Nabeel Ansari

I am just generally not a fan of all this "WISYWIG USE YOUR MOUSE AND WASTE TIME" thing. Forums are forums. Why can't I just type and use keyboard shortcuts that have worked ever since word processing was a thing? :/ Even right now I'm unable to use "ctrl+A" to copy or get rid of this message as I'm typing it. If I drag my mouse to highlight the whole thing the quote thing isn't included, so if I try to delete the quote is still there, then have to double click the grey area to delete it. Now imagine I was multi quoting. Now basically the fastest way to clear my message is to press F5. And in something that should just be as easy as writing text, that's kind of sad. I kind of miss vBulletin now. Everything looks nicer now, sure, but the functionality is all mucked up.

It's now extremely hard to remove quotes using "backspace" key. Before it was just a textual element that would get deleted, now you have to click on the grey bubble and do it. Additionally when a quote is present in my message, "ctrl+A" no longer works anywhere. I question the UX choices of these IPS people.

Nah man, why would japanese people know how to speak english

Except there's no reason that Square would have ever changed it to Aerith in literally every other appearance of the name were it not that Aeris was indeed a mistranslation You're saying things like "not 100% of the time" and speculating about who gets to decide; this isn't subjective or a mystery here. Canon is law. That's how IP works. It's canonically Aerith, decided by Square, who owns the character, and so it is Aerith, and nothing you say will ever change it. They didn't "give in" to pressure from "language dorks". Square doesn't give in to pressure from tiny subsets of its fanbase. Her name is Aerith because they said so.

Aeris is the transliteration. A transliteration =/= translation. Transliteration has nothing to do with intended meaning; it's simply a conversion of the pronounced sound into a different character set. "Aerith" pronounced in japanese sounds "Aeris-u" and so Aeris is the transliteration. And because 90's, the dialog writing was super lazy and didn't really aim to account for tiny details like that. The correct translation is "Aerith". That's why literally everywhere else they changed it to Aerith. Because they weren't changing it to Aerith, they were using the correct translation (where the original US release of FFVII was incorrect). Also fuck off guys there's nothing else in this thread to talk about

"it's aeris i don't care if it's canonically aerith"

Why isn't anyone talking about Fallout 4? Post your adventures, funny experiences, awesomest weapons, coolest settlements, etc.

It's worth the full price, honestly. I find more value in it than I do in Komplete. (Granted, I'm talking K8 experience here, had a lot less stuff)

It seems like none of the old quote tags are working. Broke all the other forum threads. Also "Location" under person has no space between the label and the field. Also what happened to our signatures? I agree with Rozovian; I think the one thing I extremely dislike about IPS is how much white space is padded on everything. I have a 1080p monitor but it can only get about 1 or 2 forum posts fully onto when it's fullscreened. And 1 or 2 forum posts is not a monitor's worth of content. If I put it at about 90% zoom, everything looks so much better. This might not be something you can control, and certainly something I can get used to (and pretty much have so far).

You completely do not understand at all what I was saying.

I personally trust the more recent (and voice acted) game than the 90s text-based translation one. Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerith_Gainsborough

Anyone who played Crisis Core knows it's Aerith

I think tying ourselves to projected definitions and rules about what we should be doing completely circumvents the point of art in the first place. Art is about doing what you want and the evaluation of art boils down to who the hell cares what you're doing. If Squeenix is making something and it has some aspect (design choice, motivation, etc.) that makes you not care about it, that's not "dangerous", it's not "bad for the medium" or anything, they're just doing what they want to do, making lots of money doing it. Video games aren't *just art*. They're *software products* and have to meet standards of operation. It's the only medium that requires an insanely heavy amount of mathematical implementation. Ultimately shooting for putting video games on the same level as film and books and trying to evaluate them in a similar manner is silly. But even so, many if not most people don't give a damn if their media in any form is artistically valid or insightful or necessary. They watch or play something if they like it, if they enjoy it, or resonate with it. And that's okay. If the FFVII remake is re-using old IP, then... great. If people like it, it's a good thing.

I've been feeling edgy these days

You can't ask "what is even the point of them making this game if the combat is different" (which is, by the way, a silly question) and then try to fall back on "I'm merely expressing my disappointment". It's a silly question and deserves scrutiny. The point of making the game is to capitalize on the branding and to make boatloads of money. Changing the combat system doesn't run counter to that goal in any meaningful capacity. The answer to the question is obvious; so why are you asking it? It's not because you don't know the answer, it's because you think and have said several times that not having it be turn-based makes it not even "somewhat similar" and disqualifies it from being the remake that Squeenix promised. Even though no reasonable person who knew what FFVII was would look at this trailer and think "it's not somewhat similar to FFVII".

I think the change in combat system is a sufficient middle finger to nostalgia-seekers.

Like I said, if there is a game that narratively has undertones of encouraging misogynistic behavior (gameplay that "rewards" players for taking in-game actions that are sexist), then like I said definitely has the effect that you claim. As far as actual common sexist tropes like damsel in distress storylines and sexual objectification, I see no reason to believe that those things translate to internalizing sexual behaviors/actions. What are they internalizing? The belief that women are weak? The belief that women are sexual objects, or that their value is decided by breast size? And that these new beliefs translate to sexist actions in the future? Didn't we just have an argument where you said you can't influence peoples' belief and motivations to make them not do sexist things, but now you can when you DO want to make them do sexist things? So peoples' minds and "invisible" characters ARE "intangibly" malleable, but only inevitably to make them worse? And suddenly now these new internalized beliefs matter when you just got done telling me we don't care about sexist beliefs/attitudes, only actions? You'll need to clarify that; I find it self-contradicting. I also might be lumping you in with Bleck's stuff too much, please point it out. Here's the bottom line. You're telling me we can't fix people internally. However, you're right now trying to tell me that media can and does damage people internally (which is how I'm interpreting what you say is seeing sexist things in media and internalizing those ideas). So why can we internally damage people but not also internally fix them? Or do you believe that in conjunction with your belief that sexist media makes sexist people (who do sexist things in real life) that progressive media makes progressive people (who do progressive things in real life). I feel like to have a reasonable point of view, you either need to believe both or believe neither. I believe neither, and if you believe both, then yes, I can agree to disagree. Because then you're being consistent. But I don't see this agreeing with the assertion that you can't change peoples' beliefs and motivations, because I see these both as doing just that. I see your entire issue as doing just that. And my shtick is that there are better ways to do just that, that extend outside of the confines of media. He's still talking about the subject of evaluating if a person is or is not sexist, not necessarily extending to how it relates to solving sexism in games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_remake "A remake typically shares very little of the original assets and code with the original game, distinguishing it from an "enhanced port," partial remake, or remastering." I see you eyeing the quote "fundamental gameplay concepts", but I maintain fundamentally it's a gameplay concept that did not serve the game well and placed a barrier on the immersion. So I see changing it is a plus, and I see that change is allowed in something called a remake and not really in something called an update or remaster (and remaster has very specific technical definition). The bottom line is I don't think they were dishonest about how they portrayed this game (they said from the very beginning combat wouldn't be the same), so I don't see people having a right to feel like they've been lied to. Anyone who feels like they're being lied to has just not been keeping up. And I don't see a right to be angry at all, since beyond feeling like you were lied to, it's now purely just "I want the game to be my way and there's no point in them making it if it's not going to be my way because the game is pointless if it's not complete the same as the original just with better graphics even though there are swaths of people who hated the old way and the entire current generation doesn't have the patience for menu turn-based combat" It's clearly not pointless if there are lots of people who will like it and even prefer it to the old one. Asking "what's the point?" is a loaded question. The point is to revive the branding and narrative of FFVII since it's something a lot of people want revived. Changing the combat style is a miniscule aspect if you consider that they're projecting to retain the narrative (even quoted the guy saying that the Cloud cross-dressing scene is going to be in there). Sure it changes the genre but I guarantee you that most of the reason people like FFVII is because of its characters and its music, not because it has some meaningful iteration of turn-based combat and they won't actually really care if now it's more immersive and they have more direct controls of their favorite bad-asses with cooler camera work.. *game has same music, characters, story, atmosphere, visual aesthetic and is completely in line with all future offshoots of the branding, including Crisis Core which basically foreshadowed where FF combat was going* *employs reductio sarcasm that implies it's not "somewhat similar"* You're trying to imply that I'm functionally saying you're being unreasonable. There's no need to, because I explicitly think you're being unreasonable. I think being mad that Squeenix is making a game in a way that you don't want them to is unreasonable, since 1) it's not your IP, 2) you have not already bought into the game yet, and 3) they have not at all lied to you about what it's going to be. (They're not destroying something you own, you're not losing money, and they're directly telling you what they're doing long before you have the chance to buy it and be disappointed)

Yeah. I think people will buy it for name alone, a name that's been slow cooking its fanbase for almost two decades. I don't think we've seen any titles in a long time that had insanely large fanbases waiting to buy them.

I'd rather ask what you meant by "significant penalty" (your words) because you know better than I do what you were intending to say.

EDIT: Re-read your post and it makes more sense to me now. You say "people who do sexist actions are 100% sexist" in response to someone who clearly doesn't agree with that, the tone you use is one that feels a lot like you're telling them that you're right and they're wrong in absolutes even though right now you're telling me that it's just your definition. If I'm wrong about this, just say so. Anyways, I agree to stop arguing about arguing (so don't actually say so, just ignore it). So going back to sexism: Do sex mini-games make people cat-call? Do damsel-in-distress plotlines make kids grow up to approve of rape or have fuzzy non-distinct definitions of rape? Lower wage in the workforce? Worse selection rate in job interviews? People with sexist attitudes and beliefs are more likely to do those things than people without sexist beliefs/attitudes. I think neither rescuing Princess Peach nor bedding Aphrodite nor giving DOA characters swimsuits has any effect whatsoever on that. If there is a game that narratively has moral undertones that approve of rape or cat-calling or discriminating in the workplace or any of these other actual issues women face in the real world, then yes, the game is breeding sexist people because it's directly encouraging those behaviors. That is actually really bad, and I would venture against my belief in freedom of expression to condemn it as I did with the game Hatred. I think the only thing you can truly say is that sexist tropes in games propagate more sexist tropes in games. This is the only thing that I agree with. These are the only sexist actions I see resulting from sexist tropes (the continuation of making games with sexist tropes). It's purely an issue of minority representation, which can hurt minorities. It does not equate to minority oppression, i.e. it does not feed back into other unrelated sexist behaviors like the ones I mentioned above. Sexist tropes in games stay within the confines of sexist tropes in games and goes nowhere else. Maybe you don't actually disagree with this, I don't know. But this is what I've been trying to say. I think sexist tropes in games is bad. I don't think it increases general society sexism in all of those other civil rights issues and the like. So that's not why it's bad to me. I just see it as bad because it's tasteless quality of art, and also that it makes people feel insecure about their place in the world. But at the same time, I agree with artistic/freedom of expression. So if there are people out there that use these tropes not because they're easy or make money but because they internally actually resonate with them (i.e. they have sexist attitudes/beliefs) then that's something that's not stopped without addressing general sexism ("my sexism", the sexism that makes living and surviving in the world harder for women), which is, yeah, really hard and complicated to do since it's inherently a psychological and sociological issue. 100% agreement. See above reply. As a final note, I am in agreement with you that natural ways of getting rid of these things in media is fine. Market demand, proper critique, whatever. However as a response to something Bleck said, he's made it clear he believes in penalty (in his words) for sexist media. And I take issue with that. I was taking issue before with Anita because there were words flying around that she was calling for censoring or pulling games off shelves. Since I have learned that's not the case, we can both agree my arguments up to that point are irrelevant now. TL;DR I agree with literally everything besides anywhere where you make a connection that playing a sexist game turns you into a sexist (or helps you internalize sexist tendencies).

Every single piece of material I've read on the subject is void of the word "update" and uses the word "remake", which I just explained to you is something completely different. Yes, the extent to which something is a remake and not an update is arbitrary. But it's not arbitrary that a remake by definition is afforded way more change than an update is. So if people think they're being promised an "update", I really don't know what to say, because I've seen no promise of an update in any of the press coverage. All I've seen is trailers, game footage, and interviews talking about an FFVII remake (completely new assets and source code). It has been stated, early on, several times that this is NOT an HD remaster. They're not pulling any fast ones and they weren't building it up to be something that it is ultimately not (which is what you're suggesting). They have been consistent with how they have talked about this game since it's been announced. Anyone who still feels like they've been lied to or shortchanged is simply fabricating issues that don't actually exist because they want something to complain about. I also will always maintain that I can blame people for being mad because it's nostalgia-fueled entitlement, and I generally think entitlement is wrong and silly. Taking anything as unambiguous fact in a thread about game design is silly. I'm not saying there's no problem for being nickel and dimed for parts of the same content. I'm saying that assuming each episode is going to be watered down and stretched a la The Hobbit series is still unfounded right now. I'm also not happy that it's being split up.

"Im uneducated as fuck and proud of it" -Bleck 2016

Are people forgetting that the original FF7 was already episodic...? It came on several discs. Yes, they're nickel and diming by selling them separately this time but thinking that each episode will be watered down content is kind of missing the point. The original episodes weren't watered down, what supports the hypothesis that the new ones would be?

Your definition is just as arbitrary as anyone else's, and so asserting it as infallibly true (read the tone and wording of your posts, dude) is nothing short of disingenuous. You say things like "That's what sexism IS!!!!!" Well, no, that's clearly not the case if sexism is ill defined in the first place. He probably doesn't believe in formal psychology. I'm not saying this to be demeaning; many people reject formalities of soft sciences because they're... Well soft.