f13.net

Yay!  Because at least one site in the Diaspora has to be an outlet for those days when we aren't bile-filled anger-mongering cynics...

www.grimwell.com

1. I don't need backhanded compliments insults on zee birthday weekend.
2. I'm SHOCKED Gamergod didn't work out. Truly.
3. You know what you did wrong, it's why you put it in useless news.
4. Denned.

Edit: To elaborate on #1. If you think the problem is the bile-filled anger-mongering, how about you stop being a bile-filled political trolling anger-mongering cockholster and contribute in a positive fashion. The difference between Grimwell and us isn't the anger, it's the fact they would have enjoyed 70 pages of Star Wars back and forth about the exact same design issues while we think it's INSANE.

Edit 2: Scratch that, no reason to den this. Grimwell is back, he found out the harsh realities of a gaming journalist on someone else's payroll selling out to a website that was possibly in all likelyhood less popular than his own blog. Despite his frontpage post not saying EVERYTHING (he knows it, I know it, it's not like it takes a detective to figure it out). Then there's also the fact Gamergod was never about the games. It was about the money. Hiring legit people was buying credibility in the eyes of Gamergod. Unfortunately it makes everyone involved worse off. It's a small industry, I've said it before, and it's certainly not a clean one. There's more dirty journalists in the gaming rag industry than there are dirty cops in New York (hell, all of America).

Wait, are you saying that most New York police officers are corrupt? 

I'm just saying there's a lot of cops in New York. Exponentially more cops than there are actual gaming journalists at least.

And until you know the facts, everything you posted is sheer speculation, Schild.

But you others won't ever know all the facts, so speculate away.

Oh, and about #1, it's about the atmosphere and culture of the board and it's posters.  Whether or not F13 thinks long back-and-forth conversations about game design is insane or not, it's about how newcomers to the boards are treated.  Or how someone who doesn't fall into the right posting style is treated and responded to.  There isn't a "welcoming" feeling to new posters unless they just slide in under the radar after lurking for ages.  For example, look at how anyone who dares to post a "Hi! I'm new here" thread is treated, unless you're Signe and doing it as an "inside joke" sort of thing.  There are almost too many inside jokes going on, and yes, vitriol is spilled most of the time.

I can agree that F13 has some of its own rules of etiquette, and some of its own... let's call it "insider vernacular".  Those are bars to entry, sure.

But I am SHOCKED, SHOCKED that you would call us unfriendly.  Okay, not THAT shocked, but I haven't watched anyone being outright rude/mean to new posters without reason.  Yeah, if you walk in here for the first time and make a post in Game Design/Development titled "I have an idea for a great MMOG!" and the body of the post is something to the effect of "Okay, I don't know how to program or draw anything, and I don't know anyone who does, but I have a really good idea and here it is and don't you think I should be able to walk up to Raph Koster and scream it in his face and have him crumple before me into a weeping mass of unrivaled joy at the genius of my idea?" we're gonna make fun.  On most places on Earth, you'll find yourself the butt of many jokes for naivety that brutal.  Just like people will laugh at you if you say you're going to be a rock star because you can play the first 10-15 seconds of Stairway To Heaven really, really well.  Except that the above example hasn't become the cliche the rock star thing has, because our medium isn't as mainstream as rock... yet.

But I'm fairly certain that there was a non-sarcastic "I'm new" post recently (like... in the past several months recently) that stayed fairly vitriol-free.

But I don't get the "I'm new" posts anyways.  I just started posting after I registered.  Posting an "I'm new" thread is like demanding that they bring the conversation to you, because you can't be bothered to have anything to say about anything already being discussed.  But hey, to each their own.

(Though I'll admit that we were rude to loank.  I mean, he unlock 100 skills.  That deserves respect.)

 :-o  I wasn't criticizing you or this site.  As you said, often I AM a bile-filled troll.  And so are most of the people here.  And most days I enjoy that.  But on some very few days all of us do not enjoy doing that, and its just nice to talk about games in a slightly different atmosphere.  I can't believe that after all this time you're still so touchy- just because someone doesn't want to eat at your restaurant 7 days a week is in no way a knock on what you do.  I like this site but I also like Grimwell.  

No opinion on Grimwell one way or the other really except to say that problems in gaming journalism are already well known and documented at this point, so this was a bit of a weak start for any sort of a come back.

I guess this means I should start taking this site seriously again.

Llava, I'll grant you the idiocy of the "I'm new" posts.  They are more than a bit useless, but just because someone makes one doesn't mean they should be jump all over and spazzed on.  I didn't mean to imply that F13 was unfriendly, just more like trying to work your way into a special club.  If you haven't read for a while, or are very careful and generic in your posts, you'll drag down the wrath of the posters and mods on you without realizing what you did wrong.

It's an attitude, hard to explain, but like Triforcer said, there are times when I feel like being an utter and total bitch when I reply to something, and if I do, chances are I'd post here.  I wouldn't post anything completely swear word laden on GO, or even at GamerGod for that matter.  It's the ability to read message boards without having to worry about seeing one sentance replies that involve the word "cumguzzlingcockmuncher" in them.  Or anywhere for that matter.  I'm not adverse to swearing, I do my own fair share of it, but it's not condusive to reasoned and well-thought out discussions.

I'm not sure I can explain it any better than that, since it's not exactly a very tanglible thing that I'm trying to explain.  If I didn't like F13 in some way, shape or form, I wouldn't read or (admittedly rarely) post here.

That might be well and good in theory, but in practice there are very very few reasoned and well thought-out discussions. Even less so when it comes to games.

Here's the problem with reasoned and well-thought out discussions on MMOGs. They've all been done. There's nothing new to say. Not until developers take our feedback and fuck up in exciting, new ways. Until then, it's a big circle jerk. It's the reason I have so much trouble reading TN. The only person who ever presents me with new stuff, is Lum, with stuff like the Learn from Lei Fang game. But even then, it's in China and couldn't reasonably exist in the US. So "Discussing" it is a bit of a stretch since it would all be flowery smelling bullshit. It's reasonable that Grimwell is back, there's a place for Grimwell, particularly since Terra Nova doesn't have any forums to speak of. Rhyssa, you can insult us in any way you want, it won't bother me. Because I know, in reality, instead of kicking around the same topics ad nauseum, we demand the new. While at the same time, Grim and Co. were always content with discussing the old. At the end of the day, that just makes us a completely different breed of board.

I'm uncomfortable reading a site that doesn't laugh Geldon straight the hell off their boards.  There's a time and place for all lines of thought, some just require a nifty jacket and padded walls.

If I made in "inside" joke, I wasn't in on it.  It was just my way of mocking the postcount malfunction.  As for the whole Grimwell v F13 thing... I didn't even know there was a "thing."  There might be some "inside" stuff but that sort of thing happens when a group of people have been hanging out together for a long time.  There are insider things that go beyond F13, too... back before WTO... that I don't even get. 

Personally, I don't mind Grimwell.com or introductory posts.  I still remember Schild's, fondly.   I thought Grimwell.com was, except for the 'nice" rule,  pretty much like F13.  The times I popped in to read something, it was mostly populated by names I know.  DarkDryad, Arcadian, Jon Carver, Sky, Darniaq, CmdrSlack....

PS  I  :heart: Geldon.  He's a sweet boy!

Forgot to comment on this earlier. Having met the guy in charge of Gamergod, I have to tell you - you're wrong. This isn't exactly the most complicated mystery to figure out.

Whatever, Schild.  I wasn't trying to insult F13 at all.  If I didn't like reading here, then I wouldn't be here, end of story.

As for F13 "demanding the new" while GO is content to "discuss the old" is pretty damn funny, IMO.  But as I said, whatever.  There is no arguing with you, or even debating a point, because you always know right apparently.

Also, good for you on getting to meet Zeus in person.  At least you never had to listen to him in an online meeting.  So I r teh luser!

I'll just go out there and ask where did Grimwell.com touch us? I can't ever remember visiting the site, nor do I care to.

I had to sit around and be a gracious attendee at the dinner he had with Unknown Player, David Bowman, Marc L from Wish, and a whole rogue's gallery of developers. And after he got drunk I had to hear him vomit the wonderful amounts of money gamergod got and how it was going to be...well, whatever. Point being, It's not a surprise that Gamergod didn't work out. Grimwell is better than that.

On that note, I'm surprised the first post for this wasn't "Grimwell.com is back, movie at 11." I remember when that was on LtM and it caused like 10 pages of shit flinging. And when GBob made that "If saying all this means fuck you, then yes that's what I'm saying" post when he was working for NetDevil (right?) Oh nostalgia how I love you.

WHAMADOODLES!

Actually, it's more like a very special school.

Just like fish. Very special fish. Piranhalike.

Does that mean I can ride the special bus now?  Does it, huh?  Please!

Ah, then we both lost.  He was bad enough over Vent, can't imagine the pain in person.

What all the diaspora sites need is more people.  Or at least each other, but I guess that'll never happen.   :heartbreak:  We could be a little more welcoming here.  Perhaps some new blood would actually have something new to say?  OK, that's unlikely, but perhaps they'd at least regurgitate the same crap we've been spewing for five years in a slightly different pattern.

The trouble with that is the games haven't changed.

So it would be new people saying the same things we did 5 years ago.

 :cry: <---baby Jesus

Look what you went and did!!!!!

As far as savaging new posters- anyone who has read a message board in the past decade should know some the etiquette involved...I like to see new faces, but they will be better served being seen and not heard until they understand how things flow here...

 I was scared to death to post at LtM when I first started reading it. I eventually figured out how to jump into the flow without A) drawing undue attention to myself, and B) sounding like a total dumbass. Unfortunately for the rest of you I have  become comfortable enough to write whatever the hell is on my mind by now  :-D

I do the same thing in any new community I join. Lurk, learn, and finally lash out. 3 L's to live by!

As for Grimwell- meh. He is a good guy and he loves games, but I never found his commentary so fascinating that I had to search it out to read it. Except for the infamous 'For the Children' rant, which I chalk up to a lapse in his medication or something. Sorry things didn't work out for him at GG. Wish he would post here, but sounds like that ain't gonna happen.

I'm just not convinced that we're that mean to newcomers.

As long as their "I'm new" post isn't brutally stupid (like it being an "I'm new.... and I have this awesome idea for a MMG that I'm going to make  that will sell more than WoW!!" post) I've seen most people here being quite friendly about the whole thing.

Of course, a couple people will jump in with the tongue-in-cheek lashing out, but generally they follow that up with a "just kidding, welcome" of some sort.

<shrug>

I don't think we're as mean as we think we are.  We just like to pretend like we are.  Except Shockeye- he's really that mean.

We eat our own young.

Cool beans.

 :hello_kitty:

I just realized just now that this is not Schild's MySpace page, I take back everything I have posted. Sorry to have troubled you.

I want to see!

I think you're alone on that one.

I like hockey.  Some people like figure skating.  Some people like Smurfs on ice.  /discuss

I feel like somebody removed the real start of this post, what the fuck happened here?

My thoughts:

1.  Not counting Shockeye, people just treat newbs the same way they are treated on every internet forum.  If you try to just jump onto a board and comment your going to take a bunch of shit for having a low postcount.  F13 members don't judge based on postcount (although I've been trying to buy respect that way) but they do like to fuck with anyone whose first post is a new topic.  That is not new, welcome to the internet.

2.  This Grimwell guy is a moron, did any of you actually read that stationpass review thing?  He said something along the lines of SWG has made great improvements and is an awesome game if only it wasn't called StarWars.  He's like the Satan to f13's Jesus, I for one hate him. 

Or something, I hate it when I feel like I've missed a good thread.

Yeah, you fuckers chased thejeni away when all she wanted to do was give us the gift of a website that gets us in touch with all our old MMO friends.  It would have ushererd in a new age of love and understanding you guys threw it all away.

Grimwell didn't write the station pass review.  At least have the decency to check the author before calling someone a moron.

:crying_panda:

He should have the decency not to let a review that is that retarded be associated with his name then, isn't it enough I read half of something that stupid?

I don't know if I've seen any new posters shit on for no good reason. The only one there was ever any debate over was the guy who insisted on using an elaborate system of color text and italics to quote people and respond as opposed to the quote functions which were there for a reason.

The rest were mostly the trolls who came to the SWG thread.

As for Grimwell, I know nothing of the pre-F13 drama nor do I know anything about Grimwell. Thus I could not fucking care in the least. You people take this internet shit very seriously.

Besides Mr. Grimwell, I can see almost everyone there over here and it saves me a walk across the interwebs.

Walking is good for you; it'll burn off some of the extra sass.

Then this thread should make you feel just fine.


You've obviously never read anything Geldon has put up then. Avail thyself now, take a shower and come back.

EDIT: Yes I've been pwned by the quote function.

I don't know - if we all thought the same - the world would be a pretty uninteresting place.

I have no problem with different thoughts. I just want to read them without wanting to stab the author in the face for being a stupid assmonkey.

God damn I'm having a hard time this morning (need coffee or something) but are you saying that I'm right or stupid and should read more crap by the guy who said:


I'm thinking this was right after the CU, but I really couldn't give a fuck when it was exactly on the timeline of ass. Perhaps saying this Grimwell guy is a tool for letting that type of shit get posted on his site is taking it too far.  But I'm fairly certain if you folks ever gave out a bluename for something that stupid and put it on the front page I'd say the same thing about you guys (except Shockeye because he scares me).

Oh, I don't know... if we all thought the same as I do, it would intensely fun, in my opinion.  Well, we might have to have a designated driver. 

(http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/assimilate.gif)

I guess I'm not seeing where the author is killing babies in this piece. They indicate the game is improved, caveat it with 20 hours, talk about some new systems, then talk about the new combat being better but not that involving.

Perhaps you can show me on this Darth Vader doll where the dev team touched you....

It was on his lightsaber, of course.

I would like to point out that I'm not that scary. In fact, compared to someone like koboshi I'm downright sweet.

Best opinion piece ever posted to Grimwell (http://www.grimwell.com/index.php?action=fullnews&id=262). :roflcopter:

Hey now, that got mainpage slashdotted if I remember correctly.

There are a significant number of MMOG players who want(ed) WoW to fail.
Coincidentally, a lot of them can be found on the Vanguard board nowadays.

I wanted WoW to fail and you will not find me among the poopsock color guard flocking to Vanguard. 

Ohh! new topics to discuss! ok. Apparently, John Carmack 'hates' to do multithreading because it is hard. Further, WoW dies a hideous death when presented with the technical challenge of operating in a threadsafe manner on a dual core machine. in fact, a large number of recent releases require the user to undergo hoop-jumping by forcing the game to only execute on one processor in a multi-processor environment.

Discuss.

Or not.

Whatever really.

You ever get that deja vu feeling something is missing?

Speaking of Geld, he did have one of the all time best "Im taking my ball and going home" threads ever. I still chuckle thinking about it. Specially when he came back 10 days later.

Whatever happened to Stray?

[EDIT] I guess his New Years Resolution was to never come back: Last Active:  December 31, 2005, 11:11:28 PM

Or he died.

I miss Stray.   :heartbreak:  I think he left because of mean people.  (not me)  :cry: 

I think that thread about the Exorcism of Emily Rose or whatever finally drove him away.  Signe is right.  You guys were mean to him.

I think he sold his computer to fund his growing meth addiction.

Here's my opinion on Stray. He had 4500+ posts. Meanness should not have driven him away. Also, he was very good at taking positions in discussion he knew would get argued about. He didn't troll, per se, and I liked him more than most. But when the arguing happened, he got discouraged. The Emily Rose thread drove him nuts. He doesn't have the thick skin Paelos has about his religion. He was the "my religion found me" type and not the other way around. His leaving was inevitable as many here will laugh when you say you believe in the unbelievable.

In other words, where Paelos shows strength, Stray showed weakness.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=5450.msg144184#msg144184

I went back and looked, now I sort of feel bad I liked Stray, I just thought he came completely out of right field with that whole swine comment.

Was his sig always in Latin?  Also do we want to know what it translates to?

Some things bother me. Then I remember this is the internet. You argue something until you see it's become a namecalling/symantics/trolling show, THEN YOU WALK AWAY.

Also, what is the "my religion found me" type? Is that like a Road To Damascus kind of convert?

People who get out of horrible times often use "I found religion" as their reason for outgrowing their shitty past. Instituionalized prisoners, near-death drug addled miscreants, etc.. They'd like to use something less rational to rationalize their irrationalities. Using religion as a reason for maturing into a proper citizen always seemed like a step towards madness. In other words, religion found him. Not the other way around.

Wow, that's a lot of psychobabble. In short, people don't find religion. Religion finds them. Lost/Confused souls and whatnot.

Looked at that thread again-

Wow, did he ever snap.  It didn't even get heated, relatively speaking.

Here's a piece of fiction with a spirit communicating online and being sucked back into the void mid-post... The similarities are uncanny.

"Very nice, Ichmail.  Play the martyr, the poor tortured soul who's just doing what he has to do.  You may be able to pull it off for a while, but you don't fool me.  I know, you see.  I know.  Every soul that's everbeen lost to the Void screams inside my head, and I know.  I've heard the whispers about what's coming next and your part in it, how you'll set the fires to burn  the world away and wear coats made of human skin.  I know where the thousand embers are dispersed, and the name of the path tha tyou walk.  I even know your name, Hideo Masaka, and your mother's ghost tells me what you did to her.  I'll take your secrets and shout them to the winds, and if that's not enough, I'll write them on the sleeping minds of children. I'll DAMN DAMN DAMN THE BITCH IS DEAD THE BITCH IS DEAD IT'S PULLING ME BACK TO THE OTHER SIDE NO NO NO I WILL NOT GO EGO NON IBO HORA IGNIS VENIET ET IMPERATOR REGIONES INFERNI IPSUM OSTENDET.  AS CRIANCAS GEMEAS-SOULEDO DOJADELEVANTARAM-SEDE SUAS SEPULTURAS... Later, this place is impossible. A guy can't even talk about a movie without getting jumped on. Have your fun, I guess."






(Okay, the last part wasn't really there, but I got tired of typing in Latin.)

My Latin is shitty, but I read it as:  I am lost to oblivion, as though I am become dead of spirit.  A broken vessel, as it were.

Never mind, Google for the win: (http://scripturetext.com/psalms/31-12.htm)
I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.

I like your version better though.

Doesn't make much of a selling point to stay.

Well it's kind of hard to "find" something that's been around for millenia. That and where you are born on this Earth as well as your family situation also has something to do with it. So yeah, "religion" does find people in the beginning of their lives. I would argue though that later in life when you've run the gambit of experiences the roles might reverse. That's neither here nor there. God's always there, it's up to you to finally start listening.

I do miss Stray.  Actually a few weeks ago I was wondering about him, and then forgot.  I dunno, you are all internet people. 

God left. If we were your greatest achievement, wouldn't you?

I'd rid the universe of you all. That's just me though.

To rerail this:

The essay itself was kind of boring. Been there, done that.

The interesting thing is that the last time someone made some noise about how game journalists consider themselves part of the industry, Gamespot ran a response. Their response, in a nutshell:

"We ARE part of the games industry!"

They thought they were part of it, and naturally didn't see why that is a bad thing.

Fucking hell. He referenced Bruce's chart. That should have been the first goddamn clue he had NO IDEA WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT.

Geld was nice at first, then he lost his mind along with his job, apparently. Stray lost his mind somewhere, I'm just not sure where or why. But there's lots of things outside of the Interweb that can contribute to meltdowns on the Interweb.

Do you have a link to that Gamespot response? Because, you know, that sounds like it's worth a huge laugh.

Can't we PLEASE have the Gulag back??

(gamut)

This just in, I don't care.

It was one of their essays of the day. It ran about the same time as the piece on 1up blasting game journalists, maybe 2 months ago?

And if we had the gulag, you wouldn't even have to know that I corrected you!