I’ve been away for a few days. The good wife and I went to a boutique hotel nearby to our home in Madonna di Campiglio, just to relax for a bit after the crazy summer. Well, relax we certainly did – we had a private sauna in our room. I am just going to tell you all here and now that a private sauna in your hotel room is pretty awesome. Amazing food in wonderful restaurants, walks through heritage mountain wilderness, (where the forest is so old that it is almost like a parkland as there is no growth on the forest floor). Obviously when we were walking I imagined that a bunch of trolls were going to ambush us up around the next corner. My wife puts up with me well.
And I got back home, switched on the internets and found this post over at the orbs that be righteous. This post has my name all over it – literally. I almost didn’t respond, as I have refrained form responding on most posts and comments on other blogs about this issue. I have read a great many things written about me which were false, abusive and just plain stupid. But the last thing that I wish to occupy myself with is scurrying around the internet trying to correct people whose opinions are not going to be changed by me attempting to set things straight.
So I really shouldn’t care much. But there are a few misunderstandings of what I was attempting to say back in the post that started this all off. I thought that I had clarified my viewpoint on these, but apparently not. So for the benefit of those who see what they wish to see, here are the clarificatins for the final time:
“… When I was at school I was openly made fun of by the girls for playing these games. Now twenty years later girls are getting worked up about the fact that those same games don’t have enough female representation in them? Give me a fucking break.”
If you take this sentence as it is at face value, then it can seem like a demented rant. But put the quote back into the context of what I wrote and the meaning is clear. The entire post built up to this point. I had already spoken in detail about the historical context of video games and how they fit into our world. This was an ironic observation that whereas in the past girls didn’t want to have anything to do with these games, now they are pushing to be actually represented in game.
And as this is irony, it does not then qualify the statements that;
1. I never got laid in high school.
2. I blame women for all that is wrong in my world.
3. I was mercilessly bullied to the extent that my psyche was damaged.
It was an ironic look back in time. Yes, I wrote that girls made fun of me for playing these games. But the context was that it was ironic that now years later girls are pushing for in-game respresentation, after this was an activity that invited so much scorn by girls. Instead of taking this argument, people focused on me being supposedly “bullied” in high school. Well, I never said that I was bullied. I used the words, “openly made fun of.” I was careful to use these words, because bullying is much heavier. It means that a person is being victimised. I was made fun of. Did I sit in the corner and cry? No, actually I made fun of the girls in return. It was all good natured ribbing. I was not a victim, I was perfectly capable of standing up for myself. The point was an ironic observation of how times have changed. Can I be any more clearer than that?
Tam’s conclusion is as follows:
“… The only possible way to interpret this paragraph is that women shouldn’t have the right to complain about things they find offensive in the game.”
You reckon? I think I would like to change this a little bit. It should read;
“Any special interest group should not have the right to go about actively searching out instances in which they might possibly be offended and then complain about them and attempt to have them corrected in game.”
Tam thinks that the reason that the blogging world got into a big fight was because of my supposed conclusion, (read, misinterpretation on his and others parts). I disagree with this, but let us first correct his examination of my conclusion. Tam wrote;
“… his conclusion seemed to be that women are wrong to expect equal treatment in the game, and should stop complaining they don’t have it.”
Isn’t this nice and tricky? It “seems” by reading this that I am thus pro men being represented in-game. I clarified numerous times that my entire point was something entirely different. Here, let me quote it for you from a post that I wrote in the middle of the shitstorm:
“… I am all for the natural evolution of a game and a gaming genre. But I will strongly resist the idea of change for the sake of making change in order to appease any outside special interest groups, whatever the change or whomever the group may be.”
There should be no special treatment whatsoever, neither for men nor for women. We should all be treated the same. I suppose that based on this and Tam and his cohorts insipid method of drawing conclusions, that I must be a misandriest as well as a misogynist.
Anyway, the blogging world got into a shit fight for other reasons. And this was the ad hominem method of debate, of which righteous orbs was a prime example. Instead of attacking the argument, (which they got wrong from the beginning anyway in an outrageous case of strawman arguing), they attacked me on a personal level. In the comments on Tam’s post linked above, Tam actually states that he never called me a bigot, when in fact his blog actually linked to me using the words in the linkage, “complete bigot”.
I now leave you all with the explanation of strawman argument taken from wikipedia. In this example, I would be person A. Tam, Chastity and others would be Person B.
1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially-similar position Y. Thus, Y is a resulting distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:
1. Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent’s position and then refuting it, thus giving the appearance that the opponent’s actual position has been refuted.[1]
2. Quoting an opponent’s words out of context – i.e. choosing quotations that misrepresent the opponent’s actual intentions (see contextomy and quote mining).[2]
3. Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person’s arguments – thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.[1]
4. Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
5. Oversimplifying an opponent’s argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.
3. Person B attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious, because attacking a distorted version of a position fails to constitute an attack on the actual position.
In concluding, it remains to be seen if these people will continue to push their version of what my intentions were. I doubt that they will change their minds, because if they do it will mean an admission that a great deal that has been written has been way wide of the mark. I would however, encourage them to do this, because perhaps then we could have a rational discussion on whether political correctness has any part in the world of gaming.
September 7, 2010 at 1:43 pm
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if something is so offensive to a person that it truly affects their persona and makes them feel as if they’re worth less than the next person then that ‘something’ needs to be addressed.
As a male I’m sure I’m completely incapable of judging whether the overtly male stereotyping in video games is causing distress to female gamers. However, my girlfriend (a gamer incidentally) assures me that this topic is completely ridiculous. Yes we still have a long way to go until things are truly equal (if they ever can be is a different kettle of fish all together) but to change a fantasy world because the female characters aren’t portrayed as strongly as the males? Really? Have you seen how much of an arsehole Arthas is? And don’t even get me started on those blood elves >.>
Ok, so maybe there are too many masculine figures in too many powerful roles, but I’d like to think rather than being a statement about today society it is rather a left over from the post 70s prescribed fantasy template.
What a load of rot. Show me a video game where women are truly objectified and I’ll totally agree with the ‘other side’ but WoW? I mean really?
There are so many cases in the world today where women are treated poorly just because they’re female. Singling out a fantasy game such as World of Warcraft and planting a feminist flag on top of it does nothing but undermine the true feminist cause.
How about we address how some females are treated in Islamic countries, or how they’re used as sex slaves by organised crime in Europe, or how they still can’t be ordained by the Catholic Church, or how they get treated every day by bigoted co-workers.
Let’s tackle some of the big issues rather than get bogged down on whether a fantasy world needs to be changed slightly.
Sorry for the massive rant but it just bugs the hell out of me when there are sooooo many horrible discriminatory acts in the world (some aimed at females, some that’s aimed at homosexuality, some that’s aimed at ablino’s for christs sake) that have a true and severe impact the victims psyche and yet we get bogged down on whether Adam’s post is sexist or not.
WTF.
Rob
September 7, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Good choice of words, good explanation, good everything
Problem is, the type of people that we are dealing with here rarely ever “gets it” no mater how hard or how ofthen you try to explain it. There is no logic or reason behind them so you cant really reason with them. For isntance, they can now take my reply as an attack, then twist it a bit around to make a point, et voila, they have something they can then argue against and “win the argument”.
September 7, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Also, guys, my Common Sense(TM) is tingling.
September 7, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Oh god, im sorry, i should have said “guys and gals”. I hope that didn´t sound sexist.
September 7, 2010 at 2:19 pm
You misogynist bastard, I hope you burn in hell. You are the personification of everything that is wrong with this world.
[rolls eyes]
September 7, 2010 at 2:21 pm
You go ahead and let me know when Self-Righteous Assholes stop beating down that poor strawman and admit they were wrong. Playing ice hockey in hell sounds like fun.
September 7, 2010 at 2:42 pm
ha ha well played that man 🙂 well written and as far as im concerned sums it up nicely. Bet you dont get an apology mind 😉
September 7, 2010 at 2:55 pm
*Watches as Adam crashes a supertanker of fuel back onto the fire*
Why can’t we just all get along pals?
September 7, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Hey, I had let this die. I am just responding to a 2000 word post addressed to me directly.
September 7, 2010 at 9:22 pm
To me, it looks like you’re just moving around the coals.
Some of the comments from Nikola and Sjonnar suggest they are the ones driving the fuel tankers.
Some of their comments are so… assholish that it puts my back up anyway, even if I’ve been supporting your point of view the whole time.
It may be some primitive ape-subroutine, but emotionally, I want to disagree with you simply so people like that aren’t proven right. Which makes me sad.
September 8, 2010 at 7:40 am
@Steven Gosling
Oh, did I hurt your feelings?
Sorry to say, I do not care. In this “debate” i have absolutely no respect for the other sade, the other side not being women (thank god), but just a bunch of unreasonable, ingorant people with flawed values and completely ridiculous ideas. I have about as much respect for people like that as i do for creationists and other simillar “people” – NONE! In fact, i see very little difference, and alot of similarities between them and you.
Adam, if you think this reply is to much, feel free to delete it, I will understand. I´m just sick of tiptoeing around people who in no way earned that treatment. As i said before, the problem here isn´t men of women, gay or straight, white or black or anything of the sort. The problem is stupid people, and no one has the right to be stupid.
September 8, 2010 at 8:23 am
Hey Nicola,
I agree with Steven in this case. The best help that you and other commentators can be is to calmly state your points. If you do go off like crazy firecrackers then you are inadvertantly hindering my argument.
September 8, 2010 at 9:13 am
Adam, if you prefer to avoid further conflict, than i wont say anything anymore. This is your blog and it´s your choice how you aproach this. My aproach towards this still remains, though. This is just regular stupidity from the other side. It has nothing to do with equality, rights, or any other “higher cause”. It´s pure, mindless, “activism” for the sake of it.
September 7, 2010 at 4:24 pm
“Why can’t we just all get along pals?”
I dunno, why can’t we?
September 7, 2010 at 4:42 pm
I can entirely understand why you have written this response Adam, being misrepresented is bad enough but just as you thought it had calmed down they start picking at the scab.
Let it go mate, you’ll never get a resolution to the debate because it’s not a debate, it’s simply yelling. Let’s get the “Strawman Tigers” together, we’ve got a hockey game to play.
@Rob (Eulogy)
In the original debacle I quoted something very similar that my wife said when I asked her opinion (also a game player, also feels the topic is completely ridiculous) but I was shouted down because “she doesn’t represent all women of the world”…. Which she doesn’t, but then neither do that lot, thankfully.
September 7, 2010 at 4:44 pm
I’m actually disappointed that nobody has expressed amazement at the hotel room with private sauna.
September 7, 2010 at 4:59 pm
@Adam I’m just jealous and trying not to think about the fact I haven’t had a holiday in two years!
@Chewy Yer, it truly is ridiculous and completely out of proportion when compared with serious cases of mysogany and, for want of a better term, hate crimes.
Think I might get the gf to read through my post.. Maybe after we could see if we can find an example of bigotry in connect four.. I’m sure segretting the dots into red and yellow is an example of the Chinese are persecuted in Russia.
… or maybe I’ll just watch paint dry.
September 7, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Maybe because such rooms are now available in many, many hotels in the US.
It’s fun though, and I hope you two will have fond memories of this trip.
***
From my perspective, the Righteous Orb’s post does not help her position. Nor does this post.
But then again, I am not in middle of it and if your posts allow you two to help heal recently opened sensitive wounds, then I am all for it.
Have a great day.
September 7, 2010 at 4:56 pm
I have played with many females in the game and I have never once heard them complain about sexism in regards to the game programming beyond the vanilla penchant for making the bad ass armor look like a chain mail bikini. And the complaints I heard were for the aesthetics of the armor and not because it was sexist. Once the armor look was ‘normalized” in Wrath the complaints stopped. I did believe the aformentioned vanilla design was stupid since a breast plate is a breast plate. Why would it magically transform into a bikini top? But I digress. Arguing about sexism in a game of this genre is like arguing about the level of violence portrayed in a James Bond movie. What did you expect was going to happen in a movie about a spy with a “license to kill”? What did you expect was going to happen in a sword and board fantasy genre where heads are lopped off, demons roam the countryside, and power is to be taken and not given? I would suspect that a lot of “political incorrectness” would exist since it is the fuel that feeds the MMO storyline. Racisms (horde vs alliance), Political intrigue (Defias trying to disrupt Stormwind), occult murders and devil worship (Malganis), etc. If you look at this game from that angle it would be a natural part of the story line that some sexism, overt or subtle, would be part of the story line. To expect it to not be there is kind of silly considering the genre. How about we flip the argument a bit? How many black, Latino, or Asian leaders are there? It seems the dwarf, gnome, and Human leaders are all white. Where are the african american kings? Or the asian or latino kings? Why do the trolls talk like Jamaicans? I can go on ad nauseum but the whole point is this: you can’t expect political correctness from a genre that is supposed to be about death, power, and murder. It’s like going to the vagina monologues and getting angry that only the female voice is represented. Equality for the sexes, which I agree is important and reasonable, should be an effort that is put to best use in the real world and not in a fantasy genre. And if I can end this rant with a real world quote by Eleanor Roosevelt “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent”.
September 7, 2010 at 5:03 pm
or expressed amazement that such a sexist bigot would have a wife….. 😉 har har.
September 7, 2010 at 5:13 pm
This post is highly misguided. Your original post was an emotional piece of rhetoric, not anything approaching a logical argument. The responses to your post were either logical refutations, more emotional rhetoric, or attempts at psychoanalysis. You then responded with more emotional rhetoric.
You can’t go back now and attempt to recontextualize what happened as moves in a coldly logical argument. That’s not what it was, and no one is fooled. The facts of your high school life differing from what people took them as does not prove that they were engaging in a straw man fallacy, not that you becoming defensive about them proves to anyone that your earlier words were incorrect, it only reinforces suspicions. However, that’s off the topic, the point is, your language was misleading, people weren’t searching for ways to distort your arguments. The fact of the matter is, you HAD NO LOGICAL ARGUMENT, and your own words were already distorted by you, which you are now coming around to admitting by trying to rewrite them to be clearer.
When I see you tossing around latin phrases at this late point in the game, I have to laugh. If you want people to take you seriously in your attempt to actually make a logical construction, it’s going to take a lot more than a few latin phrases to erase the memory of your continual emotional rants. Try rewriting your original post, replacing every single instance of loaded emotional language with a cold logical argument. Then, people can respond in kind, and we can ACTUALLY SEE if these ‘liberal wingnuts’ have the ability to argue logically. Until then, you are just posturing vapidly.
September 7, 2010 at 5:27 pm
tl;dr nice use of the caps lock to highlight nerd rage though.
September 7, 2010 at 5:29 pm
You had me at refutations.
You I find people that use big words, are either trying to impress people, or bullshit them
I guess if you can’t dazzle them with intelligence, I guess you baffle them with bullshit.
September 7, 2010 at 5:35 pm
Ironic, how in a reply to a post about Straw Men and Ad hominem fallacies, these wonderful people would take the time to make the same joke about them instead of replying to my arguments.
rofl.
September 7, 2010 at 5:45 pm
your arguement is based on the way you read the original post by adam and the fact you took from it what you wanted. The easily offended get offended *shrug* The crux of it is if blizzard listened to every single whine/opinion/bitch about the game then there wouldnt be much left. Perhaps if people just enjoyed it for what it is instead of actively searching for stuff to moan about and be the victim then you wouldnt have had to write a nerd rage rant that i wont read.
September 7, 2010 at 5:52 pm
That’s too bad, if you’d read my post you’d know it’s not angry, but a cold logical refutation. I’m confused why you respond to posts without reading them though…Guess there’s not any point in asking you why you do that, since you respond without reading.
It’s been surreal not talking with you.
September 7, 2010 at 6:00 pm
i dont read anonymous posters its akin to trolls on the wow forums posting under their alts 😉
September 7, 2010 at 6:09 pm
It’s also akin to the anonymous authors of many of the Federalist Papers. I’d ask if you’d heard of them, but you aren’t reading my replies.
September 7, 2010 at 6:39 pm
I am cooking my awesome pasta fagioli soup, so I do not have time to respond in depth to this chain of comments. But I do have time every five minutes to hit refresh and consign further posts that are this trolling in nature from both sides to the dustbin. Just so you all know so as not to waste your own time.
September 7, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Apologies Adam I’ll refrain from any further responses to the ever intellectual ‘Anonymous’ and stick to the topic in question. Oh and enjoy your soup
September 7, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Sorry Adam but I have to make one comment to this anonymous pompous arsehole.
“Try rewriting your original post, replacing every single instance of loaded emotional language with a cold logical argument. ”
If you’d ever read Adam’s posts rather than simply being directed here from wherever, you would realise that his general style is ironic, satirical and emotional which makes it very amusing to read. A style you’ve obviously not mastered.
September 7, 2010 at 8:19 pm
Right, time to deal with Mr Anonymous. I find it hilarious that your email address is “liberalnut”, because nothing else could better discribe you. Apart from that, you are a troll. In the last half hour you have posted under the following, (newly invented I assume), emails:
Liberalnut2, liberalnut3, liberalnut4,liberalnut5, sjonnar, (different email from the real poster), campitor, theerivs, (once again an attempt to steal the identity of an existing commenter), sanzpants, and censorship. That’s quite an effort in a little under an hour. And for what?
To get everything wrong. As far as I’m concerned, accusing me of emotional rants whilst behaving in this way …
So no need to go in point by point and refute all your rubbish. Your own actions do that well enough for me.
September 7, 2010 at 10:41 pm
If he’s liberal one person he doesn’t want to be is me. Thats for dang sure. LOL!
September 7, 2010 at 10:48 pm
I don’t understand, why does him posting under different emails after you ban old ones prove that you right and him wrong, or that he is a troll? I’m new to the blogging world, maybe this is a rule I don’t know about. As far as I can see, you’re just banning him for disagreeing with you? Sounds like censorship to me.
September 8, 2010 at 5:30 am
The campitor account and post is most assuredly my own and not a recent creation by that other twit (liberalnut)posting under different names.
September 7, 2010 at 5:32 pm
I would like to apologize to all the females out there for being born with a penis.
Shame on me.
September 7, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Hi Adam
*waves*
I’m very jealous of the private sauna. I’ve spent a weekend at a house with a (tiny) indoor swimming pool and I was happy as a pig in shit until I read your post. Now I’m just raging with envy 😉
Glad you and the missus had a break.
Pilf
September 7, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Heya Pilf,
Your envy warms my humble heart. And thanks for the really lovely words,
adam
September 7, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Rogue,
Read the initial post (Thanks to Greedy Goblin) and I’m glad for today’s clarification. Which is not to say that I took your initial words to be anything other than an ironic musing… I agree with your thoughts that people simply took what they wanted from your post, commented on it, and the subsequent postings and rants spawned from there.
My favorite bit of this refutation is this: “Any special interest group should not have the right to go about actively searching out instances in which they might possibly be offended and then complain about them and attempt to have them corrected in game.” This was the point of the original post, and you discussed it in your own style. This is the core of the problem, not actual sexism/racism/bigotry. Free speech is an amazing right, but it goes too far in infringing the rights of others. It should not be:
I’m a black man
I play WoW
WoW should have black people in it
That is infringment upon the rights of the original artist, suggesting he should change his intellectual property to suit someone else’s taste. (I beleive you mentioned this in the original as well)
@Anonymous – Hey, thanks for giving us a demonstration of what a Strawman Argument is… I read the description but was confused until you gave me the actual context. Appreciate it!
September 7, 2010 at 7:05 pm
This jury finds you ‘not guilty’ of the charge of having a brain. You’re free to go.
Door’s that way –>
Don’t let it hit you in the ass.
September 7, 2010 at 7:06 pm
Guess Adam is just deleting everything I say at this point, proving that he is actually for censorship and removing people from blogrolls, a position which he pretends not to support. If he doesn’t delete this, it will serve as my farewell to all of you wonderful people. I really have nothing left to prove here, as they say in your country, “Actions speak louder than words”, and they have surely spoken. I’ll miss you all dearly, I don’t know where I’ll find another group of people like you.
September 7, 2010 at 9:11 pm
I am very unclear as to why his deleting Anonymous’ comments constitutes supporting “removing people from blogrolls”. Also, deleting comments and other forms of moderation are not directly transferrable to “censorship”. A child crying in a store for candy is not being “censored” when his parents tell him no, or when his parents remove him from the store.
The “action” I see speaking the loudest is you giving the traditional “Help I’m being repressed on the internet so good bye to you all and may you take down the man who is only out to destroy you through his hypocritical bigotry that you are too blind to see!” speech on your way out the door.
…not saying you mean it that way, but from the context granted by The Greater Internet Community, it sure reads that way.
September 7, 2010 at 9:29 pm
To clarify, nor when the shopkeep asks the family to leave does it qualify as censorship.
September 8, 2010 at 10:41 am
I’m sorry, I had to 😛
September 7, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Dear anonymous trolls,
Creating a new email address under the name of an existing commenter is quite useless and retarded seeing as I can see all email address’s. Furthermore, if this trolling continues, (requiring me to continually check the site), then I will ban you by email address, thus wiping out all of your comments to date. Seeing as in the future I do wish to reply to your first comment, this would be a pity.
Your choice, however.
September 7, 2010 at 8:06 pm
First and foremost, I think I need to ™ Self-Righteous Orbs, because I could probably re-furnish my loft with the royalties I could make from that!
Secondly, anyone who continues to post as “Anonymous” on blog entries baffles me just a little bit. You can even make up a name – it’s not like the identification features here are terribly firm. So, unless you’re in the Witness Protection Program or Alcoholics Anonymous or something in that vein – why are you hiding? If you genuinely feel that your comment is worth listening to and you genuinely stand behind the words you’re about to voice – why not take credit for that? “Anonymous” obviously sounds educated and types well – not the kind of thing I would be embarassed or ashamed of and would need to hide my name from, as a result. I don’t understand.
As for the private sauna, it does sound divine. I’m actually getting ready for a vacation in the next month or so and I had the option of getting a jacuzzi in my room – but for a single girl on vacation, I’d just feel like a contestant on a bad reality dating show or something – lol
September 7, 2010 at 9:13 pm
That not how i remember playing AD&D. If I remember correctly the hottest girls in my year would have died to be a member of the club.
Thats my story and i’m sticking to it!
September 7, 2010 at 9:25 pm
Well I’ve been reading this blog fie a year or so now and this recent storm around female representation has both grabbed my interest and bored me to death, I am a female gamer I’m also a feminist, having read the linked blog that refers to the combatant style language used I have to say I’m slightly amazed, while yes I am a feminist I also amazingly enough have a sense of humour, am I the only one that think the term “getting your knickers in a twist” when used describing feminist is supposed to be ironic or god help us funny? Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it wasn’t meant in that vain but if it was then I am amused. As far as female representation goes in a war game, well as wars in real life are both usually started by and fought by men then I think in game there’s a fair amount or female figures. And so the blood elves have great figures, it’s fantasy I guarantee if the allowed the characterisation to include fat elves there’d be very few! We’re brain washed by society to see thin and pretty as perfect and it sells, blizzard is a business world of war craft a fantasy game if you want to change the female representations then it has to be done in real life not in kalmidor, That’s it knickers untwisted!
September 9, 2010 at 8:57 am
Well I’m not sure I’d do it on my main but I’m fairly certain that had I been given the opportunity I’d have made my character an obese crossdressing dwarf. In all honesty, idiots like me who don’t care would probably ruin people’s immersion were we given too much choice. In terms of raiding I’ve also furthered the opinion that I’d wear whatever the highest dps combination of items were. So if you see a male night elf hunter rocking a feather boa paired with a mankini and a tutu then you’ll know blizzard have broken the game.
I mean how many of us have the various trinkets, unbound q items and special use equipment to make us look like different forms.
September 7, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Hey, i’m a real commenter! I’m assuming he used my moniker for an additional post that was deleted?
September 8, 2010 at 12:07 am
“I almost didn’t respond…”
I am so glad you didn’t use the word REPLY. If you had, it would have kicked off my “Then why the fuck didn’t you reply TO THEIR POST instead of writing your own on your blog why do bloggers always consider themselves too GOOD for that? Oh that’s right bloggers rate their ePenis by the number of replies so we must never reply to another blogger on their blog no I must post my own and get as many replies as theirs plus one I WIN” rant. Lucky we avoided that.
“This was an ironic observation…”
Because no-one has ever been misunderstood when they tried to be ironic. My god, you actually fell into that trap? Did you honestly think “Everyone else in history just wasn’t good at writing or plain wrong. I’m different. When *I* do it, everyone will GET it.” You actually thought that? Seriously?
Oh, and the fact that you consider girls a “special interest group”, and NOT customers playing the game EXACTLY the same as boy gamers is what gets you into trouble. When boys complain, it’s legitimate concerns from the customer base that’s come about from them playing the game. When girls complain, they’re an OUSTIDE special interest group who *actively* looked for something bad because it’s their agenda, thus the complaint is illegitimate and not worth taking seriously. The complaint is measured in seriousness not by the complaint, but by who’s making it. And that’s just plain wrong. It’s the reason why Blizzard has only one Feedback forum, not two (one for players, one for GIRLS… who aren’t really players, merely *guests*, and should behave as such).
It’s the old “Black people LOOTED during Hurricane Katrina. White people FOUND supplies to survive.” theory.
And oooooooh, I do so love it when bloggers say “in conclusion”, or “I hope this to be the end of…”, or “Putting this issue to rest” or some similar remark. Writers honestly believe they can have The Last Word ™ just by saying so. That the conversation is NOW OVER… once they’ve had *their* say “so listen to my reply to their reply and once I’m done NO MORE REPLIES it’s over”. It’s so cute. People still believe that’s how it works.
September 8, 2010 at 1:02 am
I find it funny that you say all females respond in this manner to something that was not really even sexist in the first place. I have read this debate back and forth on the blogosphere for quite a while now. I have found it very interesting and have discussed it with several female co-workers as well as my wife. Every single one of them thought the argument was overblown and stupid. Please don’t lump all females into over reacting feminazis. Most women are able to respond to individual issues by themselves without being lumped into a feminazi special interest group just like guys can have an opinion without being tied to any specific group.
September 8, 2010 at 6:50 am
They are a group and they have a special interest, thus, they are a special interest group. If guys started demanding changes in the game as guys, they would also be a special interest group. Why the hell is this term so important? It´s not derogatory in any way, and if you feel differently about it, it`s your own damn fault. In this situation, female gamers, or more precisely, the group of female gamers with these demands are a special interest group. Period.
September 8, 2010 at 7:35 am
Karadan,
You’ve been reading my blog for a while now, so you must know that my usual method of writing is to use irony, sarcasm, and emotional rhetoric. If this was the first ever time that I used irony in a post then it would have been unrealistic of me to assume that my regular readership, (of which Tam was one), would get it. But that was not the case.
I do not consider “girls” a special interest group. I consider them gamers and thus customers. I consider “girls that wish to change the game based on their feminist viewpoints” as a special interest group. I have also said and clarified that point many, many times.
September 8, 2010 at 11:05 am
THIS COMMENT TIMES 10000.
IAWTC.
September 8, 2010 at 7:06 am
Any chance on some more leadership tips? I have had a few issues dealing with that in game, my pug raids fail/dont achieve sweet fa. How you finding the lore with your undead priest? has it reached tauren mill yet?
Oh I got my rogue upto lev 35, I suck at it though 😛 I keep dieing, I have to say my enhance shammy is so overpowered its sick though. I drop 4 mobs of my own level at the same time and walk away full hp and mana. I been soloing the group quests where you go kill lev 74 elites in dragonblight. As a lev 74. Oh and I ganked a lev 80 😛 hope to ding to 77 later with it, oh the joy. You thought about trying a shammy? any combat tips for how to use a melee dps aside from the obvious stand behind the boss so they dont parry?
regards
nightgerbil
September 8, 2010 at 7:38 am
Heya Gerbil,
I’ll see what I can do. If you go back through the old posts you’ll find a bunch of posts under the heading “DPS for Dummies”. I think I did four of them.
September 8, 2010 at 8:18 am
could you go a little bit more into to detail here?
the sauna was IN YOUR ROOM?!
September 8, 2010 at 9:16 am
Best i can afford is a room that has no air conditioning, so it feels like a sauna >.>
September 20, 2010 at 2:04 pm
You dont have to explain yourself to retards who dont understand ironie and sarcasme. Or they do understand it but seeing a loophole to start an argument and trying to kick you down, just for the sake of it.