Posts by Steppenwolf

  • Thief 4

    Game looks good enough but don't like what i saw in the gameplay. The small fov+vignette gonna be annoying as fuck. Need to see whats going on around you as thief. Was hoping with the power of the new consoles this super small fov fad would be over... No third person view either, right? Well that just sucks. Makes environment feel so cramped. It seems to suffer from the same problem that Thief 3 suffered from: It's Thief but in a compressed, claustrophobic form and even more so without third person. All this swoosh and woosh movement is also irritating. Am i still playing a human or some wildcat?

  • Team Arguments

    When the dungeons are randomly created what exactly is the point of a level designer on the project? Sounds more like the job for an artist to create the rooms. So for an artists it shouldn't really matter which engine to use. He will spent most his time in other tools. I would go with what the programmer feels more comfortable with.

    Phoenixx157 you should see the bright side that you get experience in two different engines/toolsets. It will help your CV when you apply for a job.

  • Tropes vs Women in Video Games

    This is turning into circular arguments now, everybody pointing at fallacies. Guess we have to agree to disagree.

    Still haven't read anything yet that convinces me of her claims to be true. Your (and Anitas) argumentation makes sense under the premises that patriarchic conspiracy is at work, that actual real people have been harmed by these games, that no factors outside sexism/misogony come into question and so on. The evidence presented is thin to non existent, correlations and causations far fetched. It reminds me of people saying "the bible is true because the bible says so". It really follows the same scheme 'Anita is right about these tropes being sexist because in her video she says they are sexist'. I know that are not your words but you repeat her arguments like gospel.

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    if no one is insulted then that makes her video all the more important.

    Anyway, 11 more episodes to come. Thread's gonna be epic

  • Tropes vs Women in Video Games

    Quote from csyver

    I hadn’t actually seen the video before you referred to it. When I did see it I noticed a pretty familiar voice and tone in it. I like a few of Thunderf00t videos, but he seems to have a personal beef with feminists and isn’t really at his most rational with these issues. There are major flaws in this video. It’s reeking of straw men arguments and invalid comparisons;

    Dismissing someone purely based on things he said in the past is a fallacy too. Personaly i find nothing wrong with his video and his argumentation.

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    Storytelling is not reality. You can’t compare “rescuing a loved one” in real life to rescuing someone in fiction. In real life everyone has personalities and a backstory – in fiction we choose what backstory and portrayals there are. We choose how to portray the story.

    I'm sure he made this comparison as a reaction to Anita's view who goes even a step further. She doesn't just compare it with real life but draws wild conclusions about how these fictional stories/characters actualy influence real life (like her assumption that a picture of half naked Bayonetta promotes sexual assault in the subway station where it's displayed). She compares the Damsel with onbejctified women in real life, he compares them with loved ones in real life. If anything both are wrong on this one if what you say is correct.

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    He tries to excuse the sexism in the damsel in distress-trope by saying that the man loves the woman. The stereotype is not based on “rescuing a loved one”, but based on rescuing (exclusively) women. The women can be a love interest, but the stereotype here is that it’s always women that have to be rescued and not men.

    So what is wrong with saving women? And why exactly is the Damsel characterization sexist by default? Something that i'm really struggling with to acknowledge because in my view it doesn't say anything about females in general but just about the individual character that it portrays. It would be different if all female characters in games were damsel's. which is far from truth. To be fair not even Anita says that all Damsels are sexist but then she fails to explain what for example makes Peaches characterization sexist and some other Damsel not.


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    He also somehow achieves to compare himself to the character’s motivations. We are not the protagonist and it’s not our girlfriend/love interest/whatever. We control the protagonist but we don’t know how he feels about the damsel unless we are told.

    Again that's something that Anita does too, the identification with the characters. If you hold that against him you have to hold it against her too. My own stance which i explained a few pages earlier is that i don't tend to identify with the characters like they were me. I'm a role player at heart.


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    Because that in one Double Dragon game the woman gets to punch her captors in the balls (after he has been defeated) – then everything is justified? Ridiculous.

    It shows the culture shift at work. Anita goes on and on about these vintage games in her video to say something about the state of culture today. He point's merely out that she didn't research properly for a game that she uses to make her point.

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    For some reason he thinks that when Anita means “weak/strong” she refers exclusively to physical strength. He then wastes several minutes on referring to data that proves this physical difference.

    She doesn't exactly explain what she means. So lets count this as semantic misunderstanding.

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    It’s perfectly possible to make a game that doesn’t insult women and are successful. By “excusing” the sexism because of profit he is actually making Anita’s point stronger.

    Not all women are insulted by the games that use the trope. I would argue most not even care but that's just a hunch.

    Also he's pointing something out that plays a fundamental role for why the trope is in use, something that Anite doesn't even mention and most likely don't acknowlege because it takes wind out of the sails for her argument that sexist attitudes, patriarchy etc is at the core.

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    We could say Peach was a chest of gold and it wouldn’t really make any difference. The only characteristic that Peach has is that she is a woman. We are supposed to care solely because of this fact. She exists only so that she can be saved.

    Yes you could replace her with a gold chest. Shows how simple the story is and that people really shouldn't interpret too much into it. Also people play Mario because they like to jump around not because they care about the story either way.

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    I remember seeing his atheist-videos when I was about 16 and he gave me the impression of a very rational and knowledgeable person taking on religious thinking. Had he sticked to that I would probably have the same opinion of him now. Now he’s mass-producing straw man arguments, ad hominem, appealing to emotion (why the fuck is there a 5 minute clip of Star Trek?) and exhibiting the same degree of lunacy you would see in his former creationist opponents.

    Wait did we even watch the same video? Ther's nothing even remotely in his video that reminds me of creationist crap.

  • Tropes vs Women in Video Games

    Some good points there Wail.

    I think i could change my opinion on some details or semantics with the right argumentations on offer. But at this point i don't think anything can convince me that the Peaches character by itself is harmful in any way, shape or form. It's just too ridiculous a notion. And i only keep mentioning her because shes one of the main hooks in Anita's video. I would probably give more credit to her opinions if the video was about exploitation porn or something of that caliber.

  • Tropes vs Women in Video Games

    Quote from csyver

    regarding stereotypes. this study suggests that even positive ones have harmful impact: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/articl…022103112002211

    (i'll get to the other stuff later when I have time)

    Fair enough. I guess the "Germans are always on time" positive stereotype also correlates with the "Germans don't have a sense of humor" negative stereotype. Just shows that nothing is clear cut and that it certainly doesn't hurt to discuss opinions from different view points.

  • Tropes vs Women in Video Games

    Thanks for your lenghty reply csvyer.

    Quote from csyver

    I think you've misinterpreted her profession and role in this. She is not a sociologist and she is not concerned with proving why stereotypes are harmful. She’s a media critic and this is the perspective she provides for her videos. Some posts here point out that the solution is to provide more balanced narratives and portrayals – and I agree with that – however, there is also help in making people acknowledge and recognize these stereotypes so consumers are consciously prepared when they are exposed to it. This is what she does and she does it well in my opinion.

    I don't think it matters what her profession is. If someone makes a strong claim i expect strong supporting evidence or i just can't take them serious if my own common sense, experience and knowledge tells me that they are most likely wrong. It's the same with religious or political matters and other strong claims. I'm open to change my mind but that takes more then appeals to emotion. I try to be as rational and reasonable as possible in my thinking.

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    I’m not sure what your criteria for proof would be, but it’s almost impossible for me to prove that (e.g.) Peach, as a damsel in distress, directly causes <person> to perform <sexist act>. What I can do is show that;* Peach is objectified

    * The objectification is portrayed as normal/non-issue

    * Humans can absorb this subconsciously.

    * Stereotypes like these can lead to discrimination.

    I would for example take it into consideration if she interviewed young girls playing the game how they feel about it and they would express some things that make me think about the matter in a different way. What you "show" here is again just opinion, claims and it's not clear cut at all. The video that Taylor posted made some good points about the fallaciousness of the objectivication points. I agree about your last two points there but find a correlation in this particular context of Princess Peaches very doubtful and therefore fallacious.

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    When I replied to your “malicious intend” post it was to point out that their intentions doesn’t really matter. Art is about expressing ideas and some ideas can be expressed without the author realizing it.

    I mentioned malicious intend because to me that's an important criteria to define if something is actualy sexist or just ignorant or in fact not sexist at all. But that's just semantics and my own definition which isn't necessarely the one that you would find in a dictionary.

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    As you’ve pointed out yourself, artist are and should be perfectly free to communicate whatever ideas or opinions they have, however it’s also in the consumers freedom to point out when harmful (and inaccurate) stereotypes occur.

    That's perfectly fine but remember these criticisms, like Anita's videos, are then subject to scrutinity themself. It would be wrong to take any opinion on the internet at face value.

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    Damsel in distress doesn't have to be a problem in itself. It’s when characters exist solely for this purpose that it’s a problem. When they have no agency or influence on the story other than being an object that is to be attained. As Anita mentions, the damsel in distress trope perpetuates a subject-object dichotomy. The subject (Mario) acts and the object (Peach) is acted upon. Peach is reduced to a prize to be won/object to be attained. She is represented as weak and incapable without the help of Mario.

    And that's just wrong as the guy in Taylor's video has pointed out in better words then i ever could.

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    The harmful impact of stereotypes is fairly well researched in social psychology. I honestly don’t see much point in arguing for this unless you are a sociology denialist. I will provide evidence for this if you request it.

    Ther's no doubt stereotypes can be harmful but you have to look careful at the context, if a correlation exists and what the nature of the stereotype is. There are positive stereotypes too you know like "Germans are always on time", "Asians are good at math" etc. Same way one could argue for positive stereotypes in the Damsel in Distress trope like "Damsel is the loveliest thing in the world and worth fighting for".

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    I’ll concede a few things;* I took Peach as an example because she’s the worst offender. Zelda is a better character.

    * There is no doubt that this can be interpreted in other ways as well. You could argue that it’s Mario that is being the object of her affections. That her affections are valued enough for Mario to risk his life to attain it. I don’t agree with this interpretation

    Yea basicly we can agree on that. Same what i wrote in the paragraph above.