Reading Tobold’s latest post, which is about some weird form of morality this time, I’m beginning to think that this is all a con. Nobody can truly write things like;
“… The position to play only DPS and refuse to ever play another role only works because *other* people are willing to tank and heal.”
and be expected to be taken seriously. So either he has had a minor stroke and we’re not aware of it yet, or he’s doing this deliberately to get a rise. I’ve seen this in the past, where a blogger will write something supposedly deliberately inflammatory only to come out later and proudly state that he was doing it all on purpose to show everyone how silly there were in actually believing that crap, and that his greater plan had been to actually show by our collective outrage that the moon is indeed made of cheese. Everyone then lets out a sigh of relief and congratulates said blogger on being so “clever” and we can then all get back to picking on warlocks.
The problem with this, however, is that this tactic can also be used by a blogger when he realises that he has been a complete fucking idiot but doesn’t have the stones to admit that he had been wrong. Thus he can pretend that he had been taking such a silly stance on purpose to teach us all some greater wisdom, when in fact we had been dead right all along in calling him bad names.
There is no way to tell any difference between these two tactics. Luckily for me I consider them both equally irrelevant and vacuous, and thus I can safely place the blogger in the box marked, “dipshit”. However, many other readers can get suckered in by these tactics, and thus believe the blogger to be much smarter and honest than they actually are. There has been a bit of noise lately in the video game blogging world bemoaning the lack of any type of decent gaming journalism, mostly due to the fact that many writers secret wet dream is to work in the gaming industry itself. Thus, they don’t ask the hard questions, nor approach a topic from an unbiased viewpoint. I have pointed this out in the past with my review of the Twisted Nether Podcast, (click the podcast tab on the right to find it). When they interview a blogger, a question that is always asked is, “if you could ask Blizzard for anything what would it be?” And far and away the most common response is, a job. Which as I pointed out is fucking pathetic. I agree that bloggers need to lift their game if they are to be taken seriously. And one of the fundamentals of journalism is that you stand by what you write. Trying to trick the reader by pretending to give them some hidden moral lesson is dishonest, and eventually the writer will be exposed for the cur that they are.
Based on Tobold’s last two posts, I have been able to come to the conclusion that he is a moron. It remains to be seen if he is also a dishonest one.
The Noisy Rogue 
January 20, 2011 at 10:27 am
I don’t think this is anything new from Tobold. I stopped reading his blog regularly quite a while ago, because of posts like that. Whether he does it intentionally or not I’ve no idea but too many of his posts seem to be, what I would call, trolling posts. And yeah, I think I can vaguely remember him using the ‘I did it on purpose’ technique at least once, although I might be wrong about that.
His attacks on dps are at least something new for him. Maybe he’s getting bored with his usual targets of sandbox games and pvp, or maybe he realises that attacking the biggest group of players in the most popular game is the way to get those page hits coming in. I know I wouldn’t have been reading it if it hadn’t been discussed and linked to here.
January 20, 2011 at 10:39 am
As others have said, he’s done it before. And because of that (among other reasons) he’s been in my dipshit-box for quite a while and won’t be coming out of it any time soon.
January 20, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Tobold is just the kind of person that would say Hitler was an evil guy, when he would probably be quite alright with ending all the so called MS accounts that so painfully annoy him. To say he is big headed, really isn’t justifiable.
Yes, I may have compared Tobold to Hitler, however, with the crap he shouts about and complaining constantly, there’s actually quite a few similarities.
January 20, 2011 at 12:47 pm
When you’re writing blog posts about other blog posts where you’re convinced that the person does not mean what they say and you start illustrating all the possible conspiracy theories of what that person *really* meant and crafting multi-chapter stories in your head about The Truth Behind It All (“All” = 1 sentence)… well, you need a hobby, man.
By all means, give WoW a break, but… man, *channel* all that free time and energy.
January 20, 2011 at 2:19 pm
“if you could ask Blizzard for anything what would it be?”
hmmm… a moose?
January 20, 2011 at 2:40 pm
“if you could ask Blizzard for anything what would it be?”
Ten million dollars, and a cold beer. Beer and money are useful, moose are not.
January 20, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Depends on if you’re hungry, and would like a cool looking moose hat as a bonus.
January 21, 2011 at 3:25 am
Does that count as an achievement? >.>
January 21, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Tell me you like my hat.
(sorry, couldn’t resist)
January 21, 2011 at 7:39 am
I’d ask them for better gear for my druid 😦 she has the worst loot roll and loot drop luck I’ve come across.
January 20, 2011 at 5:10 pm
Speaking as the only fucking heroic tank in my guild, I wish other people would step up and take responsibility.
I would say he is not only serious, but right.
Really get off DSP alt #4, get your main properly geared for heroics (329 is not “properly geared”) and stop making heroic runs take 2+ hours.
January 20, 2011 at 9:02 pm
[…] The Noisy Rogue said in his post recently that: “There has been a bit of noise lately in the video game blogging world bemoaning the lack of any type of decent gaming journalism, mostly due to the fact that many writers secret wet dream is to work in the gaming industry itself. Thus, they don’t ask the hard questions, nor approach a topic from an unbiased viewpoint.” I agree with him completely. So I’m going to come out and say it. I don’t want a fucking job at Blizzard. I want Blizzard to stop giving utility to warlocks and rogues and start nerfing my DpS back to acceptable levels and leaving my druid class alone the way it is. […]
January 20, 2011 at 10:37 pm
I thought the thread on Tobold’s post was fascinating. And a blogger certainly doesn’t have to restrict his posts to opinions that he completely agrees with.
His post was very short, and prefaced with notice that he was looking for a philosophical discussion.
The concept that everybody should play their part in fulfilling apparently less pleasant roles in an MMO for the good of all is quite interesting. If we were talking about a softball team, and nobody wanted to pitch, it would make sense for each of us to take a turn if we wanted to play.
The current mechanics of WoW do not allow everyone to take a turn pitching, but maybe it’s time to look at the problems with the holy trinity model, and allow some flexibility.
More self heals? Melee DPS with damage mitigation abilities?
January 21, 2011 at 6:18 pm
I’ve argued more than once for a Rogue tanking tree, and while we’re at it, throw on the ability to switch spec at *any* time. Let a Rogue (or whomever) step up to the pitcher’s mound if they want to, even on the fly, and I think you’d see some more fluid gameplay, and smoother runs.
January 21, 2011 at 4:02 am
[…] right, the kerfluffle. As far as I understand it from the Noisy Rogue’s post, the big to-do is something about Tobold saying that DPS only get to have their selfish fun […]
January 21, 2011 at 7:13 am
This post is disgusting trash and adds nothing to the conversation. If all you were going to do is give us a wall of ad hominem, you should’ve kept it to yourself.
Engage the argument head-on or go home.
As far as I’m concerned, this post demonstrates that the pathetic, moronic one is the author, and not the subject. And you have the nerve to title this post Journalistic Morality. Yeah, this post has as much Journalistic Morality as a cable “news” show.
January 21, 2011 at 12:41 pm
[…] Journalistic Morality – Adam’s looking at Tobold’s actions rather than the debate itself and wondering how he gets away with writing things like this and gets away with it. […]
January 22, 2011 at 11:02 pm
[…] Tobold seems to fail to understand, and what other bloggers have picked up on too, is simply that the problem here is not that players are “immoral”, but that the LFG […]
February 2, 2011 at 2:34 pm
I started reading Tobold several months ago but have since stopped. I can’t really work the guy out as he often writes in such a style as to force his point home and practically taunt his readers into responding then either goes on the offensive or takes things way too personal when he replies to the comments. I often wondered if he suffers from some sort of social disorder.