How "woke" is WotR? Is it so glaring? In Kingmaker there was already enough of it.

Why do devs push it in the 1st place? Where is the "surplus value"?

I don't know. I think it depends on how much you are looking to be offended. If you try to find things to be upset about as you play I'm sure you will succeed.

One could argue most D&D rule sets are woke because a male and female Barbarian perform exactly the same in combat which is of course not reality. But talking dragons are not reality either. It is just a fantasy game after all. Story wise I would say not really. WOTR is not that focused on interpersonal relationships. It's more about the overall narrative regarding the crusade and lots of combat.

Early in the game you do meet 2 female characters that are in a relationship. Maybe that would bother you. But it's a small detail in the scope of what is a very large game. The only other thing that comes to mind is that a large # of companions can be romanced no matter who your character is. But romance is not a big element in Pathfinder and you'd have to go out of your way to even see that if you wanted to. It's not like Baldur's Gate 3.

WOTR is a better game than Kingmaker in almost every way.

They are in the business to make money. The story content is dictated by what they figure they can sell the most of. Even if you culture warriors are sometimes quite noisy, apparently there are not enough of you buying the games to get your wishes catered to.

-edit- Added the word "Even" for clarity.

I doubt it has anything to do with that. Zelda does not sell 20-30 million copies because it's catering to the newest western fads.

Writers, designers, and most people involved in the arts are more inclined to fall for woke stuff. It's always been that way. They are not the typical person.

Plus if your game is based around player choice rather than a fixed narrative it lends itself to letting the player do as many different kinds of things as possible.

I know nothing about Zelda or about Zelda sales (or about whether 20-30 million copies should be considered successful or unsuccessful). So that part kinda whooshes over my head. Sorry. But this part: "Plus if your game is based around player choice rather than a fixed narrative it lends itself to letting the player do as many different kinds of things as possible." sounds an awful lot like an attempt to please a large number of people so you can sell more games.

Define "woke". Any lifestyle choice that you don't personally approve of?

I remember when these guys were shrieking because in a new game, it always defaulted to a female model when you first entered character creation. Was that Larian's first DOS? I can't remember for sure.

Selling 20-30 million copies of a game is a massive level of success. Most games don't do numbers like that. Tetris is not about player choice and expression. So it would make no sense to offer those sorts of options for that game. But in a game that has player choice as a focus it encourages giving the player as many options as possible.

I don't think Larian or OwlCat are making isometric RPGs because they thought it was the most popular genre. I think they make them because it's the style of game they themselves enjoy. So while everyone would prefer to be successful, I really don't think these were money based decisions.

Larian has spent a massive amount of cash on music, writing, art, coding, mocap, voice acting, etc. They need people to buy it, man, or they are literally doomed. Luckily, that does not seem to be a problem.

So what are you really objecting to here? Is it that you want to think that developers make games for the love of it rather than for any return on investment? If so, this is kind of off the topic.

They've faced bankruptcy before. It's kind of their MO. My primary point is that the TYPE of game dictates how much choice players are given.
But secondarily yes. Development is really not worth it if you don't like what you are making.

Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination".[1][2] Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial justice, sexism and LGBT rights. Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and reparations for slavery in the United States. Does it have timed quests like Kingmaker?

Nothing like in Kingmaker.

In act 1 there are some events that play out differently depending on how fast you handle certain things but you never fail anything. It just alters the story in small ways.

I also think the secret ending requires doing some stuff on a particular month. Besides that you can basically take as long as you want.

Also misappropriated as a dogwhistle pejorative by the American Right.

OK thanks. That's good to hear. The timed quests thing was an absolute disaster. I mean what were the devs thinking? A game is supposed to be fun and I have enough deadlines at work.
Pejorative? Hmm... I wonder why.

It's permeated the entire world culture at this point. This very question makes that clear.


I don't think anyone really enjoyed that in Kingmaker. I don't think anyone loves encumbrance or getting fatigued either. But I'm sure they were going for realism.