Drowsy Emperor

Good riddance.

Someone complaining on the internet doesn't make it representative nor guarantee that their taking offence is justified. And of course there's the issue that I could tell you anything within reason and you wouldn't doubt me. Now this is a bit of a dangerous line of thought, but in reality unless I give you information that you could independently verify, you really have no way of know who I am beside me. I could tell you I'm a 30 year old man, or a 20 year old woman, or a 50 year old Scandinavian and you really only have my word that any of that is true. So I think that the inherent "you are the image you create" nature of the internet makes many people take them less seriously in regards to anything "serious". As a side note, this is why I've thought boards that insisted on you using your "real" name to be a bit silly. Just because I posted that my name is Roy McCarry and that sounds like a real name doesn't make it my real name. The argument usually goes that while everything is playing out on the level of fantasy as you say, the fantasy is defined by the male gaze. While there are women who want to be sexy, their definition of *why* Lara Croft is sexy might vary wildly from men, and thus when Lara is presented in ways that might support the male fantasy but not the female fantasy there is a disconnect created within the viewer. i know a few fans of the character who felt the swimwear / skimpy sexy clothing poster images of Lara really deflated the things that they liked about the character being strong and independent and - yes sexy - but clearly in control of those things. But then she's parading about like an SI model and she's not owning those aspects anymore, they're serving non-character related interests. If its true that we identify with characters either because we won't to be them or because we want to be with them, it'd be very easy to take a character whose initial appearance creates a wide appeal and then through poorly thought out choices weed out male, female or all players from remaining interested in the character. Yes, but there is no way to cater to everyone's fantasies, or indeed to even attempt to do so. Its naturally impossible for men to agree in what constitutes "sexy", why should it be any easier for women to define it either. The odd person might get turned off but most people don't even think so much into this. Besides videogames do not have sufficient depth by and large for clear lines to be drawn, they rely on imagination to fill the gaps. Lara Croft is so shallow a character that you can basically project whatever you want onto her. I'd wager that anyone complaining of sexism in games is really complaining about their cookie cutter nature and immaturity. Every woman is a babe, every guy a space marine. That is an argument I can relate to, but that's to be expected in an industry that targets primarily teenagers and their interests, and that has no moral oversight or ethical boundaries. In this respect, its just like every other aspect of modern media, be it newspapers, tv or films. Its not really about deliberate discrimination, its about selling a product to the absolute lowest common denominator so as to ensure that "everyone" buys it. And like in TV or film, even the slightly intellectual or sensitive sorts will always feel left out. If those who feel cheap playing a "babe" think I for example feel great playing some dumb **** gung-ho soldier type who can't string together a complete sentence to save his life they're sorely mistaken. Is that supposed to be my ideal? Some illiterate ass without a single meaningful thing to say? Hell, in history there are plenty of extremely educated and intelligent officers and soldiers in every army in the world. Real men, not plastic GI Joe's. Why can't I play as one of them? But I don't cry discrimination!, I just stop playing. They're not catering to my tastes not because they hate me, but because I don't matter enough. Sad but true.

I'm doubtful that even the supposed goal is well defined. If Lara Croft is a an example of the undesirable objectification of women, what's the alternative? Would a flat chested, slightly uglier Lara Croft really prove anything? After all, when the real world comes knocking any man may fantasize about a woman with large breasts and great curves - but is really likely to settle for something more realistic. Doesn't mean he'll love or respect the realistic option any less either. If so, what is the harm done exactly in that little fantasy? And are women really against that? I suppose there are quite a number of them who'd kill to look like Lara Croft or Angelina Jolie. So what if they ooze sex appeal, most people male or female want to ooze sex appeal and to be found attractive and desirable. That's a perfectly natural thing in itself. The point is that there are a lot of very flimsy conceptions driving the discussion. Its not a one way street paved with inequality and discrimination. Especially in gaming where everything plays out on the level of fantasy and no real, physical harm is done. As for the rampant insults and trolling - they're present on every topic that has ever shown up on the internet. There is always a new insult waiting for an available target. If you need proof, scroll down under any Youtube video. No one is spared, so in a way, a sort of equality is achieved.

What I find interesting about this is this type of breakdown is not at all what I see on comments (and certainly not the case on this forum). On some level there's a level of this going viral, and it's easy to be an outside observer that has an email address or a twitter account and can take a few minutes to write something up. I'm also curious if "the stage" is what motivates the more adversarial people. And I mean adversarial as in the types that are itching for a good internet argument (i.e. people like me, although I don't think I'm as intense as I once was... clearly I still have it in me somewhat). Despite a moderator telling me to do so on numerous occasions (on numerous message boards), I have very limited recollection about ever taking a discussion from the public space to the private PM space. It just wasn't as much "fun" then. Sort of like that bit in Thank You For Smoking where Aaron Eckhart's character tells his son that he's not trying to convince his son with the argument, he's trying to convince the hypothetical observers. In this sense, many internet pissing matches end up becoming a competition to see who can win, as opposed to any sort of attempt to educate or promote genuine discussion. There are certain people who flock to being contrarian. And there are some people who feel being an ass is a valid debating topic. True story - back in my days on Usenet groups, there was a guy whose common debating tactic was to take anyone who disagreed with him repeatedly and create a thread accusing them of being a child molester as a way to try and cow people from disagreeing with him. Its not a valid question. Really? Which arbiter of validity said so? What people do is always interesting from a social standpoint. How they do it is important from a social standpoint. Once you've satisfied the basic needs of your society (food, water, shelter) then things are going to turn to the luxuries of life and how those are used (or how they're available). Neither is what's posted on message boards on the internet. So we're already pissing in the wind, contextually, as it were. But I'm not sure that just because this message board isn't the real world doesn't mean it isn't worth it to think about broader topics. "Someone will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say that the greatest good of a man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living — that you are still less likely to believe." And are these broader topics worth considering. Feminism, which lies at the core of this discussion is a spent ideology. It achieved its political goals and subsequently its membership and their enthusiasm dwindled. As it usually happens in these issues not everything was achieved. But apparently enough was achieved for the general public to lose interest and fighting spirit. Why do these men then (because they generally are men) feel the need to fight a war on behalf of other parties - that are generally uninterested in it? Really, even at the height of feminism many women remained completely uninterested in it, being satisfied with their place in society. We've long since left that height behind, but these type of people remain - taking a stance for someone supposedly weaker.They're not weaker because this isn't a fight to be fought with bayonets. What's stopping all the female gamers in the world from petitioning every available company and website for a change? Nothing. Except: They. Don't. Care. Enough. The only tale that I can see there is middle class boredom in search of a cause to fight for. They're adopting a crusading mentality to satisfy their own need for a crusade, actual women be damned. Its extremely childish and immature.

In one of our more popular computer forums in Serbia the atmosphere was generally welcoming, spamming and rudeness were minimal so female users usually didn't bother to hide their identity. Which just proves mkreku right, because there were very very few of them. They mostly stuck to the adventure games sub forum and even there I doubt they were 50% of the regular users. And it was one of the least popular forums.

Its not a valid question. Games are a business and practically irrelevant from a social stand point. If games are the front where women's rights need to be fought for then that ideology is either lacking in real problems to solve or just gone wayward to the point of ending up in a neighboring galaxy. Wake up, gaming isn't the real world. Not in any truly relevant way. The article reeks of journalistic desperation at worst, misguided activism by basement dwelling individuals at best.

The only stands I like are of the Last variety. This has no real drama and far too little suffering.

Enjoy. Mmmmm, I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

Are you people seriously going to get so riled up over an article on a gaming site, places otherwise famed for valuable social commentary and critique? Frequented by educated, thorough and studious thinkers? Seriously?

What's this discussion about exactly? If you want a civil relationship on the internet its going to depend on the other person's upbringing, just like any other relationship. Its the only thing keeping the nastier sides of human interaction from surfacing behind the comfort on anonymity. Both genders often fail this simple test as evidenced by Facebook communication, even between people that supposedly "know" each other.

Personally, I'll take a pair of boobs over you lot any day.

I do so love it when everyone brings their little activ-ism along to a game discussion. Makes for good kindling.

I'm not particularly concerned about political correctness. The very notion is one step away from universal hatred. People don't express it for fear of retribution, but that doesn't mean discontent with today's political discourse isn't there. In fact the entire set of beliefs that's lumped together as "liberal" today (even though there isn't much liberty in having a very long list of things you're strictly forbidden from saying) is wearing down quite quickly and will probably find itself on the trash heap of history soon - because they're doing a good job of breeding the very sentiments they're supposedly fighting against. All ideas, thankfully, come with an expiration date.

It is? Where did you get this? BoNS is my favorite fantasy work. They said it in one of the reddit Q&As. Here. Cook sure knows how to pick his influences. I was wondering when something akin to Shadow of the Torturer would show up. Of course, WH40K and Fading Suns (among others) are kinda similar but just not the same. The concept art on the Numenera website suggests a setting leaning more towards science fiction though. The art and the class system are a bit too generic for my tastes.

It is? Where did you get this? BoNS is my favorite fantasy work.

Yeah, it's a little weird but the market is there. If people are so willing to fund it then how can you blame the company? I'm not really a fan of the stretch goal thing tho. Keep paying a bit more and more and we promise the game will be longer AND better!! Eh, that's already getting old. People would have been willing to finance anybody who would make a game with even a tenuous connection to Torment. All they would need is one or two familiar names to assure the public and aggressive marketing. It was just a matter of rushing in to be the first to do that - and waiting for the money to start raining. The thing is, my spider sense tells me InXile has very big dollar signs in their eyes and very little actual passion for the project. From the one video I've seen of Wasteland 2, the actual results of their work are less impressive than their promises. I have more faith in Project Eternity. Not because I have faith in Obsidian itself - it has made a fair share of disappointing titles, but because it seems a more honest, more or less original project that doesn't piggyback on anything else. That tells me they believe in their idea and that they're ready to work twice as hard to appeal to the same demographic - because enthusing people for something other than what they're already used to is hard.

I've had those same arguments as well, but hey, the people funding these projects are mostly people who don't have a market catered to them and if they want to support these promises, then that's no different to people preordering the next Bioware game or whatever. I've nothing against the people funding the projects or the crowd financing system itself. I disapprove of InXile's greed, marketing tactics and lack of at least one worthwhile game under their belt. They could have just as easily delivered Wasteland 2 first so we can finally eat that pudding, before launching the Torment project.

Being good at SC multiplayer is much less about tricks and tactics and more about pure speed and endless replaying to get the routine ingrained in the system. Unless you're going to spend the better part of every day playing long successions of matches, you're never going to be good/satisfied with your performance. Everyone else has several years head start over you. Its a second job to be good at the game. Find some real life friends to **** around with in the game, forget intensely competitive matches with freaks who haven't gotten out of their basements since SC2 came out.

They just identified a ripe market and are abusing it for all its worth. Gamers who were teenagers or in their early twenties when Infinity engine and Fallout games were popular have watched more than ten years go by without getting to play a game that will tickle those particular needs and building up nostalgia all the while. They probably never will experience games like that again because you can't relive your childhood indulgences twice with the same amount of pleasure. Its not about throwing in a checklist of pieces in a blender and getting your previous experience back. Which is what's being sold here. PS: Plus those gamers are people with jobs now and can finance ludicrously expensive kickstarter goals.

I haven't played anything in a while. I'm tempted to get the new Starcraft but the last campaign wasn't all that great and I've been hearing worse things about this one (from a gamespot review).

To make one thing clear: I don't hate the idea of another game like Torment. What I absolutely despise is the approach they're taking.

I see they're still suckering people in with what amounts to false advertising. I'm not throwing in a dime until a playable demo or some-such proves these people didn't come back from trash heap of video game history to cash in on every remaining piece of nostalgia. Btw I'm the last person on this forum to defend Bioware but the "let's slam the competition (without a single game to our name)" type advertising to draw in the malcontents is cheap cheap cheap. When your two greatest selling points are: 1. We're making a game that's going to be like another game with which it has exactly one english noun in common 2. We're making a game that's not going to be like their games ...something starts to stink like Volo's attitude.

I wish for it to fail because its riding on the back of a 14 year old game its unrelated to, and part of a trend in both games and film of abusing people's nostalgia for the purposes of making money. This is all done by people who haven't created anything significant since then, but all of a sudden they're promising cities of gold. PST's starting point wasn't imitation, in fact it was the exact opposite. That's why it worked. If their idea was so good, they could have stood by it without selling it as a pseudo sequel.

The irritating marketing behind the name is one thing but the point is that PST isn't a generic game that can be easily imitated with newer graphics. It has the stamp of its creator, the particular time it came out, its engine, the storytelling innovations and the well made setting. None of these things can be repeated either because they're too personal, unavailable or simply not "innovative" (or new) anymore. There literally is nothing to substantiate the "it'll be like torment" at all besides promises and the tenuous connections to the real PST.