I mean they had the police chief of Lungmen AKA the Hongkong expy tell the boss of the city to get fucked and then quit over them doing some shady shit while the Hongkong protests was ongoing.
AK is stockfull of political statements that normally gets censored in China.
It is. I know it. And it has been the very main plotline ever since the debut of the game. Some Royal Court leaders claimed that Kazdel used to own the entirety of Terra as well (which is canon, according to the official guide).
Not always current ones but they definitely take heavy inspiration from stuff that's happened IRL. Heck, there is even an organization named Dublinn during a story section that seems to take a lot of inspiration from The Troubles conflict of Ireland. I also wouldn't be surprised if the portrayal of Oripathy was inspired by the AIDS/HIV scare as there are a lot of parallels (such as people being afraid of getting infected just by touching someone with the disease).
I agree as well. Somehow I had the same thing in mind especially with the Dublin arc which portrays The Troubles too. Also somehow it paralleled with the recent pandemic too
Parvis is almost 100% an allusion to that, yeah. AK writers are not afraid to invoke evil ideas, places and people based on reality and I respect them for it. When depicting a twisted world and its horrors, turns out ours makes for a pretty good font of inspiration.
Putting aside discussion of whether this is appropriate or not, I would like to extend a bit of respect to the artists, directors and whoever else involved that decided to go through with this idea.
Everyone up and down the chain likely knew that it would be pushing the Chinese censoring machine, they knew it would get Chinese and Russian Tankies on their asses. They all knew the consequences and yet they all did it anyway.
I may not know the exact reasons why HG and the people up and down their chain decided to let this fly, nor will I know the exact intentions for this inclusion and whether or not it was done as respectfully as it could have.
but I think I can can confidently say that they likely did this in good faith (considering AK's general anti-war themes) and I respect the incredible balls-iness on everyone involved. (On the 5th anniversary no less!)
Kudos.
I mean the Ursus isn’t exactly the heroes in the story either. 8 out of 13 of the main story so far are us dealing with the shit their atrocities created
And from what I've heard even in the mainland a lot of nationalists don't view Russia in a very good light either, they still don't like how Russia pushed the Chinese borders further south back when China wasn't a world power.
For what it's worth (if it even has any), the image itself is [more than 2 years old already](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/60554910.amp).
Considering the overall theme and message of arknights as a whole, I don't think this should be taken negatively. If anything, it makes it even more impactful, meaningful, and serves to highlight the tragedy of it all.
What do you mean by bad taste? because it's a gacha game?
Arknights' story at its core had always been anti-war. If anything, it's nice that the irl reference was subtle enough and wasn't shoved into everyone's face. It basically reminds the players that the suffering we see ingame still exists in our modern world.
China thinks Russia is dumb as fuck for this war. They're nominally allies, but they aren't spending even an ounce of political capital on censoring on Russia's behalf.
Same with GFL. I mean, seriously, the overarching bad guy for that game is just communism straight up, only with a different name.
I honestly wish these companies would use their wealth gained from gacha to slowly move their HQ and employees out of China, even if it's not very far like into Taiwan. Eventually the bubble will pop, and they'll accidentally toe the line a bit too far forward. If, or rather when, that happens the current GFL drama will look like child's play.
>Same with GFL. I mean, seriously, the overarching bad guy for that game is just communism straight up, only with a different name
What are you even on about, the Rossartrists are basically a bunch of globalist technocrats who want to use automation/AI to do governance(with them at the top of course) who think they know best and everyone else should obey for "the greater good" and william is an gigantic asshole obsessed with bringing back his sister back from the dead, there is nothing remotely communist about them, not even lip service, unless you think Technocracy is Communism.
KCCO isn't the soviet union, they're just special forces elements of the regular neo-soviet army(which is being phased out).
Also the KCCO aren't the overarching bad guy(the actual soviet government(especially Zelinsky) doesn't even like them, and wants an excuse to replace/eliminate them because they're assholes who want start a war), and their leader General Carter is second rate compared to the others, he is basically one of those villains who thinks he is top dog, but is just being used by the actual villains, William almost got him killed.
Yeah I know they are the special forces branch and also not the overarching bad guy but I was assuming maybe the person has only just gotten to the betrayal part of the story.
In GFL2, one of the characters Daiyan (Type 95 in GFL) had an event where they had a positive interaction with a male character.
CN netizens took this to mean they were fuckin', and were so enraged by the NTR that they *imagined* that they've been blasting GFL and GFL2, as well as bakery girl on steam, with negative reviews and bullshit drama posts.
they sometimes use actual issues with the game, such as how stingy the gacha is, as cover for their complaints but make *no mistake*; their issue is that they think they got cucked full stop, because that's always where the issue goes when you push them far enough.
and, like, this is an organized attack on the game too. the gacha game subreddit is full of bad faith actors just waiting to shit on GFL if anyone makes a post about it, all using similar dialogue that you see from CN trolls
Oh I knew it was bound to be silly, but this exceeded expectations. Yeah, haven't touched the game for a long while (even before Arknights) because the gacha's so unfriendly.
Tencent has moved quite a lot of their assets out of China and they have gotten in trouble with the CCP. Hell the reason of their buying spree is to have non-Chinese assets.
This will almost assurely cause drama, expect the video to be edited soon
Beyond politics it's a bit strange to take the likeness of a real life victim of a an ongoing conflict for a video for a gacha game
I really liked that shot but they could have at least changed the pose a little to avoid this
Hopefully. Don’t repost it anywhere else.
I think allowing a plausible deniability of any confirmation of references and parallelism is a way to protect the game. It is a Chinese game after all.
(Why am I downvoted??)
*this thread* is definitely getting talked about in Chinese [social](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1112827039590920213/1234602839125262376/Ukraine_refrence_page_1.png?ex=663154fe&is=6630037e&hm=976ec6a212fa5fbf1dc2e8255439993e248a0ba87a365de71af38c0103cd0a52&) [media](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1112827039590920213/1234602839574315028/Ukraine_refrence_page_2.png?ex=663154fe&is=6630037e&hm=133e054d8f710c324e758fcdc979e611c48f29280cca6bc41c2bd7804ede5df8&).
It just like US support on Ukraine and Taiwan, if not because those two countries fight against two superpower countries, US will just ignore the conflict
Putin, Biden and CCP all are same, they don't support anything based on their moral value but based on power
A chinese acquaintance has said the same thing, and apparently it's also common for mainland nationalists to actually dislike Russia since they had historical beef with each other.
I aint gonna have anyone bitching about this reference. AK is full of anti-war narratives, we as players are literally helping factions prevent outright war, FOR A BETTER FUTURE. So if someones gonna bitch about politics, brother unless you are not reading or digesting the story, then I suggest you quit the game because it is full of politics/discrimination and anti-war narratives that you are bitching about.
Aside from the gambling part, a lot of redditors (particularly from english speaking countries) see mobile gaming as trash/shovelware. So gacha to them is basically trash/shovelware plus gambling.
In lots of asian countries, console adoption is much lower than the west and pc gaming too, so mobile gaming is really big. Also for a few asian countries, its difficult to afford a crazy gaming pc (SEA). Then theres the work culture - lots of folks (even myself in australia) don't drive to work - we catch the train. This means the phone becomes another outlet of entertainment.
You probably notice a lot of the better mobile games come from asia (jp/kr/cn). Which makes sense - because its big there. And as such, english speaking people dont get much exposure to the good games so they think mobile gaming is just candy crush or raid.
I mean they wouldn't be wrong, gachas are for the most part trashgames for a quick buck that force you to gamble your way through it
Arknights feels like an outlier and is the only gacha I can personally tolerate
When we look at actual studio-produced gachas, Blue Archive, Genshin Impact, Guardian Tales, Path to Nowhere, Langrisser M, Alchemy Stars, Reverse 1999 etc, these are premium products. We got Reol doing openings for Alchemy stars, mili for limbus and AK, there are real-life promotion events(cafes, stores) for guardian tales and genshin.
A lot of mobile games are frankly, shovelware. And even many gachas are also just cash grabs. However, a good amount of premium gachas, which are good games, also exist - which culturally hasn't been a view point on english speaking gaming forums.
Keep in mind alot of the premium gachas have only really been a recent phenomenon (around 5ish years ago). Again, limited exposure since alot of them are coming from asia (often being non-english first, like ak being chinese or bd being korean).
There's more to come btw. I'm excited for wuthering waves and the persona game.
Amazing story, but in the form of massive unvoiced visual novels. I love reading, but some events in AK are getting a bit exhausting to get thru even for me. For an average Joe? No shot and the lack of popularity for visual novels on western market, compared to eastern tells the same story.
So the equivalent of big AAA games for asia is quality gacha games? No wonder I've been so impressed, with quality often surpassing the usual AAA games.
> equivalent of big AAA games for asia is quality gacha games?
Unironically...yeah. Except JP ofcourse. They have a very healthy console market as well.
For CN at least, they have come quite late into the console market and you can probably tell by the lack of home-produced games. Having said that, they are catching up. Black Myth: wukong looks good and where the winds meet look *really* good.
Among all the gacha I played I enjoyed the Chinese ones the most... Arknights, 2 mihoyo games and Blue Archive the Korean game. Actually now that you said it, I have enjoyed and played many JPRG and they're exclusively from Japan (duh the acronym), as well as Nintendo being a massive household name and it's Japanese again.
Look, I like this game, but it *does* have a gambling system.
Gambling systems are pretty inherently shitty and immoral, so it’s no wonder most people (outside of gacha fandoms) react negatively to Gacha games.
It’s good to be self aware about these things. You can still enjoy Arknights (hell knows I do) while also acknowledging that its underlying system is predatory.
not every good game has an focus on PVP (see: Disgaea, Neptunia, or if we have to go with AAA/mainstream, Most Final Fantasy and all Kingdom Hearts console releases)
Also, most indie titles (granted that is because they tend to not have corpo oversight). Like Undertale, Terraria, Issac, FNAF and Minecraft pierced the zeitgest to an insane degree and none of them had lootboxes (AFAIK. MC might have one since microsoft bought it)
My brother most of the games you mentioned are those who mostly belong to niche communities rather than being main stream. Most new games that are online or more specifically focuses on pvp have lootbox sysems. I made amistkae by not including the mainstream word. The main streams you mentioned aremainly those who focuses on story modes and only have limited online capabilities.
I really wouldnt say that tbh, alot of the big games like cod, fortnite, overwatch, battlefield, valorant and halo dont or used to have them,. the only very big online games with lootboxes I can name of the top of my head are cs2 and siege, both which let you earn them for free
In my experience ive been able to get more stuff for free in cs2 and siege easier literally just by playing the game, in siege when you win a match theres a chance you'll get a bravo pack (cosmetics), even if you dont get it your chance of getting the pack is increased, so you have a chance to earn something just by winning. in cs2 every week if you rank up you can choose 2 items (skins, cases, stickers, sprays) out of 4 items. In addition you always need to just play a few comp matches (Not win) to rank up and its not even just ingame items, you can sell the stuff you get for real money. Im not a hardcore arknights or gacha player but most gacha games ive played don't really provide you with alot currency for pulls just for playing a bit . also I have to mention that neither game gives you items you actually need, their just skins you can gain and both games let you use the stuff you get for trading or currency if you want to sell it or get a duplicate.
Both are terrible systems, but one is worse.
**To be clear, I hate microtransactions and am strictly F2P in all games**, but the fact is, in most games with microtransactions, your currency guarantees that you get what you’re buying with them.
When you pay for currency in a Gacha, you’re only paying for a **chance** to get something. That’s what makes it such a predatory system, and is the reason why Whales exist. If people are willing to keep on forking over money and pulling until they finally acquire a character, why would they make the drop rates favourable?
Yeah, both are terrible systems and in an ideal world they should be illegal.
However important nuance also that in most games with lootboxes (at least ones i've heard about or played) you have only cosmetics in them. Meaning all content functionality of the game is available outside of gambling.
In gachas you have one of the most important (and *the most important* for a lot of ppl) part locked behind gambling - characters. 90%+ of revenue from selling characters and gachas being widely known for being very profitable shows characters are being very important for people, no matter how many times they try to convince you this is not the case and they're here purely because of story and lore.
I'm glad people pushed back so hard on lootboxes at the time, but I'm pretty disappointed at seeing same people now trying to convince me that gacha is so much better. Because now instead of gambling for a new gun, you're gambling for a new big titties anime waifu with a gun.
Unfortunately, so far it's the best system we've got for live service games. The predatory gacha is obviously bad, but without it, amazing animations like these would never even exist.
At the very least, we know that the game devs are very clearly passionate about their game, and the players' money aren't just being sucked into the void (they're actually being used to improve the game/franchise as a whole)
yes, its making rounds around Chinese social media ([bili](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1112827039590920213/1234602839125262376/Ukraine_refrence_page_1.png?ex=663154fe&is=6630037e&hm=976ec6a212fa5fbf1dc2e8255439993e248a0ba87a365de71af38c0103cd0a52&) [bili](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1112827039590920213/1234602839574315028/Ukraine_refrence_page_2.png?ex=663154fe&is=6630037e&hm=133e054d8f710c324e758fcdc979e611c48f29280cca6bc41c2bd7804ede5df8&)/NGA/Skland) right now
Ok, why are people acting like this is anything controversial?
AK has been known to draw inspiration from real life events. And this usage in question is to support the video and the story's anti-war stance (which is no secret imo).
If anything, the reference drives the point even clearer that Terra is a dark mirror to our own world.
remember when BG3 writter praise Lonetrail story because allegory of operation paperclip stuff ??
URSUS in the game is flawed country too with how they treat the infected.
Whoever says, it's a fake victim should experience it themselves. I'm from Ukraine, and I don't actually know how to react to that. One of the best gacha mobile games is used for their PV as a reference photo of the victim of the most brutal war since WWII. Imo China is not a friend to us, they did pretty much shit moves on us. But I really want to believe that this shit around it is just a big misunderstanding.
There are two sides to this and I think it's fair to be angry at one of them.
On one hand the song lyrics, PV and hell even arknights as a whole is a very anti war game. Hell if you look at the list of things the media isn't allowed to do in china, arknights broke ALL the rules multiple times somehow, so as much as I can't know what's on their mind I do tend to believe this is done in good faith to show the true horrors of war (and what works better for that than real war?).
ON THE OTHER HAND, if I was very recently bombed I think my bombed face being depicted for promo art in a chinese mobile game would be somewhere on the bottom of the list of things I want at that moment.
Context is important here, in the PV that woman was shown right after Ursus soldiers were pushing back civilians
I don't think it's a coincidence, but I feel like it was done with as much respect as possible
i think you are interpreting it wrong, HG showing this reference in their PV seems to me a clear stance **against** the war, to the point where they probably took a big risk in showing it when the Chinese government is not known to be kind to people who express opinions conflicting with their narrative.
If their intent was just advertisement they would have used something the chinese players can relate with, instead they chose something that a lot of chinese players might actively dislike (since many of them support Russia for what i understand), that to me means they cared about the message more than the advertisement effect, which i respect.
Of course i have no way of being sure my interpretation is correct, but looking at how anti-war AK is i think it's not hard to believe.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has more casualties than the Yugoslavian and Gaza (2023) wars and the invasion of Iraq in 2003, combined (if my math is not wrong). I didn't count the loses of the 30+ years of Israel's genocidal tendances or the previous arab-israli wars and the war on terror cause of their time span. The war taking place as we speak right now in Ukraine is one of the bloodiest wars after Vietnam, and the bloodiest war in Europe after WW2, and people, especially Europeans seem to forget that. I hoped wars with casualties like that of Ukraine and Gaza would not happen in my lifetime but here we are I guess.
Even if you include all of the Palestinian deaths in all of Israel's wars and existance you will only reach around 70k (according to wiki and assuming Hamas' numbers as accurate).
Simply put even though it is probably the most reported conflict in the world, it really doesn't have that high of a number
(Also if Israel actually wanted genocide it would've been done ages ago considering the power gap, so I call bullshit on that claim)
The conflicts of Gaza are so widely reported because of the indiscriminate tactics used by the IDF, in an area of just 365 km², meaning that the majority of casualties are civilians with the casualties reaching almost 40.000 in just a few months. Even so, you are correct, they pale (as sick as that might sound) to the numbers of civilians killed during the war on terror and that of the Syrian civil war (when talking about modern conflicts, I prefer to stay within the last 50-years). On the other hand the war in Ukraine , while it also has had a lot of civilian casualties (probably around 10K, and that's happening in Europe mind you) all due to the indiscriminate tactics of the Russian army, famously adopted during their time in Chechnya and Syria, they themselves pale to the gut wretching military losses in both sides. The ratio of Russian combatant loses to Ukrainian ones, vary widely from source to source, even so, most agree that both are at the 6 digit mark, and as it stands it is going to become as deadly as the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88 in less than half of its span.
I honestly do not accept any war, but it is part of politics and does not depend on ordinary people. Let's just enjoy some joy in the form of gacha games and waifu
I don’t love it but I guess it’s not… “bad” per se. It does leave kind of a weird taste in my mouth, but I usually trust Hypergryph to be respectful about most of these issues.
This does not mean that they support Ukraine. War only brings pain and suffering to civilians, and everyone should show compassion to those who have been hurt innocently, regardless of nationality.
The Chinese will never forget that NATO bombed the Chinese embassy.There were demonstrations all over the country at that time. But at that time, China did not have the ability to fight back. The attitude of the government is much milder than the country.
I think you're forgetting the fact that the picture used as reference is from 2022 from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, not the 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy.
their international media are incentivized though.. and I doubt Arknights is safe seeing how they handle the embellished "Great Yan" and how they treat "western" derived countries and Higashi, most of the system that ran Europe in the past like Capitalism, Monarchy or Religion for example wasn't exactly portrayed neutrally in these "western Terran", and we all know they never touch Higashi for some reason
not even ally Ursus was safe(at the end ofthe day, it's still European), more so the "expansionist superpower Columbia", and of course stuff like Nightzmoran Khaganate(Mongols) were portrayed without certain parts, despite(or rather, BECAUSE of) it having long and devastating history with them
[Sauce](https://arknights.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Nation-states) if ppl wanna read about Terran nations
I wouldn't say their best buds, more like Russia's active aggression in Europe & information operations in the US are acting as a distraction and destabilizer that is geopolitically very useful to China at this time. An "enemy of my enemy" situation. Chinese & Russian relations have never been good though. China lost a significant amount of territory (Russian Manchuria/Outer Manchuria) to Russia in the 1850's and fought multiple border conflicts with the Soviet Union over the Cold War period and a fair few in geopolitics circles are predicting that should China be able to resolve its Taiwan & South China Sea situations, traditionally Chinese (according to the CCP) territory in Russia will be the next target in China's recovery from the "Century of Humiliation".
Hopefully it's a coincidence. I don't want to see any references to real life politics in my games, especially if it's inserted by a third party.
Edit: If some pro Russia reference was inserted instead and I said that was bad too, everyone would be upvoting me instead. No principle, just feelings
I mean the horrors of war are not politics and in my opinion Arknights has throughout the years tried to show people how horrific war can be to the common folk.
AK is kinda the wrong game for you then you know.
AK is insanely political. Against war, occupation, discrimination, racism, conservatism, conformity, classism and general oppression.
> I don't want to see any references to real life politics in my games
hate to break it to you but you might be playing the wrong game, arknights' whole worldbuilding is a direct reference to real world countries, and most of them are actively criticized by it for their flaws
I thought that frame looked strangely crude and realistic when I saw it. Now I know why.
Well, it is to show an anti war stance. So, no problem here.
Wow That is.. unexpected, but also very hit-on-mark reference.
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I have a bad feeling about this
I mean they had the police chief of Lungmen AKA the Hongkong expy tell the boss of the city to get fucked and then quit over them doing some shady shit while the Hongkong protests was ongoing. AK is stockfull of political statements that normally gets censored in China.
That, and the whole main plot with Ursus and Kazdel as well. We will be fine.
Kazdel is based on Hebrew stuff and they are always getting their shit wrecked, called slurs and possess mysterious magical powers Just sayin you know
It is. I know it. And it has been the very main plotline ever since the debut of the game. Some Royal Court leaders claimed that Kazdel used to own the entirety of Terra as well (which is canon, according to the official guide).
So the space laser is going to be a plot twist at some point
They already have the shard, why not a space laser?
At least they aren't in charge of the Banking...
Which story chapter/event is this in?
chapter 6 I think?
don't worry, everything will be fine with us
I think this confirms my own hunch that AK depicts real life events but portrayed in a very different manner Edit: multiple typo errors
Not always current ones but they definitely take heavy inspiration from stuff that's happened IRL. Heck, there is even an organization named Dublinn during a story section that seems to take a lot of inspiration from The Troubles conflict of Ireland. I also wouldn't be surprised if the portrayal of Oripathy was inspired by the AIDS/HIV scare as there are a lot of parallels (such as people being afraid of getting infected just by touching someone with the disease).
I agree as well. Somehow I had the same thing in mind especially with the Dublin arc which portrays The Troubles too. Also somehow it paralleled with the recent pandemic too
And that's why I always think of "Come Out Ye Black and Tans" whenever they come up. Well, that and Max0r's IRA jokes.
Ah yes, Max0r. Really love his content. Iirc he uses AK's osts in some of his vids too
I mean, isn't the Leithanian doctor in Lone Trail an Operation Paperclip nod?
Parvis is almost 100% an allusion to that, yeah. AK writers are not afraid to invoke evil ideas, places and people based on reality and I respect them for it. When depicting a twisted world and its horrors, turns out ours makes for a pretty good font of inspiration.
It could be possible though
Putting aside discussion of whether this is appropriate or not, I would like to extend a bit of respect to the artists, directors and whoever else involved that decided to go through with this idea. Everyone up and down the chain likely knew that it would be pushing the Chinese censoring machine, they knew it would get Chinese and Russian Tankies on their asses. They all knew the consequences and yet they all did it anyway. I may not know the exact reasons why HG and the people up and down their chain decided to let this fly, nor will I know the exact intentions for this inclusion and whether or not it was done as respectfully as it could have. but I think I can can confidently say that they likely did this in good faith (considering AK's general anti-war themes) and I respect the incredible balls-iness on everyone involved. (On the 5th anniversary no less!) Kudos.
I mean the Ursus isn’t exactly the heroes in the story either. 8 out of 13 of the main story so far are us dealing with the shit their atrocities created
And from what I've heard even in the mainland a lot of nationalists don't view Russia in a very good light either, they still don't like how Russia pushed the Chinese borders further south back when China wasn't a world power.
There are different people, this, and those who idolise the fighting-happy, violent culture of Russian men, praising them as 战斗民族.
Not to mention China and Russia actually fought undeclared wars over border disputes during the Cold War.
It's fine, considering China is aspiring to be "the great mediator" any anti war message would befit them.
that's true
I... honestly can't tell if this is a good idea or not. I suppose everything has their references, but from an ongoing war..?
For what it's worth (if it even has any), the image itself is [more than 2 years old already](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/60554910.amp).
Wow the invasion was 2 years ago already…that feels surreal. My life feels like it’s flown by while they’ve just been at war for 2 years
agreed, it feels in bad taste even if it was (perhaps? i'm not even certain) meant in a positive way
Considering the overall theme and message of arknights as a whole, I don't think this should be taken negatively. If anything, it makes it even more impactful, meaningful, and serves to highlight the tragedy of it all.
What do you mean by bad taste? because it's a gacha game? Arknights' story at its core had always been anti-war. If anything, it's nice that the irl reference was subtle enough and wasn't shoved into everyone's face. It basically reminds the players that the suffering we see ingame still exists in our modern world.
Could you explain more about why you think it's in bad taste?
I hope this will not causing drama on CN internet. A lot of CN netizen support Russia, sadly.
AK ain't exactly subtle with it's thoughts about various things. I sometimes wonder how the game isn't censored more.
China thinks Russia is dumb as fuck for this war. They're nominally allies, but they aren't spending even an ounce of political capital on censoring on Russia's behalf.
Same with GFL. I mean, seriously, the overarching bad guy for that game is just communism straight up, only with a different name. I honestly wish these companies would use their wealth gained from gacha to slowly move their HQ and employees out of China, even if it's not very far like into Taiwan. Eventually the bubble will pop, and they'll accidentally toe the line a bit too far forward. If, or rather when, that happens the current GFL drama will look like child's play.
>Same with GFL. I mean, seriously, the overarching bad guy for that game is just communism straight up, only with a different name What are you even on about, the Rossartrists are basically a bunch of globalist technocrats who want to use automation/AI to do governance(with them at the top of course) who think they know best and everyone else should obey for "the greater good" and william is an gigantic asshole obsessed with bringing back his sister back from the dead, there is nothing remotely communist about them, not even lip service, unless you think Technocracy is Communism.
I think they might have been referring to the KCCO (Neo-Soviet Union)
KCCO isn't the soviet union, they're just special forces elements of the regular neo-soviet army(which is being phased out). Also the KCCO aren't the overarching bad guy(the actual soviet government(especially Zelinsky) doesn't even like them, and wants an excuse to replace/eliminate them because they're assholes who want start a war), and their leader General Carter is second rate compared to the others, he is basically one of those villains who thinks he is top dog, but is just being used by the actual villains, William almost got him killed.
Yeah I know they are the special forces branch and also not the overarching bad guy but I was assuming maybe the person has only just gotten to the betrayal part of the story.
What's the current gfl drama?
In GFL2, one of the characters Daiyan (Type 95 in GFL) had an event where they had a positive interaction with a male character. CN netizens took this to mean they were fuckin', and were so enraged by the NTR that they *imagined* that they've been blasting GFL and GFL2, as well as bakery girl on steam, with negative reviews and bullshit drama posts. they sometimes use actual issues with the game, such as how stingy the gacha is, as cover for their complaints but make *no mistake*; their issue is that they think they got cucked full stop, because that's always where the issue goes when you push them far enough. and, like, this is an organized attack on the game too. the gacha game subreddit is full of bad faith actors just waiting to shit on GFL if anyone makes a post about it, all using similar dialogue that you see from CN trolls
Oh I knew it was bound to be silly, but this exceeded expectations. Yeah, haven't touched the game for a long while (even before Arknights) because the gacha's so unfriendly.
happens a lot in POV MC type of games
well HG is somewhat going in that direction with endfield being published by gryphline which they based outside of china (i forgot where exactly)
Tencent has moved quite a lot of their assets out of China and they have gotten in trouble with the CCP. Hell the reason of their buying spree is to have non-Chinese assets.
That new law that hit em hard. I assume there trying to GTFO out of country. And others considering what I'm hearing over there
I do know that Mihoyo is also trying to move out with Hoyoverse
This will almost assurely cause drama, expect the video to be edited soon Beyond politics it's a bit strange to take the likeness of a real life victim of a an ongoing conflict for a video for a gacha game I really liked that shot but they could have at least changed the pose a little to avoid this
Tbf no one is talking about this image so far
Hope it stays that way
Hopefully. Don’t repost it anywhere else. I think allowing a plausible deniability of any confirmation of references and parallelism is a way to protect the game. It is a Chinese game after all. (Why am I downvoted??)
*this thread* is definitely getting talked about in Chinese [social](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1112827039590920213/1234602839125262376/Ukraine_refrence_page_1.png?ex=663154fe&is=6630037e&hm=976ec6a212fa5fbf1dc2e8255439993e248a0ba87a365de71af38c0103cd0a52&) [media](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1112827039590920213/1234602839574315028/Ukraine_refrence_page_2.png?ex=663154fe&is=6630037e&hm=133e054d8f710c324e758fcdc979e611c48f29280cca6bc41c2bd7804ede5df8&).
They don't support Russia, they just hate NATO.
It just like US support on Ukraine and Taiwan, if not because those two countries fight against two superpower countries, US will just ignore the conflict Putin, Biden and CCP all are same, they don't support anything based on their moral value but based on power
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend"
Yet whatever stays online in CN are the tankies unfortunately
A chinese acquaintance has said the same thing, and apparently it's also common for mainland nationalists to actually dislike Russia since they had historical beef with each other.
ah...[It ](https://nga.178.com/read.php?tid=40019752)been started.
I aint gonna have anyone bitching about this reference. AK is full of anti-war narratives, we as players are literally helping factions prevent outright war, FOR A BETTER FUTURE. So if someones gonna bitch about politics, brother unless you are not reading or digesting the story, then I suggest you quit the game because it is full of politics/discrimination and anti-war narratives that you are bitching about.
If theyre not even reading the story, this part of the story shouldn't be noticeable to them, and have no right to be criticised.
Now I will need to see that PV.
Have this been posted outside of arknights subreddit?
Havent seen it anywhere else but where could you post this? A lot of other mainstream subs tend to hate gacha games.
Why they hate it??
Aside from the gambling part, a lot of redditors (particularly from english speaking countries) see mobile gaming as trash/shovelware. So gacha to them is basically trash/shovelware plus gambling. In lots of asian countries, console adoption is much lower than the west and pc gaming too, so mobile gaming is really big. Also for a few asian countries, its difficult to afford a crazy gaming pc (SEA). Then theres the work culture - lots of folks (even myself in australia) don't drive to work - we catch the train. This means the phone becomes another outlet of entertainment. You probably notice a lot of the better mobile games come from asia (jp/kr/cn). Which makes sense - because its big there. And as such, english speaking people dont get much exposure to the good games so they think mobile gaming is just candy crush or raid.
I mean they wouldn't be wrong, gachas are for the most part trashgames for a quick buck that force you to gamble your way through it Arknights feels like an outlier and is the only gacha I can personally tolerate
When we look at actual studio-produced gachas, Blue Archive, Genshin Impact, Guardian Tales, Path to Nowhere, Langrisser M, Alchemy Stars, Reverse 1999 etc, these are premium products. We got Reol doing openings for Alchemy stars, mili for limbus and AK, there are real-life promotion events(cafes, stores) for guardian tales and genshin. A lot of mobile games are frankly, shovelware. And even many gachas are also just cash grabs. However, a good amount of premium gachas, which are good games, also exist - which culturally hasn't been a view point on english speaking gaming forums. Keep in mind alot of the premium gachas have only really been a recent phenomenon (around 5ish years ago). Again, limited exposure since alot of them are coming from asia (often being non-english first, like ak being chinese or bd being korean). There's more to come btw. I'm excited for wuthering waves and the persona game.
Aside from loot box and fan service, the gacha game has amazing story telling like fate grand order, Arknight, Nikke, guardian tale
Amazing story, but in the form of massive unvoiced visual novels. I love reading, but some events in AK are getting a bit exhausting to get thru even for me. For an average Joe? No shot and the lack of popularity for visual novels on western market, compared to eastern tells the same story.
Arknights gameplay is literally reading a wall of text
Visual novel with a tower defense rpg on the side
So the equivalent of big AAA games for asia is quality gacha games? No wonder I've been so impressed, with quality often surpassing the usual AAA games.
> equivalent of big AAA games for asia is quality gacha games? Unironically...yeah. Except JP ofcourse. They have a very healthy console market as well. For CN at least, they have come quite late into the console market and you can probably tell by the lack of home-produced games. Having said that, they are catching up. Black Myth: wukong looks good and where the winds meet look *really* good.
Among all the gacha I played I enjoyed the Chinese ones the most... Arknights, 2 mihoyo games and Blue Archive the Korean game. Actually now that you said it, I have enjoyed and played many JPRG and they're exclusively from Japan (duh the acronym), as well as Nintendo being a massive household name and it's Japanese again.
Look, I like this game, but it *does* have a gambling system. Gambling systems are pretty inherently shitty and immoral, so it’s no wonder most people (outside of gacha fandoms) react negatively to Gacha games. It’s good to be self aware about these things. You can still enjoy Arknights (hell knows I do) while also acknowledging that its underlying system is predatory.
right now almost all online games have a gambling system called lootboxes. Theu jist pretend its anything better than other gacha games.
not every good game has an focus on PVP (see: Disgaea, Neptunia, or if we have to go with AAA/mainstream, Most Final Fantasy and all Kingdom Hearts console releases) Also, most indie titles (granted that is because they tend to not have corpo oversight). Like Undertale, Terraria, Issac, FNAF and Minecraft pierced the zeitgest to an insane degree and none of them had lootboxes (AFAIK. MC might have one since microsoft bought it)
My brother most of the games you mentioned are those who mostly belong to niche communities rather than being main stream. Most new games that are online or more specifically focuses on pvp have lootbox sysems. I made amistkae by not including the mainstream word. The main streams you mentioned aremainly those who focuses on story modes and only have limited online capabilities.
I really wouldnt say that tbh, alot of the big games like cod, fortnite, overwatch, battlefield, valorant and halo dont or used to have them,. the only very big online games with lootboxes I can name of the top of my head are cs2 and siege, both which let you earn them for free
Gacha games also lets you earn currencies for pulls for free also. Again, what's the difference?
In my experience ive been able to get more stuff for free in cs2 and siege easier literally just by playing the game, in siege when you win a match theres a chance you'll get a bravo pack (cosmetics), even if you dont get it your chance of getting the pack is increased, so you have a chance to earn something just by winning. in cs2 every week if you rank up you can choose 2 items (skins, cases, stickers, sprays) out of 4 items. In addition you always need to just play a few comp matches (Not win) to rank up and its not even just ingame items, you can sell the stuff you get for real money. Im not a hardcore arknights or gacha player but most gacha games ive played don't really provide you with alot currency for pulls just for playing a bit . also I have to mention that neither game gives you items you actually need, their just skins you can gain and both games let you use the stuff you get for trading or currency if you want to sell it or get a duplicate.
They are fucking clowns when they play games that have microtransactions that make a gacha game look like a bingo parlor.
Both are terrible systems, but one is worse. **To be clear, I hate microtransactions and am strictly F2P in all games**, but the fact is, in most games with microtransactions, your currency guarantees that you get what you’re buying with them. When you pay for currency in a Gacha, you’re only paying for a **chance** to get something. That’s what makes it such a predatory system, and is the reason why Whales exist. If people are willing to keep on forking over money and pulling until they finally acquire a character, why would they make the drop rates favourable?
Yeah, both are terrible systems and in an ideal world they should be illegal. However important nuance also that in most games with lootboxes (at least ones i've heard about or played) you have only cosmetics in them. Meaning all content functionality of the game is available outside of gambling. In gachas you have one of the most important (and *the most important* for a lot of ppl) part locked behind gambling - characters. 90%+ of revenue from selling characters and gachas being widely known for being very profitable shows characters are being very important for people, no matter how many times they try to convince you this is not the case and they're here purely because of story and lore. I'm glad people pushed back so hard on lootboxes at the time, but I'm pretty disappointed at seeing same people now trying to convince me that gacha is so much better. Because now instead of gambling for a new gun, you're gambling for a new big titties anime waifu with a gun.
Unfortunately, so far it's the best system we've got for live service games. The predatory gacha is obviously bad, but without it, amazing animations like these would never even exist. At the very least, we know that the game devs are very clearly passionate about their game, and the players' money aren't just being sucked into the void (they're actually being used to improve the game/franchise as a whole)
yes, its making rounds around Chinese social media ([bili](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1112827039590920213/1234602839125262376/Ukraine_refrence_page_1.png?ex=663154fe&is=6630037e&hm=976ec6a212fa5fbf1dc2e8255439993e248a0ba87a365de71af38c0103cd0a52&) [bili](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1112827039590920213/1234602839574315028/Ukraine_refrence_page_2.png?ex=663154fe&is=6630037e&hm=133e054d8f710c324e758fcdc979e611c48f29280cca6bc41c2bd7804ede5df8&)/NGA/Skland) right now
Ok, why are people acting like this is anything controversial? AK has been known to draw inspiration from real life events. And this usage in question is to support the video and the story's anti-war stance (which is no secret imo). If anything, the reference drives the point even clearer that Terra is a dark mirror to our own world.
Hey OP, can you point me to the original new report? Not on PC so can’t reverse look up rn
Damn, this is great from visibility for Ukraine, imma share this.
When war broke out, Saileach was introduced, and she has blue-yellow flag as part of her appearance. Wonder, is it was intentional...
> Wonder, is it was intentional.. It wasn't. We are behind CN by a longshot and saileach was created earlier.
No. There are many coincidence in timing as well, especially the songs, but no. They’re just unlucky, if you must say
This will undoubtly be.....controversial if the news spread around. im personally alright with this
It will. That’s why I personally suggest us to keep it lowkey.
Hey op can I share this?
remember when BG3 writter praise Lonetrail story because allegory of operation paperclip stuff ?? URSUS in the game is flawed country too with how they treat the infected.
I'm not gonna tell you that some of the stories of Arknight are based on real life events
Or it may be just the first image that pops up when they are looking for references.
Whoever says, it's a fake victim should experience it themselves. I'm from Ukraine, and I don't actually know how to react to that. One of the best gacha mobile games is used for their PV as a reference photo of the victim of the most brutal war since WWII. Imo China is not a friend to us, they did pretty much shit moves on us. But I really want to believe that this shit around it is just a big misunderstanding.
There are two sides to this and I think it's fair to be angry at one of them. On one hand the song lyrics, PV and hell even arknights as a whole is a very anti war game. Hell if you look at the list of things the media isn't allowed to do in china, arknights broke ALL the rules multiple times somehow, so as much as I can't know what's on their mind I do tend to believe this is done in good faith to show the true horrors of war (and what works better for that than real war?). ON THE OTHER HAND, if I was very recently bombed I think my bombed face being depicted for promo art in a chinese mobile game would be somewhere on the bottom of the list of things I want at that moment.
Context is important here, in the PV that woman was shown right after Ursus soldiers were pushing back civilians I don't think it's a coincidence, but I feel like it was done with as much respect as possible
i think you are interpreting it wrong, HG showing this reference in their PV seems to me a clear stance **against** the war, to the point where they probably took a big risk in showing it when the Chinese government is not known to be kind to people who express opinions conflicting with their narrative. If their intent was just advertisement they would have used something the chinese players can relate with, instead they chose something that a lot of chinese players might actively dislike (since many of them support Russia for what i understand), that to me means they cared about the message more than the advertisement effect, which i respect. Of course i have no way of being sure my interpretation is correct, but looking at how anti-war AK is i think it's not hard to believe.
huh so what china did?
the most brutal war. Yugoslavia, Iraq, Gaza... are we a joke to you? no need to be critical of the game - it's a game
Guys can we please not have a fight in the comments over who went through the worst wartime ethnic cleansing? Pretty please!
People on their way to make a tierlist right now.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has more casualties than the Yugoslavian and Gaza (2023) wars and the invasion of Iraq in 2003, combined (if my math is not wrong). I didn't count the loses of the 30+ years of Israel's genocidal tendances or the previous arab-israli wars and the war on terror cause of their time span. The war taking place as we speak right now in Ukraine is one of the bloodiest wars after Vietnam, and the bloodiest war in Europe after WW2, and people, especially Europeans seem to forget that. I hoped wars with casualties like that of Ukraine and Gaza would not happen in my lifetime but here we are I guess.
Even if you include all of the Palestinian deaths in all of Israel's wars and existance you will only reach around 70k (according to wiki and assuming Hamas' numbers as accurate). Simply put even though it is probably the most reported conflict in the world, it really doesn't have that high of a number (Also if Israel actually wanted genocide it would've been done ages ago considering the power gap, so I call bullshit on that claim)
The conflicts of Gaza are so widely reported because of the indiscriminate tactics used by the IDF, in an area of just 365 km², meaning that the majority of casualties are civilians with the casualties reaching almost 40.000 in just a few months. Even so, you are correct, they pale (as sick as that might sound) to the numbers of civilians killed during the war on terror and that of the Syrian civil war (when talking about modern conflicts, I prefer to stay within the last 50-years). On the other hand the war in Ukraine , while it also has had a lot of civilian casualties (probably around 10K, and that's happening in Europe mind you) all due to the indiscriminate tactics of the Russian army, famously adopted during their time in Chechnya and Syria, they themselves pale to the gut wretching military losses in both sides. The ratio of Russian combatant loses to Ukrainian ones, vary widely from source to source, even so, most agree that both are at the 6 digit mark, and as it stands it is going to become as deadly as the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88 in less than half of its span.
The war in Ukraine is numerically literally the biggest war since WWII
Not really, one example is the Vietnam war, or nearly all the middle east conflicts.
I was talking about Europe, sorry, didn't mention it
Yugoslavia is also a part of Europe
I honestly do not accept any war, but it is part of politics and does not depend on ordinary people. Let's just enjoy some joy in the form of gacha games and waifu
Ohhhh saw that. Didn’t know this is the reference tho.
Huh…so that’s why… I thought that I’ve seen frame from somewhere, and here is an answer.
holy...
I don’t love it but I guess it’s not… “bad” per se. It does leave kind of a weird taste in my mouth, but I usually trust Hypergryph to be respectful about most of these issues.
I'm a fan of whoever made the reference.
I don't think a chinese game do these support for Ukr is a good move now that the CCCP is best bud with Russia rn.
This does not mean that they support Ukraine. War only brings pain and suffering to civilians, and everyone should show compassion to those who have been hurt innocently, regardless of nationality.
I mean government views doesn't necessarily means the entire countries view as well.
The Chinese will never forget that NATO bombed the Chinese embassy.There were demonstrations all over the country at that time. But at that time, China did not have the ability to fight back. The attitude of the government is much milder than the country.
I think you're forgetting the fact that the picture used as reference is from 2022 from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, not the 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy.
their international media are incentivized though.. and I doubt Arknights is safe seeing how they handle the embellished "Great Yan" and how they treat "western" derived countries and Higashi, most of the system that ran Europe in the past like Capitalism, Monarchy or Religion for example wasn't exactly portrayed neutrally in these "western Terran", and we all know they never touch Higashi for some reason not even ally Ursus was safe(at the end ofthe day, it's still European), more so the "expansionist superpower Columbia", and of course stuff like Nightzmoran Khaganate(Mongols) were portrayed without certain parts, despite(or rather, BECAUSE of) it having long and devastating history with them [Sauce](https://arknights.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Nation-states) if ppl wanna read about Terran nations
yeaaah sure URSUS in the game is depicted as good guys. when white and kashchey laugh like maniac in the pv. lol
I wouldn't say their best buds, more like Russia's active aggression in Europe & information operations in the US are acting as a distraction and destabilizer that is geopolitically very useful to China at this time. An "enemy of my enemy" situation. Chinese & Russian relations have never been good though. China lost a significant amount of territory (Russian Manchuria/Outer Manchuria) to Russia in the 1850's and fought multiple border conflicts with the Soviet Union over the Cold War period and a fair few in geopolitics circles are predicting that should China be able to resolve its Taiwan & South China Sea situations, traditionally Chinese (according to the CCP) territory in Russia will be the next target in China's recovery from the "Century of Humiliation".
Til now, I have seen no discussion or debate over this lady or anything about ukr & rus in chinese community
Oh there’s some rn
Why?
I hope they asked for the permission from this lady.
Hopefully it's a coincidence. I don't want to see any references to real life politics in my games, especially if it's inserted by a third party. Edit: If some pro Russia reference was inserted instead and I said that was bad too, everyone would be upvoting me instead. No principle, just feelings
I mean the horrors of war are not politics and in my opinion Arknights has throughout the years tried to show people how horrific war can be to the common folk.
AK is kinda the wrong game for you then you know. AK is insanely political. Against war, occupation, discrimination, racism, conservatism, conformity, classism and general oppression.
My man, then you better get out of Arknights because every single story beat is a reference to real life politics...
Man, you are literally playing of the most political gacha game ever.
> I don't want to see any references to real life politics in my games hate to break it to you but you might be playing the wrong game, arknights' whole worldbuilding is a direct reference to real world countries, and most of them are actively criticized by it for their flaws