could have taken a different direction.

25 minutes ago, NightFright said:

Dropping in to just say this whole thing makes me feel sad. Lots of effort and artistic vision went into this, with no bad intentions at all, until misinterpreted by a bunch of individuals for the sake of embarking on another idealistic crusade.

 

I realize and totally accept there are some aspects that might indeed justify a change, but in their entirety, the demands are over the top. 

Very little was "misinterpreted", I'd say that all of the content that was up for discussion was "interpreted" well enough and the response was justified. You being offended more by the community's response than BOA's mistreatment of extremely sensitive subject matter itself is incredibly telling.

EDIT: as Horus says, if you're so upset by perceived effort and artistic vision going to waste, then maybe it's better to blame the person who's actually responsible for the whole project? The guy who decided to instead throw his playtesters under the bus when confronted with everything that had been included?

3 hours ago, Ozymandias81 said:

Hello everyone, I am here to talk on the behalf BoA Team members and Torm regarding recent facts and BoA development: it has been always openly since 2014, following quite strictly community feedbacks FOR FREE AND FOR THE LOVE OF DOOM/WOLF3D (we take issues seriously, just check monthly and then their total - donations are facultative)

Thank you for the clarifications. 

I will say that I don't believe any member of the BoA Team are Bigoted and Racist, Having interacted with you guys in the past. 

With that being said, the way the criticism was handled initially by Torm did not show any intent to clarify that, but attempted to simply deflect it and throw the entire team to under the bus, which disappointed me, a Big Fan of BoA From the very beginning, and many others. 

The Damage done to this mods reputation is huge, But I do hope To see this project see the light of day, because I do love it. it inspired me to do better as a creator. But Until all the Very Appalling content is removed, I can't for better conscience continue playing or supporting it.

Sorry for my rambling but  I'll be Brutally honest. Seeing how this all went down really hurt me, as someone who looked up to Tormentor's mods from the beginning. All could have been avoided if Torm was able to accept fair and valid criticism. 

Though it did show me how united the community is despite the shitstorm. That we are able to be voices against hate and disrespect.

but anyway, thank you for clarifying the future of BoA.

My impression is that these emotive issues can get polarised: in the latest exchanges started by Nightfright I agree to some extent with both sides' point of view, in that I don't see much evidence of misinterpretation, and I see a lot of very reasonable concerns being raised, but I also think the demands being made are a bit excessive. 

I think the main problem is that a certain amount of potentially offensive material is justifiable but there comes a point beyond which it gets too much, and the problems that this causes outweighs any benefits of their inclusion.  Then, when the overall product crosses that line, we get calls for most or all of said content to be removed (because all of said content contributes to that unpleasant whole).  Tormentor and Ozymandias81's reactions haven't helped matters though, and have fuelled the strength of the backlash.  Had most of this content been included, but not the most excessive aspects (I'm thinking for instance of the female nude gore sprites, the blatant caricatures of Doom community members, the references to real Holocaust victims) it might well have passed with just isolated objections here and there.

48 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

Mm, I'd dispute Doomworld ever having a "hostile vibe". Most of the people/threads being mocked in Post Hell were mocked for good reason.

 

For every furry/furry-based thread that turned into a undeserved shitshow (or something similar), you had at least 20-30 threads ranging from hateful shit being (rightfully) sent to PH - the same way it still is today - to insane lunatics trying to fool everyone and lie about their identity (LittleTemple anyone?) to downright disgusting or pointless stuff like literal shitposting. That stuff had no place on old or new Doomworld, and the mockery of such stuff was not a result of hostility among the regulars, it was just an attempt the keep the place sort of sane in the best way internet communities knew how at the time.

 

Doomworld has undoubtedly developed into a place where pointless hate for people based on their sexual preferences (or various other things that should be total non-factors) is absolutely not tolerated, but I'm uncomfortable with the revisionist angle that Doomworld was ever "hateful" or "hostile". Despite the occasional bit of wrongheadedness in past decision making, Doomworld has always had a core principle of "don't be a complete asshole and/or moron and you'll be fine". It's always been WELL above average in terms of "maturity level" (for lack of a less wanky term) compared to the average gaming site, both then and now.

 

(I know this is offtopic but ppl ain't gon be talking shit on my boy DW while I'm around..)

Since your calling me out, I guess I have to clarify, offtopic as it is. Back in the days when I felt this, the overall attitude of the forum was very different. I was always careful with what I posted, as there was a literal 'hey look at this dumb bastard' forum in plain sight, which is incredibly mean-spirited no matter HOW you look at it, and thats why its gone now. I didn't want to end up in there, or the 'Losers' subforum, another rather cruel thing. As brutal as both those sections were, they did keep order, yes. But I wasn't exactly feeling comfortable seeing all the snide remarks when things were closed, the regulars all chanting for hell with buckets of popcorn when a fight broke out, and always linking to these dramas in the 'public example' forum to roast and demean people for years afterward, no matter how much someone tried to improve themselves. At times, I absolutely felt uncomfortable with this atmosphere and would vanish for months at a time. But I'm still here 13 years after joining, because the forum has also been the only longrunning place that hasn't driven me out entirely, there has always been good with the bad. The shift in tone the forum went through after the Post Hell and Losers thing was removed was a godsend for me. The new moderators are also much clearer and less antagonistic when doing things too, its more professional.

I apologise if ive caused any offence, but this is absolutely how I felt at certain points of my time here. Generally shouldn't continue this in here though.

Yes Torm did not handle things really well. Granted. And several things shared in this thread from the game itself are indeed questionable. Fair enough. And most people here have raised legitimate concerns, and been willing to share decent and thoughtful posts about the issues at hand.

Now Doomworld is one of the few gaming forums that I am a member of. This is because 1) I think it is a great forum full of talented passionate and interesting people, that I enjoy interacting with, and 2) Doom is one of the few games that I am interested in enough to be involved in a forum like this. So I simply cannot comment on the standards of other gaming forums to have an idea of how these things are generally handled. Also, backseat moderating is not valued generally here or anywhere else, so I don't want to be seen to be hinting at how these things should be handled, or implying that things should be done differently. That is not my goal, and those decisions are way above my pay grade.

But that said, there has been a number of unhelpful, trollish, elitist posts here that added nothing to the conversation, and certainly have not contributed to any resolution to the issues at hand, and whose only validity seems to be based on the idea that "Torm is a dick so now I have free license to shitpost."

Apologies in advance for bringing this up, as the vast majority of posts here are thoughtful, measured and perfectly reasonable. But not all of them. Just sayin'

7 hours ago, roadworx said:

or, maybe it's both. torm has worked with gzdoom for quite a while now, it's not like he doesn't know that it has major optimization issues.

 

considering what just happened, and really everything that's happened in the past with him, torm saying it wasn't intentional is highly questionable.

 

also, how the fuck is making her specifically a drunk man not intentional transphobia? if that's not intentional transphobia then torm must just be braindead or something because it very clearly is to the rest of the human population.

How long ago did Randi become Marisa? I thought that happened recently and that the Randi character in BoA was just outdated and was never replaced/removed for whatever reason.

EDIT: Looks like TheMightyHaracross kind of explained that tidbit in the previous page. So it was just a really outdated character/reference that never got updated..

1 minute ago, Lizardcommando said:

How long ago did Randi become Marisa? I thought that happened recently and that the Randi character in BoA was just outdated and was never replaced/removed for whatever reason.

i'm honestly not sure. it appears to be that way, although the fact that it was never changed is uh...not good. especially considering torm knew she was trans and just never bothered to do anything about it.

The unfortunate business with the Randy/Marisa "Mix up" is far from the only issue relating to Torm's banning. The whole project is a disgrace and Torm's responses have also been poor. 

So can we give that a rest please.  

If I see any more mention of the above I will close the thread.

14 minutes ago, Liberation said:

The unfortunate business with the Randy/Marisa "Mix up" is far from the only issue relating to Torm's banning. The whole project is a disgrace and Torm's responses have also been poor. 

So can we give that a rest please.  

oh well yeah, torm still deserved the ban lol. he has serious issues, and there's still a lot of other stuff in the project that's really, really bad

On 6/7/2021 at 6:51 PM, Wereknight said:

Just to be honest I wouldn't mind that being here at all despite how bad it might be. And not because I'm not of West (duh...) but I'm a person that have seen much, MUCH worse stuff than this, and outside of games as well so, things like these sprites are just provoke my lazy "eh" and I move on. Because I don't play mods\games to feel offended and complain about, I play them to feel joy and get a relief from a reality I live in (which is far from good but surely better than most of African countries)

So your take is, "It doesn't affect me personally, so I don't care." Got it.

Considering all this fuss, it probably would have been better if the project had ended after the release of episode 2. It was when John Romero praised it and everybody was fine with it. They wanted to go further with the scenario in the last episode, which deserves recognition and respect, but it went down a path which almost automatically had to create divided opinions about the approach. 

40 minutes ago, Devalaous said:

Since your calling me out, I guess I have to clarify

I don't want this derail to get even more derailed, but I wasn't trying to call you out, lol. That's not my goal. I just don't want people to think DW was ever a "hate hive" of any sort and to assume incorrect things about the founders or old guard members, that's all.

So there’s one more thing I’d like to talk about regarding BoA, namely one of It’s more controversial elements.

I may ultimately understand why the decision was made to include a level that takes place in a concentration camp.

Namely, because Wolfenstein: The New Order also had a level which takes place in a concentration camp.

But here’s the thing as to why TNO’s portrayal was lauded whereas BoA’s portrayal was lambasted:

TNO went out of its way to ensure that an event like the Holocaust is treated with dignity and respect, whereas BoA tried to do more of the grindhouse element.

Not only that, there’s even more important distinctions worth noting:

• TNO obviously did not have you shooting zombified Holocaust victims (which in itself has a ton of unfortunate implications)
• Instead of an element of “tee-hee grindhouse” that BoA used (like with the “tributes”), the atmosphere in TNO’s concentration camp was that of absolute horror followed by marginal relief after disposing of the Nazis that run it
• TNO’s grindhouse element was temporarily thrown out as if to say “the Holocaust is a real event that took millions of lives and scarred millions upon millions more, and the Nazis weren’t just these cartoon villains”
• On a more minor note, TNO’s concentration camp was actually fictional (Bélica), though it might’ve been based on an actual concentration camp as there were reports of a minor one in Croatia as this is where that level took place

So what’s to take away from all this? While you can have more fantastical elements like robots or magic or whatever, there’s a ceiling when it comes to heavy topics.

With more personal topics like mental illness or abuse, there’s slightly more leeway in that only the author who might’ve gone through the horrific events themselves can incorporate their experiences into their work or even joke about it if they do desire (hell, “gallows humor” is the term used for the latter).

But for far more impersonal events like the Holocaust, the ceiling is far lower and the only way to go about it would be to treat these types of events with the kind of respect reserved for those who may or may not have lived through it.

Or to paraphrase Dave Oshry, today’s Jews (he’s Jewish himself) may joke about things like bagels and circumcision, but the Holocaust is one of those topics that is taken deadly serious.

And ZERO patience is taken when it comes to anyone who might even remotely makes light of or makes apologetics for the Nazis.

I hope I’ve provided something of a lesson here.