Why I think player-driven slave trading should be removed from E:D

[Morbad]

I personally consider the sale of personal or battle weapons to civilians equally as problematic as slavery. These need to be banned (we even have non-lethal weapons). I'm not saying this to be facetious, I genuinely am against firearms being owned outside of sports/countryside management reasons.

Personally, I consider one's right to arm one's self as one sees fit as fundamental as one's right to breathe. Relegating firearms to sport/country management reason is classist and, in my own society, an expression of racism...arbitrary licensing restrictions, grandfathered weapons, import restrictions, etc exist largely to further repress marginalized groups, by keeping them disarmed.

My point here is that if FDev were to take everything that we had genuine real world issues with and remove it from the game, there wouldn't be any game left.

This is very true.

Quite agree, I've missed something there. If we're bringing real life sensibilities into it, we as civilians should not have guns on our ships at all either.

CMDR's in the Elite setting, especially as it's presented in this game, are hardly civilians. They are a privledged overclass, knights errant at the very least, if not veritable demigods, given deference even by hostile locals...who often employ them in a military capacity.

 

[Sensei Jacksama]

Has ANYONE on this forum actually read Reclamation? Anyone at all? Imperial Slavery is very clearly fleshed out and if anyone actually took the time to read about it we wouldn't have all of these threads poping up. But nooo we see the word "slavery" and thus we must be triggered.

EDIT: nevermind I just realized it's the same poster.

 

[Vetinari]

Thats partly the OP point. You have to do a lot of background reading which a casual player may not do and therefore in game its not 'fleshed out' but reduced to a simple point n click to buy and sell Slaves and Imperial Slaves which dehumanises the whole process in their opinion, in game, where you actually play the game.

 

[Chase Quinnell]

Has ANYONE on this forum actually read Reclamation? Anyone at all? Imperial Slavery is very clearly fleshed out and anyone actually took the time to read about it we wouldn't have all of these threads poping up. But nooo we see the word "slavery" and thus we must be triggered.

EDIT: nevermind I just realized it's the same poster.

Actually I plan on reading the Elite books soon. I love that world-building lore stuff!

 

[Mimix]

Thats partly the OP point. You have to do a lot of background reading which a casual player may not do and therefore in game its not 'fleshed out' but reduced to a simple point n click to buy and sell Slaves and Imperial Slaves which dehumanises the whole process in their opinion, in game, where you actually play the game.

And the problem with that is?

I don't think OP understands what exactly they want. First they wanted slavery "retconned", then they wanted slave gameplay to be expanded upon so it doesn't "dehumanise" slaves and now they have created an entirely new thread asking for slaves to be removed altogether.

 

[Sensei Jacksama]

Actually I plan on reading the Elite books soon. I love that world-building lore stuff!

Read Reclamation then premonition first. The rest of the books are all standalone stories but those two are considered the "core" works.

 

[Chaparral]

All those pokemon players are going to be really disappointed.

I play quite a bit of Conan Exiles. It is a game actually built around the capture and enslavement of thralls (slaves). Conan himself was a slave in the source material.

I encourage OP to post on the Conan Exiles forums where you actually, knock your thrall out with a club, drag him or her to the wheel of pain to break his or her will, dress them in what ever gear you want, train them to fight and die for you, or pose them in your bedroom - fully nude if you would like.

"Slaves" as a tag in a spreadsheet in this game is so far removed from the actual RP experience it is just silly.

The OP feels almost revisionist in its treatment of slavery as an element in story telling.

I get that you don't like it OP.

If you are truly so motivated to put in so much effort into quelling the presence of slavery, focus your efforts on immigration laws, immigration security, employment standards, human trafficking, and not on video game stories.

 

[Mizbehave]

I'm with the OP, there's no need for slaves as a commodity in this game, it's puerile, ill-thought out, and reeks of bad seventies sci-fi writing. People supporting it go straight on my ignore list as I have no interest in conversing with anyone who thinks it's a good idea.

If Frontier really were committed to having slave trading in the game as part of the lore then they could easily make it a special class of mission like passenger missions - just swap out those luxury cabins for slave pens and trade away, they could even add slaver NPCs to shoot down so we can feel righteous, but, like so much in this game they made a half-hearted attempt by implementing it as a commodity and then promptly doing nothing at all to follow up on it.

So Frontier should either commit or pull out.

 

[Vedmo]

bad seventies sci-fi writing

No such thing exists.

 

[Northpin]

I'm with the OP, there's no need for slaves as a commodity in this game, it's puerile, ill-thought out, and reeks of bad seventies sci-fi writing. People supporting it go straight on my ignore list as I have no interest in conversing with anyone who thinks it's a good idea.

If Frontier really were committed to having slave trading in the game as part of the lore then they could easily make it a special class of mission like passenger missions - just swap out those luxury cabins for slave pens and trade away, they could even add slaver NPCs to shoot down so we can feel righteous, but, like so much in this game they made a half-hearted attempt by implementing it as a commodity and then promptly doing nothing at all to follow up on it.

So Frontier should either commit or pull out.

I actually think their implementation was carefully crafted so they could get a PEGI7 rating, not only for slavery but for every other evil that is present in ED's dystopian universe.
There are no slaves there is no blood there is no murder - just tags.

But they allow people to take sides and fight for or against those sides.

Things are a bit different in Odyssey - PEGI16 rating must say something...

 

[Several Puffins]

No such thing exists.

View attachment 210241

 

[askavir]

All those pokemon players are going to be really disappointed.

Pokemon features organized animal fights, which is also abhorrent in real life, so the perpetually offended will eventually get there as well. And of course if you ever play (or watched) Pokemon then you're a terrible human that fantasizes about animal cruelty.

I just looked through my steam list of games trying to find any that can't somehow trigger the perpetually offended one way or the other, and the list becomes really short lol.

 

[Chaparral]

First sentence from OP's cited APA article.

WASHINGTON — Violent video game play is linked to increased aggression in players but insufficient evidence exists about whether the link extends to criminal violence or delinquency, according to a new American Psychological Association task force report.

Same thing used to be said about Saturday morning cartoons, and before that Westerns. Lots of hand wringing.

There is real slavery going on right now. Is there a whole bunch of Elite Dangerous in these places?

 

[Vetinari]

Pokemon features organized animal fights, which is also abhorrent in real life, so the perpetually offended will eventually get there as well. And of course if you ever play (or watched) Pokemon then you're a terrible human that fantasizes about animal cruelty.

Whataboutism and Slippery Slope in 2 sentences?

I just looked through my steam list of games trying to find any that can't somehow trigger the perpetually offended one way or the other, and the list becomes really short lol.

And yet the OP is triggered by one specific game, ED, and by one specific activity or its portrayal in that one game. Doesnt seem perpetually offended at all. Its also another Slippery Slope distraction.

I expected better. You didnt actually mention the topic once.

 

[Vetinari]

Same thing used to be said about Saturday morning cartoons, and before that Westerns. Lots of hand wringing.

'Said' is not the same as credible scientific research. And you missed out rock n roll.

Seems like a lot of hand wringing about slavery being removed, all the hysteria is one sided.

Aggression and anti-social behaviour, including a lack or loss of empathy, is clearly stated in those reports as a direct result of playing violent video games. Acts of violence are proven to have no link.

Aggression and violence are 2 different things.

 

[Mimix]

I'm with the OP, there's no need for slaves as a commodity in this game, it's puerile, ill-thought out, and reeks of bad seventies sci-fi writing. People supporting it go straight on my ignore list as I have no interest in conversing with anyone who thinks it's a good idea.

I disagree. There's nothing more fun than selling a shipload of Imperial Slaves to Hedley Dock and watching the credits rake in. Sometimes I sacrafice them to RNGesus by jettisoning them into the sun.

 

[CMDR Serra]

TL-DR:
Remove slavery from game, but keep all the murder.

 

[Northpin]

And yet the OP is triggered by one specific game, ED, and by one specific activity or its portrayal in that one game. Doesnt seem perpetually offended at all. Its also another Slippery Slope distraction.

Well, OP's attitude seems to be a targeted attack on ED and FDev.

They are ok with slavery in games (for example Slaves of Rome - check it on Steam) - because freedom of speech, they said.
But they are absolutely outraged by slaves in ED and they want them removed.

 

[Vedmo]

View attachment 210241

I’m not permitted to view that.

Second class forum peruser here I guess.

 

[askavir]

Aggression and anti-social behaviour, including a lack or loss of empathy, is clearly stated in those reports as a direct result of playing violent video games.

And yet violence and murder in games seems to be perfectly ok to the OP, yet having a depiction of slave trading (which is illegal in the game btw) no, that specifically is crossing the line and makes you a terrible human being (according to the OP, at least). What you call whataboutism and slippery slope I call a blatant duality of criteria, not to say outright hypocrisy.

So which specific kinds of evilness are ok to depict in videogames (and entertainment in general like movies or tv shows) and which are not? And what defines the divide between acceptable forms of evilness depiction, and unacceptable forms of evilness depiction? Why would someone, according to the OP, be a perfectly normal person when murdering hundreds of NPCs, but a terrible human being when trading illegal slaves in the same videogame?