Orb Candy, Diablo 3, and Sending a Message

This is quite saddening because, for some reason, you actually believe the shit you fling like an uncivilized monkey towards anybody who dares even come within view. But still, you've piqued my interest and I have to ask the question - what makes you think that the UI is, in any way, shape or form, depicting the chained females as "sex slaves" or, rather, misogynistic?

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rareness wrote:

This is quite saddening because, for some reason, you actually believe the shit you fling like an uncivilized monkey towards anybody who dares even come within view. But still, you've piqued my interest and I have to ask the question - what makes you think that the UI is, in any way, shape or form, depicting the chained females as "sex slaves" or, rather, misogynistic?

Well, faced with such a civilized query I suppose it is my duty to respond. My honor as a gentlemen demands nothing less. Certainly, the noble and correct thing to do is indulge you with a quality answer that satisfies beyond question.

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Ganrao wrote:

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rareness wrote:

This is quite saddening because, for some reason, you actually believe the shit you fling like an uncivilized monkey towards anybody who dares even come within view. But still, you've piqued my interest and I have to ask the question - what makes you think that the UI is, in any way, shape or form, depicting the chained females as "sex slaves" or, rather, misogynistic?

Well, faced with such a civilized query I suppose it is my duty to respond. My honor as a gentlemen demands nothing less. Certainly, the noble and correct thing to do is indulge you with a quality answer that satisfies beyond question.

Honor is dead, nobility is dead, and judging by the fact that you dodged the question, I can only assume you have no rhyme or reason as to why you believe the UI has "sex slaves" or that it's misogynistic or degrading to women in any way.

Actually, this came up: http://puu.sh/5ubbN.png

So in reality you're just a "troll" or some shit. Rather depressing I fell for such obvious bait. Oh well.

Not all art is sanitized and happy. But it is still art and has value.
For example, "The Rape of Proserpina":





There's a thousand better examples out there.

You make assumptions that the women depicted on the UI are sex slaves. That's your interpretation and you're welcome to it. I don't see that when I look at it. Maybe you should look inwardly and ask yourself why you are sexualizing that image.

You are very rude and condescending in your posts too, might want to work on that.

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Plebian13 wrote:

You make the assumption they are sex slaves, but I don't understand why. Art is open to interpretation, and you interpretative it as the women chained to your health/mana are sex slaves.

My interpretation is that women chained to your health is your heart, where as the women chained to your mana is your soul.

Frankly, I find the conclusions you came to to be disgusting, but each is entitled to their own opinion. Regardless, I don't see why conclusions you came to should be justification to change the UI.

I see now that what I posted was already said well by Plebian13 earlier.
Should give it some thought.

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Simaimch wrote:

Proof?!

As a few examples: The Afterglow of Construct Accessibility: The Behavioral Consequences of Priming Men to View Women as Sexual Objects, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103185710220

The effects of mass media exposure on acceptance of violence against women, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0092656681900404

Images of women in advertisements: Effects on attitudes related to sexual aggression http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01544216

Searching google scholar for sexism turns up large amounts of papers like these. Sexism does not need to be "active" in the same way as violence; holding sexist opinions (for example, the sort of sexist opinions which would cause you to comment on a message board that you "like seeing women in chains") is essentially different from being violent, at least to the extent that subjects can be primed for the former and not for the latter.

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Simaimch wrote:

I'd say if you're offended you have some serious issues with either your ego, your religion, your education or with your girlfriend.

I cannot accept that this is anything other than an attempt to silence dissent. The notion that people who disagree with you "have some serious issues," whereas all who agree are noble freedom fighters on the side of expression and art, simply is not arguing in good faith.

If you really need it to be explained that the complement to "your girlfriend is angry about this" is "... because this is specifically offensive to women," then I don't know what more anyone can write. If you really believe that men cannot (or should not) be allowed to be offended by things which happen to be offensive to women, then again... I am at a loss. And if you believe that only men should be allowed to play PoE...

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_Nerevarine_ wrote:

Not all art is sanitized and happy. But it is still art and has value.

Prove that the design elements of the UI are art. Do the naked women have artistic meaning? Merit? Do they represent something which would be specifically lost if they had clothing, or if they did not have shackles? Clearly some users in this thread find their primary purpose to be titillation - the distinguishing feature, in law, of something which is not art. If they were art, they would be defensible on artistic grounds: so let's hear it! What grand artistic statement is lost by not degrading and objectifying women on the UI?

edit:

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_Nerevarine_ wrote:

I don't see that when I look at it. Maybe you should look inwardly and ask yourself why you are sexualizing that image.

You are very rude and condescending in your posts too, might want to work on that.

1. "I'm not offended, so you can't be offended. And it's your fault you're offended." This is called "victim blaming," and it's not a reasonable form of argument. Someone is offended, and they've made an attempt to explain why: it should be enough to accept that a person legitimately feels that they have been wronged without claiming that their feelings are invalid.

2. I really don't think it's fair to jump on the OP for the tone of their posts, considering the tone of some others...

DrunkardCain you're taking on a herculean task trying to reason with sexists. I didn't bother in most of my responses because none of the posters are being sincere. They just want to maintain the status quo and keep their free ass titties ass ass titties in games right where they are, because gosh darnit they are ENTITLED to as many asses and titties as they can get.

You're more patient than I am.










I will let all the sexists reading this post in on a little secret... I am only responding to you because every day that passes this thread gets more views and more people see my OP. I could not care less if they read anything else in the thread, and I guarantee you nobody who matters cares about your weak ass attempts at justifying the sex slaves in the UI. You're not making me mad, but I do pity most of you and the women in your lives.

The best part about revealing this "secret" is that it doesn't matter, ignorant kids will continue to bump my thread for weeks if I were interested in keeping it alive that long. I can assure you I am not, though. GGG has had ample opportunity to keep me as not just a customer, but an articulate and vocal proponent of their high quality game. That opportunity has nearly been lost, and will be gone soon.

I was planning to post something on those forums about that awful “chained naked women on the UI” stuff, but as a good forum member, I decided to use the search feature first and found out this thread. There are 14 pages, and apparently it's been discussed in several other topics.
Since I'm quite lazy, could someone (maybe Ganrao) please summarize everything worth nothing for me ? I'm interested in anything the dev' have said (or not said) about it, but I don't feel the courage to read through countless arguments with random internet people explaining how people that have any problem with this issue are white knights or any other random stupid ramblings.

[edit]Also stole and edited a bit your signature, Ganrao. I trust you don't mind.[/edit]

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DrunkardCain wrote:

How is it an acceptable response "go play hello kitty online"? Or "I like seeing women in chains"? These are directly proving the point that the UI is degrading: you can't honestly expect to defend something as "not sexist" by being sexist.

Wait. Where exactly do you draw the line between sexist and heterosexual? It's quite appropriate that men like to look at beautiful women more than they like to look at handsome men. I know a number of girls who also enjoy such imagery. Or is it chains that bother you? In which case, maybe the problem isn't sex (as in, gender) per se? Maybe it's the attributes of slavery and denigration you're after? In which case, yes, it's quite possible this isn't sexist despite the way whoever saying that likes their women.

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DrunkardCain wrote:

And that's the problem: the UI is a continuation of this idea that causal sexism, degrading and objectifying individuals because of their sex is okay.

Again, this is the extension of heterosexuality: males prefer looking at females, and vice versa. I don't understand what's so puzzling about this. Not to mention the vast majority of both GGG developer crew and the ARPG audience are males. (No, I don't have statistics on hand. Yes, this is from personal experience.) It's natural they would want to look at females more than the otherwise, rather than sexist, unless you intentionally blur the line. You could make a point that this game is intended more for grownup boys than girls (so there is a discrepancy of sorts), but again, grownup boys are more interested in OCD-centric genres than grownup girls are, for better or for worse. They're getting flak for that, too, not in the least because they tend to do it at the expense of activities that make them more socially attractive, which girls typically do better to adhere to.

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DrunkardCain wrote:

it's a deliberate design choice meant to be part of a dark/gothic fantasy setting. But that raises the question: why does it have to be naked women?

Because naked women are beautiful, greatly so compared to zombies and squids? Weird question anyway, I suppose "why not" would also suffice. Do you question Boris Vallejo's art this way too? He had a number of great quotes for those who have questioned the need of showing skin in his pictures.

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DrunkardCain wrote:

If the UI is such a small element of the game, what harm is there in changing it to make it better for players (and potential players) who aren't comfortable with it?

Frankly, there will always (and I mean always) be something people will be upset about, and this in particular is a game that ushers in controversial themes to a significant extent (but oddly enough, none of the exiles actually say anything more offensive than "ass" I believe, which ends up weird for people of their social stature; I would rightfully expect them to swear more, especially since a good part of them aren't educated or otherwise smart).

So in order for the whole thing to remain coherent and true to the authors' intention, you have to draw the line beyond which stylistic elements must be preserved as they are. Personally I draw the line where the original artists do. If they want their product to look this way, it's a take it or leave it for me. I think this is the only fair way to do so both because the authors take complete responsibility for their creation that way, and because it's a very clear line that prevents slippery slopes ("if you changed the orbs, censor the statue dongs too! and the blood!").

Trust me, I oppose gratuitous fan service wherever I see it, and featuring a beautiful and unusually well-endowed (for her type of figure at least) woman on a poster for this game, filled to the brim with the grim and unpleasant imagery, actually irked me as a typical "they're doing it because it sells" thing, and this wouldn't be the first time I said it on the forum. I find Scion's character schizophrenic and unrealistic, whereas Shadow is much more interesting both visually and in regard to his voiced commentary; perhaps the only interesting character in the game so far actually. "A simple job, I was told", "professional integrity, it's called" and so on; that is actually well-written: witty, self-ironic, and laid-back, but just enough to avoid being a wisecrack or a grumpy fart. But Shadow doesn't have boobs. And Kaom and Hyrri (some of the previous poster features) don't have character features at all so to say, despite being a nice art. A choice was made, I understand the reasons for it even though I don't condone them, but I take it rather than leave.

Life/mana orbs, however, aren't marketed nor even used as fan service in any typical way—they're just stylistic elements that many people don't even notice are there. And women are typically portrayed very tastefully in this game, to the extent that I never for a second had to think whether the girls on orbs symbolized human trafficking or any such crap, at least not any more than a stylized Atlas on a column symbolizing forced labor (exactly the same line of reasoning I would imagine). People who insist the unhappy in this thread are grasping for straws are right in my opinion. This game is one of the few that doesn't treat any single female character as a talking body. Those who aren't even willing to give it the benefit of the doubt really do need to find a better outlet for their poor argumentative abilities or leave the community never to be missed.

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oxayotlthegreat wrote:

Since I'm quite lazy, could someone (maybe Ganrao) please summarize everything worth nothing for me ?

Nothing noteworthy has happened in this thread. The responses I have gotten were both at Reddit and both said this was "being looked into". The first of those was 10 months ago. That is a long time to "look into" something. All I can believe at this point is no one at GGG really cares.