Removed

[DeadpanLunatic]

I have removed my words from this site.

 

[Auron]

So he goes around twitch bombing streams of attractive girls who gather views by being cute instead of playing*, a bit puerile but so are the girls he's not entirely wrong in his assessment. Funnily enough his description of how to find a girl playing matches my girlfriend's wow habits to perfection other than the "too whiny to go into real raiding so they have to do old dungeons" and the fact she doesn't stream or anything. After watching the entire video it actually comes across as comedy/trolling he cannot have a high level character on every server to be tracking down random players on different realms even with x-faction funny that everyone seems to believe he's for real.

*I mean, you can't tell me you take stuff like this http://www.twitch.tv/tarababcock seriously, this is not about the games. Not all of them are like this one but others do exist.

Uh... no, there aren't. Have you even played this game?

Honestly, no, but I did proceed to present a workaround. But go right on ignoring whatever points you can't respond to.

He's right, there's no way to communicate with the enemy faction unless you're logged on the enemy faction itself which is probably what he's doing anyway,

did it ever occur to you that bearing the kind of mark our community finds worth harassing might have you ganked more regularly than mere happenstance? That this probably happens frequently enough for people to discern that something about them attracts this unwanted attention?

Whoever you are you're going to be ganked numerous times, as many as yours and the ganker's skill/boredom allows in fact, in a pvp server. The easy solution is going to a pve server, otherwise don't complain. Furthermore it's an ungodly amount of work to track someone and you need to have a high level character in the same server too.

 

[Rainforce]

[snip]

heh, just listened to that this morning because I remembered it from some time ago and explicitly searched for it...

also yeah, that man is sickening to a very high degree of purity.

 

[SonicWaffle]

One woman wants to explore whether games might be sexist and our community jumps to attention to prove that they damn sure are.

Interesting read, I liked it and for the most part agree with you. The only nitpick I've got is the part I've quoted above - the reaction to Tropes vs Women has done nothing to prove that games are sexist, it has just proved that some gamers are sexist.

Of course, that could be what you meant, but the syntax you've used is a tricksy little hobbit.

On the whole, good job. Have a high five.

 

[SonicWaffle]

I came from a game where your death meant the loss of all the stuff you had with you, with possible mutilation of your corpse because the PK in question happened to collect left legs. I just assume that people know what they get into when they enter PvP servers and PvP areas.

You're a not a Discworld MUD player by any chance?

I've heard the same argument over there a million times, between the "I went PK to roleplay!" guys and the "I went PK to murderfuck your face!" guys. Always a fun debate, if by fun you mean circular and likely to devolve into people getting backstabbed.

Edit: Also - wait, I could make money by streaming my gaming online?

Depends. Are you hot and willing to show off your tits? If so, you can probably make more money doing other stuff online

 

[SonicWaffle]

I came from a game where your death meant the loss of all the stuff you had with you, with possible mutilation of your corpse because the PK in question happened to collect left legs. I just assume that people know what they get into when they enter PvP servers and PvP areas.

You're a not a Discworld MUD player by any chance?

I've heard the same argument over there a million times, between the "I went PK to roleplay!" guys and the "I went PK to murderfuck your face!" guys. Always a fun debate, if by fun you mean circular and likely to devolve into people getting backstabbed.

Ultima Online. Always fun to camp in fron of a house invisible just to rob it empty when the owner didn't check for ivnsible asshats.

I did mostly PK to kill boredom. PvP was the single most interesting aspect and raiding was just means to get the gear (because it was less time intensive than grinding up to rank 10).

Unfortunately, in the MUD I was thinking of, it's being forever worn down to avoid upsetting people. It's still possible to break into houses, but no longer possible to steal anything. Taking anything from a player's corpse automatically sets off all wards (basically booby traps) even if the looter has the skill to avoid them. There was even a plan to alter theft so that when a player stole an item from another player, it didn't take the actual item, just created a clone of the item so that nobody had to lose their stuff.

When the hell did we get to the point that online multiplayer environments in which people voluntarily sign up for danger have been placed under the control of Barney the Dinosaur?

 

[Smeatza]

Between the fake nerd girl craze

It was not a craze, most people hardly even knew of it, take a look on google trends, people only started to even find out what it was when the media began to cover (and inevitably, sensationalise) it.

and killer nuns in bondage gear

Is the sexualisation of characters inherently sexist? As far as I'm aware the debate still goes on.

the Anita Sarkeesians

Happened almost a year ago (so hardly a recent example), not as cut and dried as many would like to make out.

and the Jennifer Heplers,

Criticising a woman is not inherently sexist. Acting in a vindictive manner is not the same as being sexist.
In any case I believe it was Hepler that brought gender into the debate herself with the quote ""I just figure they're jealous that I get to have both a vagina AND a games industry job, and they can't get either."

Shrine's somewhat successful attempts to rally his fellow men to harass female gamers are sadly just one of many, many examples of the rampant sexism that haunts our medium, and far from the most important.

Bullshit, there's no more sexism in the video game industry/community than there is in the televison, film or literature industries/communities.
Let's stop all this sensationalist bullshit.

I am talking, of course, about Anita Sarkeesian. Yes, her. Again. I can hear you groan, but let's not forget the sheer amount of hate and abuse she faced for daring to suggest a critical examination of gender roles in videogames.

You mean for daring to crusade against video games under the guise of feminism.

Things have slowed down since the end of Sarkeesian's Kickstarter campaign, but gamers remain doubtful. People have gone on to question her credentials, wondering whether she's a real gamer or a real academic - next you'll tell me you?re not even convinced she's a real person.

How dare people exercise skepticism, next they'll be refuting the existence of god.

On the other end of the spectrum, she is being reproached for having yet to revolutionize our discourse of gender and gaming. I resent that. I resent that because, while masquerading as valid concerns, these arguments are intended to cut the discussion short, to discredit Sarkeesian without having to hear her out. How about we discuss her arguments based on content, based on merit?

Her previous arguments have had very little content and very little merit. Pointing out the low standards of her previous work is entirely relevant.

It's like when the MMR vaccine hoax came about, yeah we could have said "well Andrew Wakefield has a number of conflicts of interest and is putting thousands of children in danger by telling lies under the guise of scientific research. But he still might stumble across something that's actually correct so let's let him continue."
However we all realised it was best to prevent the blind willfully blinding the sighted.

The same applies here, in a much less important way.

 

[Savagezion]

Damn, someone grabbed a hold of a sexist gamer YouTube crusader out there and used it as a springboard for backing Anita. It kills me that Anita supporters claim to be more open minded and yet can't seem to understand the logic behind her detractors. I am posting in this thread because of one phrase in the OP:

One woman wants to explore whether games might be sexist and our community jumps to attention to prove that they damn sure are.

No, that proves sexist people exist and I am beginning to think that trying to have a discussion with anyone who believes such a statement is pointless because they are only seeing what they want to see. Those threats mean jack squat towards her point other than there is a level of immaturity that exists amongst the huge demographic crowd that includes men, women, teens, elderly, etc. The fact that her project got so much attention on the internet only proves that trolls are bound to show up, not that she is right by default. That's illogical thinking and is actually just as based in prejudice as the statements made by the trolls.

While I am here typing crap, I have a related note. If you think she got the hate because people were afraid she could somehow take away our video games, you're not good at guessing motives at all. Back in 08-09 Game Informer did an article on some chick that played games and how guys acted as if that was a rarity and some stuff... it was a good article, I don't remember the details though. I do remember that it was the issue when Alpha Protocol was announced and was the cover story. Anyways, since then I noticed a movement happen in the games industry about women in gaming as it was just getting started real heavy leading us to today. Somewhere along the way, Feminist Frequency started popping up on message boards and I checked them out. I honestly thought in my mind "Ugh, this chick won't be around long. She is TERRIBLE at making a strong, or valid for that matter, argument." She slid back into obscurity of course for a couple years with somewhere around like 35,000 followers on the entire internet even with free advertising for a while. She was not met well early on as people judged her arguments on their actual merit.
I saw her pop up a few times later down the road, usually as a joke, got a chuckle and moved on. Understand, I am all for games broadening out and giving us some diversity but unlike (what I assume is many, due to this fiasco) others, I know what it will probably take to get us there. First, it is not a "movement", but rather social acceptance of the medium and we are close with the wide amount of people now partaking in the hobby. Elderly people now buy systems and play games. Maybe not like those who register here, but they do. Many people stepped into gaming this past generation with the Wii and phone apps working as a stepping stool. We're already on the way, we just need a bit more time - not a movement. I swear this new generation thinks everything needs a movement, I sometimes think they idolize hippies and civil rights activists.
Anita is merely something for them to attach to a movement though and unfortunately, she has decided games are sexist before even making the videos. The videos are not about whether games are sexist or not, it is about HOW THEY ARE sexist. EDIT: Actually, its not even about that, they are about faux pas committed by game X or Y. "Tropes vs. Women" and her previous Tropes vs. Women series was already a disaster due to her shoehorning in any glimpse of sexism she could find no matter how much it required skewing the source material. The idea of a video series actually looking into the culture of gaming from the perspective of women is a good idea... hell, a great idea. A video series looking at sexist tropes in games is a worthless idea. Having Anita Sarkeesian make the videos is a fucking terrible idea.

No one is afraid they will take away our games in regards to Anita, they are afraid she is gonna spread a lot of stupid into the world for no reason. Look at how many people are already pointing at her in agreement going "Yup" and she hasn't even made a statement yet. She got trolled and people said "She's right!" As for the WoW guy, yeah he is retarded that's why he makes a good springboard to use as "proof" Anita is right. Which is about as logical as crucifying Anita for something her fans did or said and how many times have you guys jumped down the throats of a detractor for doing that? It's an OK tactic so long as its your side doing it, I guess is the mentality being used in the article.

 

[DeadpanLunatic]

I have removed my words from this site.

 

[grey_space]

Failing thread is failing due to Dune reference in title and then NO DUNE!

op, Not a bad article at all. An enjoyable well-balanced read I felt.

Yer man sounds like a terrible woman-fearing douche tho.

Well deserving of a good slap.

 

[Brainwreck]

FEAR IS THE LITTLE-DEATH THAT BRINGS TOTAL OBLITERATION.

Yes, the only reason I posted was because I noticed the title.
Now I feel stupid for remembering the Litany against Fear, because it is dumb.

Also, guy in question is skumbag and can go choke on a chode. But that's obvious.

 

[SonicWaffle]

When the hell did we get to the point that online multiplayer environments in which people voluntarily sign up for danger have been placed under the control of Barney the Dinosaur?

I'm with you. I realised that WoW is nothing for me when someone started berating me for PvP in a PvP area which you could only enter if you reached maximum level and that was classified as an open PvP area with events based around it (Tol Barad).

I just roamed around and killed everyone on sight, he was one unlucky bastard to cross my path 3 or 4 times, I didn't even realise that. Then he started talking how people would start hunting me down and I won't have any fun on the server anymore. He couldn't grasp the possibility that I wanted that to happen because the situation I was in could not be classified as fun in any way (the situation where PvP was only accepted in battlegrounds on a friggin PvP server). For fucks sake, I was in the one guild that throughout WoW was known for camping raid entrances and attacking cities to provoke open PvP. During the end of Burning Crusade I was among the most hunted players (there were several people that had me on 'Kill on sight', a lot of fun times resulted out of that).

This was literally the day where I stopped and realised that even with my delicate 21y back then I was from another time and not really welcome in the modern MMO(RPG)s. I moved to TF2 and never looked back (though I miss the fun I had with my warlock Kaspar - the namesake of my nickname).

I actually hate PvP. I dislike losing my stuff, I dislike losing my invested time (assuming I've been earning XP and then been killed before I could spend it), I dislike the grudges and the petty bitching and the people with a kill-on-sight list and the people with a kill-everyone-upon-login mentality. It interferes with my game, and I get negligible benefit from it because while I do enjoy stealing from other players I don't like the combat aspect, or the fear of being randomly attacked whilst going about my business.

My simple solution to this was to start a new character, and not to go PK. Just because I hate it and can find absolutely no fun in it doesn't mean the concept doesn't have merit for people other than myself. The root of the current dumbing-down problem seems to be people who can't accept that, and who want to entire concept of PK/PvP toned down so that they can play it their way.

 

[DeadpanLunatic]

I have removed my words from this site.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Fair point, the response of "oh please, don't look into this" does not bode well for what a critical examination might find, but it is a different matter. Who knows, maybe people were freaking out over nothing and games will actually be acquitted of having problematic content. Seems unlikely, but still.

I'm not quite sure that's what the response was indicating. It seemed to me that people weren't so much worried that Sarkeesian was going to uncover some X-Files-style conspiracy in the world of game development that endeavoured to keep the wimminfolk in the kitchen, but that they were more angered by the suggestion that video gaming is inherently sexist. There are probably a lot of gamers who took offence to that, because the (bad) logic at play is that if you love something inherently sexist then you are probably sexist.

A lot of the commentary surrounding The Anita Affair gave the impression that people felt personally slighted by her, amidst all the rants from anti-feminists and other assorted lunatics. Video games are bad, and you are a bad person for liking them, if you see what I mean.

Yay, free high-fives.

You say that as if people usually charge

Oh, sure. I suppose targeting her as "the cancer killing BioWare" while blaming her for things she was absolutely not involved in (like, of course, the ME3 ending) had nothing to do at all with her gender. No no.

I realise I'm now getting mixed into a part of your post that was directed at someone else, but still; I think you're off-base with this part. Was Hepler's gender a factor in the hatred she received? Undoubtedly. I'm not so sure it was a major part, though. It was more about making her a scapegoat and attacking her on the basis of general anger with BioWare after her comments got her noticed.

I'm not naive enough to say gender didn't play its part, but the fact that sexist epithets were levelled against her and that assuredly some of her detractors were largely attacking her for posessiong of a vagina doesn't mean it was an event entirely driven by sexism.