Mighty No. 9

[Professor Icepick]

Sorry for the double post, but this doesn't really fit with my last one.

But there are crazy and immoral parts of practically every movement in history. Should Martin Luther King jr. have publicly apologized on the Black Panther's behalf and said "we really should rethink this whole civil rights thing, I mean look at these guys, they're shooting people for it. That's not good. I guess we're just not very moral people."

Right, but at least MLK distanced himself from the extremists and openly voiced his disapproval of their actions, as opposed to just sweeping them under the rug and claiming that "not all Civil Rights Advocates are like that".

You also don't just bring up "horrible acts of feminism" without any clarification. They aren't terrorists, it's not like we all immediately understand what you're talking about when you say "the horrible things feminism has done."

Well, I hesitate to bring up examples of misandry, but how about the significant amount of transphobia in the movement at large, that's existed from the second-wave on?

 

[Covenant]

I personally like the Call F and H designs. I'm not a fan of the flight attendant design...
H reminds me of old school cartoons like Astroboy and Betty Boop, while F reminds me of Zero and Marino.

EDIT: Call A (eliminated) was pretty adorkable and I prefer her over E.

 

[ragnorok64]

I wrote a wall of text but now the debate is dying down...
Fuck it, I spent time on this shit, you're all gonna read it. Sit down children, we're going to read a story about feminism and video games and it's 1000 pages long...

I don't know about anyone else, but I'll tell you straight up. I pretty much never read your posts past the first 2 sentences specifically because they're walls of text. Knowing that you're self aware that you're posting walls of text makes me even less likely to ever read them.

 

[Squire Grooktook]

You can skim through walls of text and still get the gists of them.

 

[Horseman]

Right, but at least MLK distanced himself from the extremists and openly voiced his disapproval of their actions, as opposed to just sweeping them under the rug and claiming that "not all Civil Rights Advocates are like that".

Are feminists not trying to distance themselves from radicals when they say "not all feminists are like that"? I mean, it can be phrased more eloquently (and it has been), but that's essentially what they're trying to say. "These are the bad feminists, we're not like that, don't group us with them."

Well, I hesitate to bring up examples of misandry, but how about the significant amount of transphobia in the movement at large, that's existed from the second-wave on?

Out of all the groups of radical feminists, the transphobic feminists are probably the most widely hated by the main group. The vast majority of feminists are strong LGBTQ supporters that will fight this to their dying breath. I probably don't have to tell you all of this, it's not exactly hard to see. This is pretty terrible evidence to support that last quote, because mainstream feminists distance themselves as much as humanly possible from transphobia.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'll tell you straight up. I pretty much never read your posts past the first 2 sentences specifically because they're walls of text. Knowing that you're self aware that you're posting walls of text makes me even less likely to ever read them.

Spoiler

 

[DukeMagus]

Please... Let's wait the next project update before bringing this topic up again... We need more info before getting lost in our own theories

 

[Horseman]

Please... Let's wait the next project update before bringing this topic up again... We need more info before getting lost in our own theories

...What?
Where did theories even come into this?

 

[Professor Icepick]

I think he's basically eluding to the fact that what started off as a thread about an awesome indie game has turned into "Feminism vs. Gamers Part MMMCCXXIV: A New Fedora".

 

[Covenant]

I think he's basically eluding to the fact that what started off as a thread about an awesome indie game has turned into "Feminism vs. Gamers Part MMMCCXXIV: A New Fedora".

I like Fedoras....

[hopes for a mighty no. with a fedora]

 

[Kristoph]

I think the thing that left the worst taste in my mouth is the way the feminists and their allies have been going about this. Instead of creating new games

Feminists aren't making arguments in lieu of making games, they're doing it in addition to making games. Which I think is how it should be! I agree that marginalized groups should make more games, but you seem to be adding this additional "also stop complaining about existing things" requirement that i find quite strange and unnecessary

In general you try to portray 'social justice' as censorship. That's like if I went up to someone who wants Undizzy taken out of Skullgirls and told them that they're "compromising Mike Z's original artistic vision." But of course that would be completely ridiculous, and everyone knows that telling Mike Z that you dislike Undizzy is just expressing an honest suggestion for the improvement of the game. It would be preposterous to call that "censorship" in any sense whatsoever. In the same vein, it's pretty preposterous to suggest that feminists saying "hey, a lot of people would be happier and have a better experience if this game had better gender representation" is censorship. It's not censorship, it's a well-qualified, popularly-held opinion. Bizarre that you choose to stifle that and that specifically

And it does matter what I think because you are trying to convince me.

all you need to know is that continuing to casually use the term 'trap' is deeply personally upsetting to various gender-nonconforming, marginalized groups, because it is regularly used derogatorily towards and about them. if you are okay with that, be my guest, continue deeply personally upsetting marginalized people. but now you know.

But going back on already completely designed characters and saying "wow I don't have enough strong female characters, beck is a girl now everyone!" is just sloppy character design.

plenty of shit in skullgirls was 'completely designed' and then later reiterated into something else. was that 'bad design'?

yes, beck is a 100% polished-looking character and everyone is very well-acquainted with 'him' due to the kickstarter. how does that make it 'sloppy design' to go back and change it? more to the point, does that apply to any cosmetic changes, or just the 'feminine' ones??

the only thing being established here (and i'm totally on board with this) is that going back and changing the design after the kickstarter is potentially a bad PR move. sure, no arguments from me. but if comcept went ahead made some other aesthetic changes to the character, do you really think we'd be seeing even a fraction of the outrage the mere suggestion of a genderswap has generated? you really think this is all about "design"?

 

[Squire Grooktook]

all you need to know is that continuing to casually use the term 'trap' is deeply personally upsetting to various gender-nonconforming, marginalized groups, because it is regularly used derogatorily towards and about them. if you are okay with that, be my guest, continue deeply personally upsetting marginalized people. but now you know.

I will stop using it. I have never heard it used to describe a real person or any life style or trait, but rather just character design. However I will take your word for it , just in case.

 

[Sanger Zonvolt]

We need more MN 3 fanart in this thread.

 

[Weeginji]

So, about that whole "Villainous Call D Campaign" thing I'm doin'. My buddy and I set this up just yesterday.

 

[CapnWTF]

I think I'm going to throw up, I can't take much more of this...

 

[DDB]

Well at least someone finally confirmed that Dina's opinion on design doesn't mean shit.

 

[KaboomKid]

Oh wow, the Dina topic was still going?

Well, at the very least, props to you guys for staying fairly civil while discussing such sensitive material. I was dreading the second Call vote at first, but now I'm hoping it might be the perfect thing to help everyone move on and bring focus back to the game this week.

 

[Balder]

We need more MN 3 fanart in this thread.

Spoiler: The Overseers of History oblige

GIRL RAIJIN MAN IS DA BESS

 

[Professor Icepick]

Nice batch of art, Balder. But I think you missed one:

Spoiler

 

[Covenant]

Official response concerning Dima. Pretty much my view on things, especially this tidbit

"The job of the community manager is to act as a conduit between the community and the team – basically help keep the team filled in on what all of you are talking about, and help keep all of you filled in on what’s going on with the team internally. A community manager who filtered this process to further any personal agenda would not, by definition, be a community manager! :) and the fact that they were doing so would be immediately obvious to the team, who is plugged into the community in more ways than one."

tldr: community managers arent biased in their work. Comcept isn't oblivious.

http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/...resses-mighty-no-9-community-manager-outrage/

 

[CapnWTF]

I lost it at the JoJo's reference.
"Awaken, My Moderators!"

 

[Balder]

Nice batch of art, Balder. But I think you missed one:

(.__.)

I've seen some of these before but not the #3 one. They're unofficial, right?

Well, while I'm at it here's the rest of those I've seen plus MOAR #3 and a wild #8.

Spoiler

I lost it at the JoJo's reference.
"Awaken, My Moderators!"

Pillar Men make everything better, right?

Now I want Mighty No. 7 to OUGI!! KAMIZUNA ARASHI! <:3

 

[Horseman]

plenty of shit in skullgirls was 'completely designed' and then later reiterated into something else. was that 'bad design'?

yes, beck is a 100% polished-looking character and everyone is very well-acquainted with 'him' due to the kickstarter. how does that make it 'sloppy design' to go back and change it? more to the point, does that apply to any cosmetic changes, or just the 'feminine' ones??

the only thing being established here (and i'm totally on board with this) is that going back and changing the design after the kickstarter is potentially a bad PR move. sure, no arguments from me. but if comcept went ahead made some other aesthetic changes to the character, do you really think we'd be seeing even a fraction of the outrage the mere suggestion of a genderswap has generated? you really think this is all about "design"?

I didn't ever say that changing a character design is always a bad decision, it's when the only motivation behind it is some sort of minority quota you feel the need to fill. There's room for more characters, you don't need to make ex post facto changes to your already designed characters. If you have a motivation for changing the character other than just to have more girl characters, then sure, go ahead.
And no, I never even implied this was all about shitty design. I actually wrote a larger paragraph about how it was about mass fear of gaming maturing, but hey I guess that talking about why beck shouldn't be changed to becky means that this is the only thing the entire issue is about now.

Spoiler

That is... seriously fucking stupid. Why would you even post that.
"Hey guys, feminism is THE EVIL EMPIRE WE GOTTA STOP THEM!!!!!!! GONNA RUIN OUR MEGAMAN GAMES!!!"
It reminds me way too much of WW2 era propaganda. The whole "we're the good guys, see? We made a cartoon where we're the good guys and those guys are the bad guys!" thing is just making me sick.

 

[CapnWTF]

I don't think anybody, including the people who made it, took this seriously. It got a laugh out of me, at least. jeez

 

[Horseman]

I don't think anybody, including the people who made it, took this seriously. It got a laugh out of me, at least. jeez

Does it really matter if you were taking it seriously when you are making it if the end result is that bullshit?
They were obviously anti-feminist, and they thought it would be funny to make this entire story where feminism is represented by absolute evil and anti-feminism is represented by absolute good, so yeah, I think it's a little (a lot) out of line.

 

[PaperBag_Sniper]

Does it really matter if you were taking it seriously when you are making it if the end result is that bullshit?
They were obviously anti-feminist, and they thought it would be funny to make this entire story where feminism is represented by absolute evil and anti-feminism is represented by absolute good, so yeah, I think it's a little (a lot) out of line.

Ummm? If you're referring to the one off hand line in that second gif where one of the moderator calls Heavy an anti-feminist that doesn't mean that the entire thing was anti-feminist. That whole gif is a reference to a user on the MN9 forums called Heavy01. He posted a very large post a few days back that got his thread locked by the moderators almost immediately. Now his post altogether didn't violate any forum rules but the mods insisted that because the topic was redundant that the thread should be closed. Heavy had been a pretty chill dude on the forums but after his and a number of other forum posters have had their threads locked or posts edited for reasons outside the stated forum quidelines he wrote one more monster post (need backer privileges to see) and stated that he was pulling his funds from the game.

That whole gif series is literally some guy from /v/'s perspective on what is happening on the forums where everyone who supports Dina is getting a free pass to use pretty crass language to talk down to the other group of people who are still voicing their discontent with her position. Does her being a feminist have something to do with this, yes. But the gif wasn't aimed at taking feminism down a notch or anything like that. It's presenting Heavy01 as some sort of figurehead for the anti-dina group and framing her supporters as white knights protecting their "queen" and moderators abusing their power. That little snippet where someone takes money from the mods is a reflection of the actual occurrence of people pulling their money from this game because of this event.

Can we please move the feminism talk to another thread? At this point I feel like it's not going anywhere and every time we do get back to talking about robot masters or fan art someone brings it back up. Dina got the job, time will tell if she can do it well.

Edit:

Nice batch of art, Balder. But I think you missed one:

Spoiler

Man this is awesome.

 

[Shockdingo]

So....who want's the classic boss intros to come back? I sure as heck do!

Another interesting thing that was being discussed on the forums was civilian presences. I feel that showing how the world reacts to the Mighty No.s and artificial life in general could be a cool thing. The past Mega Man games missed out on a chance to really build up the world and show little aspects of everyday life and society. Now, I don't want anything to take away from the game, more like having something akin to before a boss battle starts, you see people running away, police in the bg evacuating people, firemen dousing a structure, that type of thing.

Just a thought. :)

 

[Horseman]

Ummm? If you're referring to the one off hand line in that second gif where one of the moderator calls Heavy an anti-feminist that doesn't mean that the entire thing was anti-feminist. That whole gif is a reference to a user on the MN9 forums called Heavy01. He posted a very large post a few days back that got his thread locked by the moderators almost immediately. Now his post altogether didn't violate any forum rules but the mods insisted that because the topic was redundant that the thread should be closed. Heavy had been a pretty chill dude on the forums but after his and a number of other forum posters have had their threads locked or posts edited for reasons outside the stated forum quidelines he wrote one more monster post (need backer privileges to see) and stated that he was pulling his funds from the game.

That whole gif series is literally some guy from /v/'s perspective on what is happening on the forums where everyone who supports Dina is getting a free pass to use pretty crass language to talk down to the other group of people who are still voicing their discontent with her position. Does her being a feminist have something to do with this, yes. But the gif wasn't aimed at taking feminism down a notch or anything like that. It's presenting Heavy01 as some sort of figurehead for the anti-dina group and framing her supporters as white knights protecting their "queen" and moderators abusing their power. That little snippet where someone takes money from the mods is a reflection of the actual occurrence of people pulling their money from this game because of this event.

But it's definitely characterizing all of the feminists in this argument as evil and all of the anti-feminists as good. It doesn't even matter what it's based on, or whether you see it as anti-feminism, (which it really is, even if it's about the Dina incident, but that's also not why it's such bullshit) what matters is how it's presented. The people on this half of the issue are EVIL the people on this half of the issue are RIGHTEOUS! Watch it and think about how it would be if the roles were reversed. If it was the evil patriarchy trying to control the world versus the feminist rebels who dare to say that mighty no. 9 should change! And the gullible sexist drones fight against the courageous rebels! Because I would be just as disgusted at that as I am about this. It's just not how people should conduct this sort of thing, it's a complex issue watered down until we can label one side as good guys and one side as bad guys.
Obviously I don't condone the moderator actions in this whole event, which is part of the reason you don't see me arguing over on the actual MN9 forums. That doesn't mean this shit needs to be made.

 

[DukeMagus]

Don't give a Fuck about feminism, don't give a fuckin about anti feminism, But a cool idea arisen here in the topic

Another interesting thing that was being discussed on the forums was civilian presences. I feel that showing how the world reacts to the Mighty No.s and artificial life in general could be a cool thing. The past Mega Man games missed out on a chance to really build up the world and show little aspects of everyday life and society. Now, I don't want anything to take away from the game, more like having something akin to before a boss battle starts, you see people running away, police in the bg evacuating people, firemen dousing a structure, that type of thing.

Just a thought. :)

This was interesting in astro boy (the 2000 anime at least), and would be darn intresting to make a good plot...

In a sequel.

By now they need to establish the characters and the "mech" part of the world, since they will be the most prominent characters.

Hell, even when capcom cared about MM they only hit this in mega man zero, needing all the characters to be well established and serve as a solid background (then capcom fucked up what could be one of the most dramatic moments in gaming when they launched x6 without Inafune's approval and forced him to change the mm zero plot to merely dealing to a childish clone

Sigh

 

[PaperBag_Sniper]

For those of you who don't know, here is the information about the world and story of MN9. All information ripped from the Comcept Website

WORLD
In the year 20XX ---- In a world where robotic engineering has greatly advanced.

World panic caused the collapse of capitalism and brought about a new socialism, under which the government had manual labor mechanized and food, clothing and shelter was thoroughly managed. The principle of competition was lost and warring ended, bringing about what seemed to be an everlasting peace.

Although robotic advancements helped to maintain public order and development, people began to feel suppression and social stress due to these peace keeping measurements. As an outlet, a government sponsored public robot battle competition known as the “Battle Colosseum” was created. Little did they know, a new threat to mankind was afoot.

STORY
Dr. White created 9 robot siblings known as the “Mighty Numbers”, who were the most popular and powerful team of robots in the Battle Colosseum and always in the top ranks. But, during one competition there was a sudden act of cyber terror, infecting them with a computer virus causing them to become crazed and rampant.

The crazed siblings took control of various key facilities and utilities. The virus continued to spread to all the robots of the world. It is now up to the lone Mighty No.9 “Beck”, who remains unaffected by the virus. Beck, who had always been the weakest link on the team, was now entrusted with the future of all humanity!

Would it be possible to have this added to the OP?

 

[Professor Icepick]

But it's definitely characterizing all of the feminists in this argument as evil and all of the anti-feminists as good. It doesn't even matter what it's based on, or whether you see it as anti-feminism, (which it really is, even if it's about the Dina incident, but that's also not why it's such bullshit) what matters is how it's presented. The people on this half of the issue are EVIL the people on this half of the issue are RIGHTEOUS! Watch it and think about how it would be if the roles were reversed. If it was the evil patriarchy trying to control the world versus the feminist rebels who dare to say that mighty no. 9 should change! And the gullible sexist drones fight against the courageous rebels! Because I would be just as disgusted at that as I am about this. It's just not how people should conduct this sort of thing, it's a complex issue watered down until we can label one side as good guys and one side as bad guys.
Obviously I don't condone the moderator actions in this whole event, which is part of the reason you don't see me arguing over on the actual MN9 forums. That doesn't mean this shit needs to be made.

To be fair, you've described exactly how I've seen the whole feminism vs. gamers debacle framed by the majority of video game journalists from the get-go: evil neckbeard permavirgin sexist scumbag losers vs. glorious enlightened feminist scholars, fighting for true justice and equality.

So....who want's the classic boss intros to come back? I sure as heck do!

Oh hell yeah.

 

[Horseman]

To be fair, you've described exactly how I've seen the whole feminism vs. gamers debacle framed by the majority of video game journalists from the get-go: evil neckbeard permavirgin sexist scumbag losers vs. glorious enlightened feminist scholars, fighting for true justice and equality.

If you think that's how most video game journalists see the issue, you're living in some sort of strange topsy turvy land.
I'm assuming you think this because the feminist ones tend to be more vocal about it. Mostly because their views are actually challenged on a regular basis (see: gamespot's GTA5 review) since in the gaming community antifeminism is the norm. There's no reason to make a case for the norm.
It doesn't help that they're also usually covering events like gamespot's GTA5 review or the people who spammed Sarkeesian where the feminist IS the clear cut victim, because anyone that has a single brain cell isn't going to get involved in that mess. They don't cover the feminism debate that's going on elsewhere, they cover the people flinging insults at every random feminist they see, because they're the ones making headlines.

 

[Kristoph]

I didn't ever say that changing a character design is always a bad decision, it's when the only motivation behind it is some sort of minority quota you feel the need to fill.

Oh sure, but when is that ever the only motivation? Changing the gender of the protagonist is a meaningful artistic change with real consequences on how people receive the character; it can never really be some isolated political thing, can it? Ultimately, it's always going to be informed by a designer with designerly thoughts and motivations. Why hone in on the catalyst?

Ideas are changed for slight and trivial reasons all the time. I don't get how the line is somehow drawn at "minority representation."

 

[Professor Icepick]

Oh sure, but when is that ever the only motivation? Changing the gender of the protagonist is a meaningful artistic change with real consequences on how people receive the character; it can never really be some isolated political thing, can it? Ultimately, it's always going to be informed by a designer with designerly thoughts and motivations. Why hone in on the catalyst?

Ideas are changed for slight and trivial reasons all the time. I don't get how the line is somehow drawn at "minority representation."

Yeah, but in these cases, it hasn't been the creator advocating for changing the gender, just outsiders who claim that it's sexist to keep the gender for a character male because it reinforces the status quo. If someone wants to make a female character, then that's fine by me. It's when you demand that a character that has been a male from the earliest concept stages become female (or else you're an evil sexist monster) that the problem really starts.

 

[Horseman]

It's when you demand that a character that has been a male from the earliest concept stages become female (or else you're an evil sexist monster) that the problem really starts.

When did this ever happen? She wasn't even that demanding about it. And she definitely never said it was sexist any other way...
I don't think that any feminists are trying to say that it's sexist to have anything but a female protagonist.

Ideas are changed for slight and trivial reasons all the time. I don't get how the line is somehow drawn at "minority representation."

Because it will work better if you design a character from the ground up like that. After you make the original designs, you shouldn't try to heavily change them, because too much change could wind up in an oversight. If you really want the protagonist to be female, it's going to be a better idea to design a new character from the ground up to be the new main character.
Plus, as has been said before, games have the advantage of letting you choose a protagonist. And since call is already female and playable, they already have a female protagonist without genderbending beck. There are some minor problems with this stuff here and there, but it's still much better than having only beck as the protagonist while call sits in the lab all day.

 

[Rellek]

I think the majority of the issue that people have is that they put money into a campaign that featured things the way they were presented back then and witht he possibility of a sudden change to that design, people aren't really that supportive of it. It's really silly.

 

[PaperBag_Sniper]

I think the majority of the issue that people have is that they put money into a campaign that featured things the way they were presented back then and witht he possibility of a sudden change to that design, people aren't really that supportive of it. It's really silly.

Same thing happened over at the Torment: Tides of Numenera kickstarter when they held a vote between two different mechanics for the combat system. A lot of the community thought the game was going to have a system similar to the older Infinity Engine games (Planescape: Torment, Balder's Gate) but ultimately the community voted almost 50/50 but the votes were in favor of a turn based system (Fallout 1/2). After that some people lost their cool and started pulling their funds. It's part of the problem with having your project funded by a community. You give them a sense of entitlement to the project and give them a financial stake in it and they are going to want things they want in the game, even if it goes against the majority of the community or the developers.

 

[DDB]

Or there's the whole SG vote thing.

You know what I mean...

 

[PaperBag_Sniper]

Or there's the whole SG vote thing.

You know what I mean...

Don't fret dude, Annie will get in riiiight after Adam.

 

[DDB]

Oh no, not just Annie. There were people fretting about how even stuff like Stanley didn't make it. And a good number disliked Beowulf and Eliza.

 

[Professor Icepick]

I think he just means the waifu wars in general. There was a lot of hate towards certain characters, not to mention the whole debacle over the fact that the second vote's results may have been effected by the mention that Beowulf just barely missed out on first vote's final round.

Of course, it's still kind of silly, considering that the results showed that Eliza was the clear winner from the first round, from the beginning. But when you give people some input, there are clearly going to be different opinions going around and the people who lose are going to be hurt. I personally was pulling for Isaac, so the whole Beowulf effect kind of hurt me in the second round. But that's one of the risks of involving the backers in the actual development of the game. Sure, I voted for the SG DLC characters and the MN9 Call vote, but generally, I just like it when projects just sort of go on auto-pilot for the most part. Because if I paid ahead of time, it's because I have faith in the developers.

Having said that, I think the fact that they whipped up that UE3 engine demo so quickly and that entire "evolution of Beck" feature they did during the Kickstarter implies that Beck's design was pretty much finalized when he was first revealed to us. I think that's where some of the problems stem from, with regards to the whole "genderflip" fiasco. Another part probably stems from how the argument is always framed as some form of a moral argument, instead of just one of personal preference. "This collection of pixels, voxels and/or polygons has to represent a female character or else sexism." That's how I've been seeing this and other similar arguments framed for a while now.