T w e n t y S i d e d
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Last episode, I claimed that the site No Mutants Allowed had a pronounced elitist bent, and that it was hostile or arrogant towards certain types of players and playstyles. Firstly, this is incorrect: the editorial staff of No Mutants Allowed demonstrates a level tone, and the community, while it has its bad patches, isn’t any worse than you’d find on neutral sites such as The Escapist. In part, my statements were a result of a few outside links to forum threads coloring my judgment; upon reviewing the recording, however, I think the biggest problem was that I accidentally referred to the wrong damn site.
As my track record suggests (Enclave!=Brotherhood), I have a habit of occasionally referring to one thing while talking about another, especially if they occupy the same spot on my brain’s mental map (morally questionable dudes in power armor trying to turn on a water purifier and get Reginald killed). In this case, the site I intended to refer to was RPG Codex, a site whose forum was (in the weeks leading up to Fallout 3’s release) a hive of grognard elitism that frequently engaged in ship-to-ship combat with Bethesda’s forums. Frankly, the staff aspect of that site isn’t much better; they would sit around waiting for news to come down the pipe, then ambush it with a suitably snarky editorial, even when the news was positive or inconsequential. I swear, if another game site had posted an article like, “Pete Hines really enjoys peaches,” they’d have posted a front-page snippet saying, “Reknowned Donkey Molester Pete Hines enjoys peaches, ruining gaming.”
But that’s besides the point, which is that NMA doesn’t deserve the payload I’d intended for a totally different site. I’d like to formally apologize to the staff and community over at NMA. Please don’t nuke my house.
Sincerely,
Rutskarn
AKA Dogmeat Genocide Device
AKA Stimpack Magnate
AKA Richard Nixon
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I’m always afraid of making a mistake like this on the show. The printed word can be shaped and formed during editing, but things that come out of your mouth are not so easily tamed. I’m always apprehensive about situations where I might use the wrong word and make a complete hash out of things.
Thanks so much to Josh for admitting his mistake and making things right.
Robots don’t apologize.
randy, are you continuing your bad company lp or not, man?
Cute.
What’s Josh got to do with this, then?
It’s a joke, I believe.
Absolutely nothing I assume. It’s a joke about using the wrong word or term the same way Rutskarn did.
So, Rutskarn, you’re switching your lynch vote from NMA to RPG Codex, hoping people start bandwagoning on them instead of you? Thanks to your new series, I’m now onto your tricks!
Don’t listen to him, folks. Sekundaari has been voting for Rutskarn since the first episode.
I’m voting for Sekundaari for mudslinging.
With all this bandwagoning I’m thinking Rus might be a wolf.
OT: I spent a while at NMA during the lead up and then release of F3 and I have to say while there was a bit of a negative tone to the game, which is understandable considering how much was changed. I agree that the people there were fairly considerate of other opinions and in general a well behaved group.
The thing is that there were Bethesda fanboys who came in and then posted threads like “This is why Fallout 3 is superior to the Original” and were basically just doing the most ham-handed trolling, then when some otherwise stalwart and fine lads fell for it they’d probably end up linking to the thread and going, “Look, look those meanies at NMA won’t accept anyone who doesn’t bash Fallout 3! What elitism!”
In my mind if anyone asks where the centre of the Fallout community exists I’mma probably point in the general direction of NMA, though. (Might be slightly biased on that, though.)
No! It’s worse! He’s probably sacrificing RPG Codex so no one realizes that he’s associated. A clever move, to be sure, but one I’ve seen before.
(Seriously: Good for you, Rutskarn. Classy move, admitting the mistake.)
“, the staff aspect of that site isn't much better; they would sit around waiting for news to come down the pipe, then ambush it with a suitably snarky editorial, even when the news was positive or inconsequential”
Sounds like your average American political website, no? :-p
No Mutants Allowed is a good community and has a lot of smart people on it, although I can’t say I’m really a part of it. It’s actually my number once source for all things Fallout, and I think the difference between the people at NMA versus RPG Codex is that they can justify their opinions without resorting to petty insults and the like. Still, a lot of people have your opinion of NMA, so I wasn’t even surprised when you spoke of them that way – they do tend to be viewed as a very elitist and cloistered community who “just can’t be satisfied”. The fact that Bethesda themselves refuse to acknowledge the existence of their site I think speaks volumes about the validity of their stance on Fallout 3.
Not just refused to acknowledge but out right banned people who linked to NMA from the BS forums (as I found out).
And honestly it’s not like F3 didn’t end up having all of the faults that were predicted.
Wow, really? I mean, I outright tell people on BioWare’s forums to boycott BioWare and EA products (due to ongoing unresolved technical issues and terrible customer support), and I don’t even get a “friendly” PM from a moderator telling me to cut it out. I guess Bethesda’s childish “la la, can’t hear you” approach to… everything is confirmed.
I had visited NMA before Fo3 came out. They seemed cynical, but not really in an overwrought way. On the other hand, I tend to quite pessimistic. So, yeah.
I actually had first heard comments of it before visiting from people who I presume were either Bethesda fanboys or blind fans*. Once they hit the double warning of “lambasting someone for showing worry about the development” and comparing aformentioned automatically into “one of those unpleasable fanboys from NMA”.
* by “blind fan”, a type of “fan dumb” opposite of “hate dumb”, I mean a person that is a fanboy who automatically supports their chosen subject without question, reasonable doubt or any level of sanity. Doesn’t accept critique. Full-on brand recognition.
In the case of the comments in Spoiler Warning I didn’t give ’em much thought either. I had a passing thought of “I don’t remember it being so bad”, but that was it. Brainnumb-watching for victory, or something.
Wow… English words in some kind of normal order. I wonder what they all mean?
“…isn't any worse than you'd find on neutral sites such as The Escapist.”
What makes a site turn neutral? Lust for gold coins? Power leveling? Or were you just coded with a WordPress style full of neutrality?
Oh god, I love you. No seriously, I wasn’t expecting the Futurama reference — and it took me a minute to get it — and then made me laugh so friggin’ hard.
Bravo.
I, for some reason can’t stand the Escapist forums. On the other hand I do enjoy reading the RPG Codex forums…
I tried to like The Escapist’s community, I really did. There are some good people, it’s true. The problem is that they are totally drowned out by waves of idiots who are just there to hear Yahtzee say “balls” a lot. There’s also serious tl;dr syndrome there – if you post anything over 3 paragraphs, nobody will read it, even if it’s the most insightful stuff in the world. The sole exception is their “Reviews” forum, which is where kiddies can play at being games journalists, and rate each other on the quality of their reviews. Yeah. Uh. I posted a lengthy discussion on gender roles in gaming or some such, but I guess I didn’t have enough image macros or something, because it got ignored.
I’m also not really a huge fan of The Escapist’s shift from intellectual, almost meta-observations on gaming, to a bunch of mostly unfunny video content. There is some good stuff there (basically everything by Shamus and MovieBob) but I really get the sense that they have dumbed down their content in favour of getting page views. Of course, it works.
I agree, anything by Shamus, MovieBob or Yahtzee, and many of the article writers are pretty good too. (better than the junk that IGN or GameSpot etc. spews out most of the time, heck even GamaSutra has started to take a nose dive now and again)
The Escapist got a few (!) reality tv like video series that really isn’t my thing and I stay away from.
And that fakes news thing they got going. *sigh* only Stephen Colbert can do a Stephen Colber(t)… (which even I have grown kinda tired of these days), eNN could have been way better if it was originally designed to emulate how The Daily Show is done instead.
The intellectual meta-articles are still there, it’s just hard to find them beneath a dozen web series trying to be the next Yahtzee.
Why did they change? Zero Punctuation increased their pageviews by over 400%. It’s like they’re running a bookstore that carries only Tolstoy and Stephenie Meyer novels. How many Tolstoys do you think they’ll have in stock? About four.
You forgot Unskippable and Extra Credit.
Actually, go check out Extra Credit right now, it’s exactly the kind of content that I first visited the site for.
But yeah, I agree, most of the shows they host aren’t clever or funny or… well, anything interesting at all, really.
Stick with the written stuff; even if they write articles that are completely and utterly pointless, they’re still writing stuff that’s more interesting and insightful than anything IGN or Gamespot could ever come up with.
The Escapist neutral, huh. If I’m not mistaken, Brother None (NMA admin) got banned there for criticizing factual inaccuracies in a Fallout-related article.
EDIT: This wasn’t supposed to be a reply, actually. Oh well, edit function to the rescue!
See, it’s one thing to ban people over reasons like “you’re a dick” or “I don’t like you”, or even over personal feuds. It’s another entirely to literally silence all criticism via lethal force. I think episodes like this show just how huge the egos of some Internet celebrities are. How I would love to take some of those fools down a peg.
Wasn’t Fallout. It was a The Witcher review in which the reviewer played only 10 hours, and I was trying to argue that while this admittance is good (many reviewers play only 10 hours and then just pretend to have played the whole thing) it shouldn’t be called a “review” since he played only a fourth of the game or so. Rather an “impressions” piece, or whatever.
It took a bit, then I got banned for trolling.
Outch. Well going by what I’ve just read here I have to say that seems odd.
And I have to agree, a reviewer really should play until the end credits AND stick around until after them as some games might have a After-The-Credits scene even.
“I won’t spoil anything about the ending though.” is a typical give away,
while “I won’t spoil anything about the ending though. But I liked it!” (or hated it, or it left a kinda of Meh feeling) tend to show they did play it all.
This is why I visit GameBanshee for all my cRPG news, and the escapist for the more mainstream stuff (and the various contributors like Shamus).
I remember reading an interesting article (on the Escapist, funnily enough) that was about the reviews process, written by a guy who’d had a lot of experience with both print and digital journalism. It talked about how unrealistic it is to expect reviewers to have played the entire thing from beginning to end, without level skips or cheats. Harsh deadlines and forty-hour games don’t mix very well, and the fact that the reviews that’re out first are the ones that get attention means that speed is what matters to the people at the top. Simply put, professional reviewers playing the game from start to finish before writing their review is incredibly rare, so if you feel like that’s not enough, it’d be better to assume that all reviews are “impressions” pieces, unless explicitly stated otherwise. While you might prize accuracy over alacrity, it’s speed that sells magazines and page views, and they do have a business to run. Such an attitude, while hardly ideal, shouldn’t be especially surprising.
I tried to go see the circumstances of Brother None’s ban firsthand, but the comments thread for the review seems to have been pruned, so I can’t comment.
I never review a game if I haven’t finished it and yes, I am a paid gaming journalist.
The problem is not inherent, as in “it’s impossible because games are so long”, most titles these days *aren’t* 40-hour titles. And even if they were, the problem then becomes one of breadth over depth: there are too many games sites out there ready to jump in, they compete each other out of competent reviewing, forcing each other to rush in a me-first world. That’s not inherent of any form of journalism. It’d be good to see the gaming sites slashes by at least 50% and instead look for depth in journalism.
Also, Escapist’s The Witcher review came out about a month after release IIRC, so the usual excuses don’t apply. It’s not that he lacked time to finish, it’s that he couldn’t be arsed. Professional game journalists, people.
Well, I’ve played The Witcher for only 10 hours as well and I can tell it sucks badly.
Imagine if I were to offer you the world’s best tasting cookie, but told you you would only get it, if you wade through shit for some odd 40 hours.
Yeah, you may get that special cookie at the end, but you still had to wade to shit to get to it and that’s just not fun.
All I need from the reviewer is that he tells me about the shit, not that cookie at the end.
I quit when I finally reached act 2 – the place where I was told the game got good – and was greeted with yet another ‘Hey, go kill this monster and show it’s as proof>’. Oh, sure. I admit The Witcher had some good ideas. But dear lord, was that gameplay bad and downright unplayable.
…
Well, if you like it that's fine off course.
You are free to drop The Witcher after 10 hours in disgust. I have never finished it myself for a variety of reasons. That’s not the point. I wasn’t playing it to review it, neither were you.
If someone plays a bit of a game and then goes to post “it sucks” there’s really little ground for complaints. When you’re getting paid to review a game then yes, you better damn well play it through to the end.
It’s easy for me to say, tho. My boss never rushes me to reviews, and is usually fine if not supportive of my tendency to do research for articles (reading the book a game is based on (for Hard to be a God), playing the original first if I hadn’t (for Majesty II), immersing myself in the rules if it’s based on a P&P (Drakensang)). That’s really not a popular mode of games journalism, tho.
Oh, I can do better then ‘it sucks’. I can explain every little thing that’s wrong with the game to you, I were so inclined. Saying ‘it sucks’ isn’t a review. Saying ‘it sucks, because…’ starts to look like a review.
Let’s get something straight, I agree with you in principle. I really do. But in my opinion the most important thing a review should talk about is the gameplay and after those first 11 hours – heck, after the first hour – of The Witcher you will have seen everything the game has to offer.
This is also true for pretty much all games out there. The only reason a reviewer should play through the entire game is to hunt for bugs or to do a review of the story. The first is important, but the second isn’t – because as hard as it is to do an objective review of gameplay, it’s downright impossible to that for a story.
If this reviewer played for about 11 hours and then wrote his review, that’s fine to me because he’s not going to change his mind by finishing the game. If anything the guy will probably only hate it more. I do would like to add that the review should be an actual review and explain why something does or didn’t work for him.
If it’s a shitty review and it consisted of just ‘it sucks’. Then I will be standing first in line, next to you, to crucify the man.
I’d say RPGs excel at evolving gameplay through the playthrough. High-level play is rarely the same as low-level play.
Also, I disagree very strongly with you that it’s “downright impossible” to review stories. If that were true, book reviewers would massively be out of a job. It’s easy to get lost in a sea of “it’s all subjective” when talking about dialogue, story or even voice-acting, but I don’t pay much mind to that kind of post-modern thinking. If it’s how you wish to see it, that’s fine, but I assure you most reviewers, and definitely RPG reviewers, do not.
It’s a gamer’s own personal preference where he ranks story in comparison to gameplay. A lot of people ignore the flaws in BioWare games because they truly are riveted by the story. Others do not. A reviewers job is to give fair reviews of these different elements. The reader can decide for himself which parts to consider and which parts to ignore.
I do declare, sir, that took balls. Admitting you were wrong always does take a certain set of mighty, mighty balls to do.
So kudos, a lesser man woulda argued his point — even if he’d not originally meant it — just as a matter of misplaced pride and dug a really deep pit for himself.
…I’m still casting my lynch vote for Rutskarn though, he’s so lacking in suspiciousness at the moment that it’s downright suspicious.
I had kind of assumed during the LP that it was RPG Codex being referred to as frankly nothing says ‘elitest d__k’ like ‘I love those Codex forums’. I swear before the Almighty that if your software requires more than 256 colors and 4MB of RAM those guys will hate on you. Still their reviews are very funny to read as long as you accept that it was always going to be negative (not wrong just way too harsh). With the white supremicism, anti-semitism, Cleve-liking and random image dumps it can be hard to rummage but there is gold in there (most at least understand Cleve is a looper).
That analogy makes me imagine a mountain of dung with a few tiny gold nuggets at the bottom, for some reason.
Analogy victory! Truly the ratio of crap to gold is <100:1 but I can't stop lurking…
Cleve liking? No one likes Cleve at the Dex unless it’s for a source of lulz!
You really don’t hang out at the ‘Dex too much, do you? I often hear comments about how RPGcodex “DOESN’T LIKE ANYTHING AFTER THE 90’s LOLOL”. If you would bother to stay and look around, you’d see that this is quite false. The Codex has praised many newer RPGs.
EDIT: nomask7 is actually the only person who is legitimately a neo-nazi.
Also, nobody like Cleve.
Nobody.
As someone who does not frequent NMA (And by that I mean I did not even know the site existed) I, of course, went there immediately after that last episode hoping for a good dose of random flamewar FUN!
Instead I found some link and review to some Oblivion mod, all very well written. Then I went off to play Oblivion.
My point is, not only did this horrible misplacement of bile cause me immense suffering as I was exposed to thoughtful writings and informative links. I also ended up having hours, yes HOURS, of fun in Oblivion because of it!
You will hear from my lawyer. So mark my words! *Shakes fist towards the heavens*
PS. I’m pretty sure you could build a nuke from all that bile. Could come in handy now that you fired all?
Man, that kind of mood whiplash really smarts.
Oh, errr, uhm, ok. It’s been a while since I defended NMA on another website and the response is actually “oh yeah, good point”.
Nice one, Rutskarn. As a VG…uh…”journalist” myself (for GameBanshee, the NMA stuff is just a hobby), I know it’s a pain to make and fess up mistakes. At least the written word allows for corrections, commentaries are just more susceptible.
So in the end, no harm, no foul.
I actually frequent and like the Codex, mostly because they LP really neat old games, often beautiful 2D adventure games. Check my Sanitarium LP! But yeah, where on NMA you can get a strike for posting “hey look at this Bethesda forum thread they’re so stupid” or inciting people to troll another site, for the Codex it is a source of pride to be a bunch of unreasonable assholes about everything pertaining to RPGs. I kind of appreciate such honest douchiness in a way but I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of it. And at least they also occasionally do good work in promoting indie games or game mods for older games (like the brilliant Arcanum modding/patching that came from there).
The RPGCodex is pretty much the only place that allows for meaningful negative comments on any partof mainstream gaming, which is in a sorry state when it comes to RPGs.
Also, most members have a form of intensely dark sarcastic humour, which is reflected in its editorials.
PROTIP: You’re not supposed to take everything we say in editorials seriously.
Summa summarum:
Butthurt detected.
LOL I TROLL U
Also: “The RPGCodex is pretty much the only place that allows for meaningful negative comments on any partof mainstream gaming, which is in a sorry state when it comes to RPGs. ” AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Have you BEEN to the Bioware forums? There’s a lot, and I mean a LOT of bitching relating to how nothing is like Baldur’s Gate anymore, why ME2’s storyline and plot suck, why Dragon Age is supposedly a betrayal, etc., etc. “Meaningful negative comments on mainstream gaming” are fucking EVERYWHERE, your little forum is not the one last safe haven. Hell, just look at Spoiler Warning and most of Shamus’ output, in fact. Or The Game Overthinker. Or nearly anything published on The Escapist. One of the primary parts of entertainment for the PC gaming community is analysis and discussion of the flaws in the mainstream gaming industry, including things like consolization, the rising costs of voice acting, DRM, copycat game design, piracy, failures in game writing, and of course the eternal claim of the PC’s death as a game platform.
You’re claiming your vitriolic little forum is the only place with meaningful game criticism? Bull. Take a look at that unwarranted self-importance and examine the rest of the internet.
Please do not escalate. Everything’s cool. The last thing I’d want is to out-vitriol them. :)
It really hurts you doesn’t it?
“Have you BEEN to the Bioware forums? There's a lot, and I mean a LOT of bitching relating to how nothing is like Baldur's Gate anymore,”
But on RPG Codex people complain about how Baldur’s Gate was a dumbed down real time w/ pause dating simulator that kicked off the decline of roleplaying games.
So there.
I will just leave this here
http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=1272978
I thought I recognised that username, I love the decline gifs I swear you’re never more that ten posts from one. I’ve been lurking for years, was that a day one gif?
edit:me type gooder this time
What a classy group of people at RPG Codex. It took them about a dozen posts to direct their ire at the correct person.
The fact that they could comprehend that there was, in fact, another person apologizing at all means they’ve an INT score several points higher than the average internet hate pool, for which they deserve at least some respect.
A valid point. My time spent on this website here has created in my mind an unnaturally high standard for anonymous internet commentary that is rarely achieved elsewhere. A man can dream…a man can dream…
Douchebag.
Sorry, it just felt like there was an imbalance of some kind that needed to be fixed.
It doesn’t really help that a lot of gamers seem to fall into two categories:
1. dumbasses (fanboys, trolls etc.)
2. people who allow themselves to be riled up by the former, thus feeding them
And the problem is that it’s so very easy to trip into the latter pitfall.
When you *frumple* it’s so easy to get into a *dance*.
“>2. people who allow themselves to be riled up by the former, thus feeding them”
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an Codex, the Codex gazes also into you. ”
– unofficial codex motto
I have an unshakable feeling that I walked into that one.
But then that respect is loss when you notice they use intimate bodyparts as a cheap (or expensive) joke element.
This thread absolutely makes my day. It’s like watching a bunch of tribal natives arguing over whether the plane flying overhead is a harbinger of doom sent by the gods or a sign of bountiful harvests to come–they’re analyzing something they know nothing about and coming to hilarious conclusions.
I admit that it’s hilarious to see them bicker, but then they started making fun of Shamus (who didn’t even write the post). Now I want to launch nukes at them.
I actually find it funny in an unintentional self-parody sort of way. I mean, Rutskarn said the site was a cauldron of hostility and their response was to launch nonsense personal attacks against the wrong guy.
Alan: What are you, some kind of homophobe?
Bob: Shut up, faggot.
It’s just so… internet.
‘Tis true.
But I have some odd personality trait that makes me absolutely hate unfounded criticism/insults/meanness (especially when it twists known facts to it’s own cause), so I still feel bad even though it doesn’t affect me at all.
Come to think of it, that’s probably why I hate politics.
Sometimes it’s an unintentional parody, sometimes it is intentional, sometimes it’s at first intentional, and then through cognitive dissonance, slowly becomes unintentional, until you can no longer tell the parody from the actuality. Although here I’d say most of the responses range from intentionally contrarian to spiteful, embellished truth.
This entire thing reminds me of the Australian tourist bureau’s ad in Japan.
You see, once upon a time Australia made an ad in Japan asking “So where the bloody hell are you?”
Now, this made huge headlines. When the japanese asked what it meant, the boss of the campaign in Japan just blushed and muttered. Apparently, this commercial was a huge insult to the Japanese people and brought shame upon the Australians blah blah. Now, the Australians use swear words like the rest of us use the letter e, so they couldn’t for the life of them understand what the japanapes objected so much too…
And that brings me to the point. On the Codex, everyone and their mother is mocked when introduced or introducing themselves. There is noone that doesn’t have a nickname that doesn’t end in -tard, -shit, -turd, -phail, etc etc. It’s just ordinary snipes. Codex forum etiquette is to your snobbishness what the Australian “bloody” is to the japanapes honour culture. Unlike you we have a very accomodating culture where things are judged on its content, not on its presentation – and if this makes you butthurt, all the better.
You mean nicknaming people with mean words is a sign of an advanced culture and not of a lack of creativity at insulting or nicknaming?
Who could have guessed!
In some cultures – in fact, in the majority of cultures, historically speaking – the western way of behaving would be entirelly abhorrent. The way we talk about celebrities, the way we mock people on TV, they way people are supposed to simply swallow an insult and “go on with it” – in honour cultures like the Afghan, the Somali, or heck, the US southern one 250 years ago, this could have you killed. This was why people at the time spoke so stilted, and were so careful at choosing words and formal phrases.
As we progress into modernity, this archaic tradition fades away. This is accompanied by a coarsening, more free spoken language, as has been remarked by various commentators since, like, forever.
But yet, this IS a sign of a freer more accomodating culture.
You realize you are basically saying that, in old times, people had to think before speaking. Now we don´t have, and it´s a good thing because we can use all the insults we like! (?)
Anyway, my point wasn´t about cultural evolution. It was that calling people names with -turd, -shit, -etc is just plain mental lazyness. If you are goint to insult someone, try to do it smartly, not with cheap imagery of stuff that is disgusting to the society.
If what you’re saying is true, and that the Codex’s way of communication is part of the future, I see no improvement.
Instead of people waisting time making sure they’re not insulting, they’ll be busy making sure they’re insulting enough so that they won’t appear as a “snobby faggot” (or a pushover).
Instead of management wondering what went wrong because no-one tells them for the fear of being rude, the management wonders what went wrong because there are hundreds of complaints. Most of them inconsequential and possibly even just “thank yous” all in the midst of actual complaints of very real problems.
And I seriously doubt that socially accepted “rude” (not remarkably polite) behaviour is actually new. In Finnish there was no polite tense, and even the one used today is the same type as in English. Which is that instead of ‘thee’ one uses ‘ye’ (which turned into ‘you’).
There’s an old (pub. 1840) songbook on my shelf that doesn’t have exactly polite contents, and many “high morale” people would be against singing them publicly. Old farmhands used to talk like, or worse than, Australians today.
For chrissakes, my grandmother swears like a sailor.
I think this is one of those situations where the Victorian age screwed up people’s perspective on the past.
And if parody is literally inseparable from a real dumbass, why is it wrong to think he is a dumbass? If you’re incomprehensible, by your own choice, why should people give you the benefit of the doubt?
@Acronix, Sumonai:
In the old days, people had to think before they spoke yes. Mostly about how not to offend anyone. Which again retarded the free exchange of ideas, which again is why we use to look back at that time with pity.
And for the same reason, we (Codex) look at the forums of Bethesda et. al. with pity.
As for politeness, Sumonai, we have no polite tense in Norway either – or, well, it died roughly 50 years ago from lack of use.
The reason is simple. It is perfectly possible to be insulting and condescending using advanced words. It is prefectly possible to be kind and insightful using simple words. The content is what matters. (Seemingly) Unlike you we don’t really think someone is better because they insult smartly instead of using what you call “cheap imagery of stuff that is disgusting to the society”.
When people are so upset, like you are, with form rather than content people become stuck up assholes that have to insult people indirectly instead of, you know, telling it like it is. The Codexian insistence on tasteless language is a reflection of our rebellion against such oppressive cultural norms. We might overdo it sometimes, but that is far better than the alternative.
So I guess I’m doubleposting, but really, I find your argument disingenius.
What is the essence of the sentence, “you’re a faggot”? There is no argument there, it is nothing reasonable people will take seriously, so what is the only thing left in it?
The truth is that it is just a generic insult, not different from “you stupid!”.
Now, lets look at the statement that started the entire thing: “The codex is a hive of grognard elitism “.
That, too, is a statement of similar amount of argument and seriousness. The only difference is that it uses slightly more advanced words, and that grognard elitist isn’t a bad word in contemporary US culture. However, since the codex is far more multicultural than most gaming forums, having a minority of americans and brits and a huge host of Krauts, Pollacks, Brazilians (for some reason), Scandinavs, a couple of south east asians etc etc you can’t expect them to conform to the shallow, strictly temporary and floating standards of USAnian culture.
So my point is that “you’re a faggot” is no different from the poor-taste shitslinging that rutskarn, in fact, started, and unprovoked at that.
The point of the analogy was that the rebuttal ironically fulfilled the accusation. Intentionally or not.
By your own admission, your greetings are indistinguishable from raw hate, so I’m not sure why you’re even here defending your chosen site from the accusations of being a hostile place? See, I can’t even tell if you’re in earnest and trying to defend the character of your site in front of a bunch of people who you don’t even care about, or if this is just more baiting and sniping for laughs.
>By your own admission, your greetings are indistinguishable from raw hate,
Oh, they are quite distinguishable. They form the same social function as “I see you”, or “this is Shamus, he has a blog and likes G4”.
If you want an analogy, think about Neytiris “I see you” with an Australian twist.
If you still feel offended, meditate on the reactions of the Japanese on the silly little word “bloody”. To them it encompassed depravity, shame, and decay, whereas to the Australians it was simply how you spoke. I imagine the Japs would react much like you: “so you are saying that “bloody” as a word is the same as raw hate? Why would you call someone that?”
If the japannesse feel disgusted by the word “bloody”, then one shouldn´t use it in front of them. It´s a simple matter of respecting the other.
That ad you mentioned can be forgiven in that they probably never thought of it. However, if they did knew, then they were just being trolls and deserved the bad feedback.
Acronix:
Indeed it’s more of a mistranslation. “Bloody” translated literally in that context is wrong, because the meaning is different. Actually, translating slang or strong dialect literally is almost always wrong.
And obviously, if you intentionally say something that you know will be taken as a bloody insult, aren’t you in the wrong?(rhetorical question, royal “you”s)
I never comprehended how some people keep insisting that they didn’t do anything wrong when they clearly purposefully riled someone else up and then got into trouble.
And hanà´, you keep saying that there are equivalents for particular greetings etc. in the Codex dialect, but you don’t seem to mention them.
For one thing, my term of accusation–grognard–is one the codex has done everything in its power to earn. Hell, I’m not sure most of them would view it as an insult, and indeed, it doesn’t have to be taken that way.
The word “butthurt” that’s been thrown around by the codex crowd is the thing that puzzles me, though. That word’s generally used to mean somebody is offended, and–while I often disagree with the Codex’s opinion and think a not-inconsiderable percentage of its community are trolls and scandalmongers–I can’t say anything they’ve done or said has actually offended me, including the linked conversation somewhere above.
My statement wasn’t made on a personal level, it was an observation, and one with–I should think–a great deal of basis in reality.
Now, I probably should have toned down the language just a bit, but only because I forgot that this was going on Shamus’s space–no reason he should have to moderate a comment war like this one.
Eh. It’s the internet. Odd flame wars here are like earthquakes in California. You sort of get used to them and eventually take them for granted.
“I can't say anything they've done or said has actually offended me, including the linked conversation somewhere above.”
Well of course it hasnt,because the linked conversation seems to attack just Shamus.Which is hilarious.(sorry Shamus,but I revel in others misfortune)
I take it you haven’t noticed Shamus’ tranquil reactions. He’s not exactly suffering.
Hes just good at hiding his feelings,but I can sense he is crying on the inside.I mean,those evil codexites are calling him a dork,and that hurts like hell.And they know his character in wow.I mean just imagine the private messages e must be reading right now.Oh the agony!
I’m only crying because I missed G4 today.
It´s like someone went “Receiving fire from that house!” and then everyone proceed to gun down the wrong one.
Daemian, true Codexers do not play WoW. Please retract statement.
Price of non-compliance: A petition for a jihad towards user “Daemian Lucifer” is submitted to the Internal Bureau for the Police of Codex Reputation.
Wouldn’t be half as fun if they weren’t so ready to jump into conclusions without a second half of a thought.
“It makes a loud noise, it must be a gorilla!”
I thought Rutskarn’s claim was based off the Glittering Gems of Hatred moniker that NMA embraced.
It might surprise some here to know that I don’t actually frequent NMA that much. But while I might not be a member in body, I certainly agree with them largely in spirit.
Ditto, krellen.
I used to lurk there often when FO3 was in development, and then when all the 10/10 reviews came in. That was quite entertaining.
You want good LPs? Check out the Sengoku Rance LP at the Codex Playground. The Codex is a pretty tough spot to get used to, but there really is an odd family atmosphere at the place. Everyone has their role (Cleve is the crazy uncle, Skyway is the angry cousin, etc.). I wouldn’t recommend it to many people, but if you can get past the racism and tranny-porn, you’ll love the place.
I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. They are a bunch of inbred red-neck hicks continually at war with a bunch of Eurotard socialist with the occasional third-worlder ridiculed for amusment.
Like oldmanpaco says: RPG Codex is not for those that love real streamlined, epic games that great companies like Bethesda and Bioware make. It’s full of bitter fanatics endlessly living in the past, harking back to a time when some RPG’s didn’t even let you have gay romance! Can you gays believe it?
paco why have you betrayed us
http://www.nma-fallout.com/features/codexcry.jpg
Out of curiosity, I know a guy who goes by the name Nickless on a few forums and so forth. You wouldn’t happen to be the same guy, would you? Irish, likes metal, usually spells is NiCKLESS?
Nope, not at all. It’s a rather common nickname mostly taken by the uncreative who can’t think of anything better when joining forums or communities. I should really look to changing it someday to something less recurring.
Just a note, you may not want to click on that link.
Good thing I wasn’t at work.
EDIT: Ha, and it’s gone! Nice work Shamus.
Codex is a place of white supremacism, hatred, racism, and in addition to this houses people who are into incest and whatnot.
It’s a terrible, terrible place. I avoid it whenever I can.
According to CD Projekt Codex is a prestigious magazine
Ha! There’s absolutely nothing prestigious about that wretched hive of scum and villainy. Places like the codex makes me dissapoint in the human race. It’s so vile and offensive, not to mention inane.
In light of the vile and unfounded accusations made on this site the codex administration would like to stress that we do not encourage, nor condone our members to impregnate their cousins or sisters. Birth control is there for a reason, you know.
Duly noted.
So, Rutskarn, who exactly was it that took a shit in your Cheerios, hmm? I mean, I don’t know much about the history of this place. Frankly, up until this article was linked I had never even heard of it.
But, I figure someone must have wronged you real good to warrant such a “payload” (what a witty pun). What happened? Were your advances towards one of our resident trannies rebuked? Did someone insult your part-time lover Princess Stomper? Maybe you were just as upset as most of us were that your Codex alt wasn’t included in JimBob’s famous Warriors of Diversity masterpiece?
Don’t worry, you’ll get over it; believe me, at the Codex, recovery from such a severe case of butthurt is something that all of us must deal with and, in fact, perfect, in our efforts to belong over there.
Nope, nothing like that. Honestly, most of the games the Codex likes I like, and as for the ones they hate…well, it’s not like animosity towards Oblivion and Fallout 3 is a rare and exotic thing, something I never encounter anywhere else. Plus, I like those games in spite of their flaws, not because I think they’re precious and unassailable jewels.
I brought up the site (well, accidentally brought up NMA, but I digress) when I was discussing attitudes of elitism in the last Spoiler Warning episode. It fit naturally into the conversation. When it came time to issue a correction, I felt it was warranted to reiterate some of my points and provide a basic explanation of my views.
Again, the use of the word “butthurt” puzzles me. There’s a difference between being offended by something and just plain not sympathizing with it.
They seem to be fond of that type of words. You know, anything related to that general anatomic location.
I’m sure that attempting to “belong over there” is high up on his to do list. :p
Here’s a good example of what butthurt means:
When you infer that it’s a bad thing to engage in “ship-to-ship combat with Bethesda's forums”, the Codex tends to get very butthurt.
Now, we accept your above apology and demand the following penance: you must tithe 10% of your income for one year towards the upkeep of rpgcodex.net. Alternatively, we will accept pictures of any of your female relatives in the appropriate thread in our General Discussion.
That is all.
I thought you only took in pictures of male transvestites?
I’m sorry if presumed too much, but my exprience with your site is limited and therefore my impression constitutes mainly of second or third hand opinions and descriptions.
The way you used “butthurt” there, makes it feel like it should be inbetween asterisks.
“*Taking* the *silly cows* made us *butthurt*, not *smooth* at all.”
Dear administration of Shamusyoung.com
We, the people of RPG Codex, find your article to be very offensive towards us as a minority. It creates wrong stereotypes, enforces hatred towards our peaceful community and gives us a very bad image. This should not be allowed.
We demand that you remove these offensive materials, the sole purpose of which is to stir up the hatred towards the RPG Codex population, as soon as possible and publicly apologize.
Kind regards,
Your Codex.
Point of order–this is hosted on Shamus’s site, but I’m the originator of these statements. If he wants to remove them, that’s his prerogative, but please understand that he’s not the one leveling these criticisms.
Oh, *now* you tell us that!
:rolleyes:
The fact that this post is entitled, “A Message from Rutskarn,” and that I was the one responding directly to your posts, should have given you a clue.
Rutskarn, I’m sorry, but you fail at the internet.
Please rip your ethernet cable out of the wall.
So says the guy that failed at reading the title of the message, or the mini-title saying “posted by Rutskarn”.
Have you really never encountered sarcasm? What kind of abomination is this site, anyway?
You have a flexible understanding of the word ‘sarcasm’. Not protesting it, just taking a note.
Care to explain how it is? I´m intrigued. Unless your definition of “sarcasm” is so advanced and culturaly superior that my feeble mind couldn´t understand it, of course.
Shouldn´t you too Nuke from Orbit those threads in your own forums that have a bunch of people being very offensive to certain minorities or majorities, creating the wrong stereotypes and enforcing hatred toward other peaceful (or not) communities and giving them a bad image? I mean, that shouldn´t be allowed, either! Not to mention that you should also publicly apologize to each of those people/communities that you offended.
Unless you mean that all that is OK as long as it´s in your place. Because, I mean, of course it´s OK if offensive statements start in your place. What am I thinking?
Really, the Codex is better than you give it credit for. Yes, on the surface, we are all angry old men, but there is actually lots of decent content there. Just… stay out of /gd/. If you value your sanity.
They just want something to be butthurt about. They don’t much care what. :)
Can I suggest radio silence? As much fun responding is, flies don´t go away until they stop having fun.
Flies? Darn it, mommy, he called us flies!
Admittedly, just taking the Codex at face value, the place does seem like its filled with elitist fucks that hate everything modern and/or recent. Even 5 minutes of actually reading the forums will remove that notion however.
There are a few people that come off as hating everything, but the majority of the codex don’t really take them seriously when it comes to game criticism.
EDIT : I should mention that the ‘few people that come off as hating everything’ don’t. Its more a case of being VERY vocal when citing the negatives.
I think this particular exchange has expended its entertainment value.
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