Hogwarts Legacy - Not as good as Dog Kid University

[jonny_rat]

1 minute ago, Doctor Shark said:

No need to apologise. It’s what happens when you have an idea for a response, then your kid tells you they’ve dropped jam covered toast on the dog, the Asda shopping arrives and the bacon burns whilst you’re at the door and then you sit down to finish the post and can’t really remember what point you were trying to make but instead of just discarding it, you forge ahead. 

Tell you what though: love a crispy bacon. "Ohh it's so burned" > continues to pick at charred bacon bits for the next 3 hours

[Captain Kelsten]

Question for people: Rowling’s depiction of goblins as hook nosed greedy money grubbers…intentional antisemitism or just blindly using fantasy tropes? 
 

I must admit I’d never made the connection until someone pointed it out. 
 

Rowling’s stance on things is so weird. 
 

Like…Dumbledore was always gay, apparently, but never overtly in the books because that would hurt sales and poison childrens’ minds, but after the fact? On Twitter? Gay as the day is long. OR it was something she never really thought about at the time and just shoehorned it in afterwards as a sort of retcon, perhaps to show how progressive she was? 
 

And if you take that Dumbledore was/is gay, and in love with Grindlewald, and was almost a dark wizard but renounced his love and that path…subtext for being gay = being evil? 
 

There’s a lot of subtext you can read into Rowling’s writing when you know she’s a bigot. 

[Alex W.]

So, setting aside JK Rowling, this is a game where Hogwarts sends child soldiers out on magic special forces operations to suppress an uprising by a brutalised minority?

[Captain Kelsten]

…yes. That about sums it up, it would seem. 
 

 

[jonny_rat]

5 minutes ago, Doctor Shark said:

Question for people: Rowling’s depiction of goblins as hook nosed greedy money grubbers…intentional antisemitism or just blindly using fantasy tropes? 
 

I must admit I’d never made the connection until someone pointed it out. 
 

Rowling’s stance on things is so weird. 
 

Like…Dumbledore was always gay, apparently, but never overtly in the books because that would hurt sales and poison childrens’ minds, but after the fact? On Twitter? Gay as the day is long. OR it was something she never really thought about at the time and just shoehorned it in afterwards as a sort of retcon, perhaps to show how progressive she was? 
 

And if you take that Dumbledore was/is gay, and in love with Grindlewald, and was almost a dark wizard but renounced his love and that path…subtext for being gay = being evil? 
 

There’s a lot of subtext you can read into Rowling’s writing when you know she’s a bigot. 

 

I'm almost certain it was blind use of tropes, which isn't great in and of itself. But what has always irked about it is how quick she was to criticise *certain* political figures over anti-semitism when she received the benefit of the doubt from do many of her supporters. Hey critique was also in the most clumsy and cringeworthy fashion, of course.

[Isaac]

2 hours ago, Doctor Shark said:

Question for people: Rowling’s depiction of goblins as hook nosed greedy money grubbers…intentional antisemitism or just blindly using fantasy tropes? 
 

I must admit I’d never made the connection until someone pointed it out. 
 

Rowling’s stance on things is so weird. 
 

Like…Dumbledore was always gay, apparently, but never overtly in the books because that would hurt sales and poison childrens’ minds, but after the fact? On Twitter? Gay as the day is long. OR it was something she never really thought about at the time and just shoehorned it in afterwards as a sort of retcon, perhaps to show how progressive she was? 
 

And if you take that Dumbledore was/is gay, and in love with Grindlewald, and was almost a dark wizard but renounced his love and that path…subtext for being gay = being evil? 
 

There’s a lot of subtext you can read into Rowling’s writing when you know she’s a bigot. 

 

https://goat.com.au/books/never-forget-when-jk-rowling-likened-being-a-werewolf-to-having-aids/

 

This was particularly grim.

 

Although I still think the lowest-hanging problematic fruit within the text themselves is how she essentially depicts a world functioning on slavery, she invents the perfect slaves (they want to be slaves, they punish themselves, they derive all pleasure from serving their masters), takes six books to even point out that this might be unfair, and then attempts to include comedy elements where the 'good' characters make fun of the single character that points out that slavery might be wrong.

 

I mean she writes scenes where Hermione’s desperate attempts to get the House Elves to pick up clothes to free themselves make her look annoying, pushy, and out of touch. Hermoine’s invention of SPEW (the only activist group in the books) is treated as annoying and misguided.

 

She writes a slave (Winky) who needs to be a slave, and writes how destitute and ruined she is not being a slave. Rowling writes that the best way to treat slaves is to be kind and allow them to be slaves.

 

To summarise - a white British author writes a nostalgic ode to a society functioning on slavery, with the perfect slaves, and concludes that the best way to treat slaves is to be kind and allow them to be slaves, otherwise they would be destitute and unable to function.

[Captain Kelsten]

10 minutes ago, Isaac said:

 

https://goat.com.au/books/never-forget-when-jk-rowling-likened-being-a-werewolf-to-having-aids/

 

This was particularly grim.

 

Although I still thing the lowest-hanging problematic fruit within the text themselves is how she essentially depicts a world functioning on slavery, she invents the perfect slaves (they want to be slaves, they punish themselves, they derive all pleasure from serving their masters), takes six books to even point out that this might be unfair, and then attempts to include comedy elements where the 'good' characters make fun of the single character that points out that slavery might be wrong.

 

I mean she writes scenes where Hermione’s desperate attempts to get the House Elves to pick up clothes to free themselves make her look annoying, pushy, and out of touch. Hermoine’s invention of SPEW (the only activist group in the books) is treated as annoying and misguided.

 

She writes a slave (Winky) who needs to be a slave, and writes how destitute and ruined she is not being a slave. Rowling writes that the best way to treat slaves is to be kind and allow them to be slaves.

 

To summarise - a white British author writes a nostalgic ode to a society functioning on slavery, with the perfect slaves, and concludes that the best way to treat slaves is to be kind and allow them to be slaves, otherwise they would be destitute and unable to function.

Oh man, I’d forgotten about all that. I must admit, my only lasting memories of Harry Potter these days is what’s in the movies. I haven’t read the books for donkey’s years. I found them cute but poorly written. 

[footle]

36 minutes ago, Doctor Shark said:

Question for people: Rowling’s depiction of goblins as hook nosed greedy money grubbers…intentional antisemitism or just blindly using fantasy tropes? 

I’m not sure that in the books they were depicted as hook nosed. Or crooked. They were a bit antagonistic to wizards, but given the wizard superiority complex who wouldn’t be?

 

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Goblin

 

(only reference there is to a pointed nose, long fingers and long toes)

[Mogster]

1 hour ago, Isaac said:

 

https://goat.com.au/books/never-forget-when-jk-rowling-likened-being-a-werewolf-to-having-aids/

 

This was particularly grim.

 

Although I still thing the lowest-hanging problematic fruit within the text themselves is how she essentially depicts a world functioning on slavery, she invents the perfect slaves (they want to be slaves, they punish themselves, they derive all pleasure from serving their masters), takes six books to even point out that this might be unfair, and then attempts to include comedy elements where the 'good' characters make fun of the single character that points out that slavery might be wrong.

 

I mean she writes scenes where Hermione’s desperate attempts to get the House Elves to pick up clothes to free themselves make her look annoying, pushy, and out of touch. Hermoine’s invention of SPEW (the only activist group in the books) is treated as annoying and misguided.

 

She writes a slave (Winky) who needs to be a slave, and writes how destitute and ruined she is not being a slave. Rowling writes that the best way to treat slaves is to be kind and allow them to be slaves.

 

To summarise - a white British author writes a nostalgic ode to a society functioning on slavery, with the perfect slaves, and concludes that the best way to treat slaves is to be kind and allow them to be slaves, otherwise they would be destitute and unable to function.

All of this is very well articulated in Shaun's recent video essay, among other things. It's long, but a fantastic listen:

 

 

It doesn't really address Rowling's trans views, as it mostly focusses on what's in the books/movies/play. It does however discuss Rowling's neoliberal world view and how it likely influences her writing.

[Festoon]

I've just seen you get your own goblin slave in the game.

[macosx]

3 hours ago, Doctor Shark said:

Maybe he just likes Harry Potter? There doesn’t have to be some alt right agenda behind it. He just likes Harry Potter. I get you’re passionate about this, but sometimes it’s just as simple as someone likes a thing. 

thanks. Yes, love the movies and the theme park despite JK Rowling.

[drmick]

I came into this thread to read about people's thoughts on the game.....

 

I was only vaguely aware that JKR had said something naughty somewhere. Didn't realise there was a lot more to it......

 

..... But I think the discussion that's happening here belongs in a different sub-forum.

[Captain Kelsten]

Sure. 
 

it doesn’t look very good. 
 

Well, parts of it do (the common rooms), but most of it doesn’t. 
 

And setting it in the 1800s means it can get away with being even less progressive than the 90s set books. 

[jonny_rat]

I don't know, maybe you can provide some scintillating conversation about this fairly generic looking big-name-IP.

 

Edit: not you shark! But you made a good stab at it.

[Isaac]

23 minutes ago, AstroBot said:

Agreed.  Can we talk about the game please.

 

Sure, let's discuss this:

 

4 hours ago, Alex W. said:

So, setting aside JK Rowling, this is a game where Hogwarts sends child soldiers out on magic special forces operations to suppress an uprising by a brutalised minority?

 

[moosegrinder]

Game looks rubbish. It'll sell gangbusters. There, the thread can sink now because JK Rowling being a world class cunt isn't worth discussing in here apparently. Either it's seen as irrelevant or people just don't want to have to deal with her cuntery, yeah?

[MK-1601]

10 hours ago, kensei said:

 

It's not "buy the game to support the devs". It's "the only people who will actually be hurt by this are the devs".

 

It's true, once you've learned how to program Harry Potter games it's impossible to retrain to make anything else.

 

 

I'm going to eat more stuff with palm oil in it because I don't want the guy cutting orangutan's trees down to go hungry. Daft logic.

[PyramidFace]

It looks like one of those YouTube 'Ocarina of Time in Unreal Engine 4!' videos but applied to those crap PS1 Harry Potter games.

[Festoon]

1 hour ago, PyramidFace said:

It looks like one of those YouTube 'Ocarina of Time in Unreal Engine 4!' videos but applied to those crap PS1 Harry Potter games.

 

THANK YOU! You've managed to verbalise the exact feeling I had looking at this. Despite the details, every room looks like a boring space full of nothing.

[Cheyenne]

Despite the obvious sales this will make, it still feels at least a decade too late. The promise of a create-your-own Hogwarts student is hugely appealing, and I'm amazed it's taken this long for someone to have a crack at it. Really this is something that should have been done around the time of Mass Effect 1 & 2 being on the market, and personally I'm more amazed that we never got a HP MMO, something like that just seemed to make obvious sense.

 

Looking at that footage, it still feels a decade out of time. Despite the possibilities of wizardry and how the various disciplines could make for a complex RPG system where you favour a style and spec into it, instead the game is pushed towards being Spell Bulletstorm with everything else as support elements. Imagine the scope for this world if you could be a true potions master, or herbology, and take routes around traditional combat using these skills? Instead it looks like we're being served a fairly rote chosen one narrative where direct spellcasting is the primary engagement. Big yawn.

 

I'm sure there are people on the development team that have real passion and aspirations for what they want to achieve with this game, but what has been shown looks focus tested to buggery and even if you try as hard as you can to blinker yourself to all the problematic shit attached to Harry Potter, you're still coming out the other end with Third Person Open World Action Adventure with RPG Elements (2K22 Edition).

 

As others have pointed out, a big issue with JK Rowling is not just her public persona of the last few years, but how these views and inclinations of hers are built into the world and thematic structure of Harry Potter (or Wizarding World as they now try to brand it). Within this game we're seeing the perpetuation of house elf slavery, the goblin uprising stuff that immediately felt spectacularly awkward*, something of a general 'might makes right' mentality and likely more that, while it has no direct involvement from Rowling, is all stuff that is built from her rotting foundations.

 

*People are right to point out that specific image of goblins being hook-nosed and playing on anti-semitic imagery stems more from the films and is not explicitly stated in the books, but the functions of goblins in the books do use these kind of negative connotations (generally that of being obsessed with money, and untrustworthy because of this).

[George Clooney]

I hope it includes where she decided to add to the lore that before Hogwarts got plumbing, wizards would just shit themselves and magic it away.

 

Im not even making that up, that was an actual piece of trivia that she released.

[kensei]

@Cheyenne I am not sure the target market really wants a really complex RPG system.

 

It looks fine. The graphic seem to range from quite impressive to meh. My concern is that there seems to be a huge number of systems and that can easily end up a mess. The combat looks a bit Avengers-y mindless. But there's not a huge amount to go on.

 

I suspect the thing that would actually work best given the structure of the books is something like Persona: Hogwarts Edition.

[BossSaru]

1 hour ago, George Clooney said:

I hope it includes where she decided to add to the lore that before Hogwarts got plumbing, wizards would just shit themselves and magic it away.

 

Im not even making that up, that was an actual piece of trivia that she released.

 

Wow, I checked and the canon is even more deranged than you suggested.

Quote

Hogwarts’ plumbing became more elaborate in the eighteenth century (this was a rare instance of wizards copying Muggles, because hitherto they simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence)

 

Harry Potter fan community: "..."

JK Rowling: "In the olden days Wizards just used to shit all over themselves in the street"

[Captain Kelsten]

I mean…if you could, you would, wouldn’t you? 

[Benny]

I know where I would send it anyway.

[moosegrinder]

[Festoon]

Dudes,

 

She wrote about House Elves.

 

House Elf.

 

House. Elf.

 

What known phrase is she referring to here?

 

Mind Boggling.

[Majora]

Putting aside my disinterest in the franchise and contempt for the author, I think this looks alright. You're going to end up with a lot of people who usually don't play a lot of games playing this so I don't think they could afford to go too complex with it. They also have to hit a wide range of age groups.

 

It does look dated in some ways but I can imagine it ticking most of the boxes fans want. On the surface at least, it seems to include most everything fans would want.

[drmick]

3 hours ago, Festoon said:

Dudes,

 

She wrote about House Elves.

 

House Elf.

 

House. Elf.

 

What known phrase is she referring to here?

 

Mind Boggling.

 

I'm probably being really stupid- but I'm not sure what you are referring to, sorry. 

[Festoon]

1 minute ago, drmick said:

 

I'm probably being really stupid- but I'm not sure what you are referring to, sorry. 

 

House slaves.