BeyondStrange

This is probably going to turn into the same heated debate these threads always turn into, so I need to say something before it does.

Am I the only one who grossly misread the thread title as "the Olive Garden supports GamerGate"? Perhaps it is past time for pasta peddlers to get involved in game's journalism. I mean, if we can't agree on getting an endless glutinous supply of subpar bread sticks, what can we agree on?

Actually, hearing that Unity has the same lead as Revelations has increased my interest in it even more. My reasons may sound weird and confusing, but I feel that Revelations could have been a great game with more time behind it.

Revelations had an interesting setting, a cool premise in old Ezio learning about the life of Altiar, and some great story beats. Ezio's romance, the climatic battle, and the fact that even in his old age, the man could still make huge mistakes were all promising, though underdeveloped in the final product. The climatic ending sequence, the Altiar stuff, and the final chapter (outside of the Zeus part) were all fantastic to me and some of my favorite moments from the entire franchise. I also can't expressed how much I loved the artistic design of Constantinople and the sojourn to the hidden city. Plus, as the one person who loved the AC competitive multiplayer, it was vastly improved over Brotherhood.

The problem was that Revelations probably suffered the most from the desire to have a main AC game every year. It was initially announced that there would be no AC game in 2011. Then suddenly, the plot from a 3DS game was converted to this AAA console title. So, the basics were there, but the gameplay and city were too much like "Brotherhood, but smaller" and the things they added were very patchwork (bombs that were cool, but useless and a really bad tower defense mini game). Oh yeah, they also added the hook blade dealy that literally did nothing beyond "zip-lines" and "I dunno, you can climb faster, maybe?" I feel like with a year or two more of development time, Revelations could have rivaled Brotherhood in quality (also, actually revealing new things to the plot in a game called "Revelations" would have helped). Personally, I think that even with a few more years of development, AC3 would have never been great. I don't think anything would have made the plot, characters, and game play concepts from that game interesting to me.

Actually, looking at the pre-release story stuff and game play, the game does look like "what if Revelations had more development time." That would be fantastic by me.

EDIT: Oh, and I noticed many here are excited for Rogue, but I am worried that will be to Black Flag like Revelations was to brotherhood. Looking at the features, it just seems like "Black Flag, but smaller with some random features thrown in, because, um... new features guys!"

Yeah, this was mentioned on a Bombcast at some point. Brad heard they were discontinuing Playstation Home so he put the video on the schedule immediately, despite the fact it doesn't take place for another half of a year.

And Home never seemed as odd as Second Life, but more perplexing. It apparently made Sony money for years though I constantly forget it is a thing that exists.

@turboman: I think using Ronda Rousey as a female Brock Lesnar would be fantastic and add legitimacy to the RAW Diva divisions. The sad part is that company seems to have no interest in making the Divas something serious and important like they are on NXT. I thought Paige would improve RAW, but six months later, she has just been mutated into another "crazy broad" gimmick.

I think using Ronda would be the perfect way to bring Charlotte up. Right now, Charlotte is the only character who could be a believable threat to Ronda Rousey. Rousey can terrorize the Divas for a few months for Rick Flair's daughter to cone along and save the day.

I wasn't sure about this letter to the editor, despite it being very well written and the fact that I love when "Jeff gets real." I am one of those "both sides" assholes who like to point out that there has been some extreme terribleness coming from both directions. Plus, Giant Bomb being called out to say something felt to me like those who constantly call out Muslims to say something against ISIS to prove they are "good Muslims" or some crap. I didn't see what difference it would make.

The comments made by @vinny in this thread have changed my mind. This may sound cliched, but I love Vinny. I have read hundreds of comments about this whole situation over the last month, but he put things in a way that really helped me to understand the situation. GamerGate is crap. You may agree with what it is saying, but it was literally founded on gossip and scandal, not on a quest for journalistic integrity. The accusations from the very beginning against Zoe Quin read like something from TMZ. That is the foundation of GamerGate: a personal issue that no one should be concerned with. From there, some Frankenstein idea of ethics emerged, but the ground was tainted from the beginning. "You can't build something off a pile of corpses" is exactly right. Now, ISIS and GG are NOWHERE in the same league and I would never suggest that, but if members of ISIS were to come out and say "nah, that the people decapitating heads in my ISIS are crazy, but us over here actually want to talk about our problems with America," my suggestion to them would be just to start a whole new group completely divorced from the crazy people.

GamerGate is like some blob from a horror movie. It has no head, no body, or really know driving force. It just kind of flops about, destroying things. To those of you pointing out how the aggression and death threats from the anti-GG is being overlooked, THAT is the difference. They are human beings who are scared and have coherent points who are super scared of this blob tumbling towards them. Now, I'm not saying aggressive threats should be excused, but GG has been so formless and toxic that there isn't much to do to fight against it. Some one claiming to be from GG could attack some one else at any time for any reason and then just scream "ETHICS!"

I may be biased. I love Zoe Quinn and am still flabbergasted on how she ended up as patient zero for this whole thing. Still, I have a lot of problems with the way the progressive criticism has been conducted on gaming sites for the last year. I don't think it is corrupt, but rather very human. The critics (rightfully) point out that they can't be silenced because you don't want to read it, see it, or agree with it, but then they turn around doing the same things, acting like criticism and their perspective is infallible. Plus, there is problematic group think that I see in both ideologies.

But guess what? One side is writing editorials, making videos, and speaking in public. They may be aggressive and rough and perhaps even hyperbolic, but at least they are being constructive. The blob known as GamerGate just screams on twitter and sends death threats to people. I haven't even seen a well constructed article from that side even on a tumblr.

This whole thing is a mess and GG people do not deserve harassment, but your cause is too mutated and vindictive to be effective. Cut yourself free and escape the blob is what I say.

I forgot they didn't do Sherlock Holmes. I am genuinely interested in the game.

In other news, this Duck Dynasty quick look is everything I was hoping it to be and more.

@hansolol: I think they are desperately trying to have their cake and eat it too. They pay lip service to the idea that it is a "double main event" but any chance they get, they seem to be pointing out that "Cena and Orton is the MAINEST OF EVENTS." Any chance they have to just bring up Orton and Cena, they're taking.

Guys, this NXT thing... it has logical character progression in story lines. It has characters that say legitimately funny things (FACT). It even has visual motifs (I refer to the whole "staring in the mirror before some major turn" thing). All this and it still makes time for fun matches and developing wacky things like hair serums and the meteoric rise of hair dressers. Indeed, it is impossible deny that many of the talents are still developing, but during last night's show, I thought to myself "this is actually kind of well written." Also, blue pants.

So, let me return to reality with "John Cena vs. Randy Orton part 3032: This Time, An Elaborate Cage is Involved.... and It's Hellish, I guess?"

I think a lot of the chief reasons have been mentioned: Drew being out of the office, the endless shaking, the fact that Jeff isn't that far in Borderlands yet. Let me propose a few more wild theories, because this conversation has been polite and civil. Perhaps it needs more CHEM TRAILS?

Judging by their talk on the bombcast of them recording it late, it seems like the Dave Lang and Eric Pope stuff took a lot of time on Monday. Also, both Dan and Jeff were on the Lobby, which probably took some time out of the core of the day. And though I doubt GOTY is effecting things yet, they seem to be hinting at elaborate plans for Extra Life, which could be taking planning and set-up.

Finally, I think a big reason could be the elephant in the room. There were two articles this week that attracted massive debate and controversy with nearly 1000 posts on each. There were also splinter topics as well. Rorie mentioned when he closed the comments of the most recent article that monitoring the discussion was taking up his entire work day. No one really knows how the GB office structure works, so perhaps some of the staff is dealing with that stuff as well. On top of this, the website was called out on national television, so they could be dealing with phone calls, PR, e-mails etc. NOTE: Keep in my mind, I aimed to type this theory in a way that doesn't restart these discussions here, so please do not actually debate the controversies here. I don't want this thread polluted or moderated.

@plan6: yeah, I can see your point actually. I looked into that twitter thing and your pretty much right. I guess I am sick of all the hatred and feel like sometimes, the hatred can be sometimes excused. Still, she was not going to get anything good out of that situation.

I will restate this whole thing is sucky.