Blarghagh

I'm unfamiliar with the terminology, but Operations are Raids, right? Warzones are Battlegrounds and Flashpoints are Dungeons? Because generally Raids are the bread and butter of MMO Endgame. I wonder how that'll go.

As far as I know they're downsizing the amount of servers, offering rewards for server transfers and plainly merging some. This is just what I heard though, I've only been playing it for a week on the free trial - but it's hella busy in the starting zones at least.

I used to hate cats, but now I have two. They're awesome. Plus our cats hate each other, so I can bet with others who will win a fight.

Past my "edit by" point, apologies for the double post, but video game news: SW:TOR is going Free To Play with Subscription Options. Good thing I didn't buy it after trying out the free trial about a week ago. Source: http://www.swtor.com/info/news/press-release/20120731

The only thing I always thought BG2 missed was a multiplayer arena. It would have taken them an hour to make it. ****ing ****. This made me laugh out loud. Thanks a lot.

As long as it's not like World of WarCraft, where ignoring, blocking or muting someone just means they will jump on the next toon to keep going.

Hence the qualifier of "verified" reports, which I'm sure is possible to do. Most messages leave some kind of trail.

Now I feel bad for killing him so many times.

Huh, I was not aware of that. Awesome.

It's a start, and I bet there are more ways. Something I've been thinking about is that ridicule seems like it would be a good weapon, anyone with enough verified complaints gets their voice chats auto-heliumized, their chat font becomes pink comic sans, I don't know. Make sure that anyone who spouts hate speech is automatically funny more than anything else. EDIT: Of course, some jokers would do it just to get those things, and other would see it as a badge of honor.

This is not about the world. This is about games, not politics and free speech, which is a much higher reaching subject that most people seem to be debating here yet is irrelevant to the subject of "pressuring devs to create measures against discrimination inside their private online environments". It's also not about nitpicking what deserves the most attention. I am aware of misandry existing and any measures devs implement would simply ALSO apply to that. It's as simple as that. It doesn't matter one iota which type of discrimination gets the most "air time", making debating it entirely pointless. The reason most of my examples have been about mysogyny is because there are more recorded incidents of this I could reference to, not because of your bull**** and insulting projections of needing to "protect weak girls". There's been plenty of references to racism, discrimination on sexual preference and ableism in this thread as well, so implying the entire thread is about "big bad men being mean to little women" is ridiculously selective and simply false, especially because anything discussed could just as easily be applied to misandry. With the acknowledgement of this issue, debating this as an issue in this topic any further in this context is a waste of everyone's time, including yours, and is just railing on about your personal pet peeve rather than participating in the actual discussion at hand. Also, your offensive manner about the subject, no matter how true, just serves to make sure nobody will take it seriously simply because of the way you are saying it. By your manner you are making the subject seem less of a big deal, effectively making it worse. Honestly, it just makes you come off like this:

There's a few loose ends, but not enough to base more games on. Plus, Word of God states that this is the last Diablo game, but they might be doing more games in it's universe.

Already adressed, Volourn, now please don't project your bull upon me.

Yeah, I like Reynolds, he doesn't have a lot of range but he's generally entertaining (he was the only thing that kept me from walking out of that third Blade flick and while the script ruined Deadpool, his early characterization of Wade Wilson was spot on for the character). That being said, he's a HORRIBLE choice for Batman.

I'd think this thread would have adressed all the "sticks and stones" and "it's just some tosser cursing at someone" ideas. There's a difference between profanity and being harrassed and attacked for who you are. I don't care about bad language, what I care about is keeping these public places free from hurtful hate speech, rampant racism and discrimination and the inexcusable behaviour towards women that is somehow prevalent among gamers. People shouldn't have to hide who they are to play a game, and they definitely shouldn't be attacked for it. With these last few posts about nosepringling this thread seems to have run its course so it might as well be closed. It only seems to have created rationalized passivity anyway.

Found out SW:TOR has free trials, so trying it out. It's... WoW with conversation. I guess it's okay. Don't think it'll hold my attention for long. Plus, I hate that they keep using music from the previous games because that just reminds me what this MMO brought to an unsatisfactory conclusion.

I think Diablo 3's always online debacle proved that despite weird or draconian measures, people will still buy the game.

From the reviews I've read critical concencus seems to be Ryan Reynolds was the only good thing about the movie and he has a decent Box Office draw by himself. The general audience seems to like him. Not trying to defend him, just sayin' the studios reasoning doesn't seem to concur with your opinion.

Is Il-Khan a title amongst orcs or half orcs, or is this guy related to old Gromnir?

I'm surprised at how often it's been implicated in this thread that gaming is for children. Do you people even know where you are posting? And when I've paid for a product to supply entertainment and escapism, then hell yes I want it to be a happy bubble rather than a place filled with abuse. Or at least a bubble where everyone is allowed to play.

I... urr... erm... what?

Misandry is also discrimination, and therefore would fall under bigotry. Harrassment often goes much further than "just one tosser saying some nasty things". That's just a marginalization of the problem. I've both seen and heard accounts of people in MMO's literally being followed around for days by groups of harrassers creating new toons simply to constantly hurl vicious insults - despite being able ignore and block users it eventually turns your experience sour because you're constantly having to deal with abuse and discrimination. A lot of women have learned not to let anyone know they're female in games because it tends to create a ****storm of discrimination from groups of people. It's created an environment where many people don't choose anonimity but are forced to hide integral parts of their identity. As for solutions, I don't have any that I know will work, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. Since devs want to keep their customers, I'm thinking permanent bans are out of the question, World of WarCraft shows temporary bans even when people are still paying for subscriptions have only slightly impacted the problem. I'm going to cite James Portnow's idea of auto-muting anyone with enough verified complaints. Only people who actually want to hear the person will unmute him. I don't know how this will work out if actually put to use, but it might work at least to some extent and it seems worth trying.

He can get away with it because we let him get away with it. I bought the game same as he, the developer spent a lot of time trying to build a community around this environment, why should we let him get away with it? Uh-Schwaaa? I don't even... Okay, so I said I'm not completely sold on it, that it doesn't matter to me, and that I have no problems with. Everything is stated from my personal perspective and I didn't commit to the idea to do away with anonimity, I only said that I'm personally open to it as a possibility to solve this problem. How on earth am I speaking for anybody else? And this is applied to online video games only - I don't care about the rest of the internet. What happened to sticks and stones is that we left elementary school. Words aren't harmless, they can cause permanent emotional damage with long reaching consequences on their life. Especially children, as someone on the first page claimed is most games' target audience. Firstly, how exactly does the fact that this happens in real life make it somehow okay? Secondly, how does real life equate to a privately owned space like a video game at all? Obviously. You can't adress inequality without acknowledging it. As for freedom of speech, it's a privately owned space. For example, if someone here was to spout Nazi hate speech on this board they would get banned because it is expressly forbidden by the board rules. Is the Obsidian Board administration team surpressing Freedom of Speech? No. This guy can spout his hate speech all he wants, just not here. This is what I'm saying.

I liked Captain America, and Iron Man 2 wasn't good but it surely wasn't on the same level of failure as X-Men 3 was. Not really a movie, but I've been watching the old Gargoyles cartoon and wondering why there isn't a movie.

Yeah, I don't care if they want to congregate on their own little private island. That's their thing. Games aren't.