So animals don't have a right to live, right? A real nice message you're sending guys.

/facepalm

P.S. And it's even more disgusting because of the fact that Arhu is in his cat form during the dialog. Basically it's like saying: "Hey, we animals endorse the notion too. We only exist to serve humans so please kill us for whatever purpose you deem worthy."

derp

If you're going to campaign for animal rights, a CRPG where actions have no real consequence is a pretty strange place to start. And in D:OS, orcs and undead have it far worse - why not complain about their treatment also? ("Skeletons have sentience! Zombies are not just for apocalypses!").

Look, I'm not here to preach my belief in all living things being equal. It's something that should come from the heart. If you don't have it, you don't have it.

But like anyone I'm entitled to my opinion and in my opinion the scene is instant -2 to game rating. Why only -2? Because the quality of dialogue writing in D:OS is so poor and brain-hurting you have to be incredibly dim to take any of it seriously. Still, this particular remark coming from one of the game's more coherent characters (meant to be a good guy) and not triggering any response options from the player is insidious, one-sided and absolutely uncalled for.

And it's not even the only place in the game where such point of view is promoted. But hearing something like that from a dying madman is more of an "OK, whatever" thing. Here it really feels like a sudden punch in the guts.

I seem to remember not sacrificing a chicken for the blood stone; and not allowing Roy's menagerie being taken for the slaughter. I did allow the chef to catch his errant chicken, and was scolded for it. I also used a blood stone to help the beast of burden thingy that looks a bit like a guar. Other than that, I'm slightly lost, unless you're referring to actually aggressive animals, though for the most part they could be avoided.

Do you also find these things disgusting: raiding orcs, demons, summoning undead, using blades-maces-magic to harm others? or digging graves and stealing things?

Nice message they are sending eh?

/double facepalm

I also have no idea what the original poster is complaining about. I seem to remember having the opportunity to save/spare animals more often than not during my adventure.

Obvious troll is obvious...

Does standing for my views make me a troll? If so, I'm proud to be one.

Exactly what are you standing against? Would you care to clarify what it is in the game that has got you so upset? The rest of us are quite confused as to your original post, and I'm on the fence whether El Zoido is correct about you.

The problem with this entire topic is that you [OP] do not know the difference between fiction and reality apparently.

Fiction is not real, and the views expressed in that SS are not those of Larian, but of the character Arhu. And you [OP] are basically arguing "That fictional character says something that I disagree with" and drawing the conclusion that everything said by Arhu is what LARIAN endorses. (Which is insane)

What is it with D:OS pulling in these absurd topics lately......

And before you [OP] answer to my post with "But when Larian writes a character like that they endorse..."

No, THEY DO NOT. That is NOT how fictional writing WORKS. You [OP] are baiting and I stupidly replied, so the points go to you. But your entire argument is nonsensical.

Thank you I know the difference perfectly. The dialogue was written by a real person, was it not? Now, let's not pretend that Larian writers care even a little bit about the fourth wall - we all know they don't.

So the topic isn't at all about what happens in the fictional world of Rivellon. It's about the message the game sends to the player. I happen to dislike parts of the message. Strongly. And that's it.

Prodigydancer, what part of the game are you talking about?
The game goes out of its way to make you feel bad about killing animals.
Even when you get attacked by wolves, the main characters remark how sad it is that they're having to kill wolves.

If you aren't a troll, then please be specific about what part of the game offended you so much.

A fictional character thinks that it's OK to sacrifice toads. The world is lost.

See screenshot in the OP.

So you're telling me if you're friend got mortally wounded, you wouldn't kill a toad even if it meant saving him?

So by your logic, George R.R. Martin endorses incest, rape, murder, abuse and killing because he writes about it in his books and writes characters that REVEL in it.

No..... as I said in the part you smartly didn't quote because it already addressed your further points, that is NOT how fictional writing works. This has nothing to do with the 4th wall. You are blurring the line between fiction and reality and insinuate a message in reality that does not exist in reality, but only in fiction. To make it clear, you are posting here over the sacrifice of digital toads to heal ALL ILLNESSES in a fantasy world. Does that sound normal to you?

You may have taken my reply as an attack when in fact I am merely stating what you are doing.

To put it bluntly. You confuse fictional messages with reality. Which is why people think you are trolling.

Oh ffs guys stop being so gullible.

I doubt there's anything left to discuss here. In fact, I wasn't even looking for a discussion. I posted this topic mostly as an observation (and food for thought in case if anyone from Larian actually reads these boards).

It's not just about this particular offensive statement the game makes so casually. It's about the overall quality of the dialogue in D:OS. It feels like half of the text is written by an underachieving 12 years old and the other half - by a search bot programmed to pull rarely used words from Webster dictionary.

Unfortunately the end result isn't so bad as to be hilarious but is precisely bad enough to annoy you out of your mind and bore you to tears. Let me put it this way: as a fan of PS:T and The Witcher series I never thought I would feel like skipping all the dialogue in a CRPG but here I am wondering if it's possible to complete quests in this game relying solely on log notes. Then I remind myself that D:OS is probably the best RPG of the year and I can't help feeling sad. What has become of a once great genre...

No I wouldn't. You may hate me if you want to.

Death is a tragic but natural event in every being's life. Sometimes it happens early which makes the tragedy more profound but it doesn't mean you can take another life to delay the inevitable.

I'm personally disturbed -- no, disgusted is the appropriate word -- by how the devs apparently think that plants and herbs are only their to be plucked from the ground and turned into potions for our use.

How narcissistic we are! The gameworld does not revolve around us, people!

Yes, use your emo period somewhere else.

OP is upset that not all sympathetic characters are vegetarians, demands money back.

/topic

I consider this game to be done medium well. I tend to show my grill when I think about how much fun I have. If things were right with the world people would be (barbe)queuing up at gaming stores to purchase this. I'd steak my reputation on it.

Dear OP in the future please start your sentences with: As a hypocrite, ....

With kind regards,

Rashar.

Within this thread you will see illustrated for your elucidation the effects toxoplasma gondii can have on the once-rational human mind.

"I like Justin Bieber" is an opinion. "I don't like animal cruelty" is an opinion. That you find the posted quote disgusting is an opinion. But "this game presents a detrimental message about animal cruelty" is a proposition... one which you are not defending.

So don't be surprised if people give you grief.

I hate to break it to you, but there *IS* no screenshot. No picture. Nada. Nothing. Zip.

I'm beginning to believe that it is a troll attempt. I was willing to give some benefit of the doubt initially, but now....

Translation: "I was just trolling guys! Gotcha HAHAHA!"

Yes, support nature. You can start by offing yourself first

Did you find killing dozens of humans disgusting too? What about undead? Orcs? Demons? Surely demons have rights too!

so are all animal-based food sources in the game like meat etc. equally condemnable? someone killed an animal in order to procure these as well, right?

noone likes animal cruelty, but if in real life it were possible to save a human life by killing a toad i'm pretty sure that 99.9% of people would do it without hesitation (and that is a GOOD thing). people like you (the OP of this thread) are the reason that worthwhile foundations and efforts against animal cruelty have gotten a bad name and/or aren't taken as seriously as they should be.

I think his point is that it is fine to slaughter everything (humans, trolls, orcs, ...) as long as you let the toad live.

Maury Povich says "That is a lie".

Wow if it is that bad I'd say -8 overall due to writing, I pretty much instantly stop any game that makes my brain hurt. You are too kind.

Just wanted to point out that you probably meant "animals", not "living things". If you want to get a point across I'd advise you to take great care in picking the right words. Many discussions I had with all kind of activists fell short when they seemed to show a lack of a proper scientific understanding of the world.

Just wanted to come in to say that I understand where you're coming from, prodigy. Parts of the dialogue could certainly stand to be more "in character" and consistent.

That said, the character in question does seem to be rather maniacal and unconcerned with life in general (hence those, um, self-aware killing machines he likes to create). At the same time, another dialogue option/response to that statement would be a good addition.

And while I'm certainly not going to waste my day in an internet argument, I do feel that sometimes it helps for others to know they're not totally alone on a given issue. ^_^y

This is absurd. Like any game, there are people of good morality, people of obviously poor morality, and people of questionable morality. Nowhere in the game are the devs endorsing animal cruelty, so get off your high horse and stop being offended so easily.

Why are you guys still replying seriously ?!?!

The game is choke full of crying orcs and melancholic trolls yet you tell me to take my emo period somewhere?

OK, I won't actually roll on the floor but you get the picture.


Thank you!


I give you a screenshot and you still say "nowhere in the game". This pretty much summarized the thread.

You want to deny the facts? Well, it's your choice.

There is no screenshot in the first post. Just an empty square.

There's something there, but its javascript caused my browser to throw up a red flag so I've no idea what if anything it might point to.

Not sure why it doesn't work for you but it's hosted on postimg.org. And I can see it anonymously (via Tor) in a browser with cookies and JS completely disabled.

Doesn't it simply express the attitude of the fictional character Arhu, not Larian or anybody else? If you fault the publisher every time you meet an assy character in game, well... have you considered the implications any? Darth Vader is a bit of an ass in many regards, and I don't think it means George Lucas is one, necessarily.

That said, if you feel disregard or hatred towards animals is a theme in the game and in a context that you suspect the publisher is trying to put forward a political agenda, that may be cause for concern. But I hardly think that quote alone is enough to suspect that

Surely we can at least agree to disregard this notion when it comes to Jar Jar.

If I ever produce a hit metal album, this is going to be its name.

I saw the screenshot and i see no problem at all.
I'll even reproduce the text here:


A work of fiction is still a work of fiction. If i write a book about a character that follows a different set of morals which are opposite to what is the standard belief, i'm not automatically agreeing with my character's viewpoint. Also, your generalization is very faulty, one line by one character is not a representative sample of the author's thoughts.

I think you're very confused because you thought Arhu was supposed to be a good person. From WHERE did you think that? It is quite obvious (to me) that a crazy shapeshifting zoophile wizard does not follow the usual moral system of the rest of Cyseal (specially considering he built that robot that killed lots of people).

I think you SHOULD like his speech. It brings ATTENTION to something you consider important and the rest of the game AGREES WITH YOU so much that you have many opportunities to show that you respect animals' lives.

I also think you underestimate people's capacity to discern what they want to belief. Even if what you said is true (that the game endorses this viewpoint), it would have failed really hard to convince us to accept that viewpoint.

Personally i think that unless we evolve to eat only minerals (i.e. rocks), i'll still think it's completely valid to kill animals and plants to eat or to do anything else that benefits our species specially if it's done in a respectful or conscious way (no need to make any species extinct).

You are entitled to your opinion. I even think it's awesome you decided to post about it so Larian can see your viewpoint (and hopefully ignore it) here, but now that you did it, i think you need to wrestle an earth elemental to develop tougher skin.

So OP is complaining that Arhu, the wizard who builds death-rays and enjoys pretending to be a cat, values the life of a human over the life of a toad?

OP is going to have an aneurysm when she meets the Conduit.

Surely this thread is an elaborate troll.

The only thing that makes it elaborate are the many many serious replies. Unbelievable really.

What if that mortally wounded friend had his life originally sapped from him to save this mad wizard's dying pet toad?



You're objectively retarded to complain about this btw. They had plenty animal rights undertones throughout the game. YOu don't remember the time you saved a chicken? And that family of cows from being eaten? You're either a troll or just a really really dumb idiot.

Lets not forget this isn't for real either. For the love of...

When you start bleeding it over into pixel games, yeah that is totally to far and bat shit crazy.

I find most of the human race disgusting, quoted poster included.