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Dwarf Fortress On Steam Will Feature Trans Dwarves But You Can’t Talk About It On The Forums
Bay 12 Games and Kitfox Games' Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam at an undetermined time. The Steam version of the game will feature an improved graphical user
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Bay 12 Games and Kitfox Games’ Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam at an undetermined time. The Steam version of the game will feature an improved graphical user interface over the original ASCII design, along with various other under-the-hood improvements to appeal to the Steam userbase. One addition to the game caught various people off guard, though: the inclusion of trans dwarves.
It was confirmed by Bay 12 Games in a tweet that was posted up on March 16th, 2019 that Dwarf Fortress would feature trans dwarves.
Star Gay Lily@Bird_Allergies
· Mar 16, 2019
@Bay12Games Do you think we'll ever see transgender or intersex dwarves in our fortresses?
Bay 12 Games@Bay12Games
Yeah! We'd have them already if I hadn't overcomplicated my thinking on what additions were needed (this is a problem of mine.) There are still some code obstacles to overcome, how I did pronouns etc, and for intersex and others we have some issues with object defs. Doable tho.
86
8:18 PM - Mar 16, 2019
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55 people are talking about this
The first thing that most gamers asked is… “why?”
The Twitter user who requested the trans dwarves replied on behalf of Bay 12 Games, stating that it was about gender identity and expression rather than serving any sort of meaningful, functional purpose.
Marc Romagosa@Cruxador
· Mar 17, 2019
Replying to @Bay12Games @Bird_Allergies
Wouldn't trans dwarves be meaningless though? Dwarves don't really have gender roles to begin with, just biological sex of a purely reproductive nature.
Star Gay Lily
There are already homosexual and bisexual dwarves. It's far more about identity and expression than anything else.
6
1:46 PM - Mar 17, 2019
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See Star Gay Lily
This sort of decision did not go over well with plenty of gamers, who did not see the point in adding the feature. However, people who began to criticize the decision were promptly blocked by Bay 12 Games.
KienanX@KienanX
· Mar 19, 2019
Replying to @Bay12Games @Bird_Allergies
What @eldarmark said is spot on, in my opinion. What's the point? It really doesn't seem to fit, at all. And did you really block him for that? Wow.
KienanX
Whoooo, I'm blocked too. Hahahaha. Grow some thicker skin and stop blocking potential customers over nothing, ya dingus. Peace.
27
12:15 AM - Mar 20, 2019
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The discussion attempted to further itself and mutate into some kind of clarity on why the decision was made by going from the limited character count of Twitter to the Steam forums.
However, gamers soon found out that the Steam forums was no bastion for the freedom of expression they thought they would be afforded away from the restrictive quarantine of Twitter.
On March 20th, 2019 a Steam thread was started, mocking the decision to include the trans characters to the game. User pango wrote…
On March 21st, 2019 some users from the RPG Codex forum began discussing the inclusion of trans dwarves, mocking Bay 12 Games for the decision.
The thread didn’t last long on Steam, though. After two pages it was promptly deleted.
However, any attempts to broach the topic within the Dwarf Fortress community on Steam was for naught because discussing this developmental feature is not allowed on the Steam forums.
That’s right, even though the developer decided to add trans dwarves to the game, discussing any kind of politics is forbidden, including identitarianism and sociopolitics. On March 15th, 2019 the developers pinned a post on the Steam forums, which reads…
The rules are listed as follows:
So the TL;DR of the matter is this: Bay 12 Games acquiesced a request for including trans dwarves in Dwarf Fortress. Some gamers didn’t like this decision and voiced criticism of the decision, for which Bay 12 Games promptly blocked them on Twitter. Making threads about it on the Steam forums that could come off as “divisive” are also prohibited.
This is almost identical to what Hardsuit Labs is doing with Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, where the forum is censoring and banning feedbackcritical of the developers’ sociopolitical influence on the game and the Left-wing agenda that gamers are not comfortable with.
Given that Dwarf Fortress is much smaller and more niche than Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, it will be interesting to see how the community deals with various forms of Left-wing sociopolitics invading the game and how they will react as it crops up during their play sessions when Bay 12 Games’ title launches on the Steam store at some point in the near future.
(Thanks for the news tip Claude)
