So you can’t have missed all the nonsense about this Consumerist article (I’m not going to dignify it by linking to it) that claims that “Teresa” said she was harassed on, and ultimately suspended from, XBox Live because she put in her profile that she was a lesbian.

It saddens me to no end how many people are upset about this.

Why? Am I a homophobe just like the entire Microsoft Corporation is (according to some comments I’ve read)?

No, quite the contrary. I’m rather disgustingly liberal, in fact.

But I do READ CRITICALLY. And I think about what I’m reading and I think about plausibility and I don’t believe something just because I see it posted on a website. I also understand the economics of websites and ad serving and page views.

Who is “Teresa?” No one knows. If anyone at the Consumerist knows, they aren’t talking or lending any credibility to their story. I don’t think they care. They got a juicy controversial story that has generated thousands and thousands of page views which has translated into “making their numbers” on ad revenue this week. Bully for them.

Teresa says “No one will help me get the word out about Microsoft’s anti-gay policy.” Well, don’t worry Teresa, the Consumerist will and all they need is your story to be juicy enough to get them page views…they don’t need anything as mundane as “facts” to convince them.

Mysterious Teresa. I’ll tell you who *doesn’t* know who “Teresa” is. Stephen Toulouse, Xbox LIVE Policy Manager. Y’know, the person who could fix the situation.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has an opinion about Microsoft’s anti-gay policy, too. XBox Live, Homophobia, and Online Gaming Policy

Sony, Microsoft, and many others have been trying to address this [using the word 'gay' in a derogatory fashion, and in general the shitty behavior of the online gaming community towards gays - pete] by putting policies in place to prevent subscribers from using the online shield of anonymity to harass, verbally assault, and generally defame others. Are they the best policies? No. Are they working to improve them?

In the case of Stephen [Toulouse] and Microsoft – they have been nothing but open, welcoming, and willing to discuss ideas for positive and inclusive changes during these conversations. Microsoft has invited GLAAD out to its headquarters in Redmond, WA, for multi-day meetings with developers, executives, and policy enforcers in the upcoming weeks.

Taking that Consumerist article at face value is just plain and simply stupid. If you read it and immediately became outraged at how some (as far as we know, fabricated) person was mistreated, then it’s time you took a moment and reflected a bit about how readily you accept stories as facts.

Your community needs you to think critically, people. Don’t be a sheep, don’t be a doormat. Ask questions, get facts, then make an informed decision about whether or not what you’re reading is true.

If Teresa’s story is true, then you are right to be outraged. But if its true, Teresa needs to come forward and back up her story with some facts.

I’ll end by duplicating Toulouse’s ending paragraph here…let’s get the word out:

Theresa from the Consumerist article, if you’re reading this, I don’t have your Gamertag or any information about you at all, the article was extremely vague. I’d love to get your feedback and talk to you about how we can make the experience better. Please email me at Stepto@microsoft.com.

Damned anti-gays at MS…

Dear Sony,

In general I really adore my PS3s (to the point I own two of them) but, please please PLEASE give us an option to turn off “preview” sound on the XMB.

Picture this scenario. The lady and I have dinner in front of the tv, and are watching Ghost Whisperer on DVD. A generally quiet show, not lots of explosions or screaming. We finish, turn off the PS3.

A few hours later, late enough at night that neighbors are sleeping, I turn on the TV, Receiver and PS3 on my way to the kitchen for a glass of water. Suddenly the walls are shaking with explosive sounds. I drop my glass and run back into the living room, where the PS3 is on, the XMB cursor sitting on the FEAR demo (thanks to Qore I already have it), and it is *blasting* out sound at an ear-splitting level.

I really, really hate that. I mean, I get that its cool that we can see and hear a preview window of the title selected, but please let us turn that off. Not everything enjoys an assault on the senses every time we turn our system on. The PS3, in our home at least, is much more than a game system: we watch DVD and Blu-Ray movies on it, watch Hulu via the built-in web broswer, and stream audio and video off the PCs in the office. It is very much a ‘media center’ for us, and me hitting the power button does not mean that I’m in the mood for EXTREME!!!!! violence.

And if Sony doesn’t give us that option, then publishers, please at least give some thought to what you’re blasting at us. The irony is that I turned the receiver way down to where the sound was reasonable, and started the demo…and had to turn the sound UP again. The ‘teaser’ was much louder than the actual game (and much louder than the DVD we’d been watching). And honestly, it made me think less (slightly) of the game…it was a bad first impression.

Thank you Sony, for your prompt attention to this matter!

Sincerely,
Dragonchasers!

[EDIT: Reworked version of the post with -25% whinging on my part.]

In a recent post at /random, Rick used myself and Heartless as examples of people who don’t like Warhammer. (In the original version of this post, I accused him of using me as a Poster Child for the Don’t Like Warhammer campagin, which was a bit over the top on my part, but I just mention it since that’s where the title of this post comes from.)

I found that surprising and kind of upsetting, to be honest. I mean, its true that Warhammer wasn’t grabbing me as much as it was others. But my experience with Heartless is that he has fairly passionate objections to some of the things Mythic has done/is doing. Nothing personal against Heartless (in fact I admire that passion), but I don’t feel I’m in the same category.

I was so surprised that I went back and re-read a bunch of my Warhammer posts. The specific post that Rick linked to had me wondering why I love Fable 2 so much while others hated it, and talked a lot about the immersion I felt in LOTRO. The harshest thing I said about Warhammer in that post was that “I’ve gotten somewhat less enthusiastic about Warhammer.” That’s hardly ranting against the game.

I have posted some introspective rambling trying to understand why I wasn’t finding as much joy in Warhammer as others do, but this post wasn’t complaining about what’s bad in Warhammer. Here’s a quote from that post: “Warhammer is very focused on the gameplay experience, which makes it unique and (in my opinion) very valuable.” Haven’t you ever observed a bunch of people really loving something that you’re not seeing the appeal of, and wondered why you aren’t “getting it?”

To rewind the clock a bit, I let my Warhammer account lapse because I’d promised Angela that I’d play EQ2 with her when the TSO expansion came out. That really had nothing to do with Warhammer and everything to do with domestic bliss in the house. And then CoW started playing WoW so I re-upped there to play with them since I missed the herd – this was an unexpected decision but time was of the essence if I wanted to keep any kind of parity with the rest of the guild. (Of course, the bear factored in, too.) Had I planned on having 2 paying subscriptions at once, I probably would’ve kept Warhammer and EQ2, but sometimes we wind up in places we never set out to be in.

There are certainly games I enjoy more than Warhammer Online, and I’m strapped enough right now that I can’t justify paying for a game I’m not playing (though that didn’t stop me from snapping up a Black Friday deal on a 60-day timecard for War). That just seems sensible to me; it isn’t my job to invest in the continued development of any game unless I’m either a) playing it or b) going to reap fiscal rewards from it.

I’ve been continually impressed with how quickly Mythic reacts to player feedback. Of course in order to do that, they need to HAVE player feedback to react to. So I’m not going to feel bad about my sharing things that bother me about the game, but if I’m giving the impression that I have a strong dislike for it, well, that isn’t so. I’m not playing Warhammer now because I have other things to play. If Warhammer were the only MMO on the market, I’d be all over it.

And I’m actually rather excited about the 1.1 patch. When that drops, I’m going to use that 60 day time card and rejoin the War.

Warning: This is an opinionated, biased rant.

Jobildo’s post got some excellent comments and in turn got me to thinking about scenarios and why I resist them as much as I do.

And the answer, it turns out, is pretty simple: I’m not paying $15/month to play Team Fortress with some RPG trappings. I’m paying to play a Massively Multiplayer game with a persistent world. Call of Duty 4 allows me to play missions over and over on the same handful of maps while leveling up a character and guess what? It doesn’t cost me a penny once I’ve bought the game.

For people who sit in a warcamp and grind scenarios, there is really no need for a persistent world. A lobby would do just as well, wouldn’t it? A lobby would require vastly fewer server resources and would’ve cost orders of magnitude less to develop.

Essentially, this is battle.net.

It feels stupid for me to pay a monthly fee to, in part, support the infrastructure for a world that no one wants to use.

And I’m kind of dubious that after ranking through 40 levels in scenarios, people are suddenly going to go into OpenRvR (erm, that assumes that T4 scenarios exist…I honestly am not sure if they do)! More likely they’ll either leave the game or keep grinding scenarios until they hit 80 renown, and then leave.

What I’d like to see is all the scenario grinders funneled off to one server, and all the OpenRvRers gathered together into another server. The grinders shouldn’t have to pay $15/month to play, either, but that’s a side point. The OpenRvR Server shouldn’t even offer scenarios.

What irks me is that, yeah, it’s hard to find OpenRvR even on high population servers. Why? Because everyone is grinding scenarios while commenting that OpenRvR isn’t fun because no one does it. Curiously, I wonder if there isn’t MORE OpenRvR on less populated servers with longer wait times for scenario queues. I plan to find out.

I understand people want to get to cap as fast as they can. That’s why the gold sellers also offer leveling services. Grinding scenarios isn’t the fastest and easiest way to cap: paying someone to level your character is. But I don’t see anyone openly suggesting this is the best way to go about it. Why not? If all that matters is getting to 40 as fast as possible, why not just buy your way there?

If you really enjoy running scenarios, then this rant isn’t really directed at you. Enjoy the game, though why you pay a monthly fee to do in this game what you could do for free in any of a multitude of others is beyond me.

But I’m seeing people expressing opinions along the lines of “I don’t really like standing around grinding scenarios but there’s nothing else to do.” Well you sir/madame, are part of the problem. Get out of the damned queue and get out and start exploring the world! Yeah, it might be quiet at first, but if people on both sides of the battle just opted to not grind scenarios for one night and head to the RvR Lakes, there’d be *plenty* to do!!

OK, end rant.

Whew, I feel better getting that off my chest.

And Mythic, for the love of all that is holy, stop sticking us in a friggin’ scenario queue every damned time we move into an RvR Lake. You’re just fanning the flames doing that, tempting people to leave!!!

OK now I’m REALLY done this time.

EDIT: This post is now very much out-of-date (see comments). The folks at Massive Gamer have done a great job of bringing their site up to snuff.

So I’ve been seeing mention of this new magazine “Massive Gamer.” I’m an MMO fanboy and all that, so I figured I’d best check this out. You can too: Massive Gamer. Check it out and come back. I’ll wait.

So tell me, were you moved to subscribe? No? What’s the matter with you? Isn’t a shot of the AoC babe enough to get you to fork out $25!?

Sorry, I’m really trying to bite back my sarcasm for the sake of the writers of the magazine, but c’mon Massive Gamer, get a f-ing clue! You’ve got to give potential subscribers a taste before they’re going to buy (and a table of contents, hidden behind the Press Release link, doesn’t count).

If you think your content is so incredibly valuable (y’know, more valuable than the content of every other magazine and newspaper with a web presence, all of whom post at least some articles online) that you can’t afford to give away an article or two, at least offer the option to buy a sample issue for $5 or whatever.

And for the love of all that is holy, hire a web designer. What’s up with those rapidly scrolling images at the top of the page? Is that just to see how annoying you can be? Why isn’t there an “About” link or a “Contact Us” link on the home page. On the subscription page, how about some basic facts, like, oh, how many issues in a year’s subscription? Is it monthly? Bi-monthly? Semi-annual? How about an indication that your secure certificate is with a reputable company (it’s a GoDaddy Cert, btw) for less savvy web users who don’t know how to check a certificate.

Throw me a bone here. Convince me you’re something other than a fly-by-night company that’s going to put out 2 issues and then fold, taking my money with you.

I’m ranting because it’s just tragic. What I’m asking for costs nothing. It just requires a modicum of caring about the customer experience. When the magazine fails, the publisher will blame the economy or the fact that print is dying, and he’ll convince others that there’s no hope for a print mag dedicated to MMO gaming.

And that would be a shame, because I think such a publication could succeed, given half a chance. But the Publisher of Massive Gamer isn’t giving his fledgling magazine even a tenth of a chance.

A long while back I wrote a series of posts comparing Guitar Hero 3 to Rock Band as a newcomer to this style of game. I ended up coming down in favor of Rock Band.

Well now I’m kicking myself. You see, I purchased the games for the PS3 since, y’know, every other time I turn on my XBox 360 the stupid thing breaks. And now Harmonix is repaying my loyalty (and the loyalty of all PS3 owners) by having Rock Band 2 come out as a time-limited XBox 360 Exclusive. Talk about a kick in the teeth.

So now I’ll stop buying add-on songs, and start waiting for Guitar Hero World Tour. I’m pretty interested in its ‘create a song’ feature anyway.

I know its incredibly naive of me, but I always thought of Harmonix as being a company with higher moral values than this. But nope, Microsoft came with a money hat and Harmonix sold PS3 owners out without an apparent second thought.