Pet Peeves of the PC Gamer Community

[thegooseking]

I can't believe it took me this long to remember, but are you aware of John Cage's 4'33''?

It's worse than that. 4'33" is protected under copyright, which led to John Cage successfully suing Mike Batt over his One Minute Silence (well, Batt settled out of court "out of respect for John Cage" -- but for a six-figure sum). Though to be fair, Batt did list Cage as a co-writer, which I guess is why Cage could sue Batt but couldn't sue Sigur Rós for 17 Sekúndur Fyrir Sólarupprás. Sigur Rós were clearly using a different silence, while Mike Batt was using extracts from the same silence. Or something.

I don't like this game, therefore nobody can possibly like this game. And if they do, they're clearly mental deficients because my personal opinion is the standard by which the world is judged. That's right, the world revolves around me! Science is wrong! I AM THE SUN GOD. BOW TO YOUR SUN GOD. Ahem.

So much that. I know it's just a figure of speech, so it shouldn't bother me too much, but I really hate the phrase "no-one cares" or "no-one will care". Stop trying to speak on my behalf.

[Kadayi]

Yeah sorry, I got nothin

Fixed that for you. Please though feel free to bitch people out in future for having discussions on a discussion forum though, we always appreciate that.

[sabrage]

God forbid someone disagree with you.

[PeopleLikeFrank]

This game has insufficient quantity of plot, I therefore declare it to have a poor story. Talk to me when they've added a few hours of exposition.

[Kadayi]

I like being an outsider on these grotesque arguments over semantic bullshit. It's amazing the lengths people go through to tell other people how to think. I think it'd be even more hilarious to come in as a complete outsider to this forum; I'm sure that we're the butt end of a lot of jokes over this kind of thing.

That's not disagreeing, that's disparaging. That you see no worth in what other people have to say about a subject is not a stance. If you don't care for the discussions, don't post.

This game has insufficient quantity of plot, I therefore declare it to have a poor story. Talk to me when they've added a few hours of exposition.

I approve of this post.

[Nalano]

Though to be fair, Batt did list Cage as a co-writer

...which makes a great deal of difference when it comes to copyright law. As for the piece, 4'33'' was about formally taking note of the ambient sound (and one of Cage's later pieces involved putting the sound system to as receptive as it could be without feedback, and then recording the audience). One Minute of Silence was Batt admittedly taking the piss out of Cage. In fact, had he not listed Cage, he'd probably have gotten away with it as satire.

Tho I'd like to point out, just for clarification, that John Cage did not sue Mike Batt. John Cage was dead for ten years when Batt's piece came out.

[Kadayi]

So it was the rights holders who sued Batt?

[Nalano]

So it was the rights holders who sued Batt?

Right. The publisher, Peters Edition, did.

[Xercies]

This game has insufficient quantity of plot, I therefore declare it to have a poor story. Talk to me when they've added a few hours of exposition.

Hmm I can defend this actually, sometimes I do want plot in a video game because soemtimes its a nice glue that holds the game together and makes you feel propelled to play the game more. For example I probably would have tired with Portal 2 after awhile if it didn't have that plot or exposition.

[thegooseking]

"None of the choices in this game are meaningful!"

It's a minor point, because I understand what they're trying to say, and it's a valid complaint (if not one I particularly care for), but the meaning of the words they're actually saying is all too often demonstrably false. Though I have to say I don't know how I would prefer it to be said, so I can't really fault the people who say this for not knowing either. I guess it's more of a peeve about terminology than it is about the people who use it.

[Nalano]

It's a minor point, because I understand what they're trying to say, and it's a valid complaint (if not one I particularly care for), but the meaning of the words they're actually saying is all too often demonstrably false. Though I have to say I don't know how I would prefer it to be said, so I can't really fault the people who say this for not knowing either. I guess it's more of a peeve about terminology than it is about the people who use it.

It's also a horrible conflation of several levels of "meaningful."

In a dialogue, being able to say what I want to say - or something close to it - is very meaningful to me, even if it doesn't make a huge difference to the plot.

At another level, people criticize ME2 for being proof that ME's decisions were meaningless, because it doesn't matter who helms the galaxy as they still won't help you. Yet, the survival of the Rachni (for a big example), the survival of Wrex (for a medium example) and the path Garrus takes (for a smaller example) all imply very substantive differences - the latter two already making difference in the second act, the former promising a substantively different third act.

[jryan]

- Gaming forum threads designed to complain about complainers that surprisingly degenerate from ironic complaining to ironic complaining.

[Nalano]

- Gaming forum threads designed to complain about complainers that surprisingly degenerate from ironic complaining to ironic complaining.

Jryan, master of hypocritical humor.

Which is actually keeping with the thread's theme.

[jryan]

Jryan, master of hypocritical humor.

Which is actually keeping with the thread's theme.

Hey, you caught that one. You are improving.

[Nalano]

Hey, you caught that one. You are improving.

This forum has room for only one sardonic ass.

Pistols at dawn.

[jryan]

This forum has room for only one sardonic ass.

Pistols at dawn.

Psh, you and your PVP.

[Nalano]

Psh, you and your PVP.

Ah! That reminds me:

• Ban world PvP! I hate the idea of bullies and gankers and antisocial types messing up my game! Yes, I know it's a PvP server, but these animals have no sense of honor! I'm far more civilized, which is why I'm going to fight these rogues on the forums, using strawmen and feints and no end of invective, because forum PvP is not at all like in-game PvP!

[jryan]

A WOW oldy: "PVP is broken because all the PVE guilds have all the best gear and dominate PVP!"

[Nalano]

A WOW oldy: "PVP is broken because all the PVE guilds have all the best gear and dominate PVP!"

Well, that was absolutely true then, tho. T2 > all. It was even worse with patch 1.3.1, where raid-geared hunters could one-shot anything.

[jryan]

Well, that was absolutely true then, tho. T2 > all. It was even worse with patch 1.3.1, where raid-geared hunters could one-shot anything.

Well, no, like most of the examples given in this thread of fellow gamers whining, it is the "broken" part that isn't "true". It wasn't "broken" except for the fact that there was a small subset of WOW players that played BGs and PVPed exclusively and ignored 99% of the game content complaining that weren't benefiting from the 99% of the content they chose not to play. For them WOW was/is like a FPS with a huge map.

What Blizzard did was split the game to service the PVP-only players, especially on PVP servers where RAIDers couldn't leave the capitals in raid gear anymore for fear of getting ganked.

Granted, in 4.3 Blizzard has erased the PVP/PVE gear difference in all practical terms given that you can now earn descent PVP gear through 5-man grinding and Transmogrification means that PVP servers are no longer awash with a bunch of cookie cutter PVP-geared toons.