It takes two kinds

Someone asked me to write about gamer pride. This is a really awesome idea, so much props to that person. Ha!

Pride is universally a bad thing. If you're proud of your accomplishments, people who don't value those accomplishments kind of get demonized. This leads to elitism, and elitism is bad. I think I've written a lot of articles on elitism. I should probably add an elitism tag, heh. I think I have strong views on the subject or something.

I can't really further that issue much more than I already have though. Gamer pride, the idea that you're a gamer and you should be proud of that, is kind of a silly idea to me. Why should you be proud that you play video games? It seems like a very weird thing to be proud of. There are 12 million people in the world playing WoW. If you're going to be proud of something, it should be something awesome, like, I dunno, not paying 15$ a month to play your favorite game. Actually, if you play WoW or some other subscription game without paying the sub fee, I guess you can be sort of proud of that.

Yeah, I probably shouldn't be advocating gold selling, but at least it requires some actual accomplishment besides installing a game and paying for it. Also, there is always EVE where decent skill at the game lets you pay in-game cash for your sub time.

What this is article is really getting at though is that Tobold article where he mentioned how being a gamer is somehow shameful. I couldn't disagree more with this idea. I posted a comment saying how much I thought this idea itself was kind of shameful.

The first point is that people who do not play video games think that video games are an addictive, obsessive, self-destructive behavior. I think this is a completely valid belief to have.

In order to really talk about this properly I have to separate the term "gamer" into two groups, which of course is kind of elitist. The first group is people who play games for enjoyment. This includes people who use games as a medium for social interaction. It makes no divider between casual or hardcore. If I were to use popular labels for things, "casual hardcores" would typically not be in this group, but "hardcore casuals" would.

I think that anyone in that group would probably be a good target of that prejudice. Unless you are in a gaming-focused career, most likely being a gamer in this group is a bad thing. You enjoy games, you might even be a little obsessive about them or like them a lot, but if you are in this group, gaming has no real value. Other people (normal people?) watch TV, but you play video games. Video games aren't something you study or work at, because you use them as an escape or something to unwind.

When people say "gaming is self-destructive" they often refer to the extremely hardcore people in this group. These people game like it's their job, but it's because they're addicted to the escapism, the "fun" of gaming, and often the social aspects. It's a lot easier to make friends in a game than it is IRL, and thus gaming is an outlet for them. However, in the end, the game doesn't really benefit these people. It just provides instant gratification. Because anything that is enjoyable is addicting on at least some level, these people get really involved with their games and really take it to an extreme level of obsessive. These are the people that play games so much they forget to feed their babies.

Not everyone in that group is like that, obviously. The most insane hardcore people are, and that sort of mindset carries over so that the more casual people, who have healthy lives but also use games to unwind, carry that bad stigma. I'd say that these people have every right to be ashamed of being called a gamer.

I'm going to talk about the second group, though. The second group treat gaming as more of a hobby or a lifestyle. These people study games and learn from them. On the average, they play more games than the first group, because it's something they study and practice rather than merely play. However, actually playing the game isn't the only focus. These people watch other people play, read guides, write guides, and learn about the games they play.

If you are in this group, the idea of being ashamed because you are a gamer is absolutely ridiculous. Gaming is a positive experience for these people. Instead of surface "watching TV" satisfaction, these people learn and understand things that simply cannot be learned any other way (for most people, anyway). Gaming is a unique medium in that it has the ability to teach us things by involving us directly. For people in this second group, gaming is such a positive influence on their lives that being ashamed of it is sort of like being ashamed of the person who taught you how to read and write (for some of us, gaming played a big factor in that too!).

It's worth noting that many of the arguments presented by Tobold are valid, like wanting to keep your real name associated with other things, and I suppose those are reasonable. To me, as a person who has learned so many things due to the power of gaming, these seem awful. Almost any time I talk about a life lesson I learned from gaming, gaming gets credit.

I've got a solution, though. If you're in the first group, don't call yourself a gamer. Seriously. You are one of millions of people who play games just for the hell of it. If you're offended because you don't read guides and articles but you play WoW 13 hours a day, get over it. 13 hours a day of gaming hasn't made you a better person. If you haven't learned anything by being a gamer other than purples make you a better player, you should probably just play fewer video games.

Gaming Journalism is Garbage

I read gaming websites a lot, and hype articles are getting to the point where they just aren't good for useful anymore. Yes, there are bad articles on MMORPG.com all the time. I know this. But what pissed me off enough to write about it came from IGN, which considering how long they've been in the business, they really should know better.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this article is taken down, although it's been up for over a week, so my guess is probably not. I got linked to it from somewhere else, as I don't actually read IGN, because I guess I figured everything they wrote was trash.

The article, in case you're too lazy to read it (I probably would be!) is about how JRPGs are fundamentally flawed, and the writers have their own special, magical ideas about how to fix them. Yes, you heard right - writers - that is to say that unlike most trashy gaming journalism articles, this one went through peer review. I can really only imagine what kind of peer review. Was it where they look at the other's brilliantly typed words and fawn over how witty they are? Did they even stop to think for 2 seconds about the PR disaster it might cause?

I think this is the stupidest piece of gaming journalism I've ever read. I'm no industry demographic genius or anything, but it doesn't take a lot of thought to know that bashing on a hardcore gaming genre is going to send the fanboys in droves and they aren't going to be happy.

Also, the next time I read somewhere that Deus Ex is a western RPG, I think I'm going to barf. Deus Ex is western awesome*, not an RPG.

The real worst part of the article is that it's mostly just preferences. It's funny when they claim #9 (grinding) when most modern JRPGs minimize mandatory grinding, and have since the PSX days. Some games (like Lost Odyssey) penalize grinding by adding diminishing returns to EXP awards. Sure, some games still do it, but the fact is that tons of people like grinding EXP for their characters. That's why asian MMOs are still popular over here.

Other things, like improving presentation and reducing cliches are already prevalent in JRPGs. Should we call out Dragon Age for having cliches, too? NO. What IGN calls a cliche is more accurately called an 'archetype', and there's a lot of room for flavor inside those archetypes. Female magic users, being an example they used, are perfectly fine things with plenty of variations. Loner swordsmen are too. So are drunken dwarven berserkers, or cops who are pissed off at the system and think they should pursue justice outside the law. It's about the quality and robustness of the writing.

For western RPGs, the average quality is usually higher just because there are fewer of them, and Bethseda and BioWare really can't do wrong. In Japan, there are a lot more RPGs released in general, because their market is different (they like grindy, stat-based games more than we do). If we compare the Japanese RPG market to the western shooter or action game market, you'll find that the average quality is probably closer (probably worse, in the case of the US action game market).

Sure, JRPGs are a smaller market share, but seriously - does IGN need to bash them for doing what they do? I don't see any reason why a gaming publication should go and genre bash. You don't see me bashing 3D fighters... yet.

Out of the 500-some odd comments on the topic right now, I think there was a 2chan invasion too. Wow, go JP players for being awesome.

*actually closer to a stealth action game

Minimum Standards of Entry

Somewhere along the line I realized that I'm biased.

I read a lot of other social blogs and post little random comments here and there. Most of the authors there and I have a lot of overlap. Most of them are pretty cool guys and post lots of cool stuff. Some of them post on scary stuff like religion, which I am too much of a wimp to do (I'm not a religious person so my beliefs are probably offensive to most people who read this).

The odd stuff is where we disagree. I lose a little bit of respect when self-help social bloggers suggest things about religion that I don't agree with (or more accurately, misinterpret non-religious people). I also don't really like it when people suggest that eating a normal diet is inherently bad (I realize it probably is from a health standpoint, but I am a gamer, not a dietitian).

Sometimes I need to expand my views slightly. In the case of the diet thing it is a good thing to eat better, to lose weight, and to be more healthy. It's also a good thing to stop smoking. I write a blog about mental health and self-improvement, and quitting smoking or otherwise improving your physical health is definitely along the path of self-improvement. I personally hold those values kind of low, but I realize that actually these things are important to some people. I doubt I'll write much about physical health, but thinking on my bias a little helps me refine my viewpoints a little better.

The religion issue is sticky, and I feel a bit troubled writing about it. I am a nonreligious person. I absolutely respect people with religious beliefs though, and try to give them as much room as I can to practice their beliefs around me without being obstructive or telling them that they are inherently wrong or anything like that. Unfortunately, religious people are not willing to do the same for me, or most people practicing other religions not their own. Religious debates are very difficult and frustrating because neither one will just accept or understand the other's side as a valid belief choice (it's not like we have definitive proof of any of these things - just clues that compel us to believe). This is why I don't talk about religion - it's hard for people to understand that I don't believe because there's not enough hard facts in religion's favor, but if there were, I'd believe because it'd be obviously correct.

That of course, brings me to the actual topic. This is another rant.

I can't stand closed-minded people. I look at the people that annoy me most - drama queens, selfish jerks, and so on. The people that frustrate me the most are closed-minded people.

The reason why I dislike them so much is because it is absolutely impossible to have a real discussion with a closed-minded person.

A discussion with a normal person has us talking about a subject. I talk about my views on the subject. The other person will explain their views. I will say what I think about their views, and they'll provide a rebuttal, to better explain the reasons why they have them. If I agree with that rebuttal, I'll say so, and say that the person's views on the subject are valid. If I don't, then I'll say so. Sometimes this might end with neither person giving in, but because most people are at least somewhat open minded we will typically agree to disagree. There will be respect given for each person's point.

A closed minded person is different. They openly attack viewpoints not their own. When I explain to them how their beliefs are wrong (or even just that I disagree with them) they treat it as a personal attack and get defensive. Instead of respecting other people's viewpoints, a closed-minded person condemns them.

What bothers me so much is that closed-minded people then create a barrier that keeps them from gaining any new understanding. If a closed-minded person thinks that the world is flat, they will not accept evidence that shows that the world is not flat. They will probably treat the presentation of evidence as a personal attack, and openly condemn whoever provided it. They will probably launch attacks against that person's credibility, or use other logical fallacies in order to make the person look bad, or their argument seem wrong.

But the truth stands strong. When people try to condemn the truth, it stands firm, and people can see how ridiculous these closed-minded people are. The world is round and the earth rotates around the sun.

There is a minimum standard of entry for my respect. You -must- be an open minded person. If you are not, I cannot respect you. I cannot respect someone who chooses their uneducated ways of thinking instead of shedding their mental restraints and growing and improving as a person. No matter how much I grow as a person, this point will remain the same. If you can't take the world around you and the advice of others and change yourself, I cannot respect you.

If you're reading this and are closed-minded (unlikely!), you can change. Do it.

Actually angry?

This is not such a good post. I'm really irritated at people in general right now.

Redefining Nerds was created with the idea that I could help people. It's life-changing information for people who need a little bit of a push in the right direction. People that read it let me know in IMs and such that it's helped them out quite a bit.

This isn't so much for the people that read this site, because generally if you've actually decided to come here and read, you're probably on the right path. The problem I have is with people I talk to either on websites, in IM, in chat, or in MMOs.

Most people I talk to are okay, honestly. They have a pretty good sense of right and wrong, and understand when they make mistakes. I explain to them what was a good choice when they make a bad one, and they are usually like 'yeah, but blah makes me mad' and so on. This is okay. I feel like most people in the world fall into this category.

The people I can't stand are the selfish, jerkface people that do not have this natural code of ethics. Although they would not believe so unless you told them to their face, they absolutely do not care about anything except what they want. Anything said that they don't agree with is treated as a personal attack, and any personal goals they make are purely selfish. Any selfless actions these people do are only to make themselves look better in the eyes of other people.

Am I bad because I really, really dislike these people? I feel bad because I should not hate anyone. I am frustrated with myself because these people are horrible and I cannot change them, I can only feed their ego with attention. What do I do?

This has frustrated me a lot lately. Should I hate them, shun them? Should I actively seek their downfall? Probably not. But I struggle daily with this sort of dilemma.

What do we do with people who genuinely are only in it for themselves?

I need a Hero

http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/08/dont-ask-dont-tell-continues-under-obama/

Watch that.

The summary: A US Army lieutenant states that he is openly gay because he believes that deception and isolation is wrong. The Army discharges him and he still wants to serve. He's going on trial to plead his case to a military court (we hope).

This dude is a hero. A frickin hero.

I'm so proud of people like this who stand up for what's right even when what is right is really, really hard to stand up for in a place like the military. When I was in the USMC claiming to be gay and coming out was seen as an 'easy out' for people who thought they were in over their heads.

I really don't have a whole lot to say here because this really speaks for itself. It's a clear message to the rest of the world - a guy fighting for his country and is good at what he does is shunned because he swings the other way. If there's anything worth fighting for, it's the liberties that say the only thing that matters is merit - if you're an excellent leader, your sexual preferences should not matter.

George W. Bush said, that he didn't think atheists were Americans. He claimed that he thought America was 'one nation under God' and atheists had no place.

Voters have made the choice for Obama as a black President, and gotten rid of that trash Bush. It's a long road towards making this world a better place, though. Hopefully the Obama administration can help this Army LT get back to his men and keep making them strong warriors.

No, not that kind of warrior.

Short post. Not a whole lot to say because this topic should speak for itself.

It's Not Easy Being Nerdy

Very, very late update from my last post. I recently moved into a new house (yes, a house!) so I don't have internet there yet. Most of my last two weeks has been very busy moving things, packing, unpacking, and so on.

This update is going to be about the media, and specifically about how they don't get along with us nerds. It is a rant. It will not be full of very much useful information.

It seems like every time I hear a news story about the Internet, gaming, or anything nerdy (eg. furries), it's portrayed in a distinctly negative light. It seems like anyone who surfs the internet is a hacker, software pirate, or child molester. Most older people I know who have never touched a computer claim that they're afraid that someone will hack them and steal everything they have.

As we all know already, video games teach our games to kill, and modern video games are indistinguishable from real life. It seems like every time a kid picks up a gun, a first-person shooter or Rockstar game is at fault. If video games actually teach something or promote something, it is pretty much always overlooked in favor of the violence they seem to create. I think the fiasco surrounding Mass Effect (where a person who had never played the game accused it of being sexually explicit) was particularly indicative of how the media is willing to jump at anything in order to portray games in a bad light.

Perhaps more hilarious is the whole idea that 4chan or other imageboards are 'hacker havens' or homes to child molesters. I think 4chan is bad too, but not to the same degree that the news portrays it. What is even more annoying is the misconception that there are numerous malicious hackers ready and waiting to get inside your computer and steal your personal information or destroy your computer. Most good hackers get well-paying government jobs and the bad hackers can be stopped with easy to install security software. Even then, the internet is mostly a safe place. Malicious hackers number a tiny fraction of the internet's denizens. Most non-nerds will never meet one, and many nerds won't either.

On the other hand, child predators on the internet are an issue, but the issue is not as clear-cut or easy as one might think. Not everyone talking to your kids on the internet is a child predator. If your 15 year old daughter is flirty on the internet and picks up attention from guys because of it, she is partly to blame for anything that does happen (this doesn't absolve the criminal but it does put some blame on the girl). What puts the girl more at blame is the fact that they will often arrange RL meetings and lie about their age! Is it the guy's fault that he tried to hook up with a girl on the internet? (answer: still yes, but girl is very much to blame too)

When I was going through college I had to deal with this stereotype a lot. Both left-wing and right-wing groups tend to dislike video games for some reason. Left-wing people tend to ignore that restrictions on video game publishing pretty much strictly violates the rights to free speech, which I find somewhat hypocritical. When I stood up to defend gamer rights and absolve developers of liability in a very liberal education society, it seemed like everyone would rather blame games rather than their parents. Maybe in another 20 years things will be different.

Or will it? The world looks brighter, or so a billion other blogs tell me. Barack Obama is in office, and he's the first nerd in office, ever. He told the Secret Service that they could pry his BlackBerry from his fingers, and now he's the first president to have email at his fingertips all the time. He's got a Twitter account. He reads Spider-Man. Hell, Marvel gave him a Spider-Man cover.

Hopefully the world will change its view of us a little sooner.

Morality is not subjective

This is an angry-ish rant. I am actually in a very good mood right now, but I have had this issue in my head for a little while.

It seems like, generally people think they're in the right. In this case, I don't mean correct, I mean morally right. This is really, really irritating. For some reason people bend morals to their whims. I hate it.

The first case I'm going to present is fairly obvious. I think most people who read this will be familiar with this stance. This idea is that 'anything that causes me to lose is not morally right.' This can be further justified in many different ways, but we'll just explain it as people who think that certain things, especially within the scope of a competitive event, are not morally right. This allows a person to view themselves as 'a winner' even when they fail.

I'm gonna use basketball as an example. Let's say your favorite team has a really big, powerful center who is really good at shooting in the paint. He is very strong, but he is bad at free throws. The opposing team decides to foul him anytime he gets the ball so that he goes to the free throw line, probably misses at least one shot, and they have a chance to get the ball back and score. This lets the opposing team come out in the end. This strategy is 100% legal within the rules of basketball. When I heard it happen (years and years ago) I thought it was totally awesome and cool that someone would think of this strategy. Most people thought it was unfair and that it was somehow against the rules, or that it was exploiting the rules. Actually, I should clarify - people that liked the team with the powerful center thought it was unfair. People that liked the opposing team obviously thought it was okay. I didn't like either team, but I thought it was okay too.

This attitude is not good. This attitude will cause you to treat all sorts of situations that are obviously legal as fair too. A good example might be blocking a shot or getting a rebound. You might claim that it is unfair that the enemy team has a guy so tall that he can easily get rebounds or block shots. You might claim that player salaries are unfair, and that bigger teams can spend more money on good players.

In StarCraft (did you guys expect it?) there's a pretty cool glitch where you can clip a worker unit through a mineral patch due to the way the game allows miners to walk through anything while they are pathing to a resource. It's kind of weird. This is a 100% universally accepted tactic. It is not used very much at high level play, but it comes into play every now and then and sometimes gives someone a pretty big edge. If you lost a game because of this glitch, you might think that it was unfair. But you might also lose to a dark templar rush, which sends stealth attacking units into your base which are hard to defend against. You might also call that unfair. You might call attacking workers unfair, or building a bunker right outside your base unfair. There are many reasons why you might assume the 'moral high ground' in StarCraft. In fact, I've heard people assume the moral high ground with stances like "well at least I haven't spent all my life on a video game."

This argument is wrong. Morality is not subjective. You do not get to define what is morally correct. It is not right to judge others on how they spend their time, especially if what they are doing is legal. I do not judge people by how much time they spend in front of a TV, or gambling, or doing whatever it is people do with their free time. It is also not right to randomly determine that someone is morally wrong for doing the best possible strategy. If you cannot beat that best possible strategy, then you lost. There is no moral victory to be had. If they had done something actually illegal, then they would not have beaten you.

But really, I didn't bring this up because I wanted to argue about silly playing to win things.

I brought this up because people take the moral high ground at any time. I used the gaming examples because they show just how ridiculous people can be about claiming moral high ground, even when they are in something as objective as a video game.

In a certain board I frequent, there was a poster who was quite disruptive. He posted highly inflammatory remarks that I will honestly not repeat. They were probably the most hostile, destructive insults I have ever seen, even on the internet. This person was obviously very smart. He was someone who was good enough at writing that he was able to craft very potent, eloquent insults that it was impossible to not be offended by them just by reading them.

When people brought it to his attention that he was being offensive, he took offense! He took the moral high ground, claiming that there was no rule specifically forbidding his conduct, and therefore he was completely in the right. His violations were so clear and obvious that people mentioned that it should not have to be said what he did that was wrong. He claimed that all he did was be more critical of 'stupid people' but also that when he did it, it was funnier.

How can you claim the moral high ground there? How is that even possible? When you claim that someone is good for nothing except being a receptacle for (expletive), you have crossed the line. There may not be hard and fast societal rules forbidding behavior like this, but it should be blatantly obvious that this behavior is NOT OKAY.

That's the more extreme example. On another board I visit, a poster tried to get forum members to behave in a manner that he wanted them to behave. More accurately, he expected everyone to be "in character" all the time. Obviously, this was not what most of the people he interacted with wanted, and naturally he was upset. He took the moral high ground in this argument, claiming that 'any sane person would want to separate IC and OOC' and that everyone was a jerk in the topic. I think he also mentioned that having rich character backstories was a value that everyone should have, and that people were wrong if they did not.

Forcing your beliefs on people is not morally correct. Sure, you can even play some stupid devil's advocate card here and say something like "but you're forcing your beliefs on people." These are not my beliefs. They are commonly accepted societal truths. Morality is not subjective. Treating other people's beliefs like they do not matter is absolutely worthy of condemnation.

If you want to say that I'm forcing my belief system on you, that's fine, but you're missing the point. Even beyond a set of values or beliefs, the things I am talking about are sure-fire ways to upset other people.

In the case of the competition example, if you are not prepared to face all techniques in a given competition, you should not participate. Your opponent cannot be expected to know what is 'okay' in your rule book. Your opponent only knows that he should do everything he can to win. You should know that too.

In the case of blatant insults and rude behavior, there might not be specific rules against it. However, we can easily say that "yes, those things are bad." If you make someone feel bad deliberately, you are wrong.

In the case of forcing your own beliefs on people, I think that, with a few exceptions - and those exceptions being common decency - we should not, because it is wrong. It is not wrong to say that stealing is wrong. It is wrong to say that listening to mixed tracks on a burned CD is wrong (you think I am making this up, but I swear I am not).

Angry rant mode disengaged.

Yay, tons of good stuff happened today! (technically yesterday)

Irresponsible Parents and Messed-Up Values

Watchmen came out recently and it has quite a bit of objectionable content. For those of you worried about it, it really deserves its R rating.

But this article is not to talk about Watchmen. It's to talk about parents and values in society today. How many of you guys went to see Watchmen and there were families in the movie? It seems like parents are totally oblivious to taking kids to see an R-rated movie. How many of you guys had parents walk out of the movie?

This is an angry rant because it pisses me off that parents can't do the bare minimum of homework to make sure that an R-rated movie is suitable for their kids. When in doubt - it's not. I'll generally agree that at some point before they reach 17, kids can probably see R-rated movies. But do they really need to see a movie where both genitalia are visible onscreen, and where... well, the violence in Watchmen is really, really gruesome - I'll just leave it there.

The other thing that really pisses me off is the screwed up values of people. Seeing people's hands chopped off or watching people put an axe through someone's head or watching scenes of a dog eating a person's dismembered leg (this is actually tame compared to what happens in the movie, btw) is okay, but seeing a dude naked (including the naughty bits) is not okay? What the hell?

Wait, I'm supposed to have a purpose in this article. Hang on, it's coming to me.

Nah, it's not. Our values are screwed up. While gratuitous sex and violence are probably both bad to observe, is our community that screwed up that something natural is more repulsive than murder, dismemberment, and general pleasure at human suffering?