Posts by Jetsetlemming

Quote from Taylor

I'm sorry you have this difficulty, but regardless of what you might thing about gender, it is a social construct. That aspect of gender is part of its very definition.

You’re right, I tripped over my words. I don’t agree that innate differences begin and end with the genitals, but certainly gender is socially and culturally generated. I’m going to steer clear of this semantics minefield because it’s not something I’m equipped to deal with, however I will try and expand this past the half a sentence you quoted. Do you agree with her point that because women are disinterested in science, computing, engineering and video games this implies in itself an active discrimination?

Yes. Girls are raised from birth to fulfill a feminine role, which is not one of computer science or engineering. Women are absolutely capable of programming and designing things, but are told their entire lives that they must be pretty and focus on aesthetics and other people and be nice and kind and polite and respectful and defer to others and be a wife and be a mom and be a caretaker. This is what those mean ole feminists are talking about when they talk about the Patriarchy. Do you think that most nurses are women and most doctors are men because of an innate biological difference? Do you attribute anything whatsoever except the differences in reproductive role to innate biological differences which are universal per-gender? If so, how do you square people who aren't "normal" male or female on the biological spectrum, such as those with XYY, Adrenal Insensitivity or Hyperactivity, Hermaphroditus, etc?

To Steppenwolf: Mainstream feminism doesn't want to take away your porn, your ridiculous fantasy wobbly women, or your damsels in distress. The problem is their over representation and domination of the depictions of women in general, not their very existence.

Quote from Kinky

Jetsetlemming, stop stirring.

This is a forum for artists and designers, not the open university. Be thankful this topic isnt just "post tits" and move on.

I'm not really one to back down about something I care about, like equality. I expect much more from artists and designers than "post tits"

Quote from csyver

I haven't really followed her Kickstarter or anything before that video, so I got to see it without having any pre-existing opinions on her. I honestly don't see what's so bad about her video, at least not to the extent that warrants some of the very fiery posts here. Did anyone here actually pledge to her kickstarter? The series aren't even finished and it's too early to start judging her for how she has/has not used the money. I've browsed these forums for 3 years now, and I've never seen this degree of passion about any topic before. Why do you care so much?

You can't just attribute Nintendo's overuse of damsel in distress-trope to ignorance or lack of creativity. They're grown adults and they know perfectly well what they're doing. No, they're not "made with malicious intend". That's not what she's saying at all. She's criticizing that they don't give a shit. Nintendo uses Peach/Zelda as damsel in distress-plot devices for gameplay-purposes and they don't care about the sexist repercussions of it. Her video is an attempt to make developers more aware of these things.

The issue with the Fox/Krystal example isn't that they changed the sex of the protagonist, but that they did such a complete reversal of her role from a respectable character into a sexualized trophy.

Agreed 100%.

Quote from Taylor

Though I think this debate is unproductive and don't buy gender is a cultural construct anyway.

I'm sorry you have this difficulty, but regardless of what you might thing about gender, it is a social construct. That aspect of gender is part of its very definition. Perhaps you're confusing it with sex, which is the inherent biological difference between male and female creatures? Boy/man/girl/woman/etc are cultural roles we fulfill, typically informed by how we are treated and raised based on our born gender. A number of people defy this role put on us after birth, either by choice or by instinctual compulsion, such as gender dysphoria (the psychological stress caused by one's biological sex differing from one's personal gender affiliation). Gender is a spectrum, not a binary difference, with extreme poles on either end (Mister Universe vs Phyllis Schlafly, perhaps), and many people in between. Women in modern American society are commonly expected to essentially fulfill both traditional gender roles; "Masculine" aspects like ambition, pride, strength, and athleticism, while also adhering to "Feminine" aspects like politeness, deference, cleanliness, and a focus on aesthetics.

Quote from Steppenwolf

Jetsetlemming i don't see your detailed critique of her video either. So stop stomping on others for not doing it.

Please feel free to explain why you agree with her that Peaches hurts young girls for instance.

I posted about the specific content in my first post in this thread, but overall I don't feel the need to carefully break down and point out everything I agree with in a video that, overall, I agree with. I'm asking the people who DON'T agree with it to be more specific in their criticisms, because their comments so far have come off as dismissive, which has rubbed people (not just me, not just here) the wrong way.

Quote from Vilham

"Everyone else, every podcast, every website, asks for donations." Every.. means all. So actually that is a huge generalisation. I don't actually know of a single podcast that asks for donations. But you don't seem me claiming some absolute truth.

"The only media organizations/groups I regularly follow that don't consistently ask for donations from viewers are Giant Bomb and The Rachel Maddow Show, both of which are properties of major corporations (CBS and General Electric respectively). Everyone else, every podcast, every website, asks for donation".

See, that sentence you quoted, it's a sequel. It directly follows the sentence before it, the "Everyone else" opener ties them together, much like how Crisis 2 starts with the NPC from Crisis 1 giving you the nanosuit. It's context. My point was not that "Everyone everywhere on the internet asks for donations," but rather "Asking for donations is a common and benign form of funding a thing that I see all the time, I don't get why anyone would point out a donation page as a sign of corruption." Do you see now?

Quote from Vilham

Yet again you generalise, now about podcasts and websites. You seem to have a brilliant nack for generalisation.

Seriously. Go home you're drunk.

I was talking about podcasts and websites I follow. I was specifically citing my own experience with the internet and new media, and how they use patronage, voluntary user contribution, to function. I was actually using the exact opposite of generalization to make my point, Vilham.

Reading your posts makes me feel like I'm reading youtube comments.

Quote from Thrik

Jetsetlemming the whole point of Anita's videos is to promote discussion about sexism, depictions of women in games, etc. And if you read through this thread (particularly pages three and four) you'll find some well-considered contributions to the discussion. I'm not sure why you're having a go at people for trying to have a serious, constructive chat about the topic rather than listing issues with the video.

I will admit that I personally found the video lacking and didn't do justice to a big topic, something I found disappointing considering the excellent backing it had. But the subject as a whole is very important and I'm delighted to see the video has at least sparked off good conversation about it in many forums and sites across the web, including this one (excluding retarded comments like d3's).

I agree, actually. There's been some interesting (though frequently disagreeable, personally) discussion on gender in general. However, while I have seen many people attack the video in the OP, nobody's actually criticized any individual element of it, just overarching statements like "It's boring" or comments about the person who made it, and I feel like that speaks to the point of view CampaignJunkie was expressing. The point Rick made about thinking about other people and how they might not view things the way you view them is important.

The only media organizations/groups I regularly follow that don't consistently ask for donations from viewers are Giant Bomb and The Rachel Maddow Show, both of which are properties of major corporations (CBS and General Electric respectively). Everyone else, every podcast, every website, asks for donations. Most of the game servers I regularly play on ask for donations. This isn't some sinister fucking thing, guys, it's a way of free content to try and make money. You don't have to pay anyone a dime if you don't want to to watch a Youtube video.

Quote from Vilham

So now, what two people posting about her being corrupt equates to the entire forum. Good job man...

Go home Jetsetlemming, you're drunk.

Much like Koko above, you don't seem to have understood what I said at all. This thread, and the posts in it, are not the entire forum. If there are intelligent, detailed discussions about the video somewhere else on Mapcore, please link me.

Quote from Sentura

u wot m8

i posted a crit on the video that holds up

You mean your post on the first page that Chimeray mistook for reposting a troll?

Quote from Steppenwolf

Don't insinuate things. Such foul rhetoric is, you know, disrespectful.

And please go back and read the thread again because valid criticisms and comments regarding the topic have been made by multiple users which wouldn't be the case if it was dismissed out of hand.

Like I said, I see blanket statements about corruption and invalidity without anyone actually citing anything that's wrong in the video, or corrupt about Sarkeesian. I mean, for God's sake, linking the donate page on her website, or posting her LinkedIn, neither of which contain anything at all questionable?? What on earth does that prove? That she wants money? So does every single other person on earth. She's trying to make a living doing something that she finds socially valuable. So am I. I would hope most people would try to make their day jobs into something useful.

Seriously, youtube comments are the least valuable form of communication on the entire planet, and you are really, really stretching for something to complain about if you're complaining about restricted access to commenting on a youtube video. She has a publicly listed email address, you can write a blog on many gaming websites like Giant Bomb, you could upload your own youtube videos in response. You can't throw words into a box that nobody will read even if it did technically exist, BOO HOO

Quote from Al Anselmo

Well, Anita has disabled the comment feature on her video. How can one actually argue with her? She seems not to allow discussion.

You could perhaps start by actually making points in this thread beyond blanket accusations of bias, corruption, and ignorance? She has the comments disabled for a reason, and I'm perfectly ok with the loss of potentially valuable Youtube video comments to prevent the 99.999% of what real Youtube comments tend to be.

There's a whole lot of talking in this thread, and I've yet to see a single real critique of the video. People saying "Oh it's boring, it's wrong, it's just opinion," but never actually citing anything directly, or arguing anything. You know, if you don't want to be interpreted as a misogynist you should probably pretend to respect women enough to actually argue with them instead of dismissing them out of hand.

Personally, I liked the video. It was well constructed and provided a lot of evidence for her points, and lots of examples of the trope being examined.

Quote from Sentura

i think i'm more pissed about his facerag than about the architecture. garrett never hid his face, and he was well known by the city guard. also, no mechanical eye?

In one of the screenshots his right eye is a different color and has steam or a wisp of smoke coming off it, while he perches on the side of a wall. However, if they're cutting the mystical stuff (which is STUPID because the Hammerite vs Trickster elements were the coolest universe building stuff in Thief imo, the whole reason the City is the City originally is because these people have banded together and walled themselves off to keep the dangerous magical wilds away), not sure how they're going to explain Garrett's need for it in the first place, since it was originally plucked from his head by the Trickster for use in a ritual at the end of Thief 1.

I feel like there's a lot of issues where ok or mediocre gameplay mechanics or concessions, like gating, can add up to really fuck things up. As with Max Payne 3 mentioned earlier, and all the modern COD campaigns, they both incentivize exporation with hidden secrets to find (golden gun parts, intel, blops2's accomplishment lists), but then cover their levels with un-telegraphed gates that prevent the player from retreating, leading to a ton of frustration when I'm trying to find a secret and am denied it by accidentally touching a cutscene of more bad guys showing up and the path behind me vanishing into the mist. It'd honestly be better if the secret collectables weren't in either game, and I fucking love secret collectables in general. Or QTEs in super long cutscenes to turn them into gameplay and thus justify their existence as game-time in reviews, which has the side effect of making them unskippable.

e: If I had to name a singular mechanic that I felt was ruining things lately, I'd probably say the "vote kick" feature in multiplayer games. I swear to christ that one single UI option ruined Left 4 Dead, and it's toxic to many other games, because it's a terrible tool to give to terrible people (people who play videogames on the internet).

Played about 30 minutes of this tonight, and it was really well designed and fun. There were a couple areas I didn't really dig (The big open areas on the outer sides and the CT street spawn are too open for my preferred gameplay style), but the indoor areas are really, really nice. I love the second floor's access methods and view points over the lower areas. Shooting down on CTs from near the T-Rex head is great.

Quote from Minos

lol my thoughts exactly.

The device itself looks pretty ugly... it kind of reminds me of those shitty chinese Tetris handhelds from the 80s. But on the other hand it's gonna be pretty easy to make games for this so it could end up being a great alternative for small studios/teams.

Let's just hope it's priced at 100 bux or so, cause otherwise there's no way this will compete with the 3DS.

The Nexus 7, which runs a Tegra, is base $200 for its 16GB model. This is more complicated, but is also a much smaller screen, and from what I've read the Nexus's 7" multitouch LCD is the single most expensive element of it. I could see this being $200-250 depending on its features (tilt, multitouch, onboard memory (It's got a microSD slot so they can really skimp on that), gorilla glass, battery, etc), and personally I'd value this thing and its PC connectivity and android apps more than a 3DS.

Handhelds are not consoles. This actually makes sense: The Tegra platform has gotten really mature, and awesome. I've got a Nexus 7 tablet, which runs on a Tegra 3, and it's actually a surprisingly powerful device, but touchscreen only controls severely limit what kind of games realistically work well. This device, especially with its tie-in to PC applications, actually sounds really sweet to me. Access to the existing PC and Android markets means that you don't really have to worry about a niche bit of tech going unsupported by publishers, too.

1) X-Com: Enemy Unknown

2) Hotline Miami

3) Endless Space

4) FTL

5) Walking Dead

Bought Endless Space, They Bleed Pixels, and Far Cry 3 so far

The shots near the end that looks like gameplay reminded me of Iji. 2d shooter/platformer, or maybe metroidvania.

Quote from Taylor

I agree that is separate, but they’re both part of the recent bi-weekly media outrage that tars the games industry as bigoted pig-dogs. #1reasonwhy is important because, while I don’t think it reflects my experiences in the industry, it does highlight several specific incidents of genuine abuse and appalling behaviour. However, there is no mystery to how individuals like Mr. Truth333 get made when you have shit like the Tomb Raider and girlfriend mode “controversies” firing off constantly as part of the larger "story" of an apparently sexist culture.

I agree with this. While there's more women playing games and making them than most people realize, they tend to avoid gaming "communities" like the plague because scared male gamers tend to react like neanderthals at the slightest hint of political correctness being discussed. The response to Tropes vs Women was an atrocity. Gaming tends to be focused on men, but that's not an intrinsic characteristic of interactive entertainment, that's a path actively chosen by executives and marketing people. We pander to manchildren, hire them because they're enthusiastic and willing to work for peanuts on games, and are shocked and surprised at the outcome.

Quote from Sentura

waiting for xcom to be lowered even further... WILL IT HAPPEN?!

X-com's worth thirty-some bucks.

I've bought Skyrim, Civ 5: Gods and Kings, and Hotline Miami so far.

Quote from Pericolos0

Yeah it's kind off funny how we all collectively decided SSAO looks good haha.Though there are definitely good looking ssao solutions, they tend to be expensive. So most game engines usually have a really crappy cheap ssao solution that doesn't even look like AO at all. Some really awful ones that almost look like a cartoon silhouette shader(deus ex, uncharted 2 etc) or look like dirt (udk) lol.

Or magic radiation like in kane and lynch 2.