The Noisy Rogue

Apparently, feminists want equality for women. You would think that this would mean that they want a level playing field, but that is the last thing on their agenda. A major part of the anti-gamergate crowing by the pinkshirts has been that the gaming industry should do more to encourage women. Thus are destroyed their lofty goals of equality. I mean, how is it possible to desire a level playing field but then also want special treatment at the same time? The two are like oil and water. But making sense with the SJW crowd never does any good – logic is anathema to them.

Requiring special treatment sends the automatic message that on their own women are not good enough. Even the act of encouraging women is self-defeating. If you want something then you should just go and do it. Roberta Williams didn’t require any special help, she just went and did it. And she did very well, not because she was a woman but because she was a game designer.

The next pillar they latch onto is that women already in the gaming industry require more support. Why exactly do they need this? If they are unable to do their jobs well and compete with their peers then they’re in the wrong business. But the pinkshirts mistake businesses that exist only to be profitable for pseudo-social security agencies that exist just to make women feel better about their own inappropriate career lifestyle choices. Notice that men in the same roles have to compete equally ruthlessly. This is a tough and lean industry that cannot afford to carry people. Man or woman, you need to perform. If men don’t perform then they’re out, chewed up and thrown to the sidelines. If women don’t perform …?

Then they need to stand as equals in another way. There are a few methods in which this can be achieved. Firstly they can skew the game company to produce games that their meager talents are better suited. This, however, has the unfortunate side effect of the games sucking big fat donkey balls and not enough people buying them. At this point they need to up the ante and declare that traditional gamers are “insert your label here.” The best way to make this stick is to solicit the gaming media to your cause, and those talentless hacks are only too willing to come along for the ride as their white knight status is made for such an undertaking. Favorable coverage for inferior product is thus assured, and anyone who disagrees with them is a “racist” or a “misogynist” or a “bigot” or a “homophobe” or many similar meaningless monikers.

And thus we arrive at the sorry GamerGate mess in which we find ourselves. It will be easy for my enemies to attack me with this post and title. They will equate my stance as meaning that I don’t want women in the industry. It is the natural stawman argument for these types. But I merely do not want women, men, hobbits, homosexuals or anyone else for that matter to be encouraged to join the gaming industry. I simply want great designers to have the necessary drive and motivation to step up and make great games that people want to play. After all, we did it for a good thirty years before all this hoopla started. And contrary to the pinkshirts assertions, good people are not being driven out of the industry. Mediocre hacks with as much talent as my left nut-sack are simply finding that their manipulations have met their Waterloo in the form of a very determined group of people who have woken up just in time to the fact that their hobby was being subverted.

Nobody should be encouraged to do anything for that matter. Get up and stand on your own two feet with the talent and motivation that God gave you. If you are a woman and you identify as a woman first and then a gamer, then you’re a fraud. You should simply identify as a gamer. Your sex has nothing to do with it. When you make it so then you begin a self-fulfilling prophecy to victim-hood status. Which is fine, as long as you stay out of our games and find solace in something else. I suggest chocolate.

Hi, I’m Chris Kluwe, and I’m so dumb if you rubbed two rocks together it would probably be smarter than me.

Chris is apparently a gamer. Because he’s been playing games for a LONG TIME MAN! Really big games, more games than you can poke a pigskin at! So when he hears that some pinkshirt journalist who sold out to the lefties long ago declared gamers were dead, he was fucking ecstatic! Because poor old Chris wasn’t happy being a gamer, because he still felt like an overgrown nerd. But when gamers were pronounced dead, it meant that games were popular culture and now the whole world accepts him and now he feels fantastic! Because other people like them! And that means they must be coool!!!

So very very sad. And apparently every single gamer who objects to being declared dead is a misogynist, and a slackjawed pickletits, among other things. Now, I don’t exactly know what a pickletit is, but it sounds like something that would object to being labelled as dead, so I’m all for it. I’m not sure what hemorrhoidal gunt stains are either, [perhaps he meant grunt stains, but spelling is hard – ED]. But don’t worry because Chris is convinced that his side is WINNING THE CULTURE WAR because there are more nerds on TV. Really, because there are more nerds on TV, [Revenge of the Nerds doesn’t count? – ED]. Chris thinks that we are unmanly if we think women want to ruin our fun. Because obviously they don’t, since privilege and equality and all that shit. And apparently the tech industry has been really misogynistic for a long time because of …, um because of … like not many chicks were applying for jobs cause programming is hard I suppose …

I mean, Chris. How many fucking female linebackers are in the NFL? None that I can see, mate. You football players are so fucking misogynistic. The only chicks I can see on the field are the ones cavorting around wearing skimpy outfits and waving pompoms who then lie up to blow the whole team. I bet there are a few thousand geeky computer dudes somewhere in the world who wish that the games industry was as misogynistic as that, right? Right??? But us “vomitmouths” are just pieces of shit who treat women badly because … why again? Oh, i understand because you know game developers PERSONALLY. You know game reviewers PERSONALLY. Cause none of us do, obviously. You have to be a famous pigskin throwing, cheerleader banging righteous hip dude to know those sort of people. And what? All these people used to work in a small industry but now it’s a really big industry but that’s okay because they’re still playing games and they’re still friends?

What the fucking Jesus are you talking about? I mean, when you write lines like this:

“… Every game reviewer I know is actually highly concerned with the ethics of their situation, because they’ve gone to school for it. They know that acting unethically is a very quick way to drive away consumers …”

the only possible reason I can conceive for your existence is that a sperm got lost on its way to a barf station. Chris, I’ll give you one thing though. You take making inane comments and supporting them with broad-based ad hominem arguments to an entirely new level. I don’t know what you were smoking when you wrote that piece of shit diatribe, but somebody somewhere must be having a good chuckle right now.

Chris is fucking pissed the fucking fuck off. I know because he said that a fair few times. Myself, I’m wondering how much brain damage actually results from eight years of running head-first into other dudes who only have their place on a team because a woman was raped somewhere.

[editors note: we found Chris’ post via Tobold, which just goes to prove the general internet theory that everything Tobold approves of is obviously bullshit and vice-versa.]

The GamerGate saga is funny for so many reasons. On the one hand we’re told by the pinkshirt media that the GG crowd is a bunch of loser nerds who deserve nothing more than to have their precious candy world taken away from them. On the other hand apparently these powerless nerds are picking women apart right left and center and stopping them from even entering the gaming industry. You’d think they’d be able to make up their minds. Are we all powerful or powerless? And there are lots and lots of mainstream media crapping on about GG and how bad and awful and evil we all are. Check out this list that a guy put together of all the so-called media outlets rallying against the GG barbarians at the gate.

On the one hand the pinkshirts say that the GG crowd are irrelevant and there is nothing to see, but on the other hand they do seem to be doing an awful lot of writing and running around like headless chickens about them. And this has been going on for almost two months now. What’s going on? I mean, what’s really going on?

The answer is that finally a core group of people stood up and refused to let their hobby be taken over by political activists with a severe agenda to burn. This is the first time that they have been stood up to, and they do not like it. Witness the amount of noise they are making. Witness the carry-on about “death threats”, (if someone is really giving you a death threat, the last place you talk about it is on twitter as one of my commenters said.) The pinkshirts took over the sci-fi/fantasy literature field with great success, so they must have figured that gamers were going to be an easy mark.

The first big hurdle however, is the fact the games can be very expensive to develop and maintain. Good games, that is. Anyone can write crap like Depression Quest. And the companies that make these games know who their core audience is. And I can tell you right now, it’s not women. Do you play Angry Birds, or some other crappy game? You’re not a gamer. The term gamer originates from hardcore war-gaming players back in the late 60s and early 70s. Try playing Advanced Squad Leader or the unbelievably complex Drang Nach Osten! and see how you go before your head implodes. That’s where gamers and gaming comes from. That is its roots. Games like EVE Online have their genesis in serious war-gaming. This is the history of the core market that the pink shirts have been trying to take over with their cries of “more women developers!” and “more gays and minorities” and any other inane brain dead label they attempt to attach.

We don’t care about you. You could say that we sacrifice babies on the alter of insane Gods and that we drink their blood and we still couldn’t care less about what you think. You are out of your depth. The fact that you’re all still in denial about the state of play is self-evident. You can drum up any media organisation to rant and rave and write searing drivel about how all your “rights” have been violated and it will not matter an inch.

The games we want we still get made the way we want them.

Companies know this and are responding appropriately.

You will get no concessions from us.

You will lose.

But keep making all the noise you want. We’re having a great time watching your ship go down. And more importantly, it’s beginning to give people in other areas a bit of heart.

It’s been a while since I posted anything about the gamergate saga, mostly because I’ve been busy, but also because it’s been humming along nicely without my help. But Spinks has been at it again with her dumb-assery, so I felt obliged to write up a little retort.

Oh, so poor little Anita has been getting death threats again, has she. And your sources are the New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, and fucking Kokatu? A site that has been so discredited in this entire saga that it barely deserves to update its home page? And three publications that are so left wing they make Stalin look like a mouth breathing Republican? Oh, and the woman herself. Poor Anita has been receiving so very many death threats. She must have an entire protection squad of concerned officers of the law surrounding her every move. Right? Right?

Nope. I suppose I could make up a death threat now. Stick it on the internets. I got a death threat! People want to kill me! Oh the humanities!

You know what a death threat is? Salman fucking Rushdie. Now that’s a death threat. 25 odd years under police protection and still going strong. Or how about Theo Van Gogh? That was an actual death threat made good. Those are death threats. Anita Sarkeesian has about as much chance of being killed by a death threat as I have of strangling tonight in my own bed sheets, (600 Americans a year die this way, incidentally …) The death threats are a load of shit because even if they were made, (which I very much doubt), nobody, and I mean nobody is taking them seriously. Nobody who counts, I mean. Sure, Anita can cancel an appearance here and there, but that’s all just a nice fat smokescreen to keep the whole thing turning. Death threats are all she has left. It must be sad waking up and realising that you need to invent another death threat to stay relevant.

And Spinks, just so you know, GamerGate isn’t about Anita’s pathetic videos. It’s about the one area of society that has finally resisted the insidious creep of politically correct Marxist socialism masquerading as people who just want what’s ‘best for you and the whole wide world’. We don’t want your “equality.” We don’t want your “dialogue.” We don’t give a shit about “diversity”. We don’t care for your “empowerment”. And the words, “racist”, “misogynist” and “bigot” have lost all meaning thanks to you and your ilk. You can stick your “Privilege” up your ass, and shove “pangender”, “gay-friendly” and “minorities” there with it.

You have a lovely day now.

Been a few weeks since a post on my part. I’ve been busy. Doing stuff. Stuff where you have to walk around in real life. In other words, not sitting at a keyboard. We all have our cross to bare. Me, I’ve got a few.

But after walking away from TESO faster than seats being evacuated next to someone with a runny nose, I settled my sights on ArcheAge. Normally I wouldn’t consider a Korean free to play in a blue moon but a few things attracted me to it, not least the fact that Tobold continues to hate it without ever having played the game. Tobold is my own personal barometer for considering a game’s relative value – if he hates it then it must be good, and vice versa.

I also went and joined Syncaine’s new guild in ArcheAge. I mean, why not? I had a great time with Gevlon on all his WoW-inspired projects and capers, and Syncaine has the same refreshingly upbeat outlook on life as Gevlon does so this was a no-brainer for me. Also, considering the fact that real estate is so damn hard to come by in this game, I figured that the support of a guild was an all-inclusive this time, as opposed to a sideline take-it-or-leave-it option in TESO.

I’m only level 20 after a couple of weeks of playing due to real life commitments at this time. But one thing I did do was sub after a very short period of time. There were a few reasons for that – if you want to get the most out of the game it’s a must, and I have no problem paying for such a solid game. AA makes TESO look like the empty shell that it is. This is a living breathing world that is populated by the players, not the npcs. To say it’s refreshing is a severe understatement. There are many problems of course, not limited to Trion’s almost total incompetence at running an IP which has resulted in the most severe case of hacker and gold selling frenzy I have ever seen. But my solution was to turn off local chat which while restricting some information intake is the only real way to deal with the situation.

We have our first guild run this weekend but I have still got quite a few levels to go. Hopefully I’ll be there soon, but I am quite enjoying the ride. It’s nice to do that knowing that there is a damn good endgame by all accounts waiting for me.

That’s it for me and Elder Scrolls Online. I’ve got another month left on my sub, and I might pop back in a few times for shits and giggles, but I can’t see myself continuing with this game any more. So a tidy summation is in order to see what I thought about the game overall. Let’s start with the positives:

Voice Acting: I’d never played an MMO before TESO that had serious voice acting, but it was really good. I mean, they got actors like John Cleese to play parts! Who couldn’t like that? It only hit home to me how much of a difference this makes when I jumped onto a different MMO the other day that doesn’t have it. The difference was very noticeable. But then again, I’d expect great voice acting from a single player RPG …

The World: This game has some of the best zones I’ve ever seen in a virtual world. The desert zone was simply fantastic. It wasn’t up to Skyrim standards of course, but that would be an unrealistic expectation.

Crafting: I loved the crafting; in fact I probably spent more time doing this than anything else. It was well thought out, in-depth, it made sense, and most importantly, the gear you craft is often better than anything you can find in the world. I loved the research design and the time it takes to unlock crafting options. really well done.

Customer Service: Unbelievably good. I needed help on two occasions. I put in a card and the emailed help arrived almost immediately. The customers service staff were friendly, helpful, and more importantly they resolved all my issues bar one.

Now for the negatives:

Logging in: After about a month of playing the game it inexplicably began requiring me to get an emailed authentication number at every log-in attempt. The game thought that I was logging in from a new IP address. Every single time. This went on for months and it was never resolved. “We know it’s a problem for a few users,” said the customer service staff. No shit.

The Main Story: God this sucked. It sucked so much I wanted to cry. In the beginning I simply ignored it, but then I found out that it gave you regular doses of much needed skill points, so there was no avoiding it. Which made me hate it even more. You have to do this quest line, and most of it involves you either watching nauseatingly boring cut scenes or following some random npc up hill and over dale while you attempt to do a grand fight against these forces of evil that I never understood much less cared about. Only John Cleese made this good in any way.

You’re the Hero: Nothing says this isn’t a living virtual world as much as having every single player be the hero and savior of the world. Why TESO, why did you do this? As soon as the intro cut-scene began to play out I knew what they had done. Which brings me along to my next point …

It’s a Single Player MMO: There is no reason to be involved with any other player in this game. I have never felt so lonely in this game as compared to any other MMO I played. Including EVE. Even when I joined a guild, (which had some memorable moments, don’t get me wrong), it was still something that just ticked along in the background. All you need to do in this game is quest. There are lots of quests. There are some group dungeons. You do those and then you never speak to the other players again. You don’t really even speak during the runs. You get about as much interaction in this game as you do when having sex with my ex-wife.

No Auction House: To counteract the fact that there is no interaction, Zenimax made the brilliantly dumb decision to launch with no auction house, mistakenly believing that this would throw all their players together and make a virtual world. They reasoned that players would have to interact with each other in order to trade and sell gear. The actual effect is that it’s just too damn hard to buy and sell stuff with other players. You have to do it in general chat, which is awful. Nothing says, ‘kill me now,’ so much as having to continuously link to the items you’re trying to sell in the vain hope that someone, anyone, is going to drop you a whisper saying they want it. The whole process is too hard, too demeaning, and too much damn work for very little reward. On top of that, there is no way to gauge how much stuff is worth. How much do I sell it for so I don’t get ripped off? How much do I pay for this thing I want to buy? You never know, nobody ever tells you, so you always feel a little bit cheated. A little bit dirty. And the end result? Vendor everything. Or destroy it for crafting. Well done, Zenimax. You morons.

As for the rest of it, combat was okay. Skill trees and talents were confusing. Gear as applied to classes made very little sense, (light armor, in other words cloth, was often much better than heavy metal armor. Yeah, try and work that one out.) There’s more I’m sure but I can’t think of it now.

The final straw for me though was the quest where I had to help a gay man and his gay husband. As I mentioned in an earlier thread this completely threw me out of the context of the game. And from that point on I began to notice many, many similar examples of sops to real world activists that had been included in the game. All of which may have made said activists happy, but this was at the expense of the believability of a virtual fantasy world, and thus my game enjoyment. I’m not one to continuously pay money for such an arrangement. So Zenimax, if you’re reading, that’s why I left your game in the end.