Amentep

Yeah, to be honest I like the concept of the Witch Doctor, but I've never really used the necromancer in Diablo II; I did used the Druid but not really as a summoner. So yeah I'd probably avoid the Witch in Path of Exile...

Decided to drop my Witch Doctor and go with a Wizard. Got tired of my summons doing the work and me just walking around. Me: "Oh look a monster...oh wait, its dead. Oh another one, oh dead too... ...and again... ...and that mob died before I saw it... ...oh that's a boss monster, finally I get to do something"

Yes, but highly unlikely, as there were no other unidentified samples on it. In fact, if there was a chain of custody for the item, I'd feel very comfortable prosecuting the case A chain of custody would make all the difference; but that doesn't exist and why the shawl was there is still a mystery. Was it Eddowes? Was it another prostitutes? Was it Kominski's? Was it by Eddowes because the killer had it, because she had it, or because someone who found the body had it? The thing is, Kominski was probably a suspect because he was a foreign Jew with signs of mental problems who was known to the police at the time. Because he lived in the area - which was a home to prostitution, transiency and so forth, it becomes problematic to assign a significance to it that it can't bear. Particularly knowing that he was a public self-abuser as well as potentially a client of the lady in question. With respect to his being a suspect, if you look at the early suspects you tended to have people who would have been on the police radar at the time and/or who were seen as "deviant" in some way - Druitt (possibly homosexual and/or possibly mentally ill and committed suicide right after the last murder), Kłosowski/Chapman (Polish immigrant, eventually hanged for poisoning his three wives and retroactively seen as a Ripper possibility by Abberline), Kosminski (Polish, Jewish, later admitted to an insane asylum), Ostrog (Russian immigrant and con man), Pizer (Polish, Jewish, assault suspect), and Tumblety (homosexual, con man). IIRC of the early police candidates, only Sadler (sailor, violent drunk) didn't fit the bill of "undesirable (foreigner, mentally ill, gay)" in some way. That said, only Druitt, Kominski and Ostrog were officially mentioned by police, ultimately, which implies they were more serious candidates than others (unless you believe the theory that this list was released so that another press suspect - Cutbush - would be dropped from speculation). Mind you these were the same police who interviewed native American members of Buffalo Bills Wild West Show on the idea that "a savage had to have done it", so...

Since the person who bought the shawl doesn't believe it was Eddowes, and since the suspect was known to the police as a "self-abuser", there could be legitimate reasons for the shawl to have been in contact with Kosminski before the murder and have no relation to the murder. Like most other solutions offered, its not terribly definitive.

I think this isn't a problem with bisexual characters so much as a limitation in the conceptualization of romances in general (ie, that the romance becomes the default way (sometimes only way) to interact with the character - its not really a problem isolated to Mass Effect either, its been a problem with most of Bioware's romances)

Playing Diablo III; got my Witch Doctor to over lvl 20 and finally the class feels "alive" to me. Before it just seemed like I was leading some zombie dogs around and they killed everything for me. But now I have some offensive spells that make it feel more like I'm doing more than watching my dogs take down monsters.

I'm not saying that you're saying we can't make a joke, but I'm curious as to why mocking the convention seems to mean (if I'm reading you correctly) that we either wouldn't care about the emotional pain of a rape survivor or that we wouldn't even be willing to use trigger warnings in posts given the proper reason and context?

Okay so total side note, I know the conversation got all different while I composed a lengthy, serious and heartfelt post that I ultimately declined to post and threw away, but since when can't comedy be directed at...well anything? It was clear Meshugger was being (or attempting to be) funny in his post (apologies to his avatar, I guess, if I misread that situation) and that there was a dogpile in the humor. I understand that people feel differently over the importance/lack of same in real trigger warnings, but... I'm not sure I agree that the dichotomy is based on politics, per se (but will admit that I may be wrong) but a moderate and reasonable middle besieged by radicals on either side of it that are fighting each other and dragging everyone else into it. And I don't think those radicals necessarily fall into easy liberal/conservative labels.

Oh I know people can and do fall through the cracks. I also know of some people who will lie to people in order to get them out of their customer window or off the phone... I like the think, though, that there are systems to try and keep people from falling through the cracks as much as possible.

Roy Rogers had Trigger.

To be fair to bureaucrats everywhere, the vast majority of people don't fall into special cases, they just think they do when something doesn't go the way they wanted.

Font looks alright to me. Functional, as they say.

Have you declared "Ich bin ein Berliner" yet? Particularly near pastry shops?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/brazil/11060282/Brazils-valley-of-beauties-appeals-for-single-men.html

I may be naive, but I think as long as you can show that you put logic in your design decisions you shouldn't be afraid to try something that may be perceived negatively by any specific sub-group because you can at that point justify what you've included as a deliberately thought out choice. And that's the thing, ultimately it isn't police-able, that was my point. The market will look out to tap parts of the market that aren't currently being served when it thinks they can make money out of it. That will always be in a capitalist model. Which gets back to my comments about labeling things being bad and it is an argumentative technique to dismiss people who disagree with you (Oh, you don't like what I said? You're a GAMER!)

This is how I feel about it as well. I actually do not think that you have to disclose friendships unless you're actually reviewing a game though. But then again I think that people take this way too seriously. I'm not actually paying Kotaku anything for their services, so calling for journalistic standards feels weird from the start. If you want to demand something, pay for it. While I can see your point, if the newspaper (for example) was publicizing a play (not reviewing, just talking it up a bit) at the local theater and the star of the show was dating the person who wrote the article, wouldn't that feel like a conflict of interest? That the paper is being used as a tool to hide what would be a PR piece as substantive culture news? Or maybe the play is culturally significant and deserves to be publicized on its artistic merit regardless of who does it, but at least in stating the relationship you give the reader information that helps them understand that significance is deserved and not through personal relationships. But I've ruled myself an old fart by mentioning newspapers, so maybe my views are skewed by traditional media outlets. All I know is these bloggers need to get off my lawn. I'd think so as well at this point, and as I mentioned very likely it is a simple oversight that weren't intended to intentionally mislead. Can't really know without investigation (which maybe isn't our business but that of Kotaku's management). I agree there is an elitist subculture in gaming (there are, in my opinion, several, to be honest). I disagree its not an important issue to discuss though. As someone who has, as a primary hobby gaming (video games, board games, pen and paper role playing games) I have to consider myself a gamer by definition. But I'm being told that due to a sub-culture that is considered undesirable and that I in no way identify with (I'd argue several different ones, but still) that suddenly I can't embrace my hobby. Maybe it is wrong to feel put out, but I fail to understand why - when I've done nothing wrong *I* suddenly have to change, my definition and concepts have to change. I didn't do anything wrong. These people don't represent me, they don't represent gamers in the true sense and we should be embracing being a gamer and rejecting them, not rejecting them both. IMO. I'm old and cranky. And people who love and play smartphone games are every bit as much a gamer as I am. I am Amentep, and I shall answer these questions. To be honest, I just avoided that thread in general because (IMO) people's perceptions of feminism so completely colors the discussion that discussion of it is always going to be rendered a pointless tug of war online. That said, the definition is the definition. Feminism is no more about the hatred of men than communism is about the hatred of communes. One (rather annoying) habit of arguments - particularly regarding academic approaches to sociological structures is that people on both side like to play fast and loose with definitions and therfore change the playing field for the opponent. It becomes hard to argue intelligently your point when the other side has given new and arbitrary definitions to key words in the debate. Its just damn wrong. A living language will have evolved meanings. What is happening in these cases is that people are loading words with meanings beyond what they are so as to recontextualize the other side. To - in essence - label them. Labeling something (or someone) is the first step in diminishing and decreasing their viability as a monolithic group because people who dislike how the label is loaded will find a new self-adopted label to distinguish themselves and only those who are steadfast will stick with the label (or will adopt it to be "edgy" or "ironic"). But loading context to a word doesn't change its meaning in society unless the society accepts it. I think we should reject these things, on general principal. We should be better than labels and we should be able to admit that our group isn't what it should be, look at it critically and find other ways to deal with those aspects of our group we don't like. I'm neutral on games reviews - just like movie review and book reviews. You read any reviewer who has a shred of consistency in thought and you'll be able to figure out from what they thought whether you'll like the reviewed movie/book/play/game. I think - in general - though people online tend towards cynicism with regard to anyone else online. Nature of the beast kind of thing. And it has been a concern that for years the primary money in games journalism is from game and those who make game technology. This has been stated since the 1980s, so its not new, its not terribly secret. The point is to go in with eyes open, and hope that the journalists meet you halfway and - at the very least - are honest about their dealings. There does seem to be a blur with game websites between what we'd call "journalism" and "bloggers" and it is perhaps a point in time where gamesites need to decide if they're game journalists or game bloggers and make such a distinction clear to their readers? And to be fair, she's only one voice, whose specific concerns (good, bad or indifferent) can be addressed and analyzed. The idea that there will be a secret cabal of women who will suddenly make games "their way" and we who are not in the cabal will suddenly have nothing to play is, at best, silly. Because at the end of the day, games are business and the dictates of the market will decide what gets made. But at the end of the day if one game developer sits down and asks - "Does this game need to go to strip club and does it really need to make you walk past the dancers and does it really need to you to be able to see the dancers in their dressing rooms?" before including a strip club in the game, then is the world really hurt?

To be fair, Bruce, this isn't a mathematical formula; people can see the same things and draw vastly different conclusions because we are, ultimately, vastly different cognitive entities who will draw on vastly different life experiences to analyze situations and data. Really? Perhaps you'd like to take it up with Merriam-Webster - 1: a player who is game; especially : an athlete who relishes competition 2: a person who plays games; especially : a person who regularly plays computer or video games Maybe the OED? A person who plays a game or games, typically a participant in a computer or role-playing game. How can you explain that a word doesn't mean its definition, per the dictionary, but instead means the arbitrarily constructed label that is now being used? I understand the living language changes, but that change is by common usage, not forced usage. Don't worry, we'll keep trying to get you to see the truth, Bruce. We have faith in you.

Well its only a year later. But it raises the question, did it get updated just now? I didn't double check myself (shame on me) but since you ask - here is the "Hate Plus" page on the internet archive, from June 19 2014 - http://web.archive.org/web/20140619202521/http://kotaku.com/video-game-asks-players-to-bake-real-cakes-for-virtual-1183623826 The "Gay Planet" from July 25 - http://web.archive.org/web/20140725153626/http://kotaku.com/5976294/now-there-is-a-whole-game-about-a-gay-planet No "update" in either text. So sometime between June 19, 2014 and now, the update was added for Hate Plus (July 25 and now for Gay Planet). And I'd agree that these articles aren't reviews, but (IMO) it should be important that when a person at a game site recommends the game (and the piece on Hate Plus definitely does that, IMO) that there isn't an appearance of conflict of interest. In this case it'd be very easy to argue that Kotaku as a larger entity is, by publishing the article, endorsing the game via their employee - and that essentially the site is being used to promote the work of family and friends of the employee under the guise of impartial journalism. Maybe its nothing - often I find situations like this in my normal employment involve accidental oversights on follow-through rather than intentional malfeasance (it didn't occur to me to disclose that we were once friends) but maybe its something too. I can't really say unless someone impartial (is there anyone impartial though to do this?) is able to view the facts, divorce them from the "narratives" and the "relationships" (real and imagined) being spun by people with agendas and look and see what - if anything - actually exists.

Could you be more specific? Because I haven't heard of any articles where someone who has slept with a developer gave that person a good review or anything of the kind. That's what I found so fascinating about this "scandal" - the facts were entirely made up. I didn't mean to imply "slept with" just "had a relationship with" in my post; sorry if I wasn't clear. The reviewer in question is Kotaku's Patricia Hernandez with respect to developer Christina Love and the Hate Plus article from last year and Anna Anthropy/The Hunt for the Gay Planet also from last year. The Kotaku article was updated to indicate that Patricia and Christina are friend and this relationship wasn't disclosed in the article when published, since its added as an "UPDATE" in the text. The Gay Planet text also updates that Patricia was housemates with Anthropy the year before the article. When the update happened, I don't know, although the implication of what has been presented is the update is new and coming on the heels of Kotaku's statement that disclosure of relationships are expected. Whether its new or not, the fact that its added as an update implies an oversight in the process (at least) of disclosure.

I don't take any offense to an article such as Leigh Alexander's reference to "gamers" (and the quotes is significant) because I know she's not talking about me. She's not talking about a lot of people that do play video games. I take offense at people taking a term that SHOULD be neutral and SHOULD be inclusive of all gamers and declaring the meaning actually means a sub-group of gamers. Language means certain things, and I'm not fond of the concept of changing the meanings of words so as to label a subgroup and marginalize them, even if I don't agree with that subgroup. Because when you start applying a negative label to people, it becomes a cudgel to curb disagreement. "Oh you didn't like my game/article/award/list? YOU'RE A GAMER!" And plenty of people are asshats online who'd never be in real life. And he's wrong. If he wants to make an exclusive term for himself, let him, but gamer is a general term, it has implications outside of video games and the people interested in that type of gaming. By classing all gamers as the "white guy who doesn't want women and minorities in his club" you've not just classed video gamers, but board gamers, card gamers, pen and paper role playing gamers into it as well. A board gamer who goes to Gen-Con and naively identifies himself as a gamer just stepped on a land mine he may have had no way to know was planted - all because someone has decided to arbitrarily decide that gamer is an exclusive, not inclusive word. I'm not for that. I'm not for turning a general term into an exclusive label, and I'm not for tarring a lot of good people because there are bad amid their group. Isn't this just an outgrowth of the elitism in the industry? I've been posting online since the early 90s and the console wars, the console vs PC dichotomy has been a negative aspect of the fandom of video games for some time and IMO it is this kind of idea that perpetuates people being "well this is what gaming is all about." BUT that doesn't mean that is what being a gamer is. A gamer is a person who plays games and anyone who argues otherwise is WRONG. And that would be fine if the suggestion was "lets root out the exclusionary elements of gaming". If this was "#embracegaming" as a movement (as stupid as I think hashtag activism is). Instead its a label, and its a mis-attributed label because now a lot of people like yourself who identify as a "gamer" can't use the word without being thought of as an exclusionary idiot. And coming on the heels of potential ethical problems within the game industry, and game journalism in particular, for that industry to up and declare a label that applies to all gamers is now the domain of exclusionary idiots who have always been the fringe element in gaming looks an awful lot like starting a fire in the trashcan across the street so no one notices that your garage is burning. But the problem is, she's pointed the gun at the larger group and said "you're all extremists and insular" unless, of course, you choose to adopt a word - a label - other than gamer to call yourself. And anyone who doesn't is going to be labeled as an extremist or insular. Language, concepts are important and we shouldn't stand idly by as they're co-opted to become labels that are, in their way, as exclusionary as the asshats they intended to marginalize. I don't disagree that every time a person mentions the "Zoe Quinn definition of Rape" they're not talking about the larger issues and instead are just pulling in unsavory personal life aspects that are none of our business to pillory someone they don't like (or who they think represents issues in gaming they don't like). When people are talking about game reporters who've slept with game developers and wrote positively about their games (in one case, including links to where to buy said game in their positive article) , about how a group of friends and people in relationships are interconnected through a PR firm and that PR firm is tied to gaming websites, game producers and an "independent" game award, then certainly there seems to be the potential for suspicious influence worth investigating. As the saying goes, "it is not enough to have done no wrong, one must avoid the appearance of impropriety" There's a reason why its bad ethical conduct to hire people you're in a relationship with for your company, so generally speaking the fact that a game developer may have slept with 5, 100, 1000 people is irrelevant, but if they slept with someone who could give them a job over other candidates, give them favorable coverage over other games, give them an award over other games then, I disagree with you. There is an ethical issue that has nothing to do with the sex and a lot to do on having an undue influence in what should be unbiased professional decisions. I get it, the video gaming industry - particularly the indy scene - probably is a case of "everyone knows everyone else" and there are a lot of friendships, relationships that will naturally crop up. That's okay - even if it is a game journalist and a game developer provided that the journalist recuses themselves from reviewing the developer's games and provided the journalist makes the relationship clear to the reader (even if its a simple "X and I are friends" in the article. I'd also argue such disclaimers would be necessary even if the relationship breaks-up at some point so the reader can gauge if the article has a bias against the person now that the relationship has soured. But its pretty clear that there are a few incidents where this kind of disclosure hasn't happened (or has happened only now, years after the fact with the two articles that were mentioned changed by the Kotaku writer who has nothing to do with the "Zoe Quinn" bit in one of those videos).

To be honest I can't really make a distinction between indie and AAA companies; the truth is what draws me to a game is an interesting hook and what keeps me playing is solid execution of that hook. There may be some adjustments to cosmetics (I'm not going to expect AAA graphics from an indie product) but generally speaking story, gameplay something is going to have to draw my attention.

True story, I liked IWD better than BG and played it more times than BGII.

My point is that just because a person is female doesn't mean they're inherently unbiased anymore than a person being male would be inherently biased (or at least unaware of their bias). Rather than argue the power of a message because it comes from a preferred gender, wouldn't it be more informative to discuss - in the context of feminism - the idea of latent bias created by a patriarchy? Or to just dispense with and allow people to voice their opinions and argue politely but intelligently against their points with your own? We would agree, however, that the experiences would be anecdotal though? Interesting as they may be you'd need a large pool of women's experience to try and make a generalization about the population as a whole that would stand statistically. I certainly welcome women posting here, but I also think that we have to acknowledge that most of our arguments in serious topics are heavily influenced by our individual experiences (mine included). I agree, as more women become game developers, there will be more diversity of input into game design. I think part of getting more women interested in game development has to be through interesting them in being gamers themselves, though, and expand that ability to see them translate their interest in a game into envisioning themselves making that game.

Nope. Grinding has become a moot issue after those interesting posts above. The remaining one is this: Should the game reward the player for combat? Wouldn't it be important to define what would be a valid "reward" for combat here as well? Because a reward could be in form of loot, it could be in the form of XP, it could be in the form of satisfaction over you're prowess with the combat system, but not all of those will be seen as rewarding by every group.