@SleeprunnerInc said in I am very disapointed in PSO2 for having this Independence Day event:

@TrekkiesUnite Christmas has pretty much changed from being a christian holiday to just being a consumer holiday where Santa claus or whoever someone is brought up with, encourages you to spend money or drink coke.

I think you missed the point. The argument of "It's out of place to be in PSO2!" can be used against just about every holiday event in this game. And the "It offends me because it's American!" argument can also be used against other PSO2 events if we expand it to include religion and other nationalities. If you're ok with making exceptions to those arguments for those other holidays, but suddenly this one is too much, then the argument doesn't hold water.

I just find it strange it's causing such an argument. We have an Independence Day lobby because the vast majority of NA's target audience is from the USA. I would have thought for a lot of these people it might have been an injection of some much-needed patriotism.

I mean, from an outsider's point of view, yes, the US seems to be in shambles right now. Doesn't mean there aren't things about your country that you can be proud about.

At the end of the day, it's a video game. Why does everything we do have to be politicized?

(In jest, maybe Sega should have just created a Canada Day lobby instead, but then people would complain that it's not America.)

@KLB600

Fair enough. If it's a more widespread practice than I was led to believe I can accept that I was mistaken. I simply hadn't seen it much before myself, with the US themed Ra from SMITE being the only one that eventually came to mind after further recollection.

Thanks for joining the conversation, even if we didn't end up seeing eye to eye on much. Your candid commentary made this a much more lively discussion than it would have otherwise been.

@TrekkiesUnite

Thank you for offering your opinion, TrekkiesUnite. I had been very curious what indiginous Americans and their descendents felt about this event. I would love to hear more of your thoughts on the matter, but you are of course under no obligation to share them. As for the holidays that you listed, I have no personal issue with any of them, for what it's worth.

@Anarchy-Marine

Duely noted, my apologies for making an assumption. I have some thoughts on what you wrote, but I won't make any parting shots if you wish to bow out of the conversation. Thanks again for joining in.

@NeirasRothmagia said in I am very disapointed in PSO2 for having this Independence Day event:

@TrekkiesUnite

Thank you for offering your opinion, TrekkiesUnite. I had been very curious what indiginous Americans and their descendents felt about this event. I would love to hear more of your thoughts on the matter, but you are of course under no obligation to share them.

Honestly I find it more insulting that you seem to be more curious about my opinion because of my family tree rather than the content of the opinion.

@NeirasRothmagia said in I am very disapointed in PSO2 for having this Independence Day event:

As for the holidays that you listed, I have no personal issue with any of them, for what it's worth.

Then the argument holds no water then. If you can make an exception for those holidays then you can make an exception for this one. If the event truly upsets you, then either grow some thicker skin or go play on the Japanese servers as the event isn't activated on those servers.

@TrekkiesUnite I don't think the ''if you don't have a problem with these events, then you cannot have a problem with this event'' argument is a good one.

It's always a case by case basis when the argument can be used.

To be 100% clear, I don't have any issues with these events.

However to my understanding, it's only the symbolism of the event decorations that caused him to be disappointed.

And it's tied to a different history than what Christmas is that you used as an example.

So the argument definately holds water because you cannot make up a rule of ''You need to hate these if you hate this otherwise yer a hypocrite'' etc.

If you compared canada day and the independence day, then its pretty close BUT both of them have a pretty significant difference in symbolism and history.

@SleeprunnerInc said in I am very disapointed in PSO2 for having this Independence Day event:

@TrekkiesUnite I don't think the ''if you don't have a problem with these events, then you cannot have a problem with this event'' argument is a good one.

It's a perfectly good argument because it brings up the point of where do we stop? One person is upset by the 4th of July so they get rid of that, next someone's upset by Christmas and Easter due to stuff in the Bible or the Crusades, so they get rid of that. Soon we have a sterile MMO with no holidays or events.

The point is if you can deal with other holidays that might be equally offensive to other groups of people, then you can deal with this one as well. If the holiday upsets you so much that you can't enjoy the game, then either grow some thicker skin, don't play the game during this event, or go play on the Japanese servers as they don't run this event.

@TrekkiesUnite

I apologize for insulting you. I hope that you can accept that I meant no ill will and thought that your background may have afforded you a more personal perspective on the matter with regards to the symbols as they relate to racism, imperialism and colonialism domesticly. If you feel that it is still inappropriate with this further clarification, then I humbly apologize once again and withdraw my request.

As for the holidays, I simply feel that due to their ubiquity they don't require any additional context as I don't think there are too many differing meanings associated with them that are likely to make people uncomfortable. I may, however, be wrong about that.

@TrekkiesUnite

It's a perfectly good argument because it brings up the point of where do we stop? One person is upset by the 4th of July so they get rid of that, next someone's upset by Christmas and Easter due to stuff in the Bible or the Crusades, so they get rid of that. Soon we have a sterile MMO with no holidays or events.

Pretty much this, TC's whole stance is a slippery slope.

@TrekkiesUnite I feel like you don't want to listen to anyone trying to explain how flawed that logic is.

Now listen well.

The independence day is a US specific holiday, that celebrates the US Liberty etc.

Now down there is some stuff that will piss off people who are currently being treated like shit by the US like he claims to happen.

Did you read that part? I don't know if you did.

So it's on a whole nother level than Christmas which CURRENTLY, I don't know if you noticed, isn't harming anyone and hasn't harmed for years.

Sure if we still had christian crusades and witch hunts then sure.

Bring up a better example than a holiday which changes meaning from country to country.

And once more, if you don't like this topic, don't talk on it.

I'm neither on his side, nor yours.

I just want to discuss with him and calm down people so they don't lynch people.

He ain't calling for the celebration to be REMOVED as the celebration itself is for a good cause.

The symbolisms however is a different call to HIM.

@NeirasRothmagia said in I am very disapointed in PSO2 for having this Independence Day event:

@TrekkiesUnite

I apologize for insulting you. However I hope that you can accept that I meant no ill will and thought that your background may have afforded you a more personal perspective on the matter with regards to the symbols as they relate to racism, imperialism and colonialism. If you feel that it is still inappropriate with this further clarification, then I humbly apologize once again and withdraw my request.

The point is that it's silly to ask for my personal perspective on the matter because we're talking about events that happened in many cases centuries ago that no one in living memory has experienced. I wasn't marched along the Trail of Tears, forced to live on reservations, given smallpox laced blankets, denied work for being Irish, etc. These are all things that happened so long ago that if you still have a chip on your shoulder over it then you need to go get some help. You're supposed to learn from history, not live in it.

As for the holidays, I simply feel that due to their ubiquity they don't require any additional context as I don't think there are too many differing meanings associated with them that are likely to make people uncomfortable. I may, however, be wrong about that.

There's plenty people can be upset and offended about with those other holidays, but most people are able to grasp that this is a game and these are just holiday events that are trying to appeal to the largest demographic of the community. Whether you like it or not, the servers are hosted in the US and the majority of players are from the US.

@SleeprunnerInc said in I am very disapointed in PSO2 for having this Independence Day event:

@TrekkiesUnite I feel like you don't want to listen to anyone trying to explain how flawed that logic is.

I'm listening, and I'm pointing out it's BS and flawed. Politics have no place PSO. This community has created enough drama on it's own over the years that we don't need to bring politics into it to create more.

@SleeprunnerInc said in I am very disapointed in PSO2 for having this Independence Day event:

@TrekkiesUnite I feel like you don't want to listen to anyone trying to explain how flawed that logic is.

He ain't calling for the celebration to be REMOVED as the celebration itself is for a good cause.

I would like to adress this because you have mentioned it twice, this is from OP's opening Statement

I don't expect SEGA to do anything about it now, though I would like an apology and the removal of these items with explicitly American iconography from the game,

It doesn't get any clearer then this, it would be pretty difficult to do a 4th of July celebration without these symbols unless heavily censored, which kind of defeats the point.

The biggest issue I have is this is incredibly entitled. Especially considering that he shouldn't technically even be requesting this for this current version of the game as he isn't a U.S or Canadian player(Unless he wants to clarify this) If he stated for the Global release then yeah sure but I doubt SEGA JP was even considering a 4th july even for global regions.

Although I do like that the topic has been somewhat been salvaged into a discussion for future and possible events. This could have been much better addressed in his first post. Hell a Pole or survey would work much better.

@TrekkiesUnite Unfortunately you can't avoid that.

The inclusion of Yamato, Vegas, anything to do with IRL brings politics with it which sucks big fat donkey nuts.

Heck even the main story is kind of political when you wana get down to it real hard.

Yes I don't think politics belong in a game.

But I don't also accept the removal of something like the independence day event.

However a compromise could be made in which you would celebrate it with references without using the actual symbolism for the country.

This is not me calling for it but rather giving out a secondary view.

Such as the Stars and stripes could be a different colour or changed so it's triangles or circles instead of stars.

@KLB600 To my knowledge he did say he was from the northern part of the US.

And he isn't calling for the removal of the EVENT.

Just the explicit american Iconography.

You could easily switch the symbols to something else and still call it the independence event.

Heck give out weapon camos or outfits called Freedom rider or something and have a small line of text like: A suit worn by the free people of a planet.

@SleeprunnerInc said in I am very disapointed in PSO2 for having this Independence Day event:

@TrekkiesUnite Unfortunately you can't avoid that.

The inclusion of Yamato, Vegas, anything to do with IRL brings politics with it which sucks big fat donkey nuts.

No it doesn't. They're just settings and inanimate objects.

Yamato is in the game because the one boss character in Episode 4 is a Military Otaku (I don't remember the exact term for it) and summons it. There's nothing political about it, the bad guy is just "lol I like battleships so I'm gonna summon one!"

Vegas is in the game because Episode 4 takes place on Earth and Vegas is where Earth Guide is headquartered. There's also a boss battle that takes place in London if I remember correctly.

If people think these mean politics then that's their own dumb fault. At that point it's just people trying to create drama and politics for the sake of drama and politics.

@TrekkiesUnite As I said, it ultimately brings in politics long as it has anything to do with IRL places or things.

Why is it YAMATO?

That's already going in to history and politics to choose that over just designing a whole differnet ship that isnt anything known to man.

That's the whole point I am trying to make is that people will no matter what, bring politics in long as theres anything irl in it.

@TrekkiesUnite no spoilers!!!!!!! That episode doesn't come out here in North America August and I haven't finished episode two yet