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The WitcherWho prefers The Witcher over The Witcher 2?(71 posts)(71 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted September 19, 2014
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Waltorious: For those discussing the sex cards and how the Witcher dealt with sex in general, there's an interesting writeup going on right now by someone who's collecting every card and critiquing them. It does a good job of explaining why many players have a problem with the way women and sex are portrayed in the game.
I have to say, I'm not particularly impressed with that critique. It starts with an anecdote designed to prove the author isn't a feminist prude, because - you guessed it - everything else she's about to say is going to sound like she's a feminist prude. She's entitled to her opinion, of course, but I disagree with most of her assertions, and I don't think the game should be changed just to accommodate her notions of good and bad. She's free to ignore The Witcher completely and play any of a million other games that are more to her liking. Even better, she can make her own game where all the sex is imaginary.
Post edited September 19, 2014 by UniversalWolf
Posted September 19, 2014
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UniversalWolf: I have to say, I'm not particularly impressed with that critique. It starts with an anecdote designed to prove the author isn't a feminist prude, because - you guessed it - everything else she's about to say is going to sound like she's a feminist prude. She's entitled to her opinion, of course, but I disagree with most of her assertions, and I don't think the game should be changed just to accommodate her notions of good and bad. She's free to ignore The Witcher completely and play any of a million other games that are more to her liking. Even better, she can make her own game where all the sex is imaginary.
What exactly is a feminist prude? Is that somehow different than just a regular feminist?

And what did you disagree with specifically? I found her arguments (in the later parts especially) very interesting. She points out several sexual encounters which looked like they were more or less regular, consensual affairs, but which are suddenly stopped short by the need to provide a gift in order to advance them. Why? It supports this idea that women can't just have sex because they want to, they have to have it in exchange for something. Which is kind of weird.

And it's not all complaints, either. The author likes Carmen, as well as Morenn and the Lady of the Lake, and some other details in Chapter 4. I think the tone of the series of posts began as very negative because the author expected to dislike the game (and let's be honest, the prologue and first chapter of the game are hardly the strongest parts) but the tone gets more positive as the series goes on. The most recent posts read much more evenly, with both criticism and praise.

.....aaand, as I write this, I realize that the final part has just been posted. It's a good summary, so if you don't' have time for the whole series, it's better to just read this one:

http://fallingawkwardly.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/binders-full-of-women-collecting-all-the-ladycards-in-the-witcher-part-9/

You may notice it's not just complaints. Edited my earlier post so others can jump straight to the conclusion if they wish.

Finally, no one is saying the game needs to be changed. It's just, you know, criticism. Like you'd get in a book review or film review. It explains why some players were bothered by this aspect of the game. And, importantly, this hardly defines the whole game -- I had a lot of the same problems with the depiction of women in the game, but I still love the game and it sequel, and I'm really looking forward to the third game.
Posted September 20, 2014
1 was better in many aspects. The minigames were better (outdrinking contest). The alchemy system was better (secondary substances, alcohol base). Geralt's skills were better (you could open almost everything, not forced to choose a path). Geralt was a powerhouse, almost untouchable (in 2 you have to roll all the time like an idiot, or a ninja on steroids). You could craft and use fisstech; in 2 you can do nothing of these. Alchemy used to create things with other use besides combat, much like parfume (great for gift or RP element) and Wive's Tears (gets you sober immediately), and you could drink as many potions as your stamina allowed, plus WHENEVER you wanted to! Even the simple, humble books, used to display if you have read them already, so you could safely sell and dispose of them; at least in 2 they have 0 weight. Or the bestiary? Which was large, and full of entries, even for the upgraded monsters of the same species (example: Ghoul-Alghoul, Drowner-Drowned Dead, etc).

1 felt more like an RPG. 2 feels like a console port in full action, packed with timed sequences. They are both good. But for old-schoolers, and non-purists/hypocrites/delusional people (for the sex "system" part), 1 felt way more "full" as a gaming experience.
Post edited September 20, 2014 by KiNgBrAdLeY7
Posted September 20, 2014
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KiNgBrAdLeY7: The minigames were better (outdrinking contest).
This is something I just didn't get about the Witcher; it seems like all there is to winning a drinking game is just having alcohol that is strong enough to not get you laughed out of the room and weak enough to not take you out of the game too early. Is there some additional degree of depth that gets introduced later? If not, that's the sort of thing I can understand the devs cutting in a sequel in order to focus more time and resources on the primary game.

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KiNgBrAdLeY7: ... non-purists/hypocrites/delusional people (for the sex "system" part) ...
How exactly is it that you arrive at the conclusion that only "hypocrites" or "delusional" people had a problem with the way that TW1 handled sexuality, and what exactly is supposed to be hypocritical or delusional about said people?
Post edited September 20, 2014 by Jonesy89
Posted September 20, 2014
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DarkAkriloth: It doesn't feel right for the player, the invisible spectator, to make that choice. And it's not. But for a variant of Geralt, who feels himself attracted more than physically to Abigail, up to the point of forgetting why she's offering herself, there's nothing wrong with it. At least, on his mind.
I see your argument, but the thing is, after reading some of the Witcher short stories, I'm not so sure that it is in character for *any* variant of Geralt. Again, Geralt draws a lot of inspiration from Chandler's Marlowe; both are involved in thankless work and suffer abuse from the powers that be for it, despite the fact that they are trying to do good while making a living. It's a job that taxes heavily on the individual, and a lot of niceties have to be abandoned in order to be effective at closing a case to earn a profit; that said, what defines Marlowe, and Geralt, is how both of them retain some shred of a sense of honor in spite of spending most of their time up to the eyebrows in the scummiest parts of the universe and being motivated primarily by more material motives. Hell, on at least one occasion, Marlowe turned down a rather lucrative opportunity to blackmail his client after it appeared she had killed someone, and he kept pursuing the case to the bitter end despite numerous bribes that tempted him otherwise; that is the sort of person that Geralt was modeled after, and giving in and taking advantage of a situation like that isn't in the cards for someone who supposedly hasn't relinquished that last shred of goodness that separates them from the gaping assholes that surround them.
Posted September 20, 2014
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Waltorious: For those discussing the sex cards and how the Witcher dealt with sex in general, there's an interesting writeup going on right now by someone who's collecting every card and critiquing them. It does a good job of explaining why many players have a problem with the way women and sex are portrayed in the game.
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UniversalWolf: I have to say, I'm not particularly impressed with that critique. It starts with an anecdote designed to prove the author isn't a feminist prude, because - you guessed it - everything else she's about to say is going to sound like she's a feminist prude. She's entitled to her opinion, of course, but I disagree with most of her assertions, and I don't think the game should be changed just to accommodate her notions of good and bad. She's free to ignore The Witcher completely and play any of a million other games that are more to her liking. Even better, she can make her own game where all the sex is imaginary.
The series could have been better, if only the author wouldn't have been bias on her own feminazi opinion on how women need to be portrayed in every single media. Even after acknowledging in the end that Triss wore these kind of clothes because she likes to look sexy and that sex cards are just a a mini-game to increase the replay-value of the game, she's constantly whining on how women are portrayed as sex objects that you need to earn by giving them gifts and how Garret (Jacob Hobbs) is an unscrupulous man who takes advantage of every desperate female offering sex for salvation.

She never stops to think that maybe, just maybe, people -- specially in a different, fictional universe -- have a different ideology than ours. Or that not necessarily every woman in the world will fuck with a stranger solely for the feeling of desire; humans often seek to gain advantage of every opportunity that presents itself, specially if it's an amoral/moral one. Or that Geralt simply couldn't say "No" in certain occasions, like the vampires' and, prior of knowing the outcome, Adda's. Not because he's an immoral sexist, but because he's not in control of every situation. Or that Shani and Triss require a gift for the second sex card because, at that point, they were expecting for Geralt to tell her lover that he reciprocates her feelings.

It's a funny, original series. The author does remark why some of these situations are very off-putting (watermelon elf and Vesna Hood). But ultimately her entire post can be cataloged as sexist. She never had in mind that she was playing a videogame that uses videogame logic, more specifically, RPG logic. An NPC asks something, you search for it, give it to the NPC and get a reward. That's it, it's not a Real-Life Simulator. Putting aside the obligatory plot-sex situations, there wasn't any need for making such a fuzz about it.
Posted September 21, 2014
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Waltorious: What exactly is a feminist prude? Is that somehow different than just a regular feminist?
Pretty much the dictionary definition of prude, in that she disapproves of sex or portrayals of sex she doesn't approve of. There are lots of feminists who aren't prudes.

She makes flat statements that the sex cards are "sexist" and that the the entire game portrays all women as using sex for gain. Neither of those are true, but they form the whole basis for her opinion. Even if they were true, I don't see how that contradicts the overall tone of the game.

I mean, let's go through character by character and assess how men are portrayed in the game. I'm not actually going to do that, but it pretty much comes down to: drunk and brawling in taverns when not conspiring to rape and murder. Nobody seems worried about that, nor should they be.
Posted September 22, 2014
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UniversalWolf: Pretty much the dictionary definition of prude, in that she disapproves of sex or portrayals of sex she doesn't approve of. There are lots of feminists who aren't prudes.
Huh. I got the impression she was the opposite of a prude.

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UniversalWolf: She makes flat statements that the sex cards are "sexist" and that the the entire game portrays all women as using sex for gain. Neither of those are true, but they form the whole basis for her opinion. Even if they were true, I don't see how that contradicts the overall tone of the game.
I do not recall her making those statements. In fact, she spends a good deal of time discussing how the game DOESN'T portray all women as using sex for gain, and spends disproportionate amounts of time discussing the examples where this isn't the case.

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UniversalWolf: I mean, let's go through character by character and assess how men are portrayed in the game. I'm not actually going to do that, but it pretty much comes down to: drunk and brawling in taverns when not conspiring to rape and murder. Nobody seems worried about that, nor should they be.
That's changing the subject, isn't it? Yes, we could have a discussion about the portrayal of men in the game, and we could come up with plenty of valid criticisms of that too (in spite of your belief that we shouldn't worry about it). But the fact that we can do that in no way changes or diminishes the discussion about how women are portrayed in the game.

Many people here are suggesting that the author is making too big a deal out of it, that it's just a videogame and it's not really doing any harm. But a lot of these portrayals of female characters become so ingrained that players don't notice them, or don't think they matter, which can in turn lead to the portrayals becoming accepted as normal, and people viewing real women the same way they are portrayed in works of fiction like The Witcher. Which definitely can be a problem. It's not that games need to change necessarily (although a little more variety in new games would be nice), it's more that players should be aware of these things. I think the series does a great job of illustrating some problematic characterizations that many players might not have thought about.

Not every player has to have a problem with the characters in The Witcher, but they should at least realize that some players do, and maybe understand why.
Posted September 22, 2014
Why the hell do people feel the need to scrutinise games for hints here and there about imbalance between sexes, straight-gay and just about anything under the sun?

In this case, it's a game basically set in the Dark Ages, during war, and people are surprised that some women use sex as a means to get what they want, or need, such as security?

It's the same old idiocy with gaming critique though. People chopping off each other's heads if perfectly fine, nobody have a problem with that apparently, but show a tit here and there, and the creators clearly are born with horns, and are sexist pigs to boot.
Posted September 22, 2014
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Pangaea666: Why the hell do people feel the need to scrutinise games for hints here and there about imbalance between sexes, straight-gay and just about anything under the sun?

In this case, it's a game basically set in the Dark Ages, during war, and people are surprised that some women use sex as a means to get what they want, or need, such as security?

It's the same old idiocy with gaming critique though. People chopping off each other's heads if perfectly fine, nobody have a problem with that apparently, but show a tit here and there, and the creators clearly are born with horns, and are sexist pigs to boot.
1) because hordes of gays have infested most game forums, and rant, always complaining about sexes imbalance, or nag constantly for homosexual in game content to be added. or feminists, who instead of putting down the damned staff that startled them, dabble in it and demand it to be watered down because it offended them. the witcher forums had a large flame war in the past, about dethmold's and philippa's ending in the game, and how the game bashes homos because of these scenes (roche cutting off his balls and slitting his throat, philippa having her eyesockets removed). never saw anything more stupid, and/or pompous, than that. people mixing real life rights with in game themes and their depictions...

2) people are hypocites, pretenders, or ignorant buffoons for the worse. in certain aspects, real life itself can be much more disturbing, or "profitable" for our amoral friends, than the fantasy world presented here. last time i saw, all witcher world women are at least adult, and not human/living/real. out there, even minors strip naked before their web-cameras, in godforsaken SOCIAL sites (like that stickam)! and we are not in the middle ages, alas.

3) as long as people bury their heads in sand, thinking they monitor everything by and while doing so, thinking they solved both all individual and world problems together and they NEED to shed the sparkling light of their magnificent wisdom over the rest, shit is always bound to happen and disputes. and while a bunch of good people argue online about the morality of a game and its themes/depictions, real people "whore out" and ruin/corrupt others or themselves offline, or even in other online places that their activity is more connected to offline activities. people's logic and priorities must be pretty messed up, in modern times...
Post edited September 22, 2014 by KiNgBrAdLeY7
Posted September 22, 2014
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Pangaea666: In this case, it's a game basically set in the Dark Ages, during war, and people are surprised that some women use sex as a means to get what they want, or need, such as security?
Exactly what I've been saying. Women couldn't have much expectations in life, so it wouldn't be unusual for them to use sex to gain something (power, medicine, security, etc.)
I think people tend to forget that this isn't the classic medieval fantasy story where women are portrayed with equal rights and opportunities in life, all races coexist with each other, monsters are all evil and it's all black and white.
Posted September 22, 2014
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Pangaea666: It's the same old idiocy with gaming critique though. People chopping off each other's heads if perfectly fine, nobody have a problem with that apparently, but show a tit here and there, and the creators clearly are born with horns, and are sexist pigs to boot.
I see this argument a lot, but it doesn't make any sense. First of all, no one is saying what you are saying they're saying. At no point in the series I linked (which you obviously did not read) was it suggested that showing some naked ladies made the game sexist. In fact, one of the author's favorite female characters in the game was Morenn, who is the only female character in the game who is completely naked at all times. It's not about nudity, it's about how women are portrayed, which involves the writing and characterization even more than physical appearance.

Which leads to your other argument:

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Pangaea666: In this case, it's a game basically set in the Dark Ages, during war, and people are surprised that some women use sex as a means to get what they want, or need, such as security?
The "realism" argument. First, the game is not realistic at all. It's full of magic and monsters and all sorts of other things that never actually existed. Second, the women in the Witcher did not act at all like I would expect from the Dark Ages. I personally think it would have been more interesting if the game had dealt with what you describe, i.e. women using sex to get what they want or need. But in the Witcher most of the sex feels pretty random, and in fact it often supports the idea that women can't have sex just because they want to, which is weird... instead it's almost always in exchange for something. If you read the series (or at least the last summary post) it explains this well.

Also, while I've only read the first collection of Witcher short stories (in English translation), those really didn't portray women as using sex "as a means to get what they want, or need, such as security." I could be mistaken, but I believe every instance of sex in those stories is on an equal footing, undertaken for pleasure or from love more than anything else. I guess in one story it's possible to read an ulterior motive into it, but I didn't' get that impression. So unless the Witcher novels involve a rather abrupt shift in tone from the short stories, I don't understand when people say that women using sex transactionally is somehow required by the game's setting.

Lastly, to address the "no one has a problem with the violence, only with the sex" argument, this is again missing the point. Violence absolutely can be a problem if it isn't handled well. Sex absolutely can be fine if it's handled well. Personally I think the Witcher 2 does a much better job with sex, for example. I wouldn't say it's perfect, but very few games are perfect. But again, it's all about how it's handled. It's not how much of it you have, it's how it's presented, whether it fits with the world and characters of the game, whether it's trivialized or treated seriously, etc.
Posted September 22, 2014
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Pangaea666: In this case, it's a game basically set in the Dark Ages, during war, and people are surprised that some women use sex as a means to get what they want, or need, such as security?
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DarkAkriloth: Exactly what I've been saying. Women couldn't have much expectations in life, so it wouldn't be unusual for them to use sex to gain something (power, medicine, security, etc.)
I think people tend to forget that this isn't the classic medieval fantasy story where women are portrayed with equal rights and opportunities in life, all races coexist with each other, monsters are all evil and it's all black and white.
Even if we accept that women having sex on a purely transactional basis isn't a problem in and of itself (even where it doesn't makes sense due to the thing being sought is of trifling value, as with the tulips, or where the woman in question is in possession of sufficient magical power that the mores of common society should be as so much vegemite), there's the larger problem of the mechanic that governed it in TW1. Extra Punctuation did a bit on "mechanics as metaphor" that focuses on how mechanics can be used to help tell the story and, more importantly, how game developers not thinking about what their mechanics are communicating can have rather unfortunate unintended consequences. Here, the mechanic at issue is "sleep with woman, get card". It might very well be, as the article writer mentions, possible that this was intended as a shortcut to avoid blowing resources of ME style sex scenes, but it strongly is reminiscent of a card-collecting mechanic, the sort of thing that might show up as a sidequest. If something is a sidequest, it appeals on some level to attempting to complete it (especially in an RPG that already appeals to those instincts); since cards are collected upon having sex, sex is incentivized. It's worth noting that to the extent that sexual encounters are entered into for this purpose, the act is not entered into for mutual satisfaction in the form of casual sex, a desire for company or relationship of some sort, or anything other than using the female as a means to an end (collecting the card); the female is not a partner at that point, and she has been reduced to a conquest, wherein the sex is entered into without any thought or caring for what, if anything, the other party is getting out of it on a physical or emotional level. In short, any sex that is incentivized by the mechanic is incentivized not because a particular character is uniquely attractive or anything, but because the player is trying to score as much as possible, turning sex into an eye-rollingly insulting version of the antics of a stereotypical college frat boy where the female might as well be a metaphysical stamp on a score card as opposed to a thinking, feeling human being.

Again, that might not be the intention, but given it's resemblance to a CCG mechanic and the fact that RPGs on some level already appeal to completionist tendencies, the mechanic resulted in, at least for me, a brief moment of excitement at the prospect of collecting all the cards, followed quickly by horror at realizing that I was contemplating having sex without any regard for the other party.

That's not even touching on the other things the mechanics imply. Early on, giving stuff to females generally is the prelude to sex, to the point where the article writer specifically mentioned feeling frustrated at getting "herbzoned" after giving something to an herbalist, expecting sex in return because of the expectations the game had established by that point (giving stuff to females will result in sex).

tl;dr: even if the depiction of female sexuality shouldn't be making me headesk, the mechanics that govern how sex works in game handle the topic shittily.
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Pangaea666: In this case, it's a game basically set in the Dark Ages, during war, and people are surprised that some women use sex as a means to get what they want, or need, such as security?
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Waltorious: The "realism" argument. First, the game is not realistic at all. It's full of magic and monsters and all sorts of other things that never actually existed.
I actually wouldn't mind attempting to portray a setting modeled after the past and making a point to portray just how shitty life was back then, which is what the Last Wish seemed like it was trying to do, but [url=http://www.gog.com/forum/the_witcher/would_somebody_please_sell_me_on_this_game/post14]badly.
Post edited September 22, 2014 by Jonesy89
Posted September 23, 2014
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Jonesy89: I actually wouldn't mind attempting to portray a setting modeled after the past and making a point to portray just how shitty life was back then, which is what the Last Wish seemed like it was trying to do, but [url=http://www.gog.com/forum/the_witcher/would_somebody_please_sell_me_on_this_game/post14]badly.
I didn't remember The Last Wish very well (the specific short story, not the whole collection, to clarify) so I just re-read it. I remember the ending bothered me the first time, but this time I'm not so sure. Yennefer certainly fits trope of a woman using her sexuality ruthlessly for personal gain, but the story does at least give her reason to act this way. I think the part that bothered me the most was Geralt's description of how sorceresses modify their appearances through magic to fit the needs of their profession, which is recounted as if he believes physical appearance is the sole judge of a woman's worth (note that I'm reading the English translation, so I don't know what the original Polish passage sounds like). But then Yennefer punishes him harshly for thinking this way, while implying that the fact that so many men think similarly is precisely why she acts the way she does, and treats men with such disdain.

Sure, that's cliched, but at least there's an explanation. Also, unless I'm forgetting some of the other stories, it's not a cliche that is used for any other female characters. Not so in the game, where most of them use sex as a bargaining chip, if not quite so ruthlessly.

Still, I think it was my least favorite story in the collection. I'll have to read the novels at some point to see how the characters are handled.
Posted September 23, 2014
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Jonesy89: I actually wouldn't mind attempting to portray a setting modeled after the past and making a point to portray just how shitty life was back then, which is what the Last Wish seemed like it was trying to do, but [url=http://www.gog.com/forum/the_witcher/would_somebody_please_sell_me_on_this_game/post14]badly.
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Waltorious: I didn't remember The Last Wish very well (the specific short story, not the whole collection, to clarify) so I just re-read it. I remember the ending bothered me the first time, but this time I'm not so sure. Yennefer certainly fits trope of a woman using her sexuality ruthlessly for personal gain, but the story does at least give her reason to act this way. I think the part that bothered me the most was Geralt's description of how sorceresses modify their appearances through magic to fit the needs of their profession, which is recounted as if he believes physical appearance is the sole judge of a woman's worth (note that I'm reading the English translation, so I don't know what the original Polish passage sounds like). But then Yennefer punishes him harshly for thinking this way, while implying that the fact that so many men think similarly is precisely why she acts the way she does, and treats men with such disdain.

Sure, that's cliched, but at least there's an explanation. Also, unless I'm forgetting some of the other stories, it's not a cliche that is used for any other female characters. Not so in the game, where most of them use sex as a bargaining chip, if not quite so ruthlessly.

Still, I think it was my least favorite story in the collection. I'll have to read the novels at some point to see how the characters are handled.
The thing that irritated me about that story is that I don't buy the reason behind Yennefer's approach. Sapkowski establishes that only unattractive women get to practice magic, because their families want to marry off anyone good looking; it's horrible, but it's in line with the tone of the setting, so I was ok with it as a logical outgrowth of the established setting. Where I started groaning was when the story stated that business about "the prestige of the profession" requiring using magic to alter their looks; if Sapkowski wanted to show that sexism is pervasive to the point that even having access to magic (which by all rights should put a person in the best position possible to say nuts to societal norms) won't will still result in society dicking you over, he didn't do a terribly great job establishing it. If that was the atmosphere that Yennefer had to work with, both when dealing with magical and non-magical people, I might be able to see her as being in a position where it would make sense for her to start thinking that the only way to make any progress would be by seduction; the problem is, without that establishment, all that's left is a character who wields the power cosmic to the point that the norms of common society should be as so much Vegemite, yet she goes straight to aiming below the belt (pun very much intended) without any discernible reason (to me, at least).

Bringing it back to the games, though, I would argue that Triss (if not all female magic users) suffers from the same problem, but that would require me replaying the Witcher to make sure I am not talking out of my ass. Surprisingly, the prospect doesn't appeal to me much.
Post edited September 23, 2014 by Jonesy89
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The WitcherWho prefers The Witcher over The Witcher 2?(71 posts)(71 posts)
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