Much harder. Do you know what part of your leg you'd need to shock to make it move up instead of down? It's easier to program an artificial limb to move since you built the damn thing and know exactly what signals make it do what.
Remember that so far this technology is output only. Brain to computer, not vice versa. You might be able to throw out your keyboard and mouse, but you'd still need a monitor (for now, at least).
Why cant they just connect the brain to the legs and get the guy moving?
That's the desired end result, I believe. However, it's not that simple. You need to figure out which part of the brain actually does the moving, which signal does what. Then you have to figure out which part of the leg to stimulate to make it move. Amputees would probably be easier to help than parapalegics, because when you make them an artificial arm or leg you know exactly how that limb works (the trick is telling it to move as easily as your natural limb). And in the future if this technology actually works there will probably be no physical connection between your brain and the paralized/artificial limb because to run wires through your body is uneccesary surgery and to run wires outside the body is unsightly. The connection will probably be wireless, though this opens up security issues (what happens if two parapalegics who have similar frequencies walk too close to each other... will one be able to move the other's leg if the interference is just right?)
We don't share your stereotypes about our nation. We don't even find them funny.
I'm sure you Brits have stereotypes about Americans that aren't remotely true. We all find reasons to laugh at each other. Life would be so boring if we didn't.;)
--from a gal who never really got the joke with Austin Powers' teeth until now...
"The joke, at least in the original Metroid, is the player's assumption throughout the game that Samus is a man."
Alright, but who do we blame for that? Nintendo or the presumptive gamer?
Society. We're getting better, but the attitude of American society is that someone is male until assumed otherwise. When somebody hangs up the phone you'll be more likely to ask "What did he say?" rather than "What did she say?" if you didn't know the gender of the person on the other line. Same with if you're driving and can't see the driver of the other car you will often refer to that driver as "he" (unless the car looks obviously female). When we refer to a group of mixed gender we often use the term "guys" even though there are gals present (heck, I refer to groups of women as "you guys"). It's a function of the language, actually. English itself is gender biased. According to English grammar, you're supposed to use the term "he" if you don't know the gender. Thus Samus was always unconsciously referred to as "he" by the player until the secret is revealed. I think Nintendo should be lauded for making people realize that unconscious bias towards the male gender. Male is the default. If nothing else is specified, assume male. Personally, I don't think this is a terrible thing, but people should be made aware of it. As I said before, we're getting better at recognizing things like this. The term "they" has been unofficially expanded to refer to a single person when the gender is unknown. (So many people today would actually ask, "What did they say?" about the person on the phone, even though the term "they" is plural and there was obviously only one person being referred to.)
Whose fault is it? Nobody's really. It's just the way our culture was brought up. Early in the history of Western culture it was thought that women were malformed men (I believe the theory was they didn't have enough heat to push their genetals outside the body). We just need to be made aware of things like that every once and a while to make us stop and realize that there's no reason why the male should be the default, it's just a stupid tradition that has no basis in reality. Things like Samus' gender are a great way to make us snap to and go "huh?"
You'd be surprised the type of things you can become addicted to. I don't doubt that people can become addicted to television and I don't doubt that shutting it off for a week CAN (not "will") help you stop the addiction. Obviously, not all those who participate will have an actual addiciton (most probably won't), but just because you have an addiction doesn't mean you can't be aware of it or be willing to quit. I think this'll help wake some people up who never realized how much time they spent in front of the television.
All I know is that I used to be addicted to computer games. One year in college at the suggestion of a friend I gave up violent games for lent (read: everything but solitaire, Yahoo! dominoes, etc.). It was only when I noticed symptoms normally equated to withdrawal (restlessness, craving, increased stress) that I thought I might have actually had an addiction. Ever since then I've played less computer games. Shutting them off for that period helped me realize much time I was wasting on games, and though I still play them I don't think it's quite an addiciton anymore. I know now that I can stop any time I want to, and I do stop every once and a while, just to prove it to myself that I'm not addicted. Now, that was computer games, not TV, and it was for a significantly longer period than a month, but I don't doubt that some folks will go through the same experience that I did and will realize that there's better uses of their time than watching a screen all day long.
It's been suggested that standards of beauty are based on economic conditions, that is, when food is scarce, biggger women are considered more attractive. When food is plentiful (like it is here) smaller women are considered attractive.
I think you got that backwards. Otherwise, why would skinny woman be attractive in America, where food is so plentiful that we throw tons away every day, and in Africa (as the grandparent mentioned) where you have to work hard for your bread, so to speak, are fat women attractive? It does sound like a valid explanation, though.
Let me see now... *holds up left hand* believe what a woman says she wants... *holds up right hand* believe what a guy says women want... *weighs the two against each other* Hmm, toughie...;)
I must say too that myself (still living out my childhood @ 30) find myself much more likely to walk down the street wishing i had my sniper scope to shoot folks through bedroom windows (not something i would do though) after playing an FPS than after watching a movie.......
Eh, you may be right, but I feel like (for me at least) the desire to act out movies right after I watch them is the same as the desire to act out games right after I play them. I wanted to leap throught the air and drop-kick people after watching the Matrix, just like I wanted to run along walls and jump over folks after playing Prince of Persia.;)
You know, you're right. Each new medium has been blamed for harming our kids somehow. Your explanation is probably the real answer, but I bet a lot of people use my explanation to excuse this irrational behavior.
I found it very amusing that when I was home for the summer from college a few years ago that my parents would yell at me while I was playing Thief 2 on the computer, but if I sat down and watched TV for hours on end they wouldn't say anything. They weren't actually objecting to the violence of the game (the Thief games put emphasis on not hurting people at all, actually), but rather my lack of socializing. They did have a point that I could have used my time better, but subconsciously they must have been more afraid of video games corrupting me than television. It seems obvious to me that video games that require thought and hand-eye coordination would be less "harmful" than television which doesn't even require hand movement, but I kept track and I only got yelled at while I was on the computer....No, actually, I coded a bit for fun that summer and I could code for hours without hearing a peep from my dad but as soon as I started up Thief he'd get on my case. It was the games specifically that made them yell at me, not the computer.
God, I'm glad I'm not living at home anymore....oh wait, yes I am. Damnit.
I think the reason that video game violence gets more attention than other media violence is because of the way we intereact with video games. Or rather, that we do interact with them, rather than passively watching. A parent concerned about their child and violence will probably be less concerned about their child watching a person murdered in cold blood than about their child actually performing the murder in cold blood, albeit in a virtual sense. In video games, the player is not just watching the violence, but participating. This makes games all the more threatening to folks who feel violent media is a danger. Thus, laws against video game violence get more press than laws against movie or television violence.
I'm as sick of seeing women in pink as much as the next guy, but I didn't realize that actually liking pink is such a black mark against a woman. They can have any favorite color in the spectrum so long as it's not pink?
I think his problem is that he's equating strong female characters with characters acting more male, that men are inherently better and women must act more like men to be better themselves.
You know, that makes me think of something that happened to me a few years ago. I was discussing cars with my family over dinner one night and my father asked me if I still liked the PT Cruiser. I said, "Nah, it's picked up a reputation as a chick car." He looked at me funny and my sister from across the table said, "But you are a chick." (Come as a suprise? Yes, I'm a woman.) I had a small epiphany there at the table. Not that I had just realized that I was a woman, I knew that of course. But I had always been a tomboy. It was a reputation that I was proud of. I loved violent computer games and karate and hated dresses and the color pink. I think I hated being seen as a weak, powerless girl so I always did my best to be "one of the guys". I prided myself on never being a "girly girl". But what suddenly occured to me that day at the table was that I was trying to shirk off my gender completely as if it were something offensive. Why should I be ashamed of being a girl, I asked myself? It wasn't the "girl" part that I was ashamed of, I realized. It was the "weak, powerless" tag that many people often subconsciously add onto it, even by me. Trying to be a guy was like admitting that girls were always weak and powerless and that a girl couldn't stop being weak and powerless without acting like a guy.
Now, I'm still a bit of a tomboy. I still like karate and video games and right now I'm working in the male-dominated computer industry, but I've realized that the color pink isn't too bad and dresses can look nice sometimes (I have, however, still scratched the PT Cruiser off my list of "good" cars but I did seriously consider it, though I found the gas mileage is a crime against both nature and my pocketbook). I've stopped denying that I'm a girl, but that doesn't mean I have to give up that sense of strength and power that being a tomboy gave me. Women don't have to act like guys to better themselves, and this goes for both games and real life.
As a woman, if all other things were equal I'd pick the guy who calls himself a feminist over the guy who doesn't. In fact, I think I'd pick the feminist over the non-feminist even if the non-feminist had a few other "advantages". I've broken up with a guy before because he thought the feminist movement was a piece of crap (well, that wasn't the only reason, but it was a big piece). Not to say that all feminists are great and all non-feminists are assholes, but girls like a guy who undersands them, and in general feminists tend to understand women better (or, at least, they understand feminist women better). On the other hand, if he's doing it only to get laid then he's probably not going to be stepping up to this bat, nevermind crossing home plate.:P
Well, ugly women feel threatened by sexy women. I don't think you'll find many attractive women opposed to this sort of thing. This only reminds ugly women of their shortcomings, however. Have you noticed any hard core feminists that are REALLY hot? Probably not.
I'm going to try and be honest here. I'm not the most attractive woman you'll ever see. I'm certainly not a supermodel, but I'm not overweight or pimply or cursed with a huge nose or one of those other things that might turn a guy off immediately. I suppose you'd say I'm average (and I know some troll is waiting out there to tell me that I must be ugly if I'm not hot, but go ahead and assume I'm dog ugly if you must). I'm not sure I'd say that I feel threatened by sexy women. Obviously if my boyfriend were to leer at a sexy woman I'd be uncomfortable and, yes, I'd feel threatened and jealous, but that's him that's making me feel jealous and competative, not the supermodel. But if my boyfriend isn't making a big deal of it, women on the cover of games generally don't generally feel threatening to me, even if they're much hotter (and they usually are). I'm not jealous of Laura Croft. I don't think about my breast size when I see pictures of big breasted-women. I think that stuff's silly and obviously made to get the male hormones pumping.
It offends me when women are potrayed as sex objects and nothing more, because I don't think you'll find any woman who would rather have a man like her for her looks rather than her personality. Obviously women sometimes like being looked at. We like being attractive, and we do not like being ugly. Anybody would. I don't know any guys would would rather be ugly or average rather than hot. But it's demeaning to be thought about only in terms of your looks. Think about it guys, really seriously think about it. Would you rather have a woman attracted to you have a biceps like the terminator or would you rather have a woman attracted to you because she adores your personality? We all enjoy being admired for our looks, but nothing gives you the same kind of mental high as having somebody admire you for who you are, rather than what you look like. The fact that guys like looking at women is common knowledge, and I don't expect that to change. But when games (and the media at large) are filled with sexy women with the personalities of chia pets it enforces the idea that looks are more important. This is what offends most women.
I started reading the parent and found myself gritting my teeth and planning how to rip him a new one with a scathing reply... then as I read a little farther I realized he was absolutely right.
I'm gonna say this first so nobody gets confused. I am a woman, the rare female geek, and I enjoy computer games immensely so I know something about what I'm talking about. And the parent is "dead on balls accurate," at least where I'm concerned. I won't claim to speak for the rest of my gender, and I'll tag on the disclaimer that I am by no means a mainstream woman, having been "tainted" by geek society. But I am still a woman, and it sounds like you boys need a woman's input here.
Now, I don't know if I can say I like portrayals of sexy woman in games. To be honest, my first instinct is to turn away from a game with a big-breasted chick on the cover. I've never played any of the Tomb Raider series, nor have I felt tempted to. But the parent poster was right when he said that it's not the portrayal of scantily clad, big-breasted women that offends me, it's when these women are portrayed as only scantily clad, big-breasted women. Obviously, it's hard to focus on anything but a woman's appearance when she's just posing on the cover of a game, which is why cover art with sexy women tends to turn me off. For the record, though, I think I know the Laura Croft pose you're talking about, and that doesn't offend me. I wouldn't hang it on my wall, but I wouldn't be ashamed to leave the box in a place where it was visibile if I owned the game. But I expect the woman posing on the wing of the plane for the cover of that flying game mentioned somewhere else in this thread of discussion would offend me (I haven't seen this one, or can't bring it to mind, but I can imagine it).
I just recently finished Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and though the protagonist was male he had a female "sidekick" for parts of the game, Farrah. Being set in medieval Persia, Farrah is somewhat scantily clad (think "I Dream of Genie") and is obviously supposed to be attractive to the average male gamer. Farrah didn't offend me in the slightest. In fact, I love the character. Her personality has quite a bite to it at times, and she's pretty capable of taking care of herself. She's not as strong as the protagonist and can sometimes be more of a hindrance than a help in battle (she likes to stand in one place and shoot her bow, rather than backing off if there's a sand creature too close for comfort), but it's impossible to finish the game without her because her small size allows her to open doors the prince can't reach. She may be the token sex symbol, but the game would have been much different without her and I don't think I would have liked it nearly as much. IMO, Farrah is a good example of a woman portrayed in a way that women gamers would be comfortable with. I remember commenting on this to my sister (who is a die-hard feminist), and her response was, "But the main character's still a guy." I answered, "It's Prince of Persia. It has to be a guy, the main character in PoP has always been a guy." I think my sister would like more female main characters, but I think there are a few already and the fact that my gender's represented at least a little is enough for me. I didn't mind that my avatar in PoP was a guy, and I don't think most women would. Gaming still is a market dominated by men, after all, and I wouldn't expect game designers to start making all the protagonists female all of a sudden just to please the female population.
To sum it up, as a women I'd like to say that the parent was absolutely right. Women don't mind seeing pretty women in games. We mind seeing pretty, mindless women in games who are obviously there just to stimulate male hormones. Giving them realistic personalities takes a little more effort, but it'll go a long way towards making the gaming genre a little more acceptable to the other half of the population.
Re:1 Across : sudden, intuitive realization (8)
on
Those Eureka Moments
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· Score: 2, Funny
Funny, I always associated an epiphany with suddenly realizing something "important", not like word puzzles. Epiphanies are reserved for moments like the time you realized your parents must have had sex at least once. And let me tell you, I did not shout "eurika!" then.;) I guess because I always use this example I feel like epiphanies are bad things.
Heh, whoops I thought the parent was about PoP: Sands of Time, not PoP2. When I finished the game (a few minutes ago) I came back and read the post. Obviously what I thought was a spoiler was not (at least, not for PoP:SoT). Go ahead, laugh. I'm sure you were already (or were really confused).:P
Here's a real SPOILER WARNING (sorta):
. . .
I thought when Farrah read the poetry to the prince in the library about dying in love in order to live was a hint that later in the game I'd have to die in order to win the game. And she follows up the poetry with a comment along the lines of "That's not how this game works," so I thought that it tied in nicely with the article about metagaming/breaking the fourth wall. So I thought I was all smart and had it all figured out when I read the first couple lines of the parent... that is until I finished the game and saw no opportunity to kill myself (other than jumping off of buildings or diving in front of a sand creature's sword, and that obviously didn't do anything helpful for me). It may, however, have been a reference to that part where you have to die in PoP2 that I vaugely remember (I played the game so long ago that I'm not even sure I finished it).
. . .
END SPOILER
Game kicked ass anyway. I may have to play it again... like, tomorrow.;)
*sticks fingers in ears* LALALALLALA! I don't heeear you! Dude! I'm almost done with the game! I wanna do this myself! Don't give it away! Warn me when you're about to give a spoiler! >:P
Though if you're talking about what I think you're talking about (I just read the first couple words of the parent, but DON'T TELL ME) I already figured out I was gonna have to do something like that when she read me the poetry.
Haven't you heard? It's tradition. Goes back thousands of years, probably to the first cave man to wonder why the sun goes down in one place and comes up in another. It's called "creativity". When you don't know the answer, you make it up. It all stems from the desire to know how everything works. I believe the Slashdot population is very familiar with that desire. Most of you have probably taken apart something in your life to see how it works. When you can't take something apart or when taking it apart doesn't reveal the answers, the next logical step is to start making things up to see which makes the most sense. These folks probably don't have degrees in electronics, and taking their exploding appliances apart would do them no good. And when even engineers, who've been trained to understand the hows and whys, can't divine a cause then they move to step two: make it up. Many scientists are guilty of this phenomenon. They call it "theorizing". They simply have more knowledge to build on, so their ideas seem more plausable to educated folks like themselves. But there is still a lot about the natural world that we don't know, and while we can't prove that the devil is setting electronics aflame in this town we also can't prove that he isn't. It's a theory. A very far-fetched theory, but so was relativity, wasn't it?
I'm not saying I believe it, but I don't blame these folks for wanting to know why, and when they don't get answers from the people who know more then them then they have no choice but to theorize. Their problem comes when they assume their theories are facts and refuse to believe the truth when it is finally figured out.
Hey, yeah it's possible to play D&D by yourself. You just have to play all the roles, it's not that hard. It can be a very rewarding experience, especially since you don't have to share the chips and beer and you don't have to worry about anybody else using and contaminating your lucky dice. Of course, you don't have anybody to share the financial burden of all those books with. And it can get damn hard to keep the players from peeking at the adventure books, though I keep trying. But it is easier to convince the DM to allow unusual characters like minotaurs or half-dragons. Usually. God, I remember that one time when I got really pissed off at myself for trying to convince me that an evil paladin could multiclass as an assasin, but I kept saying that paladins couldn't be evil and I didn't see why not and then I started yelling and things kinda got out of hand when somebody started throwing dice. We started a huge fistfight and I tried to pull me off of myself but I just didn't wanna let up because I was being such a prick. I gave myself a black eye and spilled the beer all over the place. Mom didn't like that much, she made me clean it up, though I decided that since I had tried to stop the fight that it wasn't really my fault and so I didn't need to help clean and I almost punched me again. That was around the time she bought me that jacket with the really long arms and the buckles, but that's another story.
On the extreme side a solution might be to just completely erase everything in such games every few months, but that would simply annoy everyone, including mary sues.
If you did that on a Diablo II server I think Mary'd sue.
Yeah, after reading some of the other responses I realized it must have been Spike. Sorry, I don't watch much TV and I certainly don't follow the political shakeups and rebrandings of male-oriented networks.;)
Did this happen around springtime last year, a little before May? I must have tuned in just after the change.
In the original script of Aliens, Ripley was a man. Wanna know what they changed in the script between that version and the one that was actually filmed? Not a thing. They just decided to cast a woman.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Much harder. Do you know what part of your leg you'd need to shock to make it move up instead of down? It's easier to program an artificial limb to move since you built the damn thing and know exactly what signals make it do what.
Remember that so far this technology is output only. Brain to computer, not vice versa. You might be able to throw out your keyboard and mouse, but you'd still need a monitor (for now, at least).
Why cant they just connect the brain to the legs and get the guy moving?
That's the desired end result, I believe. However, it's not that simple. You need to figure out which part of the brain actually does the moving, which signal does what. Then you have to figure out which part of the leg to stimulate to make it move. Amputees would probably be easier to help than parapalegics, because when you make them an artificial arm or leg you know exactly how that limb works (the trick is telling it to move as easily as your natural limb). And in the future if this technology actually works there will probably be no physical connection between your brain and the paralized/artificial limb because to run wires through your body is uneccesary surgery and to run wires outside the body is unsightly. The connection will probably be wireless, though this opens up security issues (what happens if two parapalegics who have similar frequencies walk too close to each other... will one be able to move the other's leg if the interference is just right?)
We don't share your stereotypes about our nation. We don't even find them funny.
I'm sure you Brits have stereotypes about Americans that aren't remotely true. We all find reasons to laugh at each other. Life would be so boring if we didn't. ;)
--from a gal who never really got the joke with Austin Powers' teeth until now...
"The joke, at least in the original Metroid, is the player's assumption throughout the game that Samus is a man."
Alright, but who do we blame for that? Nintendo or the presumptive gamer?
Society. We're getting better, but the attitude of American society is that someone is male until assumed otherwise. When somebody hangs up the phone you'll be more likely to ask "What did he say?" rather than "What did she say?" if you didn't know the gender of the person on the other line. Same with if you're driving and can't see the driver of the other car you will often refer to that driver as "he" (unless the car looks obviously female). When we refer to a group of mixed gender we often use the term "guys" even though there are gals present (heck, I refer to groups of women as "you guys"). It's a function of the language, actually. English itself is gender biased. According to English grammar, you're supposed to use the term "he" if you don't know the gender. Thus Samus was always unconsciously referred to as "he" by the player until the secret is revealed. I think Nintendo should be lauded for making people realize that unconscious bias towards the male gender. Male is the default. If nothing else is specified, assume male. Personally, I don't think this is a terrible thing, but people should be made aware of it. As I said before, we're getting better at recognizing things like this. The term "they" has been unofficially expanded to refer to a single person when the gender is unknown. (So many people today would actually ask, "What did they say?" about the person on the phone, even though the term "they" is plural and there was obviously only one person being referred to.)Whose fault is it? Nobody's really. It's just the way our culture was brought up. Early in the history of Western culture it was thought that women were malformed men (I believe the theory was they didn't have enough heat to push their genetals outside the body). We just need to be made aware of things like that every once and a while to make us stop and realize that there's no reason why the male should be the default, it's just a stupid tradition that has no basis in reality. Things like Samus' gender are a great way to make us snap to and go "huh?"
You'd be surprised the type of things you can become addicted to. I don't doubt that people can become addicted to television and I don't doubt that shutting it off for a week CAN (not "will") help you stop the addiction. Obviously, not all those who participate will have an actual addiciton (most probably won't), but just because you have an addiction doesn't mean you can't be aware of it or be willing to quit. I think this'll help wake some people up who never realized how much time they spent in front of the television.
All I know is that I used to be addicted to computer games. One year in college at the suggestion of a friend I gave up violent games for lent (read: everything but solitaire, Yahoo! dominoes, etc.). It was only when I noticed symptoms normally equated to withdrawal (restlessness, craving, increased stress) that I thought I might have actually had an addiction. Ever since then I've played less computer games. Shutting them off for that period helped me realize much time I was wasting on games, and though I still play them I don't think it's quite an addiciton anymore. I know now that I can stop any time I want to, and I do stop every once and a while, just to prove it to myself that I'm not addicted. Now, that was computer games, not TV, and it was for a significantly longer period than a month, but I don't doubt that some folks will go through the same experience that I did and will realize that there's better uses of their time than watching a screen all day long.
It's been suggested that standards of beauty are based on economic conditions, that is, when food is scarce, biggger women are considered more attractive. When food is plentiful (like it is here) smaller women are considered attractive.
I think you got that backwards. Otherwise, why would skinny woman be attractive in America, where food is so plentiful that we throw tons away every day, and in Africa (as the grandparent mentioned) where you have to work hard for your bread, so to speak, are fat women attractive? It does sound like a valid explanation, though.
Let me see now... *holds up left hand* believe what a woman says she wants... *holds up right hand* believe what a guy says women want... *weighs the two against each other* Hmm, toughie... ;)
I must say too that myself (still living out my childhood @ 30) find myself much more likely to walk down the street wishing i had my sniper scope to shoot folks through bedroom windows (not something i would do though) after playing an FPS than after watching a movie.......
Eh, you may be right, but I feel like (for me at least) the desire to act out movies right after I watch them is the same as the desire to act out games right after I play them. I wanted to leap throught the air and drop-kick people after watching the Matrix, just like I wanted to run along walls and jump over folks after playing Prince of Persia. ;)
You know, you're right. Each new medium has been blamed for harming our kids somehow. Your explanation is probably the real answer, but I bet a lot of people use my explanation to excuse this irrational behavior.
...No, actually, I coded a bit for fun that summer and I could code for hours without hearing a peep from my dad but as soon as I started up Thief he'd get on my case. It was the games specifically that made them yell at me, not the computer.
...oh wait, yes I am. Damnit.
I found it very amusing that when I was home for the summer from college a few years ago that my parents would yell at me while I was playing Thief 2 on the computer, but if I sat down and watched TV for hours on end they wouldn't say anything. They weren't actually objecting to the violence of the game (the Thief games put emphasis on not hurting people at all, actually), but rather my lack of socializing. They did have a point that I could have used my time better, but subconsciously they must have been more afraid of video games corrupting me than television. It seems obvious to me that video games that require thought and hand-eye coordination would be less "harmful" than television which doesn't even require hand movement, but I kept track and I only got yelled at while I was on the computer.
God, I'm glad I'm not living at home anymore.
I didn't say it was the truth, just that it's the way most folks would probably see it. ;)
:)
I don't have kids myself and don't remember things well enough from that age to speak from my own experience, so I'll trust you.
I think the reason that video game violence gets more attention than other media violence is because of the way we intereact with video games. Or rather, that we do interact with them, rather than passively watching. A parent concerned about their child and violence will probably be less concerned about their child watching a person murdered in cold blood than about their child actually performing the murder in cold blood, albeit in a virtual sense. In video games, the player is not just watching the violence, but participating. This makes games all the more threatening to folks who feel violent media is a danger. Thus, laws against video game violence get more press than laws against movie or television violence.
I'm as sick of seeing women in pink as much as the next guy, but I didn't realize that actually liking pink is such a black mark against a woman. They can have any favorite color in the spectrum so long as it's not pink?
I think his problem is that he's equating strong female characters with characters acting more male, that men are inherently better and women must act more like men to be better themselves.
You know, that makes me think of something that happened to me a few years ago. I was discussing cars with my family over dinner one night and my father asked me if I still liked the PT Cruiser. I said, "Nah, it's picked up a reputation as a chick car." He looked at me funny and my sister from across the table said, "But you are a chick." (Come as a suprise? Yes, I'm a woman.) I had a small epiphany there at the table. Not that I had just realized that I was a woman, I knew that of course. But I had always been a tomboy. It was a reputation that I was proud of. I loved violent computer games and karate and hated dresses and the color pink. I think I hated being seen as a weak, powerless girl so I always did my best to be "one of the guys". I prided myself on never being a "girly girl". But what suddenly occured to me that day at the table was that I was trying to shirk off my gender completely as if it were something offensive. Why should I be ashamed of being a girl, I asked myself? It wasn't the "girl" part that I was ashamed of, I realized. It was the "weak, powerless" tag that many people often subconsciously add onto it, even by me. Trying to be a guy was like admitting that girls were always weak and powerless and that a girl couldn't stop being weak and powerless without acting like a guy.
Now, I'm still a bit of a tomboy. I still like karate and video games and right now I'm working in the male-dominated computer industry, but I've realized that the color pink isn't too bad and dresses can look nice sometimes (I have, however, still scratched the PT Cruiser off my list of "good" cars but I did seriously consider it, though I found the gas mileage is a crime against both nature and my pocketbook). I've stopped denying that I'm a girl, but that doesn't mean I have to give up that sense of strength and power that being a tomboy gave me. Women don't have to act like guys to better themselves, and this goes for both games and real life.
How would you know if you've never tried it? ;)
As a woman, if all other things were equal I'd pick the guy who calls himself a feminist over the guy who doesn't. In fact, I think I'd pick the feminist over the non-feminist even if the non-feminist had a few other "advantages". I've broken up with a guy before because he thought the feminist movement was a piece of crap (well, that wasn't the only reason, but it was a big piece). Not to say that all feminists are great and all non-feminists are assholes, but girls like a guy who undersands them, and in general feminists tend to understand women better (or, at least, they understand feminist women better). On the other hand, if he's doing it only to get laid then he's probably not going to be stepping up to this bat, nevermind crossing home plate. :P
Well, ugly women feel threatened by sexy women. I don't think you'll find many attractive women opposed to this sort of thing. This only reminds ugly women of their shortcomings, however. Have you noticed any hard core feminists that are REALLY hot? Probably not.
I'm going to try and be honest here. I'm not the most attractive woman you'll ever see. I'm certainly not a supermodel, but I'm not overweight or pimply or cursed with a huge nose or one of those other things that might turn a guy off immediately. I suppose you'd say I'm average (and I know some troll is waiting out there to tell me that I must be ugly if I'm not hot, but go ahead and assume I'm dog ugly if you must). I'm not sure I'd say that I feel threatened by sexy women. Obviously if my boyfriend were to leer at a sexy woman I'd be uncomfortable and, yes, I'd feel threatened and jealous, but that's him that's making me feel jealous and competative, not the supermodel. But if my boyfriend isn't making a big deal of it, women on the cover of games generally don't generally feel threatening to me, even if they're much hotter (and they usually are). I'm not jealous of Laura Croft. I don't think about my breast size when I see pictures of big breasted-women. I think that stuff's silly and obviously made to get the male hormones pumping.It offends me when women are potrayed as sex objects and nothing more, because I don't think you'll find any woman who would rather have a man like her for her looks rather than her personality. Obviously women sometimes like being looked at. We like being attractive, and we do not like being ugly. Anybody would. I don't know any guys would would rather be ugly or average rather than hot. But it's demeaning to be thought about only in terms of your looks. Think about it guys, really seriously think about it. Would you rather have a woman attracted to you have a biceps like the terminator or would you rather have a woman attracted to you because she adores your personality? We all enjoy being admired for our looks, but nothing gives you the same kind of mental high as having somebody admire you for who you are, rather than what you look like. The fact that guys like looking at women is common knowledge, and I don't expect that to change. But when games (and the media at large) are filled with sexy women with the personalities of chia pets it enforces the idea that looks are more important. This is what offends most women.
I started reading the parent and found myself gritting my teeth and planning how to rip him a new one with a scathing reply... then as I read a little farther I realized he was absolutely right.
I'm gonna say this first so nobody gets confused. I am a woman, the rare female geek, and I enjoy computer games immensely so I know something about what I'm talking about. And the parent is "dead on balls accurate," at least where I'm concerned. I won't claim to speak for the rest of my gender, and I'll tag on the disclaimer that I am by no means a mainstream woman, having been "tainted" by geek society. But I am still a woman, and it sounds like you boys need a woman's input here.
Now, I don't know if I can say I like portrayals of sexy woman in games. To be honest, my first instinct is to turn away from a game with a big-breasted chick on the cover. I've never played any of the Tomb Raider series, nor have I felt tempted to. But the parent poster was right when he said that it's not the portrayal of scantily clad, big-breasted women that offends me, it's when these women are portrayed as only scantily clad, big-breasted women. Obviously, it's hard to focus on anything but a woman's appearance when she's just posing on the cover of a game, which is why cover art with sexy women tends to turn me off. For the record, though, I think I know the Laura Croft pose you're talking about, and that doesn't offend me. I wouldn't hang it on my wall, but I wouldn't be ashamed to leave the box in a place where it was visibile if I owned the game. But I expect the woman posing on the wing of the plane for the cover of that flying game mentioned somewhere else in this thread of discussion would offend me (I haven't seen this one, or can't bring it to mind, but I can imagine it).
I just recently finished Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and though the protagonist was male he had a female "sidekick" for parts of the game, Farrah. Being set in medieval Persia, Farrah is somewhat scantily clad (think "I Dream of Genie") and is obviously supposed to be attractive to the average male gamer. Farrah didn't offend me in the slightest. In fact, I love the character. Her personality has quite a bite to it at times, and she's pretty capable of taking care of herself. She's not as strong as the protagonist and can sometimes be more of a hindrance than a help in battle (she likes to stand in one place and shoot her bow, rather than backing off if there's a sand creature too close for comfort), but it's impossible to finish the game without her because her small size allows her to open doors the prince can't reach. She may be the token sex symbol, but the game would have been much different without her and I don't think I would have liked it nearly as much. IMO, Farrah is a good example of a woman portrayed in a way that women gamers would be comfortable with. I remember commenting on this to my sister (who is a die-hard feminist), and her response was, "But the main character's still a guy." I answered, "It's Prince of Persia. It has to be a guy, the main character in PoP has always been a guy." I think my sister would like more female main characters, but I think there are a few already and the fact that my gender's represented at least a little is enough for me. I didn't mind that my avatar in PoP was a guy, and I don't think most women would. Gaming still is a market dominated by men, after all, and I wouldn't expect game designers to start making all the protagonists female all of a sudden just to please the female population.
To sum it up, as a women I'd like to say that the parent was absolutely right. Women don't mind seeing pretty women in games. We mind seeing pretty, mindless women in games who are obviously there just to stimulate male hormones. Giving them realistic personalities takes a little more effort, but it'll go a long way towards making the gaming genre a little more acceptable to the other half of the population.
Funny, I always associated an epiphany with suddenly realizing something "important", not like word puzzles. Epiphanies are reserved for moments like the time you realized your parents must have had sex at least once. And let me tell you, I did not shout "eurika!" then. ;) I guess because I always use this example I feel like epiphanies are bad things.
Heh, whoops I thought the parent was about PoP: Sands of Time, not PoP2. When I finished the game (a few minutes ago) I came back and read the post. Obviously what I thought was a spoiler was not (at least, not for PoP:SoT). Go ahead, laugh. I'm sure you were already (or were really confused). :P
;)
Here's a real SPOILER WARNING (sorta):
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I thought when Farrah read the poetry to the prince in the library about dying in love in order to live was a hint that later in the game I'd have to die in order to win the game. And she follows up the poetry with a comment along the lines of "That's not how this game works," so I thought that it tied in nicely with the article about metagaming/breaking the fourth wall. So I thought I was all smart and had it all figured out when I read the first couple lines of the parent... that is until I finished the game and saw no opportunity to kill myself (other than jumping off of buildings or diving in front of a sand creature's sword, and that obviously didn't do anything helpful for me). It may, however, have been a reference to that part where you have to die in PoP2 that I vaugely remember (I played the game so long ago that I'm not even sure I finished it).
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END SPOILER
Game kicked ass anyway. I may have to play it again... like, tomorrow.
I tried to be vague, sorry. Watch out for the fire-breathing snake at around 56%! J/K ;)
*sticks fingers in ears* LALALALLALA! I don't heeear you! Dude! I'm almost done with the game! I wanna do this myself! Don't give it away! Warn me when you're about to give a spoiler! >:P
Though if you're talking about what I think you're talking about (I just read the first couple words of the parent, but DON'T TELL ME) I already figured out I was gonna have to do something like that when she read me the poetry.
Stupid bats... I want my dagger back, damnit.
Haven't you heard? It's tradition. Goes back thousands of years, probably to the first cave man to wonder why the sun goes down in one place and comes up in another. It's called "creativity". When you don't know the answer, you make it up. It all stems from the desire to know how everything works. I believe the Slashdot population is very familiar with that desire. Most of you have probably taken apart something in your life to see how it works. When you can't take something apart or when taking it apart doesn't reveal the answers, the next logical step is to start making things up to see which makes the most sense. These folks probably don't have degrees in electronics, and taking their exploding appliances apart would do them no good. And when even engineers, who've been trained to understand the hows and whys, can't divine a cause then they move to step two: make it up. Many scientists are guilty of this phenomenon. They call it "theorizing". They simply have more knowledge to build on, so their ideas seem more plausable to educated folks like themselves. But there is still a lot about the natural world that we don't know, and while we can't prove that the devil is setting electronics aflame in this town we also can't prove that he isn't. It's a theory. A very far-fetched theory, but so was relativity, wasn't it?
I'm not saying I believe it, but I don't blame these folks for wanting to know why, and when they don't get answers from the people who know more then them then they have no choice but to theorize. Their problem comes when they assume their theories are facts and refuse to believe the truth when it is finally figured out.
Hey, yeah it's possible to play D&D by yourself. You just have to play all the roles, it's not that hard. It can be a very rewarding experience, especially since you don't have to share the chips and beer and you don't have to worry about anybody else using and contaminating your lucky dice. Of course, you don't have anybody to share the financial burden of all those books with. And it can get damn hard to keep the players from peeking at the adventure books, though I keep trying. But it is easier to convince the DM to allow unusual characters like minotaurs or half-dragons. Usually. God, I remember that one time when I got really pissed off at myself for trying to convince me that an evil paladin could multiclass as an assasin, but I kept saying that paladins couldn't be evil and I didn't see why not and then I started yelling and things kinda got out of hand when somebody started throwing dice. We started a huge fistfight and I tried to pull me off of myself but I just didn't wanna let up because I was being such a prick. I gave myself a black eye and spilled the beer all over the place. Mom didn't like that much, she made me clean it up, though I decided that since I had tried to stop the fight that it wasn't really my fault and so I didn't need to help clean and I almost punched me again. That was around the time she bought me that jacket with the really long arms and the buckles, but that's another story.
On the extreme side a solution might be to just completely erase everything in such games every few months, but that would simply annoy everyone, including mary sues.
If you did that on a Diablo II server I think Mary'd sue.
Yeah, after reading some of the other responses I realized it must have been Spike. Sorry, I don't watch much TV and I certainly don't follow the political shakeups and rebrandings of male-oriented networks. ;)
Did this happen around springtime last year, a little before May? I must have tuned in just after the change.
Here's a fun fact:
:)
In the original script of Aliens, Ripley was a man. Wanna know what they changed in the script between that version and the one that was actually filmed? Not a thing. They just decided to cast a woman.