I am saddened and angry at all this nonsense about how it's impossible to "hate LeBron James" anymore.
I want to be on the record as never criticizing him for leaving Cleveland during free agency to move to Miami. I have always liked him. However, to suggest LeBron is suddenly a likable person if you were on the hate train is utter ridiculousness.
I challenge anyone to find a person who is fundamentally changed as a person because they won something, or were at the top of their respective career fields. A person's personality might get changed a little bit as would anyone who's accomplished a life-long dream, but chances are it's in a marginal way. All the sudden, LeBron is the Dali Llama of basketball players? All the sudden, people who thought he was a coward for quitting on his home town to play with other stars in the league are expected to not find fault with him?
If the argument is based off people "hating" him because of his ability to play the game and his playstyle, then okay yeah. He answered the calls of the critics by being an unstoppable force all playoffs long, if not all season long. But to suggest you can't keep hating LeBron now that he's a championship is a highlight of a faulty thought process America seems to embrace.
Winning is not everything, not does it absolve mistakes on the path to success. It is just success. Nothing more, nothing less. There are really shitty people who "win" in life every day. Does that mean everyone needs to behave as those people, or forgive those people for being awful? Not in the least. It's something we need to stop, as a society. We need to stop empowering people who step on others get ahead in life.
I just feel like there is no incentive to be a nice guy. Whenever you say to someone, "Okay I will come fill in for you this weekend," they never return that favor. It's just you giving of yourself. It's wrong of our society to think that it's entirely up to a person if they give of themselves, and if they do it they should ask for nothing in return.
I am going off on tangents related to my personal life now so I will try to regroup: LeBron is the same guy he was a week ago. He still helped create a super team and a potential Eastern Conference dynasty for the first time since the Bulls. My opinion of him as a player has not changed in the least. I've always thought he was a great player, and this win doesn't validate HIM, but it validates the concept that an entire team has to win.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Yearly Reminder: Magic the Gathering is pretty awesome.
Picked up this year's iteration of Stainless Games' "Magic: the Gathering- Duels of the Planeswalkers" and it's reminded me something I've known for quite a long time. M:tG is the only worthwhile collectable card game ever made.
I've played a lot of them. Tried to get into Pokemon for awhile because that was the rage in my younger days, but it lacked real strategic depth. Tried Yu-Gi-Oh but it's a convoluted mess, and it was one of those games where a rare card totally trumped deck building. Tried the World of Warcraft CCG but it just felt like a cash-grab despite actually being fairly good.
But Magic. The allure of the franchise grabs me again every time. It's proof style matters a whole lot, though substance is still equally important. It's been around since 1993. It is the first, and because of it, the best. It's had the most amount of time to turn into a refined product, and is the only one that can truly claim it's not an imitator.
For those uninitiated, the concept is fairly simple. You are a Planeswalker, a.k.a. a really powerful magician. You tap into the powers of the elements, represented by the M:TG color wheel. Green represents growth, harmony, nature and is themed around big ass creatures and spells that make those creatures more powerful. Red represents chaos and fire, and is often themed around directly damaging opponent creatures and players via sorceries and instant spells. Blue represents intellect, the ocean, and strategy and tends to rely on cards that manipulate what your opponent can attempt to do, via counterspells and mind control. Black is evil, domination, and death and tends to employ minions of the undead along with direct creature destruction sorcery magic. White represents holiness, purity and defense. It usually has hordes of weak creatures that synergize well together, and employs powerful defensive spells.
Remember these are all themes. There are a lot of cards which basically overlap from one ideal to another, so aligning yourself with a color simply focuses your possible strategies rather than defining them. The video game version obviously lacks depth of the real card game because you are stuck with pre-fabricated decks rather than ones you assemble yourself, but it's still the actual game represented 100% faithfully.
New features to 2013:
The campaign is set up a little bit differently, and for the better I feel. You still fight against the 10 decks to unlock more cards, but they added in challenges where the enemy deck behaves in a set way, with set draws, and tends to spam a specific strategy at you to see if you can overcome it. It's a good way to highlight which strategies counter your deck, and lets you build accordingly to overcome it as best you can.
The challenge modes fans of the first two games remember, where you are presented with a specific situation and tasked to overcome the odds by playing your hand perfectly, is available immediately like it was in the first title rather than having to slog through the campaign to unlock them. It's over quick if you're good at the game, but it's still a lot of fun and was always the highlight for me as a fan. They also start off much more difficult than previous games. I'm stuck and I'm barely halfway through it!
There are a lot more variety between the initial 10 decks, and I am pretty sure we'll be seeing DLC deck packs coming soon themed around the notably absent famous characters from the M:TG world. So far, I feel it's a lot more balanced than 2012 was. The blue illusions deck in 2012 was so vastly superior to every other deck except maybe the direct damage red one that 80% of the time you went online, you'd play against it. Kind of annoying. I hope the deck balance lasts. We'll see how my opinions of that change once I unlock more cards and throw myself into the competitive scene.
The big new mode is "Planechase." It's a twist on the already chaotic 4 player free-for-all matches. A planes card is in effect which manipulates the battlefield in some way, and can be manipulated by use of a "Planes die." You can roll it for free once a round or tap mana for extra rolls, each roll taking another mana than the last cast. Listing each possible planes would take me forever, so we'll just leave it at it totally changes the dynamic of multiplayer matches in a much needed way, and is totally hectic. I'm all in favor of this mode, even though it can potentially make matches drag on for a very, very long time.
--------
Verdict: It costs $9.99 bucks to get a starter deck to begin with, so if you're new to Magic or enjoy the game, it's pretty hard to argue with the cost of entry. Pick it up! It's a very fun game for the price of entry and keeps players playing for a long while.
I've played a lot of them. Tried to get into Pokemon for awhile because that was the rage in my younger days, but it lacked real strategic depth. Tried Yu-Gi-Oh but it's a convoluted mess, and it was one of those games where a rare card totally trumped deck building. Tried the World of Warcraft CCG but it just felt like a cash-grab despite actually being fairly good.
But Magic. The allure of the franchise grabs me again every time. It's proof style matters a whole lot, though substance is still equally important. It's been around since 1993. It is the first, and because of it, the best. It's had the most amount of time to turn into a refined product, and is the only one that can truly claim it's not an imitator.
For those uninitiated, the concept is fairly simple. You are a Planeswalker, a.k.a. a really powerful magician. You tap into the powers of the elements, represented by the M:TG color wheel. Green represents growth, harmony, nature and is themed around big ass creatures and spells that make those creatures more powerful. Red represents chaos and fire, and is often themed around directly damaging opponent creatures and players via sorceries and instant spells. Blue represents intellect, the ocean, and strategy and tends to rely on cards that manipulate what your opponent can attempt to do, via counterspells and mind control. Black is evil, domination, and death and tends to employ minions of the undead along with direct creature destruction sorcery magic. White represents holiness, purity and defense. It usually has hordes of weak creatures that synergize well together, and employs powerful defensive spells.
Remember these are all themes. There are a lot of cards which basically overlap from one ideal to another, so aligning yourself with a color simply focuses your possible strategies rather than defining them. The video game version obviously lacks depth of the real card game because you are stuck with pre-fabricated decks rather than ones you assemble yourself, but it's still the actual game represented 100% faithfully.
New features to 2013:
The campaign is set up a little bit differently, and for the better I feel. You still fight against the 10 decks to unlock more cards, but they added in challenges where the enemy deck behaves in a set way, with set draws, and tends to spam a specific strategy at you to see if you can overcome it. It's a good way to highlight which strategies counter your deck, and lets you build accordingly to overcome it as best you can.
The challenge modes fans of the first two games remember, where you are presented with a specific situation and tasked to overcome the odds by playing your hand perfectly, is available immediately like it was in the first title rather than having to slog through the campaign to unlock them. It's over quick if you're good at the game, but it's still a lot of fun and was always the highlight for me as a fan. They also start off much more difficult than previous games. I'm stuck and I'm barely halfway through it!
There are a lot more variety between the initial 10 decks, and I am pretty sure we'll be seeing DLC deck packs coming soon themed around the notably absent famous characters from the M:TG world. So far, I feel it's a lot more balanced than 2012 was. The blue illusions deck in 2012 was so vastly superior to every other deck except maybe the direct damage red one that 80% of the time you went online, you'd play against it. Kind of annoying. I hope the deck balance lasts. We'll see how my opinions of that change once I unlock more cards and throw myself into the competitive scene.
The big new mode is "Planechase." It's a twist on the already chaotic 4 player free-for-all matches. A planes card is in effect which manipulates the battlefield in some way, and can be manipulated by use of a "Planes die." You can roll it for free once a round or tap mana for extra rolls, each roll taking another mana than the last cast. Listing each possible planes would take me forever, so we'll just leave it at it totally changes the dynamic of multiplayer matches in a much needed way, and is totally hectic. I'm all in favor of this mode, even though it can potentially make matches drag on for a very, very long time.
--------
Verdict: It costs $9.99 bucks to get a starter deck to begin with, so if you're new to Magic or enjoy the game, it's pretty hard to argue with the cost of entry. Pick it up! It's a very fun game for the price of entry and keeps players playing for a long while.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Can I just not like Diablo III, please?
I am a social gamer. I like playing games with other people. I like talking games with other people. I like sharing in that nerdy exchange of nerdy things.
Gaming is inherently social. What this results in is a hive mind mentality of "Like this or you are not a real gamer."
Diablo III is the latest game that has the kind of buzz around it all gamers are forced to have an opinion on it. I've played it and got a guy to max level. I hate the game. I genuinely do not like it. AND I'm sick of friends talking about it nonstop.
I got it. It's a loot grind. You found some new loot. You progressed your guy far enough you can "farm" some boss over and over to try and get new items. I don't care anymore. I've told my gamer friends I don't care any more. They launched a real money auction house? Go figure; I still don't care.
Normally it doesn't bother me when friends talk a game I have no interest in, but the fact I display no interest in this particular title any more somehow makes my gamer friends question my taste in everything. I do not understand. I have expressed the same levels of distaste as the other friends on what about the game bothers me, but somehow not willing to stick it out because the end result of the gameplay doesn't appeal to me means...?
Here's the facts, folks. It requires you to be online to play it, which means it's not at my leisure. That is a huge mark against it. If I want to play a game at 5 AM on Tuesday (or whenever maintenance is), I should have that ability. It's also at heart a loot grind. The plot is pretty shallow (I would argue makes the former games weaker for being associated with it) so once you beat it on Normal, all there is, is simply to go slaughter minions of hell to get better loot to more efficiently kill the minions of hell. That is all fine and dandy but when the difference between gear is pretty miniscule and there are only two viable classes on the hardest difficulty AND THE GAME PENALIZES YOU FOR PLAYING WITH FRIENDS, it's just not worth it.
So, friends, I do not give a single iota of care to the fact you got some new nifty sword. It's the same way I have felt about World of Warcraft for years, and yet my WoW friends know not to tell others not involved with the game about some new progression they've made in that game. Let Diablo III be the same way.
Gaming is inherently social. What this results in is a hive mind mentality of "Like this or you are not a real gamer."
Diablo III is the latest game that has the kind of buzz around it all gamers are forced to have an opinion on it. I've played it and got a guy to max level. I hate the game. I genuinely do not like it. AND I'm sick of friends talking about it nonstop.
I got it. It's a loot grind. You found some new loot. You progressed your guy far enough you can "farm" some boss over and over to try and get new items. I don't care anymore. I've told my gamer friends I don't care any more. They launched a real money auction house? Go figure; I still don't care.
Normally it doesn't bother me when friends talk a game I have no interest in, but the fact I display no interest in this particular title any more somehow makes my gamer friends question my taste in everything. I do not understand. I have expressed the same levels of distaste as the other friends on what about the game bothers me, but somehow not willing to stick it out because the end result of the gameplay doesn't appeal to me means...?
Here's the facts, folks. It requires you to be online to play it, which means it's not at my leisure. That is a huge mark against it. If I want to play a game at 5 AM on Tuesday (or whenever maintenance is), I should have that ability. It's also at heart a loot grind. The plot is pretty shallow (I would argue makes the former games weaker for being associated with it) so once you beat it on Normal, all there is, is simply to go slaughter minions of hell to get better loot to more efficiently kill the minions of hell. That is all fine and dandy but when the difference between gear is pretty miniscule and there are only two viable classes on the hardest difficulty AND THE GAME PENALIZES YOU FOR PLAYING WITH FRIENDS, it's just not worth it.
So, friends, I do not give a single iota of care to the fact you got some new nifty sword. It's the same way I have felt about World of Warcraft for years, and yet my WoW friends know not to tell others not involved with the game about some new progression they've made in that game. Let Diablo III be the same way.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Summer blag! NBA playoffs!
Sorry for the delay. I need to reorganize some things, especially how I hijacked my own blog in order to use as an assignment board for classes last semester. I plan on moving all those posts to a separate, class only blog and making this one again about video games and sports.
Because those are my two loves, and that's the kind of readership I want. <3
Today's topic: Sports.
The NBA playoffs, amirite? I find it funny how I absolutely abhor the regular season of the NBA (it's so boring!) but the Playoffs are just about the best TV event short of the NFL playoffs.
I missed most of the first rounds because school was finishing up and I was too busy writing papers to really follow sports.
Watching Oklahoma bounce the Lakers out of the playoffs was a beautiful thing. It's funny watching Kobe struggle as his team sits around and expects him to do it all. I know I take a lot of flack from sports fans for this, but I feel like Michael Jordan ruined basketball, or at least ruined all the people paid to talk about basketball who lived through that era.
I am so sick and tired of how "basketball experts" praise certain players as being the best in the league, then bash them for not having championship rings. LeBron James gets the brunt of this but it's applied to a lot of other guys. The problem is this type of talk seems to me like it arose during the post second 3peat of his Airness, and everyone who's come into the league since with great expectations has been told by the media and by everyone else around them they are the next Michael Jordan and they are expected to carry and lift their teams to victory single-handedly.
It just doesn't work that way. Basketball is a team game, and while having a super star certainly helps it does not guarantee you a damn thing. Look at how many epic great players were in the league during Michael's stay in the NBA. Are ALL of them failures because they weren't on the Bulls?
The thing time forgot is just how great that Bulls team was. They still had winning records the two years in between Michael's baseball career attempt. Scottie Pippin was a stud player and would have been the lead guy on any other team in the league. Dennis Rodman is one of the greatest defensive players and easily the greatest gatherer of rebounds the game had ever seen. The perimeter shooting of the team was amazing. It was a truly complete TEAM, and it just happened to have the best player in the NBA on that team.
I am going to give you a list of literally every team that won the championship since Jordan retired:
Spurs (x3)
Lakers (x5)
Pistons (x1)
Heat (x1)
Celtics (x1)
Mavericks (x1)
It's a really short list. And it's also proof TEAM MATTERS. Kobe Bryant is definitely one of the all time greatest NBA players to ever play the game, but remember how utterly trash the Lakers teams were post-Shaq before they got that miracle trade for Pau Gasol? He couldn't and still can't win it on his own.
All of those teams, name the start players. Lakers, you have Kobe. But you also had Shaq, Derek Fisher in his prime, Cedric Ceballos and Robert Horry. Lots of good, solid players surrounding him. It was a great TEAM that first three-peat and their recent two championships again had a really phenominal supporting cast. You have Timmy Duncan for the Spurs, and then Tony Parker and Manu Ginobli when those guys showed up. No one ever looked at that Spurs dynasty and said it was just because Duncan could take over a game on his own. He is just a phenomenal player surrounded by a cast that accentuates his skills (which is to say being really, really effing tall). It was always about how great a TEAM they were. The Heat? Again it wasn't just Dwayne Wade but you had Shaq and Alonzo Mourning and a bunch of great perimeter shooters and blah blah. Pistons? Great team, with a bunch of guys who might not even make it at least as first ballots into the hall of fame. Celtics? Bunch of guys past their prime no one expected to single-handedly carry their teams anymore. Mavericks? Just a great team with one of the greatest benches in the league.
But all those start players like Kobe and LeBron think they have to do it all, and when they fall short they get lambasted in the media. It's sickening and downright disturbing. The reason I am cheering for the Heat to win it all this year is so people can stop looking at LeBron, one of the greatest if not the greatest basketball player in the world today, as a failure and celebrate him for the greatness he does on the court.
Because those are my two loves, and that's the kind of readership I want. <3
Today's topic: Sports.
The NBA playoffs, amirite? I find it funny how I absolutely abhor the regular season of the NBA (it's so boring!) but the Playoffs are just about the best TV event short of the NFL playoffs.
I missed most of the first rounds because school was finishing up and I was too busy writing papers to really follow sports.
Watching Oklahoma bounce the Lakers out of the playoffs was a beautiful thing. It's funny watching Kobe struggle as his team sits around and expects him to do it all. I know I take a lot of flack from sports fans for this, but I feel like Michael Jordan ruined basketball, or at least ruined all the people paid to talk about basketball who lived through that era.
I am so sick and tired of how "basketball experts" praise certain players as being the best in the league, then bash them for not having championship rings. LeBron James gets the brunt of this but it's applied to a lot of other guys. The problem is this type of talk seems to me like it arose during the post second 3peat of his Airness, and everyone who's come into the league since with great expectations has been told by the media and by everyone else around them they are the next Michael Jordan and they are expected to carry and lift their teams to victory single-handedly.
It just doesn't work that way. Basketball is a team game, and while having a super star certainly helps it does not guarantee you a damn thing. Look at how many epic great players were in the league during Michael's stay in the NBA. Are ALL of them failures because they weren't on the Bulls?
The thing time forgot is just how great that Bulls team was. They still had winning records the two years in between Michael's baseball career attempt. Scottie Pippin was a stud player and would have been the lead guy on any other team in the league. Dennis Rodman is one of the greatest defensive players and easily the greatest gatherer of rebounds the game had ever seen. The perimeter shooting of the team was amazing. It was a truly complete TEAM, and it just happened to have the best player in the NBA on that team.
I am going to give you a list of literally every team that won the championship since Jordan retired:
Spurs (x3)
Lakers (x5)
Pistons (x1)
Heat (x1)
Celtics (x1)
Mavericks (x1)
It's a really short list. And it's also proof TEAM MATTERS. Kobe Bryant is definitely one of the all time greatest NBA players to ever play the game, but remember how utterly trash the Lakers teams were post-Shaq before they got that miracle trade for Pau Gasol? He couldn't and still can't win it on his own.
All of those teams, name the start players. Lakers, you have Kobe. But you also had Shaq, Derek Fisher in his prime, Cedric Ceballos and Robert Horry. Lots of good, solid players surrounding him. It was a great TEAM that first three-peat and their recent two championships again had a really phenominal supporting cast. You have Timmy Duncan for the Spurs, and then Tony Parker and Manu Ginobli when those guys showed up. No one ever looked at that Spurs dynasty and said it was just because Duncan could take over a game on his own. He is just a phenomenal player surrounded by a cast that accentuates his skills (which is to say being really, really effing tall). It was always about how great a TEAM they were. The Heat? Again it wasn't just Dwayne Wade but you had Shaq and Alonzo Mourning and a bunch of great perimeter shooters and blah blah. Pistons? Great team, with a bunch of guys who might not even make it at least as first ballots into the hall of fame. Celtics? Bunch of guys past their prime no one expected to single-handedly carry their teams anymore. Mavericks? Just a great team with one of the greatest benches in the league.
But all those start players like Kobe and LeBron think they have to do it all, and when they fall short they get lambasted in the media. It's sickening and downright disturbing. The reason I am cheering for the Heat to win it all this year is so people can stop looking at LeBron, one of the greatest if not the greatest basketball player in the world today, as a failure and celebrate him for the greatness he does on the court.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Comm 4330 Final - Masses defining the media.
The question: "How can we ensure that our development as moral and social animals keeps pace with our rapidly evolving communication technology?"
My answer: Society adapts. I do not believe in predeterminism, whether we're talking the religious idea of it or simply in the sense of defining what we "absolutely need to do" in order to fix a perceive problem.
It is human nature. Man evolves to no longer have as long and shaggy hair to deal with the cold, so man learns to utilize the hides of kills for food and discovers ways to harness fire. Man and companions feel oppressed enough to fight out of slavery, they rebel and escape to start anew (or die trying.)
How does this come about with this particular problem of internet majority and personal news catering the the point it's entirely possible to erect blinders and stew in ignorance and hatred? I wish I knew the answer. I've been struggling to discover the reason behind why internet trolls and jerkfaces act the way they do because maybe if I understood their reasoning, I could say or teach or do something that would influence their behavior to change. Gladstone mentions as much in her book, suggesting the vast amount of people and response time people can get through social media and the Internet makes it too easy for folks to flock to just one mind set, which then breeds aggression and ignorance of anyone on the outside.
I see that effect daily. I've mentioned a hundred billion times I'm an avid gamer, but I'm also a guy who looks at the social effects any given game has on people. During this semester, there are two big examples I can think of off the top of my head showing just how nasty and vile people are.
First, Mass Effect 3's ending. I even wrote my own opinions on the game's ending. It was that polarizing. Every gaming blog on the planet had their take on how it made them feel. A large number of gamers felt cheated, that the ending of the game cheapened the experiences we've had in the franchise since the original title launched in 2007. An op-ed piece by Sparky Clarkson on Kotaku.com, Gawker Media's gaming blog, sums it up by saying the more a player knows about the game's universe, the worse the ending feels. I could grab a hundred other links; it was a really, really big stink.
If you want to see just how nasty the polarizing effect of mere opinion has, look no further than the comments on this piece. Some of the filth on there is just atrocious. It's clearly an opinion piece, yet there are those who rip into the author, and just as many who adamantly defend him. I was in the latter. I was adding to the problem, even though I was just trying to stem the tide of disgruntled people.
Secondly, I notice with alarm an increasing sentiment among players of Dota 2 that they have to type out their superiority to the rest of gamerdom by bashing imagined sleights and spouting tired internet memes. The game has a feature allowing players to watch top-ranked matches. There's even a ticker showing the game progress of the top 3 most watched games at any given time, and those ones on the front page tend to have anywhere from 50 to 600 viewers at any given time. It's a neat feature for those trying to learn the game or who simply like watching the professional players do their things, but those 600 viewers are allowed to talk to each other and boy does it get messy. I notice with alarming frequency unprovoked attacks against players of other video games which are similar to Dota. You'll have the 2 or 3 guys any given match who "broadcast" in the sense they like to discuss what's happening in game, then someone will inevitably come in shouting about how players of League of Legends, the big powerhouse breadwinner in that particular style of game, are "gay" or some sort of ad hominem attack which really shows more about the ignorance of the person posting than it says about the product they are bashing. The worst part is as soon as one guy start yelling and shouting and hating, everyone is forced into the conflict. It's either join up with the elitist who hate all things like Dota but that isn't Dota, or get trampled by expressing how silly it is to get that fired up other people enjoy some other game which isn't the one any of those particular group is possibly playing at the moment.
I actually believe the idea of "larger and richer webs of interdependence" is the root of the problem, not the solution. If the problem is large groups of people bandying together and then blocking out dissenting opinion, increasing the size of the pool doesn't dilute the waste inside. The internet was not always such a place of alarming polarization. I recall when I first started using it, IRC chatrooms were kind of a big deal, and the only social networking people did was simply fill up their entire AoL Instant Messenger friend's list with kids they knew from class. You didn't have these epic giant forums impossible to moderate because it was usually just a couple of friends who made some sort of internet chat for some common interest and it was just hanging out virtually. If a stranger walked in, people would greet and say hi and invite that person to participate in said common interest and if not, just move along and find the next chat room. I don't personally recall flaming hatred and anger toward anyone that had a different mindset back then in such a pervasive way it was all I could see.
I think it'd be neat to get back to that, and the way it has to happen is how it originally happened: People who were already united in the real world in some sort of common interest simply making an internet hang out. And, it needs to be policed. When someone comes in and starts spouting racial slurs and homophobic epithets, the people who run the place need to actually step up and say, "Not cool, bro." No one does that any more. I never read an internet opinion piece where the writer of it actually responds to any of the people in the comments section, and even exploring weeks old comments you discover none of the hateful filth was removed. That kind of laissez-faire approach breeds more and more people to behave in the same way. It's a Pavlonian response: Your opinion piece is the bell and their ignorant hateful drivel is the drool.
If the world is to be a better place, the people leading discussions have to dictate the way the discourse flows. You simply must do it. The way we handle online discussions should be the same way we handle them in our personal daily lives. If someone gets up and starts saying something offensive, you must let it be known that kind of talk will not be tolerated. We don't need the internet full of Taylor Grins telling the rest of society they are ignorant and stupid for believing in God even when that topic has nothing relevant to whatever discussion is going on. The person in charge needs to step up and say, "Knock it off or gtfo" and then actually back up the threat by removing the hateful messages.
My answer: Society adapts. I do not believe in predeterminism, whether we're talking the religious idea of it or simply in the sense of defining what we "absolutely need to do" in order to fix a perceive problem.
It is human nature. Man evolves to no longer have as long and shaggy hair to deal with the cold, so man learns to utilize the hides of kills for food and discovers ways to harness fire. Man and companions feel oppressed enough to fight out of slavery, they rebel and escape to start anew (or die trying.)
How does this come about with this particular problem of internet majority and personal news catering the the point it's entirely possible to erect blinders and stew in ignorance and hatred? I wish I knew the answer. I've been struggling to discover the reason behind why internet trolls and jerkfaces act the way they do because maybe if I understood their reasoning, I could say or teach or do something that would influence their behavior to change. Gladstone mentions as much in her book, suggesting the vast amount of people and response time people can get through social media and the Internet makes it too easy for folks to flock to just one mind set, which then breeds aggression and ignorance of anyone on the outside.
I see that effect daily. I've mentioned a hundred billion times I'm an avid gamer, but I'm also a guy who looks at the social effects any given game has on people. During this semester, there are two big examples I can think of off the top of my head showing just how nasty and vile people are.
First, Mass Effect 3's ending. I even wrote my own opinions on the game's ending. It was that polarizing. Every gaming blog on the planet had their take on how it made them feel. A large number of gamers felt cheated, that the ending of the game cheapened the experiences we've had in the franchise since the original title launched in 2007. An op-ed piece by Sparky Clarkson on Kotaku.com, Gawker Media's gaming blog, sums it up by saying the more a player knows about the game's universe, the worse the ending feels. I could grab a hundred other links; it was a really, really big stink.
If you want to see just how nasty the polarizing effect of mere opinion has, look no further than the comments on this piece. Some of the filth on there is just atrocious. It's clearly an opinion piece, yet there are those who rip into the author, and just as many who adamantly defend him. I was in the latter. I was adding to the problem, even though I was just trying to stem the tide of disgruntled people.
Secondly, I notice with alarm an increasing sentiment among players of Dota 2 that they have to type out their superiority to the rest of gamerdom by bashing imagined sleights and spouting tired internet memes. The game has a feature allowing players to watch top-ranked matches. There's even a ticker showing the game progress of the top 3 most watched games at any given time, and those ones on the front page tend to have anywhere from 50 to 600 viewers at any given time. It's a neat feature for those trying to learn the game or who simply like watching the professional players do their things, but those 600 viewers are allowed to talk to each other and boy does it get messy. I notice with alarming frequency unprovoked attacks against players of other video games which are similar to Dota. You'll have the 2 or 3 guys any given match who "broadcast" in the sense they like to discuss what's happening in game, then someone will inevitably come in shouting about how players of League of Legends, the big powerhouse breadwinner in that particular style of game, are "gay" or some sort of ad hominem attack which really shows more about the ignorance of the person posting than it says about the product they are bashing. The worst part is as soon as one guy start yelling and shouting and hating, everyone is forced into the conflict. It's either join up with the elitist who hate all things like Dota but that isn't Dota, or get trampled by expressing how silly it is to get that fired up other people enjoy some other game which isn't the one any of those particular group is possibly playing at the moment.
I actually believe the idea of "larger and richer webs of interdependence" is the root of the problem, not the solution. If the problem is large groups of people bandying together and then blocking out dissenting opinion, increasing the size of the pool doesn't dilute the waste inside. The internet was not always such a place of alarming polarization. I recall when I first started using it, IRC chatrooms were kind of a big deal, and the only social networking people did was simply fill up their entire AoL Instant Messenger friend's list with kids they knew from class. You didn't have these epic giant forums impossible to moderate because it was usually just a couple of friends who made some sort of internet chat for some common interest and it was just hanging out virtually. If a stranger walked in, people would greet and say hi and invite that person to participate in said common interest and if not, just move along and find the next chat room. I don't personally recall flaming hatred and anger toward anyone that had a different mindset back then in such a pervasive way it was all I could see.
I think it'd be neat to get back to that, and the way it has to happen is how it originally happened: People who were already united in the real world in some sort of common interest simply making an internet hang out. And, it needs to be policed. When someone comes in and starts spouting racial slurs and homophobic epithets, the people who run the place need to actually step up and say, "Not cool, bro." No one does that any more. I never read an internet opinion piece where the writer of it actually responds to any of the people in the comments section, and even exploring weeks old comments you discover none of the hateful filth was removed. That kind of laissez-faire approach breeds more and more people to behave in the same way. It's a Pavlonian response: Your opinion piece is the bell and their ignorant hateful drivel is the drool.
If the world is to be a better place, the people leading discussions have to dictate the way the discourse flows. You simply must do it. The way we handle online discussions should be the same way we handle them in our personal daily lives. If someone gets up and starts saying something offensive, you must let it be known that kind of talk will not be tolerated. We don't need the internet full of Taylor Grins telling the rest of society they are ignorant and stupid for believing in God even when that topic has nothing relevant to whatever discussion is going on. The person in charge needs to step up and say, "Knock it off or gtfo" and then actually back up the threat by removing the hateful messages.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Media Abstinence.
For a guy who claims he's been able to simply go "new media" free whenever he wants, I wasn't able to get the full 48 hours in we were supposed to for this assignment.
I probably could have easily done it earlier in the semester. What changed: Met people. I've dealt with social insecurities my whole life and will probably continue to do so. The relevance is if someone is willing to talk to me, I can't just turn off the way they contact me.
Plus, you know. Final exams week. Can't just not do research papers. The internet is too valuable a tool to not use it, and I was never very good at utilizing libraries to begin with.
During the 48 hours (which started Friday), my phone was buzzing the whole time with text messages from a new friend and no amount of points in a class is worth going two days not talking to this new friend. My soul is burning brighter than it has in awhile. I'm emotionally a wreck and emotionally uplifted at the same time. I really like this girl. It just figured I'd meet someone who's managed to flip my whole view on the world upside down the week I'm trying to do a project involving not accessing new media.
I guess the best I'll be able to do here is discuss times previously in my life I've gone new medialess, and talk about what my plans were before life threw me this (wonderful) curveball.
I used to have a facebook account. I was addicted to the site, really. I met all sorts of new and amazing people through various social apps. I've always been a collector of other people's stories and enjoy the company of outlandish and far-fetched folk. But, I came to realize over the years Facebook was not healthy for me. I'm sure I've mentioned a dozen times I've struggled with mental health over the years. I need to feel at the very least wanted, and if that desire isn't reinforced I get really grumpy and sore with people.
Constant contact with "everyone" I knew in such an immediate way drove me crazy. Girls I previously had crushes on and thought the world of posted about how wonderful their boyfriends were even when I knew it was simply them trying to tell the world their relationships were perfect to try and convince themselves the guy wasn't actually a total tool. Family would talk about their jobs and new people they hired while I languished unemployed and desperate for a leg up. I emotionally abused myself by surrounding myself with unhappily married women who utilized me as a sort of e-tampon for all their heartache.
After a particular girl I was truly in love with (one of three in my entire life) ended our friendship in a permanent manner, I was so distraught I thought about ending it all. I was on Facebook in the computer lab on campus and was talking with one of those unhappily married women and she was just trying to be a friend but I flipped out and raged at her so hard, she accused me of a lot of really nasty (and probably true) things. I snapped. I had deleted my facebook account multiple times in the past, but this time was different. I decided no more. No more dealing with 300+ people who didn't care about me. I opened the friends tab and literally removed every person from my contact list, one by one. Family was oddly easy to remove because they are family and are therefore actual fixtures in my life. The hard part was clicking away people I knew I would never have contact with again. I knew if I removed myself from the Facebook world, they would never try to contact me with my phone number I knew they had. It was just going to be the end. It was extremely difficult but I was so outraged at how disrespected I felt, I just did it anyway and they are all gone now.
Then, I deleted my account. I knew with no friends on there, there would never be another reason to restart it. I would have to rebuild my e-life from total ground zero and I still don't have it in me. For the next week or so after that, I was the most productive I've been since attending DSC. My phone was dead for a large portion of that week and I didn't even notice. I didn't watch TV. I didn't own my own computer at the time. I just did homework and played my Xbox in offline mode. It's exactly what I needed at the time.
My plans for my media vacation was very simple: Guitar. Play more guitar. Play lots of guitar, and fast guitar, ane pretty guitar, and grunge guitar. I was going to head to a music shop and get a tabulature book of rock songs, or maybe just try and write my own thing.
Life overwhelmed me, though. The best laid plans of mice and men and all that. It's impossible to function in modern society without using new media. Impossible. You cannot succeed in life without the internet. 99% of jobs require you to do your application purely online and they don't even want to meet you face to face any more. Research papers that took weeks take minutes utilizing Google (and discretion.) And good luck attempting to date if you don't have text messaging. It just doesn't work. It can't happen.
So for all my bravado about being able to pry myself away from media and be "totally fine," I probably failed the spirit of this assignment harder than anyone else in the class. Go figure. I guess that in and of itself should be a great lesson to anyone attempting this in the future. Hubris is the downfall of many.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Vis Comm final project
Holy crap, Blogger changed their website and now I can't figure out my ass from my elbow.
I really hope this posts correctly.
Anywho, this is what I created for my VisComm final project. It's meant to be printed on standard paper then chopped up into 6 (hence why it's duplicated 6 times), so my friend Todd who runs the website can go stick them under the windshield wipers of everyone parked at the event.
Trying to fit the high quality photos my friend takes into a discernable way in black and white and that small is a difficult task (which I will be honest, I am not sure I succeeded in!) The reason I did black and white is simply because color would be too damned expensive to print en masse. I would have preferred it simply because he takes really good photos (go check out his photo blog where I got the golf picture from). Had to make it black and white though in order to make sure it'd print out okay that way.
I really hope this posts correctly.
Anywho, this is what I created for my VisComm final project. It's meant to be printed on standard paper then chopped up into 6 (hence why it's duplicated 6 times), so my friend Todd who runs the website can go stick them under the windshield wipers of everyone parked at the event.
Trying to fit the high quality photos my friend takes into a discernable way in black and white and that small is a difficult task (which I will be honest, I am not sure I succeeded in!) The reason I did black and white is simply because color would be too damned expensive to print en masse. I would have preferred it simply because he takes really good photos (go check out his photo blog where I got the golf picture from). Had to make it black and white though in order to make sure it'd print out okay that way.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Interacting with Machines: Preferred Human Interface Devices
We were posed as a challenge in my New Media Applications class to come up with a "convergence" topic to talk about. This was literally right as commercials for the Galaxy Note smartphone started up and I was fascinated by the fact it was technically a step backward in terms of interaction with our computer devices. The trend is touchscreens for everything, right? We'd dealt with stylus systems for a significantly longer time, with old-school PDAs and artist tablet peripherals. It seemed like it was "old" news for them to now be releasing a new smartphone utilizing a stylus rather than it simply being a larger screen on a smartphone but at the same time, I've been saying for years touchscreens drive me crazy because they lack the same tactile response which you get from a keyboard and mouse or some type of analog input device.
Before you read further, DO ME THE KIND FAVOR OF FILLING OUT MY SURVEY. It's only 3 questions, but they get right to the heart of the matter: How do you prefer interacting with your computer media in today's world?
In the research I did looking up sales figures, the Note has sold pretty well despite being panned by electronics gadget critics, and has high user satisfaction ratings from those who actually consume it. My mother owns one, and the insight I've gained from her is she always felt regular smartphones had too small of a screen and she hated making typos from struggling to calibrate where her thumb naturally landed on the keypad of her old iPhone versus the precision controls the stylus offers. Plus, she enjoyed the ease of use of the photo manipulation programs offered on the Android platform in conjunction with the device's release.
It's interesting to me this is the case. It's not like stylus input was always that great. A comic example of this is a Tool-Assisted Speedrun of Brain Age for the Nintendo DS. If you enjoy silly things and people breaking video game code for comic effect, check this out. It just highlights the problem with handwriting recognition software. Let's face it: it hasn't always been that reliable in the past hence the shift toward touchpads in the first place.
But technology has come so far, is it worth revisiting mediums of old? Also, what does this mean for the future? I believe the future is in voice recognition software and things formerly viewed as simply input systems for the handicapped (things like eye motion sensors). The more people who have access to these devices and therefore the internet and social world at large, the better.
In my survey, I listed a bunch of electronic devices that all sell for roughly $399 dollars. It fascinates me how wide the gamut is on products that all serve a similar role and yet have such a huge disparity in processing power. Yet the early results of my survey (which I just posted to a bunch of friends and had them link on their facebook page before starting to edit this into more than a bunch of links!) shows most people at least in my social world prefer sitting at a desktop. You can't exactly do a lot with a $399 desktop, especially if you're a gamer like myself. The latest and greatest video card from nVidia, the GeForce GTX 680, goes for $499 alone on newegg.com. Yet still the folks I associate with still prefer using good ol' keyboard and mouse for their computing needs. This would explain why there are so many people who buy a tablet computer, and immediately turn around to get a keyboard accessory.
Now to share the data from my survey:
If there is any one thing I want people to come away with is that there are devices out there tailored to suit your specific needs. With the prevalence of the current generation of technology, if you are dissatisfied with the input required to use it, go find something which you enjoy using.
------------
Links to back up my data and the key figures I retrieved from them, in no particular order:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/03/galaxy-note-sales-so-far/
Key figures: 2 million devices sold in Europe, on pace to sell 10 million worldwide in 2012.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/benzingainsights/2011/10/17/what-do-the-iphone-4s-sales-figures-tell-us-about-consumers/
4 million units sold opening week, boasted 1 million pre-sales.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/03/22/will-the-iphone-5-be-super-sized-what-a-bigger-screen-means-for-data-usage/
Hypothetical: Larger screens = more data usage = ???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Firstmouseunderside.jpg
History of the Mouse (1962)
http://inventors.about.com/od/computerperipherals/a/computer_keyboa.htm
Patent of typewriters: 1868
Before you read further, DO ME THE KIND FAVOR OF FILLING OUT MY SURVEY. It's only 3 questions, but they get right to the heart of the matter: How do you prefer interacting with your computer media in today's world?
In the research I did looking up sales figures, the Note has sold pretty well despite being panned by electronics gadget critics, and has high user satisfaction ratings from those who actually consume it. My mother owns one, and the insight I've gained from her is she always felt regular smartphones had too small of a screen and she hated making typos from struggling to calibrate where her thumb naturally landed on the keypad of her old iPhone versus the precision controls the stylus offers. Plus, she enjoyed the ease of use of the photo manipulation programs offered on the Android platform in conjunction with the device's release.
It's interesting to me this is the case. It's not like stylus input was always that great. A comic example of this is a Tool-Assisted Speedrun of Brain Age for the Nintendo DS. If you enjoy silly things and people breaking video game code for comic effect, check this out. It just highlights the problem with handwriting recognition software. Let's face it: it hasn't always been that reliable in the past hence the shift toward touchpads in the first place.
But technology has come so far, is it worth revisiting mediums of old? Also, what does this mean for the future? I believe the future is in voice recognition software and things formerly viewed as simply input systems for the handicapped (things like eye motion sensors). The more people who have access to these devices and therefore the internet and social world at large, the better.
In my survey, I listed a bunch of electronic devices that all sell for roughly $399 dollars. It fascinates me how wide the gamut is on products that all serve a similar role and yet have such a huge disparity in processing power. Yet the early results of my survey (which I just posted to a bunch of friends and had them link on their facebook page before starting to edit this into more than a bunch of links!) shows most people at least in my social world prefer sitting at a desktop. You can't exactly do a lot with a $399 desktop, especially if you're a gamer like myself. The latest and greatest video card from nVidia, the GeForce GTX 680, goes for $499 alone on newegg.com. Yet still the folks I associate with still prefer using good ol' keyboard and mouse for their computing needs. This would explain why there are so many people who buy a tablet computer, and immediately turn around to get a keyboard accessory.
Now to share the data from my survey:
| 1. Which form of Human Interface Device do you prefer using for general computer interface usage? | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| answered question | 82 | ||
| skipped question | 1 | ||
| Response Percent | Response Count | ||
| Mouse and Keyboard |  | 72.0% | 59 |
| Laptop-style Touchpad | | 12.2% | 10 |
| Analog Input (joystick or controller) | 0.0% | 0 | |
| Stylus-touchscreen (i.e.: PDAs, Nintendo DS) | | 1.2% | 1 |
| Touch Screens (i.e. Smartphones and Tablet Computers) | | 14.6% | 12 |
| 2. Which of the following devices do you own? (Check all that apply.) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| answered question | 83 | ||
| skipped question | 0 | ||
| Response Percent | Response Count | ||
| Desktop PC or Mac | | 80.7% | 67 |
| Laptop PC or Mac | | 74.7% | 62 |
| Smart Phone | | 65.1% | 54 |
| Tablet computer | | 27.7% | 23 |
| Current-Generation video game console (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 only) | | 42.2% | 35 |
3. Which of the following would you prefer to own? | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| answered question | 82 | ||
| skipped question | 1 | ||
| Response Percent | Response Count | ||
| 64 GB iPhone 4s | | 31.7% | 26 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note | | 6.1% | 5 |
| 16 GB iPad 2 (wi-fi) | | 19.5% | 16 |
| 32 GB Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 | | 3.7% | 3 |
| A $399 Desktop or Laptop PC of your design | | 30.5% | 25 |
| X-Box 360 with Kinect | | 3.7% | 3 |
| Playstation 3 with PSMove | | 4.9% | 4 |
If there is any one thing I want people to come away with is that there are devices out there tailored to suit your specific needs. With the prevalence of the current generation of technology, if you are dissatisfied with the input required to use it, go find something which you enjoy using.
------------
Links to back up my data and the key figures I retrieved from them, in no particular order:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/03/galaxy-note-sales-so-far/
Key figures: 2 million devices sold in Europe, on pace to sell 10 million worldwide in 2012.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/benzingainsights/2011/10/17/what-do-the-iphone-4s-sales-figures-tell-us-about-consumers/
4 million units sold opening week, boasted 1 million pre-sales.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/03/22/will-the-iphone-5-be-super-sized-what-a-bigger-screen-means-for-data-usage/
Hypothetical: Larger screens = more data usage = ???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Firstmouseunderside.jpg
History of the Mouse (1962)
http://inventors.about.com/od/computerperipherals/a/computer_keyboa.htm
Patent of typewriters: 1868
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Mass Effect 3 has the worst ending of any video game, of all time.
And it has 5 distinct ways to all be terrible! (For the record, I didn't even know there was internet-wide outrage about it until I actually did beat the game. Turns out I am not alone in my disgust.)
Let me say this straight out of the gate: There will be spoilers, and lots of them. Despite that, even as a fan of the series, you should still read this anyway.
Mass Effect is a franchise that's all about choice, all about how your decisions impact the larger galactic scene. We were introduced to things in the very first game that come into play in the very last one, and yet none of it has an impact on the ending.
They pull a Deus Ex Machina on you. You run into this God-type figure and are presented with various choices. Literally. BioWare decided to close out one of the most deeply personal, choice-ridden franchises of all time with a Select-An-Ending mechanic, none of which take into account the thousands of choices you have to make over the course of the series.
I am frankly hurt. I spent so much time thinking about if not actually playing the first two Mass Effect titles. I beat each of them 6 times, with various characters who reacted to various situations in different ways. It was an interactive narrative, one I really enjoyed. Obviously. I felt like the various squadmates in the game were real friends. Garrus in particular is one of my favorite game characters ever.
And the way it ended? I feel cheated. I've been cheated out of year's worth of plotting and deciding and growing attached to characters. Every ending sucked. There wasn't a single one which ends in a good feeling, not a damn one. All of them basically end with "galactic civilization is completely null and void now, thanks for playing!"
I can think of a zillion ways to improve the ending, too. Make Shepard die in a meaningful way, protecting the people he/she loves. Give me a run-down of what each of the surviving characters do after the war ends. Remove the entire God mechanic thrown in literally last moment and make it so the Crucible does what you think it should do leading up to that point. Anything, really, that doesn't feel like I wasted the last couple years of my life in anticipation for this climax.
I am officially done with BioWare. I hate to say it. They were literally my favorite game developers of all time. Planescape: Torment and the Baldur's Gate series? Masterpieces. Knights of the Old Republic? The first one is easily the greatest Star Wars game of all time. I even loved Jade Empire despite it's plot basically being a Chinese version of KotOR. The first two Mass Effect games changed my life. The first Dragon Age was brilliant.
Then Dragon Age 2 shat in the face of everyone who loved the first one, and Mass Effect 3 had to drop the single worst ending in video game history. It's a shame.
Let me say this straight out of the gate: There will be spoilers, and lots of them. Despite that, even as a fan of the series, you should still read this anyway.
Mass Effect is a franchise that's all about choice, all about how your decisions impact the larger galactic scene. We were introduced to things in the very first game that come into play in the very last one, and yet none of it has an impact on the ending.
They pull a Deus Ex Machina on you. You run into this God-type figure and are presented with various choices. Literally. BioWare decided to close out one of the most deeply personal, choice-ridden franchises of all time with a Select-An-Ending mechanic, none of which take into account the thousands of choices you have to make over the course of the series.
I am frankly hurt. I spent so much time thinking about if not actually playing the first two Mass Effect titles. I beat each of them 6 times, with various characters who reacted to various situations in different ways. It was an interactive narrative, one I really enjoyed. Obviously. I felt like the various squadmates in the game were real friends. Garrus in particular is one of my favorite game characters ever.
And the way it ended? I feel cheated. I've been cheated out of year's worth of plotting and deciding and growing attached to characters. Every ending sucked. There wasn't a single one which ends in a good feeling, not a damn one. All of them basically end with "galactic civilization is completely null and void now, thanks for playing!"
I can think of a zillion ways to improve the ending, too. Make Shepard die in a meaningful way, protecting the people he/she loves. Give me a run-down of what each of the surviving characters do after the war ends. Remove the entire God mechanic thrown in literally last moment and make it so the Crucible does what you think it should do leading up to that point. Anything, really, that doesn't feel like I wasted the last couple years of my life in anticipation for this climax.
I am officially done with BioWare. I hate to say it. They were literally my favorite game developers of all time. Planescape: Torment and the Baldur's Gate series? Masterpieces. Knights of the Old Republic? The first one is easily the greatest Star Wars game of all time. I even loved Jade Empire despite it's plot basically being a Chinese version of KotOR. The first two Mass Effect games changed my life. The first Dragon Age was brilliant.
Then Dragon Age 2 shat in the face of everyone who loved the first one, and Mass Effect 3 had to drop the single worst ending in video game history. It's a shame.
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