Mega Thread The Random Thoughts Thread Part 1

[Magpiespower]

I like games when it was just Pitfall on the Atari, and NBA Live 95 on the Playstation.

Retired from games after I clocked NBA Jam on the arcade...

 

[faquito]

Im pretty sure PC gaming peaked once the Conquerors expansion was released for AoE2.

Women and men built houses, hunted and farmed together.

And if you picked the Spanish, they'd even fight together as super villagers.

 

[faquito]

Retired from games after I clocked NBA Jam on the arcade...

Was it during a Time Zone lock-in?

 

[StuMan]

Was it during a Time Zone lock-in?

I miss Time Zone lock-ins.

 

[StuMan]

Let's go back and talk about religion again....

 

[Stromageddon]

Thread too serious for my liking.

Let's discuss discus

 

[Eddie Dingle]

Boys have a penis and girls have a vagina.

 

[SilenceOz]

Boys have a penis and girls have a vagina.

Depends what gender you identify as..

 

[Portia]

The thing is Portia, I can distinguish between written characters in a virtual world and the fact that I'm talking to real people via text on the internet. My opinions on football have changed thanks to this web forum.

Some of which may have been true, and some of which may not.

How many Bigfooty rumours have you read and had to make a call on if they are true or not?

Dan Gorringe is a petulant child. I read it on the internet. Is it true?

Slightly later you said...

So my impression of how prostitution is in Hong Kong was formed by various media - it's fair to presume they have done a bit of research on the setting themselves and they're replicating it.

Why is that fair to presume? Its a fictional game. You think they didn't exaggerate to tell a story, like any other fictional media?

Here you are explicitly using fictional media, and a video game at that, to form your view of the world.

What is that changing about your imaginary 14 year old boy? That it is a good thing to do it? So he's shot up a bunch of women in a brothel in a video game. Then he grows up meeting women in the real world and with these interactions anything learned in the video game would be overridden by real experiences which are far stronger than any scripted story on a screen.

Except he approaches them from a viewpoint formed by exposure to media, like everyone else in the world.

People make decisions on how to treat people they don't know (or do know) every day, and these are shaped by conscious thought, but also from random bits of shit in your brain that you aren't actively aware were fictional or not.

If I ask one of the middle aged guys on this forum right now to immediately talk with a german accent, are they going to come up with something that sounds like one, or drop straight into a ridiculous one like they heard on Hogan's Heroes as a kid?

Media, and video games are like every other media, are something that human beings accept as an information source. Some parts you file away as fictional, but some parts (like assumptions about what Hong Kong prostitution is like) you file away as factual. Where is the line drawn? Do you even consciously know you're drawing one?

If I'm under the impression of something like that due to media, how does that shape ideas like how to treat women?

As a one off, probably not much. As part of a constant stream of media that shows women as disempowered, vulnerable objects, sufficiently to affect your attitude. Regardless of the gender of the player.

For me the thing that shapes how you actually interact with people and different social groups is your real life interractions.

Those are just the things you are consciously aware of. There is so much more that you take in.


Also I want to revist this quickly

I mean shit, having the options to kill those women in Hitman is entirely fine. People can think for themselves! I know, hard to comprehend right. I'm sure most people playing the game just ignored the fact that you can kill them.

In a game, developers make choices about what the player can't do.

In Hitman, a couple of the options developers didn't bother with:

- Strike up a conversation, and talk about vampire fiction
- Get into an argument
- Ask where the toilets are
- Apologise for barging in like a maniac

All things a person could do, but rated not important or interesting enough to include.

The options developers did include are `walk right past' and `kill them'. This was an active decision on their part. `Kill them' was rated `important or interesting enough to include'.

If they didn't have `kill them' as an option, I am betting a lot of players would complain that `that isn't realistic!'. Neither is not being able to interact with prostitutes as human beings, but comment on that and you're likely to be disregarded as a twitter feminist who hates video games.

Developers make a deliberate decision to include the killing of unarmed women in their games. It requires special programming to implement. It is an intended portion of the game for the player to experience. This is undeniable.

 

[Eddie Dingle]

Depends what gender you identify as..

Now you are just being silly.

 

[Portia]

Is this me being put in my place, Eddie Dingle?

 

[Big_Money_Papa]

Im pretty sure PC gaming peaked once the Conquerors expansion was released for AoE2.

Women and men built houses, hunted and farmed together.

And if you picked the Spanish, they'd even fight together as super villagers.

Wololo...
But that use of elephants by the Persians is surely animal abuse

 

[Eddie Dingle]

Is this me being put in my place, Eddie Dingle?

Say what now?

 

[Eddie Dingle]

I like to think that my lighthearted comment breaks up a serious and ever so boring conversation between people that will never agree.

 

[Magpiespower]

Was it during a Time Zone lock-in?

Oh, I was never allowed to go to a lock-in!

The olds didn't like Timezone and the riff-raff that hung around there.

Like me...

 

[JimmyBeerCans]

I like to think that my lighthearted comment breaks up a serious and ever so boring conversation between people that will never agree.

Are you available xmas day?

 

[Eddie Dingle]

Are you available xmas day?

I haven't been "home" for Christmas since 1997.

So yeah I'm available.

 

[Portia]

I'm not an idiot.

Depends what gender you identify as..

Now you are just being silly.

And that comment is the second time in the conversation about how `twitter feminists that hate video games' may have a point that you've tried to shut it down. What comes after the passive aggressive?

 

[JimmyBeerCans]

I haven't been "home" for Christmas since 1997.

So yeah I'm available.

Cool i'll seat you at the head of the table, when the conversation becomes venomous i expect those lighthearted comments.. or no turkey for you

 

[Eddie Dingle]

Cool i'll seat you at the head of the table, when the conversation becomes venomous i expect those lighthearted comments.. or no turkey for you

How about I drop my strides and offer my pork sword as a weapon to the feuding parties?

And then make a lighthearted comment?

 

[JimmyBeerCans]

How about I drop my strides and offer my pork sword as a weapon to the feuding parties?

And then make a lighthearted comment?

Sure Comedy always works

 

[Trewth]

Inquisition is different to the other two by some margin. Just because you played the first two doesn't make you qualified to judge the third. Not all love interests are Bi, Cassandra is hetero, Sera is lesbian (unfortunately) and Dorian is gay. I've been playing the shit out of it and it has been a joy. The only downside I've found is that it's really deep (90 hour main story with a gazillion side quests) so it requires time, which means my other games don't get a look in. The relationship aspect in this gives the game life and emotion that I find not many other games have.

 

[Ralph Lorenz]

Went to the big bash last night.
Horrified to hear the likes of 'cooey' and a 'slow build up clap' coming through the high def speakers around the stadium.

It was as if we were cattle and there was a farmer sitting in a box pressing buttons to prod us to sing for the cameras. We were channel 10's puppet - their arms entrenched in our assholes, making our mouths move to simulate enjoyment.

If this ever becomes a regular thing at Port games, I'd be mortified.

 

[Doctor Feel]

Thread too serious for my liking.

Let's discuss discus

 

[Doctor Feel]

Inquisition is different to the other two by some margin. Just because you played the first two doesn't make you qualified to judge the third. Not all love interests are Bi, Cassandra is hetero, Sera is lesbian (unfortunately) and Dorian is gay. I've been playing the shit out of it and it has been a joy. The only downside I've found is that it's really deep (90 hour main story with a gazillion side quests) so it requires time, which means my other games don't get a look in. The relationship aspect in this gives the game life and emotion that I find not many other games have.

I seriously hope you banged lady montilyet, screw the rest.