default header

Theory

Acquiring Taste

Moderator: JC Denton

Acquiring Taste

Unread postby icycalm » 15 Feb 2009 13:39

This thread is going to be used for an upcoming article. In the meantime, here's a sneak preview:

I wrote:What I find interesting is that the very same people who whine like babies whenever someone from the mainstream press slags off their little hobby, are the first ones to cry out "elitist" at whoever tries to approach it with a bit more rigorousness and seriousness.


http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?s= ... &p=5858465
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 09 Aug 2011 15:15

Continued from here:

http://forum.insomnia.ac/viewtopic.php?p=15236#15236

jhan wrote:But you know what: everything I just said may simply be not what you're looking for. I have no qualms about removing that material if you want to keep the review more concrete and less experiential.


This is a terrible insult to me, and to the others contributing reviews here, but unfortunately a common (and very stupid) one.

Where do you think our comments are coming from if not from "experience"? Do you think they are, what? metaphysical postulates that have been inserted into our brains from a god from some other universe? Where do you think the "concrete" comes from if not from experience? Such comments, which are always meant to display a kind of superior understanding of the perspectival nature of experience, in fact demonstrate a laughably shallow understanding of perspectivism. Either EVERYTHING is perspectival or NOTHING is -- by dividing people's comments (i.e., in this case, mine) into "concrete" and "experiental" ones what you are doing is DENYING the very idea of perspectivism. Dude, it's laughable. Analysis of the mechanics has nothing "concrete" about it -- the very same mechanic can seem to one person as amazing and to another as terrible. The idea that you can make your comments more "concrete" and less "experiental" is a naive illusion of the uneducated -- it is absurdly arrogant, megalomaniacal even, simply beyond your powers: everything that comes out of your mouth is "experiential" and that's the end of that.

Basically, what you need to do is stop worrying about what OTHERS will think about what YOU think AFTER you have written your review, and begin to worry ONLY about what YOU think BEFORE you write it. Only then you will start getting anywhere with criticism (the entire "target audience" nonsense I told you to get rid of fits here). Your review is not a matter of what I am looking for, but what YOU are trying to express because you feel it and want to express it. My comments are meant to make you BETTER AT THAT -- whether what comes out as a result will be what I am looking for is something that should be irrelevant to you WHILE WRITING the text which I will LATER consider whether it suits my purposes. In short, any adjustment to the text for reasons EXTERNAL TO YOUR FEELINGS will always lead the quality of the text DOWNWARDS. This does not mean that any reviewer who manages to gets his feelings out on a game has done a swell job and is equal to the efforts of every other critic -- he certainly has done the best job HE can do, but how this stacks up against everyone else's efforts will now depend on WHO HE IS. Do you understand? The best critic is THE BEST MAN. But to be allowed to play that game at all (the game of criticism, I mean), you must first cast away all inhibitions, and dare to show yourself AS YOU ARE. Any external considerations, and adjustments of the text accordingly, will only serve to HIDE WHO YOU ARE, which will guarantee that you are a lower man, because the higher men, and certainly the highest, DO NOT FEEL THE NEED TO HIDE. This is the meaning of the following passage from Zarathustra:

and you highest men, you would flee from the burning sun of wisdom in which the Overman joyously bathes his nakedness.


So, for example, if you play a thematically violent videogame, and feel horrified at its theme, you SHOULD express your revulsion in your review, because THAT'S SIMPLY WHO YOU ARE. If I laugh at your review afterwards, that is simply a reflection of who I am, which is someone who is amused by weaklings who have a problem with violence. This, however, does not mean that you can improve your review by hiding this revulsion, or simply removing all the relevant comments, so that Alex the Overman will not laugh at you. Better to be genuine and laughed at than to lie and try to conceal who you are -- if you want to improve your critical capacities, that is. Lying can be helpful in life generally, but in criticism it's fatal (because the whole idea of it is to express you real feelings).

Of course, it could be that, though you might find the theme repellent, the mechanics might be fine... -- there is the little problem, however, that it is difficult to devote much time to a game whose theme one finds repulsive... which means that your revulsion of the theme will prevent you from exploring its mechanics deeply enough, which means that someone else, who for example loves the theme, will be able to offer more insightful criticisms on its mechanics than you -- and there's nothing to be done about that. It's just how things work. If, in order to counter that, you try to PRETEND that the aesthetics DID NOT REPULSE YOU, and pretend to have played the game to the same depth as the other person, and offer your mechanics criticisms as being on the same level as his, the only thing you'll manage to achieve is to come off like an idiot and a poser to those who played the game to a greater depth than you.

Besides which, forgetting all the above for a second, you also seem to be under the bizarre impression that there is some sort of accepted standard of aesthetic/mechanical breakdown (say, 50/50, or 30/70 or something) that every review should follow.

I've got news for you: THERE ISN'T. It depends on the game. And finding the correct analogy for each game is a HUGE part of what reviewing games is all about. There are games where practically 90% of the review should be aesthetics, and where, if you judge the game mostly on mechanics, you are doing a great disservice to the game -- and vice versa.

All of the above makes your latest Black Ops rewrite (which you have stupidly attempted to make "less experiential" (lol) by removing practically all references to aesthetics -- which, given how much emphasis the developers obviously place on them, makes your review vastly inferior to someone else's who took them into account) a highly suspect one.

So. I don't know what to tell you re: how to proceed from now on. You came from an artfag background, then suddenly decided to plunge headlong into the OPPOSITE extreme, which artfag propaganda would have you think is what I want (which is not at all what I want, and is moreover a conception that's deeply insulting to me), and to top it all off you seem to have lost your own drive to pursue your interests and are now looking at me to give you projects to work on...

I think you need to do some serious re-examining of what your goals are vis-a-vis review-writing.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby jhan » 09 Aug 2011 18:20

You're absolutely right about the perspectivism thing, and I don't know what else to say other than that I experienced a lapse in clear thinking when I wrote those words.

As for the Black Ops review itself, I wrote exactly what I felt about it without leaving anything out. What has been left out is more extensive content about the previous game's aesthetic--when I asked if that's something that I should include or not, I was speaking more of style, not seeking some kind of sheep-like approval for my feelings. If I simply wrote exactly what I would write without Insomnia's influence, it would end up with, at minimum, my own personal rating system instead of Insomnia's, as well as anything else that doesn't fit into the Insomnia publication style-wise--and you would tell me to change it before submitting it, as you already have. To make a long story short, your intellectual and stylistic demands will always exert influence on the content of reviews that get written here, and there is no way around that, obviously.

And indeed it is for that very reason that you are influencing me right now to write more of what I feel and less of what I think you want me to feel. However, that is not really necessary, because if I wrote a Modern Warfare 2 review right now, I would say exactly what I have already said about the No Russian level, etc. The reason I wrote those things originally was because I felt that Black Ops was (poorly) mimicking MW2's pretentious mannerisms in its storytelling. (Since then I've decided that such an elaborate explanation would be more appropriate in a MW2 review.) Thus, the reason I spent less time on aesthetics in the latest review is precisely because the developers spent less time on aesthetics--it exists in MW2's shadow, apart from the slightly more balanced multiplayer.

If you doubt what I'm saying, take another look at the Black Ops topic in the games forum: you will notice that before you had said anything about what you wanted (all you said was: I have a bunch to say, but later), I had already decided for myself what I wanted and started writing the review without ever having received the next round of feedback from you that I had asked for. So that's that.

Now for the other things, I actually thought I had read somewhere on here that 50/50 was an ideal balance, but maybe I didn't read it carefully enough or whatever, since I was just skimming after all. I'm certainly glad that that's not the case, though, since I don't know what I would do with myself in some game reviews if I had to be held to that.

Anyway, I appreciate your thoughtful criticisms, especially about perspectivism, since you caught me red-handed there.
jhan
 
Joined: 05 Aug 2011 16:41

Unread postby icycalm » 09 Aug 2011 20:41

jhan wrote:To make a long story short, your intellectual and stylistic demands will always exert influence on the content of reviews that get written here, and there is no way around that, obviously.


Again with the sheep-like mentality. It looks like there's no way of getting it out of your brain -- it simply seems that you ARE a sheep, and that's the end of that.

And I love that smarmy tone you are taking with me! The little lessons for me that you condescend to include in your posts. "Tch, tch, tch, icycalm, you really SHOULD realize that you exert some influence on the contributors here!"

Fucking fagot.

MY SUGGESTIONS ARE FIRST PARSED BY THE CONTRIBUTORS AND ONLY INCLUDED IF THE CONTRIBUTORS THEMSELVES ADOPT THEM OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL AND MAKE THEM PART OF WHO THEY ARE. Do you get it, fagot? That's A WHOLE OTHER BALLGAME from what YOU are doing, DELETING all your misgivings about "Anti-Americanism" and whatnot from the Black Ops review because of some retarded idea of yours that I do not want "experiential" reviews, whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean, then giving the game A SINGLE FUCKING STAR (which basically means it's unplayable) in order to convey these feelings of resentment you have for the developers because of their "Anti-Americanism" or whatever, which you FORCED yourself to EXCLUDE from the latest draft of the review.

Meh. There simply doesn't seem to be any hope for you as a reviewer at this point, and even if there was, it seems it'd take reams and reams of text going back and forth between me and you, to the point where it'd be more efficient for me to play these goddamn games and review them myself.

So let's just drop the whole thing and leave it at that. And, if you'd like to keep your account here, I would appreciated it if you refrained from replying. You have nothing of substance to say to me, and I have better things to do with my time.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 08 Aug 2012 00:04

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?t ... #msg769399

DavidCaruso wrote:The "chocolate vs. vanilla" thing is more like disagreeing in small details, just like e.g. asking a bunch of people who've played a lot of 2D action games why they prefer Metal Slug vs. Contra. The point is more in the larger scale of things, e.g. why you prefer the food at your favorite restaurant in town to Taco Bell, which is where I think you definitely can make general conclusions about preferences/reasons. This is also where experience (eating a lot of different kinds of food) helps make formerly unconscious preferences a bit more conscious, or even instilling new ones.

I think that talking about genre preferences coherently is actually a lot harder than talking about preferences within a genre coherently, just because it's generally easier to compare more similar things. I mean, I know I couldn't really talk about many genres much since there are huge things which I've almost completely ignored (e.g. fighting games, racing games, many WRPGs.) It'd be like asking me "why do you prefer this food to other foods in this list of 10 foods" when you haven't even tasted 6 of them, and it fails for similar reasons that asking people who haven't had much experience with a genre why they like a particular game in that genre often fails. I could give you some very general reasons for particular comparisons though, and I could also draw from my experiences with games I have played to tell you general things I like/don't like.



http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?t ... #msg769410

CharlieSheen wrote:ofc if flower is someone's first game then they would like it i mean why wouldnt they? things move when you press buttons! the environments look real! music is good. there is nothing you can compare it to and so unless it ruins your life in some way you cant really not enjoy it. and then they may play spyro the dragon and vomit because of all the camera shit going on and then they may say that flower is much better game even though to someone who has no motion sickness issues it's pretty fucking clear that spyro the dragon is way ahead of flower. nobody's saying that tastes do not variate but that does not mean we cant agree about whats better and whats worse. we just gotta figure out all the lurking variables. someone with motion sickness is merely handicapped from higher pleasure (but not handicapped from all higher pleasure). this is random example. maybe my film colleague can give a better example of what im trying to say.

the hipstery shit applies to artfaggotry. not sure about eva's case cause shame on me i have yet to play gears of war lol. vanquish is good tho.


They are getting there.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 31 Mar 2017 16:35

From Discord: https://discord.gg/7ZKAkEj

I wrote:The funny thing is, the only reason we have games like Contra is that the technology didn't exist back then to make Ghost Recon Wildlands
If it did, there would never have been Contra lol
What does that say about Recap and his ilk?
Contra is basically the closest the technology back then could get to stuff like Predator
While Ghost Recon Wildlands today is BETTER than Predator


I wrote:What if PlanetSide had a 5v5 mode that played exactly like Siege? (edited)
Would Qpo be willing to try that for a few hours?
Or does it also count for a "different game" that he has to play a certain number of hours per week?
If you put it like this, his playing habits sound stupid
Just like Recap's praise of Contra over Tom Clancy games, etc.
This is my most powerful weapon in the fight for good taste that I am waging
Devising examples and thought experiments that show that the reasons people give for their preferences are mere smokescreen
And that the real reasons are therefore entirely different, and entirely unconscious
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 31 Mar 2017 16:40

I wrote:Recap simply doesn't want to admit that playing 2D games takes him back to his childhood, which he loves far more than adulthood, and which 3D games remind him of
With Qpo I suspect it has to do with a sort of extreme completionist mindset
He doesn't like to dip his feet into the water
Either scuba dive or go home
I think having 20 games on his Steam list that he has played 3 hours each would make him feel bad or something
It's not about "achievements", it's about his inner, personal sense of achievement, and unless he plays an MP game a certain minimum number of hours a week, that sense isn't triggered, and he feels bad (edited)
Both mindsets are detrimental to developing good taste in VIDEOGAMES AS A WHOLE (as opposed to small subsections of them), but that's why Recap is such a great source of info and insight on 2D Japanese games, and Qpo is so much fun to play with and so dedicated to the few games that he does play
I would take them any day over people who play everything but who don't understand much about anything and who suck as teammates in multiplayer games (edited)
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 31 Mar 2017 16:58

I wrote:With other people like that DJ Orwell kid their psyschology is far easier to discover
because they are far weaker, far shallower people
For years he was apotheosizing mediocre popular meme games like StarCraft and Doom because ha had a Pentium 4
Now that he has a cheap 2,000-dollar PC (my graphics cards alone cost me that much) he trashes everything that's not Gears of War 4-level of fidelity
A dumb, shallow person like that has nothing to contribute, either in specialized fields like 2D games or VS MP games, or in games in general
The most he can do is re-bleat some popular meme, whether it is "mane streem", or hipster (edited)
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 01 Apr 2017 04:53

http://scathingaccuracy.com/oh-god-how- ... 2459379334

lol baby wrote:After lambasting various awesome franchises for releasing new and improved versions over the years, here you are praising Dark Souls 3, the latest in one of the most repetitive series ever. And still playing exactly the same JRPG over and over again with a few name and some minor improvements. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is moving on to the exploration of amazing open WORLDS while you fiddle with your little JRPG games. Reading your views on anything more complex than a JRPG is like listening to a 6 year old reviewing a 500 page novel. Is that too much scathing accuracy for you?


lol baby wrote:My comment on your article moaning about 2015 was deleted. Maybe the comment system swallowed it. As for "praise", you know exactly what I mean. The Souls series is as samey as Call of Duty, which you love to shit on. lol @ "build possibilities" and weapons, like I care about tweaking some stat numbers or a sword that swings slightly differently. Mind you, I like both series and am grateful for all the effort that goes into improving them as the years wear on.

"The Internet is awesome". Don't want comments from random people? Don't put in a comments section. What's funny is how you try to shit on my life for taking your site seriously and leaving a few comments (which if you were smart, you would listen to), without considering the implications for your own life, having wasted countless hours building the thing in the first place.

It blows my mind how you can pour all this time into this blog, and not bother to put a decent header up. Not bother to think about what topics you are and aren't good at writing about. And when someone criticizes you for slandering good games, you try to shit on them. lol? Why bother putting up reviews if people aren't meant to read and consider them? This "troll" bullshit seems to be your defense mechanism when subjected to criticism. How about improving your site instead?

You guys obviously have a passion for JRPGs and I hope the site will improve. I will continue reading it for the JRPG stuff. But you're embarrassing yourselves trying to review games in genres you don't understand and don't like. What will be next? The Scathing Accuracy review of the next Total War game? "Rating: F! How am I meant to control all these characters?? Character development for the characters was awful! No build options for individual characters!"


lol baby wrote:There is no way I am reading all that. Look at all the pissing and moaning about my "argument", and you lack even the slightest concision. Jesus. And if open worlds aren't your thing, maybe you should stop reviewing them.

I don't expect your scores for Dark Souls and Call of Duty to be directly comparable. But the two series can most definitely be compared, and your tremendous negativity toward Call of Duty, Witcher, and many other series can also be compared with your praise and positivity toward not just individual series, but whole categories of games. Such as your contempt for and misunderstanding of open world games. Not that I expect you to understand even a word of what I just said. I can already see you reading this, launching off on your little keyboard with complaints about "logic" and "argument", things which you know exactly jack shit about. But then this sort of lack of self-knowledge is a repeating pattern for you, isn't it?

I mean, how much simpler could the "logic" of my "argument" be? Your taste in games fucking sucks. Open worlds are awesome, and no normal person would rather fart around with little JRPG bullshit explore a WORLD. Imagine if someone from NASA came up to you and said "Shepton, we've discovered a portal to an mysterious alien world, and we're going to help YOU explore it!" If you'd rather stay at home with your stupid JRPGs no "logic" or "argument" is going to change your mind, because it comes down to you lacking a sense of adventure. And you lack a sense for many things that are necessary to enjoy half the games you shit on. But that doesn't seem to stop you from trying to review them.


lol baby wrote:Maybe you should write a review of the new NASA mission to mars. "BORING. Too scary. I'd rather stay at home masturbating. D-"


lol baby wrote:I don't begrudge you your little blog. But if you're going to shit on an entire class of amazing games, games that are much cooler than the boring shit you're into, you should expect someone to pop by occasionally and call you a fucking insect.


R wrote:can you explain why are open world games "cool"?


lol baby wrote:Jesus.. Because they are WORLDS. How hard is this to understand? But if you prefer restricted, closed little "levels" to worlds, all that does is confirm to me that you are mentally deficient and no amount of conversation will ever change your mind. But the SA guys could at least refrain from slandering the fuck out of these games, as they seem to do with, e.g. strategy games. But at this point I'd be happy if they just put up a nicer header and theme. Baby steps..


lol baby wrote:What good is space (take THAT nasa)? What good are deserts? What good are oceans? Travel is "content", as you call it. Yes, if the world SUCKS, or is ugly to look at, etc, then the game is going to suck. And open worlds are much harder to get right than highly restricted levels. But in general the worlds don't suck, they're not ugly, and they're full of interesting things to do. And even if they weren't, all it would mean is that they're in an embryonic stage, and that further development and more resources are needed to bring them up to scratch. This really is as dumb as someone complaining in the 1990's about early 3D games being unpolished compared with 2D games. Yes, but it's fucking 3D! I can still remember when the whole idea was novel, and I did not stop to worry about a few tiny details. I wanted to venture off into these 3D spaces at once! Likewise, I see a tantalizing horizon of adventure in front of me when I start up an open world game.


lol baby wrote:@S.A. Renegade

I didn't intend to say that you piss on strategy games. I probably wrote something ambiguous somewhere that you've latched onto - whatever. What you do with strategy games is.. not write about them, as you say. And that's what you should do with open world games (and some others).

I am not going to delve into the scores you gave to particular Call of Duty games, because the point is not about Call of Duty specifically. It is about your negativity toward series that are outside your specific corner of games. In the case of strategy games, they are far enough outside your range that you don't talk about them at all. But the ones on the very edge, like Witcher 3, are just close enough to your areas of interest to moan about, but not close enough for you to have anything intelligent to say.

You've somehow gone from me extolling the wonders of space and oceanic exploration to me wanting games to be like real life, which I never said, nor would I. And you don't "do nothing" while travelling in open world games, and aside from the obvious aesthetic treats there are some ingenious measures taken to make travels more interesting, e.g. spontaneous events happening on the side of the road that you can participate in. Things like this are only going to get better.

The value of "open world" games was immediately apparent starting with the free-roaming RPGs and MUDs going back well before the original GTA, and was certainly obvious when GTA III came out. The fact that you STILL can't see it is a reflection on you, and not on the hard work of the developers who are putting these games out. You say open world negatively affects games, because you're walking around these games bent over with your nose planted right on the ground, sniffing out the most insignificant details. And it is natural that when instituting an improvement that cuts across the entire game (graphics, sound, world size) that the game is harder to get right across the board. You would have been quite at home moaning about the waning popularity of text adventures.


lol baby wrote:I don't like Fallout, so your entire commentary there is wasted. And from what I've seen, there are no aesthetic delights in that game to enjoy anyway. Elder Scrolls is a little better overall, but I'm not overly fond of it either. And I'm not talking about these two specific series or even open world RPGs, I'm talking about open world games in general. I am not criticizing you or Renegade for shitting on Bethesda games (as you're now trying to morph the argument into), I'm criticizing you for shitting on open world as a category, and in general developers are not simply "following Bethesda's example", but rather moving their games into this category across the board with varying results.

To give you an idea of how bad things are on this site, consider Renegade's Witcher 3 review:

All of the best games I've played have been with really low levels of complexity and extremely low hardware requirements. For example, the Danganronpa series are extremely simple with very low hardware requirements and yet are INFINITELY better than this piece of shit.


That's how dumb this site is. So dumb that a cutting-edge action RPG set in an incredibly detailed world that you're free to roam as you please, is compared unfavorably with a visual novel on the PSP. Later in the review, Renegade praises the shitty card game that's embedded into Witcher 3. And even if all this toward Witcher 3 were warranted, it still wouldn't excuse the disgusting slander of open world games as a category.


lol baby wrote:Yes it is absolutely true - for you - but it is not true for the rest of the human race, let alone anyone who's been playing games for decades and has a broad appreciation for different genres. You have a narrow range of interests, which is why there are exactly ZERO strategy game reviews on this site. FUCKING ZERO. It ought to be easy to see that the problem lies with you and not with the games. It's as though you've had your IQ tested, come up at 80 but keep insisting that books and education are useless, because you failed to get anything useful out of them. But evidently you don't even have enough residual intelligence to glimpse just a little into the world of perception that's beyond you and stop talking shit about it.

It's true that cutting edge technology doesn't necessarily make for a great game, since there are a great many other requirements that also come into play during development. Likewise a cutting edge race car necessarily make for a race win, because the driver has to do many other things that aren't guaranteed in order to utilize the car to his advantage. But the games you cite aren't examples of a failure to utilize the technology - they are in fact examples of cutting edge utilization of cutting edge technology. The fact that you aren't capable of riding these twin edges is your own personal issue.

The fact that you agree with Shepton doesn't move me. Retardation combine to make intelligence. And your views are retarded. "It adds nothing valuable to a game". Except the ability to explore an expansive world rather than a few rooms and hallways. But forget about all that - what you really need is a game that simulates the experience of being a rat in sewer. It must have been like Christmas when you got up to the Depths in Dark Souls, with its tunnels full of slime balls and rat shit.

And in any case, you're getting all tied up and confused by the specifics. The general point is that you talk bullshit on this site about things you don't know anything about, and the open world thing is just one instance of this repeating pattern. You didn't play half the games that came out last year. So what business do you have putting together a list to show how shit 2015 was? We already know you don't play any strategy games, so you are immediately disqualified from writing such a thing, let alone all the other games you either didn't play or are too dumb to appreciate.

In any case, it's pretty obvious you're never going to "get it". Oh well. But what offends me even more than this is your site header and theme. Your site theme appears to be "homework". Boring.. Instead of wasting 200 hours on the next open world game that you're just going to piss on in the end anyway, maybe you could spend some time in Photoshop and make your site look a bit nicer.


lol baby wrote:lol "retardation combine to make intelligence". you get the idea


lol baby wrote:Even if I point out to you now, in this sentence, that I all I've said over and over is "stop talking about games you don't understand", you'll still find some stupid way to misinterpret it, as in the post above where you say that I "only want to hear opinions that match your own", which is not only something ENTIRELY different, but not in the least bit true. Rather like a pot smoking homeopath being schooled by someone with some real medical knowledge, and then turning around sand declaring "you're just not open to other opinions, man!" That's what you sound like.

The fact that you're so desperate to discredit me, first as a "troll" second as someone who's "hurt" just underscores your contempt for your own site. Every post you make is increasingly desperate, while my posts have been building and building, getting more and more pointed every time I hit the enter key. But again, this is your defense mechanism; you're shown how dumb you are, and so your brain - with such speed that you don't even notice it yourself - concocts something retarded about ME, a random poster on your site. That's how little you care about this site, and how much contempt you have for the whole business of reviewing games.

I'm focusing on Witcher 3 because it's the clearest SINGLE example, and it typifies your reviews in general. It is therefore the best game to discuss in order to make the GENERAL point I'm trying to make. But you're so utterly retarded that you can't even glean that much from what I've been saying. lol! And my last post was probably the longest in the thread. But this is how your mind works - pick up on some observation, then try to explain it without even the slightest thought for the processes leading to the observation. So you observe that you don't like open world games, and you jump straight from that to "open world sucks", without bothering to think for even a second about the processes leading up to this feeling in yourself.

I mean just about everything you've said here is patently untrue. Like that I'm "ignorant" and that I don't understand that different people have different tastes. In fact, YOU are ignorant, because you think - incorrectly - that a difference in tastes validates retardation. My "taste" is for reviews written by people who have an understanding of the games they're reviewing, and in that respect - and it would fill you with shame if you were smart enough to figure this out - Kotaku, IGN etc are BETTER than your shitty site for anything other than JRPGs, etc. But you're not even smart enough to know how poorly you've performed in this conversation. And so your site will suck until the end of time.


lol baby wrote:You're so dumb that you perceive me as "moving the goal posts" and so on, when I've said exactly the same thing over and over. Namely, "don't talk about games you don't understand" and "you don't understand open world games" and "you have narrow interests that prevent you from saying anything worthwhile on many topics". But that's what happens when you're a two dimensional imbecile. Perhaps you're familiar with the concept of projection from mathematics (I'm guessing: no). But to try to squeeze a bit of this idea into your tiny brain, imagine that you're looking at a shadow cast onto some paper by some objects moving around. The shapes will appear to be constantly morphing! Merging together then splitting apart on the paper. That's what your brain is - a sheet of paper. I am working out in the air in three dimensions, which as a two dimensional being, BAFFLES you to the point where you can't even understand the common thread when it's pointed out to you explicitly, in QUOTES. LOL.

I actually quite like your posting style, because it's a funny pastiche of argumentation. You've got everything in here "arguments", "logic", "goal posts", "pre-conceptions", "main stream". lol. Did you get any sort of real education growing up? It's like learning to be a detective from a TV show, except the Internet is your TV show so it's even worse.


lol baby wrote:Also the whole thing of "goal posts" is very revealing, like you see what I'm saying not as something to try to learn from and use to improve your site, like a real writer would, but rather as a structure in which to search for vulnerabilities so that you can't catch me out and make me disappear. Which in the end is because you don't want to hear alternative view points - funnily, exactly the same thing that you accuse me of, when I have heard your view point, understood it and taken what I can from it, and then and only then, have I gone in to criticize you. Whereas you haven't learned a single thing from what I've said, primarily because you're a dummy.


lol baby wrote:Jesus, I need an edit button. "can catch me out", obviously..


lol baby wrote:lol? It's not fun because it's tiring coming up with endless ways to deny your total failure here. The magnitude of your ignorance is that you can accuse me of "using big words" - buddy, I know logic. I've studied it, written real logical proofs, etc. You don't know shit about logic. I've also studied fallacies, etc. You don't know shit about them. And here you are parroting these words, and then you're so dumb that you think I'M trying to use big words. trolololol!!

And now you've managed to bring "rights" into the picture, as if your right to be an utter pinhead were ever in question. Rights aren't even on the table for discussion. If you want to be a pinhead with a joke of a fucking site, that is your right! But I know that's not true, because if it were all a big joke you wouldn't be here pleading for your rights. Rather, you'd be laughing along with me at the stupidity of some of your reviews.

It really is as simple as this: your site has some nice content, mostly about JRPGs. The site would be much better if you deleted everything else and put up a decent site header. But your attitude and "right" as you say, is to use it as a toilet for your frustration at being left in the dust while the industry speeds off into the future.


lol baby wrote:I mean, you step to me with your wikipedia knowledge of logic, and then you tell ME I'm trying to sound big. Utter, two dimensional fucking imbecile!


lol baby wrote:"logical fallacies". ahahaha. Again, do you have any sort of education in this area? I can tell you don't. Unfortunately, you're talking to someone who IS educated on logic etc, which is why I haven't mentioned it once in this entire conversation save to ridicule your own retarded efforts. Precisely because to me, logic is a specific mathematical instrument to be used for the CORRECT purposes, not a mere label to be leaned on in a stupid Internet debate. Like every other Internet imbecile, you don't even know what the word "fallacy" means, nor can you identify "circular reasoning" correctly. I suppose in whatever shit corner of the world you come from, striding out with your chest up spouting bullshit about "mah logic" suffices to look intelligent. Not with me.

Making fun of idiots it fun. Why would I not come back here? I don't need an "excuse" to do something fun. As for Renegade's bio, that is your final refuge: to pretend it was all a big joke! The whole site is just a big joke! lol! But that is just another defense mechanism on your part, a get-out clause that you can point to after you've been exposed, then return later and spit more vitriol.


lol baby wrote:Yes, the approach to loot sucks, and Dark Souls is a better model there, as there is always the tantalizing prospect of that sweet bit of treasure hiding in some hidden corner. But the fact that open world games are doing some of these details poorly is nothing to get hung up on. Dark Souls has an inferior combat system to Devil May Cry. So what? The fact that you describe the worlds as "empty" is telling. Witcher 3 is not empty, it is rich with the most lively detail, apparently invisible to you.

"Actual reasons". As opposed to what? Virtual reasons? I don't need an excuse, I just need a world, or - in the case of "levels" - a scenario, and loot is a small part of that. As is travelling across vast distances full of beautiful scenery (what you call "empty"). Maybe even a bigger part.


lol baby wrote:Your insight into your site's problems are so poor that you severely misread my comment. Then you misattribute your own misinterpretation to reading comprehension issues on my end. For example:

"Anyway. If you actually had much reading comprehension you'd realize both of us consistently make the point that if a thing is GOOD, repeat it. If a thing is NOT GOOD, stop repeating it. Simple enough for you?"

I do realize this (the fact that you misjudged this should give you pause, but it won't, because you're dumb). What you don't realize, is that your idea of what's "GOOD" or "NOT GOOD" sucks. As in, when you say open world games suck, you look like an utter philistine. As in, when you piss on Call of Duty and praise shitty "interactive novels", you sound like a 16 year old Japanese girl. That's the entire point of the previous comment. But you are too dumb to glean the point, and so you're too unable to render a response that rises above the level of hair splitting.

I know you don't have the balls to face up to your utter failure here, so let's see your next flailing attempt to make me look stupid. But there is a little hope that privately you will find a way to rationalize the whole situation away while still absorbing some of the information I'm sending you here. And in that way you might be able to improve the site without upsetting yourself. That is why I am commenting here.


Jack wrote:Looks like the rumors of Icycalm's death were greatly exaggerated.


Shepton wrote:Hahaha, holy shit, icycalm! I forgot about that guy. But I feel like icycalm wasn't as insecure as this guy.


lol baby wrote:"Look how secure and unshakable I am!". And yet, you have spent as much time in this thread as I have, while simultaneously putting less effort into trying to improve the site as me. And then you try to play it off as a big joke, like all insecure idiots on the Internet do. Your entire effort here is a defense of your withered ego. Look at the "secure" man spouting big words like "fallacy" that he doesn't even understand. And then accusing me of using big words. It's only possible to behave this way if you are either (a) intensely stupid, or (b) adept at self-delusion, like all deeply insecure people are. The fact that you bluster about security in the most superficial way is just further evidence that this is true.

Further, because you're a base moron, you misinterpret my enthusiasm for your site and desire to improve it through your own personality, in which all things are in fact done for reasons of insecurity, when in fact I'd happily take a hit to my self esteem and image if it meant improving the site. You're quite simply an execrable person, and like all execrable people, you're wont to see OTHERS as execrable because you're so weak you'd kill yourself if you ever figured out how poorly you fare in comparison to others. It's rather like people who say it's a sign of "insecurity" to want nice clothes, cars, looks, etc. And in a sense it is. But the people who say this are a thousand times more insecure, precisely because they don't have these things, and they are driven to the point where they have to malign people who do.


Jack wrote:His writing style, particularly his putdowns, are quite similar to Icy's, along with his evangelizing of open-world games, his claims of being educated and his repeated use of "lol".

At any rate, there were rumors circulating on the 4chins that Icycalm died in a car crash because of the lack of updates in insomnia and orgyofthewill. The main page in insomnia.ac in particular is filled with broken code.


lol baby wrote:"Claims" of being educated? Do you want to give me a test, moron? I only brought it up because this imbecile tried to do exactly the same thing, but in a slimy, hypocritical manner by using words like "fallacy" that he doesn't understand. That's how educated people behave - they're not trying to bring it into everything because they don't view it as impressive, nor are they incredulous when someone else claims to be, because they're used to be surrounded by people who are educated. Whereas uneducated people "name drop" big words into conversations, and are incredulous that someone else is educated, because their environment teaches them that it's rare. Even after Shepton's pretentious bullshit I'm a little ashamed to bring it up, because being moderately educated, I know just how much MORE educated some other people are. But as far as "logic" goes, Shepton is an utter fool talking to someone with a real education in the matter, and he should probably shut the fuck up.


lol baby wrote:I'd also like to tone the insults down after my initial post, but Shepton is being such a mendacious little turd that I have to respond this way.


Jack wrote:So when are you going to update insomnia.ac?


lol baby wrote:I'm not icy. And he often takes long breaks from writing, so don't get your panties in a twist just yet.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands


Return to Theory

cron