A suitable for work version of the ToME4 background image

[Frumple]

It didn't go quite that far. Won't say shockbolt doesn't have something more titillating laying around, but it wasn't part of an official release.

Now, Melinda in-game, currently, well...

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

It didn't go quite that far. Won't say shockbolt doesn't have something more titillating laying around, but it wasn't part of an official release.

Now, Melinda in-game, currently, well...

Not familiar with Melinda yet, so I can't comment there, but the argument over being 'safe for work' is kinda pointless since most people either are not, or should not, be gaming at work. However, if your argument is that it should be more 'family friendly', you need to scrap the descriptions for Orc Broodmothers. Have you *READ* those recently??? Makes 'Morgoths Testicles' from Classic ToME seem tame in comparison. (And for those not familiar, that was indeed an item in old version of ToME 2.something. Was an alchemy-related item for creating artifacts.)

Personally, I have no particular objection to the way things are now, they could easier be MUCH worse, and any changes over 'lewdness' (Pft, yeah right... barring the broodmother description, the material in the game hasn't even pushed the boundaries that Piers Anthony likes to tread yet.) as it currently exists could only be the beginning of a slippery slope. ToME isn't exactly meant as a family game, it takes a certain level of intelligence to play a roguelike without cheating outrageously, ad that intelligence tends to come with a certain degree of maturity in most people. I hardly think we need to worry about offending the potential playerbase.

Edit: Also, I'd like to add my kudo's to the creativity of 'ascii-art' (Technically not, but you know what I mean.) Thomas Biskup had a set of fanart kinda like this, floating around somewhere that actually looked great, for ADOM. I wouldn't be at all offended at seeing that set off a series of 'ascii-art' images for ToME. Liked it then, like it now. Clever stuff!

http://www.adom.de/front-gfx/a7.jpg
(No idea who did that fanart, or if it's actually TB's creation.)

Theres one, though there used to be several floating around. Got you a Giant in a room with a bunch of food/corpses on the floor around it. It'd be kinda neat to see some 'Ascii-Art' equivalents for some of the major gameplay events in ToME. (Something relatively spoiler free, but maybe somehting for the fight with [censored] on storm peak, maybe something in Yilktgur (sp?), other things like that. Confrontation on floor 9 of dreadfell perhaps?)

[daftigod]

I had to laugh at the mental image of machine gun vulvas rapid firing little angry orc babies. Instead of hearing rat-tat-tat in my head, I heard a bunch of wet fart sounds. It seriously made my day the first time I read it.

And I'm 99% sure I saw nekkid boobs in this game on the loading screen at one brief moment in time!

[Frumple]

... we'd have to work pretty hard to cross the lines Anthony's crossed. Even Xanith has a full blown sex scene in (at least) one of the books, and some of his other stuff's well down (up?) the scale of disturbing (Hullo there, Firefly. Your existence made me freak out when the completely unrelated TV series was released!). I'd say in relation to general social norms, but... nope. Dude's a bit of a freak, honestly. Pretty decent writer, but a bit of a freak.

Anyway, some folks would just rather not have nudity in their game, for whatever reason. I don't exactly begrudge them the preference, y'know? Even if its current inclusion in T4 is fairly minor. Barring the character models, there's only the melinda scene I can recall off the top of my head that has anything overt, graphically.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Ummm... I'm not familiar with the scene you're describing, though I've read the vast majority of the Xanth novels. (And a fair bit of his other work, which often does go (quite) a bit further. Try the end of DoOoN mode. That's... far.) But I always thought of the Xanth series as just 'blurring' boundaries and walking right up to the edge of the line. I was saying that ToME hasn't really done anything overt or lewd, or even just (like I thought of the Xanth series) risque. This dispute over the bust on the splash screen background seems... silly. While yes, people are entitled to there opinions, I just can't wrap my head around that one, when you see worse on American streets everyday. I actually thought the screen was tasteful, given the tendency to throw women in fantasy into either impractical gowns, or into bikini-leather armor (Xena-esque?). While that isn't necessarily ALWAYS a bad thing, it's an overdone cliche, frequently done for the wrong reason (which would be sex appeal.). I'm happy to see ToME hasn't gone that route, though if they do it still wouldn't stop me from playing the game. By all means, keep the images tasteful, but there's a difference between tasteful and prudish. We don't want all our characters dressed in crude woolen garb hiding even ankles from sight, now do we? Would hardly make sense for an adventurer to worry about 'appearace', when they're more concerned with staying alive.

Meh, the decisions will be made one way or the other, and we'll play the game one way or the other. I just hope censorship doesn't nerf the crap out of relatively modest artwork for the sake of a few extremist prudes. While yes, they are entitled to there opinion, we can't cater to and be happy with everyone. I'd be just as against catering to the (and I mean this politely) perverted crowd by throwing in a whole bunch of just-short-of-[4 letter word roughly synonymous with lewd] pictures to make them happier. Just strike a moderate balance and let people get on with the game.

Edit: Just noticed that got auto-censored. Edited for clarity.

[Grey]

The current version IS the work friendly version.

It was not always so.

And before that it was a picture of a tree. It was a nice tree, very tasteful. The current picture, to me, is not in good taste.

And to be clear I was the one who came up with the idea for the Melinda encounter. I *wrote* the description for the orc greatmothers, and much of the other more mature elements of writing in the game. One of my more extreme suggestions around the Melinda encounter was rejected by DarkGod as going too far. I'm perfectly fine with adult material that is appropriate to the setting. What I'm not fine with is pointless giant boobs on the front cover of a tactical roguelike. I'm also not fine with whiny guys pretending it's no big deal when other people are saying "it's a big deal". Just because you're not offended doesn't mean others have no right to be.

Notice how few female players there are around? There have been some - ones that clearly got past the terrible initial presentation ToME gives. And I've seen some object to the image on IRC only to be shouted down by angry male nerds over-protective of the massive boobage. Do you know how pathetic that looks?

A couple of further points:
1. I like to play games at my desk at work during my lunch break. Having stupidly big bobs on my screen would not only look bad to my colleagues and visiting clients, but also gives a terrible representation of *me*. I play ToME for the gameplay, not the boobs. So instead I play ADOM - it has very SFW graphics, and though others think I'm a bit weird it's still perfectly acceptable.
2. I make modules in the T-Engine, which is currently hard-coded to use these ludicrous images when first loading up. I can fiddle with the engine files and replace them, but only really for Windows releases - anyone trying to play my modules on Mac or Linux will see some images that are immensely inappropriate for my games.
3. This isn't extreme prudishness, this is really quite normal sensitivities. Not everyone is a young adult male nerd disassociated from everyday sensibilities by the yowling, drooling maws of the internet's darkest depths. If you are more tolerant then more power to you, but don't pretend this is somehow an absurd objection. Plus it wouldn't change the game *at all*. We're talking about a splashscreen, not censorship of game material. The only slippery slope I see is more objectionable images appearing on the front of the game.

[Prime]

I'm with Grey on this one. In college I worked at the library and we were free to play games or browse the internet when there wasn't any work to be done. But I'm positive that my boss would not have been impressed if I played a game with that kind of background. Even if she didn't care, I'd be embarrassed to have it visible in public. It's a bit like having a scantily-clad woman as your desktop; while technically it might be acceptable it doesn't send a good message.

Also, the main point of roguelikes is that they prioritize gameplay over everything else. This is not the kind of picture you choose for this sort of game. This is the kind of picture you choose for crappy pulp fantasy novels and grinder RPGs, where you have to nothing to attract consumers except sex appeal. I'd like to think Tome has enough to offer on its own without (seemingly) resorting to cheap tricks.

[cttw]

Grey I was just making the point that it had been worse before. When I first saw the nipple version it felt so over the top I kept a screenshot as a memento. I like boobs and all, but maybe this is not the place. The image has artistic merit as well, and is in the theme of the ToME module, but if it keeps some players away then it would be in the interest of the game to change it. Nobody comes to a roguelike looking for boobs when they have skyrim, and so they won't really be missed.

The fact that the image can't be changed for other modules is indeed unfortunate and hopefully a feature that will be added.

Maybe we can have an art/photography contest to replace it?

As for your workplace gaming, Grey, maybe enable the background realtime roguelike demo?

[Prime]

On an artistic note, I think I'd prefer the picture without characters at all, just the backdrop of orcs and swords. Right now, it's a bit too busy and distracting to be a good background for the menu. It's more suited for a loading screen, tastefulness concerns aside.

[Grey]

I'd quite like the Shockbolt drawing of the man with torch in front of the farportal to be the background image. It's much more evocative of the game's lore, whilst being suitably dark for a background menu image.

[XLambda]

I'm also not fine with whiny guys pretending it's no big deal when other people are saying "it's a big deal". Just because you're not offended doesn't mean others have no right to be.

I hope I didn't come across as whiny. I was just joking.

[5k17]

I don't see a problem with the images, but perhaps that's because I do not find large breasts attractive. Still, if they are generally found offensive, I'd have no problem with them being changed, as long as players are given the option to choose to re-activate them, and possibly add their own pictures. Speaking of options: We need one to give all player characters the nude moddable tiles.

[Suslik]

Even though I do find that the image has some kind of underlying message, I don't find it improper in any way. Even more, I wish there were more quests like melinda's. Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate : SoA they had plenty of adult content which I love and it seems I'm not the only one, since they are widely referred as acknowledged masterpieces. And yeah, both of those are heavily tactical RPG's as well.

Apparently there are those people who'd prefer the game to be like a warm milk with a slight taste of chocolate, but I'd like it to be more spicy and intimidating.

What about an idea of choosing adult content on or off? It's a common practice for widely-moddable compilations such as Big World Project for Baldur's Gate. If you find it offensive - just turn this content off. But I'm sure there are no less people who find it well.. thrilling? If you forgive my poor choice of words in a language which is far from being native to me.

[Grey]

Apparently there are those people who'd prefer the game to be like a warm milk with a slight taste of chocolate, but I'd like it to be more spicy and intimidating.

There's not a single person complaining about the game content. Everyone's fine with the Melinda quest. It's just the splashscreen image that is so egregious. If Baldur's Gate had a front cover of a buxom red-head with a tiny waist it would be suitably slated in the main gaming press.

And I'm all for more quests dealing with adult matters myself. Especially if it's not the usual cheesy fantasy plot.

[Mewtarthio]

What about an idea of choosing adult content on or off? It's a common practice for widely-moddable compilations such as Big World Project for Baldur's Gate. If you find it offensive - just turn this content off. But I'm sure there are no less people who find it well.. thrilling? If you forgive my poor choice of words in a language which is far from being native to me.

Except I don't want the adult content to be turned off. I like the orc broodmothers and their lore, and I think the nudity in the Melinda quest is perfectly appropriate. I just think the splash screen is a bit... well, someone made the comparison to Evony earlier, and I think that's pretty apt. It comes off, at best, as a crass attempt to exploit sexuality to get more people to play the game. I don't have a problem with sexuality in general, but this is the opening screen. It's literally the first impression people get of the game. I just don't see how this image conveys anything significant about ToME.