I think the GamerGate guys were initially addressing some real problems with the insulated, San Francisco centered, games journalism crowd. In both the worlds of sports journalism and gaming journalism, you get way too many people trying to write about larger social issues. I get it, they think they have more to contribute than just reviewing Bayonetta or predicting the Phillies' pitching rotation next year. But this is hobby writing, I don't need all this social justice crap crammed down my throat twelve times a week. The "women in Magic" issue occasionally drives our own hobby into frenzies of hand-wringing about rampant misogyny, yada yada yada, resulting in dozens of copy-paste articles on the topic for a few weeks from all the usual suspects. This is the kind of thing that made the hilariously funny Geordie Tate become completely unreadable. I don't go to hobby websites to be challenged about my "problematic" views. If I want people to preach at me about the alleged shortcomings of me or my community -- and I don't -- there are plenty of other places I can go for that. Hobby journalists need to stop taking themselves so freakin' seriously, leave the holier-than-thou social justice ramblings to the special little snowflakes on Tumblr, and just report about the hobby.
Now if they've gone off the rails recently, that's a shame. As a prosecutor I actively take part in punishing threats and harassment on a regular basis. But sadly, I think this behavior is just WHAT TWITTER IS ABOUT these days. Everytime somebody tweets anything the self-important millennial kids disagree with, that person needs to OMG DIE IN A FIRE, be immediately terminated from their job no matter what it is, then stalked, harassed, threatened, etc. That's basically the entire modus operandi of the roving gangs of thought-police on social media, so I would expect to find that behavior in ANY sizeable group of Twitter-ers.
Well said on #gamergate Pete. As I have said on FB and other places Felicia Day is a rolemodel and a shining example to us gamers. Also, Chris Kluew surprised and amazed me with his a) grasp of the vulgar vernacular and b) on target article concerning this. The fact that they targeted her and not him is simply astounding. Bigotry at it's narrowest most hateful aspect exposed like a diseased core in our larger community. (I seriously doubt any serious mtg player is involved with the hashtag. But I'll get to that in a second.)
Gamergate is about ethics in journalism (or the lack there of)? Then why the frack are gamers going around doxxing (exposing personal details to the public) and hacking (accounts of) female gamers and game industry personnel whom they have a beef with? A more unethical approach to "debate" is hard to imagine. Misogyny aside if you had a moral point to make you lost any leg to stand on by approaching it this way.
Thuggery is what some are calling it and I agree. It is purely asinine bigoted thuggery of the sort perpetuated by white asshats when segregation was ended. Arrest the malcontents and let them reexamine their positions from inside a jail cell.
As for the legitimacy of the claim before the attacks and threats started? It is pure bullshit even if the facts surrounding the instigation of this hashtag aren't utterly false. (Which I assume they are because who acts this way if they have adult facts to bring to the table??). I apologize if anyone is offended by that term but it stinks so much that I can think of nothing else that fits so aptly.
The fact is there is no such thing as "Journalism" in gaming. It is all advertising. Every last bit of it is designed to sell you products. Either Alienware, or joysticks, or keyboard/mouse combos, or this game or that game and none of it is being reviewed fairly and impartially by truly independent sources. Except for the exceptions. There are always exceptions and they matter not a little.
I like Steam's system of game review because at least it is somewhat democratic and if it is seeded with plants there are usually enough players who will speak their mind if a game is truly rotten or has serious issues. And I recommend anyone who wants to buy games to read up on their steam reviews even if they go with Humble or Gog or some other source to do the actual purchases.
So far the reviews have rarely steered me wrong. Because they aren't journalism either but they tend to be honest by averages. Knowing how to discern a hissy fit from actual issues helps. As does discerning a glossing over. But when there are enough other reviews to read these things average into an honest opinion eventually.
So that's my 2 cents on the whole "ethics" argument. Just a gigantic strawman to barely mask a misogynist agenda. Stop the trolls, the asshats and the nut jobs and preserve gaming for people who actually enjoy gaming.
Update on the SCG cheating scandal. The player who was accused of card stacking has been banned. Alex Bertoncini, also accused of cheating the SCG, has also been banned. Full DCI banned and suspended list is here:
Well thanks for putting that so much more into perspective though I was already outraged for her. Now I get to be outraged for you and your family too.
Gamergate asshats who perpetuate and stir up this sort of thing need to be stopped. Legally. I agree that that this situation is disgusting but it is ever more infuriating than that because these turds with keyboards assume they are safe behind their anonymity.
This needs to stop and now. Gamers are not these nut jobs. These useless sexist tools, these misogynist nut job criminals just happen to be gamers.
I hope you and your family stay safe and can deal with the crap fest this has become.
I don't speak out much but one of the catalysts for gamergate was Zoe Quinn, aka Chelsea van valkenburg, my wife's first cousin. Her father who gets harnessing phone calls all day an who is my wife's uncle, live about seven min from us. She is an indie game developer, she dumped her ex and he cried foil and cheating and worked the lesser an least respectable 'gamers' into a level of mysoginy the likes of which is scary. How a person who I have had thanksgiving with could e threatened with rape and myrder under the guise of fighting for justice in game journalism is the most disgusting thing I could have imagine having my family embroiled in. People who cyber bully a person into hiding may find it ignoble to do now but some day these people will experience times of deep duress and wonder what they could have done to deserve such a fate. Next time you wanna reddit out some rape threats, perhaps envision you are sending them to your cousin who ate family dinner across from you an see if you still have the nuts to make that threat. People disgust me. This whole situation is disgusting
Righto. So, spooky meta cards are out, everything else is legal?
I'm considering running a Spirit deck which just happens to be Angels: Karmic Guide, Melesse Spirit, Guiding Spirit, Angelic Page and Angelic Curator, with Baneslayer Angel (mentions demons), Angel of Glory's Rise (mentions zombies) and Angel of Flight Alabaster (mentions Spirits) as auxiliaries.
Failing that, abusing cards that are in the vintage pool but not in the tribal legacy pool.
Addendum: Won't be there Saturday, visiting some old friends.
Actually, not siding in Erase against merfolk was fine. Siding in an extremely narrow card that would only hit seas, a card that replaces itself even, isn't an oversight. i could see if you had some other card that was totally useless, but none of your other cards are that bad in the merfolk matchop. if erase was disenchant, which could also hit vial, that would be different.
Seriosly, i want you to tell us more about the meta and this article series becomes the community helping you crack that nut!
1)If your first point is correct then we might aswell give up because I think it's clear that with the current budget it's not possible to deliver more. But I do wonder if this is the real issue. I can't imagine they don't want to invest as much as possible because it's return on investment would be pretty high imo. Especially as now seems a crucial time with a lot of online CCG (or variants on this theme). A year or two from now it will be much harder to gain new players.
2)They don't have to outsource all development(e.g. back-end could be done in-house as this is the most critical aspect). Although I would advise them to up the budget for the part they do in-house. But they should outsource everything GUI related so it can be written in something other than WPF. Sure it would be alot harder to program but the rewards would outweigh that.
I program in WPF myself and it isn't really suited for video games imo
I actually did a ton of them! I ended up with like 20 Goblin Generals in my account, which should be a dead giveaway for my preferred strategy. :P
The problem is, my microphone broke down and I ended up not getting around to replacing it in time. Hopefully WoTC will bring them back as a holiday draft format; not only because I want to record a few, but because they were super fun!
This is a great posting. It was very informative. I look forward in reading more of your work. Also, I made sure to bookmark your website so I can come back later. I enjoyed every moment of reading it
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I had considered Marsh Casualties, along with Infest/Drown in Sorrow, but settled on BSZ. I think a permanent effect (-1/-1 counters) is better than a til end of turn, plus the recursion/shuffle effect. Also for the price of a kicked Marsh Casualties (to give -2/-2), I can BSZ for 3.
If I had access to Damnation, I'd run that.
Echoing Decay, which is an instant -2/-2, but very narrow, is under consideration as a sideboard option.
Mortify seems a bit slow/costly: 1WB as opposed to W for enchants, and the creature removal just isn't worth the extra 1B for me. I had looked at it, but rejected it right out of hand. Pillory of the Sleepless has a better chance of making the deck.
Seek seems awfully conditional as far as where I'd cast it. I prefer Surgical Extraction for neutering, despite the card having to be in the GY. The Phyrexian mana option makes it a wonderful "surprise!" play.
Hey Rick, I missed your return last week. Welcome back, but too bad you didn't publish any Vintage Masters draft in the end, I would have liked to see you facing that challenge. Did you do many of those?
I had gotten throttled by the flies earlier, and that pick was me giving in to the fear. I did not want it to happen again, and I made the wrong choice.
First, throwing this to a thirds party developer is not a simple solution. Three reasons:
1) as you mentioned, Wizards is not willing to pay high prices for in house developer. If Wizards won't pay for in-house, they won't pay a third party developer enough for the third party developer's profits, plus salary. And a cut rate third party won't help.
2) The main costs of the program is not client development, people who should know (e.g. John Louckes, etc.) say it's programming new cards and rules updates. Outsourcing that makes fixes slower, more complex and - most of all - more expensive. Remember, the cost of a third party developer is the cost of the programming plus the costs of oversight/coordination plus the cost of the profit the third party developer will require.
3) We've done that. Leaping Lizards, and the other outside developers hired at various times, have shown that not knowing Magic inside and out means you make fundamental mistakes in design. (I'm not saying that Wizards does not make mistakes - but the third parties have made some major ones. Wizards could watch the third party developers really hard, but that means a whole lot more costs.)
Also, how do you get a kird ape picture on Beast of Burden? Photoshop. At least that was the only way I could get that to happen, but maybe other people had other experiences.
I found a lot of your picks to be confused. For example, you are in the Temur mindset, yet Pack 2, pick 5; you take Swarm of Bloodflies over Scion of Glaciers, Act of Treason, Singing Bell Strike, or the black removal, Throttle. And in P3p6, a third Leaping Master over Alpine Grizzly (and then only play one white source to turn them on). Also P3p8 the Abomination over the playable Whirlwind Adept.
It's especially unacceptable considering the money Hasbro is raking in. They are not some start-up company operating on a shoestring budget. They are a huge corporation making record profits. This would be a good time to plow some of those profits into fixing their broken product.
Josh and I are not in disagreement here, and neither are we. You might just have misread how I put it. :D As I said in the end, shoddy product. And there is no excuse for it to be unacceptable.
I think the GamerGate guys were initially addressing some real problems with the insulated, San Francisco centered, games journalism crowd. In both the worlds of sports journalism and gaming journalism, you get way too many people trying to write about larger social issues. I get it, they think they have more to contribute than just reviewing Bayonetta or predicting the Phillies' pitching rotation next year. But this is hobby writing, I don't need all this social justice crap crammed down my throat twelve times a week. The "women in Magic" issue occasionally drives our own hobby into frenzies of hand-wringing about rampant misogyny, yada yada yada, resulting in dozens of copy-paste articles on the topic for a few weeks from all the usual suspects. This is the kind of thing that made the hilariously funny Geordie Tate become completely unreadable. I don't go to hobby websites to be challenged about my "problematic" views. If I want people to preach at me about the alleged shortcomings of me or my community -- and I don't -- there are plenty of other places I can go for that. Hobby journalists need to stop taking themselves so freakin' seriously, leave the holier-than-thou social justice ramblings to the special little snowflakes on Tumblr, and just report about the hobby.
Now if they've gone off the rails recently, that's a shame. As a prosecutor I actively take part in punishing threats and harassment on a regular basis. But sadly, I think this behavior is just WHAT TWITTER IS ABOUT these days. Everytime somebody tweets anything the self-important millennial kids disagree with, that person needs to OMG DIE IN A FIRE, be immediately terminated from their job no matter what it is, then stalked, harassed, threatened, etc. That's basically the entire modus operandi of the roving gangs of thought-police on social media, so I would expect to find that behavior in ANY sizeable group of Twitter-ers.
Nice. Hopefully this will discourage serial cheaters from being so casual about it.
Well said on #gamergate Pete. As I have said on FB and other places Felicia Day is a rolemodel and a shining example to us gamers. Also, Chris Kluew surprised and amazed me with his a) grasp of the vulgar vernacular and b) on target article concerning this. The fact that they targeted her and not him is simply astounding. Bigotry at it's narrowest most hateful aspect exposed like a diseased core in our larger community. (I seriously doubt any serious mtg player is involved with the hashtag. But I'll get to that in a second.)
Gamergate is about ethics in journalism (or the lack there of)? Then why the frack are gamers going around doxxing (exposing personal details to the public) and hacking (accounts of) female gamers and game industry personnel whom they have a beef with? A more unethical approach to "debate" is hard to imagine. Misogyny aside if you had a moral point to make you lost any leg to stand on by approaching it this way.
Thuggery is what some are calling it and I agree. It is purely asinine bigoted thuggery of the sort perpetuated by white asshats when segregation was ended. Arrest the malcontents and let them reexamine their positions from inside a jail cell.
As for the legitimacy of the claim before the attacks and threats started? It is pure bullshit even if the facts surrounding the instigation of this hashtag aren't utterly false. (Which I assume they are because who acts this way if they have adult facts to bring to the table??). I apologize if anyone is offended by that term but it stinks so much that I can think of nothing else that fits so aptly.
The fact is there is no such thing as "Journalism" in gaming. It is all advertising. Every last bit of it is designed to sell you products. Either Alienware, or joysticks, or keyboard/mouse combos, or this game or that game and none of it is being reviewed fairly and impartially by truly independent sources. Except for the exceptions. There are always exceptions and they matter not a little.
I like Steam's system of game review because at least it is somewhat democratic and if it is seeded with plants there are usually enough players who will speak their mind if a game is truly rotten or has serious issues. And I recommend anyone who wants to buy games to read up on their steam reviews even if they go with Humble or Gog or some other source to do the actual purchases.
So far the reviews have rarely steered me wrong. Because they aren't journalism either but they tend to be honest by averages. Knowing how to discern a hissy fit from actual issues helps. As does discerning a glossing over. But when there are enough other reviews to read these things average into an honest opinion eventually.
So that's my 2 cents on the whole "ethics" argument. Just a gigantic strawman to barely mask a misogynist agenda. Stop the trolls, the asshats and the nut jobs and preserve gaming for people who actually enjoy gaming.
Update on the SCG cheating scandal. The player who was accused of card stacking has been banned. Alex Bertoncini, also accused of cheating the SCG, has also been banned. Full DCI banned and suspended list is here:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/suspended-dci-memberships-2...
Fast work. Props to the judges and Wizards folks that review and oversee this stuff.
Well thanks for putting that so much more into perspective though I was already outraged for her. Now I get to be outraged for you and your family too.
Gamergate asshats who perpetuate and stir up this sort of thing need to be stopped. Legally. I agree that that this situation is disgusting but it is ever more infuriating than that because these turds with keyboards assume they are safe behind their anonymity.
This needs to stop and now. Gamers are not these nut jobs. These useless sexist tools, these misogynist nut job criminals just happen to be gamers.
I hope you and your family stay safe and can deal with the crap fest this has become.
I don't speak out much but one of the catalysts for gamergate was Zoe Quinn, aka Chelsea van valkenburg, my wife's first cousin. Her father who gets harnessing phone calls all day an who is my wife's uncle, live about seven min from us. She is an indie game developer, she dumped her ex and he cried foil and cheating and worked the lesser an least respectable 'gamers' into a level of mysoginy the likes of which is scary. How a person who I have had thanksgiving with could e threatened with rape and myrder under the guise of fighting for justice in game journalism is the most disgusting thing I could have imagine having my family embroiled in. People who cyber bully a person into hiding may find it ignoble to do now but some day these people will experience times of deep duress and wonder what they could have done to deserve such a fate. Next time you wanna reddit out some rape threats, perhaps envision you are sending them to your cousin who ate family dinner across from you an see if you still have the nuts to make that threat. People disgust me. This whole situation is disgusting
Righto. So, spooky meta cards are out, everything else is legal?
I'm considering running a Spirit deck which just happens to be Angels: Karmic Guide, Melesse Spirit, Guiding Spirit, Angelic Page and Angelic Curator, with Baneslayer Angel (mentions demons), Angel of Glory's Rise (mentions zombies) and Angel of Flight Alabaster (mentions Spirits) as auxiliaries.
Failing that, abusing cards that are in the vintage pool but not in the tribal legacy pool.
Addendum: Won't be there Saturday, visiting some old friends.
Kusari-Gama / Tower Above (or Avalanche Tusker)?
Actually, not siding in Erase against merfolk was fine. Siding in an extremely narrow card that would only hit seas, a card that replaces itself even, isn't an oversight. i could see if you had some other card that was totally useless, but none of your other cards are that bad in the merfolk matchop. if erase was disenchant, which could also hit vial, that would be different.
Seriosly, i want you to tell us more about the meta and this article series becomes the community helping you crack that nut!
- Gio
I'd like to add 2 things:
1)If your first point is correct then we might aswell give up because I think it's clear that with the current budget it's not possible to deliver more. But I do wonder if this is the real issue. I can't imagine they don't want to invest as much as possible because it's return on investment would be pretty high imo. Especially as now seems a crucial time with a lot of online CCG (or variants on this theme). A year or two from now it will be much harder to gain new players.
2)They don't have to outsource all development(e.g. back-end could be done in-house as this is the most critical aspect). Although I would advise them to up the budget for the part they do in-house. But they should outsource everything GUI related so it can be written in something other than WPF. Sure it would be alot harder to program but the rewards would outweigh that.
I program in WPF myself and it isn't really suited for video games imo
my2ç
I actually did a ton of them! I ended up with like 20 Goblin Generals in my account, which should be a dead giveaway for my preferred strategy. :P
The problem is, my microphone broke down and I ended up not getting around to replacing it in time. Hopefully WoTC will bring them back as a holiday draft format; not only because I want to record a few, but because they were super fun!
I always feel like I've "made it" when a spam crawler attaches to one my turdlets. :)
This is a great posting. It was very informative. I look forward in reading more of your work. Also, I made sure to bookmark your website so I can come back later. I enjoyed every moment of reading it
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You're right, I missed that! (I got mixed up with Goblin, I guess.)
Also, the Halloween Event is November 1, of course, not October 30.
Surgical Extraction has the added benefit of eating a tron land you Ghost Quarter, as well.
Only one out of the four Elf decks ended with a positive score, though, and it was piloted by the returning Tribal Apocalypse champion, fliebana.
I played Elves and went 2-1.
I had considered Marsh Casualties, along with Infest/Drown in Sorrow, but settled on BSZ. I think a permanent effect (-1/-1 counters) is better than a til end of turn, plus the recursion/shuffle effect. Also for the price of a kicked Marsh Casualties (to give -2/-2), I can BSZ for 3.
If I had access to Damnation, I'd run that.
Echoing Decay, which is an instant -2/-2, but very narrow, is under consideration as a sideboard option.
Mortify seems a bit slow/costly: 1WB as opposed to W for enchants, and the creature removal just isn't worth the extra 1B for me. I had looked at it, but rejected it right out of hand. Pillory of the Sleepless has a better chance of making the deck.
Seek seems awfully conditional as far as where I'd cast it. I prefer Surgical Extraction for neutering, despite the card having to be in the GY. The Phyrexian mana option makes it a wonderful "surprise!" play.
Can anyone loan me a set of Oath of Druids and Forbidden Orchards for the Halloween event?
What about Marsh Casualties, Mortify or Seek (half of hide/seek) for your LLSK deck?
Hey Rick, I missed your return last week. Welcome back, but too bad you didn't publish any Vintage Masters draft in the end, I would have liked to see you facing that challenge. Did you do many of those?
I had gotten throttled by the flies earlier, and that pick was me giving in to the fear. I did not want it to happen again, and I made the wrong choice.
First, throwing this to a thirds party developer is not a simple solution. Three reasons:
1) as you mentioned, Wizards is not willing to pay high prices for in house developer. If Wizards won't pay for in-house, they won't pay a third party developer enough for the third party developer's profits, plus salary. And a cut rate third party won't help.
2) The main costs of the program is not client development, people who should know (e.g. John Louckes, etc.) say it's programming new cards and rules updates. Outsourcing that makes fixes slower, more complex and - most of all - more expensive. Remember, the cost of a third party developer is the cost of the programming plus the costs of oversight/coordination plus the cost of the profit the third party developer will require.
3) We've done that. Leaping Lizards, and the other outside developers hired at various times, have shown that not knowing Magic inside and out means you make fundamental mistakes in design. (I'm not saying that Wizards does not make mistakes - but the third parties have made some major ones. Wizards could watch the third party developers really hard, but that means a whole lot more costs.)
Also, how do you get a kird ape picture on Beast of Burden? Photoshop. At least that was the only way I could get that to happen, but maybe other people had other experiences.
I found a lot of your picks to be confused. For example, you are in the Temur mindset, yet Pack 2, pick 5; you take Swarm of Bloodflies over Scion of Glaciers, Act of Treason, Singing Bell Strike, or the black removal, Throttle. And in P3p6, a third Leaping Master over Alpine Grizzly (and then only play one white source to turn them on). Also P3p8 the Abomination over the playable Whirlwind Adept.
It's especially unacceptable considering the money Hasbro is raking in. They are not some start-up company operating on a shoestring budget. They are a huge corporation making record profits. This would be a good time to plow some of those profits into fixing their broken product.
Josh and I are not in disagreement here, and neither are we. You might just have misread how I put it. :D As I said in the end, shoddy product. And there is no excuse for it to be unacceptable.