Markson

I don't understand the Meninist twitter account. It's a parody, right? They broadcast themselves as a parody, anyway, in their bio. But I've also been told that it's a totally serious account and a bad thing. And doesn't the parody go over a lot of folks' heads or something? I remember when the account was first created, it seemed like such an obvious parody of MRAs to me...but everyone took it so seriously. I'm also pretty bad at reading tone on the internet though, so maybe that was me.

I played through the beginner mode of this game last night. I hadn't played since waaaaaaay back in early access and I like what they've done with it. I remember in the early days it felt impossible to win anything. Maybe it was the low difficulty setting, but it felt more satisfying to me this time. I'm excited to play on normal mode and explore different item combinations and stuff. Plus I'm a sucker for unlockable characters, so I'll probably play it until I catch 'em all. Yeah, I hear ya Ninety-Three! That's what happened to me in the last mission. One guy was impossible for me to kill or stun, so I had to do some complex bait-and-cloak to get him to move out of the way so Monst3r could get in place and open a terminal. But that was kind of fun too. Until that moment, I'd never had to bait anyone anywhere. I'm hoping stuff like that becomes more useful/prevalent at higher difficulty levels.

Ooops! Haha, yeah you're right it was "a seasoned industry professional" and not a PR person. My bad! Either way though, someone in her company made her feel like she was dressing for other people instead of just for herself, which sucks to say the least.

I don't think she's necessarily saying that the problem is what everyone is wearing - I think it's that she was singled out every time she dressed differently. Hearing "What's the special occassion?!" every time she wore a dress or something, for example. Sounds like a harmless compliment, but I feel like she was saying that after hearing stuff like that every time she dressed up, she started to feel "different" or "other." So to avoid those feelings, she would follow the "dress code." And when she did, lo and behold, nobody commented on what she was wearing. But like she writes, dressing just to fit in (or in other words, dressing so that attention doesn't get called to how you're dressed) gets tiring too. It's an effacement of identity. Also the bit about how those PR people told her or a friend that they couldn't represent the company on TV because it would look like they were "selling sex." I mean...that's a problem. Edit: What clyde said! That's a really succinct summary!

My pops always said "no more than a week's pay" which I guess is like 25% right? I'm really fortunate because I live with 5 other friends and we're able to keep rent way down that way.

The real world is just one big Google search engine results page and you gotta spray paint your SEO all over it. Graffiti artists are just brand evangelists. Pedestrian eyes are your click-throughs. I hate branding. I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if I found an article Monday morning about how tagging your logo is the next big thing. It would involve a pun about tagging stuff with spray paint and the word hashtags and how hashtags are yesterday's news.

I for one would be damn interested to hear your non-4am thoughts about it!

Hm! I'm a big fan of pixel art, but I actually get more nostalgic for SNES style graphics. Does that count as a kind of pixel art? Dungeon of the Endless is a really beautiful game, IMO, and I think they have a more traditional pixel art style: http://pixelartus.com/post/111581563036/dungeon-of-the-endless http://i.imgur.com/F8ntOoq.png https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/eb/56/ec/eb56ec6cc8a38c4fca932d69c47c973f.jpg http://www.nerd-age.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Dungeon-of-the-Endless-Monsters-Behind-the-Door.jpg I don't think it's 100% pixel art though - like the floors and walls are a little more textured. I find that I enjoy the "modern-retro" interpretations of pixel art more than the actual stuff from the 90s or whenever. I don't know how to describe it, but it kind of piques my imagination. That third link to a character close-up, for example. It's kinda messy, but it also makes me think "What are those lines? Oh look, that blue thing is a shield! And maybe this is armor, and there's a little sash..." It's exciting for me to look at detailed pixel art and discover how much detail could be put into a tiny space. Dungeon of the Endless also pairs their pixel art graphics with an extra "journal" full of non-pixel art entries that you can collect: http://operationrainfall.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/dungeon-of-the-endless-album.png I think this is cool, too, because then I can look at more traditional renderings of the characters and compare them to their pixel art renditions to learn more about them. I found this interpretation to be interesting, though I don't really understand it. It's a bit more on the high art side of things: http://arcadesushi.com/the-new-aesthetic-and-8-bit-nostalgia/

The new expansion, "Guardians" is now available: http://store.steampowered.com/app/357360 http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/endless-legend-guardians-of-auriga-dlc-will-add-colossus-units-and-legendary-deeds-31669 http://www.shacknews.com/article/89357/endless-legend-expands-today-with-guardians The main add-on is the addition of "Titan"-esque units associated with different natural elements of the planet of Auriga. It sounds like you can control these Titans and order them either in combat or to enhance your civilization. "Legendary Deeds" sound like unique quests that are available for all civilizations to compete for completion. Being the first to complete one gives you extra bonuses like technologies, items, or city improvements. Speaking of city improvements, it seems they've added some new buildings that some reviewers have been comparing to the Civilization "Wonders" system. I haven't played this game in a long time. For some reason, I wasn't expecting DLC. Dunno if I'll buy it any time soon, but it's got me thinking about how neat, if technically misguided, AMPLITUDE can be. They're a favorite company of mine lately just for trying new stuff.

As a wise dad once told me, "Tough tellin', not knowin'." I found it uncomfortable that they seemed to be assuming that someone (or the Boston article?) implied Gjoni is a sociopath or autistic. Because I don't think anyone did that. It'd be kind of shitty if they did. But Deadpan already addressed it and I agree with what Deadpan said, so whatever!

Yeah, I feel that way too sometimes. I've seen some stuff on twitter where people agree - it was a good read, but it just gives Gjoni another platform to be noticed on and shouldn't be shared. The "worth it" stuff is seriously messed up, too.

I just discovered Gita Jackson on Twitter (https://twitter.com/xoxogossipgita) and she wrote this thing for Polygon which I thought was a good read and might fit in this thread: http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/29/8490019/horror-films-women

Yeah, the righteousness surprises me too. But I think I'm pretty self-righteous sometimes, too, so it scares me as well. A big part of how this all started was because one "normal" even "smart" maybe even "brooding and misunderstood" young man idolized a woman to the point that when she didn't conform to his idealized vision of her, he turned on her completely. There's an awful repetitiveness to the narrative of men who see themselves as flawed, lonely, righteous victims looking for a perfect, angelic woman to save them from themselves. And once those men find a woman to raise on that pedestal, they use them as an excuse for their own problems. This article was interesting to read because I think it was working within that frame. An early quote sticks out to me: "But [Gjoni] treated Quinn’s principled stands on gaming, social justice, and loyalty as if they were the behavior of some exotic creature." What I remember of "The Zoe Post" is that it was full of stuff like that. Zoe Quinn was just some weird, exotic bauble or pet to Gjoni, is the impression I got. It's sickening. His actions and worldviews were shaped by the culture of the internet, gaming, etc. He's just the most recent embodiment of some of the horrible things that are broken about the way society is structured. And whatever was in him woke up in a lot of other people, too, when he wrote something calculated to flip every awful switch in their minds. Gjoni is a lot of things that a lot of men (myself included) should be afraid of and conscious of in themselves if they want change to happen for the better, in my opinion. I guess Zoe thought it was a good write-up: https://twitter.com/TheQuinnspiracy/status/593217470422331392 https://twitter.com/TheQuinnspiracy/status/593217850921197568 She's amazing for all the work she's doing on Crash Override.

There are so many wonderful cats in this thread :3 Thank you all. On the left, the longhair is Jackson and on the right is Kitty. We got Kitty as a kitten (one of the friends I live with took him in from the streets) and couldn't ever agree on a good name for him - eventually we realized that we'd taken too long to name him and only ever called him Kitty so it stuck. Jackson was a rescue owned by a friend who moved in with us. They're the best of friends and I like to call them KC and JC when they're paddin' around the house together. The coolest thing about them is that they have really distinct personalities and are pretty different from each other - but they're still basically brothers. Likes: Wrasslin', people-watching, going places where they definitely aren't allowed to be and breaking things together. Dislikes: the sound of plastic bags, being snuck up on, waiting to be fed.

I've been binging on this game lately. It's a lot more fun now that I'm allowing myself to turn the difficulty down sometimes! I don't get as frustrated or bored with combat because of it. Sometimes I just really want to stealth arrow kill a whole dungeon and then have a tiny sword fight with the boss, and that's a-ok. For me, the problem with "difficult" combat in this game is just that the enemies have an incredible amount of health. My favorite battles involve a lot of me using terrain to my advantage, disengaging, chase scenes, and short bursts of really deadly action...and for the longest time, it felt like those fights only happened between levels 3 and 8. Lower difficulties are just more fun for me I guess. Also I no longer feel obligated to complete EVERY quest I get AS SOON AS I GET IT, and that makes it a lot more fun too. I'm RP'ing as a cranky old high elf, so sometimes I just think, in-character, "Baaah, I don't have time for this. I'm too old to not be doing the things that really interest me anymore."

Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, that's a good point. The more I think and read about the whole thing, the less of a big deal it seems like.

Yeah, I also feel like this was just a joke and isn't a big deal. McWhertor gave the domain back and clearly never had any intention of doing anything shady with it. However, I also feel like it was a pretty dumb joke and I have no idea who is supposed to be laughing with or enjoying it. It so closely imitates serious legal issues about intellectual property and branding that it's difficult for anyone not "in the know" to understand that it's a joke. Based on the posts I've read so far, I don't get the impression that anyone believes there was any malevolent intent. I feel like a lot of folks (here and elsewhere) are just baffled by how meaningless of a gesture it seems like to them. And by the fact that it wasn't funny, just kind of dumb. But then, I don't think it was a prank meant for the public to understand. I think it was an in-joke for journalists and PR folks, so I don't feel like the public opinion matters - except for the fact that public opinion can influence brand reputation, which kind of sucks if it was just meant to be a harmless joke between insiders. McWhertor probably only saw the part that was funny to him, and not the part that people outside of his field would misunderstand. Not everybody has good PR skills. Poor guy shouldn't be fired, but maybe he should get some training so that he can be better prepared for stuff like this if it happens to him again. And JonCole has a point that GG will get angry about anything. They're on the look-out for things to be upset about. Everything is fuel to them - they're not just innocently misunderstanding this situation, they're assuming the worst and actively whipping up conspiracies and witch-hunts. I think that yearoftheps3 is a good comparison. That's something that everyone in the know (the Idle Thumbs community) realizes is a joke and thinks is funny - but if Sony really did declare 2015 the Year-of-Our-Lord-PS3 and then someone dug up El Muerte's site and assumed the worst...I can see it exploding in the same way, from the same kinds of misunderstandings. And now I feel like I'm speculating too much and trying to grasp concepts that are a little above my head, so I'm gonna stop. I'm basically just summarizing points made by people smarter than me anyway, sorry ;__;

Wells Banana Bread Beer is the beesssst. Good taste!

Interesting! Did you start in the Old Gods start point? I had a similar thing happen to me in a game I played after the Old Gods expansion came out (I think). I'm pretty sure it was between patches so they were working the kinks out of Old Gods. The Norse religion reformed and then all of its followers united under basically one empire. In the process of forming their empire and picking apart Europe, they fought a bunch of little holy wars against outlying Catholic dukes and counts who had escaped the Karlings. Every time they won, I'm pretty sure they took 5% of Catholicism's moral authority. Within the span of two generations, that moral authority was so low that the entire Catholic religion had broken into heresies and almost vanished. It was a fun game and an interesting narrative - it was cool to watch my rulers' religion fade away and picture them as the last stubborn believers in a world that had moved on...but it also felt like a failing of the game mechanics. What sucked about it was that once those holy wars started it felt like there was no escaping a total degeneration of moral authority. The Karlings were too stupid to unite against the Norse, so every war ended up a loss. Plus, there were a few Great Holy Wars thrown in. Anyway, thanks for sharing your map! Sorry to hear it didn't work out so well!

Edit: Bleh, nevermind. I was just vocalizing to myself, this post doesn't contribute anything. Sounds like the right thing will be done - neither the devs nor the backer agree that the transphobic stuff should be in the game, so I'm optimistic that it'll be removed.

I've gotten into the maybe dumb habit of playing this game while drunk, but usually only for a generation or so. Then when I return sober to pick up the pieces everything is all "No, no, no! Who did this? My vassals are outraged! My domain is sundered! The Republic is ruined! What a fool my father was!" Also, the Shattered World Mod always really interested me! I hope you'll post your thoughts on it once you've played it! Edit: Oops, well, I mean, played it a little more or something. I'm just really curious to hear more of your thoughts on it and also maybe a map!

Oh no... I was just thinking the other day that when he passes, a little light in the world would go out. And now it has, I guess. A quote from The Truth has always stuck with me - "Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove." I thought about that and his battle with Alzheimer's and how I devoured his books in high school at least once a week. I really admired him. Such good memories reading those books - they helped me through some rough times. Man, this is terrible. Just terrible.

Here's to 200 more!

That might be from here: http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2y30o2/gdcrant_this_years_gdc_wasdifferent/ Supposedly it's from some dev who went to GDC and was disappointed because it's "different" than it used to be (e.g. more people than usual dyed their hair, too many hipsters, people were hugging too much). I want to say "it's a weird post," but it's not that weird, I guess. Just more of the same kind of stuff that comes out of the Claptrap camp. Also, Tegan, that's perfect, haha.

The particular flavor of schadenfreude I'm enjoying is that over on GrableGorp hub KiA, it apparently takes 3+ threads on the front page for them to convince each other to stop harassing the GDC hastag, but there's not a single mention of the Sarkeesian Effect kerfuffle. Which is weird, because they care more about ethics than they do harassment, right? ...Right?! I know it's unhealthy, but I can't help but follow that sub just to get angry. I keep hoping it'll all die down, but I've been hoping that since late last October. Ever get a toothache and forget what it was like to live life without a toothache? Edit: Comparing GrimbleGrump to a toothache is unfair because real pain and suffering beyond my privileged annoyance and disgust has been inflicted on people, so I'm immediately sorry for that choice of words. It was the quickest way to summarize that "this will never end, things are bad and I wish they would go away" feeling that I found off the top of my head.