Sunday, December 20, 2015

7:53 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Kudos for axing the GameFAQs quality forum and moving on from http://Battle.net posters, at any rate - although I should say GameFAQs itself these days is stuck in a peculiar time cycle of its own

7:54 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Because most of the community venerates games from the '90s that they played in their childhoods, such as, oh, FF7/Zelda OoT

7:54 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Which is probably why they got super pissed when Undertale won their perfunctory "best game ever!!!!!" voting thing

Monday, December 21, 2015

6:13 PM - Michael J. Lowell: thanks for the feedback

6:13 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I'm still thinking about what's going to be done with the forums

6:13 PM - Michael J. Lowell: and pretty much everything

6:14 PM - Michael J. Lowell: GameFAQs definitely goes, though, I don't need rats living in my forum

6:15 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But most of my problem is just with figuring out how I plan to lay out content and what content goes where

6:16 PM - Michael J. Lowell: and as far as on-site obnoxiousness goes

6:16 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I'm probably going to be a lot less tolerant of any stupid bullshit

6:16 PM - Michael J. Lowell: if only because im going to be investing a decent sum of money into redoing everything

6:17 PM - Michael J. Lowell: what really gets me about modding these forums are the people who take one line out of a five-paragraph post

6:17 PM - Michael J. Lowell: bitch about that one line

6:17 PM - Michael J. Lowell: okay, okay, whine

6:17 PM - Michael J. Lowell: and then that becomes like 15 posts of nonsense

6:17 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I could be rwrong, but my hunch is that that is a part of "gamer culture"

6:18 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: And if you want to try and change your sites' stance within the culture of gaming, well, maybe I could come back and help, but it's still too early for me to make any commitment

6:19 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I never really quite understood why GFAQs quality forum existed to begin with - there needs to be light-hearted forums to chat and joke on, probably, but not like that

6:19 PM - Michael J. Lowell: because that was the original intent

6:19 PM - Michael J. Lowell: and then it slowly morphed into a subforum where all the WGDF posters who had no interest in self-betterment yakked away

6:20 PM - Michael J. Lowell: but yeah, one sec

6:24 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Okay, I'll go ahead and ask you, since I am curious for my own sake: What would you be looking for me to do with the site so that it's more "inculsive", or at-best, less hostile?

6:24 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Because if it means banning people for being obnoxious, I'll do that one-two-three,.

6:26 PM - Michael J. Lowell: (And we can talk about the real GameFAQs thing in a few, since I do find that shit amusing.)

6:27 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Banning would be an important step, although you'd have to follow that up with good moderation

6:28 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: This is a bit of a tough question for me because it's related to gaming culture, and your approach to video games

6:28 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Not that your approach is bad, mind

6:29 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: It's more that your focus on gameplay attracts a number of unpleasant elements, you know, /v/ users and the like

6:29 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Like how half of icycalm's praise page is /v/ quotes

6:29 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: The solution is, perhaps, to allow discussion of games as a whole, in addition to detailed talk about mechanics

6:30 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Yeah, and to be very honest with you, I became very cognizant of the fact that my forums were a reflection of my writing.

6:30 PM - Michael J. Lowell: one sec again, just closing out some tabs

6:30 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: tabs are the enemy i know too well

6:30 PM - Michael J. Lowell: They were playing ironically bad Christmas music.

6:31 PM - Michael J. Lowell: So yeah, but basically...

6:31 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Define "discussion of games as a whole" for me.

6:31 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Are you saying more holistic approaches of games or social critiques, as frames within games?

6:31 PM - Michael J. Lowell: framed*

6:32 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Both, really

6:32 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Although I'd expect you to go for the former, which I wouldn't mind

6:32 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I don't need you to turn into Critical Theory: The Gaming Website

6:32 PM - Michael J. Lowell: As I do more writing, I should expect that to come naturally, because I've become much more impartial to themes/visuals within gaming.

6:33 PM - Michael J. Lowell: As being absolutely critical, so to speak.

6:33 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: But as bad as Polygon, Kotaku, new games journalism can be, they're broaching more topics than enthusiasts usually do

6:33 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Mind you, the new games writing I'm talking about also discusses mechanics

6:33 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Maybe I can find you some examples

6:34 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: http://ellaguro.blogspot.com/

6:34 PM - Michael J. Lowell: gimme onesecond and ill reply

6:36 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I, uh, haven't been keeping up with this blog regularly

6:36 PM - Michael J. Lowell: lol

6:36 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Yeah, lemme check out what seems pertinent.

6:36 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: But she wrote some interesting posts about Wolfesntein 3D design and intent, as well as writing about her social position in gaming culture

6:37 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: It's also her personal blog, and apparently she's leaving gaming for a reason that may be related to the latter

6:38 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I should probably just link to her Wolf articles

6:38 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: something recent: " ~~~ i did a series of videos on selected levels i like from Doom mods with commentary called "Doom Mixtape". the link to the full playlist is there."

6:38 PM - Michael J. Lowell: This probably demands a little bit more of a time investment than I have in the course of the article, so yeah, I would be willing to read through in a couple.

6:38 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Link me what you have, though.

6:38 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Alright, hold on

6:39 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Bear in mind you caught me in the middle of another convo and another thing too

6:39 PM - Michael J. Lowell: np

6:39 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I'm cleaning up my room atm

6:41 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: http://ellaguro.blogspot.com/2013/02/adventures-in-level-design-wolfenstein_23.html

6:41 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: She reads pretty heavily into it, but it's pretty good nonetheless

6:41 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: And this is one of multiple such articles

6:44 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Mind you, I'm not calling for a replacement of mechanics discussion, I'm interested in a diversification of topics

6:44 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Because the articles I'm finding talk as much about gameplay as they do about other parts of games

6:45 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Sounds like you just want more discussion of aesthetics.

6:45 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Which is fine with me.

6:45 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: That, as well as a bit more discussion of the culture surrounding it as it affects the games

6:46 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: As for your community, well, you'll probably have to outright ban a couple people such as Q-veta, since keeping toxic imageboard-like attitudes around (such as gameplay first mindset, which people call ludofundamentalism) will cripple your efforts probably

6:47 PM - Michael J. Lowell: The gameplay-first dudes will get weeded out, anyway.

6:47 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: As for others who may disagree, well, you can probably talk it ou-yeah

6:47 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: You may also need new blood coming in, of a different mindset

6:47 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Also bear in mind that we drove Evilagram insane because he put "gameplay" above everything else.

6:47 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: You basically need to detach yourself even more from /v/ and sever all ties with anything related to anything related to icycalm

6:47 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Lol, evilagram

6:48 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: We got into an argument about games writing and gamergate on steam, I wish him the best but I'm lumping him in with Orwell at this point

6:49 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Anyway, if there's anything and I mean anything icycalm says that you agree with, remember that even broken clocks are stll right twice a day

6:49 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I'd recommend talking to Seldon a bit when you can catch him, he might have some input too

6:49 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Grad school is keeping him busy though

6:49 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I might pastebin this for him

6:50 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I haven't seen him in a bit, so if he's busy, good for him, he found something to commit his time and energy to.

6:50 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But yeah, I don't even think you have to worry about icycalm at this point, because there's a good chance he's dead.

6:50 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And I don't joke on that.

6:50 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I thought you were kidding about the car crash thing

6:50 PM - Michael J. Lowell: He hasn't made a peep on the internet since August and his website is falling apart.

6:51 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I made a conscious decision to not concern myself with him too much, so I didn't know

6:51 PM - Michael J. Lowell: The car crash WAS a joke, referencing someone from the WGDF who "died in a car accident", but him being dead is an extreme possibility.

6:51 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Seldon told me he took down the paywall a while back, t least

6:51 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Disclosure: I legit reported him to the FBI and got a call back eventually because I knew he was self hosting in Tenerife, and that he was a figutive

6:52 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: fugitive*

6:52 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: But surely the FBI wouldn't kill him

6:52 PM - Michael J. Lowell: The only thing I heard (and this is a big "supposedly") is that he said in one of his last posts that he was having palpitations.

6:53 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But no one actually knows if that's true because he put his paywall back up after getting into a hissy fit with Orwell and Quash on separate occasions.

6:53 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: At the end of the day, he was as much a victim as anyone, given how seriously mentally ill he is/was

6:54 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Apart from all that crime and horrible self-centered writing and abysmal moderation

6:55 PM - Michael J. Lowell: He at least had the decency to be an interesting personality, but I did imagine he was going to do something genuinely crazy at some point.

6:55 PM - Michael J. Lowell: In the sense that people would get hurt.

6:55 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Same here

6:55 PM - Michael J. Lowell: So it's definitely for the best if he burned uot.

6:56 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: "Rip in piece, you were a pretty funny example of the worst excesses of toxic gaming culture"

6:57 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Well, the irony of it is, if he did flame out, him putting up the paywall pretty much assures nothing he wrote in the last four years will ever be read.

6:57 PM - Michael J. Lowell: That actually does him a favor because most of that shit was unreadable on any level.

6:57 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But yeah!

6:57 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: He wasn't one for long-term thought, because I'm pretty sure actual psychopaths cannot form long-term plans :V

6:58 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Not to drag the topic on about him, but that's why I got sick of his site: Every other month, it was a new master plan, and him pretending he never abandoned the old one.

6:58 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Fuck it, was exhausting.

6:58 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: One thing I noticed was how his writing and mannerisms basically grabbed naive people by the lapels, and it took a wiser friend to point this out when I was in the middle of it

6:58 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Well, I kind of find it fascinating, but you're right

6:59 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Oh, I dislike his readers more than I dislike him.

6:59 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Naive gamers from places like 4chan, mind

6:59 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Guess that's what an all-demanding personality cult does for you

6:59 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I know someone in real-life who runs a business, and basically, he just gets people around him not that he knows are capable, but that he can control.

6:59 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Same shit here.

7:00 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Except these losers aren't even getting paid to be icy's subordinate

7:00 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Anyone else who can stand up to him gets banned.

7:00 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Well they would have if the subhumans paid more attention to his ubergame

7:00 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But his ubergame came out. :^)

7:00 PM - Michael J. Lowell: (One sec.)

7:00 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: ???

7:00 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: !!!

7:01 PM - Michael J. Lowell: http://store.steampowered.com/app/391780/

7:01 PM - Michael J. Lowell: SEE

7:01 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: ohhhh shit

7:01 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: yeah this is

7:01 PM - Michael J. Lowell: (this is not him lol)

7:01 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: basically what it would have been, except more colorful

7:01 PM - Michael J. Lowell: yes

7:01 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I remember seeing some of the "concept art", shit was hilarious

7:02 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Photoshop filters and graffiti over a closeup picture of the Louvre? Piss rivers and rectangular blunt weapons? He could have made a passable Unity game off those

7:02 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And sadly, probably like 20 people gave him money for it.

7:03 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Which was the REAL game, I'm sure!

7:03 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But ANYWAY...

7:03 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Yeah, he ded. Ded clams taste bad.

7:04 PM - Your state is set to Offline.

7:04 PM - Michael J. Lowell is now Offline.

7:04 PM - Lost connection to Steam, will rejoin chat automatically when connection regained.

7:12 PM - Connected again and rejoined chat.

7:12 PM - Michael J. Lowell is now Online.

7:12 PM - Michael J. Lowell: DEAD CLAMS

7:12 PM - Michael J. Lowell: DEAD STEAM

7:12 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Sorry, network crapped out on me

7:12 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: WHO WAS GABE

7:12 PM - Michael J. Lowell: yeah that works

7:12 PM - Michael J. Lowell: lol

7:12 PM - Michael J. Lowell: anyway

7:13 PM - Michael J. Lowell: uhhhhhh

7:13 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I was just gonna say that yeah, I have a couple of things planned in mind for different site content that will probably attract different kinds of readers.

7:13 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And then I'll slowly go from there.

7:13 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Well, you've caught my interest

7:13 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: And, I could probably spread word if I need to

7:14 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Just so you know though, since I know we've talked about it before, but...

7:14 PM - Michael J. Lowell: It's not that I don't think the social side of videogaming isn't worth discussing, because let me tell you right now, the absolute worst part of Ninja Gaiden, the absolute best brawler ever made, is Rachel.

7:15 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Have you played the game by chance?

7:16 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: No, but I still remember hearing about how hard the 2004 Xbox version was

7:16 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: And I was gonna say, I don't think you need to, like, take a collge course on this shift

7:17 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Just either open yourself and especially your platform up to it, be a bit more humble in the presence of people who know a lot about it, and see what happens

7:18 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I should probably have phrased it as "open your platform up to it some, grdually, and don't be afraid of having your opinion shift either"

7:19 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I don't mind having my opinion on it shift, my opinion on the matter of the business of videogaming has gone significantly more in favor of the big companies than it was a year ago.

7:19 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I'm saying things I would have made fun of people for suggesting five years ago.

7:20 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: That reminds me, the stuff about indies and experimental games

7:20 PM - Michael J. Lowell: We can cut back to that convo in a second, go ahead.

7:20 PM - Michael J. Lowell: to this convo*

7:21 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Video gaming is too big to leave it to corporations, meanwhile we've had indies/solo developers pushing the boundaries of games for almost as long as it's existed

7:21 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: ID Software was indie, wasn't it?

7:22 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Before there was the term "indie", I suppose yeah, it qualifies under what I understand to be the definition.

7:22 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I'd say you might want to pay some more attention and respect to indies, although I know that's not your main focus - RPS already has a couple columns dedicated to indies

7:23 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: The idea that games should be limited to 300 or so corporate releases is really weird coming from you, the guy who said that corporate profit chasing was what killed the modern FPS, and who knows what indie ingenuity can do because he's played Doom, damn it, and it was pretty alright

7:24 PM - Michael J. Lowell: The thing is, I've become much more understanding about the idea that you get the games you get, and no matter what the economic circumstance is, you will always find something to play.

7:24 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Of course, indie games can still be bad, and there is much more of a sociopolitical element to them than there used to, and I don't expect you to scan teh intarwebz for the latest releases

7:24 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Yeah, it's like the world of literature at this point

7:25 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I curse Steam every time I look at the new game listings.

7:25 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I really do.

7:25 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I understand there are decent games still being made by smaller teams, believe me.

7:25 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Steam's QA is still shit, though, don't get me wrong

7:25 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Even if Jim Sterling can spin it into gold, it's still not really worth it, you know?

7:26 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: That said, devs have the right to fuck up if they're making an honest effort

7:26 PM - Michael J. Lowell: They do, which is why I don't pay attention to those games, I don't even think it's worth channeling the effort to say they suck (when compared to the body of gaming).

7:26 PM - Michael J. Lowell: It's like reviewing Pac-Man and saying it's a one-star game because "LOL WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU PLAY THIS WHEN SUPREME COMMANDER IS OUT".

7:27 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: That's fine, that's your right, some people probably cover them anyway

7:27 PM - Michael J. Lowell: They can do their thing.

7:27 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: But, here's the thing, you literally used that same excuse with Five Nights at Freddies

7:28 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Because Freddy's is a modern game that's competing against a more grandiose body of work.

7:28 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Pac-Man was a cutting-edge game back in 1980 that was head of its class when it came to visuals.

7:29 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Here, from my review guide:

7:29 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: We can come back to this topic later, I think, it's a different ballgame

7:29 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: And something that could be discussed within the confines of your new weblog content roll feed 2.0

7:30 PM - Michael J. Lowell: We'll go back to it.

7:30 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Well, alright

7:31 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Unless you wanna keep talking about it. o.o

7:32 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: You were talking about something else before I changed the subject

7:32 PM - Michael J. Lowell: So what topic are we on? <3

7:33 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I wanted to talk a bit about sincerity, if you don't mind

7:33 PM - Michael J. Lowell: kk

7:33 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Now, it might have been just me not being able to tell you were joking with the icy car crash

7:34 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Because this is the internet

7:34 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: And don't get me wrong, I love your sense of humor

7:34 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: But one thing that unites all imageboard users and spiteful nerds on the internet is their lack of sincerity - if they have to actually mean whatever they say, they use hoary memes or smilies like :^) - the sole exception I've encountered being you, I suppose

7:35 PM - Michael J. Lowell: So you're saying it's hard to tell?

7:35 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: ...I guess?

7:36 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I'm saying this more because it might help you identify problem users, not to ban them merely for being smartasses, but just to keep an eye on

7:36 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I've been in your spot before, except I had almost zero actual power and burned myself out trying to get the mods to ban problem users

7:37 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Also elitism/gatekeeping opinions, quite apart from wishing Greenlight was more selective

7:39 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I get where you're going.

7:39 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: It's a culture war, as cliche as the term is, and that mindset is going to lose eventually

7:39 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: To put it basically

7:40 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I'm going to be harder about it the next round, but my foremost priority is simply seeing what implements I need for the forum in the first place.

7:40 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Well yeah, tech stuff can come first

7:42 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I dunno, I'm trying to think of a way that I can explain this, but it's probably just best if we get to the core issue with the whole social/gender thing, and kind of what I wanted to touch on earlier:

7:43 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Yeah, I think that was what you were going into before

7:43 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Yeah, just so you can get where I'm going from on this.

7:43 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I was waiting for a while to see when Anita would finally do a review, and yes, I watched this a couple of weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OzKTAYkyTE

7:43 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Did you watch it by chance?

7:44 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: No, I haven't really watched her stuff

7:44 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I know there's probably legitimate criticisms to be made of it, but I also know she gets way too much nonsensical hatred from people like, oh, Q-veta

7:44 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Okay, well, I don't think you need to in order to get the gist of it.

7:45 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Basically, it's really simple: She calls it a review of Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. It's not. This is not a videogame review. This is a gender critique, that focuses on the Assassin's Creed: Syndicate videogame.

7:46 PM - Michael J. Lowell: So to go back to what I was saying about Rachel in Ninja Gaiden, she's a fucking awful character: She's basically a "super-badass" scantily-clad ninja who basically exists to be a submissive prop that can be dangled above the player in order to keep them moving forward.

7:47 PM - Michael J. Lowell: She is a clear detriment to the game, but I think her impact on the game is otherwise negligble. I think it's stupid, I think it's hackish writing, I think it's the Japanese being the Japanese, but ultimately, it's a side-track to one of the most stylish, awesome videogames ever made.

7:48 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Which is to say, I view the whole gender thing as a tiny subset of aesthetic design in videogames. The audiences hammering on the point view it as EVERYTHING. They're the people who walk into my message boards, pick one throwaway line out of a five-paragraph post, and then discuss nothing but that for three pages.

7:48 PM - Michael J. Lowell: There may be an interesting discussion to be had on it here and there, but it's not videogames. It's gender discussion, which has just happened to involve videogaming.

7:49 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Do you understand the distinction I'm making here? It's not even that I disagree with them, or that I think there isn't room for it to be discussed, as much as they've latched onto what is, in the grand scope of things, no matter how sensitive people may be to the matter -- and rightfully so -- it's not something which IS the game. It's merely one part of it.

7:51 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And ultimately, I think that if people want to REALLY discuss this topic, they need to stop ignoring the bogeyman in the room: Adult videogames.

7:52 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But I think there's two good reasons why they haven't: There's no outrage in it, because "rape games" are exactly what they are, and a topic of discussion that will burn out immediately. And number two, to go after adult videogaming is to go after pornography, and that would likely jeopardize any unity that feminists have on the topic.

7:53 PM - Michael J. Lowell: So that's my thought on it: Nobody is discussing the things that need to be discussed on the topic, and to otherwise engage the topic is to walk right between two groups of gunmen firing bullets at each other.

7:54 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I don't think I talked to you about that last time but that's where I stand on it on the whole.

7:54 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I'm gonna say that the view of two equal groups slinging hash at each other is kind of a false dichotomy - feminists and Anita and Zoe Quinn and the like don't give out NEARLY as much as they get from 4channers, 8channers, et al

7:55 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: And most of that could be seen as frustration as oposed to outright hostility

7:55 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: There's also other issues of identity and representation that others go into, but that Anita does not

7:55 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Any of them talk about adult videogames? I'd actually love to read it if they do.

7:55 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Just because there's hardly any good discussion of the topic anyway.

7:56 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: That said, it is definitely not gameplay - although these conventions and customs CAN affect gameplay, it's more subtle

7:56 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Seldon told me about how Fallout 4 doesn't capture otherness and racism, that the hyper 50's americana world treats your character equally no matter what sex or race you are

7:57 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Although that would have been a lot more work for Bethesda that they would have ruined, so I can't entirely blame them for treating every PC as a white man

7:57 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: As for adult games, I don't recall any particular pieces

7:57 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And see, that's actually where I agree with you.

7:58 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Parish at USGamer might have some articles about Japanese otaku bullshit, I know there's stuff on his forum about it

7:58 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: His large and popular forum that I post on, mind

7:58 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Gotcha, well, I may go look for some of this stuff later, I haven't even really seen much of it.

7:58 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But on the topic you're mentioning, yes, I'd actually LIKE to see stuff like that in games.

7:59 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I think that would be interesting.

7:59 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I can agree with you that this stuff isn't necessarily gameplay, though

7:59 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: But then again, as games and gaming diversify, we're going to see more and more takes on games from different angles

8:01 PM - Michael J. Lowell: The irony is that for me to get that on my site, I'd pretty much have to convince the gameplay-only shills to piss off.

8:01 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Well, gameplay is still important. It's what games are made of, mostly

8:01 PM - Michael J. Lowell: It's the confluence of both ends.

8:01 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: But it's not the only element of a game anymore, and I don't even know if I can call it the most important element in the face of everything else

8:02 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: ...I suppose you put it more succinctly

8:02 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: In that this stuff does affect gameplay, but subtly - and at the same time, it's not mainly a gameplay issue, I suppose

8:03 PM - Michael J. Lowell: On the matter of character representation/diversity, I just want interesting characters, makes no difference to me their race, their gender, their sexuality, whatever.

8:05 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And just to highlight this, there's now a strain of thought -- not even train, a strain, because it's virulent -- that every game to feature a female protag is now "pandering" or a "meme game".

8:06 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And it's fucking hilarious because it was only UNTIL that huge pissing match that anyone gave a crap about female protags.

8:06 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Or rather, that they were being added.

8:06 PM - Michael J. Lowell: To me, it's like, "Whatever, cool." I don't know who the fuck would justify their purchase of a game based on the character's sex. (And I know there's a huge line of thought on the definition of these words, bear with me if I'm using them incorrectly.)

8:07 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpIu6OaLkh8

8:07 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But if they do, then they're fucking stupid.

8:07 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: this is a meme game

8:07 PM - Michael J. Lowell: It is.

8:07 PM - Michael J. Lowell: (Oh god, my eyes.)

8:09 PM - Michael J. Lowell: So anyway, I gotta go do some shit, I'll talk about it some more another time.

8:09 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Alright

8:09 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I have one remark that I'll put here in the meantime

8:09 PM - Michael J. Lowell: kk

8:09 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Here's the part where we need to, quite literally, check our privilege (nobody really says it like that anymore because nerds ruined it, thanks nerds) - we're white men, it doesn't quite matter to us in the end. Black people, women, gay people, et al, it matters more to them to see their kind represented

8:10 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: It might be hard for us to understand, but my impression is that it matters enough to speak up like we're seeing

8:10 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Although some devs probably do use this to pander, that's true

8:10 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Which is why /good/ representation is also a thing

8:11 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I may pastebin this, by the way

8:14 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: You also said the GameFAQs situation is hilarious, which I'd like to hear about

11:07 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: At any rate, you might just need to take as much time as you need in figuring out LTC's new direction/place in gaming

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

7:05 AM - Michael J. Lowell: Its direction has been simple for a while now: I want to write about games and learn more about them because it helps me get more enjoyment out of everything. Being popular doesn't really play into that, though it damn-sure doesn't hurt, and it can be an asset.

7:08 AM - Michael J. Lowell: But my thought on life is simple: Don't worry about what other people are doing, you will get more power and interest towards your ends if you focus on your own interests and your own goals.

7:10 AM - Michael J. Lowell: And even if you level the playing field for groups of people who have been marginalized by society, most of them will still be nobodies because they didn't get up every day and do the things they had to do to become somebody.

7:10 AM - Michael J. Lowell: You are absolutely correct that the game is rigged, it's unfair, it benefits a small percentage of people at the top, and they're doing it at the expense of everybody else.

7:11 AM - Michael J. Lowell: Understanding that is the first step. Taking action for your own interests, to find ways to take that rigged system and bend it to your will, is the second.

7:15 AM - Michael J. Lowell: Even if the game is impossible, that's the only way to play it, and that's precisely WHY it's a game worth playing.

7:28 AM - Michael J. Lowell: But I am not going to sit around and wait for someone else to fix the problem on the off-chance that it MAY level out the playing field a bit and neither should anyone else. The game is the game, no matter how imbalanced. Your score is your score, no matter where everyone starts on the leaderboard.

1:34 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Just want to say, I view it more as levelling the field for people to have the equal /opportunity/ to do what you said

1:38 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I think the best way for me to sum it up is: you're right to branch out your learning and coverage of games and shift from a pure gameplay perspective, and I suppose you're going to do that the way you do it, which is fine by me. Just make sure you can actually pull off the transition

1:42 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: And, uh, perhaps respect that some people (that I'm sympathetic to, at least) are choosing to "level up" by knocking down those very barriers

Thursday, December 24, 2015

3:53 PM - Michael J. Lowell: By the way, I'm not ignoring you or nothing, I just figured it would be best if I get some time together to talk about this, because I think it's a complex topic and it's tough to approach it as a casual topic.

3:53 PM - Michael J. Lowell: So Merry Christmas or whatever. <3

3:53 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: That's cool

3:53 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Merry Christmas.

3:54 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: And really, I'm cool with you proceeding forward with this on your own

3:55 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Although I will say outright you should probably be less cynical while doing so - that's probably the problem

3:55 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Cynicism feeds into itself, see

3:56 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Which is funny, because 1) I think everyone in this circle has been criticizing me for being too formal, and 2) trying to present yourself as a calmer head, in my experience, generally attracts the same shitheels, because it's the message that drives them nuts more than the presentation.

3:57 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Well, that's just me :V

3:57 PM - Michael J. Lowell: That's fine, I'm open to anything right now.

3:58 PM - Michael J. Lowell: What's more important to me at this phase in my life is having people who I can have open discussions with and not have them at like children, and at this point, it's very hard to find that on the internet.

3:58 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I'm not going to throw a hissy fit if we disagree on something, as much as my human instinct may want to at times with certain topics.

3:58 PM - Michael J. Lowell: (This isn'

3:58 PM - Michael J. Lowell: isn't really one of them, I'm much more petty than that.)

3:58 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Oh, that's true enough

3:59 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: There's enough of that on every side of every issue discussed online

3:59 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I think I meant to say that you ought to be more open to the idea that perhaps things /can/ change for the better, even if you're going to be on the sidelines. The gamergaters and gameplay first people are going to lose the "culture war" anyway.

3:59 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Old white people are beginning to realize they're old and white.

4:00 PM - Michael J. Lowell: The whole GamerGate thing is stupid, anyway, because they're pretty much doing the thing I talked about last time: They want change from higher-up, and they don't realize they're not going to get it because the business of game journalism invariably leads to the things in game journalism.

4:00 PM - Michael J. Lowell: People can't critically analyze games and the business model of journalism requires those companies to pump and dump content, no matter the quality.

4:01 PM - Michael J. Lowell: It's the same principle the Let's Play movement works on.

4:01 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And the LP movement can do it BETTER because it's easier to create an a hour-long "watch me play this game" than it is to create a 2,000-word review.

4:01 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And that's IF we believe the pro-GG-narrative that it's not about accosting women for being women.

4:02 PM - Michael J. Lowell: (I think it started off as the former and then gradually grew into the latter, even as the former objected.)

4:02 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And to add, I think they just picked a colossally idiotic launching point for it to work on.

4:02 PM - Michael J. Lowell: If they were going to piss and moan about this, they should have done it after the ME3 thing.

4:03 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I've seen people claim that it was always about harassing women, which I can believe - a core group of reactionary woman-haters who've always been doing this stuff that just happened to find a convenient rallying point, one that suit their interests and suited the interests of the schmucks they got to do their dirty work

4:04 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Gamergate is dead now anyway, all the moderates have gone home, it's just a "brand" they're desperately flogging

4:04 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I don't even know if anyone is really talking about GG, the only thing I see on 4chan is like I mentioned the last time, which is people getting butthurt about female protags in any game that isn't Senran Kagura or DOAX3 or some shitty throwaway "lolsexappeal" game.

4:05 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But that kind of gets to the root of the issue, in that the internet is so big, that I'm only seeing a tiny slice of what's going on with this thing, and for you, and for everyone else.

4:06 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: The latter is true enough

4:06 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Although the former is pretty much case in point, 4chan isn't talking about it anymore

4:06 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: There's still some activity on 8chan and their IRC channels, and they can still flood people on Twitter, but AFAIK that's the extent of their reach

4:07 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: This is mainly from one rather weird guy on a forum I post on, pretty much the only gaming/social forum I go to these days

4:07 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Obsessive, but at least he probably knows what they're up to on any given day :V

4:08 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Fair enough.

4:09 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Honestly, in the long-term, I don't think any of this is much of an issue, and both sides can shit-fling if they want to.

4:10 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: See, here we are again. Not calling you stupid, but there's been enough proof for a while to show that it's pretty much been the GGers doing the flinging

4:11 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Not to mention that the "other side" is both not necessarily itching for a conflict, and is, to me, a bigger force for good

4:11 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And that's where the entire sample-size thing comes into play, because most of the reading came from 4chan (and you are correct that idiots were being idiots) and Fark (where the viciousness on both ends was absolutely appalling and I started blatantly trolling the threads out of spite).

4:12 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But it doesn't even do me good to give examples because it again gets to the root of the problem: The entire "debate" has been about branding one side or the other instead of actually arguing any of the ancillary points surrounding it, thereby making it an internet shitfling with no value to anyone.

4:14 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: That's a problem with online leftism, really. It's not unimportant, but more often than not, this sort of thing gets laser-like focus. And I say this as someone who agrees with them :V

4:15 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: And yeah, there's bound to be assholes on any side of a conflict. Something to keep in mind, though, is that most people will do that sort of shit if they're frustrated enough. I could at least see why someone in, say, Zoe Quinn's shoes would react that way, as unwise as that would be

4:16 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: You will also notice that most of 4chan is exponentially ruder, but I digress :v

4:16 PM - Michael J. Lowell: 4chan is rude, but they at least have a value in that you can talk about things without any expectation of civility, so it's good for shooting the shit and seeing how people respond, even if they are (on the whole) complete dumbfucks.

4:16 PM - Michael J. Lowell: That's the only defense I'll make of them, though.

4:17 PM - Michael J. Lowell: They're a tool to be exploited.

4:17 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But I don't otherwise doubt that these women and their supporters took a lot of shit.

4:17 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I should mention that when all this stuff started cropping up, I didn't realize the scope of it because I don't use social media or its ilk.

4:18 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And back in the "old days", pissing matches were usually confined to the point of origin.

4:18 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Now that the internet is a "public space" with "no expectation of privacy", it becomes so much easier to dogpile on people because there's no conscious leap in harassing someone.

4:18 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I don't social media either, but I'm active enough on that gaming forum I mentioned earlier to keep hearing about it

4:19 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And just to mention, I do have to jet here in a second, so I'll finish up this thought with you.

4:20 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Alright. I want to say real quick: the problem with poking 4chan's zeitgeist is that their culture is inherently toxic. You're not going to get an accurate snapshot of all video game players, just the ones who never grew up

4:22 PM - Michael J. Lowell: They're people under 18 posting on a forum where you have to be 18.

4:22 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Enough said.

4:23 PM - Michael J. Lowell: As far as videogaming goes, that forum can be summed up in one sentence: People who don't have money ostracizing all the platforms and games they don't own.

4:23 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I.e. "children who don't have money".

4:23 PM - Michael J. Lowell: So yeah, they're hardly anything I want to interact with.

4:23 PM - Michael J. Lowell: in the future*

4:23 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Funny like icycalm, who Seldon told me probably isn't dead - he did a little gumshoe work

4:24 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Does it go beyond the status of his website registration? Because if it's the website thing, you can do auto-renewal for stuff like that.

4:25 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Apart from the PHP errors on the gaming site, Seldon said that icy's last posts were from August, on that abominable philosophy forum of his

4:25 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I don't read it and all I know about is the "fondue sucks" post lol.

4:26 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: But, there's still forum activity on the gaming site, because there's a latest post feed on the main page that had, among other things, a hiatus topic

4:26 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: And yeah, dude hates fondue

4:26 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: (I made the mistake of reading the entire opening part once)

4:26 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Your mistake. <3

4:26 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But yeah, I know about his active forum, and honestly, the sad part about it is that you don't know how pathetic Qpo is.

4:27 PM - Michael J. Lowell: He IS pathetic enough to make a post speculating on his whereabouts and being delusional enough to claim that "Oh, he's just writing his book!"

4:27 PM - Michael J. Lowell: That dude is the saddest motherfucker in this entire part of the internet.

4:28 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Qpo is another user, or the forum architecture?

4:28 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Qpo is the poster who wrote the hiatus thread.

4:28 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Oh.

4:28 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: You...have an account there?

4:28 PM - Michael J. Lowell: I don't, but it's possible to read the forum posting history.

4:29 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: That displays recent posts in full, or just titles and users to infer from

4:29 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Just titles and users.

4:29 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Now I'm curious how you know about this dude

4:29 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Because he has his own forum.

4:29 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Where he posts and no one else does.

4:29 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And he says hilarious shit.

4:29 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: So, he's icy's long lost brother

4:29 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Basically, yes.

4:30 PM - Michael J. Lowell: If I remember correctly, when icycalm wrote that idiotic chapter in his book declaring himself the best videogame player in the world, he tore Qpo a new one for like three pages.

4:30 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And Qpo still hangs around icycalm like a lost puppy.

4:30 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And Qpo's gaming history is basically what icycalm accuses me of being.

4:31 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But icycalm kept him around because he can easily boss Qpo around get him to do shit.

4:31 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: You're talking about his vanity-published books about gaming that are 50% reprinted content, right

4:31 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Yes, those.

4:31 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But yeah, I wouldn't read into anything that has happened on his site, other than that he hasn't posted and the site is falling apart.

4:32 PM - Michael J. Lowell: All I'll say is that it would be truly fucking anticlimactic if he had an episode and is just decaying in an apartment building someplace, and no one knows, because no one visits him.

4:32 PM - Michael J. Lowell: If he does appear out of thin air, I'm just gonna antagonize the motherfucker, because there's no reason not to at this point.

4:32 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Let the Breivik episode come.

4:32 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Awful glib today, aren't we

4:33 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Eh, I'm just being honest.

4:34 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Just so you know, this has been going on between him and me for about six years now.

4:34 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I figured, and that's fair enough

4:35 PM - Michael J. Lowell: So at this point, I'd have nothing to lose by taunting the monkey.

4:35 PM - Michael J. Lowell: It'd be catharsis and fireworks and nothing more.

4:35 PM - Michael J. Lowell: So yeah, you can only accept it for what it is.

4:35 PM - Michael J. Lowell: But anyway, I gotta go.

4:35 PM - Michael J. Lowell: So yeah, have fun.

4:35 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And there will be more time to talk about this stuff laterl.

4:35 PM - Michael J. Lowell: later*

4:35 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: Aight, might give a couple thoughts while you're out on let's plays and stuff

4:36 PM - Michael J. Lowell: kk

4:36 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: "4:00 PM - Michael J. Lowell: People can't critically analyze games and the business model of journalism requires those companies to pump and dump content, no matter the quality.

4:01 PM - Michael J. Lowell: It's the same principle the Let's Play movement works on."

4:36 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: woops

4:39 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: But yeah, I'd say that's a problem with capitalism. Speaking as somebody who's had an LP running for almost a year now (and that I've had to put on hiatus for Life Reasons), I'd go so far as to say that the LPer needs to decide beforehand how analytical they want to be. Me, I try to strike a balance. (The game's Railroad Tycoon 2, which I think I have a better idea of now, so I hope you're not going to take my old forum post about it and put it on the front page.)

4:41 PM - Michael J. Lowell is now Away.

4:41 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: As for games journalism, that shit is vexing. Chasing the money hurts it, bad writers hurt it, but some of it, to me, is actually good. There are definitely problems with it, but I think 4channers and "Gamers" don't approach the right problems.

4:44 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: A big example being objectivity. I respect the facts, sure, but game reviews are a subjective business in which you kind of need to read more than one review of a game to begin with. "The straight dope" approach is itself a bias, although it's less of a bias and one that I appreciate nonetheless. It must, however, be balanced with other reviewers giving more personal approaches and whatnot

4:45 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: And I'll close this by saying that when I had that argument with Evilagram on here, he linked me this big open letter he wrote to objectivegamereviews.com - he really didn't care for the joke

7:00 PM - Michael J. Lowell: Not to hold you up for long, since we all have priorities and people to talk to right now in the real world most likely, but yeah, you should be able to understand where I'm coming from on my "save yourself" thing.

7:00 PM - Michael J. Lowell: The reason I started my own videogame site is one, because I wanted an outlet to consistently write, but two, I got sick of reading the journos and thought I could do better.

7:01 PM - Michael J. Lowell: And I realized that it was never going to get better because the business, culture, and community perpetuate that quality of writing, and to seek that change at the top (as the GG'ers ostensibly desired) is futile.

7:01 PM - Michael J. Lowell: So instead of worrying about whether games writing can be better, I go find the games I want to play, write about those, and act as my own curator, with the help of a couple of people I trust to lead me in the right direction.

7:09 PM - Michael J. Lowell is now Away.

7:37 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: My christmas isn't terribly exciting this year, but thanks for the sentiment

7:40 PM - Santa Claus, Legendary Daimyo: I guess my position is that game journalism isn't all bad, that I've seen people and writing and themes that are good and worth saving - of course, it's great that you're going in your direction. I suppose I can tell you about the things I consider good, and be one of those trusted people if you'll let me.