I am pretty tired of the topic of gatekeeping, but I need to talk about it as a FromSoft fan. There are two reasons I’m specifically bringing it up now, and I’ll try to get to both. The first is *sigh* the isuse of accessibility options in games. You would think that in the year of our bullshit, 2024, that people would not give a shit about something that did not affect them. In this specific case, it’s the new Dragon Age game having the option to not die. In Elden Ring, it’s the request for a pause button. In both cases, you don’t have to engage with it at all if you don’t like it. I mean, you never have to touch the ‘no death’ option in the former, and you never have to pause the game in the latter.
But, apparently, it’s too big of an ask to even have them in the games. Stephanie Sterling talks about it in her latest video. She also covers the shit that Alanah Pearce got in her video for discussing accessibility options in gaming (I’ve included the latter video below. I watched it before seeing that Sterling had talked about it in her current video.)
Pearce is passionate about accesibility in gaming. She has madeher own gaming awards show because of that passion. It’s part of her day job (accessibility consulting), and it’s personal. The video in which she was talking about it as pertaining to gaming was about Elden Ring. I like that she goes off on tangents because that is how my brain works. She doesn’t necessarily tie them together, which is also something I relate to.
Anyway. The point I want to talk about is putting a pause option into Elden Ring. To me, it seems like a small ask, especially for an offline game. Yes, you can play online, but you can also play it offline–and there is no fucking reason you should not be able to stop. People talk about the ebb and flow of combat, which, yes, but also, no.
What I mean is that if you (general you) feel you need to not stop during a boss fight, for example, you don’t have to! That’s the beauty of playing a game–you can ignore things like the pause button if you don’t want to use it! Pearce was trying to talk about a complex issue–how disability can be situational or time-constrained, and not just chronic, and she used the example of being a parent.
I instantly got what she wsa trying to say. Her example for a situational disability was a parent who had to jump up and do something instantly with a kid, maybe even in the middle of a fight. Having a pause button would be helpful. I don’t read internet dogpiles because I don’t need that kind of hate in my life. Of course, people snipped that little bit to make it seem like she was saying that having kids was a disability and that she was being silly.
I think part of the problem is that we tend to think of disability as something permanent. Alanah mentioned that as well. And disability may be too broad a term for the example she used. I mean for the gen pop. I believe it’s an accepted term in the world of disabilities. This was the first time I’d heard of it, but the concept made sense to me.
Here’s where I land on it. Why do people who don’t want it even care? This is something I will never understand. If you don’t want to use a pause button–DON’T! If you don’t want to use the god mode/no death mode–DON’T! Similarly, if you don’t want to ever use summons–DON’T!
Sterling tweeted out a similar question, and then read out an answer she received in her video. The guy (and I’m pretty sure it was a guy) blathered on how you don’t want to play a game that has Hitler in it (though he was way more coy about it) or one in which there were KKK members (again, he was coy about it) because of association. His implication is that by even daring to have a pause button, say, a FromSoft game would be besmirched for ‘normal’ players.
There are so many things wrong with that reasoning, I can’t even. Trying to equate accessibility issues with obviously egregious bullshit is par the course for the assholes, but it amazes me that they can make it with a straight face. Sterling was right in that they just don’t like people with disabilities. It’s absolutely about gatekeeping, even if they want to deny it.
This is coupled with what happened with the most recent early access RKG Retry Elden Ring video. I can’t talk about the episide itself, but I don’t really need to. Someone commented about being mad about the fact that Rory summoned a spirit ash for a meaningful boss again. Basicially, they were flouncing on their way out because they made sure to comment that they were leaving because of the summoning issue.
Most people were like, “Byeeeeeeeee!” There was one guy who was on the flouncer’s side, and he (the sceond guy) was so salty as well. He was saying it was fine for anyone at home to play the want, but this WAS A SHOW ON THE TUBES OF YOU! I jjust had to shake my head because some people are so entitled. I felt bad for the boys because this has been a tension throughout the whole series. In the other games, Rory did not summon. It started as a joke with Dark Souls III (the second series), and it continued through the rest of the games. Rory did summon a few times in that series (only NPCs) and apparently got a lot of shit for it.
Fast-forward to now. You have to know that the game is tuned around spirit summons. Bosses are not meant to be soloed. If someone chooses to do that, then it’s a way of making the game harder for themselves. It’s been clear from the start that Rory is not into soloing the bosses. Or rather, that he is having a lot of fun with the summons. I do think he’s getting a bit overloaded betcause there are so many new mechanics. Plus, they added magicks to the build as well. I love that he loves the Lightning Spear, which is the best journeyperson incantation in the base game.
I feel almost like an approving elder when he gushes about how OP the incantation is and how much he loves it. I just want to give him a hug and ruffle his hair. It’s also hilarious that he only keeps three or four spells in his slots, even though he has six or seven slots available.
It was agreed upon (though without Rory’s buy-in) that they would only summon on field bosses. That was said at the end of the first season, and they carried it over to the second series. They quickly ditched it, however, and most of us were fine with it. But it was a debate in the Discord from time to time. When the rule was made for no summons in big boss fights, someone in the Discord declared it a win. Even though most of us are very pro-summoning.
I feel bad for the guys because it’s almost a no-win situation. I think they should just do what they want and not care what any of us say. I know that’s easier said than done, and also that I have made my feelings very well known. I want Rory to love the game, and I don’t think that will happen if he’s constantly being restrained in what he can do.
That’s all for now.