Rock, Paper, Shotgun - Top Ten Things that Made People Mad in @ 2008

[magerette]

Yes, folks, it's a slow news day out there, and almost every site you go to has some list of the Top Whatever of 2008. This one at RPS is a bit off the beaten track, and covers the gaming fiascos of 2008 that stirred up various degrees of internet outrage. Here's a bit of the lead-in, and #10:

Has it really been a year with more flashpoints than usual, or is this just an unfortunate side-effect of the rise...of internet discussion, and the Angry Internet Men that inevitably come with it? At any rate- here’s the PC gaming scandals, scandalletes and total non-events that most angered the Angries this year, compiled at random by an idiot (i.e. me). Some uprisings were justified, others less so - but the debate around them always fell prey to MAXIMUM RAGE.
10. Diablo 3 has colours shocker
About the most ridiculous protest of the year, and one that makes me fear for developers’ perceptions of PC gamers. Oh no - long-awaited RPG is slightly more colourful than its predecessors. STOP WHINING. Fair play to Blizzard for actually responding to the irate fans with their reasoning for the change, though were I in their shoes I would, I suspect, refuse to stoop to that level.

And a Bioshock flashback:

4. Bioshock Ate My Children
By rights, this should have been 2007’s problem. Unfortunately, it remained (remains?) an open wound for a certain breed of gamer. Many had treated it as the last, best hope of intelligent shooters, and when it turned out to be a stylised corridor-pounder that stopped making sense two thirds of the way through and climaxed with one of the more embarrassing boss fights of recent times, a lot of folk felt betrayed. It’s hard to deny...that Levine & chums’ shooter pulled far too many punches, but the irrational (pun entirely intended) rage of so many people at the mere mention of its name, even months later, totally overshadowed what it did do very well, in terms of atmosphere, setting, horror and early narrative cleverness. ...Oh - and that it was one of the first games to employ limited-installation DRM horror was a slap in the face that hasn’t yet stopped stinging. The game dodged 0-day piracy because of it, and it’s more than likely it’s thus one of the main precedents for all the Securom punishments of this year’s games.

More information.

 

[Santos]

I would add Flagship to this list.

 

[TheMadGamer]

...loathing rather than re-evaluating the game based on its own merits...

LOL. That concept died a long time ago when the internet arrived giving developlers a constant platform from which to hype their games to an audiance willing to drink it all in and add their own interpretations to the hype then get pissed off when the game comes out and doesn't match the perceptions they formed before release.

Anyway, this article was a fun read. And a reminder of why I really don't participate on the internet much anymore. I pretty much only particpate here.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I haven't read ALL comments, but this one caught my interest :

Dante says:

A belated comment on the subject, we at man vs horse had our own battle with the AIMs this year with our MMO Showdown:

http://manvshorse.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/mmo-showdown-city-of-heroes/

We hadn’t played MMOs before, so we gave some trials a shot, after it got picked up by RPS (and later kotaku) we got tons of comments, mostly disagreeing with us.

Anyway, if you look at the various sections you can see a clear split between reasonable person and AIM. The comments on our Eve section all plug the game, but do so in long well thought out articles that try and provide a balanced argument, while the WoW comments are far more numerous and consist almost entirely of badly spelled ‘you suck’ attacks. Interestingly, both also contain a fair share of the ’snooty internet man’ who looks down his e-nose at you because you’re too stupid or ignorant to possibly understand the depth of the game.

Personally I like the City of Heroes crowd best, they seem to just be raw fun lovers, well except for that one guy who was just slandering one of the developers, but that’s another story.

December 19th, 2008 at 11:16 am

 

[Zloth]

Hmmmm, Eve and City of Heroes both have older players on average. Perhaps "Angry Internet Man" should be "Angry Internet Teen"?

 

[elikal]

I stopped reading when the first line was "wow gayness" as a means to describe something bad. I dont waste my time on homophobes, whatever they have to say, I dont wanna hear it.

 

[xSamhainx]

Well, perhaps if you actually hadnt sponteneously combusted at the sight of something that seemingly offended your sensibilities, you'd have read approx one line down and realized that "wow gayness" comment and such were exactly what they were reporting on. That is the focus of the article, people going nuts and getting ugly on the internet. Right under the offending quote was:

(Er - in case you you’re not familiar with it already, that screenshot is one of the crazy mean people’s commentary on Diablo 3, and not our doing)

 

[JDR13]

I'm not too familiar with this Alec Meer guy, but this article doesn't leave much of an impression on me. Some of his personal comments are even worse than the people he's criticizing.

 

[Guest]

These "journalists" churning out these fucking "Top 892340 things my mom liked while I was playing half-life" should be lashed and forced to get real jobs.

 

[Essaliad]

Yes, that. I can't believe people are actually paid for this kind of drivel.

 

[DArtagnan]

Standard "meh" piece of journalism. Not bad, not necessarily irrelevant - it just doesn't really say anything. Par for the course.

Personally, I think the "complaints" about Diablo's post-Blizzard North art direction are valid and do cast a light on an interesting philosophy that is in consistent practice at the new Blizzard.

It's not necessarily all that important in itself - but I think it speaks volumes about how that company has changed - even if most gamers don't care. You can be totally unmoved by what Diablo's atmosphere used to be like, but you can't deny there's a profound difference between that and what we've seen from D3 so far.

The Diablo franchise is the best thing Blizzard did - in my opinion - and even though I respect the basic design of World of Warcraft in its original form, it was done before many key members left the company - and I'm mostly referring to many of those that used to be part of Blizzard North.

Blizzard's RTS games have always been high quality products, but I never personally understood the level of popularity they enjoyed. I'm basically arguing that they've lost what little edge they used to have, and that's supremely evident when you see how safe they're playing it with WoW expansions. They were always safe players - but at least Diablo had a bit of nerve.

 

[elikal]

These "journalists" churning out these fucking "Top 892340 things my mom liked while I was playing half-life" should be lashed and forced to get real jobs.

Hehe, yeah, way too many Top 10s no one wants to know whenever the year ends.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I stopped reading when the first line was "wow gayness" as a means to describe something bad. I dont waste my time on homophobes, whatever they have to say, I dont wanna hear it.

The word "gay" - which still can be found with this sense in LOTR - originally means "cheerfullness" and kind of "colourfullness".

This probably wasn't meant as an kind of indirect insult as "gay people" in the "modern" sense of the word, but rather as a way to describe what it looks like - optically, so to say.

Of both meanings of this word, the original one has almost completely vanished under the layer of the second "modern" meaning.

 

[DArtagnan]

I must admit I sincerely doubt it was meant as a derogatory statement, just like I doubt it's generally meant to suppress homosexuals. In fact I'm pretty sure we all know exactly what it meant, and taking offense is being deliberately uptight. But that's just my take on it.

However, since it's a modern obsession to be politically correct and assume everyone is too insecure to make the occasional joke out of themselves, I guess we need to be extremely careful what we say. Personally, I get sick of that level of insecurity and over-caution. It's as if we're trying to hypnotise ourselves into thinking we're all exactly the same, or that we should be.

If someone calls me a nerd - which would be a fair statement - must I react by taking offense? Maybe I should just smile about it and have some fun at my own expense.

Bah, as if there was any hope left for that way of thinking. People obviously can't be secure about their own sexuality - whatever it may be. That's sad.

 

[Essaliad]

If someone calls me a nerd - which would be a fair statement - must I react by taking offense? Maybe I should just smile about it and have some fun at my own expense.

So... have nerds been oppressed/marginalized/socially excommunicated in history? (No, the teasing/mistreatment in school doesn't count.) Did you know what kind of permanent taint an accusation of "sodomy" could cast on a man's reputation as recently as a century ago in the western world? In fact, did you know that there still exist homophobes today who would react to a homosexual man (or a man suspected to be one) with violence? Somehow, I don't think religion retards have formed organizations against "nerds" either, nor laws passed to limit the choice of "nerds" (see people lobbying against gay marriage and countries/regions that don't allow said marriage or don't allow gay couples to adopt).

Fail at perspective.

(Of course, taking offense at the "WoW gayness" line also misses the point. As trite and crappy as this article is, they were only referring to comments made against Diablo 3's art direction in irony. As in, yes, there were people who said "omg this is WoW gayness" and meant it.)

 

[skavenhorde]

WOW all these posts over the word gayness. Thanks guys that was really funny.

 

[DArtagnan]

So... have nerds been oppressed/marginalized/socially excommunicated in history? (No, the teasing/mistreatment in school doesn't count.) Did you know what kind of permanent taint an accusation of "sodomy" could cast on a man's reputation as recently as a century ago in the western world? In fact, did you know that there still exist homophobes today who would react to a homosexual man (or a man suspected to be one) with violence? Somehow, I don't think religion retards have formed organizations against "nerds" either, nor laws passed to limit the choice of "nerds" (see people lobbying against gay marriage and countries/regions that don't allow said marriage or don't allow gay couples to adopt).

Fail at perspective.

(Of course, taking offense at the "WoW gayness" line also misses the point. As trite and crappy as this article is, they were only referring to comments made against Diablo 3's art direction in irony. As in, yes, there were people who said "omg this is WoW gayness" and meant it.)

You're talking about the past, and you're letting it and the remaining opposers of freedom restrict your thinking. Have you any idea what they did to atheists in the past, or what would have happened if you spoke openly to support any kind of political ideal that happened to be opposite to the seat of power?

You see, we can be free in that way today in most civilized countries, because we've come to understand that it's ok to be different - at least in some ways. The longer we hold on to the mistakes and pains of the past - the longer we will be supporting the problems that follow.

If we are ever to be free of that kind of archaic self-imposed limits and allow ourselves to communicate without emotional barriers - then we can't stop and take offense at every single opportunity.

The reason racism and homophobia are still huge problems is because we still treat those differences as a big deal, and because we talk about it as if race or sexual orientation was particularly interesting. I propose that it's not and we get over ourselves.

Obviously, you're among those not ready for that. You would rather hold on to your "sensitivity" out of respect for whatever minority is being oppressed this century. But you're working against the ideal - the ideal I know most of us here would like to see realised.

You're the one failing at perspective - consider yourself a member of the majority.

 

[xSamhainx]

Just as long as Diablo doesnt swish out looking like Boy George or something I'll be fine w/ it. After all, I'm paying to see a dark overlord here. Otherwise, what he does in the privacy of his own infernal pit on his off time is his own business.

 

[Essaliad]

BLITHERING IDIOCY

I take it you are one of those people who think the word "nigger" ought to be used liberally. To render it meaningless, you know, and everyone should joke about it. Poor sheltered little baby.

Have you any idea what they did to atheists in the past, or what would have happened if you spoke openly to support any kind of political ideal that happened to be opposite to the seat of power?

What retardery is this? When has the word "atheist" ever been used as an insult? "Infidel" or "godless scum", maybe, but those don't even necessarily refer to atheists. Try to stay coherent.

The reason racism and homophobia are still huge problems is because we still treat those differences as a big deal, and because we talk about it as if race or sexual orientation was particularly interesting. I propose that it's not and we get over ourselves.

Obviously, you're among those not ready for that. You would rather hold on to your "sensitivity" out of respect for whatever minority is being oppressed this century. But you're working against the ideal - the ideal I know most of us here would like to see realised.

Would I be correct in guessing that you are white, male, middle-class and heterosexual? Just a guess.

You get over yourself. I suggest keeping in touch with reality, it'll help you sound less like a naive whining child.

 

[Corwin]

Settle down guys, you're walking a very thin line. NO PERSONAL insults are tolerated!!