Longknife

I really doubt any of those metacritic zeroes actually bought the game. Why? Of course there's always those kinds of people who 0 or 10 a game without having played it for strange reasons, but what I mean is are you suggesting metacritic is not an accurate estimate of the quality of the game? Yes there are bogus reviews, but they go both ways. One of the highest rated 10 ratings is absolutely LACED with sarcasm as he calls EA god's greatest gift to mankind. So while ultimately I agree, I don't see what difference it makes.

Lawl some people seem to be taking this way more literally than they should. Why do I care? In a nutshell, it's fascinating from a psychological perspective in a multitude of ways. It's fascinating to watch customers who've had a sense of disappointment from past EA titles fall for it all over again. It's fascinating to watch EA shamelessly gut customers for money when they know damn well it tanks their reputation. It's fascinating to consider a game was knowingly pushed to release while using an engine not designed for this type of game at all. It's potentially fascinating to see how this will all be addressed and resolved. This, for me, is on par to if, for example, you saw a high wire circus act where someone's walking across a thin line in a way that should seemingly be impossible, and you're just fixated on watching it either to see how it'll finally give way or how on earth they'll succeed. Or as another analogy, maybe you see a boat taking on heavy water but it manages to stay afloat in a way that seems downright impossible to you, so you watch to try and figure out how this is possible and see if it finally sinks or miraculously manages to make it. Sorry to disappoint, but no, I wasn't literal about the popcorn. It's just news I wake up and check daily, right alongside with any other news stories I check up on daily. And yeah for me the most fascinating part ATM has to be the possibility that....allegedly this game uses a game engine that was used for Sim City before DRM was massively unpopular. In short, it's not secondary and not ideal as it focuses on online capabilities, when the goal was a game that focuses on simulation and has no online portion of its gameplay. They essentially made a racing game using a FPSer engine or the like, just as an example. Now...wouldn't there be somewhere down the line where someone says is can't happen and can't be salvaged and they need to mass delay the game and remake the assets on a more suited game engine? And yet that didn't happen and they shouted "full speed ahead" all the way until....this. That astonishes me. That a million dollar company with plenty of intelligent workers could be so negligent to let this happen to a game, let alone their BIGGEST money making franchise (or one of them, not sure how it ranks).....I find that downright astonishing. I mean I could be wrong on some of that, but that's just one little aspect where this fascinates me. Like I said, it's fascinating to me from a psychological perspective. Just all of it. So I'm watching and waiting to see what happens. How people react, both within the company and within the consumer base.

The key is to claim the territory as yours so that other people from your home country don't try to come over and claim it as theirs. Yesterday I encountered a waitress at my German cafe who not only expertly responded to an English customer without hesitation, but did so with an American accent, which is rare for northern Germany. (Most who practice their English would be taught British English) Her name was also Kimberly. I proceeded to interrogate her and discover she was an American German rather than a German American and didn't actually have American citizenship, just American family and one of them fancier green cards for easy travel there; not quite a dual citizen like me and also the other way around as far as where she was initially born. Lucky for her, or I would've had to kick her out on the grounds that I have claimed my town and am the only American allowed to be here. So start combing the streets for any Finnish people and weed them out so you can rule the streets with an iron fist without your country's leader finding out and getting mad at you.

You wanna bet money this is just people being edgy and giving instant 0's that are exaggerated and that much of this sentiment won't remain once the week is up? I've paid attention. I'm all-in on this ****. This game is gonna tank, and I'm gonna love watching it burn.

Figured as much and have been searching. Was just hoping someone would be able to say something like "ah the Daily Mail claimed that, it's BS" or whatever. I'm curious by nature so I still wonder where the hell this guy on the street got that idea from, but guess I'll assume he was just talking out his ass and not even reading a BS news source.

Stopping in real quick cause I heard some random guy in town walking by say Putin actually threatened to use nukes while I was out. Can't be true, right? I've googled and found nothing. I'm pretty sure the one thing the USA and Russia definitely manage to do right is recognize that's taking things a step too far.

This **** is like if the Westboro Baptist Church was like "yo can't you see I'm disgusting, why aren't we addressing this and doing something about it, wtf man?"

What absolutely blows my mind is that people are still buying games like the Sims 4 on day one. EA has a horrendous reputation. They've gutted customers for money, they've made buggy releases, they've been behind train wrecks like Sim City, and the previews for sims 4...? I'm by no means a sims fanatic. I thought the sims 3 was pretty meh and I recall a rather wonderful encounter on the Sims 3 forum where a disabled guy humbly requested disabled sims (specifically ones in wheelchairs) be included in the Sims 4 because he - like many people - would like to play his sim self but cant because wheelchairs aren't an option. To my disgust, the MAJORITY of the community reacted by saying disabled sims would be boring to play cause they'd be so worthless or that disabled people are disgusting and they don't want to see bad parts of life included in their game they play to escape. Myself wearing a prosthesis and sympathizing with the guy wanting to make himself, I basically told those people to **** off and die in a fire along with only two other women who stood up for him against an overwhelming majority calling disabled sims a terrible idea with very offensive arguments. When EA swept through and calmed the thread down, they decided to simply temp ban the minority opinion, aka myself and the three others. Well, I found out their ban system at the time relied on cookies, deleted my cookies and spent several hours spamming their forums and calling them **** suckers. Been banned from all EA services and networks ever since. Aside from that? As stated I was already disappointed with the Sims 3 for multiple reasons. But even with my limited knowledge of the Sims 4 and limited interest in its news, I heard about development problems. I heard it was initially planned to be DRM but that was scrapped once Sim City took a dive, BUT the game remained on the engine intended for online play (aka a limited one). I saw the big list of all the features that'd be missing from the game. And most importantly, I paid attention to the feature they championed the most: emotions. Uhhh... Those are buffs. Mood buffs. They existed in the Sims 3. Yknow like how you could visit a library and get the little "diligent" or "inspired" moodlet that made them gain skills faster. The only difference is the Sims 4 polished them up and attached more stuff to them, such as animations or little social interactions though. And while that's neat....? Reality is it won't float that boat. For example my sims in sims 3 might get the stir crazy moodlet for not leaving the house for an extended period of time. Do I care? No, I tell them to keep improving their skills anyways because it's just a minor mood debuff. How is my sim being angry going to discourage me from focusing on getting a promotion or getting new skill points? Doesn't seem like it would. It's shiny and distracting, but that's just is: it's a distraction and nothing more. It's not a revolutionary new game mechanic, it's moodlet buffs being shinier. AND YET PEOPLE LINE UP AND SAY "PLEASE TAKE A DUMP IN MY MOUTH AGAIN EA." Absolutely blows my mind..I'm sure there are some people legitimately satisfied with what they're getting, but at the same time I find it hard to believe that the majority of people who buy EA games are oblivious to missing features and don't have some degree of disappointment. You are not entitled to try and ignore that disappointment, EA is entitled to fix that if they want your money. And yet people handle it like it's the other way around.... Absolutely blows my mind.

Had a thread about this game on the Bethesda forums but got slapped with a two week ban for being an ass towards Skyrim (I REGRET NOTHING!) so I can't laugh with my buds over there at this game. :c Am I the only one that enjoys watching greedy companies like EA get the snot kicked out of them by reviews? Surely I can't be the only one. :D Guess I'm under the delusion that moments like these are potential moments for sucker-like customers who'll blindly buy anything to wake up, or for greedy companies to realize they should probably focus a tad more on customer satisfaction. I'm literally camped here watching metacritic reviews: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-sims-4/user-reviews

I still find the idea of artistic integrity being threatened by evil feminists in a medium where even a hint of true innovation or creativity is ruthlessly stomped out by big publishers patently ridiculous. Lawl well by no means did I mean the gaming industry is just the pinnacle of the arts, cause lord knows most games are made solely for profit and not with any artistic value in mind. Regardless, I wouldn't want art censored ANYWHERE. If her complaint were targeted at movies or books I'd be equally upset. My stance on the whole "are games art" is that of course they can be, just like any form of media can be. Thusfar though they're seldomly used as such.

I just want to note that I have been complaining about the misrepresenation of video games since her first tropes vs women, even in this forum. But at least I'm glad people are starting to see the bull**** now that a game that is very dear to many of us, beign big obsidian fans, gets completely misrepresented to the point that anyone that played the game know she is shamelessly lying to us all, and the funny thing is her video gets promoted by all the major gaming sites.Video Games should have no place for this kind of zealots that place their favored idoelogy over the truth, to the point they are willing to lie and manipualte to push their agenda. I've....dunno. I both did and didn't give her attention. I'm the type to examine something until I feel I can accurately explain in my own words what makes it good, bad, flawed, a masterpiece or what-have-you, but Anita as an example already had plenty of people calling her out on her crap, as well as plenty backing her up. I pretty much just quietly watched her videos myself, drew my own conclusions and occasionally watched criticisms, some valid and some stupid. The big one that made me think "yep, ignore her" was when she tried to claim "I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus" was sexist because it seeks to portray all women as promiscuous dishonest cheaters. Bitchpls wtf? Saint Nicholas was in fact a guy so I doubt the songwriter EVER had that in mind; anyone with half a brain knows the song is about a kid being too young and naive to realize it's his dad dressed up as Santa. To me, that was the point where I realized any form of censorship or dictating what's included in art would inevitably hurt some work of art some way and some how. For example if I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus were rewritten to appeal to her so that it was dad kissing Santa....well it just doesn't ****ing work. The song loses it's meaning entirely. And even if it upholds the meaning, it seems to somehow deny or downplay the REALITY of Saint Nicholas being a guy. I mean would we rewrite the Importance of Being Earnest to be the Importance of being....Claudia? And claim it wasn't written by Oscar Wilde but by....Oscaria Wilde? Art cannot and should not be dictated. You let the artists portray a story however they please. If you attempt to dictate it, the message gets lost. Back then though it was like "yeah but she's just some you tuber voicing an opinion I disagree with so who cares, no biggie." NOW it kinda scares me to think she and a group she's involved with are sincere about trying to push an agenda on the industry. It scares me not because I think "oh noes I don't wanna play a female protagonist!!" but because I don't want art censored or legislated. This isn't about men vs. Women, it's about art vs. Censorship.

That is exactly the case, though for different reasons than what you're claiming. The reality is that no one gives two flying ****s about Zoe Quinn. For all I care, she's a footnote in a bigger picture story. She's nothing but just one example of a corrupt market, but she doesn't deserve focus because ultimately she's just a ****ty person for trying what she may have tried, but who cares? The disturbing part is when the people who are supposed to be credible and reliable are ****ty people. If Hideo Kojima offers to sleep with kotaku for good game reviews for the next Metal Gear, yeah he's a ****ty person, but I care more about if kotaku would accept and be bought off by such a thing. That's why Zoe is a footnote and nothing more. .....or she would be, except she's a VERY convenient shield for Silverstring media. You see, the thing is....I don't know where you get your news or what you read, but I hardly see anyone rant about her in a misogynistic manner. The only people guilty of blatant misogyny are the random idiotic youtube commentators NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MINDS TAKES SERIOUSLY ANYWAYS, and the very boyfriend who probably didn't leak any of this with the goal of exposing corruption in the industry, but rather "**** shaming" as he might call it. So who values Zoe's name? Who actually WANTS her name to reappear in discussion? The very people who would side with Silverstring media. Why? Because she's a convenient shield. Anyone interested in SERIOUS productive debate doesn't bring her up, only the idiots who wanna make fun of her for sleeping around or whatever bring her up. And that's a convenient scapegoat for Silverstring media. They can point and say "look misogyny!!" and with that argue that all of their actions are justified or neccesary. But here's the thing. Again, we can make an "issue" out of ANYTHING. Anyone here black? Go make a video about the lack of black protagonists. I'll go make one about the lack of disabled protagonists, and another person who's a homosexual can claim there's a lack of gay protagonist and an issue with the culture. I would get $15,000 that the moment any of our videos breached a decent amount of views, there would be comments calling the black guy the N-word, comments calling me a pathetic cripple or comments calling the gay guy a flaming ****. That's not evidence gaming culture is racist, insensitive towards the disabled or homophobic. That's evidence that PEOPLE ARE **** ON THE INTERNET, ALWAYS HAVE BEEN AND ALWAYS WILL BE. You cannot take random little statements on the Internet seriously. If you do, you're an idiot. And yet Anita for example is making a career out of is...and succeeding. Succeeding to a degree where the gaming industry is constantly being told how bad and wrong it is, where journalists in the industry are providing her with some sort of stage from which to speak, and here we are with highly suspicious connections suggest heavily bias decisions from these so called SJWs in regards to actual winners of cash prizes in indie gaming festivals. And yet when someone complains, the claim made is "oh they're just being sexist." Listen, I know gamers and I know the Internet. Are there socially awkward or socially stunted gamers? OMG yes. Do they seem to have particular problems with women? Not at all, unless you mean problems with their ability to seduce them (sorry, but that negative stereotype's got some truth to it. Me and my French Canadian friend enjoy playing online games together to watch people flip **** when a girl with a French accent starts speaking on the mic). FFS just last week I recall on the Bethesda forums there was a discussion about if the canon Courier Six from New Vegas will be or should be female. Most people said no solely on the grounds that it seemed to diminish some of the story to New Vegas since a female would be far less likely to seriously consider the Legion as an option, but were by no means against the idea that Fallout 4 or the next Obsidian Fallout game be catered towards the idea of a female as the canon protagonist. The extent to which sexism withing gaming exists as a thing is no greater than the extent of sexism IN GENERAL within the world as a whole. The sexism rate within gaming is likely on par with that of movies or TV shows, so this idea that gaming should be specifically targeted and lectured on sexism is absurd and unjustified. Obvious flame-bait comments from idiots are cherry picked and presented as though they were a representation of gamers as a whole, and look around you. I don't see a single person within the entirety of this thread (as a small sample and example) being sexist. It's undeserved. The bitter irony is that these people are merely hurting their very ideology. People aren't thinking "oh Anita and Silverstring are right! Thank goodness they've shown me the light!" They're getting pissed the **** off that these ideological idiots are writing yet another chapter in the book of corrupt gaming practices, all in the name of a subjective ideology of what games should look like that they INSIST on forcing upon all of us. Top it off with the fact that games like Fallout New Vegas that go out of their way to be all inclusive (I've seen articles from homosexuals, women, Mormons and other religious groups all praising the game for portraying them fairly and "normal") STILL end up being showcased as examples of sexism in gaming in very misleading and deceptive clips of video all in the name of promoting her own agenda (even when NOT at all neccesary) and the girl is a lying zealot. And I promise you, the bitter irony is that she IS hurting her own cause and her own ideology, because some gamers who never even considered sexism at all and just innocently played their games are potentially being introduced to their first view of feminism. And if Anita and Silverstring are their first views of feminism, they're very likely to associate feminism with liars, scammers, corruption and over zealous ideological thinkers who force their views upon others.

Did you see my post? they coordinated the 10 articles saying gamers are dead. And this is not new, this has been happening for years. When the first tropes vs women came out, idiots like me complained about it but we don't have a big voice, the media praised her (since now it turns out they are associated with her) and the gaming personalities either praised her or ingored her and remained silent. Doesn't it seem weird that some personalities that are very vocal (like totalbiscuit or angryjoe) never really talked about it, aside from maybe a small comment here or there? The ones that analyzed and critiqued her videos were people that had NOTHING to do with gaming, like Amazing Atheist (a guy that talks about atheism and other things) and Thunderf00t (a guy that does experiments and debunks creationists) sure those guys are gamers but they were nowhere near close to the "gaming scene" These people, that talk... more like demand "equality" "diversity" and "representation" in video games are nothing but a small club, a closed circle of 1st world priviliged white guys and girls that are all in bed with eachother and are completely corrupt, they work in journalism, in indie development and in PR and who knows how deep does this go. And they have to go, and hopefully will, because if what I know is true, these people have commited fraud and this might get legal. Boys, boys, boys... There is no gaming journalist conspiracy to control the direction around inclusivity in games. Its not real, its in your head. You guys must stop feeding each others ideas with these preposterous suggestions Firstly the idea of a conspiracy theory is that it needs to be done subtlety and surreptitiously in order to have maximum influence . If Elvis acknowledged he wasn't dead ...well it wouldn't be much a mystery would it and the "Elvis Lives" cult would die an early death. If there were 10 articles written the same day in order to influence us poor silly gamers this wouldn't be a very efficient way to get a message across secretly because just look at reaction from you guys? An effective conspiracy would have staggered the articles over a period of time, you don't kill people with a deluge of over information. So logically what does this tell us? All it tells us is that this is a talking point that many people want to support or at least read about. So now you have gaming journalists jumping on the band wagon and giving there opinion or pretending to really care about equality but its just being done to draw people to there websites, but this is no conspiracy theory....its simple self-preservation and a way to increase revenue. The only reason people like Totalbiscuit don't discuss it is because everything that needs to be said about the topic has been said in his view and he isn't prepared to comprise his journalistic integrity with some lame " hey guys I really care about equality " article. I respect this type of stance So where do we go from here ? People like me do care about equality and want to see certain changes in games but there is an inordinate amount of attention on this topic now from people who never cared about it in the past. Let the storm of media attention end and we can carry on discussing meaningful changes in games That's just it and that's exactly WHY this is so sick: because it is not a conspiracy theory. Look, conspiracy theories simply don't happen. You don't secretly plot to make everyone think Elvis or Walt Disney are dead for no apparent reason and then manage to fool billions of people. There's no motivation for it, no motivation for bing secretive about it and the idea of fooling that many people without anyone catching on is insanity. But this isn't a conspiracy. This isn't that they've been trying really hard to keep it a secret, this is just nobody thought to look into their little media group because who does that? What this is, plain and simple and black and white, is Anita and Co deciding that there is a problem with the gaming industry that needs adjusting, and now lo and behold they've all gone out on the same mission and all have a decent amount of sway amongst various journalists and game awards. No one is saying they sat down and said "mwahahahaha let's control gaming journalism to make all games about feminism!" We're merely saying that they're so intent on their little ideology that they don't even think to recognize that some of the connections going on are currently amoral. Likewise, having that amount of sway in the media is unjust. What can happen is, for example, Anita gets that little threatening chain of messages that every single one of us has seen at some time in our lives. She freaks out, tells her friends (who happen to have influence) and they all sympathize by writing articles about how terrible the gaming culture is. Bam, there's five articles. Other journalism websites, not wanting to be left out of the loop or appear behind on the story, also begin covering it. And just like that, she's indirectly controlling and holding a disproportionate amount of sway in the media to what she deserves. The only reason this is being likened to a "conspiracy" is because finding it all out required someone to actually sit down and connect some dots. I promise you none of these people involved would actually DENY their connections as their direct intent was never to actually gain more media influence than justified, but rather they simply wanted to express their voice and it's happened in rather amoral ways. As an analogy? Let's take for example the people who want romance in Pillars of Eternity. As it stands now, they're one voice and opinion on the matter, as it should be. They're free to express their opinion and people are free to provide counter arguments, and ultimately obsidian decides if they wish to include it or not. What that little media circle is doing could be likened to if a group of romance lovers zealously went out of their way to make romance-related topics in the beta forums rather undeniable in frequency, going on a campaign where they run out and tell everyone they know they should go complain about it by convincing them a game without romance will suck. Furthermore, some of those forum members - let's say four - have connections to gaming journalists and they all go complain to them about it and convince them a journalism story about how pillars of eternity and it's lack of romance is a massive dissppointment that could potentially ruin the game. And surely, at least one or two other websites would follow suit and cover a similar story on their own accord out of a belief the story is obviously relevant since it's being covered by others and they don't want to be left behind. See the problem here? Obsidian would suddenly be faced with all sorts of pressure and bad press that they feel COMPELLED to address by caving in and including romance. In reality, the romance camp is the EXACT same size that it already is, but because they're connected they ensure that their voice and their opinion gets broadcasted more. In congress, congress gets corrupted when someone has billions of dollars laying around and then uses that money in bribes to convince politicians that their voice and their vote is somehow worth more than other voters with less money. Here? Here it's simply an illusion that their opinions carry more support and carry more weight than they actually do simply by being connected. I doubt they had ill intent from the get go or that this was even intended, but that doesn't excuse that how it is now is outrageously bias and unacceptable. That little circle is now a minority group with a minority opinion effectively acting as a majority in some circles, such a IGF.

I appears coordinated because IT IS. There are more than 10 articles that came out roughly the same day with the same talking point "gamers are dead" (you can click to see them). This narrative was built by Silverstring Media a PR company that works with all of these gaming sites. A pretty cultish organizations that seems to want to use gaming as a tool to build culture as they see fit, and you know in who works in Silverstring? Anita Sarkeesian, why do you think everytime she farts the whole gaming media is reporting on it? she works at the PR company that is associated with them, that feeds them narrative. Also here's a new video if you are interested in more information, Silverstring Media and corruption/rigging of the IGF (indie games festival) http://youtu.be/TgW5NRUfs44 This is the big story right here and THIS is what needs to be public knowledge. It's by no means a conspiracy theory if it all adds up, and the motivation is clear as day. Of COURSE Anita and Co would view their actions as good and helpful so they get involved in what's essentially propaganda. Pretty weird to see that kinda **** targeting gaming culture though....really, you've got no one better or more productive to target?

I watched this on repeat and blasted it on max volume til my neighbors called the cops. I regret nothing.

http://www.dw.de/food-imports-ban-backfires-on-russias-economy/a-17888880 Can't wait to hear about how this is western media lies from oby.

OH MAN 1) I'm assuming you're Russian. With all due respect, I know dozens of russians both as friends and through work (teaching english) and yet I know NOTHING of your politics. Why? Because I've yet to find a russian active in politics who actually pays attention. I'm highly curious when it comes to cultures and always ask these types of questions, but every Russian responds to questions about politics with "I don't pay attention cause it's all rigged and doesn't matter," "Putin's ok I guess" or "Putin is hot" from the younger women. Please, by no means is the west perfect or innocent of lying itself, but I have a very hard time hearing such a bold claim from a russian when - in my experience - it seems glaringly obvious the fox is guarding the hen house over there and half the population is none the wiser. I would love to hear some political explanations for why Russia's current system and manner of doing things allegedly works whereas democracy doesn't. And no not "I have an article by a fringe opinion supporting that idea!" I mean actual logical step-by-step arguments. 2) It would be exceedingly easy to take a photo of any run-down house in Russia and apply bleak-looking filters on it and say "look Russia is collapsing." Likewise you can find anti-ANYTHING arguments in any country. Your very own Ayn Rand is an example of a counter-culture to communism, and yes the USA for example does house counter-cultures to democracy and capitalism. Their existence doesn't signify utter doom impending, it's natural for counter-cultures to exist whenever the culture fails someone, which is inevitable. 3) You realize that not only do you have to consider admittedly corrupted democracies such as that in the USA, but peaceful ones functioning perfectly in countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Canada? It's very naive to claim liberal democracies are on the brink of self-destruction when the most peaceful and happy countries in the world just so happen to be liberal democracies. I'm all for critical discussion and constructive debate, but your statements wreak of blind patriotism that's too loyal to see the world around you for what it is. Trust me, I know DAMNED well there's flaws to the USA and other western democracies, but I'm realistic about their flaws. I don't go screaming about how they're about to implode when the reality is they need to shape up a bit, but it seems hysterical reports constantly leave the mouths of the russians. FFS, I remember about 4 years ago some Russian guy posted some claim that the United States was "ON THE BRINK OF ANOTHER CIVIL WAR AND DISSOLVING FULLY" and even had little sections divided up and a long BS theory about how it'd split and why, and how the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, West Coast etc would all break down and form smaller countries. Of course it all turned out to be horse **** and sensationalist hooey that's on par with a guy who spends all day writing Spiderman Fanfiction (no offense intended to Spiderman fanfic writers, I merely mean your work is by no means srs bsns, nor is that guy's "work"). Please, for the love of God, learn to recognize flaws and strengths objectively. I actually like when Russia and the USA criticize each other because both usually offer very valid criticisms of each other, but this? This isn't one such case. This is problems in democracy being at about a 4 being treated as though they were at a 10.

Ok, lets take what we saw in this video one point at a time. 1) You Bring your love interest a mammoth tusk. 2) Your Love interest is so happy to have a mammoth tusk, that she decides to marry you. 3) You rush to the Temple of Mara to have your wedding. 4) Hired mercenaries crash your wedding. A wild death-filled melee ensues. blood drenched bodies litter the floor. 5) the wedding is rescheduled and all is well. I don't see the problem..? This is several magnitudes better and more realistic than anything Bioware has ever given us. But on a serious note, one of the great things about Skyrim that never gets the credit it deserves is the way random events can come together to create their own story -sometimes a hilarious and memorable one. This video illustrates a wonderful example of that. Also, Marriage in Skyrim actually *works*, unlike Romances, because it serves a gameplay purpose. Except the Priest himself hired the Hired Thugs, and I actually suspect the guy got the thugs BECAUSE he wasn't a thief and therefore his disposition with the thugs was set to "friendly" as they had no reason to hate them, but because they only have one interaction programmed in (AKA fight) they fight you to the death anyways. The result is random thugs show up hired by the priest (the guy who initiated the quest to search for friends of the player) and a random fight ensues. And mind you I'm not blind to your humor, I merely mean to highlight that the moment you do that whole "thinking" thing, it kinda ****s with the whole creativity aspect about how this all makes for good storytelling. You see interesting storytelling, I see half-assed programming. ;P Likewise, what "gameplay purpose?" They start calling you "my love" and giving you a couple coins each day... Romeo and Juliet Titanic West Side Story (although this is only modernized version of Romeo and Juliet) Before Sunrise Pride and Prejudice Anna Karenina Gone With the Wind The Notebook The Time Traveler's Wife Jane Eyre Message in a Bottle As for example of critically acclaimed novels and movies that have romance as one of their main focal points. Wow Longknife, you talk about your point being utterly and completely negated. Back to the drawing board for you my friend Its a completely ridiculous suggestion to make that the idea of Romance is not a central theme in many movies or books *Sigh* no, that misses my point completely. Romance is not a key focus, it is a vehicle. Romance is used to help advance the plot or the story themes, but it itself is not a story theme or motif as it's simply not capable of being one. A meaningful story will include a lesson or a bit of wisdom to take with you when the story is done and over, and that Romeo loves Juliet is no such thing. It's not a bit of wisdom, it's a plot device. There's nothing life-changing about Romeo loving Juliet because you are not Romeo and won't care once the story is done. What you can care about though is, for example, Lily from New Vegas showing a conflict between pragmaticism and emotional choices, or between fantasy and reality. You can dwell long and hard on if pragmaticism truly is always the answer or if a world without human flaws and fractured dreams is even worth living in. In that sense, it's not even about romance being **** or garbage or a literary crutch or whatever, but about how ridiculous it is for the romance camp to state that romance is VITAL for a meaningful experience and this game will suffer without it. For anyone to claim romance is vital for a meaningful experience is like claiming a leather seats are vital for a cross-country trip in a car. Uhhh no, a working vehicle is vital. The leather seats are just fluff and we can survive without them.

Ok, that's what I call a goddamn liar, anyone who played FNV knows this is bull****, and any obsidian fan should be pissed about this. I'm sorry but she's a bad person, a liar and manipulator, I have no sympathy for her at all and I don't care about the alleged threats, I don't belive a word from her without hard evidence, period. Wait, what? Fallout New Vegas got called out as treating women as decoration? The game with 3 very fleshed out female companions, many well written female NPCs, and that lets you play as a female character? Wow, that is ****. Not only is it lazy, but it is a lie. When someone spreads false information like this, they need to be called out on their Bull****. Calling someone a liar when they have lied is the just course of action. A little late (been hella busy lately) but just thought I'd clarify: Anita has a video for "women as backround decoration." In it, Anita goes on a monologue on how women are treated merely as objects to lust after rather than characters with any depth, and later how violence against women in such games has little to no negative reprocussions and is sometimes often encouraged as a warped male power fantasy. During these monologues, she tends to show little montages of games exhibiting these problems. Amongst the games shown, Fallout New Vegas makes an appearance with her citing Gomorrah hookers as being an example of women being treated as nothing beyond backround decoration, while another clip showing her killing the Crier for the Atomic Wrangler is shown as an example of there being no reprocussions or minimal punishment for harming such sexualized women. (here, the clip CONVENIENTLY cuts off just around the moment that the Kings take notice and go red on the radar) I also recall Hitman Absolution was included in the montage and their fans were pretty pissed about it too. Supposedly there's an assassination level where you can sneak in through the women's dressing room at a club where all the strippers are, but that method of sneaking in is considered one of the worst and riskiest ways because you're so likely to get spotted. Likewise, Anita shows the protagonist killing every stripper in there and saying it serves no punishment and is "encouraged" while the reality is that the punishments are incredibly severe for doing that. So yeah, as I said. The woman's a liar and an opportunist. And I for one find it rather sad that she's being considered a "voice" for gamers solely because mainstream news networks pick up on her stuff and take it seriously. The other day I was actually hypothesizing I could probably make a fairly convincing series of videos where I say gaming needs more disabled characters (born with one leg myself) and that gamers as a culture and as a community are particularly hateful and spiteful towards the disabled, citing any negative comments I receive on my videos. Pro-tip: I would definitely get some form of comment threatening to kill me and calling me a sick crippled loser or something like that. Not because gamers hate the disabled or anything, but because that's the internet. The reality is it's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ****ing easy to find just one negative comment on the internet and claim it represents the face of an entire culture. All Anita has proven is the internet culture is ornery as ****; I think it's poor methodology to try and attribute sexism to gamers over comments made. Mind you, I'm not saying there AREN'T sexist gamers, I merely mean she seems to be drastically inflating the issue (for personal benefit) with very poor reasoning. Sadly, the media plays into it. Google her name and you'll find countless articles reporting on her recent little claims of some guy sending all those threatening tweets or whatever, eating up every word of it.

Why are you responding to people like myself - who provide perfectly valid criticisms and reasons to dislike her - by throwing us in the same category as people who are obviously scum? Listen in my last post I left this out cause it's irrelevant to the feminism cause, but the woman is dishonest and opportunistic. She's lied about her past and has - on multiple occassions - used misleading representations of games to promote her agenda. Obsidian's very own Fallout New Vegas got targeted by her as an example of "using women as decoration and not as characters." It doesn't get a long explanation mind you, but you'll find female hookers from the game appearing in a montage of "guilty parties," along with a claim that using violence against women or such sexually objectified characters isn't discouraged and in some cases rewarded. Nevermind that you can walk in the Gomorrah and quickly discover male prostitutes aswell, nevermind that the very example clip she showed CONVENIENTLY cuts off before Freeside blows her head off for killing a hooker, and doesn't even address the bad karma alert. She's a child. If she's serious about making a point, don't be a lying snake. Mind you I'm not referring her claiming to have grown up on games; I think while that's certainly relevant it gets more focus than it warrants. The misleading citations though? GTFO. Girl is clearly proud of her college life, she should know not to have sloppy citations. I legitimately question what her motive is. I personally think she knows damned well she's misleading people, but she's just sloppily tossing together the videos to complete her kickstarter end of the bargain so she can enjoy the money. So yeah, she's a joke. She's not someone that ANYONE should be taking seriously, and as such anytime I hear her say something like that I can't help but wonder if some commentator on the internet said "fk u bish go make a sammich before I slap you" and then OMG TIME TO CHANGE THE LOCKS ON THE DOORS!! Welcome to the internet Anita. I can log into any multiplayer game with voicechat right now and randomly get called a **** just for talking. Pro-tip: don't take that stuff serious and ignore those people. If you really care about feminism? You'd be wise not to defend her. She's a liability to the cause.

You see there are two types of players: 1. That are playing beacous, gameplay, mechanics, leveling, items, graphics, armor, etc. 2. Ther are playing becouse, plot, athosphere, roleplayability, dialogs, and some sort of "Fantasy". ....Really dude? Really? No, no there AREN'T two types of players, you wanna know why? Because me personally, the only two games in recent years that I'd praise are Fallout New Vegas and Dark Souls. I would NOT praise Dark Souls II, and you know why? Because although they improved on several basic mechanics, the story sucked. There WAS no story. It was blatantly obvious the vision was lost along with the old director. You're basically trying to claim I "just don't get it" because art and good storyline is beyond me. In reality you can find me on the Bethesda forums preaching "a good game can last you a couple years, a good story can last you a lifetime," slamming on Skyrim and praising New Vegas and saying future titles would be sorely mistaken not to divert more focus to good storytelling. Guess what? Romance is the easiest ****ing cop-out pseudo-deep storyline mechanic in the book. Look at Twilight. Look at Inuyasha. Look at 90% of anime for that matter. I hate anime, but might use anime as a reference example in a bit... There are COUNTLESS storylines and plots critically regarded as being absolute balls awful where the main focus was romance. Please, attempt to remove any romance and sexual tension from my above examples and ask yourself if they'd have an audience beyond chapter 2. Romance is a crutch, and it's a crutch that's used far too often. Great example? A great example actually is anime, for as much as I hate it. You wanna know the only anime I ever liked and considered to have artistic merit? Cowboy Bebop. Guess what? It's one of the few animes you'll name without sexual tension. Hilariously, there's people who clearly missed the message - the romance junkies - who try and insist Spike and Faye had something going on. No, no not really. Any flirting between them or moments of care was more or less a tool used to continue presenting the overarching theme of your past catching up to you or not being able to move on from your past; the exact same elements can be found between Spike and Jet, where there's obviously no romance now is there? Faye has no past and is trying to build a future, Spike can't escape his past and is practically stuck in it aka "living a dream I never wake up from," Jet has past struggles as well but as chosen to press on and try for a future aswell. They're foils. And lo and behold, it's one of the greatest rated anime of all time. Wanna know a highly acclaimed anime? Evangelion, where once again, the little romance there is takes more of a backseat as a literary tool rather than "KAWAII UGU DESU ^_^ WHEN WILL THEY REALIZE THEY'RE MEANT FOR EACH OTHER THE ANTICIPATION IS KILLING ME!" Likewise, know of any critically acclaimed anime moves? I do: Spirited Away. Anything by Miyazaki really. And while I don't really find myself a fan of any anime outside of Cowboy Bebop (anime is typically just too overdramatic for me), you'll quickly notice a pattern: the highest rated anime skip the romance crutch. NOW ISN'T THAT INTERESTING??? Could it be because it's been done before? Could it be that, for as interesting as it may be to watch a relationship unfold the first time, it holds NO artistic merit and won't be interesting on your second go-around? YOU KNOW WAT, I THINK THAT MIGHT JUST BE IT, BY GUM! Please, kindly sit down and think of a work of art and critically acclaimed movie, book, television show or what-have-you where the focal point was romance. I think you'll find the Green Mile didn't use that crutch, nor did Shawshank Redemption. And pro-tip: people don't go watch Death of a Salesman in the theater for the RIVETING ROMANTIC TENSION between Willy and the prostitute. Nah, as it turns out it's a social commentary on the American dream! Those crazy, silly artists and their non-romance-focused visions! When will they learn!? And if you think Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew or Romeo and Juliet are famous because of the romance, I'm afraid you missed the point. If you think Oscar Wilde's the Importance of Being Earnest is about romance, again you missed the point. Case and point: Romance is a crutch. It's a literary crutch. There's nothing wrong with romance existing as side flavor, something akin to Cass and the Courier, but that's it. Side flavor like that is exactly what we MIGHT still encounter. But romance as a focal point? That's a crutch. A crutch that has nothing meaningful to say and feeds off the lowest common denominator for an audience. I think you'll find you'll struggle to name a work of art with critical acclaim where the focal point or major element was romance, and I for one am rather disappointed to see this many people considering romance to be some great little element that any good, well-written story MUST have! Holy balls, kill me now.

.....MAGIC. You're aware this is what we're talking about, right? Are you aware magic is a work of fiction and is not governed by the laws of physics? Magic must answer to the law of its fictional universe and as someone pointed out on page 1 this is not the case. You're applying the rules of the fictional universes YOU are familiar with. This is a different one. Your logic is basically "this is the way all fantasy based off of Tolkien works, therefore it must always be that way." Heaven forbid someone break the mold.

Honestly I'm just so.... I don't even want to DISCUSS the male vs. female ratio in gaming. To try and explain it simply: Yes. More than welcome. Noooo... What I mean is, games are an artform. (or at least can be. Sadly most games are manufactured for money rather than made with love) Art? Anyone can make art. The right to produce art is on par (in my mind anyways) with the Freedom of Speech. Please, EVERYONE make art. But I also can't help but feel like ever since Anita Sarkeesian has popped up, there's this attitude of the gaming industry owing women something. As if we should present games not on their quality and merit, but also with a little gender quota in mind that ensures a certain percent of big famous games are geared towards women or made by women. No, it doesn't work that way. I'd be saying the same if there were a study saying most famous poets today are women and we need more male representation: then go EARN it men. Mind you, yes. Yes there are sexist gamers. If you want my personal, super harsh opinion of the gaming community....?? A lot of gamers are (or were, when I was a kid) socially awkward. It's a cliche stereotype, but stereotypes typically hold SOME degree of truth. Only exception I've found of this is stereotypes of African Americans where the racist stereotypes are so random and stupid ("DEY LIKE WATERMELON." TF does that even mean, and even if it were true, so what? Liking watermelon means racial inferiority or something? Lolgtfo). The thing that people often don't like to talk about is yes bullying is terrible. Why? Because it's unfair and wrong. But it's also terrible because often what happens is a socially awkward person gets bullied and either doesn't get a chance to develop social skills or learns from one of their most frequent social connections: the bully. AKA, they learn to be jerkish too. Mind you, I'm saying this not trying to make anyone feel upset or like a bad person. I was born in San Francisco - one of the "wheelchair capitols of the world" where me being born with one leg was the most normal thing ever and never got special treatment or weird looks. I later moved to Oklahoma and struggled for a bit with being the only physically disabled kid in the entire school district from elementary school to high school. (save for one dwarf, who wasn't bullied in elementary cause there his height was normal) I coped with it though because luckily I got a boss sense of humor and quickly learned to outwit anyone who made fun of my disability, and by middle school the entire spiel was dead, and most of my friends would describe me as the most outgoing person of the bunch. I'm sure plenty of you got bullied and came out of it fine too, so don't think I'm implying ALL gamers are socially awkward or got bullied and didn't recover; I simply mean we SHOULD acknowledge the percent of us that fit that bill is higher than by other social groups. Having played MMOs and been active in forums like this one...? Let's just say I've learned to have low expectations for such communities. (haven't noticed any problems with these forums though, in case people think I'm implying Obsidian forums are the same) Anyways, my point is that yes it's fairly easy to point at gamers and call them sexist based on the comments saying "**** OR GTFO" or "go make a sammich, don't make games." But 1) It's the ****ing internet. Must be born yesterday if these seem outrageous to you and 2) Why do we care about those idiots? Hell, half of them are probably joking and just enjoying the anarchy that is the web. Those idiots that mean it don't just have a problem with women, they have a problem period. They'd probably prove to have all sorts of social issues and prejudices. But why are we focused on these losers and acting as if they represent all of us? I have a ****ed up Youtube channel where the recommendations I get are SOOOOOOOO random. I think I broke it long ago when Youtube first started as they failed to notice a pattern with my watches, so it tried EVERYTHING. Did you know getting kicked in the nuts can be a fetish? I do, thanks to youtube recommendations. Recently I've been getting some Tommy Sotomayor guy who does nothing but rant about black women and how disgustingly pathetic they are. His logic is freaking NONSENSE as he begins to cite the most outrageous and outlandish news stories possible and say they represent the entire population of black women. For example he'll cherry pick only the BLACK women from the Maury show and say they represent the entire culture while the white women on the show are just losers and by no means a representation of the white community. That's nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense logic and it's clear the guy got dumped hard by a black woman (sure enough, did research on the guy and an ex-wife got him arrested for not paying child support. Big surprise there). I can't help but feel the same is being applied to the gaming community. Anita went on some rants with her admittedly often faulty logic and questionable motifs, but SOME people didn't respond with counter-arguments, but with "SHUTUP B**** GO MAKE A SAMMICH UR JUST MAD CUZ UR TOO UGLY TO GET A DATE." Lo and behold, suddenly those scumbags represent all of us and we all owe women more spotlight time in gaming SOLELY based on their gender. As I said, I just believe art shouldn't be controlled. There should be no quota, no guidelines, no moral compass saying "hey developers, you SHOULD go out of your way to try and make a concious effort of more women than you normally would." While there's theoretically nothing wrong with that and there are cases where that does work, overall the little mental note only distracts from the overall focus and message of the game, which I promise you, probably has ****-all to do with gender equality. Small example, imagine if Mr. House was re-worked to be Ms. House. In theory this is harmless, but that's just time and resources going towards reworking his backstory and all assets related to him to turn him female. It's small, but yes it's distracting from the overall theme of the game, which is war and has very limited focus on gender as both genders partake in war. (all of humanity does) So yeah, personally? I'm hesitant to say I'm sick of hearing these little entitlement speeches because I'm certain there ARE sexist men out there who will agree with me while not understanding my point whatsoever, agreeing solely because it gives them an excuse to continue hating the way they do. At the same time though I think those idiots are a lost cause anyways, what do we care and why are we focusing on them.

How much did you need to donate for a custom title? Do I qualify?

This. This is ultimately why Morrowind got so much crap. If we're being reasonable I don't think Morrowind's system (just as an example) was that bad as it prevented meta-gaming that became all too easy in Oblivion and Skyrim, but it was still damned frustrating and unpopular. And imo that was more "justified" there cause it added RPG elements to a shoddy RPG system. Here? There's just no need. It'd be pure frustration and ultimately serve to diminish the use and popularity of classes where a failed cast hurts the most.