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Thing the first. You have zero right to demand something be out of any piece of fictional or creative work. None, nada, zip, zilch. You only have the right to not engage or partake of a particular creative work. That is it. You may critique, you may complain, you may dislike it, but you do not get to demand a particular piece of a content be removed because you do not like it. To be clear, do not read this as "if you don't like it, get out." That isn't what I mean. I mean that you are not entitled to having a particular creative work stripped of content so that you are more comfortable with it.
Thing the second. This is a game, and its themes are many and run a whole spectrum of gray scale. Slavery, addiction, oppression, suppression, class issues, religious issues, gender issues, just to name a few. The game is telling a story, made up of other stories. The essence of good storytelling is drama, and the essence of drama is conflict. Conflict means confronting something as obvious as a big scary dragon, and it also means confronting the big scary dragon that is really something like man's inhumanity to man. What subject matter and themes are explored, and how they are explored are the creator's decisions. Sometimes those decisions are good, sometimes they are bad. Sometimes harsh, horrifying, and dark themes have to be explored to give a full picture of the world. More often than not things are executed well for some people, and executed poorly for others. At the risk of sounding harsh, and while I respect your feelings and critique of the game's content, that is just your opinion. There is no right or wrong in the subjective interpretation of a creative work. What people are looking for when engaging a creative work is different from person to person.Â
Thing the third. You want a fictional world where everything is cute, nice, funny, and lighthearted. That isn't this world. ARR starts five years after a huge calamity. Many people died, many more were displaced, and nations suffered. It was all somewhat less than rosy. Heavensward is about a devastating war based on 1000 year old lie. Again, less than rosy. The damage of these overarching, high level events trickles down into everything. The Lalafell that people think are cute and adorable, also have some of the most ruthless and evil schemers ever put to fiction among their number. It is fine to draw what you like out of the material, to identify with it more than other perhaps darker aspects, but to say that that is all this game is is a fallacy. A truer statement is to say that you enjoy the lighthearted content more than the darker stuff. Which is, again, fine. No judgement, people like what they like. Just as people like seeing what the dark side of the world is like. There is no right or wrong in what you enjoy, but there is equally no right or wrong in what others enjoy either.
Thing the second. This is a game, and its themes are many and run a whole spectrum of gray scale. Slavery, addiction, oppression, suppression, class issues, religious issues, gender issues, just to name a few. The game is telling a story, made up of other stories. The essence of good storytelling is drama, and the essence of drama is conflict. Conflict means confronting something as obvious as a big scary dragon, and it also means confronting the big scary dragon that is really something like man's inhumanity to man. What subject matter and themes are explored, and how they are explored are the creator's decisions. Sometimes those decisions are good, sometimes they are bad. Sometimes harsh, horrifying, and dark themes have to be explored to give a full picture of the world. More often than not things are executed well for some people, and executed poorly for others. At the risk of sounding harsh, and while I respect your feelings and critique of the game's content, that is just your opinion. There is no right or wrong in the subjective interpretation of a creative work. What people are looking for when engaging a creative work is different from person to person.Â
Thing the third. You want a fictional world where everything is cute, nice, funny, and lighthearted. That isn't this world. ARR starts five years after a huge calamity. Many people died, many more were displaced, and nations suffered. It was all somewhat less than rosy. Heavensward is about a devastating war based on 1000 year old lie. Again, less than rosy. The damage of these overarching, high level events trickles down into everything. The Lalafell that people think are cute and adorable, also have some of the most ruthless and evil schemers ever put to fiction among their number. It is fine to draw what you like out of the material, to identify with it more than other perhaps darker aspects, but to say that that is all this game is is a fallacy. A truer statement is to say that you enjoy the lighthearted content more than the darker stuff. Which is, again, fine. No judgement, people like what they like. Just as people like seeing what the dark side of the world is like. There is no right or wrong in what you enjoy, but there is equally no right or wrong in what others enjoy either.