Still, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. TERA chose high heels, skimpy armor, and lolicons. And thus they get the audience that is primarily attracted by high heels, skimpy armor, and lolicons.

Blessing of Kings: TERA Beta Weekend.

File this under “Reasons I Won’t Be Playing TERA“…

permalink » comment? » 51 words posted in: Massive Multiplayer, Quotes, girls don't play videogames

Which all added up to why marriage is a keen example of the issues I had with Skyrim. It’s a game with a lot of detail – huge numbers of things to do, sure – but no depth. No connection for me, the player. Everyone in the world is basically waiting for you to come along and solve their problems, be in the return of dragons or delivering letters to towns up the road. Skyrim is a single player MMO, and the in-game marriage system was a continuation in that vein.

Marriwage Bwings Us Togethwer, Skyrim-Style.

Skyrim is a great game if what you really want to do includes activities like collecting 2,000 lbs. of brooms. Not so great on the emotional connections.

permalink » 1 comment » 122 words posted in: Lamentation, Quotes, game:skyrim

This weekend, as I was taking a chocolate bunny from the remains of a land-going fish assassin, a man carrying 1250 ingots of iron in a belt pouch remarked to me that it was unrealistic that he could salvage wood from charcoal. I had trouble hearing him speak from a different continent, partly because of the way 13,507 gold coins were clinking in my pockets[.]

[GW] Tooth Enamel and the Aging Adventurer.

True story: I have encountered the “gold coins” problem when trying to write videogame-based fanfic. Sure it makes sense in a game that you can carry six suits of armour and five thousand gold coins in your inventory but, erm. When you’re writing fiction, the lack of that makes certain things that would be trivial in-game quests (“go to the next town and buy our camp a month worth of provisions”) become suspension-of-disbelief impossible. I mean, have you ever actually had to carry around a thousand coins (denomination/s of your choice)? I have, and let me tell you: It’s really, really heavy.

(See also: Homestuck.)

permalink » 3 comments » 176 words posted in: Quotes,

As you zoom about the galaxy, you’ll encounter many fat guys. They’re soldiers, wardens, shopkeepers, spies, smugglers, community organizers, and Jedi. You’ll see not a single flippin’ fat woman anywhere. They just don’t exist.

And if erasing fat women from the galaxy wasn’t enough, the protocol droid on my ship helpfully informs me every once in a while that he’s put my crew on a diet. My crew of athletic guys and one skinny woman; all of whom spend their time sprinting across strange planets, getting into fistfights with monsters, and kicking the forces of evil in the face. God forbid these folks exercise their own discretion about how much fuel their bodies need. Not when BioWare can get in a cheap shot at fat people and call it a “joke.

A Jedi Needs Not Games To #Fail: Ableism, Fat Hatred, Heterosexism, and Misogyny in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

One day, someone will make a videogame and there will be nothing problematic in it. Noth–

Oh, who am I kidding.

permalink » 3 comments » 171 words posted in: Massive Multiplayer, Opinions, game:swtor

Having a preference does not make someone entitled. Wanting to be catered to as a consumer does not make someone entitled. Seeking maximum value for one’s gaming dollars does not make someone entitled. Buying/supporting only the games you like is not being entitled.

Entitlement « In An Age.

“Entitled” is a loaded word, designed to shut down arguments in the same way “casual” and “immersion” are. No-one “wants” to be entitled (or be seen as “entitled”), so it’s an easy thing to disavow. But it doesn’t actually mean anything, at least not when dealing in the context of high-cost mass-market games in a saturated market.

Firefly still sucked, though.

permalink » 3 comments » 107 words posted in: Opinions, Quotes,

[EVE has] become such an unpleasant realm that many of players simply leave, having formed deeply negative and totally preventable but at least partly justified opinions of the game and its worst representatives, opinions that haunt the game indefinitely and cripple mainstream acceptance of the game and the sandbox genre as a whole. Compounding the problem, the sociopaths among the EVE playerbase band together with their sycophants and hardcore-wannabes in large, organized, hateful, vileness-spewing collectives out of self-preservation, which further aggrandizes e-thug ideology, inculcating this culture of asshattery and locker-room one-upsmanship that seeks as its only goal to offend. A quick Google search on “harden the fuck up,” for example, conjures up a slew of disgusting EVE slang that is common even outside of the game. Rape-cage. N****r-fleet. Motarded. These are not good people. This is not funny.

Bully for you « skycandy.

The whole article is quotable. Go read it. Now.

permalink » 2 comments » 152 words posted in: Opinions, Wank & Drama, game:eve online

Fun should never be a choice. We should get lots of fun. [...] Let me choose things that matter, let me have all the options for fun because fun doesn’t make a difference.

The Grumpy Elf: 10 Reasons I am Not Excited About Mists.

Visual customisation — which is what is being referenced here explicitly — is fun. This is where I think superhero MMOs like City of Xes get things a lot “righter” than the traditional fantasy MMO model; my character should look like what I want her to look like. Why should her visual appearance be linked to her numerical stats, or (shudder) her dungeon progression?

permalink » 2 comments » 108 words posted in: Opinions,

The partner of a co-worker of mine loves Birdo. Like, love loves him. She’s also completely convinced he’s a “she”. which wouldn’t be to bad in-and-of-itself, if it weren’t for the fact that she treats it as some kind of… massive insult and personal slight if you happen to mention Birdo’s actual gender. Like, reducing-a-thirty-year-old-woman-to-tears level of “personal slight”.

Transphobia, indeed.

permalink » 5 comments » 71 words posted in: Miscellaneous, quiltbag

But this “it’s just a game” excuse only holds up as long as we are talking about avatars doing in-game action against other avatars, with no deeper emotion involved between the players behind the avatars. That is not always the case. If you read the stated goals and announcements of the Goons, they do not just want to achieve in-game goals; they *say* they want to cause emotional damage to the opposing players. A “win” is not shooting down the enemy spaceship, a “win” is making another player ragequit in frustration.

I believe that such behavior is evil. I believe that Alexander “The Mittani” Gianturco is evil. I believe that the real person blogging under the name of Syncaine is evil. I believe that wanting to win over the opposing avatar is okay, but deliberately wanting the player behind the opposing avatar to be emotionally or physically hurt is evil. And because this wanting to hurt the *real* person behind the screen is a motivation of the *real* person committing those acts of ganking, harassment, and bullying, I do not believe in the excuse that somebody is just “playing evil”. You can have multiple identities, but not multiple sets of moral[s.]

Identity and personality [emphasis added].

Not only is this sort of activity evil, but we shouldn’t tolerate or — worse — laud it, either. We should, like Tobold, be calling it out for what it is. Because rallying your dribbling mooks to harass a real life person into real life suicide is a real life crime (at least, it is where I live), and anyone who supports, assists, condones or excuses that behavior is not only criminal but a piece of reprehensible scum I feel lessened for even sharing a planet with.

This is not okay. And if you think it is — even a little bit — then you are not okay, either.

permalink » 4 comments » 314 words posted in: Community, Wank & Drama, game:eve online, people:tobold

I thought that I should just be able to be a gamer, be one of the guys, that my gender didn’t matter. I was half right – I should be able to be a gamer. But now I’m proud to be a woman gamer, I’m proud that I’m in the minority. It wasn’t until I joined up in a male dominated industry that I realized just how hard you have to fight for legitimacy as a woman in games. Effy mentions that the only thing that holds us back is ourselves as women. And I call complete and utter bullshit on that. I’ve worked my way up to Studio Director, and it wasn’t easy. I had people telling me that I slept with someone to get my position. I’ve had people call me a bitch for being assertive and forward at work, traits that are stereotypically male. I’ve had people act as if it was weird that their manager is a woman. I’ve had my arguments dismissed because I’m not a hardcore enough gamer because I’m woman. I’ve sat in the room and listened to people talking about ‘raping’ people in Starcraft. I’ve been a part of the bro culture and felt like I wasn’t being included. I never held myself back, but it was a difficult fucking fight on my way up because of systemic issues that I have no control over. That’s the patriarchy, y’all. It exists even if you choose to ignore it, and it affects people that aren’t as privileged as you.

FYI, you’re a feminist..

Being anti-feminist is just so trendy. I mean, it lets you rag on women, blame them for the actions of men, and the men will totally backslap you and cheer you on and call you “bro”… right up until you become the target of their bile and, sheesh girl, calm down. It’s just a joke, a’ight? Stop being so hysterical and emotional. But you can’t, can you? Because it hurts. And when you’re an anti-feminist, where do you turn? The men only want you when you’re propping up their egos, not when you’re trying to get them to admit they’re wrong, and you’ve alienated all the women… right?

Well, no. Because, let me tell you, we’ve all been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. Us feminists, and us feminist gamers in particular. We’re here, we understand.  Really. And one of the things about being a feminist is that, come crunch time, you support other women. In Patriarchy, that kind of solidarity is the most radical act of all.

permalink » 3 comments » 427 words posted in: Community, Wank & Drama, girls don't play videogames