Wait, the mod removed the option to set a gender in the character editor? Why don’t these people just make a male character and be done with it?
Because it’s not actually about the pronouns. These people aren’t actually angry about pronouns.
They’re angry about trans and non-binary people. They’re angry that people are growing to accept these people, who they do not think should be accepted. They are angry that a group they don’t think is normal, is being accepted as normal.
I don’t think it’s even about that, they’re angry because the want to be angry. The why doesn’t matter, if the current right wing outrage du-jour had been… I dunno, left handed people rather than trans people, you’d see all the same people working themselves into a screaming tantrum if a game or movie had a left handed person in it.
Everyone showing up late to go ‘well I don’t see why they removed it!’ –
You are why.
Trolls escalate. They keep pushing until they get smacked down, then cry and scream and pretend they’ve been proven right. Being ignored doesn’t just embolden them, it bores them, and tells them they need to get worse to get attention. No matter what happens - no matter what anyone says to them - they get to use it in their stupid little word game.
The nature of bad faith is that there is no right answer.
You have to simply get rid of it, and the sooner, the better.
I understand your point that the behavior surrounding certain mods can escalate and create a toxic environment. In that sense, it’s not just the mod in question but the kind of interactions it may foster. However, that leads us into a very slippery slope. If we start removing mods based on what they might encourage rather than what they actually do, where do we draw the line?
Note that mods can be used for multiple reasons, not all of which are nefarious. Some people may genuinely appreciate the option to customize their experience in a way that the mod allows, without any intention of engaging in toxic behavior.
Your argument seems to be based on the idea of acting pre-emptively to negate potential harm, which is a valid point. But this can also set a concerning precedent that may affect the open nature of modding communities, by limiting what can and cannot be customized.
So the question then becomes, how do we balance preventing potential harm with preserving the user’s freedom to customize their experience? It’s a complicated issue, but one that deserves open dialogue rather than summary judgment.
However, that leads us into a very slippery slope.
Wrong.
Next.
What difference does it make to anyone that people are doing this in their own game? It’s not like this mod takes the option away for everyone. It doesn’t. It only effects their own private game they’re playing in their own home.
Tbh I don’t even know why the option even exists. I have 2 days worth of playtime and not once does it go on about pronouns or anything like that. So to me the menu seems completely pointless. If i can recall i also don’t think the NPCs have even referred to me as male or he/him. Maybe Bethesda added it last minute or something to try to appeal to a larger group of people idk. I’m just enjoying my spaceship man.
This is all fine and well, but am I the only one a bit concerned about how NexusMods is practically a monopoly in the modding scene? Why does literally every modder have to use a rate-limiting host as a platform, especially when Github exists?
Well, for one thing, Nexus gives modders a share of ad revenue. Under a different name, I have a mod that’s a backend requirement for a big, popular mod, and that nets me a reliable few bucks a month.
That said, a good portion of the modding community also exists on Gamebanana. If you want BotW, ToTK or Source engine mods, GB is the go-to.
There’s also the Thunder store!
In Curseforge we trust
I hope that was snarky because CF has really gone downhill.
It’s like I didn’t think it could get worse but it just kept getting worse and worse lol.
Yeah no question Curseforge ain’t great and if you want to get a modpack as opposed to a singular mod you get kind of screwed by the launcher.
Thing is, the alternatives tend to suck more. Plus my point was that Nexus ain’t alone.
To confused people exploring from all Communities trying to understand what the hell is going on:
- Bethesda is a game studio who does a decent job of giving people choice to do/be whatever they want in their games. Out of the box they included the option to choose your pronouns in a new game called “Starfield”.
- They also make it possible to modify their games to make very drastic changes to the player experience.
- Nexus is a site that hosts thousands of mods to all sorts of games. People make mods, upload them to Nexus and players download them.
- Someone made a mod to remove the option to choose pronouns from Starfield.
- Nexus decided they don’t want to host this mod. It’s hurtful to people and goes against their values of inclusivity.
That’s about it. Most of the people whinging about censorship don’t even play the game. They’re just here to whinge about how the world is moving on from old bigoted ways and they want to stay in the past and be jerks to people for merely existing. If they actually cared, they’d just download the mod from some other site. The mod itself is probably not much bigger than this reply.
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I can’t imagine being such a pussy that pronouns in another character’s profile would make you cry from extreme butthurterie like a little beta wuss
This is like that old “progressive redneck” meme. I agree with the spirit of what you said but shit that’s not how I would say it.
Sometimes you have to speak to them in their own language
Moderation exists to identify and exclude people who are being absolute cocks.
You don’t need any grand philosophical statement about values. You don’t need to defend the paradox of tolerance against absolutist demands for unrestricted expression. It’s perfectly fine to say: you were doing some diet Nazi shit, that’s awful, fuck off.
“but you need to hear BOTH side of the arg-”
No we don’t.
Sorry this is stupid all round. People are stupid for getting annoyed that you can set pronouns in a game, but Nexus are stupid for removing the mod that allows players the ability to if THEY wish to choose so.
Nexus just hosts the mod, if anybody is offended they could just not download it.
Hosting implies complacency. They have to draw a line somewhere, and the longer they wait, the harder it becomes. This was obviously a bigoted mod, and even though it could be considered “harmless” to leave up, it leaves the door open for further mods. These bigots will not stop slowly eroding away features they think are “woke”, and they will only get worse and more egregious. Stopping them now, letting them know it’s not acceptable behavior, is the only way to end it.
Look I’ve got no skin in the game here, what’s wrong with having a mod that removes a selector in a character creation screen?
I get that some people are upset if they get misgendered or whatever (as I would be…my chosen pronouns just happen to line up with what everyone assumes they are…comfy living) but is it really necessary to force everyone to have a pronoun selection option if they don’t want a pronoun selection option? You’re not going to make someone blinded by hate see any clearer by forcing them to do something that only affects them.
Edit: I’m sorry if my questioning hurt some folks, that wasn’t my intention. I couldn’t see what the big deal was, but thanks to those who made the effort to engage with me, I have a more informed view and I can appreciate why the mod was removed and why its existence was upsetting.
Was going to comment the same. How is this mod hurting anyone? Isnt this the point of modding, to tweak it a little bit to suit your tastes? Its not like its a rape or child molesting mod. Those things should get deleted. But this? Such a petty thing to do.
Imagine there was a group of people in your school, in your workplace, in your city who for some reason feel that Kazakhspy should not exist. They’re not allowed to kill you, that’s against the law, but they would if they could. Instead, they say fuck Kazakhspy, go kill yourself Kazakhspy, I can’t stand you Kazakhspy. Hearing that kind of thing on a regular basis might be a little hurtful. Now imagine some game studio heard about this and thought hey, let’s include Kazakhspy in our game. And then that group in your community was like “what the fuck is this! I hate Kazakhspy and now they’re shoving Kazakhspy down my throat in a videogame? I will not stand for this.” And goes through the effort of making a mod to remove you from the game and puts it on the website. You hear about this and see that it’s up there with a few downloads. You might be a little hurt to know some people hate you so much they’ll mod a game to spite you just because they don’t like your existence. Then the website owner is like, “Wow, this is weirdly hateful and doesn’t belong on my website. Let’s not perpetuate hate against Kazakhspy.”
That’s why. In context it’s hurtful to people because the intention of creating it was to hurt people through hate.
Nowadays everything seems newsworthy… I would not be mad about it if Bethesda did not include a pronoun setting, i am not mad someone made a mod to remove said option, i am not mad nexus keeping its sovereignty to decide what they host…
What is everyone mad about? Just let ppl do whatever they do.
Exactly this. It’s a game guys, not real life.
The way you worded this makes it look like you’re against pronouns
Ok, how am I against pronouns now? I agree with the fact that people should have personal preference whether they agree with having the pronoun feature in the game or not. It’s not about being against pronouns, it’s about freedom of individual choice.
Now, I’m not forcing them to reupload the mod. But, if a moderator just solely removes the mod based on their own political idealogy, then you’re stripping the freedom away from everyone else. We can have a kill children mod but god forbid we have a remove pronouns mod.
I’ve used Nexus Mods for the past 6-7 years, I’m honestly just sad to see them take this route.
Nah man I totally agree, I just mean when you said “it’s a game, not real life”, some people could take it wrong. Nothing against you but I guess my message came across wrong too
Incredibly petty mod to make in the first place, so Nexus might as well be petty too and remove it.
Finally, someone who isn’t just calling one side stupid and dismissing peoples points.
Well they’re fine with murder but not removing the pronoun selector? Odd mentality.
Wonder what they’re going to ban next.
Well they’re fine with murder but not removing the pronoun selector? Odd mentality.
Said the person arguing in favour of removing the pronoun selector, but not arguing that they should remove the murder.
Keep clutching those pearls Karen.
They finally give you something that controls how people refer to you in their games, and dipshits wanna remove it? This is as close as you’re going to get to having characters refer to you as a choice you’ve taken other than Codsworth and Vasco having like 1000 generic names recorded to use.
Does it even affect dialogue? The PC is hardly ever referred to with pronouns, actually I can’t remember a single line.
I believe it changes enemy barks like “He/She/They shot him!” and maybe a few dialogue lines?
Heh, I like how the enemies are considerate enough to figure out and use the correct pronouns mid-battle
Hey, you! What are your pronouns? … Thanks, now eat lead!
I might be a paid killer, but I’ll be damned if I’ll misgender someone. Professionals have standards.
I mean, I sorta get it. Identity politics are political and often divisive, and some people don’t want it in their escapism.
It’s not a perfect analogy, but if a role-playing game had a mandatory character-selection choice to choose if my character was pro-choice or pro-life, I could see myself mildly resenting it.Not really a good example. A more apt example is if these people were getting angry that the character creator allowed a player to create a woman, or a person of colour. The game offering you a choice of pronouns is not asking you for a political opinion, it’s literally just an option to create a type of character that these people don’t think should exist.
And that’s the crux of it, they aren’t angry about pronouns, they’re angry about trans and non-binary people becoming normalised.
I dunno, being a man, woman, or black person isn’t political. Trans, non-binary, etc is, and normalizing it is political, regardless of if it’s right or wrong. I think that you’re correct and that it seems like something done as ammunition in the Culture War; normalizing identity politics rather than a design decision done out of a necessity to improve the quality of the game apart from that.
My earlier analogy was about having a pro-life/pro-choice option forced on you, but I guess to make it more accurate it would be more like the game just telling you that you’re pro-life as part of your character settings? Because it’s not just putting the politics in the game, it’s taking a strong side. Again, rightly or wrongly, I can see why some people would resent that in their escapism.
I guess my existence is “political” then, I guess I can’t exist in a space without having something “forced” on people.
We were male/female, now we’re women/men/other, that’s it. It’s a personal matter that we go through and we want to simply exist. That’s only “political” when your dealing with people who actively want to harm our rights. I cannot stress enough that these people shouldn’t be treated with respect as if they’re not trying to destroy people for a simple personal choice.
The best bigots are the ones that tell on themselves, dontcha think?
Trans people: Exist
Brainlets: “Is this politics??”
Fuck off forever
I don’t see the big deal about the pronoun mods. You have to download and install it. Just don’t download the mods.
It has no reason to exist besides being a middle finger to a queer minority.
This is a website deciding not to become a Nazi bar.
