“How is discussion harmful?”

Discussion is harmful when the participants are not willing to move
even the tiniest little bit from their pre-formed opinion. Nothing I
ever say will make you reconsider that maybe the demon huntress in
Diablo 3 isn’t the worst attack on women ever. Thus there is no
“discussion”, there is only shouting at each other.

Look at it that way: I have an opinion on the demon huntress in Diablo
3. I write that opinion on my blog. In response you write me and tell
me that you will never again read my blog, in spite of the chance that
the same subject turns up again being rather slim. Does that sound
like an example of rational discussion, of logic to argue one’s point
to you? It sure doesn’t to me. Just because I don’t find high heels
all that offensive, you think of me as a chauvinist pig. You never
asked my opinion for example what depictions of women I *do* find
offensive, or ever considered whether some other target would be more
worth attacking than a fantasy game.

Let’s see, painting subtleties with broad strokes, talking only in extremes, inserting words into the other’s mouth, and even a quick dash of “oh, I’m the victim here!”. Man, this guy could be a poster child for poor debate techniques (or, alternately, a perfect model for the state of a lot of modern American political arguments). I sent him back a link to this article on Kotaku about nerds and male privilege, in the hopes that he’d recognize himself in it. I got back:

Another proof that you aren’t interested in actually having a
discussion on the specific argument of “the high heels of the demon
huntress in Diablo 3″. You just think that by throwing a mega-ton of
general “sexism is bad” links at me, you are making a point. But you
are just blindly preaching a religion. And as I already *know* that
sexism is bad, and am leading a very enlightened life of equal rights
for men and women both in my private life and my work life, I’m
completely the wrong target for your preaching.

Personally I am disgusted by how TERA depicts women, especially that
race that looks definitively underage. High heels in Diablo 3? Really
not an issue compared to the general standard.

So who’s playing sexism scorecard bingo? We’ve got the “there are bigger issues” square right there. Also, research and feminism are religions! I’m going to put that down on the next census.*

Well, I was trying to back up my position with references, which is something that’s generally done in logical arguments, and then thought since you wouldn’t read any of the other things, perhaps something from a major gaming site like Kotaku would be good, especially since it’s discussing the exact statements you’ve been using.

Let’s break it down:

1) You stated there is no pressure for women to look a certain way. I provided not just my own experience, but links to studies and first-person accounts of this. Then you said it’s all the fault of women, and never answered when I asked if you really thought there were almost no men involved. You never gave me anything to back up your assertion that there is no pressure, either. So is there pressure, or isn’t there? If there isn’t, prove it. Prove all these women are lying, and all the medical studies about the causes of eating disorders are wrong.

2) Why do you think that wanting better character designs is the end of free speech? I never said high heels were the worst attack on women ever. My issue was – if you read my first email – that I was insulted by your comments, which imply that I am somehow not allowed to take issue with this. I did say that I find the heels, specifically, more obnoxious from an artistic perspective; this is about the larger issue, which you have been dismissing with the same statements that are discussed in that Kotaku article.

3) You have yet to respond to the point that male avatars are power fantasies for men, and female avatars are sexual fantasies for men, and how this tends to make women less likely to play games.

4) All targets are worth attacking. I do what I can, where I can. 
5) Why shouldn’t games be allowed to tackle larger issues, like gender or politics? Games, like all art, can be a reflection of life as a whole, and those are things that are part of life. Ignoring them doesn’t make them go away.

6) Yes, TERA female costuming is obnoxious. Glad we agree on that.

7) Just to be clear, you did mean that the *discussion* about gay characters is disgusting, right, and not the fact that there *are* gay characters? That’s how I read it, but I’d like to know if you meant the latter. Why is the discussion puke-worthy?

Why are you so afraid that by giving women what they want, you’ll lose what you want (which, if your blog is any indication, is solid gameplay)? There really is a middle ground between hooker outfits and burqas, and I want you to see that. It’s the point where you still get attractive men and women *without* implying that the woman’s only value is as a sex object – or that women who want to have that middle ground are trying to mind-control you.

You like what you like. I like what I like. Why am I not allowed to want more of what I like in games? Variety is the spice of life, or so they say.

Spoiler alert: he never addresses any of those points. Instead, he came back with this:

Okay, to break down my points to the absolute minimum:

1) Women in games should be modestly dressed.

2) There is no one, true, absolute scientific measure of what “modestly” is.

3) In absence of a scientific measure of modesty, the general
consensus of the real world should be applied. There is an argument to
be made how fantasy could be less modest than the real world, but if
not, fantasy certainly should be not *more* modest than a real world
professional setting.

4) Women can and do wear high heels in business situations without
that being considered immodest.

5) Thus the demon huntress high heels meet the real world’s standard
for modesty.

6) Demanding higher standards of modesty from fantasy games than from
a business meeting is oppressive.

You know, there are some decent points in there. Maybe we’re getting somewhere. OH LOOK HE FOUND OUT I POSTED THIS AND NOW HIS TRUST IS VIOLATED.

It would be extremely easy for me to take quotes from your mail like
“I’m about 220″, add some comments, and make you look like a fat, ugly
girl who can’t stand the look of better looking females in games on my
blog in front of thousands of readers. But of course I would never do
that, because private e-mail is private. That you have to stoop so low
to score a point as to publish private e-mail on your blog means, by
the Marquess of Queensberry rules of internet discussions, that I won
the argument.

The subject of that email was “I guess I win.” As if the entire dialogue about sexism in gaming can be “won” by one dude and his blog. The “win” condition here is that there is no more sexism. Oh, and he’s trying to prove how awesome he is by NOT posting how fat and ugly I am, because being fat and ugly makes my arguments worthless.

HEY, INTERNET. I’M FAT AND UGLY AND BISEXUAL AND HISPANIC AND A GAMER AND A KIND OF ACCEPTABLE WRITER AND AN ANIME FAN AND A LARPER. None of those things make my opinions or arguments worth less than anyone else’s. None of them.

And if you did that, I think I get bingo on the sexist argument scorecard, so I win, too! I’ll have to double-check. Oh, drat, one square off.

If you want to call me fat and ugly on your blog in front of thousands of readers, go ahead. I wouldn’t have put that kind of information out there if I cared if people found out. Nothing is private on the internet, especially when it concerns a purposely-public venue like a blog.  It doesn’t change the overall problem of sexism in gaming, which even the thin, pretty girls who meet society’s most common standard of beauty are not immune to. 

Nor is there modesty on the internet. But it happens that I feel as
strongly about privacy as you do about modesty. So as you breached my
trust, this will be my last mail to you.

Oh, for the record? Claiming that because a woman is fat and ugly, her arguments have less merit, IS SEXIST. Using the threat that others might think so IS SEXIST. Your attitude is not as “enlightened” as you believe. 

————

*Actually, that’s not a bad idea…

A little while ago, a blogger by the name of Spinx posted a review of Diablo 3 wherein she said she thought the female demon hunter’s costume design was pretty ridiculous. She posted a followup here. I became aware of it because I blogger I followed decided she was wrong. (I hate that I might drive more traffic to this guy’s site, but what he says in the comments are really… backwards, and insulting. I decided to send him an e-mail explaining that I was insulted, and while I enjoyed his blog in the past, I wouldn’t be reading it any longer. I expected that to be the end of it. Instead, I got this (and I’m apologizing in advance for the awkwardness of the formatting; I’m just going to put his stuff in blue and mine in red):

Tobold,

I am one of the legion of lurkers on your blog. In the past, I’ve found your discussion on MMO’s interesting, informative, and entertaining. I got a little bored when you decided to swap to D&D as a focus (possibly because I’ve been a tabletop player for 15 years, so a lot of it reads like “D&D for Dummies” to me), but I looked forward to when you got past the initial exploration and started to really dig into it. I did enjoy your breakdown of hitpoint vs. damaging ability, for example, and was hoping to see more of that.

But then you called me prudish; you say “feminist” like it’s an insult; you told me I’m trying to control your mind and ruin artistic integrity. I am an enemy of free speech – because why, exactly? Because I have an opinion on the design of female avatars in game that is different from yours? Men with muscles vs. women wearing fetish gear is quite a large divide. I do think that the hyper musculature of men is a problem, too, but less so for two reasons. The first is that, somehow, the world seems to recognize that these steroid junkies are fantasy, and does not, on the whole, expect real men to look like that. Yet, I am expected to look like these female avatars, despite their physical impossibility. The second is that the big muscles and whatnot are actually directly useful in the game world: big tough guys can haul around giant weapons and take more damage and hit harder. But sex isn’t a weapon in most games, so what’s the point of making women look like that? There are plenty of ways to make attractive women in games without resorting to such base pandering, and those ways have the bonus of being more appealing to female gamers. And there’s plenty of room for nearly-naked ladies, too, but it’s better if they’re appropriate to the setting and – here is the important part - I am not forced to choose between encouraging the “your avatar looks hot and is wearing next to nothing, so you must be looking to fuck every guy around you, wanna cyber?” and “tits or gtfo” comments, and enjoying a well-made game. I didn’t feel like the sex was out of place in, for example, Age of Conan. That’s the world setting. I read the stories; I knew what I was getting into. I would probably have been a little disappointed if there *hadn’t* been nearly naked whores handing out quests. It’s not a matter of prudishness; it’s a matter of hostile environments. This whole issue is the tip of the iceberg that is preventing an awful lot of women from becoming gamers.

There are studies out there on avatar identification and its effect on the desire of different groups to play different games. You might want to look some of them up. 

You lost a reader, but somehow I don’t think you care. After all, I’m just a woman, and my opinion doesn’t matter as much as yours.

-Cassie

Why do you think you are expected to look like these fantasy women? I
can assure you that men are perfectly capable of distinguishing
between fantasy and reality, which is why men still get married to
real, normal-looking women and don’t wait for a fantasy woman to turn
up in their life.

And it is BECAUSE we know it is fantasy that we consider looking at a
fantasy image to be totally harmless and not at all degrading to real
women. “No real women have been hurt by the creation of the Diablo 3
demon huntress”, so to say. So if you want to prohibit men from this
harmless little bit of fantasy, it is only natural that you come over
as prudish.

I never said that your opinion or women’s opinions in general matter
less than mine. But I do say that on this point I strongly disagree
with you.

Besides personal experience (which, I guess, isn’t enough here?), let’s see…

I was watching the Big Bang Theory the other night. One of the (loser nerd) characters was telling a story about he and another character had a three-way with a “tubby girl” at ComicCon. She was *gasp* 200 pounds! And everyone laughs, because clearly these two are such losers that they can only have sex with fat girls, because fat girls are desperate. (And for the record, I’m about 220, and I’d fit twice over in the circle the character made with his arms to demonstrate this girl’s girth.)

How about, oh, most of the insults recorded over at http://fatuglyorslutty.com/, which use fat as a derogatory term. If women weren’t expected to look like models, then it wouldn’t be an insult.

http://www.allianceforeatingdisorders.com/what-causes-eating-disorders One of the major factors in eating disorders: ”With unrealistic pressures to obtain the “perfect” body, the constant influx of images of perfection, and narrow definitions of beauty, the media and societal expectations definitely influence our self-esteem and self-worth. From a very early age, we learn that in order to be accepted, we must emulate the messages we were taught by various outlets (such as “thin is beautiful” and other “standards of beauty”). According to Dr. Linda Smolak, Ph.D, “The average woman is 5″4′ and weighs 140 pounds. The average model is 5″11′ and weighs 117 pounds. Most fashion models are thinner than 98% of American women.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/fashion/weddings/Losing-Weight-in-Time-for-the-Wedding.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all Here’s one about the ridiculous things women do (including using feeding tubes) to lose weight so they can achieve the ideal body for their weddings. ““At first I decided not to do it for people who just want to lose a few pounds,” Dr. Di Pietro said. “But then I thought, why should I say 5 or 10 pounds are not enough? People want to be perfect.””

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/09/ashley-judd-slaps-media-in-the-face-for-speculation-over-her-puffy-appearance.html This is the actress Ashley Judd writing about the uproar that followed a “puffy face”. “However, the recent speculation and accusations in March feel different, and my colleagues and friends encouraged me to know what was being said. Consequently, I choose to address it because the conversation was pointedly nasty, gendered, and misogynistic and embodies what all girls and women in our culture, to a greater or lesser degree, endure every day, in ways both outrageous and subtle. The assault on our body image, the hypersexualization of girls and women and subsequent degradation of our sexuality as we walk through the decades, and the general incessant objectification is what this conversation allegedly about my face is really about.” For similar situations, try googling Jessica Simpson, Adele, or Oprah, and see how the world analyzes the way they look.

http://sizeandsubstance.com/tag/anthropologie/ Here, a plus-size model mentions some telling things such as, ”Most agencies wouldn’t put a model on the board larger than a size 18, and that might be pushing it. That would be a smaller boutique willing to take a chance. Some modeling agencies won’t go past 16.” Which is interesting, because plus-size *starts* at a size 16. So even for things that are supposedly designed for larger women, they still show women who are smaller.

http://www.wwd.com/eye/fashion/model-call-marquita-pring-5007890 Another plus-size model verifies the above statements, particularly that plus-size models start at a size 8 (which is half the size of the actual beginning of plus-size clothing).

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_girls.cfm ”In 2002, researchers at Flinders University in South Australia studied 400 teenagers regarding how they relate to advertising. They found that girls who watched TV commercials featuring underweight models lost self-confidence and became more dissatisfied with their own bodies. Girls who spent the most time and effort on their appearance suffered the greatest loss in confidence.” 

http://jezebel.com/278919/heres-our-winner-redbook-shatters-our-faith-in-well-not-publishing-but-maybe-god?tag=gossipphotoshopofhorrors and http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/health/6356261-423/doctors-plea-stop-airbrushing-models.html Let’s not forget about the photoshopping of even traditionally beautiful women, because I guess they’re not pretty enough? “McAneney pointed out a study that found that 53 percent of 13-year-old American girls are unhappy with their bodies, and by the time they turn 17, that number rises to 78 percent. Another study found that almost half of all girls between ages 3 and 6 worried they were fat.” And if you think it’s just the insecurities of adolescent girls, think again. If body insecurity wasn’t an issue for adults, then why are the weight loss and fashion industries multi-billion-dollar ones?

———–

Weight is the primary area in which women are pressured to look a certain way, but here’s some about clothing:

http://www.thexavierite.com/opinion/women-s-halloween-costumes-get-sillier-and-sexier-1.2667364#.T6AHz6tDySo  “It is seemingly impossible to find a costume that is not preceded by the word ”sexy.” Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong about being sexy. But the ubiquity of these costumes is frightening. When you are a child you are told you can be anything you want. When you become an adult, you can be anything you want…as long as it is conventionally sexy.”

http://swilli15.weebly.com/analysis.html ”When students were asked about how they are expected to look when going out, many more female students than male students noted that they felt societal pressures to dress in a certain way. One female student lamented the fact that girls “spend all this time worrying about how we look while the guys are drinking beer and socializing and that’s the fun stuff.” Female students admitted that they feel pressure to dress a certain way when going out to bars so that they receive male attention.  A study done of a female dorm at a large Midwestern university noted that the subjects studied believed that going out “required looking ‘hot’ but not ‘slutty,’ a difficult and ongoing challenge” 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067391/Why-DO-young-women-dressed-like-We-meet-nightclubbers-unsettling-answer.html “It emerges that in many cases their outfits — and the male leering it provokes — are often a way to bandage up their insecurities in a world where they can’t match up to the  oh-so-sexy, celebrity stereotypes  of womanhood.

It doesn’t always work out as they hoped, as Sian, an 18-year-old carer on a night out in Cardiff, admits. Her insecurities about showing off her figure in such revealing clothes are so profound that she admits to drinking spirits with her friend to work up the bravery to leave the house.”

So yes, Tobold, just having images of that nature all around us creates pressure and loss of self-esteem. And these are just a handful of web articles; there’s plenty more where that came from.

>>And it is BECAUSE we know it is fantasy that we consider looking at a
fantasy image to be totally harmless and not at all degrading to real
women. “No real women have been hurt by the creation of the Diablo 3
demon huntress”, so to say. So if you want to prohibit men from this
harmless little bit of fantasy, it is only natural that you come over
as prudish.

The point is that it’s not harmless.

*You*, specifically, might in fact mean no harm and not expect your women to look a certain way. Good on you for that. But it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been told by a man that looks aren’t important, only to have them demonstrate the opposite later. If my word on the pressure and harm existing isn’t enough, your word that it doesn’t isn’t enough, either. I am challenging you to find sources to back yourself up and prove that being constantly bombarded by images like that *doesn’t* affect or harm women (and men, too). 

As for prudish, well, go back to http://fatuglyorslutty.com/. Note that last word. If I like sex and admit it, I’m a slut, which is also apparently a terrible thing to be. If I would rather my attractive female game avatar look more bad-ass than sex object, I’m prudish. 

>>I never said that your opinion or women’s opinions in general matter
less than mine. 

Then why did you say that people (who aren’t just women, by the way, if you read any of the comments in the battlenet forums about the demon hunter’s appearance) who object are trying to shut down free speech or mind control the game developers? If it is a matter of opinion, and there is enough opinion of a certain sort (in either direction) to sway the designers, then it’s a business decision. AAA titles like D3 haven’t been about artistic integrity for a long time. They’re about the bottom line.

Oh, and Diablo 3′s “M” rating mentions nothing about sexual imagery/situations, though my arguments here are less about high heels in D3 (which I mostly happen to think are stupid from an artistic point of view), and more about the insult you gave to anyone who dares object to the over-sexualization of women in games.

You still haven’t addressed the point that the fantasy elements of male avatars imply greater prowess at the goals of the game, whereas the fantasy elements of female avatars imply that they’re willing to spread their legs for anyone who comes along. If it’s all fantasy, and it doesn’t matter, how come there aren’t more fantasies for women or gay men in gaming? Why does one group matter more than the others?

-Cassie

90% of what you quoted is about women making life harder for women,
either for themselves or for other women. And TV soap operas aren’t
exactly a good guide of real behavior. Just *look* around you in the
real world, at all the married women you know or meet. Do they look
they supermodels? No, they don’t. And apparently their husbands didn’t
mind.

I would not object at all if at your request a game company put more
sexually attractive men images into games. But I do object if you
insist on a dress code in games which would be considered extremely
oppressive in the real world. Would you want to prohibit real women
from wearing high heels? And if real women should have that right,
then why shouldn’t virtual women have it. Really, the demon huntress
outfit of Diablo 3 would not even raise a single eyebrow in a
nightclub, or on the pages of a magazine. If society as a whole has
agreed on certain standards of what is acceptable and what is not,
then why should games not be allowed to simply comply with those
standards?

I am pretty sure that you would not want to live in any of the places
in the real world in which a strict dress code for women is enforced.
And you would probably find the people who enforce that dress code
rather oppressive. I do think the same about people who want to do it
in virtual worlds.

You… you really think it’s all women? That there aren’t just as many men involved in the media and putting forth these representations? So yes, I think there is pressure to look like these fantasy women. I used to cosplay a lot; I don’t anymore, because I hate the “she’s too fat to be that character” comments (even in costumes that are fairly modest). 

Furthermore, why do you think this is about finding a husband? Maybe I just don’t want to be objectified, or don’t think that sex has any place in hunting demons or zombies or whatever it is I’m being asked to kill.

And why are you okay with the industry assumption that men are base and stupid enough to choose games based on the amount of ladies with revealing clothing?

>>I would not object at all if at your request a game company put more
sexually attractive men images into games.

And you would be in the minority. There’s a picture floating around of a good-looking, in-shape guy wearing a Thor costume that was a skimpy as the female superhero costumes (I looked for it, but can’t find it again), and most of the comments I saw around it were about how gross it was, and how gay, etc. etc. If men find sexualized images of men unappealing and alienating, is it so hard to believe that sexualized images of women are unappealing and alienating to women?

>>But I do object if you
insist on a dress code in games which would be considered extremely
oppressive in the real world. Would you want to prohibit real women
from wearing high heels? And if real women should have that right,
then why shouldn’t virtual women have it. Really, the demon huntress
outfit of Diablo 3 would not even raise a single eyebrow in a
nightclub, or on the pages of a magazine. If society as a whole has
agreed on certain standards of what is acceptable and what is not,
then why should games not be allowed to simply comply with those
standards?

Because those standards are harmful. Demonstrably physically harmful.

Also it is impossible to run around outside in high heels. I’ve tried.

>>I am pretty sure that you would not want to live in any of the places
in the real world in which a strict dress code for women is enforced.
And you would probably find the people who enforce that dress code
rather oppressive. I do think the same about people who want to do it
in virtual worlds.

There’s a big difference between supporting that kind of oppression – which exists because women are thought to be at fault for the sexual actions of men – and not wanting to have to play games where my avatar looks like a hooker (again – unless sex really is part of the point or major theme of the game). There’s still a major problem with “she was asking for it” justifications, which is related to the dress code thing. When *that* goes away, I will be perfectly happy with naked ladies all over the place (preferably of all shapes, colors, and sizes). It’s the conflict between “this is sexy, look like this” and “oh you were asking for it” that causes damage.

Really, even if you never agree with it, you should read more on the subject, the way you would for any other aspect of gaming (may I recommend reading some of the articles on gnomestew.com about GMing challenges?).

Oh, addendum to the running around in high heels thing:

Yes, I understand it’s a fantasy world. I happen to get really annoyed on an artistic level when things like “how the armor stays on” aren’t considered. There’s a lot of really interesting concepts that can come from thinking about character design in terms of physical possibility.

That is somewhat insultingly suggesting that I don’t understand the
subject. A bit like those Jehova’s witness guys who try to pressure
you into reading their pamphlets, because they think if you only
understood what they were talking about, you would agree with them.
But feminism, like religion, politics, and football is not about
logical arguments and understanding. I sure made a lot of logical
arguments, and you all dismissed them.

I feel sorry for you that you find the standards of modern society of
what “modest” is and what not to be harmful. But I simply would like
you to take your feminism, your religion, your politics, and your
football out of my games, because people will never agree on them, and
the discussion is just hurting the games. There is no “right” or
“wrong” or scientifically proven measure for modesty or sexuality. The
whole discussion whether gay characters should or shouldn’t be
included in EA’s games makes me puke. And I don’t want to play games
in which the female characters all wear a burqa.

That’s a horrible attitude to have. How is discussion harmful? Games can be so much more than what they are now. Perhaps you’ve seen the show Extra Credits on the Penny Arcade TV site? They’ve gone into this several times, from multiple angles. Not every game has to be forward-thinking art, but to deny that opportunity because you don’t want to think about it is just you obstinately standing in the way of something that clearly a lot of people want.

If you want to keep politics out of games, too, let me know when you post something about removing the “kill all the Middle-Eastern men” theme of many a modern shooter.

I wouldn’t touch the football, though. Madden fans seem pretty rowdy.

Games will change, and it will be because of people like me, working inside the industry. You won’t have to play these games. I’m sure there will still be mindless games with sexpot female avatars for you to look at. Unfortunately, I can’t just play something else right now, though, because the examples are so rare – so I will help ensure that there is a choice. That’s really the point of all this: we want a choice.

While most of the characters are exaggerations of gamers – the guy who never logs off, the guild mom, the teenage rogue* – every time I watch I think of the people I’ve met playing games. I started playing online games with MUDs when I was 10 back in 1993. Yes, that’s 19 years of online gaming. There are plenty of kids now who are growing up playing online games, but I don’t meet too many people my age who have spent their formative years and adult life online, in part because in the mid-90′s the technology just wasn’t that accessible to a lot of people. I was lucky to have had access to a computer since the time I was 3. I’ve heard a lot about how people are worried that so much focus on technology and online social networking is bad for a child, or about the evils of Facebook and Twitter and whatever else. I don’t buy it, but that’s a whole other post.

I am telling you all about my history with gaming and computers so you understand that when I say I don’t know how to exist without them, you understand why. It’s not an addiction and not a fad. To me, the online world and the physical world** have existed together in harmony for most most of my life. As a result, there’s something about The Guild that has really resonated with me. Like Codex, I’ve made poor decisions. Like Codex, I have on occasion retreated into gaming to escape the awful things in my life. Also like Codex, I’ve made life-long friends through gaming, and my guildmates have often been a better support network than anyone could ever ask for.

Some of my closest friends are people whom I’ve never seen in the physical world. The relationships we have are not fake relationships. I have heard people claim that because you never meet, it’s too easy to hide who you are. Bullshit. When you first meet someone online, it’s true that they could be putting up a false front. But it’s the same in the physical world, too. How many times have you met someone you thought was nice, only to watch them laugh and not help when someone gets hurt, or gone a date with someone who claimed to be laid-back who them verbally abuses the waitress? People (who are not trained spies, I suppose) are simply not good at hiding who they are over extended interaction. Granted, when you meet someone in person, it’s usually *quicker* to find out more about them, but the same thing will happen over time in the online world. And just like in person, you start to learn how to read the signals and cues people give off online.

I’ve physically met up with a number of guildmates, too. Every one I can. Especially since, through some odd coincidence, a lot of them are awesome cooks . The first time I ever met fellow players, I was 13 and meeting up with other MUDders in Manhattan. My dad came along to chaperone. And guess what? They were the same people I knew online. Friendly or goofy or shy. In the end, we went rollerblading in Central Park, and my dad even enjoyed himself. I’ve dated guildmates, too, and while that has a whole host of issues attached to it – really, the same issues you face dating someone you work with – it was good while it lasted. No, not every guildmate or online buddy has turned into my best friend, but I wouldn’t hesitate to offer any of them a place to stay if they were in town, or any help they needed, because we are a community. A real one. With love and fights and friendship and nights spent drunk off our asses, enjoying each other’s company and sharing something we all like to do: play games.

My life, like Codex’s, is far from perfect. But it has never gotten better because I ignored the gaming world. It *has* gotten better because of my guildmates. So thank you, Felicia Day, for showing that world what I’ve known for years but couldn’t say to such a large audience: Guildies are awesome, and we should all be so lucky to have some in our lives.

————

*Actually, I suspect this one isn’t that much of an exaggeration, because I had a guildie just like him. JUST. LIKE. HIM.

**I refuse to think of it as “virtual” and “real” worlds. There’s nothing any less real about what happens online. If you watch a movie and discuss it with your friend, is the conversation less real because the movie was fiction?

Some things that have made the place look more complete are the painted walls, a nice area rug (it really ties the room together!), and curtains. I’m still lacking a lot of decoration, though. Everything is so *practical*. Granted, one of the things that bothers me about steampunk decor is when people find old machine bits and just leave them laying around. I saw a post by someone who found an old press and uses it as decoration. He thought it was a wine press at first. It was not! It was a beautiful cast-iron book press, and I need one of those! I wanted to strangle him!

On the plus side, my equipment suits the decor, so there’s that.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, records. Part of the cleaning up/rearranging/decorating process has been to find a home for my record player. And now it’s set up, and I was listening to some wonderful dixieland from the 40′s earlier. Now it is the Eagles. I own this record player entirely because of a LARP, Dystopia Rising. Post-apocalyptic zombie thing. My character is a member of the King’s Court, a religion based around music from before the fall. I decided that a dressed-up iPod wasn’t going to cut it, so I bought a record player at the thrift store, and some random records. Now I find myself buying records not just for the character to have, but for me to listen to; I get far more enjoyment out of digging through old boxes of records and playing them at home to “check for record integrity before bringing them to game”. Sure, right.

There have been a lot of things I’ve done for a LARP that have turned into real hobbies and skills. This particular character for Dystopia Rising (her name is Valentine) is really good for this: I now know how to make solar panels (thiugh I can’t make anything really efficient in my living room) and am learning about generators and other power sources. It is my personal goal, with her, to learn more about what powers our world, and our relationship with it.

You can check out of the LARP any time you like, but you can never leave.

Stay a while, and listen.

We’ve been together for such a long time. More than 12 years, I think. I remember when we first met playing Starcraft in high school. I played a lot of Starcraft. A LOT. The Zerg were always my favorite – just look at the arms on those hydralisks! They just wanted to give you a hug. I lived for the swarm in those days. I admit my first copy of the game was a bootleg my friend made of his copy, but I loved it so much that as soon as I could I bought it for real, and then jumped at the chance to buy Brood War when it came out.

In college you introduced me to Diablo 2. I have many fond memories of you and I and a gaggle of my closest friends playing over the college LAN (hey, this was the year 2000 – LANs were new to most of us). We skipped more classes because we just had to get that item identified than any of us would care to admit. To this day, even with a whole new group of friends, we all remember the rush with a new character to get the Horadric Cube, the cow level, and Wirt’s Third Leg. We didn’t even mind the carpal tunnel we all got from spam-clicking. I’ve bought the game three times over the years, because I am clumsy and scatterbrained and lost my first two copies, but the game was so good I wanted to keep playing. Hell, I want to play it right now.

When World of Warcraft came out, I joined in. I’ve been playing for something like 6 and a half years. Every so often I look back on old screenshots and smile the way someone would looking at pictures from their 16th birthday party. I can’t imagine my life without some of the people I’ve met playing that game. Some of my best friends are people I’ve never met in person. I championed your cause with every expansion, and tried to see the upside in changes I didn’t like. I’ve seen it all, Horde and Alliance, and hated every time I had to cancel my subscription for a month because of money.

I even bought all the d20 tabletop RPG books that you did with White Wolf’s Sword & Sorcery division (except the Monster Manual, because it’s always out of stock). I ran a campaign for a year and a half about the cleansing of Felwood. I became so enamored with the lore of the world that I went back and bought Warcraft 3 and played through that.

I am telling you all this, Blizzard, because I want you to see that I loved you and I was loyal to you. I’ve given you so much of my time and money, and I didn’t regret any of it. Until Starcraft 2.

You see, Blizzard, I loved playing LAN games with my friends. And I loved being staff at a convention with a LAN room. We bought 8 additional copies of the original StarCraft to put on our machines, Blizzard. We didn’t use our own copies, and neither did our patrons. These were 8 copies dedicated solely to letting people – most of whom owned the game at home – get in some face-to-face play (and the accompanying trash-talking). Hell, I used to LAN party Starcraft with my roommates or anyone else I could shanghai into playing. There’s nothing quite like experiencing the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat in the same room as your opponent. But in StarCraft 2 we couldn’t do that anymore. We can’t even let people bring their own machines with their own authenticated copies, because we need a constant internet connection and we can’t get that in our hotel. The worst part, Blizzard, that you rectified *somewhat*, was that I could no longer play with my Australian friends. Thankfully, they can now jump on the American servers, but I can’t go over there. It’s not ideal, since it’s several of them making the region jump instead of just one of me, but I was willing to put up with it.

But now there’s this business with Diablo 3 having no offline mode, no LAN support, and a real-money auction house system. The auction house bothers me. No, I don’t intend to really use it, but I want you to consider some things, Blizzard. By putting this system into place, you’ve pretty much guaranteed that a lot of the good items will only go up for real money. Let’s face it, if you had the choice to put up an item you’re pretty sure would sell for real or fake money, which would you choose? And maybe this is your plan: in the end, everyone except the people playing on hardcore mode will be using the auction house with real money, and you’ll be raking in the dough from all those fees you’ve attached to it. You probably don’t even care about all the possible problems with item ninjas that will make grouping up with new people a shot in the wallet as well as the dark. I could kind of live with it, I suppose, because those fees will probably help keep the servers running, but I’m not sure you’ve thought through all the repercussions of this decision – or worse, that you have but you don’t care.

No LAN support just makes me sad, but the real issue here is no offline play. At all. Why? You’ve said over and over it’s because you’re trying to prevent cheating. You’ve tried to tell us it’s to give us all freedom – but by giving us this “freedom” to use all our characters on Battle.net, you’ve taken away our decision in the essential thing. Even still, that’s not the real reason, is it? You’re trying to prevent piracy. You’re trying to prevent people going over to their friend’s house, installing the game, logging in once with their account, and then their friend plays for free offline. I understand that. There are other ways to go about it and still let us play offline, though. I’ve seen several good suggestions, and I’m going to toss mine into the ring: What about a limited number of computers that can be authenticated using one account, like iTunes does it? Say, two or three machines? Yes, you might still get pirated copies, but since the only multi-player will be over Battle.net, if those people who loved single-player want to play with their friends they’ll have to buy the game anyway. And who knows? That one pirated copy might turn that person into another me, who bought all your games, gave you subcription fees for years and years, and even bought associated merchandise like t-shirts and toys.

I can pinpoint when this all started, Blizzard, and it was when you got into bed with Activision. That hussy has turned you into someone else, and it’s someone I no longer want to be with. So I’ve let my WoW sub run out, and I don’t think I’m going to buy Diablo 3. I’ll probably still play Starcraft 2 – that is, unless Activision convinces you to make Battle.net a subscription service, and I think we all know that’s where this is going.

Goodbye, Blizzard. Thanks for the fun times, but you’ve changed so much, and I no longer love you.

There also exists a multiplayer mode, if you have server space, which I do. I pleaded with a few friends who also played Minecraft to join me, and now we have a lovely little word filled with interesting sights! What is particularly intriguing to me is how we all have our own areas of specialty. Kelesk is apparently a closet architect; Tanacrys is a genius when it comes to redstone mechanisms (the logic circuits of the game world), and I am really good at turning Kel’s disasters with TNT into something cool (and also lighting my projects on fire through ill-advised placement of lava).

The rest of this post is going to be behind a cut, because it’s a bit image-heavy.

This is our world; Kel's house is on the left, and Tanacys's is on the right.

Our world at night looks pretty cool, too.

Ahoy, mateys!

I don’t really have screenshots of everything – I’ll probably go nuts taking pictures later – but I want to share with you one particular thing. You see, Kelesk likes TNT. A lot. He will use any excuse – or even no excuse at all – to light some. He actually lit so much the other day that he rendered an entire region of the server unusable until I could run some scrubbing utilities and re-upload the world file.

His next words were, "I'm going to dig it up."

“Dig” wasn’t exactly what happened. This next screenshot should adequately explain what happens when you use 200 blocks of TNT in the middle of the ocean.

It was originally entirely filled with water. And that's just half of the hole.

I spent several hours constructing the walls to hold back the ocean from the giant hole Kel had made so I could empty it out. I was intending to just fill it in, but then I got another idea.

Yes, that's a giant glowstone ceiling.

I ended up evening out the hole, putting in a glowstone ceiling/layer of sandstone/layer of sand to let the ocean flow over it, and building walls out of glass with water behind them for that “under the sea” effect. You can’t tell too well in the screenshot, but there are little doors throughout the cavern that lead into various rooms such as an underground tree farm. I’m still trying to decide what to put in the middle of the floor; I was considering a giant clam shell.

So how about you guys out there? Will you share some of your builds with me?

P.S. The title of this post comes from the song Katrina Josephina by Universal Hall Pass. It’s the perfect Minecraft song.

After many issues with the landlord and roommates, I have my own shiny new apartment, complete with tiny brown moth infestation in my pantry. Boo moths*. Yay apartment! It’s quite a nice place, actually; it’s right across the street from the library, too, which is awesomesauce. I have space for my bookbinding supplies and equipment, I can leave sewing projects out on the table for a week if I want to, and I can watch all the trashy chick flicks my eyeballs can stand. I was worried I was going to be really lonely, because the last place was the social hub of our group of friends and someone was always coming by, but apparently the truth is I’m more of a hermit than I thought I was. It’s nice to see people, to be sure, but I don’t need it. The only real downside to a distinct lack of human interaction is that I have completely forgotten how to schedule meals, and find myself suddenly hungry at 11 PM and realizing that I haven’t eaten since the day before**.

It really is amazing how much your own space really contributes to your creativity levels, too. In the old house, my bookbinding didn’t take off until I set up a desk just for that purpose. It’s really the case no matter where you live or how many people you share your living space with: if you can’t carve out a space just for you, then it’s difficult to get things done. Yes, there’s the practical side – binding is easier when I don’t have to drag a box of supplies out of the closet and root through it – but there’s a mental side as well. Your space keeps you focused and sane.

Also I have a walk-in closet. That *really* helps keep a woman sane

I do wish more of my friends lived closer, though. I would love to live in some kind of geek/artist collective, where everyone has their own space but it’s easy to communicate with and help each other with all of your projects. I’m not necessarily talking about a single house, or a true commune wherein everyone shares everything, but “within walking distance” would be cool. I would love to be one of those people who live and work in historic recreation towns like Williamsburg, Virginia. I would also like to live within walking distance of a bakery, but that is probably because I am hungry. Because I forgot to eat. Again.

——-

*Yes, I got mothballs. Yes, I threw out everything I thought they could have gotten into. I was apparently not ruthless enough, but I bought plastic containers for everything last night, and that should help alleviate the problem.

**This is not as good as it sounds. I am not some kind of skinny mutant freak – in fact I am the opposite of skinny – and as anyone who has tried to lose weight will tell you, the key is several small, healthy meals throughout the day, not a frozen pizza 2 hours before you go to bed.

Dragonite, I choose you!

Doesn’t Dragonite look so friendly? Don’t you just want to hug it and cuddle it? Look, it’s even waving at you!

DON’T FALL FOR IT.

Dragonite is death incarnate. Dragonite is in the category known as pseudo-legendary, which means it has the stats of a legendary pokemon, but it can be caught multiple times within the same game, and doesn’t require attendance at any special Nintendo events. The Dragonite, along with its pseudo-legendary brethren, have a stat total of 600, which means an average of 100 base points in each stat. This is as high as any pokemon can get without actually being legendary. To add to that, the Dragonite is (as you might have guessed) a dragon type pokemon, which means it has very few weaknesses, many strengths, and the possibility of learning some of the most powerful moves in the game.

Why doesn’t everyone just use Dragonite, then? A lot of people do, really, but the rules of some leagues do not allow pseudo-legendaries. Also, one of the major weaknesses of dragon types is, ironically, dragon. If you load up your team with dragons, you’ve created a majorly exploitable hole in your strategy. Still, a well-trained Dragonite can be a terrifying opponent to face.

I face a Dragonite constantly, and the sight of it still sends shivers up my spine. You see, I have this friend enemy arch frenemy. His name is Kelesk, and we met playing World of Warcraft six years ago. He was a tank, I was a healer, and it was a match made in hell. We have gotten into terrible flaming rows over and over, year after year, that have made everyone around us not want to talk to either of us for days. Have you ever had a screaming match over Ventrilo? (For those who are unfamiliar with Vent, think of it like walkie-talkies; you have to hold down a button to talk, and let go to hear the other person.) I have. It was possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but I’ve done it, with him. There’s never been a time when we have not been in direct competition with each other. Ever since Pokemon HeartGold & SoulSilver, one of our arenas has been pokemon battling, and the cornerstone of his team is his beloved Dragonite.

It might seem like we hate each other, but that’s really not the case (anymore). Somewhere along the line, we both realized that the reason we’re always in competition is we both see so much potential in the other. Competition is a way to try and coax it out of each other. If we didn’t have this fundamental respect for each other, we wouldn’t have bothered to keep in touch all these years. I’m even drawing him a little comic to explain all that stuff about EVs and IVs I talked about in the Blissey post, because he’s bad at math. I could keep the information to myself, of course, and gain an edge in our battles, but that wouldn’t be right. It’s not a real victory unless we both start on equal footing. That’s the crux of battling in Pokemon, and in life: we should all strive to be our best, and help each other along the way; if someone doesn’t have what we do, we should endeavor to change that, so all our victories can be celebrated.

Every time I see Dragonite, I think of Kelesk, and I think of everything we’ve gone through together. Friendship, hatred, struggles, respect, love; all these things are Pokemon.

Celebi, I choose you!

Ah, Celebi. Celebi is one of those special legendary event pokemon. It’s cute,  isn’t it? And of course, powerful. It’s a psychic/grass type, so it has about a billion weaknesses. Still, a smart player can work around those. Though the Japanese spelling of its name – serebii – is the inspiration for one of the more popular Pokemon fan communities, serebii.net, that’s not why this particular pokemon is notable.

Cerebi is like a gateway drug to the world of special event pokemon. Event pokemon are limited-release pokemon; they were originally handed out at physical events (hence the name) before the advent of wi-fi on the Nintendo DS. These days, for a few weeks you can go to certain retailers and connect to the Nintendo wi-fi there, and then you download these special pokemon. Celebi was the first one available for the most recent game, Black & White, though it is a reissue from many years ago. Many of them have some additional purpose beyond being awesome; a trio of pokemon released over 2010 allow you access to a special fourth pokemon in the new game, for example.

In case you missed it, the tagline for the Pokemon series in the English-speaking world is “Gotta catch ‘em all!”. As you might imagine, the existence of special event pokemon can make catching them all particularly difficult. I missed all of the 2010 event pokemon, despite living across the street from a GameStop. This irritates me to no end. Of course, event pokemon can almost never be bred, so you can only ever obtain one per copy of the game you have, if you manage to make it to the event.

So how might you go about obtaining these rare pokemon? You can trade, of course, but people aren’t likely to just give them up – though there are some people who will go out of there way to obtain multiple copies of these event pokemon specifically to trade. There’s a darker side to all of this, a seedy underbelly, and it is filled with hacked pokemon.

Yes, people care enough to hack copies of their games to give themselves extra copies of these pokemon. Worse, if you manage to trade for one, you might never know. Most competitive leagues don’t allow legendary pokemon anyway, but even still, you’ve got a little black market pokemon on your copy of the game, and you never know if this will cause issues down the line and ruin all your hard work. I might not take that risk, but plenty of other people will. That’s how far this goes, people. Folks out there are willing to risk losing access to all the pokemon they have for a shot at obtaining something like a Celebi. If you suspect you might have a hacked pokemon, you might want to check out this thread on the Serebii forums.