Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Kirby wrote: »

Digital Foundry? As in the performance comparison guys? WTF would they have to say about it?

"The frame-rate here dips to about 40fps but we can't help but think it would be higher if there was more diversity. As we know, black men are easier to render."

Ridiculous.

"It would be remiss of us not point out the controversy surrounding this title based on the attitudes of Daniel Vávra, the lead developer, whose views speak for themselves in both his social media and this Kotaku interview - aspects of which are reflected in the game content, and may give pause in considering it for purchase. It's a topic Eurogamer will address in its review, but the focus for this Digital Foundry piece is its technology and performance."

That's what DF decided include in their analysis of the game - quite clear that the site have a personal vendetta against Vavra and have thus completely failed to provide an unbiased review of it.

Kirby

If the guy is literally the devil.....what has that got to do with the game? Why can't they just judge the game on its own merits?

"Oh well the guy is racist so we cant review the game"....I just don't get this sort of attitude.

If Michael Jackson had been found guilty instead of not guilty, I would've still thought his music was amazing. Seperate the Art from the artist. It's easy.

Kirby wrote: »

If the guy is literally the devil.....what has that got to do with the game? Why can't they just judge the game on its own merits?

"Oh well the guy is racist so we cant review the game"....I just don't get this sort of attitude.

If Michael Jackson had been found guilty instead of not guilty, I would've still thought his music was amazing. Seperate the Art from the artist. It's easy.

Absolutely agree, when did games ever become about the people making them over the actual gameplay & the game itself?

I couldn't care less about the head of the studio or what his views are, tell me about the game and how it plays. And I certainly don't care about a game shoehorning in races or whatever else just to placate some soft minded fool from having his modern sensitivities triggered - it's a ****ing video game not a political statement.

Bambi wrote: »

He's retweets people including, James Woods the actor and notable alt right nazi apparently? He has a problem with socialism, given that he grew up behind the iron curtain? Outrageous stuff.

Utah, Rhode Island nor Massachusetts were never part of the USSR? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Woods#Early_life

The review is a joke either way though, I'm sure you'd find the (very, very, very) odd Irish person around those areas too be they travelers or whatever - we might as well complain nobody has heard "ah shure jaysus Henry how are ya!?" in the game. I'd also reckon skin colours are very easy to mod if it's such a big deal, yet don't recall seeing much of any of these on games before which hints not many people really care. It makes sense in games like GTA since the modern US is a big mish-mash of ethnicities, but this is not that case.

It's also fairly dangerous in some sense as games like this and The Witcher 3 (granted it's in a fantasy world but it's a blatant ripoff/send up of medieval Europe) come from fairly small studios looking to really push the boundaries of what is capable in games, which stops the huge 'AAA goliath' types from getting too lazy. I'm finishing my second playthrough of TW3 and do really like the Ofieri characters that pop up in the DLC, not for some diversity quota reason but because there are hardly any of them and it's made very explicit that they're from far, far away so it gives a bit of a sense of a greater world around you, outside of the areas the game is set in. But if they were just there for the sake of being there with no context behind why they look and sound different, they would seem hugely out of place.

Yet if this guy got his wish none of us would have ever played The Witcher 3, CDPR would probably have been in risk of going out of business if that game completely tanked, GOG might not be a thing, and we wouldn't have the agony of waiting on Cyberpunk 2077 to face up to every day. Studios wouldn't have to push themselves so much harder to try and 'top' TW3 (which to my mind nobody has even come that close to since) and some titles like Fallout 4 may have escaped a good bit of criticism for it's laziness.

Kirby wrote: »

If the guy is literally the devil.....what has that got to do with the game? Why can't they just judge the game on its own merits?

"Oh well the guy is racist so we cant review the game"....I just don't get this sort of attitude.

If Michael Jackson had been found guilty instead of not guilty, I would've still thought his music was amazing. Seperate the Art from the artist. It's easy.

Pretty much this, sure two of the most highly regarded filmmakers of all time (from a technical POV) were a horrendous racist (D.W. Griffith), and one of Hitler's highest ranking propagandists (Leni Riefenstahl). Even each of their 'masterpieces' were essentially KKK and Nazi propaganda (Birth of a Nation, Triumph of the Will) but they're still seen as incredibly well made early movies (probably like Pac Man and the original Mario Bros will be in 100 years!

), some of the most influential ever made, and are taught to just about anyone studying the medium in college.

Lone Stone

yea that review is bull ****. Sure like i remember in the 80's it would be rare to see a black person in dublin ffs well by rare i mean a very small population compared to now, my uncle was black from a place called kourasou and people would stop and stare and say "its a black lad !" :eek: was even worse in the 60's when my anty introduced him to the family

so i find it hard to imagine how the 1400's bohemia would be a more diverse society.

Lone Stone wrote: »

yea that review is bull ****. Sure like i remember in the 80's it would be rare to see a black person in dublin ffs well by rare i mean a very small population compared to now, my uncle was black from a place called kourasou and people would stop and stare and say "its a black lad !" :eek: was even worse in the 60's when my anty introduced him to the family so i find it hard to imagine how the 1400's bohemia would be a more diverse society.

TG4 did a great documentary on the Irish basketball league in the 1980s that was able to attract some college players from the US that couldn't make it to the NBA, it's really interesting and pretty gas hearing the lads talking about literally being the only black person in their entire area, kids rubbing their hands and shouting "mammy it won't come off!" and even dogs looking weird at them on the street.

It's well worth a look, funny hearing them talk about how they went from freaked out/intimidated about why there were no black people around (many of them having grown up in 1970s/80s southern US) at first, then realising it was just because there wasn't reason (employment etc) for people to move to Ireland in the first place.

Sure I was born in 1986 and grew up in Dublin, even in the early 90s as a kid seeing a black person walk through where you were playing heads and volleys was so rare that you'd be blabbering to the parents about it at dinner. I once got a taxi off a black guy who it turned out was a Dub, was funny listening to him give out about all the black immigrants "because I used to be able to walk into any pub or club in Dublin and get any women I wanted... now I can't even get a taxi to pick me up afterward, and I'm a feckin' taxi driver myself!!" :pac:

Dyr

Billy86 wrote: »

Utah, Rhode Island nor Massachusetts were never part of the USSR? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Woods#Early_life

Your man Vavra, not Woods

Pyr0

I'm about 3 or 4 hours in so far and I'm enjoying it.

The combat is refreshingly difficult when compared to other games and the visuals are excellent, the world is very vibrant and feels "alive" just enough to give it some character, I would prefer a little more activity in the towns and villages i've seen so far tho.

I really like the snippets of medieval history they provide you with, reminds me a lot of the history section of Age of Empires 2.

Performance has been fairly solid, I have everything running on high and find myself with a steady 60FPS the vast majority of the time, the only issues i've noticed is slow rendering when coming out of fast travel and the occasional lock up. I probably need to update my drivers but I hope to see some optimisation fixes over the coming weeks.

The voice acting is a bit touch and go at times, some of the character voices don't fit their age and "status" but to be fair, i'm holding it up against The Witcher 3 voice acting and that's pretty hard to beat!

I haven't delved into skills and character traits too much so I can't comment on it just yet.

Bambi wrote: »

Your man Vavra, not Woods

Ah got ya, I was completely lost there!!

Kiith

The texture pop up is pretty bad at times, and it gets a bit creepy when half the town is walking around with no heads

wnolan1992

Kirby wrote: »

If the guy is literally the devil.....what has that got to do with the game? Why can't they just judge the game on its own merits?

Because games are art, and it's valid to take into account the artist behind the art when critiquing it.

If it's not an issue for you, fine. It's not an issue for me either. But just in the same way people may choose not to see a Mel Gibson film or watch House of Cards again, some people do care. And this attitude that video games should somehow be exempt from that is obnoxious.

Reading the Eurogamer review, I think it's mostly fair up until the last line. The hard turn it takes in the latter third I'd put down to poor writing more than anything. I think he could have addressed the issues of race much, much better than he did in the review, but given the creator of the game's leanings, I think he was right to discuss it.

That said, when you read two thirds of a review that lavish praise on the game highlighting only a few niggles, it's ludicrous that he flat out says he wouldn't recommend the game.

wnolan1992 wrote: »

Because games are art, and it's valid to take into account the artist behind the art when critiquing it.

If it's not an issue for you, fine. It's not an issue for me either. But just in the same way people may choose not to see a Mel Gibson film or watch House of Cards again, some people do care. And this attitude that video games should somehow be exempt from that is obnoxious.

Reading the Eurogamer review, I think it's mostly fair up until the last line. The hard turn it takes in the latter third I'd put down to poor writing more than anything. I think he could have addressed the issues of race much, much better than he did in the review, but given the creator of the game's leanings, I think he was right to discuss it.

That said, when you read two thirds of a review that lavish praise on the game highlighting only a few niggles, it's ludicrous that he flat out says he wouldn't recommend the game.

Your first points would hold weight if he was the sole producer of the game, but it was made by a team of 70. It's extremely unfair on those people to have all the work they put in negated because someone has a problem with the views of 1 out of 70.

There is no issue with race given the time the game is set in (there are some really enlightening posts in the comments section from people who actually live in the region and know the history of it well). It's a fabricated snag point to build his personal vendetta against Varva around (and we won't even start on the "historian" he consulted, a.k.a Dave from down the pub who read a history book once).

Simply put, he tried to measure an accurate historical depiction of the time with his modern PC sensitivites and failed spectacularly. Are they going to do a diversity check on every game they review now? Not enough black people in Yakuza 6? Not enough transgender asian lesbians in Red Dead Redemption 2? I doubt it, and that will truly show this review for what it is - a virtue signalling piece of **** that completely avoids the one thing a game review should do and exposes the author for the hypocrite he is to bring his personal opinions in to a review of a video game.

wnolan1992

The Specialist wrote: »

Your first points would hold weight if he was the sole producer of the game, but it was made by a team of 70. It's extremely unfair on those people to have all the work they put in negated because someone has a problem with the views of 1 out of 70.

Unfortunately, that's what happens in entertainment. Is it unfair to boycott a Mel Gibson movie because of Gibson's anti-semitism even though the film is made by hundreds of other people? (Sorry to keep using that particular example btw, it's just the easiest one on hand that most people will know of).

I don't accept that rebuttal as a reason to just ignore it.

There is no issue with race given the time the game is set in (there are some really enlightening posts in the comments section from people who actually live in the region and know the history of it well). It's a fabricated snag point to build his personal vendetta against Varva around (and we won't even start on the "historian" he consulted, a.k.a Dave from down the pub who read a history book once).

Absolutely agreed here. As I said, he tackled it incredibly badly in the review. Had he done more research than consulting one historian and pawning that historian's view off as gospel, he may have been able to make a valid point. I don't know enough about the area or the history of it to say whether you could legitimately argue that there would have been people of colour there or not at that time.

exposes the author for the hypocrite he is to bring his personal opinions in to a review of a video game.

Heh, this is a throwback. Haven't heard this old chestnut in a while. Reviews are opinions. The views of the reviewer are always part of a review.

It's probably worth noting that Vavra did make an extensive statement on all this that may address some of the issues:

Right now I should actually sit down to realize together with our international team our dream of a game in which we all work together for years. Unfortunately, in the past few days, a discussion has developed that relates to my person and things that I have said or done. It's run by people I've never met in person or who've never had a chance to catch a glimpse of Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

In the past, I communicated things badly or did not think carefully enough about my comments. Especially in social media like Twitter, something - I've learned that - can be very dangerous. These comments can be taken out of the context and reassembled.

If the discussion were only about me as a private person, I would still find the allegations and the wording vicious, but would refrain from accepting and accepting it. But now we have reached a point where not only alone is I concerned, but more than 150 people who have nothing to do with my mistakes and decisions. People whose hard work and future are endangered. People who have invested hundreds of hours, crunch-time and heart and soul in a vision to create a game whose success is now jeopardized by the exaggerated discussion.

I can not accept that people who place me at the center of any discussion generally lump all the team members here at Warhorse. Or condemn our game based on their assumptions about my person or worldview.

I apologize for my lack of care and thoughtlessness in my personal communication, which has led to misunderstandings in the past. Should I hurt feelings or give the impression of propagating a kind of ideology, I apologize for that. I would also like to take this opportunity to talk about the issues that are currently in dispute.

Ethnic composition of the population of Bohemia in the Middle Ages and Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Probably the most serious allegation of the current debate revolves around the accusation that we would actively deny the presence of people of other skin color or ethnicity in our game and thus promote a racist worldview. That's wrong. I personally do not deny this fact, nor does Kingdom Come: Deliverance limit itself to any ethnic group. In the course of history, based on our knowledge of historical events, there are, besides Czechs, Germans and Jewish residents, the largest grouping in the game, the Kumans (in German also Kipchak) a Turkic tribe from the Eurasian steppe Migration and the displacement by the settlements of Hungary found its way to Bohemia at that time.

The nationality of other characters reflects what we know about Bohemia around 1403. Thanks to intensive research, this knowledge includes entire family trees and property rights. As already mentioned, the plot of Kingdom Come: Deliverance is limited to a limited area of today's Czech Republic (16qkm), an area that lies far inland from the European continent. Based on our sources, the region was mainly populated by people whose regional origin is in present-day Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Belgium (Walloon). In addition, the sources speak of a few people of Italian origin, who worked mainly as stonemasons and architects in the big cities and a Jewish community.

Of course, the situation at the time looked more heterogeneous in some other countries. Countries whose coasts have been heavily traveled, for example, through maritime trade. The people of Bohemia were certainly also aware that there are people of other skin color or descent, not least thanks to the representation of biblical persons or other works of art, however, it is more than doubtful that under their normal living conditions in rural areas, in the KCD is authoritative, ever had direct contact.

We have already dealt extensively with historians and historical sources while preparing for the work on the game. When the first allegations were made, I reiterated and intensified this discourse to make sure that we do not portray history in any altered form.

Most of the available literature is in Czech, but here are some quotes:

German translation in Prague is the second half of the 12th century, but the Privilege notes that they have been in Prague since the time of Vratislaus II Romance settlement (Walloons, possibly Italians).

We know about no settlements of other nations in Prague. Outside of Prague it was individual Germans or Jews settled along the trade routes or small groups of foreigners in monasteries and chapters. (Klápšt ?, 2005: 354; Žemlička, 1997: 211-217).

Overwhelming majority of the male population is biologically rooted in Central Europe for about ten thousand years. It is clear that the difference between the linguistic identity and the biological identity is that it is in the middle of the world. In laymen terms, these people "came from nowhere". (Between life, death and identity: Archaeology and genetics about the origins of Southern Czechs in Netolice, Jaromír Beneš, Emanuel Žárský, History and Present ( Díjiny a sou? Asnost) 7/2011)

Politics and GamersGate

Another point raised by critics of my person is their interpretation of my political world view and behavior in the GamerGate discourse. I see myself as a liberal person, whose highest good is the maximum personal freedom of all people, as long as this freedom does not affect the rights and the integrity of other people.

I grew up in a country dominated by a communist regime after being occupied by the National Socialists. The Nazis killed over 300,000 people alone in the territory of today's Czech Republic. My grandfather was imprisoned in a labor camp from which he luckily escaped. After the war, the Communists confiscated my family's home and business and repressed our freedom for another 40 years. I am not a friend of any kind of totalitarian rule and consider the accusation that I am a Nazi or close to any ideology that even remotely goes in that direction, therefore as absurd, even personally offensive and offensive. Anyone who follows me on social networks will know that I cherish the antifascist movement of our past, and the people who follow me always remember our past or honors for our ancestors who were fighting against this regime , I do this to remember the history of our country and its fight against two unjust regimes so that my fans - especially young people - will not forget them.

My point of view to GamerGate I have stated in various interviews, among others, at Kotaku. In summary, I would like to say that for me at heart it was always about the freedom of speech and the freedom of opinion and thoughts. The freedom for artists to create art, free of political influence. For me personally and I speak only for myself, should the artwork initially always be seen free of political or ideological views, unless the art clearly and aggressively communicates racism or any form of discrediting of minorities. Such messages can, do and will not be good, not only me, but our entire team.

Today I see my comments in a different light and would like to apologize if my points of view in individual discussions should have been better communicated by me. I'm sure I should have used a better word choice or form of communication in some cases. I wanted to contribute with my view to the above-mentioned freedom of speech and my desire to make artists work without being influenced by the opinion of other people. This is my personal opinion.

The T-Shirt

That was stupid. Without ulterior motive or hidden message. I listen to a variety of music styles, but I'm a big heavy metal fan at heart. To underline my passion for this music, I had decided to wear a T-shirt every day at gamescom 2017, which is another less well-known album. One of these shirts was printed with the artwork of the Burzum album Filosofem. This album is still regarded as a milestone in the development of Scandinavian Black Metal and is widely regarded as a classic of this genre. By wearing the said T-shirt I wanted to emphasize nothing more than the artistic meaning of the album.

The album itself is apolitical, largely instrumental and deals with topics such as loneliness, darkness and loss in his texts. It is still available for sale or streamed by all major vendors, and still appears on many lists listing the best black metal albums.

Most important to me personally is that my conscience is pure. I do not support any form of extremism, on the contrary, based on my personal life experience, I strongly oppose it. I have two daughters, to whom I wish nothing but the best for the future and that they can lead their lives in freedom.

In fact, I wrote about ten percent of the quests in the game myself, and the rest was contributed by the seven other designers who, as individuals, may see and judge many things in life differently than I do. We live and work together because we are tolerant, rational people who accept other opinions and communicate in open exchange.

I know that Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a great piece of entertainment for the realization of which is a large international team. I am very grateful to be part of this team.

bigphil2

The Specialist wrote: »

exposes the author for the hypocrite he is to bring his personal opinions in to a review of a video game.

A review is EXACTLY the reviewer's personal opinion..

Why would someone elses opinion on a game anger so many people?

Its ridiculous..

Personally I don't like the way that Games Journalists ask these questions about diversity or representation in a game and then spin the, often clumsy, answer into a big deal.

It's not like Vavra and Warhorse were coming to the public and pushing the fact that the game has only white people in it as a selling point.

They were asked why all the characters are white and then people went into meltdown when the response was not satisfactory.

Why were they asking the question in the first place? To kick off this exact type of drama? To make other smaller developers think twice before releasing a game without the required amount of diversity?

bigphil2 wrote: »

A review is EXACTLY the reviewer's personal opinion..

Why would someone elses opinion on a game anger so many people?

Its ridiculous..

A review should be about the product, not a soapbox for him to display how "woke" he is. Extremely unprofessional.

bigphil2

The Specialist wrote: »

A review should be about the product, not a soapbox for him to display how "woke" he is. Extremely unprofessional.

I disagree,but thats my opinion,if he liked many things about the game but concerns over the tone stopped him from recommending it,he would be unprofessional to..

A:leave out his explaination and not give it the Recommend award

or

B:Recommend the game even though he didnt personally feel it was deserved.

Also all the people crying over his review need to decide if his opinions made them enjoy the game any less or not?

johnny_ultimate

The Specialist wrote: »

A review should be about the product, not a soapbox for him to display how "woke" he is. Extremely unprofessional.

A review is a critical, subjective response to any given work - it can be whatever the reviewer damn well wants within those broad parameters.

Games being considered mere ‘products’ is itself IMO a deeply limiting view, but that’s a discussion for another thread some time

bigphil2 wrote: »

I disagree,but thats my opinion,if he liked many things about the game but concerns over the tone stopped him from recommending it,he would be unprofessional to..

A:leave out his explaination and not give it the Recommend award

or

B:Recommend the game even though he didnt personally feel it was deserved.

Also all the people crying over his review need to decide if his opinions made them enjoy the game any less or not?

But there's nothing wrong with the game, his issue is completely fabricated on the idea that "there might have been black people" in that time and so they should be in the game. Pure tokenism that does not reflect the reality.

And his opinions are precisely the reason I am going to pick this up and support the studio, simply because I cannot stand people like him and his PC bull****.

Kiith

The fact that he had to apologies and continues to have this ****e take away from what is a really good game just pisses me off. People need to cop the **** on stop making up reasons to get offended.

Some people are ****ing stupid :mad:

/rant

bigphil2 wrote: »

I disagree,but thats my opinion,if he liked many things about the game but concerns over the tone stopped him from recommending it,he would be unprofessional to..

A:leave out his explaination and not give it the Recommend award

or

B:Recommend the game even though he didnt personally feel it was deserved.

Also all the people crying over his review need to decide if his opinions made them enjoy the game any less or not?

The reason people are "crying" over the review probably has more to do with the condition of the industry rather than whether it affects how people enjoy the game or not.

Things like this will have an impact on the future for smaller developers. They will look at a situation like this one and ask themselves if it's worth the hassle to take a risk on upsetting people that will give you a negative review over some frivolous nonsense. I'd say it puts a lot of pressure on developers and has an influence on the development of future games.

I am definitely not comfortable with the way that ResetEra and Polygon, Kotaku etc try to wield power over game developers. I'm not comfortable with how the Eurogamer reviewer really only gives one side of the story before deciding that Vavra is a bad guy and so the game cannot be recommended.