@NeirasRothmagia On the one hand, I respect that you're recognizing you went too far in your initial post. On the other, there's this thing called an "edit" button. Talk is cheap, go back and fix it. But that's not what gets me. What gets me is you characterizing the entire population of a country as violent oppressors and genocidal sociopaths and then calling for "cooler heads" when people, quite understandably, are pissed the f* off by your ignorant insults. You just slapped 350 million people in the face, spat in their eye, and then have the gall to say "be respectful." Respect is a 2-way street, bub, you gotta GIVE it to get it. Or at the very least EARN it. You don't get to just demand it while pissing on everyone around you.

Whether this turned into any sort of "respectful discussion" after that or not, you started off on the worst possible foot and did nothing to go back and correct your blunder. You actually seem offended that people are offended by you insulting our country, our history, our traditions, and us, personally, as people. There is no room for discussion here, you insulted an entire country of people over some freakin' satire in a video game.

Let me tell you something about this country you clearly hate so much; obviously we must be doing something pretty feckin' awesome because there are hundreds of thousands of people a year traveling thousands of miles smuggled in the hold of boats, trunk of a car, back of a truck hiding under a blanket and that's just to get to the border, to our doorstep, and then risk life and limb, quite literally, trying to sneak across that border and they are thankful, THANKFUL, to work a dead-end, minimum wage job and send 90% of their paycheck to their family back home. They are thankful, I'll say it again, THANKFUL, just to be in this country even if they have to live in constant fear of being deported because THAT fear is better than the fear they lived with back in their home country and if/when they DO get deported they go through it all again trying to get back here because America is BETTER THAN. And it's as simple as that. You can finish that sentence any way you want. America is BETTER THAN. Better than where the came from. Better than any country they trekked through to get here. Better than anywhere else in the world they could have gone to. Because dying just TRYING to get here is still BETTER THAN the life they're running away from. Better than anything and anywhere else in the world could possibly offer. THAT is the country you're putting down. THAT is the country you're saying is so damn horrid. The place the rest of the world is killing themselves trying to get into.

"Some insensitive comments." Dude, screw you. Saying Americans have an obesity problem is an "insensitive comment." Calling me bald and paunchy would be an "insensitive comment." What you did was vomit up hatred from the bitter pits of ignorance and idiocy. A half-assed "maybe I could have phrased that better" 16 pages in isn't going to cut it.

You don't want to get into your "lived experience," so let me tell you about mine. My thrice-great grandfather was an African slave. He escaped through the Underground Railroad, found himself a white girl, started a family, went BACK into the Underground Railroad and DIED helping others escape. That's a PART of my heritage. So are the Irish, a people enslaved by the BRITISH Empire long before any African slaves and were bought and sold at so cheap a price you could get a dozen Irish slaves for the price of a single African slave, which made them cheap to replace and therefore were beaten, abused, and killed by their "masters" with far more frequency than black slaves. They were disposable. That is a PART of my heritage. Mohawk tribe, Italian, German, Dutch, French, Welch, probably a dozen others I'd need a full genealogy investigation to learn about. And you know what? None of that matters. None of it is special. None of that means anything because there are literally hundreds of millions of others living in this country today and throughout its history with the same story. And we get called "imperialist oppressors" for it. My thrice-great grandfather was an African SLAVE and I get accused of parading around in a white hooded robe in my spare time at least three times a week because in spite of my thoroughly mixed heritage my complexion is still fairly "pale." No one gives a damn that I'm from "the North" (you know, the side that was fighting AGAINST slavery during the American Civil War?). No one gives a damn that I'm the descendant of a slave. No one gives a damn that the same can be said regarding pretty much EVERY heritage I've inherited. I'm a "white American" therefore I must be a racist bastard.

And people like YOU perpetuate that narrative. People like you who don't know one damn thing about America's PEOPLE yet condemn us all with your ignorant bigotry.

And now you want to "step back." Maybe you never should have stepped forward in the first place. It's obvious you have nothing to say, nothing to contribute here but blind hatred and vitriol, ignorantly insulting people you don't even know. And I am absolutely appalled that this thread has been allowed to continue on for so long.

GMs, I am begging you here, shut this down. There's no "feedback" to "farm" here.

@zaffy2005

I do agree that I should have edited my first post earlier and have now done so. I preserved the original post for reference and added excerpts from three of my supplementary posts to hopefully make it a bit more well rounded. The formatting is a bit of a mess considering the amount of information contained therein, but I did the best that I could to make it work.

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

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

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

Except they're not. Symbols have meaning for a reason or else they wouldn't be used. The Yamato was chosen because of what it is and what it represents, or else they would have made up a fictional battle ship and called it something else. The stars and stripes were used because of what it is and what it represents, or else they would have made up a fictional flag for a fictional country and called it something else. The idea that things exist purely in a political void is a falsehood because everything - every piece of media - is political in some way, shape or form. People don't just "create politics" my dude; things aren't either political or not, you seem to think things are only political when they don't align with your political spectrum - but that's the thing. Everything is political and things don't stop being so when people aren't actively disagreeing with one another.

Even outside of episode 4 the game's story doesn't shy away from themes and concepts brought about by its creator's political and world views, as every work of fiction is. The game doesn't suddenly "get" political because one person takes issue with one event: it always was and always will be, willful ignorance isn't much of an excuse to demand other people stop talking about a subject.

If you think Episode 4 is going to be about politics then you're in for a disappointment. Episode 4 is nothing but a nonsensical roller coaster ride of anime tropes and nonsense. There's no symbolism or deeper meaning in it's story whatsoever. The Yamato isn't even that big of a deal in the plot and it's barely mentioned beyond "Oh hey this nerd made us fight a battleship."

Everything isn't political. It only becomes political if you force politics into it.

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

@zaffy2005

I do agree that I should have edited my first post earlier and have now done so. I preserved the original post for reference and added excerpts from two of my supplementary posts to hopefully make it a bit more well rounded. The formatting is a bit of a mess considering the amount of information contained therein, but I did the best that I could to make it work.

As someone who's been reading quietly on this forum for quite a few months already, this has to be the worst thread on the front page. GM, please close this discussion as requested by many members already.

... and as an Asian American, a big middle finger to you, OP.

For an actual legitimate complaint about this event though, could someone at Sega at least try to get the music to properly loop in the lobbies instead of just repeating the whole track with a silent pause at the end of each loop? The track is from Phantasy Star Universe and you guys had properly looping versions of it for that game. PSO2 still uses ADX last I checked, so couldn't you guys just lift one of the properly looping ADX files from PSU and stick it in PSO2?

Skimming through majority of what's being said. Look at it this way. This is a NA server.

Now let's take steps back. Every country has their holidays and important stamps on history. They bring them into the game. That's free content and a remembrance of what they lived and survived through. Now let's throw the comments and views of everyone else who wants and expects their country to be included in that countries server. Can you see it? If not then it's ok. You just failed to realize this is not a Canadian, Mexican, and etc. Server. Look at it like this to give u a better picture. You have your culture and now let's smash everyone elses demands for their countries culture to have some priority over your countrys culture. The easiest response is become diversified if there is enough people to make those cultures worth adding. Your own countries culture reigns supreme in their country.

Moving on, the North American servers on many games including PSO2 have extended their reach to other countries allowing them to play legally so they are not left out and whatever else intentions they have. (Hence the "International Server" and other advertisements and notices)

Further along, the game for NA release is still pretty new. Other holidays and events of different cultures are added somewhere down the line. All it takes is enough people to request or reccomend it. Or if the staff had plans to bring them in already. They just need the ok from higher ups and unique/common designs to be made as well.(similar to trying to get a anime collaboration in a game)

Not saying anything you said is wrong since it is your opinions and how you view things. Everyone views things differently its normal. Although parts of what you said is ignorant but that's how discussion start right? A disagreement or agreement then conversing.

If I remember correctly the data for the 4th of July lobbies was in the Japanese client back in 2012 when the game came out. It was just never used in Japan. I think there's a few other US holiday lobbies in the game as well.

This was literally just the Japanese developers noticing the Non-Japanese player base for once and putting something in the game for us that they thought we'd like.

@NeirasRothmagia Ok, so lets have a look then.

I'll be blunt (stick around long enough and you'll learn that's just my modus operandi, it's not meant to cause offense but rather to convey a sense of transparency about where I stand so there's as little "reading between the lines" as possible):

You seem to have absolutely no clue whatsoever as to what Independence Day, at least here in America, is all about. You seem to be suffering under the delusional misconception that it's some sort of "Haw haw, we kicked ALL the world's asses because we're so damn cool" jerk-off contest. It's not. It is a celebration dating back to 1776 in recognition of the signing and delivery of the Declaration of Independence and the subsequent war in which a bunch of farmers, hunters, and hill folk stood up against quite possibly THE single most powerful Empire in human history. It's been said that over the course of its history the British Empire held power over 2/3 of the globe with an iron fist, the will of the tyrannical monarchy upheld by arguably THE most powerful, well-armed, and well-trained military since the peak of the Roman army (those dudes were beyond hardcore). Independence Day is a celebration in remembrance of tat rag-tag gaggle of untrained nobodies who defied all odds and ousted what YOU would refer to as "Imperialists." WE, the American people, stood AGAINST tyranny that day, and that is what true Americans celebrate on our Independence Day.

That being said, I will concede a point to you in this: America, specifically in the theater or politics, has largely lost its way. The people who once thumbed their noses at an Empire and dumped shiploads of tea into the harbor in protest of a tax increase amounting to barely a few pennies in recent years have openly welcomed a "healthcare reform" that stripped millions of people of their insurance, FINED them a ridiculously large sum for NOT having the insurance this policy just robbed them off, and then jacked up the prices of all existing policies to the point where people were LOSING money by being employed and people like me were put in a position of feeling like we dare not even try to find a job because it would cost more than it brought in. History apparently is no longer taught in public schools because we have "protesters" (vandals, arsonists, and thugs) tearing down statues of ABOLITIONISTS (those who stood AGAINST slavery and fought to end it) because the statue is of a "white person" and "all whites are racist." The recent COVID-19 insanity has left me dumbfounded as 30 members of SWAT were sent to break up a 1-year old's birthday party for having more than 10 people in attendance (wouldn't sending 30 people break that same code?) and cops were arresting and fining people for attending church services but this kind of tyrannical police-state isn't what struck me through the heart. What drove that knife is that my JEWISH friend was gleefully applauding this blatant Fascism and saying people who don't obey "the state" should be locked in prison camps. When we have lost our way so profoundly that a JEWISH girl is begging for the revival of Third Reich mentality in her own country...yea, somebody somewhere done f-ed up, and bad. I get that.

but what I feel is one of the biggest issues facing this country right now is the unbridled attack on anything perceived as "offensive" by those who seem to be offended by absolutely everything in the universe. When you say "the discussion largely centers around what would push us away" I have to be honest here: nothing turns me off faster than the overwhelming majority who are fine with something, enjoy something, or simply are laid back enough to accept it as it is are ignored in order to cater to a very vocal, very obnoxious, and very TINY minority who takes offense to whatever it is. If your little rant here convinced Sega to never do another Independence Day event ever again, I'd delete the game right then and there and likely never buy another Sega product again because last time I checked when a MINORITY (that would be you, let's keep it real) dictates what the MAJORITY (that would be the rest of us) has to put up with: that's called tyranny, Neiras. THAT is oppression. And I won't stand for it.

You say Uncle Sam and the "50-star" flag put you off. I want to know why. One is a caricature, a fictional character borne of political cartoons and propaganda meant to inspire pride in one's country. Maybe you're going to argue that because he's an old, white male he does't "represent you" or something. All I can say to that is "tough nuggets." That is the nature of ANY singular character, it is literally impossible for one to "represent" absolutely everybody in the world, particularly to those who only ever bother to focus on what makes them DIFFERENT from that character. 7.5 billion people in the world, it is literally impossible to appeal to all of them at once and make everyone feel represented/included. Maybe if you instead focused on seeing him as what he represents -humanity standing against tyranny, injustice, and oppression - you wouldn't bear so much hatred towards the character and what you THINK he "symbolizes." As for the flag, you keep specifying the 50-star bit. What's that all about? You spew a lot of hate and stereotypes and ignorant insults but remain so infuriatingly vague about WHAT the actual problem is here, about WHY you feel the way you do. And quite frankly if the reasoning is just going to boil down to yet more utter failure on your part to comprehend what any of this actually stands for and the history it represents, I will be very disappointed in you.

This is getting spicy lmao.

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

Everything isn't political. It only becomes political if you force politics into it.

All art is political, everything created by human hand is political. You can't "force" politics into something, because it's already there.

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

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

Everything isn't political. It only becomes political if you force politics into it.

All art is political

Art is about expression. That expression doesn't have to be political in nature. You saying all art is political is just you trying to force politics into things regardless of whether it's there or not.

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

Everything created by human hand is political.

So by that logic the following is political:

• The Chair your butt is sitting in right now
• Your toilet
• The food you eat
• Your Television Set
• Your computer
• Your house
• Your Washer and Dryer
• Your dishwasher
• Your car
• Your bed

Do you really want to stick to that silly idea or do you want to back up on that one a bit? I think we can all agree it's a bit silly to see politics in your toilet or your washing machine.

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

Art is about expression. That expression doesn't have to be political in nature. You saying all art is political is just you trying to force politics into things regardless of whether it's there or not.

Do you think Animal Farm was just a funny book about clever pigs? Please, find me an example of a work of art with zero political message, engagement, involvement or stance.

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

So by that logic the following is political:

• The Chair your butt is sitting in right now
• Your toilet
• The food you eat
• Your Television Set
• Your computer
• Your house
• Your Washer and Dryer
• Your dishwasher
• Your car
• Your bed

Do you really want to stick to that silly idea or do you want to back up on that one a bit? I think we can all agree it's a bit silly to see politics in your toilet or your washing machine.

Capitalism is, in fact, political, yes. Consumerism is political. Products made, the choices made to buy them - entering into those systems even the choice of which brand to buy and why are all, on some level, political even if the choice comes down to mechanical specs vs. price or buying the cheapest most affordable one because one doesn't make enough money to buy a more preferable model. It doesn't have to be a grand statement to be political, but even the tactic engagement in the exchange of capital is a silent approval or acceptance.

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

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

Art is about expression. That expression doesn't have to be political in nature. You saying all art is political is just you trying to force politics into things regardless of whether it's there or not.

Do you think Animal Farm was just a funny book about clever pigs? Please, find me an example of a work of art with zero political message, engagement, involvement or stance.

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

So by that logic the following is political:

• The Chair your butt is sitting in right now
• Your toilet
• The food you eat
• Your Television Set
• Your computer
• Your house
• Your Washer and Dryer
• Your dishwasher
• Your car
• Your bed

Do you really want to stick to that silly idea or do you want to back up on that one a bit? I think we can all agree it's a bit silly to see politics in your toilet or your washing machine.

Capitalism is, in fact, political, yes. Consumerism is political. Products made, the choices made to buy them - entering into those systems even the choice of which brand to buy and why are all, on some level, political even if the choice comes down to mechanical specs vs. price or buying the cheapest most affordable one because one doesn't make enough money to buy a more preferable model. It doesn't have to be a grand statement to be political, but even the tactic engagement in the exchange of capital is a silent approval or acceptance.

no, youre just shoving politics in everything, literally.