Life, but nothing like it.

Wide and shallow.

Fri, 18 May 2012 16:33:18 +1000

Which all added up to why marriage is a keen example of the issues I had with Skyrim. It’s a game with a lot of detail – huge numbers of things to do, sure – but no depth. No connection for me, the player. Everyone in the world is basically waiting for you to come along and solve their problems, be in the return of dragons or delivering letters to towns up the road. Skyrim is a single player MMO, and the in-game marriage system was a continuation in that vein.

Marriwage Bwings Us Togethwer, Skyrim-Style.

Skyrim is a great game if what you really want to do includes activities like collecting 2,000 lbs. of brooms. Not so great on the emotional connections.

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randomredux: Oh dear What have I done … that hashtag....

Thu, 17 May 2012 23:13:23 +1000

randomredux:

Oh dear

What have I done

… that hashtag. WWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYY! D:

Don’t talk to me about “immersion”…

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:03:47 +1000

This weekend, as I was taking a chocolate bunny from the remains of a land-going fish assassin, a man carrying 1250 ingots of iron in a belt pouch remarked to me that it was unrealistic that he could salvage wood from charcoal. I had trouble hearing him speak from a different continent, partly because of the way 13,507 gold coins were clinking in my pockets[.]

[GW] Tooth Enamel and the Aging Adventurer.

True story: I have encountered the “gold coins” problem when trying to write videogame-based fanfic. Sure it makes sense in a game that you can carry six suits of armour and five thousand gold coins in your inventory but, erm. When you’re writing fiction, the lack of that makes certain things that would be trivial in-game quests (“go to the next town and buy our camp a month worth of provisions”) become suspension-of-disbelief impossible. I mean, have you ever actually had to carry around a thousand coins (denomination/s of your choice)? I have, and let me tell you: It’s really, really heavy.

(See also: Homestuck.)

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Photo

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:23:27 +1000

Photo

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:21:02 +1000

Photo

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:18:36 +1000

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Thu, 17 May 2012 15:16:05 +1000

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Wed, 16 May 2012 16:58:15 +1000

Problematic things.

Wed, 16 May 2012 04:04:41 +1000

As you zoom about the galaxy, you’ll encounter many fat guys. They’re soldiers, wardens, shopkeepers, spies, smugglers, community organizers, and Jedi. You’ll see not a single flippin’ fat woman anywhere. They just don’t exist.

And if erasing fat women from the galaxy wasn’t enough, the protocol droid on my ship helpfully informs me every once in a while that he’s put my crew on a diet. My crew of athletic guys and one skinny woman; all of whom spend their time sprinting across strange planets, getting into fistfights with monsters, and kicking the forces of evil in the face. God forbid these folks exercise their own discretion about how much fuel their bodies need. Not when BioWare can get in a cheap shot at fat people and call it a “joke.

A Jedi Needs Not Games To #Fail: Ableism, Fat Hatred, Heterosexism, and Misogyny in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

One day, someone will make a videogame and there will be nothing problematic in it. Noth–

Oh, who am I kidding.

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caiterhe: The D’aulaires version (a classic!) of Thor dressed...

Mon, 14 May 2012 20:15:27 +1000

caiterhe:

The D’aulaires version (a classic!) of Thor dressed as Freya for “her” wedding to a giant. And Loki as the accompanying maid.

Look, y’all, they really had to get that hammer back.

(Norse myths rock.)

… just don’t ask Loki about that time he boned the horse.

(Seriously. He gets tetchy. It’s a níð thing.)

Another useless term.

Mon, 14 May 2012 18:18:42 +1000

Having a preference does not make someone entitled. Wanting to be catered to as a consumer does not make someone entitled. Seeking maximum value for one’s gaming dollars does not make someone entitled. Buying/supporting only the games you like is not being entitled.

Entitlement « In An Age.

“Entitled” is a loaded word, designed to shut down arguments in the same way “casual” and “immersion” are. No-one “wants” to be entitled (or be seen as “entitled”), so it’s an easy thing to disavow. But it doesn’t actually mean anything, at least not when dealing in the context of high-cost mass-market games in a saturated market.

Firefly still sucked, though.

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Evil, pt. 2.

Sun, 13 May 2012 14:03:38 +1000

[EVE has] become such an unpleasant realm that many of players simply leave, having formed deeply negative and totally preventable but at least partly justified opinions of the game and its worst representatives, opinions that haunt the game indefinitely and cripple mainstream acceptance of the game and the sandbox genre as a whole. Compounding the problem, the sociopaths among the EVE playerbase band together with their sycophants and hardcore-wannabes in large, organized, hateful, vileness-spewing collectives out of self-preservation, which further aggrandizes e-thug ideology, inculcating this culture of asshattery and locker-room one-upsmanship that seeks as its only goal to offend. A quick Google search on “harden the fuck up,” for example, conjures up a slew of disgusting EVE slang that is common even outside of the game. Rape-cage. N****r-fleet. Motarded. These are not good people. This is not funny.

Bully for you « skycandy.

The whole article is quotable. Go read it. Now.

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Fun.

Sat, 12 May 2012 03:04:09 +1000

Fun should never be a choice. We should get lots of fun. […] Let me choose things that matter, let me have all the options for fun because fun doesn’t make a difference.

The Grumpy Elf: 10 Reasons I am Not Excited About Mists.

Visual customisation — which is what is being referenced here explicitly — is fun. This is where I think superhero MMOs like City of Xes get things a lot “righter” than the traditional fantasy MMO model; my character should look like what I want her to look like. Why should her visual appearance be linked to her numerical stats, or (shudder) her dungeon progression?

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Birdo.

Fri, 11 May 2012 02:53:22 +1000

Birdo.:

A Brief Discussion On Explaining Transgender Issues to Children, cite: Birdo.

The partner of a co-worker of mine loves Birdo. Like, love loves him. She’s also completely convinced he’s a “she”. which wouldn’t be to bad in-and-of-itself, if it weren’t for the fact that she treats it as some kind of… massive insult and personal slight if you happen to mention Birdo’s actual gender. Like, reducing-a-thirty-year-old-woman-to-tears level of “personal slight”.

Transphobia, indeed.

Okay, I need some Avengers film trivia answers...

Thu, 10 May 2012 09:40:47 +1000

So in the scene where The Good Guys are arguing in the flying submarine lab right before the staff beeps to signal the big attack/fight, who is in that room? And what’s the exact sequence of the attack? The camera does the spinny-upside-down thing, Banner picks the staff up… Is there downtime between that and the attack? Or does it start beeping soon after? I forget…

Inquiring minds must know!

I spit on your graves.

Wed, 09 May 2012 18:33:45 +1000

But this “it’s just a game” excuse only holds up as long as we are talking about avatars doing in-game action against other avatars, with no deeper emotion involved between the players behind the avatars. That is not always the case. If you read the stated goals and announcements of the Goons, they do not just want to achieve in-game goals; they *say* they want to cause emotional damage to the opposing players. A “win” is not shooting down the enemy spaceship, a “win” is making another player ragequit in frustration.

I believe that such behavior is evil. I believe that Alexander “The Mittani” Gianturco is evil. I believe that the real person blogging under the name of Syncaine is evil. I believe that wanting to win over the opposing avatar is okay, but deliberately wanting the player behind the opposing avatar to be emotionally or physically hurt is evil. And because this wanting to hurt the *real* person behind the screen is a motivation of the *real* person committing those acts of ganking, harassment, and bullying, I do not believe in the excuse that somebody is just “playing evil”. You can have multiple identities, but not multiple sets of moral[s.]

Identity and personality [emphasis added].

Not only is this sort of activity evil, but we shouldn’t tolerate or — worse — laud it, either. We should, like Tobold, be calling it out for what it is. Because rallying your dribbling mooks to harass a real life person into real life suicide is a real life crime (at least, it is where I live), and anyone who supports, assists, condones or excuses that behavior is not only criminal but a piece of reprehensible scum I feel lessened for even sharing a planet with.

This is not okay. And if you think it is — even a little bit — then you are not okay, either.

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nounbeast: fuckyeahfeminists: What if the male #Avengers posed...

Wed, 09 May 2012 11:22:56 +1000

nounbeast:

fuckyeahfeminists:

What if the male #Avengers posed like the female ones?

Rofl I’m pretty sure I’ve reblogged this one before, but I need it back on my blog right now.

I may actually have liked this movie if more of this had occurred! Seriously: All those buff doodes and NO FANSERVICE? I demand my freakin’ two hours back!

[Origfic/Fanfic: Urban Nordica/The Avengers] Bad crossover go!

Wed, 09 May 2012 09:51:09 +1000

nounbeast:

deefic:

This one’s for Random, who’s apparently off to see The Avengers tonight.

“Enjoy”, man!

Read More

I’m laughing because there was some point during the flying fortress segment that I seriously thought “oh god UN!Loki would have so much to say about this” lmfao.

To be fair, though, what doesn’t he have so much to say about. :P

[Origfic/Fanfic: Urban Nordica/The Avengers] Bad crossover go!

Wed, 09 May 2012 08:58:47 +1000

randomredux:

deefic:

This one’s for Random, who’s apparently off to see The Avengers tonight.

“Enjoy”, man!

Read More

Bwahahaha, fantastic XD Tara will be jealous that Miriah got to run around as Black Widow :P

I had a pic idea of the group standing in line waiting to see it; Loki would have been smirking as Joseph asked why, exactly, Loki thought Joseph would particularly identify with The Hulk. :)

Did you read this before going to see the film! OMG spoilers!

(Seriously, though. Hope you have a great time. And that pic sounds awesome!)

Reblog if talking to strangers on the internet has helped you meet awesome people who add positively to your life.

Wed, 09 May 2012 08:49:22 +1000