Enoch

Those are some interesting articles which show that some journalists simply don't understand the problem. There's a very interesting response from one of the posters in the article you last linked, David Ward. "These articles were proof that games media was hostile to those that consumed games media, not because we are the stereotype but BECAUSE we had thought a natural progression had already occurred where the stereotype was disproved, but our media hadn’t gotten the memo. To think we’re simply mad because we heard “Gamers are Dead” hur dur derp, anger, is condescending – we understand they’re not trying to “take away our games.” We’re hurt because we’re alienated, we’ve had stereotypes thrust on us since the 80s, and it hasn’t stopped since but we’d hoped that our media (our advocates) were the last people to perpetuate those stereotypes." I'm not a GamerGate supporter (I guess I'll have to say this a thousand times) but I still feel insulted when I hear the press' stereotypical definition of "Gamer". But, oh no, sorry guys we don't mean you, when we say gamer we only mean the sort of virgin, neckbeard, obese, cisgendered, white, male, crybaby that we immediately think of when we say gamer, and you're not like that right? Yeah, that's not at all insulting. Edit: The Felicia Day article, well, I can certainly understand how she would feel that way considering that there are people out there that do have these very negative views on anything female and that the press puts all its focus on them. It's a shame because it honestly isn't a reason to avoid people who look like gamers to her (can you really tell? Is there a secret handshake I missed?). And that's the thing really, because all the focus goes out to the toxic GamerGaters suddenly all gamers seem to be suspect. That is an interesting post, but, as you note, there's still a step between where you are and where core GG'er supporters are. And (not to presume too much about your motivations) I think that step is largely political-- it's all this rage at "SJWs." As such I don't think that NYMag article is missing the point by much.

For what it's worth, the thresholds for this are 12 (2 of them), 18 (2, mutually exclusive), 22 (1), and 25 (1, mutually exclusive with the 2 18s). There are 9 joinables with no CHA requirement. By the way, you get credit for the CHA contributed by the NPCs you've already recruited, and they average around 3 points apiece. (The hobo and the mutant, unsurprisingly, are 1s.) So the 12s are easy to get, and the 18s aren't tough if you have a Leadership character with 5+ CHA, which you should unless you like your allies doing dumb things.

Clarification: by private twitter feed, I mean one that is tied to a private individual. Not a company, organisation or public persona. The kind of thing that is read by five people. It's less public than writing something in a toilet stall. Toilet-stall writing can't be sent to Gaben, Valve PR, and the FBI with a simple "RT@" by any one of the guy's followers.

But if you read the article, it becomes clear that the headline should have read "Valve reads frustrated man's private twitter feed, then removes the game he helped make from STEAM" Some guy got mad about his indie game not launching smoothly on steam and wrote some angry tweets to his friends and followers, and because of that, STEAM took his game down. Then to make it even sillier, some game journalist goes off and spins the mess into a "That showed him!" story. The guy didnt send Gabe Newell anything, he essentially said "Im gonna kill 'em!" which is a perfectly natural reaction to being angry and frustrated. I've mumbled way worse thing about Ingvar Kamprad when assembling IKEA furniture. What bussiness do Valve have reading some dudes private twitter feed? And how thin-skinned are they to go to the trouble of tracking down which game he made and removing it as revenge? And how does this **** even qualify as news? There is no such thing as a private twitter feed. He posted a death threat on the most publicly visible social media platform in the world. WTF did he think was going to happen?

As far as attributes, skillpoints per level and Combat Initiative are the most important derived stats. Get those high, and try to have 8+ AP on each character. Total skillpoints/level in the party should be 14 or better (e.g., party INTs of 4, 4, 4, & 10 or 1,1, 10, & 10). There is very little downside to dumping Luck, and only 1 character needs to have meaningful points in Charisma (because it affects the radius of your Leadership skill, which is necessary to keep control of joinable NPCs in combat).

Wow, it's gotten echo-chambery in here. Even Bruce has gotten tired of humoring you all, which is saying something. Anyhow, Kluwe is indubitably a troll with a consistent schtick build around creative profanity, but he's not wrong about the damage this whole thing is doing to the broader perception of people who play vidyagames. Rail about the latest outrageous thing on twitter all you want-- the message that the public gets is still "gamers heap abuse and scorn at anybody who suggests that vidyagames might be a little bit sexist."

Not to derail the thread and make it a junior version of That Other One, but I'm no sure that you quite got my point there...

Eh. Playcalling isn't the problem-- the Giants don't have the personnel right now. They were in a pretty sorry state after last season (that team was much worse than its 7-9 record would indicate), and made some smart moves to improve the club, but the chances of making the whole turnaround in one season were always slim. And, with Schwartz, Cruz, and Jennings hurt, the offense just doesn't have the players it needs for consistent success against better-than-awful competition. That said, if Donnell doesn't lose those 2 fumbles, that game comes right down to the wire. And the defense actually did better than I expected, given the limited minutes for Beason and Rodgers-Cromartie and the fact that their #3 and #4 CBs are both out for the season.

Two things: 1) As others have pointed out, the first bias of any non-state-run press corps is commercial-- how can it sell the most ads/papers/whatever with the least work? Sometimes that means that the media entity carves out a niche by targeting a particular audience, which brings in a second bias (the likes of The Economist going for educated businessfolks, tabloids going for the barely-literate, Fox for the American right wing, MSNBC for the American left wing, etc.). 2) When one finds oneself in a position where the great weight of world opinion is against them, some self-reflection is in order. Now, I'm not going to say that the mainstream opinion is always right, but more often than not, there is at least a little bit of logic going for it. Humans are subborn beasts, and are not easy to convince to change their opinions, particularly not opinions that they see as core elements of their identity. If there really is clear evidence on a point, and global opinion has generally lined up on the other side, it just might be that the bias you're looking for is in your information sources, rather than those supplying the rest of the world. Again, it's not 100%, but it's a good self-check to apply to ensure that you're not letting your heart get ahead of your head. (Point #2 applies equally to whatever has become of the gamergate thread since I last looked at it a few days ago.)

I think you're mistaking disinterest for censorship. Stuff about the Kosovar campaign doesn't get reported in the States (I can't really speak for other English-language publications, but I'd guess it's similar) because the press knows that their readers don't particularly care about it, and it's not pertinent enough to current world affairs that the press feels any duty to make their audiences interested. Not reporting on it doesn't mean that the press isn't "free." It was a pretty small campaign, and we've had 2 major wars and a few other small campaigns since then (with one of the latter going on right now). The public is interested in ISIS, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Ask them about the Balkan campaign, and they'll say "Oh, yeah, I remember that-- something to do with a guy named Milo, right?" (If even that much.) They're not going to sit down and read a long investigative report on it.

http://www.xkcd.com/1357/ Also: Fighter's links are entertaining. The difference being that nobody starts an online ragefest at the folks who point out the sexism and stupidity in that kind of entertainment. (Or, well, some people might, but nobody takes them particularly seriously.)

Put another way-- as a matter of demographics, those "gamers are over" articles were correct. Games are now mainstream enough that their content and the discussions over them get attention in the broader culture. (See: the various mass-media coverage linked in this thread.) And, thus, the content of those games and discussions are subject to criticism based on the vales of the overall culture, rather than just those of the people who have opted-in. In this context, Gamergate is a rear-guard action-- the folks who liked all the stuff they could get away with in the good ol' days aren't happy being subject to the standards of decency that apply in mainstream culture. In short, ya'll GG'ers are my grandma, wondering aloud for the thousandth time why it's not OK to call them "Colored" anymore.

Probably off-topic, but oby threads never have much of a topic focus anyway: I've been spending a lot of time lately driving up and down Embassy Row in DC. Given the frequency of stops due to traffic lights, bus stops, double-parked diplomats, etc., I've been appreciating the lovely variety of statuary along the route. Besides the usual kind of thing you see in a capitol city-- war heroes on horses, important political leaders, an occasional scientist or clergyman, etc., the various embassies have put up a lot of really cool statues outside their buildings. There's a spot near the Naval Observatory where identical-scale bronzes of Churchill and Mandela essentially face each other from across the street, each with one arm raised into the air (Churchill: V for Victory; Mandela: Fist). Makes you wonder about the kind of conversation those two might have. The Indonesian embassy has a fantastic new statue of Suraswati. If you peek through the fence into the courtyard of the Turkish embassy, you'll see a statue of Ataturk that is really well done-- with his chest forward and jacket un-buttoned and blowing open in the breeze, it's about as badass as you can make a sculpture of somebody wearing traditional Western business attire look.

Yeah, what I still don't get is what "ethics" or "integrity" in games media has to do with whether they make political statements or not. (Or which political statements they make.) I mean, mainstream media includes political op-eds, including those dealing with gender politics, and including some that offend some of their audience-- very few people considers that fundamentally unethical. A film critic might encourage folks to avoid a film because it includes offensive sexist themes, and nobody calls him/her unethical. Sure, games-related media are largely bought and paid for. This is old news that no mass movements were seriously raging about a few months ago. And, to my knowledge, nobody is sending death threats to the managing editor of IGN over their relationship with EA's marketing department. So I can't help but conclude that "ethics" is a red herring. Aside from particularized reactions to specific individual actions (e.g., insulting tweets and the like), and although sweeping statements about a group only defined by the hashtag they use are inherently difficult, it seems that, predominantly, GG's objection is politics. Specifically, games criticism that focuses on gender politics and on how the audience for games influences and is influenced by said politics should be "off the table" for some reason. Because "SJWs" are bad and oppressing their free speech. It's become just another "anti-political-correctness" derpfest-- as if pointing out and judging somebody for being a jerk somehow restricts the rights of that jerk to continue jerking.

Alright, why don't I recount how things have gone and ya'll tell me where I'm wrong. 1) Before any of this really started, there was an established record of a disturbing amount of hateful misogynist reactions to criticisms of vidyagames that happen to either come from a woman or point out sexist themes in popular games. Much more than one would expect just from background "trolls gonna troll" noise. (I.e., much moreso than in other mediums like TV or film.) 2) There is also an established record of major games media outlets being influenced by the games publishers, who provide access, ad revenue, swag, etc., and expect positive content in return. This is so well known that hardly anybody expects anything other than raves from major media. 3) Folks like Quinn, Wu, Leigh Alexander, and others indubitably experienced #1 first-hand on several occassions. 4) When the whole Quinn-Grayson thing broke, it brought another round of hateful anonymous abuse directed at Quinn. 5) Some like-minded folks in games media decide that they have an opportunity to maybe do something about this, and simultaneously publish columns opining that vidyagames' predominantly juvenile treatment of gender issues just might has something to do with there being such an issue with "angry sexist jerk" responses from the community, and that it might be better if games makers were a bit less eager to cater to this particular audience. 6) Lots of people who self-identify as gamers get very mad about this. People don't like being talked down to, especially when it feels like the authors are regarding them all as examples of the worst "unloveable loser" vidyagamer stereotype. Plus, lots of people like their games the way they are, don't care to see them changed. The controversy about Sarkeesian's video series gets rolled into this, as do long-standing grievances that gamers have with games media (such as #2), and the general fears some have about "PC censorship." 7) Angry people on both sides say/do some hateful things, particularly on Twitter, where the "gamergate" label emerges. 8) Certain fora where gamergate discussions are going on note that there is still a fair amount of angry violent misogyny in these conversations, decide they don't want to be associated with that, and kick them out. Non-games media covering the above focus primarily on the angry sexism and death threats. This reinforces the feeling in some supporters that they are being censored and persecuted. What am I missing?

Speaking of which, I stumbled into an "abandoned railyard" or somesuch just south of the Prison last night. That was something. "Hey that's a neat looking big robot over there. And it has more hitpoints than anything else I've seen in the game-- this could get interesting. [initiates combat] Hey, why does it show up three different times in the queue at the top of the screen? Oh, I see, there are two more of them just around the corner. Eek!" Slicer-Dicers don't mess around. Amazingly, my Brawler was the only character who went down in the fight, although several other characters were very close. He missed out on the XP because Rose was too busy healing herself and my backup Surgeon is also my best damage-dealer. It was a lot of fun, but, yeah, fights like that don't happen often enough. Party is somewhere in the area of level 16, with a Brawler, an AR gunner, a "leader" character with a low investment in both SMGs and Energy Weapons, a skillmonkey with a Sniper Rifle, Rose (trained into Snipers), Ralphy (trained into ARs), and Pizepi.

This is the classic excuse, though. "The conspiracy theory I believe in is reasonable because the people behind it aren't accountable to reason!" Throw all the "enemies" in a box with a dehumanized acronym label, go on feeling that you belong to the group with the righteous cause, and laugh off those on "your side" who say or do hurtful things. Also, since when do people take things that Adam Baldwin say seriously? The man never met a wacky conspiracy theory he didn't like.

Yes, it is. The whole thing would have blown over in a week if there had not been a coordinated attempt to censor every mention of it- up to and including using DMCA takedown notices. As soon as that happened the Streisand Effect took over, and the censorship became larger than the story. Though, of course, the antiGG crowd never mention that. It also certainly didn't help that ZQ had publicly made some contextually pretty inflammatory statements about men cheating on women being equivalent to rape and then decided to cheat repeatedly on her bf. Then you had the- obviously coordinated, as well- 'Gamers are dead' articles attacking the people who theoretically at least give most of the people writing the articles their livelihoods, though of course the antiGG crowd no longer mention those. And of course the doxxing of GG people, fake accusations based on said doxxing, death threats based on said doxxing (usually laughed at though), comparisons to ISIS, ddosing Gamersgate (useless SJWs, illiterate and can't even ddos a site with multiple domains properly), using smurf/ sockpuppet accounts, general and repeated hypocrisy/ cognitive dissonance/ irony being something for putting creaseys in shirtys, and verifiable false flags like claiming to be 4chan and threatening to release nudes of Hermione Grainger when it was an SJW affiliated PR firm 'trying to raise awareness', after being caught out because they too were utterly incompetent and left identifying information in their Apache server config. Though, of course, the antiGG crowd never mention those either. The 'Zoe Quinn incident' itself isn't the problem, it's just a symptom. A symptom of what exactly? I mean, it sounds like you're arguing that an assortment of pranks and like-minded op-eds amount to a vast media conspiracy to... protect Nathan Grayson? Protect the huge amount of money they were making from Depression Quest?? Oppress people who like the kind of games that already dominate the marketplace?? (And by "oppress," I mean, "say bad things about.") Just doesn't make any sense-- conspiracies don't form and hold together unless all the conspirators think there is something really important motivating them. Isn't it much simpler to assume that some publishers decided it was unwholesome (and potentially legally dangerous) to be in the business of promoting a jilted lover's story about an ex, that a few angry people did mean or dishonest things, that some writers came up with the same "hot take" response to the more extreme sexist threats, and that some hosting entities like 4chan and certain subreddits didn't want to be associated with said extreme threats?

I'm not much of an authority on hashtag ettiquete, but, yes? When a conversation gets poisonous enough, you either drive out those making it so, or go find a different conversation. SJW dip****s. Hey, you went there. Ah, so it's not about ethics after all. Alright then. If calling men's rights creeps names is wrong, I don't want to be right.

No it just means a statement about basic ethics and sexist trolls are separate issues and injecting the latter into the former is deflecting and diluting the former issue. Ah, but who is doing the "injecting" here? When the whole thing starts out with a bout of ****-shaming a female game developer, maybe you've picked the wrong "movement" to support your journalistic ethics goals. It seems to me that you'd have better luck pushing for ethical standards in games journalism if you didn't associate with all those angry men's rights dip****s.

This would be enough for me. The problem with that statement is that the last part of it depends on what one means by "without any unnecessary ramblings." It seems that many folks wouldn't be happy unless it really means "never call out ridiculous sexist trolls for being ridiculous sexist trolls." If all you're concerned with is ethics in journalism, there is no need to associate with and provide ideological cover for the crowd of folks specifically objecting to those writers who have discussed games in the context of gender politics. (And, also, where was all this rage back when it was just AAA developers shoveling money at the IGNs and Gamespots of the world?)

No gg came into existence because of the lack of journalistic integrity, and years of frustration over this, nobody cares about Ms Quinn's adultery but you. I'll try and make it very simple Bruce, though I don't know if i'll be successful: As a journalist you have a duty to inform the public objectively, without bias and following ethical guidelines as society regards journalism as an important function, and those whom practise it to be held to a more exacting standard. Or used to due to Watergate and various other investigations. To be a journalist one must follow an ethical code, this is not mandated by me and I have no interest in it, to remain seperate from your subject, to diminish bias as much as possible, to report truthfully on your discoveries, and to neither make improper use of your position or give the appearance of such. By commiting adultery with a developer, his subject matter, Mr Grayson made an ethical mistake. This is not a problem until he failed to recuse himself from any professional dealings with her, or made sure that his editor knew that he had a significant conflict of interest between his private life and his duty to report objectively to his audience. He did neither and was caught out when this scandal aired, thus he is guilty of ethical misconduct, bringing his profession into disrepute and a blatant lack of ethics. This is not optional, it is the ethics covered when one achieves a journalism degree. He did not have to write anything about Ms Quinn or his adultery with her, the damage had allready been done. Read any paper on journalistic ethics or ask any professional, they'll agree with me, Mr Grayson gave not just the appearance of impropriety but the actuality. Sorry to the rest of the forum for having to repeat myself. But why this ethical mistake? It's a teeny-tiny story about a teeny-tiny game in a multi-billion-dollar industry. Is is so far-fetched to conclude that folks' focusing on this incident has something to do with the fact it's a salacious story about a woman who made a game that the traditional gaming audience didn't like? Objecting to the Quinn-Grayson thing in the light of everything that goes on between major games publishers and major games publications is like complaining that the elephant in the room has a pimple on its ass.

Like what? I mean, apart from "some person I've barely heard of said or did something dishonest or mean."

I have to say, I'm confused by this whole thing. It all seems to be an bizarre confluence of two main points that have no clear relation to each other. Sure, the gaming press has huge conflict-of-interest problems. (And I'm shocked that there is gambling going on in this establishment!) How does that have anything at all to do with the would-be-hilarious-if-it-weren't-so-sad "feminism ruins everything" derpfest that appears to be going on?

Got a weird bug at the Prison. At some point in exploring the area, I lost the ability to make save games. If I left the area, it would make a useable autosave, but still wouldn't let me make my own save files (including quicksaves). Turns out that the game somehow made my save folder Read-Only. I autosaved my progress by going to the map, quit the game, changed that in Windows, launched it again, and loaded up the autosave, and everything is normal. Strange. Hopefully it won't recur.