It’s honestly amazing how well this game sold considering how mid the gameplay actually is. Having a popular IP really helped.
Eh, people don’t buy for the gameplay mechanics most of the time, they buy for what they see in the trailers and read in the descriptions. Being the only videogame available for this IP, having the WB marketing juggernaut behind it, releasing at a time of the year without much competition, coming out on every single platform - it would have been weird if this game wasn’t the best selling one in 2023.
Exactly. You don’t know what the gameplay is until after you buy the game, unless you are savvy and watch reviews or something, which hardly any consumers do.
Also, it’s not like the gameplay was mind bogglingly terrible, just some bland questing and a serviceable combat system. The main thing the game had to do to sell well imo was sell the environment and vibe which I think it did decently.
Are you saying that marketing works?!
My wife, whose entire history with video games is Sims 3, Animal Crossing: NH, and Pokémon Go, played through this game start to finish and loved it. It wasn’t really made for “gamers”, it was made for Harry Potter fans that wanted to play a Hogwarts game. It didn’t succeed as a gaming revolution, it succeeded in bringing non-gamers to buy it.
Personally, I love that she got into it whether it’s mid or not, because it introduced her to a lot of the mechanics necessary to play “real” games in the future. And she had a lot of fun.
I’m both a gamer and HP fan.
I thought the game was great, and I didn’t really realize the depths of people’s distaste for it, I guess.
Was it crazy revolutionary? No, but it was fun.
Fellow HP fan, I was kinda weirded out by the whole “free access to unforgivable curses” and “canonically killing people” and the honestly kinda disheartening stance on goblin personhood but man flying around the grounds is so fun
Oh yeah me too. There are a lot of moments in the writing that make me go “wait… what? are you sure about that?” and some of the game design was iffy here and there but the main attraction is just the fact that they’ve given us a “full-scale” Hogwarts and surroundings.
Oh no kidding, I loved how they handled the curses. For the most part at least. Like, I would’ve been pretty disappointed if they weren’t usable in-game at all, but was never sure how they could introduce them in a realistic way. So HL literally having entire side quests devoted to you discovering the curses and learning how to use them honestly blew away my expectations.
My only issue with them is being able to use them in front of others so casually. They should’ve just made them unusable if you had another character accompanying you.
the last video game my mom played before hogwarts legacy was like…pac man in the arcades. it was amazing to share our progress together and bond
Haha! That sounds like so much fun!
I thought the gameplay was awesome. To me, a really impressive entry to a potential series. What did you feel were the weak points in the gameplay?
I found the combat to be serviceable, and at some points I had fun with it. But it kind of got repetitive really quick. Like once you learn the core mechanics, they didn’t really introduce a lot after that to keep you on your toes. But the main problem I had with the game came from the quests, they just felt so monotonous. I love exploring the castle, but finding every little collectible just felt tedious and didn’t really seem to have any payoff.
All things I hope can be improved with an eventual sequel, I’m definitely glad I picked up the game. But it’s not something I’ve ever considered revisiting once I beat it.
Yeah, agree with these points. It had that first entry vibe to it, similar to the Outer Worlds. Lack of enemy variety was a pretty big one, once you were a few hours in.
Just seen they’ve uploaded this pretty funny video 😂: https://youtu.be/gwyHqXMSkAw?si=7REw4Cgj2lEpbAc0
The IP was my only interest. Games like this I get bored with so I generally avoid. But the views of the school looked great and I’ve always wanted to walk around it, like the fantasy version of it. I’ve been to the real set and walked around that which is cool. My only complaint is I bought it on PC so I didn’t get to see Azkaban.
What do you mean? I played on pc and went to Azkaban, what very little there was to see anyway
Azkaban is not based on platform but house, join Hufflepuff to see it.
I thought that was a PlayStation exclusive
What can you say gamers love anti-Semitism.
I’m playing this game right now and it’s honestly a six out of 10. The only reason to launch the game at all is because of the world design which is top notch. So top notch it scores all of those six points, because the plot characters story and gameplay are all a let down otherwise. This is the type of game that will disable the controls for your magical flying broom and then tell you that you need to climb a wall. I wish it wasn’t so successful so they didn’t think this formula was so good, because if they made the game actually good AND a Harry Potter property, that would have really been something special. But as it is now, it’s just an uninspired video game painted in a pretty coat of a popular franchise. I’m sure we’ll get a sequel.
I would have loved to have this game as a kid. It may be a 6 out of 10 but most of the other harry potter shovelware they shit out when the movies were coming was at best a 0.2 out of 10. The only arguably not that bad one was the prisoner of azkaban movie based game.
IDK. Most of the early games were actually pretty entertaining. I fairly recently played sorcerer’s stone on the gbc, and it was still pretty fantastic.
I’m curious, what open world games do you rate as a 9 or 10? I’m not saying Hogwarts did anything revolutionary, but it did most things pretty solidly. It’s been a while since Ive played an open world game that does a good job on making the world actually feel alive.
Witcher 3 I’d rate 9/10.
Subnautica gets a 9/10. Fallout 2 and 3, if we’re specifically going RPGs. NieR: Automata for action RPGs. Look at Persona for school influenced RPGs. I’d have geeked out so hard if we got even Persona-style class experiences in Hogwarts Legacy. Instead, all we get is completely contextless montage cutscenes.
Yeah I wish Hogwarts Legacy had taken more inspiration from Persona. Having a schedule, working on social links, engaging in fun activities outside of school, it all lends itself incredibly well to a Hogwarts game.
Unfortunately it sounds like the creators haven’t ever even touched a Persona game. I remember before the game launched they were asked if there’d be romance options, and they seemed almost offended by the thought since the characters are kids, despite Persona doing the same for literal decades.
Going to a ball in Hogwarts Legacy, or going on a date in Hogsmeade, would’ve been so much fun too.
Imagine that, teens dating… What a wild concept, they didn’t even had to play Persona, our own culture is filled with teen drama series, even DC made gotham academy.
Not the person you asked, but for me personally to rate some open world games:
- Hogwarts: 4-5/10. It’s pretty damn bad IMO, beyond the fan pandering.
- Avatar Frontiers of Pandora: 5-7/10, it’s a slightly worse Far Cry (which is already damn tepid) but looks insanely pretty which makes it a good braindead time waster.
- Cyberpunk 2077: Originally 2/10, laughably underdesigned and so buggy it felt like industry-criticizing sarcasm. Nowadays 7/10 if including the expansion, still quite buggy but not in a bad way, and the redesigned combat and character systems feel artificial but pretty fun. City still too dead and underdesigned, sadly.
- Skyrim: 6-7/10, damn impressive at the time, but only briefly as the game was shallow as all hell, even in its best moments. Still impressive but it’s all on the mods and hence the players, not the game designers.
- Witcher 3: 8-9/10, essentially same design flaws as modern CP2077, but given its fantasy world suffers much less from it, of course the empty countryside is, well, empty.
- Subnautica: 10/10, amazing horror vibes, good progression, not too open and not too confined, focus on exploration.
- Outer Wilds: 10/10, completely open and pure exploration, reductive game design done perfectly right.
the redesigned combat and character systems feel artificial but pretty fun
What do you even mean by this? Artificial gameplay?
No like… it feels pretty obvious they weren’t that way originally, if that makes sense? That this got changed after the game was already out for a while, this wasn’t how it was designed at first?
I got Subnautica for free twice (PlayStation and Epic), I should really look at giving it a proper try. I have the feeling it’d be really good in VR, played No Man’s Sky in VR recently and I immediately loved it while on flatscreen it didn’t click with me as much.
Subnautica is a masterpiece.
Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 are both up there for me.
I pirated the game. The first part in the actual school was really fun. But once you get out into the world, you quickly realise that it’s just another generic open world game with outposts, collectibles, and general busywork that you’ve seen in every other open world game. It got boring very quickly for me and I never finished it.
I also pirated it, and yeah, I definitely got my money’s worth from it. I tried to have fun, but it’s the poster child for “mile wide, inch deep.”
Maybe they can reuse the environment for a better game in the future.
I agree. The magical feeling of being a student at Hogwarts soon evaporated as soon as you got a broom and didn’t really need to visit Hogwarts again and instead just fight endless random enemies, which gets pretty easy as you level up.
I was also disappointed by the endless voice acting. There was so much pointless talking and you couldn’t really control the outcome, all options seemed to result in a positive outcome when I just wanted to be a badass Malfoy but you’re not allowed, you jave to be a goody goody Hermione, juat in Slytherin clothes.
I was very interested in mods for this game, people found all kinds of fun cut stuff that would’ve elevated this game so much like companions having commentary for several quests when you used a mod to bring them, and having actual consequences for using the dark arts. But it’s impossible to implement.
I loved the mod that turned all those animated paintings into anime vtubers, so goofy
Technically it’s possible, but you’d have to reply on the cooperation of empress and that’s… not gonna happen.
It’s multi-platform, uses one of the biggest IPs of an entire generation and seems to do it quite well too. Everything else would have been more surprising to me.
I’m shocked the online outrage from gamingcirlclejerk didn’t work
It’s like the sub made for taking the piss out of gaming criticism and critique did what it was supposed to do.
Not really, they were often really serious about it which made it all the more ridiculous. Sometimes it’s a fun circlejerk sub, sometimes it’s presenting their slacktivism almost as being some gaming vanguard and fighting a war against the game.
It was pretty funny.
I used to love that sub, but these days they are only focused on the outrage culture. Nothing inherently wrong with that, I like to laugh at people who take their video game waifu too seriously. I initially joined that sub because it seemed like the best place to have level-headed conversations about overhyped games, like the Witcher 3. Everywhere else seems to love that game as if it’s the second coming of Jesus, but if you find some places that didn’t like the game, they swing a bit too hard on the opposite site, so you can’t have a conversation with them either. I found plenty of people in that sub who loved that game, but knew where the shortcomings were.
I wonder it’s because it attracted a bunch of people who weren’t into games, but are huge Harry Potter fans.
It’s also on every platform, including the Switch, while TotK is just on the Switch.
Yeah this feels like a Look What They Have to Do (release on every system) to Mimic a Fraction of Our Power (be Zelda) meme.
More like: Even a bland game will sell more if it is released on multiple platforms, no matter how good the other game is.
I think you just nailed it, this is exactly why.
Yep it’s an unfair comparison. If Zelda was available on all platforms then it might have been a different story.
But it isn’t, and that is the problem.
Honestly it was just a good game. I saw it attracting both Potterheads and non-Potterheads. (I would not consider myself a Potterhead).
Does it have a bunch of replay value? Not really (neither do a lot of games). But man, that initial playthrough was just really good. It also looks like I clocked 113 hours on the game, so that’s a pretty decent return to me.
Also, despite the source material and the author, it had a lot of very inclusive elements, which were a nice touch.
if you seriously think this game was special, I have a far cry themed bridge to sell you
Zelda was more fun though
Zelda would have been even more fun if it was available on every platform instead of just Nintendo.
That’s it, I never played Nintendo games because I never had their hardware. For me personally it’s just not worth getting into their closed ecosystem. Basically same reason I never had anything apple.
The same can be said for many games over the years then, but I don’t like thinking that way.
If there’s a game I want to play, I’ll get the hardware needed to play it
It’s available on PC.
PC gamers even got it before nintendo ones.
I only played the unpatched version with the dupe glitches, that was super fun.
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its not insane unless you’re doing completionist stuff, you can easily cap a few sets of armor for key purposes just with chest loot and some monster mashing. I created a second game on another user account after my first game (with duped gems, etc) and its not really grindy until you try to max out like a third set of armor.
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you can get most of the battery cell upgrades by opening chests from exploring (and where the chests are becomes obvious if you collected a few old maps) and following the main story. The problem is exploring the depths isn’t all that fun. I never even used duping to get battery in my original game- by the time I explored the depths fully I was maxed out.
Genuinely curious which game has more “Hours Played”. I’m willing to put money down on it being Zelda.
I guess all the twitter drama around the author matters less to the real world. It’s impressive to see how a vocal minority can completely distort what is happening offline.
Hogwarts came out a quarter of a year earlier and released on every platform compared to Zelda only being on one.
I wouldn’t take that as a indictment that J.K.'s terf bullshit didn’t have an impact on sales.
Yeah, and the fact that people basically can’t talk about this game without mentioning it got boycotted because one of the people who makes money from it is a massive piece of transphobic shit is a small step forward all on its own
In that sense, it worked. Let’s face it: The people who don’t care about the author’s raging bigotry were never going to be convinced regardless, but there were a lot of us who didn’t even consider playing it because of the TERF.
Anecdotally, everyone I’ve talked to about it doesn’t care. They don’t like she’s a TERF and some even condemn her for it, but every single person I’ve talked to separates the world of Harry Potter from her. It basically has a life of its own and they couldn’t care less about JKR now, that’s what I’ve been able to surmise of people’s view of it now. It’s like having racist parents but not being labeled as one because you’re a separate entity.
I’m a big gamer, and was a massive HP fan. I did not buy the game, or even consider it, specifically because of JKR’s bullshit.
I may be in the minority, but I guarantee I’m not the only one in this boat. So now you’ve talked to someone who cares, if you count this as talking.
And just to say a little more, no I didn’t crusade against the game, nor do I villainize people who bought it and enjoyed it. I do think it’s possible to enjoy art without liking the artist. Hell, my favorite book series of all time is the Ender’s Game series, and Orson Scott Card is probably just as bad as JKR, though maybe not quite as famous/public about it.
But I can’t bring myself to buy it. I’m trans, and her rhetoric, and how public it is, has been specifically harmful to me, directly. But that’s just me. I won’t tell other people how to live their lives or enjoy their free time, so long as they’re not actively hurting others. And no, I don’t consider buying a game where one person who is profiting from it might spend a sliver of that profit on anti-trans BS to be actively harming others, especially when she already has enough money to do whatever the hell she wants anyways.
This doesn’t make a dent, and ethical consumption under capitalism is impossible anyways. I just hope that some portion of people who bought the game heard about the protests and maybe donated a fraction of what they paid for the game to some pro-LGBTQ groups. I have to believe there’s at least a handful of people like that. I do believe that people are mostly good, and want to do good.
Yeesh, I wrote a lot more than I planned to here. I’ll stop now lol.
Death of the author only applies if she’s dead.
So unless there’s been some good news in the last day, those people are just coping
So very true.
HP Lovecraft was horribly racist, but his works are in the Public Domain. Neither him, his estate or any causes he supported get any money by engaging with his works. His opinions are still part of his works, but that can be criticized and modified in adaptations and derivative works.
The same can’t be said of living creators who still own and profit from those works. Even if some team deliberately tries to gloss over or alter concerning aspects, the money the author gets might still be directed towards concerning movements.
In all fairness there are concerning aspects in many industries and a lot that we consume, and each person has a lot of other issues to worry about, so while disappointing, it’s inevitable that people won’t care about everything. But I definitely don’t feel confortable giving money to someone who’s spreading hate about people I care for. I used to be a big HP fan but this situation completely spoiled any interest I had in that world… and also helped me realize it was never that good anyway.
(Thought experiment time) So at what point, if ever, does a universe separate from its creator? Think about Star Wars. There have been a large number of derivative works by multiple authors. However if George Lucas came out against gays and trans people, would you taint the entire franchise? At what point are the two separated, if ever?
However if George Lucas came out against gays and trans people, would you taint the entire franchise?
Yes. I would immediately lose ibr interest in Star Wars and go do something else. There’s plenty of entertainment out there that’s not made by shitty bigots.
Star Wars is an awkward example because it’s already pretty well tainted itself with mediocre films.
But yes, unironically I would actively stop looking for the shreds of good among the carnage that is the once-beloved franchise if I knew its creator, whose name is still tied to it and who financially benefits at least from the propagation of successful entries under that IP, would be just a little bit more able to get their awful views out there thanks to that success.
When it stops making them rich as fuck
This happens a lot more than you think. It isn’t just coping.
How many movies were produced by Weinstein? How many comics were published by bigots that still re-sell in droves today?
How many celebrated tv shows were made by pieces of garbage?
Wrestlemania season is here. THAT company is completely vile from the ground up.
Sometimes, people just pick and choose their fiction and legitimately separate the artist from the art. The Harry Potter franchise has outgrown it’s original author, just like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, WWE or almost any franchise.
If you think the world truly is so black and white, you haven’t gone out and experienced enough of it.
Thats not death of the author, thats you covering your eyes while handing them money.
Death of the author does not exist while the author makes money off the product.
If you pirated the hogwarts game? Then you have room to speak on death of the author. But jkr has a hefty royalties deal on hp products. If you paid for it, the author is living well.
Im sorry you apparently cant face that truth, but that doesnt change it.
Lol I said the same thing a bit ago and was down voted for it.
I mean, I didn’t consider playing it because I’ve never been a fan of Harry Potter, but Rowling’s ramblings definitely didn’t do anything to change my mind.
I was a moderately engaged HP fan before I learned what a colossally awful human the author is, but her TERF ramblings also made me realize there’s quite a lot of racial and ethnic stereotypes baked into the franchise. It’s probably the fastest I’ve ever totally abandoned an interest in a series. Even if we do separate the works from the author like so many fanbois suggest, they’re still awful.
The whole situation with house elves, goblins and other intelligent magical creatures treated as inferior doesn’t make the story feel to good. It might even be understandable if the heroes realized the deeper problems that couldn’t be solved simply by fighting, but the protagonist ultimately just inherits a slave and becomes an enforcer for the status quo.
In retrospect it makes a lot of words about good and love and doing what’s right feel like going through the motions rather than any real values.
Doesn’t seem to have had a big impact I’d say
You csn say all you like, we literally have zero idea how many lost sales they had.
We know it didn’t prevent it from becoming the year’s most sold game, so whatever the impact it’s pretty easy to shrug off
Buddy, its the worlds 5 largest IP, id be shocked if it didnt sell millions of copies regardless.
For all we know it could have lost out on 20 million sales, but its an untrackable metric.
Did any of the other HP games ever top the charts?
If not, then there must be something special about this one other than IP. Especially since most of the other HP games came out before there was any JKR controversy.
Other than mobile games or Lego versions, there hasnt been a proper Harry Potter game since 13 years ago and from memory they were extremely average movie tie in games.
Its not a series like Pokemon or Zelda that sees frequent releases. It being the first real game, and done beautifully (graphics/ recreation wise) is certainly the biggest selling point.
I mean I’m sure it’s a lot more cheerful for the to imagine the number as really high, but the fact of the matter is that in the end it still sold really well, becoming the top seller of that year.
A bit of a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ situation
Its nothing to do with cheerful, its to do with not knowing how effective a boycott was.
No one in their right mind would expect it to sell zero copies.
Tell me, how do you tell if a boycott was successful?
Echo… Echo… echo…
Bigot…Bigot…bigot…
Why, because they point out that the entire thing was a lound minority running in their own echochamber?
Sure call me a bigot. The point I was making is this is an echo chamber issue for people who want to eat others because they are not pure enough. And on that you come out swing with the same incessive echo put stuff I was pointing to.
No matter how much you hurt the people you say you are fighting for. Go ahead, run your inquisition on people to see if they match your purity standards, don’t be surprised if one day you end up in front of the inquisition yourself accused of being impure.
You spend time fighting with someone who might disagree with you in this fringe of society but still takes on the biggest fights out there… and you would rather burn them than focus on better, easier, more impactful targets.
And how’s your moral compass?
You didn’t play Harry Potter, but are you a vegan? You know animals have feelings right?
Have you volunteered this week? You have time to bullshit with randoms on lemmy, why not use the time to make the world better?
What other games do you play, do you like Blizzard games?
Maybe you have an Xbox, you know what Bill Gates is up to right?
Do you use Amazon? Ever heard of their CEO?
I can go on and on and on. Get over yourself.
It happens every time. Pokémon Sword/Shield and Scarlett/Violet had the biggest launch in the franchise’s history despite being (justifiably so) heavily criticized by pretty much everyone online.
People shit on microtransactions and always-online games but the top charts always show online multiplayer games are among the most played.
It doesn’t make the criticisms any less valid; it just means that the general public is usually ignorant of them.
Or just don’t care that much
JKR is a very vocal TERF that basically wants trans people to dissappear. A lot of people dont want to financially support her because of that. That most people seemingly either dont care about trans erasure or even worse, bought the game specifically because theyre the type to do shit just because people with a conscience told them they shouldn’t, says more about most people than it does that “vocal minority”
Oh pipe down, I read the entire thing when it was recent and in no way does she want what you claim. She has an open letter on her own website outlining her views.
Over the course of the years since this happened it has grown, morphed and people are now probably also saying she would be the one herding the trans people into the gas Chambers.
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I’m out of the loop on this whole thing because JK is a writer and doesn’t know anything about gender.
Can you specifically quote something she has said to prove your claim or is it really hearsay like the guy above claims?
Thats just one example. There are many others but I feel like if the point isn’t made it never will be.
She makes a number of claims about transitioning and detransitioning that are straight up lies, tries to conflate trans women with predators that must be denied entry to womens’ bathrooms, claims that the change in societal views toward trans issues threatens to erase women etc.
The reality is that JKR seems to have never dealt with the trauma of her rape and abuse so she denigrates trans women as being little more than predatory men in skirts. Thats why she brings that up in her post. She’s explaining why she is so concerned with trans issues and those reasons go back to that trauma never being processed in a healthier way.
I read that today already, it is a lot milder than “wanting trans people to disappear”. Where are all the hateful tweets I have heard about?
Edit: nothing? Anyone?
I mean, she lied about liking transphobic tweets:
On one level, my interest in this issue has been professional, because I’m writing a crime series […].
When I started taking an interest in gender identity and transgender matters, I began screenshotting comments that interested me, as a way of reminding myself what I might want to research later. On one occasion, I absent-mindedly ‘liked’ instead of screenshotting. That single ‘like’ was deemed evidence of wrongthink, and a persistent low level of harassment began.Sure, Joanne. “My interest in this was only professional, because I was writing a book
where the serial killer is a man cross-dressing as a woman that kills other women”. We know how it ended.She then proceeded with a very weird anti-trans statement:
When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. […].
As I didn’t have a realistic possibility of becoming a man back in the 1980s, it had to be books and music that got me through both my mental health issues and the sexualised scrutiny and judgement that sets so many girls to war against their bodies in their teens. Fortunately for me, I found my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman […]; it’s OK to feel confused, dark, both sexual and non-sexual, unsure of what or who you are.
I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria.“I felt non-binary too, but I’m not trans, so you aren’t either!”.
For reference, desistance is a real term that refers to people who changes their mind about their gender dysphoria, and, although further research is still needed, she is probably citing real sources. It’s also strange to insert that knowledge in a post where she’s supposedly trying to convince people that she’s not a TERF, among the “five reasons she’s worried about the new trans activism”, whatever that means. “I don’t hate trans people, but anyway, they aren’t real and you are preying on children”.
She then ended her wall of text by alluding that all trans women are actually men who want to prey on women (never mind that, if a man wanted to become a sexual predator, he could just… Do that, instead of faking gender dysphoria? Like, a man who wants to sexually harass someone isn’t stopping at the “girls only” sign. He’s not a vampire). But hey, before that she said that she cares about trans women, so I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.
So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.
That’s the simple truth of a person who should really talk to their therapist about her trauma instead of writing bullshit online.
If agreeing with known transphobes, erasing trans identity, and putting trans women and sexual predators on the same level isn’t transphobic, I really don’t know what is.
I hadn’t read this before, and I am honestly shocked that this is the what the uproar is over. This isn’t a call to action to hurt anyone. It is basically a statement that there is a difference between a transwoman and a woman, that distinction needs to be made, and this is mainly due to society rushing to a solution without due diligence. This is not 1/100th of what it has been made out to be. If this is all it takes for someone to never want to associate with someone else, then I don’t think he should associate with anyone. Everyone is going to differ from your opinion on one topic or another, you can’t escape it.
No This is it, after a relatively lengthy twitter conversation she ended up writing this blog post.
And the anger and vitriol boils down to “why do animal rights activists throw paint on rich ladies wearing fur, because bikers in leather jackets will punch you in the mouth”.
This right here is why Lemmy is often a shitshow. You’re absolutely right, but since you’re going against the hive mind it’s nothing but downvotes. No one’s even bothered to reply because there’s nothing to argue against in good faith. Just angry downvotes because your facts are getting in the way of fake outrage.
Nah. Both of you just haven’t kept up with her history of equating trans women with sexual predators and trans men with poor brainwashed little girls, some of which was hinted, if disguised in polite words, in the article where she talked about the situation and defended how she totally didn’t mean any harm to anybody.
Did you see when she said she’d march with trans people if they truly were persecuted? Their rights have been challenged and undermined many times since, and she didn’t show any sign of that.
Because, you know, sometimes people aren’t completely honest and taking them at their word is not the ultimate measure of their characters.
So don’t confuse disagreeing with people here and getting downvoted with being the one clear-minded contrarian. However much internet bandwagons are a thing, you won’t get the clear picture unless you go look into it. Sometimes you might get that reaction because you are wrong and that’s it.
It’s OK, people can read the content themselves. I have a lot of (maybe misplaced) confidence in most people.
And I personally don’t see a lot of hivemind but plurality of opinion luckily. The angry downvotes without response is usually telling enough, although someone did reply to tell me to “fuck off” this time.
Seriously! If I say something stupid, others are supposed to show up and educate me on why what I said is stupid! That is how public discourse is supposed to works!
Wait, why aren’t the people tired of my ignorant shit jumping to help me learn? Oh I know, that means I’m actually super smart, totally correct and fully informed. Everyone else is just being stupid and mean to me for no valid reason.
Honest feedback (for honest ppl): there are ways to ask people what they think so they’ll be inclined to reply earnestly. Starting with “pipe down” ain’t it… ya fuckin dingus. lol
I think that the masses are mostly disengaged with terminally-online type discourse. The only reason I knew JK Rowling was TERF was because of reading it on here, so if you are only on social media to follow your old high school classmates on facebook, you’d probably never find out
The masses are largely disengaged with LGBT rights in general, but the declining rights of transgender people in the UK (and the US) shows this is not just a “terminally-online” kind of issue. She is not the only one responsible, of course, but her outspoken antagonism towards transgender people is influencing people.
It concerns me when people can’t differentiate “this issue does not affect me” from “this issue does not exist”. Even calling matters “terminally-online” in general is a bit questionable when whole ass presidents get elected by meme campaigns these days.
The game has a minor character who is trans too. It uses the world she invented but does not borrow her real world views
Just because a minority is depicted in a work of art does not mean that depiction was made in good faith. Americans are familiar with that concept because of our dark history of minstrel shows and blackface performances.
When the trans woman character’s name is Sirona Ryan, it calls into question whether she is meant to be a character or a caricature.
Hasnt Nintendo like, not released digital sales for TotK? I remember reading that recently.
Not a cope post, I don’t care if you play the terf game, just actually curious.
The terf game?
The owner of the Three Broomsticks is trans… ?
When the series creator is vocally advocating to marginalize transgender people and financially supporting other members of the hate movement, it takes more than a token NPC to make up for it.
Most likely that character is an insincere PR move from Warner Bros, but some trans people also pointed out that naming her Miss Ryan was probably done in bad faith. If anything, sounds exactly like the kind of tasteless thoughtless naming that JKR is infamous for.
Most likely that character is an insincere PR move from Warner Bros,
There was a lot of that shoehorned in that made me wonder if it would’ve made sense in 1800s wizarding world.
don’t care
That’s a good way to get yourself blocked. Bye.
don’t care
Thank god tokenism is here to save the day again.
That’s not what “TERF” means.
Theyre trying to argue that JKR being a massive TERF is fine because theres one trans character in the game. The “I cant be racist, I have a black friend” defense.
The “I can’t be racist, my book has a black guy AND an Asian woman!” defense too. Just don’t think too hard about what they’re named lol
I don’t care for JK. But JK didn’t make the game. Hundreds of designers, artists and programmers did. And you think those people should be boycotted because one person is a TERF.
She collected royalties from it. It doesnt matter if she had any input or not. Buying that game results in some of that money going into her pocket and I dont want to give her a dime. If she didnt get a dime for it that might be different but as it is she does and she revels in the shit stirring that shes done that resulted in blow back. I cant justify giving that troll the satisfaction of buying products that benefit her financially.
Those people were already paid, and you can make a game about wizards and magic without licensing the Harry Potter IP and further enriching JK Rowling.
The people who mattered dont get paid based on sales. So, fuck em, they got their bag just fine?
Maybe in your fantasy world, but in real life when a game bombs the studio gets cut down, downsized, etc. Volition was recently closed because of the bombing of the Saints Row reboot. Avalanche is great studio and I wish them to continue existing.
I dunno what fantasy world youre living in, but here in reality you get downsized and laid off regardless of how good your games do.
Unless youve missed the game trends for the past 4 months?
The artists, programmers etc have already been paid as much as they’re going to get for it.
Never got into Harry Potter since I was too old. This game was really fun to just explore and I constantly felt a forward momentum. Some of the stories were good, and some were awful.
I would absolutely play a sequel just based on the well done sense of discovery alone. I just wish more of what you found was impactful instead of cosmetic.
On the one hand, I agree about wishing there was more to find than a new color cloak, but on the other hand I think it’s a neat way to keep the game approachable to more casual gamers (and to try and get as many Harry Potter fans to get it as possible). That being said, I would have liked if there were more challenge, and something other than just flat stat improvements could have been a way to keep that interesting if they had higher difficulties.
I get it, but it doesn’t have to be just pure stats. Could have been mild ability improvements or something or maybe changed some of the effects or visual things that occurred around you. Hell, even walking speed improvement or something like a tone to help you locate hidden items.
There’s a lot they could have done considering we’re dealing with magical items! Still had a pretty good time with it overall though.
If you have nothing else to play and want a simple open world game set in and around Hogwarts, it’s perfectly servicable as long as you pirate it. Don’t expect to be blown away by it though.
I assumed that after literally nobody or any media outlets have talked about it since release. Telltale sign of bang on average game. Probably great for potter fans and boring for those who don’t care or haven’t seen the films/read the books.
I would - and I hate my saying this - rather recommend Avatar then. Yeah it’s a Ubisoft game. I know. Yeah, it needs a beefier machine to actually look really pretty.
But oh my fucking hell is it pretty when cranked up. And it helps the generic open world gameplay a lot to be this awesome looking. Fun to just wander around and take in the scenery, even when you leave the jungle areas and go to the plains and see the wind-swept grass and all.
Has anyone played both? Im loving zelda at the moment and wouldn’t mind moving onto this next
Hogwarts is fun for about 30 hours roleplaying as a wizard, as a casual potter fan. I got really bored of it after that and never finished the game. At its core it really is very generic, it’s really propped up by the IP. That’s not to say it’s bad by any means but its not got the depth of Zelda.
I think the biggest issue for me was how large the map was. They did the castle and hogsmede very well, but then threw in a bunch of filler content in the other towns. If they had stuck to the more core areas only, the game wouldn’t have gotten so stale later on.
That’s because they needed somewhere for you to fly your broomstick since it was the most fun part of the game.
Sure, more room is nice, but the map could have been 1/3rd the size and still have a good sense of speed with it. A better option would have been to put in some fun mini games with the broom, but that would have been required then to make flying the broom more engaging.
I’m kinda curious in what way Zelda (assuming TOTK) has more depth. Combat wise HP has stealth, an attack typing system, comboing, special moves, and more if I recall correctly. TOTK does have a variety of weapons and you can craft weapons, but it generally boils down to just whacking away at things. You could also mention the ability to make vehicles/automaton, but the time to build things (until you find ultra hand?) mixed with limited resources made that more of a pain/chore than fun.
I could go into other mechanics, but ultimately I think TOTK would be rated worse if it wasn’t for the Zelda branding carrying it.
You aren’t wrong, there was an unpopular opinion thread some weeks ago and several zelda fans called both BOTW and TOTK just ubisoft open worlds with a zelda skin. They are both carried by their IP (even though I love these 2 zeldas), the worst Zelda (Skyward Sword) still sold 4.15 million units, just counting the HD version, the Wii version sold 3.67 million.
Haha I appreciate the comment and the ability to call them out even though you like them.
I just wish I felt the same. The longer they’ve been out the more I realize that we probably won’t get a more traditional zelda ever again. I think the thing I liked about zelda up to BOTW was that the world itself was a puzzle. Figuring out how to navigate and open up new areas was part of the fun and challenge to me. Not to mention dungeons being larger and more intricate puzzles than anything you come across in BOTW and TOTK.
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Eh I dunno, I got bored of it before I finished the story or explored the other half of the map. Feels like a bit of a failing there. 30 hours would be fine if it was a fully contained experience.
Zelda is the better game. Problem is (sales wise) the Zelda franchise isn’t nearly as popular outside of gaming circles, and access to this game is locked to those that own a Switch, whereas HL is on all platforms
I played both. Both are excellent games, and both also have flaws.
I think Zelda was by far the better game - HL isn’t really on the same level as it at all, design-wise, story-wise, or or in terms of things to do.
HL’s strength is definitely the world itself - the Hogwarts and Hogsmeade areas in particular are both incredibly well done and very faithful to the source material. The other areas are just alright.
I’d say HL’s weaknesses become most apparent if you’re a completionist. Things can get very repetitive if you’re going for 100%. I did, and I honestly think you’ll like it a lot more if you just don’t.
It’s still lots of fun though. Zelda was my most played game in 2023 and HL was kind of far behind, and everything else combined would still probably be a distant third.
I absolutely agree with the other people saying HL is generic and propped up by the IP. But for me that was enough.
The story of HL is also one of its weaknesses. It’s a generic chosen one story with unmemorable characters.
I’m really confused by all of the story comments in this thread. It’s fair to criticise HL’s story, but at least there is a story and characters. What story does TOTK even have? What characters have more than a line or two? While Zelda has never been big on complex narratives, at least previous entries (before BOTW and TOTK) could develop a story since they could have a linear progression. A couple of flashback scenes really doesn’t tell a great or compelling narrative and really disconnects the gameplay from the events going on.
Disclaimer: I haven’t played TOTK. I only played a bit of BOTW.
It’s all about expectations. I never thought of Zelda as a game with a story, so BOTW not having one doesn’t bother me. Harry Potter, on the other hand, I’ve always associated with memorable characters and a bonkers world. HL translates this bonkers world into a game quite well, but its story doesn’t (in my opinion) fit that world nor does it have memorable characters. (Some of the characters look and feel like Lidl versions of the characters from the original books.)
I have. Hogwarts Legacy has really good graphics but it’s honestly pretty generic, it only sold so well because there are millions of harry potter fans out there.
I mean clearly that’s not the only reason, right? If it were, every previous Harry Potter video game would’ve sold just as well.
Zelda has tighter gameplay and holds your attention longer.
HL is decent.
I pirated it and played for maybe two hours. It was boring and the controls didn’t feel good. Uninstalled shortly after.
If you are WB, I can’t see how you compare the performance of this game vs the performance of Suicide Squad (which had similar development time) and not rethink your approach to future licensed titles
Nooooooooo!
I mean both were good games, but Zelda is just legendary status and on another level. It holds a special place for me, and they somehow nailed it out of the park yet again with TOTK. I don’t know how they keep doing it! They have some geniuses over there.
Very curious. I played for about 10-15 hours and was just bored, but I’ve never been a huge potter head. Glad people like it though
