FireFox has failed me for the last time. The past few days have involved the loss of two different blogs, three emails and a stock report for work. It crashes again it gets uninstalled and replaced by something more stable. I am tired of trying to google self-help guides or topics on fixing this damned browser and its bloody crashes.

That being said thanks to everyone who took time to read my last blog and nominate it for inclusion into the Community Spotlight topic. I appreciate the support and interest from the community.

Also for those interested Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has reached nearly $400,000,000 at the box office after receiving negative reviews from practically every self proclaimed film 'critic' out there. I suggest these critics go tie a noose around their necks and do us all a favour by hanging themselves, pretentious bastards. Although I do think this raises a significant question, are movie critics out of touch with what they think audiences will enjoy? Or is the film critic business / industry just become overly pretentious and smothered in their own ego?

PS - I enjoyed the film. Bloody good fun to watch. Oh and The Conduit looks horrible, is this really mean't to be the game that makes people value the Wii as a serious competitor to the PC / 360 / PS3 in regards to games that aren't party orientated? Really?

Time to get on my soapbox a little and express my views, thoughts, feelings and opinions on a few things. Some related directly to GiantBomb and recent events and others related to general random things. Take from this blog what you will, if you hate it then let me know by leaving a rage fueled reply in the comments!

• Moderator Positions

For the time being we are NOT looking for or considering taking on any extra Moderators. We may have recently lost two of them but we are not looking to replace them anytime soon. So please cease sending us request and demands to become one, unless you are willing to make a donation to the Hamz Foundation for Alcoholic Beverages.

• The GiantBomb Staff

A lot of people are complaining about and demanding that the Staff become more actively and intimately involved with the community. All I'll say to this is simply take a step back for a moment and realise we have a very small number of Staff covering a very large and evolving industry. Thus the workload they have to deal with is both hectic and time consuming, have a little sympathy, support and faith for them and understand they can't always spend time to chit chat on the forums when they have work to do. I'd much rather they continue uploading top quality content to this website than see them decide to post a reply to my blogs.

• Wiki Moderators

They are the unsung heroes of this site and the authority on Wiki related matters. When they say jump, you say how high. Too many times now I'm seeing certain users continually act like they are Wiki Mods, or users go against the rules of the Wiki or not even consider consulting the Wiki Mods with Wiki related issues. This needs to change and people need to start realising that even though these fine gentlemen may spend a lot of time behind the scenes slaving over submissions and editing the Wiki they are very much active on the site. Their knowledge of the Wiki is unmatched and you should all give them the respect they are due.

• Karma / Flagging System

It would appear people would rather post "dude GTFO!" to trolls than be mature and simply flag the troll post(s) and let a Moderator deal with it. When I see a troll topic with 10 replies all of which are a variation on the above phrase I die a little inside. Are people that stupid or just that bone idle they refuse to flag content that they must know needs to be flagged? Are we going to have to take a stance that people posting in obvious flamebait or troll topics will also be moderated alongside the troll themselves? Suggest you all start using the flag option much more often.

• L4D2 Boycotters

They should have their Steam accounts banned and then bake their head in an oven. Nuff said.

• Wiki Specific Boards
  

There is now no excuse for not posting your topic in the correct and specific board it should have been thanks to the new feature added by Coonce which you can find more information on here. Posting about a specific DS game in the DS board is against our forum rules, the topics SHOULD be posted in the board on that games page within the Database. Once we get our more advanced moving tool we will begin to unravel the chaotic mess that some of the boards have become thanks to lazy users just dumping their topics in them.

End soapbox rant.

Prequel can be found here for those unaware as to what this is all about. For those of you who can guess what this is a spoiler for then please leave links to forum topics / wiki articles / memorable occasions or quotes and general suggestions etc.

.....suggestions for a final title are also welcome :)

Hamz XOXO!

Hello my name is Hamz and I'm an alcoho....err....video game enthusiast.

First order of business is the complete mind-fuck Valve has done in regards to the upcoming class update for Team Fortress 2. First the Sniper was announced and then out of the blue the Spy was announced to be released alongside his Austrailian colleague. But more shenanigans were to be had with the early leaking of the Spy's "Meet the...." video which may have been intentionally leaked if the below image is to be trusted.

Did Valve intentionally leak the video or is this all coincidence? Is the Scout's mother really the Pyro? Will BoG ever find true love? So many questions and not enough time to answer them all. But I have to say well played to Valve in regards to just springing the Spy update on players after so many of them have been anticipating this class in particular getting updated.

My initial impression of the Spy's update is that the 'Cloak and Dagger' watch is a little redundant. Especially when not so long ago Valve updated the Spy's cloak so it regenerated once the Spy picked up ammo. I'm not sure I like the thoughts of a cloak which regenerates by standing still and drains during movement when as I mentioned above the regular cloak refills via ammo pickups. I'll trust in Valve's greater wisdom on the issue, still somewhat skeptical though.

Now onto the second order of business. Gather round children and listen to old uncle Hamz and listen well because I have something important I want everyone to read and understand. GiantBomb is a site that relies on and encourages its community to interact with one another and the site itself in a positive and productive manner, something which a large majority of you all understand.

However lately a small number of people seem to have taken it upon themselves to play the role of Moderator and seem to think they can order other users around as if they have the ability and authority to do so. As if they are somehow more important than their peers. Now I'm sure these select few people have good intentions but their approach and the way in which they carry them out comes across as very egotistical, bossy and 'wannabe-moderator-ish'. And has resulted in a few complaints and panties being twisted.

Everyone here at GiantBomb is on equal ground. No single user has authority or greater importance over another. So I am going to ask that everyone keep that in mind when they try to help out another user in need or when replying to a topic discussing any subject matter. Keep your ego's in check and remember there is a team of dedicated Forum and Wiki moderators on this site to deal with issues and make final decisions on matters. If you find yourself unsure, confused or generally needing guidance about anything then never hesitate to contact one or all of us.

Nothing disgruntles me more than seeing certain users continually act as if and feel the need to make their opinion known as fact when the truth of the matter is their opinion is entirely wrong or otherwise flawed in regards to our rules and guidelines here. It only serves to cause confusion for users and extra work for the actual Moderation team when we see things like this occur.

So with that out of the way I'll just finish with this, don't act like a smart-arse around the site. Read through the Wiki FAQ and the Forum FAQ for a list of every Moderator and our specific jobs on the site and learn the rules we ask everyone abide by here while you're at it too!

<3 Hamz XOXO

PS - The Spy is still a threat!

I had intended to blog about this awhile ago. But things cropped up and time flew by quicker than I had anticipated. However here you are, another random blog with another random yet witty image by myself for your viewing pleasure.

I could go into a long speech and rant to express my views on the 'hardcore vs casual' argument and why I feel it is such a flawed idea that we have to split what is already a niche community into two separate categories. I could also go onto why I find the term gamer offensive and dirty. Instead though I shall post another image that simply sums up how I feel about both things.



<3 Hamz

PS - i r ninty fanboy noaw! B-ware mah powahz!