Hogwarts Legacy

[theNater]

You mean aside from the people going about how "you're a terrible person if you buy/play HL"?

I see the quotation marks: who, specifically, is that a quote from?

[Rynjin]

I see the quotation marks: who, specifically, is that a quote from?

From removed posts which are no longer viewable in the thread.

[Brackenlord]

For better or worse I don't have a platform to play HL right now, but I'm glad the game is not decidedly garbage I rememeber being pretty excited when it was announced.

The whole adjacent discussion saddens me, since the books, PS1 Hagrid and movies to a lesser extentet where a big part of my childhood. But I believe you can divorce your enjoyment of something and the controversy that surrounds it.

If the author feels validated in their worldview based solely on the number of fans of their work, that's their delusion to maintain and not moral fault of said fans.

[Lemmy]

Buying/Playing HL sends no message other than "I wanna play that cool new Harry Potter game" and maybe, if they are aware of the controversy "I don't care what game 'journalists' and angry people on the internet say".

The whole idea of "If I claim to see this message in what you do, then you are intentionally sending this message and are responsible for it" is ridiculous.

There is no message other than the one you (figurative you - not anyone in particular) created for yourself.
You're the one reading what's not there. And whatever you read says waaaay more about you than about whoever is doing whatever you're getting the "message" from.

If you look at scribbles in a bathroom stall and decide it's a text about the true meaning of life, it doesn't mean it actually ever meant anything more than "Stinky but comfortable - 4/5! Would poop again!".

-

On the game itself: Having now played about 6h of the game, it's pretty fun. I can only play it sporadically because I'm doing it on my friend's PS5, but I just might get it for myself on Steam.

I wouldn't call it GotY, though... It's fun, but not particularly innovative, the setting/world-building is meh at best (but that's the source material's fault) and the main character is rather bland.

Still, it's quite the treat for fans of Harry Potter and people who want to play a fun, but not necessarily ground-breaking 3D open-world adventure game. Anyone who fits either category would do well to buy this game, and it gets my recommendation.

[warty goblin]

Unlocked the Room of Requirement this morning. Turns out to be a very complete decoration mini-game, sort of Wizard Sims Lite - there's no social stuff, just the home decor bits. This is well done, but I don't care in the slightest. Which is fine, it's unobtrusive and some people are gonna get mega into it.

[Jophiel]

If the author feels validated in their worldview based solely on the number of fans of their work, that's their delusion to maintain and not moral fault of said fans.

It also strikes me less as delusional and more like a troll statement and people should feel bad for taking the bait. Have you ever known a creator to say "Man, not selling as many things, guess I better change my worldview?". No, they would just say that they're being cancelled so now they need to be controversial even harder. How many Potter things sell is never going to impact Rowling's thinking and it's Pollyanna to suggest otherwise. Heck, given that she's already a billionaire, she doesn't even have incentive to fake it for a paycheck.

Re: Room of Requirement
I played with decorating it a little bit but there's not much incentive to hang out a lot so I didn't see the value in making the place screenshot ready. I agree that there's a lot there for the Better Homes & Gardens types though. My main use for it is a three pot botanical table to keep me in mallow leaves for Merlin trials and hearing Deek praise me non-stop for the one potion I made in Potion Class.

[Dragonus45]

Unlocked the Room of Requirement this morning. Turns out to be a very complete decoration mini-game, sort of Wizard Sims Lite - there's no social stuff, just the home decor bits. This is well done, but I don't care in the slightest. Which is fine, it's unobtrusive and some people are gonna get mega into it.

I spent three hours in there, and i appreciated being able to set up a whole laboratory in there to make batch potions and grow plants in lots. Also there is a store in hogsmeade that has a lot of upgrades to that kind of stuff, I mention because I thought I would just get them for story progression and would have to unlock them that way but I was wrong.

[The Glyphstone]

I find something darkly funny about the RoR being used to build a magic drug lab herbs+potions mass production room.

[Dragonus45]

I find something darkly funny about the RoR being used to build a magic drug lab herbs+potions mass production room.

Probably not the first, or last time for that one.

[The Glyphstone]

Hiring Professor White to teach Potions may have been a poor decision in retrospect, even if he had great credentials.

[Dragonus45]

Hiring Professor White to teach Potions may have been a poor decision in retrospect, even if he had great credentials.

Ohhhh I think I have a new cosplay.

[Sapphire Guard]

*scrub the post, scrub the quote*

Wow, reading this was a shock.

Not even that - the early films in the series used a lot of location filming, and those are real decorations in the building they used for the bank (Australia House in London).

Ok, that makes more sense. Glad someone knew that.

Well, Rowling spelled out that Remus Lupin's condition represents AIDS patients. Which sounds good, since he's a positive character, until you think for a few seconds about the implications of "in these books AIDS makes you lose control and attack people, and the head AIDS patient deliberately infects children."

Greyback isn't the head of anything, he's just someone with a disease who is also a villain. Meanwhile, Lupin can manage his condition just fine, he just has to act responsibly and take his meds.

So impressions I'm getting so far are , great gameplay, mediocre everything else?

[Ionathus]

I've got extremely fond memories of the old Harry Potter games -- 1 and 2 for PC, 2 and 3 for Game Boy. If this game captures any of the magic of exploring Hogwarts like those old games did, I envy its players for getting to experience that feeling of enchantment and wonder.

I used to be a huge HP fan, not so much anymore these days. I still appreciate some of Harry Potter's themes, but it's gotten harder to sift out the bits that make me feel good from the ones that make me go "...oof, really?" If what people are saying about the plot is true (that it continues the weird pro-fantasy-slavery themes, that the game lets you rack up a huge bodycount then cheerily go to Potions class, etc), that makes it even less appealing. The creator's behavior over the past few years has worsened my disillusionment. One of my closest friends is directly affected by her platform, so I have proof it's not just terminally-online communities inventing things to be mad about. It's not just going to go away, and I see the real effect it has on the people I care about.

I've seen a lot of smart arguments arguing both sides of "can you separate the art from the artist?" on this topic. I don't know what the big-picture answer is (if there is one), and I think it varies by work and by audience member. Some of my friends have bought the game and enjoy it. I personally can't separate this creator from this creation. I doubt I'm going to play HL, both because I feel so weird about the franchise these days and also because I have plenty of games on my backlog I'm more excited about.

[Dragonus45]

So impressions I'm getting so far are , great gameplay, mediocre everything else?

Mostly, it's a 10/10 game with a couple rough flaws that pull it down to like an 8. The plot is serviceable enough but not terribly compelling, frankly I think a fast easy sequel would be just to strip out a "main plot" and just give me 7 years of going to classes and hanging out with folks and exploring castle and surrounding land. Also, set the entire gear system on fire and bury the ashes.

[warty goblin]

So impressions I'm getting so far are , great gameplay, mediocre everything else?

I'm not sure I'd say mediocre everything else so much as very videogame everything else. This isn't one of those newfangled action games where you watch a bunch of really long, artisanally produced movie style cutscenes, then do some rote gameplay stuff en route to the next scene. Rather there's characters and plot, but it's mostly there to drive and direct you, rather than something you'd enjoy stripped of the game play.

For contrast, I thought (what I played of) the new God of War was a well shot and acted and produced movie, but I had no idea why occasionally the director stopped that and made me punch a couple irrelevant zombies or whatever. I didn't find the actual game compelling because it sort of felt like an afterthought, so I stopped playing because even good game-as-movie is like mediocre actual movie, and does not benefit from the interstitial zombie punching.

This, paradoxically, has a story I find far more involving because as a freestanding element it isn't good and is mostly there to prop up the game. I dunno if that makes sense, but I generally find games are not a great medium for stories, they're a great medium for gameplay. The story becomes more engaging the more it feeds the gameplay, rather than trying to be a stand alone thing. Hogwarts Legacy does that pretty well, since pretty much any rime you get a cutscene, you also go someplace cool, or learn a new ability or something. I want to advance the story because I want my hypogriff!

So it isn't super trendy or in style. This is fine with me, I don't think games have objectively improved since like 2007, it's all just quality neutral random trend variation. I find the modern trends less interesting than those of ten years ago, so being a bit dated is a plus. But that's just me, your milage may vary.

(Why 2007? Around about Mass Effect/Half Life 2 you got games that could do facial animations well enough to convey emotion. That's pretty key to a lot of methods of presenting character, and while I like minimalism in game stories and characters, that's different than them being unimportant. Everything since then has been just better looking versions of the same, randomly fluctuating through popular trends.)

[Rynjin]

So impressions I'm getting so far are , great gameplay, mediocre everything else?

Pretty much, yeah. Mediocre maybe makes it sound worse than it actually is? It's like standard fantasy boilerplate in terms of plot. It's pretty clear that the focus is kind of like other really good open world games of recent years, like the 2018 Spider-Man game. "It really makes you FEEL like X". I feel like a Hogwarts student, with all of the absurd level of danger that entails. That's what the game excels at, and if that's what you're looking for, it's a good time.

[Jophiel]

Mostly, it's a 10/10 game with a couple rough flaws that pull it down to like an 8. The plot is serviceable enough but not terribly compelling, frankly I think a fast easy sequel would be just to strip out a "main plot" and just give me 7 years of going to classes and hanging out with folks and exploring castle and surrounding land. Also, set the entire gear system on fire and bury the ashes.

I'd go in the other direction. It's a 6-7 game that somehow plays like a 9. If I wrote down all the things "wrong" with the game and handed it to myself, I'd go uninstall it. But, when I'm actually playing, I have a great time. Which is all that matters.

[Erloas]

I've seen a lot of smart arguments arguing both sides of "can you separate the art from the artist?" on this topic. I don't know what the big-picture answer is (if there is one), and I think it varies by work and by audience member. Some of my friends have bought the game and enjoy it. I personally can't separate this creator from this creation. I doubt I'm going to play HL, both because I feel so weird about the franchise these days and also because I have plenty of games on my backlog I'm more excited about.

I think one of the biggest problems with separating the art from the artist in this case is that one of the primary devs of the game is at least as bad, if not worse, as Rowling in their views and what they support. The only difference being that the dev doesn't have the name recognition as the author.

[Ionathus]

For contrast, I thought (what I played of) the new God of War was a well shot and acted and produced movie, but I had no idea why occasionally the director stopped that and made me punch a couple irrelevant zombies or whatever. I didn't find the actual game compelling because it sort of felt like an afterthought, so I stopped playing because even good game-as-movie is like mediocre actual movie, and does not benefit from the interstitial zombie punching.

Makes sense to me. I haven't seen the new The Last Of Us series, but a coworker was telling me about how good it was. I said I wasn't exactly shocked, since The Last Of Us already felt like a movie with 20-minute-long quicktime events.

I think one of the biggest problems with separating the art from the artist in this case is that one of the primary devs of the game is at least as bad, if not worse, as Rowling in their views and what they support. The only difference being that the dev doesn't have the name recognition as the author.

Aw, really? I didn't know about that. Simplifies the choice even further for me though, since now there's not even that layer of insulation.

[Mordokai]

I'm gonna do a hot take here. That being, I think the trans community and the progressive(I refuse to use the W word) media shot themselves in the foot.

From what I've seen/heard so far, HL is a pretty unexceptional game. As comrade Dyatlov would say, "not great, not terrible". It would have been forgotten pretty quickly... were it not for the whole controversy surrounding it.

Were there people who bought the game for the express purpose to harm the trans community? Yeah, no doubt. With that being said, I doubt they were in majority. I would even go as far as to say they weren't many.

But the people who bought the game to "stick it to them libs"? Now we're talking.

As a wise man said, it's approximately 3% less silly of a reason(I may have paraphrased it a little). But it worked. After all, "there is no such thing as bad publicity". I don't usually believe in that but in this case... it held true.

In this case, the aforementioned actors actually came across as bullies. The game has been flagged as "genocide simulator". Spoilers have been posted publicly. All in an attempt to curb the enjoyment of the game.

Last I've heard, HL is on track to billion(s) of revenue.

A quick google search points out that is likely a lot of baloney. But it does point to a trend... the protest misfired. It does appear like the bullied became the bully, at least in this one specific case.

[Jophiel]

The game is sitting at 93% positive on Steam with over 86,000 ratings. That's not a bad or even mediocre game that got some "own the other guys" ratings (especially when you need to pay $60 to own the other guys). That's a game that the vast majority of people are sincerely enjoying.

[warty goblin]

I think reading the success of the game as a commentary on anything but a good game set in an exceedingly popular universe doing well because it's a good game set in an exceedingly popular universe is a mistake.

Because although it doesn't show up on this forum because this is a weird niche place, or in trendy cool online spaces*, Harry Potter is still absolutely huge in normal world. The local Barnes & Noble still has an entire Harry Potter zone, and that's just there, all the time. Nothing else gets that, not Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones or anything. Other bookstores pretty much always have a full set of Harry Potter novels in the YA section, which is impressive staying power in a genre that transient - think anybody's gonna still care about Hunger Games in 10 years**? Every used book store I set foot in is ass deep in nearly mint copies of Twilight, but you can't hardly find a dog-eared Potter book even though there's about a zillion in print, so people aren't selling and/or people are insta-buying. They still make new Harry Potter Legos, even though the books have been done for 15 years, and the only movies anybody cares about for 12. My girlfriend teaches 5th Grade, and being able to read Harry Potter on their own is huge mark of pride for her students because the books still have that much cache. That's freaking weird for a 25 year old book for 11 year olds. Last week I was at JC Penney and they had chocolate frogs at the cash register, right next to the beef jerky. Point being, Harry Potter remains big.

I think taking this game, or any other Harry Potter thing doing well***, as some sort of referendum on the author, or her views, or the public's views of of her views of any group of people, is overfitting the signal to turn it into how actually it's about your favorite issue. An actually good entry in a beloved franchise doing well doesn't mean anything else, that's just how things generally work. Most people want to have fun, this is fun, they buy the fun game and have fun, and kinda resent being told they should feel bad about it.

*Trendy cool online spaces only tell you what trendy cool online spaces think. Remember, the biggest show in TV is Yellowstone, which nowhere trendy or cool talks about except to mention how nobody talks about it lol isn't that weird, and Ancient Aliens spent years pulling Game of Thrones numbers despite being the meme for stupid. Non-representative samples remain non-representative.

**Does anybody now for that matter?

***Yes the last Fantastic Beasts movie died a pitiful and unmourned death. This is because it was objectively awful in a way normally awful things can only imagine, and ignored pretty much everything that people actually liked about the series.

[pendell]

I'm gonna do a hot take here. That being, I think the trans community and the progressive(I refuse to use the W word) media shot themselves in the foot.

From what I've seen/heard so far, HL is a pretty unexceptional game. As comrade Dyatlov would say, "not great, not terrible". It would have been forgotten pretty quickly... were it not for the whole controversy surrounding it.

Were there people who bought the game for the express purpose to harm the trans community? Yeah, no doubt. With that being said, I doubt they were in majority. I would even go as far as to say they weren't many.

But the people who bought the game to "stick it to them libs"? Now we're talking.

As a wise man said, it's approximately 3% less silly of a reason(I may have paraphrased it a little). But it worked. After all, "there is no such thing as bad publicity". I don't usually believe in that but in this case... it held true.

In this case, the aforementioned actors actually came across as bullies. The game has been flagged as "genocide simulator". Spoilers have been posted publicly. All in an attempt to curb the enjoyment of the game.

Last I've heard, HL is on track to billion(s) of revenue.

A quick google search points out that is likely a lot of baloney. But it does point to a trend... the protest misfired. It does appear like the bullied became the bully, at least in this one specific case.

:Nod: If anything, the attempt seems to have backfired by greatly increasing the publicity the game received -- the calls for boycott gave JK Rowling free advertising. I know, that I, myself, only heard of the game because of the strenuous calls to boycott it.

So far as I can tell, the word that it was troublesome initially went out from ordinary people and was boosted by ... well, call them 'allies'. Of course that media is closely monitored by their opposition, who promptly picked it up and boosted it to their supporters. Now that lots of people are busy yelling and screaming at each other on social media, that brings in a third layer of media, attracted to controversy (and clicks) the way a shark is attracted to blood in the water. This group doesn't give a copper piece for any cause one way or another; all THEY care about is clicks and therefore revenue. So they boost it again, and suddenly you have a really large number of people talking about it pro and con, far beyond its merits as a straight-up game.

What would be a better approach? Maybe get some really good developers to make a really top-notch game and boost the absolute living daylights out of it, without even mentioning that other game you're trying to crowd out of the market?

Jaina Grey at Wired wasn't impressed with the game and suggested part of the reason was that really top-tier developers wouldn't work on it, leaving the company making it to struggle by with the metaphorical equivalent of students with a C+ average in programming from the local community college. Perhaps, perhaps not. But what are those top-notch developers making? It might be better to put that talent to work making something really killer which can snag all the gaming dollars, and maybe leave something people will be talking about for decades long after they've forgotten a game whose most notable feature is its license.

ETA: That raises a question for those of you playing: How well does it stand up, irrespective of its license? If you take all the HP elements out and make it a straight-up fantasy-themed wizard game, how does it do?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[warty goblin]

Jaina Grey at Wired wasn't impressed with the game and suggested part of the reason was that really top-tier developers wouldn't work on it, leaving the company making it to struggle by with the metaphorical equivalent of students with a C+ average in programming from the local community college. Perhaps, perhaps not. But what are those top-notch developers making? It might be better to put that talent to work making something really killer which can snag all the gaming dollars, and maybe leave something people will be talking about for decades long after they've forgotten a game whose most notable feature is its license.

ETA: That raises a question for those of you playing: How well does it stand up, irrespective of its license? If you take all the HP elements out and make it a straight-up fantasy-themed wizard game, how does it do?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I read that, that isn't a game review. It shouldn't even be read as a piece of game criticism per say*, it's an editorial about the author's relationship with the game and Rowling's views and work over time. Which is fine, but it's not saying a lot about the game itself, which is what most people playing the game, or interested in playing the game, probably care about. And what people think about the game seems to be very positive; it's got an 84% critic rating on Metacritic, a 90% user score, and a 93% user score on Steam. For reference that's within spitting distance of Elden Ring, which is sitting at 94% recent/91% all time positive reviews on Steam.

These aren't OK or pretty good numbers, these are really, really good numbers. This is a game that most critics and most players clearly like, because it's really hard to get those numbers.

If you oppose Rowling's views, the smart play here was very, very simple. Don't make buying the game a referendum on those views. That doesn't mean you have to buy it, like it, or anything else, but trying to guilt people into not buying a good game in a very popular universe is just setting yourself up to lose and annoying people in the process.

*And if you take it as a piece of media criticism, it's bad media criticism, because it isn't engaging with the actual text of the game, but with the version in the author's head she can hate quickly and write off easily. The goblins aren't slaves, it isn't a slave rebellion, and it isn't about blood liable. This makes the 'Beauty and the Beast is about Stockholm Syndrome, actually' takes look like good faith engagement with the source text.

[Jophiel]

ETA: That raises a question for those of you playing: How well does it stand up, irrespective of its license? If you take all the HP elements out and make it a straight-up fantasy-themed wizard game, how does it do?

For whatever it's worth, I've never read a HP book and only saw one movie (I think it was the last HP one) ages ago in the theater for my kid's sake. I have no nostalgia or fan-geekdom affection for the franchise. So, if the game was set in some other whimsical fantasy setting with all the serial numbers filed off, I have to assume I'd still be enjoying it the same.

[pendell]

It shouldn't even be read as a piece of game criticism per say

per se .

I'm sorry, I know it's quibbling but my inner editor just would not let it go. We were talking about a game, weren't we? Back to topic .

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[animorte]

per se .

That's at least the 3rd time in one month I've witnessed that exact correction. I've hailed this forum as quite respectful and pleasantly lacking in grammar police (except for "per se") because, you know, who cares? (Nothing against this instance, just an amused observation.)

[warty goblin]

per se .

I'm sorry, I know it's quibbling but my inner editor just would not let it go. We were talking about a game, weren't we? Back to topic .

Respectfully,

Brian P.

You know, I thought that seemed wrong when I typed it, but was in a bit of a hurry. Thanks for the correction!

[Sapphire Guard]

Personally, I hadn't been paying attention to this until the controversy. My local game shop was advertising it, but I wasn't paying attention because my policy is 'licensed tie in games are usually not worth caring about','.

Post controversy my attitude became 'I need to investigate' because HP fandom has a history of overreacting. There was a giant wall of hate, but... HP fandom kind of always does that.

The actual victims of this seem to mostly be innocent people. JKR is too big, she doesn't care and had no input on the game anyway. Truly hateful people are fine with this, they're making money from reporting on it and or streaming the game, and getting traffic from it.

The primary people being harmed seem to be small streamers who are nice enough to not be able to deal with the wall of hate, but wanted to play the game anyway.

[137beth]

I think one of the biggest problems with separating the art from the artist in this case is that one of the primary devs of the game is at least as bad, if not worse, as Rowling in their views and what they support. The only difference being that the dev doesn't have the name recognition as the author.

The other big difference is that the lead developer isn't getting paid royalties from people buying the game, whereas the author of the original books is.