Archive for March 2012

7

Embracing Feminism

I guess that, by now, everybody has heard about the claims of Effraeti about not being a feminist, the response at spinks' blog, and whole range of reactions in comments and other blogs (especially insightful is Apple Cider's, as always). I hesitated whether to make a post out of it or not bother. It is particularly difficult to write when you are angry and perplexed, as many of us were at the time. I shall follow the example of Apple Cider and voice my opinion in a calm and constructive way, because the topic deserves it.

I shall start with an anecdote which might appear to be off-topic. Bear with me.

A friend of mine sent me the trailer of the newest movie by Tim Burton, called Dark Shadows. I watched it, and when prompted to answer if I would like to see it, I said: "This movie offends me." My friend didn't see what was offensive about it, so I explained to him that I was fed up with the stereotype of seductive+evil women who use sex to entice men, and of men who are rendered helpless by this so-called feminine power. Of course, we would be expected to identify with endearing Johnny Depp and despise the evilly sexual woman. Tropes are used everywhere, for every topic: gender, race, sexual orientation... But some of them are more harmful than others, and when your depictions of women are either evil seductresses or innocent girls, there is not much with which real women can identify, and we risk teaching the kids values about feminism that are wrong. For more tropes and a very clear-sighted argument and entertaining videos, check Feminist Frequency.

I was talking with somebody only marginally conscious about his privilege, but willing to learn. We engaged in an exposition of feminist issues, and he understood why I saw things from other, more self-conscious, lenses.

The problem with privilege doesn't stop at economic factors, with women having less opportunities than men. It is also apparent in all cultural manifestations, especially in mass-entertainment. Films being customarily targeted at men, but still viewed by women, create a clima of masculine interpretation of society, both by men and women. Thus, masculine qualities are prized above the feminine, and a masculine understanding of universal concepts such as "strength" is proposed (see Spinks', the comment by Gevlon). This is why "strong" women are typically depicted in the media as sexualized badasses (Sucker Punch at Feminist Frequency). We need to broaden our scope, to be able to conceive our world from the Outsider's perspective. As Simone de Beauvoir expressed in The Second Sex: "She is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute— she is the Other" (xxii).

Inequality goes beyond economics. It is a conception of the world. It dictates what femininity ought to be: seductive and evil, or innocent and unthreatening. The Angel of the House of the nineteenth century is now the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, the perpetually kidnapped princess, the heroine whose only achievement is waking the male hero to a new world of love and feminine comprehension. Women should not be defined by their relation to the men of the stories, but it is sadly all-too-common. Even in the great Planescape: Torment, Deionarra and Annah, and to some extent Fall-from-Grace, are defined by their romantic ties to The Nameless One. It is a pervasive and unnoticed trend which our subconscious grasps better than us.

From a very early age we are bombarded with these concepts of womanhood, taught to be Snow White the passive, and despise the active Stepmother; taught that we are all princesses who deserve a sexy, understanding yet virile, strong yet sensitive prince. We are not taught that happiness lies in ourselves. We are especially forbid to think about other women as allies -princes are after all in short supply.

Men are also taught their own lessons. Some of them as horrific as the women's. That they should succeed no matter what, completely on their own, or they will be a failure, completely emasculated. That the path to success is through stark, aggressive competition. That their value is measured in what they own.

Then some women react in a predictable manner. I was one of those women. They shake off all these teachings and, also predictable, do a radical about-turn to the equally artificial world of masculinity, and assume that the doctrines imparted to men are the Evangelical Truth and femininity is apocryphal. But values such as "strength" are connotatively marked too, as I have argued before. These "New Women" reject one lie to fall prey to another one. And, in the process, they rebuke all women that they categorise as "feminine", and judge their attitude "weak", endorsing the position of the men who also believe such lie.

But the femininity they so proudly repudiate is in fact as fake as their new-found masculinity. It is a societal construct. An insidious societal construct, nevertheless, which women are expected to imitate, and sometimes do. This is why we work with prejudices when we encounter a stranger, because these prejudices sadly apply in many cases, especially when the other person belongs to that collective which hasn't challenged the mass-media indoctrination. But those are prejudices nonetheless, and they are offensive. To expect women to be over-emotive, even hysterical, is allowing yourself to be fooled by a reductionism. People don't work that way. We are complex, multi-faceted beings which receive influences from everything around us, and from our own reaction to said influences. Thus, although what is traditionally considered as feminine is very compelling, its contrary ("the tomboy") also is, and to extricate what we have been told to assume is really hard, because every day we learn new forms in which we had been "educated". We have learned, mostly on a subconscious level, that strength equals individuality, and that men are strong. We want to be like them, we want to be strong in the sense that society posits. We reject the weak, the feminine. We do not learn that femininity is also about communication, community, strength in the collective. About sensitivity, empathy, cooperation.

Human beings are psychologically constructed not in binary oppositions, as we are led to believe, but in gradations. Sex is not the same as gender, and sexual orientation is much more intricate than the three milestones that we have conventionally set. By this I mean that femininity and masculinity are not exclusive to women and men respectively, and that we should conceive them as sets of values traditionally subscribed to women and men. Both sexes are allowed to be rational and sensitive, competitive and cooperating, strong in their own individual manner.

Finally, these women who had allied themselves with the males to the detriment of their own identity, when confronted with the truth, let go their self-hatred, and accept that we are all in this boat together. That we all have been equally indoctrinated, and that there is a necessity to look beyond gender barriers.

This state of comprehension is not nirvana, but it is not the commonality either. The process that has been completed for some is still on-going for many, and their numbers seem unsurmountable (as sometimes is their willing ignorance). Some of those who have come out of the cavern, when they return to share their findings, they encounter skepticism, uncooperativeness, hatred. They respond with calmness, patience, compassion. But only after an internal process of purgation, after the anger stops its seething. Every time.

Their interlocutors argue that things are the way they are for one or another sad reason. Terrible, they acknowledge, but that is how the world works. The reason is rational and justified. We don't make games that cater to women because there is no market, and money drives everything. Women are poorer because they have kids. That is rational and justified, they argue. It is as if some people want the world to remain as ruthless as it is.

11

[Review] Planescape: Torment

I came late to the Planescape party, and I am glad I did. When the game was released, back in 1999, I couldn't have appreciated its genius. Besides, I was too busy slashing demons in Diablo II. Some years later, still very young, I played Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn to its conclusion, and I still don't know how I did it. Apparently my teen self was much more proficient in the ways of D&D than I am. Anyway, I recently played Planescape: Torment and I utterly loved it. The friend who recommended it to me can rest assured that I will recommend him in Heaven or its surrogate if I get there first.

Introductions are in order, although I am certain that I was the only soul who hadn't played this game. Planescape: Torment (PsT) is an RPG developed by Black Isle, written by Chris Avellone, who is now with Obsidian, I believe. (I love those guys.) The game tells the story of the Nameless One, a human who has been unable to die for a long time, as his collection of scars and discarded limbs around the planes suggest. After each death, he loses his memories and sheds his current identity, so he must rediscover himself and those who accompany him in a journey to recover his mortality. Along the way, he will be confronted with complex philosophical and moral issues, with different views on existence, and with his own answer to them. Or rather your own answer.

While playing, I was analysing the game through the lenses of other, modern, video games. Actually, this was not the wisest approach, as modern video games draw their influences from a completely different source: cinema. Planescape: Torment is a text-based RPG, so much so that it could as well be considered interactive literature. Moreover, its writing is the best I've seen in the genre. Not just the writing itself, with its socratic style of discovery through dialogue, but also the plot and its dramatic structure. Even such a dismissed element as the sidequest is embedded in the narrative in such a way that it is no mere experience fodder, but an opportunity to find out more about your past.

Everything in the game is coherent with its initial premises: amnesia is not so much a rhetoric device as it is a core element of the journey, thus negating the reaction against the cliché. As a journey of self-discovery which entails the recovery of physical memories and, more importantly, one own's nature, it could not have been otherwise. The amnesia theme was developed brilliantly. Another of its premises is the clash of conflicting philosophies, depicted as factions which quite radical views on life, politics, love, death..., and how this clash, of a conceptual nature, is solved through words. It is coherent because its focus on dialogues is carried to physical confrontations too, providing an alternative, and usually more effective, way of dealing with conflicts. Even the final boss can be 'defeated' verbally. I would love to see this in modern games. I wish I would have been allowed to talk Illidan into allying to beat Arthas, for instance. Also coherent is the game's focus on frequently disdained attributes, such as intelligence, wisdom and charisma, which provide you with more insightful choices in conversations, wiser paths to solve conflicts.

What I missed from the game which is present in modern titles is a comfortable interface, with its now-assumed conveniences like a minimap, a travelling system, a decent combat AI (luckily there's few combat, and the few difficult encounters that I had, I was allowed to run away. Now, that's also brilliant as a storytelling device, because some areas are supposed to be overwhelming, not some farming spot like most of the 'dangerous' zones in modern games. My escaping from hordes of demons, although I knew that I could take them if I pulled them very carefully, is testament to the zone's real, not rhetoric, danger). I also missed some elaborate intra-party banter like the one in the latest Bioware titles, and particularly in Mass Effect 3, where the characters could be hanging around in the Normandy, talking to each other on various topics. That was surely an improvement in dynamic, as opposed to rigid, storytelling.

This game is a masterpiece. Now I can properly assent when other people mention the title. It is rare to find a game that not only stings you emotionally, but also impels you to think. 'What can change the nature of a man?', you are asked, and your answer doesn't matter as long as it is yours.

And then, the ending's catharsis. No loose threads except for those which are left for you to arrange in whatever pattern. In case you are a layman, very much like I was, and you haven't played it, I won't say anything. Go play it. Give yourself a couple of weeks, a month or two; it is a long day's journey into the night.

On a sidenote, I miss the conversation system of ye olde RPGs, where voice was almost absent, but the text was much more rich. Voiced content usually imposes an interpretation on a response, as much as acting interprets the written script (think of the many possible Ophelias that Shakespeare proposed). I like to be able to interpret it myself. I also like the amount of choice that unvoiced works allow. Such a huge narrative as PsT is would have been severely cut down because of the cost of voice acting, and what would have been gone is the roleplaying. Choosing "I promise X" over "[Lie] I promise X" would have been a lost nuance (the difference lies in the lawfulness or chaoticness of your roleplay, also along the good-bad axis, which provide alternative paths in the game). With voiced content, those long dialogues you have, thirsty for answers, would have been reduced to a cutscene. Nowadays there is little room for imagination or choice.

On a side-sidenote, the game and its protagonist remind me of this poem by Borges.

  I offer you explanations of yourself, theories about
      yourself, authentic and surprising news of
      yourself.
  I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the
      hunger of my heart; I am trying to bribe you
      with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.

3

[ME3] The Intentional Fallacy

Along with the discussion of the unsatisfactory finale, some theories have sprouted with the intention of providing a more complex, suggestive theme to the ending, which would bespeak of subtlety and artfulness on the part of Bioware. It is difficult to maintain such a view in the wake of subsequent events (Bioware bending to the fan's will and promising new DLC that would provide the expected closure). Had Bioware not submitted to the fans' demands, still the discussion of the indoctrination theory would have been futile.

A quick summary of the theory: Shepard would have been indoctrinated at some point of the story, usually after the Reaper beam, right at the ending, and everything that follows is either a dream or a Reaper's contrivance to force Shepard's final decision to their benefit.

I consider this theory an unrealistic expectation on the fans' part. There are some instances of ambiguity in the story that allow a symbolic interpretation, like the final scene in which Shepard is almost stripped of agency due to bloodloss and mindcontrol. This is suggestive of the unreliable narrator of which the fan theories speak, but most likely it is a mere emotional device that intends to sunder the player's image of godlike Shepard.

Some people have argued that it is clearly not Bioware's intention, although little has been said either by Bioware or by fans to explain why this theory is wrong (if you think such things can be right or wrong, which I'll argue later). To me, the theory is disproved due to a fault in consistency. The unreliable-narrator hermeneutics is not supported by the work's tone and structure. Mass Effect had until then never attempted any plot exposition that was not direct (like showing videos of the Cerberus scientists at various locations degenerating because of indoctrination, instead of silencing the facts and allow for the player to draw her conclusions based on the environment; that simply had never been done), and surely Mass Effect had not had any dream-like sequences, any instance of unreality, ambiguity. Shepard's dreams are merely dreams, by what we gather from our previous experience of the game.

Perhaps you have played Final Fantasy VIII. I didn't, I wasn't fond of JRPGs, partly because their stories seemed purposely convoluted, undecipherable; which was precisely why they were pregnant with alternative theories that tended to read into them in a symbolic way. Regarding FF8, I read a theory that posits that Squall had been dreaming half the game since his encounter with Edea, who might have killed him, instead of just hurting him (with a gigantic shard through the chest, of which he recuperates with no further mention). The theory is supported by the game's general vagueness and dream-like quality (like most FF games), which is exacerbated after this encounter. It is a very curious read which had me amazed by its allied rationalism with fantasy.

In order to ascribe to either theory (the 'official' one, which is the literal game, or the dream), you usually go through a process of authorial invocation: how was the work intended to be read? Could SquareEnix/Bioware have thought of such an interpretation, and fostered it? It would require, as I mentioned before, a high degree of subtlety, or else the edifice of dream/indoctrination would be too evident and its impact diminished by its bluntness; no longer a symbol, if exposed. Not only you might invoke the author in this question, but you will also consider whether she would be capable of such finesse. You don't question the work, you question the author, her mastery of the craft and of the intellect. That is, unless you a) respect the author, b) respect the narrative genre (since when videogames exhibit such degrees of artfulness; in contrast, -good- literature is expected to provide complex symbology, c) the work allows for such an interpretation (the author imbues her work with a subterranean current that can be dug out. I'm placing an emphasis on the active verb here, as symbolism requires an attentive reader, 'digging out' its meaning beyond what is literal).

You may also counter this preconception. One might brandish the theory of Wimsatt and Beardsley, called 'the Intentional Fallacy': the mistaken belief that what the author intended is the 'real', 'final' meaning of the work, and that we can or should know what this is (Wimsatt and Beardsley 1995). So, it is not the responsibility of Bioware to give meaning to their work, according to such statement. I don't quite agree with it, although I admit that it has its advantages, particularly in the field of psychoanalysis, as the work of an author is also product of her unconscious, and therefore it conveys much more about her mindset and that of her generation than she thought. There are no 'wrong' interpretations: As long as you provide facts to your theory, it is valid, out of the author's reach. There have been counterarguments to Wimsatt and Beardsley's idea, but if you wish to ascribe to it and see the work of Bioware without an authoritative perspective, you might.

I won't, because I have to admit that I am prejudiced against this work and its author, and thus I cannot take it seriously when they themselves don't know how a character might look like, when they seem to have improvised the story (Crucible never even hinted until the last game, not even by the prothean beacon of ME1), when they had been very vocal about plot-twisting decisions and their consequences (and yet they revived a rachni queen in case you had killed the first one). Such game cannot have allowed the nuances of a symbolic interpretation, not even subconsciously.

0

[MMO] *World* of Warcraft - How Pandaria might improve WoW

My bank was never emptier than this.

Considering it fulfills its promises. And in any case, such improvement could never be regarded as the panacea that might bring back millions of players.

Blizzard is not oblivious of the fact that its game is senescent, that it is sliding on a downward slope. Still, despite all the failures and the natural propensity of players to look for greener pastures, or just become bored, WoW is viable for Blizzard in that they can test the grounds for their newest project, determine what works and what doesn't with figures instead of relying on what gamers claim. It is not always safe to deliver what gamers say that they want, as Blizzard realized with Cataclysm's a la BC instances that the players demanded, when the game was in a state that it could no longer accommodate such model.

Back to Pandaria, Blizzard intends to reclaim the world-feel of Azeroth pre-Cataclysm (and arguably pre-Wrath). The company is taking moderate steps towards this, as no great cataclysmic event is planned. What we will have is: pet combat, challenge modes, scenarios (nothing yet on the official page), and some treats like a farm for you to cultivate. I encourage you to read the optimistic analysis of Apple Cider Mage for more links and more info on features that are still obscure, like the farming bit.

None of these features is world-changing on its own, but they speak nonetheless of a profound change in mentality from Blizzard's part. They are now aligning with the sandbox petitioners and those who miss the *World* of Warcraft, instead of focusing on the much-repeated pattern of raid-driven content. This time, the final boss of the expansion has not been introduced until recently, diverting the focal point of the expansion towards its new zones and features, towards new experiences instead of new goals. Some interviews have been quoted since its announcement some months ago, which claimed that Blizzard wished to reintroduce the world feel to WoW, by means of uninstanced content and world bosses. I also believe that all the features which will be implemented can support such concept by redirecting the players from a goal-driven mindset to a more open and world-friendly attitude.

Going back to the World would be one of the best decisions that Blizzard could make. They already impoverished their world as a result, or rather a by-product, of their late-Wrath inclusive attitude. By removing every barrier (keys, attunements, reputations, quests that involved these), old content could be experienced by people who would have not invested the time that was required to access it, trivializing what had been an epic adventure. Instead of removing those entirely, they could have achieved something similar by reducing some numeric requirements. They also homogenized the way professions were leveled and how players acquired recipes; how classes differed from each other (by removing their unique attributes or equating them to another's), etc. But classes are only peripherically related to this discussion. My point is: Blizzard has been stripping its own game of many features that made it unique, and which allowed the players to feel unique and contrast themselves to other players and to the world and its potentialities. The post-BC player is lead by the system of hubbed quests, daily-grinded professions, solo grouping and even solo raiding since a couple of patches. Currently, there is no indication for the new player that they can go off the grid and enjoy the sandbox element of every MMO. The problem is that WoW has removed most of it.

One of the reasons some people quit the game was because of this lack of world-feel to it. Along the years, I had collected a number of items (keys, rare objects, cosmetic pieces for every social occasion, PVE sets); some of them disappeared, some had no more use when the quest was removed, etc. They marked my journey and the different decisions I took regarding where I would quest, what I would collect, what roleplaying I did. I didn't feel the urge to claim those world-pieces when I started a new character post-Cataclysm; there was not much to cling to.

Another reason why the world felt devoid of its magic was the removal of the ground paths that flying imposed. I comment on it because it is related to the loss of the World sense, although I am aware that none is being done to address it. When Blizzard announced that in Cataclysm we would be able to view Azeroth from above, I was horrified. It meant that there weren't be special spots that were reached by conscientious explorers, that I couldn't share those spots with enraptured friends anymore. And sometimes with GMs when I got stuck someplace I wasn't supposed to be.

For Tobold (or his wife), it was the non-linear approach to stories that prevailed before Cataclysm, and its well-paced development. Its acceleration and straightforwardness has damaged the experience of questing for those who viewed it as the goal, not the path towards it.

Those things account for a world: unique paths, items that recount stories, recipes interred in forlorn dungeons... And the lore of Warcraft since 1994 (Warcraft I), which has come a long way.

With Pandaria, Blizzard attempts to recover the freshness of the world they created, and also see what could spark the second advent of the MMO industry with Titan. If pandas, pokemon and farmville were not proof enough that Blizzard is testing the waters, going off the grid, then I don't know what is.

9

[ME3] Ending

I guess that it's safe to talk about the ending of ME3 now, after the posts of Gazimoff at Mana Oscura, Azuriel, Rohan, etc. Particularly relevant to the subject is the latter's, who questions the core argument for the Reaper's invasion: "Apparently, it is necessary for these synthetic life forms to kill all advanced organic life forms, because otherwise, the organic life forms will create new synthetic life forms which will kill all organic life forms. What the F**k?" Precisely my thought.

In fact, there are two main reasons that validate the Reaper's function: 1) to procure space for newer life forms to emerge, by wiping out more advanced ones who might threaten them; 2) to impede such progress that might lead to the creation of synthetic life forms that would rebel against their creators. Order is invoked in a clichéd way to account for the Reaper's task.

If this was Bioware's attempt at creating a logical argument that human beings would be able to comprehend, they failed, because nothing in the game leads to these premises, in addition to their lack of integral sense. To make matters worse, the game actually challenges its own argument by presenting the player with an organic-synthetic conflict that can be easily solved (the Geth-Quarian war that takes no more than a man with enough Renegade/Paragon points to turn into fairyland). Where are those synthetic life forms that would rebel and make life impossible, thus the Reaper's reason for meddling? Even when the Geth were enemies, they had not presented such a threat that no one man could not infiltrate their base and rewrite them to suit his purpose. Had the player ever felt truly threatened by the Geth (increasing their numbers or their fanthomlessness, instead of turning them into allies), then would it be a reason of import. As it is, it felt like an excuse.

Second, procuring space for newer life forms to emerge would make sense if we had had any reason to believe that technologically advanced races actually obstruct their successors. What we had was the example of the krogan, who had been granted technological advancements by the Salarians too soon for them to be able to cope with it. But it did not prevent them from a viable development, quite the opposite! Even more proof of the unthreatening nature of galactic contact: the Salarians did not advocate for the extinction of the krogan, they respected their right to exist as a species when they could have removed the threat they constituted entirely.

For the sake of comparing with good writing, let's consider Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space series. I highly recommend the books to any of you who like science-fiction and a good read. Curiously enough, the similarities of the main enemies of Mass Effect and those of Revelation Space are numerous, to the point where I seriously considered if Bioware's writers had been "influenced" by this series.

(Spoiler-free, in case you want to read the books) In Revelation Space, there is also an unfathomable threat which seeks to end all organic life. We do not learn of the Inhibitors (Reapers' cousins, but with better logic processes) intentions until the end, as any self-respecting half-suspense narrative would require, and its revelation achieves an impact which prompts the reader to consider both sides, because the answer to the Inhibitor's mystery is of utilitarian roots. In other words, the arguments that validate the Inhibitor's mission are sound, not to be dismissed as a matter of enmity or profit.

This Bioware attempted with the aforementioned arguments, which were simply shallow, devoid of holistic logic. They could have also imbued the Reapers with a logic of their own, unconceivable by other, simpler or merely different, minds; they ought to have kept it unexplained in such case. They could also have attempted a Lovecraftian concept of evil, although I don't think that the players would have accepted such an explanation, given that the Reapers had already been established as reasonable and resolute. In any case, to have an allegedly superior race draw such conclusions (that life forms are chaotic and prone to destroy each other or drive themselves to destruction by means of creating rebellious synthetics) is just silly. It is subpar and damaging to the series' concept of itself as a serious narrative driven by complex morality issues (which is also rather ingenuous of Bioware).

Not to mention the damned star-child. That was sentimentalist in addition to silly.

Related: ME3: Towards a cinematic experience.

13

Gamer 'Girls' and Girlfriends in TV series (and some SWTOR publicity fail)

Episode 19 of Season 5 of The Big Bang Theory was for me the straw that broke the camel's back. In case you haven't seen any episode, the series is about a group of scientists who are also nerds, and who hold difficult relationships with various female characters, the main one being a more down-to-earth cheerleader-type woman, Penny, with whom the protagonist, Leonard, falls in love. If that could be considered love, but all right. The only thing you need to know is that this series is profoundly gendered, depicting the prestigious but socially-awkward scientists/nerds in contrast with the unsuccessful-in-her-career but savant-in-the-ways-of-life woman (later on two female characters are added to the mix: Amy, the unfeminine biologist who is as ignorant in life as she is brilliant in the lab; and Bernadette, the silly, twee, caring girlfriend, who is also employed in a lab).

In this episode, the guys are planning a marathon of 48 hours of SWTOR (the game's name is not mentioned, but we are shown a good amount of game clips and screenshots from the shoulders of the characters). I'll come back to the game later. The plot of this episode has something to do with concessions, and how different relationships handle the fine art of yielding and giving permission, being the activity under the girlfriend's scrutiny the only-guys sleepover to play videogames.

I'll be focusing on the gaming part and how it concerns women, not the dynamics of each relationship and the problems they are facing. Likewise, I won't delve into the disappointing advice that Penny gives Amy regarding feminine tools to force their way in a dispute (sex, silence or making a scene - what happened with 'communication'?). My point has to do with Bernadette and how she is portrayed when engaging in the male activity of gaming.

Bernadette had forced Howard to invite her to the boys' party by the terrifying act of suggesting an argument: "What? You don't want me to come?" Then, a succession of facepalming scenes ensue: Bernadette being loud and silly (screaming "Pew Pew Pew") about her DPSing while the guys handle the job silent and professionally; she suggesting that her boyfriend should wear a matching robe so that people in-game knew that they were a couple; and one of the most enraging ones: she being disapproved because of her healing only her boyfriend. She had been automatically placed into a support role by her friends (because, she being a newbie, her decision ought to have been influenced by her peers). In any event, her playing is constantly diminished and mocked by the others, her presence only tolerated because of her boyfriend. By the end of the episode, the girls are convinced into leaving and withdrawing their complaints. And then Raj says "that's the way it is supposed to be: men together, fighting the forces of evil." Alright, I get it, it's a men's club. Women are a hindrance, either harming their game enjoyment with silliness and lack of professionalism, or by asking them to commit to non-enjoyable activities such as visiting their grandmother.

On SWTOR, I found it particularly hilarious that the playing session which the boys are having emphasizes the combat and grouping parts of the game, and makes no comment on the much-praised 'fourth pillar' of storytelling. There's no mention of the story, just hype and excitement about combat and loot: Raj: "When Gandhi advocated his philosophy of non-violence, I bet he didn't know how much fun it was killing stuff", Leonard: "Ok, let's divide up the loot" (wasn't loot auto-assigned, anyways?). A few views on the player's laptops show lightsabers and a female avatar doing some emote. If the gender assumptions weren't reason enough, this tasteless promotion based on precisely the weakest points of a game reassured me I had been watching The Big Bang Theory for too long now.

I'll be absent for a week, and won't be able to check the site during my trip. See you guys and girls soon.

1

[ME3] Towards a cinematic experience

I'm keeping this article as spoiler-free as possible.

I have already finished the game, thanks to the kind internet pirates who have uploaded it for us Europeans who were to receive it on the 9th. Don't go all prim and proper on me, my legal copy is on its way.

I would say that the experience was enjoyable, despite the complaints that I might have risen along the journey, the most glaring of which is perhaps of a personal nature. You see, I don't like my games to resemble movies; that's what movies are for. Thus, I tend to feel irritated by an excess of non-interactive scenes. They are inherently more spectacular in that they are being observed, and that is for me a drawback. Direct experience ensures engagement, and since the beginning of the game, with Shepard being moved around the base and told about the situation, I didn't feel immersed in the plot.

Not even with the whole save-the-Earth imperative. Whatever happened in the Earth was shown in the background: the Reapers were destroying stuff, presumably people were dying, bins were on fire; but all of this was happening on the backdrop, and didn't intersect with my path through rooftops and debris-filled buildings. You may stop and look at the sights, but it is hard to disregard that it is a mere moving picture, despite its flashiness and amount of detail. But Shepard is busy jumping between rooftops. Such a background is typical of the moving pictures, whereas games tend (or should tend) to spatial freedom. There was one instance of personal experience of the civilian massacre, when one kid hides in the ducts and Shepard tries to reassure him and get him to safety, but this didn't help setting the mood, quite the contrary, as I thought of it as an over-the-top emotional trick. Much to my dismay, the kid would make further appearances. In her dreams. I tried, but I was unable to take it seriously.

Have you noticed that I have referred to 'Shepard' and not 'the player'? In this third instalment, I've felt more starkly than ever the dissociation between me as a player, and the toon I'm moving around. I still made the no-nonsense renegade choices I would have personally made (probably; minus the punching in the face of some people), but the game didn't let me do the talking. I still directed the general idea behind what I wanted to say, but those choices carried onto full-fledged dialogues in which I had little to choose. I felt like an spectator of Jennifer Hale's amazing voice-acting. This had also been an issue in previous games, at least to me, because of the reason I've mentioned above: I don't like being an spectator.

I acknowledge that voiced protagonists are appealing to a lot of people. I do enjoy Hale's acting, as a matter of fact. But that's what it is: acting. Another layer of the cinematic cake that I've swallowed, which was pretty tasty. Nevertheless, I don't like the concept behind these games. There seems to be a chasm between gameplay and story, which has led to the franchise's nickname 'guns’n'conversation epic'. Oh, and the combat is still terrible. It's functional, but not particularly compelling.

My dissociation from the character went even further when I took a particularly difficult decision, which involved killing a friend, and Shepard was not granted the lines I wanted to say, and instead covered the whole thing up. I would have liked to be honest with my teammates, but Shepard instead kept a shameful silence. I was waiting for a paragon interrupt to speak my mind, but the dialogue went its way without consulting me. I know developers cannot contemplate every possibility, but still this was an important matter that I would have had to be able to get involved in. It felt as if Shepard was a character on her own, not the blank slate I was expecting to project into. Bioware is telling her story, not mine, this much is obvious. Then, why bother with choices at all, if it is their character?

Then we have a colossal amount of cinematics, some of them completely unnecessary (like Shepard dodging falling debris/jumping to the shuttle/any variation thereof - Why can't I do that stuff?). For instance, the kid-situation I referred to before was managed from a cinematic: why couldn't I try to catch him, as a player, instead of seeing Shepard try? The other cinematics, the ones that involve briefing on the war and the Reapers attack, might be useful, although I always advocate for as much in-game action as possible. I don't know how they could have conveyed the engagement in space of the two forces without resorting to a cinematic, though.

In films and literature there is a device called 'focalization', which accounts for the alignment of the camera/text towards a particular character. The text gravitates towards the character that is focalised and highlights her presence using various narrative devices. As we are not inside the narratives, our only way to experience them is through identification with the character which is being focalised. In videogames, this is taken for granted because we are this character, and it is much more easy to relate. The developers can be much bolder and still not risk our dissociation. But I believe that Bioware has gone too far with his voice-acting, cutscenes and cutscene-like dialogues. Sometimes I felt like I was in charge, and sometimes I was just watching a movie, listening to what two actors were saying, or witnessing the heroics Shepard was executing, followed by a general praise.

Also, I was not convinced by the numerous attempts of Bioware to make me feel like a hero, partly because of my dissociation from Shepard, and partly because I'm impervious to (and irritated by) not-too-subtle attempts at emotional attachment. Another thing that irks me: could Bioware please stop telling me how awesome I am? I'm a big hero, it's a big war, I got it the first 10 minutes of cinematics.

This was a Hollywood-like gaming experience. One of those films that are jaw-dropping, and also manage to have a decent story. It shows how much they cared about it in the detail they put into the sceneries, the conversations, the amount of content. They listened to their fans and added much more interaction between teammates, and between teammates and Shepard's interlocutors; they also made the characters move around the ship, and inside the Citadel after you land. Those were highly appreciated treats. I enjoyed the game, let me state it again. I just thought this was a good opportunity for constructive criticism of a factor that I consider detrimental to the game experience: the imitation of the film medium. Games are a medium of its own, with their particular features and assets. Let's not mix them too much.

24

[GW2] In defence of the Holy Trinity

There has been much excitement around in the blogosphere for the newest WoW-killer, which in this case actually delivers something different to that which made WoW a success (and now a declining Hyperion). In its quest to change the paradigm, Guild Wars II has promised to get rid of the Holy Trinity, considered a stale, unrealistic combat system that placed too much responsability on certain roles, and almost none on others.

I agree that the model as it is may be hampering the otherwise enjoyable activity of tanking (and to some extent healing). Blizzard took a number of measures to counteract the disparity of numbers between tanks/healers and DPS, but none of them actually tackled the issue directly. There is not much concern about it because WoW is too old to be dealing with inveterate problems with the genre. Moreover, they have seen that adding difficulty (extra responsibilities) to their instances results in failure, not learning, because of the nature of the LFG tool. So, what did ArenaNet devise for Guild Wars II that will solve this? They will get rid of the Holy Trinity so that players will now share the responsibility of pulling-tanking for a while-pass the mob to a companion.

I'm worried about this communistic approach to combat, and about its consequences in PVE and PVP.

To this day, I haven't seen any footage that involved an observable strategy, at least in the WvWvW videos I've checked. The common denominator of this videos is the lynching act: mindless cooperation to grab an enemy player and take her down; or else the protagonist running from such a "strategy". I see no heals that are not self-cast, no tanks trying to grab the attention away from the DPS, no cooperation to take down key targets. There is indeed cooperation to assault the walls, but it is like an ant's job, which does not require complex interaction with its colleagues. All of the videos I've seen involve a player hitting and getting hit by nameless hordes, or else chewing on a castle's wall. I haven't been able to distinguish any roles beyond the one that manages the golem (which is not a class-based role, and therefore is circumstantial rather than definitory).

If we remove healers and tanks from the mix, the threads that keep a group together are severed. Battles are fought without considering key objectives, which usually require a finer element of cooperation than a mere skirmish. Battles are fought one on one, and decided by numbers, when we remove extra elements of key value: a healer that is not targeted is worth 3 DPS; a tank that is carrying the flag demands 3 DPS to be taken down. But they are not the gods of BGs, just one specialized element that can make the DPS outshine by providing support.

In other games, such as team-based FPS like Team Fortress 2, we don't have the Holy Trinity, but we have something even stronger which helps define each person's utility in the battle: There are Medics, which help with the flow of battle and advance the troops with their invulnerability shields; there are Engineers, which place turrets both in vanguard and rearguard positions; there are Spies, whose objective is to assassinate key players; there are "DPS" classes with different values of life and damage output, which are more or less adapted to certain terrains and enemies. I haven't seen any of this in the Guild Wars II videos, and certainly no role-based combat strategies.

This has to be appealing to somebody, I guess. To certain DPS players who like seeing big numbers, people who enjoy entering a BG to measure themselves against an enemy. All that is fine, and I understand the appeal of DPS, but I don't think that they are as attractive on their own, without the existence of other roles who support them. I've played many BGs as a Healer with a DPS/Tank friend, and the common response to the experience was that of wonder: "How could have I played without a Healer before? This is so much better!"

Due to the success of the early beta passes, I guess that the model is not as flawed as I would have thought. Syl at Raging Monkeys is adoring what the game promises to deliver; Azuriel at In an Age is worried that de-specializing into all-DPS might lead to the Dance (*insert ominous tone*), and is wary of having to share responsabilities with strangers. Perhaps this is due to the increasing feeling of rejection towards grouping and cooperating. Are we so jagged that we prefer not to interact with other players, in spite of what the game genre was originally about?

There is a spark of hope: If we are not forced to play with strangers (LFG, BGs), we might be able to assemble a functional group of friends with which we can share responsibilities and play more effectively, even if the roles of each other are not so clear. We shall see.

In any case, where will the Tanks and Healers go? The people who take gladly those responsibilities that others reject, and who are prone to be scowled at? Those who cherish being the ones who invisibly help others succeed instead of the heroes that deliver the final blow? Where shall I go?

12

[Bioware] Comparing DA and SWTOR to KOTOR - Romance

The post that sparked my interest in this topic was Azuriel's "The problem with Romance", which was more concerned with the suspension of disbelief required to roleplay the opposite gender in romance situations, whereas what I thought about when reading it was of the romances themselves and what was lacking in them that was present in KOTOR -- and why.

The topic on romances is related to my previous post of why companions are marginal to the plot, which I summed up as a consequence of structural feedback and disconnection from the main story, which in turn are consequence of the trend towards a sandbox RPG, one which allows many choices, and allegedly profound consequences, but which cannot work as well as a fixed story (or semi-fixed, like KOTOR), as the "do-it-yourself story" requires many more resources, development time and writing competence. Now, these companions which are marginal to the plot are sometimes thought of by some players as optional content -- When, in which piece of literature, has it happened that characters are secondary? Isn't art a reflection of human (universal) emotions? Characters shouldn't be dismissed so quickly.

But the truth is, how can we take them seriously, especially when romance comes into the mix, if they are alienated from our story, interchangeable, and, on top of that, burdened by terrible and troublesome romance "mechanics"? This was precisely what I wanted to discuss, the mechanics of gift-giving and acquiescence.

In the first Dragon Age title there were only two factors you had to keep in mind when wooing your lady, or your lord: you had to agree with him/her on everything, and you had to give him/her gifts. Of course, everybody knows that real life doesn't work that way; how scary would that be. But there is some dangerous reading into this that many people, particularly young men-children, have made: gifts are proper substitutes of real tokens of affection, and, as long as you are nice, you will get the lady. There are many more factors that contribute to the Nice Guy culture, but certainly games add to this.

In Dragon Age II, what we had was a system in which you could approach a character either by friendship or by rivalry, which is a much more neat approach that recognizes that relationships of any kind are not solely based on agreement and sympathy. Still, I would have liked to see a divergent path for those who pursued the rivalry option, instead of a rephrasing of certain lines. They needed to recycle content in order to meet the release date and all. And then, they took a step back and based the SWTOR romances on the DA system, which the same gift-giving deal and forced roleplaying of your actions to conform to your partner.

In KOTOR 1, the best interactions that you had with your crew were grounded on conflicts: Bastila when displeased by your ways was always much more interesting than in meek acquiescence; and disagreeing with her often led to discussing your conflictive points of view, sometimes arriving to an understanding. I wouldn't dare challenge Morrigan in Dragon Age, she would, O the horror, "disapprove -5!" I remember fondly the constant whining of Carth Onassi, and my ability to tell him to shut up, hairless wookie, ungrateful monkey-lizard. Sometimes he played along, sometimes he got genuinely upset, but there were no consequences of a bit of elegant teasing or serious disagreement, it was even more rewarding that drone-like assent: "So, Morrigan, you're a misanthrope? What a coincidence, I am too!"; "Oh, Alistair, you being a virgin at 25 is perfectly fine and adorable"; "No, Zevran, I'm not worried at all that you might assassinate me as you were hired to do."

If there had been a "positive" outcome from your disagreeing with the Dragon Age characters, similar to the DA2 rivalry system, it would have made sense that you would be interested in pissing them off. What is the point of being hated by Morrigan, if her only lines come through friendship, unless you are roleplaying in your head that she is frothing at the mouth in ire whenever she sees you. As it is, it is just a game within the game, and a gateway system that would prevent you from triggering all the conversations at once. Being able to see how high your standing with somebody is, or how they took that line about their mother, is even more damaging to the experience, as it makes the system stand out in its artificiality.

In SWTOR they took the first approach to romances as a convenience. People comment on how they use the gifts system to get their standing up when their companions haven't been taken out in a while. And how they choose their responses (ironic or earnest, light or dark side) according to what their companion might approve. What a horrendously unrealistic system.

With a semi-fixed story like KOTOR we have characters that you might not be able to kick out from your ship (some of them you will), but we have a more stable system that allows the characters to perform as characters, ingrained in the story and sticking to you no matter the petty disputes and name-calling, because that too constitutes affection.