[Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony] v3.1 released (p204)

[Phredreeke]

I 100% support the removal of the deadnamed character. I say this as someone who is firmly against censorship (and yet with a paradoxical fondness for the N64 version of Duke Nukem)

[Nmn]

I am blown away speechless, having learned the news

The team worked for so many years on this and now something like this

I sincerely hope the team resolves those issues and finally recieves all the credit they rightfully deserve for their hard work.

[Wiw]

Wait, Randi changed genders? When was this?

[Zenon]

Some time during the last six years. A bit broad, yes, but that's all I know

[Captain J]

Clearly a stereotype and an attack on Scots.

Yes, I know it's a Monkey Island reference.

Well as long as they're referencing harmless but funny, well-known media instead of the obscure and niche ones.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

When was this?

First of all, her name appears to be Marisa now.

Secondly, you do not "change" genders so much as you come out as the gender you identify with rather than the one you were arbitrarily assigned at birth.

I 100% support the removal of the deadnamed character. I say this as someone who is firmly against censorship (and yet with a paradoxical fondness for the N64 version of Duke Nukem)

Well, in Duke Nukem 64, the censorship was limited to mostly gratuitous stuff that did not add anything to the game to begin with anyway, so it was hardly a loss to begin with.

Plus it made sense in the game's universe to have gun shops and Duke Burger locations instead of random sex shops, and for Duke Nukem to be able to actually rescue the babes.

[Redneckerz]

I think Marisa didn't want the change to be much of a deal because its a personal change and that has more impact to the person involved than those outside.

As for the recent news, There are things that can be better, and fortunately there will be. There are things that are less likely to work in a game, such as the Sonderkommando stuff.

Then there are things from outside the game. These bear no discussion because that discussion has been made elsewhere.

But i do say this. If anything, as unified as a Doom community as we can be, it is depressing that even today there is still great divide in how members approach these matters.

[Ozymandias81]

Hello everyone, we are working towards over sensible material where we retain it is necessary and to not invalidate the spirit or aspect of a map/situation/dialogue. I have suggested Haggis McMutton because the drunkard bartender resemble a bit the character (otherwise I could have thought Willie McDougal from Simpsons) and he is one of my favorite characters in MI games (plus Murray ahah), and since in good faith we choose Marisa (Randi) during Chapter 2 release (2017), we decided to add another homage for one of Headquarters characters, this time not belonging to any Doom related users. We are nearly completion of fixing unnecessary material, but now please let's continue talking about the mod without going back to this subject continuously. We have worked like crazy for 6 years on this project, it is our idea, our vision, our creative dedication and it has been done for free, where donations are facultative, we have put now a disclaimer in game, raised the rating to PC-18, taking care of historical photos where they are not necessary, adjusted some sprites here and there. We are also working towards achievements system, a new launcher which will provide extensive support of mutators with also several included within next release and probably a simplified menu options as suggested by Graf a month ago. Thank you everyone for feedbacks and criticisms, soon we'll come with 3.1 release.

[Phredreeke]

But i do say this. If anything, as unified as a Doom community as we can be, it is depressing that even today there is still great divide in how members approach these matters.

By Doom community, are you talking about the ZDoom forums, or the Doom community as a whole? Because I'd rather not involve myself with the most extreme people on either side

[Tormentor667]

As events are unfolding at the moment, it is necessary, in my view, to issue an appropriate communication to serve as an explanation of the situation.

The version of 'Blade of Agony' published a month ago has been taken off the net with immediate effect, the following information on this:

During the last days and weeks we, the development team behind "Blade of Agony", received a lot of emails, comments and news about the release of the project. While the overwhelming majority found the result and the execution of our work successful, there were also critical voices, among others, which we take just as seriously.

First of all, Blade of Agony is a fictional scenario based on the alternative narratives of the Wolfenstein game series by id software and Bethesda and the corresponding canon. It does not represent accurate history, our political stance or thinking of the development team. We reject any form of racial hatred, discrimination, (Neo-)Nazism, anti-Semitism or glorification of the Second World War.

We have invested a lot of time and work to communicate this message in our game, to deal sensitively with the content and to create a respectful game experience without discriminating against people or groups of people. Despite meticulous care, we have not succeeded perfectly in all points, which is why we have taken the current version of "Blade of Agony" offline until further notice.

We are currently working on a revised version in which we will correct these mistakes and respond to the players' comments and reasonable demands. Until then, we ask for your patience and understanding. Stay psyched!

This is in advance as part of our work as the team behind 'Blade of Agony'. Now, however, the whole matter still has a personal aftertaste, which I would also like to explain. On the one hand, it is about Marisa Heit, on the other hand, it is about the sensitive topics of our game and the associated reactions of the players.

On "Randy" first and foremost: I am not a transphobe, in my opinion everyone can choose to live in the body she or he feels destined for. It doesn't make anyone a better or worse person - it shows strength. In this context, denouncing or discriminating against Marisa (known as Randi Heit and developer of ZDoom) is completely alien to me. The character "Randy Gears Heit" was created in a period of development while I didn't even know that Marisa was transgender, I only learned about it years later. Keeping the character unchanged for chapter 3 still seemed right after chapter 2 was already published. "Randy Gears Heit" is a likeable guy, skilled and experienced in technical matters (that's the reference we made to the programming of ZDoom), who simply has a penchant for wine and beer - a weakness we implemented artistically, and which has nothing to do with Marisa. That this has now created the impression of transphobia was not our intention and I am very sorry for that, which is why we decided to rename the character.

As for the camp, we talked about it for a long time in the team. We compared the reasons for and against an operation in a prison camp. How much authenticity is justified in the context of an entertainment project? After much deliberation, we decided on the execution that could be seen in version 3.0, a realistic portrayal of the atmosphere, without discriminating and hurting people, population groups or origins, and still showing the historical background in its entirety - because the Second World War did not only consist of glorious battlefields and heroic wars, but also of terrifying and terrible places. Obviously, however, we did not succeed to perfection, which is why reworking is now imperative here.

About rolling the bus over the testers, people unfortunately misunderstood me and after the ban I wasn’t able to correct myself, but I have also written something:

When pointing towards the testers after the unused sexualized content has been discovered and leaked, I never meant to make them responsible for that. I am sorry that my words made people assume that. All I wanted to say was that we spent a lot of time with a lot of well-known and reputable people testing the mod and telling us what is appropriate and what not. We felt like we made a good job but obviously we all missed some edgy content. It is our responsibility as developers, not the one of the testers.

We are already working on the content and hope to create an experience that is tasteful and enjoyable for all players without going beyond the limits of what is acceptable. Because all we want is to entertain - not to offend.

Best regards,
Daniel and the entire Blade of Agony team

[Redneckerz]

But i do say this. If anything, as unified as a Doom community as we can be, it is depressing that even today there is still great divide in how members approach these matters.

By Doom community, are you talking about the ZDoom forums, or the Doom community as a whole? Because I'd rather not involve myself with the most extreme people on either side

As a whole.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Can we stop deadnaming Marisa Heit on this thread, please?

I understand it is not being done out of malice, but it is still not a cool thing to do to a trans person.

[SanyaWaffles]

(Disregard this post, I was misinformed at the time)

[TheMightyHeracross]

However, I'm going to be frank on the other hand - I saw so many people dogpiling on, many who weren't trans, about the transphobia issue. I know some were - but so many people were hounding on the issue to the point even I was like "okay, we fucking get it, stop mentioning it". And no one was stopping it. The thread remained open for ages. It kept going. Why didn't the moderators step in and go "okay this is a fucking shitshow, close it down". They enabled this behavior. And I frankly am appalled at the amount of crusading that went on.

I genuinely feel the Doomworld community is one of the most hostile, drama-mongering places I've ever had the misfortune of being on. And yeah, I have friends who mainly go on Doomworld. It sucks... but I generally feel Doomworld is so hostile I don't ever want to post anything there again. Not because I'm purposefully being edgy or because I put transphobic shit... but because my projects contain a ton of gay shit and people might equate it to transphobia or homophobia or sexism if they stretch... it's something I've encountered on other sites, I don't want to deal with it here frankly.

I know Torm was being difficult at first but come the fuck on - you know damn well some people were just dogpiling on for the sake of drama, even if they had no personal stake in it. I can understand if you're the kind of person a Nazi would hate. I can understand being trans. I can understand if you have learned from your past mistakes. I cannot, for the life of me, support angry mobs like this. This is how riots start in real life. Leave it to cooler heads to prevail... which unfortunately no one was willing to do, at least on DoomWorld.

As much as I've butted heads with Rachael in the past, I feel her handling of this was as calm and middle-ground as you were going to get. I thought at first there was preferrential treatment... but after calming down, I realize now she was trying to be what Doomworld was not.

I can't say I agree with how you're throwing Doomworld as a whole under the bus here. The fact that Torm was "difficult at first" was pretty important to the community's response- if he had addressed everything straight-up in his first response- like he actually did mere hours later on Github- he'd still have his Doomworld account and most of this would've been avoided. The Doom modding scene has seen some shit, this content alone wouldn't have made him a pariah, even if uncut. Instead his first response was to throw his playtesters under the bus because "well they didn't see anything wrong!":

People from the 'aforementioned community' playtested the mod extensively and approved things mentioned by @Not Jabba and what leads to the current (partially personal) bashing. If you want to know, who is 'fucked up in the head' as well, just check the credits of Blade of Agony - there is a category called "Playtesters", you will be surprised...

And the other thing: it's all well and good that he didn't intend any offence towards Marisa, and I totally believe him on that even if I think his PR skills aren't up to par, but if you ask me that should have been the first thing he addressed on the forums when pressed on the issue. I mean, that shit hits close to home for a lot of people for more than one reason. But he danced around it and didn't mention his side until after he was banned from DW, and he did it on the Github page- and personally, I think if he would've just said what he did there on Doomworld (in the first place!) it at least would've spared him the transphobia allegations.

I'm glad that he eventually came around to fixing stuff up on the project's page and I'm sure that this will be sorted out in time. But let's not act like this was just the cancel culture mob coming after him for no reason or something. Not to mention this is far from Torm's first controversy. To me, it looks like this was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

I'll end on this: I don't want people on ZDoom Forums to go around shit talking Doomworld or vice versa. I love both of these places, they're both full of great people and are both 99% pleasant spaces, and I don't want to see a repeat of easily avoidable "Community is Falling 3"- tier nonsense from either side. Not to mention there's a ton of overlap in membership, such as myself.

[Nash]

The developers of this mod have already made ample public statements with every intention to remove/change the offensive content, and has respectfully asked for discussions in this thread to only pertain to the mod moving forward without continuously bringing up the controversial stuff. I think all that needs to be said, has already been said.