To the guy that doesn't want help building his PC because he's a social recluse. I think you're a terrible person. I hate who you are, and your existence annoys me.
So that means I wouldn't want to hang out with you after helping you build your PC. If you want help, you can Skype with me and I'll walk you through it, then go our separate ways.
I rambled - I don't know. At this point it feels like a shame to just close notepad.
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I want to start by saying that on the subject of SJW/GamerGate, I totally come down on the side of GamerGate. I feel there's some shady shit that goes on - GameJournoPros, etc. - that shows there's some real growing that needs to happen within the realm of games journalism. I feel that a lot of that is due to subject being something that was only recently a hobby industry. Now it's a massive industry with billions of dollars flowing through it, and on some level there really deserves to be honest and meaningful discussion about the industry.
I love all of the guys at Giantbomb, East and West, past and I'm sure well into the future. They're all rad - East and West, past and I'm sure well into the future. I don't think they are immune to the issues I've seen at other outlets, but I do think they do a good job of being honest. GiantBomb was born in part because of that - all I want is honest opinion and reporting without it being molded by whatever outside forces there are (in terms of advertising dollars, public opinion, etc.).
I just wish that there was maybe a little more of a two-sided thing on this. I think both the Bombcast and Beastcast do a good job of being honest about their position on the subjects, but it feels like they're only seeing one side of the story. When Fire Emblem comes up it's always about that face touching minigame that gets brought up. The mini-game became an easy target because it's easy to take people who had that even at the edge of their mind and say they're creepy because of it, but there was (from everything I saw) way more outrage over things like entire conversations being boiled down to "Hey." "Hey." "..." "..." "..." "..." Allison Rapp - it's a shitty thing - there's no way to remove the attention she got from her firing, but it's not like the attention on her was because "OH shit, it's a woman. Let's get her." She was antagonistic on twitter. She drew a lot of that attention to herself. There was some shit that went down between her and a representative of an organization that works to protect child from the terrors of sexual abuse. If you want to look at her firing as a result of external forces, that's where it was. I haven't had the time to read her thesis, though from what I understand it's a paper on how those in possession of child pornography should be reformed rather than expelled from society - which yeah, reform is always the best option. And if they haven't been responsible for the harm of a child then let's help them before they do. People should feel comfortable with getting help when they need it rather than fearing what people will think.
The discussion on Baldur's Gate was relatively well balanced for what was brought up: There is a lot of concern over a poorly written trans-character. The game does have bugs that are a total bummer and shouldn't be there. I don't know what the ratio is for decent concerns over biggotry, but there's still so much dismissal of the subject. On Alex's point of "Why does this take you out of the immersion" apparently there's an item that allows the wearer to change their gender. Perhaps some people could be upset over the fact that this character being trans is even a thing that needs to be discussed. Then we have issues with developers coming out and saying things like they'll shove SJW content down the player's throats whether they like it or not. While on some level that's authorial intent, it's authorial intent with spite behind it. There are games that have been criticized (and changes forced by external pressure) over "contraversial" subjects that weren't spiteful or intended to be hurtful. In those cases there's no concern for intent. Neither of these is right though, but I wish it didn't seem like you'd never heard of or seen these situations.
The real issue with Beamdog for me however is the banning of people from their Steam community. People are being banned because they simply express a concern (legitimate concerns as well). The Steam community page was a massacre of banned users and locked discussions. The devs were asking people to go and give reviews on Steam to try to balance it out. On some level I feel okay about it because they can't force people to give a good review, but when they shut down any conversation about the subject it makes it look bad. By far the most aggrevating thing I see about "SJWs" is that they feel they have the right to completely control a narrative, or shut it down entirely if they can't control it. This isn't just in the games industry, it's being seen all over college campuses and the internet. If people are really racists, bigots, misogynist, trans/homo/whatever-phobic, then let them speak so people can see it. I think the real issue is that a lot of them have no argument and rely on keeping people quiet because their ideas don't stand on their own.
This is the first time I've ever seen Far Cry 2.. I played the first Far Cry, and this feels like a huge step down in visuals. That could be nostalgia, or it could just be the brown filter over everything compared to the first games tropical island motif. But... man, there's something about this game that seems janky. The voice acting seems so... off. And I can't put my finger on why. Is this running the way it should? It's an older game so I imagine Austin's PC can run it pretty well, right?
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