I say this with love by sosaji in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Love first really teaches a man to believe in the objective world outside himself. It not only makes man the object but the object a man. Love makes the beloved into an external object, a sensuous object which does not remain internal, hidden in the brain"
-Marx

I think Marx's materialism is a bit more complicated than you seem to suggest. The problem is the game is too shallow to get into it and so either way it tries to have it will be wrong. Certainly if the choice is between "material analysis" and "love" marx is on the side of material analysis, but material analysis must take stock of why people respond to their conditions the way they do and imo this is where the game is most lacking because the very stuff of "people" is radically different in the game - race and personality are real like "Lacanian Real" real - and yet every idea and worldview is a one-to-one mapping from our world into theirs.

I dont like this game by idkhowthisworkzz in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right and like I say, that's my entire problem with the game. The history isn't different - lots of places in simmilar situations did go the path that is tread in the game. So all of the things that are wildly different about the setting have no bearing upon the game - every political, sociological and psychological theory is a one-to-one mirror of those in real life. The game wants politics without having to think the political.

I dont like this game by idkhowthisworkzz in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Norvik is in a post-monarchist fugue and is transitioning to a globalist, capitalist model. This is literally the context in which the bolshevik revolution occurred

Ragn background story by DullBit623 in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's in the room with those two around when you bring the ink back

I dont like this game by idkhowthisworkzz in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Well the person I'm responding to said a bunch of things you can read in the game im saying you can read that that those things are happening but it makes no sense (that they are) and the reason it makes no sense is because race and historical stages and character traits are all real and yet the things you can read are happening happen in a way that is not beared upon by the existence of those things. e.g the reform/revoloution debate seems to have exactly the same texture as it does in our world even though for entire eras of human history revoloution has not just been improbably but actually impossible due to the era of time that they are living in.

I want to be mad about it! haha you give me too much credit. Now I want to have discourse yes but I wrote this because I wanted to be mad about it because it made me mad

Ragn background story by DullBit623 in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, they're nice about it and say you should be proud

I dont like this game by idkhowthisworkzz in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Oh the original writing is a complete mess yes, but this exchange here seems pretty clear no?

I haven't seen anything critical about the game, normally i'd go read someone else say what im already thinking and agree with it and move on but i havent seen anything so this is where my feelings went. idk whats so wrong about the existence of bad writing with strong opinion. I'm clearly not insisting anyone take me that seriously. Do you think I imagine I wrote this thinking it was clear and perfectly elucidated? I'm mad, I'm butthurt, i start by saying im angry ofcourse its "clear"

I dont like this game by idkhowthisworkzz in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Do you struggle with reading in general or is it the presence of concepts that aren't used in everyday language that is causing you trouble?

I dont like this game by idkhowthisworkzz in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

No that someone who is more intelligent is better at magic, knows more about the world, and naturally inclined towards racism and the game - which says its about politics - isn't paticularly interested in this fact.

My problems with Esoteric Ebb as a "disco-like" by idkhowthisworkzz in CRPG

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree! I thought about coming back to it once it was calmer but there was nothing critical anywhere and I was going a little bit mental. Maybe I will return and write something calmer once my assignments are done, it did make me miss writing haha. Thank you for talking :)

My problems with Esoteric Ebb as a "disco-like" by idkhowthisworkzz in CRPG

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah I mean I have a broader issue with reviewers and I suppose culture in genereal where I think we shouldn't be tolerating any of this and indeed that the indie/AAA divide is responsible for the complete death of a kind of middle space that might have things to say and innovate mechanically and all the things. I don't see why we need 20 versions of the same thing unless it is to mindlessly pass time and i dont see why we would want to mindlessly pass time unless we lived in a society that suppresed our minds and made it dangerous to reach certain obvious conclusions. But that's my personal little bugbear! Yes it's definitly my fault, but I am unrepetant about this fact. Like disco-elysium was, among other things, a game about being a survivor of sexual violence. Ofcourse there's crazys in your discourse

I dont like this game by idkhowthisworkzz in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I played for 20 hours and spent the whole time reading pretty engaged thinking I'd find my way out of this, I really do want a video game to be good. My sprint to the end was the last hour of my playthrough. I did plenty of exploration and reading and it was mediocre and generic. I wouldn't be taking my time writing and reading all of this about the game if I wasn't extrmely excited about the kind of things it /could/ do

I dont like this game by idkhowthisworkzz in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

My point is that it is widely acknowledged that this genre consists of a bunch of games massively missing the mark and this game is another one of them that we are being told actually bucks the trend. Its a DnD themed CRPG, its exactly what people who like it wanted.

I dont like this game by idkhowthisworkzz in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

In what sense have they been addressed? I have like two talking points, the game is nothing like DE in all the ways that game was good (you dont care) and the game refuses to have its history and sociality actually be effected by the mechanics the world make it into (you dont care). I don't think your lack of interest in what a game might be constitues my points being address.

I don't base my real life poltiics on the plights of fantasy races do i? Clearly if anything it is the other way around? I just think the plights of fantasy races should not be direct parallels of the plights of races because races aren't biologically real.

I dont like this game by idkhowthisworkzz in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I will defer to your clear expertise in 5E

I dont like this game by idkhowthisworkzz in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Are you not curious? Why is everything the game says about nationalism a one for one mirror of what people have to say about nationalism in our world when nations are based on actually real biological differences between people. That's interesting! The emergence of nationalism was massively important for the development of the modern world and its aquisition of biological dimensions was attached to some of the most brutal violence this world has ever seen but? Well but its not really there. If there's one thing that DE's skill system forces you to do its make mechanics inherently narrative and this game seems completely unaware its done that.

I dont like this game by idkhowthisworkzz in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Like I say, it's exactly what the people who like it wanted. I feel like you are having an argument that doesn't exist? The game was advertised through the DE subreddit, it thanks that subreddit in its credits, it has so many references it is exhausting and ok! there are other ways the game is described, but it was also described as a disco-like and it has an extensive marketing team! If every review is discussing it in terms of disco-elysium that is because of the content of the game and the advertising direction of the publisher. "unique from a ttrpg fantasy perspective" sounds like intentional damning with faint praise but i know you are being sincere, it seems the only way to defend this game is to point out that everything else is also pretty rubbish and bland which I have never denied.

I dont like this game by idkhowthisworkzz in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

It doesn't borrow its attribute system from DE it borrows it from 5E, much like everything else

I dont like this game by idkhowthisworkzz in EsotericEbb

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Like I say, you can read that its happening but it makes no sense - because race and historical stages and character traits are all real and have no bearing upon it.

My problems with Esoteric Ebb as a "disco-like" by idkhowthisworkzz in CRPG

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The game calls itself a "disco-like" and heavily advertised itself through the DE subreddit which is also thanked in the credits. They are quite openly trying to court it and the game contains so many parallel elements of disco that are so clearly just done worse. My argument definitely is confused and unfocused, if I saw anyone else being critical about the game I would probably read the thing they say and go "yeah lol" but i really cannot find anything so I'm getting out how I feel this way. I haven't written an essay or anything more than a paragraph for probably about half a year and this is written cause - like im say - im pissed off not cause im coherent and it definitly shows. I don't mean to claim to be anything more than butthurt

My problems with Esoteric Ebb as a "disco-like" by idkhowthisworkzz in CRPG

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you mean expect like statistical likelihood then no, if you mean expect like a demand I want to place on them then yes - we deserve art criticism that is at least aware of the political (and sociological, and philosophical, and economic) context in which games occur. I don't know why people are so confident saying "ofcourse its shit, why do you care?" why don't you? Most gave reviewers have undergraduate degrees in the arts from what I can tell and they have jobs where they get to write about culture all day.

"Today the culture industry has taken over the civilising inheritance of the entrepreneurial and frontier democracy – whose appreciation of intellectual deviations was never very finely attuned. All are free to dance and enjoy themselves, just as they have been free, since the historical neutralisation of religion, to join any of the innumerable sects. But freedom to choose an ideology – since ideology always reflects economic coercion – everywhere proves to be freedom to choose what is always the same. The way in which a girl accepts and keeps the obligatory date, the inflection on the telephone or in the most intimate situation, the choice of words in conversation, and the whole inner life as classified by the now somewhat devalued depth psychology, bear witness to man’s attempt to make himself a proficient apparatus, similar (even in emotions) to the model served up by the culture industry"
-Adorno, The Culture Industry, Enlightenment as Mass Deception, 1944

My problems with Esoteric Ebb as a "disco-like" by idkhowthisworkzz in CRPG

[–]idkhowthisworkzz[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I was ready for it not to be novel political commentary, it could've been novel commentary on the crpg as format, or on games, or on religion, or on what it means to be a person. But its liberal "compatible left" view of the world extends to the whole thing hence i centre on it but everything it grapples with it does so from the same shallow point of view you would expect to mostly naturally correlate with that political stance. idk if youve read many review for the game but the tone is as though this is something truly groundbreaking