Hello! Question for you: Do you try to make a highly defensive rebuttal every time someone elaborates on their unhappiness with a particular aspect of TERA, or are the Elin changes your forte with a particular specialization in focusing only on the arguments of the OP along with blanket statements all around. You do realize that MMORPGs are fluid in nature, and that sometimes a company that is creating/localizing an MMORPG makes a mistake which leads to player unhappiness. Such mistakes are fine as a healthy part of the learning process as long as that company can work to amend their error (In this case, we've suggested a toggle switch which would largely pacify two sides of the argument). You say that certain Elin fans take the censorship personally, but I feel like you take our dissatisfaction with En Masse's work on the censorship and their following silence and refusal to adapt to their audience in the slightest bit as a personal affront against yourself.
Quick question for you or any other players that are taking the extremest approach to the Elin censorship.
Would you have still played TERA in the first place if there was not Elin race to begin with?
If your answer is yes then please just get over it and stop making yourself look like a fool.
If your answer was no then you are either lying or are a true pedophile.
Fairly new to Tera and the community, please forgive me for my general level of nublet-ness.
To try and give you an answer from the other side of the field (I'll try to keep most of my own bias out of this as possible)...
Destian's first part is right, EME decided that the Elin wouldn't fare well in the NA/EU community, and decided to censor them. (This is the first I've heard of Bluehole also agreeing with the censorship, rather than just being the company that hires the artists that did the work, so I'm unsure how true that part is.)
There's three main problems, however, which is why so many people are upset about the whole thing. First off, the new armor is bugged. There's several clipping issues, and the new parts of armor doesn't work with dyes. Yes, I'm aware that a lot of armors have parts that don't get dyed, but those parts look different from the dye-able parts of the armor; the edited armor often has parts that don't dye but otherwise look identical to the dyed portion. Further, several new parts of the armor have bad clipping issues. So far I haven't seen an official response on the forums of EME acknowledging the issue, though someone did post that a support ticket they put in had them listing the issues as "bugs that will get fixed after we fix gameplay bugs". Still, that's second- or third-hand information, and not always reliable. (Plus, there's the question of why people fixing gameplay bugs are the same people fixing graphical bugs...) I understand that clipping is pretty much a fact of life in games like this, but generally clipping issues come from two totally different objects clashing with each other, as it's near impossible to get every single piece to play nice with every single other piece; the elin armor has issues clipping with itself, which means that you only need to change the one model that's clipping in order to fix it.
The second issue is, the armor just looks bad. Every piece of armor has the same copy-pasted short shorts design. If the armor actually looked good, and the new versions matched the current design of the armor, there would likely be a lot less complaints (and those that did complain about the design wouldn't have as strong of an argument). Someone photoshopped a few potential designs of censored armor that looked good; you can see the comparison here: http://i.imgur.com/Pq4vS.jpg (There's still some graphical issues as a result of it being a photoshop job, but the idea's there.)
The third issue is that, as far as I can tell, EME is basically trying to sweep the whole thing under the rug, completely ignoring the playerbase. So far, the only official responses I've been able to find first-hand were them saying that anyone not liking the armor is just stating an "artistic opinion". Granted, that was in a thread discussing the quality of the designs, not the graphical glitches, so I'm not faulting them for omitting mention of that in the post. Now admittedly, I might be too used to reading the WoW forums and seeing plenty of information directly from the CMs and devs whenever there's a big issue, so I might be expecting too much of EME, but I don't think that a company that wants to get people to subscribe to their game is making a good business move by ignoring part of their playerbase.
What most of the Elin fans arguing against censorship want, however, is a way to mod their textures back to the original. (Officially, that is; there's an unofficial uncensor mod floating around, but EME has been very firm that using it is against the ToS, and discussing it more is basis to get a thread locked.)
Anyway, gonna go back up to Destian's post and pick a few quotes I want to reply to...
Mind you, they're not doing even ONE single thing to actually work toward fixing the elin dyes, they just want EME to hear their crying because I suspect this is how they've grown used to influencing people in their lives.
I'm curious what you think we should do to "fix the dyes". I'll point out it's rather difficult to get a good support ticket in when you can only play every other weekend; if EME had the servers up and running all month instead, there would be much more chance for people to test things and comment on issues. Again, I'm going to compare EME to Blizzard and say, look at a Blizzard beta, and look at the glorified demo EME's calling a "beta". (Granted, most companies do it nowadays, but still.)
Make a logical argument explaining why the elin were censored and the crazy elin fans call you a troll. Point out that EME has every right to censor its OWN product and that localization happens for Western games going into the eastern market as well and the crazy elin fans will counter by saying that censorship is evil and that localization doesn't exist.
To be honest, the only real arguments I've seen for the censorship (aside from "it's EME's decision", which is really just an ad hoc argument), are that some people are uncomfortable playing as Elin when their armor is so skimpy, there's a potential backlash from media about them having "girls in panties", and "anyone wanting the original armor is a pedo". To the first, I say give us an official armor mod. Then, anyone that wants the original is happy, and anyone that's uncomfortable with the original is also happy. To the second, I'll point out that this is an M-rated game, and the media's been pretty much desensitized to things like this; it's not enough to cause a stir except in the most extreme groups, which really shouldn't be listened to anyway. To the third, I say "you're a troll" :P
This is why EME won't even open discussions on the subject: you can't discuss things with people who are willing to lie, ignore logic whenever it suits them, pick up and put down causes on a whim (like how many crazy elin fans picked up the banner of "censorship is evil" but promptly put it down when they learned they could patch their textures) and generally act like squirrels high on crack.
And to this I say, you never know until you try. EME's never given us much reason as to why the censors are in place beyond just a few sentences. Once again, look at Blizzard forums, especially any site that offers a "blue tracker", and see how often a large issue gets a massive, multiple-paragraph response, or in some cases a "yeah, you guys are right, we'll change it".
There's three main problems, however, which is why so many people are upset about the whole thing. First off, the new armor is bugged. There's several clipping issues, and the new parts of armor doesn't work with dyes. Yes, I'm aware that a lot of armors have parts that don't get dyed, but those parts look different from the dye-able parts of the armor; the edited armor often has parts that don't dye but otherwise look identical to the dyed portion. Further, several new parts of the armor have bad clipping issues. So far I haven't seen an official response on the forums of EME acknowledging the issue, though someone did post that a support ticket they put in had them listing the issues as "bugs that will get fixed after we fix gameplay bugs". Still, that's second- or third-hand information, and not always reliable. (Plus, there's the question of why people fixing gameplay bugs are the same people fixing graphical bugs...) I understand that clipping is pretty much a fact of life in games like this, but generally clipping issues come from two totally different objects clashing with each other, as it's near impossible to get every single piece to play nice with every single other piece; the elin armor has issues clipping with itself, which means that you only need to change the one model that's clipping in order to fix it.
I don't know if clipping will get fixed because if they fix the elin clipping, they'd then have to fix every bit of clipping on every race, and that's basically every race, class and armor type.
Female HE hair clips through outfits. My priest's staff clips through his coattails. I'm sure clipping is happening EVERYWHERE and it would be a monumental task to fix all of it at this point.
The second issue is, the armor just looks bad. Every piece of armor has the same copy-pasted short shorts design. If the armor actually looked good, and the new versions matched the current design of the armor, there would likely be a lot less complaints (and those that did complain about the design wouldn't have as strong of an argument). Someone photoshopped a few potential designs of censored armor that looked good; you can see the comparison here: http://i.imgur.com/Pq4vS.jpg (There's still some graphical issues as a result of it being a photoshop job, but the idea's there.)
]
I think they'd rather focus on future armor at this point, since that's what BHS is mired in right now, and the new endgame elin armors are FANTASTIC.
The third issue is that, as far as I can tell, EME is basically trying to sweep the whole thing under the rug, completely ignoring the playerbase. So far, the only official responses I've been able to find first-hand were them saying that anyone not liking the armor is just stating an "artistic opinion". Granted, that was in a thread discussing the quality of the designs, not the graphical glitches, so I'm not faulting them for omitting mention of that in the post. Now admittedly, I might be too used to reading the WoW forums and seeing plenty of information directly from the CMs and devs whenever there's a big issue, so I might be expecting too much of EME, but I don't think that a company that wants to get people to subscribe to their game is making a good business move by ignoring part of their playerbase.
The elin have had extremely mixed responses, most of them not great.
"Interesting game, great art design and yet still horribly over-sexualised character designs. This race is a step too far, no matter how you sugarcoat it this is a race of children in skimpy outfits..."
"Little People (or midgets, or whatever), when adults, LOOK like adults.
The Elin, regardless of age, seem to look like children.
So it is really, really creepy. With how much sex appeal this game is showing off, introducing a character race that looks like sexy little children is just... wrong.
Buxom chicks with bikini armor LOOK LIKE ADULTS. THAT is the difference."
"Looks like a race for pedophiles."
Your average US MMO gamer isn't going to react well to the elin so EME has downplayed them.
They're shooting for the mainstream MMO market (evidenced by their MMO-Fo ads) but the elin are of an eastern design to the point where most US players aren't going to "get" them.
What most of the Elin fans arguing against censorship want, however, is a way to mod their textures back to the original. (Officially, that is; there's an unofficial uncensor mod floating around, but EME has been very firm that using it is against the ToS, and discussing it more is basis to get a thread locked.)
The problem there is that, if the textures are modded, you can do things such as texture hacks that grant advantages in combat and PvP.
I'm curious what you think we should do to "fix the dyes". I'll point out it's rather difficult to get a good support ticket in when you can only play every other weekend; if EME had the servers up and running all month instead, there would be much more chance for people to test things and comment on issues. Again, I'm going to compare EME to Blizzard and say, look at a Blizzard beta, and look at the glorified demo EME's calling a "beta". (Granted, most companies do it nowadays, but still.)
Send support tickets in with pictures of the before and after armor dyes.
I've asked a few times in elin threads to see if anyone has done exactly this and I never saw anyone respond that they had. MAYBE they have, but again, it's the sane elin fans who would be doing this, not the crazies.
To be honest, the only real arguments I've seen for the censorship (aside from "it's EME's decision", which is really just an ad hoc argument), are that some people are uncomfortable playing as Elin when their armor is so skimpy, there's a potential backlash from media about them having "girls in panties", and "anyone wanting the original armor is a pedo". To the first, I say give us an official armor mod. Then, anyone that wants the original is happy, and anyone that's uncomfortable with the original is also happy. To the second, I'll point out that this is an M-rated game, and the media's been pretty much desensitized to things like this; it's not enough to cause a stir except in the most extreme groups, which really shouldn't be listened to anyway. To the third, I say "you're a troll" :P
I believe they've done it this way because they want all media of elin to be censored as well.
If someone had the mod off and was recording videos of their elin character, that would be bad press being generated right there.
Hell, Steparu plays and elin lancer and I was concerned after watching 1-2 of his vids because the elin does a lot of bending over for pantie shots. The first thing that hit me was "I don't know how my WoW guildies are going to react to this, but I don't think they're going to like it..."
And to this I say, you never know until you try. EME's never given us much reason as to why the censors are in place beyond just a few sentences. Once again, look at Blizzard forums, especially any site that offers a "blue tracker", and see how often a large issue gets a massive, multiple-paragraph response, or in some cases a "yeah, you guys are right, we'll change it".
I think that ship sailed when EME replied to one of the elin threads and crazy elin fans violated the forum filter to swear at them (typing f.u.c. etc).
Also, I hate to say it, but the whole debacle is embarrassing.
There's a lot for people to like in Tera. I remember one video of a guy who was going through all of the races in Tera (can't find the video now) and while he LOVED a number of the races (he decided to roll a popori), when he got to the elin his reaction was along the lines of "Um, wow. I feel embarrassed looking at this. I feel like I shouldn't be looking at this...". He had compared the baraka and aman to galkas from FFXI, so it wasn't like he was ignorant of eastern culture, either.
A lot of NA players are turned off by the elin in general. If people were to hear that there's a subset of Tera's fanbase demanding the elin are restored to their original, skimpier outfits, they'll A) be weirded out that the outfits were ever that skimpy to start with and B) be even FURTHER weirded out that there's a chunk of Tera's playerbase who wants that badly to look at them.
The biggest problem with some of the crazy elin fans is they don't comprehend at ALL how the elin might be viewed as weird and creepy by a lot of the American audience.
I've played Japanese videogames and watched anime for a huge chunk of my life. The elin don't bother me one bit, but I can plainly see how most people aren't going to feel the same way about them and I'd rather Tera succeed and that means acquiring as many players as possible.
In the end, EME did it all for PR and localization. The armor dyes need to be fixed, but that's the only thing left I think we could get EME to move on at this point (the leveling armors don't look as good, but the endgame armors for elin are amazing).
The trick is getting THAT to be the focus and taking the focus off of crazy elin fans running around shouting "PANTSSSUUUUUUU!!!!" in every thread about elin. :(
A lot of Elin fans were fine with this but would like EME/BHS to fix some of the armor issues (clipping happens on all armors on all races, so I don't think that'll be fixed) such as the dye issues.
Unfortunately, some other crazy elin fans decided this was EME declaring a Jihad on them and everything they loved so they lashed out in any and every way they possibly could.
Downplaying an issue that only exists because of the hackjobs. This kind of clipping does not happen on all armors or races.
Destian on 04/16/2012, 08:35 AM
This has resulted in the crazy elin fans being to normal elin fans what skinheads are to white guys who just like to shave their heads: given them a horribly bad name and ruining the elin community to the point where EME couldn't even begin to engage them about their desires.
Bashing a group thats actually willing to argue an issue rather than accept it. Once again, pedo labelers are the ones ruining whatever community there was.
Destian on 04/16/2012, 08:35 AM
EME did respond about the armor changes in EVERY single question that was sent to their support: it was a business decision made to better suit the NA/EU audiences. That's all there is to it. If you send the question to their support right now, they'll tell you the same.
EME sidestepped actually responding to the issue in depth at every turn after the reveal, previously telling everyone we wouldn't even notice it. That it would be the same quality as everything else.
Destian on 04/16/2012, 08:35 AM
However, this is not the answer the crazy elin fans wanted to hear, so they're doing the only things they know how to do when they don't get their way: whine, complain and generally stir up as much crap as they can on the forums to express their angst.
Mind you, they're not doing even ONE single thing to actually work toward fixing the elin dyes, they just want EME to hear their crying because I suspect this is how they've grown used to influencing people in their lives.
Are you new to forums or open discussions? Should we all just shut up because you don't like reading a thread you never had to look at? There is no "work" on our end. The ball is in EME/BHS' court, theres been no official response of actually fixing anything.
Destian on 04/16/2012, 08:35 AM
This thread is an excellent example of that: it's a thinly-veiled attempt at trying to show EME that the censoring has "hurt them" and that they should be regretful of it, just like how an angry kid threatens to "run away" when their parents won't buy them a new toy in an attempt to hurt his parents for not giving him his way. It's an adult temper-tantrum.
Make a logical argument explaining why the elin were censored and the crazy elin fans call you a troll. Point out that EME has every right to censor its OWN product and that localization happens for Western games going into the eastern market as well and the crazy elin fans will counter by saying that censorship is evil and that localization doesn't exist. They'll also resort to fabricating numbers, such as making a poll on the race forum (the hotbed of crazy elin fan activity) about elin armor, and if 30% of that poll says that people don't like the changes, they'll claim that "30% of the entire Tera playerbase is unhappy with the changes!"
There's never been a good reason for the censorship to exist in the first place, you certainly don't have one. You just attack anyone that doesn't want it and negatively label them. Just like the pedo labelers. We're not living in the Victorian Era anymore.
Destian on 04/16/2012, 08:35 AM
This is why EME won't even open discussions on the subject: you can't discuss things with people who are willing to lie, ignore logic whenever it suits them, pick up and put down causes on a whim (like how many crazy elin fans picked up the banner of "censorship is evil" but promptly put it down when they learned they could patch their textures) and generally act like squirrels high on crack.
Again, the NORMAL elin fans are the real victims in all of this, as they've struggled against the ever-growing stereotype that elin fans are Japanophile, lolicon perverts who are quick to anger and don't know the meaning of "logic" because all of the crazy elin fans perpetuate that stereotype.
So yeah, that's the problem as it stands and it doesn't look like it'll get any better, so long as the crazies are still around being crazy. :\
Like yourself that wants to negatively label a group of players you don't agree with and blame everything on them? Downplaying the clipping and dying issues without even bother to look into it? There's been plenty of legitimate posts as to why the censorship is pointless in this market that you are willingly ignoring.
Most players stopped caring because the precedent in this industry is that aesthetics come last, even when it comes to character you are or could be playin for years. They know how lazy the industry is to fix these issues and the take the route around it. I've been modding games for the last 12 years, I'm not going to drop it now.
And again you have another post doing the same labeling. You don't even know that GPK's can't be edited.
I'm glad you realized that you never say anything useful at all.
"Most" didn't mind the changes? 80% voted against them before they happened. The only way "most" didn't mind, is if "most" are incapable of using polls. And to be frank, if I got to choose between listening to people who know how to push a button or people who don't, I'll put all my faith in the button pushers.
You can go on all you want about how "All Elin players cheat at polls" or "We had already won so we didn't bother to vote".
In addition 80% voted against the current armors when they were shown too. Go ahead, let's claim Elins cheated TWICE because all Elins are rotten eggs. Oh and lets counter this argument with everyone who don't play Elin, are fine with ugly Elin armors, and that makes majority happy.
I've given EME and the pro-censorship crowd more than a month to show any HINTS at people being upset about the armors. And so far I've only seen quotes of other trolls talking about pedos.
I think it is extremely sad EME chooses trolls over customers on this issue. Even worse that they can't even tell the difference.
HINT:
This is a pedo race! = Troll
I feel uncomfortable playing the Elins with the sexy outfits = Concerned customer
Learn to tell the difference. It could save your forums.
Edited by: Malamasala
about 1 year ago
- Reason: html coding problems
I'm curious what you think we should do to "fix the dyes". I'll point out it's rather difficult to get a good support ticket in when you can only play every other weekend; if EME had the servers up and running all month instead, there would be much more chance for people to test things and comment on issues. Again, I'm going to compare EME to Blizzard and say, look at a Blizzard beta, and look at the glorified demo EME's calling a "beta". (Granted, most companies do it nowadays, but still.)
Send support tickets in with pictures of the before and after armor dyes.
I've asked a few times in elin threads to see if anyone has done exactly this and I never saw anyone respond that they had. MAYBE they have, but again, it's the sane elin fans who would be doing this, not the crazies.
To be honest, the only real arguments I've seen for the censorship (aside from "it's EME's decision", which is really just an ad hoc argument), are that some people are uncomfortable playing as Elin when their armor is so skimpy, there's a potential backlash from media about them having "girls in panties", and "anyone wanting the original armor is a pedo". To the first, I say give us an official armor mod. Then, anyone that wants the original is happy, and anyone that's uncomfortable with the original is also happy. To the second, I'll point out that this is an M-rated game, and the media's been pretty much desensitized to things like this; it's not enough to cause a stir except in the most extreme groups, which really shouldn't be listened to anyway. To the third, I say "you're a troll" :P
I believe they've done it this way because they want all media of elin to be censored as well.
If someone had the mod off and was recording videos of their elin character, that would be bad press being generated right there.
Did you ignore the part where Sethala mentioned a ticket I sent in about the issues of clipping and dyes? You seem to be too busy calling people who are dissatisfied with En Masse's Elin quick-fix "crazy". Yes, they replied telling me that those issues were filed as bugs and thus on the docket for being fixed, but unlike you, I don't see why a company with access to creation and development tools can't alter their product to give players a choice when they've made such a controversial move.
You say that En Masse wants to keep the Korean and Japanese styles of Elin armor a secret, but have you forgotten that this game has been out for over a year in Korea? If you search "TERA Elin" on youtube, the majority of the front page results contain Elin from the Asian iterations of the game. The front page of google contains a lot of articles whose authors are disagreeing with the censors, so that attracts some positive attention, doesn't it? As for google images, there are pictures of censored armors, quite a few uncensored armors, and others that can't be readily determined, so the average person who hasn't been keeping an eye on TERA would not likely guess that some of those armors had been censored in the Western release.
I'm glad you realized that you never say anything useful at all.
I remembered the wise words of Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert:
“If you spend all your time arguing with people who are nuts, you'll be exhausted and the nuts will still be nuts.â€
...which is the same advice EME wisely decided to follow.
Later.
I'm intrigued by your theory that the first batch of complainers are geniuses and everyone who comes later are idiots. I guess this gives a new meaning to "first come, first served".
Hello! Question for you: Do you try to make a highly defensive rebuttal every time someone elaborates on their unhappiness with a particular aspect of TERA, or are the Elin changes your forte with a particular specialization in focusing only on the arguments of the OP along with blanket statements all around. You do realize that MMORPGs are fluid in nature, and that sometimes a company that is creating/localizing an MMORPG makes a mistake which leads to player unhappiness. Such mistakes are fine as a healthy part of the learning process as long as that company can work to amend their error (In this case, we've suggested a toggle switch which would largely pacify two sides of the argument). You say that certain Elin fans take the censorship personally, but I feel like you take our dissatisfaction with En Masse's work on the censorship and their following silence and refusal to adapt to their audience in the slightest bit as a personal affront against yourself.
Quick question for you or any other players that are taking the extremest approach to the Elin censorship.
Would you have still played TERA in the first place if there was not Elin race to begin with?
If your answer is yes then please just get over it and stop making yourself look like a fool.
If your answer was no then you are either lying or are a true pedophile.
I do not believe anyone in here has said they are going to not support the game simply because of the Elin censorship.
I do have one question for you though, do you support PIPA and SOPA and the censoring of our internet, video games, and freedom altogether?
I am assuming the answer is no, so why are you so for the censoring of this game? (which is M rated by the way)
